Is there an early-30s peak in female sexual desire? Cross-sectional evidence from the United States and Canada

Is there an early-30s peak in female sexual desire? Cross-sectional evidence from the United States and Canada
David P Schmitt et al.; 2002


Abstract

This research explored whether women experience a "sexual peak" during their early 30s and, if so, whether such a peak might have an evolved function. In Study 1, results from a cross-sectional sample of US college students (N=803 women, 415 men) revealed that women between 30 and 34, relative to older and younger women, described themselves as more lustful, seductive, and sexually active. In contrast, men did not experience a sexual peak between 30 and 34. In a 2nd study (N=611 women, 329 men), findings of an early-30s peak in women were replicated among married and single individuals from Canada. Using new measures of human sexual strategies, the authors were able to test 2 hypotheses about the possible functions of an early-30s peak in female sexual desire. One hypothesis is that an early-30s peak increases reproduction in monogamous, long-term relationships. A 2nd hypothesis is that women's early-30s peak in sexual desire increases reproduction through promiscuous or extra-pair copulations. Overall, the hypothesis that the peak is designed to increase women's reproduction in monogamous, long-term relationships received the most support. Discussion focuses on limitations and alternative explanations of the current findings and on areas for future investigation.

Who, What, Where, When (and Maybe Even Why)? How the Experience of Sexual Reward Connects Sexual Desire, Preference, and Performance

Who, What, Where, When (and Maybe Even Why)? How the Experience of Sexual Reward Connects Sexual Desire, Preference, and Performance
James G Pfaus et al.; 2012
http://www.recherche.ouvaton.org/telechargement/pfaus_2012.pdf


Abstract

Although sexual behavior is controlled by hormonal and neurochemical actions in the brain , sexual experience induces a degree of plasticity that allows animals to form instrumental and Pavlovian associations that predict sexual outcomes, thereby directing the strength of sexual responding. This review describes how experience with sexual reward strengthens the development of sexual behavior and induces sexually-conditioned place and partner preferences in rats. In both male and female rats, early sexual experience with partners scented with a neutral or even noxious odor induces a preference for scented partners in subsequent choice tests. Those preferences can also be induced by injections of morphine or oxytocin paired with a male rat’s first exposure to scented females, indicating that pharmacological activation of opioid or oxytocin receptors can‘‘stand in’’for the sexual reward-related neurochemical processes normally activated by sexual stimulation. Conversely, conditioned place or partner preferences can be blocked by the opioid receptor antagonist naloxone. A somatosensory cue (a rodent jacket) paired with sexual reward comes to elicit sexual arousal in male rats, such that paired rats with the jacket off show dramatic copulatory deficits. We propose that endogenous opioid activation forms the basis of sexual reward, which also sensitizes hypothalamic and mesolimbic dopamine systems in the presence of cues that predict sexual reward. Those systems act to focus attention on ,and activate goal directed behavior toward, reward-related stimuli. Thus, a critical period exists during an individual’s early sexual experience that creates a‘‘love map’’or Gestalt of features, movements, feelings, and interpersonal interactions associated with sexual reward.

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"It is becoming increasingly clear that there is a critical period of sexual behavior development that forms around an individual’s first experiences with sexual arousal and desire, masturbation, orgasm, and sexual intercourse itself. During this period, the sensory and motor mechanics of the behavior become integrated and crystallized along with the development of preferences for ideal activities and physical features of a partner."

Sex Differences in Sex Drive, Sociosexuality, and Height across 53 Nations

Sex Differences in Sex Drive, Sociosexuality, and Height across 53 Nations: Testing Evolutionary and Social Structural Theories
Richard A Lippa; October 2009
Achives of Sexual Behavior


Abstract

By analyzing cross-cultural patterns in five parameters—sex differences, male and female trait means, male and female trait standard deviations—researchers can better test evolutionary and social structural models of sex differences. Five models of biological and social structural influence are presented that illustrate this proposal. Using data from 53 nations and from over 200,000 participants surveyed in a recent BBC Internet survey, I examined cross-cultural patterns in these five parameters for two sexual traits—sex drive and sociosexuality—and for height, a physical trait with a biologically based sex difference. Sex drive, sociosexuality, and height all showed consistent sex differences across nations (mean ds = .62, .74, and 1.63). Women were consistently more variable than men in sex drive (mean female to male variance ratio = 1.64). Gender equality and economic development tended to predict, across nations, sex differences in sociosexuality, but not sex differences in sex drive or height. Parameters for sociosexuality tended to vary across nations more than parameters for sex drive and height did. The results for sociosexuality were most consistent with a hybrid model—that both biological and social structural influences contribute to sex differences, whereas the results for sex drive and height were most consistent with a biological model—that evolved biological factors are the primary cause of sex differences. The model testing proposed here encourages evolutionary and social structural theorists to make more precise and nuanced predictions about the patterning of sex differences across cultures.

Television and Sex:

Before 1970 extramarital sex had to be justified by a loving relationship, if it was justified at all. During the next two decades, recreational sex was presented as acceptable about six times as often as it was rejected. In the 1990s, hardly anyone ever argues against having sex for any reason.

Prime Time; Lichter, Lichter & Rothman; 1994