Yes, no, no and no. Yes and yes.
Sometimes I think I must be a man, a gay man in drag. 
If I may, as a man, put in my .02cents. It really depends on the woman. My girlfriend in high school had the highest sex drive I have ever experienced with a woman. Unfortunately it was so high it ended the relationship as she could not contain herself to just one person. There was practically nothing she wouldn’t do.
Now, my first wife was as cold as they come. Sex was more of something she “had to do” vs. something she wanted to do. It eventually got to the point that I started to prefer masturbation to having sex with her as it seemed like she was just going through the motions. I also found that she “used” sex as either a way to get things (if she wanted something that was very expensive and knew I would not agree I could count on great sex that night) or as a punishment (withholding).
Fast forward to my current wife. She likes sex and it seems as important to her as it is to me. Her sex drive isn’t near where mine is however, yet she never says no. I try to be as understanding as possible and if I know that she is tired or just plain not in the mood, I don’t push the subject. But, it does feel great to know that she desires me and will initiate sex. With my first wife she NEVER initiated it and that always bothered me. Of course my new wife is older (41) so maybe that has something to do with it.
To sum up, I don’t think it is possible to answer the question in general terms. While I do think that it is true that men have a higher sex drive in general the term important is too subjective to apply to a group.
This may be a TS if you’re really just interested in anecdotes, but there are studies on this sort of thing.
Plus there is a sizable percentage of women suffering from either complete inorgasmia or difficulty reaching orgasm. Many women don’t really have sexual inner lives as most men understand it.
Gay men are different from straight men in that their partners have a libido and a desire for a variety of partners equal to their own. If straight women were at all interested in going to spas and fucking strangers or performing oral through holes in walls then straight men would be pretty satisfied with that arrangement.
Now that’s funny.
This is absolutely true. Slut shaming is alive and well and I doubt it will ever die. On the other hand sex is routinely glorified in popular culture, more than any other time in history. And how effective do you think those strategies would work on suppressing male desire? Maybe the old myths about hairy palms and blinding yourself made pubescent boys jerk off 7 times a week instead of 14? On the other hand (heh) it’s not unheard of for women to only begin to think about masturbation or orgasms well into their 20s.
Have you ever read a guy say anything like “well I was curious about masturbation…but it was just icky. I never do it anymore.” If a guy says that there’s something wrong with him. But there’s a pretty obvious disparity, since until modern times if a guy can’t or won’t orgasm then his genetic line is dead.
Hey! I may be inexperienced as to different partners, but I’m very experienced with the one I’ve spent the last 17 years with. We don’t have kids, but we do keep practicing and practicing and practicing.
Maybe one of these days we’ll get it right. 
A few days ago I watched a very interesting program on one of the science channels about the female orgasm. It is just now that some scientists have started to study it.
Start with the basic question: Why do women have orgasms? What evolutionary advantage do female orgasms represent?
Well they had some interesting ideas and some very interesting tests.
One is that is a way for the female to test the ‘fitness’ of her partner. No orgasm on her part could indicate to her that the male is ‘unfit’ to reproduce.
Another group explored the idea that it helps to bond the woman to her partner. The chemistry and activity that occurs in the brain at orgasm may make the woman, and the man, want to stay together going with the idea the evolution wants 2 parent families.
To watch the brain activity they had to strap a woman into a mri and while she kept her head really still, well, her hands were not still.
Finally one researcher places a fluid, similar to semen, but with harmless radioactive markers in it and then injected that into the woman’s vagina. Now this couldn’t swim like sperm actually does but when he caused the woman to orgasm, there was an, their word, upsuck of the fluid into the uterus and, get this, the contractions would move it left or right depending on which fallopian tube was ‘in use’ at the time. So orgasms help with fertilization.
So ladies I’m just practicing birth control.
Oh in that last study, to get the woman to orgasm, the injected,via IV,the chemical the brain releases at orgasm and BINGO! A shot gave her an orgasm. I think that means that doctors could prescribe orgasms to women. It would be like an Epi pen.
It isn’t so women to want to have sex?
I must speak with my PharmD friends…
Speaking generally I do think it is true that women are not as sex-driven as men. There is a reason why prostitutes are most commonly female (and why most male prostitutes primarily cater to gay men, not hetero women). Same goes for the popularity of female strippers vs. male strippers. I think this probably also has a lot to do with why it is far more common for male politicians to end up in humiliating sex scandals than it is for female politicians.
Now, of course, there are individual exceptions. A given woman may indeed be more sex-driven than a given man. However, my experience has been that the overall trend is that men are much more concerned about sex than women.
As for the physical appearance stuff, I think both men and women can be picky/superficial about things, just different things. For example, I would say that, in general, women are very judgmental about height but more forgiving of a man being overweight; while men don’t care about height much in their partners (usually) but do make a big fuss about it if a woman is overweight.
I also think that a rich man who is physically unattractive is more likely to get opposite sex attention than a rich woman who is physically unattractive.
I don’t feel qualified to guess what percentage of women would be satisfied with living in a celibate relationship, but I do think that more women than men would be okay with that arrangement.
Sex is important to me.
Bad sex is a bummer on many levels, and good sex makes me want more.
I don’t have many physical dealbreakers, but one of them is use of chewing tobacco. I’m probably looking for some of the same things other women here want: Not a douchelord, loves animals, has a good sense of humour.
This thread should be made a sticky- it comes up an awful lot.
And right here’s a big difference between men and women. It sounds like you’re talking about what you seek in a life partner, not a sex partner. But for men, where sex is concerned, most don’t care whether you love animals, chew tobacco or douche it up. Those issues aren’t part of the sex equation.
