In order for a couple to get together sexually, they must make a choice to do so. People usually choose what they desire. If people do not particularly desire sex, they are less likely to choose to pursue sex.
God designed us to desire sex in marriage, yet many times a person does not experience the urge for sexual intimacy, arousal, or response. What gets in the way? Throughout Scripture, the sexual relationship between a husband and a wife is used to teach us about how God desires a relationship with us. Yet, many times people do not sense an urge to connect with God. Just as sin gets in the way of a person’s realizing a need for God, even so, barriers can block our awareness of our desire for sex in marriage. In this chapter, we will look at various situations that lead to lack of interest, and discuss some ways to solve this most perplexing and elusive problem.
WHEN HE’S IN THE MOOD AND SHE’S NOT
A woman may lack desire because the sexual experience itself is not satisfying. Lack of sexual satisfaction leads to lack of interest. Let’s look at some specific reasons why a woman might find sex unsatisfactory or undesirable.
A woman might lack desire because she does not feel emotionally connected with her husband. He may not express warmth and care about her needs for sexual pleasure. It is essential for a woman in any sexual experience to feel loved and cared for, to feel some tenderness, some concern for her thoughts and feelings and her current situation. Without this connection, she is not likely to allow herself to be intimate and emotionally vulnerable. If emotional intimacy is lacking, sexual desire will be stifled.
Similar to the lack of emotional satisfaction is a lack of interest due to the absence of physical satisfaction. If the woman does not go from the excitement phase to the plateau phase to orgasm, any interest she may have had in sex will wane. Even if she experiences arousal, consistent failure to reach a climax will eventually squelch her interest in sex. It’s no fun to have your body and your feelings prepared for an orgasm over and over again, and never or rarely be able to get over the hill. The frustration of arousal without release leads to lack of desire.
The graph for the woman who often becomes aroused without release is shown below. At one point her experience would be charted by line 1; in time it resembles line 4.
When a woman does not experience satisfaction even though there is arousal, over a period of time the arousal is likely to diminish, and eventually she will feel little or no desire. You will notice that the bottom line on the graph is almost a straight line. As a new bride, she may have been excited about being sexual with her husband and become very aroused. However, when she had no orgasmic response, and hence felt no satisfaction, she began to limit her arousal.
You will notice on the graph that it takes a little longer for her to get aroused, and she does not become quite as aroused. Then, as time goes on, arousal takes even longer and is even less intense. It also takes longer for her to return to a prestimulated state. Finally, she experiences almost no arousal and hence no desire.
This flattening out of the curve tends to occur between the fifth and tenth years of marriage. The timing is sometimes related to other events in life, such as having children and being occupied with heavy responsibilities. The pattern is certainly reversible, but the couple may need the help of a sexual therapist or a self-help book like our Restoring the Pleasure.
This lack of physical satisfaction may have been caused by the fact that the man ejaculated prematurely, not allowing enough time for the woman to respond with an orgasm. Or it may have come about because the woman could never allow herself to experience an orgasm, so she was left hanging in her preorgasmic state regardless of how long the man could maintain his erection without ejaculation. Whatever the original cause, the pattern must be reversed.
Another major cause of lack of satisfaction and decreasing sexual interest in the woman is the boredom that may set in because of mechanical or goal-oriented sexual activity. A woman’s interest is not likely to be maintained if the couple repeats the same sexual routine every time they are together. Even our very favorite meal would become boring and no longer trigger our appetites if we duplicated it time after time. Sex is no different. Each time we are together is a new opportunity for discovery and connection. Likewise, goal-oriented sex—sex that is aimed at getting aroused, staying aroused, or having an orgasm—will get old for most women. Sex is to be an expression of love, caring, and affection. Lack of interest is likely to develop after a couple has functioned with a mechanical or goal-oriented approach for some period of time.
We might ask, Why would a woman continue to have sex if it has so little positive benefit for her? A woman usually has some understandable reasons for putting up with sex even though it is not satisfying for her. The main reason is to carry out her duty as a wife; she feels she must meet her husband’s sexual needs to keep him at home and happy. However, duty sex does not work long-term. We are to give ourselves to each other. This is a mutual expectation, not a response to neediness. When a woman has sex to meet her husband’s needs, rather than to give herself and enjoy the pleasure of her husband’s body, eventually he will be frustrated with her lack of interest. Neither will end up happy.
