Hey Sculpt,
Those are great questions.
As for your example with drinking -- I'm not a complete teetotaler, as I've had alcoholic drinks in the past, but for many years, the only form of alcohol I have is when it's in food products (the last thing I can remember is rum raisin ice cream a few months ago.)
So if I ever got invited to a party or big social gathering (because I was always the resident nerd,) you can immediately guess why -- people wanted me as their designated driver.
I was saying in another post that I am basically allergic to alcohol. Now, does this put a greater responsibility on my shoulders? Should I be held accountable for looking after those who want to drink? I don't think so, but it certainly puts you in that position.
I grew up in Lutheran schools but went to a public college. My suitemates talked me into going out with them one night, and one of them wanted to go home with a guy she just met. I told her, "You came here with us -- as long as I'm driving, you're leaving with us, because if something happens to you, I'm not having that on my conscience."
Well you can imagine how popular that made me. And I never went out with them again. Personally, I'm not keen on people throwing a burden on me that isn't mine to carry, just because they want to be irresponsible for a while.
As far as the differences between male and female sex drives -- although psychology was my major and focus in grad school (though I never actually worked in the field,) social psychology was my major. My knowledge in this field is absolutely worthless now, as all my information would be very outdated.
So I don't know what the official research is. But, my own personal guess, and this is just from my own observations, I think the gaps between the genders (at least frequency, strength of wanting, etc.) may be closing. It's a fact that higher and higher percentages of women are becoming addicted to porn and not just men, and with the liberal culture of the day, everyone, male and female, is being encouraged to express themselves through some sort of sexual experimentation.
We're on a different side of the pendulum, and I think social acceptance of women having drives and desires is decimating what was once thought of as far as women having more repressed drives. Now I'm not saying that some of the differences don't hold true -- I just believe that we are seeing a collision of nature (God-given desires) and a much wider social acceptance of expressing that desire. After all, historically, women who expressed such interests were (and still are, as we see in the church,) heavily condemned.
But the atmosphere today is one of "finding who you are and what you like," and as much as that may head into leftist territory, I can't help but wonder what the research will show regarding a difference in genders between the sex drives after another 20 years of encouraging both men and women to experiment in any way they want.
Horrifyingly, sexual abuse of both genders also seems to be almost commonplace, and again, I don't have the research on this, but all my life, people have been talking to me about the abuse they've gone through -- both men and women -- and I know that for me, I've observed two extremes.
Whether man or woman, the person seems to either shun sex completely, declaring it dirty and sinful -- or goes in the other direction and becomes completely addicted, because someone taught them that this was all they were worth.
Just my 2 cents.
The reason I'm talking about this is because if a couple goes on a date and things start to happen, it's generally always expected that the woman has to be the one to say, "No! Stop! I won't do that!", and not the man.
And if anything DOES happen, it's always seen as being because the woman didn't protest hard enough and did not stop it (therefore labeling her as THE BAD GIRL in the process.)
This is the part that I take issue with.
Just as with my suitemate, it wasn't my responsibility to make the decision for her to keep her safe just because I didn't drink, but yet, I had to make it.
The bottom line was that it was her responsibility to make good decisions for herself -- but she didn't.
So let's say that I didn't say anything, let her do what she wanted, and she went home with Mr. Stranger, and later said that he had raped her.
Who's responsibility would that have been -- hers, or mine?
But yet, someone surely would have come back and pointed a finger at me, because I was the one who wasn't drinking.
I know this isn't a perfect analogy because in the dating scenario, both people really do have the responsibility to say no and stop.
But yet, most church cultures will blame woman if the lines are crossed, and the fact that this just isn't right is what I'm trying to bring attention to in this thread.