No, those norms are very, very new - less than 10,000 years old - about 3% of human history. Science shows us that the differences between individuals is far, far greater than any binary inherent between men and women. What you see is 99.5% socialization - aka culture. We know this in part because other cultures have other norms and at different periods in history there were also other norms. Patriarchy wants you to believe in this binary division but it's mostly bullshit. Men do have a problem with being vulnerable because they've been told since they were children that this is wrong and weak - don't be a pussy, and that sort of thing. That’s where The Man Box comes in — and no, that’s not “my” way of describing anything — it’s the common way of describing the traditional rules for what it means to be a man in this culture.
Yes, there are women who buy into this - but it's internalized patriarchy and mostly it is men who uphold these norms. In truth, men are their own worst enemies. Since women have had no material societal power until the last few decades, you can't really blame them to the same extent.
Women don't lose sexual attraction for their husbands because they are too soft and vulnerable - they lose attraction for them because women are designed to crave variety and get tired of the same old, same old long before men do. Plus, the institution of marriage robs them of their inherent autonomy and foists nearly all the care of home and children onto them — which is exhausting. Being a house elf rather than being allowed to live and be seen as a sexual person kills libido.
But Meana discovered that “institutionalization of the relationship, overfamiliarity, and desexualization of roles” in a long-term heterosexual partnership mess with female passion especially—a conclusion that’s consistent with other recent studies.“Moving In With Your Boyfriend Can Kill Your Sex Drive” was how Newsweek distilled a 2017 study of more than 11,500 British adults aged 16 to 74. It found that for “women only, lack of interest in sex was higher among those in a relationship of over one year in duration,” and that “women living with a partner were more likely to lack interest in sex than those in other relationship categories.” A 2012 study of 170 men and women aged 18 to 25 who were in relationships of up to nine years similarly found that women’s sexual desire, but not men’s, “was significantly and negatively predicted by relationship duration after controlling for age, relationship satisfaction, and sexual satisfaction.” Two oft-cited German longitudinal studies, published in 2002 and 2006, show female desire dropping dramatically over 90 months, while men’s holds relatively steady.
