Alan: In light of section #3, it looks to me like women -- whether by genetic mandate or by strategic calculation -- are more interested in having sex to "make their catch" than in long-term propagation of an active sexual relationship.
Five Reasons You Should Have Sex With Your Husband Every Night
In fact, the only subculture in America that may be more sex-centric than Hollywood is the religious right, which sees sex as having the power to bring on floods, droughts, economic collapse and Armageddon. In this worldview, unless we all adhere to an Iron Age script, the world will become a raging orgy of sex without consequences! And God will get very, very angry because He cares enormously about what we humans do with our hoo-has and weenies.
Capitalists who see sexual pleasure as an addictive commodity that can be refined and sold—like sugar or heroin—and devout conservatives who offer salvation from the moral abyss via procreative purity are not, as the religious conservatives like to think, opposites. In fact, their sex obsessions might be better thought of as two sides of the same coin.
What gets lost in all of the frenzy about sex—pro and con—is that many Americans simply don’t care. A large, and largely silent, minority thinks the whole sex obsession is weird, boring or even annoying. As psychologists say, the opposite of love isn’t hate—it is indifference, which is what millions of Americans feel about sex.
1. Young people have sex later and less often than popular media or abstinence advocates would have us believe. If real life were a coming-of-age movie, popular high school students would spend most of their energy getting laid and the rest would wish they were popular. In movies, high schoolers act a lot like stereotypical members of fraternities and sororities—partying, getting drunk and hitting on each other. They have hot clothes and hot cars, but almost no family life or responsibilities.
In the real world, teens spend most of their waking time going to classes, doing homework, doing chores, doing sports, babysitting siblings, going to church, volunteering, working and eating. A big part of their energy goes into relationships with people who aren’t other teens—like parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters, coaches, counselors, youth pastors, bosses, co-workers and more. They are busy! The average teen doesn’t have sex for the first time until age 17, or around the senior year in high school—in other words, as he or she is transitioning to the next phase of life. A fifth of young people have not had sex when they turn 21.
When conservatives recently learned about pregnancy prevention services offered by school-based clinics, they took to the airwaves ranting about 11-year-olds seeking IUDs behind the backs of their loving parents. In reality, fewer than 2 percent of adolescents initiate sex before their 12th birthday—and the younger the kid, the more likely any sexual encounter was actually exploitation or abuse. (This is why young people in some states have the legal right to seek confidential reproductive healthcare at any age and why caregivers have mandatory reporting requirements when they suspect abuse.)
By their 16th birthday, about a third of kids have had a wanted sexual encounter, but that doesn’t mean they are having sex regularly. Contrary to media hype, today’s adolescents are having less and later sex than any cohort in the last 25 years. The reason health and mental health experts want developmentally appropriate sexual education starting in grade school and birth control access throughout the teen years is because kids need information and access before they become sexually active. Parents worry that conversations with kids about sex and pregnancy will somehow “bring it on,” but the opposite is true. Candid conversations with either educators or parents tend to delay sexual initiation.
2. Waning libido is a normal part of aging for both males and females. Sex drive that declines over time can feel like a failure—or like a disorder—because we often are told that it is. Scattered across the Internet lie articles discussing medical (or psychosocial) causes and cures for sexual indifference. “A Lively Libido Isn’t Reserved for the Young,” one New York Times headline reassured. But the fact is, as people age, decreased interest in sex is as normal as decreased interest in jumping rope or building tree forts.
Several years ago, a group of my friends consisting of couples in their 40s got into a late night conversation about sex and discovered that, in each pair, one partner had little interest in sex—to the disappointment of the other. Later, I described the conversation to an older relative who seemed to be enjoying his retirement years with his wife. “Don’t worry,” he joked. “Eventually you both forget that you ever had any interest and then things are balanced again.” While most people have sex during their 20s once or twice per week, for those 70 and older, average sexual frequency is around 10 times per year. As a therapist, I once had a client in her 70s who met the man of her dreams, an 80-year-old who wanted to have sex every day—just like her. They, and I, considered it a match made in heaven.
Physically, decreases in libido are associated with declines in testosterone. In females, the ovaries produce half of the body’s testosterone and as ovarian function ceases many women experience a corresponding drop in sexual interest. Most men maintain some level of sexual desire into their 60s and 70s but, as with women, changes in testosterone correspond to changes in interest. That said, hormones are just one of many factors in the mix. Stress, depression or medical conditions associated with aging like diabetes or heart disease or cognitive decline can quash sexual desire altogether. Sometimes loss of interest in sex is reversible, sometimes not.
Many couples enjoy sex in their golden years, despite desire that is less frequent or less urgent. But even those who enjoy sex may be on the “semi-annual plan.” Champions of elder sex generally talk about couples being able to maintain physical intimacy and pleasure, not regain the lust of youth.
3. As early as the 20s, the longer women are in relationships the more they tend to lose interest in sex. When couples seek sex therapy, the most common complaint voiced by women is low interest in sex—known in clinical terms as “hypoactive sexual desire.” According to researcher Sarah Murray, sexologists are changing how they think about this problem. “The concept of an absolute level of ‘normal’ or ‘low’ sexual desire is being replaced by the view that low sexual desire is relative to one’s partner’s level of desire.” In other words, it’s only a problem if one or both partners think it’s a problem.
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