A Diversion from Politics: Do Men and Women Have the Same Sex Drive?

I thought I would take a diversion from politics this morning.  Yesterday, conservative me was in a Broad Ripple watering hole surrounded by three liberals friends.  The issue came up about a survey in a magazine that could be interpreted as sending the message to young women that they were not normal if they were not engaging in promiscuous behavior.  I had an ally in the argument that the survey could send the wrong message to young women.

Then, in the process of making a point, I stated that men on average had a stronger sex drive than women.  You would have thought I said the world was flat.  I suddenly found myself the lone voice for this position.

So I considered the long-shot possibility I was wrong and did some research on the subject.  Turns out the evidence overwhelmingly backs my position.  WebMD has a long article on the subject. This is how it starts out:

Birds do it, bees do it, and men do it any old time. But women will only do it if the candles are scented just right -- and their partner has done the dishes first. A stereotype, sure, but is it true? Do men really have stronger sex drives than women?

Well, yes, they do. Study after study illustrates that men's sex drives are not only stronger than women's, but much more straightforward. The sources of women's libidos, by contrast, are much more difficult to pin down.

...

The lengthy article then goes on and talks about various factors and studies that support the conclusion not only that they have different sex drives, but that for women sex is much more of an emotional experience than it is for men.

As far as the sex drives, a friend of mine put it best when he said, "Who do female prostitutes service?"  Men.  Who do male prostitutes service?"  Men.  Sure there are exceptions, but those amount to a tiny fraction of such activities and those exceptions do not swallow the general rule.

In pointing out the differences in the sexes, I did not mean to excuse male promiscuity or married men having affairs.  I don't buy for a second the claim some men make that they can't control their animal urges.  Rather my point was that, for women, sex is much more likely to be an emotional experience than it is with men, which reasons are outlined in the WebMD article.  Thus, the emotional consequences for engaging in random romps in the hay are usually more substantial for women than it is for men.  For women seeking sexual partners in a night on the town, it usually isn't about raging hormones but rather about the need for a connection with another human being, often simply an emotional connection.

It's nice to hold onto the liberal fantasy that women and men are the same when it comes to sex.  But medical science and everyday observation say that fantasy is not reality.