Sexual Starvation

Everyone knows you can live without sex. Because sex isn't necessary for survival, it's easy to forget that it's a drive, like hunger. For someone with a strong sex drive, it feels like "If I don't get it, I will die."

I've referred in previous posts to sex and relationship expert, Pat Love, who describes herself as a very low-desire person. In order to understand her husband's experience as a high-desire person, she decided to get some testosterone injections to boost her libido. It turned out to be an eye-opening experiment. For the first time in her life, she felt a need for sex that went beyond a simple want. The need felt like an itch begging to be scratched. There was a physical discomfort in going without sex that she could never have imagined in her typical low-desire state.

Ms. Love eventually discontinued the testosterone supplements, but the experiement forever changed how she related to her husband's sexual desire. She became intentional about keeping sex a priority in their relationship and learned to allow her husband's desire to stimulate her own. She could no longer stand the idea of 'sexually starving' the man she loved.