The Psychology of your 20s - 355. Why don't I enjoy sex that much?

Episode Date: November 18, 2025

Our 20s are sold to us as the decade of peak desire - full of passion, spontaneity, and effortless intimacy. But for so many of us, that isn’t the reality. When libido dips or fluctuates, it can feel confusing, isolating, and even shameful. In this episode, we ask why it is so common to struggle with libido in our 20s, what’s actually happening beneath the surface when desire feels distant, and how to make sense of the emotional and physical shifts that come with it. We explore: •        How it feels when our libido fluctuates•        Why so many of us struggle with this in our 20s•        The dual control theory of sexual response•        Libido as a reflection of safety•        The role of hormones, stress and mental health •        Identity development and the impact of shame•        Tips to reconnect with pleasure If you’ve ever wondered why you don’t feel the same drive as others seem to, this episode is for you. ORDER MY BOOK Follow Jemma on Instagram: @jemmasbeg Follow the podcast on Instagram: @thatpsychologypodcast For business: [e-mail]  The Psychology of your 20s is not a substitute for professional mental health help. If you are struggling, distressed or require personalised advice, please reach out to your doctor or a licensed psychologist.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello everybody. I'm Jemma Spike and welcome back to the psychology of your 20s, the podcast where we talk through the biggest changes, moments and transitions of our 20s and what they mean for our psychology. Before we get into it, I just want to let you know that this episode involves discussions of sexual assault, harassment, and trauma. So if those subjects are things that you're particularly sensitive to, please just consider whether this is the right time to be listening to this episode

and just make sure to take care of yourself. There will be additional resources in the episode description. Hello everybody. Welcome back to the show. Welcome back to the podcast. You listeners, old listeners, it's so great to have you back. Today, I'm just going to cut right to the chase. We're talking about sex. More specifically, we're going to talk about why some of us are just not that interested. Why there are these periods where, you know, sex just kind of loses its appeal and, like, isn't really enjoyable. I think we've been fed this story that your 20s are this decade of peak sexual desire,

passion, magnetism, sensuality, sexual confidence, you know, we might picture ourselves having as much sex as possible and all the sex is good and, you know, whatever. I don't think that picture is necessarily reality and what if instead you feel kind of distant from your body, unenthusiastic about sex, disconnected from your partner, or maybe just your own sensuality. To be super candid, and I know my parents listen to the podcast, so mom, dad, family members, you can skip this one, but I feel like I've been quite open about some just like random scary health stuff that has been going on this year. And my libido has really been impacted by that. It is definitely at an all-time low. I'm also in a long-term relationship.

and that can be really hard to navigate when honestly like you just you feel you just don't want sex and it's not because of them at all it's just because your body feels so tired you're under so much stress like there's so much uncertainty hormonally all of these things are happening behind the scenes and it feels kind of awkward to talk about it and it feels like not something that we openly discuss when it is super super normal so if that's you um i just want to like you know you're not the only one i'm definitely in that boat right now i know a lot of other people in their 20s are and you know i've learned from just like talking to my friends and people i know about this that like it's so much more common than you think to just like sometimes just lose a lot of interest

and just to have a low libido and just to be adjusting to your your sexuality and your sensuality and like a new decade and a new period of your life with sex you know it's so easy it would be It's so easy to assume that everyone else is having more sex and better sex than you are. And I think shame just acts as a barrier for any meaningful conversation around this and for any kind of hope for understanding ourselves a little bit better. So we're just going to do away with that today and talk about it openly. Talk about why sometimes our libido fluctuates, why it's really common in your 20s, what might be happening behind this.

scenes in your brain with your hormones and maybe some of the broader ways that you can kind of get back to this feeling of pleasure and this feeling of connection with another person or with yourself. So I'm super excited to jump into this topic today. I hope you are too. Without further ado, let's talk about sex and why you might not want any right now. Stay with us. I think we tend to think that some people just like sex more than others. But really, unless you're someone who is asexual and experiences no or very limited sexual attraction, most of us, our desires change over time quite intensely, depending on our season of life. Our libido is not this static concept that is one way or the other way.

