the mating modus

March 7, 2006 5:04 PM

Are all men sexually unfulfilled?

Maybe unsatiated is a better word. Is it evolutionary? Is it American? Is it idiosyncrasy?

posted by The Jesse Helms to society & culture (45 comments total)

I would imagine that a lot of men in monogamous relationships are if they have a partner who isn't as sexual as them.
posted by delmoi at 5:07 PM on March 7, 2006

Well, we are supposed to want to reproduce with as many females as possible. It's not rocket science. However, no doubt a few saps will post further down the thread about how much they love their wives, etc. etc.
posted by bingo at 5:10 PM on March 7, 2006

Are we to include masturbation?

And lets not forget the asexual - the silent class of people who really don't care about sex that much, one way or another.

In general though, I would think that many men are unsatiated. Whether this is a bad thing or not is a different question.

I give credence to a lot of evolutionary biology, without saying that it rules us as individuals. Study of great apes penis and testicle size certainly indicates that H sapiens is a mostly monogamous creature, but that males would be well inclined to 'cheat' or spread their seed whenever they can get away with it.
posted by wilful at 5:15 PM on March 7, 2006

It's testosterone.

See also: lesbian bed death, steroid use in both sexes, the ease with which gay men can get laid.
posted by birdie birdington at 5:18 PM on March 7, 2006

How does penis size indicate monogamy?
posted by bingo at 5:18 PM on March 7, 2006

In David Foster Wallace's "Big Red Son" (from Consider the Lobster) he quotes some statistic about the number of self-imposed castrations each year, and says that when asked why they did it, the perpetrators/victims of these operations usually claim that they were trying to escape from overwhelming and unsatisfiable sexual urges. (Of course, looking for a sane justification for cutting off your own sack may be sort of pointless, but...) Anyway, he suggests that visiting the AVN's yearly adult film awards in Vegas and spending 3 days straight in the belly of the porn-beast is enough to put anybody off the stuff.
posted by idontlikewords at 5:25 PM on March 7, 2006

I am not. Very satisfied, actually.
posted by Astro Zombie at 5:36 PM on March 7, 2006

I don't think it's true that all men are sexually unfulfilled. There are plenty of relationships where sex drives are mismatched, but not all are tilted in the male direction. There are many women with sex drives greater than their partners.
posted by Alison at 5:40 PM on March 7, 2006

Well, I'm not. Sorry.
posted by Decani at 5:50 PM on March 7, 2006

Sexual kung-fu is an interesting read about what you can do with your body. Like everything sex gets better if you take the time to learn and practice first.
posted by blueyellow at 6:02 PM on March 7, 2006

Yes, everyone of us is unfilled. We took a vote last night.

This seems like a question that has a story behind, a story that we should hear.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:05 PM on March 7, 2006

You can certainly imagine some evolutionary advantages to being restless - both for men and women. More competition. More combination. More variation.

I have been sexually fulfilled for periods of time. Usually, it depends on who I'm with. The partners who've fulfilled me did so from the beginning and for the duration of our relationship. The ones who didn't pretty much never did. Since there isn't some pattern of happy-in-the-beginning-then-a-long-downhill-slide, I have hopes that lifelong fulfillment is possible with the right partner.
posted by scarabic at 6:35 PM on March 7, 2006

Once you get old enough to completely lose your sex drive, then you are totally sexually fulfilled. So you got that to look forward to.
posted by ND¢ at 6:54 PM on March 7, 2006

I wish I had the quote, but John Adams commented in his senior years about how happy he was that his sex drive had finally subsided so he could concentrate on his studies and his writing. Of course he said this in a very cool and intelligent sounding way -- but that was the idea.
posted by crapples at 6:56 PM on March 7, 2006

I wish I had the quote, but John Adams commented in his senior years about how happy he was that his sex drive had finally subsided so he could concentrate on his studies and his writing. Of course he said this in a very cool and intelligent sounding way -- but that was the idea.

