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I’d love to hear some comments on this study from women on the forum. – Michael
THE LONG DIVE OF A WOMAN’S SEX DRIVE
By Liz Langley
AlterNet
August 26, 2006http://www.alternet.org/sex/40854/
A German study reports that women’s sexual desire for their partners
dwindles with time. What’s a monogamous gal to do?Imagine, if you will, a slide whistle — it starts out high and then
declines. That’s also the soundtrack to a woman’s sex drive in the same
relationship over a course of years, according to a German study.Now imagine a test of the Emergency Broadcast System, that consistent hum
that stays steadfast in its signal and doesn’t seem like it will ever end.
That’s the soundtrack for the men.A BBC news story (see below) reports that researchers at Hamburg-Eppendorf
University studied 530 men and women found that men’s interest in sex stays
the same, like that EBS test, no matter how long they’ve been in a
relationship. Between 60 percent and 80 percent still wanted it regularly
over time. As for the ladies, 60 percent of 30-year-old women started out
hot in relationships, but “within four years of the relationship this figure
fell to under 50 percent,” and in 20 years only 20 percent remain focused
horndogs.That would seem to upend the stereotypes of the romantic, ring-happy woman
and the skirt-chasing commitment-phobic man. But psychologist and lead
author of the study Dr. Dietrich Klusmann points to evolutionary reasons for
both male attention and female distraction.“For men, a good reason their sexual motivation to remain constant would be
to guard against being cuckolded by another male,” Klusmann says. It sounds
simple enough: Keep paying attention so she doesn’t seek attention
elsewhere.This constancy doesn’t square with the idea a lot of us have — OK, I have
— of the promiscuous male, biologically driven to throw his DNA around like
mardi gras beads to any chick who’ll accept.In looking for an explanation on how a wandering eye and a constant heart
could jibe, I found this essay by David P. Barash, professor of psychology
at the University of Washington
<http://www.trinity.edu/rnadeau/FYS/Barash%20on%20monogamy.htm>. In
“Deflating the Myth of Monogamy,” Barash quotes sociobiologist Robert
Trivers, saying males have a “mixed reproductive strategy.”Males, Barash says “establish a mateship with a designated female … while
also making themselves available for E.P.C.’s (extra-pair copulations) with
other females, whom they will not assist.” He also brings up the cuckolding
theory.That men are capable of keeping a lot of balls in the air for a long time
comes as no surprise to me.But what about women? Are we really more fickle than we imagine ourselves to
be? Most of us seem to want secure, mature love, but once we’ve opened that
gift do we really start yawning and wondering what else is under the tree?The fading interest some women exhibit sounds less revolutionary than
evolutionary. The BBC says “He (Dr. Klusmann) said animal behavior studies
suggest this could be because females may be diverting their sexual interest
towards other men, in order to secure the best combinations of genetic
material for their offspring.“Or, he said, this could be because limiting sex may boost their partner’s
interest in it.”Dr. Helen Fisher wrote a bit about those genetic combos in her 2004 book
“Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love.” Looking at partner
switching from an anthropological viewpoint, Fisher writes that “primitive
divorce” among our early ancestors “had genetic payoffs: Men and women who
“remarried” could bear young with a different partner, creating beneficial
variety in their lineage.”So, as one of my friends suggested, it might sometimes be more than the fact
that he won’t take the garbage out.The more of this kind of stuff I read (and I read a fair amount of it), the
more I wonder if anyone in Vegas has calculated the odds of the average
person making it to “happily ever after.” Not whatever-after, where you’re
cutting all kinds of emotional corners, but the whole package — warm, fuzzy
love and hot monkey love, with the same person, true blue, until somebody is
dead.Surely it happens, but it seems rare — and yet most of us aspire, even
expect to attain it. On one hand, it seems like a tribute to human idealism.
