Sometimes the person we feel safe and comfortable with doesn’t match the profile of the person in our erotic fantasies. It’s not that something is wrong with you, or something is wrong with them. So why is that?
Last week, I wrote about a viewer whose AI companion is his best friend. She always has his back, 24/7. This week, I want to turn that same question toward human partners.
I’ve been listening to Gillian Anderson’s book Want, a collection of anonymous letters from women about their sexual fantasies. Many of them describe a loving, secure relationship. Their partner is their best friend. And the person in their fantasy? Someone very different. Not caring, not attuned. Someone who knows exactly what they want, and takes it.
That made me curious. Can a partner who always has our back actually turn off desire? And if so, why?
Safe and Loved, But Where’s the Spark?
A lot of us believe that if we have a secure, loving relationship, with a partner who is caring and really tuned in to us, then of course the sex will be great too.
And for some people, that’s true. Feeling safe is what helps them relax, open up, and feel their erotic energy.
But it’s not like that for everyone. Some people feel completely safe and loved, and still, the erotic spark just doesn’t show up the same way.
So we can get curious: what are our bodies looking for? And what are they used to?
Safety Is the Floor, Not the Spark
In my sex therapy training with Tammy Nelson, I learned that many couples use sex to meet attachment needs: to feel reassured, wanted, cared for, still chosen. That’s very human.
But when sex carries the job of reassurance, it can start to feel like work. And our erotic energy can get squashed.
Tammy Nelson describes safety as the floor. We need it: consent, care, knowing our boundaries will be respected. What makes desire feel alive is often a measured risk with another person, held by trust.
Being Chosen by a Separate Person
In my work as a somatic couples therapist, I use the Developmental Model for Couples by Ellyn Bader and Peter Pearson. Couples grow from symbiosis, the honeymoon of “we’re the same,” into differentiation, where we discover each other as two separate people.
A secure partner can be very open to our differences. And still, when their main role becomes taking care of us, the relationship can slowly organize around caregiving. Caregiving carries so much warmth. It often carries less erotic charge.
Being desired tends to mean the most when it comes from someone with their own will and their own wanting. Not only someone attending to our needs, but someone who wants us.
Two Kinds of Wanting in the Body
When closeness comes and goes, we live at the edge of the unknown: Will they come toward us? Are we wanted right now? A part of us can learn that longing equals aliveness.
When we pay attention to our bodies, we may notice two different kinds of wanting:
Reaching, grasping wanting has a target. It leans forward, narrow and urgent. It wants to control, to do something, to make it happen.
Spacious desire sits back. It feels open, warm, yummy, juicy. It’s curious. Nothing has to be secured.
In a securely attached relationship, our partner stays attuned. They don’t run away. They respond to our calls for connection and to our attachment needs.
So the reaching part doesn’t need to take over and do something. And that can leave a space, a gap. It may feel empty. It may even feel boring, because there’s not much activity.
But maybe that space is exactly what we need. Maybe the spaciousness is where desire can arise, be felt, and be embodied.
The Spark and the Air
A fire needs two things: a spark, and air.
A spark without air goes out. In a secure relationship, the space that feels empty, or even boring, may be the air: the room desire needs to catch, grow, and be felt in the body.
Try This With Your Partner: Care and Desire
Agree out loud that either of you can pause at any time.
Each person shares one sentence: “I feel cared for when…”
Then one more: “I feel desired when…”
The listener only reflects back: “I heard you say…” No fixing. No defending.
Notice what happens in your body as you speak, and as you listen.
Room for Difference
Each of us experiences desire differently, and I want to honor that. My intention isn’t to give you answers. It’s to share my thought process, looking through the clinical lenses I study, so you can see this from a different perspective. I’d love to hear what you notice in your own body. Share in the comments on YouTube, or reach out. We are all exploring this together.
Watch the Full Episode
This post starts my new YouTube series, Safe and Desired: Desire in Long-Term Relationships. In the full episode I play out the role play, walk through each lens, and guide you through a meditation, “Room for Wanting.” Subscribe on YouTube so you don’t miss the next one.
Keep Exploring
Can AI Have Sex for You? What AI Girlfriends and Boyfriends Can’t Give Your Body
Is AI Killing Your Ability to Disagree? The Hidden Cost of AI Companion Relationships
Would You Marry Your Chatbot? AI, Attachment & the Nervous System
Want to Explore This With Your Partner?
If you feel safe together but desire has gone quiet, you don’t have to figure it out alone. I offer couples counseling in English and Mandarin over Zoom, with a free initial consultation.
Let’s Connect
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About Yi Zhao Martins, LMFT. Yi Zhao is a licensed marriage and family therapist and somatic couples therapist in the San Francisco Bay Area. She draws on the Developmental Model for Couples, IFIO, System-Centered Therapy, and the predictive brain to help couples feel more at home in their bodies and with each other.
This post is for education and reflection and is not a substitute for therapy.
