"Angel argues that, unlike the drives of hunger or thirst, desire does not operate on a deprivation model for either gender."

"She does, however, support the idea that male desire is 'spontaneous' and female desire 'responsive' to explain why women are perceived as suffering from a lack of overt sexual interest. The intention to have sex doesn’t 'just happen' for women as often as it does for men; it may, however, be elicited. She quotes contemporary work by Rosemary Basson, the director of the Sexual Medicine Program at the University of British Columbia, that describes a kind of loop in which the sexual setting, 'the relationship, the power dynamics, the safety and trust…are all critical in enabling or impeding the virtuous circle of arousal and desire.' So men can persuade women into bed by supplying context first ('love,' perhaps) and then by arousing them. This also feels a little transactional. No matter where we start from, we are always back in the same place.... It is not clear to me, in the discussion of the 'circularity' of female desire, what 'linear' male desire might look like (apart from the obvious)." 

From "The Burden of ‘Yes’/Katherine Angel is part of a new generation of female writers who are revisiting ideas of female submission" by Anne Enright (NYRB).