It's incredibly dynamic. It's something that evolves depending on what's going on for you mentally and environmentally. Sometimes even by the second, it can be really high and then really low. Now a low libido doesn't necessarily mean the absence of wanting sex. Sometimes it just feels more like an underlying, just not discomfort, but just apathy. You know, you may care about your partner, love your partner, think they're really hot, think they're amazing, want their affection, want the emotional bond, but when like that moment arrives, you just can't get into it.

how I've described it in the past is like when someone offers you something that you think will be really yummy that it could be literally your favorite food but you're kind of full anyways like you just you could take it or leave it you just not really like you're not hungry you don't really want it still your favorite food but you know you won't enjoy it you know you won't enjoy it just based on how you're feeling so you leave it it's actually totally normal to go through periods like this but what makes this experience pretty difficult is not the fluctuation itself. It's the meaning we attached to it. I came across the survey done in 2021 by researchers at the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University.

They specialize in research on sex, on relationships, on well-being, and they teamed up with the sex retailer, Love Honey, to conduct a survey amongst married adults age 18 to 45. And what they really wanted to know was like these participants, perspectives on sexual desire. What they found was that 11% of people who were born after 1997 and who were also married reported problems with sexual desire that they were lacking it in the past year. And this increased to over 25% for people who were between the ages of, I think it was like 27 and like 41.

A lot of people are having this problem. A further study that was conducted in France in 2010 looked at a random sample of over 2,300 respondents aged 15 to 24, and what the results showed was that a lack of sexual desire were really, really commonly cited problems, especially amongst women. 24% of these women aged 15 to 24, reported experiencing a lack of sexual desire, either sometimes or often compared to only 10% of male respondents. And that doesn't even account for the people who don't report it, because they feel weird about it.

Again, what makes this 10 times harder is the expectation we have about sex because of the narratives we've been told by society, especially when we're not feeling this spark. You know, we do assume everybody's having more sex than us. The thing is, that's actually not the case. That's really, like, it definitely isn't the case, especially if you're in your 20s, like most people aren't having great sex and they aren't having the best sex of their lives. This is not even close to like your peak of sexual desire or

sexual maturity yet. A lot of research points to men in particular, their sexual desire peaking around the mid-20s. For women, a really different picture. A 2010 study published in the journal, personality and individual differences found that women's sense. sexual desire actually peaks between 30 to 45. And obviously, that's a pretty large age group, but almost the majority of people in that age bracket reported significantly higher desire levels compared to the younger women aged 18 to 27. We absolutely need to get rid of this narrative that your 20s are the best, the best in

anything really, but like sex, especially for this episode. It's just not true. Like, it's just not true. And how we understand desire, it's just way more complex than that. Your libido isn't just influenced by what you think you should be feeling and your desire for desire. It's influenced by things that go way beyond your control and that actually end up stabilizing and changing the older you get. There's so many emotional fluctuations going on in your 20s, no matter how together you feel about it, that kind of mellow out, the older you get. And because of that, like, you really are a given more mental space to focus on sensuality and to focus on how you feel in your body. So let's talk about what influences libido. Let's talk about what might be making you not enjoy sex as much, not really

want it. When we think about this, I feel like what's the first thing that you're going to think I'm going to speak about? You're probably right. Hormones. Hormones are the things that a lot of people blame. And hormones do play a role, but not in like a mechanical, like one dimensional way. They actually don't cause desire. Like your hormones aren't what determines whether you feel sexy or not. They're just the messengers. Desire is first and foremost, mental. And then your hormones carry signals from your brain and then also from your life, from your emotions and your environment that influence how this feels in the body. Now of course, if something's off balance there, if something isn't working the way that it should, it just basically means that all the roads

that carry these messages and the roots throughout your body that allow you to feel good and sexy and turned on, like they're clogged with traffic that is not working. And so it means that there's just no communication. Even if you feel desire, sometimes it doesn't happen in your body. Maybe your body feels desire. It doesn't happen in your mind. We have to also talk about birth control.

