Eighteenth-century philosophers already documented the asymmetry of male and female sexual response

Evidence

According to Diderot, Submission to a master she dislikes is a torture to her. I have seen a virtuous wife shiver with horror at her husband’s approach. I have seen her plunge into a bath and never think herself properly cleansed from the soilure of her duty. This sort of repugnance is almost unknown with us. Our organ is more indulgent. Many women die without having experienced the extreme of pleasure. This sensation which I am willing to consider a passing attack of epilepsy is rare with them, but never fails to come when we call for it. The sovereign happiness escapes them in the arms of the man they adore. We experience it with an easy woman we dislike. Less mistresses of their sensations than we are, their reward is less prompt and certain. A hundred times their expectation is deceived. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1178

Categorization

• XREF: Diderot’s claim that women are ‘less mistresses of their sensations’ anticipates Beauvoir’s point about the mediated, indirect character of female eroticism.