By Jane E Thomas | For someone to have a sex drive there must be a trigger that generates an urge to engage in intercourse. Men experience regular erections that cause sexual tension and significant frustration. They may be able to relieve that tension to a degree through masturbation. But ultimately they need to engage in intercourse to obtain sexual release through thrusting. This is a natural consequence of our reproductive biology. There's no point in men having erections unless they are also motivated to impregnate women.

Even though a man has to seduce or persuade a woman into having sex, he is not convinced that she may see the activity in a different light. This is equivalent to a carnivore assuming that his victims want to be eaten. It is clearly the lot of vegetarians, herbivores and smaller carnivores to be eaten by larger carnivores. But most animals fight for their lives. Likewise, a woman fights off unwanted suitors. She needs to find a man attractive as a mate and be assured of his protection before she wants to mate with him.

Males of all species have an instinct to mate that females do not have. A man's sex drive to engage in intercourse involves both the reproductive event of ejaculation and the pleasure of orgasm. There is a biological reason for men to experience an urgent need to engage in regular intercourse. A man can potentially impregnate a (different) woman with every ejaculation (many hundred times in a lifetime). So men are naturally promiscuous.

A woman cannot be impregnated every time she engages in intercourse. Each month a woman has a few days in which she can be impregnated. Once she is pregnant, a woman cannot be impregnated again until after she has given birth. The maximum frequency with which a woman can reproduce is once every nine months. There is no biological reason why a woman should want intercourse more than a few times in her lifetime.

The wonderful thing about sex (compared with artificial highs) is that there are no addictive aspects. But sex does rely on having an amenable partner. This is the issue of consent. A physically stronger man can insist on intercourse with a woman if he catches her alone. This is why young women have only been able to move about safely very recently in our social history.

A man's arousal is caused by the presence of an attractive women, especially one who dresses or behaves in a way that is intended to attract male attention. A man is aroused by a sexual partner, their body, genitals and behaviour. As they age, men also stop masturbating before they become impotent with a lover. The real-world turn-ons of a lover's body and the pleasure of penetrative sex, cause men to experience much stronger arousal than they can by imagining the same situation during masturbation alone.

Research indicates that when men are deprived of female company they are aroused much less frequently. Men work on ships or oil rigs without arousal so long as no erotic stimuli are available (unlikely perhaps now in the age of the internet!). Kinsey's research found this to be true of less educated men in particular, who cannot so easily substitute masturbation for intercourse.

Having a good time for a woman involves a nice meal, perhaps a movie and some pleasant companionship. A man can also appreciate such activies but only once he has also had the opportunity to release the sexual tension he has accumulated throughout the day or week. A woman doesn't experience this sexual need or consequent frustration. She doesn't need orgasm in the way a man does. It's very evident to most women that men want sex for their own pleasure as well as the relief they obtain from the sexual frustration that builds up when they are frequently aroused without access to penetrative sex. Women see evidence of men's gratitude in terms of providing support.

A man is dependent on a woman's body both for his arousal, for his sexual release and the satisfaction of ejaculating into a vagina. But a man does not fulfil the same role for a woman. A woman is not aroused with a lover so she is merely a bystander. Intercourse is the male equivalent of female masturbation except that a man needs a lover to enjoy his best orgasms. If a man knows that his lover masturbates, he should respect her solitary pleasure. Allowing a responsive woman the space to enjoy orgasm is a way of compensating her for the many times that only the man has an orgasm.

Swinging used to be called wife swapping. Men enjoy the opportunity for intercourse with multiple partners. Women enjoy being admired. As with all forms of casual sex, swinging focuses on intercourse and male orgasm. Rich men around the world maintain a wife and a mistress. In history, some men even maintained a hareem. Some cultures allow men to have more than one wife. References to women's sexual role are embarrassing for women, especially if they work alongside men professionally. Men are never put in the position of being treated like a sexual commodity. The closest analogy is when an African is referred to as boy by a European. We feel humiliated by the implication that we are inferior to an arrogant sex or race. We are angry because we cannot retaliate by treating them in the same way.

It wasn't until I actually got married that I realized that, day in day out, this man I was now committed to dating every single day of my life also wanted sex (nearly) every day of his life. (Joan Sewell 2010)

Excerpt from LearnAboutSexuality.org