This enters the picture in a really interesting way. Many hormonal contraceptives actually work by changing the communication between the brain and the ovaries. Essentially, they quieten the hormonal cycle that would otherwise kind of ebb and flow throughout the month. And for some people, this creates kind of like an emotional and physiological steadiness. They might feel more regulated, more settled, less overwhelmed, but for others, that same

steadiness can feel more like a dampening, not just of your mood or your hormones, but of like the spark inside your body that kind of feeds desire. The interesting thing is, hormonal birth control can lower circulating testosterone in the body, which is, as we know, a hormone involved in sexual motivation, not just if you're a guy. Like, for women as well, testosterone is really, really important. And this may make it harder to feel in the mood. Especially if you've just gone on birth control, like, it's a big adjustment. Your body's like trying to figure out this new body and this new mind.

Some people actually report feeling more desire once they're on birth control because they actually feel safer. Like they no longer fear pregnancy. They experience less pain. their cycle becomes less emotionally destabilizing. Their nervous system has space to relax. So it can be really different for everybody, the same way that hormones and sex can be different for everybody.

Now, this of course goes much deeper than just biological reactions. Something I always say is like sex is mental, not just physical. It's a lot more mental than physical, at least for me. And if there is something emotional or stressful that keeps putting the brakes on desire, hormones are not, like your libido is going to be low. One of the most helpful frameworks we have to explain this comes from the dual control theory of sexual response. This was developed again by researchers at the Kinsey Institute that I mentioned earlier.

And what this model explains is that our sexual responses are a product between this balance of excitory and inhibitory processes. This excitatory system puts the foot on the accelerator. It's like let's freaking go. It notices attraction. It notices touch, fantasy, emotional closeness, warmth, arousal. The other system, the inhibitory system, is like putting your foot on the break. This is the part that responds to things like stress, anxiety, distraction, work sucking,

having that friendship fight, feeling like your life is chaotic. And it's, again, the system that turns desire off. And what these researchers explain is that most of the time, low desire, low libido, it's not that the accelerator isn't working. It's not that you're not turned on or don't want sex. It's because the break is being pressed too hard. Let's explore the theory a little bit more after this short break. 2%.

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Listen to the girlfriends. Trust me, babe. On the Iheart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So you can care about someone really, really deeply, be like, super attracted to them, like really into them and still not feel sexual desire. And the flame of that desire is being smothered not by your lack of desire. That's not the thing. It's being smothered by wider factors in your life.

Our libido, how I heard someone put it, is that it's basically a reflection of how safe we feel in a particular moment. Your ability to feel turned on, to connect, to open up. It depends on whether your nervous system feels calm enough. to let you. Our nervous systems have one role, which is to keep us alive, is constantly scanning your environment and your internal world as well for signs of threat or signs of safety. And when it detects threat, whether that's physical or emotional, it redirects energy away from pleasure and curiosity and towards protection and survival. When your nervous system is living,

living in this state of vigilance, of course it's going to suppress your sexual desire. That's not necessarily necessary for your survival. Like, it doesn't need that. And that is why when cortisol is high, when stress is high, regardless of your age, relationship status, anything, your ability to feel arousal plummets. What this really shows is that the body's stress response and the body's capacity for desire are two ends of the same spectrum. One cannot be fully on whilst the other is activated. They both take up too much energy. I think it's also really crucial to mention that it's not just

current stress. The role of trauma here is like a whole episode, multiple episodes, a whole series in itself. The impact that has on sexual desire is so significant. If you've read the body keeps the score or if you've listened to the episode on trauma that we did on that a few months back, you'll know that trauma pretty much rewires how safety is recognized by your body. So when the possibility of intimacy appears when someone moves closer, like wants to make out with you, like kisses you on the neck, looks at you in a certain way, your body might tense up in a way that says last time this happened, it felt overwhelming and it felt dangerous. so we have to either leave or shut this down.

And this happens especially if closeness, intimacy was once linked with confusion, pressure, shame, pain, emotional and predictability. Even if there was no explicit harm, the body has learnt that being fully open to intimacy comes with risk. And so that break, that break we were talking about, is being firmly pressed, not as rejection of your partner, but from a place of survival. You know, that's just such a hard thing to endure. And it's so difficult to feel like that's just how you're going to view sex from now on.

