"Women’s “I don’t want to do this” response to sex is much more assertive than their “I don’t want to do this” response to needing to load the dishwasher or put away laundry. Women’s sexual decision-making has been programmed by natural selection to have an element of consequentiality that is missing from other types of things that we might not want to do.

Loading the dishwasher when we don’t feel like it will, at worst, get our hands a little dirty. A non-life-changing prognosis rectified by a little hand soap and water. Having sex when you don’t want to, however, could mean having to invest a minimum of nine months in a child you aren’t ready for and the potential of death from childbirth. This is a much bigger deal than dirty hands. Because of this, evolution by selection has programmed our sexual psychology to have a very firm brake pedal that makes it difficult for women to talk themselves into having sex they don’t want to have, even when they wish they wanted to have it. For women’s brains, I don’t feel like doing the dishes feels like I don’t feel like doing the dishes, but I don’t feel like having sex can feel like I. DO. NOT. WANT. TO. WILL. NOT. HAVE. SEX.

Modern women—even when we’re on the pill and pregnancy isn’t possible—still have this brake pedal as part of our sexual psychology. It’s all part of that inherited wisdom from our ancestors. Having a powerful “no” response to sex helped our ancestors prevent pregnancies they weren’t ready for and helped protect them from sexual aggression (which is, unfortunately, something that women have had to deal with since the dawn of time). However, it can make things really difficult for women in relationships when they are experiencing low desire. Women get frustrated with themselves because they don’t understand why their brains and bodies rebel at the thought of having sex that they don’t want (but wish that they wanted). And men get their feelings hurt because they don’t understand why their partners would be more willing to do the dishes or put away laundry than to have sex with them.

This is also undoubtedly why some women feel that their doctors don’t take their sexual-desire concerns on the pill very seriously. Historically, most doctors have been men. And a lot of men out there—even those who are non-Neanderthals and actually listen to women—don’t fully understand what it means for a woman not to want sex. This is because men have a totally different sexual brake pedal than we do. Evolutionarily, men have had almost nothing to lose and everything to gain from having sex”

- by Sarah Hill, PhD

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Women, do you understand feeling this way?

I do. Unwanted sex—even from a guy you're in a relationship with—feels profoundly unpleasant and violating. That makes sense, given that it triggers the "this is life-threatening" screams from your lizard brain.

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Men, have you seen evidence of this in your relationships?