I think there are other, valid, factors contributing to this beyond mere sex drive. For generations in most societies- especially ones based on agriculture and male inheritance like our own- women have relied on the “sex/heirs to gain security” model. Since women didn’t have property, their security relied on having a male child whom the patriarch accepts as his own, to take care of them in old age.
The control measures that ensure a child belongs to the patriarch (young virgin marriage, female seclusion and restricting their movement in the community, limiting contact between unmarried men and women) limit men’s access to women, creating scarcity. Women also have quite a role in enforcing their own scarcity- since sex is basically all they had to trade, they were quite interested in keeping its value high, hence slut-shaming and the like.
Now that society is changing shape economically, we are seeing massive, rapid changes in sexuality. I’d venture the average female coed these days is equally as interested in hookup culture as they guys.
The truth is we don’t have a control in this process. How many women, when they reach puberty, are quietly shown where their mother’s stack of Playboys are? How many women spend their teenage years subtly bragging to their dad about scoring, while their dad approves with a hearty “Wrap it and and treat her well, my daughter”? What are the ratios of boys and girls who are told “Go to your room to do that!” versus “Don’t do that, it’s gross!” when they are caught masturbating? This one is hugely important! The discovery of sexuality is still quite different for men and women, and this early exploration plays a large role in shaping who we are as sexual creatures and our ability to understand and take control of our own pleasure.
Must resist awful jokes.
Post two ads on craigslist in which whichever city you live in. One of them for a 22 year old guy looking for a woman for nsa sex tomorrow night, and one for a 22 year old woman looking for a guy for nsa sex tomorrow night. Report back on findings.
“Hooking up” and “trawling the internet for anonymous sex” are not the same thing. Hooking up usually involves people in your social orbit, and thus is MUCH safer in any number of ways than meeting random strangers. Women are at greater risk for STD transmission, physical violence, unwanted pregnancy, etc. than men are, and thus anonymous sex isn’t as appealing to them. Doesn’t mean they aren’t interested in sex in general. Having a more specific sex drive doesn’t mean you have less of one.
Just curious- why is this so? I would have thought things were equal.
I think it would be interesting to see a graph of the number of times per week men and women engage in some form of sexual stimulation based on age. I would have to guess that the graph for men would be at least 2x higher than women across the board. The high for men would probably be 10-14 times per week when he’s a teenager and go down from there. For women, I’m not sure. I’ve seen places where women say they never masturbated until they were in their 20’s. I would have to guess that most women don’t masturbate every day like some men do.
This doesn’t mean sex isn’t important to women. It is, but it’s just one of many important things. If sex doesn’t happen there are many other important things she can focus on. She can get satisfaction from doing well at work, being with friends, going to the spa, etc. She can enjoy non-sexual touching, good conversations, or other bonding experiences. Obviously that’s not sexual satisfaction, but she can take care of other important things that give her an inner peace that doesn’t make the sexual need so strong.
It’s not like that for men. For men, it is more like being hungry. It is a constant force and it must be directly satisfied or it grows stronger. If you’re hungry, you can’t satisfy that by hanging out with friends or going to see a movie. You have to eat. So men are more focused on getting their sexual needs met on a regular basis than women are.
Well, perhaps it’s my fault as I don’t really know what 'hookup culture" means. If “hookup culture” excludes craigslist “casual encounters”, then I definitely don’t know what it means.
Except they don’t want to do it with someone they don’t know very well? Men are different like that.
But I put it to you that having sex with someone in your “social circle” does not lessen the chance of any one of those things happening. So is it really a logical issue, or an emotional one? For most guys, logic is not an issue.
I think you’re arguing yourself into the 'women love sex (if it’s with someone they like)" position. We all know that and you wont make news headlines with that story.
Of course it does. Hooking up within a social network can give you access to all kinds of information- you know that Bob once gave your girlfriend crabs, Mickey hates to use condoms and tries to get out of it every time, Amos has an anger streak and once slapped up his ex, Vijay likes it rough and ignores safewords and Ricardo likes call girls. If you ever slept with a woman, trust me, her girlfriends know plenty about you.
Hooking up in a social network also increases accountability. If you give some girl herpes who doesn’t even know your name or how to contact you, you can get away with it without consequences. But if you give your classmate herpes, it’s going to be a bad scene for you. You are much more likely to get caught murdering your neighbor than murdering someone you met in a glory hole. And anonymity makes it easier for people to commit violent or anti social acts- look at any given riot, when otherwise fairly normal people go on the rampage.
Biologically, women are at greater risk for STD transmission from penetrative heterosexual sex because their sex organs are mostly more delicate tissue than tougher skin and the act of penetration opens up the opportunity for tearing in a way that it doesn’t for me. HIV transmission rates, for example, are quite lopsided- a man has a much lower chance of becoming HIV positive by having sex with an infected parter than a woman does.
And can give you access to all kinds of misinformation and out of date information that might make you trust someone unwarrantedly
I don’t want to hijack the thread about which gender has to be more careful when deciding their sex partners, but gay men who practice anal sex with irregular partners should probably be the most careful, if logic prevailed over these matters. But I’m not sure they actually are the most careful. I think primal lust rules over logic here.
Although I recognize a social bias that makes it slightly less acceptable for women than men to openly enjoy sex, I still think the male visceral urge for sex is stronger. My life experience tells me so.
You wrote off my suggestion for a Craigslist experiment as you thought it’s not relevant to this discussion because women have to be aware of so many other factors. But I think it would have been one of the purest scientific tests that we could ever arrange. Could you design a better test for who wants to have sex, without obvious bias?
And I take your point that having a more specific sex drive does not mean you have less of one. That is a good point and something I’ll reflect on.
I just realized that I forgot one of the most well-known generalities:
- Women generally struggle to separate love from sex, if they can do it at all.