There is a thread in PPD that posits a question to women: "Why do so many women say their low sex drive in marriage was due to lack of emotional attunement & burden of household chores, yet immediately start enjoying CASUAL SEX after divorce with men they share no emotional connection or household chores with?"

One comment explains:

Libido isn’t a volume control going from 0-10. It’s a brake and a gas pedal. Plenty of married women are fully capable of their husbands revving their engine. But feeling emotionally ignored or being burdened with mental load is an anchor on the brake. They leave their men, the brake is now off, and the perfectly functional gas pedal can now operate normally and the women go hook up. I always hate the term “chore play.” Women DO NOT get turned on when a man does chores. But relieving her mental load takes pressure off the brake, which allows the gas pedal to rev the car up much faster. The absence of an emotional connection with a stranger is not pressure on the brake. The absence of an emotional connection from someone who is supposed to be emotionally connected to you is a huge press on the brake. This is seriously not that complicated.

To give an analogy: Imagine trying to enjoy a gourmet meal while the room is on fire. The food (the husband's advances, the "gas pedal") might be objectively good, but the environment (the fire of resentment, mental load, emotional neglect) makes it impossible to be receptive. You can't enjoy the meal until the fire is out, right?

In this view, her low libido is an involuntary consequence of a broken partnership environment. She is not choosing to withhold sex; the negative environment is preventing her from feeling desire. The brake is a genuine, involuntary psychological state. The casual sex post-divorce works because there is no "fire"—no pre-existing expectation of a partnership being violated.

I absolutely believe this to be true, or at least that women feel like this is true/real.

However, the problem with this explanation, is the reality that is laid bare when you remove the emotional narrative.

The "brake" is no longer an involuntary state of being. It becomes an unconscious strategic tool. The fire in the room is no longer a genuine problem; it's a negotiating tactic to get the man to provide more firefighting services (chores, emotional labor).

The feeling of partnership is no longer a precondition for her desire. Instead, the withholding of her desire becomes the leverage she uses to extract the "price" of partnership duties from him.

When viewed this way, the method of analysis forces the dynamic into a game-theory framework, where all actions are interpreted as tactical moves designed to maximize self-interest. It is "programmed" because in a purely evolutionary, non-emotional model, this would be an effective reproductive strategy.

She feels she is not a vending machine for sex that is broken. She is a human whose desire is conditional on the emotional health of the relationship. The lack of connection is a genuine brake on her arousal.

But a man sees a system that withholds a resource (sex) when her operational needs (chores, attunement) are not met. This functions as a negotiation, whether she is conscious of it or not.

Which leads to the logical conclusion that many of the men who are attractive enough to 'rev her gas pedal', are not going to care about managing her brake. Why would they? Why would anyone invest in something that becomes costlier and less attractive over time if they want to have the most amount of fun? Make it make sense. Even in the context of starting a family, a man will have to carefully weigh his options because it's just such a shitty deal. It's only sounds like a good deal to men who have a hard time getting women attracted to them in the first place.