Increasing numbers of middle-aged men are going off sex, according to relationship experts.
Counselling and sex therapy charity Relate says it has seen a 40 per cent increase in men who simply cannot be bothered to make love to their wives and partners.
The findings are a world away from just ten years ago, when hardly any men contacted them with a loss of libido. The main sufferers who call its helpline with the problem are generally aged between 30 and 50 and are married.
Peter Bell, Relate’s head of practice, said: “Men used to come to us with impotence – now known as erectile insufficiency – but Viagra has sorted some of that problem. What we have is a lot of men who say, as women did in the 1950s: ‘I can have sex but I do not want to. It’s not rewarding’.
“It is a serious issue. It counts as a pychosexual dysfunction rather than just a relationship problem, because these men haven’t simply gone off their partner but off sex altogether.”
Changing sexual roles for men and women and increasing rates of depression among men could be some of the reasons behind the change, he added.
Professor Michael King, of the Royal Free and University College Medical School in London, has completed a study into mental illness across six countries which found that the rate of major depression and panic syndrome was highest among men in the UK.
“Men are most likely to suffer depression between the ages of 30 and 50,” he said.
“One of the explanations is that men are less able to talk about their problems than women or express their emotions.”
RESOURCE/SOURCE: www.telegraph.co.uk on May 6, 2008
