 Good morning babies and especially the best I Have two riddles for you riddle number one What do you call a YouTube video? Featuring Sam Vaknin Yes, a YouTube No funny, hey, okay, let's try another one. What is the only thing the only thing? Absolutely better than wine and sex The only thing better than wine and sex is a video by Sam Vaknin About wine and sex and indeed you guessed it right. This is the topic of today's video people with low sex drive and people with no sex drive Now believe it or not. There is a typology of these people There is a huge confusion Regarding people whose sex drive does not conform to social expectations Whose sex drive frustrates their intimate partners whose sex drives cause them distress and Today I'm going to provide you with what Wikipedia calls a disambiguation page a disambiguation guide Let's start with the most clear-cut case people who are asexual now asexuality is Not yet an accepted clinical category or diagnosis Many psychologists reject the possibility of someone without a sex drive at all They many clinical psychologists and many psychiatrists claim that if you don't have a sex drive If you don't experience sexual cravings if you don't act on sexual impulses, etc, etc Something's wrong with you You have a problem But a growing body of evidence suggests pretty conclusively That actually 1% of the population are born without a sex drive They are devoid of other directed sex inclination or Tendency or propensity now. That's a very important distinction asexuals are not sexually attracted to other people in other words. It's a form of lacking or unusual object relations Sex drive is other directed. It's relational. It's externalized It's it's outwarded. It's it's outward facing and Freud linked the sex drive to the life force which he called eros or later libido so sex drive the sex drive is libidinal and Because babies new-borns have a sex drive They have a libido They actually engage in sexual acts. We all know that babies must obey for example But there is a very important distinction between auto erotic sex acts Sex acts which are directed or sex drive, which is directed at oneself This kind of sex drive that marceses have for example well into adulthood and Other directed sex drive safe drives that targets other people and regards other people as sources of pleasure and gratification asexuals are devoid of that component But they are not devoid of the first component. In other words many asexuals are actually Auto erotic for example the majority of asexuals must debate They must debate as a form of release as a form of physiological release the same way people eat when they are hungry or drink When they're thirsty that part is true The masturbation is not indicative of a full-fledged mature Constellated coherent and cohesive sex drive or urge sexual urge But still they do masturbate. So this is indicative of a dormant latent sex drive Which is inwardly directed self-directed auto erotic. However, the entire Panoply of sex actions sex motivation Sex sexual urges sex drive which is directed at other people is missing in asexuals Now some asexuals crave intimacy and companionship and romance They actually have relationships which comprise these three. They have intimate partners. They have companions They have romantic flings and engagements and assignations and what have you they just don't engage don't think it doesn't culminate in sex They don't engage in sex so some asexuals Do everything with other partners Do Have intimate relationships, but sex is not a part of the relationship Now mind you 21% of marriages are Sexless marriages. We define sex a sexless marriage as marriage with fewer than 10 sexual encounters In a year annually in a year So if you've had sex with your wife Fewer than 10 times last year. You're in a sexless marriage So 21% of marriages is sexless and we believe the figure to be probably double bet Maybe half of all marriages are sexless. So asexuality makes appearances in very surprising places and The consumption of pornography for example is auto erotic You could be asexual with your wife and still consume pornography in order to gratify it yourself Auto erotically. So you see this is the problem when we try to delineate and delimit and demarcate asexuality from celibacy asexuality from sexlessness The it's a murky field. It's it's not entirely clear If you if you've been celibate for 15 years Like I have been are you asexual? If you then resume sexual activity, have you ever been asexual if you if you are Sexless with your wife, but not sexless with others outside the marriage extra marital Affairs and so are you are you asexual in some part of your life. So it's very difficult to define but We tend to think that 1% of a population are born without a sex drive right now It's still not accepted wisdom. It's still not the orthodoxy. We don't teach this in universities But there's a community of asexuals online and you're well advised to visit their forums and see what there's what they say about themselves There are two types of asexuals asexuals which do not need sex Do not require intimacy do not seek or crave companionship and romance and these are actually schizoids these are people with schizoid personality disorder and They are mistaken for asexuals and then there's a group of asexuals which have Relationships full-fledged relationships intimacy companionship romance spending time together doing things together loving each other Cuddling and hugging and you name it, but they don't have sex because they don't need sex They are simply with born without the sex drive or they had evolved To become adults without without a sex drive. So this is asexual Now there is a