An essay on the nature of sexual desire

The propensity to behave sexually--unlike the frequency of sexual behavior--is not a discrete quantifiable phenomenon. At every stage of adulthood, sexual desire is produced by the interaction of biologic drive, psychologic motivation and cognitive aspiration. Motivation, the most clinically vital of these components, can be understood within four contexts: sexual identity, quality of the current non-sexual relationship, reasons for specific episodes of sexual behavior and transference from past significant attachments. The common psychological inhibitions of sexual desire can be translated into motivations for not behaving sexually deriving from one or more of these contexts. The less frequent excesses of desire can also be understood from the vantage points of these contexts. Rather than continue to oversimplify the concept of sexual desire, the term should be recognized as a shorthand means of referring to the mind's capacity to integrate biologic, intrapsychic and interpersonal complexity.