As most of you know by now, I don't shy away from delicate topics here in this space. That's a conscious choice. Today's topic isn't the most delicate I'll ever address, but it is about a sensitive topic: sex. As some of you who know me personally know, I was raised Roman Catholic. I haven't been Catholic for a long time now, but the practices and ethics of that religion - as practiced in the Northeastern US, anyway - still linger in my mind. One thing, in particular, was hammered into my head from an early age; not just in Sunday school, but by my public school, my relatives, even messages from society as large. That thing is this: women don't like sex. Corollary: the ones that do are weird. Corollary to the corollary: if a woman seems to want to have sex, she probably is just saying that to make you feel better. Third corollary: nice guys don't really push the sex thing too hard (because women don't want it and that would be bad).
The story goes a bit like this: men are, essentially, horndogs. The job of a man is to constantly clamp down on his sex drive because - left unchecked - it would corrupt his soul. Women, on the other hand - chaste creatures that they are by nature - must never inadvertently tempt the man.
This is not some sort of postironic commentary. As an 8-14 year old, I truly, truly believed this. Even into my late teens and early twenties, I assumed that my sex drive was completely unwelcome in the "fairer sex" and that, generally speaking, my job was to pretend to not want to have sex, in order to make sure women felt comfortable around me. My ex-wife, who I met when I was about 23 - and is, by the way, an awesome and amazing person - was a virgin, as was I, when we got married. Neither of us had any clue what we were doing. Looking back, it's clear that my ex was - through no fault of her own - just not a person with a high sex drive, at least not as high as me (at the time). And, of course, this just reinforced what we had both been taught; that men desire sex, and women merely receive it.
Imagine, for a moment - if you were not unfortunate enough to receive this piece of homespun wisdom - what entering into a sexual relationship would be like, given this as your paradigm. Not good, I assure you.
After my divorce, and into my thirties, I had enough sexual experiences to allow at least the scientific side of my mind to put this myth to rest. It took a while, and some patient partners, but I no longer believed intellectually that women had any less of a sex drive than men. Of course, there are women who don't really like sex - as are there men. I'm no longer convinced that there's any difference at all, when averaged out among the whole gender. I have recently been lucky enough to start a normal, healthy sexual relationship, and it's amazing what can happen when two people approach each other's needs without that kind of baggage. I'm still dealing with the emotional fallout of my upbringing. It takes time for the scientific mind to convince the 8 year old who sat through Sunday school. But I know this for sure: if I have a child be it son or daughter, I'm not perpetuating that bit of nonsense.