Sex. I mean, what better way is there to start an article than with those three letters? Birds do it. Bees do it. We all do it. Hell, I can barely get down the street without seeing a something either IRL or on my phone intended to make me think about doing it. As the old advertising adage goes ‘sex sells’ so, let’s hope that principal applies to journalism and that loads of you are already hooked because I’ve talked about sex before I said anything else.
For pretty much as long as I can remember, sex has been at top of the agenda whenever my friends get together. When we were teenagers it was about whether or not we wanted to have it, in our early twenties it was about how much we were having, in our late twenties it was about experimenting with it and, so far, in our thirties it seems to be…well…for those of us in Long Term Relationships (LTRs) it’s about not having as much of it as we think we should be.
Being in a sexless relationship is something I’d always associated with retirement. We read that large numbers of the over 65s don’t think they’re doing it enough or that teenagers aren’t doing it as much as they used to, but we rarely talk about young women in their twenties and thirties going without.
At a house party about a month ago two of my best friends huddled close and confided in me that they hadn’t had sex with their respective long-term partners for a while – more than three weeks.
‘I just don’t want to have sex as much as I used to’ one friend said, ‘I get up really early these days…I’m always tired and when I’m at home it’s really just the last thing that I want to do’.
‘I know what you mean’ the other friend contributed ‘I know it sounds awful but sometimes I just sort of…well…try to force myself because if you’re not having sex with your partner than I guess you’re just friends aren’t you?’
Looking around the room, it dawned on me that even parties are different now. There’s less electricity in the air, perhaps because for the majority of us where the night will end is more predictable than it’s ever been.
For a moment, it made me long for my early twenties. Nights out were strings of endless possibilities. Going home was always a last resort. Work was the last thing on anyone’s mind. And, instead of scrolling through our phones and wondering when it’s an acceptable time to sneak off home, we sometimes…wait for it…spoke to people we didn’t already know.
At the risk of sounding like a Carrie Bradshaw knock off, my friends and I are not alone. Last year, a study of British sexual attitudes found that women are more than twice as likely as men to lack interest in sex when living with a partner.
The researchers who conducted the study at the University of Southampton and University College London found that while both men and women lost passion with age, it is specifically women who are often left cold by longer relationships.
I asked Cynthia Graham, a professor of sexual and reproductive health at the University of Southampton who worked on the study why this could be. ‘The truth’ she explains ‘is that it’s complicated’.
There are issues, she points out like women becoming mothers or doing more around the house which can affect their sex drives. But, of course, she adds ‘in longer relationships both partners may make less effort’.
Above all, Cynthia says sexual desire is more related to the quality of a relationship than to the length of it. ‘For women the quality of a relationship has more impact than the length of a relationship on sex’, Cynthia explains.
Both of my friends said that they find their lack of desire really difficult to talk to their partners about which has caused more than one confrontation. It’s so cliched, isn’t it? The idea that once you settle down things stop being sexy. This was the stuff of my nightmares circa 2010 when I swore off commitment after watching what I think we can all agree was too much Sex and the City.
Those nightmares became reality a few years later when I found myself in a sexless LTR. Contrary to the stereotype, though, it wasn’t me – the woman partner – who lost interest, it was my boyfriend.
I tell Cynthia about the relationship I was in where the partner never wanted to have sex. ‘We found that both men and women feel unable to tell their partner if they’re uninterested in sex’ she says, comfortingly. ‘it can be particularly difficult for guys to talk about because the script for men is that they’re always up for it.’
Sustaining sexual passion is never easy, it requires work and can’t be taken for granted. Cynthia says we should treat sexual desire, first and foremost, as a communication issue. The more open we can be about what we want, what we don’t want and how much we want it the more likely both parties are to be satisfied.
‘We should assess sexual desire in a holistic way’ Cynthia says, ‘obviously there are exceptions but it’s likely to be down to whatever the person has going on around them at the time, there isn’t always a quick fix.’ Again, she adds ‘the evidence is that relationship quality matters hugely, arguably more than how long two people have been together.’
‘I’m actually just finishing up a new study which looks at sexual desires amongst older adults and, contrary to what a lot of people think, some of them are very interested in sex. The biggest reason older women don’t have sex is not a lack of desire but lack of a partner because men die younger!’
As my friends shared their fears about not having enough sex, we all wondered whether we were giving it enough time and space? Were we giving it the importance it deserves? ‘Like, it’s hard to find someone sexy when you’ve been nagging them about cleaning the toilet’ one pointed out.
The other chimed ‘I feel like I spent my early twenties trying to show that I was sexy but having as much as I could and trying to encourage as many people as possible to have sex with me and now I don’t do that which…I think is good…but then I feel like I should be doing it more?’
I don’t think programmes like Sex and the City were particularly helpful on this front. Samantha and Smith part ways when their sex life dries up even though she has just finished a round of intense chemotherapy. And, lest we forget, in the film Steve’s affair is blamed on Miranda’s lackadaisical attitude to waxing.
Living with a partner does change things, how can it not?!? In so many ways you’re closer than ever but it can be harder to carve out time to be sensual than when you first start dating. Perhaps there’s something to be said for embracing the stability of that but should that mean forgoing the sexual side of your relationship?
In the most practical terms ‘it might be about scheduling’ Cynthia says, ‘I know it sounds prescriptive, but you have to prioritise sex and, more than anything, try talking about it with your partner’.
When you put it like that, it sounds so simple doesn’t it? As a teenager, before you ever sleep with anyone, you talk about sex constantly. So it's ironic that once you’ve done it more times than you can count, there is no greater taboo than admitting that, despite being in a relationship, you’re not actually having much sex.
‘I think relationships change over time’ another friend says when I ask her about her sex life for what I suddenly realise is actually the first time in about five years. ‘When you’re younger and/or single it’s quite a public thing. You’re dating and hooking up, you share it with the people around you but once you’re living with someone, it takes on a different shape’ she explains ‘seeing someone who you’ve just had a word with about cleaning the toilet as sexy takes some adjusting to but nobody wants to talk about that, do they?!?!’.