It’s amazing how little North Americans know about our second most primal instinct. You’d think that after five thousand years of doing it there’d be some form of education out there, but there just isn’t. So here’s the skinny on sex.
Different drives
There are three basic drives: low, medium, and high. Hello! Why doesn’t everybody know this?
Let’s define them as follows: high drives want it once or twice a week, mediums once or twice a month, and no-to-lows between zero and two times a year. (Yes, zero is an option.)
Humans come in three different drives and some people have a hard time accepting the other two. We tend to think that everyone should be just like us, but there are three different drives.
50-40-10
Is there a gender difference when it comes to this? You bet. The percentages are as follows:
- 50% of men are high, 40% are medium, and 10% are no-to-low.
- 10% of women are high, 40% are medium, and 50% are no-to-low.
Now let’s do the math. If you apply the percentages against each other, you’ll find that:
- 25% of couples are matched (i.e., high with high, medium with medium, low with low)
- 50% of couples are close (i.e., high with medium or medium with low)
- 25% are mismatched (i.e., high with low)
So half of all couples have some sort of sex problem and one in every four have a real issue. Nobody did anything to cause this. It’s nature. And though 1% of relationships are made up of a high-drive woman with a low-drive man, 24% are the opposite (high-drive guy with low-drive gal).
The sex trade wasn’t created by accident. All the magazines, movies, strip clubs, massage parlours, on-street prostitution, and pornographic websites are there for a reason. Tons of people are horny. And you can’t just wish it away. It’s normal to like sex.
Plus we need to recognize the additional stimuli directed towards men. Between “Sunshine Girls,” billboards, Internet pop-ups, and beer commercials, they must see 20 bikini-clad babes a day. What do you think this does? It jacks them up, that’s what!
Mature adults must see what’s going on. There are different drives, most couples aren’t properly matched, and oodles of us are as horny as billy goats.
Male vs. female
The male and female attitudes toward sex have traditionally been seen as opposites.
Sexuality for women is an extension of emotional intimacy, whereas for men, it can simply be for pleasure. Traditional female sexuality assumes that you have to first be in love (or at least really like the guy), while traditional male sexuality says it’s also okay to roll around just for fun.
These are just traditional roles and not all men and women feel according to their gender. But regardless of your position, you must be sensitive to the other. Sex will always be an act of intimacy, whether physical or an extension of verbal. It’s just that women are traditionally quicker to get verbal and consider being physical as special, while men are typically the opposite—they can easily get naked but are slower to share a secret.
Female revolutions
Many developments have occurred over the past 50 years in terms of female sexuality. And TV role models illustrate the changes. Take, for example, the difference between Wilma Flintstone and Marge Simpson.
Wilma raised most North American women born between 1950 and 1970. Married to her bumbling, loudmouth husband, she laid the framework for the way many ladies conduct themselves today. And though she shared many a friendly giggle with Betty, in terms of how she treated her husband, Wilma was oftentimes a bag. Her angry, cross-armed, toe-tapping anticipation of conflict with Fred was etched into every child’s memory. And the notion of wives yelling at husbands became accepted as the norm.
Now fast-forward to Marge Simpson, married to the same sort of guy. Homer is certainly no better; he’s actually worse. But Marge rarely raises her voice and almost always forgives without issuing penance. But more importantly, for our purposes, Marge has sex. And not only does she have sex, she enjoys it. And so does Lois on Malcolm in the Middle and many others.
So female revolution number one is that it’s okay for women to have and enjoy sex.
Thanks to Marge and countless others, a major shift occurred. The 50-40-10 figures previously defined are much different among younger women. More of them are outside the no-to-low zone and into the medium or high as the ratios between the sexes are getting closer.
And the world is experiencing another female revolution. Women are adopting the sexual attitude traditional of males. In other words, more women are subscribing to the notion that it’s perfectly okay to engage in physicality just for fun. We see this everywhere—through marital affairs, web-based cheating sites, bar chicks aggressively hitting on cute guys, fewer constraints for getting to first base, the increased numbers in my swingers club, way more adult-only resorts, and almost everybody is getting naked on the internet. Something huge is going on here.
Dating protocol
Though it’s cool that women are enjoying themselves—and most guys are happy to see them aboard—we’re currently having issues incorporating this second revolution into our dating style.
The old structure was this:
attraction ➔ verbal intimacy➔ light physical ➔ more verbal ➔ more physical ➔ love ➔ all the way
Over the past few decades we changed it to this:
attraction ➔ verbal intimacy ➔ light physical ➔ more physical ➔ all the way
We showed the world that you don’t have to be in love in order to make out. You can just really like someone and there needn’t be any sort of commitment. So it’s now perfectly okay to have multiple partners before marriage. But today people are trying to change it to this:
attraction ➔ physical (skipping past all the emotional)
And this creates a problem. Sex without something of an emotional connection is unnatural. It sounds good in theory but doesn’t work in actual practice because we’re two-sided beings—both women and men. Adults having a physical affair who don’t acknowledge it could turn into something emotional are living dangerously. Even mature singles who regularly sleep around are missing core components to the whole experience.
Young people
This new quasi-structure of dating is messing with our kids. Google the words “making love” and you enter the world of fisting, yanking, and spanking. Okay for older folks in need of a little stimulation but beyond confusing for a teenager with a crush.
Young people need to be taught that liking someone involves skipping stones and holding hands in the park. You’re not supposed to immediately take off all your clothes. It naturally takes time for two people to arrive at a point where all that physical stuff feels right and things shouldn’t be rushed. We mustn’t forget that physical connection is an extension of an existing emotional one. Sure, our paths to romantic love are different. Men come from a more physical angle and women from a more emotional one, but the eventual act of lovemaking is the fusing of the two. That’s why it’s so great.
Sex without prior emotional connection is unnatural and not good for young people. It screws them up and forces them into actions they may later regret (girls especially, but also the boys). Teach your kids to take life one step at a time and only do what is appropriate for their age.
Note: This excerpt was taken from the book, Marriage Figured Out. You may also like the articles on Intimacy, Love, and Monogamy