One of the most common reasons people come to see me is when one person in the relationship has lower desire than the other. If just one person comes for sessions and not the couple, it’s usually the person with the lower libido. Most often, people have the perception that the lower libido is somehow wrong and it should be higher. What’s usually going on is this person has responsive desire rather than spontaneous desire.

Spontaneous desire: Desire occurs without sexual intimacy i.e. mind then body

Responsive desire: Sexual intimacy begins and desire ‘catches up’ during the intimacy i.e. body then mind

Neither style is wrong. We’re just more familiar with spontaneous desire. It’s what we see on tv, in movies, and read about in books and erotica. This makes it easy to believe this is the norm and everything else is different, other or wrong. However, both are very normal, simply different.

For a person with spontaneous desire, sexual desire occurs easily, quickly, seemingly on its own. It doesn’t need much, if anything to happen for it to be there. Quick, simple or direct initiation will wonder very quickly for a person with this desire style. They will generally be ready or interested in sex even when it’s a quickie and or spontaneous.

A person with responsive desire has a desire style that well, responds. This means sexual intimacy starts and then desire begins. However, this desire style doesn’t just respond to sexual intimacy. There are factors in the environment, both within the person such as stress, tiredness, mental load, body image, feelings of safety or concerns about pregnancy or STIs, as well as in their broader environment, such as mess, closeness and connection with their partner, people being within ear shot or walking in on them. So a person with responsive desire often needs to pay some attention to how they feel and what’s happening around them to get into the mood and ‘respond’.

Trying to initiate sex for a person with responsive desire in the same way as for someone with spontenous desire may lead to friction or tension, or a lack of response. It can feel intrusive to a person with responsive desire to have their leg touched ‘in that way’ and for them to feel like they now need to ‘be on’. Instead, responsive desire needs a build up. It’s more of a slow burn kinda style, rather than a fire that’s been started with some fuel.

A person with responsive desire who wants to feel more desire, needs to pay attention to the things that make desire flow and add more of those in. Equally, they can notice what stops the flow, or causes disinterest and try and remove or reduce the things that reduce or negatively impact desire. Together these can help manage the things that make it easier to ‘respond’ so you can experience more sexual pleasure.