Em & Lo respond to a reader, Rizzo, who asked if her really strong libido makes her a “slut” or “sex addict.” And ask a critical question of their own. (Emphasis mine.)
...too many people still refuse to believe that there are some women out there — not all, admittedly, but some — whose sex drives compare with or even surpass the average male sex drive. And, unfortunately, it’s because of outmoded attitudes like this that you are left asking us if it makes you a slut to satisfy your high sex drive. Can you even imagine a guy writing us the same letter?
It’s a good question, and one that hints at another question its hard to imagine a guy writing. Rizzo might feel so out of place about her high “like a male” libido partly because men with low libidos are nearly invisible.
For instance we’re all so sure we “know” men are supposed to have higher libidos that it may never occur to some men that their libidos are particularly low. And because there’s a lot of social pressure that equates high libido with “manliness” men who do worry they might be on the low side of the spectrum tend not to ask experts for advice.
(In fact seems like I read recently that nearly half of heterosexual couple’s visits to relationship and sex councilors are initiated by sexually dissatisfied women?)
One of many downsides of this invisibility is women with perfectly ordinary libidos worrying they might be “sex addicts” because they’re more interested than their partners.
This is not a new problem by the way. Back in the bad old days (up till the mid-1960s in some parts of the U.S.) when a woman could still be involuntarily committed to a mental institution on her husband’s say so a frequent lay diagnosis was hysteria or nymphomania. A.k.a. “having a higher libido than one’s husband.”
Based on private conversations I get the impression a lot of low-libido men hide behind acceptable social scripts like “let’s take this slow” and “I want to be a gentleman about it.” Or even (a la Ross Douthat) they can closet themselves in with the cloaks of prudery, sanctimony, and the no-sex class paradigm’s Two Rules of Desire.
interesting….I happen to be
Submitted by Mike (not verified) on Sun, 2010-01-10 17:13.interesting….I happen to be one of those “low-libido” men and my wife is likely average to higher than average (at least by my standard, but I guess I don’t really know)
....it did take her awhile to get used to that “flaw” in me, and although she has accepted it, it has caused occasional turmoil in our relationship from time to time…
Mike
[“By my standard.” That’s the key part almost everyone else misses. It’s good that you got that, Mike, because it doesn’t just may her “unusual” it doesn’t make you unusual either. Which is why I think assumptions about “right” or “wrong” ways to have a libido, especially when you throw in “for a man” or “for a woman” is so counterproductive. Thanks. —fl]
Or the women just worry that
Submitted by Ms.Inconspicuous (not verified) on Sun, 2010-01-10 17:20.Or the women just worry that they’re undesirable. Because men are supposed to have a high libido, and if they don’t, well, then it “must” be the woman’s fault…why isn’t she attractive enough? What isn’t she doing right?
And when she asks her friends/counselors/etc., about her husband’s low libido, she’s met with the same question over and over again, “Are you sure he’s not gay?”
Oh, I could weep.
[Ooh, excellent point, Ms. I! You wind up beating yourself up for something that’s… perfectly natural! Then, going the other way, you’re supposed to take one of the upcoming drugs to “cure” women’s “low” libidos. And meanwhile who’s working on drugs to cure (oh, say) your husband’s lower-than-your libido? Nobody? Oh, right in one! And yeah, the “must be gay” thing is just ridiculous. Not because it’s impossible but because (based on demographics and all) there’s only a 3-7% chance that that’s the reason. Nice to hear from you. Thanks for the great perspective. —fl]
Yep. That was pretty much
Submitted by chingona (not verified) on Sun, 2010-01-10 17:51.Yep. That was pretty much what I was going to say. Not to make it all what about the womenz. ;) And the thing that really sucks is that these messages burrow down so deep in us that even when you know on an intellectual level that it’s just the way that person’s sexuality works, even when you have evidence that they do find you plenty desirable (just not as often as you might like), those feelings of inadequacy still rear their ugly head.
[Be kind of weird, wouldn’t it, if that’s all Cosmopolitan magazine was really about, wouldn’t it? I’m pretty sure it’s not, of course, but it would make a little more sense out of that sort of persistent self-deprecation and self-effacement they push. Because even though there seems to be a lot of denial about it, and unbelievable emphasis on gender norms, the basic assumption always boils down to “how can you make him interested.” Which sort of things actually make sense if or when one’s partner (male or female) is actually less interested! Hmm… I’m not letting Cosmo off the hook, because I think they’re actually just trying to boost insecurity in order to sell more war paint. But that would be a nice subversive, and even possibly helpful, reinterpretation of their editorial recommendations. Thanks, Chingona. —fl]
Exactly. And maybe it’s not
Submitted by Sungold (not verified) on Sun, 2010-01-10 22:50.Exactly. And maybe it’s not wrong to make it all about the womenz. Ever since Freud, women’s libidoes have been 1) presumed irrelevant, 2) limited to a desire for mutual climax with a romantic partner in missionary PIV sex, or 3) assumed to be sublimated into a desire for a baby. Sometimes we just want to fuck – though for me, I do have to at least like the guy enough to be charmed in between rolls in the hay. And some of us want it more often than our partners. If my partner’s desire drops close to zero, it’s hard not to feel like a freak, no matter how confident or happy or feminist I feel in the rest of life.
