Sex has a bit of a reputation for messing with your emotional health, especially when you’re just not getting what you want. While male sexuality is a little more straightforward, as a woman your sexual wellness is seemingly tied up in a myriad of complexities and secret solutions – so what’s a girl gotta do to get laid around here? In walks sex-pert Daniel Bergner, who aims to tackle the mystery that is female sexuality in his new book What do Women Want?
In the book, Bergner explains that there are far more nuances to your sexual wellbeing than to your male counterparts’. One researcher describes it as flicking a single switch in a man, while women have a series of buttons, and no man is quite sure which does what. You’d think in this day and age that wellness experts would have this all figured out, but there’s actually limited research on female sexuality thanks, in part to a field historically dominated by men. Scientists are still arguing over whether the G-spot even exists for crying out loud.
Still, according the Bergner there is plenty of research in the works that indicate that our previously held assumptions about female sexuality are wrong. Notably, new studies suggest that monogamy may be more challenging for women than it is for men. Berger cites the work of Emory University’s Yerkes National Primate Research Centre, who have found that female rhesus monkeys initiate sex, and then find a new partner when the old one gets tired. Study leader Kim Wallen, a psychologist and neuroendocrinologist, says he wonders whether women feel this drive but, due to social constraints, ‘don’t act on or even recognize the intensity of motivation that monkeys do.’ In fact, he answers his own question, ‘I feel confident that this is true.’
Bergner’s book displays several examples to support this theory. For example, Meredith Chivers, an assistant professor of psychology at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, found that women’s perceptions of arousal did not match their actual arousal. She showed women images of straight sex, lesbian sex, gay sex and sex between bonobo monkeys, and even though some women only claimed to be turned on by heterosexual images, they were, in varying degrees, aroused by all of these types of sex. Incidentally, both gay and straight men were accurate in their perceptions, and the bonobo boom boom did nothing for them.
Another finding by Chivers was that even though women claimed to feel more enticed by the idea of sex with a long-time partner, they actually became most aroused by stories about sex with strangers. Bergner takes a good look at the issue of low libido in women as a result of long-term relationships, pointing out that the problem is easily solved with a new partner. Canadian psychologist Lori Brotto, who supervised the section on female desire in the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, says, ‘Sometimes I wonder whether it isn’t so much about libido as it is about boredom.’ While Brotto’s treatments can help you to restore your libido, craving your partner again is one step too far. Bergner writes, ‘She couldn’t provide that, not without a semi-miracle or someone new in the patient’s bed.’
However, Bergner holds hope that open communication can hold the key to reigniting the passion in your relationship. He comments that plenty of long-term couples have approached him and said that the strength of their relationship depends on free-flowing communication about sex and desire. Bergner says, ‘despite the feeling of fear, of trepidation, of feeling threatened’ of communicating about your sexual needs, he advises readers to follow suit.