Sex drive & poly

PinkPig

Well-known member
Is there a correlation between higher sex drives and polyamory? I'll admit that my experience is limited (only been in a poly relationship less than 2 years), but it seems the poly people I've met irl, and many that post on here, have higher than average sex drives/greater frequency? Do you think my experience is skewed or do you think poly people have sex more often than non-poly people? If so, why? Is it a matter of the more you have it, the more you want it (true for me)? Or, are people with higher sex drives more likely to gravitate towards non-monogamy as a means of fulfilling their desires?

(I did a search but couldn't find any posts specific to this topic.)
 
Nate and I have pretty high sex drives. He and I usually have sex daily and I usually masturbate a few times a week ( as a sleep aid ). Even if nate and I have sex with others that day we still have sex with each other.
 
Nate enjoys the excitement of hunting new women and talking to them before hooking up. As a single monogamous man he didn't have casual sex because he didn't want women getting attached to him when he wasn't interested in them romantically. He loves our situation because the women he screws know that all they will ever be is friends (he doesn'twant anyanything beyond that because he isn't willing to devote time and energy in more relationships).
 
My sex drive varies, due to depression and PTSD. But it doesn't really matter whether or how much I want it, I can't bring myself to ask for it, so even though I have two men in my life, I have less sex than most mono people I know.
 
My sex drive varies, due to depression and PTSD. But it doesn't really matter whether or how much I want it, I can't bring myself to ask for it, so even though I have two men in my life, I have less sex than most mono people I know.

Yes, the idea some have looking in from outside that polyamory is one huge orgy is a bit silly. Having said that, I'd be surprised if there wasn't a correlation between higher *average* sex drive and polyamory. More sexual variation, more sexual frequency, more sexual intensity, more sexual freedom – all of these things can raise sex drive and may naturally appeal to people with higher sex drive too.
 
Yes, the idea some have looking in from outside that polyamory is one huge orgy is a bit silly. Having said that, I'd be surprised if there wasn't a correlation between higher *average* sex drive and polyamory. More sexual variation, more sexual frequency, more sexual intensity, more sexual freedom – all of these things can raise sex drive and may naturally appeal to people with higher sex drive too.

Absolutely! Totally agree with this.
 
Obviously, I realize that sex drives change a lot, depending on where we are in our lives, our health condition, the state of our relationship(s) with our partner(s), and generally how busy/crazy our lives are.

It's just curiosity for me is why I ask :)

As for my situation, my partner Blue has a high sex drive. His preference is multiple times/day. While his sex drive is not why he's poly, being poly certainly helps in that area. My preference is daily, with the occasional day off. It was definitely an issue in my marriage because my ex was more average.
 
As for my situation, my partner Blue has a high sex drive. His preference is multiple times/day. While his sex drive is not why he's poly, being poly certainly helps in that area. My preference is daily, with the occasional day off. It was definitely an issue in my marriage because my ex was more average.

Daily, with the occasional day off sounds about right to me, too. Twice a day is great too, three times a day or more and I begin to want to hide, especially if the sex is drawn out and fervent. Right now my situation is exhausting in that I've fallen for two people. They're both highly sexed, not seeing anyone else regularly so want to see me a lot, more experienced than me and the NRE is hitting them hard, so I'm struggling to keep up. To be honest I could use a couple of days off by myself just to get some sleep and exercise.
 
Ooooh, I'm jealous, Halcyeus!

I don't have a firm understanding of how strong my sex drive is generally. During most of my marriage, our sex life was pretty terrible and I didnt really wanna have sex at all and didn't feel like I missed it. But for the last 3 years or so I've been pretty insatiable, which was mostly bc my circumstances changed.

I have a feeling that imf I could get into a stable pattern it would be nearly every day, with a day off every once in a while.
 
I'm insatiable, and it's what got me into poly. Now that I have two partners, I'm still needing it all the time, but I'm poly because of the love we share, not because of my horniness!
 
Is there a correlation between higher sex drives and polyamory? I'll admit that my experience is limited (only been in a poly relationship less than 2 years), but it seems the poly people I've met irl, and many that post on here, have higher than average sex drives/greater frequency? Do you think my experience is skewed or do you think poly people have sex more often than non-poly people? If so, why? Is it a matter of the more you have it, the more you want it (true for me)? Or, are people with higher sex drives more likely to gravitate towards non-monogamy as a means of fulfilling their desires?

(I did a search but couldn't find any posts specific to this topic.)
You don't have to like sex a lot to be poly. I know tips, and even hinges, with low sex drive. There are also polyamorous asexuals who are not into sex at all. Myself, I prefer daily sex and my boys are the same.
 
Yeah, we have some forum members here with a wonderful sex drive. Definitely. However, the story of my wife goes a bit different:
In the long years of our marriage we often had sex once every fortnight. Now, with two partners, she has sex about every two days. Given the rough estimations this is a factor of at least 4 times as much.
It needs to be taken into consideration however, that the new relation is still young (about five months) and some of the drive may be a result of NRE.
 
I'm on the opposite side of things. I'm demisexual (only sexually attracted with people I have an emotional connection to) but even with that I'm grey-A. Even before the medication that killed my libido (and since getting my libido back) I honestly would be fine only having sex with each of my partners twice a month.

So for me, having more partners doesn't really do much for filling my sex drive, in fact it puts me in occasion in the whole thought process of "While it's not really something I want/need right now, I know that the connection is nice and orgasms feel nice and it's something my partner needs/wants right now" in some of my sexual encounters.
 
