Wendy Brown was interviewed for an article in S.O.S Mujer (Woman). Read the article here.
SOS: “I do not feel like having sex with my partner” Article at S.O.S Mujer
No Desire to Have Sex
What are the possible causes of having no desire to have sex with a partner?
In my experience, there are many possible causes of having no desire to have sex with a partner. A person could have a physical problem, like untreated reduced thyroid function. Or, someone could be experiencing high levels of anxiety and having panic attacks. Another individual might be undergoing a lot of stress, or having difficulty adjusting to change. Then, it’s also possible that somebody has never had much sexual desire and what they had has gradually fizzled out. But, often enough, there is no easy or obvious explanation for having no desire to have sex with a partner when you look at just the individual with that problem. To understand what’s going on, you need to figure out how the relationship is going with the partner.
It is very, very common to have a person say he/she doesn’t want his/her partner too close. Sometimes the individual will request not to be touched by him/her at all. In these cases, clearly a boundary has been set up for a reason but it may be difficult to understand that reason. The partner usually takes this as a terrible rejection and feels extremely threatened by it. Not knowing what to make of it, he/she may try to force him/herself on the person thinking that will get the two of them past this irrational, hurtful phase in their relationship. However, being pushy and forward like this usually makes the situation much worse.
The partner can take for granted that something has happened to make his/her loved one put up his/her guard. It could be a lack of emotional closeness, a feeling of being unready for physical contact or feeling somehow threatened by it. For example, a man who wanted understanding and support from his wife received a lot of demands and coldness instead. He said he couldn’t help it; he shut down sexually towards her and became impotent. She pressured him to go to the doctor for a prescription for Viagra, but then he couldn’t be convinced to swallow it.
It might even be that the individual feels emotionally or sexually mistreated or exploited. For example, over a period of time, the couple has lost a lot of closeness, but the partner sees that as no impediment to their sexual relationship. The person who needs the emotional bond to feel comfortable sexually then starts to feel like a piece of meat. That can be experienced as very dehumanizing and objectifying. It can start up a real power struggle between them: One might count the number of times they’ve had sex in the last year, blaming the other for its lack and threatening to leave if their sex life doesn’t improve.
Another possible cause of having no desire to have sex with a partner can be that the individual was never really that attracted to him/her. This happens in marriages of convenience, rebounds, or marrying a friend who is like a brother or sister. These people will often say that they knew they didn’t have much chemistry with their partners, but rationalized it somehow. They might figure that the rate of having sex drops over time in all marriages. Or, they could think the partners will grow on them. Then, they find themselves in a long-term relationship trying every which way to reduce or eliminate the need to have sex.
What strategies can be implemented to foster the desire?
If the individual with no desire has shut down sexually due to feeling a lack of closeness he/she probably finds it awkward, unpleasant or even violating to be expected to have sex with a person who feels like a stranger. The same is true for the person who feels mistreated or exploited. In these cases, it is essential to re-build an emotional bond that feels loving and trusting. This will take time and the individual who has shut down needs to be the one to initiate or request physical contact.
It is vitally important for the rejected partner to be strong, patient, dignified and respectful about all of this. It is a complete disaster for him/her to try to force, coerce or trick his/her loved one into having sex before he/she is ready. That has the distinct potential to create hatred and mistrust which will take a lot longer and be much more work to fix if it is fixable at all.
The person who never had much chemistry or desire for his/her partner and even that has deteriorated may not be open to resuming a sexual relationship at all. The best possible scenario in these cases is establishing a friends with benefits scenario in which sex is more a matter of convenience, recreation or release than it is an enormously loving and passionate experience.
How should you communicate the situation to your partner?
Often enough, a partner who is being rejected sexually knows it and feels it. He/she may be the first one to talk about it.
In the cases in which the partner is blissfully unaware that his/her loved one has no sexual desire, he/she needs to be told. I recommend that this be done kindly and gently. But it’s very important for the partner to know that his/her sexual contact is unwelcome. That’s because additional unwelcome sexual contact will only cause more harm; if it goes too far, it may be impossible to rectify the situation.
Although circumstances in which one partner has no desire to have sex tend to be very painful, they can be opportunities for growth and change. I’ve seen many couples successfully work through their issues and re-develop sexual relationships. The keywords for this kind of success are understanding, patience and respect.
Who are Red-hot Lovers?
Being a Red-hot Lover is quite a distinction. It means you could be one of the greatest lovers the world has ever known.
Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton were true Red-hot Lovers. They had the virility, the obsession, the jealousy and the pain. Liz and Dick were both married to other people when their scandalous love affair started. They received criticism from the Vatican, the US Senate and Ed Sullivan. Sixteen months after their divorce, Dick was quoted to say ‘You can’t keep clapping a couple of sticks [of dynamite] together without expecting them to blow up.’ Whatever you think of the wild rollercoaster ride they took together, they had Red-hot Love in spades.
