I'm sorry to say it but many women do not have the self-introspective power to know what they want. I've encountered this again and again when I've asked women questions.

I remember this one girl I dated, and I asked her point blank - what do you like to talk about with your best friend? and she just stated "everything" and I said "can you be more specific?" and she again said "everything" and I'm sighing on the inside. She could never pin things down, a lot of people have this problem where they will say one thing but behave contrary to what they think they want.

I wish I could find the article I read in playboy about a woman chastizing other women to take responsibiity for their own sex lives, orgasms, etc and she was right on the money. Same goes for both sexes. People increasingly have no sense anymore.

This isn't a problem for just women but I notice that people DON'T know themselves very well and I think this has a lot to due with the lack of maturity in both men and women.

And the fact that they they don't develop an eye towards self development until their older and wiser years and can accurately assess the foolhardyness of their youth.

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because evolution has selected for more testosterone than is healthy for the human species. Those who killed rather than got killed, those who were aggressive first lived to breed more...voila.
Naturally they don't see this as a problem.

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Alternet, stick to politics, stop writing about sex, you get it wrong every time...
we already went over the slut thing last year

Which women aren't wanting sex?? What world do you live on? None that I know, have ever known, that my wife knows are like this, its the freakin opposite!
jesus...

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Why would a woman want to be hankering after sex if there's no man in her life that she finds attractive and likeable?

I read the article but don't remember this point being made.

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From whence comes the proposition that it is somehow a duty or a "should be" that any whole, adult, individual 'be' or 'not be' sexual? From whence comes the assault by opprobrium and other social mechanisms?

That a particular adult, whole individual is or is not sexual is not an indictment of that individual; it is an indictment of the society that promotes these pressures upon him or her.

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So the difference between men's and women's sex drives is men's fault because they're not helping enough around the house?

In reality, you can probably trace it back to evolutionary factors. There has probably always been a gap for the same reason that male animals tend to be more sexually aggressive in the wild. But boring scientific explanations don't sell ad space, or in this case, give us another thing to blame the men for.

Men are certainly overworked, underpaid, and underappreciated, but according to the article, it doesn't seem to be affecting their sex drive. Go figure. Yet if women were freed-up, then they'd be in the mood more often.

Now we have it in writing, guys, but we should probably have it notarized before we take on more of the housework.

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Amanda summarized the problem in a nice way and I would say I agree with everything she said.

My girlfriend is from Ukraine and I must say her attitude about sex is so much different than those of American women! She's about ten pounds overweight, but never says anything derogatory about her body. We were surrounded by gorgeous women (in Kiev, Ukraine recently), and she never compared herself to any of them. (And I smartly ignored them all!) She has no hangups about her body and is, in fact, very passionate. Women in America are so hung up about their bodies, it's ridiculous! Perhaps it's partly due to the silly images of women in advertising (looking like toothpicks), but it's also partly due to the fact that women--like so many men, eat too much junk, don't exercise enough and simply don't take care of themselves! (But that's true for men too, so I think their sexual desire is MUCH to do with non-stop stimulation from their environment with sexy images of ladies. I would say this is absolutely true!!)

It's also true that there are so many images of sexy women in our environment (advertising and in pornography), that men have too often objectified women instead of loving them for who they are. Women, of course, want to be loved for who they are FIRST but men--having failed to learn this adequately, forget this fact. Obviously, women want to be treated like human beings with feelings and values. Men, sadly, haven't been able to ignore all those images (in advertising and elsewhere) and it shows in their relationships with women. This is one aspect of the lower libido of women that was NOT discussed in the article.

I've been in America for all of my 50 years, but can say the women of foreign countries, don't have the inhibitions that are found in too many American women. Stop worrying about what others (or society) thinks! Also, I say STOP chasing the dollar. Take care of your health FIRST so that your libido is adequate! Work on your self-esteem so that you are NOT controlled by what "others" think!

Yes, Men should TOTALLY stop viewing pornography and do their best to not objectify women! And if you're a women who's ten pounds overweight, so what? Love your body anyway! (And be sure you're exercising 6-10 hours per week, if you're medically able and want to reduce your risk of breast cancer, heart disease and other medical conditions!)

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How does that factor in to your study?

