Oscar Wilde is credited with saying there are no indiscreet questions, only indiscreet answers, and so it was that I asked my group of married ladies to tell me about the old hanky-panky. Jody, mother of a ten-month-old, said that sex with her husband is "definitely something I savor...when I remember I have a husband."

"You always hear stories of married women going to the doctor because their libido is too low," Sandra said. "But how come you never hear about married men going to the doctor because their libido is too high?" At first some of us didn't quite take her meaning, but then she spelled it out: "Why are men's desires considered the norm? Maybe instead of us going to see doctors, they ought to see doctors to get their testosterone lowered!" It turned out that Sandra was reading a book—I'd Rather Eat Chocolate: Learning to Love My Low Libido—whose author, a married woman, had brazenly decided she wasn't very interested in sex, and had announced the same to her husband, who is apparently willing to put up with a greatly reduced schedule of amorous activities. There was, to put it mildly, a lot of interest in this idea. However, revolutionary though it sounded, it was far too depressing to consider at length.