Do Men Want More Sex Than Women?
Or is this a myth to justify male misbehavior and shame women with libidos?
Writing about sex is always a surefire way to piss people off.
Just like political discussions, everyone comes with a set of prior convictions about how the world works and we usually seek confirmation of our beliefs.
If you’re a man who believes that women have little interest in sex because in your marriage, your wife wasn’t interested in sex, you can easily find sources online that validate that men are, indeed, more interested in sex.
If you’re a woman with an incredibly high sex drive, you’ll likely look for confirmation that women have higher sex drives. That’s your life experience, therefore, it’s normal, and you assume most women are somewhat like you.
Confirmation bias pervades every aspect of our lives - and that’s why I’m diving into this semi-controversial subject.
The other day, I got a comment in my private Love U Facebook group that highlighted a common misconception I see among my clients.
The topic of conversation was whether men want more sex. A bright, funny, sexually active, fortysomething woman responded with:
“This is a myth to justify male misbehavior and shame women with libidos.”
I didn’t bother to respond because message boards are a surefire way to ensure that your minor disagreement turns into a major conflagration.
Instead, I wrote her quote down, thought about it, did some research, and wrote this post. Allow me to preface it by validating both of my client’s claims:
There IS a lot of male misbehavior when it comes to sex. #MeToo illustrated that. So has your own personal dating experience. Dick pics. Men who push aggressively for sex without commitment. Guys who don’t like the word “no.” And, of course, all forms of sexual assault, which are 100% unacceptable.
There IS continued shame for women who have healthy libidos. The latest slutshaming term of art is “body count,” which denotes how many men a woman has slept with. For men, a high body count is often considered prideful, yet many men judge women for engaging in the exact same behavior. This is sheer hypocrisy and it needs to be called out.
These two points, however, have nothing to do with the original question.
“Men want more sex” and “many men are icky" do not inherently contradict each other. (If anything, they reinforce each other!) This is why I was so surprised at the suggestion that the strong male libido was part of some grand patriarchal conspiracy.
So let’s break this “do men want more sex?” question into two parts: male libido in a relationship and male libido outside of a relationship:
Within a long-term relationship, male and female libidos are mostly similar. But the data is messy and contradictory.
Men’s sexual peak is at 18. Women’s sexual peak is in their 30s.
15% of marriages are sexless, with no intercourse over the past 6 months.
Men’s testosterone slowly decreases over time, notably when we become dads.
Women’s estrogen goes down during menopause, impacting sexual desire.
Stress negatively impacts everyone’s libido - but women report 50% more cases of stress, which would indicate a lower sex drive.
After much Googling, it seems that men do have higher libidos, just not by a huge magnitude:
After completing their meta-analysis, Frankenbach and colleagues found that when sex drive is defined as they proposed, men do, on average, have higher sex drives than women. However, there was wide variability in sex drive among both men and women. As a result, about a third of the women surveyed indicated a higher sex drive than that of the average man.
These results fall in line with other research on gender differences. That is to say, when a gender difference is found, that difference is small, and the variability within each gender is great. This is easiest to see with an example like height. On average, men are taller than women, but there are still plenty of women who are taller than most men.
This conclusion happens to correspond with my beliefs and experience. Many men have higher sex drives than their partners. Then again, many don’t.
This boring and nuanced answer is not why you’re reading this post today.
The reason you’re reading this is that, contrary to my client’s claim…
MEN WANT MORE SEX THAN WOMEN OUTSIDE OF RELATIONSHIPS.
(I’m shouting because the evidence is overwhelming. Let me count the ways:)
“For men, sexual boredom was correlated with variety in partners (or lack thereof), while for women, it was more related to variety in activity. In other words, women were more likely to be satisfied by changes in the sexual what, while men (gay or straight) were more likely to respond to a change in the sexual whom. It’s a simple, unavoidable truth almost everyone knows to be true, but few dare to discuss: variety and change are the necessary spice of the sex life of the male of our species.”
