This week, there was a piece in Savage Love that had to do with differing libidos between men and women and mentioned a book by Joan Sewell which is apparently getting a lot of press called “I’d Rather Eat Chocolate: Learning to Love My Low Libido”. I think some of the advice Dan was giving was a bit tongue-in-cheek, but it still made me mad because [the book, the hype, the advice] is just another example of the media jumping on yet another stereotype that they believe is being reinforced.
The Savage Love column (for as long as this link is good for) is here.
The I’d rather eat chocolate book (with summary descriptions) is here.
This kind of gender stereotyping has had the media skipping through pools of its own saliva ever since women started getting some rights (starting with suffrage or maybe even earlier), they just love the odd opinion that reinforces their preexisting stereotypes, easily ignoring the wealth of differing opinions (which would seem to reinforce diversity, not unity).
The idea that women uniformly have low libidos is ludicrous (as is the one that men uniformly have high libidos). The idea that women are expected to have low libidos isn’t that surprising though. I’ve had pretty limited experiences myself (less than 10 sexual partners and only 6 in some sort of relationship context) and in that very limited experience, I’ve seen a very wide variety. Even with individuals, it can vary according to the day of the week or the year. Several women had higher libidos than myself and several had lower and some were both at different times or roughly equivalent to me. My own libido has changed over time (from year to year), but what I’ve noticed that has had the strongest effect is really stress/health. People can react differently to stress (for some that may increase libido, but for others, it may starkly decrease libido), but poor health seems to have a pretty general negative effect on libido (how randy were you the last time you were laid out with 103F fever and horrible congestion from the flu?). If I’ve seen this kind of diversity in my own little world, why is it that everyone is so quick to generalize by one author’s opinion? Surely I didn’t happen to get involved with the only few exceptions to the “rule” out there?
One thing that Savage says (paraphrasing Sewell) is that testosterone makes people horny and therefore men have higher libidos because they have more testosterone. Ah, testosterone – the wonder hormone; not as if sexual interest could be a complex thing involving multiple factors. I have read that changes in testosterone levels have been shown to [sometimes] increase libido (which is why oysters, which have a lot of zinc that can cause fluctuations in testosterone, are seen as aphrodisiacs), but this is not an overall volume-related thing. It seems there are studies claiming that testosterone replacement is appropriate for post-menopausal women (who have low levels of estrogen, progesterone and testosterone) as treatment for loss of libido, but what about women who haven’t yet hit menopause? Ah, a new endrocrinology study has some non-panacea (i.e., reasonable sounding) answers: various biological changes (including, but not limited to hormones) and psychological factors (relationships, stress, etc.). Oh, and it says that the study proved that low testosterone has no effect on libidos of women under 45 – see Aphrodite article.
My theory is that it’s like acne or exema, medically speaking (of course libido is more pleasant than either); I mean, it’s really different for different people (sometimes with no identifiable causes) and there is no one cure-all or blame-all that affects everyone. People are people; we can’t help being different, but we can stop pretending (and oversimplifying).
