Sexual drive, also called libido, describes the amount of interest and need we have for sexual activity.
Libido varies from person to person, and also from time to time during each phase of life. Our overall sex drive can be influenced by health, life situation, attitudes to sex and our past experience.
Temporary reduction in libido can result from physical illness, fatigue, stress and other emotional upsets, hormonal, fluctuations some drugs, negative feelings towards a partner and uncongenial surroundings. On the other hand, our libido can increase when we feel healthy, relaxed, happy, loving and when the ambience is pleasant. Holidays have a very good reputation for stoking up a tin libido.
In the past it was thought that women had less intrinsic sex drive than men. This is no longer believed to be true. Much the perceived difference is now put down to negative attitudes to sex that women have learnt during their upbringing. Some men have also learnt negative attitudes that hamper their libido or can damage their feelings towards women.
Important influences on women’s attitudes to sex include:
• the double standard about se behaviour
• the notion that sex is ‘dirty’, shame and dangerous (risk of pregnancy STD), and that women who enjoy’ openly are ‘bad’
• the widely held belief that women should be sexually submissive to m especially their husbands
• the idea that men ‘are only after sex and don’t care about women’s feelings
• our reticence to speak about intimate emotional or physical matters
• fear or experience of incest, rape sexual harassment
• myths about sex.
The origins of negative attitudes go back a long way. No doubt the Fall in the Garden of Eden and the story of Christ’s virgin birth are important influences. Patriarchal proprietary rights over wives and daughters have made their contribution, as have women’s fears of losing their men to ‘temptresses’.
The Christian doctrine of self-denial viewed all sensual indulgence as weakness (and few would deny that sex is the ultimate pleasure). But what about God’s first command to us in the Bible (Gen. 1:28), that we should ‘be fruitful and multiply’. Whether nature or God created humans, care was taken to ensure that we were provided with powerful mating instincts and sex drives, and that these would be rewarded with intense physical and emotional pleasure. Otherwise we might lose interest, and then what would happen to our species?
With today’s knowledge and new openness about sex, younger women generally have less inhibitions than those of their mothers’ generation and many older women have reviewed their negative attitudes, but there still seem to be a lot of sexual ‘hang-ups’ around.
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