Register to join our community
|
|
Question:
I just got married in June, and things have been well, but my husband has a much higher sex drive than myself. I think he would love to have sex twice a day. I'm a twice a month sort of person. This has always been the case with me...has nothing to do with him as a partner. Are there any ways I can increase my sex drive? I know it shouldn't, but it does cause stress in our marriage. I would love to be one of those people who looks foreward to intercourse five or six times a week. Is this possible?
|
Answer:
by Annette Owens: (05/18/2004)
Congratulations on your recent marriage! In general, people often tend to have sex more frequently when the relationship is novel. The fact that the quantity of sex sometimes changes after a while does not mean that the quality of the sexual relationship does. What you are experiencing is very common in newly married couples. Your sex drive may have been higher than usual before and after the wedding, and you may have had sex very frequently. It is completely normal that you now have reached a point where you would like to have sex less frequently. Instead of trying to increase your sex drive to match your husband's, I would encourage you to accept your desire level as it is and try to meet somewhere in between. You will be spending your life together and it is important that you adjust to each other on all levels of the relationship.
In order to demonstrate to you that you both have normal sex drives, I would like to share some numbers with you and your husband about how often Americans have sex: The following numbers are from a recent study, "The Social Organization of Sexuality. Sexual Practices in the United States" (1994) by Lauman, E.O. et al.; University of Chicago Press. A more popular version of this book is called "Sex in America. A Definitive Study" (1994) by Michael, R.T. et al.; Warner Books.
The study involved 3,432 men and women from all social, educational, cultural, and religious backgrounds, and living all over the USA. Since a computer program chose participants in the study randomly, the study population is highly representative of the entire nation. Following are the numbers of how often 25-29 year old Americans have sex:
4 or more times per week: men 11%, women 10%;
2 or 3 times a week: men 36%, women 37 %;
A few times per month: men 31%, women 38%;
A few times per year: men 15%, women 10%;
Not at all: men 7%, women 5%.
As you can see only 11% of American men and 10% of American women aged 25-29 years have sex 4 or more times per week. 18-24 year olds have sex 4 or more times per week: men (12%), women (12%).
As you can see, you are both perfectly normal. What would you do if your husband wanted to eat pasta for dinner every night, and you only had an appetite for pasta once a week? Wouldn't you settle on an arrangement of eating pasta only once or twice a week? You would enjoy pasta much more on those days, instead of having to eat it every day. And your husband would enjoy it as well.
Try to do the same with sex. Talk about it and be assured, that you are both normal with respect to sexual desire levels. And remember, that it is not the quantity of sex that counts, but the quality of your sexual relationship.
I always recommend partners who have a stronger sex drive to masturbate, which is a healthy sexual practice. In my opinion it would be perfectly fine for your husband to masturbate on days where you are not in the mood for sex. Masturbation is a good way to release sexual tension. Only if people masturbate excessively and this activity influences other activities of their lives in negative ways it may turn into a problem.
Best wishes to both of you.
Annette Owens, MD PhD
Reviewed by Sexual Health Editorial Team
|
This question appears in the following topics:
|
|
|
|
