Where Did My Desire Go? Understanding Low Sexual Desire in Women

You love your partner.

You may still find them attractive.

You may enjoy affection, companionship, and the life you've built together.

But when it comes to sex?

You don't really want it.

And sometimes the most frustrating part is that you want to want it.

Low sexual desire in women is a conversation that comes up frequently in sex therapy. Women may worry that something has happened to their libido, their relationship, or even themselves. But sexual desire doesn't exist in a vacuum.

What's happening in our bodies, relationships, minds, and lives influences our desire. Stress, exhaustion, caregiving, medications, hormones, health concerns, relationship dynamics, sexual pain, resentment, trauma, sleep, and major identity changes can all influence our ability to access desire.

And motherhood can bring several of those factors crashing together at once.

In a recent episode of the Evolve Your Intimacy Podcast, I sat down with certified sex therapist Carolyn Hood, LICSW, CST, to talk about motherhood, mental load, responsive desire, and what it means to reclaim an erotic identity after spending so much time taking care of everyone else.

One idea kept coming up throughout our conversation:

Maybe your desire isn't gone. Maybe it's buried.

When Sex Becomes One More Thing You Have to Do

Think about the amount of invisible work required to run a household.

Who remembers the pediatrician appointment?

Who notices that the kids are almost out of toothpaste?

Who knows when the permission slip is due?

Who realizes there isn't enough milk for breakfast tomorrow?

Who remembers the birthday gift, schedules the dentist, replaces outgrown shoes, plans dinner, checks the school email, and knows somebody needs poster board by Tuesday morning?

Completing those tasks requires energy.

But remembering that they need to happen requires energy too.

That's part of the mental load.

Now imagine reaching the end of that day and hearing:

"Want to have sex?"

For the partner initiating, sex may represent connection, relaxation, pleasure, or stress relief.

For the partner carrying an enormous mental and physical load, their nervous system may respond very differently:

"You want something from me too?"

That's an entirely different starting point for intimacy.

“Touched Out” Is Real

Parents—particularly those caring for young children—sometimes describe themselves as touched out.

Someone has been climbing on them.

Someone needed to be held.

Someone wanted to sit in their lap.

Someone needed comfort.

Someone needed help getting dressed.

Someone followed them into the bathroom.

By the end of the day, even an affectionate touch from a partner can register as another demand on a body that hasn't felt entirely like its own all day.

That doesn't necessarily mean attraction has disappeared.

Sometimes what is missing is space.

Space to transition from caregiver to partner.

Space to experience your body without somebody needing something from it.

Space to remember that touch can be something you receive and enjoy, not something you constantly provide.

The Mental Load Can Become a Relationship Problem

Mental load becomes particularly important when it begins to create resentment.

If one partner feels responsible for managing the household while the other waits to be told what to do, the issue isn't simply chores.

The dynamic can begin to change how the partners experience one another.

It's difficult to move seamlessly from:

"Why am I responsible for managing everything?"

to:

"Take your clothes off."

That's why conversations about sexual desire sometimes need to happen outside the bedroom.

The question isn't always:

How do we have more sex?

Sometimes a better question is:

What is happening in our relationship and our lives that makes desire difficult to access?

That's a very different conversation.

Motherhood and Low Sexual Desire in Women

Another piece of this conversation doesn't get enough attention.

Becoming a mother can change how a woman understands herself.

Before children, she may have experienced herself as a lover, sexual person, partner, professional, friend, adventurer, or any number of other identities.

Motherhood adds another identity—and it's enormous.

Culture also has plenty to say about what a "good mother" should be: nurturing, available, responsible, patient, giving and, above all, selfless.

Sexuality requires something different.

Pleasure asks:

What feels good to me?

Desire asks:

What do I want?

Eroticism asks:

What excites me?

Those questions require attention to the self.

For someone who has spent years learning to anticipate everyone else's needs, answering “What do I want?” may be surprisingly difficult.

