Sex as a biological need for men

Written by Oona Leigh

Sex as a biological need for men

It’s been a while since I last blogged, partly because I’ve had so many topics swirling in my mind. I tend to merge too many ideas at once, and in the end, I lose focus and struggle to maintain a clear direction.

I am writing now two pieces at the same time, both about of course „ intimacy, how men and women connect but had to break it into half as they are both worth their own title. So this one will be called sex as a biological need for men.

I again got inspired by an audio book I listened to, this time it was Intimate Issues: Twenty-One Questions Christian Women Ask About Sex by: Linda Dillow and Lorraine Pintus. Let me start today’s blog with a quote from it:

„ A man is like a river. His testosterone level flows constant and steady. A man has seventeen sexual glands working day and night producing semen that is stored in the inner sac in the testes. When the sac fills up, it needs to be drained. A man’s need for sex is not all in his mind. His sexual command centre demands release from the accumulated build-up.”
„A first thing men cannot do without is sexual fullfilment”
William Harley Jr. Ph.D. in psychology

So sex is a biological and physiological need for men. Most women would shut me down saying I am the least qualified person to talk about this, I monetise on it, I destroy marriages, plus it is bullcrap, it is not a need like they need air to breath or food to survive, no-one dies of the lack of sex.

True, but marriages and relationships can die because of the lack of sex.

Studies show that men think about sex as many as 20 times a day while about 70% of women think about it a few times in weeks/month. When asked women where they would rank sex on their priority list, they put it at 14th after gardening… (gardening is important as it is seasonal…:))

In all seriousness, I really wish women understood male biology better and accept the fact that we are built differently.

But what is sex?

If we were to ask a bunch of people „what’s the purpose of sex, biologically speaking?” They would say „reproduction”. Passing genes on to the next generation is essentially the whole point. Survive to reproduce and get your precious genetic information into some offspring so they can go on and do the same thing. There are two primary ways to accomplish this:

Method #1 is obviously MUCH simpler than method #2. Most living things reproduce without sex…microbes bud off new copies of themselves or like flatworms, pieces of their body can grow into whole new individuals… Fungi release spores. Some bitey fish are capable of virgin birth as well…

So why is sex at all out there?

If you think sometimes sex is hard to figure out in your life, take comfort in the fact that science has not figured it out either.

What makes sex so puzzling is that it is expensive. As well as in the socio-economics sense of the word, also the biological cost of sex is HUGE!

In this tremendous assimetry in our reproduction biology practically women bear all costs… we are burdened by carrying, birthing, breastfeeding the baby, caring for it 99% of the times, physically and emotionally incapacated for life.

Males contribute their genes in sex, but in most mammal species that is pretty much all about it.

To make up for the huge unfairness in this equation males also get a short stick… only about 5-8% of them get sex and the rest is biologically disposable.

In pre-historic times, if we take a tribe of 10 men 10 women and we send 10 men to war, 1 comes back he can replentish the tribe. (…that is one very lucky dude…) Let’s do it the other way round and it’s a very rapid extinction.

I personally believe that males (men) are not programmed to monogamy (many do fine, f.e. those who have entered marriage in a holy matrimony) but there is the underlying logic to what is called the Darwinian Puzzle, that given that assymetry in investment is beneficial in the currency of reproductive success for men to have sex with a variety of women.

It is understood….for me at least. But sometimes females (women) cheat, too. Do they also have a scientifically justified reason? Do they pursue unconsiously a so called „dual mating strategy”, that they try to get investment from one guy (the husband) and good genes from another guy (The bad boy?)

I will try to explore this in my next blog, personally I do not think this theory has a leg to stand on).


Humans are such complex creatures, sex is surely more than just biology, right? Separating emotions from the mere physical is natural or a learnt process?

So I’ll throw this question open…if “men are like rivers”….When a river flows into the ocean…at what point does the saline level change? When does it evolve to emotional attachment from the mere physical?

Stay tuned till we unwrap it next time, or let me know in a message what you think!