A Gentler Approach to Desire Discrepancy

There are a lot of reasons I don’t recommend that clients “just do it” to resolve a desire discrepancy:

• Your client may have unresolved sex pain, which can lead to emotional, physical, and relational damage if left untreated. (More on sex pain here.)

• Your client may be experiencing consent violations in their relationship; consent violations can be very subtle, or even entirely internal, and still cause serious harm. (More on subtle consent violations here.)

• Your client may be asexual, meaning that “having more sex” may not be an expectable or desirable treatment outcome for them, and a course of therapy focused on increasing desire when they don’t want it would be marginalizing. Because asexuality is still underrepresented, your client may be asexual without yet realizing it. (More on asexuality here.)

• Your client may have experienced sexual trauma; “just do it” is not a trauma-informed perspective or intervention, and is likely to do harm.

Even beyond those considerations, recommending clients jump in and “just do it” may do more harm than good. When partners aren’t having sex, and they’re unhappy about it, they’re probably disconnected in a number of ways. Whether they’re lying next to each other in bed at night, or just doing chores in the same small space, there’s a wall that’s gone up somewhere between them. Whatever underlying dynamics are creating this disconnection, asking them to have icebreaker sex is not just asking a lot; in fact, it’s likely to create further blocks.
A Gentler Approach to Desire Discrepancy