The Real Reasons Women Lose Interest in Sex With Men

Here's what my survey data shows about why women don't want to have sex. Hint: They tend to avoid sex with men who treat them like garbage and/or who are bad in bed.

“My wife is withholding sex.”

“Sex is my love language. I need it to feel close, or to do anything to support my wife.”

It’s a recurring theme in blogs for men, incel groups, and in almost every conversation between partnered men.

Culturally, we take for granted the idea that men need sex, and that women owe them sex—or at least an effort at wanting sex. We don’t take any of women’s needs for granted. In the standard romantic relationship between a man and a woman, the man feels entitled to sex, and the woman feels entitled to nothing. And if she dares to step out of line, if she acts entitled to the bare minimum—to equal participation in parenting, for example, or to not being yelled at or gaslit—he’ll find some dark corner of the Internet to yammer on about what an entitled bitch she is.

Because of course women should have sex with men who offer them nothing in return! It just makes good sense! Women aren’t people! Maybe that’s why men don’t listen to women when they offer their reasons for not wanting sex.

I guess it’s easier to blame hormones, emotional women, and prudishness than your own repugnant self.

Men have been raised with a few key beliefs about sex:

• They are entitled to sex.

• Women are not as interested in sex.

• Women are not entitled to good sex when good sex requires additional effort.

• Whether or not a woman has sex with them has nothing to do with their behavior (and questioning their behavior is therefore unacceptable).

• Withholding sex because of the man’s behavior is a form of abuse.

No one is entitled to sex. No one is entitled to any specific thing in a relationship, except for not being abused. Yet many men abuse their partners day in and day out, then throw up their hands, declare that their mean wives are “withholding sex,” and insist it’s because women just don’t like sex.

It is a myth that women naturally lose interest in sex, or that hormones are the main culprit, or that women are less sexual than men. The sex that is, in theory at least, capable of infinite orgasms has no reason to lose interest in sex, and research supports this claim. Studies on women in relationships argue that it’s long-term relationships that suppress their desire. In other words, monogamy has a negative effect on women’s libido, but not necessarily on men’s desire.

So why is this? Well, it turns out men don’t have to speculate! Women are actual living human people, and if you ask them what they want and need, they’ll tell you!

That’s exactly what I did in my Sex in Marriage and Long-Term Relationships survey. I’m still collecting data, but have so far gathered results from 900 women in long-term heterosexual relationships. Here’s what they’ve told me:

Why do women say no to sex?

I asked women the reasons they are most likely to say no to sex, and allowed them to give multiple answers. Here were the top 10 reasons, ranked by the percentage of women who selected each option:

1. I’m tired (82.93%)

2. My partner doesn’t do their fair share around the house (63.41%)

3. I’m angry with my partner (63.41%)

4. I have too much to do (52.03%)

5. My partner is mean to me (51.22%)

6. The sex with my partner is bad (41.46%)

7. I can’t relax in a messy house (36.59%)

8. I’m not attracted to my partner (36.59%)

9. My partner has bad hygiene (21.41%)

10. Sex is painful for me (20.33%)

I asked women to provide me more information, and their comments paint a portrait of men who are mean to them, lazy in bed, and unwilling to participate fairly in family life, who then expect sex and throw a fit when they don’t get it. Here’s some of what women told me:

• “He is not interested in satisfying me in the bedroom or in life.”

• “He is sexually selfish, which makes sense because he’s selfish everywhere in our relationship.”

• “I know the sex will be shit.”

• “My partner has been sexually abusive while I was recovering from child birth. That turned into verbal, mental, and emotional abuse which is what makes me not attracted to him.”

• “He doesn’t deserve to be rewarded when he doesn’t do anything to support me.”

• “Our sex life diminished over the years as I discovered he could not understand how exhausted I was from doing literally everything related to household maintenance and childcare and that he had no real interest in my feelings or needs. He also developed erectile dysfunction, which he refused to fully acknowledge or seek treatment for (he called it “low desire”). The sex we did have became entirely focused on him getting and maintaining an erection, which was not fulfilling for me. Finally, our sex life ended completely about seven years ago, which was something of a relief for me.”

• “Betrayal trauma. I also don’t believe he is into ‘me’ - his porn addiction and frequent visit to swingers sites (messaging hundreds of women) means I believe he doesn’t want sex with me specifically, he just wants sex, and anyone would do but as I’m his wife, it makes sense for it to be me.”

What can men do to increase their partners’ interest?

It should be obvious from the above that guilting women into sex isn’t going to work; they have no reason to feel guilty when their partners are selfish, bad at sex, and unkind. Despite this, women told me that their partners’ primary method for trying to get them to have sex was guilt, followed by anger.

Here again, if men would actually listen to women, they could be having a lot more sex. Just 9% of women told me there was nothing their partners could do to make them more interested in sex. But half of this group described their relationships as abusive, and this specific subset reported a range of other problems, so these relationships are likely irretrievably broken. So what of the remaining 91%, who said there was plenty their partners could do to make them more interested?

I gave them the option to suggest multiple changes. The most popular were:

1. My partner could do more around the house or with our children (64%)

2. My partner could work harder to seduce me (60.94%)

3. My partner could be nicer to me (58.58%)

4. My partner could make me orgasm more often, or otherwise improve their sexual performance (48.38%)

5. My partner could listen to my sexual needs (33.8%)

6. My partner could work harder to be attractive to me (28.53%)

7. My partner could shower or improve their hygiene (19.39%)

In the free answer section, here is the additional feedback women gave me about what their partners could do to increase their sexual interest:

• “Not pressure me in any way to have sex.”

• “Just not be an asshole.”

• “Make an effort to be a kind and competent father.”

• “My partner could schedule the damn vasectomy he is avoiding. My partner could quit impulsively over scheduling us and deal with his undiagnosed adhd.”

• “I told my ex husband 2 years before we separated that sex wasn’t great for me. That I had a whole body that would love some attention and that lubing up his dick with his own saliva and forcing it in was not enjoyable for me. He told me that if I didn’t like it he wouldn’t bother. And he never did.”

• “He could make home feel safe, he could make our relationship feel safe. He could do these things then work with me to work on trust.”

• “My partner could do his share (or any) emotional labor towards maintaining our relationship, provide non-sexual touch, initiate conversation, etc.”

• “Discuss things we disagree on until we fully understand each other and if possible or when necessary come to a compromise instead of getting angry, yelling, and refusing to have an adult conversation (about any issue).”

• “Be kinder to our children.”

• “Stop yelling at me.”

• “He could stop treating me as if all I’m here for is running the house.”

I’ll be releasing the full data from my survey on March 31 to paid subscribers. Unpaid subscribers get access two weeks later. So now’s a great time to subscribe. You can support these data gathering efforts, and help me do more of them, by subscribing today! And if you haven’t already taken the survey, I’ll be collecting data through March 20, so take it here.