Do men with absolutely no sex drive really exist? My friend’s boyfriend apparently has no sex drive at all and says he’s afraid of intimacy. I assume he has no experience either. Every man I’ve known has been a total horndog, so I can’t believe it.

I’m in Seattle. I used to think men only pretended not to have a sex drive because they lacked confidence in bed. When I was a longtime virgin, I was just putting on a brave face.

I’m Fuu, a columnist. Apparently, an academic paper recently found that sexual desire and rates of sexual experience are becoming increasingly polarized. Compared with the past, there are more “herbivore” men and women—people who have never had sex or haven’t had it recently. At the same time, there are also more early-blooming “carnivores” who have sex for the first time at a young age and go on to have a lot of it.

I’m Kazu, a male member. I think someone with absolutely no sex drive has something important missing. For example, wouldn’t you find it strange if someone had no appetite at all? That said, the world is a big place, so I suppose people like that do exist. I also think having little or no sex drive is a separate issue from being afraid of intimacy. For example, there are probably people who find female genitals unpleasant to look at and feel afraid of intimacy because of that. When I first saw female genitals in a bootleg porn video around middle school, I remember wondering, “Do adults really get turned on by this and want to have sex?” Around the time I lost my virginity, I even wondered whether other men really enjoyed going down on a place that smelled like that. But people change as they grow up. Now I go down on my partner at least once a week. Granted, I only do it with women I like whose genitals have almost no odor, but still—people really do change.