The Hireling Shepherd (1851) by William Holman Hunt. Credit: Print Collector/Getty Images
Do men have a stronger sex drive than women? The question came up last week because, in one of those quirky moments that modern life provides where you’re not sure if you’re living in a sitcom, the actress Alyssa Milano called on women to start a sex strike in protest to US abortion laws.
It kicked up a great big fuss, because various other women said: wait, hang on, I enjoy sex, and I don’t think it’s supposed to be a thing that I grant to a man like a favour. But it also caused a lot of hilarity, when a bunch of men said things like “women may CLAIM to like sex, but you really don’t”, or “I have yet to meet a hetero woman who enthusiastically participates in sex”. (I’m not going to link: they’ve been piled on enough already.)
As people pointed out, this is what the kids today call a spectacular self-own. “I have yet to meet a hetero woman who enthusiastically participates in sex WITH ME”, they rephrased. Or, alternatively, “People hate food, it’s a known fact! Just ask anyone I’ve ever cooked for.”
It’s obviously true that the “women don’t enjoy sex” guys are wrong: women do enjoy sex. A slightly more interesting question is whether, on average, they want it as much as men do. And the answer, there, is almost certainly no.
The most famous research on the subject is a 2001 meta-analysis by Roy Baumeister, Kathleen Catanese, and Kathleen Vohs, combining the results of 150 earlier studies. You can’t measure “sex drive” directly, so the study looked at a wide range of proxy measures. They found that men had more frequent sexual “thoughts, fantasies, and spontaneous arousal” – for instance, one study they looked at reported that “nearly all the men (91%) but only half the women (52%) experienced sexual desire several times a week or more”.
Men’s “desired frequency of sex” was higher, too, throughout the lifetime of a relationship: one study found that “wives consistently reported that they were quite satisfied with the amount of sex they had in their marriages, but men on average wished for about a 50% increase”, another that “a majority of husbands (60%) but only a minority of wives (32%) said they would prefer to have sex more often”.
And men masturbated more frequently. The authors admit that this could be due to social disapproval of female masturbation. But they also argue that male masturbation is discouraged just as much as female – “it’ll make you go blind”, and so on – and point out that boys were more likely to have “discovered it themselves”, meaning it’s not that boys are being “taught” how to do it and girls aren’t. “Anyone who wants to masturbate can probably figure out how to do it,” they say.
Women are more willing to go without sex: notably, female clergy do better at keeping to their vows. Sexual desire emerges earlier in boys than in girls, despite girls usually reaching puberty and physical sexual maturity earlier than boys.
Men initiate sex with their partners around twice or three times as often, and refuse it less often. One experimental study had “a moderately attractive, opposite-sex” person approach men and women and offer sex that evening; 100% of women refused, compared to just 25% of men.
Men are more interested in a wider range of sexual practices. Men sacrificed more for sexual pleasure, whether in financial terms – they spent more on pornography – or in terms of risk – they were more willing to have extramarital sex. In general, men have more “favourable attitudes to sex”, being more permissive regarding casual sex and promiscuous sex. And overall, men are less likely to report low sexual desire and more likely to rate their level of sex drive highly.
And, interestingly, gay men have sex more often than lesbian women: 47% reported having sex more often than once a week, compared to 32% of lesbians.
It’s not just this one study, for the record. The most recent British National Survey of Sexual Attitudes and Lifestyles (NATSAL) found that 22% of British women aged 16 to 74 had masturbated in the last four weeks, compared to 50% of men; the ratio was consistent across ages. Women were roughly twice as likely to report lack of sexual interest, lack of arousal during sex, or lack of enjoyment during sex. Men were about 30% more likely than women were (61% to 47%) to want sex “much more” or “a bit more” often than they currently get it.
Another, earlier (1993) meta-analysis (by two female researchers) found large gender differences in masturbation practices and attitudes to casual sex. And, fascinatingly, a 1995 study (which was admittedly very small so should be treated with caution) found that when female-to-male transgender people were given androgen hormones as part of their transition, their “sexual arousability” went up; likewise, when male-to-female transgender people were deprived of the same hormones, their sexual arousability went down. (The same effect was seen in levels of aggression and spatial ability performance, while the opposite effect was found in verbal fluency.) This is backed up by anecdotes from trans men, if you want to read about what it feels like.
This isn’t the same as saying that men enjoy sex more than women. I suspect that’s like asking whether alcoholics enjoy a drink more than social drinkers do: “enjoy” isn’t quite the right word.
And, of course, it’s not that all men want sex more than all women. It’s two overlapping bell curves, in the same way that men are usually taller than women, but some women are taller than men.
It also doesn’t necessarily mean that the difference is innate, although the transgender androgen response (if it’s real) sort of hints that it is. There may well be socialisation or cultural effects as well – there is some evidence, for instance, that certain fetishes are affected by how many siblings you have and how old they are. But many of the differences in sex drive are large effects, and most research these days finds that even major events like schooling and parenting have only a modest impact on other aspects of personality, so I would be surprised if socialisation is the only driver.
The thing is, we shouldn’t really be surprised. Men are the ones who commit sexual assaults and rapes, who pay for sex, who visit porn sites, who are found dead wearing stockings and suspenders with an orange in their mouth (deaths from autoerotic asphyxiation are overwhelmingly men).
