Thirty-nine-year-old Joleen Baughman was recovering from brain surgery when she was in a car accident that broke her spine. According to the Telegraph, the injury "damaged a nerve in her pelvis which controls desire, leaving it permanently switched on." This seems like a pretty simplistic — or, at the very least, poorly worded — explanation. There's no single nerve that "controls desire," "switching" it on and off — rather, Baughman's damaged nerve controls physical arousal, which for her has become unwanted. She says, "It's very embarrassing and it's impossible to concentrate." And of her attempts to relieve the problem with sex, she explains,

We would have sex once and I would feel no release at all. So we would go again and then it would start really hurting but I would still want sex, even more than before. If my husband managed to go for a third time it would be agony but I would still feel no release.

Restless Genital Disorder (unlike "Restless Vagina Syndrome," a term Terry J. Allen jokingly used to refer to female sexual dysfunction) is apparently characterized by restless leg syndrome, overactive bladder, and all the symptoms of persistent genital arousal disorder (PGAD). As we wrote back in October, PGAD sufferers are not psyched about their constant and sometimes painful state of arousal — two of the criteria for PGAD are that the sensation "feels intrusive and unwanted" and "is unrelated to subjective feelings of sexual desire." But that doesn't stop the New York Post from titling its take on the Telegraph story "Sex Overdrive," or writing that Baughman "has lost some of her lust for life after an injury in a car crash left her with an insatiable sex drive."

If there's anything recent female sexuality research reveals, it's that female sexual function and dysfunction are still poorly understood. But we do know that, for women, physical arousal is not the same as sexual desire. Baughman's case should teach us that just "switching a nerve on" isn't enough to give a woman — or probably anyone, for that matter — satisfying sex life. Instead, it's just another inspiration for "lust" jokes.

Image via Telegraph.

Woman's Life Made 'Unbearable' By Insatiable Libido [Telegraph]
Sex Overdrive [New York Post]

As part of her "Recession Road Trip" series, Christina Davidson interviews Princess, a forty-something woman who took up prostitution to help pay her father's medical bills. A former office manager, Princess was unable to find a new job after her company folded in 2008. So she put the word out through friends that she was "opening my pussy for business," and now she works independently, without a pimp or even a Craigslist ad. But it's Princess's description of her life that seem to have triggered Atlantic commenters' bullshit alarms. She says she "won't service married men or women, men of the cloth." And of the moral status of her occupation, she explains,

Like daddy says, there ain't no shame in bein' a ho. Society may look down on us, but that don't mean society's right. Catholic priests tell us how to live while they's diddling little boys in their free time. Reverends tell us how to live while they's hiring male hos and doing meth. Nu-uh. Don't no one tell me how to live. I have a mind and I can decide what's right and what's wrong for myself. [...]

Hurting people's wrong. Causing pain's wrong. Lying's wrong. Judging people's wrong. Stealing and murder, obviously, wrong. And hypocrisy, that's sometimes the worst wrong.

Commenter OGWiseman responds,

[S]ome of the quotes don't sound right. Would a Philly ho really say she doesn't service "men of the cloth"? Would "hypocrisy" really be on her list of sins? That sounds like an educated woman writing, not a prostitute speaking.

A commenter named decklap concurs:

Maybe Im sheltered here but my life experiences have not lead me to encounter many women who will proclaim "I's opening my pussy for business" AND be able to hold forth on the state of decline in the Catholic church, the whole thing is a clunky re-working of the hooker with a heart of gold cliche. Its an editorial masquerading as a story to suggest that it is representative of something more than Ms. Davidson's personal opinion on prostitution.

Commenter AswanDamn chimes in to defend Princess, sort of:

[D]id you guys read the section that describes her previous life as an (wait for it) office manager of a design firm? Did you stop and think for a moment that maybe this story wasn't about a typical "philly ho," but about the lengths desperate people will go to for their families?

But then jake4357 smacks Aswan down:

The office manager part is made up, too.

Whether or not Davidson is guilty of fabrication (which is, I'd remind the commenters, a very serious charge), the whole exchange is pretty upsetting. It seems impossible for some of the readers to believe that a prostitute can also be educated, or that someone could move effortlessly between slang and elevated language. But this is something college students and hipsters do every day, and you don't need a pair of Chucks and Phoenix tickets to mix high and low diction. The idea that someone poor enough to turn tricks must exhibit speech patterns that are completely predictable to people who read about her on the Internet is not only offensive but ignorant — OGWiseman and the others forget that who is "poor enough to turn tricks" was never completely obvious and has changed drastically with the recession, and that human language is far more nuanced than simple class categories would suggest.