And the only partners they can find are fat men, which doesn't conjure up an appealing image does it?

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To be honest, I didn't reduce simply to look sexy. I just tried to stay healthy and in the process reduced from slightly overweight to slender. Plus I don't dress simply to look sexy but because of comfort and health reasons. If it makes me look better, no problem. As for men expecting so much from women in terms of looks, there's no rewarding them for doing it and what's more, they don't get to wear everything women can wear whereas we women are free to wear virtually everything men can wear. If a man or woman has to lose that fake "dignity" to attain fashion freedom, I say to hell with "dignity".

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women are archetypal whores. no difficulty there.

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which says just about everything about women being forced to commodify their bodies... & their natural sexual freedom for power & trinkets...


Ladylike: wait about 39 seconds for the Iceland FM 957 Listeners Choice Awards introductions to finish first... "what the fuck is ladylike if ladies like to do what the fuck they like, just like you... ?"




perspective, people.


Perspective.

The Jeff Farias Show: podcast

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Women in the "Lifestyle" have very active libidos! Everyone takes care of themselves, and a lot of the men are educated, hot and very, very into sex. Hangups among naked adults in groups is rare. Open sexuality is a wonderful tool that can whittle away even the most stubborn psychological damage caused by ignorant social mores.

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i would never get laid without them!

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It may simply be that American men are not exactly the sexiest people in the world.

Women in our culture put in a reasonable amount of effort to look attractive. But we men do just the opposite. We dress like dorks, let our pot bellies grow, wear baseball caps backward, stick studs through our noses, and bray like asses when we talk. We get into things women tend to hate, such as guns, cars, and professional sports.

Having egos the size of the Queen Mary probably doesn't make us much more attractive, either.

All in all, I think I can can grasp why many women would prefer a good George Cloony flick to our clumsy attentions.

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Riiiight, and we know there are no women involved in advertising, which of course is an area of business still stuck in "Mad Men" 1962... so it all makes sense... the devious plot by men to keep women uninterested in sex!

(Uh, wait a minute... why are we doing this again?)

Reading this right after Bristol Palin's statement that teenage abstinence is "unrealistic" makes for some interesting cognitive dissonance.

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...Daniel Bergner managed to avoid even entertaining the notion the our sexist society turns women off...

Thus we turn to "put men in a cage" Marcotte for reasoned explanations, and her theory amounts to the 'notion that crazy people do weird things because the devil told 'em to.'

Sorry: blaming society is just an excuse for lazy thinking. Try again: women are different, and each will have her own ideas about what is fun and engaging and satisfying, including when it comes to sex.

Just like men, one would suppose.

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The author has got hold of some facts and is using them to promote her own mental agenda which is that all men are insidiously evil and intrinsically "anti-women". She's almost right in that a lot of men in power and the media are evil. Where she has it wrong is twofold: the majority of women do have a strong libido, and the vaster majority of men are lousy in bed. She is painting men with the brush of malice when mere incompetence is sufficient to explain.

Just as men's silly little heads are filled with images of plastic inflated unreal babes, so are women's vulnerable minds filled with visions of hunky rich guys who gently and tirelessly pursue only them. If women learned how to recognize and say yes to actual nice guys their lives would improve greatly. If men learned how to actually be worth going to bed with, then the whole world would improve enormously.

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There is the pregnancy issue! Men don't see sex the same way as women, in part, because women ultimately bare the brunt of the potential outcome - and they know it, subconciously and conciously. In fact, some studies have shown that women's orgasm is tied to whether they want to get pregnant, or more specifically, whether they want that particular males child since womens orgasm facilitates the sperm into the fallopian tubes. It's not a concious decision, it's an instinctual one. So, women may simply be practicing a natural form of birth control by having a low libido.

Another factor, definately a social one, is how unstructured American social mores are. In many countries where gender roles are clearly defined and women care for the home and family while men work and deal in politics, women are far more sexual. I'm not advocating for that, I'm just saying that when women know they will have a male to provide, or when there are more tribal or social supports, women tend to be more sexual. Something to think about.

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Thanks for a VERY thougthful article. It made me want to check out Marcotte's blog, Pandagon.

