The systemic perspective does not reduce sexuality to “communicating better”. It looks instead at loops: what one person does changes the other, who changes the first, and so on. These loops can smother desire… or revive it.

The most frequent complaint: desire out of sync

In clinical practice, sexual desire discrepancy is a very common reason for consultation. The position of the European Society for Sexual Medicine stresses one crucial point: a difference in desire is commonplace and need not be pathologised. It mainly becomes a problem when it is accompanied by distress, shame, or repetitive relational scenarios.

Julie Nicol describes a frequent spiral:

• the partner with more desire asks, sometimes insistently, with irritation, or by withdrawing after a refusal;
• the other protects themselves: avoidance, guilt, fear of “giving a signal”;
• sex becomes a duty, then a source of apprehension… and desire fades further.

The key systemic point: this cycle does not belong to one person, it belongs to the relationship.

Spontaneous or responsive desire: changing the myth

Many couples suffer from a cultural myth. Yet the model proposed by Basson suggests that, in long relationships, desire is often responsive: it appears after a favourable context has been set up — safety, availability, tenderness, stimulation — rather than before.

The ESSM position statement likewise recommends questioning the myth of spontaneous desire and helping the couple build shared sexual scripts, adjusted to their moment in life.

First aid: bringing touch back, with nothing at stake

When a gap in desire settles in, many couples stop touching each other — for fear of opening a door, or of being disappointed. Julie Nicol insists on this point and often suggests a counter-intuitive task: sexual intercourse is forbidden until the next session, while physical contact is reintroduced (cuddles, kisses, caresses).

This logic chimes with the spirit of experience-centred sex therapy approaches such as sensate focus, where the pressure to achieve a result — penetration, orgasm — is suspended so as to return to sensation, curiosity and safety, that is, to other forms of intimacy.

Paradox and symptom prescription: why it sometimes works

The instruction to “ejaculate as fast as possible” sometimes works because it goes after the main fuel of certain difficulties: fear of failure and over-control. Prescribing the symptom can turn a problem one endures into an action one chooses, and break the anxious loop.

Three systemic levers supported by research

1. Talking about sex… but above all talking about it well

A meta-analysis shows a robust association between sexual communication and sexual or relationship satisfaction, with a stronger effect for the quality of the exchange — clarity, safety, kindness — than for the sheer frequency of discussions.

Practical implication: teaching the couple to speak about desire without accusation (“you never want to”) and without bargaining (“if you wanted to, you’d prove you love me”), but with first-person messages: “I feel…”, “I’m afraid that…”, “I’d like us to…”.

2. Removing the guilt from variation, avoiding over-pathologising

Julie Nicol points out that low desire is not automatically a disorder. Diagnostically, criteria of duration and clinically significant distress are used — for instance at least six months, and marked suffering.

But even outside any diagnosis, a gap in desire can be painful. The ESSM recommends normalising variation, providing education about how desire evolves over a lifetime, and working with the couple as a unit rather than “repairing” an individual.

3. Working on the context, not only on the bedroom

Tiredness, stress, body image, parenthood, health, undigested conflicts: desire is multifactorial. Among psychological interventions, psychoeducational and cognitive-behavioural approaches and mindfulness show encouraging results for low desire, especially within a bio-psycho-social outlook.

In systemic terms, this translates into a mapping exercise: what is it, in our organisation and our interactions, that makes desire difficult? Mental load, schedules, resentments, loneliness within the couple, implicit pressure…

Transgenerational: the inherited scripts of pleasure

The interview also highlights family inheritances: taboo, shame, moralising about pleasure… or, conversely, blurred boundaries. These stories become scripts: “pleasure is dangerous”, “sex has to be earned”, “asking means being dirty”, “refusing means being selfish”.

Identifying them allows the couple to recover a freedom: to choose their sexual values instead of replaying them.

Conclusion

A couple’s sexuality is a living system: it reflects the bond, and it can also repair it. The systemic path invites us to step out of the duel between “the one who wants” and “the one who doesn’t”, to look at the cycle, reduce the pressure, bring touch back, and create realistic conditions in which desire can become possible again — sometimes thanks to a well-placed paradox.

References

American Psychiatric Association. (2022). Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders (5th ed., text rev.; DSM-5-TR). American Psychiatric Publishing.

Basson, R. (2000). The female sexual response: A different model. Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, 26(1), 51-65. https://doi.org/10.1080/009262300278641

Brotto, L. A. (2017). Evidence-based treatments for low sexual desire in women. Frontiers in Neuroendocrinology, 45, 11-17. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yfrne.2017.02.001

Dewitte, M., Carvalho, J., Corona, G., Limoncin, E., Pascoal, P., Reisman, Y., & Štulhofer, A. (2020). Sexual desire discrepancy: A position statement of the European Society for Sexual Medicine. Sexual Medicine, 8(2), 121-131. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.esxm.2020.02.008

Lindau, S. T., Schumm, L. P., Laumann, E. O., Levinson, W., O’Muircheartaigh, C. A., & Waite, L. J. (2007). A study of sexuality and health among older adults in the United States. The New England Journal of Medicine, 357(8), 762-774. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa067423

Mallory, A. B. (2022). Dimensions of couples’ sexual communication, relationship satisfaction, and sexual satisfaction: A meta-analysis. Journal of Family Psychology, 36(3), 358-371. https://doi.org/10.1037/fam0000946

Masters, W. H., & Johnson, V. E. (1970). Human sexual inadequacy. Little, Brown.

Watzlawick, P., Weakland, J. H., & Fisch, R. (1974). Change: Principles of problem formation and problem resolution. W. W. Norton.

The full interview with Julie Nicol can be watched in the video below — in French.