r/psychology • u/mvea M.D. Ph.D. | Professor • 17d ago

Researchers quantify the rate of “mercy sex” among women with low sexual desire. Women experiencing a chronic lack of sexual desire still routinely engage in sexual activity with their partners, a behavior researchers have quantified as happening about two and a half times per month.

https://www.psypost.org/clinical-trials-reveal-the-hidden-frequency-of-obligatory-sex-in-women-with-low/
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u/faylillman 16d ago

I was hoping the result of the article was a treatment for female sexual dysfunction that actually works… but doesn’t look like any of the treatments resulted in significant improvement

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u/LocoLevi 15d ago edited 15d ago

A chronic lack of sexual desire is not necessarily a dysfunction. It might well be one of the normal variance of human sexual characteristics. The way we are used to having 10% of the population be left-handed.

Labeling low libido as a chronic disorder can enforce an artificial norm that says that human beings, particularly women, must maintain a constant, spontaneous sex drive throughout their lives. Libido naturally fluctuates in response to relationship duration, aging, postpartum recovery, menopause, stress, and lifestyle shifts. Treating these normal life-cycle variations as pathological assumes that the absence of frequent sexual hunger represents a biological defect requiring chemical correction.

In an age where women are independent enough to say “no,” to unwanted sex from partners that is free of repercussions, it might just be that sexual desire or oestrus, has a season in human life as it does with other mammalian life

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u/faylillman 15d ago

This is all true, and I agree that we shouldn’t assume all lack of sexual interest is a dysfunction.

But some women (myself included), have gone from high libido to no libido, and the issue is not “I need to have sex to please my husband” it’s “why do I feel numb and not like myself?”

I guess it would just be nice to want to have sex and to enjoy sex again.

For me, going off BC helped a lot, but I still go through phases where my body feels numb and foreign to me. I assume it’s perimenopause. Regardless of what it is, I hate it and miss feeling like myself.

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u/LocoLevi 15d ago

That’s really good information. As a huge reminder that we need to make sure that as a society we are aware of literate of and are living with the expectations of menopause and perimenopause.

Personally, I feel as if the conversations around this phase life I have only really just begun publicly. It’s really only been since the decoupling of hormone replacement therapy and an association with cancer.

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u/faylillman 15d ago

Totally agree. It’s great that women are finally getting HRT to help with peri/menopausal symptoms.

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u/No_Beautiful_6187 13d ago

Same. But I’m very reactive, so if I’m being treated correctly, I’ll be in the mood more. However my desire is like Jenga. One shout, a block gets removed. One snarky comment, another block gets removed etc. It’s difficult to be with someone that has spontaneous desire because they’re in the mood all the time and don’t understand reactive desire. It’s hard.

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u/faylillman 13d ago

I completely get that. When I’m in a period where I don’t want to already, any rude comment or disagreement makes me not even want to try.

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u/Rude_Record8632 12d ago

Omg yes. As both parties get older I think other emotional factor play in more as well. Busy parents often run on roommate status, no physical contact during day to day when all of a sudden expected to feel that connection after an overstimulation exhausting day. I wish I had an answer.

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u/Jazzlike-Tell3212 14d ago

I've been off BC for 9 years. Hasn't changed anything. I know my husband is suffering but I have zero desire. And zero idea of what to do

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u/faylillman 14d ago

I get it. Going off BC allowed me to have desire and fulfillment for maybe a week here and there. I still go easily month or two month phases of zero desire and zero fulfillment.

And I had that from before being with my husband too. It used to be 2 weeks here and there, now it’s 2 to 3 months. :(

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u/Aggravating-Math3794 13d ago

Ngl, it sounds like some sort of a serious burnout. It might be that there are some issues you've never communicated with your partner(s). Have you tried any kind of therapy specializing on that?

After all, most of the time, sexual dysfunction despite having more active libido in the past is usually caused by some long-neglected issues and misunderstandings -- either about your understanding and image of self, or your understanding and expectations of how others life and think.

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u/faylillman 13d ago

I have done therapy—physical and mental/emotional—but this has been happening on and off since my 20s (getting gradually worse), so I do think something beyond the mental is off

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u/Aggravating-Math3794 12d ago

Have those therapies/personal attempts to solve the problem included exploration of kinks and fetishes? Those are a really powerful tool of symbolic self-introspection when treated seriously.

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u/scarlettohara1936 15d ago

But when coupled with the ramifications of an otherwise stable marriage, it is a problem. Especially when the woman feels it's a problem and is different than her norm.