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One unarguable fact is that, worldwide, many men do not want a willingly sexual woman because they do not want vaginal dilation.
They want tight and only tight, and if it's dry, so be it. This is one unmentioned rationale for the cult of the virgin and the disparagement of sexually active women.
Thus, the forcing of women in "relationshit" to provide sex on his demand and not hers, and men who refuse to respond to any woman who makes the first move. These guys will tell you that they don't think assertive women are sexy. We are, in fact, sexual, and that is exactly what they do not desire.

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have a lot to do with a person's libido. i couldnt even finish this article..so im not sure if that came up. with so many people in america completely sedated throughout both their waking and non waking hours..is anyone surprised about lack of sexual desire?

the only drug im on is my birth control. which since i started about 8 months ago has contributed to weight gain, severe moodiness, and lack of sex drive. its almost non existent. this is not who i was before my kids and even after. just since i started the birth control.

i have no doubt about the severe side effects of anti depressants anti anxiety sleep aides etc. have on sex drive. if just my birth control which is relatively safe and low levels of medication could do this to me, i imagine all of those zombies out there are content to pop another pill rather than participate in human contact or intimacy

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SLEEPING AROUND IS NOT FEMINISM.

Alternet seems to love indirectly suggesting that it is. Please study and understand feminism before making ignorant, self-defeating assumptions.

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" But despite going on for several pages on the issue, Daniel Bergner managed to avoid even entertaining the notion the our sexist society turns women off, preferring instead to dwell on portraying women as inherently perverse, narcissistic, and even masochistic. " -

seriously misrepresents the article. (at least there's a link. Use it, if you're actually interested in the subject.) It is a report on research, ALL BY WOMEN. It reports that the researchers are "confused," because their research is still in early stages and presents some rather surprising results.

Misrepresentation is a big turn-off, Ms. Marcotte. Time to stop reading, and take all further articles with a large grain of salt.

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Males will answer such hollow questions as what would you talk to you male friends about with:

sports

money

perhaps politics

and sports (because in a 1v1 political system, our electorate settles for sports).

Now, not all of "them dern mayles" will do that, nor will all of "them dern wimmen folk" talk ad nauseum about their image, makeup, politics, etc.

If you're looking for a mature conversation, seek out mature folks. If you're just looking to get your rocks off, seek out other with similar "rocks".

You describe a problem with your perception and your selection, rather than a problem for the rest of the thinking world to consider. You can correct your thinking. We can't.

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-men & women are different.

-Easy for average women to get laid

-Average men have to work at it, though it is becoming easier which each generation.

-Studs (alpha males) have it easy compared to the rest of men. That is why they are called studs and admired by both genders as they recognise the alpha male. Hail!

-Women find other women who are loose a threat. Understandable, as some women find men in a stable relationship attractive.

-Women get pregnant and men like to secure their genes. It is part of our nature.

-Women write and read about sex too much. Stop trying to analyse it, it is bound to kill the desire.

And no I didn't read the article fully. Its boring. lol

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Women have to be more careful and wary about sex because of the possibility of pregnancy - if they get pregnant they are 'saddled' with a child they may not have wanted for 18+ years...thus they have to be more careful about who they have sex with because of the lingering 'threat' of pregnancy.

Safe/legal abortions have changed things a whole lot in the last few decades in many countries (notice how abortion availability correlates strongly with the rise of feminism and 'women's lib'), but that hasn't undone tens of thousands of years of human evolution in which women had to be careful about sex because of the risk of unwanted pregnancy and the resultant two-plus decades of being forced to take care of that child.

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if you have any kind of libido.

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Ask any woman what her man expects from her and you will get a laundry list of needs.
They not only want someone to do their laundry, cook for them, but also sooth their wounded souls.
Women spend time not only taking care of the mundane needs, but also the social and emotional needs, fragilities.
Who picks up your mothers birthday gift? Buys and writes out every years X-mas cards?
Who consoles you when your boss treats you like shit? Who tells you the others are just assholes for not inviting you to the game?
Whos the one who more often asks 'Was it good for you?' does it matter since the play is over anyway? Wouldn't it have been more pertinent to ask sooner?
Is it any wonder women get a weird feeling about having sex with a man who requires so much pampering and self esteem building?
yes Women have their own insecurities, self doubts, but they are compounded when we are required to carry your emotional, and social, baggage too.
40 Hours and a pay check does not make a man, and certianly Not the head of a household. It's time men buck up the the other responsiblities required in life. If not why should we keep up on our 'wifely duties'? haven't you already been sucking off the teat of anothers emotional fortitude and social graces anyway?
come On Boys we are looking for Partners, not dependents or basket cases.
Yes Women seem innately engineered to be caregivers, even bask in the Need to be needed, but sometimes we'd like to think if it is Us who needs the support theres someone there who is willing and able step in for even a short while.And it's not just your socks.

