I don’t want sex, I don’t miss making love at all, am I normal?

Once a week, Charlotte answers anonymous questions from our readers and debunks clichés about our love lives.

A question ? Write to us at [email protected].

“Dear Carlotta,

I am a heterosexual woman in her 30s and single for several years. I stopped dating about a year ago, tired of apps, one-night stands, and encounters that were as fleeting as they were disappointing. Since then, my sex life has been reduced to nothing. The problem is that I don’t feel like I’m experiencing this absence of sex at all, because in reality I no longer have any desire and I don’t miss making love at all. I’m a little ashamed to tell my friends and I’m reluctant to go to a sexologist to solve the problem. What do you think ? What do you think can be done to return to normality? »

Dear Anonymous,

Nothing. This is my answer. I think you should do absolutely nothing except welcome your own desire for non-desire. I know that the norm is that we follow pre-established patterns, of which couples and sexuality are part. But I’ll tell you one thing: Many of us don’t meet that standard. The proof: according to an IFOP study published last January, the French make love less than before. In fact, 76% of them had sexual intercourse in the last year, compared to 91% in 2006. And they are 59% say they do not suffer from this lack of sexual intercourse !

Desire at all costs

Finally, instead of giving you my opinion, I’ll tell you about a book I read a few years ago that changed the way I approach my relationships with others. I can only recommend it to you because it answers your question perfectly. Reading it, I myself had the feeling that someone was finally asking me the right words about my instinctive relationship with love. That someone is Tal Madesta, journalist, activist and author of Desire at all costsin which he wrote this sentence, which echoes what you say:

“We are surrounded on all sides by an emancipatory image of sexuality, necessarily desirable, and by the idea that not conforming to this norm is pathological”.

And it’s simply: our society sees non-sexuality as a problem to be solved, you yourself express it this way in your message. The injunction on sexuality is everywhere: on TV, in books, in movies, in relationships, of course, and even in our discussions among friends. And this is no coincidence, of course, not because it is “natural” (otherwise it would not be an injunction) but because many issues hide behind it:

• Economic issues, among others, because behind compulsory sexuality there is a real one mass economy in full expansion: that of sexual well-being. In fact, starting from the “sexual revolution” of May 68, capitalism has progressively transformed this feminist struggle, mainly focused on the issues of abortion and contraception, into a real injunction to serve its own interests. You see: today buying sex toys is nice, not having them at home is something wrong. Feminist discourses also call for a “liberated sexuality” to “emancipate ourselves”. Nothing.

• Political questions too, because the heteronormative couple and sex are the basis of the organization of our society, without which it would no longer survive (hello Macron and demographic rearmament). It is also in the heterosexual couple and in the injunction to sexuality in this couple that patriarchy is exercised most forcefully and, of course, the most powerful in our society have everything to gain in ensuring that no one derogates from this injunction to preserve their privileges.

In short, you will have understood, there is nothing really problematic about not wanting sex. Having sex 10 times a day is fine. Never make love, that’s fine too. Because the problem with the injunction on sexuality is the fact that there is no other option to do otherwise.

We celebrate loves that don’t need sexuality to exist

To overcome this injunction, Tal Madesta, again in his book, invites us to celebrate loves that do not need sexuality to exist. Because even if our heteronormative society places romantic and sexual love at the top of the relational hierarchy, the author tells us that friendship has nothing to envy of couple relationships and is perhaps just as nourishing from a human point of view. I am completely d ‘agreement with him: “Friendships don’t need sex to maintain and grow » He even goes so far as to talk about “love passions”, because according to him, even friendship can “contain the exceptional intensity generally attributed to romantic and sexual relationships » and, again, having experienced it, I completely agree. Of all the relationships that have made me happy, fulfilled, but also broken, nourished, and transformed, these are some of my friendships that are by far at the top of the list. And I’m sure this is the case for many of you too.

And even without talking about friendship: I believe in sincere and honest love, which doesn’t need sex to sustain itself. Even in heterosexual love. Because, even if they are governed by heteronormativity, nothing prevents us from rethinking them, taking example from the margins, so that a true romantic revolution can finally begin.

A question ? Write to us at, [email protected], with subject “Dear Charlotte”!