UTM postdoc challenges beliefs on 'libido gap' between men and women

Young adulthood – that pivotal period of time around the ages of 17 and 18 – often brings a series of firsts: first time living away from home, first love, and, for many in the Western world, the decision to have sex for the first time. 

Research has established that experiences in this critical time frame, when youth are particularly impressionable, can make an impact that lingers for decades. 

Unfortunately, in the case of sex for young women, that first time is not always pleasurable and those initial negative experiences have long-term effects on a woman’s desire to have sex well into adulthood, UTM researchers have found. 

“(It’s a time when) they are having what is arguably the worst sex of their lives,” says Diana Peragine, a postdoctoral research fellow in UTM’s department of psychological and brain sciences who is the lead author on a paper on the subject. 

The study – recently published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Review – delves into why there is a “libido gap” between the two sexes, and challenges the longstanding idea that women have less sexual desire than men because of evolution or hormones. 

Contrary to current widespread beliefs, the research indicates it’s women’s negative early experiences that explain their lack of interest in sex into their adult lives.

In conducting the study, Peragine and UTM psychology professors Emily Impett and Doug VanderLaan brought together more than 300 scientific studies, reviews, and perspectives spanning from psychology to public health on early experiences with sex and interest in it afterward. 

Using this body of research, they developed the Biodevelopmental Learning Opportunities and Outcomes Model, which Peragine says links our earliest experiences with sex to our interest in it as adults. 

It offers a new perspective on the gender gap in sexual desire, tracing it back to the “pleasure gap” between women and men that is most pronounced when they first have sex, and when the brain is most sensitive to learn lessons from it.

“Much like the infant brain expects to acquire experience with language and attachment figures, and is primed to learn from those experiences, we basically found evidence that the brain (during emerging adulthood) is primed to learn from experience with sex, and those lessons might actually be lasting ones,” Peragine says.

Women face a “perfect storm” of negative experiences during first-time sex at this sensitive time, says Peragine. 

They describe sex as painful rather than pleasurable, they are more self-conscious about their bodies, more likely to lose friendships, and are at greater risk for sexually transmitted infections, pregnancy, miscarriage, and obstetric complications – to name a few, she says.

But because the brain is primed to learn from these early encounters, Peragine and her colleagues have identified this time as a window of opportunity for sexual education. 

Currently, she says, sex education programs often focus on information such as sex without consent and contraception. But communication surrounding pleasure – how to request it, advocate for it, and correct it – is still missing, particularly for females. 

While lessons on puberty often focus on pleasure for males, such as wet dreams and erections, she says the focus for females is menstruation. 

“The omission of female sexual pleasure from the curriculum serves as its own lesson about who is entitled to pleasure – and it also serves as a reminder that fair and equal access to education is still lacking for female people, even in contemporary Canadian classrooms,” she says, adding that the World Health Organization has identified sexual pleasure as a human right. 

“Sex education really needs to ensure full and equal realization of this right, including equal opportunities for sex that’s enjoyable and desirable.”

Peragine adds that the research findings could help health professionals understand that low sexual desire in women might be learned from their initial experiences with sex – rather than a hormonal or medical issue.  

“Our findings in general raise the possibility that the sexual desire difficulties faced by up to 55 per cent of women can be traced to their earliest and least equitable experiences with sex,” she says. 

“(Maybe) it’s something external that’s acquired through unequal experience rather than something that is inborn.”