How often do you think about sex? (and what does your answer say about you?)

Every day, once a week or hardly ever? A sexologist explains what your answer really says about your sex drive — and why there may be no such thing as a “normal” amount.

For something so personal, sexual desire is surprisingly easy to measure ourselves against other people. We compare ourselves with partners, friends, statistics, social media and pornography, then try to work out whether our libido is too high, too low or somewhere in the middle.

But Sofie Roos, a licensed sexologist and relationship therapist at Swedish relationship magazine Passionerad, says there is a problem with the idea that there is one correct level of desire. “There’s not really a certain amount of desire that defines a high sex drive,” she says. “It’s more about a feeling, where you yourself are the one knowing your desire the best.”

So what actually counts as a high sex drive?

Having a high sex drive doesn’t simply mean having sex a certain number of times a week. “It simply means that you have a big desire, where you often think about intimacy, and where it takes lots of sex or masturbation for you to feel satisfied,” says Roos.

Someone can want sex frequently and have a perfectly healthy relationship with their sexuality. The important question is whether that desire is voluntary, enjoyable and compatible with the rest of their life.

“Clinically, high desire is most-times talked about if a person is having a hard time to control their sexual behaviour, and if it causes stress or problems in their lives,” says Roos. That is very different from simply having a strong appetite for sex.

The language around sex can make high desire sound inherently suspicious. Someone who wants sex more often than their partner may start describing themselves as “too sexual”, but desire itself isn’t necessarily the problem.

“There’s people who’re very sexual and do perfectly fine, as well as people who’re having a low sex drive and are doing lovely,” says Roos.

Why comparison can make a healthy libido feel abnormal

This is where comparison can become particularly powerful. If your partner wants sex less often than you, you may begin to feel excessive; if they want it more often, you may wonder whether something is wrong with your desire.

This can particularly be the case for women – we tend to assume women feel less sexual than men, but when the reverse is true it can lead to issues both ways.

Statistics and what we see online can reinforce that anxiety. Roos says people routinely compare themselves with supposedly average levels of sexual activity, creating a strangely narrow idea of what a healthy sex drive is supposed to look like.

“A ‘normal’ sexual health generally is portrayed as something with a very narrow acceptable range,” she says.

She has even seen young people worry that they are hypersexual when their libido is perfectly normal for their age because of what they have encountered online.

When should you seek help?

There is no universal threshold for how often someone should want or think about sex. Roos’s advice is to look at the effect your sexuality has on your life.

“If your libido is or gets low, it’s wise to seek help if it makes you feel bad,” she says, particularly if it comes with pain, depression, strong tiredness or other bodily changes. A change in desire can sometimes be a symptom of something else that deserves attention.

With a high libido, the question is different: can you control your behaviour, and does your sex life work for you?

“If your sexuality feels uncontrolled or leads to negative consequences, I recommend seeking professional help,” says Roos.

Perhaps “normal” isn’t the question

We spend a lot of time asking whether our sex drive is normal. Roos would rather we asked: “Does my sex life work for me and my overall life situation?”

That question allows for much more variation. You can be highly sexual and perfectly well. You can have very little interest in sex and be perfectly well. Your desire can change with age, relationships, stress, hormones, medication and circumstances. None of those things automatically makes your sexuality a problem.

“What’s ‘normal’ and not is a very bad measurement when it comes to sex,” says Roos.

For couples, she suggests an even more useful question: “Are we happy with how our sex life works, and if not, can we talk about it without blaming each other?”

There may never be a number that tells you whether your libido is right. A more useful measure is whether your sexuality feels voluntary, safe, pleasurable and compatible with the life and relationship you want.