Picture a couple who have been together for years. They rarely fight and they still love each other, but their sex life has turned into a routine: the same night of the week, the same order, the same silence afterwards. Most couples call this “low desire” and quietly fear that love is running out.
Recent research points somewhere else. What has faded is often not desire itself but novelty, and novelty can be rebuilt.
What Is Sexual Boredom, and How Is It Different from Low Desire?
Sexual boredom is a sense of monotony, predictability and lack of excitement in sex with a steady partner. It is not the same as having no desire. A person can still feel desire, in fantasy or even towards other people, while sex with their own partner has become repetitive and colourless.
A 2021 systematic review in the Journal of Sexual Medicine gathered the research on sexual boredom: 43 articles, of which 31 were quantitative, 8 qualitative and 4 mixed-methods. Sexual boredom was linked to sexual response, sexual satisfaction and hypersexuality.
Most of those studies were correlational, so we still cannot say whether sexual boredom causes dissatisfaction or results from it.
A map and a train ticket: sometimes novelty starts outside the bedroom — Image: AI-generated / Gemini 3.1 Flash via OpenRouter
What Does Research Say About Sexual Boredom in Couples?
New data suggest that sexual boredom predicts dissatisfaction more strongly than the level of desire does. In a sample of 1,155 cohabiting women, sexual boredom accounted for roughly one third of the differences in sexual satisfaction between them.
The study, published in 2024 in the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy, surveyed Portuguese women aged 18 to 66 who had lived in a monogamous relationship for at least 1 year. Sexual boredom explained 32% of the variation in sexual satisfaction and 27% of the variation in relationship satisfaction.
Those two figures are not the share of women who feel bored. They mean that, of everything that makes one woman more satisfied with her sex life than another, about one third is tied to how sexually bored she is.
A second finding is reassuring: desire for attractive people other than the partner was not, on its own, a sign of dissatisfaction; it was linked to lower satisfaction only when it came together with sexual boredom. Limitations: cross-sectional, women only, one country.
A 2023 study by the same group, with 1,223 Portuguese women and men, found that men reported both more sexual boredom and more sexual desire than women. In women, higher boredom went with lower desire for the partner; in men it did not, so the roots of male boredom sometimes lie outside the current relationship. The patterns did not differ by relationship length, which means sexual boredom is not an inevitable product of years together (limitation: lower statistical power in the male sample).
In a study published in September 2026 in Archives of Sexual Behavior, covering 569 male users of internet-connected sex toys, boredom relief was one of the 5 motives measured; the data come from one company’s customers and cannot be generalised to all men.
My position is clear: sexual boredom is not a sign that love has ended. It is a sign that the relationship has moved from discovery to maintenance, and nobody has taken responsibility for new discovery.
Why Does Shared Novelty Bring Desire Back?
Because early desire is bound up with discovery. Self-expansion theory holds that when two people do something new and mildly challenging together, they re-experience that sense of discovery, and the feeling spills over into their sexual life.
The strongest evidence comes from a 2019 paper in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Across 3 studies using dyadic, daily-experience, longitudinal and experimental methods, couples who took part in novel, self-expanding activities together reported higher sexual desire.
That higher desire went with greater relationship satisfaction, a higher likelihood of having sex and more satisfaction with it, and the effect held over time. It was not explained only by good mood or extra time together; novelty itself made a separate contribution. [Needs further verification: the cultural composition of the samples is not reported in the abstract, and generalisation to Iranian couples has not been tested.]
Freud, in his 1912 paper “On the Universal Tendency to Debasement in the Sphere of Love” (Standard Edition, vol. 11), described a split between the affectionate and the sensual currents of the mind. Seen this way, whatever becomes fully familiar, safe and domestic can fade for the sensual part of the psyche; the partner gradually turns into “family”, and desire withdraws.
A new shared experience makes the partner a little “other” again: slightly unknown, slightly distant. Desire needs that small distance to stay alive.
