Hi everyone is Renee Yvonne, that Gen Sexologist and I am recording at 12:30 at night because I am going to get a blog out every freaking week, if it kills me. So please excuse that I don’t have on makeup I’m not looking at it was my normal self, but I’m going to do this because I believe it’s important to do this this week. I want to talk about 11 reasons why your libido may not be as high as it was 20years ago or whatever it was when you were swinging from the chandelier’s and doing it all night. So let’s get started.
Number one, hormones, your hormones fluctuate a lot throughout your life, and they fluctuate even more as you get older. In fact, they decrease, they don’t just fluctuate. They start to decrease. And this is one of the areas that I think is most important. And oftentimes doctors never discuss these things with you. They don’t talk about them. They will talk about menopause, but then what they want to do is put you on a synthetic hormone, which then starts to screw up other things in your body. Many people know that women go through menopause, but men go through something very similar called andropause. And it means that there is a decrease in testosterone for them, and a little bit of an increase in estrogen for them. That’s why sometimes they get the belly, they get a little mushy or the muscle mass goes down. It’s because they’re producing a little bit more estrogen in their bodies. So what do you do about this? You need to see a doctor who specializes in hormones, not necessarily an endocrinologist. I know they’re gonna be some doctors that do not like that I just said that, but I say this because there are physicians they’re typically integrative medicine physicians, they may be a naturopathic physician and pharmacist who make custom medications can test your hormones and they will test the entire panel. Often when you go to the doctor, that’s in your insurance plan, they will only test the things that they are allowed to test within that insurance plan, which is typically not everything you need tested. So you need cortisol and DHEA and you need an entire estrogen panel and you want an entire thyroid panel including free T3. And sometimes they won’t test that. And even when you do it on your own and you bring in the results, they won’t know what to do with it. I’m saying this from experience. So make sure that you find someone who can do that for you. And in fact, in the links, I will put down where you can get tested. And I will add to, I will add some places where I know you can see some of those doctors, because I want people to make sure that they’re doing that.
Number two, the reason why your libido may not be as high as before is birth control. So oftentimes we may go on birth control when we’re young in our twenties and in our thirties, because we don’t want to get pregnant and right away, we want to take our time. We want to travel. We’ve got a career. And then all of a sudden, we come off of the birth control. We’re like, okay, ready to have babies. And then we having a hard time having a baby. And also because they are synthetic hormones, they can wreak havoc on what your body naturally does. So if you feel like your libido is a little low, you may want to, again, talk with a doctor who can check your full hormone panel and find out how you can course correct what you have done by taking birth control.
Number three, stress. Stress can manifest itself in so many ways that we don’t even think about it can manifest itself as headaches and back pain and rashes on your skin. And definitely it can affect your libido. If you are stressed out because of work or your partner or the kids or school, you won’t want to have sex because all of your energy is in that stress. So this is an opportunity for you to figure out how to de-stress. It may be doing yoga, meditation, taking up a hobby that has nothing to do with all the things that are stressing you out, taking a walk, doing something that you enjoy, dancing. All of those things can release stress, getting some sleep. All those things can help you reduce stress, which can help boost your libido and make you want to be intimate with your partner.
Again, number four, medical conditions. So medical conditions are what I’m calling things that are very common to us, high blood pressure, diabetes. Those kinds of medical conditions can definitely affect your libido because this is about blood flow. And when blood isn’t flowing, well, it can decrease the erections you have, or almost eliminate them in some cases. And also because doctors tend to put you on medication to treat these conditions, rather than treating naturally with exercise and food, that healthy foods, when you now have some side effects of medications that you’re dealing with. So these things can definitely affect your libido because if you’re you feel like, okay, I’m having this medical condition and now my blood isn’t flowing through my penis so I can get an erection. So that’s an issue. And now, my libido is low because I don’t know if I’m going to have an erection. So it’s a cycle, right? So you definitely want to talk with your physician about what you can do about that and make sure that you’re not on something that’s giving you side effects that you don’t want.
