Hi, it's Dr. Jen Kennedy. I'm a sexologist and couples therapist. The Pleasure Project is about sex and relationships. That includes desire, dysfunction, dissatisfaction, exploration, toys and trends. Sometimes I'll enlist other experts. Sometimes it'll just be me. We'll increase your insight and enhance your pleasure. So tune in. There's a moment I frequently see in relationships, but we don't talk about much. It's the moment when you stop initiating. Not because you don't want connection, but because rejection has started to feel predictable. You tell yourself, you'll try again later. You try to be patient, understanding, low pressure, but quietly something shifts. You start wondering, is it me? Am I asking for too much? Does wanting closeness feel like a problem that I need to fix? If you're the partner who wants sex more often, the one who reaches, initiates or thinks about intimacy as a way to feel connected, you may be carrying an emotional experience that rarely gets named. Today we're talking about that. In this episode, I'm unpacking what high desire actually means, why it's so often misunderstood and the traps many high desire partners fall into without realizing it. And some of the practical ways you can show up differently in your relationship, in ways that create more understanding and connection instead of pressure or distance. Because wanting more intimacy isn't the problem. It's understanding why that matters most. So tune in. Hi, welcome back. So I recently had someone reach out to me to request that I talk about something I don't hear as much. And yet it does come in through a different door. And that is the plight of the high desire partner. That is the person that sort of sits on the other side of things, right? We talk a lot about the low desire partner, but we don't talk as much about the high desire partner. The one that is like, hey, I would love to have more sex. The high desire partner is the person in the relationship who wants sex more often, thinks about it more, initiates more, and usually is the one that feels a fair amount of rejection. They feel alone in their desire. They're starting to feel, you know, just how is this going to work? And they feel a certain amount of guilt or shame or frustration or resentment. And so we're going to unpack that today. Because I thought this position is also difficult, both positions are challenging, but this one's difficult in its own unique way. And I think that it deserves some attention too. So that's what we're going to talk about. So buckle up. Because we've made important strides in talking about low desire, I think it's oftentimes associated with women, but I want to say that both roles can be both sexes. I've seen men come in with high desire, I've seen women come in with high desire, and both can also be low desire. High desire, low desire doesn't matter. Both positions are occupied by both sexes. So don't assume that one is, you know, one is going to be male or female. And we also often forget that high desire partners have struggles too, that they're not just horny, needy or pressuring. They are oftentimes wanting to connect and it gets missed because it's like, ugh, stop bugging me, get off of me. Like, why do you need so much? And so it's interesting because typically I'm trying to tune in from the go and get them to articulate like, what is sex about for you? Because I often find that if they can tell their partner what this is, not just like getting off because honestly you can get off with solo sex, and that's quick, right? But they want partnered sex. They want something with this other person that is unique, that is different, and that is not fulfillable, just in a quick delience out here. It's something that is with this person that they've been with, that they want to return to. And so I look at it like, what is the function of sex? And when they can articulate that, when they can specifically say that it's this exchange, it's this dance that we do, it's this moment that we have together, that is so much more meaningful, right? It's not just the physical action, it's so much about the real component that matters to them. It starts to change the feeling of the why. They are actually calling their partner in rather than just saying, I need this thing. I mean, a lot of times it gets conflated into that, but it's so much more than that. So I do want to say that, yes, sometimes hypersexuality is a diagnosis, but that's more times than not what we're talking about here. Like we're not looking at hypersexuality. I am a sex addiction expert. That's not what we're talking about with the high desire partner. We're just talking about relative in the relationship, relative to the other person. They are more high desire than their partner. So nothing wrong with them, nothing wrong with either of them. Usually they're both actually in the normal range, but the higher desire partner just wants more sex. And so it can be a real challenge for them in their own unique ways. And we're going to talk about that. So it's not a flaw, it's not like a defect per se. It simply means that they feel like sex plays and meaning for role. If I do, like for example, the love language question, what is your love language? Oftentimes the high desire partner is going to say physical touch. They're going to say, I really want to feel wanted, I want to feel chosen, that physical touch is really meaningful for them. And I find that oftentimes because the low desire partner does not know how to negotiate some touch that they've cut them off altogether because it feels like if we start massage touch or if we start cuddling, it's going to segue into sex. And I don't know how to let it just be holding or touching or kissing. It's going to manifest into more. So I'm not going to do any of it. So the high desire partner is left feeling like they don't get any touch needs met. So I talked about this in an earlier podcast about touch starvation, but really having some of those needs met is so important. And part of that is