Why does my husband seem to be thinking about sex every second of the day, and it feels like I can go days without having nary a sexual thought? Even just thinking about sex can feel like another chore!

Ian: So I walked around the Thompson Street playground in New York City, asking moms and dads how much they’d thought about sex in the last hour (no, they didn’t think I was a perv, I had my doctor glasses on). Guess what? No surprise -- almost every guy had thought about sex at least once, whereas almost every woman had thought about it not at all. For guys, thinking about sex is wired into the neural pathways of our mindscapes, wherever we happen to be. It definitely is not a chore. Not so with women, who have to work at it more. But just letting yourself breathe for a moment to take in the Eros that throbs and pulses all around you and letting yourself have a sexy thought is something you should put for sure on the to-do list. And pretty soon it won’t feel like a chore.

Heidi: Sorry Ian, but you make it sound so simple. For some of us it’s more than just not getting to the desire stage -- for some of us the sexy thoughts don’t even happen...at least not without some work.

Ian: Hmm. You just got me thinking about something.

Heidi: Wait, let me guess...it got you thinking about sex! Because you’re a guy!

Ian: Nice one. But seriously...okay. It did. But it’s not just that we’re thinking about sex. It’s that the “thinking about” part of it is actually wired into our wanting system. We don’t just see something sexy and think to ourselves, “Oh that swimsuit model on the cover of Sports Illustrated is really sexy,” and that’s that. A little neural impulse shoots straight down from our brain to our penises, and we’re over-taken with a sudden jolt of sexual craving. In this sense, men really do think (not to mention see, hear, smell, and taste) with our penises. Desire and arousal are incredibly interlinked; show us something sexy and in no time at all we’re ready to have sex. So when you talk about missing the wanting to have sex, but not actually missing the having it part, I wonder if you’re really getting at a fundamental difference in how men and women are sexually wired.

Heidi: That’s why Viagra is such a success story with men, while female Viagra was pretty much a bust: give a guy an erection, and he wants to use it. Not so with us ladies. Let’s be honest, we all know Viagra for women that really worked would have to come with a kit including coupons for things like therapy and housecleaning. I also just don’t perceive things to have “sexy potential” in the same way JB might. I mean, he can see a rug and think: “I could have sex on that rug.” I see a rug and think “rug,” or more accurately, “dirty rug,” or “rug filled with choking hazards.” It takes a lot more than seeing something to get my thoughts going and a whole lot more than that to actually get me physically in the mood.

Ian: I think this calls for yet another Esther Perel quote from her book Mating in Captivity: “The sensuality that women experience with their children is, in some ways, much more in keeping with female sensuality in general. For women, much more than for men, sexuality exists along what the Italian historian Francesco Alberoni calls a principle of continuity. Female eroticism is diffuse, not localized in the genitals, but distributed throughout the body, mind, and senses. It is tactile and auditory, linked to smell, skin, and contact; arousal is often more subjective than physical, and desire arises on a lattice of emotion.”

Heidi: Oooh, she’s good! I like “Lattice of emotion.” My lattice is too often over run by the weeds and ivy of life, like that quick-spreading negativity and the ever hardy saying yes to stuff I really should have said no to.” Even climbing vines with beautiful flowers can smother when not kept in check --how’s desire supposed to peak its way out? What are we sacrificing for the Better Homes and Gardens garden? For many of us, it’s time to haul out the big lopers. It’s prunin’ time!