Low libido in Young women

Is Your Libido MIA?

Matt Jones/Trunk Archive


We all want to be that woman-at least for a night. The naughty little sex kitten who grabs her guy mid–cocktail party for a quickie in the coat room, who plans entire vacations around the ideal skinny-dipping spot, who actually has tried all 69 of the moves "guaranteed to drive him wild" and loved every one of them. But even if you were a Lusty Lana once upon a time, these days your libido may be more lifeless than a dorm-room houseplant. Or maybe your sex drive has always been a bit limp.

Either way, you're not alone. In a recent survey published in the Archives of Internal Medicine, more than one in three women admitted to experiencing low sexual desire in the past month. Hello-that's more than 40 million of us! While men can pop Viagra (those lucky bastards), women can't quick-fix their lack of desire with a magic pill. For us, there's more to it than blood flow.

But there's good news: According to experts, once you ID the possible causes of your lukewarm libido, you can start homing in on a solution. "Take the time to assess yourself-not just physically but emotionally and mentally-and you'll be able to see what might be holding you back, " says Patti Britton, Ph.D., a Los Angeles sexologist and author of The Art of Sex Coaching.

To help you reconnect with your saucy side, we asked three women to share their struggles with low desire and then turned to top sex therapists for their analyses. This may not turn you into the woman who speeds home for a lunch-hour power romp, but the following insights and advice will help make you hungrier for lovin' than you may have been in a long time. And if you're looking for other sexy things to do don't miss WH's Annual Sex Toy Awards for saucy selects that will turn you on.

Trust Is the Best Aphrodisiac

Guys seem to have it pretty easy when it comes to sexual arousal: Man gets turned on. Penis takes over. Brain shuts down. Enjoyment ensues. For most women, it's more complex. To feel even the slightest bit of desire, our head has to be in the game. A 2003 study at Northwestern University found that even when women show the physical signs of sexual excitement below the belt, if they're not mentally turned on they won't feel a damn thing.

Now, imagine you're busy trying to muster desire, but your brain-the main factor in the equation-won't stop analyzing, fretting, or planning. For Kim, 27, that kind of overall anxiety has left her with "zero sex drive." After working 12-hour days at an ad agency in Philadelphia, she comes home exhausted and way too preoccupied even to consider sex. "I'm always stressing about my job-I even have nightmares about it, " she says. Work concerns aside, Kim describes herself in general as a very anxious person, a perfectionist who's always making to-do lists on paper and in her head.

Just out of curiosity, how does something like

by 4asmile