Zürcher Nachrichten - Study Examines Why Women Have Consensual Sex Without Initial Desire

Women experiencing a chronic lack of sexual desire may continue to have consensual sex for relationship, emotional and other reasons unrelated to immediate physical desire, according to research discussed in the Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy.

Researchers Nikita Guptan and James A. Simon of IntimMedicine Specialists in Washington, D.C., reviewed baseline findings from a decade of clinical trials involving treatments for hypoactive sexual desire disorder. The condition is defined medically as a persistent lack of sexual desire.

The trials tested a testosterone patch, the injectable aphrodisiac bremelanotide and flibanserin, an oral medicine. In 2015, flibanserin became the first treatment approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for premenopausal women with the disorder.

Because pharmaceutical companies conducting the randomized, placebo-controlled trials had to measure treatment success partly through the frequency of sexual events, the records offered data about sexual activity before treatment began.

Across trials involving thousands of participants, women with the condition reported sex about two or three times a month at baseline even though they lacked sexual drive. The researchers used the term “mercy sex” for this pattern.

They proposed several possible motives, including maintaining a relationship, supporting monogamy and preserving emotional closeness with a partner. The paper also discussed evolutionary theories involving different reproductive strategies and the value of a stable partner in raising children.

The authors noted that some men are socially conditioned to associate sexual activity with emotional intimacy. Within a consensual relationship, sex that is not actively desired at the outset may therefore be used to maintain that sense of connection.

Those evolutionary explanations do not cover every relationship. The researchers said they would not apply in the same way to women in same-sex partnerships or to participants without a partner.

The behavior is not rare. A 2024 study in the Journal of Sex Research found that most people had at some point consented to sex they did not desire, including within their current relationships.

Psychologists have cautioned that problems can arise when a partner with lower desire agrees only to prevent conflict or disappointment and does not communicate personal needs. Continually suppressing those needs may contribute to depressive symptoms.

The analysis also distinguished sex without initial desire from responsive desire, in which a person begins an encounter feeling neutral but experiences desire after arousal starts. Studies of female sexual response describe that pattern as common in healthy long-term relationships.

The findings suggest that clinical trials should assess the quality and context of sexual experiences, not only their number, when determining whether a treatment improves a patient’s condition.

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