January 31, 2007
Why Men and Women Don't Want Sex
Dr. Helen scans through the comments on a WebMD post on the different reasons why men and women don't want sex and concludes:
Update: A Men's News Daily commenter to this post writes the following:
"Never forget: the single most revolting image, the nightmare that haunts women, is that of the happy, grinning, sexually satisfied male. They really hate that and the sooner we adjust our social expectation to that fact, the better." Truer words were never spoken--I think that some women really do feel this way.
Jill at Feministe responds:
Yes, women do secretly hate the idea of our partners being happy. You’ve got us all figured out.
The double-standard here is amazing. From the letters Dr. Helen quotes, it’s pretty clear that many women are refusing sex because they aren’t enjoying it, or because there are other issues within the relationship that are leaking over into their sex lives. But clearly, they’re just being selfish by not allowing their husbands unrestrained sexual access, even if the sex sucks, or is painful, or is unwanted. As usual, the mens are not doing anything that needs re-evaluating.
Posted by Robin Varghese at 10:39 AM | Permalink
Comments
More women do not want sex than men who don't want sex.
That said, the human being, we learn from evolution, is always benefited by arilety...familiarity breeds boredom if not contempt, and after a number of years with the same partner, a clear sameness and passionless sex life settles in. Additionally, women, as they age, change hormonally, it seems, and if they have fulfilled the "duty" to have and raise children, there is often a change in sexual interest, offset perhaps by friendship etc that takes the place of passionate sex. Men, though, seem always to need to let loose that which gets stored within (semen), and this we are told is good for the prostate. Ah, well. A medical need then ought to be met.
Posted by: fred lapides | Jan 31, 2007 3:44:43 PM
I normally avoid commenting on matters like this, but these particular claims always distress me: the perpetuation of a set of ideological (and stereotypical) assumptions about women and sex that are derived culturally and not in line with any scientific research or precept.
Women do not necessarily or biologically have lower sex drive than men. The theory that testosterone is the hormonal factor that secures men a high sex drive (my real doctor friends aver) is nothing more than a theory. Doctors don't actually know much about the relationship between testosterone and sex drive. Natalie Angier has an interesting article on the topic of the so-called innate difference between male and female sex drive at http://www.indiana.edu/~ovid99/angier.html. What she says about how scientists have long ignored observations of female primates being just as sexually aggressive as their male counterparts is particularly suggestive.
The theory I share with many scientists and cultural critics is that this idea about an innate difference is almost entirely culturally derived, with some relatively backward scientific thinking struggling to find something in female biology that helps support the claim that women don't really like sex.
Women surely don't like bad sex and it says something that we live in a culture long-obsessed with the production of novels, films, etc that figure the male protagonist in search of sexual experience that will grant him competence with female sexual partners. This is not because women don't like sex or because their sex drive is "naturally" low; but because their sex drive is probably roughly equivalent, though differently expressed for cultural and biological reasons; AND for physical and personal reasons, most women don't like bad sex. The newbie male sex object (e.g., the graduate) or the relatively thoughtless male sex-machine (e.g., the rock hudson character) have long been mostly left to cultural memory, while the young male who sincerely wants to figure out about technique, so he can enhance his "skillz" (a meaningful commonplace), has become a more familiar image.
Most of my female friends (in the privacy of so-called girl talk) have expressed problems opposite to the prevailing and annoying assumption about the male-female sex drive discrepancy. They want to have sex more than their male partners. The whole idea of male sex drive being stronger becomes a ruse for a whole host of very problematic assumptions about women and men--and serious problems in modern romantic relationships.
As for the issue of menopause: as far as I understand it, menopause is rather literally a response to the fact that a woman runs out of ova at some point and could not procreate any longer. It's not a consequences of emotional or personal sensations of fulfilled duty or making more friends.
And Newsflash: men run out of sperm too. This fact, known in the nineteenth century, led to a series of theories about the problem of "spending" or "spermatorrhea": Victorian doctors were concerned that men would masterbate too much and not be able to procreate because they would "spend" all their reserves without making the appropriate "investment."
Their are also strong (and strongly worded) theories about how men experience a form of something like menopause (aka andropause). Here's a link to one of those arguments with a bibliography: http://www.csun.edu/~psy453/menop_y.htm. Here's the BBC on the topic: http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/mens_health/issues_menopause.shtml.
Posted by: Maeve Adams | Feb 1, 2007 11:37:47 AM
I think your comment is very true. And your response to Fred Lapides was quite amazing and very unbiased. Your information is very important and I wish it was more widely known.
Posted by: Mel | Sep 24, 2007 9:26:12 PM
I have not met a woman with a higher sex drive than me. I would like to meet these so called unsatisfied women
Posted by: Whiskeyslick | Apr 13, 2008 1:30:41 AM
I have not met a woman who does not have a higher sex drive than me.
Am I genetically flawed?
Or just not represented?
Posted by: Mr Bull | Jun 22, 2008 8:31:05 AM
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