Women think they’ve got it this way. They feel “broken” and “defective” for years.

Lack of desire for sex is, in my experience, the most common problem women report when it comes to sex. Many of them feel “broken”, “defective”, as if something is wrong with them. The scenario is usually similar – in the rush of great emotions at the beginning of a relationship, sex is frequent, there is a lot of it, it comes easily. After some time, for some after half a year, for others after a year or two, the desire for sex fades until it does not appear at all.

Why don’t I feel like it?

There is really no specific measure of how often the desire for sex should appear, and even less whether it should be fulfilled. Therefore, our guide will be the subjective feelings of a given person and their satisfaction with the sexual sphere. From my observations, it follows that people usually have a hard time explaining why they do not feel like having sex or why they have stopped feeling it.

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Sometimes they think they “just have it”, but when I start asking them more questions, it turns out that either a) the lack of desire for sex got lost along the way, meaning there were factors that influenced the way it is now, or b) they don’t know what influences their desire for sex, so they can’t identify the source of the problem and make the appropriate changes to their life, or c) for various reasons they are not in touch with their sexuality. There could be a million different reasons behind the statement “I don’t feel like having sex”, and they will look different for everyone.

What’s more, a very large part of this process is our brain, not our genitals. Each of us leads a different life, has different relationships, different experiences, different bodies, and different needs. In this chapter, I will try to introduce the areas that can affect your libido and make it easier for you to find and rebuild your desire for sex.

What affects libido

Libido can be affected by biological, social, and psychological factors. As you can probably guess, I will focus on the latter, but as a guide, possible causes from the body that are worth considering and checking first are:

• hormonal balance,
• diseases,
• general state of health,
• medications taken (including some types of hormonal contraception, antidepressants),
• sleep disorders,
• phase of the monthly cycle,
• lifestyle: diet, physical activity, use of stimulants,
• stress or fatigue.

Sex is a choice

I’m going to turn the table now, but before we start thinking about what might be contributing to your lack of desire for sex, it’s worth saying that you don’t have to have sex. Sex may not be important to you. Sometimes I hear, “I should feel something, I should feel like having sex,” and then I ask, “Who said you should?” Everyone has the right to experience their sexuality in accordance with their needs. Just because we are sexual beings doesn’t mean we have to have sex. Sexuality is not just about sex and desire. You can be in a good relationship with your sexuality and not have sex or not feel like having it. That’s your choice. Why am I so hung up on these obligations? Because every obligation distances you from what YOU WANT. And sexual contact that is not undertaken out of need and our conscious choice can turn into another obligation. “I want to feel like having sex.” Why? In my opinion, in the context of these considerations, it is worth answering this question. Do I want to have sex because I think I should have more of it, or because it gives me pleasure, I want to be close to my partner, I want to discover something new? Because sex has value to me? The risky attitude is: “I want to have sex because I want my partner to be satisfied, I want them to feel good.” You have the right to do this and you can be guided by the desire to please the other person if your needs are also met in this way.

However, if it is solely due to self-sacrifice, the desire for sex may be even lower or zero, because then there is no positive reinforcement FOR YOU in this experience. Therefore, if your action is based on the desire to satisfy the other party, it is worth keeping this in mind. Unfortunately, there is social pressure to have sex, and to do so at a certain frequency, on certain terms and at a certain stage of life. These rules and regulations have not helped anyone yet. If we only treat sex as something that should be done because others do it, or at least we have the impression that others do it, we will be moving away from accepting our individual and wonderful sexual freedom, which in my understanding also assumes that we do not have to have sex if we do not want to. Or we may be at a stage in our lives where there will be no sex. As I have already mentioned, sex can be wonderful, but we are able to survive without it. It is not air or food for us. It is a choice that you have the sacred right to make and what is more – you can change your mind about it. However, whenever someone chooses a life without sex, I encourage them to examine the reasons behind their choice. It’s a bit like saying, “I don’t like green peas.” You have the right not to want to try them or to be convinced that you don’t like them.

