“Is it more important that people crave sex than it is that they enjoy the sex they’re having?” (Image: Jon Crispin Photography)

Why is there no such thing as a sex drive?

A drive is a motivational system to deal with life-or-death issues, like hunger or being too cold. You’re not going to die if you don’t have sex.

But biologists might say that if you don’t reproduce, that is a form of death

Yes. That’s the argument that was used when desire was being added to the way sexual dysfunctions were diagnosed in the 1970s, to justify the framing of sexual desire as a drive. But when it comes to sex, there just isn’t any physical evidence of a drive mechanism.

So what’s going on?

If sex is a drive then desire should be spontaneous, like a hunger. When you see a sexy person or have a stray sexy thought, it activates an internal craving or urge for sex. That’s called “spontaneous desire”. It feels like it comes out of the blue. But there is another way of experiencing desire which is also healthy and normal, called “responsive desire”, where your interest only emerges in response to arousal. So, your partner comes over and starts kissing your neck and you’re like, “oh, right, sex, that’s a good idea”.


Do you think an absence of spontaneous desire is normal?

Yes. If our metaphor for desire is hunger, if you are never hungry for food there will be dire consequences and that’s clearly a disorder, right? That’s a medical problem that needs to be fixed. But not experiencing spontaneous hunger for sex doesn’t have dire consequences; it is not a medical disorder. I think the reason we expect everyone to have spontaneous desire is because that’s how most men experience it.

What proportion of people experience desire in this way?

Roughly 70 per cent of men typically experience spontaneous desire and something like 10 to 20 per cent of women have spontaneous desire as their primary desire style. But for all of us it depends on the context.

What do you think about drugs being developed to treat the “lack” of spontaneous desire in women?

A drug called Flibanserin has recently been resubmitted to the US Food and Drug Administration, targeted specifically at spontaneous desire. I think its makers genuinely believe spontaneous desire is the only normal way to experience desire. I want us to start thinking of responsive desire as normal and healthy.

But many people who don’t experience spontaneous desire might like to…

Spontaneous desire is totally fun. But you’re not broken just because you’re not experiencing it. Spontaneous desire isn’t necessary for sexual pleasure. Is it more important that people crave sex than it is that they enjoy the sex they’re having? One of the best ways to make your sex life suck is to genuinely believe that the way you’re experiencing sexual desire is dysfunctional.

Profile Emily Nagoski has a PhD in health behaviour and is the director of Wellness Education at Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts. Her new book on the science of sex is Come As You Are (Simon & Schuster)

This article appeared in print under the headline “You have no sex drive”