Sex at Dawn

Making love with a woman and sleeping with a woman are two separate passions, not merely different but opposite. Love does not make itself felt in the desire for copulation (a desire that extends to an infinite number of women) but in the desire for shared sleep (a desire limited to one woman).

MILAN KUNDERA, The Unbearable Lightness of Being

Remember how Phil said he felt “high” when he was with his new lover? “Colors were richer, food tasted better.” There’s a reason for this intensification of sensation, but it’s not love. As their testosterone levels decline with age, many men experience a diminishment of energy and libido, an intangible distance from the basic pleasures of life. Most attribute this blurred distance to stress, lack of sleep, or too much responsibility, or they just chalk it up to the passage of time. True enough, but some of this numbing could be due to ebbing testosterone levels. Recall the man who had no testosterone for a while. He felt he’d lost “everything I identify as being me.” His ambition, passion for life, sense of humor ... all gone. Until testosterone brought it all back. Without the testosterone, he said, “you have no desire.”

Phil thought he was in love. Of course he did. As suggested

above, one of the few things that reliably revives a male’s

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sagging testosterone levels is a novel lover. So he felt all the things we associate with love: renewed vitality, a new depth and intensification—a giddy thrill at being alive. How easily we mistake this potent mix of feelings for “love.” But a hormonal response to novelty isn’t love.

How many men have mistaken this hormone high for a life-altering spiritual union? How many women have been blindsided by a good man’s seemingly inexplicable betrayal? How many families have been ripped apart because middle-aged men misinterpreted the surge of vitality and energy resulting from a novel sexual partner as love for a soul mate—or convinced themselves they were in love to justify what felt like a life-affirming necessity? And how many of these men then found themselves isolated, shamed, and devastated when the curse of Coolidge returned after a few months or years to reveal that the now-familiar partner was not, in fact, the true source of those feelings after all? No one knows the number, but it’s a big one.

This common situation is heavy with tragedy, but one of the most painful aspects may be that many of these men will realize that the woman they left behind was a far better match than the one they left her for. Once the transitory thrill passes, these men are left once again with the realities of what makes a relationship work over the long run: respect, admiration, convergent interests, good conversation, sense of humor, and so on. A marriage built upon sexual passion alone has as much chance of enduring as a house built on winter ice. Only by arriving at a more nuanced understanding of the nature of human sexuality will we learn to make smarter decisions about our long-term commitments. But this understanding requires us to face some uncomfortable facts.

Like many men in the same situation, Phil said he felt as if he faced a “life or death” decision. Maybe he did. Researchers have found that men with lower levels of testosterone are more than four times as likely to suffer from clinical depression, fatal heart attacks, and cancer when compared to other men their age with higher testosterone levels. They are also more likely to develop Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia, and have a far greater risk of dying from any cause (ranging from 88 to 250 percent higher, depending on the study).³

If it’s true that most men are constituted, by millions of years of evolution, to need occasional novel partners to maintain an active and vital sexuality throughout their lives, then what are we saying to men when we demand lifetime sexual monogamy? Must they choose between familial love and long-term sexual fulfillment? Most men don’t fully appreciate the conflict between the demands of society and those of their own biology until they’ve been married for years—plenty of time for life to have grown very complicated, with children, joint property, mutual friends, and the sort of love and friendship only shared history can bring. When they arrive at the crisis point, where domesticity and declining testosterone levels have drained the color from life, what to do?

The options most men see before them seem to be: