Girl-On-Girl Inaction

I hate to be trite, but my wife and I are experiencing "lesbian bed death." We've been happily married for three years. I'm not sure why we're not having sex. Sure, we're both busy, but it's more a question of just not ever feeling the urge. I know sex is important for a relationship, and I'm worried. Is there a way to reboot our sex life?

--Bedfriends

It's understandably depressing if the only time there's heavy breathing in the bedroom is when you're re-enacting WrestleMania XXV -- that is, trying to get the duvet cover on. This doesn't mean you should buy into the lesbo-bashing notion of "lesbian bed death" -- the myth that lesbian relationships, in particular, are where sex goes to die. The term traces back to a finding from social psychologist Phillip Blumstein and sociologist Pepper Schwartz, published in their 1983 book, "American Couples: Money, Work, Sex." Blumstein and Schwartz, reviewing results from their survey of 12,000 American couples, announced that lesbians in relationships "have sex less frequently by far than any other type of couple." This single survey led to decades of sneering about lesbian relationships as the province of hot hand-holding. However, psychologist Suzanne Iasenza notes that a bunch of subsequent studies found that lesbians tend to be more sexually assertive and sexually satisfied than straight ladies -- as well as less orgasm-challenged. (Helps when you know your way around the ladyparts without needing a two-hour lecture and a female anatomy PowerPoint.) The reality is, so-called lesbian bed death actually happens to heterosexual women -- once they get into relationships. In other words, the real issue is not being a lesbian but being a woman in a long-term partnership -- and the assumption that male sexual response, driven by spontaneously occurring lust, should be considered the norm for women. Sex researcher Rosemary Basson, M.D., finds that when a relationship is brand-new or when women are apart from their partners for days or weeks, they're likely to experience the "spontaneous sexual hunger" that men tend to have. However, once a relationship has been going for a while, women's sexual desire becomes "responsive." It isn't gone. It's "triggerable" -- which is to say it's hibernating until somebody wakes it up with a little makey-outey. This, however, brings us to another problem. Chances are, a reason that straight couples might have more sex is that men -- driven by that spontaneous lust -- are more likely to initiate. You and your wife need to initiate -- and maybe even schedule sex dates so initiating doesn't become yet another thing that falls off your to-do list. Eventually, when you light a bunch of candles to set the mood, your wife's response should be something a little more erotic than "You gotta be kidding me. Another squirrel fried on the power line?"