Low Libido Liberation
When sexual desire wanes for whatever reason, the freedom it fosters might surprise you.
When you hear the phrase “low libido,” it’s often uttered as a negative. That’s understandable. Do an online search for the phrase and you’ll see a bunch articles and sites looking to cure that state. I get that. It’s assumed we all want our sex drive to remain consistent throughout life.
There is an entire industry dedicated to ensuring that your libido stays feeling frisky and your sexual body parts working. Again, entirely understandable.
At the risk of sounding like a braggart, at 72 years of age I still have a rather active sex drive. I’m grateful for that. My doctor considers me lucky that my body biochemistry still functions well and sexual activity is relatively easy for me to engage in when I want. But I have noticed something interesting over the past couple of years.
When describing what I’ve observed to friends, I tell them it’s as if time has “taken the edge off my sexual drive.” What do I mean by that?
Well, let’s just say I’ve lived a rather horny and sexually active life. That’s an understatement. Without going into the entirety of my sexual history, suffice it to say that from a young age until the present day I have boinked and engaged in erotic play of various kinds often and with many people.
At a party once someone brought up their “body count” (I dislike that term) and I laughed. When they asked why I laughed, I told them there was no way I could possibly arrive at a number and, frankly, I don’t care to do that. Why? How many people one has sex with has nothing to do with anything meaningful. It’s just a number. It’s just sex. Sex is not a competitive sport or a morality barometer even though many people treat it that way.
For full transparency, I’ve lived a life during which sex is often on my mind. I know that’s not unique. One study found that people think about sex a lot.
Using this method they found that the average man in their study had 19 thoughts about sex a day. This was more than the women in their study – who had about 10 thoughts a day. However, the men also had more thoughts about food and sleep, suggesting perhaps that men are more prone to indulgent impulses in general. Or they are more likely to decide to count any vague feeling as a thought. Or some combination of both.
The interesting thing about the study was the large variation in number of thoughts. Some people said they thought about sex only once per day, whereas the top respondent recorded 388 clicks, which is a sexual thought about every two minutes.
My guess is that were I a participant in that study, I would have been on the high end of frequency of sexual thoughts. I’ve been like that since puberty and that frequency has been consistent throughout my life. But it has waned a bit.
Don’t get me wrong. I still think about sex a lot. But it’s less frequent, and more significantly, it’s less urgent. That’s been the big realization lately. I think about sex. I love sex. I have plenty of sex. But it’s less urgent that I do so.
This has been liberating.
When I reflect back on my life, I’ve used masturbation as a focusing tool. Can’t focus? Thinking too much about sex? I engage in some quick solo sex and the pressure is relieved, for a while.
Nowadays, I experience periods of time when I feel that lack or urgency but without necessarily utilizing a good wank to achieve that state. The lack of urgency just is, and it’s not a bad thing. In fact, as I said, it’s been liberating.
Why liberating? Because thinking about sex so much detracts from many of the other things in life I wish to focus on at this point in my life.
Whether it’s a shift in mindset or the biology of age or something else that’s elicited a lower libido situation, I’m choosing to be grateful for it rather than upset about it. Of course, I still think about sex. I still have sex. Perhaps less often than I did in my 20s or 50s, but still plenty often. If someone wanted testimony proof, there are quite a few men who would do so.
Why am I discussing this? Because I’ve had lots of conversations with people who have lower sex drives than they used to and some consider it problematic. When I dive deeper into it with them, often it’s not that less sex is a problem. Rather, it’s that they believe they are “supposed to” want and have more sex than they do. It’s the bane of comparison yet again.
There is an old phrase that’s been attributed to many different people, “Comparison is the thief of joy.” So true. That applies to sex as well. Comparing your sex life to someone else’s is a surefire recipe for disappointment. Someone will always be having more sex than you are. Trust me on this.
If you are getting older, dealing with a short- or long-term physical or mental challenge, or simply think about and act on sex less than you used to for any reason, it’s all fine. Admittedly, if you have a partner who wants more sex than you do, you’ll have to figure that out. But for your own sexual desire, there is no “correct’ or “best” amount of sex to have or not have. It’s all just fine as long as you’re happy.
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