Bettina Arndt discusses “the vexed business of accommodating male and female sexual needs.”
The 71-year-old virgin was a surprising volunteer for the sexuality project. As he expected, he didn’t have that much to contribute to my research on male sexuality but his story was intriguing. Here was a man who hadn’t planned to miss out on sex and marriage but so wanted his first experience to be special that he’d waited for years hoping to meet the right woman. Despite plenty of dating, she never showed up. Hence he’d ended up on his own, spending his whole life struggling with his strong sexual urges.
Yet he now wonders whether he has missed out on all that much. He wrote eloquently about watching his friends go through the pain of marriage break-up or struggling to cope without much sex in their marriages. “I’m not complaining. I’ve had a good life. There are no arguments in my household,” he said chirpily. Certainly no arguments about sex.
From the outside, life as a hot-blooded married heterosexual man doesn’t look like much fun. America’s best known sex guru, Dan Savage, reaches much the same conclusion. The wildly popular advice columnist was in the news last year as a result of a thoughtful profile published in the New York Times which focussed largely on Savage’s attack on America’s obsession with fidelity.
Openly gay Savage, whose sex advice column is syndicated across the world in more than seventy newspapers and attracts millions more online, started offering heterosexuals advice about sex as a joke but quickly attracted a huge following with his hard-hitting, provocative take on bedroom manners and responsibilities.
He promotes mutual care-taking, suggesting both men and women adhere to his famous acronym “G.G.G” – all lovers should be good, giving and game. He writes at length about the relationship between low libido and monogamy. “You can have strict monogamy or you can have low libido, Ladies, but you can’t have both. But then he adds. “Oh, and guys? You need to accept those tide-you-over blowjobs and handjobs just as cheerfully as she gives them.” That’s if she gives them.
When the NY Times interviewer Mark Oppenheimer suggests Savage’s views are tainted by the American Gay Male view of the sexual world with its tolerance for pornography, fetishes and a variety of partnered arrangements, Savage responds that the male gay world simply expresses what men are really like when they don’t have women reining them in. “Women, straight women, are in relationships with men. Doesn’t it help to know what we’re really like? Women can go on marrying and pretending that their boyfriends and husbands are Mr. Darcy or some RomCom dream man. But where’s that going to get’ them? Besides divorce court?”
That’s where he is wrong. Faced with the misery of a lifetime spent dealing with the frustrations of monogamous sex-starved marriage, most men don’t leave. On my website forum, there’s a letter entitled “Do I stay or do I go,” from a 40 year-old married man who’s gone for years without any sex in his marriage. The letter has attracted hundreds of responses, many from men urging him to go. He left, for a while, but then came back and is struggling on, trying to make his marriage work. Like most men who write to me, he loves his wife and children and feels he has too much to lose if he leaves.
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Dan Savage is right in thinking that many heterosexual men share the same voracious sexual desires that have come to define gay male sexuality. But most are doing an incredibly good job keeping a lid on them. We hear constantly about men in trouble over sex. Men in trouble for not keeping their trousers zipped, for groping and harassing women, men caught out looking at pornography, or gazing at women in the wrong way. But what we never hear about is men’s restraint. The remarkable stoicism of current generations of heterosexual men who cop it sweet, despite their immense frustrations.
Last year The Telegraph in the UK published a sweetly amusing story about men’s sexual fantasies, written by a man who describes himself a “respectable, married” man who has spent the last few years taming what he calls his “inner goat.” There’s no place for hidden sexual yearnings in his proudly reconstructed world–he boasts he keeps his goat firmly locked inside a concrete pen, tethered to a post. Yet he ruefully acknowledges that sometimes it manages to escape and he finds himself mentally undressing a woman as she walks past.
The published responses to his article were intriguing–the men who applauded his courage and the women who condemned him for expressing such thoughts. “Men, you could put your minds to much better use than fantasising about women you are never going to get. There’s something you can do: you can respect women and learn to control your pathetic, primitive minds. Meditation helps,” wrote one smug woman.
A male responder hit the nail on the head summing up what’s happened here: “Whilst the feminists and soft men like to kid themselves that they are changing our nature, all they’ve really done is teach men to keep their mouths’ shut, whilst our minds still explore exactly the same topics they always have.”
There’s an interesting book – The Testosterone Files – written by a feminist writer who has a sex change and becomes a male. The author, Max Wolf Valerio, describes being blown away by the urgency of his newly acquired sexual urges, his constant sexual fantasies – sex was now food, he said.
He cringes when he sees female audiences on talk shows pursing their lips, shaking their heads at sheepish male guests who are supposed “porn addicts” or “womanizers.” He’s shocked by women’s ready assumption of moral superiority.
“How to explain this to women?” Valerio ponders. “There is this thing about men that they cannot completely know. Few people want to believe that there could be a real chasm, a chemically induced difference of sexual drive between the sexes. Few want to believe that there might be any difference at all that is not socially constructed.”
“Now that I am Max, I see that this rift, this fundamental chasm between men and women’s perceptions and experience of sexuality, is one that may never be bridged. There certainly can be no hope for understanding as long as society pretends that men and women are really the same, that the culture of male sexuality is simply a conflation of misogyny and dysfunction. That the male libido is shaped and driven primarily by socialization, that can be legislated or ‘psychobabbled’ out of existence.”
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The strong male libido remains, even if the inner goat now must remain firmly tethered. Men live with up to twenty times the testosterone of women and that makes it very tough to cope with decades of monogamous marriage, particularly when sex is offered very reluctantly – “like meaty bites to a dog,” as one man put it.
