I'll quote a woman paraphrased in an old NYT article that was quoted in an old Feministe/Yes Means Yes post by Jill Filipovic to suggest a reinterpretation of the NYT article's argument that aligns with something Emily of The Dirty Normal says insistently and often. (Basically, you should go read all of them instead.)
For women, “being desired is the orgasm,”... it is, in her vision, at once the thing craved and the
spark of craving.
Filipovic asserts "that when women are raised in a culture...that positions the female body as an object of desire, and that
emphasizes that being desired is the height of female achievement,
women will see sex as a process primarily centered on male attraction to
women, and will get off more on being wanted than on wanting," which rings true to me. The achievement, and thus the focus of satisfaction, is in succeeding at the process that the thoroughly-inculcated American woman knows she's supposed to care about: making a (male) partner desirous, and then satisfying that desire. Not exactly a reassuring insight for a bicycle-eschewing fishy sort of feminist. Can't I make myself feel good autonomously, rather than relying on someone else's response?
I also think there's another, perhaps less discouraging interpretation, though:
A partner's desire as "the spark of craving"? That isn't a description of narcissism. That's a description of responsive desire.
References, somewhat shoddily
"What Do Women Want?" by Daniel Bergner, published in NYT Magazine 22 Jan 2009. Quoted in "Shorter NYTimes: Girl-parts are weird, girl-brains are weirder" by Jill Filipovic, published on Yes Means Yes blog on 27 Jan 2009. First quote in my entry from second paragraph of second blockquote in Filipovic's essay; second quote from the paragraph directly following the blockquote.
