Men reach the peak of their sexual desire around the age of forty and, throughout their lives, have a significantly higher desire than women. In fact, 60-year-olds experience the same level of desire as 20-year-olds. This is what emerged from a recent research conducted in Estonia, which has sparked discussion throughout the world because it undermines some of our certainties. First of all, this is a counterintuitive fact. It has always been assumed, in fact, that the peak of sexual desire coincided with the maximum level of fertility. And indeed, at least as far as women are concerned, this seems to be true, given that their peak desire is around the age of twenty. For men, however, sexual desire seems to follow a path largely disconnected from reproductive potential.

Betrayal before and after 30

As we know, after the age of thirty men also begin to see their level of fertility decrease, yet their desire continues to increase significantly. The data relating to the Estonian research is not entirely new for those who, like me, have been studying male and female sexuality for years. There are several studies that support similar results and, among these, there are also those relating to cheating. Women seem to cheat on average more than men, or at least as much as men, only in the age range between 20 and 30; for the rest of his life, however, man would betray significantly more, especially in the phase we call old age. We could hypothesize that this does not depend exclusively on the different level of sexual desire, but also on other factors. For example, from the greater social pressure that men receive to be sexually active, while women often experience the opposite expectation, that of being more selective and modest.

A different operation

Or it could be argued that the greater male propensity to betray depends on a lower level of emotional and relational morality. However, in this case it would not explain why, in the young age group, men and women cheat with substantially the same frequency. The most plausible hypothesis then remains one: men and women function differently on a sexual level, net of sociocultural influences, which certainly have an important role, but perhaps not as decisive as many believe. This element further calls into question the construct of the monogamous couple, already in serious crisis in this historical period. The different level of desire between men and women generates a further element of instability which adds to the other gender factors which make heterosexual relationships complex and which contribute to the growing “heteropessimism”, a term coined to describe the mutual frustration that men and women experience in building a couple. This, however, should not lead us to make the mistake of considering the monogamous couple, if lived in an ethical sense and therefore without betrayal, as a mere cultural construct or, as some define it, an “unnatural” practice.

Sexual plan and romantic plan

The truth is that the monogamous couple is not only imposed by social expectations, but is often chosen because greater value is attributed, compared to sexual satisfaction alone, to other needs, in particular those of an emotional and social nature, which fuel the desire for an exclusive relationship on a sentimental level. In fact, if human beings may be instinctively inclined to plurality on a sexual level, the same cannot be said on a romantic level. Finally, let’s not forget that our choices are always determined by a multiplicity of factors: explaining complex phenomena by identifying a single cause risks trivializing reality and, ultimately, transforming it into a lie.