Yet most men are doing a remarkable job remaining true to their women. For all the talk about unfaithful men, most married men succeed at monogamy most of the time. Just look at the statistics. American social surveys consistently show about four per cent of men straying in the previous year, says Pamela Druckerman in her book, Lust in Translation. Now admittedly these tiny numbers can add up over a long marriage or relationship but while there are men who are compulsive philanderers, this wasn’t the case for most of the men taking part in my research who admitted to having had an affair. The overwhelming majority wanted to be faithful and were succeeding, even though there may have a been a lapse along the way – a one night stand at a conference, a few weeks of illicit pleasure, or even an affair lasting months or perhaps a year or two. But nothing compared to the many years of restraint.
In one of Dan Savage’s amusing Q&A sessions with colleague students now available on YouTube, he argues men should get credit for this. “If you are with a guy for 40 years and he cheats on you 3 or 4 times, he is GOOD at monogamy! Not BAD at monogamy. We think of monogamy the way we think of virginity – it exists until you fuck someone and then it’s gone forever. We need to think of monogamy the way we think of sobriety – you can fall the fuck off the wagon and still get back up.”
Men’s well known urge for sexual variety has long been acknowledged by psychologists who refer to it as the “Coolidge Effect.” The name comes from a story about former US President Calvin Coolidge and his wife visiting a poultry farm. During the tour, Mrs Coolidge inquired how the farm managed to produce so many eggs with such a small number of roosters. The farmer proudly explained that his roosters performed their duty dozens of times each day. ‘Perhaps you could point that out to Mr Coolidge’, replied the first lady in a pointedly loud voice.
The president, overhearing the remark, asked the farmer, ‘Does each rooster service the same hen each time?’
‘No’, replied the farmer, ‘there are many hens for each rooster’.
‘Perhaps you could point that out to Mrs Coolidge’, replied the president.
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All the evidence suggests the urge is hardwired – yet most men find ways of ignoring that itch, or diverting it into harmless pursuits like looking at pornography. Harmless pursuits? That’s not, of course, how porn is presented. We are subject to an endless stream of people, mainly women, warning of the dangers of porn and claiming it is invariably vile, brutal and degrading to women.
Yet the truth is when men sit in the wee hours staring at their flickering computer screens, the big attraction is willing women, eager women, easy women – easy to bed and easy to please. “Images of women hungry for sex with us, possessed by desire for us. Receptive women who greet our sexual desire not with fear or loathing but with appreciation, even gratitude,” wrote David Steinberg in an essay relating sexual scarity to the male attraction for porn. A research study looking at porn usage in Australia, published in The Porn Report, found most (98% ) of the best-selling porn videos is pretty white-bread and free of violence – in fact the most popular mainstream internet sites are now the DIY amateur sites where thoroughly ordinary couples bonk for their webcams. My research suggests men turn to porn for good reason: as a harmless outlet for their sexual curiosity; to control a sexual drive causing conflict in their relationships, to relieve sexual boredom and as relief from the tensions of trying to please women in real-life sex.
There are, of course, high drive women who struggle to live with their own rampaging inner doe. There are many such single women but far fewer in long-term relationships. There are also those who enjoy watching porn, who cheerfully spend Friday nights with their partners munching take-away and watching R-rated DVDs. Women who happily live in open relationships, or go swinging with their partners, or post their own beaver shots on internet sites. And there are women genuinely concerned about their partners’ frustrations. It’s just that these women rarely enter the public debate.
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I recently received an email from a 60 year old woman talking about her “fabulous, amazing, caring, awesome, loving” husband who keeps harassing her to get involved in threesomes and group sex. She’s an intelligent, thoughtful woman who is perplexed about how to negotiate this difference in their attitudes. “There is, I believe, a big difference between ‘just saying yes’ within the confines of a marriage, and agreeing to sexual arrangements that simply fly in the face of everything that you believe that sex is about.”
Her husband grew up in a very liberal sexual environment and had previously enjoyed open relationships. He’s convinced his desire for sexual experimentation is perfectly natural but it holds no attraction for her. After much persuasion, she participated in a threesome with a male friend yet the pressure continues with her husband seeking further get-togethers with other males and even sending a photo of her (clothed) to a potential partner. Naturally she was upset by this but rather than rant about his behaviour, she wrote seeking simply to illustrate the difficulties of negotiating this divide between men and women.
I suggested she post the letter on my website forum, to generate discussion on this difficult issue. It attracted an immediate response from an angry woman: “NOBODY, and I mean NOBODY (not even hubby) has the right to pressure you into doing anything that makes you feel uncomfortable. A person who does this is not respecting OR loving his/her partner,” she wrote, tearing strips off the man for his unseemly behaviour. “If that was my husband, and he continued to harass me over this, it would be grounds for separation and divorce. Red flags going off all over the place for me,” she added emphatically.
Naturally that served to shut off any real discussion. Few men would dare venture an opinion after such a tirade. That’s what happens all the time. Whenever anyone, man or woman, talks openly about how to accommodate male sexual desire, angry women close down the conversation. It strikes me as odd. Of course women have a right to say no to such activities but shouldn’t men have freedom to ask? Is it so very different from other areas where women feel perfectly free to try to persuade men into life-changing decisions – like buying a bigger house (involving him in an extra decade or two of mortgage payments) or persuading a new husband, a re-married father, to have more children?