Where Should Immigrant Iranian Couples Start?
Start by naming the problem without blame. Saying that your sex life has become repetitive describes a shared problem; saying that your partner no longer wants you is an accusation. Then build novelty outside the bedroom first.
In my consulting room, a pattern I see again and again among Iranian couples in Toronto, Vancouver and Los Angeles is that migration has spent all of their capacity for novelty on itself: a new job, a new language, a new city, with nothing new left for the relationship. A sentence I hear often is that they have become good housemates.
Admitting that things have become repetitive is often the first step toward change — Image: AI-generated / Gemini 3.1 Flash via OpenRouter
In practice: once a week, do something neither of you knows how to do, from a dance class to a new hiking trail. Talk about fantasies outside the bed, and change the place, the time and who initiates.
If boredom comes with pain during sex, erection problems, depression or accumulated anger, novelty alone is not enough, and a specialist assessment is needed.
Does sexual boredom mean I no longer love my partner?
No. Sexual boredom concerns the monotony of sexual experience, not the depth of attachment. What is usually missing is novelty and discovery, and those can be rebuilt through deliberate planning.
Is fantasising about someone else a warning sign?
Not on its own. In the 2024 study of 1,155 women, desire for attractive people other than the partner was linked to lower satisfaction only when it came with sexual boredom. The core issue is the monotony of the relationship, not the fantasy.
Is sexual boredom inevitable in a long relationship?
The data do not support that. In the 2023 study of 1,223 people, patterns of sexual boredom and desire did not differ by relationship length. Years together do not, by themselves, produce boredom.
When should we see a sex therapist?
When conversations about sex end in arguments or silence, when months of trying new things have not helped, or when boredom comes with pain, erection problems, depression or accumulated anger.
Conclusion: Can Lost Desire Return?
The evidence says yes. In the 2024 study, sexual boredom explained about one third (32%) of the differences in women’s sexual satisfaction: a large lever, and one that sits in the couple’s own hands. Shared novelty, blame-free conversation and a little healthy distance move desire from maintenance back to discovery.
Looking for professional support with your relationship or mental health?
1. de Oliveira L, Carvalho J, Nobre P. A Systematic Review on Sexual Boredom. J Sex Med. 2021;18(3):565-581. PMID: 33637451. DOI: 10.1016/j.jsxm.2020.12.019
2. de Oliveira L, Vallejo-Medina P, Carvalho J. The Mediating Role of Sexual Boredom in Women’s Sexual Desire and Satisfaction. J Sex Marital Ther. 2025;51(1):96-109. PMID: 39704529. DOI: 10.1080/0092623X.2024.2442958
3. de Oliveira L, Štulhofer A, Tafro A, Carvalho J, Nobre P. Sexual boredom and sexual desire in long-term relationships: a latent profile analysis. J Sex Med. 2023;20(1):14-21. PMID: 36897242. DOI: 10.1093/jsxmed/qdac018
4. Muise A, Harasymchuk C, Day LC, Bacev-Giles C, Gere J, Impett EA. Broadening your horizons: Self-expanding activities promote desire and satisfaction in established romantic relationships. J Pers Soc Psychol. 2019;116(2):237-258. PMID: 30265020. DOI: 10.1037/pspi0000148
5. Lafortune D, Dussault É, Canivet C, Williams ME, Dubé S. Why Do Male Users Engage with Connected Sex Toys? A Latent Class Analysis of Motivational Profiles. Arch Sex Behav. 2026. PMID: 42760476. DOI: 10.1007/s10508-026-03535-w
6. Freud S. On the Universal Tendency to Debasement in the Sphere of Love (1912). Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, vol. 11. London: Hogarth Press. [Needs further verification: page numbers]
Image Credits: All images in this article are AI-generated illustrations (Gemini 3.1 Flash via OpenRouter) created for Behckam.com; no real persons are depicted.
