“I never feel like having sex anymore! If my husband didn’t ask for it, it would never happen. I used to really enjoy sex but now, if I never had it again, I feel like that would be okay.” The most common complaint I hear from women these days is the lack of desire to have sex (libido). It seems that if it were up to many midlife women, sex would be a memory, something pleasant to reflect back on but certainly not part of everyday life.

What’s going on? Why are so many women now so disinterested in an activity that used to make their hearts race, palms sweat, and everything else just kind of tingle all over?
Some experts chalk it up to hormones, specifically testosterone, which decreases after menopause. But I’m hearing this from younger women as well, and their hormones are just fine.

I have a different theory. I think that we’re just so busy that we’re losing the desire for sex. After all, every time we have intercourse, our body thinks it can get pregnant, which would only exacerbate our already overloaded lives. So if our body shuts down our desire, we minimize the risk of another pregnancy! No desire, no sex, no pregnancy that makes us vulnerable, no baby to further complicate an already frantic life.

Or it could just be that we’re simply too tired from demanding jobs, the very physical aspects of caring for family, young and old alike, all the while trying to maintain a social life. In this way, lack of desire is protective. But it steals from us the pleasure and closeness we could be experiencing with our chosen lover and partner. It keeps us from enjoying sex, which actually reduces stress, relaxes tense muscles, and sustains within us that which is intimate and trusting.

So what can a woman do when every cell in her body is crying for sleep even though her partner wants sex? My advice is to choose sex. Be receptive to your partner’s advances and go along with the stimulation; you’re likely to feel your desire return. What happens next is up to the two of you. Intercourse may result, or some other activity that is part of your mutual sexual repertoire. What’s important is that whatever you do, satisfaction results, which ultimately makes you more receptive and willing the next time…If you wait for your libido to kick in spontaneously, you could wait a long, long time. Try going along with his libido and watch the sparks fly again.