A few months ago women’s studies students held a demonstration protesting about a talk I was giving at their college. They objected to me even raising questions about sexual obligation in marriage, suggesting such talk is dangerous for young women. What nonsense. Closing down the debate on the vexed business of accommodating male and female sexual needs doesn’t solve anything. This is mighty tough stuff. “Who wrote the Book of Love – and what the hell were they thinking?” asked cartoonist Lynda Barry. What indeed?
Wow. This is an amazing look at what no one is willing to talk about. I myself have friends who have been in relationships for years that are sexless. Why? I get loving your partner and your children, but no sex means someone is going to cheat? I believe we drive eachother to cheat. We want our relationships to be monogamous but we’re not willing to be responsible for what that entails. If we don’t want our men or women sleeping with other people, then not having sex in our relationships doesn’t align with what we say we are committed… Read more »
It isn’t healthy for people to repress their sexuality nor shame people for their sexuality, doing this harms everyone,them, their partner, partners of people who shame people for their sexuality, it harms everyone, and denying your sexuality means you can’t actually control if if that is what you wish to do; for example, if you are in a monogamous relationship but have trouble with desiring other people, you need to admit this and talk about it with your partner to find a solution, if you ‘just ignore it’ it will escalate and end in you cheating on you’re partner. However,… Read more »
I haven’t read through all the comments yet, but I just wanted to say, I’m so glad I came across this article today, and I am going to look into the Sex Diaries and the book about the transgendered man’s experience with testosterone. That sounds absolutely fascinating! I never considered myself to be have a low libido, but I have recently been very frustrated at how insatiable my fiancee is. It’s giving me pause to marry him, since I worry about how he will handle it when I am pregnant or when work gets in the way. I’d be perfectly… Read more »
I wish he didn’t need it that much, but you’re right that it is admirable how most men deal with monogamy, especially when they are the partner with a higher sex drive. He may wish the very same thing. But all the wishing in the world isn’t going to change things. I just want to add one more thing… part of the reason that I don’t want to have sex as often as my fiancee is that I can’t orgasm every time, and I can’t orgasm from quickies. It takes a whole lot of work to have a sex session… Read more »
Maybe or maybe not. My partner gets a lot of foreplay and still only wants it 1-2 times a week. I ask, what can I do to help you like it more and she says she likes it a lot. Orgasms more than once and has a good time. She tells me she just doesn’t need it that often, but can sometimes get into if we start and it feels good. Anyway, it’s very frustrating for me and for her for the reasons you describe.
But that’s no reason not to get some more foreplay. Go have fun!
@Sarah Radford I am a high libido man. I am divorced mainly due to a sexless marriage for nearly 12 years. By sexless, I mean once a month crap…..I am 49 and have been divorced almost two years. I will advise any man if sex is important NEVER get married. For whatever reason(s) and I have mine women lose interest. But it is a loss of interest in sex with their husbands and not a loss of interest in sex. I am average looking guy. But, I could be having numerous affairs with married women if I so desired. I… Read more »
Wow….great, thoughtful article! We just got back from a cruise…new places, new experiences, new people….all that sparks desire…although we didn’t dare while our son was on the other side of the curtain in the suite! There is no magic bullet to a woman’s desire…but I was a bit charmed by Adam Sandler’s constant campaigning to get the girl in “50 First Dates” and “Happy Gillmore”….I know that’s not what really happens in real life…but it’s nice to see a guy trying so hard…so goofy and sweet! He gets totally humiliated at times, but while you are laughing, you are totally… Read more »
Well said. Bring about change, and passion will be sparked again. There’s nothing that kills desire more than the daily grind.
I loved the article! I’m a hot libido man who loves OCD/workaholic women. To complicate this, I’ve always been not completely faithful, although my recent behavior has been pretty standard, mainly due to my age and lack of opportunity. My spouse got fairly turned-off at menopause, and I got a lover. Spouse is more interested now, and I don’t have a lover. I get by with flirtation, which is sort of satisfying at age 66. When I have had hot-libido lovers, I’ve loved the sex, but don’t get as obsessed as with an OCD/workaholic type. Yes, I know how intermittent… Read more »
This was definitely great to read. This overwhelming need for sex for men, I think, is one reason that prostitution should be legal. There are many many many men out there who are involuntarily celibate. Involuntarily celibate men are truly ridiculed as a group because any many who can’t get any is considered a loser. The current system is truly a nightmare for shy men, and those who are uncomfortable approaching women. Rubbing one out is really not a good substitute for sex, and everyone needs some sort of affectionate physical contact with another human. One of the primary reasons… Read more »
I don’t take issue with the article, I found it very revealing. From my own experience, though, I have found that difficulties in sex between my wife and I have actually been symptoms of other issues. This is where I think I would like to understand more about what you think. At the end of my first marriage ! As a man, I was the one refusing sex. That was because of issues with alcoholism. During that marriage there were many times I resorted to porn to satisfy my needs, but that was because of difficulties I had in expressing… Read more »
@Graham: “Most men would not understand the concept of an inner goat, all they see is a natural desire for expressing love and connection.” Graham, I think you’re projectiong your own experience (or moral values) here. What you said may be true for some men, but not for the majority. In my research and observation (over a span of 30 years), I noticed most men have that “inner goat” alive and kicking. 😀 Of course that drive usually wears out with time but, even at middle age, I think many still feel the need for a “good fuck”. 😉 I’m… Read more »
“When a woman withdraws from sex I don’t believe it’s simply to do with sex, I believe it’s a control issue that is not being addressed or worked out. Many men deal with this control issue by ignoring and resorting to porn and blame. Yes, men have strong sexual desires, but I think you over-state them. I have found that the average man has average desires. They rage in youth, fall off through pressures of work and return when the woman physically changes.” I think this is a huge piece of the dynamic, AND I also think that people’s passion… Read more »
It can be a control issue – certainly many women who wrote diaries for me were aware of the fact that they gained power by doling out sex only occasionally. Some loved that – “I’m such a bitch,” said one woman as she watched her husband cook dinner knowing he was hoping for the green light for sex and knowing he wasn’t getting any. But many other women are genuinely bewildered and upset about their lost drives and desperately want to feel hot again. “I want that wanting feeling back again,” one said. Of course men have varying levels of… Read more »
Bettina, I feel like you are selling women short here. What you are saying is that 90% women (really? 90%?) are biologically destined to lose their libido at some point NO MATTER WHAT they or their husbands do about it. As a consequence, 90% of marriages are doomed to be unsatisfactory to men. The implication is that men should never get married or have a long term relationships with women, at least not if they want to have a healthy & happy sex life. Maybe no one should get married. Maybe men should just sleep around with the “juicy tomato”… Read more »
None of my married (guy) friends have anything good to say about their sex lives. And a few married female friends also complain. Maybe the happy people keep their mouths shut to spare the rest of us.
