Some people choose celibacy, others achieve it and some people have celibacy thrust upon them. Unfortunately for me, I fell into the latter category – until last night that is. Before then, I hadn’t had sex for two weeks, and boy, was I unhappy about that!

My lovely boyfriend Thomas has not being neglecting my sexual needs simply because he couldn’t be bothered (that would be a red card offence) – he just couldn’t get it up. The ‘it’ in question – I hasten to reassure you! – wasn’t his manhood, but rather his entire body, goddamit. He’s has been dying with back pain for weeks and so it seemed a bit unfair to expect him to rip off my pants when the poor lamb couldn’t even put on his own without assistance.
It wasn’t my fault; I have an alibi, officer, I swear. I do! It’s an old sport’s injury. In truth, I wish I could say that he’d been throwing me around the bedroom when it flared up again, but sadly the truth is far more prosaic – he was picking up a box of books when it happened. Not even pornographic ones…
In theory, I shouldn’t have minded a few weeks of celibacy – well, at least not as much as a man would have. Neuropsychiatrist Louann Brizendine has recently released a book called The Female Brain in which she claims that while men think about sex several times a day, women only do so every couple of days. Women, she notes, just don’t have the same capacity for desire as our male counterparts. As you’d expect, the book has been attacked and praised in equal measure. Bet you’ll never guess what I think about it!
Female desire has always been the subject of controversy. In many cultures, it has been regarded as somehow suspect, unnatural or even dangerous. Any woman who was openly partial to sex was regarded – at best – as some sort of Jezebel. Sex was supposed to be a wifely duty, a necessity to be put up with, in order to keep a husband happy and ensure the continuation of humankind. Look at it any other way and you just might end up being stoned (and I mean with big, heavy friggin rocks).
Then came the sexual revolution. Suddenly we could have sex whenever we wanted, without fear of pregnancy. It might have been a long time coming to Ireland, but the message from certain feminist camps was that women have just as much desire as men and are indeed inherently as capable of having multiple partners and casual sex as any jock. Go for it, girl!
Read the Sunday papers one week and you’ll hear that studies have shown that women in long-term relationships often report low levels of desire and are happier with less sex than their husbands or partners; read them the next week and you’ll note that single and divorced Irish men feel emasculated by the demanding and sexually experienced women they tend to meet on the second time ‘round trail. Somehow, we sneaky, capricious females have managed to be both too horny and not horny enough. Either way, we can’t win.
Not surprisingly, much time and money has been spent on researching a female equivalent to Viagra: a little magic pill that will turn the average housewife in the commuter belt into an insatiable nymphomaniac – or at least into someone who wants sex more often.
The latest solution is from Proctor and Gamble, a patch called Instrinsa. This patch releases testosterone into the blood stream. Unlike Viagra, it doesn’t work immediately, but the testosterone has a cumulative effect – and after a few weeks ‘recipients’ reported having more sex than a control group using a placebo patch. Hallelujah!
As with men, testosterone, in women, is responsible for feelings of desire. But also extraneous body hair – hey, there’s always a catch! This hormone declines with age and thus, according to experts, testosterone therapy can be beneficial for women who’ve had hysterectomies or have had premature menopause.
If there is a physiological reason for a low(er) libido, and testosterone is the answer, that’s well and good, but many medical and social researchers state that for the most part, a woman’s lack of desire is more likely to be due to social, psychological or emotional factors, rather than physical ones. Inevitably, it’s a concern that solutions such as Instrinsa may be used by people who don’t actually need them.
A woman’s desire to have sex ebbs and flows for a number of reasons – be it the time of the month, the phases of the moon, stress, energy levels, the quality of sex on offer and the man doing the offering. That’s normal. Most women have days (in my case the very odd one!) when a nice nap is preferable to hot sex. Sorry guys!
If I’d known that a terrible drought was looming the day before Thomas’ back went kaput, I’d have made the most of the opportunity I had. But, you’ll be surprised to hear, I am not a clairvoyant. I’d been out with friends earlier that day and instead of attacking him upon my return, I opted for an early night.
Oh dear. It was the typical scenario. You know, the one used to explain the sexual difficulties of married couples – horny man, less than enthusiastic woman! Not tonight, darling, I’m exhausted. Instead of using what would turn out to be his last night (well, for a few weeks) as a fully operational, red-blooded Irish male as an opportunity to get out the scented candles and lingerie, and fuck him like a mad woman, as no doubt I would have during the first few months of our relationship, I kissed him goodnight with promises to make it up to him the next day. Talk about a lack of foresight.
Given that Thomas’s back had made him completely immobile, for a few horribly frustrating days, I wasn’t getting any at all, at least not from him. Thank God for sex toys! But after a while this was no longer enough. After five days had passed and the physiotherapist wasn’t having much success, I was sending him links to chiropractors and acupuncturists. Yes, yes, I felt sorry for him and didn’t want him to be in pain – of course I didn’t – but if the truth be told, I was also feeling a little hard done by. And extremely horny.
10 days later, the boy was up and mobile – but he claimed he didn’t want to risk a relapse by treating me to a vigorous sex session. I wonder was he really telling the whole truth? Thomas may have been in pain, but the rest of his life had turned into paradise. I was doing my best impression of a 1950s housewife – cooking, fetching, carrying and generally being wonderfully solicitous of his welfare.
Thomas may have been unable to service me but the reverse didn’t apply, he kindly pointed out. You try saying ‘no’ to a man in pain, with puppy dog eyes. It can’t be done – well, not by me – and so I cheerfully complied, with yet another tongue-lickingly perfect blowjob. Something tells me I may have been taken for a sucker – literally.
So, do women actually want less sex than men? Does it depend on circumstances, nature or nurture, or is it all just hormones? Who knows? I don’t. All I can tell you is that as soon as the source of my sexual satisfaction was removed, I started to feel a little like a junkie, looking for my next fix.
I don’t wish to quibble with the research. Or maybe I do. Some women may indeed have lower libidos than men, but try telling that to this particular one when she hasn’t been getting any. There is nothing like having to do without, to whet your sexual appetite.
Well, if you’re as horny as I am, that is…