A Psychologist Explains 7 Things That Get Confused For Low Libido

When someone is dealing with "low libido," it can be easy to assume something must be physically or biologically wrong with them. Something must be off in their body or their brain that's causing them to have less desire for sex. 

But that's not always the case. In fact, sometimes we incorrectly label all sorts of issues in our sex lives as "low libido" when the problem isn't actually about not wanting sex. We think we don't want sex, when in reality, we just don't want sex the way we're currently having it.

That's according to Justin Lehmiller, Ph.D., a social psychologist, sex researcher, and author of Tell Me What You Want.

"In some of these cases where people are reporting this low desire and may be seeking help for it, we have a tendency to look at that as if that's a medical issue and, you know, we need to treat this pharmacologically," Lehmiller tells mbg in a recent interview. "But the real issue is that they're just not really comfortable with themselves and with their desires, and they're not communicating about them."

What exactly does that mean? 

"A lot of people have sexual fantasies that they're not comfortable talking to their partner about," Lehmiller explains. "Maybe they feel ashamed of it, or they don't know how [to talk about it], or they have some concern about the outcome. The end result is that they're not really getting what they want when it comes to sex, and so that has the effect of reducing sexual desire. It dampens libido when the sex that we're having isn't the sex that we really want to be having."

For example, maybe you're really into heated, romantically charged, rough sex—but the only kind of sex you and your partner have is lazy missionary where you barely make eye contact and your partner only seems focused on getting himself off. Obviously you're going to start to find yourself less enthused about the idea of having sex. Who would blame you? 

Lehmiller's book surveys thousands of people about the sexual fantasies they have, from BDSM to threesomes to public sex. Because many of these fantasies are still considered taboo in mainstream circles, he notes that there can sometimes be an additional layer of shame around wanting these kinds of sex instead of the type of sex we're often told couples are supposed to be having. 

"This is a pretty pervasive issue across people of different genders and orientations," he explains. "The desire for sex is low because they're just not getting what they want, in part because they don't feel good about themselves or don't know how to express their desires in a healthy way."

Likewise, if you're someone with a lot of anxiety around sex for whatever reason, that anxiety can affect your libido such that it's not as high as it ordinarily would be. That anxiety might be related to lack of experience, past trauma, lack of confidence in your body, or performance anxiety around a partner. 

"Most cases of sexual difficulties, whether we're talking about desire or issues with orgasm or arousal problems, most of the time there is a psychological issue underlying it, whether it's anxiety or shame or guilt," Lehmiller explains. "By treating those issues appropriately, we often find that can improve people's sexual lives."

Do you actually have low libido, or are you just comparing your libido to everybody else's?

Lehmiller calls this the social comparison effect: "You're looking at the media or your friends and getting this sense that everybody's having sex all the time and always has this spontaneous desire. But you're not feeling it, and you're not experiencing it the same way other people are, and so you're assuming that there's a problem with you when, in actuality, maybe you're perfectly normal and healthy, and the issue is really just a perception problem."

"Human beings just inherently want novelty and newness when it comes to sex, and it's very hard to maintain excitement levels in a long-term monogamous relationship because people fall into routines and ruts, and sex just becomes the same every time, and so people kind of lose desire for it, for that reason," says Lehmiller. "It's not really necessarily about a problem with them. It's really just more of an issue of, again, they're not having the sex that they want to be having."

That doesn't mean you need to throw away monogamy; it just means that you should cut yourself some slack if you're losing interest in sex in your long-term relationship.

People experience desire in different ways. Lehmiller notes the distinction between spontaneous and responsive desire: Spontaneous desire is when you'll just feel like having sex out of the blue, whereas responsive desire is where you feel like having sex only once you've already started getting into a sexual situation. 

Now, that isn't to say all cases of low libido are secretly one of the above issues, Lehmiller notes. Hormonal disruptions, neurochemical imbalances, and other physiological conditions can absolutely be root causes of low libido. "But I think all too often we just always make the assumption that low desire is a medical problem when, in actuality, it's often this psychological problem," he adds. 

In the DSM-5, low libido falls under two possible diagnoses: female sexual interest/arousal disorder and male hypoactive sexual desire disorder. Both are diagnosed when a person has been experiencing reduced or no interest in sex for at least six months and is "significantly distressed" by it. 

"It's based on the individual's perception and the degree to which they feel distressed about their level of sexual desire," Lehmiller explains. "So it's usually a bit more subjectively defined rather than, you know, putting a specific number on how many times per month or year they're having sex."