ecstacy Posted February 17, 2010 Posted February 17, 2010 Do periods of no libido or sex drive eliminate the possibility of feelings of attraction to develop towards members of the opposite sex i.e is it possible to feel attraction or infatuation having little to no sex drive. or is the libido the crucial thing that allows us to develop romantic connections.
Disillusioned Posted February 19, 2010 Posted February 19, 2010 is it possible to feel attraction or infatuation having little to no sex drive. I'm living proof that it's possible. BTW it makes it easier for me to sort the keepers from the players.
purgatori Posted February 19, 2010 Posted February 19, 2010 Oh yeah, it's possible alright. I was on an antidepressant medication for awhile that totally nullified my sex drive, but it didn't eliminate or even weaken the attraction and affection I felt for certain members of the opposite sex. Although I no longer engaged in fantasies of sexual intercourse or experienced somatic arousal (other than increased heart-rate, breathing, dizziness, and all the other physical manifestations of intense emotional arousal), I still longed to be intimate with the object of my affection -- just not in a 'sexual' way, as most people conceive of the term. This makes a lot of sense if you're at all familiar with Freud's work, in which he described the 'libido' as encompassing all those drives/desires which seek 'union' or 'closeness' with others; including, but certainly not limited to, sex, which is but one type of libidinal impulse. So while my sex drive may have been rendered inoperative, my libido was very much intact. This is also the reason that the eunuchs who served various rulers in different cultures throughout history were recorded as still seeking out romantic contact with women, despite, obviously no longer being capable of genital arousal or coital functions. There are some people, though, -- maybe even the majority --, for whom the great bulk of their libidinal 'energies' (for lack of a better word) are invested in the sex drive. For those individuals, the experience of attraction would most likely cease in concert with the elimination of sexual desire.
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