Not one of the older couples I talked to was surprised by the notion of sexual inertia: "A body at rest tends to stay at rest" indeed! But trouble starts, they said, when one member of the couple mistakes a simple bad habit — lack of sex — for something larger or deeper, such as a lack of desire on the part of their partner or a decline in their own attractiveness to their mate. "I've always been a bit insecure about how attracted my husband is to me," a 70-year-old retired schoolteacher told me. "So when I don't get reassured, I get hurt. Then I get angry, so I don't initiate sex, and things just continue to spiral."
But as with Isaac Newton's famous first law of motion, an "outside force" must "act upon a body at rest" if sexual inertia is to be overcome. And that requires at least one partner to undertake corrective action. In the retired schoolteacher's case, for example, she says, "Sooner or later I tell him I'm hurt. Then he remembers we haven't had sex in a while, and so we do, and then I feel more loving."
In the best-case scenario, your opposite number in a relationship will recognize sexual inertia for what it is — namely, just another casualty of our busy lives. In their 10 years of living together, for example, partners (and fellow lodge caretakers) Joni Collins, 37, and Chad Lyons, 50, have seen their sex lives subverted by any number of stressors: "Busy schedules, kids, jobs, being tired when you get home," says Collins with a laugh. "Lack of sex does not mean lack of interest — you know you still love each other — but it becomes the last thing on your mind. We need to remember that sex is often the other partner's 'love language.' "
Yes, this pronouncement may strike 20-somethings as outlandish, but sometimes sex can simply wait.