You May Not Want the Same Sex You Wanted Ten Years Ago

There's another possibility worth considering.

Sometimes people try to restore their desire for the sex they used to have.

But you've changed.

Your body may have changed.

Your relationship may have changed.

Your responsibilities have changed.

Your experiences have changed.

Your erotic interests may have changed too.

Instead of asking:

“How do I get back to who I used to be sexually?”

Try asking:

“Who am I sexually now?”

That's a much more interesting question.

Maybe you need more time to become aroused.

Maybe certain kinds of touch no longer appeal to you.

Maybe you want more emotional connection—or less talking and more play.

Maybe fantasy has become more important.

Maybe you want novelty.

Maybe you need more privacy.

Maybe you need sex that doesn't always follow the same script.

The goal doesn't have to be recovering an old version of yourself.

It can be discovering who you are now.

What Romantasy and Erotica Can Tell Us About Desire

Carolyn and I also talked about the popularity of Romantasy and erotica among women.

I find this particularly interesting when someone tells me:

"I have absolutely no sex drive."

...and then tells me about the 600-page dragon romance they stayed up until 2 a.m. reading.

That doesn't mean reading erotica automatically translates into wanting partnered sex.

But it does give us information.

Something is generating curiosity.

Something is creating anticipation.

Something is allowing fantasy.

Instead of judging it, we can become curious about it.

What part of the story is exciting?

Is it pursuit?

Power?

Novelty?

Feeling desired?

Adventure?

Forbiddenness?

Emotional intensity?

Being cared for?

Surrendering control?

Those answers can become clues to your erotic language.

And those clues can create conversations with a partner that are much more useful than:

"We need to spice things up."

Responsive Desire Changes the Conversation

Many people were taught that sexual desire should work something like this:

Want sex → initiate sex → become aroused → have sex.

That's spontaneous desire.

But desire doesn't always arrive first.

For some people, particularly in long-term relationships, desire may emerge after something pleasurable or erotic begins.

That can look more like:

Connection → pleasurable stimulation → arousal → desire.

This is often described as responsive desire.

Understanding that difference can be incredibly useful because otherwise someone may spend years waiting to think spontaneously.

"I really want sex right now."

And when that thought doesn't arrive, they assume something is wrong.

The more useful question may be:

What conditions help my body and mind become receptive to pleasure?

Importantly, responsive desire does not mean forcing yourself to participate in sex you don't want and hoping you'll eventually enjoy it.

Consent still matters.

Curiosity is not obligation.

Start With Curiosity, Not Pressure

If your desire has changed, resist making your first goal:

Have more sex.

That creates a scoreboard.

Instead, investigate.

Try asking yourself:

When do I feel most connected to my body?

What makes touch feel pleasurable rather than demanding?

What prevents me from mentally transitioning into an erotic space?

What kind of intimacy do I actually miss?

What am I curious about now?

What does attraction mean to me today?

And perhaps the biggest question:

What would sex need to become for me actually to want it?

That question can open an entirely different conversation.

Desire Doesn't Need to Return to What It Was

Reclaiming your erotic identity doesn't necessarily mean becoming the person you were before children, before stress, or before life became complicated.

Maybe that's not the goal.

You get to discover who you are now.

Your sexuality can evolve alongside everything else about you.

And sometimes the first step isn't trying harder to want sex.

It's finally becoming curious about what you want sex to be.

Continue the Conversation

In the bonus episode “Where Did My Desire Go? Motherhood, Mental Load & Reclaiming Erotic Identity,” I talk with certified sex therapist Carolyn Hood, LICSW, CST, about desire, motherhood, mental load, resentment, responsive desire, Romantasy, erotic identity, and finding your way back to pleasure in the middle of real life.

🎙️ Listen to the Evolve Your Intimacy Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

You can also learn more about Carolyn and her upcoming book, Sex Begets Sex: Reclaiming Desire as an Act of Female Empowerment, through Desire in Real Life.