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Low Libido? Here’s What’s Really Killing Your Sex Drive · Libido Lounge

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  Welcome to the libido lounge where we focus on all things love, lust, and libido.
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  We believe that fabulous sex is important to health as exercise and good food.
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  Hey, everybody.
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  Welcome back to another episode of The Lounge.
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  I am your host libido expert and board certified sexologist, doctor Diane.
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  In this particular episode, I want to talk about a question that I get asked a lot in the
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  sexual health space, which is what is my opinion of the number one reason for low libido
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  or a low sex drive?
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  And this is probably also the most difficult question I get asked because one of the things
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  that I have really learned in fifteen years of practicing medicine is that when it comes to
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  chronic situations, I've never seen one root cause.
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  So when we're talking about chronically low sex drive, there's probably not gonna be just one
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  cause.
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  So what is the number one cause?
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  Well, it's it's a confusing thing.
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  Right?
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  Because there's part of me that really wants to answer this with the most obvious thing,
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  hormones, because we do know that hormones are so important for a healthy sex drive.
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  I have a girlfriend that just got put on hormones, and she keeps texting me and telling
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  me how much fun she's having with her hormones because of everything that she has no noticed
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  change.
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  And she's single and still has noticed that her sex drive has gone through the roof just with
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  some very low dose hormone replacement therapy.
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  So there's absolutely a huge, huge things to say for hormones and the aging process of
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  hormones.
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  But I don't wanna leave it there so I have a lot more to say, but I do wanna say a little
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  bit about hormones and the aging process because we do know that hormonal production for
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  women as well as men drops with age.
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  Right?
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  It does decline with age.
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  We see that men go through andropause.
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  It says women go through menopause.
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  And what do we do about that?
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  Well, it's interesting that some studies have shown that we actually decrease the the
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  metabolism of testosterone as we age.
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  The testosterone will stay in our blood longer.
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  So as it's decreasing as we age, as the amount is decreasing, it tends to stay in the body
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  longer.
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  Now the decrease is due to the leydig cells of the testes not producing the same amount in men
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  as well as the ovaries and the adrenal glands in women not producing as much in women.
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  And so when this happens, one of the most important things to understand is that one
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  thing that slows down or, I should say, speeds up the aging and the drop in testosterone in
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  particular is oxidative stress.
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  So research and studies have shown that when the body has higher amounts of oxidative
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  stress, that that testosterone drop can happen faster.
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  Now studies have been done more on men for this than women.
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  However, I suspect that it's very similar for women because when it comes to oxidative
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  stress, that's a mechanism that affects both females and males in many ways.
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  So so what is oxidative stress?
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  Right?
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  You might be wondering, like, well, I've heard this term or maybe you haven't, but what the
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  easiest way that I have found to explain oxidative stress is it's a chain reaction in
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  our body.
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  So are the molecules in our body all want to have certain number of electrons, right,
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  certain number of of molecules attached to them.
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  That makes them very stable.
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  Well, in an oxidative stress situation, we have unstable molecules in the body that starts
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  stealing electrons off of other molecules.
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  And when that happens, when a molecule loses an electron and gets stolen, then another they
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  will try to steal from another.
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  So all of these cells and all of these energetic functions in the body that are trying
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  to be stable so that the cell can work to its ultimate capacity are now not able to work to
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  their ultimate capacity because they're trying to get their stability back.
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  So their focus changes from from something like producing testosterone to making itself stable
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  as a cell.
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  So oxidative stress are these chain like reactions that create that type of instability
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  in the body, and a free radical is basically something that creates that that chain.
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  Now if you've heard of an antioxidant, antioxidants are things that can stop that
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  chain reaction, that can donate electrons without hurting itself and put an end to that
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  stealing process in the body.
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  So that's the easiest way I found to really explain that, and we see that that oxidative
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  mechanism in research can really impact the testosterone levels and get that decline of
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  testosterone to happen at an earlier age.
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  This is one of so many reasons to take antioxidants.
