Friday Flashback: Sex Before Desire?

I read an interesting write up the other day on recent research that suggests many women’s sexuality is different than what’s typical for men.

For virtually all men, and some women, sex is sought because of desire. For these folks, the sex drive is just that, a drive – like feeling a need to eat or sleep. But for about one-third of women, it doesn’t work this way. For these women desire only occurs as a result of sex; arousal brings desire, not the other way around.

Let’s define arousal. Numerous studies have found women can be physically aroused (swelling and lubrication) without “feeling” aroused. Some women are unaware of the physical arousal while others are aware of it but don’t feel aroused. (The latter would be like hearing your stomach growl and knowing what that means, but not feeling any sense of hunger.) The issue here isn’t what her body does, rather it’s about what she feels.

For women who don’t feel desire outside of sex, it can seem like a catch 22. She won’t want sex if she doesn’t feel desire, and she won’t feel desire unless she is having sex.

If a woman learns that starting sex leads to desire, which leads to enjoyment, everything is good. This would be like knowing if you took a couple of bites of food you would start to feel hunger and would then want and enjoy the meal. For this to work sex needs to start slow, with a good deal of non-sexual and semi-sexual touching at first. Think sensual rather than hot sex, and give her body and mind time to develop desire. 

[This post first appeared August 1, 2009]

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