Men impose contradictory demands on women’s sexuality that no conduct can satisfy

Evidence

Women are not wrong at all when they reject the rules of life that have been introduced into the world, inasmuch as it is the men who have made these without them. There is naturally strife and wrangling between them and us … we treat them inconsiderately in the following way. We have discovered … that they are incomparably more capable and ardent than we in the acts of love … we have gone and given women continence as their particular share, and upon utmost and extreme penalties … We, on the contrary, want them to be healthy, vigorous, plump, well-nourished, and chaste at the same time: that is to say, both hot and cold. For marriage, which we say has the function of keeping them from burning, brings them but little cooling off, according to our ways. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1142

Categorization

• ADDENDUM: Montaigne’s admission that men require women to be ‘both hot and cold’ is a historical instance of the double-bind logic already documented in ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’.
• XREF: The ‘both hot and cold’ double bind anticipates Beauvoir’s own analysis of woman as simultaneously desiring and desired Other, and echoes the double-bind concept later formalized by Bateson. — connects to: Men sincerely hold contradictory beliefs about women’s equality — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 61; Men’s contradictory demand makes woman simultaneously servant and sorceress — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 406; Men demand unconditional love while refusing what that devotion reciprocally requires — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1885 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Men demand unconditional love while refusing what that devotion reciprocally requires #exemplifies (0.85) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1885
• Male-centered erotic traditions blame women for being insatiable despite male-centered pacing #exemplifies (0.80) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 997