Other women who don’t enjoy sex avoid rather than perform their duty. But they are not usually very direct. Few women will just say, “Hey, I hate sex, so forget it, buddy.” Rather, they will find more subtle ways to get around it. Fatigue or a physical complaint is often used to avoid sex. A busy schedule or getting up later or earlier than her husband may be ways of avoiding being around when he might be sexually interested. She may initiate a hassle when sex would be expected.
When a woman’s lack of desire is secondary to not feeling cared for by her husband, an inability to let go and release sexual arousal, or because sex is mechanical and goal-oriented, the primary reason that led to her lack of desire needs to be addressed and corrected so that her sexual desire can surface. Marital and/or sexual therapy may be necessary. Other couples may find the help they need by reading and working through a book like our Restoring the Pleasure.
WHEN HE HAS THE HEADACHE
It may come as a surprise to some that we would even include the category of the uninterested male, since all men are supposed to be vitally interested in and even preoccupied with sex. How can it be that there are men who are not interested? There are those who are what we would call sexually naive or uninformed; there are the entrepreneurial or goal-oriented men whose interest in sexual activity diminished with acquiring a wife; and there are those who come to marriage with homosexual orientation. Let’s look at each of these in some detail.
Sexually Naive
The sexually naive or uninformed man is usually one who has grown up in a very protected, almost overprotected environment. He was usually either a mama’s boy or a somewhat frightened child. Such a boy had relatively little exposure to the normal sexual stimuli that most children receive in growing up, whether they receive it in the home, classroom, church, or on the streets. He may have been warned against the evils of sexual activity and never been taught about the joys and pleasures of life. Probably little physical affection was shown in his home, either between parents and children or between mother and father. He may have heard several warnings about the dangers of masturbation; any type of sexual interest or exploration was dealt with briefly but conclusively.
A man who was very successful in his professional career, had been married for fifteen years, and served as a leader in his church community had little interest in sex. As we explored the situation with him and his wife, we discovered that he lacked much of the basic information necessary for normal sexual experience. He found any kind of genital touching of himself or of his wife to be extremely distasteful; he tended to engage in sexual activity mainly to please his wife. He was reported by his wife to be someone who really didn’t know how to do anything in bed. He didn’t know how to kiss, and she could never seem to teach him; he did not touch her in a way that was comfortable either for her or for him. Evidently he had failed to learn about these activities at the appropriate time in his life. Now he found it extremely difficult to change.
The sexually naive man will often be perceived by his wife as a cumbersome and inadequate lover. It is gratifying to be able to help these couples, since the sexually naive man is very responsive to sexual retraining if his wife is willing to engage with him in a teaching-learning process.
Entrepreneurial Man
The second type of man whose wife reports that he is uninterested in sex is what we might call the entrepreneurial male. He has seen the process of acquiring a wife as a goal to be achieved; once he has done that, he moves on to other projects, even as he moves from one business venture to the next. These men are highly successful ini- tiators of business projects who turn over the day-to-day operation of each venture to someone else while they move on to a new project.
It is not uncommon for these men to have selected extremely attractive, bright, and confident wives who will be good mothers for their children and who can function very adequately in the social scene. But such a woman soon finds herself emotionally starved because the man she married and had all her hope in, the man who romanced her in a most charming manner, now spends little or no time or energy to bring her the continued emotional sexual fulfillment for which she hungers. The energy that the man may once have had for sexual activity is now being put into other ventures.
Some men, on being confronted with their entrepreneurial approach, decide to change their priorities to a more personal, less business-oriented manner of life. They decide to go with the more loving side rather than the material side of their life. This obviously fits in with the biblical perspective of how men are to love their wives. Unfortunately, some men say, “No, if she chooses to live with me, she’s going to have to recognize that this is how life is going to be.” This places the woman in a dilemma and forces her to make a difficult choice. Such a man can change—if he chooses to change. His change may require professional help.
