I want to thank Lauren for sending in this question:
"I have read all of your articles everytime you sent to me. Thanks for keep on reminding us don't think that all guys are look after sex. But I have had many experience that to prove that they are really all look after sex, they don't even know what true love is all about. Can you help me to overcome this?"
As a woman, this is one of the biggest challenges you will face in relationships: negotiating a man's desire for sex with your desire for the "something more" of true love.
Yes, all men want is sex. Let's get that fact out into the open. Men are wired to have a super-high sex drive in comparison to women. According to Barbara and Allen Pease's book, Why Men Don't Listen and Women Can't Read Maps, the human sex center has a specific location in the brain (the hypothalamus) and can be weighed and measured. Lo and behold, the part of the brain responsible for sex drive is larger in men than in women. Added to the fact that men have 10 to 20 times more testosterone (a hormone responsible for stimulating the sex drive) than women, it's easy to see why over half of all men think about sex every day or several times a day (Source: Sex in America).
One commonly-given reason for the high male sex drive emerges from the cloudy history of human evolution, in which the aim of our ancestors was to procreate and ensure the survival of the species. Men were driven by a biological imperative to spread their seed far and wide. Women, on the other hand, knowing that they would need a supportive partner during the years it takes to raise a human infant to adulthood, tended to hold off casual sex in order to search for commitment.
So that's the science, but what does it mean for us? Knowing the "why" and "how" of the human sex drive doesn't help us much when it comes to interpreting our experiences today. Yes, men may have a higher sex drive, but they live in a modern world where culture privileges monogamy.
Here's one hopeful fact: the male sex drive peaks at age 19, while the female sex drive doesn't peak until age 36 to 38. Could it be that if we just wait long enough, we'll meet a man more interested in love than sex? Or will we be the ones at that point wanting sex more than love (e.g. Desperate Housewife syndrome)? Here's what Barbara and Allen Pease have to say about such "December-May" pairings:
"A man's sexual performance level at age 19 is more compatible with a woman in her late 30s to early 40s … [while] the sex drive of a man in his 40s is compatible with a woman in her early 20s…. There is usually around a 20-year age difference between these older/younger combinations." (p.194)
Yikes, but I don't want to date a man 20 years older (or younger). So what am I supposed to do?
Here's the answer.
- Don't expect a young man to be as interested in monogamy as you are. In his late teens and early twenties, it will take a special man to be less interested in sowing his oats than in having sex with the same woman for the rest of his life.
- Respect your man's sex drive. If your man told you that PMS was all in your head and that you shouldn't have wild mood swings/cravings/cramps, you would tell him he didn't know what he was talking about, wouldn't you? Well, just as hormones can cause you to go a bit batty, so his hormones can control him at times. Understand that his sex drive is part of his biology and not an indicator of immorality or licentiousness. Women are not the "purer" sex because we have a smaller hypothalamus and lower levels of testosterone.
- Realize that his sex drive does not define him. This, I think, is the most crucial fact of all: your man is more than his sex drive. I love what Alexandra Penney has to say about this is her book How to Keep Your Man Monogamous:
"A woman must recognize that her mate is part boy, part adolescent, part man. The boy in him wants to know that she really cares for him and his well-being. The adolescent wants to know that he's the object of her whole sexuality; the mature man wants to know that she's proud of him, approves of him." (p.90)
Understand and respect your man's sex drive, but if he is truly a man (and not a boy), he'll have a focus and a purpose in life. He'll want to advance in his career and contribute to his community. He'll appreciate the stability of a partner who supports, respects, and challenges him in his journey through life. He may even find that he desires the respect and status that marriage can give him.
As you begin to attract higher-quality men, you'll find that these men are about much more than sex. In fact, highly successful men in business learn how to channel their sex drive into their pursuits and passions. (Napoleon Hill's seminal book on achieving success Think and Grow Rich, encourages men to do just this.)
As long as you keep these concepts in mind – that younger men are the least likely to be interested in monogamy, that your man's sex drive is part of who he is but does not define him, and that a man who hasn't learned to "transmute" his sex drive into other forms of achievement may remain at a lower level of growth – then you'll be able to make honest, informed decisions about whether a man is a suitable candidate for a long-term, monogamous partnership.