Hyposexual, hypo sexual is a person whose sex drive is either infrequent or intermittent But is also distressed by this fact so the hyposexual To be to be to qualify as a hyposexual there are two requirements an intermittent or infrequent sex drive and Distress subjective distress caused by the intermittency and infrequency of the sex drive Some disturbance some ego dystonia and even problems in functioning a Self-perceived deficiency. I will discuss Hyposexuality a bit later at much greater length on we go schizoid personality And especially people with schizoid personality disorder the schizoid finds sex unappealing repetitive tedious and in some cases although rarely disgusting So such a schizoid would avoid sex and definitely not seek sex Actively or passively in other words he would tend to reject or ignore or even not notice sexual advances by other people Mosquitoes also abstain from having any kind of relationship not only sexual Mosquitoes live alone. They have no family. They have no sex They have no companions. They have no intimate partners and they barely communicate with their families of origin some a big proportion of schizoids and life Completely isolated with not a trace of a hint of a shadow of any human interaction to the day they die To their dying day. So this is the schizoid personality of schizoid personality disorder There is a mild attenuated Version of the schizoid personality it is described by Lance Perry and his book on personality disorders, and this is known as the schizoid style Unlike the schizoid personality Someone with a schizoid style Actually does enjoy sex, but he doesn't go out of his way to find sex So he enjoyed sex the same way some people enjoy caviar Me enjoy caviar caviar in your lead caviar, but you won't go out of her way To to find caviar and you definitely and I'm gonna eat caviar every single day Caviar is tasty once in five years once in ten years once once a year Then this is the attitude of the schizoid style to sex. Sex is fun Sex is lovely sex is gratifying sex is satisfying. This is a huge pleasure But why pursue it if it comes it comes if it doesn't it doesn't you don't watch the same movie Day in and day out for the rest of your life. So sex is just one of myriad of a gamut of possibilities entertainment's occupations hobbies and so on so for one of them is sex and You have sex the schizoid person with schizoid style has sex Infrequently not because he has a problem with the sex drive like the hyposext Hyposexual person but because sex is one of many options. So he doesn't go out of his way The schizoid the person with schizoid style Can go on for years sometimes decades without sex, but when the opportunity presents itself When the opportunity throws their self at his feet The schizoid style thoroughly enjoys the proceedings in other words The schizoid style for example is likely to respond positively to sexual advances Likely to flood and likely to seduce when the opportunity presents itself However, he's not likely to generate the opportunity. He's not likely to actively seek sex He's likely to react is reactive and responsive when sex presents itself And then he enjoys sex thoroughly. He loves sex. He adores sex the same way he adores Caviar or playing the piano These are things you don't do on a daily basis presumably Then we have the cerebral narcissist The cerebral narcissist is essentially sexless but not asexual the cerebral narcissist has an autoerotic sex drive He finds gratification with himself and within himself He converts his body and his mind into erotic objects He makes love to himself in effect indeed cerebral narcissists consume pornography all the time and They masturbate as the main venue of sexual release and sexual expression And so cerebral narcissists derive narcissistic supply from Intellectual pursuits from there. They leverage their intelligence They are they are pyrotechnically intelligent. They it's like a display of fireworks And when people are odd and amazed and admire the cerebral narcissist and adulate him for his intellect for his intelligence That's the kind of narcissistic supply. He seeks. That's the kind he wants and He converts his celibacy Into a proud ideology He the fact that he is not having sex Makes him feel proud of himself Because by not having sex he renders himself superior to common people Common people who are like animals who lust and bang bestially. He's above sex Sex is for is for animalistic primitive stupid people. It's all for him His intellect and his intelligence endow him with superhuman capacities. His godlike is omniscient so Sex drags him down sex contaminates him adulterates him sex with others mind you Contaminates and adulterates him also sex is a challenge to grandiosity because it implies some kind of dependence on the other party a collaboration There's a need to reciprocate a need to gratify the other party There's a give-and-take. There's a bargaining phase and the cerebral will have none of it because he's so far superior and So far so endowed Intellectually intellectually that no one has a right to demand anything from him Any attempt to negotiate and to compromise for example in in the sex act is perceived as Undermining his grandiosity his omnipotence is Godlike attributes and qualities And so he avoids sex the cerebral narcissist avoids other directed sex As a form of aggrandizing himself He is inordinately proud of his accomplishment I'm not having sex because I don't need sex and I don't need sex because I don't need anyone. I'm so sufficient I am divine That's a cerebral Narcissist mind you there is no type constancy the cerebral narcissist Does become somatic given certain circumstances for instance