Why His Sex Drive Dips When Yours Rises

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All men want is sex. That’s the message I was told about men since I was old enough to know what sex was (and maybe a little earlier). I wanted to wear little crop tops and animal print clothes starting at age 10 because that’s what the Spice Girls wore, but my mom would say, “Don’t give men the wrong idea” and I had no idea what she meant. What idea? I grew up, and I got the idea. There are those rumors about men thinking about sex every 15 seconds. There are those movies and shows in which women withhold sex from their partners as a form of gaining control. I was lead to believe that men just foam at the mouth over the idea of sex.

Now all of that that I just said has its time and place. Young women who are still learning to respect themselves, and who are still figuring out what they want in a partner and what it means to have a partner respect them—they should know that a lot of those young bloods out there are just in it for the sex. That is true. But somewhere along the way, that changes for a man. Nobody warns you that when you find your person, you settle in, and things get serious, you could find yourself with a man who’d much rather watch cute dog videos on YouTube than acknowledge the fact that you’re trying to get some foreplay going.

I can’t tell you how common it is for a woman’s sex drive to just increase as she gets further into a relationship and for the man’s sex drive to decrease. What a hilariously cruel joke. All that time spent finding a man we trust and love to release all our sexual urges onto and…he’s asleep. Here’s my theory on why a man’s sex drive dips and a woman’s rises in a relationship.

Emotional connection turns us on

Emotional connection is what turns a woman on. That’s the reason we can’t walk in the door and have sex with a partner if we haven’t spoken to him all day. We need to exchange stories, catch up, and connect. When we’re in a relationship, that emotional connection grows stronger every day, and we can access it pretty quickly, so we’re rearing to go.

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Emotional connection softens men

Emotional connection softens men a bit. I think part of them feeling sexy is connected to them maintaining some mystery around themselves, and the illusion of being these ultra-strong, unbreakable beings. Perhaps they can’t feel hot when they’ve revealed so many of their emotions, which is just what men do in relationships.

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Intimacy removes our sexual inhibitions

For a woman, feeling emotionally close to a man, really knowing a partner and having him know us back actually removes our sexual inhibitions. It makes us feel unencumbered by insecurities and ready to try all sorts of things in bed. That’s why some say married sex can be the best sex because women feel safe to reveal all their desires in bed.

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Intimacy removes his other inhibitions

For men that intimacy—that knowing everything about one another—removes some of their inhibitions, alright, but some different ones. They start going to the bathroom with the door wide open, farting all over the place, and generally being a bit grotesque. They start treating their girlfriends like little brothers more than like lovers. You have to remind him to keep flirting with you, rather than treating you like a roommate.

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We’re done talking; let’s bang

For women, we want to talk a lot in the beginning—from the first date, through the early stages of the relationship—so that we can know a man’s mind, and know this is someone we see a future with. Once we feel that, we’re just ready to put our guards down and have a ton of sex. Hey, we do like sex. We just want to make sure we give it up to those who deserve it.

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He’s new to opening up

Meanwhile, when a man finds that woman he can emotionally open up to, that might be a whole new experience to him. It might be the talking—and not any novel sex act—that is exciting and liberating for him. So now, he just wants to talk all the time, and reveal all of his fears, insecurities, dreams, and goals.

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We feel safe being objectified

As women, we spend so much time making sure men don’t objectify us. We have to lecture men who don’t see us as whole human beings and tell men not to constantly sexualize us. We almost feel we must hide our raw sexual selves to compensate for the fact that that’s all men want to see. But once we know our man doesn’t see us as an object, we feel free and safe to be totally sexualized…just for our partners.

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He can’t see you as an object

Once a man gets to know his partner well—all her fears, insecurities, childhood traumas, dreams, issues, goals, and all that—he can’t see her as a sexual object. It can almost be easier for men to try bold and nasty things in bed with women they don’t know very well. For them it can feel like, how are they supposed to put a gag ball in the mouth of a woman whose grandmother they helped recover from surgery?

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The allure is in the safety for us

Safety is sexy to us. Knowing we are with someone who cares about us, supports us, encourages us, looks out for us, and is loyal to us—that turns us on. Knowing where we stand with someone, and that he’s with us and nobody else, that’s so attractive to us. The stability of a relationship helps us feel free to let loose sexually.

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The allure was in the chase for him

For men, the allure around sex may be more in the chase. That’s not to say they don’t want to have sex with their partners or don’t feel attracted to their partners. But it is possible that that hyper sex drive we know men to have is really only there when they have to work to get laid. Those instincts may be dampened when sex is readily available to them.

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We’re energized by routine

We like routine. Spaghetti on Wednesday nights. Taking the dog to the park after work each day. Hitting the Farmer’s Market on Sundays. Little traditions. Knowing how he likes his towels folded. I think that women become more energized when their lives feel organized, structured, and a bit predictable.

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He’s made lazy by it

I think men are turned lazy by routine. They lose a bit of their edge when the fridge is always full, the house is in order, and they know what the day will look like—you know, how it is in a relationship. Maybe their hyper sex drive goes out the window with their old boyish tendencies of mostly eating at burrito trucks, sleeping until noon, and not keeping a calendar.

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We peak later

There’s much debate surrounding the legitimacy of the sexual peak. The old myth went that women hit it later in life, and men are done with it by their late twenties. Some say it isn’t true. I do kind of think it is true. I mean, I don’t remember really enjoying sex at all until my late twenties. None of my girlfriends really did either. It was fine—it was something we did with our boyfriends because that’s what you did. But it wasn’t like today when we know our bodies and know how to voice our desires.

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He peaked at 25

For men, sex is—in spite of their better intentions—a purely physical thing from the start. They’re having boners and wet dreams that they can’t control. All sex is good sex to them. They’re easy to please. I don’t think that ever changes, per say, but since a woman’s sex drive can spike so much as she gets older and gets to know what works for her, it can be hard for her partner to keep up.

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They’re all big snuggle bugs at heart

Honestly, I think in their heart of hearts, all men just want to be mothered again. They want someone who they can cuddle, whose breasts they can lay their heads on, and who they can confide all their secrets in. They want someone to comfort them, cook for them, and snuggle them. And when they find that, they enjoy that so much that they forget about good old-fashioned smashing.

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