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with low libidos? I sure don't seem to meet them.

#@!

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Out society is going too fast for real sex just reality TV sex. Speed is an aggressive male dominant fixation.

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The whole thing is brilliant. I've constantly wondered about this inexplicable reality. Whenever I've looked at my gender's side of the fence, I've often been repulsed by what I see over here.

Too many men are bamboozled, misled, lied to, deceived, and repeat this amongst ourselves. even in the essentialist groups men won't (or can't, I'm still trying to figure that out) come to terms with owning their shit. The few of us that have, all seem to end up in this blind alley with a very few blinkered women--women who have lost all hope in any sort of dialogue, let alone dialogue with a bunch of guys who woke up and figured out, 'oh shit, you mean the whole damned planet isn't all about me?' We barely have a vocabulary to work with, and sorry, sisters, the feminist lexicon is too gendered to allow us to be objective towards ourselves.

We men have work to do, but very very few brothers are finding that blind alley to work it out with us. And some of us still wonder about the notion that even if we could "fix" fellow males in significant number in the manner feminist women tell us we need to, would any straight women give a shit? So far our experiences show, not really.... and that is a pretty empty space to sit in.

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Yes men should help around the house more and appreciate how tired and exhausted women are, and listen to women better and communicate better.

But men and women are different, and a woman writing about men and what's wrong with them is not going to get it right. Men and women both need to stop blaming the opposite gender for not being more like ourselves.

Men are here and men are a part of the problem of our civilization, and men are goiing to have to be a part of the solution. If you are thinking ahead to a world where men are not needed and can be done away with, you are thinking way, way too far ahead to make sense, because if the next generation doesn't work out the issues of political economy and imperialism and ecology right we're all finished. So you - we - are going to have to work with men and women pretty much as they are, biologically speaking.

Men have a need for sex that at times becomes urgent and that builds up over time - quickly when we're young - when we get no release. It is a driving force, and it is a problem for men, and for women. It always has been, and different societies handle it in different ways. Men's and women's drives are not symmetrical. If you are a woman you are just not going to completely understand this, any more than I am ever really going to understand what it's like to be a woman. If you don't know what I mean, ask a man to try to explain "blue balls" to you.

The differences between men and women don't stop here; much has been written about it. Many feminists don't want to look at it, but it's real. Men are not just women with wrong ideas. It does no good to label men as bad. Men do indeed make bad women, even when we are good men! But that's what we have to work with. That's just how it is with us, an animal species that has acquired language and technology and civilization and is now on the brink of destroying our planet and ourselves

We have to find a way to deal with our differences and our impulses, and to work with each other and love and support each other, take each other as allies and partners in building a new cooperative and less aggressive society together, in spite of all the emotional hurdles that our biology places in the way.

This will require getting honest with ourselves and forgiving each other - and ourselves - for the way we are. And it will require communicating much better what we need from each other.

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I can't be bothered to read what the rest of this article says

However I did watch the film

Youth Without Youth

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0481797/

With my wife last night

I thought it was far superior to Benjamin Button

And I did take my Girlfriend to Malta before I met my wife

Oh and also

I reckon I pass the test

Where his Genitals were being examined by the Nazi's

Oh and so does my wife

How often do you do it?

Tony

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This article aspires to address universals of sex and gender, but does so without the required toolkit: a solid grounding in evolutionary biology and a sophisticated understanding of sociological phenomena based on comparative studies of human societies informed by cognate studies of primate groups. The foundation of all social science is comparison. An article like is more valuable as the representation of a position than as critical analysis.

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Actually, I've heard HS and college students use 'slut' and 'whore' for straight men. These terms will likely be gender-neutral eventually. New ones may take their place, though.

