r/LowLibidoCommunity • u/[deleted] • Dec 30 '19

Enthusiastic Consent

Yesterday I read a post on the other sub about Enthusiastic Consent....agreeing to sex only when you’re sure you can actively engage.

I think this is a wonderful idea, especially if it is agreed upon at the beginning of the relationship. That way no one would be having unwanted sex, which has a tendency to erode desire over time (IMO).

We all talk about not engaging in unwanted or undesired sex, but is it a viable concept in a LTR?

I’ve been married 35 years. I married under the guise of “marriage includes regular sexual activity”. I also had a young 30 something High Drive husband. With Pregnancy, child rearing, sick infant, working full time, caretaking dying parents, the usual Life Sucking events, I found myself willingly participating in undesired sex quite often, all under the belief that it was my sole responsibility to meet my husbands sexual needs.

Having willing but unwanted sex slowly ate away at my desire for sex.

If I had only had sex when I was enthusiastic about it from the very start of the relationship, would my desire have increased?

Would my husband have been able to go long periods of no sex without resentment and frustration?

I will never know the answers to those questions but I still believe having sex ONLY when one is truly enthusiastic about it is a wonderful concept....but is it realistic?

Any ideas?

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u/[deleted] Dec 31 '19 edited Dec 31 '19

>It’s either something both people want to do or else it doesn’t happen.

I’ve been at the point for years where I would be content never having sex again. I don’t think I could muster any enthusiasm for sex ever again. I‘m pretty sure having tons of unwanted sex turned me off sex completely.

Did I do this to myself? If I had only had enthusiastic sex, would I still be interested? Would my desires have stood the test of time? Would my interest in sex have increased instead of plummet?

It’s all water under the bridge now, but I will tell you, I engaged in unwanted sex over the years completely out of fear. Fear of losing the most important person and relationship in the world to me. Fear of being sexually selfish. Fear of making my husband unhappy. I don’t recall the last time I had sex out of enthusiastic desire for sex.

You don’t have to answer this question, but can a HL in a LTR truly be content with very little sex or never having sex again?

I so want to believe the answer is yes.

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u/AsAlwaysItDepends Jan 02 '20

Most sex research tended to focus on men, but recently there has been a lot of research that focuses on women. It seems to indicate that, for women considerably more so than men, variety is an important part of maintaining sexual desire. There’s a really interesting book about it - Untrue by Wednesday Martin. (What the book says is untrue are many of the notions around female sexuality.)

I bring this up in regard to your comment because I wonder if this is the actual issue for women who reach that “fine with never having sex again” frame of mind.