I was once present when the poet was asked by someone, 'Sophocles, how are you in sex? Can you still have intercourse with a woman?' 'Silence, man,' he said. 'Most joyfully did I escape it, as though I had run away from a sort of frenzied and savage master.' I thought at the time that he had spoken well and I still do. For, in every way, old age brings great peace and freedom from such things.
(Plato's Republic, Book 1)

posted by ori at 7:03 PM on March 7, 2006

Are all men sexually [unsatiated]?

No, and the question reflects a view of reality so far from what I've observed that it makes me wonder if you've been watching television again.

Avoid that stuff, it will mess with your mind.
posted by tkolar at 7:16 PM on March 7, 2006

bingo - gorilla's and chimps have huge testicles (and lots of sperm) and tiny penises (relative to body size) compared to humans who have relatively smaller testicles (and less sperm) and large penises.

Some researchers suggest that lots-o-sperm increases your odds of conceiving if other apes have had intercourse with the same female (this is ignoring the social structure of great apes, I'm a little hazier on chimps). Along the same lines, more sperm allows ejaculation of viable sperm into more females. Humans having less sperm suggests (relative) monogamy.

Personally, I think that us humans evolved along different lines; larger/longer penis delivers sperm much closer to the cervix and to the egg. Once the egg is fertilized, the female cannot be fertilized again until some time after that fertilized egg has been birthed. Brain and social factors likely also play a very large part in "monogamy."

(Many internet trolls/bragarts suggest that the "plunger action" of the human penis can scrape sperm out of the vagina. While this is true to a certain degree, it is much less efficient if the penis is intact/uncircumsized.)
posted by PurplePorpoise at 7:20 PM on March 7, 2006

Look at it another way. All humans are unfulfilled in one way or another from time to time. You're just looking at one particular subcase.
posted by nebulawindphone at 9:01 PM on March 7, 2006

Sometimes women are sexually frustrated as well.
posted by raedyn at 9:55 PM on March 7, 2006

Some researchers suggest that lots-o-sperm increases your odds of conceiving if other apes have had intercourse with the same female (this is ignoring the social structure of great apes, I'm a little hazier on chimps). Along the same lines, more sperm allows ejaculation of viable sperm into more females. Humans having less sperm suggests (relative) monogamy.

Less sperm per ejaculation than an ape hardly indicates monogamy. Give a human male a little rest, and he's ready to copulate again soon, with another female, if applicable.
posted by bingo at 10:21 PM on March 7, 2006

Less sperm per ejaculation than an ape hardly indicates monogamy. Give a human male a little rest, and he's ready to copulate again soon, with another female, if applicable.

You reckon you could keep it up with a chimp? I doubt it.
posted by wilful at 10:42 PM on March 7, 2006

It's hard out here for a chimp.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 11:01 PM on March 7, 2006

"higamous hogamus man is polygamist,hogamus higamous
woman is monogamous" can't remember who said that.
someone on Lsd I think
posted by hortense at 11:16 PM on March 7, 2006

I (female) have always had a high sex drive. My husband unfortunately has a liver condition that reduces his testosterone levels (to something less than mine). Artificial testosterone seems to make him aggressive. He is content with the situation. He is not, however, American. (Neither am I).
posted by b33j at 12:04 AM on March 8, 2006

Some researchers suggest that lots-o-sperm increases your odds of conceiving

Japanese cinema suggests otherwise!


no doubt a few saps will post further down the thread about how much they love their wives

I love bingo's wife. does that make me a sap?
posted by PenguinBukkake at 4:44 AM on March 8, 2006

Ogden Nash.

Hogamus higamus man is polygamist,
higamus hogamus woman's monogamous

Or something like that.
posted by konolia at 4:51 AM on March 8, 2006

It's hard out here for a chimp.

Unsung for too long.
posted by ed\26h at 4:55 AM on March 8, 2006

No.
It is not.
Maybe, but how could you tell?
No.
No.
posted by meehawl at 5:05 AM on March 8, 2006

I think there is room to suppose that maybe men like being in a state of desire. This is, perhaps, part of what drives us to new and creative (kink) ways of having sex.
posted by Goofyy at 5:39 AM on March 8, 2006

Not to start a side-rant, but I wonder how much of modern mans "lack of fulfillment" results from outside stimulus.

