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There is a lay assumption that women's sexual desire varies substantially over time, whereas men's is stable. This assumption is mirrored in prominent theories of desire, which posit that women are more variable than men in the extent to which they desire sex, and that women's sexual desire is more contextually sensitive than men's. We tested this assumption across three longitudinal studies. Study 1 assessed desire at 3 time points spanning 13 years (N observations  = 5562), and Studies 2 and 3 (N observations  = 11,282) assessed desire moment-to-moment over 7 days. When desire was measured over years, women were more variable in their sexual desire than men (Study 1). However, we found a different pattern of results when desire was measured over the short term. In Studies 2 and 3, we found no significant differences in women's and men's desire variability. The extent to which desire varied as a function of affective states (e.g., happiness) and relationship-oriented states (e.g., partner closeness) was similar for women and men, with some exceptions; women's desire was more negatively associated with tiredness and anger in Study 2. These data qualify existing assumptions about sex differences in sexual desire variability., (© 2023. The Author(s).)

Background: Adolescence is marked not only by rapid surges in the prevalence of alcohol use disorders (AUDs) but also by remarkable recovery rates, as most adolescent‐onset AUDs naturally resolve over time. Little is known about the differential vulnerability of adolescents and adults. Therefore, this study aimed to unravel the moderating role of age by comparing neural alcohol cue‐reactivity, an important AUD biomarker, between low‐to‐high beer‐drinking adolescent (n = 50, 16 to 18 years), and adult (n = 51, 30 to 35 years) males matched on drinking severity. Methods: Associations between beer odor‐induced brain activity and AUD diagnosis, severity of alcohol use‐related problems, recent alcohol use, binge‐drinking frequency, and task‐induced craving were investigated across and between age groups in regions of interest thought to be central in alcohol cue‐reactivity: the medial prefrontal cortex, anterior cingulate cortex, and striatal subregions (nucleus accumbens and caudate putamen). These analyses were complemented by exploratory whole‐brain analyses. Results: Pre‐task beer craving increased pre‐to‐post task in adolescents only. Individual differences in alcohol use, binge drinking, and craving did not relate to beer odor‐induced activity. Although region‐of‐interest analyses did not reach significance, whole‐brain analyses showed that adolescents with AUD, compared with adolescents without AUD and adults with AUD, had higher beer odor‐induced activity in a large mesocorticolimbic cluster encompassing the right caudate, nucleus accumbens, orbitofrontal cortex, and the olfactory sulcus. Activity in the right caudate and putamen was positively associated with the severity of alcohol use‐related problems in adolescents but negatively associated in adults. Conclusion: These findings suggest a differential role of alcohol cue‐reactivity in adolescents compared with adults with AUD and highlight the need for further studies investigating the role of age in the fundamental processes underlying the development of and recovery from of AUD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Few studies have examined intimate partner violence (IPV) in relationships where one or both partners are in treatment for substance use, from the perspectives of both members of a couple. This study used thematic and narrative analysis of the accounts of 14 men recruited from substance use services and 14 women who were their current or former intimate partners. Separate researchers interviewed men and women from the same dyad pair. The psychopharmacological effects of substance use (including intoxication, craving, and withdrawal) were rarely the only explanation offered for IPV. Violence was reported to be primed and entangled with sexual jealousy, with perceptions of female impropriety and with women's opposition to male authority. Both partners reported adversities and psychological vulnerabilities that they considered relevant to conflict and abuse. Male participants were more likely to describe IPV as uncharacteristic isolated events that arose from specific disputes—either aggravated by intoxication or withdrawal or about substance use and its resourcing—whereas women described enduring patterns of abusive behavior often linked to intoxication, craving, withdrawal, and to disputes linked to raising funds for substances. In relationships where both partners used substances, men described the need to protect their partners from addiction and from unscrupulous others while women described highly controlling behavior. In relationships where women were not dependent substance users, they reported the combined effects of psychological and financial abuse often linked to recurring patterns of substance use and relapse. These findings highlight the challenges faced by practitioners working with male perpetrators who use substances as well as the need of those working with women who have been abused to engage with the ways in which hesitance to leave male abusers can be complicated by shared drug dependency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sex is a centerpiece of most Aristophanic comedies: the hero’s triumph is often rewarded, and represented, by sexual pleasure. However, sex in Aristophanic drama is a complex phaenomenon, involving desire, power, money, and some of the fundamental dynamics of the archaia as a genre. In Aristophanes’ plays, it is possible to draw in broad terms a distinction between sex as a narcissistic realization of individual desire, and sex as a tool in power plays and relationships. This paper investigates both these aspects of sex in Aristophanic comedy (from Acharnians to Lysistrata, from Ecclesiazusae to Wealth), in order to provide a new interpretive framework for sexual pleasure in Aristophanes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although contemporary research into threesomes is expanding, little is yet understood about women's perspective on threesomes involving two men and one woman (MMF) - the generally more stigmatised configuration of mixed-sex threesome. Using semi-structured interviews with 16 women who had ever engaged in a mixed-sex threesome, this research aimed to explore women's attitudes and experiences of MMF threesomes and understand their (dis)interest in them. The findings suggest that although MMF threesomes were somewhat stigmatised by participants, more were interested in them than not. Core to women's (perceived) enjoyment of these threesomes was the desire to engage with men who would interact sexually with each other. This helped to create a safer, less objectifying environment, as well as providing sexual arousal for some women. Accordingly, it is suggesting that the stigma around MMF threesomes is diminishing, and in this context, women are enacting their sexual agency to pursue the sorts of sex they desire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the relationship between men and food. Building on James E. Dittes's work, it suggests that men's desire for food is indicative not only of their hunger, but also of an unquenchable sense of hope and a longing for significant relationships. Based on the insights of several biblical scholars and pastoral theologians, this paper also suggests that a greater understanding of how and why men eat can contribute to a more pertinent pastoral ministry with men. