Sunday, 16 August 2009 14:14 Last Updated on Sunday, 16 August 2009 14:37 Written by Kristie McNeally M.D.

There's a perception that you don't have to work at sex, which is odd when you think that everyone accepts that you have to work on many other aspects of your life, such as career, body and diet.

People often think that if you have to work at your love life - there's something wrong. In casual or short term relationships it's possible to have great sex without love. But long term it's almost impossible to have great sex without a good relationship supporting it.

1) Try to avoid the routines of eating, sleeping or shopping together because sex starts long before you reach the bedroom. Sexual play can lose it’s first excitement in a long relationship, so it’s worth making an effort to talk together about new topics of conversation, visit new places or make new friends.

2) Be upfront about your different sexual needs and rhythms. Problems often arise when one partner is more interested in sex or sensual pleasure than the other. Knowing such differences can be based on the other brain circuitry can help. With this understanding one partner is less likely to feel personally rejected when the other acts uninterested. Rather than judging each other as ‘cold’ or ‘too horny’ partners can see their differences in a more positive light.

3) Value sleep. What could be more symbolic of the trust and intimacy in a relationship than the act of taking your clothes off, lying down and falling asleep in the same bed with another person? Try to let go of all the tension of the day, and regard bedtime as a temporary ceasefire from any arguments.

4) Plan to have sex. Some people believe love making should be totally spontaneous, but family life can get so busy that it may never happen. Is there a specific, regular time during the day that you can plan to be together – maybe the weekend when the kids are off at music lessons, or during a lunch hour.

5) Share fantasies. Many couple have and interval in their love making that’s considered ‘uncensored’ when it’s okay reveal secret desires and fantasies. You’re not required to tell all, but sharing can be fulfilling. And fantasies are by definition the free play of the creative imagination.

6) Have a private code for initiating or refusing sex. The older generation used the sweet euphemism of ‘leaving the heating on overnight’. Talk about desire on a scale of one to nine, where nine is ‘extremely lusty’ or one is ‘not in the mood at all’. That way you can communicate how you are feeling without your partner feeling rejected.

7) Be generous. In a long term relationship our bodies inevitably age. A good lover has the ability to see a partner’s faults but focus on the good bits of the body.

8) Write a love letter. Spell out each word with your tongue as a pen on your partners body, perhaps even on their most intimate areas. This ensures that you vary your movements and won’t overstimulate any one part of the body.

9) Experiment with role play. This allows you to act out a safe but erotic scenario. It is often best to do this away from the home (perhaps on a romantic weekend) because it’s much easier to pretend that you are someone else when you are in unfamiliar surroundings.

10) Affair proof your relationship. The couple that plays together tends not to play apart. Variety is often what we want but we may want it with the same person. We may be up for naughty things, but most of us if we had a choice would rather do it with a long term partner than a new person. We think it’s all about the lure of new flesh, but most of the time it’s not. People have affairs not just for newness but because they crave variety.

11) Practice makes perfect - knowing which buttons to press to make your partner happy. But the most important thing is being flexible and open to change. You can desensitize yourself – you’ve done the same thing for so long that your body needs a kick to push it off the edge. Avoid knee-jerk reactions or judging partners when they want to try ‘kinky things’.

12) Reject sex, not the person. Say “I don’t feel like sex but I do feel like holding you because I love you so much”. It’s infinitely preferable to pushing the person away and rolling over.

13) Have sex even if you don’t really feel like it. Lots of people enjoy it once they get started, and there is evidence that making love regularly boosts the body’s production of testosterone – which will make you want to have sex more often in the future.

14) Make sure you have a good time before and after sex – not just during. Cuddling and affection are very important.

 

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