Gender Identity
The third category of men who lack sexual desire are those who struggle with gender identity—those who find themselves more attracted to men than women. The homosexually oriented man may have known of these feelings before he married but chose to ignore his inclinations, hoping he could make it work with a woman. If this man makes the decision to learn how to turn his attraction for men to pursuing and responding to his wife, we are able to help him do that. He is not likely to completely change his affinity for men to women, in general, but since he is married, all he needs to focus on is learning to enjoy his wife.
How does a man’s lack of interest in sex show up? Because the man in our society tends to be the initiator, what usually happens is that there is simply little initiation of sexual activity. Then the dissatisfied and unfulfilled wife expresses her concern about her husband’s love for her and her concern about her own desirability. This may lead to some attempt to deal with the problem. Often the man will, in a brief flurry of activity, initiate sex a few times, which will bring temporary satisfaction to his wife. But then things will drift off to the same state in which they were before she complained.
Over a period of time, a pattern will often develop with the unsatisfied wife exploding every several months, followed by sexual activity, and then a period of little interest during which the woman again becomes increasingly disgruntled until she explodes again. The difference between the situations with an uninterested man and an uninterested woman is that if the woman is disinterested, the man may still be getting his satisfaction. But if the man is disinterested, the woman will usually be left frustrated.
LACK OF DESIRE EXPERIENCED BY
BOTH MEN AND WOMEN
The apostle Paul, a follower of Jesus Christ, in one of his letters answered questions regarding sex for the people of the New Testament church at Corinth. Paul’s answers, as they are expressed in the paraphrase of the New Testament called The Message, read as follows: “Is it a good thing to have sexual relations? Certainly—but only within a certain context. It’s good for a man to have a wife, and for a woman to have a husband. Sexual drives are strong, but marriage is strong enough to contain them and provide for a balanced and fulfilling sexual life in a world of sexual disorder” (1 Cor. 7:1–2). Yet, as we are learning, it is not unusual for both men and women not to experience a strong sex drive. What are some of the reasons common to both genders?
Internal Conflict About Being Sexual
One cause of lack of interest in sex due to internal conflict is sexual ambivalence. The sexually ambivalent person was usually raised in an alcoholic, dysfunctional, or emotionally chaotic home. Because the home was out of control, the person tends to struggle with control issues. To be sexually responsive is to be out of control, a feeling that is very frightening and to be avoided at all cost. The person’s resistance to engage in sex is not just a passive lack of desire; it is a tenacious fighting of sexual feelings or activities. This resistance is usually confusing to the spouse, since the person tends to be able to be very responsive once he or she allows stimulation and the body’s arousal takes over. The person learned from the example in the home to be out of control, so he or she does respond intensely but strongly dislikes being out of control because of the negative association from childhood. This person’s sexual response pattern looks like this:
To counteract this syndrome, the first step is to recognize the pattern. Then the person must decide to be sexual. It is almost like a conversion experience. The person has been using his or her need for control to resist sex. Now the decision is made to use the need for control to take over his or her sex life positively. So the next step is to take charge. Be in control actively rather than with passive resistance. Plan and schedule sex not because of desire, but by decision. Recognize that sexual desire will not surface naturally, so sex will happen only because the resistant spouse takes active control and schedules sex once or twice a week. It has to be his or her agenda, not the spouse keeping track or checking. The final ingredient for success is that the spouse must back off. If this pattern is ever going to change, the spouse has to allow the one with the need for control to be totally in charge. The couple, with the resistant spouse leading, need to make a plan of accountability. For example, they might decide that if the one who had been resistant has not initiated in two weeks, the other spouse can ask for a talk time. In a loving, empathetic approach, check to see how it is going and how the person might need the other’s care and support. Keep in mind that the person who is trying to change a pattern cannot wait for feelings of desire or discouragement to set in.
Another cause for lack of desire due to internal conflict is past sexual trauma. Sexual abuse or violation will usually have been kept a secret. There may be a fear of telling, or the person may have blocked the memories. If the abuse happened as a child, the person is likely to have felt responsibility, even though the child was a helpless victim. Guilt and shame are carried into adulthood, causing the internal conflict about being sexual in marriage.