99.9% of Ashley Madison users - the dating site for extramarital affairs - were men. You can say this means men are more unethical, too, and you may be right. But this huge disparity only confirms that men desire new sexual partners far more than women.
Men enjoy casual sex more and have fewer regrets about hookups.
Reaction type of men and women after a typical hookup:
Women:
Positive reaction — 26.4%
Negative reaction —- 48.7%
Mixed reaction — 24.9%
Men:
Positive reaction — 50.4%
Negative reaction —- 26.0%
Mixed reaction — 23.6%
(Archives of Sexual Behavior, 2008)
4. Men are more visual. It’s not just a trope. It’s a real thing.
There is one major disparity between the sexual motivations for men and women. Men are primarily influenced by visual stimuli whereas women tend to enjoy the emotional and romantic side of sex more. In one study, men and women were shown a picture of a couple making love and then asked a series of questions about what they thought when they saw the image. Almost all the men described how they thought it would be like to have sex with the woman in the picture, and almost all women described how they thought it would be like to be the woman in the picture.
That may not be persuasive to you because you consider yourself lustful, libidinous, and sex-positive. You don’t need to have FEELINGS to have sex. But you do need more feelings than the average man does. Men sleep with women they’re not attracted to and don’t even like. Would you do that?
Finally, if randomly pulled studies from the internet aren’t enough to convince you that men want more sex outside of a relationship, look at your dating and relationship history. Look at your inbox and your text messages. Look at what I wrote earlier: “Dick pics. Men who push aggressively for sex without commitment. Guys who don’t like the word “no.”
I didn’t make that up. These are complaints I routinely hear from my women clients. Sounds to me like there are a few too many men who want sex with a total stranger - an idea many women find distasteful.
This is what too many women fail to accept and acknowledge.
This is why you remain surprised that a guy will try to get laid on the first few dates when you barely know him.
This is why you’re astonished he’ll sleep with you and never call again.
Because YOU would never act this way - you generally want to LIKE him before you have sex with him - it’s hard to fathom that anyone else would.
Yet men pursuing casual sex happens all the time. You know it. You hate it. So why do some double down on the idea that women want sex as much as men when there’s little data (apart from personal anecdotes) to support it?
I don’t know. Is it somehow “better” to have a higher sex drive? Honestly, if anybody looks bad by sleeping with anyone with a pulse, it’s men. Yet I’ve met plenty of women who want to believe “men want more sex” is a myth, rather than a patently obvious reality.
My wife said it best when we first met:
The exceptions don’t disprove the rule.
Your thoughts, below, are appreciated.
What I Got Wrong
Some SCATHING feedback this week! Fun!
From The Golden Bachelor is the Reality Show You’ve Been Waiting For:
The Golden Bachelor is the biggest insult I have had in years! As an old broad, I'm not stupid. Nor am I coy, desperate to marry, wanting to be cute, still trying to wear short skirts and baby doll sleeves, angling for a "nod" from some "him" and so on. That show is a giant yawn, and Gary is so "on" I'm afraid he's going to crack into two one of these days. There is nothing real about THAT reality show! All my friends "of an age" agree with me, and we are all 75 or older, have been married, had boyfriends, etc. etc. Most importantly, none of us are dead yet! The obsequiousness from the women on the show—some at least—makes my butt tired, as my dad used to say.
Please take back the lead-line from your latest email!
Okay. Change the channel, I guess?
(BTW, Gerry chose Theresa last night. Good call.)
Finally, from my Ode to Marriage post, where I shared the inner workings of my relationship with my wife on our 15th anniversary.
That's your anniversary love letter to your wife?
Her best quality that you "love" her for is that she can't say no? But even that's a flaw because no boundaries? And while you manage to criticize her for her rigidity and "lack of structure," your list of your own flaws sounds like a humble brag (except for the hyper critical, mansplaining know it all part - that does indeed seem to fit).
Frankly structure or not it sounds like she's getting a lot done, so I have some unsolicited marital advice for you: maybe you should take a moment to really see that and just say thank you. And while you're at it, ask yourself if it's menopause or "men"opause. Women get tired of giving and producing while the peanut gallery throws stones. What they want is to be celebrated and cut a break. And if they can't get that, they eventually just want to be left alone.