On the other hand, no wonder antidepressants are such a big business.Whether our relationships are shaped by culture, upbringing, biology, choice
or dumb luck (my bet: it’s a mix), it’s always fascinating to watch
researchers try to figure them out. I know this is just a study of 530
people, but honestly, I’ve had fits of fickleness in relationships that have
changed my life and made my own heart more puzzling to me than an airplane
console. I’m happy to have someone even try to explain me to myself.Maybe the heart is too random to pin down, but the attempts are certainly
gratifying. Woody Allen famously said “The heart has its reasons.” Blaise
Pascal said, “The heart has reasons that reason cannot know.” But I like it
best when someone in a lab coat pops up with “I gotcher reasons right here.”————
SECURITY ‘BAD NEWS FOR SEX DRIVE’
DIFFERENCES IN SEXUAL APPETITE MAY BE DRIVEN BY EVOLUTION
BBC News
August 14, 2006http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4790313.stm
A woman’s sex drive begins to plummet once she is in a secure relationship,
according to research.Researchers from Germany found that four years into a relationship, less
than half of 30-year-old women wanted regular sex.Conversely, the team found a man’s libido remained the same regardless of
how long he had been in a relationship.Writing in the journal Human Nature, the scientists said the differences
resulted from how humans had evolved.The researchers from Hamburg-Eppendorf University Hospital interviewed 530
men and women about their relationships.They found 60% of 30-year-old women wanted sex “often” at the beginning of a
relationship, but within four years of the relationship this figure fell to
under 50%, and after 20 years it dropped to about 20%.In contrast, they found the proportion of men wanting regular sex remained
at between 60-80%, regardless of how long they had been in a relationship.Tenderness
The study also revealed tenderness was important for women in a
relationship.About 90% of women wanted tenderness, regardless of how long they had been
in a relationship, but only 25% of men who had been in a relationship for 10
years said they were still seeking tenderness from their partner.Dr Dietrich Klusmann, lead author of the study and a psychologist from
Hamburg-Eppendorf University Hospital, believed the differences were down to
human evolution.He said: “For men, a good reason their sexual motivation to remain constant
would be to guard against being cuckolded by another male.”But women, he said, have evolved to have a high sex drive when they are
initially in a relationship in order to form a “pair bond” with their
partner.But, once this bond is sealed a woman’s sexual appetite declines, he added.
He said animal behaviour studies suggest this could be because females may
be diverting their sexual interest towards other men, in order to secure the
best combinations of genetic material for their offspring.Or, he said, this could be because limiting sex may boost their partner’s
interest in it.Professor George Fieldman, an evolutionary psychologist from Buckinghamshire
Chilterns University College, said: “These findings seem to fit in with
anecdotal studies and his explanations seem plausible.“The rational for why a woman’s sex drive declines may be down to supply and
demand. If something is in infinite supply, the perceived value would drop.”this particular study doesn’t suggest that women are leaving their sexual relationships for outside affairs or new partners out of unsatisfied sexual desire.
mI confirm that this is the case for all the women I know in long ‘and even shorter’ relationships including myself. I will speak here from a womans perspective…as there are plenty men who can respond from their side.
BODY/EMOTIONAL LOVE MAKING
Being in a 25 year looooong relationship I gave this many thoughts and the conclusion is that there is not just one answer but it all starts with the biological hormone driven nature that gives us women a drive to find the right man for the best off spring. So sex is the first tool to find and keep the right man until that goal is fulfilled (or not of course). After that the sexual drive declines fast. Once the children are born the focus changes to keep the children safe and fed or whenever the basic needs are provided that is it. It is a matter of hormones, nothing more or less. And as my 16 year old daughter stated a few days ago, ‘sex is a tool to give you power to control man’ (wow, sweet 16)
On the basic survival level men provides us shelter, safety and food. If he is not able to provide that, dump him. A smart woman finds herself a good provider.
Men are equiped with a tool to fertilise more women than just the lucky one, so his tool is always ready to act out. Most possible there were more women than men because they died faster in battle and food supplying activities, so one men could have more women. Women took care of the off spring, men had alternatives.
Today ,if you live on that basic level of life, that is merely it… you are stuck in a marriage or relationship with that same partner having the same hormone driven body as 10.000 years ago.
Yet if a women or man and if lucky both partners are having more capacity than just reproduction facilities there is more to it….
SPIRITUAL LOVE MAKING
As men are heaven, we women are interested in that piece of the cake as well to complete us.
