The Low Libido VS the High Libido debate

What you hear a lot in sex therapy is: "I have a low libido” and my partner has  a “high libido”. I see people in text using the abbreviation LL and HL quite regularly and I am a bit bewildered about such a blanket statement of one’s libido. I am not sure if it stems from a misunderstanding of what the libido is or if it is a defensive description.

 I am wondering if people think it is a genetic / hormonal attribute? i.e:  one could describe oneself as :  I have blue eyes, I am 6f 4 and I have low libido. And that would be well and good  if there was a medical basis for the low libido statement. Did a doctor say to you: “your blood count is x, your cholesterol is high, your thyroid function is fine and your libido is low ?" In my experience it is very unlikely you got a medical practitioner to rubber stamp the fact that you have a low libido (sometimes medications or organic conditions can indeed affect the libido but rarely continuously throughout your adult life). So your libido is whatever it is at a given moment ONLY and also whatever you have accepted it to be based on past experiences and acquired beliefs.

As well as mostly not having any medical basis, the constant use of the term Low Libido  is damaging. What would happen if you defined yourself as ugly? Would that possibly help you in any way to improve your self image? Labelling has been studied at length in social psychology and we know the harmful effects it has on children and adults. If you stick that label on yourself,  don’t be surprised if this becomes a self fulfilling prophecy.

The libido in psychological terms is a component of life energy. It is an urge  / a drive (sexual one) and it is often opposed to the instinct of death (Thanatos),

What can you infer from that? You don’t have the same energy  level every day of the year, do you? Well, you won’t have the same libido every day either or throughout your life. People tend not question their libido unless it is causing them concern but if they actually looked back over the course of their lives there would probably be dips of desire, times where sex was not a priority and periods where sex may have been more plentiful.

If your libido has been low for a long time or if you feel you have never had those more fulfilling periods there may be mental barriers that prevent you from allowing your libido to express itself fully. Our experiences, our education can negatively impact on our psycho - sexual development and while the libido may never have got a chance to blossom it is not a case of: “ if you don’t use it you lose it”, more simply a case of  what I would call the snow white syndrome: it will stay dormant until it is awakened. The good news is you don’t need to spend the next hundred years sleeping waiting for some random prince’s kiss to arouse your desire. You and your libido do not need anyone but each other. # Be your libido’s true love kiss.