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Female sexuality has long ceased to be an uncomfortable topic, but the stereotypes of the past still live in our minds. And often they are the cause of problems in the intimate sphere in women. Here are some enduring myths that scientists have debunked.
Myth #1: Women are monogamous by nature.
Allegedly, a woman, unlike a man, is programmed at a deep level to be attracted to a single partner. Often this idea is presented as something natural and reasonable from the point of view of physiology. Since the biological goal of a woman is to give birth to healthy offspring, she must be selective and remain faithful to her once chosen companion. But not everything is so obvious.
In fact, after several years of relationships, the desire to have sex in women is rapidly declining. Journalist Daniel Bergner writes about this in his book What Do Women Want? A Journey Through the Science of Female Sexual Desire” with reference to a study by the Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf in Germany.
Psychologists from the University of Guelph in Canada found that attraction to a regular partner in women begins to decline even earlier than in men. This may be due to hormonal changes and how a woman feels in a relationship: whether she is close to her partner, whether she feels feminine and desirable.
Myth #2: Women’s sexual desire decreases with age.
Psychologists at the University of Texas conducted a study and found that women in their 30s and 40s are more sexually active than even in their 20s. What’s more, a Harvard Medical School report says that women in their XNUMXs experience more powerful orgasms and are more likely to experience multiple orgasms.
“Decrease in sexual desire is usually associated not with age, but with psychological problems,” says psychologist Susan Quilliam, author of The New Joy of Sex. “Refusing sex in adulthood, women do not even suspect what potential of their sensuality remains untapped.”
Myth #3: Women think less about sex than men.
Every third user who watches erotica on the Internet is female. This was revealed as a result of a survey by the Nielsen/Net rating agency. Moreover, women also lead in terms of the number of views and downloads of erotic literature.
“It’s not that women have less interest in sex,” says psychologist Meredith Chivers, a professor at Britain’s Queen’s University. – Rather, the female libido is sensitive to a wider range of stimuli: words, images, sounds. In addition, the very nature of their sexual arousal is more complicated. There are many factors at work here, and first of all, the emotional state.
According to an Ohio University study, the differences in sexual activity between men and women that were recorded in earlier surveys may be the result of … the modesty of the survey participants themselves. “Women are very sensitive to social expectations about their sexual behavior, so they may be less honest when answering questions about it,” explains Terry Fisher, co-author of the study.
Myth #4: Women take a long time to get turned on.
Men and women take about the same amount of time to feel aroused. This conclusion was made by psychologists from the Canadian McGill University. The key question here is not “how much”, but “how”.
According to the authors of the study, the main reason for low excitability in women is that sex does not always take place in an atmosphere that is psychologically comfortable for them. Therefore, for example, in the process of masturbation, women, on average, reach orgasm as quickly as men.
“In our culture, the priority is given to the male orgasm and the types of sex that contribute to its achievement,” comments gender sociologist Lisa Wade. – When a woman puts her partner’s pleasure above her own, she often refuses even the thought of having an orgasm herself. And having learned to imitate it, she may completely lose contact with her feelings, which in the future can lead to sexual dysfunctions.
Myth #5: Sex makes women fall in love. Their feelings are especially affected by hormones.
One variation of this myth goes like this: “A man’s emotions are not related to the sexual sphere, so he can only have sex for pleasure. In a woman, during an orgasm, there is a strong release of hormones that change her emotional background.
“In fact,” explains Barry Komissaruk, professor of psychology at Rutgers University in the United States, “orgasm causes the release of the “love hormone” oxytocin in both women and men. There is no evidence that oxytocin has any particular effect on women. However, it has not been proven that this hormone in itself causes a feeling of love.