“I don’t want sex”

“When we go to bed in the evening, I button up my pajamas tightly, letting my husband know that his attempts will lead nowhere.” Elizabeth is 40 years old and has three children. She has been married for 11 years and no longer wants to have sex. And she is not alone.

Moscow gynecologist Elena Egorova accepts women of all ages. In most of them, according to her, “sexual desire has not disappeared, but seemed to fall asleep.” The energy, which at first was completely directed to the man, eventually begins to go to solve other problems, and as a result, the woman moves away from her partner.

“The transition from falling in love, a bright passion to a long-term relationship is always difficult,” says family psychotherapist Inna Khamitova. – Often it seems to us that the desire will always be, and no one thinks that it should be supported. “If I love, then I feel sexual attraction. It’s natural. It was like that from the very beginning, why is it different now?”

When desire fades, some of us begin to doubt the power of our love. But sexologists, psychotherapists and psychoanalysts emphasize that desire does not arise by itself. “For it to appear, a woman must feel relaxed, have time, tune in to sex,” emphasizes sexologist Irina Panyukova. “The desire of a woman is very vulnerable, because it is not programmed by nature: even without attraction and orgasm, she is quite capable of conceiving, bearing and giving birth to a child.”

Over time, the desire to have sex becomes more unstable and fragile. To keep it, partners need more effort.

“I don’t like myself”

“Looking in the mirror, I see all the flaws and feel unattractive,” admits 39-year-old Elena. – I’m afraid that Maxim notices this too, so I don’t want him to see me naked. I am embarrassed to undress in front of him, rather turn off the light, get under the covers … Sex has long turned into a marital duty.

To feel desire, a woman needs to like not a man, but herself. “Pleasing does not mean conforming to the canons of beauty,” notes psychoanalyst Svetlana Fedorova. – A woman can consider herself beautiful, but unwanted, and, conversely, be aware of her sexuality with all her imperfections. Desire strongly depends on the woman’s idea of ​​herself and on her reflection in the eyes of her partner.

36-year-old Larisa, an optometrist, has never been married and is quite content with her life. One day a man came to see her and… charmed her. “It was clear as day that we really liked each other, and when he left, we agreed on a date … A couple of days later we met in a cafe, and for some reason I suddenly felt uncomfortable. I could not stand his gaze – it was piercing and somehow dangerous. I felt that my insides were getting cold, and I ran away without even paying for the coffee.”

Larisa was paralyzed by deep anxiety, and she did not want to know the answers to questions that could turn her life upside down. What would happen if intimacy gave them pleasure? Would he “use” it, use it for his own enjoyment? And that would be the end of it? “Many women are afraid of male desire,” says Elena Egorova. – It would be nice if they could finally say to themselves: “I’m not afraid of anything, it will be pleasant for me.”

“I thought it was because of childbirth”

Daria is 36 years old, she has a son, a good job, a husband and… for more than a year she has been completely indifferent to sex. “Since Vasya was born, I stopped wanting a husband. At first it seemed to me that this was due to childbirth, sleepless nights, fatigue … But little by little we managed to improve our lives, my son became calmer, I get enough sleep, the figure became the same as it was, everything is going well. But I don’t want sex. My husband is suffering, and I don’t understand what is happening to me.”

“A young mother is going through a period of merging with the new main person of her life: this is how she “seduces” the child to life, so her attraction to a man temporarily falls asleep,” explains Svetlana Fedorova.

But there are more difficult situations: a woman sends her husband to another room, and she herself sleeps with a child in the same bed, receiving sexual pleasure from bodily communication with him. “The mother perceives the child as a part of herself, he becomes for her an analogue of the phallus, which gives her a feeling of omnipotence: thanks to the “phallus”, she becomes a superman who possesses both sexes at the same time, and she does not need a man at all,” concludes Svetlana Fedorov.

“I’m cold as a robot”

How do men feel today? They also do not always want sex, and it is much more difficult to help them than women, sexologist Yevgeny Kashchenko believes, especially if everything is in order with an erection and there is no shortage of partners.

42-year-old broker Nikolai recently divorced his wife. In the last year, he dated a lot of women. “I try to break out of my loneliness, rushing from one woman to another, but I can’t really attach to any of them. I’m frozen, I don’t feel anything anymore and I have sex mechanically, like a robot.”

Desire is not limited to the satisfaction of needs. This is the energy that draws us to another person, to something special that is only in him alone. “We are eager to discover the other and “complete” ourselves with his virtues,” says anthropologist Marina Butovskaya, author of the book “Secrets of Sex. Man and woman in the mirror of evolution” (Vek-2, 2004). “By the way, this is why we are attracted to those who are different from ourselves.”

Our sexual desire is also vulnerable because we live in a world where any desire seems feasible – you just need to find the right product. We believe that any joy can be bought, including guaranteed satisfaction from sex, says Inna Khamitova. “There are“ erotic supermarkets ”- dating sites where it is enough to put a few checkmarks in the questionnaire to determine the ideal type for us. There are “magic pills” that give the illusion that everything is under our control.”

Objects rain down on us like the psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan said. And desire disappears. After all, when everything is available, we have nothing more to desire.

Always want

Not making love, not wanting a partner – is it conceivable today, when everyone’s body must be desired? If there is no sexual intercourse for a couple of months, because the libido is directed to other tasks, this is considered strange and wrong.

Conversely, we admire those who make love every day, although they themselves rarely get such extraordinary pleasure from it. They are gnawed by the thought that they are missing something, and therefore they have to constantly confirm their “possession” of a partner, turning him into an object.

The feeling of inner emptiness is an integral part of the human experience. And it is useless to try to fill this void by frantically having sex at the first opportunity. “We are not animals that obey instincts: estrus, estrus, the biological need for reproduction,” adds Marina Butovskaya. Man has created a language that allows him to go beyond reality, develop imagination, fantasize, and therefore desire.

“It’s sad when a couple’s life is reduced to a mechanical alternation of stimuli and reactions,” notes Svetlana Fedorova. “If we stop talking about our feelings, don’t share small joys, don’t surprise others and surprise ourselves, don’t bring anything new to the relationship, we don’t have room for fantasies. And if fantasy dies, sexuality goes with it.”

Seducing does not mean, having finally put the children to bed and washed the dishes, with the usual gesture to call the partner into the bedroom: “Well, let’s go make love?” Desire does not like straightforwardness and simple solutions. It requires vigilant care and attention. Ask? No – it is much more pleasant to reap the benefits of a long, gentle and patient courtship.