Hi! I’m Tori, and I am a doctor of
physical therapy who specializes in pelvic dysfunction, which means
I treat things that can go wrong around the pelvis—and this includes sexual dysfunction.
If you haven’t, think about checking out the first video in this series as it introduces
what’s normal and abnormal surrounding female libido and it speaks more about my intention
behind creating the series—which, in summary, is to walk you through how
I would approach treating low libido as a patient who is also a pelvic health provider.
Today’s segment focuses on relationships, as sex drive can absolutely be impacted—both negatively
and positively—by your relationship with your sexual partner or partners;
therefore, examining that relationship, and sort of thoughtfully peeling back its layers,
could be really helpful when trying to understand and treat low libido.
Before I speak more on this topic, I want to reiterate that I am a physical therapist,
not a sex therapist or a specialized counselor, and my intention here is to share with you how I
would examine my sexual relationship personally, not to give you relationship advice
professionally, because I am not qualified to do that! I also want to share that, unless I was
rather confident that my relationship was the likely cause of my low libido,
I would want to rule out medical or biological causes first. I do have videos in this series
dedicated to examining medications, your physical body, and hormones that might be
helpful if you haven’t yet ruled out those medical or biological causes! Links to those
videos can be found in the description below. Finally, I am in a heterosexual relationship,
and I will be using my relationship to guide my ideas in this video; however, I am hopeful
that what I propose can be applied to any sexual relationship, not just a heterosexual one.
So, with all of that being said, let’s talk about relationships and low libido. While I
want to share with you different areas of myself and my relationship that I’d want to explore
AND how I would want to talk with my husband about each scenario, for the sake of the length
of the video, I’m going to unpack each area of interest here, and write about
how I would discuss certain areas with my husband in the description below.
One area that I’d be very interested in exploring and learning more about is my type of sex drive,
and my partner’s type of sex drive. If you think about how we usually talk about
sex drive and portray it in popular culture, we tend to only validate and showcase what is known
as the spontaneous type—which is the kind of sex drive that shows up instantly, with or without
physical stimulation and regardless of a person’s circumstances or surrounding environment. It’s
a part of linear sexual response model—desire first, then physical arousal, then sex.
Almost like you’re hungry, so you eat, then you’re satisfied. But have you ever not been hungry,
started eating, and then realized that you’re actually hungry and very
much want to eat the food, and ended up being super satisfied by your meal?
Dr. Emily Nagoski has her phD in health behavior and human sexuality, and proposes in her
New York Times Bestseller “Come As You Are” that while spontaneous sex drive and this linear
sexual response model are real and valid, so is something that she calls responsive sex drive.
Someone with responsive sex drive experiences desire after physical arousal—so this person
might not initiate sex because the mental desire isn’t there, but realizes after some physical
stimulation, that she does, in fact, desire sex. Instead of desire first and then arousal,
we see arousal first, and then desire, in this responsive type of sex drive.
According to Dr. Nagoski’s research, while 75% of men experience spontaneous sex drive,
only 15% of women do. That means the other 25% of men and 85% of women experience either
responsive sex drive, or a combination of responsive and spontaneous sex drive.
I think that understanding what kind of sex drive you have and what kind of sex drive your partner
has could be incredibly powerful and liberating. A responsive sex drive is perfectly healthy, and
normalizing that experience of desire—recognizing that there’s nothing wrong with you or the way
that you get excited about and interested in having sex—could help you shed feelings
of inadequacy or self-judgement, which could lead to more sexual confidence and more sex!
Statistically speaking, according to Dr. Nagoski’s research, if you’re
a female watching this video and your partner is a male, you’re much more likely to have a responsive
type or a combination type of sex drive, and he’s much more likely to have a spontaneous type.
If that is the case, learning that all three types of sex drive are normal and healthy
could help your partner depersonalize your lack of sexual advances towards him,
and recognize that he is, in fact, desirable and desired by you,
you just need a little physical stimulation before you can connect with that desire.
If the idea of a responsive or combination sex drive type resonated with me, there are
a few different ways I might go about exploring that possibility and proposing that exploration
to my husband. If you’re interested in how I would further explore this idea or how I
might talk about it with my partner, you can read more in the description below!
If the idea of my partner and me having different types of sex drives didn’t resonate,
I’d be curious about the kind of sex I’m expecting to have with my partner vs. the kind of sex that
gets me really excited. Said another way, I’d be very interested in getting specific about
what good sex means to me. I’d want to investigate whether or not the reason that I’m not feeling a
lot of desire is because I’m not that excited about the sex that I’m expecting to have.
I’m a big fan of writing, it’s my favorite self-reflection tool, and if the idea of
me and my partner not having what I feel is good sex resonated with me, I’d want to further explore
how I define good sex via writing. I’d use the question “what does good sex mean to me,
specifically?” as a sort of writing prompt. And I really do think specifics are important.
