Why Do I Only Want Sex Once We’ve Started?

It’s easy to imagine sexual desire working in a simple sequence:

First I feel desire → then I become aroused → then I want to have sex.

Sometimes it does work like that. You suddenly feel horny, think about sex, approach your partner and something begins.

But for many people, desire works almost the other way around. They might rarely find themselves spontaneously thinking, “I really want sex.” Instead, desire begins to emerge after some form of intimacy has started.

Neither is necessarily a problem. They are different ways in which sexual desire can work.

Spontaneous and responsive desire

Spontaneous desire is probably the version we see represented most often in films and television: desire apparently appears from nowhere and motivates us to seek sexual contact.

Responsive desire emerges in response to something.

You might initially want closeness rather than sex: lying together, kissing, talking, flirting or touching. As you become physically and emotionally engaged, arousal begins and sexual desire follows.

In other words, sometimes:

Desire leads to intimacy.

And sometimes:

Intimacy creates desire.

This distinction can be enormously reassuring for people who have assumed that rarely initiating sex or spontaneously feeling horny means they have a "low libido".

The accelerator and the brakes

Another useful way of understanding desire comes from the Dual Control Model of sexual response.

Imagine your sexuality has both an accelerator and a brake.

Your accelerator responds to things that encourage sexual excitement: attraction, fantasy, touch, novelty, feeling desired or feeling emotionally connected.

Your brakes respond to possible threats or reasons not to become sexually aroused: stress, tiredness, fear of pregnancy, pain, body-consciousness, relationship difficulties, children being awake in the next room, previous trauma or simply having too much going on in your head.

Sexual desire therefore isn't simply about how powerful your accelerator is. Sometimes the more important question is:

What's pressing on the brakes?

This can be particularly important in long-term relationships. Trying harder to create desire can inadvertently create pressure — and pressure itself can become another brake. And sometimes, removing the brakes can create desire without needing accelerators (a car on a hill doesn’t need an accelerator to start moving, you just need to release the brakes).

But responsive desire doesn't mean having sex you don't want

There is an important distinction here.

Responsive desire does not mean forcing yourself to have sex in the hope that you'll eventually get into it.

Consent, willingness and desire aren't exactly the same thing.

You might not initially feel sexually aroused but nevertheless genuinely want to explore some intimacy: “I'm not horny right now, but cuddling and kissing sounds lovely, and I'm interested to see where that goes.”

That's very different from feeling obliged to continue because your partner wants sex.

There should always be permission to stop.

So do I actually have a low libido?

Perhaps. But "low libido" can sometimes be too simple a description.

In psychosexual therapy, we can become curious about how your particular desire works. What are your accelerators? What applies your brakes? Does desire tend to arrive spontaneously or responsively? Has that changed? And what happens between you and your partner when one of you wants sex and the other doesn't?

Understanding desire differently can take away the pressure to experience sex in the way we think we're supposed to.

Sometimes desire doesn't need fixing.

Sometimes we just need to understand how it works.