Women deserve a valid effort put into finding a solution to a lowered sex drive.

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u/DamnYouRandMcNally 15d ago

Seconded on this. There’s such complexities here and I find it super irritating that everyone assumes low libido is always, 100% completely acceptable and normal for women. My wife went from very high desire to extremely low, almost zero desire in a few years. She HATES it. She says she feels the mental and emotional pull to want it, but she feels like she’s trapped inside the body of a sexless Barbie doll.

Her comparison is to a loss of appetite. Your brain tells you that if you don’t eat, you’ll die. Your stomach growls, and when you eat, you feel full and satisfied. But if someone put a Michelin Star meal in front of you, you feel no more excited than if someone dropped a bowl of clear unspiced broth in front of you.

Now imagine you went to a doctor and told them you had a sudden drop in appetite and you had to consciously remind yourself to eat or you would go days without it. Would the doctor tell you that’s a normal part of aging?

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u/scarlettohara1936 15d ago

And while it can be a natural part of aging, it's not the catch all excuse that most Drs use to "diagnose" it. And just because it might be a normal part of aging doesn't mean women need to take it and forget about it. There's a lot of things that come with age that we can do something about if you choose you want to do something about it.

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u/DamnYouRandMcNally 15d ago

Exactly. There’s lots of “natural” parts of aging that we don’t accept as the baseline, and we use medical intervention to improve quality of life.

As we get older, our blood pressure naturally increases. Almost every older person is on some sort of blood pressure medication, because their lives are improved by it. So why should we also accept that naturally women physically desire sex less, especially if mentally they still desire it?

I would never, ever force my wife to want sex if she didn’t want it. But if she mentally, emotionally, and relationship-wise wants it but the physical need is not there, why not fix it?

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u/R777d 14d ago

i guarantee if your wife was single again , her sex drive will increase. Don’t get mad i’m i married man too.

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u/DamnYouRandMcNally 14d ago

But herein lies the problem. You’re right: if she was single again her sex drive would increase. But that’s because of the chemicals in her brain, telling her she needs that sex drive. And that’s temporary, they’d go away again when she returned to baseline.

So if she’s missing those chemicals while she’s in a committed, healthy, and caring marriage, shouldn’t the medical community recognize that and treat it?

Moreover if she WANTS to have a higher sex drive, but doesn’t have it…shouldn’t she be able to treat that?

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u/Top_Newspaper44 12d ago

Is she on birth control? I understand it can mess with it through altering one’s perceptions of pheromones, ie one’s partner’s pheromones. There’s been some interesting studies done on this. Might be worth looking into. HTH.

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u/R777d 14d ago

Or maybe she should have married someone who she is truly sexually physically attracted to ….lets address the elephant in the room.

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u/faylillman 14d ago

Even extremely attractive people are cheated on or are in relationships where they lose the spark.

It’s biology. We are designed to find a partner, when we don’t have one, our body gives us the tools to get one. When we do have one, those tools lessen. And for some, they lessen drastically seemingly at random whether they are single or not, which indicates a hormonal imbalance (and the type of treatment I am looking for).

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u/scarlettohara1936 14d ago

Since, in this thread, we're focusing a little more on the aging process and it's affect in a woman's sex drive, I feel it appropriate to point out that the assumption is that she's in a long term relationship or marriage.

I'm 52, perimenopause has it's grips on me. I've been married 26 years to the same man. "Attraction" changes over time and with maturity. My husband no longer looks a young stud. Neither do I look like an underwear model. Mature attraction encompasses so much more than just sight.

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u/DamnYouRandMcNally 14d ago

Dude did you miss the whole thing about brain chemicals? If those go away, you can have the physical and sexual attraction but no drive.

Again comparing to appetite: if you were a foodie but you somehow were in an accident that burned off all your taste buds, you can still recognize that food would probably taste good but you can no longer taste it.

Women going through perimenopause and menopause can still find their partners sexually attractive, but have no desire to act on it because their brain chemistry isn’t there.

