Xander Marin: Who always wants sex more in a heterosexual
relationship, the guy, right?
Vanessa Marin: Wrong.
We recently surveyed our Instagram audience about this.
We got thousands and thousands of responses and actually 46% of people said that in their
relationship, the woman is the partner with the higher sex drive.
And yet, most people seem to think that it's always the guy who's supposed to want sex
more often.
But again, for nearly half of all couples, it's just not the case.
And the problem is that it leaves this path of all couples feeling like there's something
really wrong with their relationship.
So today we are talking about what to do if you're in a relationship where the woman has
the higher sex drive.
Xander Marin: Are you guys new here?
If so, hello, I am Xander.
This has Vanessa Marin.
Vanessa is a sex therapist and we've been married for 13 years.
Vanessa Marin: And our account is all about giving you the
practical tools that you need to create an extraordinary relationship inside of the bedroom
and out.
So if you're interested in that, just go ahead and hit that subscribe button right now.
Xander Marin: Because who isn't?
Vanessa Marin: All right, number one is that it is completely
common and normal to be in a relationship where the woman is the one with the higher
sex drive.
I know we've already said this like three times already and we're right at the beginning
of the video, but that's because it's just so important for us to normalize this.
Whenever we talk to people about the woman being the partner with the higher sex drive,
people always say like, "Oh my God, I thought that was only our relationship.
I've literally never heard of another couple where this is the issue."
So we're just going to keep drilling that point home.
It is totally normal and common.
Xander Marin: Yeah.
And then number two following on that one is just that it is totally relative and also
kind of random.
So right now you might feel like you have a high sex drive relative to your partner,
but maybe you've been in a relationship in the past where your partner had a higher sex
drive than you do.
Vanessa Marin: Or your next partner could be somebody who
has a higher sex drive.
Xander Marin: All of a sudden, you might not feel the way
you are right now.
Vanessa Marin: Yeah.
It's not like they're really...
You can quantify like high sex drive, low sex drive because it's so relative.
Two low sex drive people could be in a relationship and have no issues with their sex life at
all.
Xander Marin: Yeah, so because of this relativity it doesn't
mean that there's like a bad or a good type of sex drive.
It's just if you feel like it's high right now, it's just relatively higher or relatively
lower than the person that you're with.
So the second point really builds on that first one.
And that's that sex drive is totally relative and also kind of random.
So you might feel like you have a really high sex drive right now, but in the past you might've
been with a partner that had a higher one than you, and maybe yours even felt low in
that situation.
So that kind of means that there is no such thing as a bad or low sex drive.
There's just a relatively lower or a relatively higher sex drive than the person that you're
with right now.
Because who knows?
Your next relationship you might be with someone that has a sky high sex drive and then you
might feel like you have a low sex drive.
Vanessa Marin: Exactly.
All right, number three is that our sex drives change too.
So I think a lot of us make the mistake of thinking of sex drive as like this fixed value
like you always have this sex drive.
But we've experienced our own sex drives changing, right?
You've probably had periods of your life where your sex drive is lower, periods where it
was higher.
So going back to that point about like how it's all relative, it can change within a
relationship too.
So in our relationship, for example, we've definitely had periods of time where Xander
was the one with the higher sex drive.
We've had periods of time where I was the one with the higher sex drive.
So it's just recognizing things are always in flux.
It's not like you're ever just stuck with these are your sex drives and that's it.
Xander Marin: All right, so number four is that we never
see women with higher sex drives really depicted in the media.
So here's a question for you.
Can you think of a single example from TV, the movies, or even a book where there's a
heterosexual relationship and the woman has the higher sex drive?
We just don't tend to see that kind of stuff.
But we just said a minute ago that almost half of our Instagram followers are in a relationship
where the woman has a higher sex drive.
So it's obviously a lot more common than is depicted in the media.
So in the media, you see tons of examples of horny men who just want sex all the time,
they're down any time, anywhere.
And then women who just kind of quarrelly bat them away, right?
And there's tons of jokes even about wives being like cold or frigid because they always
refuse their husbands.
But where are all the jokes about horny women getting rejected, right?
Or about men who feel emasculated by their horny female partner.
Vanessa Marin: You just don't see it.