when the cerebral narcissist Loses his main source of supply is likely to become somatic in order to find and groom and love bomb and acquire a new source of supply so cerebral narcissists make use of sex in Order to guarantee the presence of an intimate partner in a future shared fantasy It's a part of the grooming and love-bombing phase and it's of course a form of false Advertising they lie to the partner. They pretend to be sexually active and sexually interested They pretend to love sex and to like sex, but actually it's all of a sad It's all a show intended to capture the the future intimate partner to convince her that It's going to be heaven at least sexual heaven. This is the cerebral narcissist that the histrionic person with histrionic personality disorder Most people diagnosed personal with histrionic personality disorder are women Which raises a red or a black flag over the whole diagnosis, but histrionics are flutatious flutatious seductive Em But studies have revealed that people with histrionic personality disorder are actually sex averse They are what used to be called frigid so The more flirtatious the person is the more ostentatiously and overtly and conspicuously seductive The more the person engages in the chase and in the conquest The less likely that person is to be actually interested in sex it is histrionics regulate their moods and self-esteem via the chase via the conquest Not via the sexual act They regard the sexual act as drudgery as a chore They're very reluctant to engage in it. They try to get it over with and Sex with histrionics is seriously bad very low quality histrionics therefore exactly like borderlines and others are far more likely to engage in Casual sex and far more likely to be promiscuous because they don't want Regular long-term sex as I said they want to just get it over with Psychopaths are the same for different reasons So this is the picture of people whose sex drive is either very low or Non-existent, but you have noticed throughout this presentation. I was confined myself I was talking exclusively about other directed sex Actually, all these people are auto-erotic the asexual most asexual Masturbate is a form of physiological release which requires absolutely psychologically requires auto-eroticism and Cerebral narcissist masturbate and consume porn and they're highly auto-erotic Same same with histrionics and and all the others Auto-eroticism is an infantile feature Which survives into adulthood in everyone by the way? That's why adults healthy adults normal adults like to have sex facing mirrors because they can see themselves in the mirrors So in the mirror and this arouses them self-gaze self-regard Seeing yourself in the act is very arousing Even for totally healthy and normal people and it is irresistible for these types However, other directed sexuality is impaired or non-existent in all these aforementioned types and now I would like to to discuss Hyposexuality, but before we go there you could ask why is other directed sexuality impaired in these people? What's wrong? Is it a psychological problem? Is it a biological problem? Is it a hormonal problem? Is it a neurological problem? Where's the problem? Why do these groups of people and by the way, it's not a small number It's not a small number. It's estimated as something like 15. That's one five percent of the population Fall into one of these groups And I didn't even mention the somatic narcissist, which who has his own problems with sex He doesn't really engage in sex and he doesn't really like sex He likes masturbation with other people's bodies and If he's sadistic, he likes de-spoiling. He likes degrading the other partner, but we'll leave the data side The people I've mentioned histrionics, cerebral narcissists, asexuals, schizoids Hyposexuals, they don't have sex at all. The somatic has sex These people don't have sex at all or they have a very, they have sex very rarely Or they're extremely infrequently Very intermittently and none of them, none of these people Except the histrionic. None of them seeks sex Actively. None of them engages None of them engage in behaviors which are likely to result in sex for example cruising or Going to bars and pubs or restaurants to pick up people or joining dating apps. None of them does this Only the histrionic Is engaged in behaviors which are misinterpreted as sexual behaviors. They're not they're about power They're about regulation of self-esteem They're about regulation of woods The histrionics behavior and the borderline behavior in a histrionic phase Because borderlines can have histrionic phases The histrionic and the borderline histrionic They don't like sex at all. They they actually hate sex. They're frigid and They just want the conquest now the histrionic wants the conquest to regulate her internal environment The borderline wants the conquest in order to capture an intimate partner because she has abandonment anxiety and because her grandiosity She she needs to feel irresistible in order to avoid the risk of abandonment humiliation and rejection These are complex issues and so we are led to believe that essentially It's a psychological issue Not necessarily a physiological issue Perhaps a psychological issue which is a reaction to the physiological issue. There is a wide spectrum wide diapason wide range of Of intensity of the sex drive Some people need to have sex three times a day Some people need to have sex three times a year and both Both ends of the spectrum are legitimate and healthy and normal Um mismatch in sex drive Is often caused for divorce and marital problems and cheating and other Untoward phenomena people don't bother to check how matched they are How