the glossary · concept
what is responsive desire?
responsive desire
Responsive desire is sexual desire that arrives in response to arousal or closeness, rather than turning up on its own beforehand. Rosemary Basson described it in 2000, after noticing that the standard model of desire, where wanting comes first and everything else follows, did not match how a lot of people actually work. For them the order is reversed. Closeness first, then interest. It is a common pattern, especially in long relationships, and it is not a dysfunction. An enormous number of people have quietly decided something is wrong with them purely because they never feel spontaneously in the mood.
where it comes from: Basson, 2000 ↗
how to tell
- you almost never think about sex out of nowhere
- once things start, you are fully interested. it is the starting that never occurs to you
- you have wondered whether your libido is broken, and nothing else supports that theory
this one has a whole chapter under it. read: sexual attraction vs sexual desire →
what to read on this
- Come as You Are Emily Nagoski the 300 page version of responsive versus spontaneous desire. it is how you tell "my desire needs a running start" apart from "my attraction needs a whole relationship first".
- Mating in Captivity Esther Perel the collision in asking one person to be both your safe home and the source of your desire. those two demands do not want the same conditions.
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also asked
is low spontaneous desire normal?
Very. Responsive desire is one of two normal patterns, not a deficient version of the other one. The problem it causes is almost entirely cultural: every depiction of desire shows the spontaneous kind, so people with the responsive kind conclude they are the exception.
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