2001-07-11 - 10:13 p.m.

Dear Denzel,

For reference, I am a woman who has sex with men. My problem makes me feel sad and insecure, and since I've been reading Badsnake's diary for awhile, I thought her alter ego would be just the person to ask about it. (Because she's very versed in the ways of sex—not because she has my problem!)

In high school I was a sex maniac. I couldn't stop thinking about it, I was horny all the time, I fantasized all the time—I felt like the stereotype of the adolescent boy. Whenever I had a boyfriend, all I ever wanted to do was make out, have sex, do all the dirty, wonderful things I fantasized about all the time. I loved being this way, being this horny and wanting sex this often.

My problem is that my sex drive plummeted somewhere in college, and now I'm 24 and it hasn't come back. I can't figure out why. I've switched partners several times, I've read up on the female sex drive, I've switched birth controls, I've gone 2 years WITHOUT birth control. Nothing has seems to help.

The first few weeks with a new partner always send me back to that high school mindset of wanting to fuck ALL THE TIME, but my desire quickly cools and I become irritated with his advances.

I'm currently in a really fulfilling, good relationship with a sweet boy who I'm very attracted to, and who is truly a skilled lover, yet my sex drive remains frustratingly low. I hate this!

I want to be a sex beast again! I hate hurting my boyfriend's feelings, and feeling insecure myself. I feel cold and lifeless and boring. I feel like there's a switch in my head that gets turned off every time he makes advances. Sometimes I force myself to ignore that switch, and I keep going, and generally then I get into it. But I'm never "horny" anymore.

Do you have any advice? I want to crave sex all the time again.

Busted Drive Train

Dear Busty,

You're right. This is one issue I have only experienced second-hand, but that was bad enough.

I'm glad to hear that you've explored the possibility that your diminished sex drive might be associated with medicinal side-effects and that you've read up on the topic of female sex drives. If you take any other prescription medications, research those too.

While your situation is one best discussed with someone who can ask questions and listen carefully to your answers—like a psychotherapist or an objective, understanding friend—I'm going to give it a shot.

Two of my nearest and dearest friends have experienced a loss of sex drive, each for completely different reasons. It can, indeed, be frustrating and seemingly endless.

First you've got to let go of any self-blame (not meaning you have to put it on somebody else) and try to get it out of the front of your brain whenever a sexual situation arises. Like Norma said in "Victor/Victoria", "Think, worry. Worry, think. It's a vicious cycle. And the next thing you know, you are impudent [sic]. What's with the soap?" Yes, I have seen that movie way too many times.

Let me pause to remind everyone that Badsnake is not a licensed psychotherapist. In fact, I'm not licensed for anything other than operating a car or motorcycle and carrying concealed weapons. The following essay is akin to what you'd get if you asked your kindly, kinky Uncle Badsnake for advice. Which is, in fact, just what you've done.

Now, let's focus first on what's going right in your life.

You're young, you're in a good relationship with a boy who's sweet to you and knows what he's doing between the sheets. You've had positive sexual experiences in the past. And no one is making you eat bugs in the Australian Outback (I'm making an assumption there).

There are a zillion underlying reasons that could be responsible for your diminished sex, many of which have nothing to do with sex. In the meantime, based on clues in your e-mail, I'm going to throw several ideas out there, and you see if any of them strike a chord. You've looked at external causes. Now let's look inside.

Scenario One: Your motivation for or associations with sex may have changed. If you were a rocking wild sex child in high school, sex might have been the thing that made you feel out there, on the edge, special, deserving of attention, experienced, rebellious. Maybe it was the thing you did better than any of your friends. We all like to feel that we excel at something. There's nothing wrong with that. But, now that you've matured and gained experience, those motivations might not do it for you any more.

When you were a big sex kitten in high school and college, was it just hormones run rampant, or did you get off on the reputation (and adoration, I'm sure) that came with it?

None of that would've been at the forefront of your mind at the time. But you can look at it objectively now as an adult. Now that you're in your 20s, having sex all the time isn't such a big deal. Everybody does it. Especially everybody on HBO. And if it's not a big deal, what is there to get you going?

Scenario 2: Something or someone (include yourself as a suspect) has made you feel unworthy. There's nothing in particular in your e-mail that says this, it's just a common reason for a diminished sex drive.

Self-confidence and self-worth are two huge factors in having a healthy sex drive. And the quickest path to an adult woman feeling horny and like there's nothing she'd rather do than cut loose on a long funky pleasure cruise is for her to feel completely at home with herself in every respect. You've got to really like who you are and wield that like a big, self-satisfied stick. That's why a great big woman who has a healthy attitude about herself (I know a very happy hooker just like this) can get more pleasure from sex and life in general than a woman who's got all the earmarks of what is considered sexy and desirable but doesn't feel like she's good enough yet.

Scenario 3: Sex therapist JoAnn Loulan calls the initial phase of a relationship when everything turns you on "limerance". It could be that you had a four or five year limerance phase with sex itself during high school and college, and now your expectations of what "horny" should feel like and how often it should occur are way too high. Your irritability and disappointment could easily stem from the onset of a more calmed-down phase of the relationship and exacerbated by your desire for that feeling to keep going on indefinitely.

Even I, the horndog of horndogs, do not experience horniness as a burning, gotta-have-it-now kind of thing anymore unless I've been teased into a frenzy of anticipation. And when I do hype myself up like that, I get majorly disappointed if plans change, which they often do. So I actually try to avoid getting that charged up on desire. For me, it's more like looking forward to an experience that I know will be a blast once we get started. Then again, a heated gaze across the dining room table can do it, too. But usually I don't start to really feel it until I'm alone with my partner and the kissing starts.

If this theory is close, your "turn off" switch thing might happen when your boyfriend makes advances and you don't get the inner response you think you should be getting. You feel something must be wrong with you. Over time there would be a downward spiral.

Whew. Okay. I hope one of those gave you something helpful to think about. Now here's your advice from Uncle Badsnake. You could follow none or all of these. Mix and match.

Make a no pressure, no expectations agreement with your boyfriend. You'll have to work out the terms yourselves, but something like "We're not going to have sex this week. You can keep showing me physical and emotional affection, like hugs and kisses, but I won't feel pressured to respond in a sexual way, and so I won't feel bad about the absence of response." Then you could set up a date at the end of the week, taking the pressure off expectations of spontaneity. Start slow, ditch any distractions, give it a shot, but still without any pressure for you to "deliver". You could go at it like a no-sex sex date. Heavy petting only unless you give the okay. Plan to do things you know you like and throw in something new—a blindfold, tied hands, ice, food, new location, whatever. It doesn't have to be huge.

Forget how you felt about sex in high school and think about what you want and like now. Think about what you enjoy about sex itself, not just the anticipation of sex. And while you're at it, take a good fresh look at your boyfriend. Think of all the things you like about him and why you were attracted to him in the first place.

If you drink alcohol, stop or cut down. Same for any recreational drugs.

And finally, make sure your boyfriend knows to compliment things about you that are unrelated to your desirability. Deb would rather I call her "cute" or "smart" than "sexy". I also get farther turning Deb on by doing household chores without being asked to than by coming on like a big Don Juan. If you think this might work for you, have your boyfriend read this page. Expect him to try too hard, working his little butt off. Indulge him because he's just trying to help out, and there's not a whole helluva a lot else he can do for you. And even if it doesn't work, at least the vacuuming got done.

Mostly you're just going to have to dig deep and look at this not as a failing but as a transition. There's no way you can promise yourself you will be the horny girl you once were. But you can promise yourself that you will find the way back to a satisfying sex life.

—Bad

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