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  This is one of so many reasons to avoid things in your diet that have been shown to cause
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  oxidative stress such as the industrial seed oils like safflower and sunflower and peanut
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  and canola and soy.
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  Get those things out.
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  They cause a lot of oxidative stress in the body and can lead to these chain like reactions
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  I'm I'm talking about that could potentially then impact a earlier testosterone drop in
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  humans as as we age.
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  So, yes, like the story I told you about my friend, like, testosterone and estrogen are
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  essential for, you know, for libido.
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  But then there's the other side of things that a lot of people make their way into my world
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  when they have been working with a great doctor for years and they're on HRT and a lot of their
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  symptoms are getting better, but yet the libido is not there.
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  Right?
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  And this is actually very, very common, which is why I have a hard time saying that
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  testosterone is or that that hormones are, like, number one thing because so while they're
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  so essential, there's also so many times that they get fixed and the libido doesn't turn back
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  on.
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  So I wanna remind you guys before I go on that here coming up in just a couple weeks, the
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  February, I have my four day to better sex jump start.
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  So it's four days.
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  We have a a deep dive into what you need to do to start having better sex, better intimacy,
• 6:38
  and getting back into novelty and play and pleasure and feeling good and orgasms and
• 6:43
  connection and love and partnership and all those juicy, yummy things, that is coming up at
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  the February.
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  And right now, I am giving it away as my gift to you guys for free.
• 6:56
  So this is part of my, you know, New Year, new Pleasure You type of, offering for you guys.
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  So make sure you sign up for that.
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  You don't wanna miss out.
• 7:06
  There is a coupon code as well to bring it down to $0, so make sure you copy that coupon code
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  as well.
• 7:13
  All of that's gonna be in your show notes for you, but I do really encourage you to show up.
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  It's four days.
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  There'll be live calls with me every day, a ton of prerecorded videos and material for you as
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  well.
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  And that's our goal is to really jump start your libido and jump start your sex life in
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  just four days.
• 7:29
  So, make sure you sign up for that.
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  Okay.
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  So on to the next portion of this.
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  Right?
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  On to the the the topic of, well, what then if it's not just hormones, what is what are the
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  the top reasons for a low libido?
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  So like I said, like, bringing this to one answer is very difficult for me just because I
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  just don't see medicine that way.
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  And I think there is it's gonna depend upon the individual, but I can come up with beyond
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  hormones.
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  I can come up with three that I would say put at the top of the tier, but there's so many
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  other things here.
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  And we're gonna cover all of these and more and what to do about them in that jump start as
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  well, in that four day jump start.
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  So one, I would say is priority.
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  And when I talk to other sexologists about this, priority is the one that seems to be most
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  agreed upon at least in the people I have talked to across the board around sex and
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  around libido is that so much of the time, it doesn't become a priority.
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  Right?
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  It's like this afterthought, and we try to fit it in at 10:30 at night when we're exhausted.
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  Right?
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  We try to fit it in.
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  Maybe when there's kids banging on their door, you're thinking about work, and it's just
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  there's just, like, hardly any time or energy to put into pleasure.
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  So one I would say is, like, is that priority, right, of actually making this a huge priority
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  in your life is pretty essential.
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  Secondly, I would say is the the component of safety.
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  And safety, I mean, like, obviously, physical safety.
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  Right?
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  We all obviously have to feel physically safe around our partner, or there's a whole another
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  problem there.
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  But I'm also talking about emotional safety.
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  And emotional safety can be things that are, like if you're feeling emotionally unsafe, it
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  could be, like, big things like a lot of outburst and a lot of yelling and fighting and
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  those types of things can definitely lead to emotional unsafety, but it can be as simple as
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  just not feeling safe to bring up the conversation of, like, sex or of what you want
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  and how to talk about that.
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  That's one of the reasons I'm doing this work is because I'm what I'm working to do is to
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  create a space where this taboo topic becomes less taboo, and we can talk about it in a kind,
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  respectful, loving, transparent way.
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  Because it's also interesting that I've seen studies that have shown that when it comes to
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  sex, like, even intimacy, even if, like, everything else with intimacy and connection is
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  going really well in partnership, that when it comes to sex, that it's actually the
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  conversation around sex has been shown to be a direct threat to one's, like, identity and ego.
