Live, 2 p.m.: Claudia Dey takes your relationship questions. Click here to get her advice.
Group Therapy is a relationship-based advice column that asks readers to contribute their wisdom. Each week, we offer up a problem for you to weigh in on, then publish the most lively responses, with a final word on the matter delivered by our columnist, Claudia Dey.
A reader writes: My fiancé and I are both in our early 20s and have been together for almost five years. At first we had a fantastic sex life, but over the past year or two my sex drive has dried up. He is convinced that there is something physically wrong with me and thinks if I go off the Pill I'll be cured. I think it may be psychological. Our problems started when we moved in together. We've gone through tense living situations (bad roommates, little privacy) that may have contributed to my lack of libido. The more we fight about sex, the more performance anxiety I feel. He's the only man I've ever slept with, and I wonder if things would be different with someone else. I don't think I can marry him until we resolve our issues in the bedroom.
Stick with it
The Pill won't change your sex drive. Since you have a history of great sex with your partner, consider this a funk you must overcome on your own - bringing your mate into it confuses him and he suggests things that are futile. As a wife, you will have to be a constant lover. Stop putting "what if" in the forefront. You've met someone you love and respect. Now you are ready to show the world your love. Stick with it; this sounds like a case of cold feet. Sex is good; you're lucky to be able to engage in it with someone you love and who loves you.
- Carly Blackwell, Toronto
The best aphrodisiacs
This isn't the last time you'll experience different sex priorities. You won't get your libido back with someone who sulks, guilt trips and oversimplifies your sexual problems. You need a supportive partner who works with you in finding creative solutions to relationship troubles. Try to understand and address what is behind your mate's sexual frustrations, be it physical need, insecurity and inability to handle rejection, or something else. Don't resign yourself to a chaste marriage. Your sex drive would be different with someone who understands that patience, confidence and communication are the best aphrodisiacs.
- Tatiana Stephens, Ottawa
Men aren't mind readers
When a couple move in together, it often means the end of romance. Men need sex and take any sign of affection as an invitation to hop into bed. As a woman, you need non-sexual affection, such as hugging and handholding, to begin to feel sexual. You have to train him to give you the affection you need without the expectation that it will lead to sex. If lack of privacy and stress over bad roommates is a problem, you need to work out times when you can be alone. Men aren't mind readers - tell him what you need to help you feel more sexual toward him, and give it some time.
- Peggy Forde, Mississauga
Please yourself
Start masturbating. For yourself. By yourself. It might not solve all your problems, but an orgasm a day certainly wouldn't hurt.
- Elizabeth Fraser, Toronto
The Final Word
Dear Driver,
It is time to do some reconnaissance of your own.
The libido is a broad and melodic term that encapsulates the febrile and shifting state of desire. There are many factors - physical, emotional, circumstantial - that can affect one's level of desire.
You have listed some of them. Your living arrangement has been a challenge; you are short on privacy and long on irksome company. How are you to surrender to a sensual stronghold when a bullish roommate could barge in at any moment wearing a Viking helmet?
The central issue here is that you and your fiancé have not found an unthreatening language for this slump in your erotic life. By telling you that there is "something physically wrong" with you, your fiancé is needlessly stoking your anxiety, which in turn is hindering your body's sumptuous possibilities. No one can do a convincing striptease after being told that they have an unnamable condition.
While I think Handholding Forde's prescription is Dark Ages polite, naming your needs is always a crucial exercise. Heed the words of Creative Solutions Stephens: "patience, confidence and communication are the best aphrodisiacs."
Despite his crude delivery, your fiancé does make a worthy point. Our hormones are messengers, and the progesterone-based birth-control pill rewrites their map; as such, arousal can become difficult to locate. I urge you to do some independent research.
An Orgasm a Day Fraser makes the notable suggestion of carnal solitude. I would add, pick up the excellent The Good Vibrations Guide to Sex. Begin building your sexual library. Reading will form a bridge between you and your fiancé and give you a common platform for conversation.
Your "issues in the bedroom" are not the only concerns that are making you hesitant to marry. The question of other lovers looms in your mind. Considering this curiosity, I completely disagree with This is a Funk Blackwell. At this point, it is important to put "what if" in front of everything. Question and investigate. Be a relentless sleuth in your own life. And when it comes to your sex drive, get out of the passenger seat and take the wheel.
Live, 2 p.m.: Claudia Dey takes your relationship questions. Click here
Claudia Dey's plays, Beaver, The Gwendolyn Poems and Trout Stanley, have been staged across Canada. Her first novel, Stunt, will be published by Coach House Books in the spring. Visit her website at ClaudiaDey.com
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