高低压膜片:如今女人比男人更“饥渴”？

如果一个女人“想要”的次数和她的伴侣持平，而不超过他，那会发生什么？在完美的世界里，这会是一对幸福的伴侣，两性间的战争将在一场场酣畅淋漓的云雨之后烟消云散。很可惜，我们生活的真实世界，是不完美的。

A year ago, I woke to a phone call from a friend, a high school teacher in her early 40s, complaining that the night before, the man she was seeing had wanted to watch movies and cuddle, while she wanted sex. When she told him if they weren't going to have sex she'd rather sleep at home, his feelings were hurt. She said the emotional part of the relationship (he was talking marriage) was draining her and that without nightly hot sex, she wasn't sure it was worth the effort.

一年前，我在睡梦中被朋友的电话吵醒。她是个四十刚出头的高中教师，跟我抱怨道，昨天晚上，她的男伴想一起出去看场电影，然后搂搂抱抱，而她的真实想法是做个爱。于是她说了实话“如果你不想做爱，那我宁可在家睡个懒觉。”很显然，男伴的心灵受到了伤害。我朋友认为，这段关系中的感情部分给她压力很大（男伴总谈起以后结婚的事情），而假如连晚上的保留节目——劲爆热辣的“床上运动”都不能满足的话，她对他们的未来并不持乐观态度。

Her discontent sounded familiar. I'd been hearing and experiencing echoes of this for more than a year. My friend Andrea, a 37-year-old mother of two, was frustrated with the guy she was dating. He was a big talker about his "musical career" but spent more time talking about the gigs he was going to book than actually booking them. She overpowered him professionally and sexually. "It's a rare man who can keep up with me."

她的抱怨听上去一点不陌生。这一年多，我周围充斥着各种类似的事件。我的朋友Andrea是两个孩子的母亲，今年37岁。她被最近约会的男友搞得很沮丧，因为他总是对自己的“音乐事业”夸夸其谈，整天叫嚣着“我要买这场演唱会的票”、“另一场的票我也要买”，却从来都只是喊喊，不见行动。当然，她最终还是用床上的御姐风牢牢地镇住了他。“毕竟，能跟上我节奏的小伙儿可不多。”

Susanne, a married corporate lawyer and mother of two in her mid 30s told me, "I for sure have the higher sex drive. For sure! My husband is more, 'the kids are across the hall' when I suggest we duck into the guest room."

Susanne，已婚的合资律师及两个孩子的母亲，芳龄30多。她告诉我：“我对那事儿的需求可大，相当大！每当老公说‘这样不好吧，娃儿们就在客厅呢’，我都会建议偷偷溜到客房去。”

My own sex drive spiked dramatically in my mid 40s as I sent my children out into the world, left an unhappy marriage, and came into my own personally, professionally, and sexually. So much so, there were days when I felt like a sex-obsessed adolescent boy. But the first man I dated after separating from my husband while initially thrilled that I wanted sex as much if not more than he did, wanted less as the relationship progressed. Soon my daily drive outpaced his, and I found myself with my own 'he wants to cuddle and I want to have sex' scenario.

我的欲望似乎爆发在40多岁。那时我的孩子们都已长大成人，出去闯世界了，我也了结了一段不幸福的婚姻，就在这时，一股欲望潜入了我的内心，从此我变得像个青春期躁动的男孩一样，对这事有了极大的渴望。然而，我离婚后交往的第一个男朋友对这事儿的渴望程度仅仅能与我持平，而且，随着关系的深入，他要的越来越少，而我呢，就像个永动机，很快超过了他所能承受的频率。于是，那个“男朋友只要搂搂抱抱而老娘实在很想干”的戏码在我这里也上演了。

I hadn't expected any of this. Growing up, I rarely heard of men wanting sex less than women. It all ran totally counter to traditional societal expectations about men and women and desire. And it's still not all that common today.

