I received an interesting question as part of a longer email the other day. The guy who wrote to me was curious about my view on how the age difference between you and your woman might influences your libido (i.e. are you better off with a younger woman), as well as how your libido changes in general throughout the years:
What is your view about age when dating and chasing girls who are interested in you but significantly younger than you? At what point people stop having sexual libido/desire or their desire decline as they age?I'll cover the second question in this article, and the other in a follow-up.
Let me tackle the problem of declining libido in several steps. First, male sex drive declines as you get older, but I'll hypothesize that the change is largely due to lifestyle choices and constraints, and not so much due to biological factors. About teenage boys it is said that they would bang a hole in a tree just as well. This is certainly exaggerated, and just another example of the misandry of the mainstream media. Young girls are horny, too, yet no mainstream media buffoon ever wrote that they would shove anything in their vagina.
Regardless of whether teenagers really are hornier, I think it should be highlighted that sexual activity in teenagers seems more pronounced simply because many of them have more time to spare. They are exploring sexuality, and as an added benefit, having sex is a great way to overcome boredom. That kind of behavior is quite obvious among students who have no genuine academic interests, and it's pronounced at so-called party schools, too. Some days ago a commenter on the blog referred to the YouTube channel "I'm Shmacked", which offers OCD-friendly clips depicting the party life at US college campuses. Universities with a stronger academic reputation are conspicuously absent, but you'll find plenty of videos showing students at larger universities getting wasted.
Thus, it seems quite safe to assume that sexual activity among teenagers is not universally higher. It's well-known that a large fraction of incoming freshmen at elite technical universities like MIT are virgins. I doubt that many of those guys will turn into "players" later in their life, even though it's not hard to see how those people could fall for the empty promises of PUAs. In high school the geeks found different ways to occupy themselves.
The general theme is that the amount of spare time and opportunity determines your level of sexual activity. Sure, if you're a journalism freshman at OSU, and there are thousands of women around you could imagine banging, and if just to fill your time, your mind probably starts to wander on occasion. On the other hand, the diligent MIT student who tries wrapping his head around multivariate calculus and who calculates how much sleep he can afford to take the next few days, would view women as a mere distraction.
All those behavioral patterns will be evident later in life too. Even if your sex drive at age 30 was as high as at age 20, the mere fact that you now have to work a day job, commute two hours a day, and have to run errands in the evening will be enough to make you think that your libido has been plummeting. Instead, just like the hypothetical MIT student described above, you have too much to do and too little time. If you worked less, you probably would have more energy to fornicate. Of course, then the problem is that office environments are a pretty bad place to pick up women.
Looking at the situation of men in general, I don't want to dispute that libido decreases with age. However, it is an open question how much of this is due to inevitable hormonal changes, or simply a consequence of lifestyle choices. True, you don't have much of a choice since you'll have to pay your bills somehow, so it's more of a problem of how society is set up. If you're particularly hard-working, you might need a vacation to replenish your energy, before you can think about getting laid again.
Once again a very succinct and sobering analysis.
ReplyDeleteI like your sense of pragmatism.
Thanks dude!
I suppose that busier lifestyles play a role in this, but I also think that most men as they grow older and mature, they start to realize that sex is actually not a "big deal" and the amount of effort they're willing to put in to getting laid drastically decreases...
ReplyDeleteLibido has a lot to do with health for both sexes, and the fact of the matter is that most people in the west just don't put that much work into theirs; that's how it is. Getting a gut, the clogging of the arteries, insulin resistance (all of which are omnipresent in modern society) and chemical abuse all will kill your sex drive and function. Generally libido is a good indicator of overall health.
ReplyDeleteSo, when I hear about these relationships where the woman wants more sex than the man on a consistent basis, that's the first thing to look at. Generally the man is older than the woman and has not taken good care of himself (is overweight, smokes, drinks excessively, etc.) In other words, his testosterone, stamina, and function are subpar for an objective reason. The core issue is that the wife is healthier than the husband in these situations. If they were hitched to a man of equal or greater health than they are, the sexual mismatch would very likely be reversed. It is the very rare woman that can always keep up with (much less exceed!) the libido of a healthy, prime man at any age. A healthy, elite man will come back from a long, grueling day of work hornier than snot (often to a whining nag who is begging and pleading for him to understand that sitting at home playing with their toddler all day is sooooo laborious and stressful that it killed all her desire).
If guys were taught this in school, when it would do some good, so that they'd have the decades to make responsible health choices, there would be a much smaller market for little blue pills, but America is the happiest place on earth for Big Pharma and the rest of the healthcare-industrial complex.
"male sex drive declines as you get older, but I'll hypothesize that the change is largely due to lifestyle choices and constraints, and not so much due to biological factors."
ReplyDeleteAgreed ! I'm a fifty five yo male, reasonably well off and once again single - who lives in a city where sex is as hard as getting a beer. You bet, my sex drive has never been better.
Especially lately, when I've come accross this arts of seduction... wow !
12 Feb. 14.
ReplyDeleteIt is important to add to the data base of knowledge that the male peak orgasmic ability is approximately 16 yrs (Kinsey). Declines in physiological orgasmic ability, longer refractory period, change in angle of erection, less penile blood volume, are measureable by age 25. Nocturnal emissions stop or are reduced late 20s. Testosterone goes down 1-2% per year (Mass Male Aging Study) No one says this truth. It is ignored and never categorized as part of the continuum of ED. How would males and females react or cope psychologically if this reality was taught. It should be a part of the truth of male Sexual Aging. ED is a mutable standard. If a male can have sex only half as much by age 30 and all other research parameters of sexual response are met, then ED looks much different. Society is very fearful of telling these difficult truths or researching the psychological problems males undergo to ignore or hide from their self the truth about male sexual decline.... Thank you. Solly.