CheekyChicago

One of the most common sex questions that women and men ask me is about differences in desire or interest in sex. This is also one of the most common dilemmas that couples enter sex therapy with a wish to address: how – they want to know – can they negotiate their different levels and ways of wanting?

Much of it is frequency. Some people want sex three times a week and others are happy with having sex once a month, or less often. More than a hundred years ago, physician Clelia Mosher interviewed married women about their sex lives and found differences between how often people had sex and how often they would prefer to have it.

Other times, it’s not the frequency that plagues couples but the types of sex or the ways of expressing affection. One person craves slow sex, gentle touches or words that pretty much amount to poetry being whispered in their ear. The other person may want sex that’s more vigorous, forceful or that plays with power. Can these two meet and enjoy each other? When does compromise work and when does it feel alienating, sad or as if one has given in or “settled” for something they don’t really want?

What if you could harness your own wanting? What if you could help yourself to not just accept a type or frequency of sex – but to actually want it? Not only would your partner be happier, but you would, too. You could want the same things.

Of course, harnessing your own wanting might also mean that you could make yourself not want something that you can’t have or that your partner doesn’t want. If you’re the one that wants frequent sex and your partner does not, you could make yourself want it at a lower frequency. For the men and women who have asked me for help at lowering their libido so that they don’t feel as though they’re always pestering their partner for sex, this is for you.

We have more power over our own wanting than we may realize. Some mindfulness techniques and self-storytelling strategies have been shown, in research studies, to enhance women’s arousal and experience of their sexuality (I described these both in Because It Feels Good: A Woman’s Guide to Sexual Pleasure & Satisfaction). The mind is enormously powerful and, from time to time, can be engaged in ways to help us to want. Will they work every time? Perhaps not – but often reminding yourself that you do enjoy sex, that it’s often fun once you begin or that you feel closer to your partner once things get going, can be enough for some women or men to help themselves to want.

Debby Herbenick, PhD, MPH is a research scientist at Indiana University, a sexual health educator at The Kinsey Institute, a widely read sex columnist and author of Because It Feels Good: A Woman’s Guide to Sexual Pleasure & Satisfaction.