Creating and sustaining an enjoyable life in takes some effort—you will need good information about sexual desire to achieve this. A good place to start is by taking a fresh look at the male libido. Even though this may be dangerous territory for a woman to approach, here goes!

Ugly and Dangerous?

Stephen Marche, a male cultural commentator on marriage, suggested in a 2017 article, “The Unexamined Brutality of the Male Libido,” that men’s sexual desire (i.e. their libido) is often “ugly and dangerous.” He argued that, as such, it may be an impediment to equality between men and women in marriage. Marche got a lot of blowback about this, mostly from those folks who argued it is an outdated view that applies only to “toxic” masculinity.

“Toxic” masculinity may be the newer version of a still popular view of male sexual desire—that men, for example, feel strong (almost uncontrollable) urges to have intercourse and to masturbate, are willing to take sexual risks regardless of the consequences, don’t care about love, just want to get laid, have a perpetually high sex drive, etc.

So, what’s the real story? Does the male sex drive override any consideration of equality in a marriage? Is it impossible to negotiate sex in a marriage because of this overriding male libido?

Solo Sex

Marche argued that men must not let their own sexual desire go "unexamined"—the point of his article. Interestingly, women researchers in the field are asking different kinds of questions about sex and challenging some old ideas.

Sari van Anders, a behavioral neuroendocrinologist at the University of Michigan, looked at sexual desire in a new way. Van Anders hypothesized that the desire to have sex with someone (partnered sex) may be different from the desire to masturbate (solo sex). Van Anders believes that the desire to masturbate may be a purer measure of what we think of as sexual desire. How about that! The desire for sex with another person is more likely to be influenced by sociocultural and interpersonal factors, e. ., how you feel about your partner that day, how attracted you are to your partner, and the overall quality of your relationship.

Van Anders solicited 196 (105 men and 91 women) college students and community volunteers to complete questionnaires about their sex lives (sexual desire with a partner and sexual desire to masturbate), their (measured by cortisol), and their . They answered questions about how frequently they had partnered sex and masturbated, and how frequently they had the desire to masturbate or to have sex with a partner. The subjects also provided saliva for testing levels of cortisol (a stress ) and (T).

Surprisingly, van Anders found that when she compared low- versus high-testosterone participants and their self-reported levels of desire, levels of T were not related to how much the men thought about either solitary sex or partnered sex. Boy, does this finding fly in the face of the idea that men’s sexual desire is driven by T.

So, where does the idea that male sex desire is driven by T come from? What typically is found in animal studies and studies of men who produce extremely low levels of testosterone is that men generally desire sex (not distinguishing between solo sex and partnered sex) more frequently than women and that men also produce more testosterone than women.

Van Anders, however, argues that the typical healthy range of T found in men is high enough (even for the men in the low-testosterone group) so that changes in testosterone are not enough to account for changes in sexual desire.

The one thing van Anders found that seems to fit popular ideas about sexual desire in men and women is that men masturbated more than women and reported more sexual desire (with a partner or solo). Women in the study reported less and less desire. For van Anders this raises the question of which comes first, the desire for or the actual masturbation? Perhaps masturbation affects sexual desire, which could account for the difference between men’s and women’s reported sexual desire.

Testosterone is Not a Metaphor for Masculinity

T has become a metaphor for masculinity in the popular culture—a misguided shortcut. This shortcut misrepresents both the hormone and what it means to be masculine, contrary to all the adverts that tell men to load up on T.

Siri van Anders also studied the relationship between T and . She found that rather than being directly linked to behavioral masculinity, T is better thought of as related to and nurturance—i.e., high T is associated with competition, while low T is associated with nurturance. This finding helps us make sense of the decrease in T in the men who are new fathers. Van Anders’s findings indicate that low testosterone may decrease competition, thus increasing a man’s ability to nurture his children.

Studies have also found that infant cries increase T. What is this about? As van Anders notes, we have this social schema of parenting being all lovey-dovey. However, parenting also requires defending our kids, if we think they are threatened in some way. This seems to account for the spike in T when a father hears his baby crying.

Remember, van Anders argues that the typical healthy range of T found in men is high enough (even for the men with low testosterone) to support sexual desire. The lower T that’s associated with being a father will not diminish your interest in sex nor your ability to perform well in bed.

Sex with Your Partner

So, it’s more complicated than you thought. What to make of this research? What this means for men (and the women with whom they are partnered) is that having sex with your partner is not driven by T alone. Van Anders’s research supports the idea that sexual desire for your partner is influenced by social and psychological factors as well as by the hormone testosterone. Sex with your partner must be negotiated collaboratively. Sexual desire must be honored, yes, but it cannot justify a demand that requires fulfillment independent of negotiation between consenting partners.