queer advice 50: lesbian bed death or something like it
"I’m struggling with that thing that often happens a couple years into serious relationships..."
I’m back with another queer advice column. Today’s question is about sex, long-term relationships, and what to do when your girlfriend wants more sex than you do.
If you’re new to this newsletter or catching up after a break, there have been so many good questions lately!! Check out: ”I'm a 33-year-old dirty slut who loves to be alone and go to bed at 10 pm” and "It's so rare that I find someone that I'm interested in, and when I do, it's never great." If you have a question or a gay problem, send it my way whenever. I’m running low on questions. I would be grateful for your problems.
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xoxo,
Maddy
I want to get ahead of this question by saying that I don’t believe in “Lesbian Bed Death.” However, I’m struggling with that thing that often happens a couple years into serious relationships where sex happens less and it becomes a whole problem. When my girlfriend and I started seeing each other we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. She has always made me feel desired and I have always thought she was really hot.
We haven’t lost that deep attraction, it’s just that as our relationship has deepened things have cooled down into a comfortable coziness. Honestly, I’m a big part of the issue as I’m not as interested in sex as I used to be. At least not nearly as interested as as she is. I’m in my late thirties while she’s twenty eight. I’ve had a lot of experiences before ‘settling down’ into this, my first remarkably stable relationship. She on the other hand has endured a string of long, unfulfilling monogamous relationships with only a handful of people. She had only just started exploring her sexuality on a deeper level when we first met. Back then we were surprisingly well matched. We started out having hot and heavy, kinky sex multiple times a day throughout the week. She told me it was the first relationship where she felt like her needs were being met.
However, after a year I stopped wanting to have sex more than once every couple of months for some reason. We used to spend hours being intimate, and I was thinking about her all the time. But now no matter who initiates, I feel like I lose steam or would rather snuggle. I had never imagined that I would struggle with this kind of problem as I have always had strong passions and desires. I worked hard to successfully hone my sexuality as a woman, but as I age I find that piece is missing now.
For a while I was too embarrassed to admit things had changed, and this made my girlfriend lonely. Now she says she understands, but I feel I’m letting her down no matter how kind she is about it. She and I are both in therapy and communicate well about all of this, but I worry she’s more disappointed than she admits. I want to be sexually active again, for my own sake, but most often I don’t feel up to it. In complete honesty I’m afraid that I can’t fulfill my girlfriend’s needs and I feel guilt over being sexually avoidant as a partner and lesbian woman. My therapist has been comforting but unhelpful. All the books my therapist sends me seem to be written for married straight couples who have only tried penetrative intercourse. I don’t quite know where to go for help now so I turn to you.
Is there another way to help my girlfriend meet her needs? What can I do to reclaim my sexual selfhood as a lesbian?
Cool Whip, 37
I usually don’t answer questions about sex because I don’t feel qualified—I’m not a sex educator, I have no formal training or background in the science of boning. In addition to “how do I fix my sex life“ questions like yours, I receive a lot of questions from people who’ve internalized certain messages or stigmas about sex and are suffering as a result e.g. “I’m X years old and I’ve never had sex” or “I feel like a big loser because I’ve never been in a queer relationship.“ All these questions are essentially asking the same thing. I don’t answer them anymore because there are only so many ways I can deconstruct shame and explain why virginity is a made-up concept.
When I read your question, however, a couple of non-sex things stuck out to me: mainly, what is your girlfriend actually telling you about her needs? Does she want to have kinky sex multiple times a day, or is that a standard you’re imposing based on an early phase of your relationship? Does she want to continue exploring her sexuality, or is that something you’ve surmised based on what you know about her past relationships? The least helpful thing you can do in any relationship is presume to know what your partner is thinking or feeling. If your girlfriend is holding back to spare your feelings and you’re trying to decipher what she really means, then you’re not really communicating. If you’re going to move beyond your current sex drought, you and your girlfriend have to put aside your fears of disappointing each other and be honest about everything that is and isn’t working in your relationship. I’m also wondering if your girlfriend, the person you have sex with, might have some ideas on how to restore your horniness or how to get her sexual needs met without busting out the under-bed restraints multiple times a week.
I can’t imagine how unsettling it was to lose your mojo, especially without an obvious culprit like anti-depressants or becoming a parent. In reading your question, I feel like you’re setting some impossibly high standards for yourself: sex multiple times a day, guiding your girlfriend on a sojourn of sexual self-discovery, being her first “good“ partner. No matter how much you want to fulfill those roles, you’re also a person with a job, friends, and daily responsibilities like email and laundry. Adult life is exhausting. Long-term relationships are long. Sex can’t always be a priority. This is why all sorts of couples, queer and straight, experience bed death. I’m trying to think of ways for you to stop comparing your sex drive to how it used to be and accept where you’re at today. Like, what would happen if your girlfriend saw other people? Would it remove some of the pressure you feel when it comes to sex? At the same time, I see so many lesbians open their relationship because they think it will fix everything or be a chill alternative to breaking up and then disaster ensues. So if an open relationship is something you want to try, great. If not, don’t push it!!
I hate that your therapist is giving you books for straight people. If you’ve been working with her for a while and not finding it useful, you might want to see an actual sex therapist. There’s also somatic therapy! Couples therapy! Couples sex therapy! You can really go wild when it comes to therapy, though I don’t consider this advice because therapy is expensive, difficult to access, and there’s no guarantee it will help. Ultimately, you and your girlfriend are at an impasse where something needs to change. You might open your relationship or find another way to compromise. You might also decide to break up—contrary to popular lesbian belief, a relationship does not have to be a terrible, irredeemable hellscape for it to just not make sense anymore.
this book is actually queer inclusive and great!!! https://bookshop.org/p/books/come-as-you-are-revised-and-updated-the-surprising-new-science-that-will-transform-your-sex-life-emily-nagoski/15822177
I also found this book helpful!! Additionally, as the person in my relationship less interested in initiating sex as often than my partner, I often find a nice compromise is making out while they get off. Sometimes it gets me in the mood but mostly it helps satisfy them and create intimacy without so much time and effort commitment looming over me.