This post exists simply to marvel at the vast differences in sex drives.
Take me. As a first pass, I usually think I could pretty happily go without sex for about a year. I love masturbation and have had as-divine, if not more divine, experiences with myself as I have with partners.1 So taking away sex with partners doesn’t seem that bad!
(If you took away both sex and masturbation, I would be much grumpier much faster. Probably I’d feel itchy about my life, some lack of fulfillment, within a month. Maybe two.)
Maybe a year is an overestimate for being fine with no sex. Maybe after several months of abstinence (four months? six?), I’d be craving the novelty and validation of sex again. For instance, I can’t quite give myself the physical sense of “being used,” which I like. I’d want a refresher on that experience. And, depending on the circumstances (am I still getting lots of cuddles, or no?), I might feel a little off-kilter socially. Am I no longer sexy? Valued by my peers? It might start to get to me.
But take one of my friends. She’s quite horny. She gets grumpy-sad if she doesn’t bang at least once a week, maybe more.
And take a few dudes I know. They’d all love to have sex multiple times a day, if it were easily available. One of them, like the friend above, gets grumpy if he’s not having sex a few times a week. Masturbation just doesn’t cut it anymore. One of them finds his sex drive is intense enough that if he doesn’t jack off at least once per day (sometimes more), he’ll be too distracted by his horniness and not able to work. And one of them is much more neutral here — sounds like he orients to sex a bit like one might orient to freshly baked chocolate chip cookies2 or a bouquet of flowers. Sure, lovely to have around, would happily accept — if one could press a button to have it always available, absolutely — but no big deal if it’s not there.
I was chatting with a friend recently who pointed out that masturbation seems to be a very different experience for the two main genders. Most women seem to enjoy it as much as, if not more than, sex. Most men seem to find it significantly less good than sex. That all seems true in my experience. I am curious why this is, though. Is it about differences in how much you can max out clitoral vs. penile stimulation? Differences in the meaning we attach to sex? Differences in how women and men are socialized to behave during sex? Dunno!
(Also, while I think this is a trend, it’s definitely not always true. I know one guy who has a hard time getting really into sex, and he thinks it’s because he wanked so much and gripped his dick so tightly during his youth that he has desensitized his dick. Pussies all be too loose now.
... Fwiw, I have multiple guy friends who have some version of this story. No idea if this is, in fact, a real thing that can happen, and if we should all be trying to save all the teenage boys from burning down their future enjoyment of sex, or if it’s just a polite story guys go to when they’re not feeling the sex, because it doesn’t put any fault on their partner. Some of them did seem genuinely quite concerned about it!)
Back to examples of sex drive. I also know two women who seem perfectly content to live their lives having basically no sex ever. Like, they’re happy they’ve had sex so they know what the experience is like, feel adult, whatever. And they’ll have sex to make their partners happy. But they haven’t found sex to be that compelling, and if it were up to them, really there’s no need to spend time on it. Why can’t people be satisfied with snuggles?
I think it’s interesting how much sex drive can shape one’s life. One person might feel really dominated by it, while another person might not even feel it as a force influencing them. I have one friend who seems very dominated by it. He’s honed the skill of wooing women so that he never feels like he has to go without a fuck if he doesn’t want to. If he’s low on options, he’ll choose to go hook up even with people that he’s not that excited about and suffer the emotional cost of that, rather than forgo the sex. I have another friend who also struggles with dynamics like this — he sees his sex drive as a force to try to overcome, because he knows he’s made some bad decisions letting it lead him in the past. I have a third friend who has made it a large part of his lifestyle — he’s poly, he goes to orgies, he’s finding new play partners every few weeks. It’s fun and dynamic for him, but it takes a lot of effort.
Meanwhile, I mostly just get to live my life?3
I wonder what other forces are like this, really shaping the behavior of some, while being negligible for others. Hunger comes to mind. My father grappled with hunger much more than anyone else in my family had to. I wonder if someday we’ll have semaglutide for sex drive. I wonder how people would relate to that.
(I’m reminded of the erotica Erogamer, where I believe the opposite becomes an option — a drug to increase sex drive? I can’t quite recall. There are so many different versions of ourselves that we all want to be.)
The various threads of social status we choose to buy into are probably another force. Are you someone who tracks kindness or achievements? Do you care more about whether you are good or impressive? Attractive or conscientious? Rich or healthy? Diligent or clever? Which threads pull at your attention? Those are the ones that will shape your behavior.