Every 7 Seconds...

In the midst of a recent conversation that included the phrase, “I was thinking about you all afternoon,” my husband handed me the topic of this blog. My first response to him was, “Yeah, yeah – I know, every 7 seconds...,” and then I stopped teasing him (for about 7 seconds) and really started to ponder this idea. Guys think about sex every 7 seconds? Really?

I have no idea what it’s like to be a guy. I can’t imagine knowing every football statistic or baseball box score or the name of every James Bond villain. I don’t know what it’s like to walk around outside, in front of other people, without a shirt on. Hell, I can’t imagine wearing underwear that just hangs off my hips and flaps around my legs; I prefer something with a little more reassurance. I listen to my son talking with his friends and I can’t understand how they can say the things that they say to each other and still remain the best of friends. There is such a huge difference in the separate worlds of women and men – the whole Mars/Venus thing – that it often feels like I’m standing in a room where everyone is speaking Arabic and expecting me to understand them. I don’t get them, well, I hardly ever get them, but, as I live with 3 of them, I think it’s the least that I can do to try to have a tiny appreciation of what makes them tick. Or, at least, what happens to their brains after every 6th tick.

For this, I turned to the best research subject in the world – my husband. He’s a guy through and through – an ex-high school quarterback who knows the stats of any sport that involves a ball, can quote Beavis and Butthead dialogue when appropriate – a real guy. A guy’s guy. He also has a Master’s Degree in Education and Human Development from George Washington University, loves psychology, and has a deep, sensitive streak in him. Combine his background and education with the fact that he’s my husband and is therefore required to answer my questions and I think we can agree that he speaks the truth and does so with some authority. So, for all you wives of husbands and mothers of sons who have ever wondered how it is possible for guys to think about sex every 7 seconds, here’s an answer from the other perspective.

Guys don’t think about sex every 7 seconds but they do think about us throughout the day. The thoughts just occur – zip! – as part of their stream of consciousness and – zip! – they’re gone just as quickly. It’s not something that they conjure up or deliberately shift their thoughts to, it just happens. Sometimes there is a trigger point but more often, there is not. Men experience a flash of memory, a glimpse of a moment from the past. And it’s not really sexual as much as it is sensual – the memory of our perfume or the way we sound. They generally don’t experience a split-second hallucination of a naked breast, for example, but they do think of the intimate moments between us and them – a touch on the back of their neck or a smile. What they experience roughly every 7 seconds is intellectual, not physical. From my husband’s report, they are conscious of every instance of these thoughts. And they say men can’t multitask…

Women think about sex, too, but I think we tend to dwell on it when it does cross our minds. We take a fleeting thought and build an entire scenario around it. We work it. We light the candles, we take the time to dress ourselves in what we think is our sexiest little satiny chemise, we put the music on, and we pour the wine. And then we move on to the million other things that we need to accomplish during the day. By the time we actually get around to putting our earlier thought into action, we’re kind of tired or we’ve sort of lost interest. Would it be better, then, to think more like men do? To have the thought of intimacy thrum just at the edge of our consciousness throughout the day? Sex isn’t always an afterthought for women but we sure wouldn’t win that argument in a court of law. I bet it would be a lengthy argument, though!

Now, for the creature known as a teenage boy, I’m sure the thought pattern and probably the frequency, as well, is a vastly different experience than that of an adult male in a stable, loving relationship. I have absolutely no desire to seek this truth, however, and am content with knowing that, at some point in their lives, the flashing neon “TITS” sign in the back of my sons’ brains will be replaced with the more satisfying knowledge that they are truly and deeply loved. I’m sure that, if asked, they would accept this theory with the proviso that the giver of that deep, satisfactory love has TITS.  This is no more than I could expect from them, at this time, but it’s comforting to know that their brains will mature somewhere within the same decade as their physical and emotional maturity.

So, while I’m still standing in a room of foreigners speaking a foreign language, I can glean the context of their conversation a little clearer now. I’ll give them credit for being more than the Neanderthals that the 7-seconds statistic suggests. I’ll look at them with a little more tenderness; I’ll cut them a little more slack. When my husband snickers, “Huh-huh, you said ‘Do It’,” during a conversation with the boys, I’ll overlook it, knowing that a variation of, “My darling, I love you,” has been playing in his brain all day. And when one (or more) of the boys replies, “That’s what she said,” I’ll know that the flashing neon sign will blink off soon enough. As for me, I thought about setting a stopwatch to ring every 7 seconds or so…but I’d probably throw the sucker against a wall within the first half hour. Instead, I’ll make a conscious effort to appreciate the love that I have in my life more frequently throughout the day. If I seem a little scattered, forgive me, I’m just trying to think like a guy.