This has been on mind. One of my personal reasons for pursuing polymory is a high sex drive, and I acknowledge that for me, sex ranks high importance in life. My husband doesn't get it. For him, sex is something he gets out of his system once every couple of weeks and then he can get on with his life.

For me, sex IS life. I love everything about that kind of intimate connection with the right person, and I love having sex for hours I'd have it daily and with more than one person if I could find the right partners.

I recently came out as bi and poly to my favorite aunt. She was married to a man for the beginning of her adult life, then after he died, she married a woman, so at least she'd get the "bi" thing. To my surprise, she told me she thought I might be a sex addict!

Now, I don't display any signs of sexual addiction, I don't put myself in danger to get sex, I get to know a person at least a little before I get sexual, and I don't have particularly dangerous sex. I haven't even had sex in a couple of months! I'm quite picky about my partners, and I sometimes turn down offers. But to many people, my desire for lots of sex and the importance I place on it in the context of a relationship seems excessive.

I asked my aunt if she ever missed having sex with men, and she replied, "You know, I'm so busy doing the cooking and cleaning and driving my daughter to practice, I don't have time to miss men." To me, this was the wrong answer. I have no desire to do housework or parent children. I want to have time, energy, and desire to engage in lots of sex. Is that so wrong?

I once encountered a similar response from a shrink, who told me to take up a hobby. In other words, fill my life with busyness so I don't notice my sex with my husband is unsatisfying. I suppose this is how many a monogamous marriage stays afloat.
 
For me, sex IS life. I love everything about that kind of intimate connection with the right person, and I love having sex for hours I'd have it daily and with more than one person if I could find the right partners.

Blue has said something very similar to me before. While I don't have the time, energy, or ability (due to chafing), to devote to sex like he does, it is important to me. When I'm not having it, I feel the loss of physical connection even if we're connecting well on all other levels. Since I tend more mono than poly, I am quite content to only have that connection with one or two people.... but I do prefer daily sex.

I recently came out as bi and poly to my favorite aunt. She was married to a man for the beginning of her adult life, then after he died, she married a woman, so at least she'd get the "bi" thing. To my surprise, she told me she thought I might be a sex addict!

Yes, I tried discussing my sex life with my therapist. She feels like daily sex long-term is not typical and that Blue's preferred frequency (multiple times/day) is not sustainable and borders on sex addiction. Like you, he does turn it down at times, does not seek it out in dangerous places/methods/from dangerous people. He just prefers to have multiple loving relationships and nearly daily sex from all of them. She didn't call my level sex addiction but did say that it was atypical and insinuated that I may be using it to fill a void in my life (which doesn't ring true for me.)
 
Re (from PinkPig):
"Is there a correlation between higher sex drives and polyamory?"

I don't really know. As far as I know no studies have been done on it yet. I want to say, "No," but that may well be just a knee-jerk reaction on my part.

I used to have a much higher sex drive than I do today. Once a week is now puh-lenty.

Of course the first thing a lot of people think of, when they think of polyamory, is dating lots of new people. But I don't date any new people; I am in a closed V.

Re (from LoveBunny):
"I want to have time, energy, and desire to engage in lots of sex. Is that so wrong?"

Not at all.

Re: sex addiction ... from what I understand isn't defined by frequency, but rather by what effect it's having on one's life. If it's not ruining your life, then I wouldn't call it sex addiction. Doesn't matter whether it's twice a year or five times a day.

Re (from Norwegianpoly):
"Something being atypical has absolutely nothing to do with it being bad."

Exactly. And what's atypical anyhow? From what I've seen people's average sex drives are all over the map.
 
I would say that an incompatibility between Roger's and my libido was one of the reasons why we opened up our relationship. Jack and I started as FWB, before developing into the full-blown relationship we have now.

Roger is much more of a sex camel. Once every 1-2 months is about as often as we do, which didn't change after he started dating Taylor. So for him, being poly didn't have really anything to do with his sex drive.

Jack and I are still pretty high on NRE, I'd suspect (yup, definitely think that being in a LDR extends NRE). We'll get together every 2-3 weeks for a long weekend, and it'll be 2-3 times per day. We've talked about what the ideal would be, when we live together, and it's probably around once a day. I think we're on the same page about that.
 
I've seen the 2 - 3 times a week thing being average loads too, Norwegianpoly. It's something that I think causes lots of anxiety. People who like loads more sex than that then sometimes beat themselves up about being overly sexual or have counsellors who tell them they are addicts. :confused:

People who like loads less sex can be similarly down because they also are told there is something wrong with them - repressed or lacking in testosterone or something.

The thing is that with average numbers, it's perfectly possible that nobody at all has sex 2 - 3 times per week. For instance, if I asked 100 people how often they have sex and 5 of them said 21 times a week, 5 said 14 times a week, 10 said 7 times a week, 20 said once a week, 30 said once every 4 weeks, 20 said once a week and 10 said that they never have sex, the average of that survey would be 2.72 times a week which then might lead me to report that people have sex 2 - 3 times a week on average.

That is true but not a single person gave 2 or 3 times a week as an answer. In fact, in my survey there are as many people never having sex as there are having sex 2 or 3 times a day.

To my mind it's more sensible to concentrate on the people I want to related to as individuals. If I like sex twice a day then it might be hard for me to be in a monogamous relationship with somebody who likes sex once a year. Similarly, if I don't every want to have sex, I'd probably be unhappy with a partner who wanted me to have sex once a month even if it was a poly relationship and they had other partners to use up most of their once a week sex drive.

I hate to see people being pathologised simply on the basis of their desire for sex - especially as it can and does change even within the same individual over time.

IP
 
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