I find the way libido changes with circumstance interesting and almost undocumented, so I write a lot about it here.
During my marriage, living and sleeping with a beautiful (to me anyway) woman who was only inclined to give me orgasms about every second weekend, giving her orgasms about three times a week, my libido was a tremendous drive. And in retrospect nearly torture; I absolutely compare it to the time with the broken neck and the Halo brace screwed into my skull. My thoughts were a constant loop of sex, my wife, frustration. I was strongly tempted to find sex elsewhere, and paying for it didn't sound inherently unappealing. Stereotypically male, more than usual for my age.
After almost a year alone, it has dropped off to about the same level it was between my first and second marriages, which is quite low. Porn that used to do it for me doesn't; I realize I'm looking out of habit rather than desire. I love cuddling and nonsexual physical touch but have no particular desire to take it further. I'm driven to find out if anyone wants me sexually but I do not want anyone that much. I want an emotional relationship, not sex.
So, pretty much stereotypical female desire patterns. I feel like there might be a revelation in there somewhere, but I can't find it.
I am certain that my libido will go back to the way it was once I'm back in a relationship with an attractive woman. For now, it's a big relief.
It almost seems a blessing in disguise. It will return when needed, but why mess with such a drive with no outlet?
ReplyDeleteReally, I think all our drives improve with intimacy. And that intimacy does not have to be physical. But we crave it.
After I left my husband, I had the same vicious sex drive as ever but suddenly had a hard time reaching orgasm. Then I happened to read somewhere that a breakup will often leave women without a sex drive for a while, and men rarin' to go but unable to get there.
ReplyDeleteSo apparently I am a dude. Doesn't especially surprise me.
I'm glad your libido is dormant. It'll help keep you out of trouble. :D
Penny - no disguise, with no outlet it's just plain blessing. And, in fact, a direct answer to prayer.
ReplyDeletePerversecowgirl - and I'm a chick. It'll be nice not having to struggle so much to stay out of trouble. :)
I'm mulling over your post and the comments (Thanks guys!) ...
ReplyDeleteEmily Nagoski wrote something on sex drive a while back. She argued for positive reinforcement I think. Thus, a period of no reward (i.e. no nice sex) should lead to less desire and frequent orgasm to increased desire etc. Someone may correct me ....
What I've noticed is that during my periods of celibacy, my sex drive goes down immensely (I think about it five or six times a day as opposed to all the time) and I lose the desire to be penetrated, which I crave a lot when I'm getting fucked regularly. However, my desire for cuddles and nonsexual but loving touch remains as strong as ever-- painfully strong, in fact.
ReplyDeleteInteresting, Mousie. A woman I was having a debate with (and who can boast of a long list of sex partners) argued that your pattern would be almost impossible in a man. I wonder if you also felt like that prior to your first marriage -- i.e. did your libido show a more 'feminine' pattern then?
ReplyDeletePersonally, there are a number of things that keep me so deeply interested (my work ranking #1) that, when I wasn't in a relationship, I usually only realized I had a libido by the time I was in bed trying to fall asleep. (If a non-relationship period coincided with a workless period, that would be more difficult... but then, there always was porn. And what I felt then was less interest in elaborating: no big detailed fantasies, just get-it-over-with as quickly as possible. When a relationship started, though, fantasies and desires gradually became quite elaborate again.)
Candice, positive reinforcement may be a contributing factor, but my libido is through the roof when I'm in constant living proximity to attractive women and there isn't good sex; e.g. high school and college.
ReplyDeleteOzymandias, that sounds rather similar to my pattern.
Asehpe, I bet that the woman who had the long list of sex partners had few otherwise abstinent ones on the list; I think you're looking at a serious selection bias.
My libido showed a typically or perhaps exaggeratedly masculine pattern before my first marriage, in college and high school. There was a lot of flirting going on. There were actually several girls in college who were hoping I'd say something (7:1 female:male ratio), but I was too clueless to know. And they were too shy or inhibited to say anything until I was dating someone else and it was an after-the-fact confession rather than a proposal.
I did not have sex until my first marriage due at first to shyness and social ignorance and only later due to religious resolution.
Beware the individual who only shows the classic gender characteristics in one direction or another! It is either an act or denial. Each of us is made unique and not to be put in a box with a description. That goes for gender identity, political affiliation, religious views, and so much more. When you get really honest with yourself you find that you are unique and can't be balled in with a group. That's my opinion anyway.
ReplyDeleteIt took me a long time to have sex due also to shyness, and to a number of other obstacles (my family was rather dysfunctional, I was a very resentful teenager who thought the world existed solely to torture and torment him, which is not exactly a magnet for girls... I was educated in a very strict Catholic school, which explains the fury I felt against Christians in the first part of my life...) So only after several years in college, in the ripe age of 24, did I have my first time.
ReplyDeleteIt seems I always had a lot of passion, in the sense that there usually was something in my life absorbing a lot of my energy -- usually an intellectual pursuit (physics and math, literature, history, biology... I ended up being a linguist). So I probably suffered less from the fact that girls didn't care about me than I otherwise might.
And of course this means I didn't realize it when girls were interested. Or that I reacted badly when they made it explicit. I even remember one, from my last year in highschool. She not only flirted with me, she made her intentions quite obvious; and still I was angry and scornful, and I avoided her and never returned any of her calls -- because since I was then convinced that the world existed only to torture me, then of course she couldn't be sincere, it was all a plot to get me.
I'm so ashamed of that now. Sometimes I think of her, and wonder how hurt she felt. I hope everything turned out OK for her. My subconscious plays tricks with me; I can't even remember what her name was, though, funny enough, I know it had two a's and an l (Laura? Clara? Claudia? Something like that). Maybe I should try to locate her someday and tell her I'm sorry. I truly am.