My partner and I are in our mid-20s and we have been together for just over a year. They are non-binary and all of my previous relationships have been with women (I am a woman). I love my partner so much, but our intimacy has become a lot less regular over the course of our relationship. I wonder if it’s because of the absence of a strong feminine/masculine dynamic, where one person is expected to have a specific role. Do you have any advice for overcoming this?
Are specific roles important to you? Are they important to your partner? This would be an enlightening conversation to have with them.
I would not necessarily assume that your lowered sexual frequency is related to gender roles. Perhaps you need to create some separateness from your partner – not necessarily related to erotic connection, but in your lives generally.
A drop in libido can be due to many possible factors, including stress, fatigue, medication side effects, and underlying relationship issues such as unexpressed resentment. And paradoxically, even a high degree of closeness in a relationship can reduce the erotic spark. If you always know what the other is thinking, and tend to finish each other’s sentences, you may begin to experience each other as familial, which creates barriers to eroticism. The sexual dynamic is usually more exciting when each partner is viewed by the other as a true individual, so consider adding the element of surprise to your daily activities as well as to your intimacy.
There are many ways to experience each other as objects of desire as well as loving partners, so seek to experience each other differently. How we view ourselves in the context of our partners is extremely important. Be more creative with your approach and initiating of sex, and more playful in the moment. Stop repeating the same moves and allow yourselves the joy of erotic experimentation.
Pamela Stephenson Connolly is a US-based psychotherapist who specialises in treating sexual disorders.
If you would like advice from Pamela on sexual matters, send us a brief description of your concerns to private.lives@theguardian.com (please don’t send attachments). Each week, Pamela chooses one problem to answer, which will be published online. She regrets that she cannot enter into personal correspondence. Submissions are subject to our terms and conditions.
