A raft of articles, books and research projects dedicated to the subject of why we’re not having as much sex as we should and how we can be encouraged to have more are flooding mainstream health and lifestyle reporting. Women in particular are the target of this focus on sexual quantity. What could be wrong with us and how can we be fixed? Why the sudden media interest in getting enough? What particular zeitgeist is behind our interest in policing our levels of sexual activity? Has sex become just another chore?
In the land where sex happens for reasons other than the propagation of the species, it’s just us and the Bonobos. Possibly dolphins too, but we’ve yet to establish the role of sex in the lives of our shiny and idealised watery friends.
Evolutionary psychologists have some ideas about sexual frequency for humans in long-termpartnerships, but for most of us, figuring out how much and what kind of sex we want is difficult, thorny and changeable. The conditions that encourage frequent and pleasurable sex are often mysterious.
Yet all of a sudden we seem to have gone from the facile assumption that sexual interest declines naturally over time, to a kind of evangelical call to sexual arms: Do it. Do it better. Do it more often. We promise you’ll like it.
Much of the current media attention directed towards encouraging sexual frequency is focused on finding ways to get more sex for men, who are apparently more interested in it.
Bettina Arndt among others would like us to find ways to attend to the assumed greater sexual needs of men in order to sustain lasting heterosexual partnerships. In her world, sex is utilitarian in nature. It creates peace and connection for men, and women would enjoy it too if they could just find it within themselves to give up their desire to feel desirous first.
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