Even AswanDamn, who tries to defend Princess, ends up doing so at the expense of "the typical philly ho." The implication of Aswan's words is that someone who once held a white-collar job would only turn to prostitution out of "desperation." But is it true that most "typical hos" have never worked in an office? That they are qualitatively different from Princess because they turned tricks before the economy got really bad? Who are these "typical hos" anyway? Perhaps the most interesting comment of all comes from summer, a commenter who claims to be a sex worker herself. She writes,

I started in "the business" as a masseuse nearly two years ago when my financial company shut its doors and the major lender who supported our institution crumbled. I have two college degrees, 6 years in the military,an outstanding resume and references. After 8 months of scraping by on unemployment and selling nearly everything I had of value, I was down to the beds that me and my little girl slept on. I saw an Craigslist one day regarding "sensual massage" - used the last $50 I had - got some cheap lingerie, candles and a spa CD at Wal-Mart - and set up shop. The only experience I had was a UC extension class on massage at that point - but at the end of the first day - I made enough to cover the rent.

And:

Now - when I am with my children - I am totally focused on them and their activities. I have a "provider phone" - linked to THIS business, a personal phone and a number for my financial business. We are relaxed and so much happier. I enjoy making people happy all day and have made a lot of wonderful friends. I only work when my daughter is in school (my sons are in college and out on their own now) and I am truly the captain of my own ship.

We can't prove summer's story anymore than we can Princess's, but the fact is that educated women do become prostitutes, and some who turn to sex work out of necessity stay because they like it. Some may disagree with Princess's assertion that prostitution isn't wrong, but it doesn't do either side of the debate any good to assume that prostitutes are all degraded women who can't make a coherent argument — or to artificially divide them into "typical hos" and nice women just providing for their families. The changes brought on by the recession should spur us to reconsider our preconceived notions about class, work, and language — not let them calcify into prejudice.

"Ain't No Shame In Bein' A Ho" [Atlantic]

According to Tom Kelly of the Daily Mail (and rarely have a book and a newspaper been so well-matched), Why Women Have Sex presents research conducted by psychology professors Cindy Meston and David Buss at the University of Texas. Meston and Buss apparently asked 1,000 women their "reasons for sleeping with a man." Says Kelly, "Romance and passion [...] comes rather low down the list." It's not clear from coverage of the research exactly how far "down the list" it is — or whether Meston and Buss interviewed any gay women. But they did find over 200 reasons "for succumbing to the advances of the opposite sex." These include:

— "to make my sexual skills better"
— to relieve a headache
— to get pregnant from a guy
— "I slept with a couple of guys because I felt sorry for them"
— "because it's the closest thing to God"
— "I hoped he would put the rubbish out"
— "to relieve the boredom — because it's easier than fighting. To give me something to do."

This last one actually seems like two different reasons, unless one of your hobbies is fighting. And really, having sex to liven up a dull Tuesday night — or to forestall an unnecessary argument — don't seem like such terrible things. However, it is a little upsetting that the women in the study claimed to fuck for basically every other reason than actually wanting to.

Or is it? First of all, it's not totally clear from the Daily Mail (or corresponding articles in The Sun and News.com.au) how often women were actually boning for rubbish-taking-out-type reasons. Kelly opens the Daily Mail article with the line, "For every woman expecting the earth to move, it would seem there are two with more practical motives," suggesting that "romance and passion" motivate one third of women (or all women, one-third of the time?). But he doesn't give any explicit numbers on this. If women were asked all the reasons they had ever had sex, I'm not surprised that some weird or mercenary ones came up.

But of course, the way the Mail and other papers have chosen to cover the story plays right into the stereotype that women don't actually like sex, and only ever fuck out of ulterior motives. http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,26041735-36398,00.html">Commenters on News.com.au chime in with equally simplistic analysis. Perth Boy says, "Women having sex for something in return.....where I come from we call them 'prostitutes'." Ouch! But surely plenty of men have had sex for reasons other than "romance and passion" too (if we're playing stereotypes, what about the one that says dudes like to screw lots of women to brag to their friends about it?). More upsettingly, Jimara says, "Did it ever occur to you women that us guys actually USE you for our own purposes also? We'll do and say anything for a good time." So men are lying to get women in bed, and women are agreeing because they want the garbage taken out. Where do I resign from the human race?

The idea that women never actually want sex is much older than Meston and Buss, and it often provokes responses like Jimara's — and, more upsettingly, the rhetoric of pickup-artists who think their job is to convince women to do something they don't actually want to do. This can become a vicious cycle of ever more reductive and damaging gender roles. But of course, lots of women do like sex. As commenter Emma says, "What a load of crap. I'm sick of so called research studies telling me how I think. I have sex because I like it!" I have to wonder if it's still hard for women to admit this to researchers, if it's somehow more acceptable to say "I hoped he would put the rubbish out" than "I was horny" (a phrase I, for my part, find it almost impossible to utter). And I wonder if the more newspapers tell women "how they think," the more embarrassed they'll be to admit how they really feel.

Why Women Have Sex: To Relieve Boredom, Win Favours ... Or To Stop A Headache [Daily Mail]
Why Women Have Sex [The Sun]
Secret's Out: Why Women Really Have Sex [News.com.au]