Libido changes?

opalescent

Active member
This is not just a poly question so, mods, if this is more appropriate elsewhere, please move it.

So I am a woman in my early forties. I am finding that my libido is MUCH more intense and stronger than anytime before in my life. No comparision to my thirties or twenties. I want sex more often, more intensely than ever before. I mentioned this to a woman friend who is slightly older than me and she said 'Welcome to your forties!'

It's not a bad thing, that's for sure! But sometimes it drives me a bit crazy. I do think that poly has had some effect - I have heard that the more one has sex, the more one wants sex. I think there is some personal truth for me in that statement.

It's been very unexpected. Have others experienced something similar? (I'm not just asking the women.) Is it hormones? Something else?

GG mentioned in another thread that she has friends who tell her 'That is what being in your [fill in age] is like, you're normal!' Or something along those lines. So I'm hoping for something similar here...
 
I'll be forty in a few months. My libido has definitely increased as I've gotten older. I'm not sure how much of that is a result of no longer having small children and leaving a repressive religion and how much is a result of getting older.

I do find that in the last 11 months that I've been dating my boyfriend, my libido has shot up drastically. Before I started dating him I had one tertiary partner that I had sex with a few times a year and my husband, who I had sex with about twice a week with at that point. My boyfriend has a much quicker recharge rate than my husband, coupled with a higher libido in general. For the first couple of months that we dated we'd have marathon sex sessions every time we got together. It definitely slowed down some after we'd been dating a few months, but we still have more sex than I do with my husband. And I've found that having more sex has had the effect of making me think about and want sex more often. So I think right now it's a combination of getting older and an effect of poly.

Isn't this phenomenon part of the reason for cougars? Older women searching out younger men who can keep up with their desire for sex? Pairing the peak of the male sex drive with the peak of the female?
 
I am definitely in the club of : ' The more I get it, the more I want it.'
I`ve always been in that club.

Something new : I am 36, and the past year, have also noticed a horomone-related sex drive.
( In addition to the first statement.)

So for me, they are not one and the same. I am having to 'talk' myself through some interesting moments, so I don`t make poor decisions.
It can drive me crazy some days. I find I have an all-or-nothing attitude. 'Little bites' just don`t work.
Either I shut that part of myself down, and focus on other things, or I let myself go,....no in-between.
 
Isn't this phenomenon part of the reason for cougars? Older women searching out younger men who can keep up with their desire for sex? Pairing the peak of the male sex drive with the peak of the female?

It is truly hysterically funny to me that I am indeed a cougar. I never thought I would be. (Whip is significantly younger than me.) When younger I thought older women/younger men was kinda weird (I was rather judgemental as a young'un). Now I get it. I have to have something in common - just being young, hot and ready to go is not enough. Nice, but not enough.

...I am having to 'talk' myself through some interesting moments, so I don`t make poor decisions.

Oh yeah. Had one of those already. I slept with a good friend out of total horniness. I convinced myself the chemistry would be fine and it just wasn't. It turned out ok - we talked it out and remain good friends - but yeah, awkward. I do not want to do that again.
 
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Well, well, well, if it isn't the ever lovely and (horny) Sourgirl.:D Its seem very fitting that a thread about libido changes and cougarism drew you out of retirement. My money was on the thread that talked about the fisting seminar's I know that topic was/is hard for you to resist;) ....regardless welcome back... you were missed :D


Thread idea ....sexual vampires: courgar's draining the life force out of unsuspecting young men under the guise of being poly. :D:D Feel free SG to cut and paste and fill us in on your summer vacation :D I really love your stories .

Hey you still owe me that story about Micheal Jackson. Don't think I forgot.


Opal
I don't think I noticed a shift in libido due to age as much as life circumstance and a career change.
 
Regarding increased libido after becoming poly - after having low-ish libido for a while, mine has SPIKED since I discovered the idea of poly and recognized myself as such. Apparently I do have a sex drive :D Having only had sex with one person ever, I had no idea that it was the exclusiveness of the relationship itself that was a turnoff. Until now.

Sadly, I have no outlet for it :( except possibly for the person I have been in a monoship with, and really, that is a buzzkill right now.
 
Well, well, well, if it isn't the ever lovely and (horny) Sourgirl.:D Its seem very fitting that a thread about libido changes and cougarism drew you out of retirement. My money was on the thread that talked about the fisting seminar's I know that topic was/is hard for you to resist;) ....regardless welcome back... you were missed :D

Hush you, or I'll tell them about the time you called, pretendeding you were a lost boy, at College......:D

I think I posted last week too. You missed it. :p

Hey you still owe me that story about Micheal Jackson. Don't think I forgot.

...*searching memory banks* Uhoh,......
 
It can drive me crazy some days. I find I have an all-or-nothing attitude. 'Little bites' just don`t work.
Either I shut that part of myself down, and focus on other things, or I let myself go,....no in-between.

I find I am not capable of sublimating anything right now. One reason it drives crazy sometimes.

Haha....
I definitely appreciate the 10+ years younger. :D

Whip is 14 years younger. :D So yeah...
 
Wonder what I'll be like in my forties :) I have a pretty killer sex drive now as it is. H and I have some sort of play pretty much every day except when I'm with L, and L and I pretty much spend most of our time in bed when we're together.

Good times :)
 
I'm feeling the "whoosh" too -- who knows if it is perimenopause rush or what.