Number five, poor health. Poor health is a little bit different because you may not have a medical condition per se, but you just may be feeling tired. Maybe you don’t eat the right foods and or maybe you’re not drinking enough water. You just have a lot of headaches. You have a lot of rashes. You just have something going on. It’s not really some, it may not be, as you may not think it’s that serious, but it’s something that’s just causing some issues. It could be that, you know, maybe you’re drinking a lot or maybe you’re smoking a lot. And those things leave you feeling a little unfit and not up to the stamina of having a, a sex life that you desire. So your libido can be lowered due to poor health.
Number six body image issues. So many of us are affected by this and some of us, you know, or like whatever, I’m not really worried about it, but sometimes it can really affect you. We’re in a culture, especially with social media where we’re constantly bombarded with how you’re supposed to look how small you’re supposed to be, how much muscles you’re supposed to have. We’re just getting it supposed to look like. And most of us don’t look anything like these things. So these body image issues can definitely manifest it manifest itself in a way that makes you not want to have sex. It can lower your libido in a lot of ways, because you just feel like, well, who’s going to want me. I don’t look like this supermodel. I don’t look like that hot guy over there. And so there’s some body image issues that come around with that. Also, it could be that as we get older, we’ve gained some weight in places that we’re not happy about. And we’re worried that our partner may not like us, you know, with the weight gain in the places that we’ve gained it. And so that can lower your libido as well. You may not feel like, oh, you know, I’m not feeling very sexy because I just feel like this person isn’t going to want me when they see me this way, the best thing that can happen in that case is that if you’re partnered up to have you, you know, your partner can reassure you that they still love you just the way they are, just the way you are or that if there’s something that can be done about it, like, you know, maybe it’s okay, I need to lose a little weight. Then maybe you create a plan to work out together, to ride bikes together, to walk together, to cook together and eat healthier food. You just make a plan to do that. So you can get back to where you want to be and increase your libido.
Number seven is trauma can lower your libido. This could be anything from a sexual assault to a physical, cool assault to falling. Like you can, you can have a trauma from just, you know, I fell, I cut myself. I was involved in some type of situation that was just traumatic to me, whatever that is. So whenever you’re dealing with some type of trauma, this is a great time to spend some time with a therapist. And through that trauma, you can start to decrease, increase your libido, because if you have some type of physical trauma, like for instance, let’s just say you were, you were walking one day and you tripped and you twisted your ankle and you fell. No, we don’t really think of that as trauma, but that’s trauma to the body. And so suddenly all of the energy you had is kind of going to help heal this ankle. You’re not feeling very hot and sexy. That way you may have a cast on, you know, you may be limping around. It takes a lot of energy for your body to compensate for something when it’s hurt and when it’s trying to heal. So your libido may be lowered. So make sure that you’re getting the help that you need either emotionally or physically to work through that trauma.
Number eight, maybe you’re just not enjoying sex, not enjoy sex would definitely lower your libido. So you may not be enjoying the sex because you’re not having an orgasm. You may not be enjoying the sex because this person just doesn’t light your fire. You’re just kind of laying there, star fishing it like, when is this gonna be over and nothing about that is makes you get excited, right? So this is a time to work with a sex coach or counselor to figure out how can I be having more orgasms so I can enjoy sex? Or how can I learn something new to make the sex more enjoyable? Or do I just need to get away from this person? And that’s the thing too. All right. Okay.
Number nine. My computer decided to shut down right in the middle of my video because it knows it’s late and I should be in bed, but I am determined to finish this. All right.
Number nine, boring sex. So one of the reasons why your libido may not be as high as it used to be, as it may be, the sex is boring. You know exactly what’s going to happen from the moment it happens. Right? You know that you’re going to get kissed here. You’re going to do this to them. They’re going to do that to you. And then there’s going to be, you know, four or five minutes of pumping, and then it’s over. I’m bored just telling you that story, right? Because sometimes it’s like that, you just know exactly how it’s going to go. So what do you do in a case like that? This is a chance for you to see a sex coach or a sex counselor who can help you work through that, give you new ideas, give you new positions, work through what the issue really is. Maybe it needs to be planned out. Maybe you need to schedule sex some nights. Maybe you need to try some new things, bring some toys in the bedroom. I don’t know, but we can work through that together and figure out how can you make the sex more exciting, which will naturally increase your libido because you’ll be excited, right? Have exciting sex.
