Women's Libido

xposted from my LJ, with a special think-fu addition for this blog, cuz we're all thinksome like that :)

I've been thinking about discussions of libido. They generally go, from what I see, like this:

Random Wanker: Women have lower libidos than men.
Random Woman: I have a really high libido! Maybe I'm rare for a woman, but I prove some of us do.

Mulling this over in my find, I thought about just how many women I know who say this, including myself. And it got me wondering: exactly what is a high libido? Exactly what is a low libido? Do they differ for men and for women? Is low libido in men the same kind of half-secret secret as high libido in women?

So I thought I'd ask you, my fine feathered friends, or at least those who don't mind oversharing: what is your libido like (if you've got one; feel free to also answer if you don't/are asexual/etc.)? How important is sex/sexual play/sexy stuff to you? How often do you want it? Do you think this makes your libido high, low, or middlin'?

As far as me: I can't imagine my libido isn't high. But the interesting thing about it is that the more I do, the more I want. I don't know if this is a common woman thing (though I suspect so) but I never really have peaks and go down from there. I have orgasms, sure, but the energy just builds usually and I just want more.

That's part of what I absolutely love about SM. It lets me experience excess. Too much, overflow of emotion and sensation. I get to flood other people with so much sensation they don't know what the hell is happening other than that they like it. And I get to flood myself with this massive influx of power that makes me feel like I might well bust at the seams too.

It's about a lot of things for me, but one of the basic experiences is MORE. It's like letting the ocean crash over you again and again.

ADDITION FOR THE COOL KIDS ;) :

I think that's actually part of why a certain brand of radfem rhetoric worked well to shut my libido down. A lot of discussion of class struggle is based on the idea that one class has privilege that allows them luxury. Indulgence. Overflow. Greedy consumption of more than they need, and this more could go to the underprivileged.

And would, in a just world.

You can probably see where this is going. My lavish fantasies of too much -- having too much power, feeling too much passion, giving too much sensation to a straining and gasping and sweating bottom in the process of being completely wrung out... well, wasn't that just the indulgence of the unjust ruling class?

And this thought just shut me down, y'all.

Because part of what I want from SM is precisely that delight in excess. That feeling of skating as close to total overwhelmed overload as I can.

Now I don't feel ashamed any more. Because I'm delighting in bodies and emotions -- not in having more actual resources than someone else. I'm not stealing from the poor to fatten my own coffers... I'm creating gushing wild overload for everyone involved, ideally.

And I find that when I really want that, when I'm not afraid of wanting that... it works.

And all of life for those brief moments becomes so vivid and so awesome (in the "this word is derived from 'awe'" sense)... it's like living in the center of the storm, becoming the rolling thunder and the crashing lightning.

It's amazing, amazing stuff. I can't really live without it.

(why yes I did have the best time ever last night, why do you ask? ;)