It occurs to me from time to time what I’ll have to say to my sons when they’re old enough to consider marrying. Right now, I agree with your conclusion and would have a hard time recommending it.
Sarah, that’s not what I am saying. I do find many women struggle with not feeling much spontaneous desire but that doesn’t mean they can’t have a very active, enjoyable sex life – if they choose to do so. The big breakthrough in research on desire is that we now know that many women don’t need desire to enjoy sex. If they can get their heads in the right place and are with a man who knows what to do – taking your point about men needing to make the effort – then many find that desire kicks in once… Read more »
Thank you for that response, Bettina, it’s a lot less discouraging than the original article. 🙂 I agree with a lot of what you say. I’ve found that sexual desire can in fact be kind of a Pavlovian response. Sometimes I might not feel horny at all, but as soon as my boyfriend sits down on the couch, puts his arm around me and says “hey there your hotness” and nibbles on my ear, I’m instantly turned on. For what it’s worth, he’s told me he has the same experience. Sometimes he won’t be thinking about sex at all but… Read more »
“If women with low libido made an effort to have sex, they might find they enjoy it anyway as it can be a conditioned response where your brain has learned to anticipate pleasure.”
Or instead of trying to condition their behaviour…they could just look for low libido partners. Or if they end up with a higher libido partner, they could negotiate their partner’s use of porn, masturbation, whatever.
I’m very wary of the idea that someone can condition themselves to have certain sexual responses. This is exactly the sort of crap that the ex-gay ministries use.
Oh please, I’m not talking about brainwashing. Does your mouth start watering when you see the dessert tray at a restaurant? That’s a conditioned response because you associate chocolate mousse cheesecake with past experiences of deliciousness. Obviously, if you actually don’t enjoy desserts then you won’t have the same response to the dessert tray. If you don’t enjoy sex then don’t have it. I’m talking about people who do enjoy sex but just don’t feel like they are ever in the mood for it. Anti-gay brain washing is bunk so if that’s what you want to “debate” with me, this… Read more »
I wasn’t saying you’re talking about brainwashing…but the basic idea that ex-gay ministries have is that you can condition your sexual responses. My mouth does water when I see the dessert tray, but I don’t control it, is what I’m saying. That’s what you seemed to be saying, that if a woman has a low libido, she should (could) work on her conditioned response to being with her partner. It was the phrase, “made the effort,” that suggested to me that you were saying she could change her response.
Well that wasn’t what I meant to imply so Ishould clarify. I don’t mean that you can condition yourself into liking something if you don’t actually like it, or wanting something you dn’t want. That’s not possible. The antigay therapists are nutjobs who don’t understand psychology at all. However, I have found, in my own experience, that certain things that I associate with sexual pleasure can quickly trigger arousal even if I wasn’t “in the mood” before.I think that is a conditioned response, like my mouth watering when I see a dessert. Why do I suddenly feel hungry for pumpkin… Read more »
Alright yeah, I’m agreeing with you here. So then in the original comment I replied to…are you saying that a woman (or man) who might not actually want to have sex, should do so anyway because she might get turned on at some point do to a Pavlovian response?
I’m just saying give it a try (kissing, snuggling, massage, watever) and you might find yourself getting turned on enough for sex after all. I think that’s actually something sex therapists often recommend. It might not work for everyone, of course. but if you someone is always rejecting sex because they are never in the mood, maybe there are ways to get in the mood. But no one should endure sex if it’s unpleasant for them.