I like to compare it with a computer. Men are the internetprovider being able to hold the gate for heaven, women are the single computer. We switch on and off the computer to download programs and information as we need it. That can be sexual, emotional, spiritual depending on what program serves us best/what we need.If that one partner is a bad provider she will look for other providers. That can be physical or that can be through reading books, looking at movies, having fantasies. I remember my mother absorbing books, I see my sister-in-law absorbing books, they just disappear into it, guess why…
or find a teacher, why are there so many female followers of one single man/guru/teacher?
Not necessarily the man but what he is holding, the more access he can give the more interesting…And that is where the whole misunderstanding starts and that is where men like Max start to re-act as if women are just life/information sucking creatures. And I agree that we are, but when women learn to use this wise and with love, we can give as much as we ‘take’ and even more, much more. And if supported by the heaven gate we could not only give birth to children but we could give birth to a whole new world. I believe that… but for that we need both players to play the same game.
The dynamic between man/woman can be so fruitful and creative, once there is an understanding that exchange can be on any level of human existance and is in itself sexual/sensual. If we try to exclude sexual energy as some do, we deny a part of are human heritance. Yet we need to learn how to master it and use it as a tool to enhance ourself and each other instead of denying it or using it just on the basic animal level. There is plenty more in a sexual exchange than just the rabbit one (no offense Michael, btw my partner is a rabbit as well)- amongst our familymembers we use the term ‘to rabbit’ for plane sexual activity (hard to translate into English from my language).
In this more sofisticated exchange, rabbit sex is no longer useful either, IF it helps us to learn something fine, that is why it can be a thrill for awhile in a new relationship but if there is nothing new to learn, if it not serves the birth of a new world, it is no longer one of our downloads. Yet men still jump up and down like the rabbit in the movie, the snake is annoyed by it, not in the mood for this and takes off to the tree of wisdom/life…. :))
Men are the heaven keepers and give us information (his seed, his wisdom), in the best case women compost it to make it fertile and useful, choosing the best information (the best seed, the most wise wisdom)and in that way we both are the parents of a better world cherished by the loving heart of both parents!
If the exchange does not serve that better world it is best not to accept it at all…earth gate closed down! ‘Spiritual hormone level’ declines…
DIVINE LOVE MAKING
When we learn, thanks to our teachers on many levels, how to open the heaven and earth gateways, we become heaven and earth, we become mother and father, we become are our own creator and creation and we can make love and have divine sex within and without with all and everything.
Yet I can not see the birth of a new world when practioners create a ‘safe inner’ world without truelly accepting the other sexe in the outer world. You can not speak of divine love and deny the other half of the population.
So within, so without.
The time of monasteries and walled safe places will come to an end if we dare to unite the male/female .
It is time to bring the divine into all levels of existance, no seperation, yin yang and the divine within AND without.Wendy,
I nominate your post for:
“Best top to bottom honest map of male~female, from the female perspective.”Keith
I agree with you Pietro, I went through the whole hormone shop acting out and realizing exactly what you describe. I came to similar conclusions through deduction and internal observation. My partner became a huge fan of David DeAngelo…and he is highly afraid of having affairs with other women, although I give him all the freedom to do so but I can’t blame him.
I can give him that freedom for two reasons:
1. he is a dedicated provider and will never abandon the care for his children
2. I have enough inner confidence and self worth so I don’t feel treathened by other womenSo both players play the game well and I am totally PRO your new marriage proposal.
We already working on it because the old one sucks, just look at the divorce rates and you know there is a problem there!regarding “the game”….
while i can see the accuracy of the analysis, i would say it only applies to people who are living predominately on a certain level (even if that’s a majority of humans).
my question is this:
are there both men and women who tire of this “game” and instead seek connections on deeper levels (levels which become accessible through cultivation)?
i ask this as a 20 year old male, in the thick of such issues. for i am intensely NOT attracted to a woman who i could “trick” into having sex with me within an hour of meeting her! don’t these lustful approaches only intensify the gender-rift inside the human psyche? are there not women who are more emotionally integrated and intelligent than to play into that? and is not there a possibility of spiritual heart-connections whose blissful remembrance infinitely outweighs the meager releases involved in “getting laid”??
wishing to hear from the older folks…
-christopher
to employ the notion of subtle bodies —
what level is the attraction taking place on?
obviously, the ideal would be a harmonization of connenction on all layers.
but how can this happen in the mode of approach advocated by “the pickup game”??
it is completely fixated upon only a certain shell (at the probable expense of the others).“are there both men and women who tire of this “game” and instead seek connections on deeper levels (levels which become accessible through cultivation)?”
