Sex therapist Leigh Norén says the first mistake people make with low libido is trying to fix it — and her opening question is ‘why am I feeling like this?’
So many people experience low libido at different times in their life – and that’s completely normal. So why is it so often treated like a personal failure? According to sex therapist and intimacy coach Leigh Norén, that might be the first mistake.
“It’s definitely common to experience dips,” says Norén, who has worked in sexology for almost a decade, focusing on low desire and stress around sex. “And it’s also OK to not want sex when you experience that dip.”
Instead of worrying about how to fix your sex drive, Norén suggests first asking, ‘why am I feeling like this?’ That distinction matters because not all low libido is the same. For some people, desire disappears completely. For others, it shows up only in certain contexts – and that can be with or without a partner.
How to find out what might be causing it
Libido is so complex and can be affected by so many factors, it can be hard to give a definitive answer on what’s causing it – and according to Norén, it’s usually a combination of things. However, there can be some good indicators to know what’s going on.
“I think it’s really important to start to understand, first off, is this a general thing?” she explains. “Do I experience low libido in general? For example: ‘I don’t want to have sex and I don’t want to masturbate?’ Or is it more, ‘I’m fine with masturbating, I have the desire for that, but not with my partner’.” That split, she says, is one of the clearest early indicators of where the issue might sit.
If desire is still present when you’re alone, that suggests your baseline sex drive isn’t necessarily the problem. Instead, something in the partnered dynamic may be getting in the way. “Sometimes you have low libido when it comes to partnered sex, but you don’t feel like you have low libido when it comes to masturbation,” says Norén. “So there’s that distinction too.”
Before you panic, the desire to masturbate but not have sex with your partner does not necessarily mean your relationship is doomed! It is actually very common when other factors are at play. According to Norén, masturbation by comparison can be attractive as it’s a much lower-pressure environment – one where you don’t have to perform, communicate, or manage another person’s needs.
“That can be easier to do when you don’t have to read someone else’s body language,” she explains. “You don’t have to do the things that work for them. You can kind of just have a nice moment and release stress that way.”
“I compare it to going out for fine dining versus McDonald’s,” she says. In this comparison, fine dining represents partnered sex. “You have to agree on things. You have to decide, are we gonna have the appetisers first and then we’re gonna have a main course.”
McDonald’s, on the other hand, is masturbation. “With McDonald’s, you know what you’re gonna get every time. You know what you can order, it’s gonna taste the same no matter what.” The point isn’t that one is better than the other – it’s that they are fundamentally different experiences.
Masturbation can often seem a lot easier if you’re experiencing body confidence issues for example, or high stress periods when vulnerability with a partner feels hard. Of course it can also be worth paying attention to as an indicator of whether there’s something going on in the relationship.
So how do you actually tell the difference – you versus your relationship?
Norén suggests looking at the relationship as a whole rather than focusing only on sex itself. “I think taking that 360 degree view of all the things that could be impacting you is helpful,” she says. That includes looking at lifestyle factors, but also relationship health – something men often overlook when thinking about libido.
“If you’re not feeling close to your partner right now and there’s no sort of emotional intimacy… that’s important for male desire too.” Emotional distance isn’t just a “women’s issue” when it comes to sex drive and it can quietly reduce desire for men as well. “What does your relationship look like?” Norén says. “Do you have any quality time together? Is there a lot of conflict? Those things are important to address too.”
Even practical matters can impact your sexual relationships more than we expect. “When you’re in a relationship, it’s very uncommon to always want sex at the same time,” she explains. “Maybe they always want to go in the morning and you want to go at nighttime – and that can be really difficult to sync up.”
Norén is clear that a dip in libido across the board doesn’t automatically mean something is “wrong” either. “It’s definitely common to experience dips,” she says. “And it’s also OK to not want sex when you experience that dip.” Stress, fatigue, mental load and general life pressure can all flatten desire temporarily. And often, it returns on its own.
“Sometimes it just comes back naturally,” she explains. “Like when things slow down or you’re feeling better mentally or you have more space in life to kind of devote to that kind of thing.” The key, she suggests, is resisting the urge to immediately label it as “something wrong with me” – and instead, taking the pressure off and taking some time to work out what might be causing it and why.
You can read more about what to do if you’re worried about a low libido here.
