Why is he so quiet during sex?

Sex advice with Suzi Godson

My boyfriend has always been quite vocal in bed. However, recently he has been much quieter and I don’t understand why. I asked him if he was enjoying sex less and he said that he wasn’t. I’m worried that maybe he is fantasising about someone else and focusing on that instead of what I’m doing.

Your boyfriend’s sudden quietness may be because he is fantasising about someone else. However, there is no reason to jump to that conclusion — he may simply feel a bit more relaxed and therefore less obliged to vocalise his appreciation. I don’t know for sure, and neither do you.

Either way, you don’t need to be upset, because research confirms that fantasy tends to help rather than hinder sex in a relationship. An analysis of research on fantasy by the psychologists Harold Leitenberg and Chris Henning in the 1990s found that people who fantasise have sex more often, have more partners and more orgasms.

Nor should you worry about silence. When two people are completely connected, silence only heightens intimacy, and the fact that the two of you aren’t saying anything during sex doesn’t mean that you are not communicating. Sex lets your other senses do the talking. It is a flurry of acoustic, olfactory and sensory connections, and it is anything but quiet.

You obviously care about your boyfriend, but your letter suggests that you have some uncertainty about his level of commitment to you. Although you provide no evidence to justify that concern, it has coloured how you broached the subject with him. Instead of simply asking him why he has been quiet of late, you turned a question into an interrogation. You were never going to get an honest answer when you asked whether he was enjoying sex less, because the corollary of that is “with me?”.

You could have asked him if he fantasises during sex, but he may have felt uncomfortable admitting that, even if it were true. And you shouldn’t be surprised if he did or does say yes — in Leitenberg and Henning’s study 49% of men and 53% of women said that they “often to always” had sexual fantasies during intercourse.

Fantasy is not reality, nor is it cheating, and the desire to possess a partner completely is not a healthy one. Infidelity, or even contemplating it, can cause an emotional rift between two people, but so can jealousy, neurosis, conflict or criticism.

Lots of couples go through periods where sex is less rock’n’roll, but it is generally pretty easy to find the reason why. One or both partners might be working really hard, or feeling sad, and those stressors manifest in the bedroom.

However, more often than not the issues that affect sex are to do with the relationship itself. At the more extreme end, feelings of anger or suspicion can annihilate a sexual connection, but more subtle emotions can affect sex too. When one person doesn’t feel heard or respected in a relationship they might continue to engage in sex physically, but they hold a piece of themselves back.

It can be difficult to put your finger on what has changed, but you can feel the shift.

They are with you, but they are not present. In this context, silence speaks volumes, and the only way to get beyond the impasse is to be honest with each other. That won’t happen if you ask him leading questions, or back him into a corner.

If this relationship is going to last he needs to be able to talk and share his feelings, and you need to listen with an open mind.

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