There is a confession that you can make about your sex life that would be sure to stun people, and it isn’t partner swapping, S&M role-playing, taking a lover on the side, or switching sexual preference. No. You could confess that you don’t have sex much and that you’re just fine with that, in fact, you like it.
If you really wanted to shock them you could say that it isn’t because you don’t have someone right now to have sex with, you’re attached; no, you haven’t fallen out of love with your partner, you find them very attractive; you’re not depressed or medicated and it isn’t because you’re any more exhausted than anybody else; it isn’t that you’re all that inhibited, you’ve experimented with plenty of stuff; and no, it isn’t that you’re non-orgasmic, in fact you have rather nice orgasms. You just don’t particularly want sex, it doesn’t particularly interest you, and left to your own devices you would pretty much never be in the mood for it.
How do I know this is a shocking confession? Because I just read a book on it and I was shocked. What’s more I read the book on peak-hour public transport to and from work and I squirmed the entire time wondering what my fellow-passengers were thinking. On a rational level I am all about demystifying and destigmatising when it comes to women’s lives but this was an area I found surprisingly difficult to own in public, even if only temporarily and vicariously. I have read an awful lot about raunch culture and the ways in which it has pulled women into a loop of competitive self-objectification but never before have I fully considered the degree to which we are culturally immersed in sex, and how truly isolating that can be for many. Though we pretend to be scandalised by kink, the seriously wild have relinquished all interest in sex, and without regret.
I’d Rather Eat Chocolate by Joan Sewell is a memoir of one straight couple’s negotiations around sex. The author’s frank exploration of her low libido, its impact on her marriage, and her quest to discover whether she can and should change her libido makes for a fascinating counter-point to the sexual overload of contemporary media.
Libido is something I have more or less taken for granted in my life. Like anyone I can be too tired, bored, touched-out and irritable for sex from time to time, but generally speaking, there are only three times where I can remember a significant loss of libido – once in my twenties for a few months when I was having trouble with anxiety; and twice, more recently, for about six months each time when breastfeeding infants. I recall that it felt strange to not have a libido. It challenged my identity somewhat. And in all but the most recent experience I found myself worrying that my libido might not return. (By the time I had my second baby I was well aware that heavy-duty breastfeeding suppresses my libido, and sure enough once the feeds dropped my libido returned. Of course I have issues of my own but libido is not one of them).
The default position throughout I’d Rather Eat Chocolate is that Sewell’s libido requires adjustment, that is until one memorable chapter where she imagines a parallel universe in which virility is repugnant and abnormal. And it is here that her discussion is most valuable. As Sewell tries one sex strategy after another her book reveals insights far more damning than any confession about a marriage: first, there is the blatant sexism, and even misogyny present in the professional therapeutic approach to sexuality (honestly, making feminist critiques of sex therapists is like shooting fish in a barrel); then there is the extent to which our culture is both hyper-sexualised and entirely dominated by the straight male gaze; and finally, there is the offensive way in which we so readily and casually pathologise low female libido. And boy, do we. Even knowing this I found myself frustrated at times with Sewell when she found strategies to improve her sex-life that ultimately worked and which she abandoned all the same. It was only after I finished the book that I understood how much I must have wanted to ‘fix her’, that somehow I wasn’t able to accept Sewell and her libido as normal and complete. I still had work to do.
Unfortunately Sewell tends to generalise from her experiences and this leads to some tiresome stereotyping of her own in the book. But in spite of lines such as – “(y)ou can make the sex act more pleasurable for women, but I don’t think we’ll ever get to the point where the mere thought of lots of kinky sex will fill us with joy” – (say what?), I still managed to find much to like in I’d Rather Eat Chocolate. In the end the solution Sewell and her husband find for their relationship isn’t revolutionary, but after exploring options ranging all the way from ‘sex on tap’ to ‘becoming platonic’, I’d Rather Eat Chocolate is novel to the degree to which the couple search for genuine compromise in their relationship.
blue milk 
Fascinating. I used to worry that, if I wasn’t having sex every day or nearly every day, there was something horribly wrong with my relationship and I was probably on the verge of leaving or being left. Of course, I was wrong – at the very least, a book like this will help to dispell that sort of thinking, in my case likely bred from reading too many awful women’s magazines.
It’s fascinating to me that a book like this got published that was by the woman involved and not a group attempting to ‘fix’ her. This is exactly the same situation I find myself in – and boy do friends, the general public, and professionals hate you for it. The amount of scorn heaped on people like us is pretty astonishing. The constant question I got asked, really, was ‘why did you trap someone in marriage if you knew you were like this?’
And the answer is: I didn’t know. I had been informed by media, religion, and all manner of people since I was very little that once I was partnered, I would suddenly enjoy all of these things and it was natural not to enjoy them with others because women are by nature monogamous, passive, etc. And I liked pleasing my partner, because I loved them, it just…was…boring for me.
And eventually painful, and then kind of scary, and we ended up negotiating a form of compromise after several years (seven, eight?) of difficulty. I really, really hate seeing advice columns in the paper that say ‘if you go along with it, you’ll get excited, and into it’. No, alas, if you go along with it in my case your body will learn that it’s about to be forced to do something you don’t want, you’ll tense up whether you want to or not, and things will get bad fast. And you will end up with learned pain and fear responses that cause incredible distress at the very idea of sex, all because you constantly put yourself through that at the advice of professionals.
I would like other strategies to improve things, but unless they’re improving the low libido issue as well, they’re ultimately only ever going to be ‘mostly unreciprocated strategies to please my partner because I love them’. In that I will get the emotional benefit of making someone happy, and he will get the emotional and physical benefit of pleasurable sex. I could well see myself abandoning them due to weariness or boredom, picking them up again later, etc.
I’m totally with Grey here. Sex made me depressed, weepy, grumpy, etc. Eventually I asked my partner if he’d be okay if I never wanted sex again – and he was fine with it (6 years now and we’re still fine). He’d rather be with a happy me and having no sex, than having sex with a depressed me.
I can imagine great sex, but I’ve never experienced it and I don’t really care any more. Plus, there are so many good books out there! And chocolate!
Grey and soy milk – I really think this is the missing conversation from discussions of adult sexuality. I was stunned when I read this book to learn how silenced this experience is and how badly it is approached by the medical/psychological/psychiatric institutions.
Thank you for joining the conversation. Please let me know if any part of my book review is offensive.. this is new to me and I might have made some mistakes here.
Oh, your review seemed very sensitive and fine to me 🙂
Unfortunately Sewell tends to generalise from her experiences and this leads to some tiresome stereotyping of her own in the book. … “(y)ou can make the sex act more pleasurable for women, but I don’t think we’ll ever get to the point where the mere thought of lots of kinky sex will fill us with joy” – (say what?)
This is why I couldn’t make it past the first chapter or so of the book, sadly, despite the fact that I think we need desperately to have a conversation in the West about how we’ve pathologized low libido and/or disinterest in relational sex (two distinct issues that often get muddled together). Sewell draws too heavily for my taste of gendered narratives that turn low libido into a feminine characteristic. This elides the existence of men with low libido or asexual orientation AND reinforces generations-old stereotypes about how being female somehow inherently leads to a disinclination toward sexual activity.
If only she had stuck to her own experience — AND been more astute in her analysis of how gender narratives inform our understanding of sexual desire (and lack thereof). Then I might not have run out of patience.
I thought this a really good review :).
Really enjoyed this piece, bluemilk.
Sounds absolutely fascinating. If only i’ve have the guts to read it on the train ;<)