Dear Lady Friday, my partner and I have been together for a while and we’re getting into a bit of a bedroom rut. I want to introduce some novelty and some sizzle! Any suggestions?
Every women’s magazine out there does it: promises mind-blowing new bedroom tips you’ve never tried before, to liven up an intimacy that might be dragging a bit after a few years.
However, research increasingly suggests that novelty – new positions, new lingerie, new libido-enhancing yak extract from Nepal – isn’t really the key to keeping things hot.
After all, it just seems a bit exhausting, doesn’t it? Every time something flags, you both go madly searching for a cure, spend money and time, and are happy for a while – until it happens again.
Ironically, studies show that people in the happiest long-term relationships are the ones who’ve honed their repertoires, through continuing experimentation, to include a series of tried-and-true moves which always produce orgasms, no matter what.
It’s routine, but it’s mind-blowingly satisfying, and that’s what really counts.
The other key? Making time for intimacy and continuing to see one another as sexual beings. Mortgages, kids, travel, stress – it all combines to distract us from the bedroom, and the really sizzling long-term couples are the ones who make it a priority to keep developing and investing in their bedroom lives. It’s a value they share, and they celebrate it.
In that sense, novelty might help a bit, in that it might startle you both into remembering the original lust and spark you shared, and retrain you into thinking of one another in intimate ways.
However, if the new ideas are too jarring – a series of complex Tantric classes when you’ve both always been laid-back sorts, for instance – it may create cognitive dissonance.
Of course, if either of you is bored with the other in an attraction sense – you simply don’t look at them and feel the same pull to see them undressed – a set of novelty handcuffs might not fix it.
RESCU’s tried and true moves for happy couples include:
– The wriggle against the pelvis. Press your pelvis against your partner’s while they’re inside you and rotate in circles, slowly or quickly. It’s simple, but presses all the pressure points for both partners.
– An awareness of power. Knowing who has a dominant streak and who likes to be dominated is a valuable asset in the bedroom. This is an area to explore – ask permission to climb on top, be tied down, be paddled. Never spring this on anybody unawares, though. Also, ideas of dominance change over relationships, so always keep investigating what you both want in bed.
– The tactile exploration. Have a list of your partner’s sensitive areas and what they like done to them, not neglecting more remote places like the biceps and the backs of the knees. Revisit these areas continually and test your ideas.
– The willingness to give and receive. Oral pleasure is a very big part of the bedroom experience – good girls definitely do it. However, the most lasting couples have adapted an almost sixth sense for what their partners really want when it’s time to go down.
– Foreplay. This can go by the wayside very quickly in committed relationships, but for happy couples it remains an integral part of the process. Taking the time, effort and affection to get one another excited is a basic foundation for earth-shattering orgasms.
– The tease. This is particularly valuable for women on top, and shows a commitment to drawing out and intensifying the experience rather than ‘getting it over with’ (which can befall long-term couples). Use your hips to let just the tip enter and leave, until the wait is too much for both of you.
– A memory of what used to happen at the beginning of the relationship – a tryst on the couch, a hair-pull, a use of ribbon – and a willingness to use it again. Memory and intimacy are strongly tied in the human brain, and if partners go back to acts used at the beginning of the relationship, they’ll also call up the feelings and heat of that time.
– Experimenting with an eye on improving things, not just hoping for a new sizzle. Keeping your bedroom life new and exciting is fine, as long as you’re aiming to find out new things about one another, rather than the shock-and-awe novelty-for-the-sake-of-it approach.
– Being lustful outside the bedroom. Successfully lusty couples keep it hot even when they’re not in bed, which is a key component in keeping the libido up and strengthening connections to partners. Letting one another know you want them and desire them is scientifically proven to heighten the experience.
Use these tips to really blow their minds – and no fluffy handcuffs are required.
Lady Friday xx
Taking the pillow talk out of the bedroom, every Friday…
