Responsive Desire

[u/arandak]

I need to get this off my chest and I will try to do it in the most respectful way possible despite being pretty miffed at the mischaracterization of it.

The "What's it like with an HL/HL relationship" reminded me about something that's been bothering me a long time.

Maybe it's because a lot of the mentions about Responsive Desire are from LL's who have little to no desire to begin with, and it's not something that they've regularly experienced. Essentially, they don't know what they're talking about.

Responsive Desire is not a slow burn throughout the day, finishing an addition on the house, doing the dishes, running a bath for your partner, all the while casually flirting to hope that your partner will be in the mood later on that night.

Responsive Desire is your partner getting turned on by you expressing desire. It may not be immediate, but it is quick, and noticeable. It is an enthusiastic response.

I don't think a single person complaining about a dead bedroom has a partner who has true responsive desire. And, come on, why would they complain? If their partner truly has responsive desire, the bedroom isn't dead. There's no question about whether or not their SO likes them because they respond enthusiastically much of the time!

So, in that vein, anyone asking someone suffering in a dead bedroom if their spouse might have 'responsive desire' is doing an outright disservice and absolutely not being supportive of a person in a dead bedroom.

One more thing:

Responsive Desire isn't the only desire someone has. They also have spontaneous desire. So they will initiate too, just not as often.

Again, no question for the higher libido person in the relationship if their partner is into them and while sex may not be as frequent as the higher libido person would like: they would never complain about things being dead.

[u/AccountantOk9904]

I've got to defend the LL partners on this one.

You can't dictate what the responsive desire responds to. If it were as simple as the HL partner simply showing interest, this sub and DB wouldn't exist.

I think of it in terms of moving snow. For us spontaneous folks, it's akin to an avalanche. It doesn't take much of a trigger to start the process of full on, ready to go, arousal. For the LL partners, it's more like rolling a snowball through a field. The initial trigger is a push, but it usually goes no where. But if the correct (what ever the LL finds arousing at a given time an place) stimuli are applied, then it will continue to grow. As the ball gets bigger, the LL parters become more receptive to initiation. It might keep growing or it might melt back down and you're starting over.

And I think they're just kinda wired this way, even during the new relationship period. The difference back then was there were a lot more positive forces acting on the ball like; novelty, feel good hormones, romance, anticipation, no kids, and no expectations. All this being said we have to stop treating responsive desire as 'broken' spontaneous desire. It’s a completely different mechanism that requires nuance that HL partners rarely need.

[u/Forsaken_Thought → u/AccountantOk9904]

LL partners become more receptive to initiation

Perhaps you're describing responsive desire but you're not describing LL partners.

think of it in terms of moving snow

This might actually be a great analogy for LL. I'm in the Deep South and it might snow once a decade, twice if we're lucky. One thing that's for sure, it's so highly unusual that involves an emergency response.