Last week, when I wrote about The Invite, I shared how it’s hard to desire someone who chooses to be miserable in marriage and the contempt it breeds.
But there’s another scene worth mentioning:
Midway through the dinner party, Joe (Seth Rogen) asks Piná (Penelope Cruz, his neighbor and a fellow sexologist like me) how she knew her last relationship was over.
She said she felt dead inside, and they had stopped having sex.
The disconnection came first, the sexlessness followed.
When I meet with couples, there’s often some variation of: we barely have sex anymore, and I want more. And when I ask the question I always ask next, the room often goes still.
When you want sex, what is it that you actually want?
Usually, they’ve never been asked that. They stare at me. “I want... sex?”
But sex is never the thing itself. It’s the delivery mechanism for something underneath.
Sex researcher Dr. Emily Nagoski posed this question to hundreds of people and found that the answers cluster into four:
Connection. The most common answer by far. You want to feel close, bonded, taken care of.
Shared pleasure. Not just sensation, but the specific magic of enjoying each other’s enjoyment.
Being wanted. You want to be desired, chosen, seen, pursued. For many of us, this is the deepest one.
Escape. The freedom to lose yourself. To be, for twenty minutes, no one’s employee, no one’s parent, no one’s project manager. Just a body in ecstasy.
Here’s why this matters so much:
Two people can both “want more sex” and be asking for entirely different things. He wants escape; she wants connection. She initiates hoping to feel desired; he receives it as pressure to perform. They’re having a frequency argument when they are really having a translation problem.
I see this all the time: one partner hears “I want more sex” as an indictment—you’re failing me—when what their partner is actually saying is I miss feeling wanted by you. Those are different sentences. One triggers defensiveness. The other, if it could only be said out loud, would probably melt it.
And the question has an equally powerful inverse, which Nagoski also offers: when you don’t want sex, what is it that you don’t want? Almost nobody who says “I’ve lost my libido” means they’ve lost the capacity for pleasure. What they don’t want is to feel obligated. Or rushed. Or touched only as a prelude. Or to have one more thing asked of a body that has been giving all day. Name what you’re declining.
Your desire needs a runway, not a spark.
If you’ve been reading me for a while you know there are two desire styles:
Spontaneous desire arrives out of nowhere—the way it works in movies, and the way it works for a minority of people.
Responsive desire arrives after stimulation begins: the touch comes first, the warmth comes first, and the wanting follows.
Neither is better. They are two different operating systems.
But here’s how the four reasons and the two desire styles collide:
Whenever you’re ready, here are 2 ways I can help:
Couples Intimacy Card Deck - Turn each other on, one question at a time. I created this for you and your partner to bring more connection, curiosity, and play into the bedroom. Get 10% off with code LUST.
Book a 1:1 Session - I help individuals and couples in long-term relationships find more desire, confidence, and connection—in and out of bed. Start with one session and a clear plan for what to do next.
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