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...and neither am I. I'm a red-hot mama, and he's a cool, platonic sort of fellow. But we both try to make each other happy, and are grateful for the love we share. Here are some things we have learned through the ups and downs of our marriage: stop trying to keep tally of who is doing more in the relationship! It'll make you crazy. Laugh. Relax. Re-prioritize your household budget and occasionally hire a cleaning service if you "can't live in a pig-sty" and "she can." Quit trying to be Superman or Superwoman...you can't and still keep your sanity. Mature individuals take some responsibility for their own sexual pleasure, and don't depend on someone else to do it all for them. I take care of myself when he can't or doesn't feel like it. And though I choose to be physically faithful to him, I don't think open marriage is necessarily a bad thing, for some folks, anyway. Forget stereotypes! Just be yourself and allow others their space. Peace!

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This guy gets the point!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXmPFJqTHKo

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Good article. Distinctions in behaviour of women and men, including sexual behaviour, are caused by social gender inequality and discrimination of women, not by biological reasons. It is bad, that even in the Western countries there are so a lot of sexists, and supporters of idea of biological inequality, it is visible from comments.

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Children/pregnancy choices as a result of sex are retained as a political tool females secured as a cultural right. This declaration of regressive thinking of an 'oppressed' group along with polarization of the sexes is the result of indoctrinated denaturization. The female is as sexually driven if not more so than males. The ugly ones both inside and out seem to be the ones that have issues. Rejection, bad experiences and bad choices result in some pretty harrowing soul searches, jealousy and experimentation. There is a reason many males need viagra with a preference to go fishing or hunting, some for weeks on end. I am sure there is a federal grant/study/wimmen only program that should eleviate the problem.

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I see the "it's all the patriarchy's fault" argument is making the rounds again. I don't buy it. If Marcotte's thesis were correct, we should be able to look around the world and find that sexual desire among women was the lowest in societies that were the most sexist. For instance Latin American women should be relatively free from desire, and in places like Saudi Arabia and Iran, women's sexual desire should fall through the floor. I haven't seen one whit of evidence to suggest these things are true. But I would encourage anyone who expects to find such results to feel free to research the question further.

Ideally, women and men would average the same amount of desire for each other. Can we agree on that much? If not, then maybe *that* is part of the problem.

Another data point against Marcotte's thesis is that surveys of gay men find they have sex less frequently than their heterosexual counterparts, while gay women have sex less frequently than their heterosexual counterparts. Is it that lesbians are full of resentment over their partners' failure to do a fair share of the housework?

Marcotte complains that "Daniel Bergner managed to avoid even entertaining the notion the our sexist society turns women off, preferring instead to dwell on portraying women as inherently perverse, narcissistic, and even masochistic. After all, the weirder women seem, the easier it is to shrug off the responsibility of really understanding women, since it seems like an impossible task."

So men have a "responsibility" to understand women, according to Marcotte. One wonders whether she also believes women have a "responsibility" to make themselves understood. What if a woman doesn't *want* to be understood too well?

*Some* feminists have attacked the traditional double standard between sluttiness in straight men and women. But self-proclaimed feminists are badly divided on this point. Far too many of them *do* see female sluttiness as a bad thing -- at least if there are any men involved or watching. These are the women who can be found at the forefront of efforts to ban pornography and keep prostitution criminalized.

Advice urging women to worry about having slept with too many men seems to appear most often in magazine articles written by other women!

The claim that women "have to hear that having prior sexual experience makes us legitimate targets to rape" is dubious. Exactly *where* do women have to hear this? Do they have to hear it more often than men have to hear that they are potential rapists?

"The words 'whore' and 'slut' describe women, not men," Marcotte complains. So do something about it! Start applying these terms to men! Don't just say these words "describe women, not men" as if that were a fact written in stone.

Likewise the best antidote to the "Good Girls Don't" mythology is to not simply repeat as a mantra that we "live in a world where (this is the case)," but rather to forcefully assert that "Good Girls Do!" Does Marcotte not realize that by articulating the precepts of the bad old model but not the more sexually liberated alternatives, she is reinforcing those old standards?

