You’ve Googled it. Maybe at 2am, alone in bed while your partner sleeps beside you. Maybe during your lunch break, after another awkward conversation about “not tonight.” The question feels urgent, almost desperate: Why do I have no sex drive?
And what did Google tell you? Probably something like: “Check your thyroid. Reduce stress. Talk to your doctor about antidepressants. Consider hormone replacement. Have you tried date night?”
Here’s what most articles won’t tell you: For most people, low libido isn’t a medical problem. It’s a perfectly rational response to your actual life.
The Problem with the “Low Libido” Diagnosis
Let’s start with something wild: there is no such thing as a “normal” sex drive.
I know, I know. Every article you’ve read has a checklist. The medical community has even created a diagnosis—Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder (HSDD)—for when your desire is “persistently or recurrently deficient.”
But deficient compared to what? Your partner? Your younger self? Some imaginary standard set by people who aren’t living your life?
The entire framework is broken. We’ve medicalized something that, for most people, is functioning exactly as it should given their circumstances.
What Your Doctor Probably Won’t Ask
When you go to your doctor about low libido, they’ll likely run labs. Check your thyroid. Ask about depression. Maybe measure your testosterone.
What they probably won’t ask:
- Do you feel seen and appreciated in your relationship, or invisible and taken for granted?
- When you have sex, is it actually pleasurable for you, or are you just going through the motions?
- Do you feel safe saying no? Or does saying no lead to your partner’s disappointment, guilt-tripping, or withdrawal?
- Is your life structured in a way that makes you feel like a human being, or like a task-completion machine?
- When was the last time you felt genuinely desired (not just needed for sex)?
These aren’t “soft” questions. These are the questions that actually matter.
Because here’s the truth: Your body is not broken. Your libido is giving you accurate information about your life.
The Responsive Desire Reality
Most people—especially women—don’t experience spontaneous desire. You know, that thing where you’re just sitting there and suddenly think, “I really want to have sex right now.”
Instead, most people experience responsive desire: you don’t think about sex until there’s a reason to think about sex. Desire emerges in response to pleasure, connection, arousal, or erotic context.
This isn’t low libido. This is how desire actually works for most humans.
But if you’re waiting to “feel like it” before you initiate or agree to sex, and you never spontaneously “feel like it,” you start to think something is wrong with you.
Nothing is wrong with you.
What’s wrong is the expectation that you should want sex in a vacuum, independent of whether the sex you’re having is actually good, whether your relationship feels safe and connected, or whether your life provides any space for pleasure at all.
Why “Just Communicate” Doesn’t Work
Every article tells you to “talk to your partner about it.” As if you haven’t tried.
As if the problem is simply that you haven’t explained clearly enough that you don’t want sex.
Here’s what they miss: communication only works in a relationship that can actually hear you.
If your partner responds to “I’m not in the mood” with hurt feelings, sulking, or lectures about how long it’s been, you don’t have a communication problem. You have a safety problem.
If every conversation about sex becomes a negotiation where you have to defend your lack of desire, you’re not going to suddenly start wanting more sex. You’re going to want less.
Because desire is not a light switch. It’s a garden. And gardens don’t grow in hostile climates.
What Actually Kills Desire (That Your Doctor Won’t Mention)
After working with over 1,200 clients, I can tell you what actually kills desire in long-term relationships:
1. Feeling like a means to an end
When your partner wants sex from you rather than wanting sex with you, your body knows the difference. And it shuts down.
2. The invisible workload
If you’re the one tracking everyone’s schedules, remembering birthdays, managing the house, and making sure everyone is fed and functional, your brain literally doesn’t have space for desire. You’re in task-completion mode, not pleasure mode.
3. Predictable, obligatory sex
If sex has become another item on the to-do list—something that happens the same way, at the same time, following the same script—your brain checks out. Desire needs novelty, presence, and the possibility of surprise.
4. Unresolved resentment
You can’t want someone you’re furious at. I mean, you can, but not in the sustained, connected way that builds a satisfying sexual relationship.
5. Not getting what you want
Desire is about wanting something, right? So, what do you want? Low desire partners often find this question hard to answer, maybe because they haven’t felt like there was space for their authentic answer. But you can’t have reliable desire until you reliably know what you want and value it enough to ask for it from a partner you trust.
So… Is Your Libido Actually Low?
Here’s how to know:
Your libido probably isn’t low if:
- You have desire or arousal in some contexts (fantasy, masturbation, different partners, the beginning of your relationship)
- You enjoy sex once you get into it, you just don’t think about it beforehand
- You can point to specific relationship dynamics, life circumstances, or patterns that make sex feel unappealing
- You feel distressed about not wanting sex, but not distressed about the sex itself
Your libido might actually be a medical issue if:
- You have zero interest in sex, even when circumstances are ideal
- You’ve lost the ability to become aroused even when you want to be
- This represents a significant change from your baseline, and nothing else in your life has changed
- You have other symptoms (fatigue, weight changes, mood changes) suggesting something systemic
Even then, I’d encourage you to rule out the relational and contextual factors first. Because giving someone testosterone isn’t going to make them want sex with a partner who criticizes them, or in a relationship where they feel invisible.
What Actually Helps
If you’re reading this and thinking, “Okay, but I still don’t want sex and it’s causing problems in my relationship,” here’s what actually helps:
1. Stop treating low desire as the problem
Your low desire is information. It’s telling you something about your relationship, your life, or the sex you’re having. Listen to it.
2. Create conditions for desire
This isn’t about scheduling sex (although that can help). It’s about creating space in your life for pleasure, play, and presence. It’s about addressing the resentments, the invisible labor, the feeling of being taken for granted. It’s about setting down the to-do list and getting back to living.
3. Redefine what “sex” means
If sex has become a routine that centers penetration and your partner’s orgasm, no wonder you’re not interested. Expand the definition. Make pleasure—yours and theirs—the point.
4. Address the relational dynamics that kill desire
This is where couples therapy or sex counseling actually helps. Not because you’ll learn to “communicate better,” but because you’ll address the power dynamics, the resentments, the ways you’ve stopped seeing each other as whole people.
The Bottom Line
Your low libido might not be low at all.
It might be your body’s entirely appropriate response to a life that doesn’t support desire, a relationship that doesn’t feel safe, or sex that isn’t actually worth having.
Before you pathologize yourself, before you start taking supplements or hormones, before you resign yourself to a lifetime of “just not being a sexual person,” ask yourself:
What would need to be different for me to want sex?
Not “what’s wrong with me,” but “what would need to be true in my life, my relationship, and my sexual experiences for desire to show up?”
That’s the question worth asking.
And if you need help answering it, if you need someone who understands that low libido is usually a symptom, not a diagnosis, that’s what I’m here for.
Ready to understand what’s actually going on with your desire?
Individual sex coaching can help you untangle your relationship with your sexuality, understand your unique desire style, and create conditions for genuine arousal. Working through desire discrepancy as a couple? Couples counseling can address the relational dynamics that are killing intimacy—without pathologizing either partner. Learn more about sex counseling here.
Dr. Lori Davis is a Doctor of Nursing Practice, board-certified Family Nurse Practitioner, and AASECT Certified Sex Counselor specializing in sex and couples counseling. She teaches sexuality counseling at the University of Michigan and has worked with over 1,200 clients navigating desire, intimacy, and relationship challenges.
