The Reason Your Libido Is MIA? It's Complicated, Says Science

It's not hard for a man to get in the mood. With just a look, a wink, or even a seductive word or two, most men can almost instantaneously feel the urge to get it on. It's as if their sole purpose is do it, and do it as often as possible, which, I guess, evolutionarily speaking, makes perfect sense—it's our duty, as humans, to keep the species alive and well.

But while men are rip-roaring and always, to quote a male friend, "Locked, stocked, and ready to roll," the same cannot be said for women. As I've noted in my own personal sexual desire and the desire of my female friends, we're not that easily persuaded into the sexy times. Frankly, we're just more complicated than that.

A new study published in the Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, proves what women already knew about their libido: it's a picky lil' devil. We cannot be turned on at the drop of a hat, and producing a sexual urge within us that's going to make us get naked and ready for action is something that takes some extreme finessing on the part of our partner.

While it would be great if there were a pill to get us on the same sexual page as our male counterparts, such a thing does not exist in the United States, so the battle of getting some becomes a war between the genders. In the study, doctors gave the female participants low doses of testosterone in the hopes of boosting their sex drive, because, as we all know, testosterone plays a big part in the libido.

It is, after all, the miracle hormone that gives and maintains an erection until a man climaxes. However, women, who were given the testosterone, still didn't see much of a dent in getting their sex drive up to that of a man.

While some women felt more of an urge, overall, according to lead author of the study, Dr. John Randolph of University of Michigan Health System, the results of study were "underwhelming." Apparently, it was less about hormones, and more about something else. But what, oh what, could that something be?

Having already acknowledged that sexual drives in women are far more complicated than in men, it only made sense to look at the mental and emotional aspects of a woman's libido.

What Randolph found was not all that surprising: "Mood and an overall sense of health and well-being is key for women." And voila! With that knowledge, it's as if we've unraveled the deepest secret to ever exist. We've pulled back the curtain on women's libido and now have it all figured out! Well… sort of.

For all the ways in which men and women are the same, we're equally different. While I'd never adhere to the old cliché that "men are from Mars and women are from Venus," when it comes to biology we couldn't be more different, but that's how it's supposed to go. As Randolph notes, it is unfair, but any sex drive drug for women is still a ways off.

Instead, Randolph suggests that women talk to their doctor about the psychological aspects that might be affecting their sex drive. It's not a pill, but getting to the bottom of those issues, will bring men and women one step closer to having even libidos, and more sexy time will be had. And, in case you forgot, that's what evolution wants.