You can explain this with complex hypotheses about how society is set up, or you can reach for the much simpler explanation, which is that men want sex, on average, more than women do.
And, of course, if it is innate, then that makes sense from an evolutionary point of view, because – as in almost all other sexually reproducing species – females have to invest much more in pregnancy and birth (and, often, childrearing) than males do.
Neither men’s nor women’s sex drives are right or wrong; they just are. And both the “women don’t want or enjoy sex” guys and the “actually women want sex just as much as men” lot are ignoring the evidence. There is wide and overlapping variation in how much women (and men) want sex; it’s just that, in men’s case, this variation is at the higher end of the spectrum.
All this makes Alyssa Milano’s plan rather more understandable. The average woman is more likely to be able to successfully stick to a sex strike (they are more willing to forego sex), and the average man is much more likely to give into it (they are more willing to make sacrifices for sexual pleasure). The Iroquois in 1600 knew this and so did the Kenyan women in 2009. I think it’s a bit of a weird idea – though I would say that, being a man – but you can’t deny the sex strike’s leverage.
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SubscribeI have to wonder, albeit there being plenty of evidence for why men want sex more often, is it also possible that women want sex less often because they are more satisfied when they do have it? Women have twice as many nerve endings in their c******s (8,000) than the entire p***s (4,000), so feel twice as much pleasure which builds up (and is enjoyed) over a longer period (roughly 12-35 minutes until orgasm compared to 6 minutes for men), their orgasms last up to 15-20 seconds (compared to 3-5 seconds for men), their orgasms (and the climactic pleasure from them) are felt throughout the entire body, and they are capable of having multiples. Not only this, but scientifically all areas of the brain are active whilst a woman is orgasming, but only the animal parts of the brain light up when men are orgasming.
This article seems to contain nothing but waffle. We KNOW men want sex more than women but we just want to know WHY!
Exactly… why ?? I am all for an equal sex drive for men and women. Divorce rates would go down, happy couples everywhere.
Women themselves don’t know why. They are also unhappy with the situation, so it is hard to believe that they would know how to fix it, yet don’t do it. Perhaps it is that male and female have irreconcilable libidos, period. If so, then the best that we can hope for is respect for each other’s nature, and some practical arrangement that makes human sex life less painful and frustrating than it has been.
When I read through this article I read how often women report wanting sex and so on. My experience as a woman has been that I absolutely should not express my sexuality at all. To me it seems akin to the way lots of men are taught not to express emotion overtly. I’ve been taught that sex is all about the man and that I should just do whatever he likes, being careful not to be a s**t, and just discreetly take care of things on my own. It’s really unhealthy. I can’t even tell long term partners what I like, so I can’t orgasm or really get into it. Up until recently my partners didn’t know how often I masturbated because I didn’t want to hurt their feelings. I think there a lot of women like me and all the rules and expectations take a lot of the joy out of sex. I don’t know about anybody else, but that could probably explain a lot of the results in this article. Lastly, hormonal birth control puts a huge dent in my sex drive and there’s a sort of sense of sex being a place you have to be very careful because myself, every woman in my immediate family, and a lot of my friends have been sexually assaulted. It has been soured to some extent.
Andrew Lowers point and, in its simplest form, men naturally have more testosterone and other male hormones. In line with evolution, men want to spread their seed as much as possible, whereas women have less testosterone as they have to be selective of (what they perceive to be ) the alpha male, and due to less testosterone, want sex less often when she’s found a mate. Women have a more emotional response to sex too – they do it because of the intense emotional connection they feel during it, caused by higher oxytocin levels than what men produce. When women orgasm, every area of the brain is active, including the human and emotional parts, a time when women feel most connected to their partners. When men orgasm, only the animal parts of the brain activate (i.e. “must, spread, seed”, like how an animal would think).
Yes! Sex, for Women is a “whole body” experience. We feel our orgasms throughout our: Body, Mind, and Spirit. I believe that it’s a “Chakra” thing. They Build-up longer, and Last, longer! Whereas, Male’s orgasms last for seconds: Ejaculate, and move on…or fall asleep 🙂
Yeah the studies are in some way outdated, I think that should clear some misconception.
It’s good to read an article based on evidence, instead if gender politics. As a man, I had my own experiences and drew objective conclusions very much aligned with the author’s. Yet the real question remains: How should men and women deal with this imbalance? It is plain to see that no one will be happy until both genders are happy and satisfied with their sex lives. The current gender war is unfortunately preventing adult discussion, and there is a risk of unfixable break-up due to MeToo, MGTOW, incels, Red Pill and the advent of AI sex (I.e. robots). Sad times indeed.
Yes why ?? Many relationship issues would dissapear if women wanted sex as much as men.
I agree with a lot of what this article says.. However, I think you’re underestimating societies impact on how often females participate in sex.
For instance, when a girl gets drunk, there’s a much higher likelyhood she would agree to sex with someone she might not consider when sober, and that usually comes down to societal factors imo. If you told a girl she would definitely not get pregnant (or put her on birth control), I’m not sure it would increase how likely she is to agree to sex. However, if you told her no one would ever know if you had sex, I feel like that could have a larger impact.
Of course all of these differ with each individual, but in my experience thats how that majority seem to behave.
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It is a very good article. I am going through it carefully then I will come back to comment more views.