The idea that men are always ready for sex is being called to question, and there seems to be empirical evidence to show that what we have believed all these years may not be true.
An expert says men are wired just as women in that they want to be left alone sometimes, too, and this should not be surprising to their partners. American relationship therapist Sarah Hunter Murray explains this during an interview with TODAY where she is quoted as saying: “men sometimes don’t want to have sex.”
“‘Not tonight dear, I have a headache’ — we think about that as something the wife says. We don’t have the same vernacular for talking about men’s low sexual desire.”
In her new book, ‘Not Always in the Mood: The New Science of Men, Sex, and Relationships,’ the expert focuses on this subject with the aim of proving that men are not “always in the mood.”
As a part of her research, Murray interviews and surveys 200 heterosexual men in relationships from the age of 18-65. What she discovers is that men are just like women. They, too, can have emotional holdups surrounding the act.
“Men were telling me that if they had been having a fight with their partner that hadn’t been resolved or if they just didn’t feel so close and connected, even if she was interested in sex, sometimes, they just wouldn’t be,” she explained. “He just wouldn’t feel sexual desire — it was dependent on feeling that emotional closeness first,” says Murray.
Continuing, “It’s a way for men to bring those walls down; to feel they can just be themselves,” she said. “It really is this opportunity to be open, vulnerable, close, connected, and emotional.”
The study also observed that just as it happens with women, men’s sex drive takes a dive when they have to take on other responsibilities in the home.