Bored
Let’s start talking about boredom. I became interested in sexual boredom in 2016. I was finishing my training as a sexual therapist in Portugal, and I had to submit a final work to earn my certification. I decided to study something that would be helpful for potential clients as well as myself.
Considering how prevalent I felt boredom in long-term relationships were, I thought I would find an array of information. Well, I did not. After a review of literature, I found exactly 3 papers focusing in depth on sexual boredom, the last one dated 2007. Albeit good papers, I did not find any solutions or real explanations about its intertwinement with sexual desire, which was really what I was trying to figure out. I did not have much experience as a sexual therapist, but I was already very intrigued with the frequency we diagnosed low sexual desire in cis-women when they were not inclined to have sex with their partners (usually cis-men) or simply had lower desire in comparison. I suspected that they didn’t have a desire issue, that maybe they were just bored.
It's possible that I was projecting my own boredom. It’s funny, because I am rarely bored. I am always entertaining myself with something – a friend, a book, a project - but for some reason, after a while, and despite feeling attraction and love for my partners, I ended up wanting sex less than they did. I wanted to help clients presenting with low desire due to boredom, and who knows, finding out what was going on with myself (or was it the other way around?)
Since I started looking for answers for boredom in sexual relationships, I have learned a lot. I started my PhD in Human Sexuality at the University of Porto where I researched – you guessed right – sexual boredom. With time, I got familiar with the notion of “discrepant sexual desire” and the work of my mentor at the UMN, @dr.kristen.mark , Sari van Anders’ heteronormative theory of low sexual desire, the works of Peggy Kleinplatz, @enagoski , @wednesdaymartinphd, @thekatherineangel , and so much more. I have a lot to share and can’t wait to start putting the pieces together with you.