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Chocolate craving in women has previously been linked to disordered eating behaviors. A relatively higher prevalence of eating disorder pathology may account for the fact that chocolate craving is significantly more common in women in North America, compared to many other countries. While support for a causal role of disordered eating in the etiology of craving in women is growing, little is known about the extent to which food cravings are associated with disordered eating behaviors in men. This study was designed to systematically assess the impact of gender and chocolate craving on measures of attitudes to chocolate, responsiveness to food cues in the environment, body shape dissatisfaction, dietary restraint, and eating disorder and general pathology. Undergraduate men and women ( n  = 645, 37.2% male) were invited to complete self-report questionnaires assessing demographics, height and weight, food cravings, dietary attitudes and behaviors, along with eating disorder and general pathology. Data suggest that the relationship between chocolate craving and disordered eating behaviors in men is the opposite of what has previously been observed in women: compared to non-cravers, male chocolate cravers reported significantly more guilt related to craving, but were significantly less likely to diet and reported lower levels of dietary restraint, less frequent weight fluctuations, and fewer symptoms of eating disorders. Findings indicate that a positive relationship between disordered eating behaviors and chocolate craving may be unique to women (and potentially women in North America). Findings have important implications for our understanding of cultural and psychosocial factors involved in the etiology of food cravings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article is an exploration of how a group of men in the United States create homosocial (as opposed to homosexual) desire through language. In a society in which dominant discourses of masculinity provide competing scripts of male solidarity and heterosexuality, the achievement of closeness among men is not straightforward but must be negotiated through "indirect" means. It is shown how men actively negotiate dominant cultural discourses in their everyday interactions. In addition, a broadened view of indirectness, based on social function as much as denotation, is argued for. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Engaged desire reflects agency, creativity and an external expression of subjectivity. Desire can be expressed in many forms and, if acted upon, is always transformative. Where desire exists so does a subject and object -- that is to say desire is relational and socially constructed. For women, as well as for men, desire tells a cultural and therefore a gendered story. Despite 30 years of post-feminist social change, the thwarting of women's desire is pervasive and endemic to our culture. Intrapsychically, through the process of normal dissociation, desire resides in a self state that may remain out of awareness. In the psychotherapy relationship this dissociation may be shared by both therapist and patient resulting in a less fulfilling analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What do men want? The question is as jejune as its counterpart asked of women; may not men desire as variously and as perversely as women do. It has never, however, lacked for answers, especially when rephrased, what should men want? Harris's List of Covent-Garden Ladies, 1764-1793; or, Man of Pleasure's Kalendar, a series of mid- to late-eighteenth-century guides to London, England prostitutes, is composed of answers to both versions: they assume that men want whores; that men want to read about whores; that men want to read about themselves successfully visiting whores; and that men ought to do all these things. These are boring answers to barren questions, and yet the guides are nosegays binding together a wide variety of the plastic flowers of rhetoric. This article attempts to spell out some of those implications in the context of the London sex trade during the later eighteenth century and the early nineteenth, a time of growing prudery in which, as sociologist James Raven puts it, "the blush extended its domain." According to the author, he shall, within this context, take into account earlier writing about whores, such as the works of John Dunton and Edward Ward, and later ones, especially Pierce Egan's Life in London, in which some of the sexual beliefs and literary practices of Harris's List are taken up and renewed.

Little is known about how men and women conceptualize sexual desire. This descriptive study explored beliefs about the nature of sexual desire. Participants defined sexual desire in a free response format. The results suggest that there is no single common understanding of sexual desire. In particular, although men and women conceptualize the state of sexual desire in a manner similar to researchers and theorists (i.e., as a subjective, psychological experience rather than as a physiological or behavioral sexual event), sexual desire represents a more romantic, interpersonal experience for women than for men. Significantly more women than men believed that love and emotional intimacy are important goals of sexual desire, and fewer women than men viewed sexual activity as a goal of sexual desire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the present study is to examine the relationship between proactive and preventive coping styles and some individual and organizational outcomes, namely, job satisfaction, task performance, and organizational citizenship behavior. Psychometric qualities of the scales were established through a pilot study by collecting data from 90 employees selected from different sectors. More data were collected from additional 125 employees. Altogether, 215 employees participated in the present study. Of the participants, 114 were women (53%) and 101 were men (47%). Results showed that proactive coping skills predicted organizational outcomes positively (i.e. job performance, job satisfaction, and organizational citizenship behavior). Preventive coping style did not predict any of the outcomes. Results were discussed and implications for the managers were mentioned. Some future research themes were suggested, and limitations of the study were listed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]