Is Sexual Dysfunction Contagious?

The term “contagious” describes infectious diseases that can be transmitted from person to person. The long list of contagious infections includes Covid, colds, flu, measles, chickenpox, and sex-related infections.

Sexual dysfunctions are not infectious diseases; therefore, medically speaking they cannot be called contagious. But metaphorically, they often spread from one partner to the other. A recent report is the first large-scale study to show that when women in long-term couples have sex problems, their male partners are at substantially greater than average risk of sexual dysfunction themselves. Why? It’s not entirely clear. However, several reasons help explain this finding.

The Study

Researchers at the University of Toronto Medical Center and a medical university in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, analyzed 26 studies of heterosexual couples that documented sex problems. The studies showed “a consistent correlation” between female sexual dysfunction—low desire and/or issues with arousal, lubrication, pleasure, and orgasm—and male sexual dysfunction. Male partners of spouses with sex problems had four times the typical risk of erectile dysfunction (ED), and twice the average risk of premature ejaculation.

Why?

Relationship and sex therapists often say there’s no such thing as sex problems in just one member of a couple. Sexual dysfunctions affect relationships, which means they involve both partners. What nefarious force links women’s and men’s sexual dysfunctions? Quite often, the villain is severe, chronic emotional stress—worry, anxiety, and/or reactions to trauma.

Stress triggers the release of the hormone cortisol. When cortisol floods the bloodstream, it narrows the arteries in the central body, while directing extra blood to the limbs for self-defense or escape—the fight-or-flight reflex. In emergencies, the fight-or-flight response can be a lifesaver. But when stress becomes chronic in non-emergency situations, cortisol becomes a sex killer. The fight-or-flight reflex reduces the amount of blood that flows into the genitals. As a result, it impairs erection, vaginal lubrication, and clitoral sensitivity, which in turn, reduces sexual pleasure and interferes with the ability to work up to orgasm.

Stress-related sex problems often create a vicious cycle: Stress causes dysfunctions, which exacerbate stress, producing worse sex problems.

Causes of sex-impairing stress include:

• Fundamentalist upbringing. It’s quite possible for loving, long-term couples to be quite dissimilar—different races, religions, ethnicities, politics, educational levels, and/or substantially different ages. But by and large, when selecting intimate partners, most people gravitate toward those who share their backgrounds. Those raised in fundamentalist religious families often choose fundamentalist mates. The religion itself doesn’t matter—Christian, Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, whatever. What counts is the strictness of the religious beliefs; notably, the edict that lovemaking must be limited to married couples, preferably for procreation, and that solo sex and premarital and casual sex are not only wrong, but abominations in the eyes of God. Meanwhile, fundamentalist teens and young adults feel the same sexual urges as everyone else. When they do what comes naturally, they often feel tremendous emotional stress: God hates me! I’m going to Hell! When fundamentalist women hook up with fundamentalist men, they both share deeply sex-negative backgrounds—and, consequently, severe, chronic, sex-killing stress. I have a sex therapist friend who practices in Israel. Many of her clients are fundamentalist Jews. She says, “As long as there are ultra-orthodox, I’ll always have plenty of clients.”

• Lack of sex education. Few fundamentalists provide their children with science-based sex education. They’re not the only ones: Across the religious, cultural, and political spectrum, many parents feel uncomfortable discussing sex with their children. Or in states with school-based sex education, parents count on their children’s teachers to accomplish the task for them. Parents who don’t—or can’t—discuss sexuality do their children a terrible disservice. Lovemaking is an important part of life, a skill that must be learned. Parents who remain silent about sex can’t equip their kids with the knowledge they need to negotiate and enjoy it. Meanwhile, schools with sex ed curricula don’t teach sex education so much as dangers-of-sex education: saying no, contraception, and prevention of sexual infections. Those subjects are important. But even the most sex-positive sex-education curricula hardly mention that beyond mutual consent, the foundation of great sex is leisurely, playful, mutual whole-body massage that eventually—after 20 minutes or so—focuses on genital play. It’s as if driver’s education didn’t teach driving, but just fastening seat belts. With seatbelts-only drivers ed, the predictable result would be an epidemic of crashes. And with little or no real lovemaking education, the predictable result is sex problems in not just one partner, but both.

• Mistaken beliefs about love and sex. Many people believe that falling in love confers magical sexual clairvoyance. Once two people say the three little words, they somehow automatically understand their partner’s erotic likes and dislikes. Actually, that belief is ridiculous. Everyone is sexually unique. Our sexual inclinations are as individual as our DNA. No can know your erotic inclinations unless to declare them. And you can’t know what your partner likes or loathes unless your lover tells you. Unfortunately, few couples discuss their sexual proclivities. Quite often, it’s the blind leading the blind. Guess what that causes? Stress that increases the risk of sex problems in both partners.

• Loss of sexual self-esteem. Most people of all genders judge their own erotic prowess in part on their ability to please their partners and help them work up to orgasm. When sex becomes problematic for all the reasons just discussed, both lovers’ self-esteem suffers: I guess I’m just no good at sex. Without any real tools to change things, both partners suffer a loss of self-esteem. They feel helpless and hopeless, which adds to their stress, and cements their sexual dysfunctions—if lovemaking continues at all.

The new study underscores the adage that sexual dysfunctions affect not individuals, but couples, both partners. When women in couples develop sex problems, their male partners are at high risk of sexual dysfunctions themselves.

PS: If you would like better sex education than your parents, friends, or teachers provided, sex education that discusses the components of satisfying lovemaking, and how to negotiate relationships so both of you can give and receive the erotic pleasure you desire, I recommend these resources: for young people, S.E.X.: The All-You-Need-To-Know Sexuality Guide to Get You Through Your Teens and Twenties by Heather Corinna, and for people of all ages: Becoming Clitorate by Laurie Mintz, Ph.D., She Comes First, by Ian Kerner, Ph.D., and my own recent book, which contains a 10-chapter section called “The Ingredients of Sizzling Sex,” and a chapter on sexual negotiation and mutual coaching.