And I promise that it's not. You know, when you find yourself struggling with libido, your desire is still there. It's just that your nervous system hasn't been given permission to relax. stress and trauma one side of the inhibitory system we're speaking about so is self-criticism and it kind of compounds the effects of these two things even more like when you feel like you should be aroused you should be turned on and something's wrong with you because you're not it makes it all the more harder right sorry for the pun i know but it does make it harder there's solid neuroscientific evidence to help us understand why this is. Basically, shame activates a lot of the same brain regions that respond to

physical pain, including the anterior cingulate cortex, which is involved with detecting exclusion, social threat, vulnerability. This is often why the harder we try to force libido to return, the more difficult it is to access it because you genuinely feel a level of emotional pain by the fact that you weren't able to do it in the first place. That shame impacts us all so heavily, culturally, socially, relationally. It's been inherited, again, from this system that didn't talk about sex, that then when we did start talking about sex,

made us feel bad about it, and that makes sex so silent that we just don't know how to be better at it, don't know how to talk about it, don't know how to do it in any way that isn't a performance for somebody else. don't know how to have conversations about ebbs and flows about what a healthy sex life is. And you know what's so interesting is that, like, yes, we can talk about hormones. Yes, we can talk about birth control and we can talk about stress and we can talk about all of these things.

But, like, sex really thrives with honesty and it thrives with presence and vulnerability and, like, complete trust. and the way that we've talked about it for so many years means that like those things are rarely present. So like any shame you feel is not your shame. It's society's shame for never really allowing you to talk about it. For like shaming you when you do and shaming you when you don't and you feel like sexually suppressed or repressed because of it.

one final thing we need to talk about that may be an explanation for why you know you're struggling with libida right now why you don't really enjoy sex don't want to have sex is of course mental health i feel like i should have talked about this earlier but better late than ever speaking of presence speaking of of nervous system regulation like as well if you're struggling with anxiety or with depression like those mental states are so big and heavy and loud it's so hard to be in the heart of your brain where you can just be like still and intimate and with somebody else. Anxiety like makes you so hyper aware. Depression just like dulls all sensation.

It dims all potential anticipation. And this is also related to dopamine, right? Like especially if you have depression, there is a reduction of dopamine the neurotransmitter responsible not just for happiness but motivation and arousal like in your brain. The thing is, when we're struggling with mental health, it's like this double barrel of like everything feels harder and more numb and more difficult. Sex is also being killed by this and I can't talk about it. And then you may try and like help yourself and go on medication and the side effects of that can be brutal. Again, let's be really candid.

When I went on Lexapro, I had nothing. Like I didn't know, I had no desire for months. I will say it was worth it for sure, 100%. It was totally worth it for me. But everything just felt more muted. And it just made it really hard to connect like what was happening physically with an emotional and like cognitive reaction. And again, for somebody, I think this is the case with a lot of women. Sex is mental, not physical.

sex is cognitive, not physical, not having that like element of presence and like heightened emotional sensation, like made it really difficult and was just like a new thing to adapt to. And it's gotten so much better now. Well, not that with this dip, but like the Lexa Pro doesn't really impact me as much. So like it's totally worth it if you are. It's just worth having a conversation with somebody and being like, hey, like, we're going to need to be more deliberate here or we're going to need to have more open conversations about this or just do this a little bit less because I want to take care of myself mentally and that means a couple of sacrifices here and there this might be one of them. The thing is like all of this is just so intricately layered. You might not be able to pinpoint

exactly one thing that is killing your libido right now. But we can kind of talk about how to, I don't know, meet yourself where you're at without forcing it or without pushing part. trauma or without, you know, turning intimacy with somebody into a project. Now, obviously, I'm not a sex therapist and I don't want to go too much into my own experiences because they're not just mine, like they involve other people. But I do want to give you a bit of a run-through of things that people recommend that I've read that are amazing, things that touch on deeper psychology, that maybe might be a good start point for you.