compatible they are as far as a sex drive and it's a great pity But this this is still the healthy and the normal beat the normal portion of the spectrum We're talking about the very end of the spectrum Where where sex is utterly shunned Unneeded ignored Not a part of life These people are capable of arousal and happiness and gratification and satisfaction with the exception of the schizoid Schizoid's emotions are But with the exception of the schizoid these people lead totally normal lives They're creative. They're happy. They're they just don't they don't want sex or the use sex in ways Which are auto erotic or the use sex to regulate their internal environment, but none of them wants sex Sex is a mode of communication and interrelatedness to another person As an interaction that binds people together even if only fleetingly and for an hour But still binds them together. There's a modicum of intimacy even in a one night stand There's warmth and acceptance and gratitude and even in a in a casual encounter sexual encounter These people don't need it. So the underlying psychological issue is that these people don't need other people the sexual thing the sexual absence The sexual withdrawal and sexual avoidance. This is the tip of an iceberg And the iceberg is self-sufficiency essentially a schizoid core In other words, these people don't need other people. They don't use other people. They don't interact with other people They don't like other people They are loners essential loners and and quintessential loners and and they this lack of interrelatedness to other people Of course manifests and expresses itself In their sexuality because there's no such thing as sexuality. There's only psychosexuality when you see someone Whose sex drive is extremely low Or totally absent you can bet you bet you that this person is also a social also avoidant Also schizoid also loner and so on so forth With the only exception being Biological as sexual people who are born without sex drive these people can be very gregarious They can have romantic relationships and so on but because they don't have a sex drive biologically physiologically They they don't engage in sex But this is a tiny tiny tiny fraction of a minority of the general population In all other cases when the sex when sex is missing as an attribute attribute of life When set when the furniture of sex is missing in the apartment Something is wrong with the person And with the person's object relations ability to relate to other people Something is seriously wrong with a history on it. Of course with the cerebral nostrils is needless to say and of course with the schizoid Schizoid to be a schizoid is to be emotionally dead All emotions are dead not only sexuality or psychosexuality All forms of relating to other people All all of them are defunct and disabled and deactivated and and actually frankly non-existent So let's talk about hypoactive Hypo hypo sexuality the clinical term for hypo sexuality is hypoactive sexual desire disorder HSDD We clinical psychologists love to invent these long Phrases and terms because it gives gives psychology the air of medicine It makes us look very scientific and very knowledgeable and very erudite And it gives us an advantage over you because you can pronounce these words and they're very very long. They're 10 dollar words HSDD hypoactive hypo active not hyper active hypo active sexual desire disorder Is commonly known as hypo sexuality or inhibited sexual desire? A ISD is a sexual dysfunction We consider it to be a dysfunction. It's the lack or absence of sexual fantasies desire for sexual activity and sexual activity So fantasy desire and activity all three are missing now This should be distinguished from asexuality because some portion of asexuals Actually lack sex drive I have to repeat it. I don't know how many times because There is a huge resistance in the community of psychologists clinical psychologists and professors of psychology to the construct of asexuality But it tends to reason that some people a tiny tiny tiny fraction Tiny number of people are born without sex right It's an accident of biology accident of genetics tends to reason I don't know if it's one percent of a population As asexuals claim a sexual asexual activists claim that about one percent of a population are asexual I suspect the number is much smaller. I think they misidentify asexual biological asexuality with schizoid personality But there is a number of people who do not have a sex drive And yet these people are pathologized Via this diagnosis of h s d d Hypoactive sexual desire disorder and it's wrong to pathologize them. Nothing is wrong with them. They just they were just born without a sex drive but Majority of people who don't have sexual fantasies at all Who don't have any desire for sexual activity and do not engage in sex something is wrong with them Now many people are simply depressed clinical depression yields and results in Hypo sexuality when you're depressed, you don't want to have sex Most people don't want to have sex. So depression anxiety disorders mood other mood disorders Some personality disorders like schizoid personality. So These are general general clinical diagnosis One feature of of which is hyposexuality But they are all there. There are people Who don't who are not depressed and they are not anxious and they don't have a personality disorder, but they still have a problem with their sex drive Still if the person is happy with his lack of sex drive If the person has no interpersonal difficulties If the person has no mental health disorder if the person functions perfectly in all settings like the workplace In other words, if nothing is wrong with