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endoself comments on Gender and Libido - Less Wrong
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The evidence in the article is pretty scant. I'm not sure I'd read much into "horny ladies" abounding in fiction (or joke books). My guess is that the ancients, the Victorians and we moderns are all wrong when it comes to sexual desire, male and female. Sexual desire is a sort of appetite (like hunger and thirst) but it's the only appetite we suffer no consequences from not satiating. It's subject to tremendous variability. People have different levels of sexual desire at different times throughout the day, from one week or month to another, it changes as we get older, it varies between individuals and I don't doubt that the prevailing sexual culture changes it immensely (we have to eat and yet food culture has a tremendous influence on how we satiate hunger including some cultures systematically under-eating). It's possible (although unlikely) that for many women sexual desire was a sign of a disorder in the context of the prevailing sexual culture of the Victorian era.
They do reflect the culture of the time. A illustrative example is the play Lysistrata, where the plot is based on women denying sex to men as a punishment. This was considered hilarious because people though it could never happen. Now, cultural expectations have changed and it happened.
Also addressed directly in the myth of Tiresias
The exact same story could equally be used to support the claim that men have always been considered to have greater libido than women; the explanation would just be different.
There is a general consensus, AFAIK, that this opinion of women it clear from the text; it is not inferred from our expectations about Greek gender roles. The wikipedia summary seems to back this up; both genders are portrayed as desperate for sex in the play, but women are portrayed this way to a far greater extent.
I agree with the interpretation of the text, but I don't agree with the "people thought it could never happen" bit - or at least, I see no reason to privilege that explanation over say "the 'women withhold sex' scheme was considered plausible, but the women's sex drive was ramped up to increase conflict make the play funnier (and dirtier)".
It's not as if entertainment media has a history of realistically depicting sex-related topics.
Just to be clear, do you agree that people believed women's sex drives to be stronger, just not to as great an extent as my original comment implied? If so, I have mostly updated to your position, though it is still possible that someone has stronger evidence for "people thought it could never happen", but only told me their conclusion, not their evidence.