Hi Anonymous Doe, I am sure men would line up around the block to be with you, if they could find you. I don’t believe men choose women with low sex drives. Most of the women writing for me reported they were really into sex at the start of their relationships – they couldn’t get enough of it. But that changed for most women, mainly, I believe due to changes in their brain chemistry. Helen Fisher did wonderful work studying people who are in that early ‘in love’ stage and found there were different chemicals buzzing around that are known… Read more »
That is not my experience at all. I am a “Juicey Tomato” as you call us and have met many women struggling in their married sex lives with male partners with lower sex drives. Women who are open to creating an interesting and diverse sex life but married to men who insist on keepIng things traditional. I am lucky to be with a man who is open to finding interesting solutions to satisfy my raging sex drive but we both find it frustrating and tiring at times. I’m not sure what it’s like in the larger world but certainly in… Read more »
What I’m seeing here online, in mags, hearing friends is that long term monogamy can be a passion killer for many reasons. It could be “Hey, I’m married so I don’t have to put out anymore.” It could be “Hey, we’ve both been so busy and overwhelmed and not getting to bed until midnight that we don’t have sex at all.” It also could be, “We are in a rut and it’s not fun.” Could be lots of things. I keep seeing this theme, it’s in another post too about male sexuality, that men want closeness and connection with one… Read more »
“And why would they then mind if we acted on urges with other men? This, I think, is something women wrestle with. At worst it can seem as if men want their cake, and to eat it too, and to have pie on the side in some form, while making sure their women don’t like anything else but cake. No pie for you!” No double standard here, my wife is allowed exactly the same amount and type of dessert as I am. If she wants to watch porn or read romance novels or go to the strippers she can. Affairs… Read more »
This is the exception. Many married women just no longer want sex with their husbands, period.
As I mentioned in another comment, I’m a 45 year old woman who loves sex. Maybe it’s because I’ve never been married. I don’t know. I’m hoping my current relationship (which has lasted 3 years so far) is “the one” (finally!) — I would be devastated if our sex life ever completely conked out. I hope that won’t happen (the thought scares me plenty). It’s true that my libido has tapered off since my 20’s, but it’s still alive and kicking most of the time. That doesn’t mean, however, that my boyfriend and I never struggle with sexual issues. For… Read more »
@Sarah Radford: “There are just so many variables involved.”
How true!
Regarding you relationship, it seems to me your boyfriend and you have pretty different communication and life styles.
Being different makes a relationship exciting, at first; but I wonder if all those differences will make the relationship exhausting, in the long run. 😕
@Valter, well you are right, our different communication styles can clash sometimes, as I described, but we’ve both made an effort to understand each other. I think that’s what’s important. He’s a literal thinker and not great at picking up on non-verbal communication. He’s been awkward with women his whole life, and that’s a big part of it. He’s gotten better at trying to pay attention to my subtext. I’ve also had to learn to be direct rather than indirect when I try to communicate with him. I don’t like coming right out and asking for sex — it seems… Read more »
Don’t we all wish our partners could just read our minds already!
@Sarah Radford “Though I think maybe one big difference between men and women (perhaps a biological difference) is that women don’t want sex without an emotional connection, whereas many men will happily have sex with women they don’t even like.” Simply not true Sarah. Then how do you explain booty calls and hook up? Or the boy toy a woman has on standby for those needed moments? It’s raw sex Sarah. I know because I have two friends with benefits. So, the evidence simply does not support your argument. Even Ivy League prostitutes (high class call girls, sorry) have non-emotional… Read more »
I’ve never met a woman who can have truly emotionless sex. Sex without commitment, yes, sex without feeling, no. Doesn’t mean there aren’t those women out there, but I suspect it’s more complicated than you think.
“Fisher finds that stage usually lasts only a few years and then women revert to their normal state – living with a fragile, distractible libido that needs perfect conditions for it to get started.” Hmm. This scares me. I have never had a relationship go past a year and as a result I have never had a girlfriend who won’t have sex. To me the whole idea that a girlfriend will refuse me is almost inconceivable. But if this is right it means that if I did get married I would have to deal with this. I guess I have… Read more »
I think it’s important to remember not all women are like this.
YMMV and you have to have those explicit conversations in that first year.
When I was 20, I thought the same things about women and marriage. That they’d cool off and I wouldn’t. That marriage would be a crummy deal. And then I met a woman I thought was different. We got married and six years into it, turns out she’s not so different. So, it’s a crapshoot. And many married men will tell you the dice are loaded.
Okay here’s a thought…and I’m not trying to be snarky…but if we were all totally open about our sexual desires, etc…maybe we could avoid a lot of the problems that come with changing libidos. I’m not just talking about a woman “cooling off,” but for all genders, and for higher or lower libidos. This isn’t really directed just at you, but more just in general. I’m seeing a lot of comments about how one half of a couple now has a very different sex-drive than they did at the beginning of a relationship. This isn’t really surprising, considering human sexuality… Read more »
Are you married? Or a man?
If not, try it. Then have some kids. Then experience some of these issues. Then by all means come back with some easy answers and tell me what is and is not surprising.