Most unbelievable is her claim that "sexual desire in our culture is almost solely contextualized as something straight males have and not anyone else." Uh, have you perused any publications aimed at gay males recently, Amanda? Wait, scratch "recently" -- have you *ever* looked at a gay publication? Offhand, I can't think of any in which the presumption of desire *doesn't* figure heavily.

[See Part 2 for continuation of this message]

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Marcotte's point that imagery of "half dressed women greet straight men everywhere they turn," compared with relatively few images of sexy males aimed at women, is valid. Yet she again reinforces the old model she supposedly detests by stating that these "images of nubile (presumably straight) women... still signify 'sex' in our culture. Why doesn't she affirmatively portray men as sex objects?

"The well-known housework and child care gap?" What about the well-known life expectancy gap? The well-known dangerous occupations gap? The well-known (if usually taken for granted) initiative-taking gap when it comes to dating, gift-giving, etc.? The less-well-known child custody gap? Shouldn't these social inequalities be making men feel less desire? Many men resent female partners who they view as nagging, unappreciative of their work, refusing to take on their fair share of paying for dates, etc. Anyone who would credibly blame low female libido on female resentment must ask how much male resentment exists, and factor that into the equation.

I certainly haven't noticed much eagerness by reporters to chalk up observed differences between male and female behavior to biology. Biological causes typically seem to be acknowledged reluctantly if at all. I suspect this reluctance stems from a fear that acknowledging biological differences would turn back the clock to when women were denied legal and social equality. But this fear has no basis in present-day legal and social realities. Recognizing that biology plays a strong role in determining sexual behavior need not mean treating this role as immutable. We can still seek cultural and technological changes (e.g. the birth control pill) to alleviate these differences.

Marcotte suggests that low libido among women isn't a real problem. Yet she doesn't suggest that men have *too much* desire. Put these two facts together, and what emerges is the possibility that she *wants* men to have more sexual desire than women.

Maybe it would be a relief for *men* to *not* have so much desire for women. After all, this desire costs them a lot of time, money and energy, and often seems to be taken for granted -- when it isn't being held against them. Perhaps they might be relieved not to feel like they have to pursue women and be subjected to as much sexual rejection, hoop-jumping, and being judged as it often brings them?

Marcotte has a valid point about women being understimulated. It's now well documented that most women need clitoral stimulation, not just vaginal intercourse, to achieve orgasm, yet sex is still overwhelmingly portrayed as being about intercourse. On the other hand, there are still lots of men who would enjoy stimulating these under-stimulated women, if the women would give them the opportunity. But typically women seem to put less emphasis on being properly stimulated than on finding a long-term relationship. Biology strikes again! Feeling overworked, underpaid, underappreciated, and shamed about their bodies -- such feelings are hardly unique to women! They may feel more body shame on average, but men are catching up.

"If we treated the actual problems that women face, higher libidos would be the happy result, I'm sure," Marcotte insists. Well yes, when you think about it in a certain way. I'm sure it's true that *most* people would feel more like having sex if their partners, or society in general, did more to make them happy. Even men!

But assuming that lower female libido is caused by "male domination" won't solve anything. The reason few articles ask why female libido is lower than male libido on average is first of all because few articles acknowledge this truth in the first place. That in turn is because the biological explanations behind the phenomenon are not politically correct, and attempts like Marcotte's to find other explanations generally fall flat on their face.

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I accidentally typed "...surveys of gay men find they have sex less frequently than their heterosexual counterparts..."

That should have been "...surveys of gay men find they have sex MORE frequently than their heterosexual counterparts..."

Nothing like getting critical words backward to confuse an argument!

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Some of the responses to this article and the Bristol Palin article are full of it. Women soak in it from birth and it takes a conscious effort to repress it. Women soak in the threat of male violence from birth and it takes a conscious effort to repress it. Women "should" feel bad about abortion because giving birth is a condition of sexual activity. Women "should" get over being raped because women are designed for male use after all.

To quote Amanda Marcotte from her Pandagon site about the rape of a 13-year-old:
"Anti-choice sentiment is part of the rape culture, of course, because like rape apologists, anti-choicers view women as subhuman and our bodies as eligible for being commandeered for others to their own ends. So this isn’t a surprise."

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What if, what if . . . ?

