She barely knew the guy. Except for the fact that he was a prince. And he had a white horse. Would it really matter if he de-saddled and she wasn’t attracted to him?
Nope. Sexual desire has nothing to do with fairy tales. To Cinderella, Prince Charming embodied freedom and security. Up to her elbows in cleaning fluid, those were the only things she hoped for. Sexual attraction to the knight in shining armor didn’t matter. She didn’t know what it was anyway.
You think Drizella and Anastasia talked to their step-sister about sex? You think they even had it? The only thing Cinderella knew about a man was that he could give her what her family could not: Unconditional love, adoration, safety and affection. Whether or not they had sex didn’t matter.
For most women, a truly intimate relationship with self-sex is delayed until college. If she’s lucky, she has an older brother, guy friend, or bathroom faucet to suggest the existence of masturbation. If she’s even luckier, she has the courage, time, privacy and know-how to explore it on her own. The joke is that women feign head/stomach/uterus aches to avoid sex. The truth is, women love it. They just don’t get the same time and resources to find out.
Little boys love their penises, and around the age of 10, they find out what it does. And it’s usually not alone. Between magazines, movies, jpegs and locker rooms, men have a library of information about what to do and how to do it. Knowing gives them the ability to practice, practice gives them the confidence to continue, and continuing yields new discoveries. Little girls don’t have the same extensive library of porn. But they do have Disney videos to each them about desire. Fairy tales to educate them on what they can hope for. And as it turns out, that education is very different than a man’s.
In my fifth grade sex ed class, the teacher said “boys ejaculate by rubbing their penises.” Every penis-having classmate went home to try it. Guess what the girls did that night. Nothing. Where’s our enlightenment? Where’s our porn? It’s no surprise that Christian Grey became a phenomenon. Here’s a man who sweeps the girl off her feet and throws her against the wall. (With a hand behind to prevent concussion. Isn’t that sweet?) No princesses or castles, no penetration close up or ejaculation to the face—here’s the epitome of the whole package and I was 27 before I got to hear about it.
Without learning about the balance between sex and Cinderella, women are at risk of marrying for safety and security over passion. And a marriage without passion is one giant pre-coital headache.