Number 10 relationship issues. So if you are in a relationship and it’s not going well for a number of reasons, maybe your partner cheated on you. Maybe your partner, you, you feel like your partner doesn’t stand up for you toward their family. Their family is always putting you down and your partner never says, look, this is my, this is my husband. This is my wife. You’re not going to do that to them. That can create relationship issues. So you want to work through that with a therapist or relationship coach to find out how you can make those relationship issues, dissipate go away, hopefully, or at the very least lessen them so that they don’t become an obstacle in your relationship. So relationship issues are definitely something that you have to work through. And it’s something that will lower your libido. Because if you feel like your partner doesn’t stand up for you, if you feel like they don’t care about you, if you feel like they’ve, you know, that they’ve had an affair or something like that, it’s really hard to get excited, to be intimate with them because there’s a trust issue. There, there may be some resentment and you’re going to have to work through that with someone.
Number 11 And this may seem like an odd one to some people, but I think it, I don’t know if it’s common, but I know that it could be an issue. And that is maybe you are coming to your own realizing that you are asexual or bisexual or gay. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. Sometimes it happens in a relationship where somebody is trying to be normal and they’re trying to fit into what society says is the normal thing to do. I get married, I have some kids, we buy a house, you know, all those things and you’ve done it. And now you’ve hit a certain age. You’re like, I hate this. This is not who I am. I am miserable here. And how the heck do I get out of it? This is when you should definitely work with a sex coach who specializes in the LGBT community because they can help you to work through what that means and possibly how to get out of it. Okay. does situation that you’re in, if that’s what you want to do, sometimes your partner may say, no, I’m, I’m fine with this. Like, you know, do your thing. I’ll do my thing. It depends, but you definitely need to talk with your partner about it and you should more than likely bring in someone to help you work through it, because it could be very challenging. I just watched a…I just watched it a few years ago, I watched a documentary called Coming Out, I believe. And it was all about people who were over 50, who were coming out openly for the first time that they were gay or bisexual. And I just remember watching it thinking, wow, they have spent so much of their life pretending to be something else. How horrible is that? And now you know, some of them were as old as 79, they were just now feeling free enough to say, I want to be with someone of the same gender all that time, that they could have been loving someone that would have loved them back and being happy. They spent it trying to be normal and fit into society. And they were miserable doing that. So I was happy to see them. Most of them were, I found someone that they really wanted to be with and they didn’t have to live in secrecy and I think that’s awesome. So if that is you and you feel like, you know, this, this may not be the bulk of the people I’m talking to at all, but it is a reason why it would your libido could be low, because if you’re feeling like I’m not attracted to my partner gender as me, then you know, that’s going to lower your libido or, Hey, you’re not going to be excited about being with your partner because your partner isn’t what you’re looking for. So that’s something that think about as one 11 reasons.
So these are the 11, 11 reasons why your libido may not be as high as it used to be. The first six or seven are all, you will definitely need to see a physician, a medical professional, a compounding pharmacist to get tested and make sure they’re healthy and that they can help you with whatever the medical condition is. The next one is you can definitely talk with someone like myself. Who’s a sex counselor and educator can help you work through those issues. And then the last one, you want to get a sex coach or counselor whose work specifically or specializes in working with the LGBT community, because they can really help you get some insight into what that will mean for you as you, as you come out and live your full sexual self. So those are my 11 reasons. If you have a question that you would like me to answer, please put it in the box below. I’m happy to answer it. What I will do is just answer the question. I won’t say who was from I’ll do it anonymously. I’ll just do a video like this. Won’t mention your name unless you want me to. I’ll be happy to do that. But often what I do is I just talk and just answer the question without saying anything about it. So I’m happy to do that and you can put your information below and I’m happy to answer those questions. In the meantime, I will see you next week. It’s almost 1:00 AM and I’m going to bed because my computer is telling me you need to stop talking. That’s why I keep shutting down. Okay. So I’ll see you next week. Bye.
Note: It was late my computer kept shutting down in the middle of the recording and I had to restart it a few times. I am pretty sure I repeat numbers/skip numbers but the 11 reasons are all here despite my inability to count after midnight. 🙂
Have a question you want to ask about sex? Click the link below and I’ll record a video anonymously answering your question.