Why Women Lose Interest in Sex

And how you can help her get it back

I once lost interest in sex. It lasted for years and it almost ruined my marriage.

I’m still piecing together the full picture of exactly what happened. But part of the story has to do with my libido.

For years, I suffered from undiagnosed hormonal imbalances. Along with my mental clarity and my energy, my low levels took my libido.

That was only part of the picture, though. My libido was really low, but it wasn’t dead.

I still got flashes of horniness. I got aroused and craved physical release. I just usually took care of it by myself.

I would stream some porn on my phone when my husband was busy working in the basement.

When he was out of the house and the kids were down for a nap, I’d lock my bedroom door and use my vibrator to get myself off as quickly as I could.

And I got reacquainted with my massaging showerhead.

Actually having sex, though, wasn’t all that appealing. All the intimacy involved felt like a lot of work.

When I did fuck my husband, it was partly out of guilt. I would count the weeks since the last time we had sex and I’d feel like it was due.

The sex got me off and kept my husband at least somewhat satisfied, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that it would’ve been easier to just masturbate instead.

Things stayed more or less that way for years, until I got a solid diagnosis and started getting help with my medical problems.

My libido increased. Around the same time, I started writing erotica. That helped a lot, too.

I started wanting to have sex again.

But the real turning point was when we started having more open and honest conversations.

If we were going to have sex on the regular again, we had to get on the same page about it.

Gradually, we laid everything out and designed a sex life that worked for both of us.

There was more foreplay and flirting.

He was more dominant during sex. He learned methods for putting me in a submissive place that worked really well for me.

He spoke dirty to me during sex, and did it in the way I preferred.

My hormones were still far from balanced, but my interest in sex was back with a vegneance.

I notice it when I’m not having sex, too. Even when my libido goes low and I just can’t muster enough arousal to get there, I still wish I could.

I feel so good when we get physical, and I just want to hold on to that feeling. The day after a really good fuck, I daydream about it and want more.

I feel so much better about myself, my life, and my relationship now that my interest in sex is back. I wish I had regained it a lot sooner. But it’s only after I got it back that I started to figure out why I lost it in the first place.

Now when I look back, I can see that one of the big reasons I didn’t feel a lot of desire is because I didn’t feel very desirable.

Losing Desire

The pattern I was in with my husband is one a lot of couples fall into.

After a few years, she loses interest in sex, and he’s baffled as to why it happened. As far as he can tell, there have been no major changes. It comes out of the blue.

She’s probably not really sure what happened, either. She has no explanation for why he’s still interested in having sex and she just can’t bring those old feelings back.

There are a lot of reasons people might lose interest in sex, but a very common one for women is no longer feeling desired.

One of the reasons has to do with testosterone.

I know I’m making a lot of generalizations here, but women’s sex drives are generally more responsive than men’s. They don’t tend to be activated spontaneously (well, maybe during ovulation). They feed off the sexual energy they get from their partners.

When women enter a new relationship, though, their testosterone levels increase.

If other women are anything like me, that extra shot of testosterone turns their responsive sex drives into much more active ones.

Eventually, the relationship gets settled and so does the testosterone. When their hormones are back at their baseline, they become responsive again. They stop initiating sex. They stop craving it the way they did at first. And they don’t spend a lot of mental energy thinking about how they want to fuck their partner.

Men don’t experience the same testosterone boost at the start of the relationship. So, their interest in having sex tends to remain strong even as the relationship gets comfortable.

For them, nothing changes. And that’s precisely the problem. They’re still initiating sex and approaching it the same way they did when their partner had a more active sex drive. Now that the hormones are gone, so is the easy road into her pants. The old ways of getting her hot just aren’t enough to get her going anymore.

There can be subtle shifts on the other side, too.

Even if you feel like you’re doing the same things you’ve been doing from the day you met her, it’s probably not the case.

After a while, you stop thinking about her every moment you’re apart.

You stop doing all the little gestures and sweet things you used to do during the honeymoon phase.

Trying to impress her just feels silly now that you’ve got her locked down.

There’s less flirting. There’s less romance. And that means there’s not as much buildup to sex.

You might be initiating sex the same way you used to, but without that long lead up to it, those moves you put on her probably feel abrupt.

And sometimes, the problem isn’t hormones or how you initiate sex. Sometimes, it’s the way you fuck.

Obviously, how you fuck matters from the very beginning of a relationship. But at first, you’re just excited to have sex with each other. You both still want and crave it, even if it isn’t mind blowing.

After a while, though, she’ll want to have sex in a way that makes her feel wanted.

The bare fact that you want to have sex with her isn’t enough to make her feel special. It probably did at first, when you both had options and chose to be with each other. But now that she’s in your life, she’s aware that she’s the only readily available option.

She wants to know she’s not just convenient. She wants to feel like she’s more than an alternative to jerking off.

She wants to be fucked in a way that lets her feel your passion for her.

And the more she gets it that way, the more she’ll want it.

I know that it can feel hopeless when your partner loses interest in sex. But unless there are other underlying issues, it’s not hard to get the heat back. All it takes is a bit of patience, some intention, and a lot of communication.