It's an indicator of how male-dominated our society is that the fact that women have diminishing libidos and don't seem to care that much about it is treated as the problem, when in fact it's merely the symptom of a larger problem -- that women feel overworked, underpaid, underappreciated, understimulated, and shamed about their bodies.

What if you've got it all wrong? What if it's a sign that even in a sexist, patriarchal, sex-obsessed culture, many women manage to keep their minds clear and their lives in perspective?

If we treated the actual problems that women face, higher libidos would be the happy result, I'm sure.

If we treated the actual problems that women face, maybe more people (men, women, shrinks, the New York Times . . .) would acknowledge that many of us really don't think having a "low libido" is a problem? Maybe they'd get it through their heads that "diversity" isn't just about race, class, and gender?

Most progressives and feminists acknowledge that "normal" is relative, and in a screwed-up society, the norms are likely to be screwed up too. What if this less-than-earth-shattering insight applied to sex? What if what passes for "normal" libido in this society would be considered obsessive, compulsive, and generally unhealthy in a society where men didn't have power over women?

I figure it's like having, say, the occupants of a 1960s frat house get to define what's normal alcohol consumption for the whole society. They won't be happy till 90% of the population are raving, stumbling, falling-down drunks, and meanwhile they're telling the rest of us that we have an abnormally low interest in alcohol.

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Now that I have your attention, I do not mean to say that I am a creationist or any such thing. I thououghly believe in evolution theory.
What I meant to say is that there are statistical genetic differences between men and women and those differences are due to evolution.
If we can save the hot button issue of sexuality for a moment, consider height.
On the whole, men are taller than women.
Of course there are many individual women who are taller than men, and some of the tallest women are taller than most men, but the average woman is not as tall as the average men.
During a long evolutionary history of sexuality
in mammals in general, survival of the fittest meant basically those genes survive that can be passed on to the most offspring which can survive.
If a male was not sexually aroused easily, he was not as likely to produce offspring as those who were.
On the other hand, sexual arousal was not as necessary for a female. An unwilling female
could be made pregnant by a sexually aroused male and still pass on her genes.
Therefore it stands to reason that in general, males by nature are more easily sexually aroused than females although just as with height even though there are many females who are more easily aroused than a number of men, the average female probably has a lower libido than the average male.
Nurture is another issue, . Because of history and culture, the average woman probably has an even lower libido than she received by birth This is because their sexuality has been repressed due to the "slut" label given by men who wanted to make sure that the children they were putting their time and energy into raising indeed did bear their genes. As culture has changed, younger women have in many cases not been as exposed to this repression in the US as much as older women have.

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to a good extent this is true, at least from my perspective of being a transsexual woman in transition. the main hormone in women is estrogen, in men, testosterone; and testosterone tends to make one more sexually aggressive. as an MTF transsexual, I have noticed that before HRT, I had that so called " libido" driving me in one direction, that is craving sex and intimacy; but my mind was saying something else entirely and neither matched up.
on one hand, I always said , pre hormones, that I always wanted that special someone; yet every time I even came close, I'd do what it took to fuck things up! usually by being too "desperate" and " needy", both traits that seem to be common, and accepted in many women but not by the opposite biological sex-defined " gender" as in men.
women always frustrated me because I seemed to be looking for a woman whom would do all the asking, pay half the date, etc.; along with dressing and acting more " mannish" , or BUTCH. something that many butch/femme-butch lesbians do but not what most straight women like to do. before transition, I never really saw women as friends, just something to pursue for a relationship leading to that desired "happily ever after" seen in every romance movie. simply speaking, having the wrong libido for the right mind got in my way.
Soon as I began estrogen therapy and wearing skirts/women's clothes, though, I suddenly felt calmer and noticed that I was much better able to relate to women as friends; this from the perspective of being a woman relating to another woman. I first came out as transsexual, then later on, as a lesbian; realizing that yes, I wanted that one special woman, but that I now wanted her in a much different way now that the god damn evil libido was dead and out of the way! the first things I noticed was that sex alone became less important, friendship first- much more important! that and I now have, after nearly 3 years of HRT, that inner " maternal instinct" that seems to be making me more interested in doing whatever it takes to make a relationship work and yes; to take things SLOW AT FIRST!
And yes, there are many double standards , even today 40 years after feminism supposedly took over. reading a relationship writer in match.com last night, a woman writer, I was fucking simply both amazed and , thinking back to my " former life" , annoyed at the still present double standards present in heterosexual dating! This writer was describing how man and women perceive things differently by how they talk and what they mean.[ heterosexual] Women, she said, often say something much different than what they really mean because they do not want to " hurt the other person"; basically all , like the movie of same name; " sex, lies and videotape"
they tend to sit back and wait for the man to do the asking, the first phone call, all that shit- all of which to me, as a feminist; seems to be so very old fashioned 1950's "Fonzie Happy Days"! That and yes, women whom act sexually or otherwise " aggressive" are still seen as " sluts" while the men are still seen, like Fonzie; as STUDS! And still as it was back then, the geeky " Richie Cunningham's" do not get many dates!
Every time I read these fucking dating columns, I need ask " what the fuck ever happened to feminism? why is the guy still expected, in heterosexual dating situations, to do all the asking out and paying for the first date? hasn't anything ever changed since Gloria Steinhem protested and ripped off her bra, tossing it into the trash pail?
But the one thing I have noticed in myself, post HRT , is that I too, seem to have much more interest in that " Cinderella Fairy Tale". Just one with a lesbian twist where Prince-ess Jezebel comes riding up on her big black horse to the castle to rescue Princess Cinderella.

