Let's talk about sex

November 4, 2021 5:18 PM

My spouse & I have been married for a couple decades, and have a pretty good sex life, if less frequent than pre-kid, pre-jobs, etc etc. We've realized that... we just don't talk about sex. Everything from initiation on is body language & implicit signs & reading non-verbal cues. It feels like we could really improve both the quality of our sex life, and the emotional connection, by getting a lot better at finding ways to directly communicate. Questions like: "are you in the mood?" and "how does that feel?" and "is this working for you?" Any suggestions/guidance as to how to break years of maybe slightly avoidant habits, and learn to communicate directly & clearly in bed? We're both on board in concept, but getting to easy & natural execution seems like a big hurdle.
posted by anonymous to Human Relations (8 answers total)

I find Gwyneth Paltrow as annoying as the next person. Maybe even more so. But her company produced a sex education show for women in 2019 called Goop Labs, which caught my eye. Although some of its episodes were, I gather, fairly woo, others, I gather, were supposed to be quite good, including one with famed feminist sex educator Betty Dodson on women's organisms, which the LA TImes called a public service. Anyway, that was then, and this is now — and you're in luck. She's just come out with another series for couples!

Now, I have not seen either, but were it me, I'd start with the couples videos Sex, Love and Goop since my impression is they may be better, and they also sound more on point. And even if it's not any of that because it's Gwyneth Paltrow, you and your spouse can at least use it as an icebreaker.
posted by Violet Blue at 8:04 PM on November 4, 2021

My in laws spoke very highly of Passionate Marriage. I veered away from it because in-laws, but maybe it will be useful to you.
posted by clew at 8:06 PM on November 4, 2021

I think reading Come as you are may help and the book Eight Dates by the Gottmans was super amazing for me and has a chapter, I think three, on sex. But you should do all the dates and you will learn a lot. You will have to talk to each other because it’s dates and I think that will really help with not communicating.
posted by OnTheLastCastle at 9:04 PM on November 4, 2021

Maybe read through some entries in Oh Joy Sex Toy together just to give you a starting place of "yeah I'd try that" or " wow not for me," as a way of talking about what you like or find sexy.
posted by emjaybee at 9:49 PM on November 4, 2021

Seconding Come As You Are, it taught me a lot about how sexual desire works and that made it so much easier to communicate about. I also found a lot of the material in Esther Perel's book Mating in Captivity to be valuable in learning to communicate with my partner about, well, everything, and our communication around sex also evolved as a result of that. I also agree that even tho it seems like it might be cheesy, doing one of those internet surveys can be very helpful because it just gives you a place to start. You can also do classes -- my local sex shop SheBop in Portland, Oregon, does all kinds of classes on topics related to sex and they definitely do classes on communication, dirty talk, etc. They are all on Zoom right now. I have taken a couple classes from them and I had a good experience.
posted by fairlynearlyready at 11:09 PM on November 4, 2021

Maybe a game of "better one, better two". Does this feel better than that? Take turns.
posted by SemiSalt at 5:46 AM on November 5, 2021

For me this would be facilitated by watching a romantic comedy together with some wine and light snacks before dinner. Before dinner is key.
posted by lafemma at 7:38 AM on November 5, 2021

Pillow Talk cards, from the School of Life. I know, I know: You're thinking "oh, they're just like 'those kinda-cheesy dice where they have sex stuff on them.'" But no! School of Life stuff tends to be pretty smart, and this set of cards hits the sweet spot between sexy and brainy. Get a set and plan a date night. FWIW, I think the sample questions on the site skew toward the less sexy stuff and undersells the overall set.
posted by bassomatic at 1:16 PM on November 5, 2021