Tjejer är inte intresserade av sex! [/mod]

Between 2000 and 2007, the frequency
of sexual intercourse had declined another 20 per cent in Finland
(Kontula 2009: 130). By 2010, well over a third of adults reported no
sexual intercourse in the past month in Britain (Mercer et al. 2013),
but the proportions are invariably higher for women.

Summarising four decades of sex research in developed countries, a
Finnish expert notes (Kontula 2009: 39-44, 215-230) that men report
substantially more unsatisfied sexual desire, even today, because:

women’s loss of sexual desire is four times higher than among men in the same age group;

younger men experience sexual desire twice as frequently as women,and older men experience sexual desire four times as often as women in the same age group;

as a result, male sexual desire is compatible with the level of desire in women approximately 20 years younger;

overall, male sexual desire is manifested at least twice as often as female desire, and men would like to have sex twice as often as women;

the gap in sexual desire between men and women is growing over time.

As head of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality, Finnish sociologist Osmo Kontula is preparing his presidential address to be delivered at the society’s November conference.

He’s pondering the results of sex surveys he has been conducting since 1971, which have recently *revealed some startling results: • A big drop in female orgasms. More women, particularly young women, having trouble climaxing.• More arousal and lubrication problems, especially in younger and much older women.• An increasing desire gap between men and women, with more women going off sex.• Even young women experiencing loss of desire, with one in four losing interest even less than two years into a relationship.• A big drop in sexual frequency, with more and more couples *celibate.

“There are some real mysteries here,” says Kontula, speaking from his office at the Population Research Institute in Helsinki.

“Why was there such a decline in intercourse frequency in the 2000s? There’s been a 10 to 15 per cent drop in people of all ages who say they’ve had sex in the last week. People are now having less sex than in the early 1970s and the greatest decline has been for young people, those aged 25 to 40.”

Kontula’s 2009 book Between Sexual Desire and Reality: The Evolution of Sex in Finland was based on surveys conducted regularly between 1971 and 2007. He is analysing the results of a new survey from this year and finds there has been a further small drop in sexual frequency in the past eight years and the gap *between male and female desire continues to widen.

Kontula doesn’t know why the gulf war is increasing. “The desires of men and women seem at times to be on different planets,” he says, noting that women were able to fulfil their lower desires for sexual intercourse more successfully than men and many ended up *having the frequency of sex they wanted.

“It seems women are more frequently gatekeepers, deciding on when and how often the couple had sex,” he says.

Interestingly, in living-apart relationships women were least likely to show loss of desire — regular absences seem to make lust easier to maintain. But the huge leap in lost libido in cohabiting women remains a mystery, although it may link to happiness research I wrote about in Inquirer last month showing a big drop in happiness in women who remain for long periods in defacto relationships without marrying.

The dropping sexual frequency reflects a recent shift in the balance of sexual power in relationships, suggest the authors of the latest version of our major sex survey — the Australian Study of Health and Relationships.

“These changes in attitudes and behaviour may reflect a shift away from a model of sexuality in which women’s sexual behaviour is shaped by men’s needs towards a feminist model of female sexuality in which women have the right to refuse or initiate sex,” concluded University of Sussex psychologist Richard de Visser and his Australian colleagues who co-authored ASHR2, published last year.

Their latest research found a small but significant decline during the past decade in the average weekly frequency of sex — from 1.9 to 1.5 times a week among men and from 1.8 to 1.5 times a week among women. Most men (85 per cent) and women (69 per cent) wanted to have sex more often than they actually did.

Kontula’s data shows many women who indicate they would prefer a higher frequency of sex also experience a fairly frequent lack of sexual desire.

A review of research on female desire by psychologist Marta Meana from the University of Nevada found discrepancies in desire within relationships were now the norm rather than the exception but that very few women were distressed by their lack of desire per se rather than worrying about the impact on relationships.

What we are seeing is many more women who don’t want sex and can’t be bothered trying to get aroused — it’s just all become too hard.

Amanda Bruce said she knew that boyfriend Charlie Sheen was HIV positive but still decided to have sex with the actor without protection, doing so against the advice of her doctor.

Bruce was dating Sheen when he first found out that he had contracted the virus that causes AIDS. In an interview this week, Bruce revealed that she still chose to be intimate with Sheen “every day” after finding out.

“The reality is, we had known each other for many months before we engaged in [sexual relations], and we were a couple, I was in love with him.”

Dr. Huizenga said he consulted with Amanda and determined that it was a low risk for her to continue sleeping with Sheen.

“I was the doctor for her boyfriend, we called in other doctors and they felt the risk of transmission if she took the prophylaxis and he had undetectable level was miniscule. We can’t say it’s zero,” he said. “And so basically I think my advice to her was, ‘Don’t do it, but the risk is miniscule.’ And she elected to then go forward because she felt so close and wanted that level of intimacy.”

“The desires of men and women seem at times to be on different planets,” he says, noting that women were able to fulfil their lower desires for sexual intercourse more successfully than men and many ended up *having the frequency of sex they wanted.

“It seems women are more frequently gatekeepers, deciding on when and how often the couple had sex,”

A review of research on female desire by psychologist Marta Meana from the University of Nevada found discrepancies in desire within relationships were now the norm rather than the exception but that very few women were distressed by their lack of desire per se rather than worrying about the impact on relationships.

What we are seeing is many more women who don’t want sex and can’t be bothered trying to get aroused