Taken from www.SexualStress.com - this site has lots of interesting articles regarding sexual issues.

Within a stable or steady relationship, the female all too frequently discovers that her sex drive starts to wane after a relatively short while. A cynic might say that this is because she has finally snared her male; in reality, the truth is more likely to be that her male simply makes less effort to create arousal and enjoyment for her. This is not necessarily selfishness - although it doubtless is the case much of the time - for it is rare indeed for a male to be taught exactly how important this is. Some factors are:

• The female is sexually complex and needs time to reach a true state of readiness. Most males do not understand this and with the passing of time, devote less and less energy to that need

• Because males are so evidently sex-orientated, many females feel as if only their body is important to him - they feel as they are nothing more than a 'vagina on legs' as far as he is concerned.

• The continual insistence of the male sex drive can be irritating to a female, especially when he continually gropes and grabs, and also especially when he exhibits a disregard for the personal hygiene he was so fussy about when they were first a couple

• Females are inherently more likely to exhibit emotion - and males are inherently more likely to be uncomfortable with emotional display. This can and does contribute to female disillusionment with the entire notion of a what a shared existence 'should' be like

There is another, somewhat more insidious difficulty, in that most females are brought up with the notion that male sexuality is an unpleasant thing and something that should be avoided, much of the time. This belief is instilled with oft-repeated expressions along the lines of: "Men are only after one thing"; "Once they've got what they want, they don't respect you any more"; "Dirty old man"; "You know what men are like"; "He only thinks with his dick" and other such expressions, usually delivered with varying degrees of contempt. Not from everybody she knows, perhaps, but there can scarcely be a female - in the Western world at least - who is not subject to such 'teaching' at some point in her life.

A disgusting thing�
There are very few, if any, expressions that might be quoted - and quoted often enough - to offset these derogatory concepts and it is therefore hardly surprising that many females truly believe that the male sex drive is a disgusting thing and truly believe that those statements above are totally accurate. The lessons have created a predisposition to negativity about the male sex drive and an understandable fear of some sort of sexual exploitation.

Many young women will deny that they have responded to such belief and that anyway, their male simply is not like that; but still the lesson has been given, still the 'knowledge' is there and it is almost inevitable that a perfectly normal male behaviour will trigger one of those negative assertions at some point� and so the cycle of belief and expectation is repeated. This makes it enormously difficult for her to avoid disillusionment and discontent in her relationships, for her belief creates expectation; she starts to look for evidence of what she fears and here we bump into that 'great truth' of life: Be careful what you look for, because you'll find it.

It can be as difficult to disabuse a female of the negative concepts as it is to educate a male into the notion that a female, given time and the proper stimuli, has a propensity for sexual enjoyment that is far greater than his own. But both are tasks that therapist must tackle effectively if they are to be a successful psychosexual disorders specialist.

Talking to Partner
One of the radical differences between the male and female human animal is what might be referred to as a 'sisterhood'. In those early days of our ancient ancestors, before civilisation, the males would not only be hunting, they would often also be competing for supremacy over each other. They needed to retain a high degree of individuality, where to show weakness or vulnerability was dangerous. They have therefore inherited instincts which seek to avoid discussion of problems.

It was markedly different for the females; because of their smaller stature, they were almost certainly not involved, or not as involved, in the hunting and fighting activities of the tribe. Instead, they remained in the encampment where, among other activities, they assisted each other in one of the most profound and essential of human activities - the ritual of birth, something with which the male would have had very little involvement. They would have needed to communicate in order to survive and nurture each other and their progeny.

It should not be a surprise, therefore, that it is natural for women to talk when something needs resolution and so when something is wrong within the encampment - and that might be a council house in a dingy back street or a mansion in some 'millionaire's row' - she will instinctively seek to resolve the issue in the way that she and her sisters have been doing for millions of years� she will talk about it, which is where the problem so often escalates into more of a major issue than it already is.

Let us not forget that this communication between the sexes is a relatively new phenomenon, and neither male nor female is really very skilled at it, most of the time. This is frequently evident when sexual difficulties are being discussed. The female will often seek to do what she has done for thousands upon thousands of years and lay herself bare in order that the discomfort might be helped; but she is not talking to one of her sisterhood - she is talking to a very different creature entirely, one whose instincts are screaming at him that he is being criticized, his life is at risk, and he must immediately justify his attitude.

When he does not adopt this defensive stance, he usually decides he wants to do it now putting into practice whatever the female has been talking about. This further convinces the female that it is impossible to talk to the male about sex without either:

• He seeks to dismiss all possibility that the problem could have anything to do with him

• He wants to climb all over her when she really is not in the mood for doing it, only for talking about it (a totally alien concept for the male).

Women tend to know this about their males and it is one of the biggest obstacles to overcome if a close sexual relationship is to be re-established; including these statements at the very beginning of conversation can help:

"I want to talk about our sex life together but I really don't want to do it right now and probably not at all today. I just want to make it better for the future."

"This is not about you, nor about me, but it is very much about us because we're both getting it wrong somehow."