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Is She “Holding Out” Her Sexual Desire For You?

Dear Susan,

I first wrote to you well over a year ago and raised the issue about lack of sexual attraction that my girlfriend had toward me. I tried using some of the suggestions in your materials, but we broke up last March … but got back together last September, thanks to some extent to me implementing…

Mike Fiore’s 

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program strategy.

During the 6-month hiatus, I spent a lot of time at the gym … and subsequently received repeated compliments from my girlfriend the day we met for the first time in kicking off our “new” relationship. She has since said sexual attraction to me isn’t the issue, but she now thinks it’s her lack of a libido.

Still, I can’t help but wonder, since she clamors over fit and handsome Hollywood stars. She is first and foremost dedicated to her mother’s well-being. My girlfriend continues to be a homebody type (as she was in our first relationship) after years of being a self-described party animal and social butterfly who had numerous relationships and felt she was promiscuous back then. I also know she has been on a medication for the past few years, an anti-depressant that is known to reduce libido in some women.

One thing I’ve noticed about her is she has a real difficult time putting into action the things she KNOWS she has to do and has even verbally committed to doing (e.g., exercise, cut back on alcohol, etc.). I’m sure this also applies to intimacy. She has openly expressed frustration with her libido and talks about what she ought to do… but putting it into action is another matter.
We have had honest discussions about this, and I think we both want a great sexual relationship with each other. She says she’s not up for the “hot, wanton sex.” She has described herself as a “Plain Jane” type in bed, which puzzles me because she also has expressed her willingness to dress “sexy” for me. (Last Christmas I gave her a hot-looking outfit; she says she can’t wait to wear when we go out on a romantic dinner.) So I guess bringing up things like kama sutra and tantric beds probably is not a good idea at this point, huh? I suppose with her I will have to work on getting her to crawl before I can get her to walk … and then walk before getting her to run, if you know what I mean.

So what to do next? I feel like I probably should assert more authority and make plans to take her out more often. Something that Adam Gilad mentioned in Revive Her Drive about having a “vision” for the relationship jumped out at me.

Any feedback will be much appreciated.

– M

Hi M,

Great to hear from you again. I am making an educated guess that your girlfriend might be “holding out” her sexual desire because she wants you to marry her.

According to Naomi Watt in…

her book, Vagina, “anti-depressants that use SSRIs (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors) produce a state of satiety due to raised seratonin levels which lower motivation. de Contrecoeur found that raised serotonin anesthetizes emotion, suppresses or blocks sexual desire, and makes people sleepier and less aggressive – they even move around less.”

For many women, the shame they feel about their desire and the societal guilt they experience allows them to be “slutty” with a man they don’t want to marry, but makes them act chaste and virginal (aka “low libido”) with a guy they think they want to be the wife of. This is mostly unconscious behavior. I doubt she’s “playing you” in any way, dear. It’s just a bad mix of neuro-physiology and cultural dichotomy.

I WOULD NOT continue to date her unless you can figure out how to make her feel secure enough with her sexuality around you to really get passionate together. Otherwise, you’ll spend the rest of your days a bitter and gutted man with low self-confidence, starved for touch and affection. And she’ll continued to starve herself sexually thinking she’s doing the right thing. And both of you will miss out on a lifetime of potential pleasure and intimacy that every human deserves.

There are various routes to lead her to her sexual potential that depend on your inter-relational dynamic such as:

1) You take a very dominant and supportive lead and show her what to do very slowly and with a ton of love. See if she’ll step up, out of her cultural trance and excuse making.

2) You have a heart to heart talk and enroll her in taking action so that you two can commit to sexual maturation and a passionate relationship that keeps getting better and better your whole lives. This comes from honestly and willingness to grow.

3) For some men, the pain of talking about things is so great that they want to lead her without her buy in and need a way just to get the ball rolling again. I do NOT recommend this for you. If your relationship is SO bad already with your girlfriend that you cannot even talk to her, then I suggest you move on and find a woman who is more mature and rational.

Trying to look like a body builder, actor or football player is not going to get her to want to have sex with you. There is nothing wrong with you that needs fixing except your ability to be honest and talk to her about your needs and her right to enjoy love, affection, lovemaking and hot, wanton sex as well.