What to Do When She Loses Interest

Even if there are other underlying issues, doing a few things to make your partner feel more desirable is something that can only help your relationship.

No one ever complained that their partner made them feel hot and wanted.

Making her feel desired is also not a one-sided thing. The way she’ll react to you making her feel that way — the way she’ll look at you and talk to you — is going to make you feel sexier, too.

And even if you don’t end up having more sex because of it, you will have better sex. There will be more passion. She will be more into it. You’ll feel reconnected after.

Be Intentional About Flirting

Relationship flirting is different from the flirting you do when you’re dating or courting.

You’re used to being around each other. It doesn’t usually occur to you to do a whole lot of sweet talking.

Unless you want something.

In a lot of relationships, flirting happens when you want to fuck. You put the moves on when it’s time to go to bed, hoping that you’ll get to do more than just turn off the lights and go to sleep.

I find that flirting works a lot better when there are no stakes.

Flirting when there’s no possibility of sex makes me feel like it’s actually about me. A smack on the ass and a growl in my ear right before he leaves the house shows that he’s thinking about me and aroused by me, not just hoping to fuck me because I’m there.

Make flirting a bigger part of your life. Do it throughout the day. Do it when there’s no possibility of having sex for a while. Give her warm feelings and plenty of time to sit with them.

Being more intentional about flirting will make her feel more desirable and fire up her interest in sex.

Show Your Enthusiasm During Sex

A lot of men are way too chill when they have sex. They’re having a great time and feeling amazing, but you can barely tell.

There might be a lot of sweating and pumping, but she won’t feel your enthusiasm unless you get vocal about it.

Tell her how hot she looks naked. Tell her how much you love her tits, praise her amazing ass, and whisper in her ear to let her know how good it feels to have your cock inside her.

Tell her how great she tastes, how incredible her handjob skills are, and how you can’t get enough of her.

If you’re not comfortable with dirty talk (or she isn’t), then express your enjoyment without saying a word. Just let go of your inhibitions and groan, grunt, and pant. Make any noise that feels natural so she knows just how into it you are.

And show enthusiasm for her through your actions, too. Treat her in a way that makes it impossible to doubt your desire for her.

Worship her body. Savor it. Claim it like you can’t resist it.

Kiss her thighs like you could spend all night between them. Lick her nipples like they were your dessert. Flip her over because you can’t wait to grab her ass.

When you fuck her with enthusiasm, you make it clear that you’re not just interested in having sex — you want to have it with her, specifically.

Again, she might not have needed this much enthusiasm before, and it might feel like it’s coming out of the blue. But sometimes, a woman just needs a little more reassurance than usual.

She might be self-conscious after gaining weight. She might be starting to feel old. Her body might have changed after having kids. Or maybe she’s just highly aware that you’re the guy who sees her without her makeup every morning.

That’s when showing your enthusiasm for her matters most.

Take a Sex Quiz or Play a Sex Game

It can be surprisingly hard to tell your partner what you want out of sex.

I personally have had to overcome a lot of embarrassment before I could tell my husband about some of my preferences. In fact, just last week I confessed one of my recurring sexual fantasies for the first time — after 10 years of marriage and 15 years together.

I also know a lot of women worry about how those confessions will be received. What if she tells you how she wants to be fucked and it makes you insecure or defensive? What if you laugh at her fantasy or tease her about it? What if you shame her for wanting something kind of pervy?

Sometimes, it feels safer to just keep that shit to ourselves.

That’s why I find quizzes, questionnaires, and games really helpful for opening up a dialog. Especially since there are times you don’t even know what you want until the right questions draws it out of you.

There are some great questionnaires you can take as a couple that will ask about your sexual wishes, turn-ons, and fantasies so you can compare your answers.

My favorite part about those is that most of them will only reveal to your partner that you want to try something if they’re also open to trying it.

MojoUpgrade is a really popular choice, but I’ve also enjoyed We Should Try It.

My favorite, though, is a card game called Pillow Talk. Each card has a sex question or suggestion, and taking turns reading them out to each other can spark some really good discussion.

Once you figure out what she wants out of sex, you can start giving it to her (if it’s something you’re comfortable doing).

Having the kind of sex she wants is going to help her be more interested in it, and you’ll probably find out exactly what she needs to feel desired.

Some women only feel desired when they’re getting a rough fucking.

Some only do when they’re given a lot of body worship — with long massages and slow pussy massages as part of your foreplay.

Some women (like myself) feel most desirable when they’re submitting to a dominant partner. Others feel sexiest when their partner submits to them.

Learning how she wants to be fucked is going to help you give her the kind of sex she can’t stop thinking about.

Bring Back the Spark

I don’t think I consciously realized that my low interest in sex was partly caused by my lack of sexual fulfillment. But looking back, that was definitely a part of it.

I didn’t even know what was missing. I just knew I didn’t feel a spark anymore.

I figured that was normal. I thought that’s how relationships worked. You get older, you get settled, and you lose interest in sex after a while.

I knew I wanted my husband to talk dirty to me during sex. I knew I would’ve found it hot if he was more dominant with me. But I didn’t realize those things would’ve made such a difference, that they would actually make me feel desired.

I definitely didn’t know they would fix my sex life.

But they did. And they might be what fixes yours.

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