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Deanna sat in my office and said something I’ll never forget: “I’ve been married for fourteen years, and I just realized I’ve never actually wanted sex. I’ve wanted to want it. I’ve hoped I would want it. But I’ve never just… wanted it on my own.”

She wasn’t saying her husband was a bad lover or that sex wasn’t enjoyable once they got started. She was saying that for her entire marriage, sexuality had been something that happened to her rather than something she actively participated in. She waited for her husband Jason to turn her on, to initiate, to create the mood. And when that didn’t work—when she still didn’t feel desire—she felt broken.

But Deanna wasn’t broken. She was passive.

Passive sexuality is when we wait for our spouse to create desire in us. We wait for them to say the right thing, touch us the right way, pick the perfect moment. We treat desire like something that happens to us rather than something we cultivate ourselves.

Active sexuality is completely different. It means owning your desire. It means thinking about your last sexual encounter and savoring the memory. It means anticipating the next one. It means noticing when you feel attracted to your spouse and letting yourself experience that attraction rather than immediately thinking “but we’re too busy” or “but I’m too tired.”

Active sexuality means being a sexual agent—someone who makes active choices about your sexuality rather than passively receiving what comes your way.

What Passive Sexuality Actually Looks Like

Most women don’t realize they’re being passive. They think they’re just “not in the mood” or they have “low desire” or they’re “just not as sexual” as their spouse. But when you look closely, there’s usually a pattern.

Rachel had been married to Kyle for nine years. She loved him, found him attractive, and actually enjoyed sex when they had it. But she never thought about sex between encounters. If Kyle initiated, she’d decide in that moment whether she was “in the mood” or not. If she said yes, she’d try to flip a switch from “thinking about the grocery list” to “sexual person.” Most of the time, that switch didn’t flip easily.

When I asked Rachel if she ever thought about Kyle sexually during the day, she looked at me like I was crazy. “Why would I do that? I’m busy. I’m working, taking care of the kids, managing the house. I don’t have time to sit around fantasizing.”

But Rachel did have time to think about a million other things. She thought about her friends, her work projects, the vacation they were planning, the fight they’d had last week, what she needed at Target. She had mental space for all of that. She just didn’t have mental space for sexuality.

That’s passive sexuality. Waiting for the moment when sex might happen to suddenly become sexual, rather than maintaining any sexual awareness of yourself or your spouse between encounters.

The Waiting Game

When Deanna first started working with me, she described her typical pattern. Jason would initiate. She would do a quick mental inventory: Am I tired? Is the house clean enough? Do I have anything else I need to do? Have we connected emotionally today? How do I feel about how he spoke to me earlier?

If all those conditions were met—if she was rested enough, the house was clean enough, she felt good about their relationship—then she might be open to sex. But she was still waiting. Waiting for Jason to create desire in her through his touches, his words, the ambiance he created.

Sometimes it worked. If Jason did everything right and she was in the perfect conditions, desire would show up. But most of the time, something was slightly off. She was too tired or too busy or too resentful about something or the conditions weren’t quite right. So she’d say no, and then feel guilty about saying no, which made her even less likely to think about sex until Jason initiated again.

Jason felt this keenly. He described it as “the stars have to align.” He was constantly trying to manage all these variables—helping more around the house, being extra attentive, saying the right things, not saying the wrong things. He felt like he was walking on eggshells, trying to “earn” sex by creating perfect conditions. And even when he did everything right, there was still no guarantee because something else might be off that he had no control over.

This dynamic was exhausting for both of them. Deanna felt pressure and guilt. Jason felt like a beggar, constantly trying to do enough to maybe get a yes. Neither of them felt good about their sexual relationship, even though they loved each other.

Can you see the trap? Deanna had made herself completely dependent on external factors—her circumstances, her mood, Jason’s approach—to generate desire. She had no practice generating it herself.

Why We Become Passive

For many of us, especially those raised in conservative religious environments, we were taught that sexual desire was something men had and women responded to. Men were the pursuers, women were the pursued. Men wanted sex, women gave it. Even if no one said those exact words, the message was clear: your sexuality is reactive, not proactive.

As members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, agency is one of our most fundamental doctrines. We believe we are agents unto ourselves—that we’re meant to act and not just be acted upon. This principle is central to our understanding of who we are as children of God. And yet, when it comes to sexuality, many of us completely abandon this principle. We wait to be acted upon. We wait for our spouse to turn us on, to create the right conditions, to somehow make us want sex. We’ve made ourselves passive recipients instead of active agents.

The irony is profound. In every other area of our lives, we understand that we need to actively cultivate what we value. We don’t wait to feel spiritual before we pray—we pray to cultivate spirituality. We don’t wait to feel charitable before we serve—we serve to develop charity. We don’t wait to feel grateful before we express gratitude—we practice gratitude to feel more grateful. We exercise agency in developing these attributes.

We plan for other areas of our relationship too. When it comes to date night, we think about what we want, we make arrangements, we talk to our spouse about what they want. We don’t just hope that it will all take care of itself come Friday night. We actively participate in creating connection. But when it comes to sexuality, we’ve somehow decided that desire should just happen to us naturally without any active cultivation or planning on our part.

Add to that the messages that “good women” don’t think about sex, that focusing on sexuality is somehow shallow or ungodly, that your worth comes from being pure rather than passionate. Layer on top the exhaustion of managing a household, raising children, working, and trying to maintain your own identity in the midst of it all.

The result is that many women completely disconnect from their sexuality between sexual encounters. They shut it down. They don’t think about it, don’t cultivate it, don’t nurture it. And then they wonder why desire doesn’t show up when their spouse initiates.

