Sex drive refers to a hypothetical construct encompassing one’s attitudes toward sex, sexual desires, and sexual behaviors (Baumeister, 2000).
As much fun as I’m having with the Thirty Days of Chastity meme, I know an uninterrupted thirty day meme can feel tedious to some readers. So for a change of pace, today I’m offering a change of pace and discussing chastity and sexual desire in women and men.
The Myth of Over-Sexed Men
On social media and other places, I often hear women declare men are tediously simple to understand. They claim we are penis-obsessed, sex-crazed oafs, ruled by our genitals instead of our brains. A woman friend of mine once told me that if you understood beer and tits, you understood all there was to know about men. Those judgements many women make about men are not only harsh, but unfair, and well… completely wrong.
Women who claim they understand men based on our libidos actually only expose their ignorance and complete lack of knowledge. Women are just as incapable of seeing things from a man’s perspective as men similarly cannot see things from a woman’s perspective. We’re the same species, but we are opposites, though complementary rather than opposing forces. Well, most of the time, anyway.
Sexual Desire Differences Are Inevitable
In no area do women differ from men than in their sexual appetites. Generalizations are famously inaccurate, but I think it’s safe to say men typically have higher sex drives, although there are exceptions to every rule. I’ll use my past relationships as examples. Discounting one-night stands and short-term sexual liaisons, I’ve been in eight intimate relationships in my life.
In five relationships, my sex drive was much higher than my partners. After the “honeymoon period,” sex became more and more infrequent, to the point I often felt I had to beg for sex. In one relationship, my partner’s libido didn’t match mine, but she was a submissive type who believed her role in the relationship was to give me sex whenever I wanted it, whether or not she was in the mood. So, she always accommodated. In the other two relationships, I was with women whose sex drives surpassed mine. They wanted sex more often than I did, which left me sexually satisfied continuously, but also feeling exhausted much of the time.
Sure, it is anecdotal evidence, even so, I think it proves my point. In seventy-five percent of my relationships, my sex drive was significantly higher than that of my female partners. Men typically want sex more often than women. Research backs me up. “Men have a stronger sex drive than women, and this gender difference is evident in cross-cultural research involving men and women from 53 different countries.”(Lippa, 2009) And there is a reason that’s true.
Men and Women are Wired Differently
Evolution has wired men and women differently in our sexual appetites. Depending on mood, stress and hormone levels, women can go for days, weeks, if not longer, without desiring an orgasm. Men aren’t like that.
Sure, women enjoy the rush of pleasure that comes with an orgasm, but it isn’t quite the same as men. When a woman has an orgasm, her body releases some pleasure inducing hormones but those hormones don’t build up over time. Men have physical body parts that fill up over time, and the urge to ejaculate builds relentlessly until they feel an absolute and real need to release their semen.
Men want sex more often because we have a real, powerful physical urge driving us, the result of hundreds of thousands of years of evolution. More than one woman has told me if men gave birth instead of women, humanity would have gone extinct a long time ago because we couldn’t handle carrying a child to term or the pain of childbirth. While I won’t dispute that, I might add this. If men didn’t have the desire to use their penises regularly for sex, that too would end humanity rather quickly.
It's Simple Biology
Continuously, the testes, the primary male reproductive organs, generate sperm cells through a process called spermatogenesis. And the glands of the male reproductive system produce sperm and seminal fluid. Also, the prostate gland, the seminal vesicles, and the bulbourethral glands produce and contribute seminal fluid to semen, which carries and protects the sperm. Continuous production creates the need to expel semen regularly through ejaculation. It’s not just desire, it’s a definite biological need or imperative. That’s why men are more prone to masturbate frequently than women. Evolution and biology drive the urge to masturbate when the supply of sex with a partner does not meet the biological demand to reduce the building pressure men feel physically to ejaculate.
An Analogy
Let’s use an analogy to help illustrate the difference between men and women in sexual desire. We can compare it to the feeling of hunger. If you have ever fasted or gone on a severe diet, then you know exactly what hunger feels like. You can literally feel you’re starving. The longer you go without food, the more intensely your body physically demands you eat something. My point here is when you are extremely hungry, there is a physical urge driving you to get food. This is precisely how the urge to ejaculate regularly feels for men. The buildup in their reproductive systems drives men to seek frequent sexual release in one way or another.
Now, instead of feeling starved, imagine you ate a big breakfast and then had a big lunch. Now imagine you have arrived home from work around five and have just changed into comfortable clothes and sat down to relax. A friend calls and asks you to go with them to a favorite steakhouse to have dinner. Well, if you are like most people, that big lunch on top of the big breakfast wasn’t that long ago, and you will not feel very hungry. Do you really want to get dressed to go out and drive across town to eat a steak dinner? Probably not.
In this state of not feeling hungry, you can still imagine enjoying a wonderful steak dinner, but no urge will exist to propel you to get dressed again and drive across town to get yourself a steak. Women I’ve known well and have discussed it with me have told me that is much the way sex is for a woman. She can imagine the pleasure of sex, but does not necessarily have a physical urge driving her to want to have sex. There you have the primary difference between the male and female sex drives.
If a woman has a male partner, even if she feels contented in the relationship, if her partner doesn’t know how to seduce her effectively and turn her on sexually, or she feels tired or stressed or not in the mood, then she will have nothing driving her to desire sexual release. While there are exceptions, women often view sex from a more idealistic perspective, such as a desire for closeness and intimacy with her man. But rarely do most women want sex because of any “I must have sex now” physical urge driving it.
The Vicious Male Cycle
This is from my experience, so your mileage may vary. But it probably comes close for most guys.
Back in chastity after ejaculation…
- For the first day or two, nothing much is happening. I don’t feel any pressure for release to speak of, so going without sex or masturbation isn’t a problem.
- By the third day, I definitely begin feeling the buildup and the biological urge. Usually, I don’t feel actual discomfort yet, just the growing awareness of the need for release as things fill up.
- On the fourth or fifth day, I feel slight discomfort from the pressure and aching. It gets increasingly difficult not to think about getting sexual release.
- Days six to eight are the hardest for me as the real discomfort begins and I can feel moody or even a little cranky.
- For me, around the ninth day, things get easier. Possibly this is because the body eventually breaks down and reabsorbs the sperm cells and seminal fluids and reduces the pressure. I also believe your body and brain eventually get the message ejaculation is not eminent, and the drive lessens. (Some guys report constant “dripping” and even nocturnal emissions (wet dreams) while locked. I experience little dripping and have only had one wet dream as an adult in my entire life, long before I started chastity).
- Within ten days to two weeks, my sexual energy transmutes into increased productivity and the effects of the constant, elevated sexual arousal become a pleasure of its own.
How Chastity Can Help Bridge the Gap
When you accept the difference between the male and female sex drives, it seems men and women should see the obvious advantages of male chastity. Let’s be honest. Women have always controlled access to and the frequency of sex. It’s only a little more obvious these days. Chastity brings it all out in the open and can solve a host of relationship problems at the same time. With his penis caged and her holding the key, “bargaining” or trying to “guilt” his partner into having sex becomes a thing of the past. And so does the frequent masturbation and porn watching after she goes to bed alone that can be real relationship killers.
Many guys already want chastity for reasons ranging from sexual fantasy fulfillment to the honest desire to become better, more attentive partners, and everything in between. So, when a man asks his partner to lock him in chastity, even if she might initially find the whole thing weird or kinky, she should thank her lucky stars. If a woman is supportive of her partner’s desires, she usually learns quickly that chastity has as many (if not more benefits) for her as her partner gets out of it.