Sexual desire

Sexual desire is a motivational state and an interest in “sexual objects or activities, or as a wish, or drive to seek out sexual objects or to engage in sexual activities”. Synonyms for sexual desire are libido, sexual attraction and lust. Sexual desire is an aspect of a person's sexuality, which varies significantly from one person to another, and also varies depending on circumstances at a particular time. Not every person experiences sexual desire; those who do not experience it may be labelled asexual. Sexual desire is a motivational state and an interest in “sexual objects or activities, or as a wish, or drive to seek out sexual objects or to engage in sexual activities”. Synonyms for sexual desire are libido, sexual attraction and lust. Sexual desire is an aspect of a person's sexuality, which varies significantly from one person to another, and also varies depending on circumstances at a particular time. Not every person experiences sexual desire; those who do not experience it may be labelled asexual. Sexual desire may be the “single most common sexual event in the lives of men and women”. Sexual desire is a subjective feeling state that can “be triggered by both internal and external cues, and that may or may not result in overt sexual behaviour”. Sexual desire can be aroused through imagination and sexual fantasies, or perceiving an individual whom one finds attractive. Sexual desire is also created and amplified through sexual tension, which is caused by sexual desire that has yet to be consummated. Sexual desire can be spontaneous or responsive. Sexual desire is dynamic, can either be positive or negative, and can vary in intensity depending on the desired object/person. The sexual desire spectrum is described by Stephen B. Levine as: aversion → disinclination → indifference → interest → need → passion. The production and use of sexual fantasy and thought is an important part of properly functioning sexual desire. Some physical manifestations of sexual desire in humans are; licking, sucking, puckering and touching the lips, as well as tongue protrusion. Theorists and researchers have usually employed two different frameworks in their understanding of human sexual desire. The first is a biological framework where sexual desire comes from an innate motivational force like “an instinct, drive, need, urge, wish, or want”. Also known as sex drive. Second, a socio-cultural theory where desire is conceptualized as one factor in a much larger context (i.e. relationships nested within societies, nested within cultures).In the biological approach, sexual drive is likened to other biological drives such as hunger, where an individual will seek out food, or in the case of desire – pleasure, in order to reduce or avoid pain. Sex drive can be thought of as a biological need or craving that inspires individuals to seek out and become receptive to sexual experiences and sexual pleasure. However, members of all species (including humans) will not seek to engage in sexual activity with any conspecific, since attraction plays a large role in sexual desire. Incentive motivation theory exists under this framework. This theory states that the strength of motivation towards sexual activity depends on the strength of the stimuli (immediacy of stimuli), and if satiety is achieved, the strength of the stimuli/incentive will be increased in the future. Sex drive is strongly tied to biological factors such as “chromosomal and hormonal status, nutritional status, age, and general health”. Sexual desire is the first phase of the human sex response cycle. The traditional model for the human sexual response cycle can be represented as: Desire → Arousal → Orgasm → Resolution. Sexual desire, though a part of the sexual response cycle, is believed to be distinct and separate from genital sexual arousal. It has also been argued that sexual desire is not a distinct phase in sexual response. Rather, it is something that persists through arousal and orgasm and can even persist after orgasm. Although orgasm might make it difficult for a man to maintain his erection or woman continue with vaginal lubrication, sexual desire can persist nevertheless. In the sociocultural framework, sexual desire would indicate a longing for sexual activity for its own sake, not for any other purpose than purely for enjoyment and one’s own satisfaction or to release some sexual tension. Sexual desire and activity could also be produced to help achieve some other means or to gain some other rewards that may not be sexual in origin, like increased closeness and attachment between partners. Sexual desire is not an urge; this may imply that individuals have more of a conscious control of their own desire. That being said, sociocultural influences may push males and females into gender-specific roles where the use of social scripts dictating the appropriate feelings and responses to desire and activity are expected. This may lead to conflict where an individual’s wants may be unfulfilled due to the anticipated social consequences of their actions, causing frustration. Some theorists suggest that the experience of sexual desire may be socially constructed. However, some argue that although sociocultural factors are very influential over the experience of sexual desire, they don’t play a large role until after biological initially influences desire. Another view is that sexual desire is neither a social construction nor a biological drive. According to James Giles, it is rather an existential need that is based on the sense of incompleteness that arises from the experience of being gendered. There are many researchers who believe that stressing any single approach to the study of human sexuality and excluding others is not logical and counterproductive. It is the integrations of and interaction between multiple approaches and disciplines that will allow us the most comprehensive understanding of human sexuality from all angles. One single approach may provide necessary factors for studying desire, but it is not sufficient. Sexual desire can manifest itself in more than one way; it is a “variety of different behaviours, cognitions, and emotions, taken together”. Levine suggests that sexual desire has three components which link several different theoretical perspectives together: In early life, usually just before puberty, males are said to be quite flexible regarding their “preferred sexual incentive”, although they later become inflexible. Females on the other hand remain flexible throughout their life cycle. This change in sexuality due to sensitivity to variations in situational, cultural, and social factors is called erotic plasticity. Otherwise, we know very little about the feelings of sexual desire and sexual arousal in prepubertal children or whether any feelings they may have can be comparable to what they would experience later on in life as an adult. However, we do know that boys typically experience and commence sexual interest and activity before girls do. Men, on average, have significantly higher sex drives and desire for sexual activity than women do; this also correlated with the finding that men report, on average, a larger total number of lifetime sexual partners, although mathematicians say 'it is logically impossible for heterosexual men to have more partners on average than heterosexual women'. Sex drive was also related to sociosexuality scores, where the higher the sex drive the less restricted the sociosexual orientation, or the willingness to have sex outside of a committed relationship. This was especially the case for women. Lippa utilized data from a BBC internet survey to examine cross-cultural patterns in sex differences for three traits: sex drive, sociosexuality, and height. These three traits all showed consistent sex differences across nations, although women were found to be more variable than men in their sex drive. On average, male sexual desire remains stronger, more frequent, and longer into the life cycle than women’s. Though women do not experience sexual desire as often as men, when they do, the intensity of the experience is equal to that of men. Societal perceptions of men and women in addition to perceptions about acceptable sexual behaviour (e.g. men are more sexual and sometimes insatiable while women should be more reserved and almost nonsexual) may also contribute to expressed levels of sexual desire and expressed sexual satisfaction. DeLamater and Sill found that affect and feelings towards the importance of sexual activity can affect levels of desire. In their study, women who said that sexual activity was important to the quality of their lives and relationships demonstrated low desire, while women who placed less emphasis on sexual activity in their lives demonstrated high desire. Men also presented similar results. These findings were reflected in a Conaglen and Evans study where they assessed whether sexual desire levels influence emotional responses and cognitive processing of sexual pictorial stimuli. They found that women with lower sexual desire responded to sexual stimuli in the picture recognition task more quickly but rated the sexual images as less arousing and less pleasant than the other desire groups.