We were told men want it, women endure it. The research finally figured out who actually wants what and what’s been killing desire all along.
I’ve always been a once-a-day kind of woman, with or without a partner. I used to think that would make me more attractive to men. After all, sex was all they wanted, or so I’d been taught. In a world of frigid Sandra Dees, being a Rizzo was bound to make me popular, right? It didn’t quite work out that way.
I recently started seeing someone new. He’s attractive, attentive, and I’ve been having the best sex of my life. But it’s still not as often as I’d like.
The older I get, the less I believe everything I’d always heard about men and sex. The script we got that men want it and women endure it was written for heterosexual partnerships specifically, and it’s the script most of us grew up with. My entire 16-year marriage had been a dead bedroom. Heading into my 40s as a sexy single woman, I hadn’t been able to find one partner who could keep up. And my libido only seemed to climb, thanks to the perimenopausal hormone flood.
I’d heard about the libido gap, but as a woman, I was supposed to be on the other side of it. I’d been led to believe that men should have been knocking down my door even as my own sexual interest was waning. It made no sense.
The Science of Insatiability
I wasn’t the only one who thought so. In 2023, a group of Australian psychology researchers published a study titled Does Sexual Desire Fluctuate More Among Women than Men? “We were generally interested in how much it can vary, and also in this assumption that it’s gendered: that women’s desire is very hot and cold, whereas men’s desire is consistently high and stable,” said Emily Harris, Ph.D., lead study author. She said there was “some skepticism” that desire would vary much for anyone.
Instead, they found the opposite: Desire varies for everyone, especially in long-term partnerships. The libido gap tends to be true—or truer—for women in such scenarios. “For many women, the neurochemical systems involved in desire and reward don’t stay as highly activated with the same person over time as they often are with someone new,” said Jennifer Gunsaullus, Ph.D., a sociologist, sex coach, and author of From Madness to Mindfulness: Reinventing Sex for Women. “Men’s desire, by contrast, often seems more tolerant of familiarity and sameness.”
That dynamic has led many of Dr. Gunsaullus’s clients to question whether they’re “broken” or if they even still love their partner because they’re not as turned on by them. “We’ve learned that gendered simplification doesn’t actually help people have happy and enjoyable sex lives,” said Dr. Gunsaullus. “Instead of framing this as male versus female desire, I think it would be much more helpful to teach people about spontaneous versus responsive desire.”
Several experts I spoke with, including the study author herself, pointed out a key reason women’s libidos tank in long-term relationships. “The so-called ‘second shift effect’—the unequal division of domestic and emotional labor—is a well-documented desire-killer,” said Angie Rowntree, certified sexologist and founder of Sssh.com. It’s hard to feel frisky while carrying resentment for your partner.
That’s part of why my own libido goes largely unchecked. Long-term partnership doesn’t kill desire because of biology. It kills desire because the person you’re sleeping with is also the person who left wet towels on the floor and forgot to schedule the dentist again. Resentment is the most reliable libido suppressor ever discovered, and it gets manufactured daily in every household where one person carries more than they signed up for.
Being single in midlife, on the other hand, means I get to see men as sex symbols, not people who forgot to refill the toilet paper holder. That’s a privilege long-term partnered women don’t have.
The Male Sex Drive in Neutral
Another key finding: Men’s sexuality is also relational. That means men are just as likely as women to tell their long-term partners, “Not tonight, dear, I have a headache.”
“Feminists have been noting this for a while, but people have a strong attachment to the idea that men’s sex drives are biological,” said Dr. Harris. The study’s conclusion points out that this idea can be harmful for both men and women. Men may feel pressure to perform even if they’re not in the mood, and women may take rejection way more personally, just as I did. Because if men always want sex, and a man doesn’t want you, what does that say about how desirable you are?
“I would love for people to think more broadly about men’s sex lives, shaking up plenty of rigid assumptions about how much desire men should feel, when, and toward what,” said Dr. Harris. “Let’s give a bit more space for men to not be in the mood.”
The study also found that when it comes to in-the-moment lust, women and men are more similar than previously thought. “Over the years, I’ve talked with some women of varying ages who were surprised when they got into a new relationship and felt so much passion and wanted sex so frequently,” said Dr. Gunsaullus. “But especially in new or short‑term relationships, when sex feels safe and pleasurable with little shame, women’s desire can look just as strong and spontaneous as men’s.”
The idea that women can be as insatiable as men may not sound like much of a disruption, but it has bigger implications. The previous notion of a libido gap is a gross oversimplification of sexual desire that has persisted for decades, said Rowntree. “The old story sets up everyone for mismatched expectations. Men feel pressure to always ‘perform’ raging desire in a certain way, and women feel inadequate if theirs doesn’t match. In the end, it breaks everyone down instead of building them up and fostering healthy intimacy.”
The Real Compatibility Question
Now that we’re finally questioning the notion that all men are sex-obsessed and all women prudes, we can focus more on what is actually important to know about libido. “Desire is nuanced and malleable for everyone,” said Rowntree. “Our libidos are absolutely impacted by stress, fairness in the relationship, past experiences—and how good the sex actually feels.”
A 2026 study continued debunking the idea that women inherently don’t have as high a drive as men. Instead, the authors posit that initial sexual experiences, which tend to be less pleasurable for women than men, shape their attitudes about sex going forward. “It’s helpful to acknowledge the impact of early experiences in forming lifelong patterns of behavior and engagement,” Rowntree said. This tracks for me, and may explain why I’ve been so persistent in my pursuit of sex in spite of many, shall we say, sub-par experiences.
Turns out, my high drive doesn’t make me an outlier or freak of nature. It makes me lucky. It means I’ve had positive associations with sex early on, and my life isn’t ruled by resentment or stress. I can actually enjoy the sex I have, and that makes me want to have sex more.
Regardless of whether scientific literature has an opinion on this or not, I think it’s vitally important to find someone with a baseline drive similar to your own. Yes, we will all have our ups and downs, male and female. But someone with a baseline desire for sex once a day will never be fully satisfied with someone who’s content to do it twice a month. I know it’s been extremely gratifying to finally meet someone with the desire to match my pace, and who enjoys sex as much—and as often—as I do.
Now we just need to work on scheduling.