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  And what winds up happening is because it's almost like this this primal survival type of
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  thing.
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  Right?
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  And so there's this primal survival impulse to be a good lover, and that's there in part
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  because there's this primal impulse to procreate.
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  Right?
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  And so it's why when people are having challenges here, it can just feel so
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  debilitating because there is this primal egoic, like, self preservation thing to to
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  procreation and to sex.
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  And so met much of the time when it comes to con conversation around sex, it can be very,
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  very hard for people's egos to not get hurt or for people not to react in a defensive way
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  because it's it actually can trigger their the primalness of who we are as human beings.
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  And so when that happens, one of the problems with that is there can be this emotional and
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  safety around sex because sometimes it can be as simple as like, oh, I wanna tell my partner
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  to touch me a little bit differently or to do this a little differently.
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  But if there was a reactivity from the partner when something was attempted because the
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  partner is trying to protect who they are as a person, protect their ego, which is very
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  normal, not helpful.
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  Right?
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  But a normal thing to happen in many scenarios, we gotta work with that and make it the new
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  normal in the relationship not to have that reactivity.
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  But when that happens, then it can create this emotional feeling of not being safe and
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  especially not being safe with sex.
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  And there's a trickle down effect, of course, that can happen with that because as soon as we
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  become emotionally unsafe, well, then what winds up happening?
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  Then we don't feel safe to talk to our partner about our experience, about how to bring more
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  novelty and about how to bring more pleasure and about how to slow down around how to bring,
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  more foreplay in.
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  Like, all of that kinda goes off the table because we don't feel safe.
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  Or it could be something else like maybe you vented about your day.
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  One partner vented about their day, and the other partner maybe didn't respond very well.
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  Now if you have watched any of my videos on the sex types, and if not, I definitely recommend
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  going back through some of the videos earlier this month.
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  We talked about them a little bit.
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  If you watch any of the videos on the sex types, one of the sex types that I talk about
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  is the emotive sex type.
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  Now that person is so stimulated by by by their emotional body and sex.
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  So if anything is going on from, say, earlier that day, earlier that week, earlier that
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  month, that has not been resolved within partnership, that person that is the emotive
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  emotive type is probably going to be very shut down, and they won't have access to that
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  because, emotionally, there's this level of not feeling safe.
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  So safety is a huge component of this as well.
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  And the next one that I would say that is just an important one to name as well is
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  communication, which is connected to all of these.
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  Right?
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  So communication, obviously, if we're not gonna feel safe, then we're probably not gonna
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  communicate very well.
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  But a lot of communication has to be coming from putting you putting the partnerships back
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  on, like, on the same team.
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  Right?
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  So putting partnership back on the same team where they have the same goal and they're
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  working for the for the goal.
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  And that the idea is to get the ego out of the way to realize that the point of this is that
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  we're on the same team, that nobody's doing anything wrong, that it's not about wrong
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  versus right.
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  It's about, hey.
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  Things can change.
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  Right?
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  And and one of the things that happens is a lot of people don't realize is sexual needs change
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  throughout life.
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  So people that are interested in, you know, one thing in the beginning where this is the turn
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  on, that might not be true for the whole life.
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  Right?
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  Some people may way makeup will wake up and start doing anal sex, and they had never been
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  interested in that.
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  Some people might be interested in bringing in toys, and they have never been interested in
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  that.
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  There's so many different ways that we can have, like, even our touch and even positions
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  that feel good can actually change throughout life.
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  And so it's normal that we need to communicate because, commonly, we get stuck in our sexual
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  scripts.
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  Right?
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  Commonly, we get stuck in the script where we do if we're in long term partnership, it's like
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  the same thing over and over and over.
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  Well, without that communication to say, like, yeah.
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  That thing was great, and and maybe you enjoyed it for years, you know, months, years, decades.
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  And all of a sudden, it's just not working for you anymore.
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  Well, you want to tell your partner that.
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  Right?
