Men and Sexual Variety

I recently met up with a friend for a couple drinks at a local bar. Part of our conversation went something like this:

Me: Good to see you again man, you haven't been out in forever.

Friend: I know, my girlfriend is away for the next couple weeks, and I was getting bored of being home alone.

Me: Oh yeah, how are things going with her?

Friend: It's good man, I just don't know... it's been a year and I'm starting to get kinda itchy.

Me: Yikes, you should probably go get that checked out.

Friend: HA! No, no, not itchy as in herpes, itchy as in restless. My eyes keep wandering. I keep wondering if I should end it and look for someone else.

Me: Oh OK, gotcha... but wait, really? From what Greg [his roommate, a mutual friend of ours] tells me, she treats you like a king.

Friend: Dude, no, it's true - she is awesome. She does everything I can possibly want. She never says no to sex, she cleans my apartment, she cooks food for me, she is fun to be around - everything.

Me: Sounds like a keeper. So what's the problem?

Friend: I want to fuck other girls.

Me: Ha! of course you do, you are a man; you're always going to feel like that.

Friend: Arghh, man, I KNOW. But it is really bothering me. I mean, she does everything I want. She wakes up before me in the morning to cook me breakfast, she cleans my room for me - she even cleans Greg's room sometimes. I tell her to give me a blowjob, she gives me an amazing blowjob. I tell her I am going to put it in her butt, she just asks me to use extra lube. She picked me up from the airport recently wearing a thong and an overcoat, then we fucked the second we walked in the house.

Me: Damn, that is awesome... I've never really had a girl like that.

Friend: I know man, but even with all of that, I still want to fuck other girls. Like, I would even fuck a girl less hot than her, just for the variety.

Me: Yeah... I know exactly what you mean, sometimes you just want something new. Even a smoking hot girl gets old after... well, not even after very long, you know?

Friend: Yeah man, seriously! You always have those illusions of 'the perfect girl'  - the one who you'd always be happy with and attracted to, but the fact is that the illusions wouldn't last; eventually you'd get used to her too.

Me: It's that animal instinct, man. When the hunt is over the thought of a new body starts to creep into the back of your mind - a new body with new curves, new hair and new lips... we are wired to feel that way. If men didn't want to fuck as much as we do, humans wouldn't have evolved anywhere near as quickly as we have. It's just our genetics trying to propagate the species.

Friend: Exactly. Gotta spread that seed! Hahaha, I'm just thinking about doing what mother nature wants me to do. All natural, baby.

Me: Hahah yeah but I mean, the thing is, cheating on your girl isn't going to fix the problem, it is just going to postpone it. You'd get a new girl and start to feel the same restlessness with her too.

Friend: Yeah man. I guess you are right, it just kinda sucks.

Me: Well, yeah it sucks, and at this point in my life I avoid that problem mostly by avoiding relationships in general. But I like to think that there is a girl out there that I'll like enough that I will be willing to suppress those instincts for - at least enough to get over that initial difficulty. I haven't found her yet, but it's conceivable someone like that exists. I think you just need to decide if your girl now is "that girl" for you.

Friend: Yeah maybe that's true. We'll see what happens.
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I am sure some women would try to attribute my friends' restlessness to his girlfriend being too easy or boring - and there might even be some truth to either or both of those suggestions. However, the fact remains that men will always want to have sex with multiple women. Most men successfully hide this from their wives or girlfriends (out of respect for them), and a good number of men will never act on those impulses, either because they don't know how to, are afraid of what will happen if they do, or because they realize that their sexual impulses are never going to go away, so they learn to live with and control them. But all of us feel that drive.

Related Posts
1. The Male Sex Drive Always Recharges
2. Don't Let Pornography Become Your Substitute
3. What Men Think About Your Sexual History
4. The Female's Internal Conflict

The Male Sex Drive Always Recharges

The male sex drive is 100% rechargeable. No matter how man times he fucks, or fucks the same girl, or masturbates, a man cannot deplete his capacity for sexual arousal, at least in the short term. While a man can, through excessive sexual activity or boredom, increase the amount of time required for his arousal to peak again after being satisfied, it will always return to its previous levels. For example, a full day of constant sex will wear most men out, and it might be another day before they want to fuck again. Might. But this kind of delay is not permanent. Before long a guy will be hornier than ever. And while a man might grow tired or accustomed to his spouse, he can only go so long before he wants to fuck her again. In many ways, sexual appetite is like hunger for food and drink: it can be stayed but not destroyed, and it always eventually comes back, regardless of how many times it is satiated. Imagine sex like a food that you initially love but overindulge and eventually tire of. It is true that you will be less inclined to eat it, but before long hunger will make you want to eat anything, and its attractiveness will supersede your desire for novelty.

Even in the long term, I am skeptical that the male sex drive wanes much (and if does, it is age- or health-related, not a product of over-activity). I have met too many horny old men to believe that after middle age, a man's desire to impregnate females is diminished in any significant way. I am almost entirely sure that this idea was conjured up because the thought of grandpa eye-fucking his granddaughter's friends was too unsettling to be stomached by the general public.

