Voluntary effort destroys the trance female desire requires

Evidence

To make oneself object, to make oneself passive, is very different from being a passive object: a woman in love is neither asleep nor a corpse; there is a surge in her that ceaselessly falls and rises: it is this surge that creates the spell that perpetuates desire. But the balance between ardor and abandon is easy to destroy. Male desire is tension; it can invade a body where nerves and muscles are taut: positions and movements that demand a voluntary participation of the organism do not work against it, and instead often serve it. On the contrary, every voluntary effort keeps female flesh from being “taken”; this is why the woman spontaneously refuses forms of coitus that demand work and tension from her; too many and too abrupt changes in position, the demands of consciously directed activities—actions or words—break the spell. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 958

Categorization

• DEFINE: Key distinction: making oneself an object (active passivity, a surge) vs. being a passive object — central to her account of erotic subjectivity.
• DEEPTHINKING: The paradox that female eroticism requires active surrender, and that willed participation breaks the very spell it seeks — a dense, non-obvious account of desire worth sitting with.
• XREF: Resonates with Sartre’s bad faith and the for-itself/in-itself distinction — Beauvoir is recasting the body’s self-objectification problem in gendered terms. — connects to: Moral inhibition and early disappointment create a vicious cycle blocking female pleasure. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 988; Autonomous self-awareness structurally blocks feminine submission and spontaneous charm. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1922; Women resist pleasure that feels inflicted or actively engineered by the man. — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 988 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Autonomous self-awareness structurally blocks feminine submission and spontaneous charm. #corroborates (0.82) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 1922
• Women resist pleasure that feels inflicted or actively engineered by the man. #expands (0.75) — Simone de Beauvoir, The Second Sex, 988
• Sexual liberation has produced de-sexualized sex reduced to physiological function #complicates (0.72) — Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, 180