For instance, if I found myself writing something like “I want to make love, not just have sex,”
I’d push myself to define what I mean by “making love.” Do I want eye-contact? Do I
want a slow rhythm with a heavy emphasis on sensuality? Do I want to be animalistic? Do
I want to explore the pain-pleasure threshold? Do I want more foreplay? If I do, what kind
of foreplay do I want more of? Do I want to be dominated? Would I rather be in charge and spoil
my partner? There’s no wrong answer here and there’s nothing to be embarrassed about—in my
opinion, as long as it’s consensual, any kind of sex is beautiful and should be embraced, and any
avenue that leads to someone experiencing pleasure is valid and should be celebrated. Sex can be so
much more than an orgasm, and it’s okay if your definition of “good sex” focuses on other things!
The reason I think getting specific about what good sex means to me could be useful,
is because one—I deserve to have good sex and so do you, and two—I feel that focusing on quality,
instead of quantity, could naturally lead to more quantity in the future.
If you want to learn more about how I would talk
to my husband about this topic and involve him in its exploration, check the description below!
If I wasn’t resonating with the idea of my partner and me having different types of sex
drives or us not having good sex, I’d be curious about context. Circumstances and environment can
absolutely impact someone’s ability to feel sexual desire. And what’s interesting about context
is that, if you’re not bringing your awareness to how context might affect your desire,
desire might feel spontaneous when it actually isn’t. You might find yourself
feeling more sexual desire on vacation, for instance, than at home. Or maybe you feel
sexier when your kids are out of the house, than when they’re asleep in the room down the hall.
Opening up to the idea of context impacting my sex drive is something I’d want to explore
literally—by changing my and my husband’s sexual context and seeing how I responded. I’d want to
schedule sexy time away from our home or wherever we usually have sex and see what changes.
That could be something new, like having sex outside somewhere, or something simple,
like having sex in an airb&b down the street.
If I found that context significantly impacted my desire, I’d want to schedule times to have
sex with my partner in contexts that made both of us feel sexy. I know that the idea
of scheduled sexy time might not sound that appealing, but don’t knock it till you try it!
Knowing that a time to be free, and playful, and sexual with your partner is on the calendar and
happening in a space that makes you both feel open and relaxed can actually be quite
exciting! You might find yourself feeling more flirtatious towards one another, or
more interested in trying new things in bed together because the pressure
of having “spontaneous” sex in a context that doesn’t make you feel sexy is gone.
Finally, if none of what we’ve discussed thus far resonated with me, I’d want to get curious
about whether or not I was losing interest in sex in general, or losing interest
in or sexual attraction to my partner specifically. Again, I like to write,
so I would want to explore this proposal further in my writing. I’d be interested in asking myself
questions like, “when I felt immense sexual attraction towards my partner,
what was different about our lives, and what was the same?” “When I felt immense sexual attraction
towards my partner, what was different about the roles we played, and what was the same?”
For clarification, when I say “roles” in this context, I mean, if you simplify
life and view it almost as if it were a movie, what roles do you play in the movie
now, and what roles did you play when your sexual relationship was at its peak? Girlfriend? Wife?
Mother? Breadwinner? Career-oriented, ambitious protagonist? Housekeeper? And
what roles did your partner play when your sexual relationship was at its peak?
For instance, I can make a lot of sense out of being super attracted to my partner when I was
playing the career-oriented, ambitious protagonist and he was the supportive, boyfriend cheerleader,
and feeling not so attracted to my partner when I play the full-time mother,
and find myself feeling as though my partner is playing the role of one of my children.
And building off of that idea, I’d also want to ask myself—“do I feel neglected
in other areas of our relationship? If so, where? If not, how do I feel supported?”
Sexuality and libido are incredibly personal and can be influenced by
so much more than just your partner’s physical body. There is nothing wrong
with you if your sexual attraction to your partner changes as your life together changes,
the roles you play in that life change, or how you feeling in your relationship changes.
Whether you discover that it’s the type of sex drive you have, the kind of sex you’re having,
how context is impacting your sex drive, a change in your sexual attraction to your partner
specifically, or something deeper—like a lack of emotional connection or issues with trust,
that is causing your low libido, remember that solving any problem in a relationship,
sexual or otherwise, is a process, not an event. Recognize that as difficult as this
process may be, you can both commit to using the experience to strengthen your relationship,
instead of hurting it. Finally, in my opinion, it’s incredibly important that both you and
your partner take ownership over the process as a unit, instead of blaming one another
or placing the process on only one person in the relationship. And,
if it all feels too sticky or overwhelming to untangle without some external guidance,
that’s okay. Asking for help is hard, but you deserve that help. I’ve got a
link to a directory of sex therapist, counselors, and educators for you in the description below.
On that note, thank you so much for watching! If you found this video helpful, do give it a thumbs
up. And if you didn’t like it, please do give it a thumbs down and let me know what I can do
to improve in the future. Feel free to comment feedback, questions, requests, really anything
down below—I do try to read and respond to all of my comments. Don’t forget to check meowt on
instagram and finally, if you want to, please consider subscribing to the channel for more
content not only about pelvic things like today’s video but also about life things.
I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day and I will see you in the next video. Bye!