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  You want to tell your partner that.
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  And so that communication without that ego getting in the way and that healthy
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  communication to say, okay.
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  This is working.
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  This is not.
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  Let's try this.
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  You know?
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  And bringing all of that in is an essential thing.
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  And and communication, like, both, you know, during as well as before.
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  So during is always a tricky thing as far as communication for some people because depending
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  upon the partner, people might feel, like, disrupted or they might feel like it's, like, a
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  shocking thing for them, but some level of communication can work very well.
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  So, you know, finding a way to communicate like, okay.
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  Slow down.
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  Speed up.
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  Right there.
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  To the right.
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  To the left.
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  Let's change positions.
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  Right?
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  So we wanna create that level of safety and really help to develop the type of
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  communication where the other person doesn't feel that that that self protection feeling
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  comes up when you guys are talking about sex.
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  And, like, anything, like, when it comes to communication around this, if you've never
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  really been, like, a sex communicator, right, if you've this is something that you haven't
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  talked to your partner about or maybe the conversation's been, you know, super
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  superficial where it's just like, okay.
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  Are we having sex tonight?
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  Okay.
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  Do you want sex?
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  Let's go.
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  Right?
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  So sometimes that that's the level of conversation I hear.
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  But wherever you're at with it, one of the most important things to realize is that this is a
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  in it's a skill, like anything else.
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  And so first several times, if you haven't been talking about this, it might feel awkward.
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  You know?
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  It might not go perfectly.
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  Like, give yourself permission to mess up the conversation.
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  Like, it it it might not go perfectly, but the whole point is that you're bringing this back
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  into conversation.
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  You're practicing it.
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  And you're if it doesn't go well, you know, talking to your partner after and say, like, I
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  really want to have these kind of conversations with you.
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  It's really important.
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  And I wanna have them in a way that you know how much I appreciate you and love you and
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  value you and all that you provide for me, and I really wanna deepen our connection.
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  And this is my point.
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  And how can I how can we have these conversations in a way that I can still
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  communicate this in a way that, you know, it comes with the feeling of love and desire and
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  all of those things?
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  Right?
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  So we can preframe that as well.
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  So and I think the communication just needs to happen more and more because there is still
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  this huge misunderstanding about females versus men.
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  Right?
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  It's like it's like this whole thing of how fast the male erectile tissue gets engorged and
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  how long it takes for the female erective to erectile tissue to get engorged.
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  So so much of the time, there's, like, this pass that is taken from man to woman where,
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  like, okay, man's turned on and he's hard, and he takes a pass of the woman, and the woman's
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  like, woah.
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  And it's because she needs twenty minutes for that blood to get to that erectile tissue.
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  So just like a fast pass, she's not gonna oftentimes be turned on at all.
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  She could be.
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  But much of the time when she's busy and overwhelmed, when the man's ready to go, the
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  woman's like, needs twenty minutes of, like, slow touch and bringing her into her body and
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  massage and soft touch over her vulva and her breasts and these sorts of things.
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  So communication is essential because we're missing each other so much of the time.
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  So I would say those are really beyond the hormones.
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  The top three, I would say at this point, is priority, safety, and communication.
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  And then, of course, within that, there's so many nuances, and there's so many other things
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  beyond these top three.
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  So I hope this has been helpful for you.
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  We're gonna go through all of this and more in my four day jump start.
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  So make sure you sign up for that.
• 18:37
  It's coming up real fast.
• 18:39
  Again, get that discount code in the show notes.
• 18:42
  It is free this time around, but you do need that discount code.
• 18:45
  So thanks for listening.
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  Please do continue to send us all your questions, and I hope you have a very, very
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  happy New Year this year.
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  We're almost to the January now, but I hope it's been a great month for you guys.
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  And my very best to you, reminding you to say stay sexy out there.
• 19:02
  See you soon.
• 19:07
  Thank you for listening to the libido lounge.
• 19:09
  Please don't keep me a secret.
• 19:10
  Please share this with your friends.
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  You can find me on YouTube, on Instagram, as well as how to work with me at mylibidodoc.com.