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The Problem With the Way We Talk About ‘Low-Desire’ Hetero Women
It’s important to consider what’s going on their male partner, too
You probably know the familiar narrative — your once-randy wife suddenly loses interest in sex a few years into marriage, especially once the kids come along followed by the long slog of perimenopause and then menopause, and now you find yourself at midlife or later begging for it or resigning yourself to being in a “sexless” marriage.
Where did your sexy, lingerie-wearing, up for anything partner go? What’s wrong with her (because it must be her fault — right)?
Not so fast.
In their 2021 study, “The Heteronormativity Theory of Low Sexual Desire in Women Partnered with Men,” researchers Sari M. van Anders, Debby Herbenick, Lori A. Brotto, Emily A. Harris and Sara B. Chadwick find that the problem is heteronormativity — the belief that heterosexuality is the norm for romantic relationships, that gender is binary, and that everyone should conform to traditional, narrow gender roles.
But how can that lead to a loss of desire?
For one, gender inequities.
Before we get to that, though, consider what often happens with heterosexual couples when a woman either loses her sexual…