What is libido and what is considered normal? Answers from an obstetrician-gynecologist and sexologist

Libido isn’t just about sex. It’s also a key indicator of overall health and quality of life. But how do you know what your libido is? Let’s find out with an obstetrician-gynecologist and sexologist.

counseling psychologist, sexologist, member of the Association of Sexologists.

The need to have sexual intercourse is a basic human need.

What is libido

doctor of integrative medicine, fungonutritionist, obstetrician-gynecologist, expert of the Uniprof Academy of Physicians.

Libido in Latin means desire, aspiration, passion. Usually such a word refers to sexual attraction in general or to a particular person, as well as sexual instinct.

The desire for sex is based on a complex interplay of many factors that influence intimacy, including physical and emotional well-being, experiences, beliefs, lifestyle, and current relationships.

What libido is considered normal

Katerina: There is no such thing as a normal libido. For each individual person, desire is different. Once a week is enough for one person, while another person needs it every day. Here it is necessary to refer to such a concept as “sexual constitution”. This is the maximum need for sex, which is given to us from birth, it can not be changed, rebuilt or somehow corrected.

There are three types of sexual constitution:

• weak – the desire arises from once a week to once a year;
• medium – the desire appears three or four times a week;
• strong – the desire appears from once a day and more often.

With each decade the need for sex will decrease. That is, if you have a strong sexual constitution, then, for example, in 20 years you will want sex several times a day, and after 30 will be enough and once a day.

Alarm should be alarmed when you feel that before the desire was stronger, but now it has disappeared completely. The main reasons that reduce such a need:

• Physical: discomfort in intimate relationships, diseases, taking certain medications, lifestyle, fatigue and surgery;
• hormonal: changes associated with menopause, pregnancy, breastfeeding in women;
• psychological: if one partner has a need to have sex less often than the other. There is no “magic number” that defines a low sex drive.

But there are also additional factors that affect libido:

• monotonous sex;
• infidelity, jealousy;
• fear of pregnancy or if the partner is overly insistent on intimacy just for the sake of pregnancy;
• fear of contracting sexually transmitted diseases;
• Sexological dysfunctions of the partner (e.g. the man has problems with erection and the woman experiences pain during penetration);
• mental disorders (e.g. depression);
• negative sexual experiences;
• libido sublimation (when you “redirect” sexual desire into work, hobbies, etc., i.e. you forcibly suppress libido).

When to consult a doctor

Katerina: If you are sure that everything is all right with your sleep and diet and there is no acute stressful situation at the moment, but your libido has been in a reduced state for a long time, it is necessary to consult a doctor. A woman should visit a gynecologist and an endocrinologist, and a man should visit an andrologist and an endocrinologist.

What should be done:

• check the state of the hormonal and endocrine systems;
• exclude tumors, neoplasms and other inflammatory processes;
• exclude trauma.

If after a comprehensive examination it is found that everything is fine with your physical health, but libido is still reduced, it is necessary to contact a psychologist with additional qualifications in the field of sexology to solve this problem.