Male authority in love is satiable while female devotion is insatiable
Evidence
Men have rivaled each other proclaiming that love is a woman’s supreme accomplishment. “A woman who loves like a woman becomes a more perfect woman,” says Nietzsche; and Balzac: “In the higher order, man’s life is glory, woman’s is love. Woman is equal to man only in making her life a perpetual offering, as his is perpetual action.” But there again is a cruel mystification since what she offers, he cares not at all to accept. Man does not need the unconditional devotion he demands, nor the idolatrous love that flatters his vanity; he only accepts them on the condition that he does not satisfy the demands these attitudes reciprocally imply. He preaches to the woman about giving: and her gifts exasperate him; she finds herself disconcerted by her useless gifts, disconcerted by her vain existence. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1885 (
#expands, via linked claim)
When that happens, the male’s sex life is normally integrated into his individual existence: in terms of desire and coitus, his surpassing toward the species is an integral part of the subjective moment of his transcendence: he is his body. Woman’s history is much more complex. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 97 (
#corroborates, via linked claim)
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Fairy tales encode gendered roles of active seeker and passive captive. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 706; Female desire is experienced as viscous passivity versus male predatory impetuosity.; Male-centered erotic traditions blame women for being insatiable despite male-centered pacing — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 997 (+8 more)
Broader Connections
- Male desire is fleeting while women become emotionally bound after love
#corroborates(0.95) - Men demand unconditional love while refusing what that devotion reciprocally requires
#expands(0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1885 - Male sexuality integrates with individual transcendence while female sexuality does not
#corroborates(0.80) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 97