5.6: The Sexual Experience

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Even though the physiological component of sexuality is common between males and females, the male and female sex drives are NOT identical. Studies consistently show that sexual desire for women is more sensitive to the context (meaningful or intimate connection) and the social and cultural environment (quality of relationships, stresses of the day, etc.). Generally speaking most men seek more sex than most women throughout most of the life span. Also, most men are more easily aroused by visual stimulation than are most women.

The Janus Report reported that 65% of men have an orgasm every time during love-making while females reported a much lower 15% every time. About 46% of women report “often” having an orgasm during love-making, compared to only 28% of men. These sex drive differences also emerged in self-reported masturbation frequencies. About 55% of men and 38% of women masturbate on a daily-monthly basis.

When filling out official documents, you are often asked to provide your name, birth date, and sex or gender. But have you ever been asked to provide your sex and your gender? It may not have occurred to you that sex and gender are not the same. However, sociologists and most other social scientists view sex and gender as conceptually distinct. Sex denotes biological characteristics and exists along a spectrum from male to female. Gender, on the other hand, denotes social and cultural characteristics that are assigned to different sexes. Sex and gender are not always synchronous, meaning they do not always line up in an easy-to-categorize way.