In this solo talk aimed at a primarily male audience, the speaker challenges the common belief that women naturally lose sexual interest in long‑term monogamous relationships. Citing author‑researcher Wednesday Martin, he argues that the myth that women’s libido declines due to hormones or innate differences is unfounded, and that studies show long‑term relationships actually suppress women’s desire while men’s desire remains relatively stable. He then brings in Esther Perel’s concept that once desire is institutionalized—turned into a duty rather than a choice—it loses its spark, illustrating the point with an anecdote about a young couple who married at 19 and experienced a three‑year sexual drought. The speaker expands on gendered dynamics, noting that men often frame sexual activity as a generous act aimed at pleasing their partner, whereas many women derive arousal from being the object of attention and feeling desired. He discusses how women may feel “sexy” when they attract external gaze, contrasting this with the domestic roles that can diminish sexual self‑image. Finally, he offers a practical stance: in committed relationships the partner should aim to be the source of desire, setting the tone rather than focusing solely on mutual feeling. Throughout, the talk blends research references, personal anecdotes, and cultural observations to argue that monogamy can dampen female libido and that intentional effort is needed to sustain desire.
Chapters
This is the one that's a kick in the balls for a lot of guys. On top of— how ironic— all of our propensity to look around, you know, we have pornography, sex workers, and everything else shows us that we tend to look around. Us men are some horn dogs. Well, we pick women that their female libido doesn't seem to correspond positively to long-term monogamy and marriage. That's what every anxious guy does not want to hear. To quote Miss Wednesday Martin— she's a doctor, Wednesday Martin, PhD— it is a myth that women naturally lose interest in sex, or that hormones are the main culprit, or that women are less sexual than men. The sex that is— she means the gender— that is, in theory at least, capable of infinite orgasms has no reason to lose interest in sex. And research supports this claim. Studies on women in relationships argue that it's long-term relationships that suppress their desire. In other words, monogamy has a higher— has a negative effect on a woman's libido, but not necessarily on men's desire. Miss Esther Perel, everyone know who Esther Perel is? You should by now. Famous author, Mating in Captivity, State of Affairs are her two big books. She has lots of TED Talks and other stuff. She says the moment— this is interesting— the moment she institutionalizes something that she felt she owned, that was hers, that was her choice, it becomes what I'm supposed to do versus what I want to do. There was a guy who reached out to me, and I did— everyone familiar with my Dear DSO videos that I do? So people write in with their little thing, and I do a little video on it. And a guy, he was 22, I believe, He married his wife when they were 19. As soon as they got married, he noticed, "We stopped doing anything in the bedroom. It's been 3 years now of nothing." He goes to his wife, hat in hand, as I often say, and said, "We got to work on this. What do we do?" And she told him, it's like reading a good book that you really, really love until it is assigned to you at school, and then you're like, "Man, now I don't want to read it anymore." She encapsulated what Esther says here perfectly. Now that I have to do it, that there's some kind of duty involved with it and everything, it's not— the spark is gone. The excitement's gone. Esther goes on, it's in very interesting ways, men in committed relationships are often much more generous. They genuinely appreciate the quality of their partner's excitement. This is— Shannon, I would love your take on this. Men in committed relationships generally talk a lot about how much they enjoy pleasing their partner. Was it good for you? Was it good for you? How many orgasms did you have? The quality of the experience often depends on the quality of her experience. We want to see her into it, see her enjoy it, and you rarely hear a woman say, "What turns me on most is to see him really into it." What turns her on most is to be the turn-on. The secret of female sexuality is how narcissistic It is. For a lot of women, not all, let's not paint all women with the same brush, they will report, "I never felt as sexy as when I put on a nice cute little number and I noticed everybody's head in the place turn to watch me as I went in." You know, I felt special. I felt desired. And that made me in turn feel like a sexual creature, as opposed to being stuck in a home with 3 or 4 kiddos and everyone hanging all over her and she's a milk-producing device and she's the dish cleaner and everything. There's nothing sexy or sexual about that. Men, we're a little different. We can be in that environment with the 4 kids and the dishes and everything else, and then if wife walks in the door and says, "You want 'em?" We're like, "Yeah, let's go." We're just different in that way. The tone has to be set, and it seems, if you believe Esther, the tone is one of, "I want to be the source of desire here. I'm not so much concerned with what he's feeling in the moment." Not a bad thing, just is.
