Low Sexual Desire: What Happens When You Don’t Want Sex?

One of the most common concerns people bring to psychosexual therapy can be expressed in a deceptively simple sentence:

“I just don’t want sex anymore.”

Sometimes the person themselves is worried.

Sometimes their partner is.

Often, both people have begun comparing the present with an earlier point in the relationship when sex seemed easier, more spontaneous or more frequent.

And somewhere along the way, a conclusion may have formed:

Something must be wrong with me.

But sexual desire is not a fixed quantity that we either possess or lose.

It is responsive to our bodies, relationships, circumstances and emotional lives.

So rather than immediately asking “How do we increase desire?”, it can be useful to begin somewhere else:

“What has happened to desire?”

Desire doesn’t always appear out of nowhere

We often imagine sexual desire as spontaneous.

You suddenly feel horny, become interested in sex and then seek sexual contact.

That certainly happens.

But it isn’t the only way people experience desire.

For some people, desire is much more responsive to context.

They may not spend the day spontaneously thinking about sex, but once affectionate or pleasurable touch begins in circumstances where they feel relaxed and connected, sexual interest can gradually emerge.

This distinction can be enormously relieving.

Someone who rarely experiences spontaneous desire may have concluded that they have a “low libido”, when their sexual system may simply need the right circumstances before desire becomes noticeable.

The question then changes from:

“Why don’t I ever want sex?”

to:

“What conditions allow desire to emerge for me?”

Those are very different conversations.

Your body doesn’t exist separately from your life

Sexual desire can be affected by almost everything that happens to us.

Stress.

Exhaustion.

Parenthood.

Menopause.

Hormonal changes.

Medication.

Physical illness.

Pain.

Body image.

Depression or anxiety.

Relationship conflict.

Grief.

Trauma.

Feeling emotionally disconnected.

Feeling that sex has become another task that needs completing.

This is why I find a biopsychosocial understanding of sexual difficulties particularly helpful.

Rather than deciding that low desire is either “in your head” or caused by something physical, we can consider the interaction between the body, psychological wellbeing, relationships and wider circumstances.

Sometimes medical assessment is an important part of that picture, particularly where desire has changed significantly or there are other physical symptoms.

But even when there is a biological component, there will still be a person experiencing it within a relationship and a life.

When sex starts to feel like an obligation

One of the quickest ways for desire to become complicated is for sex to begin feeling like something we should want.

Perhaps one partner wants sex more frequently than the other.

Initially, this may simply be a difference.

But over time, the difference itself can acquire meaning.

The higher-desire partner might begin thinking:

They don’t fancy me anymore.

The lower-desire partner might begin thinking:

There must be something wrong with me.

Sex then becomes emotionally loaded.

One person may initiate more frequently because they need reassurance.

The other may begin withdrawing because every affectionate touch feels as though it might become a request for sex.

Eventually even cuddling can feel risky.

The more pressure there is to experience desire, the less space there may be for desire to emerge naturally.

The desire discrepancy

It is also worth remembering that couples rarely have precisely matching levels of sexual desire throughout an entire relationship.

There may be periods where one person wants considerably more sex than the other.

That doesn’t necessarily mean either person’s level of desire is abnormal.

The difficulty often lies in what the difference comes to mean between them.

If the higher-desire partner experiences sex as an important way of feeling loved or connected, rejection may feel deeply personal.

Meanwhile, the lower-desire partner may feel increasingly responsible for their partner’s emotional wellbeing.

Sex can then become caught between obligation and rejection.

Neither person is necessarily doing anything wrong.

They may simply be experiencing the same situation from very different emotional positions.

Do you not want sex – or do you not want the sex you’re having?

This can be an uncomfortable question, but an important one.

Sometimes somebody describes themselves as having low sexual desire when the reality is more specific.

Perhaps sex has become predictable.

Perhaps it doesn’t reliably feel pleasurable.

Maybe there is pain or discomfort.

Perhaps communication about sex is difficult.

Maybe the person has learnt to prioritise their partner’s pleasure over their own.

Or perhaps the kind of sex available within the relationship simply isn’t the kind of sex they find particularly interesting.

In these circumstances, trying to “increase libido” without becoming curious about the sexual experience itself risks missing something important.

Desire doesn’t exist in isolation from what we are being invited to desire.

Desire and emotional connection

For some people, emotional connection and sexual desire are closely intertwined.

Conflict, resentment or feeling unseen within a relationship may make sexual intimacy difficult.

For others, the opposite can happen.

They may love their partner deeply and feel emotionally close to them while struggling to access erotic desire.

Long-term relationships also create an interesting tension.

Emotional security often grows through familiarity, predictability and closeness.

Eroticism sometimes benefits from difference, curiosity, novelty and a sense that our partner remains a separate person whom we cannot entirely know.

There isn’t a simple formula for balancing those things.

But it can be helpful to think beyond the idea that sexual frequency is a straightforward measure of how healthy or loving a relationship is.

What does therapy do with low desire?

Psychosexual therapy doesn’t begin with a predetermined amount of sex somebody should be having.

There is no universally correct libido.

Instead, we might explore what has changed and what desire means to you.

What was your relationship with sexuality like growing up?

When have you felt most sexually connected to yourself?

What conditions make desire more or less likely?

How do you experience your body?

Is sex pleasurable?

What happens when a partner initiates?

Is there pressure, resentment, fear, shame or obligation around sex?

We may also consider physical health, medication and hormonal factors, and whether medical input would be helpful.

The aim isn’t to force desire into existence.

It is to understand the landscape in which desire is trying to appear.

Perhaps nothing is broken

People can arrive in therapy having spent months, sometimes years, believing their lack of desire means something is wrong with them.

Sometimes there is a specific sexual difficulty that deserves attention.

Sometimes there is a relationship dynamic that needs exploring.

Sometimes physical or hormonal factors are important.

And sometimes the person has simply been measuring themselves against an idea of sexuality that never really fitted them in the first place.

Sexual wellbeing isn’t about achieving a prescribed amount of desire.

It is about having enough freedom and understanding to develop a sexual life that feels authentic to you.

So if desire has disappeared, perhaps the first task isn’t to demand that it comes back.

Perhaps it is to become curious about where it went, and what it might need in order to feel welcome again.