The scenario is well known: one tries to get closer under the sheets, the other turns his hand away. All couples experience dissonance in their desire at some point, sometimes during the evening, sometimes for a few months. If you want to desire as you did on the first day, the reality is often different and fluctuations in libido are inevitable. Unfortunately, in couples, there is sometimes a deleterious urge to have relationships. According to a 2020 Ifop survey: 63% of women and 44% of men have ever had sex without wanting to. Studies also show that women tend to get bored in bed after a year of relationship, a factor that does not help maintain libido.
Chord his violins
Faced with a couple suffering from a difference in libido, sexologist Lauréline Gautier specifies first of all: “I recall that the fluctuation of libido is normal and above all it is OK. I think people really need to be blamed for this. Sex is not a constant quest for performance, like everything, it moves, it is moving and it is also very dependent on life events. This is like asking people to accept the cycles of their bodies, their hearts, and their minds. Not everything is always aligned, especially in our Western lifestyles where there are strong imbalances between private and professional life, for example.” Only, as the IFOP figures show, many people do not bow to their lack of desire and feel that they owe something. A case that should never happen, the sexologist insists: “A sexual intercourse must start from one’s own desire and not from coercion, obligation, duty, fear or injunction.”
Nevertheless, once these reminders are established, there are many ways to overcome this dissonance: “I think it’s possible to meet in one place, because the brain is a lazy organ that saves energy. And the less we do, the less you want, and there you can swing into a vicious circle. At first, you should not dramatize or take it personally but if it lasts, it can be interesting to ask yourself what might impact libido. A long-term decline can be a symptom of deeper discomfort. Let us remember that the organ of desire is the brain.” As she points out, when our desire seems to overwhelm us, an external problem may be the cause. Whether or not, Lauréline Gautier advises to activate her erotic imaginary, her fantasies: “We must not be afraid of them, we cannot control them, and no fantasy is shameful. I would also advise to resort to masturbation (avec ou sans sex-toys). This can help because it allows you to rediscover your body, make yourself happy and revive the machine (activation of desire). The partner with higher libido may also resort to masturbation during these periods.”
For the sexologist, a loss of libido can be an opportunity to rebuild the cards and reinvent the rules: “I would really advise couples who experience this to communicate, it is the key to being able to talk about these things, it avoids making films, creating tensions or even reproaches or quarrels. Sex is a sensitive topic for many, but the more we talk about it, the less complicated it is to talk about. In a second time, there is another way to talk about it and this creates privileged moments, simple occasions, easy to increase complicity and arouse desire. I am talking about using a sexual vocabulary within the couple (dirty talk) via sextos, raw language during relationships, allowing small words… Sexuality requires being creative, everything is possible, from the moment that both are consenting.” For Lauréline Gautier, it can also be effective to strengthen the other moments of intimacy of the couple, in particular by putting aside the virtual, movies and phones that tend to absorb us.
Do women still have less libido?
“The first reason for women consulting sexology is a lack of desire.” Only, it is true that in some cases, the decrease in libido is not caused by fatigue or stress but rather by a disappointing sexuality, as Maia Mazaurette raises in a chronicle about female desire:”He (the sociologist Jean-Claude Kaufmann) observes that the loss of desire often accompanies the entry into conjugality and routine, because culturally, we do not invest the servant in the same way. Men seek comfort at home… And the slightest effort. In women, on the contrary, the home rims with high expectations. When logistics becomes a chain of automatic gestures, without surprise and fantasy, they find themselves emotionally on the table.” Lauréline Gautier then asks: “We talk more often about the lack of desire in women but rarely about too much desire among men, it is also to question. And ask yourself the question: who carries the mental burden? Who has less time, less psychic space to revive the desire machine and increase his libido?”
For sexologist François Renaud interviewed by Vice, the injunctions on female sexuality can also silence their desire: “Women think that their spouses will find it difficult to accept that they are more’sexual’ than they are. To protect a little of the male ego and the role of the man who teaches sexuality to the woman, women are squeezing themselves in a bit of a puddic and conservative position. For a long time, they have been categorized as the sex that wants less sex, but, in fact, female sexuality is suppressed and women are taught to stifle their sexuality, slut shaming is a good example.”
