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The scene opens as the camera zooms in on the Barone house at night, and then into the bedroom where Ray is sitting next to Debra, his wife. She’s lying down facing the camera, with her back to Ray, about to fall asleep. Ray, the sports writer in the long-running sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond, reaches over and gently touches her exposed shoulder. Eyes closed, Debra simply says, “No.” He withdraws his hand, then gently touches her again.

“No,” comes the deadpan response. Again, Ray touches her shoulder, and still without moving or opening her eyes, Debra says, “No.”

Then, with his brow wrinkled as if conducting an experiment, Ray reaches his hand over his wife’s shoulder without touching her.

“No,” comes the response — again with her eyes closed. Then, in response to three quick passes through the air over her shoulder, Debra says “No,” “No,” “No,” each in precise timing with the hand passing over her.

The scene ends as Ray reaches his hand far above her and, without touching her, swoops it down over her in what looks like an airplane pass. In a pitch that matches the height of the hand she cannot see, Debra responds, “NoooooOOOO.”

Ever felt like Ray Barone in this scene? Most married men readily confess to having their sexual advances toward their wife rebuffed on more than one occasion. In fact, most married men believe that women do not want to have sex as much as we do. Over time the old reliable “Not tonight, I have a headache” has morphed into “I’m too tired tonight,” but the message to us is the same. They don’t want to have sex when we do. Maybe your wife has even accused you of being “insatiable.” And you’re amazed at how long she can go without ever initiating sex with you.

So, you are wondering how I can be saying this is a myth? Don’t men, generally speaking, want more sex than women do?

Though it may seem that way for a variety of reasons, we are making a mistake to assume just because it so often feels that way, that it is true. The fact is that our sex drives, for both men and women, fall along a continuum that looks like a bell curve, and most wives are right in the middle, wanting to have sex with their husbands just as much as their husbands want to have sex with them. Of course, some women actually have a stronger libido than their husband, but these marriages are in the minority. So why all the hullabaloo about libido mismatch between men and women? And, more importantly, how can correcting this myth lead to better — and more frequent — sex in your own marriage?

I’ll begin with a brief lesson on the female libido.

Make no mistake, it is more complicated than ours. But if we accurately understand it, we’ll not only see that it’s unfair to unequivocally say that women don’t want sex as much as we do, but we’ll also know how to cultivate it more fully. I’ll then give you several practical suggestions for getting your seemingly disparate sex drives into the same gear.

What Women Want

In the film Annie Hall, Woody Allen and Diane Keaton are shown split-screen as each talks to an analyst about their sexual relationship. When the analyst asks how often they have sex, he answers, “Hardly ever, maybe three times a week,” while she describes it as, “Constantly, three times a week.”

How is it that a husband and wife can view the frequency of sex so differently? The answer is found, in great part, in understanding how a woman becomes sexually aroused and motivated. Too often, men assume that the way our libido works is (or should be) the same way hers works. But it’s not that simple. In fact, it requires a bit of study. “Every woman is a science,” said John Donne. And if you take time to study your wife, you will discover that her libido, though quite different than yours, is more powerful than you think.

                         

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