Sex, Psyche, and Menopause
So much of sex is in your head. I know that sounds, well, dumb. But it's true. Maybe sixteen year old boys can go from zero to 100 in a millisecond, but it takes the average ADULT a little longer. There a few phases that need to be accomplished before getting down to the deed. Today we'll talk about Desire, and I'm not referring to a Harlequin sub-genre of books.
DESIRE is, basically, your interest in sex. It has a few subcategories that make it up.
1. DRIVE. No, not like your car. This DRIVE is the biological part of the equation, what makes you want to have sex. It shows itself through your fantasies, erotic thoughts, and attractions sexually to other people. The strength of desire varies from person to person and many factors come into play in how strong or not-so-strong it is.
2. BELIEFS. Desire can be and is driven in most people by their spiritual and cultural beliefs and value systems. Very strict religious groups may not believe in pre-marital sex and see it only as a way to procreate, eliminating the fun factor out of it. Cultures where women are still seen as property, or belonging only to their husbands tend to devalue sex for the woman and even allow its use as punishment, such as in Honor rapes. There are even some permissive cultures where monogamy is not the cultural norm and sex us seen as only a pleasurable function with no emotional entanglements between partners. In general, the more positive attitudes towards sex you were raised with, the greater your desire to be a sexual being will be.
3. MOTIVATION. Does this really need to be explained? Maybe. Motivation to engage in sex is driven by emotional and interpersonal WILLINGNESS to engage in sex. Can you, like that 16year old boy- go from 0 to 100 with just a quick glance at your partner? Is spontaneity your thing, or do you require the big buildup - dinner date, flowers, a movie, maybe dancing - to get you to want to engage in sex? And do you feel up to sex tonight? No pun intended. Motivation is a key facet of human behavior and if you're just not motivated to have it, you won't. End of story.
SO, when you combine these three subsets, you get the Desire component of the Sex equation. An adult's sex drive naturally decreases with age. This is normal. The sad part is that women seem to have a statistical decrease downwards greater then men to, some experts stating that it can be as much as 2-3 times more likely for women to lose drive then men. Relationships between a decrease in hormone levels and lowered sex drives have been clinically proven. Hypoactive desire is the most common complaint among women according to several research articles I read.
But don't be discouraged by the stats. We live in a society that allows women of every age the freedom to express themselves as sexual beings. I'm not talking about eighty year old women walking down the street looking like, well street-walkers, but I am saying that no matter what age she is, a woman is allowed to express herself and her sexual identity freely here in America. Next time, I'll talk about ways to increase the above three subsets so that the DESIRE component of the equation continunes to flourish during menopause.
DESIRE is, basically, your interest in sex. It has a few subcategories that make it up.
1. DRIVE. No, not like your car. This DRIVE is the biological part of the equation, what makes you want to have sex. It shows itself through your fantasies, erotic thoughts, and attractions sexually to other people. The strength of desire varies from person to person and many factors come into play in how strong or not-so-strong it is.
2. BELIEFS. Desire can be and is driven in most people by their spiritual and cultural beliefs and value systems. Very strict religious groups may not believe in pre-marital sex and see it only as a way to procreate, eliminating the fun factor out of it. Cultures where women are still seen as property, or belonging only to their husbands tend to devalue sex for the woman and even allow its use as punishment, such as in Honor rapes. There are even some permissive cultures where monogamy is not the cultural norm and sex us seen as only a pleasurable function with no emotional entanglements between partners. In general, the more positive attitudes towards sex you were raised with, the greater your desire to be a sexual being will be.
3. MOTIVATION. Does this really need to be explained? Maybe. Motivation to engage in sex is driven by emotional and interpersonal WILLINGNESS to engage in sex. Can you, like that 16year old boy- go from 0 to 100 with just a quick glance at your partner? Is spontaneity your thing, or do you require the big buildup - dinner date, flowers, a movie, maybe dancing - to get you to want to engage in sex? And do you feel up to sex tonight? No pun intended. Motivation is a key facet of human behavior and if you're just not motivated to have it, you won't. End of story.
SO, when you combine these three subsets, you get the Desire component of the Sex equation. An adult's sex drive naturally decreases with age. This is normal. The sad part is that women seem to have a statistical decrease downwards greater then men to, some experts stating that it can be as much as 2-3 times more likely for women to lose drive then men. Relationships between a decrease in hormone levels and lowered sex drives have been clinically proven. Hypoactive desire is the most common complaint among women according to several research articles I read.
But don't be discouraged by the stats. We live in a society that allows women of every age the freedom to express themselves as sexual beings. I'm not talking about eighty year old women walking down the street looking like, well street-walkers, but I am saying that no matter what age she is, a woman is allowed to express herself and her sexual identity freely here in America. Next time, I'll talk about ways to increase the above three subsets so that the DESIRE component of the equation continunes to flourish during menopause.
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