Low libido: spiritual meaning and emotional causes

What low libido is

Libido is sexual desire. It rises and falls naturally across a lifetime and from one person to another, and there is no "normal" amount. Low libido becomes a problem when the change bothers you or affects your relationship. Some people simply feel little or no sexual attraction, and that is not an illness in itself.

Loss of libido is very common and usually has more than one cause. Relationship difficulties, stress, anxiety, depression and fatigue are frequent ones. Hormonal changes play a part during pregnancy, after childbirth, while breastfeeding and around the menopause, and low testosterone can lower desire in men. Some medicines, including certain antidepressants, blood pressure medicines and hormonal contraception, can reduce it. So can alcohol, recreational drugs, an underactive thyroid, diabetes and other long-term illnesses, and past sexual trauma.

Help depends on the cause: treating a medical condition, reviewing a medicine with the doctor who prescribed it, or talking therapy such as psychosexual or relationship therapy. Erection problems are covered on their own page, erectile dysfunction.

It can feel awkward to raise, but loss of libido is something doctors hear about every day. It helps to say when it started, whether anything changed around that time (a new medicine, a birth, a loss, a move, a new job), and whether it is desire itself that has gone or something else, such as pain or tiredness, that gets in the way. Couples often find that talking about it openly, without blame, already takes some of the weight off.

The emotional meaning of low libido

Spiritually, desire is part of your vital needs, like hunger or the wish to move. When it disappears, the question is what has taught it to stay quiet.

Guilt learnt early

Loss of desire is often linked to a very strict upbringing around anything to do with sex. You may have come to believe, deep down, that the genitals are immoral or dirty. Even as an adult who knows better, guilt or shame can still close the door.

The more you try, the less it works

Desire can also fade under a performance complex. You want to do better, be better, satisfy more, and the more you push, the less you manage. Pressure is the opposite of the relaxation desire needs.

When effort replaces pleasure

Performance pressure turns intimacy into a test, and a test is something you can fail. The fear of failing then becomes the main feeling in the room. Desire, which needs ease and play, has little space left. Spiritually, the question is where in your life, not only in the bedroom, you have stopped enjoying and started proving.

Desire held back as a reproach

Sometimes there is resentment towards a partner, or towards men or women in general. Refusing your own sexuality can become a quiet way of getting even: they will not have your pleasure, they do not deserve it. Spiritually, the question is who is really being punished. Cutting yourself off from your own needs often hurts you most.

When the desire for life has faded

The loss of sexual desire, called anaphrodisia, can mirror a wider loss. Disappointments and a fading interest in life in general show up in sexuality too. This can be a degree of low mood, rooted in a negative view of yourself and of others. Seen this way, low libido is less a sexual problem than a sign that pleasure in general has gone quiet.

A gentler way to hold it

The aim is not to blame yourself for a change in desire. Hormones, medicines, tiredness, illness and relationships play a real part, and a doctor can help with them. The emotional perspective invites you to look at your relationship with pleasure.

• Let sexuality be healthy. It is part of your quality of life, not something to earn or to be ashamed of.
• Question old rules. Write down what you were taught about the body, and mark which beliefs are still yours.
• Take the pressure off. Closeness without a goal, with no performance to reach, gives desire room.
• Name the resentment. If there is something to say to a partner, saying it may free more than silence does.
• Do what gives you pleasure. Take time for things that bring you satisfaction and joy, in every part of life.
• Let the taste come back. As the taste for life and for good things wakes up, the wish for intimacy can follow at its own pace.