Number of sexual partners

Dr. Justin Lehmiller gave his blog post the title Some People’s Brains May Be “Wired” To Seek More Sex. He says:

What these results tell us is that people’s brains seem to respond to sexual imagery in very different ways. For some people (i.e., those with more partners), the brain appears to be highly sensitive to all sexual cues, whether they are mild or intense. However, for others (i.e., those with fewer partners), the threshold for sexual arousal is set much higher, meaning that it takes a strong cue to elicit a strong response. Because these differences in brain sensitivity were related to previous number of sex partners, these findings raise the provocative possibility that the way our brains are “wired” to respond to sexual cues could potentially be a key factor in explaining why some people pursue more sexual partners than others.

But I am siding with the skeptics in the comments. Especially SandraL who said:

The conclusions being drawn here seem to be making unproven assumptions about correlation and causality. Are people more likely to seek out sexual experiences because they’re more stimulated by explicit sexuality, or are people more stimulated by explicit sexual images because their brains have been primed by frequent sexual experiences in the past year?

I know there has been a fair amount of desensitization to my sexual interest over the years. I have seen and participated in so many group sex situations that it seems pretty ordinary and natural to me. This was certainly not the case when I was in my late teens.

I think more research on this topic is needed.

Quote of the week—Betty Dodson

We can be mentally excited by the prospect of sex, but in order to be physically aroused, we need up to twenty minutes (or more) of quality clitoral touching in order to be fully turned on.

That’s when vaginal walls plump up and get covered with a slippery mucous and we urgently want your penis inside us for a long slow hot deep fuck. We might even want a second lover to fill in while you’re resting. Alas, that’s the scary part of loving a sexually liberated woman. Only sexually secure men can handle this.

Betty Dodson
April 5, 2014
In Search of the Female Orgasm

Dodson frequently has some insightful things to say. But I sometimes get annoyed with her when she makes far too general of statements. This is one of those times.

I know many women become fully aroused, slippery wet, and asking for entry without 20 minutes of clitoral stimulation. I concede I have a biased sample. Dodson may be correct with a more typical woman but it certainly isn’t universal.