Sexual desire: what physical and psychological elements influence it?

These are the physical, emotional and cognitive elements that affect sexual desire.

Sexual desire is, according to Kaplan, an impulse produced by a network of nerve cells in the brain whose functioning affects the genital organs during the phases of orgasm and arousal.

On the other hand, according to Cottraux, it is a phase in the sequence of sexual behavior that translates into affective phenomena, preceding consummatory behavior, representing itself as an anticipation of sexual activities, being conscious and the result of mental and physiological and biochemical processes. Here we will know some aspects of the functioning of sexual desire as much in the cases in which there are disorders that affect this one as in the cases in which these do not occur.

The role of hormones in sexual desire

Testosterone plays an effective role in increasing the frequency of nocturnal penile tumescence. In women, androgens are also the basis of sexual desire.

The effect of testosterone on sexual desire is not immediate; it is necessary to wait seven to ten days to observe an increase in its presence. Androgens are not related to sexual functioning itself, but rather to sexual appetite.. Their effects would be more in the sphere of desire.

Affective and mental aspects

Sexual desire is allied to experiences of pleasure.. Satisfactory sexual episodes often act as a driving force for successive experiences. Similarly, negative ideas about sex, highly frustrating or painful experiences associated with sexual experience, seem to have a clear inhibitory effect. Sexual desire is clearly influenced by emotional psychological processes.

On the other hand, the quality of the existing emotional bond in the couple's relationship can greatly affect the presence of sexual desire.. And sexual fantasies, as a form of anticipation and sexual recreation, seem to be a driving force of sexual desire.

Factors to take into account

Sexual desire has to be seen in relation to several factors, which we will see below.

1. Importance of fantasies

They energize the desire and bring that necessary component of play into sexual relations and reinforce the behavior, anticipating the possibility of an encounter and preparing the neurochemical system for it. When the relationship becomes monotonous, that fun, necessary part disappears.

2. The dynamics of the limbic system

There are times when in our limbic system, in the emotional part, there is a primitive "recording" that loads negatively against sexual response, feeling it as something bad, either by experiences or by messages transmitted from our environment. that charges negatively against the sexual response, feeling it as something bad, either by experiences or by the messages transmitted from our environment.

3. Sexual learning is important

If the person has had bad experiences, there will not be a good sexual learning, and the system will tend to avoid it.The system tends to avoid it and this results in the absence of desire. This often happens when sex becomes something forced or is done out of a commitment to the partner rather than out of desire.

4. The object of sexual attraction is very important

This influences whether the partner stops liking us, or if there is a covert homosexuality that prevents the person from expressing his or her desires in a natural and healthy way.

5. The sexual education that the person receives and the perception of the other is basic.

If we understand that the other sex is going to use us, use us or hurt us, the attraction component will be ambivalent, one part needs it and the other part rejects it.one part needs it and the other part rejects it. Here we include when the sexual behavior itself is considered dangerous either because of possible pregnancies, or anticipation of the relationship as something that generates alertness.

Disorders of lack of desire

Normal sexuality: We should not make the erroneous interpretation that every hypoactive state of desire is equal to a disorder. The lack of desire or low desire becomes a problem when the person experiences such a situation with lack generating anguish..

Physical causes of lack of desire

Some dysfunctions with physical origin can interfere in the appearance of sexual desire. The most common are the following:

• Low testosterone level.
• Thyroid problems.
• Anemia.
• Epilepsy.
• High level of stress, fatigue.
• Depressive states.
• Drugs: anxiolytics, antidepressants, sedatives and tranquilizers.

Psychological causes of lack of desire

The most frequent are the following:

• Fear of failure. Lack of pleasure in any of their sexual relations.
• Fear of some dysfunction such as vaginismus, premature ejaculation, pain...
• Fear of pleasure (to be considered slutty) or negative ideas about sex.
• Anxiety due to fear of having children or acquiring the new role of mother.
• When the affection diminishes since the woman mainly relates affection and sex or simply the no sexual attraction of the couple.
• Fear of lack of control (very important cause).
• Absence of fantasies.
• Presence of sexual relations without desire.
• Use of unpleasant sexual techniques.

An aside requires people who have suffered some kind of abuse in this area.. The percentage of the general population of women and men who have suffered some type of child abuse is very high. This can generate a traumatized response to the sexual component, with a tendency to avoidance. In many cases the person cannot access that information for different reasons, as a form of defense of our mind, appearing a frozen response to sexual behavior, without a cause that the person can identify.

Treatment techniques

These are the most commonly used techniques in psychotherapy for this type of problemThese are the techniques most commonly used in psychotherapy for this type of problem:

• Physical exploration and treatment of problems of physiological origin, if any.
• Erotic reading.
• Mental reliving of pleasant sexual situations.
• Pleasure techniques: exercises in which sexual intercourse is excluded for a while.
• Planning sexual relations with the partner.
• In case of evaluating a possible trauma, it is recommended that the work is within the therapeutic framework.