THE sex drive of women plummets as they juggle the demands of partners, children and careers, research suggests.

One in ten women questioned for a survey admitted losing interest in sex for at least six months in the past year.

“The next major problem was the inability to have an orgasm; that was reported by 4 per cent of women,” said Dr Catherine Mercer, of University College London, after a British study of more than 11,000 people aged between 16 and 44.

It indicated that married women were much more likely than single men or women to have sexual problems.

It also indicated that both sexes tended to suffer in silence when faced with sexual problems such as loss of libido, premature ejaculation or erectile dysfunction.

More than half of the woman (54 per cent) and 35 per cent of men had problems, but fewer than 11 per cent of men and 21 per cent of women sought help, according to the survey published in the journal Sexually Transmitted Infections.

For men and women, their first sexual encounter could be crucial to their future attitude to sex. The worse the experience, the more difficulty they may have in later life.

Couples had sex on average four times a month and Dr Mercer said: “People who had less than this were more likely to report sexual problems both short and long-term. Within a relationship, those less able to talk freely had more problems.”

She said that the findings had important implications for sex education and counselling.

The sex drive of women dropped sharply from those first heady months when they first fell in love. “Women were more likely to report problems if they had kids in the house under the age of five,” Dr Mercer said. “That, of course, seems quite logical with the lack of sleep they are suffering.”

The findings for men were rather different.

David Goldmeier, of the sexual function clinic at St Mary’s Hospital in London, wrote an accompanying editorial in the same issue of the journal. “As Dr John Gray said, men really are from Mars and women from Venus,” he said.

“There is nothing actually wrong with these women. Bringing up a family, they are just tired and exhausted as opposed to the men, who have ten times the level of testosterone.

“A lot of women are very active sexually in the first 18 months to three years of a relationship and have a lot of spontaneous sexual desire; but then that goes.”

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