If only one person in a relationship has lost interest in sex within a monogamous relationship, Tracey says it’s important to find ways to meet the other partner’s needs. I loved hearing about the ways S and C and Shan and Jim learned to navigate their differing desires. If you’re looking for ideas to consider, definitely go back and listen.
Shan really exemplified this that Tracey told me. She said if you’re the person with lower desire in a relationship, keep in mind that there are other motivations for having sex.
This whole thing that desire is the only motivation for sex-I think we need to move away from that-because it’s not the only motivation. Even if you don’t want sex, you can get great satisfaction from satisfying your partner sexually, because you’re being generous. You’re showing them love. It’s affection, it’s intimacy.
This is the other thing about trying to move past thinking of sex as having a beginning, a middle and an end and a destination like, “You’ve got to have an orgasm
So it’s not, this whole thing like well, what am I going to get out of it? Well, you’re going to, what, you know, what you’re going to get out of it, is actually making your partner happy and keeping them happy. So that would be my answer to that one.
Do you find that people who…they believe like I don’t enjoy sex anymore, I’m not interested in it but I still want to pleasure you. I want my partner to have a good sex life.
Have you found in speaking with people that very often once they brought in their definition of sex, that maybe they do get pleasure out of like, nonpenetrative sex, for example?
Totally. I think when people say sex, they mean intercourse. You will say to people, well, I’m not interested in sex, anymore. And it’s like, okay, would you not like a nice massage? Would you not like to have a bath with your partner and have snogging and kissing? And you know, oh, yeah, I want to do that but just not sex. And so they don’t mean sex. They, generally, most of the time mean intercourse. So that’s the first thing to get right.
This scenario that I’m painting where people think it through, most people don’t think it through. Most people think, Well, my partner is not going to be interested if it doesn’t involve penetration, which can be the case with some men, or they just think, they just don’t think past well, if I can’t have penetration, then I’m not going to want sex, as people think of sex as intercourse.
I’ve got to have an orgasm.” You know, it’s got to start with foreplay, finish with intercourse. We’re very rigid in how we think about sex and how we think a good sex life should be so the more we can move away from that and just think differently. Once you change your attitude, you can change anything, I think.
But yarn play instead of sexy play?
One thing that does not cause a drop in desire or sex is a not real phenomenon you may have heard of called “lesbian bed death.” It’s one of those catch phrases that gets passed around and can lead folks to believe that if you’re a cisgender woman who’s into women, then your relationships will inevitably end up like Sioux Falls free hookup apps… I don’t know, two women sitting around kitting scarves or something. Not that there’s anything wrong with knitting. I admire those skills. That’s just not something that gay women are more prone to than anyone else. I love that Tracey debunks this in her book.
