Holding onto womanhood: a qualitative study of heterosexual women with sexual desire loss

This article explores heterosexual women’s accounts of sexual desire loss, particularly the ways in which it can affect their sense of themselves as women. In-depth interviews were conducted with 17 participants recruited through a psychosexual clinic in England, and the data analysed using a material-discursive approach. The findings showed that having sexual desire loss often challenged participants’ perceptions of themselves as women. Specific challenges related to dealing with isolation and ‘otherness’, addressing their own feelings of not being ‘proper wives’ because they did not sexually satisfy their partners and maintaining a sense of sexual attractiveness in the absence of sexual desire. Participants responded to these challenges in various ways, often renegotiating their identities as women. The findings are discussed in relation to theorizing women’s sexuality and their implications for health care.