it just seems to me like more open communication could keep it from becoming a problem. I used to think this too. And then I started reading and listening to stories of people in sexless relationships. And when you read those stories they talk about how open the communication had been, and how the sex shut down and the communication about sex shut down with it. Because ultimately what happens is their partners don’t want sex, and they don’t want their partner having sex with someone else, so of what use is the communication? It only leads to resentment and… Read more »
Ah but see the key to open communication isn’t just telling your partner what you need, but being willing to listen to them and willing to work on a solution. That’s what I mean by open communication. Yeah, just telling your partner a list of how you’re unsatisfied is only going to lead to resentment. As for people not wanting to open up their marriage, but wanting to have what they used to with their partner…well alright, I’m not saying the solution to everyone’s marital problems is to open it up. Polyamory isn’t for everyone. Also, though, that sounds a… Read more »
I don’t think many expect to be pawing at each other incessantly a decade or two into a marriage. But that generally doesn’t describe the scenarios I’m talking about. The stories I’ve read and heard are all different. But what they have in common is that sex has fallen way off (anywhere from once every other month to never) and with it the sense of physical and emotional bonding. Sometimes the drop was precipitous. Sometimes it was due to a life-changing event. Kids are born, and you wait a year or two for the sleep to return and the stress… Read more »
Oh I know all to well that not everyone is good at open communication. Oh, man. But yeah, with like a slow demise…I don’t think it’s about realising it and then starting to communicate. That’s already too late. You gotta have open communication throughout a relationship, or at least that what I think. Also, I think the social pressure to make a monogamous relationship permanent is problematic. It just adds more stress. Some relationships can’t be salvaged. No I’m not saying a lack of sex means break it off…but I definitely think that some marriages last a lot longer than… Read more »
I’ve never lost interest in sex. Sometimes I am amazed at how many men stay in sexless relationships. But as a woman who has a strong libido, I wonder, “why did he choose that woman who has a low sex drive?” Here is what I wonder: do some men choose women women with low sex drives, because they are less intimidating? Do they choose these women to reign in their sex drives because they unconsciously feel guilty and ashamed about their own sexual desires? Because, the truth is, with the sexual revolution, more and more women are discovering that they… Read more »
@Anonymous Doe: I wonder, “why did he choose that woman who has a low sex drive?” That’s a very good question. Apart from what Bettina said (very true), I’d say there are two main answers: – Men who chose “virgin” type women (in the sense of “virgin/whore” dichotomy), serious and restrained about sex, because of religious/moral values. Or, as you said, because they were afraid of strong libido women. – Men who chose hot libido women, but those women did lose their libido with time (and, again, see Bettina answer). In the first instance, those men were doomed from the… Read more »
“And, even when a woman is horny, she usually is more selective than a man. I mean, when a man feels horny “anything goes” (mostly) but, even when a woman feels horny, it’s not simple like that.” I was with you until this point, because I’ve come across a heck of a lot highly selective guys (even when they’re horny) and too many ‘find me anyone’ type of women (even when not horny). I think a lot of the reason it might seem like women are more selective even when they’re horny is precisely because of the virgin/whore paradigm and… Read more »
@HeatherN: “I’ve come across a heck of a lot highly selective guys” Well, of course I was talking about the mass, the average, not the exceptions. Of course there are picky guys (or neurotic ones, or “obsessed with models” ones… 😉 ). And I acknowledge many men, even when horny, are still somehow selective about beauty: they wouldn’t have sex with (what they consider) an “ugly” woman. Still, a minimum of beauty or attraction would be enough, in most cases. OTOH, women are usually more selective, they need their (potential) partner to have several qualities. I agree with Farrell on… Read more »
“It’s due to our biological programming about reproduction success (different for men and women). I agree it may be due, in part, to social conditioning (not being “easy”), but the biological programming is stronger.” Well I disagree that the biological aspects of sexuality are stronger than the socio-cultural aspects, but those’re both opinions. Also, I’ll point out that the biological/evolutionary aspects of sex aren’t just about reproduction. A great mammal for comparison is the bonobo…my favourite apes ever. 🙂 “Is it something you noticed in the LGBT area, or even in hetero ones?” Hmmm…I dunno. I mean, I haven’t really… Read more »
Heather, Surely there is something biological at the heart of these gender differences. We know a great deal about the role of testosterone in influencing sexual drive and it must make a difference if one gender has up to twenty times the level of testosterone than the other. I also find the experiences of people who have sex changes pretty convincing – their comments about how different it feels to live with that extra testosterone. But that is not to say that cultural and psychological factors aren’t also very important. But I really take issue with your statement that this… Read more »
“But I really take issue with your statement that this implies men can’t control themselves.”
I was saying I think Valter’s statements imply that, not your article. Sorry for the miscommunication.
@HeatherN: “I think a lot of what you’re saying treats women’s sex drive and men’s sex drive as if they’re totally different.”
On average, they ARE different – and they work differently.
If they were the same, we wouldn’t have so much sexual imbalance. 🙄
And it’s not just the sex drive, it’s the psychology and biochemistry working differently.
@HeatherN: “It’s the old myth that when a man is horny, he can’t control himself”
WOT?!? 😯
Men control themselves ALL THE TIME! 😆
If we wouldn’t, we would grope and hump any pretty woman around us. 😉
Alright, perhaps it’s better explained as the old myth that a man has a harder time controlling himself. That a man’s sex drive is somehow more intense or something.
Good point. Who’d think a silly thing like that!? Like testosterone could have anything to do with sex drive? Oh please, that’s crazy!
Testosterone isn’t some magic chemical that makes you horny all the time. It is one hormone in the body that reacts with other hormones in the body. Plus, women have testosterone too, a lot less but it’s still there. I know testosterone does affect sex drive, it’s just not the magic component people sometimes think it is.
If I poke around a bit on pubmed, I find plenty of entries that support the idea of low testosterone being related to low libido. The most common ones I ran across were men with prostate cancer being put on antiandrogen therapy and experiencing loss of libido. But, also entries supporting the relationship in women, in female to male transexuals experiencing an increase in libido with testosterone therapy as well as male to female transexuals experiencing a decrease in libido as a result of hormone therapies.
But it is just one of many hormones, nothing to see here.
Farrell is clearly wrong. How does he (or even you) explain the booty calls and/or hook up? The vast majority are initiated by women. Also, many women have that guy they can call….no emotion whatsoever.
This is old thinking. Women are not this discriminating any longer.
Because, when he chose her she did not have a low libido.