Xander Marin: Yeah, this is so important because if you
never read or see or hear about these types of things, then it's easy to fall into the
trap of just believing that there's something wrong with you if you don't fit that mold.
And then this leads to a lot of shame and embarrassment as you might expect.
Vanessa Marin: Okay.
And that brings us to number five, the gender stereotypes are the problem, not your sex
drives.
So we're taught to believe men are the ones who always want sex more, women are the ones
who have to always fend them off and turn them down.
And we really internalize those beliefs.
So if you're in a relationship where the woman's the one who has a higher sex drive, oftentimes
the man will feel really emasculated.
He'll feel like something's horribly wrong with him.
And that of course will only depress his sex drive even more like, "Why would you want
to have sex if you're feeling really bad about yourself?"
Not feeling particularly masculine.
So it can also lead him to act out in other ways.
He might start to feel depressed, angry, really frustrated, and it can lead to a lot of tension
in the relationship.
On other hand, the woman might be feeling really unfeminine.
Like something's probably wrong with her too.
And a lot of times I can also speak from personal experience with this one here.
A lot of times women with higher sex drives will try to stop initiating and kind of play
this game of like, "Oh, I'll let him come to me, let him be the man.
I'm tired of initiating."
And then he doesn't initiate because he's dealing with his own feelings of insecurity
and feeling emasculated.
And then she gets even more frustrated and upset.
And it just winds up with both of them having way less sex than either one desires.
So it's just really important to recognize it's the gender stereotypes that are creating
this dynamic, but you guys don't have to keep buying into that.
And we're going to talk a little bit more about how to get out of that trap.
Xander Marin: Yeah.
So let's talk about what to do if you are in a relationship like this, where the woman
is the one with the higher sex drive.
So we got six tips for you.
Vanessa Marin: Ooh.
All right, tip number one is to feel your feelings, but then get clear on your values.
Xander Marin: Feel them and then get over it.
Vanessa Marin: I wish it was that easy.
So we again just want to normalize.
Like if you've been feeling really bad and guilty and frustrated being in this situation
that we totally get it.
Like we have been there ourselves.
We know how easy it is to internalize all this BS that we're taught about gender roles
and stereotypes, and all this kind of stuff.
So it's okay to acknowledge, "Hey, this has really been getting in our way.
This has been causing us a lot of frustration and resentment and anger.
"So acknowledge that, but then really get clear for yourself about, "Okay, are these
the kinds of expectations that we want to have in our relationship?"
So do you want to have super traditional gender roles and stereotypes in your own relationship?
Even if you do, do you want to have them specifically with your sex life?
So it's really important to get clear with yourselves about, "Hey, maybe we don't want
to let this dynamic show up in our relationship in the way that it has been."
And I think there's a really interesting way to look at this if you're a woman watching
this and I were to ask you, "Hey, what makes you feel feminine?
What makes you a woman?"
Would you answer, "Oh, the fact that I desire sex less than my male partner that's really
what defines me as a woman."
Xander Marin: Said in that voice, too.
Vanessa Marin: Yeah, in that voice with the weird little
hand thing that I did.
No, you would not say that.
So why would we say that the inverse is true?
That because you desire sex at this point in time, maybe just a little bit more than
your male partner that that makes you less of a woman.
So there's a lot of work that we can do here.
This could be many therapy sessions if we really wanted it to.
But the bottom line is just trying to get clear for yourself.
Is this really how I want to define my masculinity, my femininity?
Is this really the expectations that we want to put on our relationship?
Xander Marin: All right, tip number two is to remind yourself
that sex drive is not the most important thing about you.
And it really does not define your masculinity or your femininity because there's so many
other areas in your life can make you feel masculine or feminine.
There's so many other things that you can do that really probably define your life.
And those might be the things you do outside, the type of workouts that you do, the ways
that you show up with your friends.
So sex drive is not everything.
Vanessa Marin: So it's really easy to fixate on your sex
drive and feel like that's the main thing, but we encourage you to spend time thinking
about what are the other ways in your life that you feel masculine, that you feel feminine,
that you feel connected to yourself, tuned into your own body.
The more time you can focus on that, the more pressure it will take away from your sex drive
in particular.
All right, tip number three is to try to accept where you are at.