the person's life except the fact That sex is not his cup of tea. He's not his thing He doesn't fantasize on sex. He has no desire for sex. He doesn't seek sex actively and doesn't engage in sex But he's not distressed He's happy. He has no problem with his spouse et cetera, et cetera We don't regard this as a mental health issue or is a problem and we do not intervene There's no value judgment here. You must have sex drive, you know We're not saying you must have a sex drive. We don't have a sex drive. Something's wrong with you We're going to force you to have sex. It's not the thought police, you know, but many many people Because the sex drive is depressed or suppressed This creates serious difficulties in their relationships It creates serious difficulties in in social situations. For example, when they reject sexual advances Openly and ostentatiously it raises questions It creates it creates a lot of awkward moments and situations and so on and they're distressed They're unhappy with it And so then we say that there's a problem Um These people don't react Don't respond to any sexual cues Indications of desire or even outright invitation to to have sex And we know that for example in studies Um 10 percent of all women Uh react this way The 10 percent of all women are clinically hypo hypo sexual So It's not it's not surprising That hyposexuality is a field And the study of hyposexuality started among women Because there was this stereotype of the frigid women women don't want sex men always want sex But today we know it's not true We know it's not true Hyposexuality is common among men as much as among women There are grounds even to assume that hyposexuality is more common among men than among women But men were trained culturally and socially to hide it. It was shameful. It was unmenly So women reported sexual problems much more than men did And so Hyposexuality could be a problem Could be a problem especially in a society in a culture in a civilization which is over sexualized over sexed hyper sexed We sexualize everything we sexualize advertising we sexualize movies we sexualize entertainment forms We sexualize relationships between people Dating apps and casual sex and hookups This is to sexualize and objectify people to relate to them via um Single dimension the dimension of sex To reduce them to sex machines animated dildos or animated sex dolls And in such an environment where everything is about sex Everything is sexualized Everything from advertisements to movies to books to to your friends You know the sex is constantly on everyone's mind One way or another And you're the you're you stand out You're the outlier. You're the misfit. You're the outcast because you You don't get it. You don't want sex It doesn't you know you're only interested in sex. So This creates distress subjective distress and actually that all treatments are intended to cope with this distress Hyposexuality can be a general lack of sexual desire But it can also be Situational lack when you don't have a sexual desire towards a specific partner Or in given circumstances or in a given environment So hypersexual hypersexuality can arise suddenly Circumstantially and situationally it can even be acquired There are people who were totally normal sexually functioned normally had desire fantasies were active Sort sex and suddenly stopped And then they became totally asexual or hypersexual So it can be acquired. It can be lifelong Someone who's never had Never had never had time for sex never had interest in sex life long from adolescence to to his dying day So hypersexuality is reactive Is reactive in the sense that you know, it can it can arise suddenly Or it's it's it can be a lifelong feature actually a trait An erectile dysfunction and premature reject relations are actually indicators or symptoms of expressions Expressions of situational circumstantial or acquired Hyposexuality it's a way of rejecting the partner in effect is largely psychological The very rare cases where it's biological medical hormonal vast majority of cases. It's psychological The diagnostic and statistical manual five My favorite edition of the dsn by the way because it started to go the right way in many many fields the dsn five Split hypersexuality divided it To two parts male hypoactive sexual desire disorder and female sexual interest arousal disorder So they recognize that This this problem is common among men and women but manifests differently In men the problem is desire actually lack of desire In women the problem is interest and arousal Women may want to have sex But women are much more specific and particular as to who can arouse them Their arousal is much a much more complex process It involves emotional dimensions cognitive dimensions past history Interaction smells women women's brain Is wired differently to a men's brain when it comes to sex for example a woman could react with arousal vaginally But she at the same time she's utterly unaware that she's aroused So there is a divorce Between the genitals genitalia of women and their brains The genitalia are totally autonomous and they react with lubrication and arousal and everything blood flow Everything while the mind the brain is totally unaware of any sexual arousing This never happens with the men So women have mostly arousal problems men have mostly desire problems And this distinction was first made in the dsm 5 in the dsm 5 male hypoactive sexual disorder Is described as persistently and recurrently deficient or absent sexual erotic thoughts or fantasies and desire for sexual activity And this is a subjective measure of course Because you have to take into account culture society age expectations Relationship status