When ‘mood for love’ meets ‘not in the mood’

Did you know that Kama Sutra’s entire section on love and desire begins with the assumption that lovers rarely have matching libidos? Yet, today, one of the biggest myths about relationships is that if two people truly love each other, they will naturally want sex with the same frequency and intensity. Lovers suffer in silence, rather than face up to how their own experience is nothing like this harmonic idea. As if to do so would be to admit that their love is lacking.

The myth, though, has little to do with the facts. Most couples experience different levels of desire at different times. It isn’t a sign of failure or selfishness or lack of attraction. It’s simply a part of being human. So, stop expecting to experience desire in exactly the same way. Do some straight talking. Not to change each other’s desire – desire cannot be ‘forced into alignment’ – but rather to understand how each of you experiences it. And learn to work with those differences.

Libido is more than just biology. Hormones and good physical health certainly play an important role, but so do several other factors like stress, sleep, medication, body image, cultural conditioning and, perhaps most importantly, past experiences. Sometimes, what looks like low libido is simply that sex is not pleasurable enough to look forward to.

Many people, particularly women, have never been encouraged to explore what actually gives them pleasure. Or even told that their experience of pleasure may be completely different from what we’ve been told ‘it should be’, but that it is valid all the same. Instead, we constantly try and fit into someone else’s ‘rules’ of desire, find ourselves endlessly lacking, and then wonder why we can’t get excited about an experience that predictably leaves us feeling unfulfilled.

When couples come to me with mismatched libidos, I usually find that both people are hurting. The partner with higher libido often feels rejected, while the partner with lower libido feels pressured. Neither is ‘abnormal’ or ‘uncaring’. But, unfortunately with a vocabulary that centres blame rather than understanding, neither can explain what they are experiencing. So, it ends up being the same painful conversation, over and over again. You feel turned on, you ask, “Should we?” They say, “Not now.” What you hear is, “They don’t want me.” But that is often not what they meant at all.

Kama Sutra reminds us that desire rarely begins in the bedroom. It develops through the day, through playful flirtations, conversations, and other shared pleasures. Remarkably, modern research has reached a similar conclusion. For many people, desire is what psychologists call ‘responsive’. It doesn’t necessarily begin because one of you announced you are “in the mood”, but rather it grows in response to your partner’s attention. Being approached out of the blue, especially if someone already feels pressure around sex, can make them tense rather than aroused, and their “no” may simply be a response to that pressure, not a rejection of you.

In other words, your partner may not begin where you begin, and expecting them to do so almost guarantees misunderstanding. Instead of asking, “Why don’t you want sex?” try asking what creates desire for them. Or what makes them want it and what makes them withdraw. Those conversations will get you far further than arguing about frequency ever will. Neither partner’s libido is more normal or more correct than the other’s, they are simply different. The challenge is learning how those differences can coexist.

If your libido tends to be higher, there is absolutely no need for you to feel guilt, but neither does every intimate moment need to end in penetration. Because if every cuddle becomes the expectation of sex, it creates immense pressure, and pressure is a surefire way to reduce desire. If your libido tends to be lower, understand and communicate what helps you feel it more. The more clearly you understand each other’s needs, the easier it becomes to respond with acceptance, rather than resentment.

But perhaps the most important thing to remember is that none of this is a one-time fix. Even if you began with perfectly matched libidos, stress, medication, pregnancy, aging, and the countless other shifts will change that constantly. Desire changes, and how you find your way back to each other is a conversation every couple needs to keep having, throughout their lives. As Kama Sutra says, mismatched desire isn’t evidence of incompatibility, it’s simply another skill that lovers need to learn, and practice throughout their lifetime.

The writer is author of Speak Easy: A Field Guide to Love, Longing and Intimacy

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