Objective:

To analyze the patterns of sexual desire across age and gender in a large population-based study.

Key Findings:

• Men's sexual desire peaks around late 30s to early 40s, contrary to testosterone decline patterns.
• Men reported substantially higher sexual desire than women across most of adulthood.
• Desire declined with age for both genders, but more steeply for women post-menopause.
• Bisexual and pansexual individuals reported higher desire than heterosexuals, while asexual individuals reported the lowest.
• Parenthood affected desire differently for men and women; more children correlated with lower desire in women and higher in men.

Interpretation:

The findings suggest that factors beyond hormonal changes, such as relationship stability and psychosocial influences, may sustain men's sexual desire into midlife.

Limitations:

• The two-item measure did not differentiate between solitary and partner-specific desire.
• The sample was limited to a single country.
• Cross-sectional data cannot establish causal relationships or track individual changes over time.

Conclusion:

The study provides benchmarks for understanding how demographic and relational variables shape sexual desire, highlighting the need for further research into unexplained variance.