Get honest.

Talk to her.

Immediately do the Relationship Values Workbook™ together from with the Revive Her Drive program you already own and start meeting each other’s overall relationship needs. Ask her to describe exactly how she likes to experience her specific values. She’ll tell you. For example, if she says “faith” is one of her top Relationship Values, ask her to explain how you can provide support for her desire to have a faith-oriented relationship. Maybe she wants you to go to church with her? Do it. Because you will tell her that passion is one of your top Relationship Values and you want her to embark on a journey of finding passion together.

When she says she’s more of a “Plain Jane” sexual person, what she’s likely meaning is that she’s sexually inexperienced and gets overwhelmed by performance anxiety about having to go beyond her comfort zone. She’s afraid to be wanton, to surrender, because she’s insecure. This is where your leadership comes in. This is why you start with romance and get her comfortable and escalate slowly and teach her things and learn together as beginners.

After you two establish your unique Relationship Values, and you get up every day and focus on providing what each of you individually needs to be fulfilled in a relationship…

The single biggest thing that can help you next is to start using the 4 Keys to Seduction inside the Seduction Trilogy. These four keys will allow you, once you’ve gotten her agreement to TRY, to right size offers she will happily say yes to.  Start by making her offers for ROMANCE, not sex. Remember what you learned in Revive Her Drive about romancing her first, then awakening her innate sensuality before advancing to any sexual offers. Then you can escalate from there with the four keys to turn a lukewarm sex life into passionate abandon one day and hot, naughty fun the next.

I think it could help you escalate her and YOU HAVE TO HOLD HER TO HER PROMISES. She needs to be in integrity about her verbal promises. This is a joint venture of sexual maturation for both of you… a time of exploratory pleasure and hones feedback.

Once she’s opening up and enjoying herself, the third book in the Trilogy, Her Sexual Trainer, will show you how to unlock her hidden fantasies and desires (or to help her begin to even explore and have sexual fantasies, for perhaps the first time in her life) so that you can continue to evolve your mutual sexuality with each other.

Please also revisit the sections of Revive Her Drive that include Overcoming Resistance, Sexual Sticking Points and the Masterful Lover MANifesto. Put those things you learn into practice with her immediately and ask her for feedback.

Michael, from what you are writing, I’d really recommend you have a heart to heart talk with her and if she doesn’t step up, move on.

Let me know how this is going and we’ll take it from where ever you are.

Sending you much love.

Warmly,
Susan

 

7 Responses

  1. Interesting questions that I think open up a ton of issues, where lack of great sex is only one of them…

    I was in a marriage that (I thought) lacked sexual passion, but nearly 12 years after divorce, I realize it lacked SO much more than that. I also realize it was my fault for not feeling confident (low self esteem) with myself and knowing what I really wanted. It wasn’t an easy process to get where I am today and I’m still working on all of it. (but it was well worth it) I realize my ex (who is a good friend now) could never give me what would make me happy, and vice versa. We were destined to just exist and not have true passion for each other. We were a bad match.

    I’m 54 now and am having the greatest sex and relationship of my life. I dated a LOT in the last 12 years (last 3 years with the woman I hope to marry). I came to realize, the way you are as a couple outside the bedroom follows you into the bedroom. Don’t expect to magically change into a great sexual couple if you aren’t working to be a “great couple.”

    Think about it…Are you having fun, laughing, and feel connected? Do you really like and respect this person? Do you hold hands, kiss, and do the “little things” that are really big things? (at least to me they are) And here is the big one…Do you really, really trust them?

    Trust is key for me and her. For me, I found out that I’m fine to treat a woman like the “Madonna” outside the bedroom, but for me to treat her like “My whore” (which my girlfriend totally loves to be)…I must trust her and “know that she knows” I love her. Also, we laugh a LOT before, during and after sex. We play in the bedroom which really takes down the pressure on both of us to “perform”. We also talk a lot about this stuff when we are not in the bedroom…what we like, our fantasies, etc. I feel free to give her what she wants at times (which is to feel like “my slut”), because I love her, feel connected, laugh with her, and truly feel she is my best friend.

