Takeaway: Male libido continues to remain elusive and unexamined both at the intellectual level and in private life.

Vatsyayana Vox

A few weeks ago, the world was witness to a bizarre incident, when one of America’s top legal analysts Jeffrey Toobin, was suspended by his employer, New Yorker magazine for masturbating on a zoom call.

Toobin, who profusely apologised for his behaviour said “I made an embarrassingly stupid mistake, believing I was off camera.”

This is not the first time men have landed in trouble for sexual misbehaviour in public. A few years ago, a 34-year-old project manager of Indian origin was arrested in the US for aggravated sexual assault, after he allegedly shoved his fingers into the genitals of a sleeping female co-passenger during an overnight flight journey.

While both the cases may look technically different in the eyes of law—(indecent exposure and aggravated assault), the first leading to suspension and the second a jail term—the impulse that drives both the behaviour is the same: male libido.
 
But what makes male sexuality such a brute force that men senselessly risk their reputation and future with such brazenness?

The honest answer is we don’t know. While the rise of feminism played a major role in liberating and understanding female sexuality, the phenomenon of male libido still remains more or less elusive and unexamined both at the intellectual level and in private life.

Gender studies programmes everywhere rarely talk about issues that affect men. Even within close friend circles, men rarely communicate their intimate issues with other men. They don’t talk about their masturbatory habits (despite the fact that men masturbate more than women) or fantasies. Such conversations are often met with laughs or snide remarks.

There is no meaningful sexuality education in most countries. As a result, men are forced to grapple with their nature in isolation. Which is why we have ended up where we are today: having a public conversation about male sexual misbehaviour. It’s not morality but sexuality - understanding the nuances of male libido- that can save us. Help us become better men. 

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