My wife is so so angry...

I don’t believe male sexual attraction is as different from female as most of us have been conditioned to believe. I do believe we have been taught and socialized in very different ways and media has impacted males and females in completely different ways. Other than that I like so much about what you’ve said here. The sheer fact that female addiction to porn is rising exponentially shows us a bit of this. Now that women can secretly express their sexuality and can potentially avoid some of the responsibility of casual sex, we see a rise in multiple partners, ons, only fans, etc. in women.

 

when you come right down to it the goal of sexual attraction is just to spread your genes, for a male the best way to go about this is simply to mate with as many females as possible, you wouldn’t be able to help care for them all and they might not all make it to adulthood but some surely would, and more than likely you’d end up with more kids if you took this approach than if you limited myself to just one woman, at the very least, you shouldn’t be too picky about you mate. After all, if you have a fling with a suboptimal partner, it’s no big deal – it costs you little and you’re back on the market again almost immediately.

For a female however, the minimum reproductive cost right of the bat is 9 month regardless of the quality of your mate – and if you decide to keep the kid, several more years after that, and having more mate does not increase your reproductive ability, there may be some benefits to having multiple partners. But nine times out of ten you’d be better off if you held out for a super-fit guy who’d give you super-fit kids, or a good provider who’d help you look after the kids – or if possible, a guy who’d do both. At the very least, you should keep well away from any man who clearly doesn’t measure up.

This is a simplification but given the difference in reproductive cost alone it is no surprise that men have much lower standards, more interest in casual sex and put far more stock on just looks which to their ape-brain translate to fertile; on the contrary, it’d be surprising if they weren’t.

In one of the most famous studies in all of psychology(Clark and Hatfield, Gender Differences in Receptivity to Sexual Offers), researchers had a team of young men and women approach members of the other sex on a busy campus and offer them sex, they asked three questions (one per approach): (1) “Would you go out with me tonight?”; (2) “Would you come over to my apartment tonight?”; or (3) “Would you go to bed with me tonight?”.

For the first question (“Would you go out with me?”), there was no sex difference; around half the men and half the women said yes while the other half demurred. For the second question (“Would you come over to my apartment?”), a large sex difference opened up: 69 percent of men said yes, as opposed to just 6 percent of women. But for the last question (“Would you go to bed with me?”), 75 percent of men said yes as opposed to 0 percent of women.”

Not only did more women than men turn down the kind offer of sex, among those who did, there was a striking sex difference in the manner of the refusal. Most of the men were apologetic, explaining that they were married or had a prior engagement, and in some cases asking if they could get a rain check. The women, in contrast, were not apologetic. Typical responses included “You’ve got to be kidding” and “What’s wrong with you?” None of the men asked what was wrong with the woman offering him sex.

This study was conducted in the United States in the late 1970s, at the height of the Sexual Revolution and before the AIDS crisis.

 

It's a tricky one. I think we can be conditioned by external sources in terms of what we respond to sexually but not necessarily in how we respond when aroused. As in, you can acquire a fetish through watching strange porn and you can lose the capacity for physical arousal through too much exposure to porn. However, the fundamental mechanics of it seem unalterable. Man gets aroused, man gets erection. For men, fantasy is the seasoning on the steak. The meat and potatoes is the visual appearance of the woman. The visual matters massively in male sexual arousal and the effect can be almost instantaneous. At the onset of puberty - before ever being exposed to porn - I could literally see a fully clothed woman with a nice silhouette and be good to go seconds later. That's just my anecdotal experience but I've always believed that male sexuality is a very base sort of drive.

 

The pill was not as reliable. The 70’s a woman couldn’t even get a credit card on her own. Women were still expected to marry and be moms. Today is vastly different socially with all types of sexual expression being much more acceptable than even in the 70’s. I remember the single mom that all the adults shunned on our block. That was 1974. It was a “ disgrace” that she was divorced and worse she let her boyfriend sleep over! I may have only been 6 but little ears hear everything at the block parties.
There is also the safety factor. I wouldn’t go anywhere alone with a complete stranger , even if I desperately wanted sex from him. Hell, I wouldn’t open my door to a man I don’t know.

 

I agree there are differences, I just don’t think they are as much as we have been taught to believe. During puberty it was the exact same for me. I learned to control and be more discriminating as I matured. For women it’s the fantasy too but they use their imagination with erotica more, as that’s where it was more acceptable. No one blinks an eye if I’m reading racy books but everyone loses their shi* if I have Hustler out. Societal pressures and acceptance have far more impact than we have ever really acknowledged.

 

There are other ways to measure the difference as well, one is to look at the behavior of people who, for one reason or another, have relatively few constraints when it comes to getting the kinds of sexual relationships they want. Gay men and lesbians are one such group. In the relationship arena, gay men don’t have to compromise with women, and lesbians don’t have to compromise with men. As such, their sexual behavior gives us a clear window on the sexual inclinations of men and women in general. And their behaviors confirm with the studies, gay men have more sexual partners than straight men, whereas lesbians have fewer partners than straight women. And this hold true to this day.

Although there might be some sexual double standard men’s stronger interest in casual sex and sexual novelty has still survived society’s best efforts to eradicate it. It has survived the efforts of parents, partners, and moralists to inculcate men with a healthy respect for monogamy. It has survived Christian moral teachings and threats of eternal damnation. It has survived cultural and legal institutions that endorse and incentivize lifelong monogamous marriage. It has survived worries that one might lose one’s marriage, one’s children, or even one’s livelihood over an adulterous affair that won’t stay hidden. And it has survived pop psychological attempts to stigmatize men’s desire for casual sex by blaming it on psychosocial immaturity, psychological maladjustment, repressed homosexuality, low self-esteem, fear of commitment, a Peter Pan syndrome, etc.

Meanwhile, women’s greater reticence about casual sex has survived the efforts of some feminists and other thought leaders to persuade women to cast off the shackles of patriarchy and match men in the casual sex arena. All this suggests that, rather than being a product of culture, the sex difference in attitudes to casual sex often emerges in spite of culture.