Ah, the low libido. Too tired for sex? You’ve always been too tired for sex? You don’t care if you ever have sex or not? What’s the big deal about how many times a week the average person has sex? – it’s not on your top ten list, for sure. You dread the thought of having to “do it” and make your partner think you’re totally into it? You’ve had partners who’ve tried to “fix” you all your life? Working on having an orgasm – it simply makes you exhausted just thinking about it? If you have the choice between a good book and sex, you’d make a bee line for the book, right? Good news: you’re normal, you have a low libido, and you’re not alone. And you can learn to love your low libido!
Not all libidos are created equally. Like breast size and penis shape, they’re all different! There isn’t one libido- sex drive – that’s better than another. They all work – the challenge shows up when libido strength doesn’t harmonize in relationships. Mismatch of libidos plagues the strongest of partners, and strains the heartiest of daters.
Let’s not confuse sex drive – the need to actually experience physical sex (intercourse, oral sex, et al) – with feeling sexy. They are two distinct happenings. Your low libido can allow you to feel sexy, but not want to have sex. I know you know what I mean!
In the former, libido or sex drive, that wonderful arousal occurs – an erection for both men and women, though it’s clearly not as obvious in women. The heart beats faster. Lubrication occurs (or, for our midlife plus crowd, artificial lube is used). There’s literally a hot lust that makes you desire another person.
Feeling sexy is feeling alluring, feeling alive as a man or a women, and not necessarily so that you want to actually have sex. It plays out in the way you carry yourself, the clothes you wear, the words you speak.
The point is that your wonderful low libido can allow you to be sexy without having sex. How does this play out for you and your partner? When the high libido partner wants sex, the low libido partner can do sexy things to satisfy that high libido counterpart. Dress up in alluring outfits. Strip in front of your partner. Allow yourself to do things to him/her that don’t involve you having to have yourself rubbed and touched to orgasm.
In our Sex on the Porch series, many women ask how to handle low libidos with overly zealous partners. Check out some suggestions here.
Most important, adhere to the rule of 3 for great sex: communicate, communicate, communicate. If you can’t do it by yourselves, see a coach. However you want to talk about it, just talk about it! Let your partner know that this is nothing personal, but you just don’t have the level of desire that he/she does. Let him/her masturbate in front of you. Make a deal: you will have intercourse (or oral sex, or however he/she defines “having sex”) in exchange for an activity that you want to do (walk on the beach, go to the movies, etc.) Sounds hokey, but those contracts work.
You never know, you just may end up wanting more when the pressure is off.
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