I once played Rizzo in an amateur production of Grease, by the way. Her songs are in my (quite unimpressive) vocal range. Coincidence? :-) To this day, I’m still very fond of the song, “There Are Worse Things I Could Do …”
[Funny. I was thinking about those Freudian assumptions last night. (Though actually Freud at least made a big deal out of women’s libidos, even if he thought they were problematic.) On and off those attitudes have predated him by up to 2,500 years. One obvious bit of evidence? The persistent narrative of Eve as temptress. It was suddenly so obvious I sort of wanted to sit down. Now I think I ought to post about it. Thanks for the nudge, Sungold! —fl]
Or even (a la Ross Douthat)
Submitted by Holly Pervocracy (not verified) on Sun, 2010-01-10 19:53.Or even (a la Ross Douthat) they can closet themselves in with the cloaks of prudery, sanctimony, and the no-sex class paradigm’s Two Rules of Desire.
Interesting. I have to admit, I always assumed that men who did this were high-libido and repressing it, but that’s an interpretation that—mea culpa—I didn’t consider the possibility that they were extolling the virtue of sexual deprivation because it was easy for them.
[I’m sure sometimes they are. Not least because whole cultures (including 19th-Century American culture) have this obsession with semen conservation at all costs. But if you figure that maybe a third of all men and women consistently have lower sex drives than their partners, even more have it occasionally, and some percentage (mumble-mumble 1-15% mumble) consistently has almost no libido at all then yeah, for a lot of people it’s very easy (and possibly quite a relief) to play the virtue card. But again, to insist the whole culture be that way because that’s your preference is sort of like insisting we have patriarchy because you think 24/7 D/s is hot. :-) Thanks, Holly. —fl]
Hey, what happened to the
Submitted by Sungold (not verified) on Mon, 2010-01-11 09:19.Hey, what happened to the comments here? I wrote one last night and it’s been deleted. I’m pretty sure Chingona also had written one (to which I replied) and it’s gone too.
[Woah! Some young Archimedes has figured out how to get around my comment-spam filter lately and I unpublished yours and Chingona’s comments while bulk-unpublishing theirs. I’ve re-published the good ones. Between that an a nagging theme-related bug looks like it’s time to update the software again. Thanks for the heads up, Sungold. —fl]
I think Mike’s comment
Submitted by Stasha (not verified) on Mon, 2010-01-11 14:51.I think Mike’s comment (perhaps inadvertently) brings up another point regarding high/low libido combos in partnerships (forgive me, Mike and fl, I don’t know how to do a quote on this thing):
“....it did take her awhile to get used to that “flaw” in me, and although she has accepted it, it has caused occasional turmoil in our relationship from time to time…”
To me, whether it’s a “flaw” or not isn’t nearly as important as the fact that it IS a difference; so the question is “in what manner was it ‘accepted’?” Did the partners work out a compromise where everyone’s needs were met and no one was pressured or felt inadequate? Or did one partner effectively say “this is how I am, deal with it.”?
Occasional turmoil is part of life and can be a great opportunity to improve ourselves and/or be generous with our partners. Shouldn’t part of the goal be to learn to adjust, to compromise and, in effect, to build a better, stronger relationship rather than just enduring an out-of-sync sexual situation?
PS – Oh, and Mike, I’m not talking about you specifically here. :) Just saw the comment and had a thought.
[Hi Stasha. “Shouldn’t part of the goal be to learn to adjust, to compromise and, in effect, to build a better, stronger relationship rather than just enduring an out-of-sync sexual situation?” Yes! Exactly! Before you can learn to adjust you have to be able to acknowledge the possibility that one’s partner is neither a sex fiend (in one direction) or a cold fish (in the other) if one is not miraculously perfectly matched. And just denying that its even possible for an entire sex to be less amorous than the other puts about half of all cases behind the eight ball. Excellent point! Thanks. —fl]
Spot on naming of the shaming
Submitted by Kaija (not verified) on Tue, 2010-01-12 05:52.Spot on naming of the shaming of high libido women and silencing of low libido men. I strongly suspect that sex drive, like other biological traits, falls on a very wide distributions and “normal” is just the center of a wide span (e.g., the “normal” or bell curve distribution from Stats 101). Of course the conventional wisdom/pop culture “facts” view the male distribution as heavily skewed to the high end and the female one as heavily skewed to the low end, thus making a huge number of people feel like something is wrong with them.
This topic came up tangentially on Holly’s site and Hershele commented on a very common related experience:
“If you ever feel the need to be vilified and have all your friends think less of you: end an ‘otherwise’ great relationship because the sex isn’t good or sufficient, or if one of you is kinky and the other isn’t, or because one of you refuses to do something in bed that the other wants.” If your sex drives are somewhat different, then compromise and acceptance and working something out may be possible, but if you and your partner are widely separated by a gaping chasm in your appetites, then “compromise” means that neither person is going to be happy. But no one talks about this….because they correctly fear the shaming and assumptions that come with failing to adhere to a cultural fiction (one flavor for men and another for women). As a result, people feel compelled to adhere to the conventional gender norms, so men with low libidos will step it up during the dating and wooing phase and women with high libidos will tone it down…then when people partner up based on these fallacies and find out later on that their drives are just not compatible, it’s a shameful “failure” that neither can talk about because there’s no room in our culture for frank dealing with a common but hidden problem. Gender roles and policing of what’s “normal” doesn’t help ANYBODY in this scenario.
Wouldn’t it be better if individuals felt that they had time, space, breathing room, and acceptance to be who they really are regardless of gender? Wouldn’t they be less stressed, more self-confident, better at finding partners and making relationships work based on reality instead of gender theater? I hope we can get to this point some day.
[I certainly think it would be better. Especially since I think it would be better, meaning less wasted angst, more room for everything else because (paradoxically perhaps) time spent obsessing about sex is still time spent on sex! Thanks for the great quote from Hershele at Holly’s, Kaija. —fl]- reply