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It's difficult to believe that serious connections are being made between housework and an active sex drive. Our daughter is now 24, but when she was growing up, I, as a freelance writer, was able to spend as much if not more time raising her as was her mother. And we each have always had our own household chores. I suppose cultural misogyny could be used as a partial rationale, but even that seems a stretch to explain the natural process of decreased libido as one ages. Perhaps such discussions need to be approached from a more empirical perspective, with less of a socio-political ax to grind.

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Amanda, I was very disappointed in that NYT article. It did not seem to me to address the core of the problem I have perceived in my relationships with women until the last paragraphs, as you note.

My own perceptions, as a male with a mother, sisters, friends, lovers, a wife, a daughter and granddaughters is that you address the key issue - what can we expect in a context where female sexuality is so frightening to the culture at large that it is made to terrify the women in it.

Some years ago Carol Gilligan's "The Birth of Pleasure" in a few pages somewhere in the middle was able to lead me to a new understanding of what happens to girls as they become women - and of the role mothers play in this, alongside so many other factors.

I think it is very important, and I was almost disoriented, not just by the blindness of the author of the NYTimes article to it, but by the apparent lack of awareness of the women doing the research, as he described them. Was he so "bad" in this regard that he was incapable of hearing their voices when they approached their research from this point of view? Was he aware of it, but fearful of frightening his audience by addressing it forthrightly in his article? Or do these women themselves not give credence to the impact of women's family and culture on women's ability to freely experience and express their own sexuality? (I posted more on this in a long comment to the first comment on your article, above.)

Thank you for trying to set the record straight, anyway. Jim

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Very well done article! A few points:

1) most women of reproductive age in the US are on birth control pills; nothing kills libido quicker than the hormonal changes that result.

2) why is having a low sex drive even considered a problem? Isn't high sex drive the real problem here? Shouldn't we ask why men have dysfunctionally high sex drives?

3) fear of becoming pregnant is a real libido-killer for women; birth control can always fail, and she will be left to pick up the pieces alone.

4) I just don't think women are hormonally set up to experience sex as a recreational sport, like our culture teaches men to consider it. If she has an orgasm, she will emotionally bond to her partner, and feel real pain upon separation. Women aren't hormonally set up for one-night stands. If that is what her partner wants, why would she go along?

Red State Gal
RedStateFeminists

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Well ....... Some women cannot see any value in sex, but know most men require it. Many women are "normally sexual", and are very much emotionally inspired. Still there are some women very much like many men, visual and often able to loose themselves in the moment, irrespective of the emotional basis of the act. Of course this is a bare outline, and variations are the rule, but MY perception is people being physically different have varying erotic appreciation. This baseline can result in very different drives, and the once a week person will find a difficult time with the once or twice a day person. To generalize all men to all women is .... retarded.

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