我以前从来没经历过这种事。从小到大，我很少听说男人的性欲会少于女人。这简直就是传统社会对两性期望值的大反转。而且即使在今日，这样的事情也不多见。  

Fortunately, the stock character of the sexually disinterested and inhibited midlife woman seems to be disappearing from pop culture, but you rarely see media coverage of powerful women in their 40s and 50s who want to have sex every day. The only role model women like me have from the last fifteen years or twenty is the cougar -- who showed up on TV (Samantha in "Sex in the City", Gabrielle in "Desperate Housewives," Courtney Cox in "Cougar Town"), movies ("Notes on a Scandal"), pop songs ("Stacey's Mom") and in slang ("MILF"). And thanks to characters like "Cougar Town's" Jules Cobb, that sexually "empowered" woman is often characterized as emotionally desperate and sought after for her money. Neither I nor the women I knew were specifically interested in younger men, and it wasn't emotional connection we were desperate for since we were getting a lot of that from each other and our kids. We wanted low liability, low maintenance men who were good in bed.

幸运的是，在当今的流行文化中，那些古板的、性冷淡的中年妇女形象已经不复存在了，但即便如此，也很少能在流行媒体中看到“迈入中年而愈发性趣盎然”的妇女形象。对于我们这类女性，最近十几年流行的形容词是“熟女”，就像《欲望都市》里的萨曼莎、《绝望主妇》里的Gabrielle，《熟女当道》里的Jules Cobb(译者注：即《老友记》中Monica的扮演者)一样。电影《丑闻笔记》和一首名为《史戴茜的妈妈》的歌里也有涉及。甚至还有个俚语“MILF”-(Moms I'd Like to F**k)，意为“让人按耐不住冲动的妈妈级人物”。说到这里，顺便还得“感谢”一下《熟女当道》里的Jules Cobb大姐，哼，这角色“成功”地塑造了一些性欲旺盛的老女人，她们一边承受着感情的失意，一边又因荷包太鼓而被人不怀好意地追求。而事实上，以我和我身边的女人们为例：我们从来不会被年轻男孩迷得灵魂出窍，也从来不苛求什么情感上的慰藉——毕竟从闺蜜和孩子们身上得到的抚慰已经足够了。我们的要求很简单：一个不被债务缠身、不大手大脚花钱的男人。哦，当然，这人必须床上功夫足够好。

And yet, the media headlines bombard us with stories of high-profile men insatiably seeking sex (Tiger Woods, Eliot Spitzer, Anthony Weiner and Dominique Strauss-Kahn to name a few), feeding deep-seated cultural notions about male virility and the underlying implication that, for men, power is the great aphrodisiac.

然而，媒体的头条总是喜欢爆高层男士外出寻欢的消息，比方说老虎伍兹啦、纽约州长Eliot Spitzer嫖妓啦、前国会议员Anthony Weiner自贴裸照啦之类的。这类新闻显示出文化观念里一种根深蒂固的对男性生殖力的崇拜，暗示着：对于男人来讲，权利，才是最管用的伟哥。

Consequently, women whose libidos rev up after 40 often feel like they are abnormal. Hilda Hutcherson, professor of clinical obstetrics and gynecology at Columbia University and co-director of New York Center for Women's Sexual Health told me, "Women come to me [in private practice] and say, 'There's something wrong with me. I want it all the time.' And I say, 'There's nothing wrong ... That inner vixen that's been suppressed is coming out and saying HELLO.'"

It makes sense that some women feel their most sexual in their forties, when many are also at the top of their careers (though, contrary to popular belief, it is not a given that women's libido is strongest at any particular age).

其实女人在四十多岁的时候性欲旺盛很容易理解，因为她们那时正好也处于事业的顶峰。（和传统的观念不同，女性的欲望并不是由某一个特殊的年龄段引发的。）

"This is a time for women," Michelle Pearson, a clinical psychologist in Winnipeg, told me. "[They] are becoming very successful in all areas of their lives. Successful work seems to rev up women's ... libido" as well as their self-esteem, she says.

”这是个属于女人的时代，“Michelle Pearson，一位心理医生说道，”她们在各个领域都取得了空前的成功。事业的上升似乎带动了欲望的上升……性欲，同时还有自尊心。“

But as great as it is to hear a professional acknowledge that, I can't ignore what is problematic about this new -- or, more likely, newly recognized -- development: At the same time I was marveling at how many women I knew were reaching their sexual peak in their 40s and 50s, I seemed to be hearing more and more stories from friends and friends of friends and colleagues across the country of male performance anxiety and sex avoidance.

