A strong libido and borne by monogamy: the truth about men and sexuality


What do you are aware of female sexuality? Whatever it is, chances are, says Wednesday Martin, it’s all incorrect.” Most of what we’ve been taught by science about female sexuality is untrue ,” she says.” Starting with two basic affirmations: that men have a stronger libido than women, and that men struggle with monogamy more than girls do .”


Her starting-point is that research into human sexuality has been, historically, overwhelmingly male-centric;” notable sexologists”, beginning with the Carl Friedrich Otto Westphal( 1833 -1 890) are largely male. You have to scroll through another 25, including Sigmund Freud and Alfred Kinsey, before you arrive at a female name: Mary Calderone( 1904 -1 998 ), who championed sex education. And even in the subsequent 30 names there are only five girls, including both Virginia Johnson( partner of the famous, and male, William Masters ), and Shere Hite.

All these men made certain assumptions about women’s sexuality. It’s no surprise that it was Hite who revolutionised believing on female orgasm, arguing that it was not “dysfunctional” to fail to climax during intercourse. Crucial, too, says Martin, has been the work of Rosemary Basson, who realised that spontaneous desire, the kind sexologists had measured for years, was merely one type of relevant longing, and that responsive or triggered sex response is much more important for women. Measured on that scale it is about to change that women are, in fact, every bit as sexually arousable as men.

New findings demonstrating that females reported similar intensities of longing and arousal to humen, and” a real switching in guessing” about females and monogamy.” We were taught that humen were the ones who needed range, but exactly the opposite turns out to be the case ,” says Martin.” Overfamiliarisation with project partners and desexualisation kills women’s libido. We used to think it’s only men who became sexually borne after matrimony; is about to change that’s not true. It’s when women get married that it’s detrimental to their libido .”

‘ Men truly caring about what girls want sexually makes a huge difference ‘: Wednesday Martin. Photo: Christopher Lane for the Observer

Martin isn’t here to talk about her own relationship, but for the record she’s 53, has been married for 18 years, still lives in New York, and has two sons aged 17 and 10 who are, predictably enough, “mortified” at what their mother writes about. She hopes her work will help validate the feelings of the next generation of young lady:” It’s not about giving them permission to’ cheat ‘, not even dedicating them permission to refuse monogamy, but I hope it does give them permission to feel normal if they don’t like monogamy ,” she says. Because that’s the central fallacy: the faith that monogamy is harder for men than for women. In fact, argues Martin, exactly the opposite is the case.” Women crave novelty and assortment and escapade at least just as much as humen, and maybe more .” She talks me through what she says is the classic pathway for women when they marry or commit to one heterosexual partner long-term( the research has so far concentrated on heterosexual couples; more work is needed on homosexual women’s sexuality lives ).” A couple live together, their libidos are matched, and they have a lot of sexuality. But after a year, two years, maybe three years, what tends to happen is that the woman’s passion falls more quickly than the man’s. At that point the woman supposes,’ I don’t like sexuality any more .’ But what, in fact, is happening is that she is having a hard time with monogamy; because women get bored with one partner more quickly than humen do .”

So women are socialised to believe that they’ve gone off sexuality, when in fact they’re craving assortment. Instead of being the brake on passion, says Martin, the female half of the long-term partnership is the key to a more adventurous and arousing sexuality life. What it’s all about, she explains, is the existence of the only wholly pleasure-seeking organ in the human repertoire, the clitoris. For her portrait, she wears a necklace shaped like one.” Women evolved to seek out pleasure, women are multiply orgasmic, women’s biology decides them up to seek out pleasure ,” says Martin.” The clitoris has a very important back narrative about female human sexuality which is that our sex evolved for the purpose of adventure .”

Another element in the mix, she says, was the finding that a third of women who are having an extramarital relationship say their matrimony or long-term partnership is happy or very pleased about.” So we need to understand that girls aren’t just seeking assortment because they’re unhappy, they’re seeking it because they need assortment and novelty ,” she says.

What does all this entail, in a practical sense, for our sex lives? Martin doesn’t like the word “cheating”- she prefers to use the term “step out”- and that’s what some females decide to do. But it’s not the only solution.” There are many women who are suffering but don’t want to leave their relationship or to step out, and they’ve not yet detected vibrators ,” says Martin.” I can’t tell you how many females have told me they never had a vibrator- there’s a generation in their 40 s and 50 s who missed the vibrator revolution and never caught up. And there are all these new vibrators out there- and anything new you are able to introduce will make a big difference to your sexuality life .” Another route forward can be for a couple opening hours their relationship in some manner, and invite someone else in. And she has other ideas up her sleeve that seem a lot less risque, like going on a zip wire, taking up dance lessons or going scuba diving together. Why does that help?” Research on the neurochemicals has indicated that our sexual desire is triggered when we do something new with a long-term partner. A thrilling activity is ideal: it can give you a wash of hormones that makes you feel new to one another again .”

Indeed, one of the purposes of the narrative seems to be that humen are too quick to settle for “the usual”( which makes sense now we know they’re not the ones who are bored ); but opening up the conversation about what else they could try can relight the fuse. The trick here, counselings Martin, is for them to keep on and on asking.” Men truly caring about what women want sexually makes a huge difference. You might need to have the conversation over and over, and women might keep saying they’re happy with things as they are- but keep asking, and eventually girls will open up about their sexual fictions. We find that their menus are more varied than men’s. Men are shocked, but also gratified and thrilled, when they find out how sexually exciting we can be when we get past the inhibitions that have been socialised into us .”

Paradoxically, there’s been a parallel change in attitudes towards extramarital affairs and divorce alongside the growing studies into women’s sexuality. Martin quotes the US statistics: in 1976, fewer than half of well-educated Americans supposed having an affair was always wrong; by 2013, that figure was 91%.” We’ve become a lot less tolerant of infidelity in recent years ,” says Martin.” And meanwhile divorce has become much more common: a significant number of people in the 1970 s who guessed affairs were OK, supposed divorce was incorrect .”

So at the precise moment science exposes girls have the bigger “need” to be sexually adventurous, society fastens down on infidelity. And that, says Martin, is hugely significant.” The way we feel about women who reject monogamy is a vital metric for how we feel about equality .” She’s talking, she says, about women who openly reject monogamy by being polyamorous. The overwhelming tale we buy into, after all, is that men who “cheat” are just” humen being humen “; women who “step out” are far more likely to be criticised and shamed. Ultimately, though, they’re challenging something very deep in society’s expectations of them- and perhaps their posture is the most radical female posture of all.


Read more: www.theguardian.com

Leave a Reply