I think instead of trying to push down on that accelerator, right? The first step is often slowing down naturally so that your nervous system doesn't feel like it needs to put the brakes on for you. Most of us move through the world at a pace that our nervous system was not built for. Our current environments are like information and stimulation overload, constant input, constant thinking, constant brainwork. It's overwhelming. accessing pleasure, asks you to do the opposite of all that. Literally just give yourself more time to live out your day and to be present. This can feel really weird and unfamiliar, but if you spend a long time in final flight,

in survival mode, just like in a state of stress and arousal because life is so busy for you, just giving yourself time to just move slower, inhabit your body, reconnect with just like the natural flow of things like it's not sexual at all but it's really really intimate this other thing i saw recommended was just like connect with small pleasures that are going to have nothing to do with sex the warmth of a hot shower a really delicious piece of dark chocolate the feeling of your hair between your fingers or the smell of your shampoo the weight of a really snugly blanket on you while the thing you the air con is on, the way your sunlight warms your skin, like when you're on the grass,

the softness of like your pet's breath, like just all these things. Like, let the world romance you for a little bit. If intimacy feels overwhelming right now, especially with somebody else, like, you can begin here with sensation that literally asks nothing of you, nothing in return. Like, that's going to mean that you don't feel like you're going to be. constantly rejecting intimacy that the only way you can experience intimacy is like if you can have sex and like it's either that or nothing like this is a type of intimacy that like you're not going to let anybody down whether you enjoy it or not it's just there for you to enjoy right like and when

you begin to notice these sensations rather than rushing past them i think you just give yourself a chance to feel a little bit more in touch with yourself in touch with like your senses and more present. You know, what's the height of slowing down? The height of slowing down is, of course, getting more sleep. Literally just resting more. I saw a stat that said, one extra hour of sleep per night can increase libido by 14% on average from this study.

And I don't know if that result has been replicated, but like, I think it's worth a try. I just like getting more sleep, drinking less alcohol, like so much daily stress and like frustration and irritability that puts like a barrier out between you and pleasure comes from drinking and comes from not getting enough sleep. I've just found at the moment I prioritize those two things. Obviously like sleeping more and not drinking less, I just feel so much better and I feel happier and lighter and I'm going to be more willing to like really get into it.

I also think, you know, it's probably wise just to go and get your bloods done. Go get a panel of bloods. Go to your doctor. There may be something physical that's happening that could be addressed pretty rapidly. Like low iron, maybe you need a change in your birth control, a less intense dosage of antidepressants, some melatonin to help you sleep better that will help you have more energy. Obviously, this is not medical advice, but like there are so many explanations there. And just having more information makes you feel so much better anyways.

like I was diagnosed with PCOS recently and my doctor told me how much it reduces libido and we would, she's amazing and we were just talking about it and how they don't really know why. Of course, they don't. It's female health. But just knowing that, like the way she just said that to me, I was like, oh, I feel so much less silly. I feel so much less like, this is my fault that I just like am not that interested. Sexual health is emotional health, is physical health, is mental health is health. like you're allowed to go to your doctor and be like hey like i would like to be having more sex

and that's an important part of my life for me so like can you help me with that and they can help investigate what's going on below the surface when it comes to your partner you need to create a shared understanding that intimacy takes many shapes and that you just need to slow down it's not about withdrawing you don't want to reject them you want to be present with you want to do this differently. And you want to be able to talk with them openly and just say like, hey, I don't want to have sex unless it's amazing. Like, I want to have amazing sex with you.

I don't want to have cheap, not good, random sex. I want to be invested in this. And because of that, I just want to figure out a little bit more about what my body responds to and what my body needs. And I love being close to you. I just think, like, we need to explore different ways for that. closeness. You're making it clear that you're not just, you're not rejecting them. And I know that's such a tension point in relationship when one person wants to have more sex than the other person.

Normally it's like if you're in a heterosexual relationship, the guy, like for them, sex is very physical. And it can feel like every time you have to be like, no. And that you're really just like insulting them that it's saying something about your relationship. I think having that language of like, I actually, I want to have a really good sex with you. makes it so much better. And obviously, like, you don't need to apologize. You don't need to, like, feel guilty for it. You don't need to protect their ego in any way.

