Low Sex Drive: What It Is And What To Do About It

 

There is a common belief about men, especially gay men, that we are always completely bonkers for sex. They say that a man thinks about sex every seven seconds throughout the day. For a guy who spends 16 hours a day awake, that would be 8,000 lewd thoughts in a single day!

Whether that is true or not, we are definitely socialized to behave as though it were. We men pin so much of who we are on our perceived virility and sexual prowess that we get really fucked up when those things start to fail us.

Sex drive goes up and down throughout our lives but a sudden and drastic drop in our libidos can have serious consequences for our mental health and the state of our relationships.

So, what causes a drop in sex drive and what can we do about it?

What Exactly Is Low Libido?

The first thing you need to know about low libido is that there isn't any standardized way to measure it. It is something that can only really be known in relative terms. That is to say, whether or not you have a low libido is determined by looking at the state of your libido now and comparing it to your past level of sex drive.

While it is normal for the male sex drive to taper off a bit as we get older, a sudden and drastic drop in friskiness, especially in younger men, is a cause for concern.

Basically, if you feel like you are suffering from a drastic decrease in sex drive, you might want to look into what is causing it and what you can do about it.

What Causes Low Libido?

There are many reasons why a guy might experience a drop in sex drive, some physical and some mental. Here are a few of the most common reasons men experience a drop in libido and what you can do to improve the issue.

Low Testosterone Levels

As I mentioned earlier, aging is one of the ways that our sex drive can really start to fall off. This happens because our bodies begin to produce less testosterone as we get older. While testosterone has many important functions in the human body, the one we need to worry about now is the major role it plays in regulating our sex drive.

If you are experiencing a loss of sex drive, the first thing you might want to do is get your T-levels checked. A doctor can tell you whether or not your levels are up to snuff and can prescribe medication to help boost and regulate your testosterone production. Many men get their sex drive back after starting these treatments. If you aren't sleeping well, you might want to look into the possibility that you have sleep apnea. Sleep apnea can sometimes be a factor in low testosterone production, as well.

Other problems with your endocrine system can lead to decreased production of sex hormones and lead to a drop in libido. If your sex drop has dropped off drastically, you might want to get some tests run to make sure this important system in your body is functioning properly. Low sex drive is often an indicator of more serious health issues lurking beneath the surface. Better safe than sorry!

High Blood Pressure

Your circulatory system also plays an important, though less obvious, role in your sex drive. The ability to achieve and maintain an erection is largely dependent on the body's ability to move blood to the penis. High blood pressure can lead to erectile dysfunction which can then lead to a tendency to shy away from sex due to feelings of inadequacy or shame.

Over time, these feelings can develop into a complex that magnifies the problem of erectile dysfunction by making it a mental problem on top of a physical one.

Luckily, there are lots of things you can do to improve your outlook, especially on the physical side of things. Talk to your doctor or research for yourself which foods are best for high blood pressure and erectile dysfunction and stick to your diet!

In cases where diet alone isn't sufficient to curb the issue, medications might be required to get your pump house back in working order. Obviously, you should talk to your doctor about that too.

Another way you can improve the situation is to pick up some gear to help you with your problem. While penis pumps are often viewed as more of a punchline to a joke than an actually helpful item, the fact remains that they do help improve blood flow and circulation to the penis. More info about penis pumps and what they can do to improve erectile health can be found here.

You might also want to try throwing cock rings into the mix if keeping your little general at attention is a problem. Cock rings work by allowing blood to flow into the penis but not allowing it to flow back out. For men with circulatory problems that lead to E.D., cock rings can be a godsend.

If you want to learn more about cock rings and what they can do for you in the bedroom, this guide has everything you need to know.

Smoking And Drinking 

Booze is great for loosening things up a bit and shedding inhibitions, which is great for getting the ball rolling but it can also cause difficulty in maintaining or achieving erections. We've all heard the term "whiskey dick" and most of us who drink have experienced it at one point or another in our lives.

Smoking tobacco is another vice that can have a serious impact on our circulatory systems and can lead to an inability to get and keep an erection.

If you are experiencing a drop in your libido, it might be time to drop the booze and smokes, at least for long enough to see if doing so helps your sex drive.

Depression

This is a big one, guys. We've all seen the stats for depression among gay men and they are chilling. Aside from the horrific stats on male suicide, especially amongst gay men, depression also affects our ability to have healthy sex.

Avoidance of intimacy due to poor self-image, general malaise, disinterest in life in general, and many of the other symptoms of depression all have a serious impact on our sex lives. The shitty part about that is that these problems often compound one on top of the other and develop into mental complexes that cause us to spiral further into despair by wreacking havoc in our relationships and further damaging our self-images.

If you think you might be depressed, you should definitely seek out help as soon as possible. Finding help for your problem is the first step toward improving every single aspect of your life, including your sex drive.

However...

Some Medications Can Affect Your Libido

There are many medications that can cause a drop in sex drive. Unfortunately, depression medications are one of the chief offenders in this regard. This is not to say that you should avoid medicinal help for your depression, though! Most of the time, you can find a medication that mitigates the symptoms of depression without affecting your sex drive. Being open and honest with your doctor is the best way to nail down what will work best for you.

Other medications that are known to affect sex drive include:

• Chemotherapy Drugs
• Narcotics
• Antihistamines and Decongestants
• Blood Pressure Medications

Being Overweight

You won't find any fat-shaming here, folks, but the fact remains that being overweight does have an effect on our sex drives for a few reasons. The chief among those reasons is our body image. There is a lot of social pressure put on people to conform to a certain body image and that image is invariably ripped and fat-free.

These body image standards are often both unrealistic and, for many, simply unattainable. This leads to huge swathes of men who fall outside that idealized standard of beauty to feel like complete shit. Feeling like shit is a surefire way to cause your libido to drop.

Aside from the less-tangible effects that being overweight has on our sex drives, there are the physical complications that attend it. High blood pressure, diabetes, lack of stamina and many of the other physical challenges of being overweight also contribute to a drop in libido.

Relationship Problems

We often overlook the effect that our emotions have on our sex drive. Feeling connected to and comfortable with our partners goes a long way toward boosting our libido. If you fight with your partner constantly, feel like you've drifted apart, or even can't stand your partner anymore, you're not going to be as down to fuck as you would be if those factors weren't in play.

Which is to say, maybe the problem isn't that you don't want to fuck at all, but it is really that you don't want to fuck him anymore. If you are experiencing a drop-off in libido, the first thing you are going to want to do is to make sure that it isn't simply because you don't want to fuck the person you usually fuck anymore.

From there you have to decide whether the relationship is salvageable or not and act accordingly.

Bringing It All Together

As you can see, the reasons for low sex drive are complicated and vary from guy to guy. The best way to get to the heart of the issue is to take a close, honest look at yourself and your life to nail down the cause or causes of your problem.

Talking it out with your partner, seeking medical advice from doctors, being honest about your emotional state, and making the appropriate lifestyle changes are all things that only you can take control of.

You can read advice all day long about how to boost your sex drive but until you take the situation into your own hands and start hacking away at the problem, it will always be a problem.