is it marriage? Is it situation ship? Is it real relationship? Is it love? Is it last? Is it infatuation? Is it limerence? I mean, there's so many factors at play A peer pressure group pressure. I mean work depression anxiety mental disorders substance abuse Alcohol drugs. I mean, you need to really really the intake interview needs to be really really detailed It's everything has an effect on sex Sex is the most sensitive barometer seismograph of the total well-being and welfare of the person Sex is the first thing first thing that responds Sex aversion among couples is very common because sex reflects the deteriorating state of the relationship, for example, if it's very conflictual And so Sex also is intimately linked with other attributes such as novelty seeking risk taking Some people are aroused by the forbidden Some people are aroused by cheating deception Sex is is not a monolithic entity And it's definitely not about inserting one genitalium one genitalia Set of genitalia in another set of genitalia. It's not about the body This is it's this is this cliche happens to be right The brain is the largest sex organ And the brain as we know is something we don't know So It's very complex female sexual interest arousal disorder is defined in the diagnostic and statistical manual five as a lack of or significantly reduced sexual interest or arousal Manifesting it as at least three of the following symptoms No or little interest in sexual activity No or few sexual faults No or few attempts to initiate sexual activity or respond to partners initiation No or little sexual pleasure or excitement in 75 percent to 100 percent of sexual experiences No or little sexual interest in internal or external erotic stimuli And no or few genital non-genital sensations in 75 percent to 100 of sexual Experiences and if this sounds like your wife, you're probably right for both Diagnosis the male diagnosis the female diagnosis The clinician tries to rule out Circumstantial situational or acquired hypersexuality. Sometimes we don't feel like having sex for six months. For example victims of complex post traumatic stress disorder and victims of abuse in general They very often become asexual or hypersexual They become sex averse. They don't want to have sex anymore If this lasts for six months It's normal. It's a normal reaction to abuse because abuse is a breach of boundaries abuse is emotional rape Abuse is mental rape and we know for example that rape victims Develop hypersexuality reactive hypersexuality Rape victims don't want to engage in sex for months after the rape or the sexual assault Because their boundaries have had been breached in this case the physical boundaries Abuse verbal abuse even doesn't have to be physical abuse Just verbal abuse psychological abuse is perceived as rape It's a rape of the mind And like classic rape victims victims of abuse avoid sex Because sex is also a breach of boundaries sex is a consensual breach of boundaries, of course In sex even a one-night stand even a casual quickie We are vulnerable. We are open We we we throw away Our defenses and protections and fears and and we just let it go And we open our borders To a wave of immigrants Which is the sexual apartment so If the hypersexuality lasts longer than six months If it causes significant distress It is not explained by any other condition. For example people after operation surgeries They are sexually hyperactive people who use Alcohol alcohol is actually a depressant people believe that alcohol makes you more sexual Makes you actually less sexual People who use certain drugs not all You know you have to people with with tumors in the brain specific areas All these conditions create hypersexuality and we have to rule the rule them out So let it be clear If you have lower desire than your partner Nothing's wrong with it If you don't have any desire Nothing's wrong with it If you have desire But it's mostly self-directed It's a pity you're missing out on a lot but technically nothing's wrong with it If you have desire only towards other people never with your partner It's a problem with your partner. Maybe but it's not a clinical or medical problem Only if you're distressed Only if you have problems in your relationships only if your hypersexuality affects your life then Clinical psychologists can offer some help and have a justification to intervene People sometimes self-identify as asexuals they lack sexual desire And so the minute someone comes to the clinical psychologist and says Doctor I don't have a sex drive. I'm asexual That's a problem because we we should not intervene in such a case We should not provide for example therapy, you know Up until very recently relatively speaking up until a few decades ago There were there were these programs to convert homosexuals into heterosexuals Because homosexual sexuality was considered to be a mental illness Up until 1973 homosexuality was defined as a mental illness in the diagnostic and statistical manual So we were trying to cure reprogram Homosexuals and convert them into normal people heterosexuals. It was sick We're doing the same to asexuals We the minute someone comes and says, uh, I don't have a sex drive Our instinct our initial reaction is oh something's wrong with this guy or girl. I mean we we need to fix them Something's wrong with us It's okay to not have a sexual It's wrong to sexualize everything the role of sex has changed dramatically Throughout history There were very long periods in history where sex was considered dirty and prohibited and and and was very rare Sexual activity was extremely rare and targeted at procreation only There were other periods where sexuality was rampant Defined joy