physical, but it's so relational too. So feeling wanted, feeling important, feeling seen, feeling emotionally close is part of how they regulate in a good way. It's not like they're just outsourcing their regulation, but it's a co-regulation that happens relationally between people. So I want to normalize that having an interest in a sex life is a good thing. And that the higher desire partner, I feel like is shepherding that part of the responsibility in a relationship and that's a good thing. So desire is influenced by many factors and that includes of course attachment. We love to come back to, you know, how attachment plays in. And I would say that desire, if we look at how somebody was early, how their early caregiving looked, sometimes the high desire person was shown affection or shown attention or shown praise. And that meant touch or care or verbal affirmations. And so sometimes that then segues into their intimate partnership, having some of those components. The other thing is like if we look at stress or general identity, sense of identity and feeling valued, we look at our intimate partnerships as avenues and outlets for those things. And so if our main person, you know, they're not our caregiver, but they are our caregiver laterally. They're our person who we unload with what's our day, what's our hope, what's our need, what's our physical need, you know, kind of our inner workings. And so they're also sometimes our outlets for stress, for good or for bad, but also our expression and our exploration intimately. And so if there's a lot of trust and relationship built, then yes, sexual expression is part of that manifestation. And so desire comes with that foundational piece. And hopefully it's not just like a getting off with or on, but it's an exploration and an experience collectively that happens for the better and sort of a through. So if we look, this is sort of my clinical framing of this, but as we look at kind of the purpose of sex and the benefits of sex in partnerships, specifically in partnerships that have gone on for a while, because early partnership doesn't look like this, right? When you're first with somebody, it's very different. But as we return to the same partnership over time, and we're looking at factors like attachment, we're looking at factors like stress, what's going on in your life and how does desire impact that? And how does returning to the same partner with stress kind of in mind help that high desire, excuse me, high desire partner is going to find solace in a partner that they feel like, okay, you're my refuge, right? You are someone I trust, someone that I love, that gets me, that accepts me, that unconditionally appreciates me more or less. Obviously we don't love and appreciate our partners every minute of every day. But as a high desire person, you are the person I turn to and that I expect this from. Like this is a benefit, this is a good thing within our relational structure. And so that's sort of the frame of where they're coming from. Other things that affect desire obviously include things like trauma. Now, most time trauma is going to negatively influence desire, but for some people, both high and low desire, trauma might have the opposite effect, right? A history of trauma might spike it up. That's less common, but it certainly, I've seen it happen both ways, where when you're under higher stress or when you have a trauma history, you might have some hypersexuality that happens during times of higher stress or recurrence of adjacent trauma or similar trauma, that type of thing. But I just want to be clear that having higher sex drive does not equal sexual compulsive behavior. It's not one and the same. Also wanting sex does not equal objectifying your partner. Like feeling desirous of your partner, looking at them with desire and seeing them as attractive. It's interesting because I feel like the low desire partner sometimes as they get more entrenched in a position of like, I don't know that I want this and I don't know how to get there. And wanting to be shielded starts to feel they sort of have expressed feeling objectified and it gets really tricky. The high desire partner is like, you are my object of love. You're my object of safety and care. And so it gets, it can be a bit of a standoff. And so that's some of the work that we do clinically is starting to humanize one another again. Let's remember who we are to each other and let's remember what we like about each other and how we have all these other pieces of our relationship together, right? It's not just sex. Because if you boil sex down to the action of two people like bumping up against each other, okay, that's not all it is, right? It's all the historical relational pieces that come in. We can't really separate all of that. Otherwise then it just becomes about the mechanics. It's all the history that comes in with it. It's all the contextual pieces that matter, that we project onto the situation. Otherwise, yes, are you a good lover? Do you know rhythmically how you're doing this? Yes, but when you've been together for 10, 20, 30 years, it's all the history and it's all the pieces you know about this person that matter and that influence. And so as a high sexual, like the more high interest partner, that's also what you're coming in with, is that this love object, you're not just objectifying them, you're loving their essence, you're loving the wholeness of them. Does that make sense? So the challenges, I guess I just wanna address and kind of give some credit to the high-desire partner because I feel like they carry a big burden. Yes, the low-desire person ends up being sort of a gatekeeper role, but the high-desire person ends up feeling rejected quite a lot. They have to do the heavy lifting of initiation over and over again. They have to get creative and they have to put a lot of psychological energy into thinking about when to initiate, how to initiate, reading the signals, the tea leaves of like, how might we approach this again? So the