The Shift to Active Sexuality

When Deanna realized she’d been passive for fourteen years, she felt both heartbroken and hopeful. Heartbroken because she grieved all the years she’d spent waiting and hoping to feel desire. Hopeful because she finally understood the problem, which meant she could actually do something about it.

Active sexuality doesn’t mean you’re thinking about sex constantly or that you turn into some hypersexual version of yourself. It means you maintain awareness of yourself as a sexual being and your spouse as a sexual person even when you’re not actively having sex.

After our session, Deanna started small. Once during the week, she let herself remember their last sexual encounter. Not the whole thing, not in great detail, just… she remembered. How it felt to be close to Jason. How his hands felt on her skin. How connected they were. And instead of immediately shutting down that memory with “but I still have laundry to do,” she let herself enjoy it for a few seconds.

That was it. That was her first step into active sexuality—choosing to savor a memory instead of immediately filing it away.

The next week, she noticed Jason working in the yard. She actually saw him—not just registered that he was doing yard work that needed to be done, but saw him. Saw the muscles in his arms, the concentration on his face, the competence with which he handled the equipment. She let herself feel attracted to him for about fifteen seconds before going back to making dinner.

These seem like such small things. But they were revolutionary for Deanna because she was actively choosing to engage with her sexuality rather than keeping it completely shut down until Jason initiated.

What Active Sexuality Looks Like in Practice

Active sexuality might mean thinking about your spouse in a slightly sexual way once or twice during the week. Not obsessively, not constantly, just… noticing them. Appreciating their body, their laugh, something about them that you find attractive.

It might mean letting yourself remember your last sexual encounter and actually enjoying the memory instead of immediately moving on to the next task.

It might mean anticipating the next time you’ll be intimate. Not in a pressured way, but in a “I’m looking forward to being close to you again” kind of way.

It might mean noticing your own attractions and desires rather than immediately shutting them down with all the reasons why you can’t or shouldn’t feel that way.

It might mean occasionally initiating small moments of physical connection that have a slightly sexual undercurrent. Coming up behind your husband while he’s doing dishes and pressing your body against his for just a moment longer than usual. Kissing him in a way that suggests you’d like more later. Running your hand down his chest in a way that’s clearly not platonic.

For Rachel and Kyle, the shift started happening when Rachel began treating sexuality like any other part of their relationship that she valued. She thought about Kyle romantically—appreciating him, feeling grateful for him, enjoying their connection. Why wouldn’t she also think about him sexually sometimes?

She started letting herself notice when she felt attracted to him. When he laughed at something and she found it charming, she didn’t immediately move on to the next thought. She paused for a second and let herself feel that attraction. When he came out of the shower and she noticed his body, instead of immediately redirecting her attention, she let herself look for a few seconds and appreciate what she saw.

These small moments of active engagement with her own sexuality started adding up. She wasn’t waiting for Kyle to turn her on anymore. She was maintaining her own sexual awareness of both herself and him throughout the week. So when he did initiate, she wasn’t starting from completely cold. There was already some warmth there that she’d been cultivating.

The Difference It Makes

After about three months of practicing more active sexuality, Deanna told me something that made me tear up. She said, “I feel like I got myself back. I didn’t even realize how much I’d shut down this part of myself. And the crazy thing is, Jason hasn’t changed anything. He’s the same husband he’s always been. But I’m experiencing him—and our sexuality—completely differently.”

She wasn’t having sex more often, though that did increase some. The bigger shift was that she felt more alive, more connected to herself, more connected to Jason. She felt like she had agency in her sexuality rather than being at the mercy of circumstances and moods and whether Jason could somehow magically create desire in her.

Jason noticed the difference too. Not just in frequency, but in the quality of their encounters. When Deanna came to sex having already engaged her sexuality during the week—having thought about him, remembered their last encounter, noticed her own desire—she was showing up differently. More present, more engaged, more enthusiastic. Because she wasn’t trying to manufacture desire from scratch in the moment. She’d already been nurturing it throughout the week.

It’s Not About Perfection

Active sexuality isn’t about being “on” all the time or forcing yourself to think sexual thoughts when you’re genuinely exhausted or overwhelmed. Some seasons of life are harder than others. Some weeks you won’t think about sex once, and that’s okay.

But most of us have more capacity for active sexuality than we’re currently using. We’ve just gotten into the habit of keeping that part of ourselves completely shut down unless we’re actively having sex. And that habit makes desire harder to access because we’re always trying to start from zero.

What would it look like to keep a small pilot light burning instead of letting the fire go completely cold? Not a roaring flame that demands constant attention, but just a small steady warmth that reminds you that you are a sexual person married to a sexual person and that’s a good thing worth nurturing.

The Invitation

If you’ve recognized yourself in this episode—if you’ve been waiting for your spouse to turn you on, waiting to be in the mood, waiting for desire to happen to you—I want you to know you’re not broken. You’ve just been passive. And passive isn’t bad or wrong, it’s just… limiting.

You don’t have to stay passive. You can choose to engage your sexuality more actively. Start small. Let yourself remember your last sexual encounter with enjoyment instead of immediately moving on. Notice when you find your spouse attractive and let yourself feel that attraction for a few seconds. Think about them in a slightly sexual way once during the week.

These small acts of active engagement with your sexuality can shift everything. Not overnight, but gradually. You’ll start to feel more connected to yourself and to your spouse. You’ll start to experience your sexuality as something you participate in rather than something that happens to you.

You get to be a sexual agent in your marriage. You get to make active choices about your sexuality. You don’t have to wait for perfect conditions or for your spouse to create desire in you. You can cultivate it yourself.

That’s the power of active sexuality. That’s the difference between waiting for desire and owning it.

Alright my friends, that’s all I have for you today. Remember, love is a journey, not a destination. Stay committed, stay passionate, and stay connected. I’ll see you next week…ba-bye.