There's no such thing as a sex drive - #opinion New Scientist: http://www.newscientist.com/article... (via zoblue) http://friendfeed.com/zoblue...
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"A drive is a motivational system to deal with life-or-death issues, like hunger or being too cold. You're not going to die if you don't have sex."
- Victor Ganata
"But biologists might say that if you don't reproduce, that is a form of death" "Yes. That's the argument that was used when desire was being added to the way sexual dysfunctions were diagnosed in the 1970s, to justify the framing of sexual desire as a drive. But when it comes to sex, there just isn't any physical evidence of a drive mechanism."
- Victor Ganata
"If sex is a drive then desire should be spontaneous, like a hunger. When you see a sexy person or have a stray sexy thought, it activates an internal craving or urge for sex. That's called 'spontaneous desire'. It feels like it comes out of the blue."
- Victor Ganata
"But there is another way of experiencing desire which is also healthy and normal, called 'responsive desire', where your interest only emerges in response to arousal. So, your partner comes over and starts kissing your neck and you're like, 'oh, right, sex, that's a good idea'."
- Victor Ganata
"Do you think an absence of spontaneous desire is normal?" "Yes. If our metaphor for desire is hunger, if you are never hungry for food there will be dire consequences and that's clearly a disorder, right? That's a medical problem that needs to be fixed. But not experiencing spontaneous hunger for sex doesn't have dire consequences; it is not a medical disorder. I think the reason we expect everyone to have spontaneous desire is because that's how most men experience it."
- Victor Ganata
"Spontaneous desire is totally fun. But you're not broken just because you're not experiencing it. Spontaneous desire isn't necessary for sexual pleasure. Is it more important that people crave sex than it is that they enjoy the sex they're having? One of the best ways to make your sex life suck is to genuinely believe that the way you're experiencing sexual desire is dysfunctional."
- Victor Ganata