This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at Bucknell chapter.

It is often thought that women rarely think about sex, but rather have excellent self-control. Many think that women seldom masturbate, watch porn, or just in general have erotic turn-ons.

A study done in 2009 by Indiana University researching the masturbation habits of men and women found that 20.8% of men aged 18-24 had masturbated 2-3 times each week, whereas only 7.3% of women had. Further, where 36.5% of women claimed to not have masturbated in the past year, only 18.5% of men claimed to having done so. Indeed, statistics that show a higher rate of men engaging in their sexual desires than women seem to be supported by the general opinion that women can control their limited sexual desires. Is this true? Do women have fewer sexual desires than men?

There appears to be a stigma attached to the sexual desires of women that men do not face. This stigma is embedded into our society. Women are taught from a young age that they should exercise self-control when it comes to their sex drive. Dress codes assert that women must change their clothes if they distract men, whereas men are rarely told to change their clothes, thus emphasizing the idea that men cannot control their sexual desires and women are rarely “distracted” by theirs. Companies advertise sex toys for women more than they do for men, playing on the idea that it is harder for women to be sexually awoken. An example that demonstrates this false conception is the 2016 Oscars – according to Business Insider, the Oscars gave sex toys in the gift bags to the female nominees only. While men may discuss losing their virginity, the number of women with whom they have had sex, and the stimuli that turn them on, it seems an unspoken rule that women do not discuss their private sexual desires. And if they do, they may be considered sluts or whores.

Yet, the idea of women having dormant libidos is simply not true, and acknowledging this is important. Because there appears to be a stigma attached to admitting an interest in sex, women often do not ask the questions they need to know. This leads to unsafe sex practices or fear of sex due to their uncertainty of it. So perhaps reclaiming our sexuality is an important aspect to the safety of sexually active women, because talking about sex allows us to understand safe sexual intercourse and destroy stereotypes referring to the sexuality of the genders.

In fact, study after study has disproved the idea that women are not sexual creatures. One study by Indiana University found that 55% of females had an erotic response to being bitten compared to only 50% of males. Similar to this turn-on for women, though it is often said “men are visual creatures” and that women are not distracted by sexual images, studies from the Kinsey Medical Institute have proven that one out of three pornographic users are female, and that women’s eyes linger on sexually-arousing images just as long as men’s do. Furthermore, when it comes to their actual sexual practices, though it is often thought women are not comfortable with casual sex, this theory was debunked after changing the wording of the question; by asking men and women if they would rather sleep with or marry an attractive celebrity rather than attractive stranger, the experiment removed the women’s fear of being slut-shamed. It was found that when asked this newly framed question, women said yes to casual sex just as often as men. Therefore, women indeed have sexual desires. It’s time to take back our sex drives and admit that women, just like men, are sexual beings.

Sources:

Women Have Orgasms, Too: Ending the Stigma that Women Don’t Think About Sex

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