A man can significantly reduce his sex drive by abstaining from sexual activity for about three weeks. I know this because I have done the infamous "thirty-day challenge" twice now, and have experienced it first hand. There is also a good deal of empirical evidence that suggests twenty-one days as the time it takes for the human brain to adjust to just about any routine (i.e. to make or break a habit). Much like the appetite for food in a person who fasts for a long time, a man's sexual appetite will shift into starvation mode after being continually denied. Although his initial desire for an orgasm will not fade much, he will be abnormally disinterested in sex once it is satisfied the first time after the three-week abstinence. This reduced libido will last until he slowly gets back into the swing of things by having orgasms more and more frequently. But even in an extreme case like this, the rebound does eventually occur, and before too long the man in question will be back wanting to fuck everything and anything.

So if your husband or long-term boyfriend gradually stops wanting to have sex with you, it does not mean he isn't horny any more or that his sex drive is starting to diminish; it means he is getting off in some other manner. Probably he is just masturbating to pornography, but the amount of self-discipline it would take for him to abstain from sexual pleasure altogether is just too great for it to be even a remote possibility without some hugely powerful force motivating him - like pride, intense shame or extreme religious conviction.
 
The plus side, which is the point I want to make here, is that all you need to do to keep your man sexually interested in you is to remain his one and only outlet for sexual activity; the sheer power of his sex drive and its persistent regenerative qualities will make him always want to fuck you, even if (eventually) the frequently slows slightly. How you remain his "sole source" is the topic for another post. Right now I just want to make the point that as long as you hold that role, you do not need to worry about his sex drive slowly tapering off any more than you need to worry about his hunger for food gradually disappearing. These things simply do not happen.

Don't Let Pornography Become Your Substitute

The use of pornography is the most addictive habit most men will ever encounter. Every man masturbates frequently when he isn't getting laid, and many do even when they are. Virtually every man uses pornography to enhance this experience - which it does, significantly. Masturbating with and without pornography is like eating steak with and without salt, or partying with and without alcohol. It makes a big difference. Porn adds enough to the experience of masturbation that it frequently can make or break a man's decision to engage in the act. A lot of people won't go out to bars or nightclubs unless they can drink, and it isn't a stretch to extend the analogy to masturbation and pornography.

While I am not completely convinced that pornography affects a man's ability to get aroused for real sex (though I suspect this is true), it has potential to do something far worse: pornography can become a substitute for real sex. Especially as video quality and accessibility continue to increase, pornography is enhancing the experience of masturbation more and more, making it increasingly possible that a man will retreat to a world of pornography-aided auto-eroticism and cease fucking his wife or girlfriend entirely. I know of at least one instance of this happening and leading to divorce. I have seen signs of it elsewhere, and given the power of the male sex drive, it makes intuitive sense. Of course, no man desires this situation; but faced with a boring sex life, or a partner that has let herself go, or some other "push" factor, a man is increasingly prone to resign himself to a life of jerking off to an endless stream of high-definition internet whores.

While the higher quality of pornography contributes to this phenomenon, it is the accessibility and safety that makes it so prevalent, and dangerous to relationships. Pornography doesn't qualify as cheating (by most definitions of the term), so it is easily justified or excused in most men's minds. More importantly, it can be accessed anonymously, used almost instantly, and covered up completely with a few clicks of the mouse. And now with high-definition video on phones, it is also portable. The sheer volume and variety of free internet pornography is so large that even the horniest man with all the time in the world would have difficulty exhausting the supply. And anyway, by the time this happens (we are talking years or decades, if it happens at all), there is likely to be some new form of pornography or auto-eroticism available to serve as an outlet for his sexual energy.

In a sense, the high availability of pornography could be painted in a good light, since it probably reduces the number of men hiring prostitutes or having affairs. After all, why take that kind of chance when you can just go on the internet for something almost as good and a hell of a lot less risky? But whether your man is knocking one out to a video on his phone in the bathroom at work, or fucking your son's 3rd grade teacher, he still isn't getting it at home anymore, so what can be done?

The obvious ways of preventing this situation are important and should be used: stay in shape for your man, surprise him with new moves in bed, communicate in the relationship, etc. But all of these take huge efforts if the predisposing conditions do not exist. A woman will not try new moves in bed, for example, if she is not comfortable with them. With this in mind, I think the largest efforts towards avoiding or diminishing the effects of pornography need to be made before or at the earliest stages of a relationship:

1. Choose a man with whom you are sexually compatible. This does not just mean a man that you bend over for and let do whatever he wants to you - unless that is what you enjoy. Choose a guy that you feel comfortable with in bed. You shouldn't feel awkward doing the things he asks after the first couple times you try them.
2. Choose a man that acknowledges the effects of pornography. Some people will find this topic awkward to discuss, but the earlier in a relationship you bring it up, the easier it will be. The conversation can be no more than a few casual comments, but a girl should make sure she has a clear picture of her partner's opinion on the matter, and his opinion should be that porn is bad for a sexual relationship. Because it is, at least in excess, and any honest guy knows this.
3. Choose a man that takes concrete actions to improve himself. A guy that works out regularly, or manages a strict diet, or makes efforts to read difficult books, etc. will be far more likely to break or resist developing a pornography habit.
4. Make sure you and your partner are having pig sex, at least occasionally. Pig sex is unemotional fucking: dirty, sweaty, pleasure-only sex. It is a sign of a healthy sex life, and a healthy attitude towards sex in general. It should happen naturally if you get number one on this list right. If sex is too contingent on an emotional connection, you won't be able to have it, or at least enjoy it, after the initial "magic" dies, which happens in every relationship not conjured up by Hollywood.

The good news is that no self-respecting man will allow his sex life to go down without a fight. Jerking off is lame; all men know this and will be eager to participate in efforts to prevent it becoming necessary.