Married women simply grow bored and tired of their husbands over time. Marriage is not well suited for women over long periods of time. I am convinced of this fact. Married women want sex. Just not with their husbands. Like many married men, they find a lover. Studies now show women and men now cheat at about the same rates.
Thank you, Bettina. Your research is interesting and your article is well written. Besides, it’s really comforting when hearing a woman who is able to understand men’s sex drive – instead of bashing it. I mean, most men here on the GMP go the extra mile to understand women – I think – but much less women seem doing the same in reverse. Sometimes it makes me think “WTF, you (women) do not deserve my empathy and understanding”. 🙁 Personally, it took me decades to learn to accept my own desires and needs, and rejecting any attempt to shame me… Read more »
Valter, so pleased you liked my article. Re your comment about dogs.. one man talked about having sex doled out to him like “meaty bites to a dog.” That’s what really gets to many men. Having to beg for sex, having to be grateful when they get it. And they write so passionately about the fact that it is not just about sex… they all know they can masturbate. It’s not about getting their rocks off. But what they yearn for is the connection they feel through making love. Men don’t want to live with their roommates… or their sisters.… Read more »
@Bettina: “And they write so passionately about the fact that it is not just about sex…” Yes. To me (and to many people, I think), sex means a mixture of warmth, love, touch, pleasure, nurture, feeling accepted, appreciated, loved. I cannot feel loved without physical intimacy (and that doesn’t necessarily mean intercourse, but at least skin and body contact). Right now, I’m in the beginning of a new relationship: she can’t have intercourse yet, because she has issues from childhood abuse. I try my best at being patient with her, and it’s not that hard, because she’s so loving and… Read more »
It has taken a long time for me to come around to believing that men want more than to just get their rocks off, likely due to so many examples and narratives and entire characters built off of the notion that it really is just about the sex, not the connection. It led to a very long dry spell in my own relationship because I became convinced his lust had nothing to do with me as a person and everything to do with me being the nearest available source of sexual relief. (This conviction was further exacerbated by low self-esteem… Read more »
Christ it’s like being Oliver Twist: “Please [ma’am] can I have some more?” Like it’s her job to undress and be available and my job to be grateful to get it a couple times a week. Never in a million years would I have married a woman who was this kind of lover. Instead, I married someone sexy and adventurous who turned into a suburban starfish (i.e. laying there). The bait and switch makes me furious. I wonder how many men feel compelled to say, “it’s not just about sex.” As if they need to justify an innate drive in… Read more »
I feel the same way. I fell in love with a passionate woman who was interested in & considerate with my needs & desires. Now I’m married to a woman who occasionally (literally) calls me up to the bedroom to do the deed, during which she shows very minimal interest. Even though I’ve asked countless times she never shares her desires or wants and when I bring up the state of our sexual relationship she always accuses me of blaming her … which I honestly tried not to. I’m starting to resent her for it, which is the beginning of… Read more »
If you don’t have kids, run like hell. Life’s too short to put up with that.
I have to agree with maritalbliss, from what you describe you are clearly not sexually compatible and the situation will only get worse once you have kids. You should insist on marriage counseling before agreeing to have kids but unless she’s willing to work on her issues (probably through individual counseling), things are not likely to change. She may have sexual hang ups from childhood or a past abuse history. Question, is she taking birth control pills or anti-depressants, both of which can mess with a woman’s libido?
Margaret Mead thought every woman needed three husbands: one for youthful sex, one for security while raising children and one for joyful companionship in old age. I think Margaret Mead was correct. This is why I firmly believe one man cannot keep most women happy over long periods of time. Married women need a new stream of new lovers and partners. They become bored and tired of their husbands. Meanwhile, we married men suffer in silence sexually. Why? We love our kids and families. As boys, we are taught to “suck it up” and “be tough.” So we endure the… Read more »
“Perhaps that would explain why some 15-20% of children born in marriages are not fathered by the current husband.”
First, I’d love to see some citation for this statistic. As for the idea that women cheat…well so do men. Our society puts too high a pressure on both men and women to conform to monogamous life-long relationships. It works for some people, and some people it doesn’t.
Just Google “paternity fraud.” See for yourself what the numbers are married couples.
Cheers!
That’s because women don’t know that they don’t understand men. They also don’t know that for men, sex is an expression of love when they are in love with you. When their husbands want sex, wives think it’s always about only wanting sex, but it’s also about physical love, feeling emotionally connected, validated, desired, appreciated– about wanting to be close. And most men don’t tell their wives/long-term girlfriends this. And when we are told, we initially disbelieve because men are always telling us when we are young “it was just sex”. Men don’t know that women get sexually bored too.… Read more »
Oops Thursday night brain – that Thank you was intended for Mike L 🙂
All this makes me wonder if marriage is even worth it? I really want to have a loving , supportive, sexually exciting lifelong relationship with a man but what you are saying is that he will ALWAYS be unhappy with me at some level because at the end of the day, I’m only one person. So what’s the point? Sigh. And personally I still love sex at age 45.
