Why your libido changes - and why that’s normal

Many women quietly wonder what’s “wrong” with them when sexual desire fades or fluctuates.

We’re taught that desire should be spontaneous, reliable, and effortless. When it isn’t, the assumption is often that something is broken. But what if desire simply does not work that way?

According to Dr Lori Brotto, one of the world’s leading researchers in women’s sexual health, female desire isn’t a fixed trait. It’s responsive, contextual, and - most importantly - something that can be cultivated.

“One of the most important findings guiding my work,” she explains, “is that sexual desire can be cultivated. It’s not something that is fixed and unwavering. It’s not like a light switch that you turn on and off. It’s responsive to context, internal emotions and external triggers.”

She is now on a mission to share this with women out there and she recently did so when she was invited on the podcast run by the Women’s Health Research Cluster, an international network of multidisciplinary professionals.

The podcast - Women’s Health Interrupted – is now led by Liisa Galea, a senior scientist who currently leads the Women’s Health Research Cluster at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto.

“Sexual desire can be cultivated. It’s not something that is fixed and unwavering. It’s not like a light switch that you turn on and off. It’s responsive to context, internal emotions and external triggers.”

In the podcast episode called ‘Cultivating female sexual desire through mindfulness’, Brotto shared her research on the subject she has been studying for two decades. She is a Professor in the UBC Department of Gynaecology, a registered psychologist in Vancouver, Executive Director of the Women’s Health Research Institute of BC.

Unlike traditional models that portray desire as spontaneous and constant, Brotto’s work shows that sexual desire is responsive. It shifts with context, emotional state, stress levels, and external circumstances.

Low desire, she notes, is often less about biology and more about life. Stress, distraction, catastrophising, worries about how a sexual encounter will go - our minds are often everywhere except the present moment, she says in the podcast.

When the body is aroused but the mind isn’t

A key concept in Brotto’s research is sexual non-concordance - the disconnect between physical arousal and subjective desire.

In laboratory studies, women watched erotic films while researchers measured physiological responses using vaginal probes, alongside self-reported arousal. The findings were striking.

“Nine times out of ten, women show low agreement between physiological arousal and how aroused they say they feel,” she said in the podcast.

*“I lubricate and feel pulsing in my vagina, but I’m thinking about my shopping list, or I’m worried about how I smell or thinking: did I turn the stove off?”*

In other words, a woman’s body may be responding strongly, while her mind registers little to no desire.

Clinically, this shows up all the time, she says.

“As a clinician who does sex therapy, this is what I hear: ‘I lubricate and feel pulsing in my vagina, but I’m thinking about my shopping list, or I’m worried about how I smell or thinking: did I turn the stove off?, or sex hurts and I’m thinking I want to get this over with’.”

Mindfulness helps bridge this gap - gently guiding attention back into the body, away from distraction and self-judgment, and toward sensation.

Mindfulness-based approaches have long been used to help manage pain, anxiety, and depression. Brotto and her colleagues adapted these techniques to address sexual desire, recognising that sex, like emotion, requires presence.

“We feel sad when negative things happen, and happy when positive things happen. Same with desire – to cultivate sexual desire, you need to cultivate the environment to elicit sexual desire,” she says.

That can mean removing practical and mental barriers - worrying about children overhearing, overthinking about tomorrow’s meeting, or feeling self-conscious about one’s body - and intentionally creating an environment that supports pleasure.

The myth of the “orgasm gap”

In the podcast she also notes that one of the most persistent and damaging narratives around female sexuality is the so-called “orgasm gap” - the idea that women are inherently less capable of sexual pleasure than men.

Brotto points out that this gap is not biological, but the result of history, stigma, and misinformation.

“Women grew up with shame around touching their bodies and the inability to ask for that makes them feel good,” she say adding that women were also wrongly taught to believe that vaginal orgasm is the gold standard, and that clitoral pleasure is somehow secondary or lesser.

For generations, women were labelled as either “frigid” or “nymphomaniacs,” with no room for fluctuation or normal variability. The reality, Brotto says, is far more nuanced.

“Desire is not a light switch. It’s more like a dimmer switch — it goes up and down.” It’s okay to feel like sex one day, and not feel like it another.

Hormones, culture, and age myths

She notes that female sexual desire is shaped not only by hormones, but by social expectations and cultural messaging. Unlike erections, which are visible and socially recognised as arousal, women’s arousal is less obvious.

Add to that persistent age myths: that desire inevitably declines, that menopause marks the end of sexuality, that older women don’t fantasise or enjoy sex.

These ideas simply aren’t true, Brotto emphasises. And having conversations grounded in facts is incredibly empowering. Many women just need to hear: “you are normal.”

*“Pleasure is the missing frontier in sexuality research.”*

Pleasure as the missing frontier

Perhaps most powerfully, Brotto highlights how pleasure itself has been sidelined in scientific research.

“Pleasure is the missing frontier in sexuality research,” she says.

While dysfunction has been studied extensively, pleasure - what it feels like, how it’s cultivated, why it matters - has largely been ignored. One of her students worked to develop a formal measure of sexual pleasure, signalling a long-overdue shift in focus.

She also recommends the book Pleasure Activism. The Politics of Feeling Good by Adrienne Maree Brown, which expands the concept of pleasure beyond sex and into everyday life, justice, and wellbeing.

What women can do

Brotto’s advice isn’t prescriptive - it’s invitational. She invites women to talk about it and to share the knowledge – listen to the podcast.

Her book Better Sex Through Mindfulness and its accompanying workbook offer practical, evidence-based tools for women and couples seeking a more connected, satisfying sexual life.

Encouragingly, Brotto notes that funding bodies and institutions are becoming more willing to support research into sexuality and sexual wellbeing - a sign that the conversation is finally changing.

Female sexual health is not a luxury. It is a core part of empowerment, autonomy, and quality of life.

And desire, it turns out, is not lost - it’s learned, nurtured, and reclaimed.

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