Regular readers will know I use a lot of metaphors to describe a relationship – a tripod, a thermostat, a couple bubble, a garden. One that I particularly like is that your relationship is like a boat that carries you through life. It’s not ‘you and me’, which can too easily turn into ‘you versus me’. It’s you, me and us. We are both IN the ‘us’, IN the relationship, we are both IN the boat. If the boat is good, we’re good. Now when the weather is fine, and the sailing is easy - you’re drinking your champagne and sunbaking on the deck or drinking a cold beer while fishing off the side. No prob ..read more

Can we please stop calling sex ‘dirty’! And can we stop calling talking about sex ‘talking dirty’. Think about the meaning of the word dirty: it means unclean, nasty, polluted, foul, sullied, squalid. Is that how you want to think about your sexuality? Calling sex dirty buys into the old-fashioned view that sex is bad. And that leads to bringing up the shame so many people have around their sexuality. And it can keep people in a juvenile, unevolved sexuality that is crass and sleazy. Instead of ‘dirty’, can I encourage you to talk ‘erotic’ instead? The word ‘erotic’ is much better than ‘dirty ..read more

The best sex is rarely spontaneous. Or if it is, it’s because the conditions were right for it be ‘spontaneous’. People often complain to me that their sex isn’t spontaneous. As though that’s a bad thing. They often reminisce about the early days when sex was so easy and apparently ‘spontaneous’. But, I challenge them, was it really spontaneous? I point out that back then sex was anything but spontaneous: there were days of anticipation, thinking about your new love interest, you’d spend time preparing to meet, looking good. Then when you met, you’d be doing interesting things, you were fascin ..read more

Some days into my last couples retreat in Bali we were in a group discussion when one of the participants said that what he and his partner were experiencing, based on what I was sharing and teaching, felt like a ‘practice’. Just as they had regular meditation practices, this approach to sexual intimacy had the same qualities. I think that is an excellent way of conceptualising the approach to sex that I encourage.  So, what do we mean by a ‘practice’? Well, spiritual traditions have various spiritual practices or disciplines to enable personal growth and spiritual development. Prayer and ..read more

Client after client sits on the couch in my consulting room wishing they didn’t have their sexual difficulties and were ‘normal’. After hearing their stories, I give them both the bad news and the good news – they are ‘normal’. In our society sexual struggles, difficulties are confusions are the norm. It’s a rare person who is totally comfortable in their sexuality. Which isn’t surprising as we get no sex education. If we’re lucky we get a bit of reproduction education, which let’s face it, isn’t that complicated. And that’s not why humans have sex – we predominantly have sex to connect throug ..read more

We tend to think that the definition of ‘libido’ is sex drive, how much you want sex, or how often you get horny. But the original meaning of the word libido is life force energy. I think that is a much better way to conceptualise libido. In the oriental traditions they say that the sexual energy is transformed into the life energy, the chi or ki. That’s what I notice clinically too. When people are flat, exhausted, stressed, depressed, their life force is low and they tend not to want sex. When people are engaged and joyful and connected, then they tend to be open to sex. Interestingly, I do ..read more

When you know it’s time to welcome your lover into your depths, when you’re yearning to be filled, then, and only then do you invite your lover in…and as he enters you envelop his penis with your vagina, holding it warm and soft and wet… Regular readers will know how I loathe the word penetration being used for sex. It literally means ‘breaking through resistance’. It’s appropriate if you think sex is something a man does to an unwilling woman – force himself into a resistant vagina and essentially masturbate there. Ugh. Not the approach to sex that I advocate!  So let’s go back to my ope ..read more

One of the biggest impediments to a good sex life that I see over and over again, is the assumption that certain activities must inevitably lead to sex. These activities, a look, a touch, a kiss, are seen as a ‘green light’ that leads to the chain of events generally referred to as ‘sex’ which have as their main KPIs intercourse (if you’re heterosexual) and orgasms (whatever your orientation). So, if at the point of the ‘green light’ – the kiss, the hug, the touch, etc – you don’t feel like any of the ‘subsequent’ activities along the chain of events, you will avoid the ‘green light’. You don ..read more

When it comes to sex, we tend to buy into the myth that bigger, harder, faster is best. While that approach might make for entertaining viewing on screen, what looks good is not necessarily what feels good. What good is a balance and a flow between the yin and the yang elements of sex.  No doubt you are familiar with the Taoist concept of yin and yang, that the whole is made up of complementary opposites. Yin represents the softer, flowing side of life and yang represents the firmer, directed side. Too much of either puts us out of balance and life is not as harmonious as it could be. Thi ..read more

If you both happen to be feeling horny at the same time, great, have sex. But chances are you’re not always feeling horny at the same time. So, what do you do? Nothing? So often couples come to me claiming ‘mismatched libidos’ when all that’s really happening is that they’re not both feeling horny at the same time. One is horny, the other isn’t. Too often the response to that situation is not to have sex, in fact not to have any intimacy at all. This becomes a big problem in the relationship, often resulting in power struggles between one who often feels spontaneously aroused and one who feels ..read more