How Normal Is It To Worry About Your Sex Drive?

There’s no “normal” amount of sex for couples to have, therapists told HuffPost UK previously. In fact, some research has found that only 26% of couples do the act once a week or more.

According to Prof Caroline F Pukall, a professor of psychology who was involved in a new paper on libido, “Sexual desire concerns are one of the most common reasons people seek sex or couples therapy, yet most research has focused on low desire itself or differences in desire between partner”.

Her research, published in the Journal of Sex and Martial Therapy, sought to “better understand how people personally think about and worry about their libido, including what makes them concerned and how those concerns vary across different relationship statuses, genders, and sexual orientations”.

The paper found that over half – 67.1% – of participants worried about their sex drive.

The researchers looked at 1,317 respondents to a social media survey. Almost 80% of these were in a committed relationship.

They were asked questions like how often they engaged in sexual activity, how often they desired to do so, how high they percieved their libido to be, and whether they ever worried about their libido.

Almost 60% of the respondents said “yes” to the last question.

Some of the most common concerns included:

• Worries about their libido being too low (47.5% of the worried group),
• Worries about their libido being mismatched with their partners’ (42.4%)
• Worries their sex drive was too high (7.6%).

Of those who worried about their low libido, most people said their biggest concern was not being able to meet their partners’ needs.

Nearly half of the people who responded said they missed how interested in sex they used to be.

Women were much more likely than men to say they were worried about thier sex drive.

People in relationships, especially relationships lasting a year or more, were likelier to report both lower libido and increased worry about their sex drive.

Common reasons given included mental health issues, stress, fatigue, parenting responsibilities, medications, and negative body image.

Age didn’t seem to affect how high people’s libido was, not did it seem linked to how worried they were about their sex drive.

Prof Pukall said this study might not be fully representative of most adults, as respondents reached the survey through a podcast about libido, so may be more interested in most in the topic – possibly due to their concerns.

Still, she said, “The biggest takeaway is that concerns about libido are extremely common, and many people worry about whether their desire is ‘normal’….

“Participants frequently described concerns about having lower desire than they wanted, changes in desire over time, or differences between their own desire and a partner’s.”