What If Women Don’t Have a Lower Sex Drive? The Research Challenging Everything We’ve Been Told About Female Desire

What if the problem isn’t that women want less sex? What if women have been given fewer reasons to want it?

We’ve been telling a story about women’s sexuality for a long time.

Men want sex. Women want emotional connection. Men are naturally more sexual. Women have lower libidos. It’s biology. It’s hormones. It’s just the way we’re wired.

And when a woman stops wanting sex, we tend to look for what’s wrong with her.

Is it her hormones? Her stress? Her age? Her relationship? Is she in perimenopause? Does she need to work on her libido?

But what if we’re asking the wrong question?

A new research review from the University of Toronto Mississauga is challenging one of the most deeply ingrained beliefs about sexuality: that women naturally have less sexual desire than men.

And the implications are much bigger than what happens in the bedroom.

The research: What if the libido gap is learned?

In February 2026, the University of Toronto Mississauga published findings from postdoctoral researcher Diana Peragine and psychology professors Emily Impett and Doug VanderLaan.

Their paper, published in Personality and Social Psychology Review, brings together more than 300 scientific studies, reviews, and perspectives examining early sexual experiences and their relationship to adult sexual desire.

Rather than accepting that women are simply biologically programmed to want less sex, the researchers propose another explanation.

The difference in sexual desire may be shaped, in part, by the difference in sexual experiences women and men have.

Specifically, the researchers point to the pleasure gap that often exists during early sexual experiences, particularly around ages 17 and 18.

According to their review, women are more likely to experience painful or unsatisfying sex, greater body self-consciousness, and other risks and negative experiences during this formative period.

These experiences may shape how the brain learns about sex, influencing sexual interest well into adulthood.

The researchers developed what they call the Biodevelopmental Learning Opportunities and Outcomes Model, which proposes that early sexual experiences can have lasting effects on later desire.

Peragine suggests that sexual desire difficulties experienced by as many as 55% of women could be connected to early, inequitable sexual experiences.

This is a proposed explanation supported by a review of existing research, not proof that every woman’s low libido comes from her early sexual experiences, or that hormones and biology don’t matter.

But it raises a question worth sitting with:

What if some women aren’t inherently less interested in sex? What if they’ve learned, through experience, that sex isn’t particularly pleasurable for them?

Source: University of Toronto Mississauga, February 27, 2026.

If sex hasn’t been pleasurable, why would you want more of it?

Let’s make this simple.

Imagine you’re repeatedly having an experience that is uncomfortable, painful, disappointing, or centered around someone else’s pleasure.

How motivated would you be to keep doing it?

Now imagine that experience is accompanied by messages about how your body should look, how you should behave, and how much of your partner’s pleasure you’re responsible for.

You’re supposed to be sexy, but not too sexual. Desirable, but not demanding. Available, but not needy.

You’re supposed to enjoy sex, but perhaps nobody has ever really taught you how to ask for what feels good, communicate what doesn’t, or explore what turns you on.

And then, somewhere along the way, you start wondering why you don’t want sex.

I think we need to pause here.

Because there is something profoundly important about recognizing that desire doesn’t exist in a vacuum.

Our experiences matter. Our relationships matter. Whether we feel safe, seen, respected, and free to express ourselves matters.

And so does pleasure.

If your sexual experiences have repeatedly taught you that sex is something you give, perform, tolerate, or get through, it shouldn’t be surprising if your desire starts to reflect that.

That doesn’t mean something is wrong with you.

It may mean your experiences haven’t given your desire much reason to flourish.

We’ve been treating women’s desire like a problem to solve

As a Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner and intimacy coach for women, I see how quickly women turn their lack of desire into another personal failing.

They wonder why they aren’t more interested in sex.

They worry about disappointing their partners. They compare themselves to who they used to be. They look at their relationships and wonder whether something is broken.

And often, they start searching for the answer in their bodies.

Hormones. Supplements. Libido boosters. Pelvic floor exercises. More sleep. Less stress.

And let me be clear: hormones matter. Medical conditions matter. Medications, pain, fatigue, menopause, relationship dynamics, and many other factors can influence sexual desire. Hormone therapy can be life-changing for some women. Medical care absolutely has a place in this conversation.

I’m not suggesting women should ignore those factors or that every woman who doesn’t want sex has some unresolved emotional issue.

But I do think we’ve spent a lot of time asking how to make women want more sex without asking whether the sex they’re having is something they actually want.

We ask how to increase desire.

We don’t always ask what desire is responding to.

We ask how to get the libido back.

We don’t always ask whether the woman has ever had the freedom, knowledge, or opportunity to discover what genuinely turns her on.

And those are very different conversations.

What happens when a woman learns to override herself?

The research focuses on early sexual experiences, but it opens the door to a much bigger conversation about how women learn to relate to their own desires.

Many women have spent decades becoming exceptionally good at being who other people need them to be.

They know how to anticipate. How to accommodate. How to keep the peace. How to be the good girl, the responsible partner, the loving mother, the woman who can handle everything.

And those patterns don’t necessarily disappear when the bedroom door closes.

A woman might say yes to sex when she means no.

She might go along with something because she doesn’t want to hurt her partner’s feelings.

