Life should be full of pleasures, both simple and robust. Yet, women often boast about not having physical intimacy with their partners. I’ve seen this across age ranges and temperaments, in different groups of women where I belong. I realize it’s a trope for wives to have a smaller libido than their male counterparts, but this baffled me nonetheless. When it came up in the first group of women, they belonged to my old gym. These women were fit and sexy! Sexy women not wanting sex?!

I came to a simple conclusion: they’re doing it wrong.

I want you to have better sex with your husband. Your husband wants you to have better sex with him. You, despite what you may say after a couple of glasses of wine, want to have better sex with your husband.

A better sex life can be around the corner. I’ll share some tips that you may not expect.

Work on your resentments

First off, if you’re too mad at your partner to bother trying to have fun, you need to work on forgiveness. You’ll read in that linked post that forgiveness doesn’t require the other person to change. It calls for the person holding the resentment to let go.

If you think your dude needs to be a better partner or dad or trash taker-outer before you can get down, consider that better sex can be the glue as you rebuild other aspects of your marriage.

Foreplay starts outside of the bedroom

I read recently about the “bristle reaction”-when your body immediately tenses at the touch of your partner because the only time that occurs is to initiate sex. It broke my heart.

Be nicer to your partner. Compliment them whenever you can. After the initial shock, their natural reaction will be to begin to do the same. Rev that oxytocin engine: exchanging compliments increase the hormone that encourage bonding and trust.

Find a time that works

Night time isn’t always the right time. Many couples aren’t intimate because they’re tired at the end of the day. Consider your schedule and what works best for you and your partner.

Don’t reinvent the wheel

I once came across a show, How to Build a Sex Room. I indulged: designing optimal environments and sex are two things that I am passionate about. Formatted the same as the HGTV design shows I once devoured, it kept my attention for a few episodes before I awoke from my media haze—

“They are turning something completely cost-free and natural into a material consumption frenzy.”

The host pressed couples to pursue domineering/submissive activities, upping the kink factor in their relationship without considering the slippery slope of enthusiastic consent verses verbal consent. This was more for the entertainment value of the TV viewers than consideration for the long term pleasure and enjoyment between the couple.

And here’s the thing: you don’t need that for a quality sex life. Different doesn’t mean better. Discuss your fantasies with your partner, see if that’s something they’re enthusiastic about, too. You can have a healthy, loving, boisterous sex life without ever doing the thing you saw in a video once.

The Purpose of Sexual Fantasies

We live in a time where we’re constantly being distracted—and rewarded for it with little hits of dopamine. It’s only natural that our minds will wander even when we’re enjoying ourselves.

Sexual fantasies keep our attention focused on the matter at hand, because it’s much more exciting.

When people talk about “needing to spice things up”—I just…I can’t relate. They’re out here getting bored while stimulating the part of their body that’s chock-full of feel-good nerve endings?

The problem isn’t that sex gets stale, or you need to add whips or weirdness. You need to train your brain to pay attention. Save your time and money from the sex shop and do some meditation so you can learn to reign your mind in when it wanders.

Stop performing, start playing

Prude parents and shame stories about sex encouraged by organized religion make it so that young people generally learn about sex from other young people (who don’t know what they’re talking about) and, unfortunately, porn. Porn has really fucked up (pun intended) what people think sex is supposed to look like. When first experimenting with intimacy, many take cues from what they’ve seen on a screen. But that’s what sex work looks like, not sex. Sex is supposed to be a respite from work.

Sex workers on screen are rarely laughing. It’s serious business putting on an invasive performance like that. But laughter also increases that bonding hormone, oxytocin, that allows intimacy to happen. Drop the act and be authentic.

Create reassociations as needed

There are pretty bland things that some women don’t want to do in or near the bedroom. I challenge you to consider what repulses you about simple acts like this: is it an expectation that you must continue until your neck hurts, or is it the way someone treated you a long time ago?

Consider what it is that deters you from receiving or giving pleasure in a specific way, and work through that consciously with your partner.

Relative to reassociations:

You don’t need to shave your legs

If you think you need to prepare your body for a primal urge to be satiated by your partner—girl. The advertisers won. Your partner will find you attractive. Your partner wants to have sex.

Shaving your legs isn’t the answer.

Accepting that you are abso-lutely fuckable with body hair is. Be intentional about changing your views about beauty and sex appeal, and start accepting your flaws: extra pounds, a little fur, stretches where there once were none. The woman feeling good about herself during coitus is crucial to equal enjoyment for both partners. A woman’s orgasm isn’t always easy, but it’s damn near impossible if she feels unattractive. Speaking of a woman’s orgasm…

Ladies first

This is something my partner taught me when we began dating. Women go before men: through doors, when the Titanic is sinking, and in bed. Because orgasm is more challenging to reach for a woman her pleasure should come first. Maybe second and third, too. 😏

Know what you like, or learn it together

I’m aware that some women have never reached orgasm. I don’t want to look up the exact statistic because it’s devastating. If you don’t know how to achieve pleasure, try. Or tell your partner that you want to figure this struggle out together.

Extend an invitation

“I think we should have more sex, but I want to figure out a better way regarding [time, my orgasm, my aversions, my inability to relax, my resentment over childcare/home responsibilities]”

Could someone who loves you resist that vulnerability?

I believe many women don’t want to have sex with their partners because they don’t think they’ll get enough out of it, their relationship is wrought with resentment, or a combination of both.

For my partner and I, the sex thing hasn’t been a problem—even when everything else was. But we found that if we applied our bedroom communication style and willingness to please to the other rooms of the house, we could overcome years that were wrought with storm.

I think a relationship can be rebuilt from the same primal urges that made the couple crazy for each other in the beginning, but upbringing has made them unable to have the conversations they need to have to meet this need.

Start that conversation. You both deserve it.