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Originally Posted by jeff3  Also to be considered is the "testosterone factor", a high sex drive is basically a by-product of an abundance of the hormone which normally declines as men age. Testosterone is also linked to emotional well being, competitiveness, aggressiveness (in the board room or wall street as well as the boxing ring). Low testosterone can actually be the source of some types of depression. |
I agree from experience.
I've noticed that the more "driven" sorts of women are often interpreted as being more masculine in some ways. They are less emotional and have a higher sex drive. They don't coo over babies, and partners tend to get frustrated with them because they aren't nurturing.
I've also noticed that my friends who were more "feminine" kinds of men, also lacked motivation and competitive drive, and had a lower interest in sex. The more masculine women who found them attractive got very frustrated with their low sex drive, and left them. I was also married to one of these sorts of men for a time.
My partner is a transgendered man, and I knew him before he started taking testosterone. Since he was born female, he had a normal female hormonal balance. Now he has male levels of testosterone. Since starting testosterone he has become very motivated and dynamic in ways that I didn't observe before, and his thinking is less emotional. 180 degree change.
But testosterone isn't the only factor. There's also a connection with the serotonin/dopamine system. "Alpha" wolves have higher levels of serotonin.
Again a personal experience observation... I was on Paxil for 2 years. Paxil/Prozac/Zoloft/that family of drugs (the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) block the reuptake of serotonin so that more serotonin gets utilized by your brain.
Here's how it works. Signals are sent in your brain via synapses, the junctions between neurons (nerve cells). Think of this as the post office. Now, think of a neurotransmitter (serotonin) as
a package being sent through the mail. Reuptake is like the package being returned to sender instead of arriving at its proper address. The SSRI drugs keep that from happening.
Paxil made me a social operator and more "Alpha" like. It was a force in ending my marriage, because the dynamics of the relationship changed. I became more of a go-getter. He married a passive daydreamer and two years into the marriage suddenly I wanted to go to med school.
Paradoxically, though, these drugs inhibit sex drive... so go figure, re: the sex drive and success connection. Since I'm female and have a *female* sexual wiring, i.e. it's short-circuited with romance and emotional stuff, it helped me out to have my sex drive short-circuited. I was able to focus on math for the first time, go figure.