Your libido can be a slippery little sucker--here today, gone tomorrow--and for some, always elusive. WH goes undercover to find out where your desire might be hiding
We all want to be that woman--at least for a night. The naughty little sex glutton who grabs her guy mid–cocktail party for a quickie in the coat room, who plans entire vacations around the ideal skinny-dipping spot, who actually has tried all 69 of the moves "guaranteed to drive him wild" and loved every one of them. But even if you were a Lusty Lana once upon a time, these days your libido may be more lifeless than a dorm-room houseplant. Or maybe it's always been a bit limp.
Either way, you're not alone. In a recent survey published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, more than one in three women admitted to experiencing low sexual desire in the past month. Hello--that's more than 40 million of us! While men can pop Viagra (those lucky bastards), women can't quick-fix their sexual desire with a magic pill. For us, there's more to it than blood flow.
But there's good news: According to experts, once you ID the possible causes of your lukewarm libido, you can start homing in on a solution. "Take the time to assess yourself--not just physically but emotionally and mentally--and you'll be able to see what might be holding you back," says Patti Britton, Ph.D., a Los Angeles sexologist and author of The Art of Sex Coaching.
To help you reconnect with your saucy side, we asked three women to share their struggles with low desire and then turned to top sex therapists for their analyses. This may not turn you into the woman who speeds home for a lunch-hour power romp, but the following insights and advice will help make you hungrier for lovin' than you may have been in a long time. And don't miss WH's Annual Sex Toy Awards for saucy selects that will turn you on.
Trust Is the Best Aphrodisiac
Guys seem to have it pretty easy when it comes to sexual arousal: Man gets turned on. Penis takes over. Brain shuts down. Enjoyment ensues. For most women, it's more complex. To feel even the slightest bit of desire, our head has to be in the game. A 2003 study at Northwestern University found that even when women show the physical signs of sexual excitement below the belt, if they're not mentally turned on they won't feel a damn thing.
Now, imagine you're busy trying to muster desire, but your brain--the main factor in the equation--won't stop analyzing, fretting, or planning. For Kim, 27, that kind of overall anxiety has left her with "zero sex drive." After working 12-hour days at an ad agency in Philadelphia, she comes home exhausted and way too preoccupied even to consider sex. "I'm always stressing about my job--I even have nightmares about it," she says. Work concerns aside, Kim describes herself in general as a very anxious person, a perfectionist who's always making to-do lists on paper and in her head.
Though the flip advice might be to tell Kim that she just needs a hearty hump session (or a strong cocktail) to feel right as rain, we know it doesn't work that way. For Kim, sex is just one more thing to worry about. "I'll have sex because I know it's important to the relationship, but I never feel a desire for it," she says. Kim describes her boyfriend of the past year and a half as a sweet, supportive guy, understanding about the fact that she isn't exactly likely to swing from the chandelier. Besides, he leaves for work at 6 a.m. and often doesn't return home until midnight, after she's already asleep (they have sex two or three times a month). "The pressure to have sex, or the guilt over not wanting it, isn't there because, logistically, we can't really have it that often."
When Kim's alone and it's time for a little self-lovin', on the other hand, it's a whole other ballgame. "I find that I'm more in the mood," she says. "I'm able to just clear my mind and get into it."
According to experts, if a woman masturbates regularly, she doesn't actually have a low libido. So what's going on? Probably trust issues, says sex therapist Gina Ogden, Ph.D., author of The Return of Desire. "You're at your most vulnerable--body, mind, and heart--when you're naked with a man," she explains. "If you're afraid of that kind of intimacy, you're going to subconsciously avoid sex, and you certainly won't have a desire for it."
For many, that fear of intimacy can stem from early sexual experiences. If they were filled with angst or with emotional or even physical pain, they can leave women with an underlying sense of 'I don't want to go through that again,' Ogden says.
Kim's issues could be traced back to a high school boyfriend who couldn't keep it in his pants. "In the four years we were together, I always thought he was cheating. I remember feeling self-conscious about hooking up, like he was getting it better somewhere else," she says.
