Everybody knows that most women feel particularly sexual at a certain point in their cycle. This is because the hormones involved with ovulation start telling the body to effectively ‘mate’. But to what extent do hormones control the sexual wellness and wellbeing of a woman; is it the sole driver of sexuality, or do other factors come into play?
Unlike other mammals, humans tend to have sex on a regular basis throughout the month. Other mammals (and indeed animals in general) only tend to mate when they are fertile – sex is generally used purely for reproduction and not for pleasure. Humans are different, because they engage in sexual intercourse for pleasure at times and in ways where conception could not occur.
There have been many studies into whether ovulation plays a strong role in sex drive, but they have tended to rely on guesswork about when ovulation occurs, by counting the days from the last menstrual cycle in the woman. This is wildly inaccurate as women ovulate at different times, and can even ovulate at different times each month, making the results very questionable. For this reason, some studies seemed to show that the ovulation hormones were linked to sexual activity and other studies showed no correlation or very little correlation between the two things.
Now, a new study has been carried out which uses ultrasound technology to pinpoint the exact time of ovulation in nearly 2000 heterosexual women aged between 18 and 40. No women in the study were using artificial birth control and all women kept a diary of their sexual activity. The study found that women tended to engage in sexual activity (including masturbation) more frequently around the time of ovulation, showing that hormones were playing a strong role in these women’s sex drives.