rejection, even when your partner says it's not about you, feels personal. And so that's just hard to carry, it's hard to hear, it's hard to absorb. Also the shame sometimes that happens for wanting what you want, even though intellectually you understand, they've got a whole bunch of stuff going on that really isn't about you, their stress, their body image, whatever they've got job things going on, but nevertheless, they chose to say no to your invitation to connect intimately. And so that feels bad. Feeling lonely inside the relationship, I think the high-desire partner can often feel a loneliness inside the relationship and that feels bad. It just does and that's not meant to guilt anybody, but there is a loneliness that feels present for them because there's this sort of like searching that can't necessarily be satisfied. There's also sometimes a fear to initiate because the rejection feels pretty big and the not knowing feels like it kicks up a lot of anxiety for them because they just don't know for sure how it's going to play out. And so a lot of times these partners can carry free-floating anxiety. Also, there's a confusion that sort of also dovetails into the anxiety about whether they're asking for a reasonable thing. So are they asking for too much? And I hear all this in my office and it's like, there's this feeling of like, am I too much in general? Am I too needy? And so it's this question of like, am I okay? Am I not good enough? Am I making this relationship so, so hard? So we're gonna take a quick break and then we're gonna come back in and we're gonna look at some traps that high-desire partners fall into. A quick pause here to share something that I've been working on that I think you will really appreciate, especially if you've ever felt confused or disconnected from your sexual desire. It's a self-paced course that I created for women who want a better understanding of their sexual desire, especially if it's felt confusing, inconsistent, or hard to access. A lot of us are taught that desires should just be there, effortless, spontaneous, always on, but that is not the reality for most people. And when it's not, it can leave you feeling frustrated or like something is wrong with you. If you've ever felt turned on one day and completely disconnected the next, or if you've struggled to say what you really want sexually, if you're both excited by the idea of vibrant sex and hesitant about what that even looks like, this course is for you. Desire is complex. It lives in your brain just as much as your body. And in this course, I guide you through the understanding of your unique relationship to it without pressure, shame, or performance. You'll get short videos and guided worksheets to help you map out your personal erotic template, identify what turns you on and off, and what shuts you down, understand the blocks might be getting in your way, reconnect with your body, and you'll explore your sexual self with more confidence and curiosity. You can go at your own pace, you don't need to want more sex, you just need to want to know yourself better. So if this resonates, then head on over to pleasureproject.us and learn more and enroll in the course. Now back to the episode. Okay, so the first trap that high desire partners tend to fall into is over initiating. So when sex becomes scarce, some people try harder, figure it's kind of a numbers game. So they try harder by initiating more or they try to explain more. Like here's what I thought we would do or here's why I thought it would work or kind of more like an intellectualizing instead of being more in their body. And there becomes almost like a tug of war and like a negotiation. That's not the best strategy. I mean, I know there's a logic to it, but desire doesn't necessarily follow logic. So unfortunately this like increases pressure rather than desire. And it feels a little scattershot. It actually feels like there's more opportunities to say no and then it creates more tension. So I would say more strategic or more thoughtful attempts are gonna land better than volume. So that's trap number one. Number two is making sex the only metric of closeness. So I like defining sex really broadly rather than just penetrative sex, which really happens a lot with heterosexual couples. If we can make sex look much broader, also this happens when I'm talking to couples who've started to have some sexual dysfunction like difficulty with lubrication or difficulty with keeping erections, that type of thing. We can look at it much more broadly, it goes better. So that looks like touching, seeing, holding, just intimate play, right? It's more sensuality than sex per se. Then it feels like we can get a win with a much broader definition, but also closeness, if closeness is the goal, you're much more likely to have a win. So the idea being that, when sex, like the only proof of love is did we have, did somebody have an orgasm? Ouch, right? If we can make it a broader goal of was there joy, was there touching, did it feel good? Were you both present and loving it? Could there have been a toy involved? Could there have just been some holding? Did it feel nice? That makes it, takes some of the pressure off. And I feel like the low desire partner is actually much more likely to say, maybe I'll join that and see. So that's a second trap, is that making sex the only metric of closeness and sex narrowly defined, I will say. The third trap is self-abandonment. So many high desire partners silence themselves to avoid conflict, which leads to resentment later. I definitely see this when they come into the room, is they're in a place of like wanting to try really hard and they're also pretty fed up. And so there's this like undercurrent of resentment that is right there. And so they're back leading into this, like they're quick to snap. There's this resentment of, I don't wanna ask for much more and yet I'm so hungry or thirsty for more. And so the self-abandonment has to be really watched. I feel like they need to really be