The cliché belief that women over 40, or women in general, don’t desire sex is a farce. Women have known this for years, but now there is data to back it. According to The 2022 Sex Report from Hims & Hers, 80 percent of women over 45 who aren’t having sex aren’t happy about it. So, why are women having less sex than men, and where does the stigma of menopause come in?
A standout statistic from the report points to a sex gap between men and women that grows larger with age. However, that’s not to say it’s because women don’t desire it. Gen Z and Millennials only have a four percent and nine percent gap, respectively. The gap grows substantially wider in the ensuing years. While 83 percent of the male Gen X population say they’ve had sex in the past month, only 68 percent of women can say the same. The gap reaches 25 percent among Boomers, with 75 percent of men reporting they had sex in the past month and only 50 percent of women reporting the same.
“The reality is that women hit a sexual glass ceiling as they age. Men enjoy an active sex life well into their midlife. Meanwhile women’s sex lives slow way down…but not by choice,” reads the study. Experts say this shouldn’t be written off as menopause or a lack of libido. The report also points to a recent study by Facebook that found 40 percent of midlife women want more sex.
“The idea that women have low libidos and men have high libidos is absurd,” Dr. Rachel Rubin, urologist and sexual medicine specialist says in the report. She explains that menopause or women losing sex drive as they age are not the issues at hand. “There are many postmenopausal women with super high libidos who love sex and have great orgasms. I have many male patients with very low libidos who are wishing that their libidos were higher for their partners.”
Although women want more sex, men are still somehow having more. Experts say this sexual glass ceiling can be due, in part, to sex being generally a more male-oriented experience in accordance with societal norms. Caroline Spiegel, founder and CEO of audio erotica platform Quinn, says of Gen Z in the report, “A lot of women I talk to learned sex as a series of how-tos [for men]. Not what feels good for them but rather, ‘This is how you give a blow job,’ or ‘This is how you make the man orgasm.’”
Spiegel says this could be traced back to women’s inequality. “For thousands of years, women didn’t have the same rights as men. Their economic power was directly tied to their spouse,” Spiegel notes. “And I think that has been reflected in their sexual pleasure. The way we have sex today reflects a history of men’s pleasure as the most important,” she adds. Is the lack of sex, therefore, intrinsically linked to older women not prioritizing their ever-changing sexual desires and needs? Perhaps. Luckily, experts predict that Gen Z women are likely to break through the sexual glass ceiling and, in doing so, hopefully close the sex gap.
