Male sex drive arises from the build-up of sexual tension (through regular arousal). Men may be able to relieve tension to a degree by masturbating. But ultimately intercourse provides the most satisfying way for men to release their sexual emotions. This is a natural consequence of our reproductive biology. There is no point in men having erections unless they are also motivated to impregnate women. A man engages in intercourse in response to an instinctive urge but his mind focuses on the pleasure of penetration. If a man has a lover, he is likely to be more acutely aware of sexual frustration in his partner’s presence, when intercourse is not available, because he anticipates both the pleasure of thrusting and obtaining release.
For someone to have a sex drive there must be a trigger that generates an urge to engage in intercourse. Sex is natural for a man because the urge to engage in intercourse comes from his own body. Successful reproduction relies on the penis being an external erectile organ. Most men must also be motivated to penetrate a vagina (rather than an anus). Finally men must be aroused primarily by fertile women (who are capable of being impregnated).
A man is incentivised to engage in intercourse because of his erection (his arousal is triggered by the presence of a partner). He is motivated to enjoy the erotic pleasure of penetrating and thrusting into a lover’s body. He has a territorial instinct to deposit semen inside a body orifice (the vagina). Women cannot have the same urge by definition. They do not have an erect organ to penetrate with. The clitoris is only ever tumescent (rather than rigid) and is largely an internal organ. So women never experience an urge to penetrate another person’s body with an aroused sex organ. Nor are they aroused by such opportunities. So women have no comparable experience.
A sex drive involves a motivation to initiate intercourse. Men’s motivation is based on the male mating act we see in Nature. Penetrative sex completes a man’s arousal cycle (from erection to ejaculation) in a way that maximises the satisfaction a man obtains. Men enjoy the pleasure of penetrating a lover and the sexual release of orgasm. Intercourse involves much more risk for women and, very importantly, it has absolutely nothing to do with female orgasm. Firstly, the vagina is the wrong anatomy. Secondly, if stimulation is intended to cause orgasm then it must continue until orgasm is reached. But the stimulation of intercourse only lasts as long as a man can keep thrusting.
There are many triggers that cause male arousal throughout the day. This constant rearousal causes intense sexual frustration for many men if they have no opportunity to release sexual tension by ejaculating through intercourse. If women had a sex drive then they would also suffer all the difficulties and discrimination that men do. They would be persecuted for acting on their sexual instincts. We would see women charged with sexual abuse and assault in the same numbers as men. We would see women heckling men in the street and constantly hassling a lover for penetrative sex.
Some women do experience a residual thrusting instinct. When little girls engage in masturbatory activity, they lie face down with their hands between their legs and thrust with their hips. This is the instinctive mammalian thrusting action that we see when a male dog dry-humps. But there is a difference. The male dog is responding to a reproductive urge to ejaculate into a female. We can say that his behaviour is focused. If he had the opportunity, he would engage in the mating act for real. A girl can never have this opportunity. A girl’s behaviour is a subconscious reflex that is a hangover from how our anatomy evolved. Her behaviour is unfocused. She cannot penetrate anyone so she can never be the penetrator in the mating act. Little girls do not orgasm because female orgasm relies on using adult fantasies.
The suggestion that a woman can ask a man for a massage instead of intercourse or that a woman can end intercourse when she tires of it are evidence of women’s ignorance over male sex drive. Women are pressured into sex (or raped) because they don’t understand the strength of men’s sex drive. Male sex drive is a biological instinct not based on logical thinking. A drive is an irrepressible urge to achieve penetration regardless of the challenges or consequences and with no concern for others. To women this seems immoral because they have no comparable experience. A man’s sexuality is selfish because of his need for sexual release. This is how males have evolved. Men’s enjoyment of erotic stimuli defines their quality of life.
Women think that a sex drive is just about saying that sex is wonderful. Men don’t contradict this belief promoted by some women (those who are selling sex or enjoying the attention they get) because men like to support any evidence that might indicate women are just as sexually willing as men are.
Women need to understand that male sex drive is an urgent sexual need. And men need to understand that for women it isn’t. Understanding that women don’t have a sex drive is valuable for men. Men can free themselves from feeling inadequate about their inability to arouse a woman. Women are naturally emotional rather than sexual. No matter how hard a man tries he is never going to please her sexually in the way that she can please him.
If a man is truly intent on rewarding a woman for the pleasure she allows him to enjoy from her body, he should give some thought to the non-sexual activity and caring behaviours that he could provide in order to please her.
The fact is – and it’s a big one – across every culture and every eon it’s been shown in myriad ways that women are far less sexually driven than men. (Joan Sewell)
Excerpt from Learn About Sexuality (ISBN 978-0956-894748)