The Burden of the Educated Woman
A couple of months ago the results from two different studies on women’s sexuality emerged to state that women who are heavyset or on birth control have a lower sex drive than women who are not. This week, test results from a Canadian study have gone further to say that educated women are also more likely to have lower sex drives and more painful sex during intercourse:
The research, which is published in the current edition of The Canadian Journal of Human Sexuality, found that 55 per cent of respondents had one or more of three concerns about sexual function: low desire, pain during sex and infrequent orgasm during intercourse.
Contrary to the researchers’ expectations, university-educated women are more apt to have low sex drives — 48 per cent compared to 31 per cent among high-school graduates. They are also less likely to have orgasms during intercourse.
“It may well be that highly educated women are different from less-educated women in many respects. Maybe they have higher standards . . . higher expectations and legitimately lower evaluations. They may be living much busier, much more stressful lives,” said William Fisher, a professor of psychology and obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Western Ontario who is a co-author of the paper.
So, should I have dropped out of high school? Probably not. But, still I wonder if I would have a higher sex drive had I done so…
In a conversation with a friend yesterday, my friend mentioned how strange it is that the majority of female sex bloggers are very highly educated. Some are grad students, some are librarians and others (like me) have a university degree and work for foreign diplomats. Isn’t it ironic that the women who were mentioned as having a low sex drive are the ones writing about sex?
October 27th, 2005 at 12:21 pm
All talk and no play! ; )
October 27th, 2005 at 2:19 pm
I wonder who are the people doing these tests and why do they care what other peoples sex lifes are like. A strange perversion maybe?
October 27th, 2005 at 2:54 pm
I don’t know if this hold much scientific weight, but here’s what I think (note: this is a generalization, please remember there are exceptions to the rule):
Physical beauty may have a lot to do with it. The way I see it, a good portion of women who pursue a higher education also view themselves as ‘unnatractive’ according to social norms.
While the prettier women are more likely to have more of a social life, having them make other choices than to keep studying for another x amount of years, the unnactractive ones will spend more time and energy to achieve a higher degree, partly from a desire to achieve, partly from a desire to prove to themselves and others they are worth something to society, despite their looks.
If all you do is study, study, study, and don’t spend enough time socializing and exploring your body, sex drive is sure to take a hit. Once you do have a sexual relation, because you are somewhat oblivious to what is going to happen next, stress kicks in. Low sex drive and stress is bound to put a damper on the mood.
I think that you beautiful and sexy graduates who are writing these wonderfully informative sex blogs are a good example of living a balanced life; you have achieved a high education, yet have also achieved social maturity, and both physical and mental sexual maturity.
As stated earlier, this is only my own personal opinion, with no scientific facts to base myself upon. Does my theory hold together? That could be debatable, I don’t know. If somebody has a better answer, I am all ears.
October 27th, 2005 at 2:57 pm
SpaceMonkey- You rock!
October 27th, 2005 at 4:52 pm
With these things there’s always questions of sample size and depth. Often the respondent population is a small group of people who were easily available for questioning.
If women with a university education were shown to have a diminished sex drive I suspect that: 1) They have very demanding careers. Same thing happens to men. 2) Since sexism persists they may go from working on the job to doing the cooking, shopping, etc. at home.
Leaving them very tired.
October 27th, 2005 at 6:24 pm
i really have nothing to contribute but El SM’s generalization makes good sense to moi.
i don’t follow these things but i have to ask, is Mon’ real hosting the /06 Olympics?
October 28th, 2005 at 8:24 am
I don’t know. As I’ve progressed in my graduate work I’ve gotten more interested in sex. . . The other English grad students certainly get around.
October 28th, 2005 at 9:28 am
I don’t think you can truly make an accurate assessment as to why 1 in 2 highly educated women have a lower sex drive.
There are so many subjective factors:
Physical beauty
Peer influence
Stress (some people deal with it better than othere)
Sexual preference (not knowing where you find yourself on the scale Heterosexual Homosexual can affect how you will react to intercourse)
Stimuli (different erogenous zones have different levels of sensitivity to different people)
Communication (goes hand in hand with stimuli, if your partner doesn’t know what really tickles your fancy, then the experience might not be as fulfilling)
These factors, and more (cuz there are more) really do affect how eager you will be of your next sexual encounter.
October 28th, 2005 at 11:26 am
interesting question… but some things left unsaid, possibly the women’s age would be a key factor, I’m fairly sure those just out of high school, or those who didn’t make it far in university did have quite the large social lives, and with large social lives comes a greater need to experiment to keep the fun up. I’ve seen this happen to guys and girls when they first start partying it up after long dry spells, they go out and have a run of doing pretty much everything.
also it could have something to do with the length of relationship the women are in, and I would imagine that the “educated” ones are in fairly long term relationships, and have passed that “new exciting relationship” stage, and the chemicals for attraction have changed into chemicals for staying together producing kids and buying a minivan.
but then it could just be me
October 28th, 2005 at 12:47 pm
Spiklos, good point!