So we put the try there because we know that this is challenging, but it's really important
to accept that you have your sex drive.
It's going to change at different points in your life.
Your partner has their sex drive.
It's going to change in different points in their life, too.
But the more you've tried to fight against your sex drives, the worst things are going
to feel.
We've got to just accept where we are and recognizing we're just at a particular point
in time.
There are seasons in life.
Things are always going to change.
So you're not going to be able to like bully yourself into changing your sex drive or bully
your partner into changing theirs.
If we start with this place of acceptance, then it actually frees up a lot of energy
for us to focus on other possibilities like other ways to connect, to work on our sex
life to improve things.
So try, just try to accept where you're at.
Xander Marin: All right, tip number four is be a team.
Because sex drive has this way of making you feel like you're almost opponents with your
partner like one of them has something that the other wants and they won't give it to
them, or the partner can't get it.
And that's not-
Vanessa Marin: Or the other partner is being too demanding.
Xander Marin: Yeah, yeah.
Definitely.
So you don't want to fall into that trap.
So instead of using all that energy on kind of battling it out with your opponent.
Instead, you guys can focus on what it is that you both need to get turned on and have
a great sex life.
What's going to feel good rather than focusing on what doesn't feel good?
Vanessa Marin: And one thing in particular that you can do
like men to focus on.
If you're feeling like your sex drive feels blocked, there is something getting in the
way, you can spend some of that attention thinking, "Is there anything that my partner
could help me out with?
So maybe I need help decreasing my stress levels.
Maybe I need help creating more alone time.
Maybe I want to have like date nights together so I feel more connected."
So again, it's like this different kind of approach, acting as if you're a team.
What can we do together for both of us rather than this like, "I want it five times a week.
I only want it once a month kind of thing."
All right, so that brings us to tip number five to work on initiation specifically.
So this is another example of working together as a team to figure out what you both want.
There are definitely ways to initiate sex that create a lot less pressure on the partner
who's being initiated with.
And there's also an entirely separate part of the process that we call consideration,
which is deciding what you're going to say to your partner, yes or no when they initiate
with you.
So we actually have an entire masterclass about this all about initiation and consideration.
We will put the link to that down in the description box below.
This is a surprisingly challenging skill to build that most people just haven't ever really
put any time or effort into.
So we'd definitely recommend checking that out, but some quick tips here are for women
if you have a higher sex drive, like I was mentioning earlier, a lot of women try to
stop initiating, try to let him do it.
That doesn't feel very good.
So just go ahead and initiate whenever you feel like initiating.
And for the men, feel free to say yes or no based on what you're wanting in that moment.
Again, we do have that masterclass to walk you through figuring it out because it's not
always the easiest answer.
It's important for you to recognize if you get to say yes or no based on how you're feeling
in that moment.
Xander Marin: All right, and the last tip number six is
to remember that sexual frequency is not the only thing that defines a great sex life.
Frequency is just one aspect out of many in your sex life, but it's so easy for people
to get fixated on frequency as if, "Oh, as long as we're having as much or more than
the average person that somehow we'll be happy."
Vanessa Marin: For the magic number.
Xander Marin: Yeah, the magic number.
But the reality is there are so many other things that matter and I would say they matter
a lot more than frequency.
So what is the quality of the sex that you're having?
How much connection and intimacy do you guys have?
Are you exploring new things and feeling adventurous?
Vanessa Marin: Yeah.
The more you focus on those kinds of things, the more pressure it will take off of the
frequency, too.
All right, so that wraps up our top tips for heterosexual couples where the woman is the
one who currently wants sex more than her male partner.
Xander Marin: Yeah.
So if you liked this video, please give it a like, hit that red button down below to
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videos as soon as we post them.
Vanessa Marin: And we also have a little gift for you.
If the idea of bringing up sex with your partner sounds really overwhelming and intimidating
to you, we have this free guide called How To Start Talking About Sex With Your Partner
- Even If You Never Have Before.
And we'll walk you through step-by-step exactly what to say, give you scripts that you can
just copy and soon you will be talking about sex like a pro.
Xander Marin: Oh yeah.
Vanessa Marin: Thanks so much for watching.
Xander Marin: See you next time.