Leah Klungness, Ph.D., a practicing psychologist in New York, suggested that men are taking on the "honey I have a headache" role for a reason, the same reason some women do -- and it doesn't necessarily have to do with not wanting sex.

"The 'not tonight, honey' is the only power some women hold in relationships," said Klungness. "This applies to 'trophy wives' and wives of big earners/public figures/powerful men who basically control everything else." And it may well apply to men dating or married to successful women saying they just want to cuddle. Perhaps, said Klungness, that behavior is "a power grab by men who feel powerless."

“这个‘亲爱的，今晚不行’的借口，是某些女性在男女关系中唯一的武器。”Klungness说，“这类女性往往嫁的都是些有钱人、公众人物、和那些几乎能掌控一切的男人。” 这个理论放在那些和成功女性约会或结婚的男人们身上也同样适合，他们往往会说“哦，可人家只想抱一抱嘛。” “也许“，她说，”这正是‘让感觉无助的男人获得一些掌控感’的方法。”  

It's easy to see how some men today could feel less powerful than previous generations of males. Birth control, sperm donorship, and in vitro fertilization have liberated sex from its reproductive origins. With more women breadwinners, some single parents by choice, a male provider often isn't necessary. In fact, as Hanna Rosin noted in her Atlantic Monthly article "The End of Men," women became the majority of the workforce for the first time in U.S. history in 2010. Most managers are now women, too. And for every two men who get a college degree this year, three women will do the same."

当今的男人与过去相比，更容易感觉到无助。原因很简单——计划生育、精子捐献、体外受精，这些都使性从其本身的生殖使命中独立出来。随着女性赚钱能力的提高、单亲妈妈的增多，依靠男性来养家糊口似乎已成了历史。事实上，正如Hanna Rosin在《亚特兰大月刊》上发表的《男性的终结》一文所述：2010年，美国的女性有史以来第一次成为了国内主要的劳动力人群。许多公司的总裁是女人；每两个男人拿到大学学位的同时，就有三个女人做到了同样的事。  

There are no studies -- yet -- that indicate a link between the empowerment of women in and outside of the bedroom and declining male libido levels, but given what I've heard from the women I know, I wouldn't be surprised. And frankly, the possibility worries me a little. It's exciting that women are finally admitting they sometimes want sex more than men do is exciting, but I wonder: If we desire and initiate more -- and often get turned down -- will women be perpetually frustrated?

目前还没有研究表明女性的成功和男性性欲的下降有什么关联。不过，据我的所见所闻，假如这两者间真有什么关系，我绝对不会感到惊讶。而且说老实话，这种可能性让我隐隐有些担心：诚然，女性终于可以勇敢承认自己的性欲旺盛了，甚至有时比男人更旺盛，但是，一旦我们“要的”更多，却总被男性以种种借口拒绝掉，那女人会不会变得沮丧？  

The stakes are high for men, too. I am not the first to suggest that men who cling to the old outmoded model are at risk of being left behind, culturally and professionally -- see Rosin again -- but they may also have more trouble finding women willing to either play into the old scenario of male sexual dominance or put up with a guy whose sex drive doesn't match her own because he feels overpowered.

I think it's a time for the sexual liberation of men as well -- liberation from any vestiges of a traditionally macho perspective. Much richer, more exciting relationships await men who embrace the fluidity and current evolution of male/female roles, in and out of the bedroom. If more men open themselves to that, perhaps we can finally arrive at that place Simone de Beauvoir looked forward to in The Second Sex, when the so-called " 'division' of humanity" into male and female "will reveal its genuine significance and the human couple will find its true form."

女人已经性解放了，而男人也同样需要性解放-从传统的男性崇拜中解脱出来。只要男人敢于接受这场性别角色的变革，无论在厅堂还是卧房，他们都将和伴侣拥有更丰满、快乐的关系。若有更多的男人接受这点，或许我们最终可以实现波伏娃在《第二性》中谈到的高度，即所谓的将内在的”人性“分解为男、女两面，从而“揭示出其真正的含义，使伴侣们最终找到真实的形态"。