Men Want Sex More Than Women? Commonly Assumed, Not Necessarily True

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Men always want sex more than women.

That’s one of the pervasive cliches that HuffPost Live host Caitlyn Becker explored in a segment this week. Joining Caitlyn were writers Stephen Dierks and Madison Moore from Thought Catalog, who discussed that site’s recent piece on the most frustrating gender myths, and writer Gloria Roheim McRae, who runs My Kinda Woman, a blog about what it means to be a man or woman today.

We already know that plenty of women crave sex more than the men in their lives. Earlier this month, we published reflections from 13 women who have higher sex drives than their male parters’ — and they aren’t alone.

Dierks suggested that the myth of men constantly wanting sex more is propagated by television and movies, noting that if we see this dynamic over and over again on-screen — men chasing sex, women refusing — we are more likely to expect it in real life.

The conversation also touched on the fact that women with strong sex drives aren’t the only ones disadvantaged by the idea that men want it more. “It’s a lot of pressure on a guy,” McRae said.

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Best (And Worst) Cities to Find Love

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In every major city there are massive amounts of single people out there, says Janis Spindel. But it’s tough to find love. She should know: she makes her living from that fact, running a top matchmaking firm.

Forget the romantic notion of destiny. The clinical way to defy the mate-hunting odds, as Spindel can testify, boils down to one thing: location. With Valentine’s Day approaching, The Daily Beast thought it would quantify that part of the love equation, by examining and then ranking the 104 largest American cities, according to which are most conducive to finding, and keeping, a spouse.

We entered every U.S. city with more than 200,000 people into our computers, then dumped in data surrounding five criteria:

  • Singles ratio: The larger the percentage of singles, 18-and-over, according to U.S. Census data, the bigger the relative pool for finding the perfect mate.
  • Social life: Using Citysearch, we determined a social life quotient—how many restaurants and bars there are per over-21 adult, as a proxy for meeting opportunities.
  • Emotional Health: Studies show that happy people are more open to love. So we ranked cities based on the the Gallup-Healthways Emotional Health Index, based on thousands of questionnaires where respondents described how much they smile and laugh, whether they are treated with respect, whether they find enjoyment, get stressed, feel happy, etc. Cities in milder climes tended to fare better here, skewing those cities higher on rankings.
  • Marriage ratio: Is a given city marriage-minded? To determine, we measured the percentage of people who got married in 2008, as a percentage of overall marriage-aged population. Greensboro, North Carolina, for instance, ranked in the top quintile for the percentage of singles, but it ranked toward the bottom for marriages, earning a D.
  • Divorce ratio: It’s one thing to get married. True love means you stay married. So we measured 2008 divorces as a percentage of marriage-aged population. Stockton, California, which received an A grade for marriages, finishing in the top quintile, also received an F for divorces, ranking third from last on our list. Riverside, California, meanwhile, notched an A in both categories, placing it seventh overall.

These rankings are universal, designed to be neutral in relation to gender, race, religion, sexual orientation or age.

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