“Mercy Sex”: Shocking Study Reveals Why Women Have Sex With Men Even When They Don’t Want To

Women who feel little or no sexual desire may still have sex two or three times a month — in some cases, to preserve their relationships and prevent their partners from leaving, researchers have found. Sometimes intimacy has little to do with passion.

Women who do not experience sexual attraction may nevertheless regularly agree to have sex for the sake of their relationships and for a range of reasons unrelated to their own pleasure. That is the conclusion of a new study published in the Journal of Sex and Marital Therapy.

Researchers analyzed data from long-running clinical trials of medications designed to treat hypoactive sexual desire disorder, a condition characterized by a persistent lack of sexual desire.

But the studies revealed an intriguing pattern.

During numerous randomized, placebo-controlled trials involving thousands of women, pharmaceutical companies assessed the effectiveness of the medications partly by measuring how frequently participants had sex.

That is where researchers noticed something important: even before treatment began, women with sexual desire disorders were having sex an average of two to three times a month.

The result was a paradoxical picture: they experienced little to no sexual desire, yet their sex lives continued.

Researchers Nikita Gupta and James A. Simon of IntimMedicine Specialists in Washington, D.C., described the phenomenon as “mercy sex.”

But why would someone agree to have sex when they really do not want to?

According to the researchers, one possible explanation is the desire to preserve a monogamous relationship. Some women may engage in sexual intimacy because they fear their partner could otherwise seek sex outside the relationship.

In other words, sex in these circumstances may serve less as a source of pleasure and more as a tool for maintaining the relationship.

The researchers also turned to evolutionary psychology. One of their hypotheses is that men and women may historically have developed different reproductive strategies: men may have been more inclined to seek multiple partners, while women may have placed greater value on stability and on having a long-term partner who could help raise children and provide resources.

From this perspective, engaging in intimacy without strong sexual desire could have increased the likelihood that a partner would remain in the relationship and continue to participate in family life.

There may be another explanation as well. Men often perceive sex as an expression of emotional intimacy. As a result, voluntary sexual contact — even when the desire was not initially there — may sometimes be used by women as a way of maintaining a sense of emotional connection with their partner.

The researchers stress, however, that such evolutionary explanations cannot automatically be applied to women in same-sex relationships or to women who do not have partners.

“Mercy Sex” May Be More Common Than You Think

It turns out that this scenario is far from unusual.

A 2024 study published in the Journal of Sex Research found that most people had agreed to have sex they did not want at least once, including while in committed relationships.

Experts warn, however, that problems can arise when a partner with low sexual desire repeatedly agrees to sex solely to avoid conflict, prevent the other person from becoming upset or keep the relationship intact.

When personal desires and discomfort are consistently suppressed, the consequences can be serious — potentially contributing to psychological distress and even depressive symptoms.

At the same time, specialists make an important distinction between simply not wanting sex and situations in which a person does not initially feel strong desire but develops it during intimacy. This type of sexual response is well documented among women and, by itself, does not necessarily indicate that a relationship is unhealthy.

Ultimately, the study calls into question one of the traditional measures used to assess the effectiveness of medications for low sexual desire.

Simply counting the number of sexual encounters can produce a deeply misleading picture. A woman may have sex several times a month, but that does not necessarily mean she actually experiences sexual desire or derives pleasure from intimacy.

That is why, the researchers argue, assessments of such medications should consider not only the frequency of sexual activity, but also its quality, the woman’s emotional well-being and, most importantly, her own experience of sexual desire.