Of course, there are happy endings with Red-hot Love. Vivian Ward (Jessica Roberts) and Edward Lewis (Richard Gere) were Red-hot Lovers in the movie Pretty Woman. As the picture proceeds, it becomes less and less relevant that Vivian is a prostitute. She and Edward develop a passion for each other. He ends up having his chauffeur drive him to her place in a business suit and shining car so he can climb up the fire escape (even though he’s afraid of heights) with a rose in his teeth. She wanted a fairytale courtship with a knight in shining armor.
Red-hot Love has complexity to it. The Princess of Wales, Diana Spencer had the sensitivity, the anguish, the lovesickness and the drama of Red-hot Love. She lived in the realm of hope and despair; a candle in the wind.
There are many Red-hot Lovers among us.
Who do we thank for Red-hot Lovers?
Firstly, we need to define Red-hot Love: Romance that’s full of passion, drama, intensity and lovesickness.
We need to thank the courtly lovers of the Middle Ages for Red-hot Love:
- Without them we might not have drama kings and queens, princes and princesses and a lot of the high maintenance lovers of the world.
- We may have missed out entirely on the knight in shining armor rescuing the poor fellow or the damsel in distress with his/her love.
- We could be lacking the exquisitely sensitive, heartbreakingly appealing gentle lover who stumbles and falls in matters of love.
- It’s possible that we wouldn’t have developed the ever popular game of playing hard to get.
- And where would we be if they hadn’t developed lovesickness into a prescribed ritual?
Arguably, we may not even have Ashley Madison if it wasn’t for the courtly lovers. For all of their Courts of Love, Laws of Love, Code of Chivalry and high culture of love, they specialized in adultery. They openly promoted and condoned emotional affairs and turned a blind eye to sexual ones. They developed a system, complete with rules, for affairs. The typical love relationship was between a single gentleman and a married lady; he was probably a knight in service to her husband. When you think about the complications in that situation, it makes the drama, intrigue and betrayal in Ashley Madison look like a walk in the park.
And we might not even have Tinder.
Tinder is conceived to be exactly the opposite of what the courtly lovers were all about. They promoted one love and no sex as a means of keeping their emotions at a high pitch. But today we recognize that love is a lot of trouble: It’s complicated, time-consuming and it can go wrong. Sex or a date via Tinder is meant to be easy: It’s a straightforward swipe left or right, it’s instantly available on your phone and it usually produces some type of sex or date. On the surface of it at least, Tinder thumbs its nose at courtly love and Red-hot Love.
Courtly love in the Middle Ages set the stage for us to have Red-hot Love and we’ve been nurturing it ever since.
Chronic cheating
Cheating causes some of the worst pain this world has ever known. People describe it as feeling like they’ve been punched in the stomach and had their hearts ripped out. Some cheaters get it. They realize what they’ve done and feel their partner’s pain. But, those with empathy like this seem to be in the minority; most cheaters say they feel really terrible over what they’ve done but it’s somehow less than totally believable. And you’ve got to seriously question the extent to which a chronic cheater feels for his/her partner.
It’s possible to have a mismatch in a couple: one is monogamous and the other is poly amorous. Often enough, the poly amorous one doesn’t want to admit it and pretends to be monogamous. This could be due to shame or guilt over not having the strict moral code of his/her partner. But more likely, it’s because he/she is afraid of the partner’s reaction: suspicion, rejection or argument. Some poly amorous individuals like to operate under the radar because they’re OK with cheating themselves but they’re horrified at the thought that their partners might want equal rights.
Both people in a couple could be essentially monogamous, but the cheater might be very insecure, entitled or angry. Cheating may provide a sense of security or insurance to someone who is feeling threatened, albeit a poor sense of security. An individual who cheats because he/she is entitled probably realizes it’s possible to get away with it and asks him/herself why not. The general idea is that what the partner doesn’t know won’t hurt him/her. Angry or indignant cheaters may be the most common. These people have a feeling of having been betrayed by life or by their partners in one or more ways: feeling dismissed, unappreciated, unloved or unwanted. In their minds, this gives them permission to cheat.
Chronic cheaters have usually settled into a pattern of behavior that includes their partners and their extracurricular activities. They have long since gotten past any negative thoughts or feelings about themselves and the potential or actual impact of their behavior. For them, the emotional contract with their partners now includes their cheating.
Often enough, their partners have some inkling about what’s going on, but don’t really want to know for sure. Occasionally partners are totally blindsided when they learn about chronic cheating.
At the end of the day, there’s an irony in cheating. The partner who is cheated upon generally takes it like a ton of bricks and questions everything: What does it mean? How could you? Did you even think of me? Are we done? The cheater, especially the chronic cheater, may have no answers to these questions. Or, the true answers might be ones the questioner would really rather not hear.