SEXUAL HEALTH: Excessive desire is not common

Unusually high sex desire is a known medical problem with multiple causes. For one, it can be a result of excessive levels of testosterone, a hormone responsible for sex desire in both men and women. PHOTO| FILE| NATION MEDIA GROUP

What you need to know:

  • Unusually high sex desire is a known medical problem with multiple causes. For one, it can be a result of excessive levels of testosterone, a hormone responsible for sex desire in both men and women. 
  • Secondly, high levels of dopamine in the brain can be the cause of the problem. Dopamine is a chemical that modulates several functions in the body.
  • It rises in the brain in a number of situations, the common one being the use of anti-depressants. Medicines used to treat degenerative conditions of the brain such as Parkinson’s disease can also cause dopamine to rise.
  • Rising dopamine stimulates higher desire for sex.

Risper walked into the consultation room and sat speechless for minutes. I enquired repeatedly what help she needed from me, but she just smiled and averted her eyes.

“It is rather warm today, I think it will rain in the evening,” I said trying to break the impasse.

“I want medicine to cool my body down, I always feel like having sex,” Risper blurted out, in response.

The story came in disjointed bits and pieces as Risper struggled to fight her embarrassment.

Risper was 35 years old. She was married with two children. She had been married for six years. Over the six years she had had three extramarital affairs.

“My intention has never been to divorce my husband, I love him,” Risper explained, “I just go out because I need more sex than he can offer.”

Risper’s case was unique. What is commoner at the sexology clinic are people with low sex desire asking for a boost. Rarely do we find people coming to ask for medicine to reduce sex desire. The trend has been that people are unable to supply this valuable commodity to their partners in doses that they deem adequate.

UNUSUALLY HIGH SEX DESIRE A KNOWN MEDICAL PROBLEM

Unusually high sex desire is a known medical problem with multiple causes. For one, it can be a result of excessive levels of testosterone, a hormone responsible for sex desire in both men and women. 

Secondly, high levels of dopamine in the brain can be the cause of the problem. Dopamine is a chemical that modulates several functions in the body. It rises in the brain in a number of situations, the common one being the use of anti-depressants. Medicines used to treat degenerative conditions of the brain such as Parkinson’s disease can also cause dopamine to rise. Rising dopamine stimulates higher desire for sex.

Then there is the mood disorder called bipolar. In this disorder one has depression that alternates with mania. In mania the mood is overly  elevated. Someone in the manic phase of bipolar is excessively active, talkative and may have hypersexuality.

“All those diseases are very strange and scary!” Risper exclaimed, “I am not on any medication for chronic disease. I hope I don’t have a strange disease that is causing my troubles.”

I examined Risper and did laboratory tests but found nothing wrong with her. I therefore changed my line of thought.

Noting that the couple only had sex once a week, it was possible that Risper was not the one with the problem after all. Sometimes a couple may have discordance in sexual desire i.e. one partner has  higher desire than the other. The low desire partner rarely initiates sex and has to be pushed into it. The higher desire partner feels abnormal if she is repeatedly reminded that her sexual appetite is too high. The victim of such accusations may stop making sexual advances and may resort to suppressing the desire so as to appear normal. A few victims may however react differently by looking elsewhere for satisfaction, either through masturbation or through an extra-marital affair.

I noticed that Risper was frowning and for once looking me in the eye.

“My husband has never liked sex … could he be the abnormal one?”

I asked Risper to bring Don, her husband, for her next appointment. Don, was a polished administrator whose life was controlled by self-made rules. He had strict sleeping and waking up times, he was meticulous and loved order. He was inflexible and rarely joked even in the bedroom. He lived in his own space and hated interference from members of his family. The intimacy between him and his wife was guarded and only allowed to the extent that it did not interfere with his personal space.

“You see, this so called intimacy thing can interfere with life, I only have sex on weekends when I am not busy,” he explained.

I could not disagree more. The essence of intimacy is the disruption it causes on individual lives and the extent to which it helps build a sense of the two lovers being one. You cannot be in marriage and continue to live a single life.

It took many counselling sessions to make Don open up his personal space to his family. Six months later, they started growing in intimacy. His own sex desire started going up. Risper did not have to look for satisfaction outside the marriage anymore, nor did she have to worry about excessive sex desire because she was the normal one in the relationship anyway.