Solid article (once you get past the opening paragraphs about Kinsey) about sexual desire in women, with discussion of current theories, data and research. Recommended reading. (Excerpts below.)
Why do women lose desire and what can they do to get it back?....One of the biggest challenges is also one of the least understood aspects of human sexuality: female sexual desire. While many men can summon up erotic feeling by simply gazing at a photo of a naked woman, for their female partners, desire -- the first of four steps to sexual fulfillment, followed by arousal, orgasm and resolution -- is more elusive, rooted in psychology, emotion and mystery. And it can vanish easily, especially as women grow older and more burdened with responsibilities....
How widespread is the problem of low sex drive? Estimates vary. One widely quoted 1999 study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that 33 percent of women ages 18 to 59 reported some sexual dysfunction -- defined as a regular lack of interest in or pain during sex or persistent problems in achieving arousal or orgasm -- at some point in their lifetimes. For women over 50, the rate can go as high as 75 percent, added Jennifer Berman, director of women's urology and sexual medicine at the UCLA Medical Center. A later Kinsey study, however, found only 25 percent of women surveyed from the ages of 20 to 65 reported distress about their sexual relationships....
Anecdotally, at least, sex therapists and gynecologists say they're being kept busy with female patients who come in complaining about low sex drive, perhaps more so than in recent years -- and by far the largest group is women who can't leave the pressures of daily life behind when the bedroom door closes.
Unlike men, who tend to compartmentalize their problems more efficiently, "women need to be in love, well-rested and have low-levels of stress to be able to have good sex," said Dr. Mary Ann Portman, a gynecologist who heads the menopause program at Magee-Womens Hospital. "I have women coming in telling me, 'I don't dream about sex, I don't think about sex. I could be writing my grocery list when I'm doing it.'...."
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