The pattern of childhood sexual abuse involves advanced sexual awareness as a child. The person may have had a sense of being different—of knowing or having experienced what other children had not. Then there is heightened sexuality and acting out before marriage, but as marriage gets close or shortly after marriage, the sexual part of that person shuts down. It is almost as if sexuality were never a part of who that person was made to be. We have heard this expression hundreds of times: “If my spouse didn’t want sex, it wouldn’t matter ’cause I don’t care if we ever have sex again. I think God forgot to put that software in me.”
To allow desire to resurface, the person will need to deal with the past trauma. Talk about it. Share the details of what happened. Write about it. Keep a journal of any thoughts, dreams, or pictures, however incomplete or fleeting. Eventually, a complete picture may evolve. Remembering the abuse is not necessary to overcome the effects. If the symptoms are faced and dealt with and there is openness to listening to oneself, healing is possible. Professional help usually is needed to guide the process of healing. Joining a group of others who have been victims of abuse has additional benefits through engaging in others’ past and healing process. Many churches offer these groups. Being able to enlist God’s forgiveness and strength is vital. Sometimes people who have been abused feel compelled to confront their abusers. Confrontation is not always a part of healing. In fact, the person seeking healing through a confrontation may be reabused by being made to feel that this was all in the mind or his/her fault. Also, it is important to recognize that forgiveness only follows the freedom and ability to experience the pain, hurt, and anger toward the perpetrator. Forgiveness is an ongoing process of experiencing and then letting go of the pain. The person gets to the place where the perpetrator is no longer allowed to have control over his or her life. In the meantime, however, prearranged signals will need to be talked about and planned into the couple’s sexual times so that when flashbacks or panic responses occur, the person can signal the spouse to change the sexual activity. The impact of sexual trauma can be undone, but it will take work and compassionate care from others.
Emotional-Sexual Blocks
Both men and women may have emotional blocks to sexual desire due to lack of bonding in infancy, rigid antisexual teaching during their developmental years, or a controlling, dominant opposite-sex parent who disempowered their same-sex parent as a sexual role model.
The woman having emotional blocks to her desire is not likely to be aware of sexual urges at all or have quickly fleeting desires. A man will tend to masturbate but not initiate sex with his wife, so he may describe his struggle as a failure rather than a lack of desire.
Nathan was a young, attractive businessman of strong character and values. He and his new bride were both committed followers of Jesus Christ. Even though there had seemed to be passion between them in their limited physical contact before marriage, the honeymoon was a rude awakening for her, and maybe even for him. He was sexually avoidant and aversive. She would try to initiate, and he would distract. We discovered that he had been raised in a home where the family was clearly divided. The children were aligned with the mother against his father. He had never felt good about his father as a sexual person or as a model for him as a husband. He was left with difficulty being sexual with his wife. Therapy and retraining was necessary and, at times, discouraging, but eventually they were able to work out a system of relating sexually that brought fulfillment for both. Bringing a father-image, male mentor to come alongside Nathan was a huge help in the therapy process.
External Stresses Interfere
Even though it takes sex to make children, they tend to be a major sexual distracter. Joyce recently taught a class to mothers of preschool children. She entitled her talk, “Are Real Moms Hot?” Many times being Mom and being sexual seem to be mutually exclusive. Dads are not exempt either.
If parents with children in the home are going to continue a fulfilling sex life, they will likely have to plan time for the two of them that will allow them to anticipate their time and enjoy each other physically without demands or expectations for specific behaviors or responses. They will also have to save energy for the two of them by setting priorities and managing their lives. It will help the parents to accept that they don’t have to be turned on to initiate sex, but can decide to be sexual because it is a convenient time to have privacy. Knowing and taking responsibility to create the conditions that are best for them will enhance their times together. And above all, no matter how little or how much time they can carve out for their sex life, they need to keep their pilot light on by kissing passionately every day for at least thirty seconds.
Job stress, finances, and any other outside pressure will take away from sexual time and energy. If the couple keep connecting and talking about their outside distractions, they will be able to plan ways to counter those and focus on each other.