We all want to be that woman--at least for a night. The naughty little sex glutton who grabs her guy mid–cocktail party for a quickie in the coat room, who plans entire vacations around the ideal skinny-dipping spot, who actually has tried all 69 of the moves "guaranteed to drive him wild" and loved every one of them. But even if you were a Lusty Lana once upon a time, these days your libido may be more lifeless than a dorm-room houseplant. Or maybe it's always been a bit limp.Either way, you're not alone. In a recent survey published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, more than one in three women admitted to experiencing low sexual desire in the past month. Hello--that's more than 40 million of us! While men can pop Viagra (those lucky bastards), women can't quick-fix their sexual desire with a magic pill. For us, there's more to it than blood flow.
But there's good news: According to experts, once you ID the possible causes of your lukewarm libido, you can start homing in on a solution. "Take the time to assess yourself--not just physically but emotionally and mentally--and you'll be able to see what might be holding you back," says Patti Britton, Ph.D., a Los Angeles sexologist and author of The Art of Sex Coaching.
To help you reconnect with your saucy side, we asked three women to share their struggles with low desire and then turned to top sex therapists for their analyses. This may not turn you into the woman who speeds home for a lunch-hour power romp, but the following insights and advice will help make you hungrier for lovin' than you may have been in a long time. And don't miss WH's Annual Sex Toy Awards for saucy selects that will turn you on.
Trust Is the Best Aphrodisiac
Guys seem to have it pretty easy when it comes to sexual arousal: Man gets turned on. Penis takes over. Brain shuts down. Enjoyment ensues. For most women, it's more complex. To feel even the slightest bit of desire, our head has to be in the game. A 2003 study at Northwestern University found that even when women show the physical signs of sexual excitement below the belt, if they're not mentally turned on they won't feel a damn thing.
Now, imagine you're busy trying to muster desire, but your brain--the main factor in the equation--won't stop analyzing, fretting, or planning. For Kim, 27, that kind of overall anxiety has left her with "zero sex drive." After working 12-hour days at an ad agency in Philadelphia, she comes home exhausted and way too preoccupied even to consider sex. "I'm always stressing about my job--I even have nightmares about it," she says. Work concerns aside, Kim describes herself in general as a very anxious person, a perfectionist who's always making to-do lists on paper and in her head.
Though the flip advice might be to tell Kim that she just needs a hearty hump session (or a strong cocktail) to feel right as rain, we know it doesn't work that way. For Kim, sex is just one more thing to worry about. "I'll have sex because I know it's important to the relationship, but I never feel a desire for it," she says. Kim describes her boyfriend of the past year and a half as a sweet, supportive guy, understanding about the fact that she isn't exactly likely to swing from the chandelier. Besides, he leaves for work at 6 a.m. and often doesn't return home until midnight, after she's already asleep (they have sex two or three times a month). "The pressure to have sex, or the guilt over not wanting it, isn't there because, logistically, we can't really have it that often."
When Kim's alone and it's time for a little self-lovin', on the other hand, it's a whole other ballgame. "I find that I'm more in the mood," she says. "I'm able to just clear my mind and get into it."
According to experts, if a woman masturbates regularly, she doesn't actually have a low libido. So what's going on? Probably trust issues, says sex therapist Gina Ogden, Ph.D., author of The Return of Desire. "You're at your most vulnerable--body, mind, and heart--when you're naked with a man," she explains. "If you're afraid of that kind of intimacy, you're going to subconsciously avoid sex, and you certainly won't have a desire for it."
For many, that fear of intimacy can stem from early sexual experiences. If they were filled with angst or with emotional or even physical pain, they can leave women with an underlying sense of 'I don't want to go through that again,' Ogden says.
Kim's issues could be traced back to a high school boyfriend who couldn't keep it in his pants. "In the four years we were together, I always thought he was cheating. I remember feeling self-conscious about hooking up, like he was getting it better somewhere else," she says.
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