and cheer and love and and gratification and so on and so were celebrated Depends on the context of society on culture and period and depends on your physiology Your hormonal balances your your biology so Low sexual desire alone Is not Sexuality it's not hsdd Because if there's no distress there's no interpersonal difficulty Then essentially there's no problem Moreover, we we don't really know we don't really know what causes these fluctuations Uh in in sexual drive and sexual urge and sexual desire We don't know what is the role of sexual fantasies For example, is the role of sexual fantasies to actually prevent action in reality? Because many sexual fantasies are socially forbidden socially wrong antisocial people have sexual fantasies of Acts which would lend them in jail in prison, you know So is the role of fantasy to prevent action in reality? For example, if someone fantasizes about having sex with children Does this preclude actual pedophile activity? Or is the role of fantasies actually to flesh out sexual desire and then act on it? We don't know even this We don't have enough data sex has been a very very neglected area in in psychology because of social proscriptions and prohibitions and inhibitions So we don't know what causes hypersexuality We We don't know what why some people are stimulated and aroused with the same partner for life And what why others need constant novelty. They need new partners all the time We don't know why Suddenly sexual interest stops You know, there's sexual interest in the same person for five years and then suddenly It vanishes it stops and we don't know why We don't know why some people prefer solitary sexual activity and some people prefer partnered Object-oriented other oriented sexual activity. We don't know what differentiates The first kind of people from the second kind of people. We don't know how we acquire What modulates our sexual desire? renders it extreme renders it low Eliminates it all together creates it suddenly ex nihilo. We don't know So because we are largely ignorant it would be very presumptuous of us and potentially dangerous To intervene because we don't we don't honestly know What we're doing And we need to rule out We need to rule out so many Possibilities That it's it's a huge problem. We need to rule out medical issues hormonal issues physiological issues Like for example obstruction maybe somewhere. We need to rule out mental health issues psychiatric problems. We need to rule out, you know, testosterone issues prolactin issues. We need to rule out Inhibitory and excitot excitatatory factors. We need to we need to Conduct a whole Huge study of the individual We need to study the brain do or transmitters we need to Because neurotransmitters have excitatory activity and an inhibitory activity dopamine excites norepinephrine Serotonin inhibits serotonin inhibits so low sexual desire Can also be the outcome of certain medications Antidepressants for example Then there is the issue of intimacy fear of intimacy commitment commitment phobia intimacy difficulties relationship problems sexual addiction sometimes manifests ironically as Frigidity because the person is so scared of his uncontrollable impulses that he suppresses the sex drive All together chronic illness of the person or chronic illness of the partner We communicate the sex drive to each other We resonate our sex drive is like an echo chamber There's resonance like two frequencies that enhance each other and so Everything is in in in question. There's a very little empirical evidence. Nothing very little is evidence based We don't know and because we don't know we need to be really really modest and really really humble We know even little even even even less About the causes of hstd in women We know a bit more about about men We know we are just beginning to understand mood disorders That's why we are medicating on mood disorders because we understand the interrelationships between the brain and mood disorders It's new knowledge relatively speaking and we're just discovering the gastrointestinal impact on mood disorders. That's totally new New knowledge. So maybe nutrition has something to do with it Relationship problems stress stress hormones They reduce we know they reduce sexual desire in women but not in men. Why is that? Why why the different reactivity in men and women? Is it hormones? Is it something else? Is it something in the brain? Effective responses a tension on capture of sexual stimuli What about deciphering? Decoding sexual cues. It's very rare for someone to come to you and say Listen, I'm dying to have sex with you and people people signal signal very subtly They kind of testing the waters and so you need to be able to pick up on these cues And if you're for example someone with autistic spectrum disorders disorders or Or someone even with narcissism You would have severe difficulty to pick up on the cues to interpret them correctly. You may have sexual over perception Interpret benign non sexual cues as sexual Or the opposite You may be flooded with sexual advances and sexual hints and sexual requests and not realize actually That you are being courted and flirted with and being seduced and so There is also cultural and social issues sex has negative associations sexual stimuli have negative associations And there are also positive associations So we need to see the balance between negative and positive Reinforcements Associations and conditioning. There's a lot of operant conditioning and other forms of conditioning in In human sexuality. You see it's not clear The field is far from clear, but I hope I help to disambiguate some of it Oh wine and sex At least I have wine the glass is half empty