Sarah, I think that the problem here is that two extremes are being contrasted. On the one hand is the idea that men may, in general, have higher libidos than women. But this is put side-by-side with the women who suddenly want to go years without sex (and from what I’ve heard, it can be a very sudden transition, though I’m in my 20s still, so none of my friends have seen this yet). I think there’s a lot of middle ground between the idea of “high libido” and no-sex-ever, and I believe it’s completely possible to find a lifelong… Read more »
I’ll speak idealistically here, but if men and women both could see the sex drive as similar in it’s dynamic as a hunger drive, perhaps we’d not be so hard on each other. Some people eat a lot. Some people don’t have a big appetite. But the ones who aren’t hungry would never say to the spouse, “You can’t eat, I”m not hungry, I won’t cook for you, I won’t dine out with you.” I understand of course that food is quite different, both physically and culturally, but my point is this, why damn each other for our innate drives?… Read more »
(I mean, if you do have a partner who freaks out if you dine out or eat more than they do…that’s probably an indicator something really controlling is going on)
Thank you. Posts like yours are one of the reasons this blog works. This confirms what i had thought/no hoped was true but could not confirm until I read your response. Deep contented sigh of relief
some people get married BECAUSE of the expectation of sex, hell im just pat 25 and have barely been laid twice, I don’t even want to THINK about how hard it’s going to be at 45. But sadly without being able to “play the field” marriage isn’t really an option either. Im honestly hoping for the “pill” depicted in so many dystopian future movies that allows humans to totally suppress their sex drive as long as they take it. The idea of being able to walk down the street and not feel ANYTHING for the summer knee high skirts and… Read more »
That pill exists (well, actually it’s an injection), but good luck getting any doctor to prescribe it for you.
What a beautiful piece. I love the Coolidge quote, it’s an oldie but a goodie.
It would be an amazing world if we each could just be ok with our sex drives, men with women enjoying other men, and vice versa.
We grow up with a narrative of one perfect mate and posessiveness. It’s not wonder we are consistently upset and disappointed.
Yes, but we also often start our relationships with very similar sex drives. The problem is that when women settle into their relationships so many lose interest in sex but men – with up to 20 times their level of testosterone – often have an itch that never goes away. I think it is very important that people understand this gap which emerges as relationships progress – and learn to work around it rather than blaming each other for the way they are.
I couldn’t agree more. I also think that women DO want those resurgences of passion. Perhaps it takes another male, perhaps not.
There’s now research by Rosemary Basson in Canada showing many women in long term relationships go for years without experiencing any spontaneous desire. They simply never think about sex, it just isn’t on their agenda. Of course some will masturbate.. and some have affairs but that usually means they are emotionally dissatisfied in their relationships. But plenty of happily married women just aren’t interested – in their husbands. You are right in thinking another man can do the trick. There’s interesting Australian research on menopausal women which shows many women experience a further drop in libido at menopause -often due… Read more »
I’ll get your book. Have you read “Mating in Captivity” by Esther Perel? Reconciling the domestic and erotic. It’s fascinating as well.
Much of what your’re saying (I believe) only confirms my belief that we are at best serial monogamists and I wish polyamory could get a wider acceptance.
Julie, Yes, I have read Mating in Captivity. Great book! For my research I had 98 couples who kept diaries for up to a year, with the men and women writing about how they negotiate their sex supply. Their stories were amazing, supporting much of what Ester Perel says about the problems of domestic sex. There’s such a difference between mating in captivity and mating in the wild with so many loving sex at the start of their relationships and then finding their libido then disappears.
Sex at Dawn is another great book. You should hear the things that women in their 40s are doing and thinking, but we only share it with other women in our forties. We habitually lie to male sex researchers, and our doctors. That is on top of marrying men we loved but were not strongly attracted to because he was marriage material.
As a monogamous married man, I agree with the article for the most part. Several of my closest friends marriages are either falling apart or over, largely because the wives involved wanted to set the parameters of the relationship in every concievable way. One friend finally asked for a divorce because his wife forbade him to have pornography, and would go 6 months at a time without having sex with him, in addition to other issues. He just couldn’t take it, he was unhappy, unhealthy and looked 10 or more years older than he should at only 33 years of… Read more »
In my research project – published in the book, The Sex Diaries, I had men who went for up to 20 years with no sex in their marriages. It’s been amazing to witness the shift from the days when men had conjugal rights to the current situation where women feel absolutely entitled to shut up shop if they aren’t interested in sex. Of course women have a right to say ‘no’ to sex but no one would have predicted so many would interpret this as meaning there was absolutely no need to consider their partners needs at all. We live… Read more »
In those cases, were the women also going 20 years without? Or did they masturbate? Or cheat? Because it makes me wonder if there were other dynamics going on around the marriage in general. Or if the men had the misfortune to marry women who were asexual or just didn’t like it to begin with?
Seems awfully, terribly cruel.
In my friends case, no other word describes it. They took months of couples counselling towards the end, and after many sessions, he barely had his wife back to hugging him occasionally. His wife refused him even platonic physical contact, and yet emotionally abused him over any perceived betrayal or attempt to go around her for his needs.
I think that you are absolutely correct in asking about the women. Women are taught to either ignore, or greatly mistrust, their own desires. Therefore, they are taught from girlhood to marry a good man, a man who will be a good husband and treat you right. Many, many women marry men that they are in love with at the time, or kind of in love with/he’s my best friend. However, this man is not one that they are especially, for lack of a better phrase, in lust with. Maybe her desire for her husband was based on deep love… Read more »
I had the reverse situation in my marriage – a monogomous man with no real interest in sex with me … We would go for months where it was withheld from me …. It was totally frustrating and intimacy was saved for a hug and friendship after a long days work… In fact it was like living with yourflatmate raising 2 kids as good friends … But the good thing is since we parted some 3 years ago we remain good mates and parents – and I’ve discovered within me what I e been suppressing for years – a wonderful… Read more »