Sexless?! Passion in the bedroom - without sex!

Have an honest talk with some of your married friends or check with just about any therapist - you'll find sex seems to be flourishing everywhere except in the place you'd expect it: the bedrooms of millions of married couples. It even has a name- "the sexless marriage."

But why is that?! Dr. David Schnarch and Dr. Ruth Morehouse have over 40 years of clinical experience and reviewing research on sex and marriage. As they explain below, less passionate marriages aren't necessarily because of the length of the marriage, the age of the people involved, or because of the presence of perceived physical problems.

Sexless couples rarely or never have sex. Some sexless couples still occasionally have sex. For instance, one couple had sex almost every day when first married, and could hardly keep their hands off each other. After several years, they settled into a pattern of sex once or twice a month. Sometimes they went three or four months without sex, and when they had sex it was passionless and mechanical. Although they usually both had orgasms, there was no eroticism, passion, kindness, or generosity to it. As far as they were concerned, their relationship was sexless and barren.

Sexless couples are likely to be older. Although frequency of sex declines as people get older, many young couples do not have sex. Because of stereotypes that young couples have sex all the time, they silently suffer thinking they are really screwed up and their relationship is doomed in future years. Most people believe adolescence is the sexual prime of life, but this refers to genital response. Many people are much better in bed when they get older. Becoming more comfortable with your sexuality, your body-and accepting yourself in general-really helps. It turns out that cellulite and sexual potential are highly correlated.

Women are more likely to be the low desire partner in their relationship. In half the couples who come to the Marriage and Family Health Center for sexual desire problems, the man is the low desire partner. Some studies find women more often report low sexual desire than men, but this may mean women are more sensitive to their own lack of desire and more willing to report it. Lesbian and gay male couples struggle with sexual desire problems too. The phrase "Lesbian bed death" underscores this common development.