While sleep is an important aspect of your overall wellbeing, when you find yourself craving your 40 winks more than you crave sex, you know you’ve let things slide. However, even when you’re wearing your PJs during the daytime and your hair’s a mess, your partner still wants to get down and dirty – why is that? Even if you do find time in your hectic schedule for a quickie, your mind isn’t on your sexual health or your partner. Instead, you’re thinking about which kid you need to pick up from which after-school club, or how you’re going to meet that deadline at work. So why do men find it easier to switch gears than women?
If you’re worried about your lack of arousal, sex books are a good place to start. According to the Kinsey Report, when your body begins to respond sexually – clinically speaking – your vagina becomes congested with blood and lubricated; often your nipples become harder and erect; your upper body may look flushed; and your general muscle tension builds as your heart rate and blood pressure increase. However, if arousal was just a matter of physicality, sure all you or your partner would need to do is push a few of the right buttons and you’d be good to go. In actual fact, your capacity for arousal hinges on lots of things, including:
1. Your hormone level (especially during and after pregnancy)
2. Your general health and fitness
3. Your upbringing
4. What your day was like
5. How inherently sexual we are
Sex therapist Linda De Villers, PhD, author of the forthcoming Love Skills, explains, ‘There’s increasing evidence that women are wired to be different sexually. And some people are fundamentally more sexual. People who are internally wired to be sexual aren’t going to need as many sexual cues to get going — they are sensation seekers with different neurotransmitters in their heads. If you were raised in a sex-positive environment and really value sex as a major way of expressing attachment to your partner, you also don’t need a lot of cues. But if you have a lot of other passions or if you’re preoccupied with something else like work, even in a good way, you’ll need more cues. So you’ve got to look around and ask, How sexy is the environment? And how much pressure is there to have sex? When the cues are seen as pressure, sex is no longer fun. And having children under age five is not associated with a great sex life. There just are real drops when women have young children.’
Sex therapist Gina Ogden, PhD, author of Women Who Love Sex, adds, ‘I don’t want to perpetuate any gender myths, but the fact is, women have more on their plates than men do – in fact, women are more overworked than men. Men are able to go out and do their thing. Maybe if we could go play golf on a Sunday, the shoe would be on the other foot. I mean, it’s a whole lot of little stuff: Who’s usually saying, “No, I can’t afford that” or “I can’t go there, I have to go home and feed the baby”? You know, your sexual responses don’t begin in the bedroom. Ideally, they should be going all day. If you think of sex as energy instead of a set of actions, it’s easy to see that if you’re constantly having to stop yourself in all aspects of your life, you’ll also stop your sexual responses.’ So what’s the answer? As relationship doctor, Jane Greer, PhD, asserts, ‘The most important element is to stay focused on your sexual mindset and don’t let anything interfere.’
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