Gallery Carre
University of Virginia Prof: Success May Lead to Less Sex For Women
Feb 12th, 2025 by Jessica Gold Haralson
Does female ambition equate to asexuality?
Anecdotes abound about the woman who chooses Microsoft Office over orgasms — heck, a whole genre of chick lit, with gems such as Allison Pearson’s I Don’t Know How She Does It, has mined the whole too-frazzled-for-fellatio angle. Many sex activists eye roll away such archetypes as the product of a culture still anxious about a sexy and ambitious woman. They can’t be blamed — after all, this is the rhetoric of the Ted Haggards of the world, and look where Ted’s sexual “honesty” got him.
Yet it is undeniable that women are pressured to do more and be more in more facets of their lives than ever before — at home, at work, at Junior’s PTA meetings. Does this pressure affect one’s sex life?
The answer is “Yes,” according to University of Virginia psychiatrist Anita H. Clayton, who has just written a book titled Satisfaction: Women, Sex, and the Quest for Intimacy. Clayton contends that the struggle to balance work and family has put sex on the back burner for many women.
Says Clayton:
“Women can change their level of satisfaction… We need to change the belief systems that are holding us back.”
She also cites a study which shows that 43 percent are dissatisfied with their sex lives:
“Which doesn’t seem bad unless you believe, as I do, that the other 57 percent were lying.”
If Clayton’s contentions are true — and they very well could be — what, then, is the solution for women who want sexual satisfaction and a smashing career?