As most of us assume that sexual attraction to another person is an important reason for entering into an intimate relationship, it may be rather surprising to hear that in some relationships an individual may lack sexual desire for their partner.
From a clinical perspective, inhibited sexual desire (ISD) is the deficiency or absence of sexual fantasies and desire for sexual activity which causes personal distress or interpersonal distress. A person who has ISD may lack desire for both solo and partnered sex but typically he or she is interested in solo sex, but not in partnered sex.
Individuals and couples usually seek treatment when there is relationship distress as a result of a difference between partners with respect to sexual desire. In this common scenario, known as “desire discrepancy”, there is a significant gap in the level of sexual interest which causes discord for the relationship. Naturally, the partner who has the stronger sexual appetite wants to engage in sexual interaction while the other partner avoids sexual intimacy as a result of the lack of interest.
In some instances, the ISD partner wishes to feel sexual desire but cannot experience or sustain the feeling. This lack of desire can represent a change from their normal level of sexual interest and they wish to recapture the feelings. In other cases, the person with ISD has little interest in experiencing desire. As there is no internal distress, they consider their lack of sexual desire a problem only to the extent that the partner chooses to make it an issue.
A highly complex issue
Although ISD is the most common sexual problem which individuals and couples seek therapy for, it is also regarded by many sex therapists as the most challenging. ISD is a highly complex issue largely because the underlying causes are multi-factorial, occurring typically not due to one aspect, but rather to a confluence of factors.
For this reason, an integrative approach to treatment is required which involves multiple perspectives, taking into account the risk factors underlying the issue from an individual (biological, psychological), relational (dyadic/couple), and intergenerational (family-of-origin) perspective.
As ISD is too expansive a topic to be covered properly in one or even two posts, I have chosen to focus on secondary ISD and the significance of the relationship and role of the couple in the development and maintenance of this issue.
Secondary inhibited sexual desire
Secondary lack of desire is typically found in emotionally committed relationships. An individual with secondary ISD has usually felt sexual desire for their partner during the first part of their relationship. However as the relationship develops they begin to lose interest. This loss of desire is a gradual process in most instances.
Without sexual desire, the partner with ISD starts to avoid interactions that could potentially end in sexual relations. By the time a couple seeks treatment, a pattern of sexual avoidance has set in which has led to a steady decline and eventual loss of sexual intimacy. Usually, the couple’s range of emotional interaction has also become increasingly restricted as each partner experiences feelings of disappointment, anger, frustration, hopelessness and resentment over unmet emotional and sexual needs.
Many couples who find themselves in this situation get caught up in the bitter pursuer-distancer cycle in which they blame each other. However, in other cases, the partner with ISD will assume responsibility for the problem while their partner is viewed as playing no role. The more sexually interested partner may complain about the lack of sexual intimacy but typically they adopt a passive stance and do not force the issue or precipitate a crisis if the ISD is not addressed.
Fears of intimacy
Sexual intimacy is a form of expression of emotional closeness in a relationship. When the problem is secondary ISD, one of the contributing factors is almost always connected to underlying fears of intimacy in the relationship.
It is a given that everyone brings some underlying fears of intimacy into their relationship. Like most human tendencies, individuals vary in their capacity to be intimate. In certain individuals, these fears are stronger than in others and this limitation will only surface when a relationship naturally deepens. When intimacy fears are strong, the effects often create relationship disharmony.
In many cases, this phenomenon does not emerge until after marriage or when the couple start co-habitating. A couple may be relating quite well until without warning, something happens to disrupt the relationship and to create less intimacy. This may be an indicator that one partner’s emotional comfort zone has been violated which results in the use of a strategy to create some distance. In humans the response to fear is biologically programmed. We either fight or we flee in an effort to regulate a comfort level in the relationship also known as homeostatis. Sometimes, this self-regulation takes the form of fighting with each other, avoiding each other or alternating between the two behaviours. Sometimes the purpose of fighting is to connect or get closer and at other times, it may be a way to create emotional distance.
The fear of being intimate is common as every couple must confront the predicament of how much closeness and distance they can comfortably tolerate in their relationship. If intimacy is viewed in terms of closeness and distance or individuation and separateness, then everyone has a set point at which they are comfortable. Similar to the setting in a thermostat which regulates temperature, some people like it warmer and some like it cooler. When partners become too close, certain unconscious fears come into play, and conversely, when they become too distant, other fears may come into play. These fears are usually out of awareness of the individuals involved except through the acting out behaviour that is used to regulate the distance between the partners. Being sexually cut-off or turned off is just one way to regulate the distance and ease the underlying fears.
Some of the common underlying fears of intimacy include:
- Fear of anger
- Struggles over power and control
- Fear of rejection and/abandonment
- Fear of exposure
- Fear of dependency
The “dance” of intimacy
So far we have looked at intimacy struggles by discussing the fears in one partner. But relationships are much more complex than the behaviour of just an individual. On the surface, it may appear that one partner wants more intimacy than the other as the “complaining” partner will protest the situation and sound utterly convincing that they are not getting their sexual needs met. The emotionality and pain of the complaining partner is real although it masks a more complex dynamic.
Although most of us think otherwise, mate selection is not a random process and much of it operates at an unconscious level. An underlying fear of intimacy in one partner is usually matched equally by an underlying fear of intimacy in the other partner. By unconsciously selecting each other, they have made an implicit agreement not to share too much closeness or distance.
Many of these situations involve partners who (despite their complaints) have quietly tolerated (unconsciously accepted) a lack of desire in the other for years but have never taken the steps to resolve the problem. In reality, they are maintaining the relationship dynamic by passively complying with the agenda of the ISD partner.
Often times, this implicit collusion is only revealed after the problems in the ISD partner start resolving. When the ISD partner begins to change by removing the obstacles to intimacy, at this point, the complaining partner may find ways to inadvertently sabotage getting closer by finding excuses not to have sex. It’s not unusual for the couple to discontinue couples therapy when this occurs. The deeper motivations of the complaining partner are not obvious but clearly, they are unconsciously gaining from the other’s lack of desire.
Just as the ISD partner’s feelings of anger, frustration and resentment are often expressed through a lack of desire, the complaining partner in some instances may be using the sexual domain of the relationship to gain a position of power and control or to remain chronically angry with the ISD partner which then “excuses” them from having to make efforts towards emotional closeness.
In short, despite both partners presenting for couples therapy to address the lack of sexual desire in their relationship, this sexual symptom has the function of maintaining a certain level of emotional comfort which they both can bear. When one partner increases or decreases the tolerated intimacy level, the other partner modifies the equation to restore the relationship homeostatis or equilibrium.
In an upcoming post, I will be focusing specifically on one of the most common intimacy fears – the fear of anger.
Resources:
Material for this post was taken from:
Weeks, GR. & Gambescia N. Hypoactive Sexual Desire. (Norton, 2002).
