Men only want sex. Discuss.

As a relationship writer, the #1 Google search that leads people to my blog is: do men only want sex?

The answer (yes) seems too obvious to warrant an entire essay. So I check the #2 Google search leading to my blog: do men only want one thing?

No. Usually we want at least two, maybe three things, depending on how freaky you are. And then, we’d like a sandwich, please.

All kidding aside, all men go through a period when all they want is sex. For some men, this period is called “adulthood.”

I refuse to defend this. Who am I to argue with millions of years of behavioral programming?

According to Kinsey, 54% of men think about sex several times a day, and that study was done before the advent of the internet. Personally I find this statement grossly underestimated. In the time it takes for me to formulate this sentence, I myself will have conceived of no less than seven scandalous scenarios, fondly recalling recent raucous romps and fantasizing over future salacious shenanigans; a veritable cavalcade of carnal cravings, a… wait, what was I talking about?

Oh yes: sex. Of course we want it all the time, and (news flash) so do women. The idea that men only want sex and women only want love is an antiquated concept I’d love to see go the way of the dodo. We’d like to think we’ve evolved beyond base desires, but let’s not kid ourselves. We’re not humans trying to embrace our animal nature. We are animals, trying to embrace our human nature.

And that, with limited success.

I have a good (female) friend who’s a biologist, who makes a compelling argument for the evolutionary directive behind our seemingly genetic imperative to love, and be loved in return. Human babies take longer to wean and bring to maturity than any other mammal. It takes us longer to learn how to walk, talk, and fend for ourselves than any creature on earth. Love creates a bond between partners that gives them a reason to remain together, post coitus. A parental or family unit has a much greater chance at seeing its progeny survive to adulthood.

The problem is, sex is comparatively easy to come by, whereas love, real love, is hard to find, and even harder to sustain. Sex, in it’s many wondrous forms, is singularly the most pleasurable act a man and woman (or a man and a man, or a woman and a woman, or a man and woman and another woman) can engage in. Love however, is frequently accompanied by pain. Despite this, most men at some point will realize that, as overpowering as the urge to pass on your genetic material may be, sex, in and of itself, is insufficient.

Because ultimately sex is about more than just biology. An endless stream of new sexual partners will (eventually) get boring, and it won’t make you a better lover. It’s far more challenging, and more satisfying, to attempt to seduce one woman, night after night, than a different woman every night. No matter how strong primal urges issuing forth out of our limbic back-brains are, it is our enlarged frontal lobes that put us on top of the evolutionary food chain. Our capacity for reason reminds us there is more to life than satisfying animal instincts, more than preserving your bloodline by trying to inseminate as many females as possible. Life is growth and growth is change and we’re evolving, albeit at a glacier’s pace. We may struggle with our bestial natures, but we are men.

And we are trying to embrace our human nature.

Unfortunately there is no mystical, sexual bodhi tree you can sit under until you are struck by epiphany; each man has his own unique path to enlightenment. Usually this comes after a man has done “enough” fucking around, and gotten the desire to cross-pollinate like a lawn sprinkler in summertime, out of his system. Just how much fucking this takes varies from man to man, and some men obviously never reach this plateau. For those who have indulged their passions, arrant lust gives way to something that is beyond understanding, beyond reason: the desire to overcome many is replaced, by the desire to be overcome, by one.

We just hope she can make a damn good sandwich.

This post first appeared on Good Men Project and has been republished wiith full permission.

Jackie Summers is an author and entrepreneur. His blog F*cking in Brooklyn chronicles his quest to become a person worthy of love. His company, Jack From Brooklyn, Inc. houses his creative and entrepreneurial enterprises. Follow him on Twitter @jackfrombkln and friend him on Facebook.

Does your sex drive differ from your partner’s? If so, how?