3 Myths About Men And Their Sex Drives

Hi, I'm Vanessa Marin. I'm a sex and relationship therapist, a coach and writer, and I'm here to help you take your sex life from ordinary to extraordinary. Today, I want to talk to you about male sexuality and the things about male sexuality that most of us get dead wrong. And I want to focus in particular on sex drive. I'm going to be sharing three myths about men and sex drive. The things that men wish that their partners understood. The things that most of us tend to get wrong about men and their relationship to sex. Alright, so the first myth is this idea that men always want sex. So you see this myth everywhere. There are so many jokes about it. Men think about sex every few seconds. Men would have sex anywhere, anytime, no matter what the circumstance was. A man could be at his mother's deathbed in the hospital, and if a sexy nurse winked at him, he would jump into the closet with her. We all think that men just constantly want sex. Now, on the surface, I know that this might not seem like the most damaging myth, so what's wrong with thinking that men want sex all the time? But the reality that I see in my sex therapy practice is that this myth actually does cause a lot of harm. So I hear from men who tell me that they feel belittled by this myth. I had one client who said that his wife would always make jokes about him being as one track minded as their daughter who was obsessed with their ball and playing fetch. And I had another client who told me that his wife, whenever he would try to initiate sex with her, she would kind of downplay it and say, oh, you're just trying to get off. You just want to have an orgasm. And the reality was that this guy was actually looking to connect with his partner in that moment and he felt hurt by her brushing this off as him just wanting to get off. So I think that there's something really important that we need to think about when it comes to this myth about men and their desire for sexual and that is that men get some very specific socialization about how they're allowed to connect with other people. Men are taught that they're not supposed to be emotional creatures. They're not supposed to have emotions, they're not supposed to show emotions. So a lot of men feel very conflicted when they're looking for connection with their partners. They feel like they can't reach out to them in the same sort of way that a woman who's received totally different socialization around her emotions might feel. So a lot of men use sex As a way to connect sex for them. Yeah, it's about pleasure and having orgasms, but it's also about feeling close to your partner, emotionally close. So I think if you are operating under this myth that you think that men always want sex, there are some very damaging ways that it could be affecting your sex life. So if you're with a partner who tends to have a higher sex drive, just likes having sex in general, my advice to you would be to make sure that you don't belittle your partner. Don't brush off his attempts to initiate or his interest in sex as him just being horny, him wanting sex all the time, him having a one track mind. Try to recognize that there are also plenty of times when your partner is initiating sex because he's interested in connecting with you. Alright, next up we have the second myth which is that men always want sex more than women. So in heterosexual relationships, if we think that men always want sex, it kind of naturally follows that if a man's with a woman, he's naturally going to want to have sex more often than she does. Now this myth is really, really damaging as well. I have worked with thousands of couples where the woman was the higher sex drive partner in the relationship. I've personally had tons of experience of being the partner with the higher sex drive in a relationship. So it's really important for us to recognize that this myth is outdated, inaccurate and very harmful. Because the truth is, in relationships, if we come into it with the expectation that the man is supposed to have the higher sex drive than the woman, what ends up happening is that both partners feel broken. The woman feels unfeminine, the man feels emasculated, they both feel like something is horribly wrong with them and they wind up having a whole lot less sex than either one of them would want. So if you're in a heterosexual relationship where the woman has happens to be the partner that has the higher sex drive, the most important thing for you to do is talk about it with your partner. Show them this video and tell them, hey, I know we've had some issues with this in the past, but I found this video and I realized that we are way more normal and common than I ever thought. It might also help to talk about the fact that sex drive is relative. So you could be the higher sex drive partner in one relationship and and then in your very next relationship end up being the lower sex drive partner. You might also switch roles in the same relationship. So maybe you started off as the higher sex drive partner and then the roles reversed, and now you're the lower sex drive partner. So it's really important to recognize sex drive is relative. It's constantly in flux. Now, the task for you and your partner is to acknowledge that you are two different people with two different sets of needs and desires, and to work together as a team to create a sex life that's going to feel sex satisfying and passionate to both of you. Now, I know that that's a big task and I plan on making some other videos about how to do that. But for now, I want you to get on board with the idea that it is perfectly normal to have a relationship where the woman has a higher sex drive than the man. Alright? Myth number three is that men are always ready for sex. So men want sex all the time, and they are ready to go whenever the opportunity presents itself. They can get hard right away, and they will stay hard throughout the entirety of the interaction. Now, this is again another untrue and extremely harmful myth. Because the reality is we are not robots. Our bodies do not always cooperate with what our brains want. Now, the crazy thing is that we all have had experiences with this. If you're a guy, you've had plenty of experiences of wanting to have sex with, but your body not cooperating. So you might have not been able to get hard at all, or you might have gotten hard but then lost your erection. And on the other side of the spectrum, there have been plenty of times where you have gotten hard when sex was the last thing on your mind. Maybe even times where you really did not want to be hard in that moment, but your body was just doing its thing anyway. Other genders have experience with this as well. So if you're the owner of a vulva, you've probably had plenty of times where you wanted to have sex, but noticed that you were totally dry. Or maybe you happened to notice that you were really wet, but sex was the last thing from your mind. So the bottom line is it's really important for all of us to recognize that our bodies do things that don't always line up with what our brains want. I never want to get sick, but I get sick all the time. Our bodies just are not always on the same page as our brains and we don't have perfect control over our body. So if you're in a relationship with a man and he has experiences where he's not able to get hard or stay hard, it's so important for you to recognize that this is a perfectly normal, common human reaction. And even more importantly, that it has nothing to do with you. If your partner is having problems getting or staying hard, it does not mean that he's not attracted to you, that you're not sexy enough, that you're not pretty enough, that you're not turning him on in that moment, that he doesn't want to have sex with you. All that it means is that he's not a robot and his body does not always cooperate with what his brain wants. That is such an important distinction for us to make and it would really serve our male partners for us to treat them with that compassion and understanding. And again, understanding that we all have experiences with this, we understand that our bodies don't always what our brains want. Alright, so those are the three myths. Men do not always want sex all the time. Men do not always want sex more than their female partners, and men are not always ready for sex at the drop of a hat. If you enjoyed this video, hit the subscribe button to subscribe to my channel and get notifications whenever I post a new video. And I would also invite you to join my weekly email list. You'll see a link down below to sign up and join. I send out weekly emails with free tips, advice and suggestions, all for helping you take your sex life from ordinary to extraordinary.