Is it worth just wanting?

Movie heroes with their turbulent romances and ubiquitous sex symbols from advertising posters – we have many reasons to dream of a powerful and unchanging sexual appetite. But do we need to worry if the “desire of desire” leaves us?

There is a term in sexology: “false sexual disorders”. They denote violations in those … who generally have no deviations in the sexual sphere. Lack of desire is increasingly becoming such a false disorder. Moreover, we ourselves may be quite satisfied with the frequency of having sex 2-3 times a week – or 5-10 times a year. However, for some reason it seems to us that this is not enough. It’s like we want more and more, not sex per se, we want to want sex. And we are very worried that we do not want enough. What’s happening?

Private bussiness

There is nothing unusual in the “desire of desire” itself, sexologist Irina Panyukova is sure. “It accompanies us all adult life. At 20, people may worry that they want their loved ones every hour, not every minute. And at 50 – what they want is not the same as at 20. And probably, one could confine oneself to stating the truth, which all sexologists of the world do not get tired of repeating: there is no general norm in this delicate issue and cannot be.

“The intensity and expressiveness of desire is an exclusively individual trait,” recalls Irina Panyukova. – It is connected, firstly, with personality traits, with temperament and sexual constitution. Secondly, both age and general physical and psychological state are important. Finally, thirdly, relationships with a partner play a very important role.

A change in any of these factors affects the degree of our desire, and all of them together give a set inherent only to us, which simply does not make sense to compare with the achievements of a friend or neighbor. Unfortunately, a simple statement does not help. If only because we especially like to forget about common truths. And as soon as our sexual desire turns out to be even slightly different from what we are used to, we begin to worry about the deviation from the non-existent general norm.

Not so long ago, a man in his 60s came to a consultation with Irina Panyukova. Over the years, while living in a marriage, he had an intimate relationship with another woman. Moreover, all sides of the triangle were well aware of the existence of each other, but for various reasons, the situation suited everyone perfectly. The man, regularly performing marital duties at home, several times a week also visited his mistress. So, the essence of his complaints was that recently he began to be weary of such frequent visits to the side. And the patient was very worried if something was wrong with his sexual desire.

“I advised him during the next visit to ask his mistress: does she herself need such frequent meetings? — says Irina Panyukova. – Soon the man came to me absolutely happy. His girlfriend has long been willing to make dates less often, but she was very afraid of offending her partner. For all the possible unusualness of this story, it is typical in the main thing: many people perceive absolutely normal age-related changes in their personal norm of desire as a tragedy, trying to focus on some other norms that they themselves invented.

Feelings and Viagra

At the same time, with sexual desire in women, everything is even more complicated than in men. Simply because for men, excitement and desire are almost synonymous, and for women, not always. In other words, male desire is largely determined by physiology, while female desire is psychological in nature.

Not so long ago, Toronto-based sexologist Meredith Chivers analyzed and summarized the results of 132 studies that measured the level of arousal of men and women while watching erotic videos. Then the participants in the experiments subjectively assessed the degree of their desire. It turned out that in men, desire and arousal were perfectly consistent with each other. And in women, this relationship was almost not visible.

This, by the way, is one of the reasons why a reliable “love potion” or at least Viagra has not been invented for women. The rush of blood to the sexual organs, of course, brings them into a state of excitement. That’s just no desire at the same time a woman may not feel.

For a long time it was believed that relationships are important for women in the first place: it is they, reliable and harmonious, that give rise to sexual desire. But modern researchers are skeptical about this point of view. “Perhaps, at the initial stage of the relationship, a woman is quite aroused,” says Marta Meana, a sexologist at the University of Texas (USA). But there is no evidence that this state of affairs persists for a long time.

I believe that for women, having good relationships is in many cases more important than having good sex. But it does not follow at all that relationships excite a woman sexually. If stability, comfort and mutual respect really stimulated the female libido so much, we would hardly see so many women who are in successful marriages, but at the same time complain about the lack of sexual desire.

What is the reason for these complaints? Is it only the gradual cooling of sexual ardor that is characteristic of any marriage? Perhaps there is another reason.

Civilization of teenagers

Desire standards that do not really exist are increasingly being introduced into our consciousness. This is especially true in our country, where any sexual information has long been taboo. Today, what has been lost has been made up in abundance. “We actively exploit the cult of sexuality,” says Irina Panyukova. – Constantly wanting sex and having sex is evidence of success, health, that life is good. Movies, books, and the media talk about it directly and covertly.”

It’s hard to argue. Try to remember how many erotic experiences are described, for example, in “War and Peace” or how many sex scenes in “Seventeen Moments of Spring”. And in today’s book bestsellers and TV hits? The characters in Sex and the City, for example, make love 3-4 times in a 30-minute episode, and discuss the rest of the time.

“Almost any film today will have at least two bed scenes,” the sexologist continues. — And the average viewer watches five films a week. A total of ten episodes of sex. And although everything, of course, is more complicated, in the end doubts are still born: you need to have sex more often. Perhaps something is wrong with my desire … “

Europe and the US have become accustomed to the pressure of sexual information. But it has its own trend, focused primarily on women. For a long time, the target of sex scenes in movies and on television was a man. The last decades have radically changed the situation. The same “Sex and the City” shows that women behave like men: they are looking for pleasure for one night, and not happiness for life. And in advertising pictures you can often see not only busty beauties, but also luxurious handsome men with embossed abs.

Equality is so equal – and women feel compelled to experience desire on an equal basis with men: the pressure of the new cultural and social norm in sex affects women especially strongly.

Meanwhile, sexologists unanimously note: the hypersexuality of today’s advertising images is actually a characteristic feature of adolescence. Perhaps this is quite consistent with the opinion of many philosophers and culturologists: our world is becoming more and more infantile. “Comparing yourself with the heroes of myths, trying to match some advertising samples is evidence of the immaturity of the personality,” says Irina Panyukova.

Cons and pros

The pursuit of the “perfect” desire is not such a harmless thing. “The desire to fulfill the standard or meet the partner’s expectations, which you came up with for him, leads to a loss of pleasure and self-confidence, brings tension to sex, turns it into a job, a duty,” states Irina Panyukova. As a result, false sexual disorders develop into more serious disorders.

What to do? First of all, to understand what we and our partner (or partner) expect from sexual relations, how our expectations coincide. A confidential conversation can help with this, but sometimes it is better to turn to specialists. By the way, the obligatory stage of a couple’s consultation with a sexologist is filling out a preference questionnaire. In it, each indicates what exactly his partner / partner likes most of all in sex. Even a simple comparison of these questionnaires helps a couple learn a lot of important, and often new, things about themselves.

“In an effort to improve the quality of sexual life, we strive to improve life in general – and this in itself is very good,” sums up Irina Panyukova. – It is only important that we do not sacrifice this quality in pursuit of quantitative indicators. Ultimately, in intimate life, how we feel is much more important than how often we have sex. However, everyone still has to find their own recipe. After all, you haven’t forgotten the common standards, have you? – does not exist.