In this installment of our Myth Busting series, we tear down the popular misconception that women possess less sexual desire than men. We don’t want to spoil the whole article for you: But it just isn’t true, and we’re going to show you why. So, sit back and get ready to see this myth shattered.
While we’ll be painting with a broad brush in discussing women and men in this article, please know that we acknowledge (and celebrate) the wide range of gender identities and sexual orientations out there. These are generalities (and myths, anyway) — we know that one size certainly doesn’t fit all!
Sex on the Brain
Pop quiz: How often do men think about sex? According to our research, the average man thinks about sex every 6.2 seconds. OK, we totally made that statistic up, but you get the idea. Men love to think about sex. We mean they loooooooove it!
How often do men want sex? Let’s make this crystal clear for you. A man sees a stranger walk across the parking lot and thinks to himself, “I’d sure like to have sex with her.” While watching old episodes of “Friends”: “I’d sure like to have sex with Rachel. Or Monica. Or Phoebe. Or Joey. Not Chandler.” Sitting at work working on those TPS reports the boss wants by Friday: “I’d sure like to have sex.”
How often do women think about sex? A lot more often than you might expect. Actual studies performed by university eggheads smarter than us have concluded that men tend to think about sex nearly twice an hour. Women, they say, think about getting it on about once every 51 minutes. So, there’s not as much of a gap as most people might think.
But if everybody’s thinking about sex, why the huge disconnect in our belief that women want it far less often than men?
Shall We Play a Game?
Women and men often have wildly different ideas about what makes sex good. This is often the root of many issues that couples have which can lead to sexual frustration. Men’s sexual desire leads them to be aroused and ready to go very quickly. Women, on the other hand, take a longer road toward arousal.
Women want to feel desired. The potential dilemma here is that her partner’s level of sexual desire for her is not necessarily the key factor. Her lover could be instantly (or even perpetually) on fire, wanting her with the heat of a thousand suns at the drop of a hat, but to her, this sexual desire needs time to grow. The problem is, if she’s not feeling it herself quickly enough, she can appear to her partner as unmoved by their advances or worse, disinterested. Her partner might then feel discouraged or even embarrassed, and pull away. Meanwhile our heroine is also left discouraged even though she was anticipating things heating up. Her lover, not understanding her needs, stopped the show during the opening credits, while she was really looking forward to the full story.
It’s the chase and the buildup that fuels us all, but for men, the chase is often a sprint, and the buildup lasts only as long as it takes to get hard. Women prefer a longer, slower chase and a more deliberate buildup. The chase is a large part of what makes many women feel desired. “Playing hard to get” raises her excitement when she sees a partner pursuing her.
This can also send a mixed message, especially to a committed, long-term lover who might believe the chase ended long ago. He may expect her to know that his desire is easily and readily piqued and can’t understand why she seems less interested in getting down and dirty than she once was.
It’s Complicated, but Not THAT Complicated
Women are typically much more complex emotionally than men. In fact, in addition to regularly thinking about sex, men also spend more time than women thinking about their other basic needs such as hunger or sleep.
Men are often linear thinkers, and this serves them well in most parts of their life. However, when they apply this linear/logical approach to the bedroom, it tends to not work out very well. “Just tell me what you want” is a very pragmatic strategy in a man’s mind for learning how to get his partner in the mood. Regardless of how willing (and quite honestly, enthusiastic) he is to follow the official “Women’s Secret Guide to Great Sex”, few statements are more likely to turn a woman off than this blatant request for a hand-holding instruction manual.
She doesn’t want to HAVE to tell her partner what to do. It’s akin to someone asking to plan your own surprise party — boring!. And the real kicker, and a major point of frustration, is that she might not even know what to say even if she wanted to tell them.
How often do women want sex? As often as it suits them, and that can be more frequently than many people realize. A woman might not have any less sexual desire or drive than her partner does, but the key to unlocking that desire is just a bit more involved. Foreplay is massively important for women. That’s where the buildup we discussed earlier comes into action. Taking one’s time with their female partner will almost certainly yield positive results. Soft touches and gentle kisses are always a good bet to get things going early. You can raise the stakes even more by incorporating her favorite adult sex toys into foreplay.
Take the Time to Understand
Nature made men and women different. So different are the genders , that it almost seems like some higher power created us as one practical joke to consistently laugh at. The fact that we naturally lack the instinct to innately understand our partner’s sexual desire is quite simply, cruel. We are left to guess, and at this we manage to fail more often than not. This guessing game leads to many of the misconceptions that build these sexual myths we try so hard to crush. Put in the work to learn what your partner enjoys, talk it out, experiment. And as always, have fun! To quote the great Funkadelic: “Free your mind, and your ass will follow.”
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