Want To Increase Your (or Their) Libido? |
The Fundamentals of Sex
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Desire isn't simply driven by love or perceived beauty.
Non-sexual issues can have a decisive effect on sexual desire.
Factors that affect libido are similar for all genders.
Sex therapy can sometimes help a couple's desire discrepancy.
Every week, people come for therapy about desire issues. Someone wants higher libido. Someone wants their partner to have a higher libido. Someone wants to know why all men are, apparently, a bunch of horny dogs—except for the ones who have completely lost interest. Someone wants to know why it’s so hard to satisfy women.
My thoroughly therapeutic answer is, frequently: Let’s talk about something else.
Not something at random, of course. Depending on the case, I suggest we talk about:• Power dynamics• Body image• Self-esteem• Conflict management• Old wounds—the individual’s, the partner’s, or the couple’s• Religion• Alcohol and drugs• Aging, health, chronic pain, menopause, contraception.Not libido, and not even sex.
Sometimes the problem is easy to diagnose. So I encourage some patients to:• Drink less alcohol (maybe way less);• Get a health checkup, especially regarding hormones, diabetes, hypertension, weight;• Explore possible medication side effects.
When these approaches don’t work, we have to get into the more difficult stuff—personal and/or relational issues.
Whether your own or your partner’s, what personal issues can inhibit sexual desire?Let me count the ways: anxiety, depression, poor body image, guilt, shame, and dreadful past experiences. Or the inability or unwillingness to let a partner know what you don’t want—as they continue doing it. Expecting a physically or emotionally painful experience will most certainly limit libido.
A bit of probing can reveal the specific ways that personal issues can undermine desire. For example, anxiety about body fluids; mistrust of arousal or orgasm; discomfort being seen naked; shame about sexual preferences; assuming that sex will be painful; resentment about non-sexual issues (such as household chores); and skepticism that a partner will be honest about their pleasure—these are just a few tangible ways that personal issues can undermine desire.
When we identify one or more such issues, we have to work on these in order to make room for desire. This can be fairly quick, or it can take many, many months to do so—in some cases, I’m afraid, a year or two.
This is where things can get even more complicated. Many people state that as a couple they have a “communication problem.” Of course, everyone knows the solution to communication problems: “You need to listen to me better!” When two people believe this (or, for that matter, if even one person believes this), the couple is going nowhere fast.
I’m fascinated by how many people expect that they, or their partner, will have sufficient sexual desire when their relationship is marked by conflict, insults, betrayal, criticism, power struggles, and pain (I know, I know—many people think this is simply called “marriage”).
Up until about a hundred years ago, most people didn’t expect nearly as much from sex as we do now. For much of human history, most people expected sex to be occasional, short, and primarily for the man, or to create babies. Intimacy and female pleasure were either considered sideshows or no shows at all.
The Fundamentals of Sex
Take our Sexual Satisfaction Test
Find a sex therapist near me
Perfunctory sex can take place in just about any context. And historically, most women could occasionally opt out—even if only by making sex unappealing. And if you had, say, five or six children (very common), you had babies around for at least 10 years, limiting desire and frequency—all the more so if you lived in a tiny apartment.
Today, however, we expect so much from sex: intimacy, pleasure, variety, passion, self-expression, validation, proof of love. It’s impossible to get those things from perfunctory sex, so actual desire has become far more important.
And given the structure of many relationships, desire is difficult to establish. So some people go to a sex therapist.
In addition to humans’ biological apparatus (hormones, blood flow, and more), desire requires emotional apparatus (a sense of safety, the anticipation of collaboration, the ability to celebrate one’s body, etcetera).
And desire requires that people expect to enjoy the sex at least a bit. When I tell people I don’t like asparagus, they may be surprised, but when I say I don’t eat it because I don’t like it, no one is surprised. Low desire for something you don’t expect to enjoy isn’t a pathology, it’s common sense.
When people come in complaining about their own or their partner’s sexual desire, I explain how complex desire is. In adults, desire isn’t simply driven by love, or guaranteed by a partner’s beauty or admirable character. It’s the result of a complex symphony of biological, psychological, and relational factors. And dumb luck or “chemistry” are often involved, too.
After checking out a few basic things like alcohol use and possible medical issues, anyone wanting to change their own or their partner’s libido should expect an emotionally difficult, even grueling examination of self and relationship.
Do that long enough with a highly skilled and experienced therapist, and you may find your libido increase.
And at that point, you’ll find out whether “low libido” was the main problem or not.
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