This is so far off-base that it doesn’t bruise me at all. I thank my wife every day for all she does for our family. I thank her for taco night. I thank her for doing the laundry. I probably tell her I love her 10x more than she tells me. So I can assure you, dear reader, that gratitude and appreciation aren’t a problem in the Katz household, and my wife isn’t leaving me any time soon. But thank you for the unsolicited marital advice!
You Can Also See Me On…
The Extraordinary Women Podcast
Sharri Harmel and I met for a thoughtful conversation about my favorite topics. Together, we challenge the notion that age is the most important factor in men’s dating choices and emphasize the importance of acceptance, appreciation, and admiration in relationships. In this episode, you will:
Discover practical advice for navigating relationships & dating with ease.
Learn how to make better choices when finding love and creating fulfilling relationships.
Understand the importance of creating a safe harbor in your relationships to foster intimacy and emotional stability.
Explore the power of embracing short-term pessimism while maintaining long-term optimism in your search for love.
Find hope and resilience in finding love, even when faced with challenges.
Enjoy!
You HAVE to Check Out…
TV - Schmigadoon - In Season 1, a modern couple (Keegan Michael Key and Cecily Strong) finds themselves stuck in a town patterned after the 1954 musical, Brigadoon. Season 2 places the protagonists in a town based on the musical, Chicago. If you are a theater person, you know about the genius of Kristen Chenoweth and Alan Cumming, and you appreciate laugh-out-loud funny lyrics, watch on Apple Plus with the captions on, as I do.
Movies - La La Land - As a former screenwriter, I love movies about Hollywood. Sunset Boulevard. The Artist. Birdman. Well, I played this Oscar-nominated for my kids and my 11-year-old son gave me a face like he’d rather watch anything in the world. By the end, he had tears in his eyes that the boy and the girl achieved their artistic dreams but lost something else. I guess this movie is for dreamers and romantics, like me and my son.
Books - Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver - I read The Poisonwood Bible twenty years ago and was blown away by the author’s ability to inhabit different characters in a missionary family in the Belgian Congo. Kingsolver’s latest Pulitzer Prize winner is written from the point of view of an uneducated boy in Appalachia, dealing with poverty, abuse, and addiction. You don’t have to be into the subject matter to appreciate going on a journey with a master storyteller.
Substack - “I’m a Professional Dad Who Leaned Out to Support His Wife’s Career.” - by Timothy B. Lee - a long, thoughtful treatise on the tradeoffs couples make to successfully raise a family. I think there’s going to be a lot more of this in the future as gender roles get less defined and women find themselves in higher-earning professions than many of their husbands.
The Honey Shot
Holly was in her 70s when she first enrolled in Love U. Here she is now, playing laser tag with her live-in boyfriend.
Do you have a dating question you want answered? A dissent? A Honey Shot? Email questions@evanmarckatz.com or click the button below and I’ll respond in a future Lovesplaining.
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Stumbled on this on The Atlantic last night: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/02/women-get-bored-sex-long-term-relationships/582736/ - also seems to indicate that women lose interest in sex more than men.
From my own experiential bias, the idea that it's a conspiracy/lie that men want more sex seems to have come from well-meaning/intentioned equality enthusiasts (who seem to lean on "we are the same" instead of "we deserve the same rights/considerations"), but perpetuated by many who benefit from women thinking we should/need to be less "stuck up" -- I'm thinking of Bridget Phetasy's piece "I regret being a slut" is a great exploration of that and is very relatable.
Personally, and again with the bias, I think what is a myth is that men won't ever turn down sex/will have sex with whoever. I definitely internalized that and as a result being turned down resulted in profound self esteem crises.
Also, if you're unfamiliar with the Coolidge effect the anecdote is a good summation of the variability preference but still acknowledges the female sex drive, since it's about a dissatisfied woman who wants more sex with her husband.