Low libido in men: a taboo you can talk about

Men also go through phases when they don’t want sex. Low libido in men is more common than the cliché suggests, and it says nothing about your masculinity. Body, stress, mood and relationship all play into it: some of it needs a medical check, the rest is something you can look at together.

The cliché of the man who always wants it

Men always want sex, women have to be talked into it. The image is old and stubborn. You find it in films, in jokes, in conversations between friends. Men who don’t fit it usually keep quiet.

Many of the men who come to me have spent a long time wondering what is wrong with them. Some kept having sex without wanting it, so nobody would notice. Others hid behind work, sport or tiredness. Almost all of them feel ashamed. Shame makes it hard to talk about, even with the person most affected by it.

Yet different levels of interest in sex come up for men just as they do for women. A brochure by pro familia, a German counselling organisation for sexuality and relationships, shows this, for example. The person with less desire is not automatically the woman.

Possible reasons

There is rarely just one reason. Usually several things come together and reinforce each other.

In the body

Hormones, medication and illness can dampen desire. Low testosterone is one possible cause, but far from the only one. Blood pressure medication, some antidepressants, lack of sleep and a lot of alcohol can also affect desire. Whether any of this applies to you can only be clarified by a doctor. More on that below.

Stress, exhaustion and mood

A job that never lets up. Small children who are awake at night. Money worries. In phases like these, your body is set to keep going. Desire needs a state in which you can let go and feel your body. That state is often missing.

A low mood takes away desire too. If you have been feeling empty, flat or down for weeks, please take it seriously. I come back to this in the section on medical advice.

Pressure and expectations

Sometimes sex has turned into a test. Will the erection hold? Will I last long enough? Is she or he satisfied? If you are mainly concerned with doing well during sex, you feel little pleasure. Over time desire withdraws, because sex feels more like performance than like meeting someone.

Low desire and worries about erections are often closely linked. If you do want sex but the erection fades, that is a topic of its own. I cover it under sex therapy for erection problems.

In the relationship

Anger that was never spoken. The feeling of only being needed as a provider or a father. Sex that has gone the same way for years. Sometimes care and desire collide: if you mostly experience your partner as the mother of your children, it can be hard to find your way to her as a woman you desire.

There is also a quieter form. Some men experience their partner as so important that they don’t dare to become visible with their own wishes. The fear of being rejected, or of losing the other person, is then stronger than desire. In that case, low desire is no sign of indifference. If anything, it points the other way. You can read more about what happens between two people under no desire for sex in a relationship.

Young men too

Low libido is not a question of age. Men in their early twenties also go through phases without desire, for example under exam pressure, in a new relationship, after a break-up, or when they are unsure what they actually want. Young men in particular often feel they are supposed to want sex a lot. When that isn’t the case, it unsettles them all the more.

Some people feel little or no sexual attraction and don’t suffer from it. The term for this is asexuality. It is an orientation, not a complaint.

See a doctor if something changes

Has your desire disappeared suddenly, have other symptoms appeared, or did it start with a new medication? Then please see a GP (Hausarzt) or a urologist first. They can check your hormones, for example, and possible side effects. Don’t stop taking medication on your own.

If you have been feeling down for weeks, the right place to go is a doctor or a psychotherapist who works with statutory health insurance. In Germany, health insurance usually covers these costs. If you are in an acute crisis, please contact the Berliner Krisendienst (Berlin crisis service) straight away. It is available around the clock.

If your partner wants sex more than you do

This section is also for the other side. If your partner doesn’t want sex, the question is close at hand: Is it me? Doesn’t he desire me any more? Is there someone else?

Less desire is not a withdrawal of love. The reasons often lie in his body, his daily life, or in fears he finds hard to talk about himself. That doesn’t make your hurt any less valid. Being turned down again and again is painful.

It gets difficult when a pattern sets in. One person asks, courts, and at some point pushes. The other avoids, becomes careful with tenderness because it might lead to more. The more one wants, the less the other wants. Both are trying to solve the problem, and that is exactly what keeps it going. You can read more under mismatched desire.

What can help

A few steps that don’t involve a performance goal. None of them promises a result. They often change the mood in which you think about sex, though.

Take the pressure off. Agree on times for closeness when sex is explicitly not on the cards. Many men only notice then how much every hug came with an expectation attached.

Talk about desire instead of frequency. “We haven’t had sex for weeks” usually leads to justifying yourself. “What attracted you to me back then, and what attracts you now?” opens a different conversation. How to deal with the shame that comes up, I describe under the shame of talking about sex.

Ask yourself what you have sex for. Out of desire, out of duty, for reassurance, to avoid an argument? Anyone who mostly has sex out of duty will understandably lose interest in it. And look at where your desire has gone. Does it turn up in fantasies, when you masturbate, when you see other people? Then it hasn’t disappeared. It has withdrawn from the relationship. That is a different question from “I don’t want sex at all any more”.

I don’t assess supplements or products that promise more desire. If you are considering something like that, please talk to a doctor about it.

What happens in sex therapy

In sex therapy I don’t try to bring your desire back. I assume it has grown quieter for a good reason. Together we look at when it was there, where it has withdrawn to, and what it would need today. This involves your history, the images of masculinity you carry with you, and your relationship.

I also work with the body. Desire starts in the body, you can’t decide on it in your head. We pay attention to how you breathe, where you hold tension and what you feel when sex is the topic. In sex therapy I don’t touch you, and your clothes stay on. If you like exercises, you get some to take home.

You can come on your own or as a couple. If you come together, the session is closer to couples therapy, where we look at the pattern between you. As a rule, you pay the fees yourself.

The next step

I work in Neukölln, in Prenzlauer Berg and online, in German and English. You can also come on your own if your partner isn’t ready yet. Write me two or three sentences. That is enough to begin with.