When we talk about sexual desire and what it isn’t, it would be helpful if we stopped asking – where did the sex drive in women go?
Since we already know it ran away to hibernate far away from this damn spontaneous desire place.
The question should be - why aren’t we giving it more compelling, enticing, and irresistible reasons to come out & play..?
First of all, the words, sex drive, get thrown around too easily like if they were interchangeable with sexual desire. And that’s probably the biggest misconception and what contributes to the belief that a woman’s sexual response should be more like men’s and their spontaneous desire.
Secondly, referring to a female’s sexual desire as a sex drive in women will continue to make you feel like you’re being pushed into reacting, seeking, and doing something sexual.
Just the words sex drive makes me think of a high speed chase and trying to catch something that is fleeing the scene.
And you can guess what that is? Yep, your sexual desire!
Wait, my apologies… A woman’s sex drive.
how we do spontaneous desire. See something sexy, something that registers inside us as sex-related and we quickly tell ourselves – drive, drive, driiiiiive!!
Sparking a sexual narrative of what could happen next and perhaps get us turned ON!
Just thinking about it as a sex drive puts me in a desperate state to hurry up and moooove!! Because we anticipate the pleasure that may come from taking action and we feel like we may not see it again.
Who wants to waste a sexual opportunity that appeared out of nowhere and probably didn’t even want or desired?
Hence why we push ourselves to want it and in some cases, we feel we need it so badly in order to survive.
And that’s exactly what a drive is; it pushes you to take action in order to survive your present situation.
When you feel thirsty, your body is sending you signals to seek water to hydrate. If you don’t, you will die. Just like when you feel hungry. You can survive longer without food than water, but your body still needs nutrients to function.
What happens to you when you’re sleep deprived? You can’t think straight, lose reflexes and coordination, have difficulty moving around, and much less do anything you normally would do. You’re body at that point may or will shut down regardless of what you’re doing just to get some rest. It needs rest to survive.
The way we do spontaneous desire makes us feel like we need sex or we will die; an urge that needs to be satisfied. So we are pushed to do anything possible to have it. Once something sex-related cues us, we’re triggered to take action.
The thing is that the sexual response system for men is more tuned in to work this way than for women. Sadly, you get pushed to behave similarly and when you don’t, the logic is that there must be something wrong with you. When there really isn’t anything wrong with you or your female lack of sexual desire.
Only that we continue to consider it and treat it as a sex drive in women, something you need to survive as opposed to what it is..
curiosity that motivates us to explore a pleasurable incentive. And this aligns more with your, a woman’s, sexual desire style – responsive desire - where you respond sexually after sexy & pleasurable things are already happening. You are no longer being pushed or sexually driven to ‘survive’ anticipating pleasurable events that may never come.
You are enticed, seductively being pulled by pleasurable things already happening. Which motivate you to seek a reward – not survival. You enjoy the process of being pleasured & satisfied as opposed to lose your mind pushing & sexually driving yourself just to get off.
Huge difference and distinction and one of the main reasons why women have been made to feel broken & frustrated, instead of normal, healthy, and beautiful.
Would you rather be pushed to just get off or pulled by the incentive of pleasure & satisfaction?
Would there be a change in how you feel about your sexual desire?
So that’s one of the key differences between men and women and sex.
Can we start seeing it as a pleasurable incentive rather than a sex drive in women? Sweet!!
Part of the problem of seeing a woman’s sexual desire as a sex drive in women is that it then becomes easier to fall into the trap of believing that you just need a medical quick fix to be normal. When in reality, you’re already normal and don’t need to be “fixed” since you’re not ‘broken’.
Even though a small percentage of women may benefit from some kind of hormone therapy, most women do not. In her book, Come As You Are, Sex Educator Emily Nagoski explains how “Lori Brotto and her colleagues tested six hormonal factors to determine which predicted more or less dysfunction in women with low desire, and not one of them was significantly predictive of low desire.”
What they did say has a bigger impact in a woman’s lack of sexual desire was – Context – the effects of stress, depression, anxiety, past trauma, and attachment in your life.
How you feel inside about yourself and life intertwined with your daily environment and surroundings.
Part of what makes this choice attractive is that it just takes one pill prior to having sex and ‘all your troubles’ go away… Voila! Like magic, now you’re turned ON!, Hot & Ready to be sexually driven!
It works for men, so why wouldn’t it work for women as well?
Two major flaws in that logic:
But for most women, that presents a problem because:
So we can’t approach arousal & sexual desire in men and women in the same way since the response between them can be quite different.
Ask yourself, what does it really “fix” or do then?
Are you willing to risk the side-effects it will cause for not even a minimal benefit?
The only problem here is our sex drive in women approach and a lack of incentivizing a woman’s sexual response. When we start & continue to motivate her sexual curiosity with pleasure, the conversation of female lack of sexual desire will be a thing of the past and hopefully become non-existent.
But if you are looking for something you can use to get in a sexier state and turned ON! before having sex, give this a try..
And the next misconception is…
Do you believe that being monogamous and in a long-term relationship kills your sexual desire?
That after the honeymoon phase you know each other so well that it’s no longer necessary to put in the extra effort to impress?
or
You get so tired of the best moves routine, that you know exactly what’s going to happen next and makes you feel stuck in a sexual re-run loop.
True! This does happen and why there are many studies that show how sex becomes less frequent the longer you have been in a relationship.
What contributes to this problem is a pattern to approaching sex that turns you off way more than it turns you on. You get trapped and frustrated in a “chasing dynamic”; where one partner is usually initiating and pursuing their partner to have sex. As in pushing or driving their partner to want sex more than they would like.
The partner with a “higher” desire is always chasing the “lower” desire partner around. This makes things worse and spiral out of control fast.
This doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with the “lower” desire partner, it’s more about knowing and understanding each other’s desire style, spontaneous & responsive, and finding a better, different approach that satisfies one another’s wants & needs.
There are two leading philosophies about sustaining desire in a long-term relationship.
One is based on creating space, and in that space, your hunger for your partner grows and grows, allowing your desire to be with them propel you both to cross the bridge and be together. The reasoning is you want what you don’t have and not having them is what moves you towards them; how you create desire.
The second is based on staying close and feel connected to your partner. You don’t want distance and mystery, quite the opposite; you want a deeper emotional connection with your partner. You enjoy the quiet moments to have intimate conversations and share much affection for one another. You both sustain your desire by building a bridge together.
Hopefully we have made a good case about what desire isn’t, definitely not a sex drive in women, and what is likely not causing your lack of sexual desire.
More importantly, continue to show you that you are not the problem.
Now that we know what isn’t, we can take a closer look at what is most likely causing your trouble. And when we talk about women and sexual desire, stress is the biggest issue tripping a woman up and turning her off.
When most women are stressed, sex is what least is on their mind.
You are in a fight, flight, or freeze state; your priority is feeling safe, whole, and home. And until you feel that way, NO sex for you! ; )
What normally activates your stress response are stressors that don’t allow you to feel good about yourself and life or beautiful and sexy since they constantly make you worry. And when worry, anxiety, and frustration are all bundled up together inside you creating internal chaos, no matter what you do, it will be extremely difficult to get turned ON! and enjoy what you want to enjoy.
Just know this is a healthy and normal response to what is happening in your life. It sucks!! And even more since it does affect a female’s sexual desire.
The best thing we can do is understand what some of these constant stressors are, and find ways to navigate and minimize them so they affect you less and less.
And sooner rather than later, you will be closer and closer to enjoying the pleasure that ignites your sexual desire.
Would you like to know what they are, how they are affecting you, and what you can do about it?
Yes I do!!