It’s no secret that the pandemic took its toll on the nation’s sex drive. One survey, conducted back in 2021 found that of almost 900 British adults found that 60% of people weren’t having sex or engaging in sexual activity – including masturbation – even once a week in lockdown.
But have things changed two years on? Maybe!
In April 2023, Lovehoney, a sex toy company, revealed details of its survey which asked 22,000 people from 15 countries across the world to rate their sex drive out of 10. And guess what the results said? The UK was named fourth horniest country in the whole of Europe, in fact. Our national average sex drive, according to the study, is 6.22 out of 10.
The results also revealed that men also have a higher sex drive — or that’s what they say at least.
Annabelle Knight, LoveHoney sex and relationship expert, claimed societal norms could stop women from being honest about how horny they are.
She said: “It’s likely that men are more willing to say they have a higher sex drive and vice versa for women, as outdated notions around female (and male) sexuality still exist, whether internally or externally.”
The data showed that while men worldwide confessed to a sex drive of 6.53, on average, it was 12 per cent lower for women — who scored just 5.76.
Though there are no other studies to compare the data with, various sex & relationship coaches and Google searches around increasing sex drive seem to suggest that, as a nation, we’ve still got a way to go in the bedroom.
“I still have a consistent stream of enquiries from people who are concerned about their lack of sex drive,” therapist and founder of TS Therapy, Tami Sobell tells GLAMOUR. “Even though we are no longer in a lockdown, couples are still spending much more time together than has ever been deemed ‘normal’ pre-pandemic and this impacts our sex lives in several ways.”
“First of all, it blurs the line between work and play. There doesn’t seem to be any separation between a working day and a weekend day, and so our interactions with our partners have merged too. Many of us no longer have the opportunity to miss our partners or to experience a build-up to seeing them,” Tami explains. “And even though we are spending constant time with one another, it’s the time we spend connecting that counts when it comes to intimacy, which is actually something we got much more of when we had boundaries between work and home.”
“When you aren’t feeling yourself, or good about yourself, it’s often hard to shift your mindset into wanting to be intimidate with other people.”
“When you don’t feel connected to yourself, you can’t feel connected to your partner, and this creates pressure, but becoming aware of how normal it is to be feeling a lack of sex drive can help to ease this,” she adds.
Why is my libido so low?
“There are many reasons why you may more generally be experiencing a low sex drive,” says Dr Giuseppe Aragona, GP and online doctor for prescriptiondoctor.com. “You may feel isolated, unenergised or demotivated, and this in turn will affect sex drive. Your sex drive can vary depending on your environment and how you spend your time, and if you are stuck at home alone, chances are you’ll experience low sex drive.”