She might have no idea what she wants because she’s spent years paying more attention to what everyone else wants from her.

She might feel disconnected from her own sensations, unable to distinguish genuine desire from obligation, expectation, or the desire to be desired.

And sometimes, she might not even realize she’s doing it.

This is where I think the conversation about women’s desire gets particularly interesting.

Because what happens when you spend years overriding your own signals?

Your no.

Your discomfort.

Your anger.

Your need for more time.

Your desire for something different.

Your longing to be touched in a way that feels good to you.

When these signals are repeatedly dismissed, ignored, or pushed aside, it can become harder to recognize them in the first place.

And when you don’t know what feels good, what feels bad, what you want, or what you don’t want, how are you supposed to experience desire as something that belongs to you?

You cannot build a fulfilling intimate life around a relationship with yourself that requires you to disappear.

That is not a diagnosis. It’s an invitation to get curious about the relationship between self-abandonment and pleasure.

Your body isn’t necessarily rejecting sex. It may be responding to your experience of it.

This is one of the reasons I love working somatically.

Somatic work isn’t about forcing your body to relax so you can finally be a good partner or have more sex.

It’s about developing a relationship with your body’s responses, sensations, emotions, and impulses.

It’s about noticing what happens inside you when someone touches you.

What happens when you feel pressure to perform.

What happens when you want to say no but feel compelled to say yes.

What happens when you imagine asking for what you want.

What happens when you allow yourself to feel pleasure without needing to make it productive, impressive, or useful to someone else.

Sometimes, a woman discovers that underneath the pressure to want sex is a whole range of feelings she hasn’t had room to acknowledge.

Resentment. Grief. Anger. Exhaustion. Fear. Curiosity. Longing.

Sometimes she discovers that she does want sex, but not the kind she’s been having.

She wants more play. More connection. More time. More sensation. More freedom. More opportunity to explore.

Sometimes she discovers that she doesn’t want sex at all right now.

And that is allowed, too.

The goal isn’t to manufacture desire or convince a woman that she should want sex.

The goal is to help her develop enough connection with herself to discover what is actually true for her.

Because there is a difference between not wanting sex and believing you should want it when you don’t.

There is a difference between choosing not to have sex and feeling unable to say no.

And there is a difference between a body that is being listened to and a body that is being treated as an obstacle to overcome.

What if we taught girls about pleasure, not just protection?

One of the most important points in the University of Toronto research is the role of sexual education.

The researchers note that sex education often focuses on preventing pregnancy, sexually transmitted infections, and sexual assault, while giving much less attention to pleasure, communication, and how to advocate for enjoyable sex.

The researchers also highlight a difference in how puberty is discussed: boys may receive information about erections and wet dreams, while girls are more often taught about menstruation.

What does that teach us?

Even without anyone explicitly saying that women’s pleasure matters less, the omission itself can communicate something.

That female sexuality is something to manage.

That a girl’s body is a source of risk.

That sex is something to be careful about, rather than something she has a right to explore with knowledge, consent, and agency.

We need to teach girls that their pleasure matters.

That they can ask questions.

That they can communicate what feels good and what doesn’t.

That they can change their minds.

That their bodies belong to them.

And that sex isn’t something they owe anyone.

But I also want to extend this conversation beyond adolescence.

Because what about the women who are already 35, 45, or 55?

What about the women who never received that education?

The women who are just now beginning to question the sexual scripts they’ve followed for decades?

It’s not too late to learn something new about yourself.

It’s not too late to discover what you like.

It’s not too late to change your mind, ask for something different, or build a more fulfilling relationship with your own sexuality.

Desire isn’t a performance.

The point is that every woman deserves the freedom to discover what she wants without being told in advance what her desire should look like.

And that includes the freedom to say no.

It includes the freedom to change.

It includes the freedom to explore pleasure for no reason other than that it feels good to you.

Not because your partner needs it.

Not because your relationship depends on it.

Not because you need to prove you’re healthy, feminine, desirable, or sexually liberated.

Because your pleasure belongs to you.

So, what if we changed the question?

Instead of asking, “How do I get my sex drive back?”

What if you started with:

• Do I actually enjoy the sex I’m having?

• Do I feel free to say no without consequences?

• Do I know what feels good to me, or am I focused on being good at sex?

• Am I connected to my own desires, or am I more familiar with everyone else’s?

• What would I want if I didn’t have to consider anyone else’s expectations for a moment?

You don’t have to answer all of these questions today.

You don’t need to force an answer, either.

Sometimes the most meaningful shift begins with simply becoming curious about the experience you’ve been having.

Not judging it. Not trying to fix it. Not deciding that you should be different.

Just noticing.

Because maybe the question isn’t why women want less sex.

Maybe it’s why we’ve accepted a version of sex in which women’s pleasure has so often been an afterthought.

And maybe the conversation about women’s desire needs to begin there.

Your desire isn’t a performance. Your pleasure isn’t a favor. And your sexuality was never meant to be another thing you owe someone else.

It’s yours.

Angela Rivero: Somatic Alchemist Coach | Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner | Intimacy Coach for Women

SomaShift: Embodied Evolution

Explore your relationship with desire, pleasure, and your body through somatic coaching and intimacy work with Angela. In-person sessions in Escondido, California, and virtual sessions are available.