I’ve recently heard a woman say that while she wants to have sex she has next to no sex drive (due to side-effects from hormonal contraceptives) and so ends up rarely having sex. She couldn’t explain it to me; I suppose I’m a typical Neanderthal male. Isn’t wanting to have sex and sex drive the same thing?
no.
you can want to have sex, want to have the intimacy that sex creates between two people, but can’t for the life of you get turned on physically.
Women often have a lower sex drive than men. My bf would probably be happy with 3 shags a day, mornings, lunch and dinner shags, so to speak.
I’m happy if I can get it 3 times a week. So we compromise 
I suppose wanting to have sex is meant mentally, and sex drive is the actual physical need to have sex.
this clear it up a bit?
The following conversation is an actual conversation between a Doper and her Mate.
Me: Honey, forgetting to whom you are married too…
Mr. Ujest ( getting a happy look on his face.) Wait a minute…ok… Go.
Me: And you are married to your ultimate uber-wife and sex was any time you want, how often would you want it?
Mr. Ujest: Is this a trap of some sort?
Me No, I give you amnesty for anything moronic you are about to say.
Mr. Ujest: (rubbing hands together gleefully) Ok, then, I would want it when I wake up. Get home from work and just before bedtime.
**Me **: ( Not surprised at all) What? No Nooner?
Mr. Ujest: OOOOh, a Nooner would be perfect. ( slips into the happy place between his ears.)
Me: How about a hummer when you walk in the door?
Mr. Ujest: That would be nice. ( thinks very happy thoughts for a moment. Then sobers…) What about you, how often would you have sex…blah blah blah.?
**Me **: I’ll let you know when the urge hits.
**Mr. Ujest ** I’ll wait right here.
Me: (exiting the room.) You may want to pack a lunch.
“I’ve recently heard a woman say that while she wants to have sex she has next to no sex drive”
She probably wants the hugging & touching but not the intercourse.
I don’t think so, handy, although that stuff is nice…
I work all day. Go home, work some more. Get to bed around 11ish. Think “gee, sex would sure be nice…do I have the ener…snore…”
Love the stuff. Would love to have it more frequently. Need energy boost. Or fewer things to do during the day. One of the two. Usually, it’s me bugging my darling man. Somehow, our libidos got switched…probably had something to do with hitting my plateau… (men hit a peak…women hit plateaus and even out.)
Ok I now know that my condition (marriage with no sex drive) is not uncommon.
…it does not make me feel better 
The is sexual libido and there is sexual arousal. You can have a problem with one or with both. You can want to have sex, but not be able to, um, say, get lubricated enough or maintain an erection. Or, you can have almost no desire to have sex, but once you get into it, have no problem with the mechanics. Or you can have littel desire AND not be able to get aroused.
I think of “sex drive” as libido. That’s the wanting to have sex, the interest in having sex.
I just read a good book called “The Sex-Starved Marriage.” I highly recommend it, if one partner has a markedly different sex drive from the other.
I agree with elfje and maureen…
There are days when I think sex would be fun but am too tired or otherwise out of sorts to physically desire sex.
When the little one has been up all night sick for three days and you think “boy I would like to have sex… except I’m just not able to work up the ooomph required…”
Priceguy asks,
<Isn’t wanting to have sex and sex drive the same thing?>
I wish I could remember the actual source, but I read somewhere that supposedly there is a difference between “wanting to have sex” and “sex drive.” The difference, which I do remember, is this:
Wanting Sex: Desirous of physical, intellectual and emotional intimacy if you want it with a special person you hold in high regard, or, in less discriminating cases, “needing” to have sex in what’s usually an inner subconscious quest to prove to yourself your masculinity or femininity, or simply to alleviate severe loneliness.
Sex Drive: How OFTEN a person craves the sensation of orgasm, regardless of psychological needs for intimacy, ego bolstering or companionship. This can be satisfied by masturbation, obviously, and so I’d say the more often you need to “get off,” the higher your sex drive is.
Hope this helped.