    Truthfully, I never thought I could find this combination of fun, friendship, trust, love, and lust. She is also a woman of high self-esteem, but like all of us, she has her issues and fears. She is far from perfect, just as I am very FAR from perfect.

    Also, I’m just now learning to accept her love for me. I figured out I had a lot of difficulty accepting love throughout life. I always thought I could “give love”, but accepting it and trusting are other issues. It’s all a learning process.

    I knew the first time I talked to her, we would have a good time together. It seemed to click from the moment we met. But we have worked at all of it, been committed to the process of growing as a couple, we fight and stay connected through the fights.

    This is another biggie for me…we kiss passionately a LOT! I don’t think there is anything more connecting for a couple than slow, passionate kissing…especially when it outside a sexual situation. I hold her hand all the time and I love to see other couples doing that. I feel wildness and passion in the bedroom is directly related to this. If you don’t let her and “the world” know how you feel about her…don’t expect her to feel comfortable with you spanking her in the bedroom (or whatever you want to do).

    Both me and my girlfriend have had sexual issues in the past. She went through her marriage with NO sex for five straight years, now she can’t get or GIVE enough sex. I suffered from sexual anxiety and failure for much of my adult life, but now she thinks I’m some sort of sex god for her. To get here, it took work and patience. Sites like this are a great place to learn what works and what doesn’t.

    I wish everyone the best in their relationships.

  2. Hmm it seems like your site ate my first comment (it was super long) so I guess I’ll just sum it up what I
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  3. Susan … I’m happy to report that my girlfriend has agreed to do the Relationship Values exercise. We will be exchanging our input this weekend.

    For the most part, I’m on board with most of what you say in this post, except for your believe that she’s sexually inexperienced. She’s very much sexually experienced – if by sexually experienced you mean having sex with a variety of partners. If you instead mean sexually experienced through different positions, etc., I’d have to disagree, based on what she’s shared with me about her prior relationships.

    I will say this … she has said she’s never had more than one orgasm per lovemaking session, and she has somehow convinced herself that it’s not possible for her to do that. And I’m sure that could be for a few reasons … it could be that previous lovers have all done the same thing and she has come to grow bored with sex. She may not allow herself to completely surrender, as you suggest above. And it may be that her previous experience with a different kind of sex was unpleasant for her (for example, anal or oral sex) that she has since held herself back.

    Yesterday she told me about hearing someone making the comment that “good girls” don’t give oral sex, and she has said that doesn’t appeal to her anymore. Again, we can only speculate, but if any particular kind of sex has grown routine over the years, can that contribute to her having a diminished libido?

    You offer some great advice here, but perhaps the most important advice you give is that I need to start getting her to agree to “small offers” before I can escalate. Her agreeing to do the Relationship Values exercise is huge first step … this is encouraging!

    Thank you! Will be staying in touch …

    1. Bail. U cant turn a former party girl ho who’s been seated at the bad boy buffet into a housewife. You sound like a solid guy. You shouldn’t have to be working this hard for the basics of life.

  4. Hi, after 30 years of a roller coaster marriage, I repeatedly will buy sexy lingerie, or simply just sexier underwear for my wife. And after suggesting she put on something sexy for our intended interlude, she will come to bed either nude or in something simple and not at all what I was hinting toward. And at the same time, she will not budge that there is nothing she desires or would like me to do. I know woman fantasize just the same as us guys. Why is she so defiant about the sexy lingerie desires of mine, and how can she say that there is nothing in the world she has ever thought of that she would like me to do??? In our relationship early on, she was extremely promiscuous, and had a lot of sexual encounters with friends of mine, in laws, etc.She was nearly a nympho in my mind. We drank a lot back then, but no longer drink. Together anyway. When I am gone for any extended period, she will drink, and I believe that when she drinks, she is having sex with other partners. My wife isn’t the smartest woman in the world, and is extremely turned on when she can dress appropriately to get the attention of men and it works. What is her motivation? What is her ides of great sex? Is it in seducing some one to want her? And then show off her extremely well skilled sexual prowess? I am to the point of asking for a divorce, because although we may be 52 years old, I am far from dead and sex now is more a whole body experience than ever I remember. What are her desires? Has she a hidden agenda, is it possible she has not matured and is still the little sex freak wanting it from anyone but me??? Losing it, JW

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