(no subject)
Security 'bad news for sex drive'
A woman's sex drive begins to plummet once she is in a secure relationship, according to research.
Researchers from Germany found that four years into a relationship, less than half of 30-year-old women wanted regular sex.
Conversely, the team found a man's libido remained the same regardless of how long he had been in a relationship.
Writing in the journal Human Nature, the scientists said the differences resulted from how humans had evolved.
For men, a good reason their sexual motivation to remain constant would be to guard against being cuckolded by another male
Dr Dietrich Klusmann
The researchers from Hamburg-Eppendorf University Hospital interviewed 530 men and women about their relationships.
They found 60% of 30-year-old women wanted sex "often" at the beginning of a relationship, but within four years of the relationship this figure fell to under 50%, and after 20 years it dropped to about 20%.
In contrast, they found the proportion of men wanting regular sex remained at between 60-80%, regardless of how long they had been in a relationship.
Tenderness
The study also revealed tenderness was important for women in a relationship.
About 90% of women wanted tenderness, regardless of how long they had been in a relationship, but only 25% of men who had been in a relationship for 10 years said they were still seeking tenderness from their partner.
Dr Dietrich Klusmann, lead author of the study and a psychologist from Hamburg-Eppendorf University Hospital, believed the differences were down to human evolution.
He said: "For men, a good reason their sexual motivation to remain constant would be to guard against being cuckolded by another male."
But women, he said, have evolved to have a high sex drive when they are initially in a relationship in order to form a "pair bond" with their partner.
But, once this bond is sealed a woman's sexual appetite declines, he added.
He said animal behaviour studies suggest this could be because females may be diverting their sexual interest towards other men, in order to secure the best combinations of genetic material for their offspring.
Or, he said, this could be because limiting sex may boost their partner's interest in it.
Professor George Fieldman, an evolutionary psychologist from Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College, said: "These findings seem to fit in with anecdotal studies and his explanations seem plausible.
"The rational for why a woman's sex drive declines may be down to supply and demand. If something is in infinite supply, the perceived value would drop."
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4790313.stm
ETA:
I found an Abstract of the study here:
http://zpm.uke.uni-hamburg.de/4DACTION/W_publik_detail?L=P2&Lnr=1112
The link to the .pdf of the actual paper is here:
http://zpm.uke.uni-hamburg.de/WebPdf/sexmotiv.pdf
The paper shows a sample size of 1865 as opposed to 530 like the BBC article says, so I don't know why that discrepancy, but I looked up the Doctor and this is what I found, so I hope it's the right study.
Klusmann, D. (2002) Sexual motivation and the duration of partnership. Archives of Sexual Behavior, Vol 31, No. 3, pp 275-287
The variation of sexual motivation with duration of partnership is analysed in data from a survey of German students. The sample of N=1865 includes only students aged 19-32 who reported to be heterosexual and to live in a steady partnership. Main results are: (1) Sexual activity and sexual satisfaction decline in women and men as the duration of partnership increases. (2) Sexual desire only declines in women. (3) Desire for tenderness declines in men and rises in women. Since these results are based on cross-sectional data, a longitudinal explanation is precarious. Individual differences in mating strategy associated with the probability of having a partnership of shorter or longer duration at the time of the survey may account for some part of the findings. This possibility set aside, post hoc explanations for the results as reflecting a modal time course of partnership are evaluated with regard to habituation, routine, gender role prescriptions and polarisation of roles. In addition, an explanation from evolutionary psychology is offered, entailing the following ideas: The psychological mechanisms of attachment in an adult-pair bond have evolved from the parent-child bond. Due to this non-sexual origin, a stable pair bond does not require high levels of sexual desire, after an initial phase of infatuation has passed. Nevertheless, male sexual desire should stay at a high level because it was selected for in evolutionary history as a precaution against the risk of sperm competition. The course of female sexual desire is assumed to reflect an adaptive function: to boost attachment in order to establish the bond.
