Ladies, put down your toy boys. We’ve been duped!
We’ve been told time and time again that women hit their sexual peak in their 40s and men burn brightest in their early 20s. But new research suggests that’s not quite right.
Researchers from the University of Tartu in Estonia analyzed data from more than 67,000 adults, aged between 20 and 84, and discovered something rather inconvenient for anyone clinging to the idea that men peak when they still live with housemates and eat cereal for dinner.
Yes, male sexual desire does increase through their 20s. But it doesn’t peak there. Instead, it keeps climbing, reaches its highest point when they hit their early 40s, and then begins a slow, polite decline.
Well, there goes my very good excuse for dating younger.
And, just when you think the study can’t get any more humbling, it turns out men in their 60s reported levels of sexual desire comparable to men in their 20s. Same appetite; very different Spotify playlists.
Women, however, drew the short straw. According to the data, our sexual desire peaks in early adulthood, somewhere between our 20s and early 30s, before gradually declining and then dropping sharply after 50.
Grim. Except, real life rarely behaves the way neat graphs do.
Yes, male sexual desire does increase through their 20s. But it doesn’t peak there. Instead, it keeps climbing, reaches its highest point when they hit their early 40s, and then begins a slow, polite decline
Well, there goes my very good excuse for dating younger
I was out on my weekly hot girl walk with a friend just days ago when she casually mentioned she’d hit perimenopause in her late 40s and her doctor put her on testosterone.
Her verdict? She’s now hornier than a teenage boy with Wi-Fi. So perhaps the obituary for female libido has been written a little prematurely.
And here’s where I start to question what this study, and frankly most conversations about sexual ‘peak,’ are actually measuring.
Because appetite is one thing – ability is another.
In my own highly unscientific but deeply thorough research, conducted across years of dating, drinks with girlfriends and unfiltered messages from followers, I’ve noticed something curious.
Plenty of men can still get it up well into midlife. The problem is that many of them still have absolutely no idea what to do with it.
Terms like ‘the jackhammer’ and ’30-seconds wonder’ come up far more often than they should in a modern, consenting society.
If sexual peak simply means how often a man thinks about sex, then sure, let’s hand the trophy to the 40-somethings.
But if we’re talking about the full experience – stamina, confidence, curiosity, generosity, emotional awareness and the ability to read a room without treating it like a construction site – then the picture becomes far more nuanced.
In your 20s, you might have the testosterone and the energy, but you’re often riddled with anxiety and a porn-informed belief that louder and faster equals better.
In your 30s, there’s usually improvement. You start gaining more confidence – practice makes perfect and less panic.
By your 40s, the men who’ve actually paid attention and listened to feedback often deliver far better sex than they ever did in their so-called physical prime.
And that is the only peak I’m interested in – not libido alone, but libido paired with experience. Desire matched with competence. Wanting sex but also knowing how to make it good.
By your 40s, the men who’ve actually paid attention and listened to feedback often deliver far better sex than they ever did in their so-called physical prime
Several women I spoke to said the best sex of their lives came not from the youngest men they dated, but from men who were old enough to stop performing and start participating.
These were men who asked questions – men who didn’t treat sex like a race or a personal achievement unlocked.
My current man treats sex almost like a primal urge and I can’t get enough of it.
It’s not polite and well-scripted. You know what I mean, there’s no: ‘Ok, first we start in this position, and then we move to the next position, and then it’s all over in a neat five minutes.’
It’s hungry and completely off-piste. We listen to each other’s sounds, notice how each other’s bodies react, and go from there.
So maybe the real sexual peak can’t be measured as a fixed age at all. Maybe it’s a moving target, shaped less by hormones and more by how willing someone is to learn, adapt and care about the experience of the person in front of them.
Because desire without skill is just noise. And skill without desire is a very different problem entirely.
If men really are peaking in their 40s, then here’s hoping that means that more of them are finally putting their desires to good use.