Physical Factors Hinder
Illness, alcohol, and drugs all will interrupt the natural flow of God-given urges. Eliminating those issues and staying connected will be the most helpful.
Hormonal imbalances are the most common physical reason for lack of sexual desire. All the effort in the world won’t work if the person’s hormones are out of balance. When either a man or a woman comes to us reporting lack of sexual desire, the first step we take is to have the person’s physician order a complete hormonal panel. For a woman, this means the estrogen, progesterone, total testosterone, and free or bioavailable testosterone levels are checked and compared with the normal range for the laboratory reporting the results. For men, both total and free (bioavailable) testosterone levels are necessary. Since testosterone is the drive hormone, if the free or bioavailable testosterone level is low normal or below normal, replacement will be necessary in order to have sexual desire. We usually suggest a 1 percent testosterone cream applied to the external genitals—the vulval area for the woman, and either a testosterone patch applied to the scrotum or a 1 percent androgen gel applied to the upper arms for the man. Daily application is usually recommended but can be adjusted according to the person’s symptoms. The person’s physician will manage both the dosage and frequency of usage.
Emotional Changes Hamper
Depression, anxiety, and sexual phobias will squelch desire for sex. When there is tension, the bedroom may become as somber as the funeral parlor. In that case there is going to be little interest in sex. Tensions, anxieties, depressive states, and phobias must be relieved in order to revive sexual energy. Psychotherapy or marital counseling may be necessary.
If you are a person for whom desire does not surface easily or spontaneously, what steps can you take? How might you discover or be more aware of your sexual feelings?
In Chapter 9, we talked about building desire. We have emphasized that sexual desire is a natural, God-designed bodily feeling. It can surface most readily when you clear out distractions, identify what works for you, communicate openly about your needs to your spouse, and then take responsibility to get what you need to arouse your interest. The issues of feeling and expressing sexual desire within the relationship have to be clearly and openly discussed between husband and wife. That is the first step toward remedying problems with desire.
Let’s assume for the moment that the man is the one who lacks interest. We would encourage a thorough and open discussion about how the man feels in this situation, what he thinks gets in the way of desire, and what he perceives to be his duties and obligations as a husband and lover. Then the wife can clearly communicate how his lack of interest affects her. Sometimes this process makes clear what is getting in the way and causing the lack of interest. In other situations it is much more difficult because at the conscious level a man believes he is interested yet rarely shows any interest. An unconscious barrier gets in the way and causes the lack of sexual pursuit.
When the barrier is unconscious, and the couple are not able to identify what is getting in the way of feeling or expressing sexual desire, they should seek professional counseling. Helen Singer Kaplan’s work on problems with sexual desire shows that unconscious barriers to feeling the need for or interest in sexual involvement stem from early childhood environment. Because of the strong impact of early influencing factors, an individual is not likely to be able to resolve the problem without the help of a professional.
When the problem with desire is related to an obvious stress, it may be dealt with between the two of you. Talk about how the lack of desire feels to each of you. Then determine together how you are going to bring about changes that can allow the natural desire to surface.
Allowing for desire requires giving space to the person who lacks the feeling. Giving space means that the other spouse must avoid initiating sex or communicating expectations that will be felt as demands. The steps for reversing who initiates, as defined in Chapter 11, should be helpful.
Once the person with a desire block feels the sense of space, it is important for that person to find ways to encourage awareness of sexual feelings. You will need to find, or make, time for this. Maybe you need to reduce outside pressure. With this pressure-free time available, look for sensuousness in your world. Use some of the natural external stimuli mentioned in Chapter 10. Read the Song of Songs every day. Leave yourself reminder notes to turn on sensuous music while you’re driving or working around the house or yard. If you are a woman, get acquainted with your own genitalia as described in Chapter 6. Ask God to free up your feelings for sex, and praise him every time you feel even a fleeting urge. Spend time looking in the mirror and thanking God for how he made you. Focus on listening to your body. Be aware of touch that has a tingle. What we’re saying is: Give yourself a good tune-up.
Since each problem of lack of interest is unique, each couple will have to be creative in finding their own variations for working out the details. Levels of interest can change, and thus any couple who experiences lack of interest should begin working at it and seek help if necessary.