Women Struggle With Mongamy More Than Men

[Captain CornontheCob]

Since its beginnings, when it was called "sociobiology," evolutionary psychology has been wed to the theory that women are monogamous and men are promiscuous—that men have a compunction to spread their seed while women instinctually want to lock some guy down to raise her children. Feminist attempts to create sexual equality between men and women were doomed to fail, because they went against biology. Shrugging was encouraged, and the term "hard-wired" was mandatory.

But now the evidence is beginning to trickle in, and one sticky fact has thrown this entire theory into jeopardy: It's women and not men who get bored with monogamy faster. As Daniel Bergner writes in the New York Times, women are far more likely to lose interest in sex with their partners. This doesn’t necessarily translate into infidelity—a choice many reject because it’s so hurtful—but, Bergner reports, spouse-weary women often just avoid sex altogether.

Add to that the study Bergner cites showing women respond to novelty in pornographic fantasies, and another showing that women are much more turned on by fantasies of sex with strangers than friends. You’d be forgiven for concluding that the gender most interested in mixing it up might be…women.

What's really fascinating is that with this shift in understanding comes a profound shift in how we as a society are deciding to respond. There will be no shrugging of the shoulders and tossing around the word "hard-wired" to rationalize women disappointing male expectations of passionate monogamous sex. Instead, as Bergner writes, a ton of money is being spent on developing a drug women can take to restore their desire for their husbands. The drug, called Lybrido, is in clinical trials now with the hope of writing an FDA application by the end of the year.

Bergner also implies that women’s declining interest in monogamous sex is socially, not biologically, inflected. Since women receive messages “that sexual desire and expression are not necessarily positive,” he suggests, they tend to require additional stimuli—such as novelty—to get them in the mood. The implication? If we can normalize female desire in society at large, we can presumably encourage women to continue lusting after their partners.

Beckoned by ads on the radio and in newspapers and on Craigslist, in the fall of 2011 women across America began applying to be among the 420 subjects in the Lybrido and Lybridos studies. Plenty were turned away when the trials filled. Lack of lust, when it creates emotional distress, meets the psychiatric profession’s clinical criteria for H.S.D.D., or hypoactive sexual-desire disorder. Researchers have set its prevalence among women between the ages of about 20 and 60 at between 10 and 15 percent. When you count the women who don’t quite meet the elaborate clinical threshold, the rate rises to around 30 percent. For a minor fraction of all the sexually indifferent (or repelled), the condition has been lifelong, regardless of whom they’re with or how long they’ve been with them. For middle-aged or older women, menopause and its aftermath may play a role, though its importance is much debated. For a sizable segment of the undesiring, the most common antidepressants, the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, can be the culprit. Millions of American women are on S.S.R.I.'s, and many of them would have good use for a pill to revive the libido that has been chemically dulled as a side effect of the pill they take to buoy their mood.

But for many women, the cause of their sexual malaise appears to be monogamy itself. It is women much more than men who have H.S.D.D., who don’t feel heat for their steady partners. Evolutionary psychologists argue that this comes down to innate biology, that men are just made with stronger sex drives — so men will settle for the woman who’s always near. But the evidence for an inborn disparity in sexual motivation is debatable. A meta-analysis done by the psychologists Janet Hyde and Jennifer L. Petersen at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, incorporates more than 800 studies conducted between 1993 and 2007. It suggests that the very statistics evolutionary psychologists use to prove innate difference — like number of sexual partners or rates of masturbation — are heavily influenced by culture. All scientists really know is that the disparity in desire exists, at least after a relationship has lasted a while.

Dietrich Klusmann, a psychologist at the University of Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany, has provided a glimpse into the bedrooms of longtime couples. His surveys, involving a total of almost 2,500 subjects, comprise one of the few systematic comparisons of female and male desire at progressive stages of committed relationships. He shows women and men in new relationships reporting, on average, more or less equal lust for each other. But for women who’ve been with their partners between one and four years, a dive begins — and continues, leaving male desire far higher. (Within this plunge, there is a notable pattern: over time, women who don’t live with their partners retain their desire much more than women who do.)

http://www.slate.com/blogs/xx_facto..._get_bored_with_monogamy_faster_than_men.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/26/m...-be-a-pill-for-that.html?pagewanted=all&_r=2&

Communities thoughts on this?

