Myth of married women’s failing libido

MEN have urges, women have headaches. Five decades on from the sexual revolution of the Sixties, that remains the prevailing thinking when it comes to married sex.

The sexually rampant single girl, who notches up lovers, becomes the frigid, frazzled working mother-of-two who’d rather snuggle up to her iPad than endure sexual shenanigans with her husband. Or for too many that’s the received wisdom.

As for the menopausal woman, whose hormones have gone into free-fall, how grateful she is, goes the assumption, that her husband no longer appears to fancy her.

Wrong, wrong, and wrong again. ‘Not tonight darling’ has finally been exposed as the sexual myth it always was.

Women, it transpires, yes even married ones, like sex. Married women with children quite like it, too. And, shock horror, quite a few post-menopausal women are up for it as well. If only their husbands realised.

For new research suggests wives are far more interested in sex than their husbands have ever realised.

Psychologists have found that men in longterm relationships often underestimate how often their partners are in the mood for love.

This should be good news for the so-called libidinous male. Except it turns out not to be good news for either sex.

For it seems modern men are holding back in the bedroom. Fearful of rejection, and brought up to be considerate between the sheets, chaps are failing to take the initiative. Meanwhile their wives, who may be in the mood for sex, are unrequited.

And the result is that in too many relationships neither party is getting the satisfaction they could be.

Psychologists at the University of Toronto and the University of Western Ontario in Canada analysed the results of three separate studies, following 229 long-term couples, ranging in age from 18 to 68.

They had been together for around six years on average, and said they usually tended to have sex once or twice a week.

For the first study, couples kept a diary for three weeks reporting their daily level of sexual desire and relationship satisfaction.

For the second study, couples recorded their levels of desire and their perception of their partner’s levels of desire. In the third study, couples kept notes on the same issues as well as recording each day how keen they were to avoid being rejected sexually.

All three studies showed that men consistently underestimate their female partner’s level of sexual desire, with scientists concluding men were trying to avoid rejection and the upset and resentment it might lead to.

Researcher Dr Kristen Mark said: ‘The assumption that women are going to be the lower-desire partner needs to be thrown out.’

What it appears we have here is less a sexual mismatch between couples and more a breakdown of communication.

It’s a vicious spiral whereby men hold back from trying to seduce their wives, which in turn makes the wives feel undesirable — which, ironically, will ultimately lead to loss of libido.

Because, for women, feeling unattractive is a sure-fire route to desire disappearing altogether.

It may also go some way towards making sense of the fuss surrounding Saira Khan’s remarks last week, when the businesswoman and ITV Loose Women presenter revealed she’s so off sex she’d sanction her husband going elsewhere to find sexual satisfaction.

Commentators rushed to support the notion that working, married women with kids go off sex because they are too anxious and exhausted — but I suspect these women are in the minority, as this week’s findings by the Canadian researchers prove.

Sex is regarded by both sexes as being something that just ‘happens’ — the result of mutual attraction exploding into carnal desire at the start of a relationship. What this takes no account of is the fact that sexual frequency, over time, will inevitably dwindle as a result of proximity and routine. Nor does it acknowledge that frequency is not the only barometer of a good sex life and sexual passion can deepen and grow over time, even as frequency diminishes.

Experience has taught us that for a relationship to last, you have to work on the sex component, too, because long-term sex is affected by all the petty irritants and daily distractions of our lives. While we are more willing than we were to discuss our feelings within a marriage, to talk about what we don’t like about our partner’s attitudes or behaviour, talking candidly about sex is the last sexual taboo for many people.

Since the early Seventies, when I first went to work on Cosmopolitan Magazine, I have had the chance to talk openly about sex with hundreds of women from every different age group.

Women have talked to me about their sexual hang-ups and their deepest desires, as well as the joys of great sex. What I’ve discovered is that while women are willing to share all manner of sexual confidences with other women, they are far less likely to communicate these with their partners.

‘ I do want sex,’ the married daughter of a friend of mine, with two kids aged eight and ten, confided in me recently.

‘But I need to talk and connect beforehand. Once the kids are in bed, we theoretically have time to ourselves but my partner carries on with emails and stuff on the computer and we barely communicate until bedtime.’

She continued: ‘For me, that’s not a good start. If he then rolls towards me once we’re in bed when we’ve been ignoring each other for a couple of hours, I just can’t get in the mood.

‘Lately, he doesn’t even bother to roll towards me and I lie there thinking how much I’m missing sex these days.

‘I have tried to bring it up in conversation, but he keeps changing the subject. He just won’t address it and for now just carries on as though nothing has happened. It’s making me sad, not to mention worried about our future.

‘I was in a coffee shop the other day and found myself fantasising about the handsome Spanish barista. Not a good sign, I can tell you.’

And younger married mums aren’t the only ones who worry about their lack of sexual satisfaction.

Even women in their 50s — who are often deep into the menopause — still have strong sexual feelings.

My own experience of finding new love at the age of 56, only a year after the breakdown of a 23-year relationship with my son’s father, coincided exactly with peak menopausal symptoms of hot flushes and night sweats.

Granted I had an easy time of it compared to some women, and managed to navigate the worst of it without HRT, but I was certainly aware of the symptoms.

What took me by surprise was the re-awakening of sexual desire and at a level I hadn’t experienced in a very long time. And in the eight years since my partner and I have been together, I have felt greater sexual desire and enjoyed more sexual pleasure than at any previous juncture in my life.

If this sounds like distasteful sexual boasting coming from a sexagenarian who should be more discreet, I make no apology. As the research proves, older women enjoy sex as much as any man.

I soon discovered, as the break up of long-term marriages of friends and acquaintances seemed to be reaching epidemic proportions, that I wasn’t alone in my sexual reawakening.

One divorced girlfriend told me that she was enjoying orgasms for the first time in her life with her new partner. One can’t help but wonder in the light of this new research whether she and her husband would have divorced at all if only they had communicated about sex while they were married.

Another friend, who’s 65, said that over the period of a year, she’d had four sexual relationships with men she’d met online, all at least a dozen years her junior.

The encounters weren’t made to last, but the sex had been explosive after the sexual drought that marked the last decade of her 35-year marriage.

‘My husband “left me alone” while I was going through the menopause,’ she told me. ‘I felt as though it was some kind of disease and I longed for some sexual connection. I don’t know if he thought he was doing me a favour, but he wasn’t. And I wasn’t prepared to accept a sexless marriage, even at my age.’

It’s ironic that in the age of communication the one place we seem to communicate less than ever is in bed. Perhaps we should all make a greater effort to start the sexual conversation.

‘I want sex when the kids are in bed, but he just writes emails’ ‘My husband left me alone during the menopause’