In Which the True Biological Difference Between Men and Women Is Revealed

Marga Gomez made a joke at the Castro Street Fair that was so obvious it wasn't even funny. She said the Women for Women section of Craigslist should be renamed Women Fight Women. Here we are in the largest lesbian population in the nation (The Gay Atlas is the first place I've seen lesbian populations studied separately from gay male populations), and the personals site has at least as much in-fighting as it does date-seeking. Butches are gross. Transmen have no business in the Women for Women section. Bi women have no business there either. Of the few ads that are actually posted by someone in hopes of finding a date, I'd say 70 percent of them are people looking to date, not just have a one-time sexual encounter.

Now go to the Men for Men section, and you will find brief posts requesting specific sexual acts, often at specific times or locations. And often, you'll find a cock shot. As in, like what you see?

Is this evidence that men are innately, biologically different from women? It's hard to deny that possibility. There is the cultural argument that men are taught to value their desire more than women. The other cultural argument that springs to mind—that women need to fear for their safety more than men—doesn't hold water for same-sex encounters.

Do gay men really have more social approval for their desire than dykes, who have often (though not always) mutinied against the social limitations on women? I would argue that they do indeed. It's a complicated issue, but I think homophobia is stronger against men because most men, in the cockles of their balls, know that, in a pinch at least, they would have sex with another man. And I'd venture that a lot of straight men—and god knows this transman—are jealous of the easy access that gay men have to sex, for which Craigslist can serve as Exhibit A. Meanwhile, lesbians can't overthrow 20-some years of being taught to suppress and mistrust their desires by just waving a Magic Wand. Although they do try, repeatedly.

But there's another difference between the Men for Men ads and the Women for Women ads. PNP, or party 'n' play. It means crystal meth will be part of the encounter.

Drugs decrease inhibitions. Many dykes I know would love to be able to have sex on the fly the way gay men do, but they worry about being able to get it up for someone they've never met. I wrote in a previous post that I desire more like a man than like a woman. The caveat is, there has to be some energy between me and a potential sexual partner, and you can't determine that over the internet. There's also the issue of your would-be partner's ability to let go of their inhibitions, and sometimes dykes aren't able to do that. Anonymous sex should be fun athletically, rather than emotionally. When I have looked into anonymous sex (I won't say if I've done it or not), it has been with butches or FTMs because they seem more likely to be able to provide that.

Men are able to objectify sex partners in a way that women generally can't—it doesn't matter if a guy is ugly if he has a nice cock, or if he's a douche if he's good looking. That skill makes anonymous sex much easier. Maybe it's the macho athleticism specifically of (trans)man on (trans)man sex that makes it good for anonymous play. But, then again, I'm pretty sure I could get it up for a good-looking girlie girl, even one who was completely brain-dead, if I had crystal meth coursing through my veins. So is crystal meth the biological difference between biomen and biowomen?

If this were Sex and the City, we would cut to me typing, and by the end of the episode I would have an easy, heart-warming answer. But this is not so easy or heart warming. Gay men engage in self-destructive sexual behavior, and too many dykes still have trouble enjoying sex. And even thoroughly sex-positive dykes still wish they could have more sex in the bathroom.