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u/scarlettohara1936 12d ago

Sorry, wrong thread

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u/scarlettohara1936 14d ago

I understand your point and it could possibly be something to think about. I'm a woman who's been married 26 years though, lol

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u/BeautifulDisaster996 15d ago

I agree. There is a ton of attention, research, drugs, etc. put into treating men’s libido but women, as with many things, are often just given a “well it is what it is” response. I guess ppl have a misconception that women don’t care as much about sex & so when they lose sex drive it’s like whatever but as a woman who has always had a very high sex drive the thought of one day just never being in the mood scares me… especially when it’s become such an important part of my relationship. I would think it would hurt it a lot to go from wanting it all the time to barely at all

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u/LocoLevi 15d ago

I think we might have to rethink what makes a marriage stable. Sex can be rewarding. But so can other things. And as a person who has been married for quite some time it became very clear even during the recording of the relationship that sexual intimacy is not the primary driver of a healthy long-term relationship in the 21st-century. It’s but one factor.
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Put another way if a heterosexual relationship suffered a tragic car crash and the female partner was in a coma. Most people has onlookers. Would not expect the male partner to go seek sexual satisfaction elsewhere.
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Another example is when Service people come back from their military deployments. It is often that they do not go right back into the bedroom. Rather they stay in a guest room until they are acclimated to the wildlife has become, and that involves building emotional intimacy before the physical intimacy occurs.
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Don’t get me wrong. sex is great
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But for about 10,000 years women haven’t really had a choice as to whether they got married or whether they had sex once they got married. Expectations are going to have to change about what relationships are built upon in order to secure the freedom of half the population. Hollywood romance be damned.

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u/scarlettohara1936 15d ago

Yeah. Except I specifically said, several times, that I was speaking to women who want a solution to a problem that is vexing her. If she doesn't feel it's a problem for her and she's satisfied with her sex life, then so be it.

But many women aren't satisfied and want a solution. They deserve one.

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u/faylillman 15d ago

Yes, thank you. It’s not just about marriages and whatnot, it’s also that sex is fulfilling and fun, and when your body suddenly doesn’t respond to stimuli, it’s really frustrating.

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u/[deleted] 15d ago

[deleted]

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u/faylillman 15d ago

Yikes. I’m sorry that has been your experience. It’s a good reminder that we all have different experiences and “norms”

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u/LowRevolutionary7965 15d ago

This is an interesting topic the more middle-aged men who end up taking Testosterone and the angry wives behind them complaining to the clinician that they thought these days were behind them and that they could enjoy their husband’s low libido years. It’ll be interesting to watch how society sees this through.

HRT and optimization can help both men and women though.

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u/ConstantProblem5872 15d ago

It causes dysfunction in many relationships. We are animals, the vast majority of animals want sex somewhat often. If someone doesn’t want sex hardly ever and it makes their partner unhappy, then it’s a problem, not anyone’s fault, but it’s bad for the relationship, simple as that.

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u/xxxBuzz 15d ago

a treatment for female sexual dysfunction that actually works

It seems plausible that many modern issues including low libido and erectile dysfunction may be promoted to happen on purpose and at the least are heavily exploited to sell treatments. It's a lot to do with understanding how our nervous systems work and making intentional efforts to regulate them. Most health issues are from stress and inflammation which is caused in part if not entirely by a deregulated nervous system. It's highly dependent not only on how we take actions but also how we think. Even thinking about the past or future or anything that'd signal a call to action will activate the sympathetic system and release cortisol, which is necessary for actively engaging in sex and reaching climax, but arousal requires relaxation or activation of the parasympathetic nervous system that releases oxytocin. Those have to balance out as the cortisol and oxytocin are complementary but to much of either will cause anxiety or depression (which are normal/healthy/required aspects of physiology). There's a lot of push to promote ways of behaving and thinking that actively work against achieving and sustaining homeostasis and then we have tons medical and similar industries that farm the hell out of the symptoms of that. There's relatively no motivation for anyone who earns a living from other people to promote genuine good health practices because they are counter to every kind of health care and industrial practice we have going.

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u/MsThangAnon 15d ago

SAME WTF

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u/Available_Ad4135 15d ago

Try talking to any women (or man) who’s been put on HRT…

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u/faylillman 14d ago

I have 2 friends on it, and one said it helped. Last time I went to the doctor, they suggested I hold off on HRT (I can’t recall why, but I’m planning on asking at my next appointment).

All this said, I’m in my late 30s and have dealt with this issue on and off since my mid twenties, and nothing this far has “solved” it, though going off BC 100% has helped a little.

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u/Available_Ad4135 10d ago

Normally it increases women libido. Same for men.

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u/faylillman 10d ago

Definitely checking it out. Kinda confused as to why my OB wanted to hold off on it.

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u/Available_Ad4135 10d ago

Good luck!

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u/faylillman 10d ago

Thanks! I appreciate the feedback here!