I have a sex drive and could have sex 5 times a day if I had the time alone with my man!! Thing is we have a baby that can stay up til 1 am sometimes and kids that get up at 7 am, and not a minute alone half the time. The baby sleeps in our room, and our place is so small that the kids can hear a pindrop in the kitchen or living room. We just got another kid (3rd) after I had my tubes tied, so we have no place but our room to put the munchkin!
I think some women have low sex drives because they haven’t needed it (evolutionwise) because men have one. Or they are conditioned by society to think it’s not ladylike.
All I know is that I’m at least as driven as some men.
Eosine writes,
<We just got another kid (3rd) after I had my tubes tied, so we have no place but our room to put the munchkin!>
Er, uhhhh, am I reading this right?! Your third baby came AFTER you had your tubes tied?! I ask because, being childfree and wanting to forever stay that way, I got spayed (tube cauterization) ten years ago. Fortunately I didn’t get pregnant even though my ex and I were “bad” enough to make rabbits seem celibate by comparison. 
Then again, I didn’t expect to have to worry about conception – that’s WHY I got my tubes done – and probably why you had it done too.
However, now I’m in a situation where, well, on account of the way my marriage and his last relationship ended, my boyfriend and I (who I’m even “worse” with than I was with my ex ;)) mutually agreed that while we PROBABLY don’t have AIDS, there’s a still a POSSIBILITY we could’ve been exposed, and as such we’re using condoms until we can make the time to be blood tested. While we don’t really MIND the condoms, we sure think it’d be nice to have the spontaneity of not HAVING TO use them, which I didn’t think we’d have to do once we can verify our mutual “cleanliness.” Now I’m worried, though. ::::sigh::::
This
<Thing is we have a baby that can stay up til 1 am sometimes and kids that get up at 7 am, and not a minute alone half the time.>
happens to be one of many reasons why I decided not to have children. I know this comes with the territory.
However, Eosine, I love your nickname. Ever heard of eosinophils by chance? 
Happy is the 40 year old woman with the 33 year old husband…
Well, the Spouse mentions fairly frequently (once every week or two) that he’d like to have sex, but he’s not up for it. Usually this means that he’s tired. Sometimes it seems to mean that he’s feeling sick or otherwise under the weather. And sometimes, it means that the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. This all gets lumped into having a “low sex drive” in conversation.
Me, I could be bone-tired and running a 102-degree fever and still want to jump his bones four days a week. I think of myself as having a “high sex drive”. (We last had sex back in early March, FWIW.)
So it’s not just a “guys have it, ladies don’t” thing.
Of my five female friends, ages between 24 and 33, four of them claim to have high sex drives. One is an honest-to-God slut.
It is the name of a road in Las Vegas.
When my heart is hurting, I might want sex emotionally, but be unable to feel physically turned on.
For me, and for a lot of women to be at our sexual best, we need the emotional needs to be met. If they aren’t, then our sex drives begin to diminish and eventually die.
In a way, I guess it’s a lucky thing. For when I’m single, while I might be lonely, I don’t much suffer the physical need for sex.
If I’m in a relationship and the man is just perfunctory, and snappish all week long, and then suddenly comes home horny on Friday night, my “motor” isn’t going to rev up. In fact, it’s likely to stay dead if my emotional needs have not only not been met, but have been shot down for weeks on end (him being grouchy, unloving, ignoring me etc).
It’s NOT something that I consciously choose to do to “punish” him, but the sadness of feeling unloved, unappreciated and unattractive takes it’s toll, and BAMMO, the sex drive dies.
This is not uncommon for women to have this happen to our libidos.
LOL (this is true, my bf is 32 and I’m 44). Tis true, at least for me, that 40 on up has been the best sex of my life (though that is mostly due to the bf being PRIMO talent).
But even so, as I said in the previous thread, even knowing how wonderful a lover my bf is, if my heart is heavy enough, no amount of talent can get me turned on.
I don’t know how common it is, but it can happen to men, too, believe it or not. I learned this the hard way.