A woman's sex drive begins to plummet once she is in a secure relationship, according to research.
Researchers from Germany found that four years into a relationship, less than half of 30-year-old women wanted regular sex.
Conversely, the team found a man's libido remained the same regardless of how long he had been in a relationship.
Writing in the journal Human Nature, the scientists said the differences resulted from how humans had evolved.
For men, a good reason their sexual motivation to remain constant would be to guard against being cuckolded by another male
Dr Dietrich Klusmann
The researchers from Hamburg-Eppendorf University Hospital interviewed 530 men and women about their relationships.
They found 60% of 30-year-old women wanted sex "often" at the beginning of a relationship, but within four years of the relationship this figure fell to under 50%, and after 20 years it dropped to about 20%.
In contrast, they found the proportion of men wanting regular sex remained at between 60-80%, regardless of how long they had been in a relationship.
Tenderness
The study also revealed tenderness was important for women in a relationship.
About 90% of women wanted tenderness, regardless of how long they had been in a relationship, but only 25% of men who had been in a relationship for 10 years said they were still seeking tenderness from their partner.
Dr Dietrich Klusmann, lead author of the study and a psychologist from Hamburg-Eppendorf University Hospital, believed the differences were down to human evolution.
He said: "For men, a good reason their sexual motivation to remain constant would be to guard against being cuckolded by another male."
But women, he said, have evolved to have a high sex drive when they are initially in a relationship in order to form a "pair bond" with their partner.
But, once this bond is sealed a woman's sexual appetite declines, he added.
He said animal behaviour studies suggest this could be because females may be diverting their sexual interest towards other men, in order to secure the best combinations of genetic material for their offspring.
Or, he said, this could be because limiting sex may boost their partner's interest in it.
Professor George Fieldman, an evolutionary psychologist from Buckinghamshire Chilterns University College, said: "These findings seem to fit in with anecdotal studies and his explanations seem plausible.
"The rational for why a woman's sex drive declines may be down to supply and demand. If something is in infinite supply, the perceived value would drop."
Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4790313.stm
ETA:
I found an Abstract of the study here:
http://zpm.uke.uni-hamburg.de/4DACTION/W_publik_detail?L=P2&Lnr=1112
The link to the .pdf of the actual paper is here:
http://zpm.uke.uni-hamburg.de/WebPdf/sexmotiv.pdf
The paper shows a sample size of 1865 as opposed to 530 like the BBC article says, so I don't know why that discrepancy, but I looked up the Doctor and this is what I found, so I hope it's the right study.
Klusmann, D. (2002) Sexual motivation and the duration of partnership. Archives of Sexual Behavior, Vol 31, No. 3, pp 275-287
The variation of sexual motivation with duration of partnership is analysed in data from a survey of German students. The sample of N=1865 includes only students aged 19-32 who reported to be heterosexual and to live in a steady partnership. Main results are: (1) Sexual activity and sexual satisfaction decline in women and men as the duration of partnership increases. (2) Sexual desire only declines in women. (3) Desire for tenderness declines in men and rises in women. Since these results are based on cross-sectional data, a longitudinal explanation is precarious. Individual differences in mating strategy associated with the probability of having a partnership of shorter or longer duration at the time of the survey may account for some part of the findings. This possibility set aside, post hoc explanations for the results as reflecting a modal time course of partnership are evaluated with regard to habituation, routine, gender role prescriptions and polarisation of roles. In addition, an explanation from evolutionary psychology is offered, entailing the following ideas: The psychological mechanisms of attachment in an adult-pair bond have evolved from the parent-child bond. Due to this non-sexual origin, a stable pair bond does not require high levels of sexual desire, after an initial phase of infatuation has passed. Nevertheless, male sexual desire should stay at a high level because it was selected for in evolutionary history as a precaution against the risk of sperm competition. The course of female sexual desire is assumed to reflect an adaptive function: to boost attachment in order to establish the bond.