But, like, if you're serious about this person, like, you've got to have open conversations about this that sometimes are, like, a little bit uncomfortable. You're just making it clear. Like, I want this with you. Let's make it amazing. I also had this friend, and I know she won't mind me sharing this, but she was telling me about this thing that her and her girlfriend did.

which was they just took sex off the table entirely for three months and they started to approach it like they were teenagers again or like they were experiencing everything for the first time together like going back through like base one base two like third base and just like focusing on one of those bases like a week at a time and I remember like I got dinner with her and she was like I was like oh how's it going she's like, oh my God, it's amazing. Like, it's kissing week. And, like, all we do is make out. And, like, we know, like, we're not going to have sex.

Like, we just make out. And it's so much fun. It's, like, the anticipation is there, and it feels like there's no pressure. And, like, I kind of think people should steal that exercise from them. Like, they seem like they're having a great time. And I think it's just really rekindling sometimes the excitement and, like, the enthusiasm in a long-term relationship, like, when you've been, with somebody for a while. Speaking to your partner about this is obviously a necessity.

Like speaking to them is a version of intimacy. You will actually find that being open with them will probably make you want to have more sex just because you feel more connected. Speaking vulnerably about this with your friends outside the context of your relationship is also important. Like we need to be talking about low libidos or fluctuating libidos more with our friends.

Like we are so down to do like the rowdy sex stories and the one-night stands. We're so down to talk about bad sex or the overall feeling we have towards sex, the tips, the tricks, the stories, like, but this is also part of that conversation. You know, and your friends, as much as you should talk about it with your partner,

your friends know a lot about you. They know what you're going through. They know probably a bit more about your past. They know what's happening with your health, with your job, with your ex, they probably have things that they do for themselves as well, if nothing else, that might be able to help you. And I think like when we open up the conversation, like, it's just, everything feels so much lighter.

One of the best conversations I've had recently was with my friends about this very thing. And guess what? It made me realize how common this is. So many of these, like, all these people were in long-term relationships. All of them said the same thing. Like, yeah, this is something that we go through all the time. like yeah one of us wants sex more than the other i love them very much but like it just is what it is and i think when you just talk about it's like this relief of like oh my god you know yeah you're right

not everybody is having as much sex and as great as sex as i thought they were you know every relationship is different mine included i want to create the kind of sex and the relationship to sex with both of us that is going to make it really great for us so if you've been listening to this and you've been recognizing parts of yourself in it, I just hope that like this has given you some information or some answers. And if nothing else, a little bit less shame. Just a bit more knowledge about libido as well. And like what might be impacting it in the fact that like you're not cursed. This isn't the end. Especially if you are in your 20s, like the best is yet to come. That's what it sounds like to me. All of these studies that I was reading,

all these articles were like, yeah, 30 and 40 is like where it's at. So like it's only up from here. This is just like, I think a challenge for you to really like go deeper with like, what do I want, what do I enjoy? What turns me on? What's the mental story I need to associate with sex? And how can I like be better at making that part of the sex I'm having so that it's not just like this act for somebody else or it's not just this thing I do out of obligation or it's sense of obligation or because I want to give the impression of intimacy that I want to have the sex that I actually enjoy and that I really want to have. How can I do that? What do I need to pay attention to? So I think that is all we have time for. Again, I hope you enjoyed the episode. I want to thank

our research assistant Libby Cobb for her contributions. Make sure that you are following us on Instagram and that you are subscribed or following along wherever you are listening to the podcast right now. It really helps the show to grow and to reach new people. We also have an older guest episode called Sex is Mental, not just physical, with somebody who knows a lot more about this than me and who does really cool things in like the audio erotic space. So if you want to continue listening and you're like on a role with this like topic, you can go and check that out. I'll leave a little link in the description as well. But again, I hope it was informative. And I hope you have great discussions with your partner,

with your friends about about sex and about getting turned on and about intimacy. Until next time, stay safe. Be kind. Be gentle to yourself. We will talk very, very soon. On the Look Back at it podcast. In 1979, that was a big moment for me. 84 was big to me. I'm Sam J. And I'm Alex English. Each episode, we pick a here. unpack what went down and try to make sense of how we survived it with our friends, fellow comedians, and favorite authors. Like Mark Lamont Hill on the 80s.

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