In all societies, the arrangement between the sexes is an uneasy one involving tensions, separation, and segregation. 1 Institutionalized opposition between the sexes occurs in obvious ways as in some Australian aboriginal groups where males speak a language forbidden to females, or the urinary segregation of the sexes found in our society. There is also a set of oppositions that penetrate to the level of the subconscious so that males and females who associate intimately, sharing sex, toilet facilities, even language, can nevertheless inhabit separate phenomenal worlds and stumble around in quite different libidinal territories. Recent feminist writers have done much to remind us of our deficiencies in understanding the mind and social situation of women. But they may be closing the door on understanding the overall relationship between the sexes by pretending to open it. Feminists now speak of hot pussy,2 rape, even rape fantasies, and other formerly tabooed topics of female public discussion. But in so doing, they carefully step over the relationship between the sexes considered as a totality in its everyday expression.
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Dean MacCannell (2014) studied this question.