Mismatched sex drives: What if you want sex less often than your partner

CONTENT WARNING: Adult themes.

SEXUAL desire is a fickle beast. You can’t depend on it and you can’t tame it.

There’s no ‘normal’ when it comes to libido, there’s only your normal. So if you want to understand how lust works in your life, you’ll need to find a way to make your wild libido happy. And the best way to begin to do that is to give yourself permission to feel exactly what you’re feeling. No expectations, no pressures and no judgments.

And that may mean accepting that right now, your sexo-meter is set to ‘sloth’.

There are so many reasons why desire doesn’t come to visit. Sometimes the reasons are good, like when your downstairs gadget lets you know a tired relationship has run its course. Or when you’re somewhere on the asexual spectrum like at least 1 per cent of the population. Or when you’ve come to a point in your life where sex is no longer interesting.

These are all situations where your wild libido is letting you know the score. And you need to be brave enough to listen, if you want to avoid the misery that comes from forcing yourself to be someone you’re not into.

And sometimes lust goes on holiday because your partner has been hurtful, betrayed you or offered you so little support that even your gonads are over it. If that’s the case, then give yourself permission not to want sex for now, until you can tackle the issues together that lead to your loss of desire.

And maybe you’re not asexual, hurting or uninterested. Maybe your partner is just not so good at the business. Maybe you’re not so good at the business either. If the quality of your sex life isn’t great, then this could be a technical issue. Maybe you’ve never taken the time or felt free enough to really get to know your instrument or felt safe enough to explore your passions.

Luckily enough, in these more permissive times, there are sexual therapists and educators that can help you with the practicalities of sex and support you to have the courage to find out more about your body and sexual self. If this sounds like your territory, don’t be too shy to enlist their help. There’s no shame in needing some sexual guidance.

Most of us grew up without even a basic level of permission to own our bodies and desires. So when it comes to a loss of lustiness, we don’t even know enough about what drives our passion to begin to understand what turned the tap off.

It can be incredibly confronting to face even a short period of time where your libido appears to have gone AWOL. But take a deep breath and see if you can give yourself the time to get to know yourself better. The only way to feel safe about a loss or a lack of desire is to give yourself permission to put the brakes on for now.

It’s OK not to want to. You’re OK if you don’t want to.

So give yourself the time to find out what’s happening in your sex world. Try and accept what you find. Ask for help if you get lost. And don’t forget that sex is about pleasure. It’s not an obligation, a performance, a gift, or a duty. It’s simply about what brings you joy.