The human sex drive is often thought to be greater among men and this has always been put down to the higher levels of testosterone in the male body but a recent study carried out at the University of Michigan has prompted us to question the role of testosterone in sexual desire. The results of the study are published in the Archives of Sexual Behaviour and offer us further insight into the validity of an area of medicine that has been labelled female sexual dysfunction (FSD).
105 men participated in the study and 91 women and they answered questions regarding their sex lives, their attitudes towards sex, to their own bodies and with sexual desire. Their testosterone levels were also checked.
Having always thought that a high level of testosterone in men was the reason that men had greater sex drives than women, the researchers were surprised to discover that women who had higher levels of testosterone in their bodies were less inclined to want to have sex with a partner than women with lower levels of testosterone. Furthermore, women with higher levels of the sex hormone were more inclined to masturbate than women with lower levels of testosterone, even though they did not desire sex with a partner as much. Sexual desire seems far more layered an issue than previously thought. Maybe our definition of sexual dysfunction is not even correct?
Although the study size was very small, the outcome leads us to think that this whole area of female sexual dysfunction is wrong-headed. If a woman does not desire sex with another person and she is happy with that, is this sexual dysfunction? If she is unhappy with the situation then that is a completely different matter. If the findings of this study are borne out in a further, much larger study, it would lead us to the conclusion that scientific research focussing on testosterone levels is heading in the wrong direction. Remember that the biggest sexual organ in the body is the brain, not the testes or the ovaries. Our guess is that the scientific community is looking in the wrong area for a solution – if indeed there is a problem to begin with…