We are see or hear sexualy suggestive advertising all day from radio, T.V. and magazines. One can limit exposure, but it would be tough to eliminate exposure and still live in the modern world.

I think that men can be habitutated into a more presistent state of desire. It would be handy for advertisers if we were never satisfied and there for forever voulnerable to the pretty faces and sexy voices in ads.
posted by BeerGrin at 6:04 AM on March 8, 2006

I don't think modern advertising is to blame, though. The Stoics and the early Buddhists were already talking about the suffering and dissatisfaction that come from persistent desire — again, including but not limited to sexual desire — and that was centuries ago.
posted by nebulawindphone at 6:12 AM on March 8, 2006

I'm convinced that all men in committed relationships still have a strong desire to bang other women. They may say they're happy and that they would never want to be with another woman. But they're lying.
posted by DieHipsterDie at 6:42 AM on March 8, 2006

What does it mean to be sexually fulfilled?

Evolutionarily, it could mean producing as much progeny as possible. If so, virtually all men alive today are, fortunately, sexually unfulfilled.

It could mean having sexual intercourse with a person of one's desired gender with as much frequency as one wishes. If so, I suspect that most, but certainly not all, men are indeed sexually unfulfilled.

Or it could just mean having an orgasm with as much frequency as one desires. Fortunately, most men are able to pick up the slack—ahem— on their own.
posted by cerebus19 at 6:43 AM on March 8, 2006

bingo - gorilla's and chimps have huge testicles (and lots of sperm) and tiny penises (relative to body size) compared to humans who have relatively smaller testicles (and less sperm) and large penises.

This is actually not what I learned in my college anthropology class. I learned that of the three, chimps actually had the largest penises relative to body mass, followed by humans, then gorillas. According to my professor, this correlated with the difference in body mass between the male and female of the species. Something about since the male gorilla is so much bigger than the female, he doesn't need a large penis. And all this also relates to how their society works and such, of course...

Obviously I don't have this all worked out in my brain anymore--but I'm not going to go googling for "gorilla penis" to find sources while at work.
posted by lampoil at 7:10 AM on March 8, 2006

This idea that "all men are promiscuous, all women are monogamous -- it's SCIENCE!" is bunk, based on sexist interpretations of animal behavior. Culled from Natalie Angier's (science writer for the Times) book Woman:

* Men do not gain evolutionary advantage from being promiscuous, because they "scatter their seed" and therefore have more children. Women are fertile only a few days a month, and this fertility is hidden -- the guy doesn't know when she's fertile. It takes an average of four months of regular sexual intercourse for a woman to become pregnant. Statistically, a man who sleeps with 120 women in four months has an EQUAL chance of having ONE baby as a man who sleeps with the same woman for four months -- and the monogamous guy will know the baby is his, since he can also guard the woman from other suitors during that time.

* Women are not naturally monogamous, wanting stable families in which to raise children. Again, women's fertility is hidden -- meaning, more or less, she can sneak off and get impregnated by someone else while hubby is at home, and he'll never know. Hidden fertility means she gets the benefits of great genes (generally the alpha male's) as well as the devoted husband. Some societies believe, actually, that sperm from many men creates better babies, that a child is fathered by all the men that the mother has slept with while pregnant. DNA studies of chimps on the Ivory Coast showed that HALF of the babies had fathers outside the social group -- and the mothers had been so sneaky about their extracurricular liaisons that the researchers had never seen them leave the group.

* Women do no need men as providers, hunters who will feed their families. Most studies of modern hunter-gatherer societies show that the men hunt not to feed their families, but to use the food as gifts to stabilize alliances, ward off enemies, reward friendly neighbors. The children are raised by, and fed by, groups of female relatives (grandmothers, aunts) who take charge to help the mother out. As Angier says, "Are not married men the ones who gain most in health and happiness from being married? A raft of epidemiological studies have shown that marriage adds more years to the life of a man than it does to that of a woman. Why should that be, if men are so 'naturally' ill-suited to matrimony?"
posted by occhiblu at 9:06 AM on March 8, 2006 [2 favorites has favorites]

From my anthropology lab: body mass sexual dimorphism and sexual behavior
posted by fourstar at 10:54 AM on March 8, 2006

I wanna high-five Sophocles.

