Few spheres in life are as universally relevant for (almost) all individuals past puberty as sexuality. One important aspect of sexuality concerns individuals' sex drive-their dispositional sexual motivation. A vigorous scientific (and popular) debate revolves around the question of whether or not there is a gender difference in sex drive. Several theories predict a higher sex drive in men compared to women, with some theories attributing this difference to biased responding rather than true differences. Currently, there is little consensus on how to conceptualize sex drive, nor does a quantitative summary of the literature exist. In this article, we present a theory-driven conceptualization of sex drive as the density distribution of state sex drive, where state sex drive is defined as momentary sexual motivation that manifests in sexual cognition, affect, and behavior. We conduct a comprehensive meta-analysis of gender differences in sex drive based on 211 studies, 856 effect sizes, and 621,463 persons. The meta-analysis revealed a stronger sex drive in men compared to women, with a medium-to-large effect size, g = 0.69, 95% CI [0.58, 0.81]. Men more often think and fantasize about sex, more often experience sexual affect like desire, and more often engage in masturbation than women. Adjustment for biased responding reduced the gender difference (g = 0.54). Moderation analyses suggest that the effect is robust and largely invariant to contextual factors. There was no evidence of publication bias. The discussion focuses on validity considerations, limitations, and implications for psychological theory and people's everyday lives. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

中文翻译：

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性欲：性别差异的理论概念化和荟萃分析回顾。

生活中很少有领域像性行为一样与（几乎）所有青春期后的个体具有普遍相关性。性欲的一个重要方面涉及个人的性欲——他们的性情动机。一场激烈的科学（和流行）辩论围绕性欲是否存在性别差异的问题展开。一些理论预测男性的性欲高于女性，一些理论将这种差异归因于有偏见的反应，而不是真正的差异。目前，关于如何概念化性欲的共识很少，也没有文献的定量总结。在本文中，我们将性欲的理论驱动概念化为状态性欲的密度分布，其中，状态性欲被定义为表现在性认知、情感和行为中的瞬间性动机。我们基于 211 项研究、856 个效应量和 621,463 人对性欲方面的性别差异进行了综合荟萃分析。荟萃分析显示，与女性相比，男性的性欲更强，影响大小为中到大，g = 0.69, 95% CI [0.58, 0.81]。与女性相比，男性更多地思考和幻想性，更多地体验性影响，如欲望，并且更经常地进行手淫。对有偏响应的调整减少了性别差异（g = 0.54）。适度分析表明，这种影响是稳健的，并且在很大程度上不受环境因素的影响。没有发表偏倚的证据。讨论的重点是有效性考虑、限制、以及对心理学理论和人们日常生活的影响。（PsycInfo 数据库记录 (c) 2022 APA，保留所有权利）。