mindful and take care of your own needs. And that's probably more in the everyday, but it also might be in this realm. Do you need to ask to be touched in a certain way? Do you need to touch yourself more? Like how can you be more direct and not manipulative, but like be more direct about your needs in a way that's going to work in your relational configuration? I want you to stay connected. I want you to stay in a way that feels relationally feasible, but without kind of going for the deep dive of like, I'm gonna do whatever you want please you to keep you in this relationship, because that's not really gonna work either. So I would say that most high-desire partners don't just like need more sex. What they actually need is to feel desired. That's what I really hear underneath it, is that they wanna feel like they matter. They wanna feel desired. And when they feel like their partners are opting into sex, that is so meaningful to them. So I think they'll hear the no if they can sometimes hear like a really honest yes, because when they feel like the yes is a true yes then it's like, okay, if I know it's a yes, then I can also, if I can hear the no, knowing it's like, no, I don't want it, but yes, sometimes I really do want it, then it's like a clear delineation. If it's always sort of a meh, then it's like, I don't know what I'm getting, right? So feeling clearly desired at times, I think is really important for the high-desire partner. Honest conversations without defensiveness, so important. I feel like defensiveness is really part of this because it can be such a touchy topic and it's really hard for the high-desire partner to have these conversations without feeling like they're the bad guy. And so that is really helpful. Clarity about what's really going on with their partner's desire. So entering into this topic without it, feeling so loaded is gonna be very, very helpful. Also permission to name their needs without being labeled too much. We talked about that earlier, that they kind of feel like too much. So if they can have that conversation without being the problem, I think that can be very helpful. So kind of understanding that both, this is a problem of mismatched desires. It's not like one as person's the problem. Both people are just in a different place and they're both probably very normal. So I think that's a more helpful frame. So also I would say is if high-desire partners can separate their worth from their partner's desire. I know that's hard because you're tied into wanting this, it feels so good to have that golden light turned on you when your partner wants you. But if you can see that they want you in these other realms, right? And maybe outside the bedroom, they appreciate your ability to do all these other things and they love your ability to whatever it is, it's a million other things. Appreciate that too, because their libido is not like a referendum on your attractiveness or your value. And sometimes like high-desire partners will, they'll dismiss that, they'll push it away and they won't really care. But I'm like, wait a second, this partnership is huge and sex is like this much of it. It's this tiny part, but you magnify it because you feel unwanted. That's not fair. And if you are holding resentment about that, it will start to toxify everything. So try to separate your worth from your partner's desire about sex if you can. I think it's gonna really help. I would say name the emotional need underneath the sexual one, which is kind of where I started, if you can really talk about the function of sex, like why it feels so good, why that sexual desire coming toward you is so meaningful and why you love sex, then I think it sort of humanizes you and helps your partner come closer. Stop trying to convince and start trying to understand. So if it feels less like a tug of war between you and your partner and more like a help me understand like what happens for you. Because early on it was probably easier. You were probably playful and you were able to sort of do this dance together. And it felt like a fun, lighthearted exploration. So if you can get back to that, sometimes at least, that's the win. That's where you're gonna feel like you're entering into this organic place where you can really enjoy yourselves. It's not gonna feel like such a tug of war and it's gonna really be more meaningful for both of you. And lastly, get support. If this feels like a challenging road to navigate, get support. Usually a sex therapist is gonna be much more skillful at this because they just are more tuned to this type of language but also sometimes a good marriage and family therapist is also going to be helpful. Let's see. If you are wanting more information in this direction, I've got a couple podcasts that might be helpful. Specifically, I have one on motivations for sex. I'm another one that's all about initiation. And lastly, I have one on long-term spark. That was with a guest, Peggy Kleinplatz that I thought might really be helpful for anybody that's in this space. So if you enjoyed this, please leave a comment. And also this came from a listener who requested this topic. So if you have other ideas about things you would like to hear, please let me know because I would love to hear your input and please rate us and follow and thanks so much. Hey, it's Dr. Jen. Thanks for tuning in. If something in today's episode resonated with you, please take a moment to leave us a review and drop a comment. We'd love your feedback. It really helps support the podcast and keeps this content coming your way. If you're looking to dive deeper into pleasure, connection, and self-discovery, check out my Pleasure Circle course where we explore these topics in a fun, guided way. I also write a weekly newsletter with articles, insights, and inspiration to help you live a more connect-pleasure filled life. And if you want to connect with me directly, you can message me on Instagram at Dr. Jen Kennedy or email me at drjenkenny at gmail.com. I'd love to hear from you.