Strangely, I find myself more sexually satisifed now that the imparative urges have faded with age. Not only because my appetites have reduced to a level that is easier to achieve, but also because I'm geting more sexual attention now that I'm less urgent about my appetites.

In short: I want it less, and yet I'm getting it more.

To the original question asker: "all men"? Never forget that all generalizations are false.
posted by Mozai at 11:09 AM on March 8, 2006

"No one in the world ever gets what they want, and that is beautiful. Everyone dies frustrated inside, and that is beautiful."
-TMBG
posted by J-Garr at 11:46 AM on March 8, 2006

I think male sexual fustration centers on the male orgasm being totally lame and unfulfilling in comparison with the female orgasm.
posted by blasdelf at 6:12 PM on March 8, 2006

I think male sexual fustration centers on the male orgasm being totally lame and unfulfilling in comparison with the female orgasm.

Really? I feel for you. I've had orgasms that nearly damned well killed me. I don't think I could have taken any more intensity.
posted by Decani at 6:15 PM on March 8, 2006

I'm just sayin that it's pitiful in comparison to the female orgasm.

If you, as a male, are having better orgasms than your female sex parter, you aren't trying hard enough. Women have a far higher capacity for orgasm than we do. Seriously.
posted by blasdelf at 6:37 PM on March 8, 2006

If you, as a male, are having better orgasms than your female sex parter, you aren't trying hard enough

I don't think I said that, did I dude? I think what I said was that my orgasms have been fucking amazing, sometimes. That's all.

On what basis do you say that the male orgasm is pitiful in comparison to the female? Are you a transexual? Were you a woman in a former life, perhaps?
posted by Decani at 6:52 PM on March 9, 2006

male orgasm... totally lame and unfulfilling in comparison with the female orgasm.

That's so flimsy that it borders on trolling. Pleasure, like pain, is extremely individual, and difficult to quantify. Give me a call when you're a woman and want to compare the two orgasms in some sort of consistent, controlled way. No, really, call me, babe! ;^)

Any man or woman here who has had more than a few woman lovers will tell you that female orgasm is all over the map as regards frequency and strength. I assume as much for men, in terms of variance.
posted by squirrel at 1:05 PM on March 13, 2006

I love bingo's wife. does that make me a sap?

Thankfully, there is no such beast, so yes, you are pathetic.
posted by bingo at 6:23 PM on March 14, 2006

Just saw this thread from another link, but I wanted to point out that, while I haven't read the book occhiblu is referencing, her first point is not correct as stated. What Angier was probably suggesting is that, in a population of many males and females, if each male partners with a different female every day for four months (120 days), each will produce the same number of children, on average, as they would if they all stayed monogamous during that period (but still had sex frequently enough so that all females became pregnant). BUT if everyone in the population is monagamous except for one male, who breaks the rules and has sex with multiple females, that male will produce more children on average. And because natural selection acts on individuals (or genes) and not populations, in any species in which the cost of reproduction for males is much less than the cost of reproduction for females, you'll end up with the males being much more willing to have sex than the females. Male promiscuity is genetic.

If you throw in the possibility of guarding females against other males, i.e. imposing a cost on attempts to be promiscuous, then you can give males an incentive to be careful to not mate with females who are being guarded (or at least to not get caught). But this is not the same as an incentive to remain monogamous.

In addition, the guarding itself imposes a cost; that's time that the guarder can't search for food, etc. Assuming that behaviors like guarding and promiscuity are genetic, you could have a stable state in which males all guard their partners, and a stable state in which males don't bother. Since, as mentioned, the average number of children per male is the same in either case, the latter will be slightly more favorable because of that guarding cost. You could get fancier than this, of course, but the point is that an individual's genetic willingness to have sex will be fundamentally driven by the average cost of having sex, and that's always much higher for females than males in mammals.
posted by gsteff at 7:22 PM on August 30, 2006