Join your partner for a candlelight dinner, feast on strawberries drenched in warm milk chocolate and discretely place a new toy in your bedside table; these schemes will solve your long, frustrating bout of sexual dissatisfaction and frustration won’t they? 

Shouldn’t the glimmering firelight and soft oozing aphrodisiac spark desire and burning inner lust?
Or maybe a visit to the doctor; maybe he will know what’s wrong  – what medication we might need – what foods we should be eating – why our sexual life has dissipated to what seems the point of no return.
How did we wake up one morning and find ourselves in this cold, desolate land? Aren’t we too young for this?
What happened to those spontaneously crazed individuals who once threw themselves against the bathroom wall, tearing clothing, lost in a fantastic mess of passionate disarray? Who or what has stolen our mojo?
Some would suggest the current number of personal struggles with such inquisitions is becoming the indication of a proliferating, sweeping sexual dysfunction within our society, while others would theorize these questions have always been prevalent. Regardless, the open discussion of sexual topics through media and scientific literature has led us to identify this troubling commonality among modern couples as a significant problem, whether it is increasingly growing or has always been a considerable challenge for our species since humanity first developed the “committed” relationship.  
There are endless books, websites, pod casts and magazine tidbits on the topic of improving your sex life, sex drive and intimate relationships, each of which attempt to tackle the issue with a winning combination of strategies, schemes, theories, therapies, medications, pleasure products ... and the list goes on. But, much like a puzzling undiagnosed illness, most cases of loss of sexual desire for women and sexual desire incompatibility in relationships may undergo numerous treatments before the Band-Aids wear thin and gaping wounds are exposed.
Former television host of Sex, Toys and Chocolate on the Life Network, and Associate Professor of Family Relations and Human Sexuality at the University of Guelph, Dr. Robin Milhausen, believes there are fundamental underlying causes contributing to incompatible levels of desire in women and men in relationships. Milhausen says scientific study is only beginning to effectively understand the causes, but most importantly those who are faced with these difficulties need to be educated and informed beyond the typical surface solutions often presented in most resources today.
“I think it’s pretty well documented that the biggest (sexually related) complaint for women is low desire ... for men I’m sure it’s infrequency of sexual behaviour,” said Milhausen. “Some of the most common letters I get from men are about their partner’s lack of desire and how they can get their partners to desire sex more often.”
This rampant attempt by men to target their partner’s lack of desire is a key, socially created misconception, says Milhausen, supported incorrectly and ineffectively through societal acceptance.
Men and women themselves generally assume a women’s lack of desire may indicate a physical ailment or hormonal imbalance, a loss of physical attraction to their partner, or even just boredom. Attempts to mend this so-called dysfunction will often target a women’s physical health through diet, medication, supplements, therapies or other products or the premature introduction of unfamiliar sexual practices.
“There was only one man who ever asked me how he can decrease his desire so that it matches his partner’s,” said Milhausen. “We always assume as a society and as individuals as women that there’s something wrong with women’s desire that must be fixed, when it’s really just as likely that men’s desire is too high.”
Couples should consider identifying the standard they are using as a healthy level of desire. If a couple is using one partner’s desire as a marker of what is thought to be normal or healthy, then the standard may be highly unrealistic.
“We may need to look at how frequently your partner wants to have sex and have them recognize that less sex is appropriate,” suggested Milhausen.
Although identifying a realistic marker for sexual desire can be helpful in some cases and to some degree in certain relationships, there are many factors which decrease a woman’s sexual desire to a personal, unsatisfactory level.
 “There are many causes for sexual problems in women, but largely they lie in socio-cultural reasons, like lower socioeconomic status or stress related to finances, relationship problems ... lack of education or knowledge about sexuality can make it difficult to feel desire,” said Milhausen “There are a lot of things that go on in women’s lives that can impact their desire.”
Milhausen has contributed to research studies with women between the ages of 18 to 81, through the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction, which found there were more than 300 things that could impact a women’s desire at any given time.
“One thing that might impact a woman’s desire positively on one day may impact her negatively on another day, or may be an enhancer with one partner or an inhibitor with another partner,” explained Milhausen. “There were literally hundreds of reasons, but we did limit them to a number of categories, like self-factors, partner-factors, and relationship-factors.”
These factors can include anything from mood and depression, to physical health and fatigue, physical attraction, relationship conflict and life elements such as financial stress, a busy career and child rearing.
There’s also the question as to why long-term relationships seem to always lose their passion – why it’s almost a given that sexual activity will eventually reach a declining rate in committed relationships.
“A high level of passionate desire is expected between six and 30 months (from the start of a new relationship), but after that time frame the passionate desire tends to switch into some kind of a more companionate love – a love that is characterized by more security, trust and intimacy,” said Milhausen.
Milhausen says this is a natural shift, which helps to maintain an appropriate focus on survival necessities, such as an individual’s job, family and other social relationships, whereas the first stages of a passionate relationship often consist of distracting behaviours and thoughts, hindering normal efficiency and functionality in your daily life.
The above findings and suggestions may seem overwhelming to couples looking for solutions, but Milhausen says there are practical, effective approaches, which target the true underlying causes for sexual incompatibility in relationships.
Here are some approaches to consider (see pg 41).