Well, of course there are. But people also go through stages; the game may come up and get shelved several times over.
I think DNA is being given more credit than it’s due here, frankly, though obviously there is some truth to what people have observed as part of their actual experience.
What I can tell you from experience is, don’t underestimate the power of the maternal instinct to trump all other considerations. Even women who have really decided to not have children seem to be really haunted by it, like there are potential babies whispering sweetly in their ears…
Also relevant here I think is the idea of men and women just being friends, irregardless of sexual politics and of whether they are married or not; this is more important to me than the other considerations.
Simon
Great posts, thanks Wendy and Pietro.
And I think Rainwater’s question goes quickly to the heart of it: what’s the interaction between the hormonal- biological drivers and the soul level?
I agree with simon, the line is fuzzy, depending on our level of spiritual development and stage in life.
the spiritually smart men wake up and realize that their youthful “alpha” sex drive is mostly work, and work servicing women, even if you don’t stay behind and do the beta work.
It is not until you shift to a higher level inside yourself that you attract women who are capable and willing to exchanging more at the Meta level, just to keep the acronyms in synchrony.
Meta sex is soul sex, or subtle sex, and the general rule is that it happens before you’ve ever had physical sex with someone. Which means you need a developed energy body to realize what it is, other than dumb lust. The problem is that sometimes only one partner is awake enough to know what is going on. Just like in dreams, our energy bodies sometimes sleep around without our knowing about it….
Rule number two is that physical sex may or may not diffuse the soul level of intensity that occurs with Meta sex.
Soul sex is an evolutionary exchange of subtle energy/soul information that changes the download pattern for humanity at best, at worst for your soul group/tribe.This is the topic I am going deeper into at the “Advanced Inner Sexual Alchemy” retreat in UK in Sept.
The summary of this is that the social level of marriage structure does not reflect the spiritual level of exchange needed, so that either it gets exchanged on the sly or the marriage structure of the future wil have to shift.
michaelto me, i gotta first sanctify the physical by infusing it with my divine shen.
the sacred light of the shen transforms the unconicous, predictible, hormone programing.
this happens simply by bringing in the shen as the greater common denominator.
this is happening to me latelly.
rainwater asked “are there both men and women who tire of this “game” and instead seek connections on deeper levels (levels which become accessible through cultivation)? ”
yep, i do.
this life time for me is a tremendous opportunity to actualise the divine conciousness in a physical body.
jing is a gift that once refined by shen and pure qi can help us live long in this bodyand i like how Michael said that we attract someone to us who is of the same or similar level.
if it hasn’t happened yet, just be patient.
thanks
Goes to show you what happens when you take a genius mind OUT of academia for 5 minutes and INTO the world of the PUA!
What an awesome post!
Yes, the truth about things is that the whole system is put together for DNA replication. As UG Krishnamurti spoke, the body doesn’t give a shit about what you give a shit about. It views pleasure as harming the body. We are addicted to sex, and that is it.
If you are a guy and you want to be sexually satisifed, there are only 3 options:
1. Become a PUA
2. Become a pornographer/pimp
3. Become a hobbyist (goes to foreign countries to fuck)The other option is some spiritual sublimation of sex, but what do I know about that now? 😉
-P
Did I get your attentions:)
I have enjoyed every ones posts though I have to say this group of posts might have been the nerdiest postings I have seen from such a nerdy group.:)I hope you all find sexual completion on multiple levels with multiple orgasms.
thanks for your post.
i agree with what you’ve said.
and i’ve glimpsed it myself, this sanctification of the physical.
that’s one reason i had to chime in to say there’s so much more to the male-female story than this biological DNA saga. that’s just one layer that we’re interfacing with. but our origins go far beyond it as well… i myself have learnt a lot about these things by gazing at the stars. so on the level of genetic propagation, humans are acting out a sort of subplot in the cosmic process. but we can also get in touch with the broader story, and take a more conscious part in participating in it.i meant to write my question more rhetorically, as obviously there are people who engage relationships at a soul-based level. i just felt like the framework being proposed in those linked-to writings totally ignored the possibilities on other levels.
🙂
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