 

[ProblemSolving]

Interesting article that applies to every man that wishes to marry an amazing woman and keep her sexually motivated long after the novelty has worn off. You may not get much feedback on this article since the majority of the board is interested in casual relationships, but this article will be relevant to many men sooner of later in their future relationships. It confirms what I believed for a while now and that is a woman needs to wonder about man for sexual attraction to remain hot. She needs to wonder about what he's up to when she's not around and wonder about how he truly feels about her, thus preserving some of that "sexy stranger attraction". The longer a relationship lasts, the tougher it is to keep that stranger mystique however. In my limited experience with long term relationships, here is what I believe helps maintain that initial sexual attraction for the long term:

Maintaining Your Fundamentals
If you worked out, dressed well, etc when you met her, you owe it to her to continue looking like a sexy beast.

More Sexy, Less Lovey Dovey
When your girl starts talking about how much she loves you and how much you mean to her, it's natural to want to reciprocate those feelings. However, while expressing your love verbally makes her feel really good, I find it kills some of the "stranger mystique" and with that some of her sexual desire. Instead, I like to emphasize her sexiness with lots of touch and playful ass smacks and vag grabs. She should know you love her by the way you treat her, not the words you say.

Time Apart
A woman will need some distance, so she can start wondering about you and build up her attraction for you again. This goes with texting as well, she doesn't need a play-by-play on what you're up to. Keep it vague, but kosher.

Get Sexually Creative
Get creative with locations, positions, etc. Be spontaneous.

Being Unreactive to Her Emotional Highs and Lows
Women can whip themselves into emotional storms, and it's our job to be the rock and unaffected by them. Reactive men look weak, and kill her lust.

No Arguing
It's so important to make sure she feels UNDERSTOOD when she comes to you with a complaint. If she begins to feel like you don't understand her, attraction for you will tank. She must know you understand where she's coming from, but under no means argue with her. Arguing creates separation and she doesn't care if you're logically correct. It's amazing how much drama can be avoided when you refuse to argue.


Furthermore, I think this article misses out on what MEN are doing or not doing, that are turning their women off. It's so easy for guys to be lulled into a false sense of security after a while and stop doing the things that attracted the girl in the first place.

 

[TheWiseFool]

Great stuff! Thank you for the post

 

[PinotNoir]

...another showing that women are much more turned on by fantasies of sex with strangers than friends...

Yet, if you go to ChatRoulette or some other site, there are about a million guys showing their penises. Of course, the most likely reason for this is because there are less women recording and uploading men, and women can more easily have (real) sex with a stranger. Still, there seems to be a lot of men just as turned on by strangers.

Don't forget that the statistics are only based on couples. Yet, this survey makes us believe that all women are more turned on by strangers; when really, it's just women in relationships according to this study. And of course, this is out of 2,500 couples in some unknown location.

With everyone being so different, I think that it probably evens out: 50/50. I tend to like the idea of sex with a stranger or a friend....

...women are far more likely to lose interest in sex with their partners...

This may not be directly related, but it made me think about how men and women change biologically in time. Men lose testosterone as they age, and women lose estrogen (and a bunch of other hormones, including testosterone) as they age (pre-/post- menopause). When both parties' sex drives diminish, I can imagine the man not performing so well and the woman not being so satisfied. Perhaps men should focus on boosting their testosterone naturally when they age (lifting weights, etc.), and both couples should discuss sexual desires and sexual insecurities.


I'm not sure if women or men struggle with monogamy the most, but I don't think this survey is definitive. I think both men and women love sex, and both men and women get bored and desire change. Perhaps, the key is that no one likes bad monogamy, but perhaps they would like monogamy if it provided enough adequate change? How do you make monogamy good? Is the desire for sexual change an inborn thing or something learned from upbringing or both? I don't know, just questions. If I were to marry a woman and live 300 years with her, of course I would be looking at hot 20-something-year-olds thinking about rubbing between the bed sheets. I guess the point of monogamy is not if you will or will not desire someone else, because eventually you will both look wrinkly and old, and you will desire someone else. I guess the point is whether you can love someone enough where you don't act on such desires. That's the real question. Can you have enough love for one person to trump desires?

There is something that I have come to agree with that's similar to this topic. Chase wrote in an article about how men are more romantic than women (it could have just been a small part of the article), and as I have gotten older, I have to agree. I and my guy friends growing up bought flowers for women, wrote them songs, etc., etc. Even if we were in a sexual relationship, I just didn't feel like the girl cared that much about romantic gestures, and she had little desire to do such a romantic act back. But, I only think that guys are more romantic than women in the current society we live in; I don't think it's an inborn trait. Given a different society, women may be more romantic or more equal.