I posed this question in this thread but nobody bit.
In Robert Heinlein’s novel Friday, there is a scene where Friday Jones, being out of work, is looking through the want ads. One is from a gentleman advertising for a mistress/companion. One requirement is that her “amativeness quotient” be above a certain figure. Have psychologists ever devised a reliable numerical measurement of the level/intensity of an individual’s sex drive? Will they ever? For that matter, is there any scientific evidence that sex drive is, like IQ, a characteristic variable among individuals but stable for each individual over time?
I have the graphs over the years if anybody wants me to post them somewhere. I am missing a month but my buddy claims that he has records from that time as well.
Reliable is the hardest word to pin down in your question. The possible means of measurement are completely subjective and are of course prey to inaccuracy and inconsistency. You could measure hormone levels, frequency of sexual activity, orgasm and arousal, or a host of other things related to sex but there’s really no easy answer. It’s all too subjective - e.g. How would thinking about sex compare on the scale to hormone levels, masturbation or actually having sex?
It depends on a lot of ideas developed by society, so in the end it’s like trying to make a scientific version of a purity test. Everyone’s going to think their score is off.
You could measure frequency of arousal. However, the instruments that they currently use are obtrusive so the patient would constantly remember that he or she was being monitored and they don’t have portable devices for reading the data. Also, some argue that the data on men (where penis thickness is measured) is unreliable because some men hardened in fear or in other non-sexual circumstances.