Times Change
The other day, I was lying in bed with F, her arms around me, as we drifted off to sleep. And I was struck with a startling realization.
I didn’t want to have sex.
Ok, so I know for most people that this seems pretty run of the mill, mundane, average, etc. But I almost ALWAYS want to have sex. I’m like a sex bot. In fact, the only time I didn’t want to have sex was during all the Topomax drama last fall when I didn’t want to read about/write about/think about/talk about or have sex. So you can see why I was a little nervous.
In fact, in the past month, I think I’ve masturbated on my own maybe once? As compared to 5-7 times a week that is my usual. And yet F and I aren’t having sex nearly as often as we did the first month we were..well, whatever we are.
Part of me is worried about LBD. I’ve never been in a relationship with someone who lived in the same city for more than a month, and so I’ve never experienced anything even close to it. I’m having to figure out how to build this relationship and friendship and all that around something more than sex (which is what is was primarily the entire first month). It’s hard. I’m having to rethink things, which is fine, but now my body seems like it’s betraying me. I want to masturbate, but I don’t remember to do it (WHAT?!!?!?!?), and when I do, I find it to be a little boring.
I wonder if this has to do with the depression of not having a job for 2+ months now (or now having a job that causes severe pain, and some nights doesn’t even pay enough for the gas it took to get there). I wonder if it has to do with being sick, getting better, being sick, getting better, and now I’m sick again. I’m sure it has to do with lots of things.
But I *am* sex. I have my degree in it, I write about it, I (usually) work in/around it somehow. So to not have this giant sex drive, this “hi, please fuck me now, kthnxby” attitude is scary. It’s a readjustment as to who I am, how I present myself, how I interact.
I said something to F, about not wanting sex. She laughed. I don’t know if she understood how scary it was to me to not feel like myself…but I think if I explained it, she would understand.
Things change. Humans change. Relationships change. We change. I change.
A few days later, my sex drive is back. Thank the deities. I want to masturbate, and I want F to fuck me. But we haven’t had sex in more than a week. I’m kind of sad about that.
I know things change. I’d just like to change in a way that kept my sex drive around, and that when it IS around, that I can have lots of sex…ok?
-Essin’ Em
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What you’re describing is totally normal. It’s not LBD, although it is common that people feel anxious about LBD as they navigate a new type of intimacy, a new phase of the journey. It’s normal to having periods of wanting sex a lot most or some of the time and also not wanting it some or most of the time. I remember what it felt like to transition from frantic, glowing 8 hours of sex every day during the first month to a different, more intimate closeness where I had space to feel sad and depressed in her presence but there were also a thousand new ways to connect that didn’t all involve sex. I say just go with the flow and check in with yourself every so often.
Yeah, that sounds pretty normal. I was asking a married friend (a bisexual queer, with a hetero-queer husband) about the normal frequency because I was worried too. But I think the trick is that if you’re having as much as you want, then you’re doing good. Dana and I only make time for it once, maybe twice a week (rarely) but we just give ourselves plenty of time so that for the following 2-3 days we’re saying, “remember last night? Yeah it was great!” I mean. I’d love more, but I feel very comfortable with how we express our sexual love. How do you feel about it? If it feels right to you, then it is right.
I think half of the drive to have sex is not being able to have it whenever you want. A little part of me always goes, “How can I NOT have sex–I don’t know when this chance will turn up again!”
But if you’re with F., who sounds like she’s there a whole lot, you don’t have to worry about that. And heck, even when you’re alone mansturbation can be boring, or you can “forget” to do it…if we were totally self-sufficient, we wouldn’t ever want partners. ;)
I’d say you should enjoy the occassional break from “being sex” as something new and different, but not necessarily bad. You’ve hardly been in this relationship long enough to even think about LED!
Interestingly, everyone I know has said to me that as you spend time in a live-in relationship the sex interest wanes. So many folks write about it.
Yet, for me, I’ve NEVER been in a relationship where I was close to someone and lusted for them at first that the need for sex and the feeling of lust has lessened!
This has caused all sorts of problems in my relationships. Nearly all my partners have had an expectation that the urge/need/lust for sex would lessen over time, and it did….FOR THEM! But never for me….which leaves me where I am today, extremely frustrated.
I’ve been having this same issue as well. Normally I want to have sex all the time, every night, or at very least masturbate every day, but lately I’ve been feeling quite the opposite. I’ve had these periods of really wanting sex and then not wanting it at all over the last few months. I know for me a lot of it has to do with depression over not having a job, so I’d wager that may be part of it for you as well.
However, just like everyone else has said also, part of having a long-term relationship is having the sexual desire wain a bit, it’s just natural because other things seem more important or sometimes even better. Sometimes the effort of having sex is not worth the end result (is that bad to say? It’s true!).
Onyx and I were actually talking about this last night, I was trying to have casual sex and he was trying to have sexy sex, which did not work at all let me tell you. The mood left for him and we talked about me not wanting to have sex lately and all that jazz, and the idea of me riding him came up, that we both enjoy it when I do, but we don’t do it very often. I said it was because it took too long, lol, and it’s true! When two people have lots of things they want to do together, sex sometimes gets pushed aside or into quickies, and personally I like quickies.
Basically: I know what you’re going through, and it sucks when you’re in it and wondering about why you’re not wanting to have sex, but I think once you’re out of it (or, this is how it was for me) it’s easier to analyze it and realize that it’s normal and has to do with various other factors, not LBD.