In the case of sex, however, I encourage you to consider whether there are any stories, beliefs, experiences, or other difficulties that may be contributing to your dislike or low appeal of sex in your eyes. If, after analyzing all these factors, you consciously decide that sex is simply not for you, then that’s fine! If this decision is within the norm in a partnership – even better! Sex is a choice. Whether or not you make room in your life for sex will depend only on your decisions and actions taken in this direction. Just as you can choose to put sex high on your list of priorities, you can also choose to put it at the bottom of that list. What’s more, this list can constantly change. However, the case is different if sex is an important part of your life and the desire doesn’t arise. I often encounter people waiting for the desire for sex to fall on them, to appear like a magical spirit that has possessed their body, like some external force that will suddenly awaken desire in them. What if I told you that you have control over whether or not you feel like having sex? That you can learn how to develop and stimulate it? And most importantly, better understand how it works for you?

Why don’t we feel like having sex? Tero Vesalainen//shutterstock

The Myth of Spontaneous Sex

In many cases, sex does not happen because people wait for it to happen spontaneously. Let’s stop for a moment at the concept of spontaneity in sex. Again, I believe that this is the result of the “biggest lie” and the vision of sex passed on to us, mainly by mass media, and our false beliefs about desire. Contrary to popular image, sexual contact requires a series of decisions made by us much earlier than we might think. I imagine what people might understand by spontaneous sex. Ania and Piotrek are sitting on the couch, lying cuddled, close to each other. They give each other a kiss, after which one of them starts kissing the other more passionately. The kiss lasts longer, they move more towards each other, they start touching each other. They touch their intimate parts, undress, and sex begins.

You could say that sex happened spontaneously because they didn’t have a prior appointment, they didn’t talk about it. I understand that it might look like that for some people, but not for everyone and not always. This type of contact usually happens at the beginning of a relationship (although this is not a rule), when feelings are fresh and the tension, including sexual tension, and excitement are high. However, this is not the only correct scenario of how sex should happen. Or it may seem that way because it is a repetition of an image that we have probably seen dozens of times in movies. Or that just looking at each other is enough and everyone is already aroused. I’m not saying that it can’t happen, but expecting from yourself and your partner that it has to look like this is one of the reasons why sex doesn’t happen, and people decide that they don’t feel like having sex if this scenario doesn’t work for them. What’s more, the belief that spontaneity is necessary for satisfying sex can have the opposite effect and lead to dissatisfaction and various difficulties in bed.

In order for sexual contact to occur, we need to take a series of actions, and various thought processes occur in our heads at the same time. Some of them may happen quickly, but we are often unaware of how much of our behavior is actually planning sexual contact or striving for it. The definition of the word “spontaneous” is: “being a reflexive, unthought-out reaction to something.” Even if Ania and Piotrek did not discuss the fact that they would have sex that day, it does not mean that it had not crossed their minds earlier or that they had not taken actions to prepare them for it, such as buying condoms, shaving their intimate areas, etc. Whether we take action towards sexual contact will result from the emergence of arousal, desire, based on which we assess whether we want to engage in sexual contact.

The myth of spontaneous sex assumes that our sexual behavior occurs without our awareness of the process, is an unconscious following of desire and arousal, and that satisfying sex is solely the result of reflexive bodily impulses, not conscious communication. We can make spontaneous decisions about whether or not to engage in sexual contact, but sex itself does not happen spontaneously and instinctively. It is usually anticipated, expected, or planned to some extent. Even if we do not notice it. Giving up the vision of spontaneous sex can be difficult for many people to accept, and American therapist Diane Gleim shares her observations on this subject. She writes that thinking about sex in terms of something that “just happens” is convenient because it allows us to be passive in this area and lack self-awareness. By waiting for sex to happen, we don’t have to put in the effort to understand our reactions, sexual boundaries, building communication skills, or assertiveness. It’s a kind of giving up responsibility for whether or not sex happens.

In my opinion, this attitude can distance us from a sense of agency in sex, and thus distance us from our own needs. Additionally, in scenarios of spontaneous sex, which originate from porn films, among others, there is usually little or no room for obtaining someone’s consent and for making sure, also with ourselves, that this is something we want. This helps to support the vision of sex that occurs under the influence of impulses, and thus gives more room for crossing someone’s boundaries, overinterpreting someone’s behavior or body language, and even sexual abuse. In this version of sex, there is no room for making sure through communication whether everyone involved agrees to the activities undertaken. Why else can the myth of spontaneous sex weigh us down and distance us from the sex we would like? Because under its influence, we can lower or even cross out the value of sex that is not “spontaneous”. That is, sex that does not happen after one look at each other and taking off your clothes without a word.