LG: I found the David Buss reference, The Evolution Of Desire and your message recommending it. The other two authors have numerous titles and I was not able to turn up your recommendation for those in a board search. I am a 57 yo struggling with aging issues.
LG, thanks for recommending David Buss, Jack Marin, Matt Ridley and others. After considerable reading, I don't know why everyone isn't an evolutionary psychologist. You have dealt with some of this before, but some may be relatively fresh: Won't dramatically longer life spans result in increased sexual tensions between the sexes? As men age, most still want full sex but the libido of most women declines and they are often not interested beyond hugs and kisses and no heavy stuff. In my own case, I am early 80s and if I don't have a romp every two weeks or so I start to get testy and restless. My SO, whom I love dearly isn't interested any more and regards any sexual encounter outside of total monogamy as depraved, predatory, exploitative and worse. Counseling hasn't narrowed our differences. Yet I have never had an affair and don't hit on other women (and agree that people like the IMF guy should be behind bars), but about ten years ago started in the hobby and that has solved my problem. Since people live much longer these days on average, won't these dramatic differences in viewpoint become stronger?
Recently I saw a delightful provider who must be all of 105 soaking wet (I am over 6' and 200 lbs) and she made me literally weak in the knees but with a smile on my face and a spring in my step that are still there. Who couldn't regard this as seriously therapeutic and want it to continue, especially since it poses no threat to the basic relationship as long as it is undiscovered? I don't like deception but the well being of the situation is so strong even at my age I'm not ready to cash in. I can only see these kinds of problems getting worse as people live longer and the relative differences in desire for real sex of males and females continues to widen. What do you think?
Indeed, weakintheknees,
Sexual disparity between the genders will increase, but not so much for evolutionary reasons as for social constructionist ones. As women increase their influence in social matters, society is "feminizing" in many areas, including sexual ones. As you see, we have Dr Drew proclaiming almost any man who isn't monogamous or sexually exclusive within his marriage/civil union as a sex addict. Porn is regarded as symptomatic of a great illness and sex is rapidly taking on a framework where there are certain "norms" in terms of appetite, frequency, etc. It used to be that men who were sexually appetitive were considered "healthy, strong," etc. Now we look at this as some kind of disorder or dysfunction if it happens outside monogamous boundaries.
So yes, I think your fears are well-founded, but it won't be just because we live longer and differences between the genders become more pronounced - it's the cultural backlash we've been in for the past 30 years now.
Wish for the freewheelers of the 60s - perhaps they will return with another generation,
The Love Goddess
LG: I found the David Buss reference, The Evolution Of Desire and your message recommending it. The other two authors have numerous titles and I was not able to turn up your recommendation for those in a board search. I am a 57 yo struggling with aging issues.
By dating women who are ten to fifteen years younger than me.