Struggling to get aroused? Sex life stuck in a rut? Then try a ‘sex ban’ – and see your libido climb to new heights
Those first few months of a relationship are magical: you laugh at each other’s jokes; you share the same world view; and, best of all, your sex life is fresh and exciting. But what happens when that magic starts to fade and your sex has become mundane, routine and even a chore. That’s when you should try a ‘sex ban’.
A sex ban can sound completely counterproductive — because, let’s be honest, you might not be having a lot of sex in the first place. But what a sex ban does, is remove the pressure that otherwise hangs in the air between you.
“I was finding the pressure to have sex unbearable,” says Mike Fielding, an accountant from West London. “The more I thought about having sex with my partner, the worse it got and the less aroused I felt. It was a vicious cycle that I just couldn’t see a way out of.”
It’s not uncommon to get nervous or worried when you lose your sex drive. And the pressure you feel, regardless of where it originates from, can lead to all physical intimacy in your relationship feeling stressful.
This, in turn, might mean you start removing yourself from situations where your partner wants to get close. This downward spiral can leave your sex life in tatters – and your relationship completely devoid of intimacy.
Leigh Noren is a sex therapist and intimacy coach. She describes her job as helping relieve the stress, anxiety, shame and pressure around sex — so that individuals can get their sex drive back – and their relationship – back on track.
She’s a firm believer that implementing a sex ban can bring the sparkle back into a relationship. “When you are aroused, you often you have to act on it,” she says. “But being in that kind of space with a partner and not being able to do anything about it can be really exciting. It can bring a spark back into your relationship, make it flirty and make it feel like the old days.”
A sex ban is a common thing in sex therapy, introduced in the 1960’s by sex researchers Masters and Johnson. For more than 60 years, it’s been part of successfully treating all manner of sexual problems, such as low libido, erectile dysfunction, and pain during sex.
The reason it works is simple. It instantly removes the pressure and stress surrounding sex. This lowers the expectations on both of you, and you can once again focus on actually enjoying each other. And when this happens — sex usually turns into something you actually feel like having again.
A sex ban doesn’t even mean a ban on all sex – it can be whatever you want it to be. It could allow kissing, for example, but nothing more; you might masturbate in front of each other but not touch each other; or you might limit yourself to oral sex with no penetration. There is no ‘one size, fits all’ solution – you can choose how you make the sex ban work for you.
“Banning the very thing that is pressuring you can kind of lighten the load and make you feel more relaxed,” says Leigh. “And then you might just start feeling like you actually want to have sex again.”
It certainly worked for Mike. “Our sex life had become like a simmering boiling pot of resentment,” he says. “Neither of us were interested in it and that meant when it happened, it felt like a chore. The sex ban simply removed that pressure. We decided to implement a ban on everything except kissing for four weeks.
“After the first week, we started kissing spontaneously in the house. It was wonderful, like being given a new lease of life. It was obvious after a couple of weeks that we were rediscovering that fondness for each other – and getting more aroused. But we stuck to the ban. That first sex after the ban ended was amazing; like we’d just met. Sex bans are now a regular part of our sex life!”
