Hypergamy Hypothesis
My last post said teen males want more sex than teen females. Older men also often complain of women withholding sex, while women complain of men demanding too much sex. From a typical top ten complaints list:
[Women About Men:] 3. They are not affectionate enough. 4. They tend to bypass sexual foreplay.
[Men About Women:] 1. Women complain, criticize and nag too much. … 4. They tend to withhold sex as a punishment or blackmail.
This is often explained in part via women just caring less about sex than men. Men often see the entire dating/mating process a sport where they pay costs, jump hurdles, pass tests, etc. in the hopes of gaining sex. In that view, women seem more interested in the costs men pay and the hurdles they jump than in the sex itself. But consider:
A multi-year study look[ed] at the relationship satisfaction of men and women from five countries who’ve been married more than 20 years. In men … a number of factors could predict relationship satisfaction, including health, sexual functioning and intimacies like kissing and cuddling. In women, only sexual functioning — level of desire, frequency of arousal and orgasm — seemed to predict satisfaction.
This suggests that older women care more about sex than men. Perhaps this result is just wrong, but if not the hypergamy hypothesis offers a resolution: unhappy men could be satisfied by more sex from their partner, but unhappy women mainly want sex from other better men. So while it makes sense for men to ask their partner for more sex, there’s little point in women requesting access to other men. So women instead complain about everything else.