So you aren't alone. :D

GalaGirl
 
I'll speak on my wife's behalf and say that her libido increase had to do with 2 main things: 1. her age (shes 44 now) 2. and her bf. I'll preface by adding that she was never a sex nympho back when we were still monogamous. We would have sex about 2-3 times a week. She was very content and even thought 2-3 times was too much at times. That was in her mid to late thirties after having 2 children.

But her libido gradually started to increase the last couple of years when she entered her 40s. Unfortunately, during her libido climb, I was on the verge of getting into my libido decrease. When she finally brought her bf into her sex life, they would have sex 2-3 times a week just like we used to at the peak of our libido as a couple. But that wasn't the thing that surprised me the most about my wife's libido increase. What surprised me was that her sexual limits increased as well. Her "size limit" increased and her interest in kinky and more exciting sex also increased. If you had mentioned kinky or exhibitionist sex to my wife a couple of years ago, she would have scoffed. It's a completely different story now.
 
This is not just a poly question so, mods, if this is more appropriate elsewhere, please move it.

So I am a woman in my early forties. I am finding that my libido is MUCH more intense and stronger than anytime before in my life. No comparision to my thirties or twenties. I want sex more often, more intensely than ever before. I mentioned this to a woman friend who is slightly older than me and she said 'Welcome to your forties!'

It's not a bad thing, that's for sure! But sometimes it drives me a bit crazy. I do think that poly has had some effect - I have heard that the more one has sex, the more one wants sex. I think there is some personal truth for me in that statement.

It's been very unexpected. Have others experienced something similar? (I'm not just asking the women.) Is it hormones? Something else?

GG mentioned in another thread that she has friends who tell her 'That is what being in your [fill in age] is like, you're normal!' Or something along those lines. So I'm hoping for something similar here...
I cant exactly speak from experience (my experience with being a woman in her 40's is VERY limited) but I do know that changes in libido can be linked to a couple of different factors.

First, how happy you are. If you're depressed or stressed, sex generally seems less appealing. You may still want it but you dont have that "fire" that you otherwise might.

Second, health. That's probably the biggest one that I've experienced personally. If you feel like crap, sex is less appealing because of how you feel. I lost like 30 pounds and started working out and good gods there were days where I felt like I could screw for HOURS and not feel like I'd had enough. Those were often on days that, for reasons I've yet to figure out, I felt like I could get in a fist fight with a moving bus and win.

I've been experimenting with various neurotransmitters in the brain and I've noticed there are definitely...combinations that contribute to increased sex drive but I have no idea how the dosages relate to normal levels in the brain.
 
I am a male, and I passed this observation to a female friend who says this

"0ver 40, osedtrogen begins declining, and testosterone becomes boss. Testosterone is vital to women and thier sex drive"
 
Me too. I'm 46 and my libido shot through the roof. And the more I had sex, the more I wanted it. It was almost a nuisance, really. Like I became so distracted throughout the day with thoughts of having intercourse or getting off.

I have read that for some women going through peri-menopause that this is very common (the lucky few!). For others, it's the opposite: no sex drive.

I hope I stay on the high side for a while. I know my husband is happier about that :)
 
My sex drive increased at age 42, when I was still married and mono. I think it was partly a hormonal change. That is also when i started ejaculating like crazy during sex, and my ex and I were all, what the what??

At that time my youngest of 3 kids was 5 and finally sleeping thru the night. Also my husband was making more money than ever so we had time and money for travel, live music, sight seeing and fun things like that.

Also, he finally accepted that I am bisexual, instead of fighting it and mocking it.

So, we had tons of sex for a couple years, then tried to get a unicorn for my bi nature, which went horribly wrong and our sex life died for a few years. I was extremely depressed and went on Zoloft for a year and became sexless.

Finally I got advice from some online gfs and gave it one last shot and started subbing to him, and also desiring we go out on more dates and sexy weekend getaways again. Ex h was thrilled with the frequent (every night) sex, but by that point I was flirting online a lot with a number of men and ultimately he couldnt go back to being really poly with me so we broke up.

However, since our breakup, my sex drive has continued to be off the hook. With my gf, with all the guys I've been driven to flirt with, date and fuck. I am also doing all this kink stuff.

So, for me I think it was more hormones and having less responsibility to be a 24/7 exhausted parent. Because I was horny with the ex, with whom I did not get along in many ways, as well as horny with all the people since.

I am now 57 and my younger self would never have believed I would still be such an insatiable slut.

Good thing my 60 yr old bf can keep up with me. I mean, we only meet once a week for 24 hours, but generally have sex 4, 5, 6 times. In other words, have sex constantly with breaks for a bit of food and sleep and the occasional hike or museum tour. Um, quite often there is fondling on the hikes and in the museums as well, come to think of it.

It's funny, my gf is 35 and her libido is increasing lately. (We had a year of hot NRE sex and then about 2 1/2 yrs of less sex than I'd like. Maybe only once a week, and vanilla! Bleh!) But her confidence as a person and a woman is increasing a lot lately, so she's getting into that pattern too. I think. I sure hope so, because I love it.
 
My 'awakening' thats what DH and I call it, happened at 37 and is still happening (I'm 39). DH can't keep up and I settle for 3-4 times a week. I take care of myself other times. Funny thing is we are in the middle stage of becoming poly for him (thus why I'm on the forum). I plan on remaining mono. I'm too hung up right now on our marriage changing after 19 years to even consider poly for myself. I feel like I need to focus on getting through the changes he's requesting before I would even consider it.
 
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