Touchy topic I know, but in this blog I plan to address a common misconception amongst men and women in today’s society: the need for sex amongst men. It is common for men to justify disturbing sexual behavior with the fact that they are men. It is also common for the female to be more invested in feelings and emotions than the male partner, but why is this? Do men need sex more than women? I believe that while we all have the instinct to reproduce, men have stronger sex drives than women.

When determining a strong sex drive aspects that come into consideration include: number of sexual partners, masturbation, frequency of masturbation, frequency of sex, frequency of sexual thought, variety of sexual acts, willingness to make sacrifices to obtain sex, and most useful, sexual fantasy and its frequency. Beginning with the act of having sex, according to Ehrlichman and Eichenstein, it is in the male instinct to impregnate as many women as possible. This meaning that it is natural for men to want to have sex with a numerous amount of women. Most of the time the physical characteristics are the only essential aspect of choosing a woman to have sex with. Men look for a woman who appears to be healthy, young, attractive, and typically well enough to carry a child. Now, when you young college boys read this article you’re probably thinking that creating a child is the last thing you want to do, which could be very true. Although, when choosing a women to lay down with it is an instinct- more so self conscious- to engage in sex with a women who you could see being capable of having your children. Ehrlichman and Eichenstein also say that women have a sexual instinct as well BUT unlike men, the mind of the female effects the decision of her sexual partners. The female does not just lay down with any man when given the sexual desire to do so (which the female DOES experience), but she will wait until that man has exceeded more than just physical criteria. Not saying that it is impossible for a man to resist another woman or that a woman will always wait before sex, because that isn’t true. It is simply in the nature of men to think of the act of sex before emotion and vice versa for women; whether or not you personally adapt to that behavior.

Earlier I mentioned that one of the best determinants of a strong sex drive was sexual fantasy, and that is because all of the other aspects could be skewed by third variables in a study. For example: a boy raised with all brothers and constant exposure to pornography may be more sexually active than a boy raised in a very religious house hold. The two boys, with their two different backgrounds and different sexual experience, can still have similar strength in sex drive based on how often they have sexual fantasies. In a study by Ellis and Symons in 1990, the variety of partners in sexual fantasies were tested amongst college students. Students were asked whether they had over a thousand different partners in their sexual fantasies. The study showed that men are four times more likely to have over a thousand different partners in their sexual fantasies than women. Based off of this it is concluded that men think about sex more often that women do, hence a stronger sex drive. Granted, this is an observational study, there is no experiment being done here which I would imagine would be hard to do. Researchers have to trust that the feedback is at best as accurate as possible. Further studies have been done to prove the same thing, these studies are also observational. Although, the studies are questioning subjects on what they want which is essentially what this topic is about- desire for sex. For example: a study by Johannes and Avis sampled married couples with ages 51-61 and found that women were less likely to wish for more sex than they were currently having and men were more likely to DESIRE more sex than they were having. Similarly, Ben N. Ard Jr. did a study in 1977 with couples who had been married over 20 years and found that women were generally content with the amount of sex they were having but the men desired a 50% increase and sexual intercourse. The list of studies like this go on and they come to the simple conclusion that men simply have a stronger sex drive than women. Men want to have sex more, they think about it more, they masturbate more, they fantasize about sex more, and more often than not they feel as though it is in their nature to be engaged in sexual activity frequently; and by the looks of things… they’re kind of right.