This post is part 4 of a series.
If you want to never have sex again, here’s how: Wait until you spontaneously feel horny or turned on.
Wait, what?
Yes, I know that is a little tongue-in-cheek, but I am also serious. Many long-term couples assume they should only make love when desire arrives first. They remember those delicious early days when one kiss could lead to ripping each other’s clothes off, and they assume that is how desire is supposed to work forever.
This type of desire, which sex therapists call spontaneous desire, is often easy to feel in the beginning of a relationship. But over time, spontaneous desire often becomes less frequent. Before you know it, nobody initiates eroticism, weeks turn into months, and before long, the sexual relationship has nearly disappeared. In fact, up to 35 percent of longer-term couples I have interviewed (over 40,000 of them) are not making love at all. I talk about the desire problem in this video.
The Problem With Waiting for Spontaneous Desire
There are different ways clinicians define low-sex and sexless relationships, but in my own work and surveys with thousands of couples, I have seen how common it is for long-term partners to go months, or even years, without making love.
I once worked with a couple who had stopped making love in their 40s and joined my Become Passion online couples program in their 70s. For decades, they had even changed clothes separately so they would not see each other naked. After working on their relationship using my “three keys to passion” model (see the previous two blog posts for a deeper examination of the first two keys—communication and thrill) and their sensual connection, they started making love again. They even walk around the house naked and slap each other’s naked bum. What a beautiful transformation.
Their story is an important reminder that at any age, and even after many years without sex, there is still hope for rebuilding a sensual connection.
Spontaneous Desire Is Only One Kind of Desire
Spontaneous desire is the kind most of us recognize because it seems obvious that we want to feel turned on and sexually motivated before we reach for our sweetheart. I mean, why would we bother to make love if we are not in the mood?
When I first started dating my husband, spontaneous desire was everywhere. We sometimes made love twice a day and even set an alarm for 4:30 in the morning so we could have a quickie before he left for work. Back then, one kiss could wake my sexuality right up. Then I hit menopause, and my lifelong high level of spontaneous desire dried up.
Oh, my friends, I miss it. Yet this is common for both men and women.
Relationships change over time, and so do our bodies, hormones, responsibilities, and energy levels. For many long-term couples, spontaneous desire simply becomes less reliable, and if you keep waiting for it to magically appear, you may end up waiting a very long time for a sensual encounter with your partner.
Meet Responsive Desire
There is a second type of sexual desire. Responsive desire works differently because you need to do something to create desire—you guessed it—in response to a choice. So, you do not necessarily wait to feel in the mood before you begin making moves toward making love. Instead, you may start from what researcher Rosemary Basson describes as sexual neutrality, which simply means you are not turned on yet.
You might decide to begin a sensual encounter because you value your sexual connection, because you usually enjoy yourself once you get going, because it helps you feel closer, or simply because it has been a while and you know it is good for you, your partner, and your relationship. Then, as you start kissing, touching, or cuddling, your mind becomes interested, your body begins to respond, and pleasure has a chance to build.
With responsive desire, desire arises after you begin connecting, rather than being the driving force toward connecting. (For more information on responsive desire, join me for a live online couples workshop on the three keys to passion.)
Yes, I Want You to Schedule Sex
Here comes the advice that many people do not love: Schedule sex.
I understand why that can sound unromantic. You want passion to be spontaneous, and so do I. When spontaneous desire shows up, enjoy the hell out of it. But if you want a consistent erotic relationship, you may need to stop expecting desire to magically arrive before you take any sensual action.
If intercourse feels like too big a leap right now, do not begin there. Schedule other types of pleasurable sensuality instead. You might cuddle naked, spoon in bed, stroke each other’s backs, give a foot rub, or take a shower or bath together. The goal is not to convince yourself into sex, but rather to create opportunities for your body and mind to rediscover touch, pleasure, and connection. So you practice creating, not waiting for, the turn-on.
Think of Sex Like Going to the Gym
I often compare responsive desire to going to the gym. I don’t know about you, but I can guess most of you almost never wake up and feel excited about the gym or lifting weights. So, why do we go to the gym? We go because we know it is good for us and because we know we will usually feel better afterward—and glad we made the effort. We rarely leave an exercise session thinking, “I really wish I hadn’t worked out.”
Sex can sometimes work in a similar way. You may begin by thinking, I’m not really in the mood, but once you start touching, your body may respond, and your mind may become more interested. Afterwards, you might find yourself thinking, I’m really glad we did that.
Scheduled sex may not sound especially sexy at first, but waiting forever for spontaneous desire is not doing your erotic relationship any favors, either. Instead of waiting for desire to rescue your sex life, give responsive desire a place to begin.
So tonight, invite your sweetheart to join you in the shower. Soap each other’s bodies, allow the stressors of the day to dissolve down the drain, and invite responsive desire to help you create a satisfying sexual encounter. Just like all three keys to passion, sensuality needs some effort. It is truly worth it.
