I ran across an article on Time magazine’s website which was titled “The Science of Cougar Sex: Why Older Women Lust” (written by John Cloud and dated July 9, 2010).
He critiques an article on the topic by University of Texas psychologist David Buss (which appears in the July issue of Personality and Individual Differences) which “suggests that evolutionary forces … push women to be more sexual, although in unexpected ways”.
Those findings include these observations:
“… women in their 30s and early 40s are significantly more sexual than younger women. Women ages 27 through 45 report not only having more sexual fantasies (and more intense sexual fantasies) than women ages 18 through 26 but also having more sex, period. And they are more willing than younger women to have casual sex, even one-night stands. In other words, despite the girls-gone-wild image of promiscuous college women, it is women in their middle years who are America’s most sexually industrious.”
Based on my own experiences and on my observations of others over many years, I don’t doubt that many older pre-menopausal women are very sexual but I’m less convinced that younger women are less sexual.
And I’m not sold on Mr. Buss’s explanation (which I’m trimming for brevity) as to why that happens:
“Our female ancestors grew accustomed to watching many of their children die of various [causes] before being able to have kids of their own. This left a psychological imprint to bear as many children as possible. Becoming pregnant is [so] much easier for [young] women … that they need not spend much time having sex. However, after the mid-20s, the lizard-brain impulse to have more kids faces a stark reality: it’s harder and harder to get pregnant as a woman’s remaining eggs age. And so women in their middle years respond by seeking more and more sex.”
I’ll agree that evolution seems to account for most behavioral patterns that we do see in people. And I would agree that evolution accounts for women liking sex. However, I don’t buy that explanation as the reason older women might be more sexually active than younger women (if indeed they are).
After all, “natural selection” is not an intellectual process (even viruses and other “low IQ” life forms experience it), so it makes no sense that women would tool along with a lower sex drive until much later in life (when they can figure out that their fertility is waning). All it should imply is that post-pubescent but pre-menopausal women (no matter where they fall within that age range) should be strongly motivated to have sex with at least some males.
Carnal Urges
And I believe that is indeed the case. If you’ve ever had teenage daughters, for example, you’ll understand that girls become “boy crazy” at a very young age … carnal urges don’t wait until a female is thirty-something.
I also found my college days to be pretty much a nonstop party … very few of the co-eds there were not having plenty of sex. Those few that were not having it just hadn’t gotten an interesting offer yet. And a lot of that sex was casual. One-night stands were not that common (compared to later years with older women) but “sex on the first date” was at least as common.
Do Women Change … Or Is It The Men?
The difference between older women and younger women in that regard wasn’t that older women put out more quickly, it was that younger guys (college men) were a lot more likely to go back for more dates after getting laid on the first date by a young woman than much older guys are after getting laid on the first date with a much older woman.
When you’re a young guy, you need it more than you will twenty or thirty years later. There’s a three-ring circus going on in your pants and your drives are at their most intense, so you don’t pass up chances for a second or a third go-round with a lovely (and accommodating) young lady. You’ll keep dining there until you stumble across a better buffet elsewhere.
Getting Older
Twenty or thirty years later, “the General” will have calmed down quite a bit (you won’t have nearly the same sense of urgency you had in your younger days) and you might also have gotten a bit more claustrophobic regarding women.
When older women do hear their “clock” ticking and are looking to settle down with you (with all of the cost, drama and impingement this would bring you), many guys at that age have figured out that it’s best not to overstay (otherwise you may end up not being able to extricate yourself safely and inexpensively).
From my observations, the main reason many men do date 40-year-old women is that 20-year-old women will no longer agree to go out with them. They settle for what they can get (since they still need to get laid now and then) but they’re less inspired about their choices.
“Catch and Release” Courting
That’s a big reason why so many guys in their fifties, forties and even thirties have come to practice “catch and release” courting. And I suspect that’s the main reason why older women are more likely to do one-night-stands: it’s not that the women put out faster, it’s that the guys are less likely to come back for a second date later.
In fact, it’s not unusual at that age for the guy to wonder (ten seconds after he climaxes) “Is there a graceful way for me to leave now that won’t cause too much of a scene?”
Evaluating Research Findings
On a separate aspect, though, I was impressed with Mr. Cloud’s write-up for taking a look at the underlying research methodology.
There is a lot of junk research done (to push a particular agenda, for example) and the three areas that warrant a very close look are:
1. What was the actual underlying research methodology?
2. What were the actual (raw) findings?
3. Do the conclusions logically fit the raw findings?
In this case, Mr. Cloud quite correctly points out that the sample group was selected non-randomly in a way likely to skew the results. As a result, a healthy dose of skepticism is warranted in evaluating the reasonableness of the actual findings.
Self-Reports
But even had the sample group been more representative (of the population as a whole), I’ve observed from my own past experience conducting and participating in research projects that self-reports tend to be of only limited value.
That’s doubly true if the topic being reported on involves sex (and triply so if it involves women reporting on their own sex life). Since there is ample moral and cultural baggage related to sex, people are rarely candid unless you’ve known them very well for a long time … and even then, a certain amount of fabrication is still quite common.
For example, it’s not uncommon for younger (sexually active) women to feign being chaste (that being what polite society expects). Why take the chance that someone might judge you unfavorably?
But 40-year-old women who have already had two divorces and four kids? It’d be pretty hard for those women to feign innocence (or inexperience) in sexual matters, so most don’t.
Stay tuned,
Mack Doppler
