When you’re living in what I call the “simmer zone” you’re feeling loved up and connected. In this space sex is both less important as you’re already feeling so good together yet also easier because you are feeling so good together! It’s a wonderful paradox that normally does lead to regular quality lovemaking throughout life.

Let me recap my ‘thermostat’ model of relating in case you’re not familiar with it, so that this term makes sense. It’s how I conceptualise sex and intimacy in a committed relationship.

Imagine you each have a thermostat of connection, which indicates how connected you are feeling. Zero degrees (this is Celsius for the Americans reading this) is being disconnected, because your mind is elsewhere, you’re not focused on your partner; and 100 degrees is in the throes of glorious lovemaking, ultimate connection.

Now, you don’t want to get physically intimate, and certainly not genitally intimate, until you are at least at 70 degrees. You need to already be ‘simmering’. That is, you need to be feeling good about each other, feeling connected, with no bad feeling between you and in a good space yourself. It’s beyond being good teammates in the logistics of life, those are the lower temperatures of the thermostat; it’s beyond feeling like good friends who really like each other, which are the middle temperatures of the thermostat; it’s getting into that ‘lover’ zone, where you’re really sharing your love energy that’s been potentized by your vital life force sexual energy. There’s a palpable, positive energy between you, one that goes beyond just “I love you” to “Mmm, I love you!”.

If you’re not in the simmer zone you’re not ready for sex, not physically, emotionally, relationally, spiritually. You might still be able to do it, but it won’t feel great. It might be functional, you might hit some quantitative KPIs, but probably it will feel disconnected, lonely, and even invasive.

So, learn to get into and stay in the simmer zone!

It starts from the moment you wake up and have a positive interaction. It’s all the micro-connections, what I call ‘relationship vitamins’ – the smiles, glances, touches, positive comments throughout the day. It’s creating spaces in your life where you can enjoy each other’s company, from a daily chat over a cup of tea or glass of wine, through to shared hobbies, dates and trips away together. It’s about actively and consciously investing in your relationship so that it stays strong and connected. And it’s about learning to manage challenges so they don’t blow up, and learning to repair well when they do.

To live in the simmer zone, you need to learn the skills to be relational and hone those skills. Then you’ll find that you’re investing in your relationship and creating a great love life, all life through and all life long!

You need a dance of initiation. You need to move towards a sexual encounter with playful, flirtatious, sexy, romantic exchanges. It’s part of the setting up and getting in the mood. In the early days of a relationship, it’s all the dance, but in a long-term relationship people very often stop dancing. Without the dance, with just a dry ‘Do you want to have sex?’ the response is just a “meh, nah” because there’s nothing there to entice, to create the exchange, to create the mood.

The language you use, and the style of interaction is so crucial to creating this dance. It’s the art of seduction, the art of getting the other person to do what you want – for your mutual pleasure of course!

Let’s start with what not to do. There are two common approaches that don’t work:

• Don’t ask permission.

Framing the approach with “Can we… [have sex/have an early night/get naked in the bedroom/etc]?” is not sexy. It feels like you’re begging, asking for permission, and it puts the pressure on the other person to say yes or no. Even if you ask politely – Can we please…? It sounds even more pleading!

Sexiness comes from mutuality, not one person feeling like a supplicant and the other having a power to say yes or no that they don’t actually want. It leaves them with a binary response that is either letting you down if it’s a no or potentially agreeing to something that they’re not really wanting so as not to let you down. This is not happy making for either person.

• Don’t ask if the other person wants to do what you want.

Questions like: “Do you want to … [have sex/have an early night/get naked in the bedroom/etc]?” like the asking permission approach, is putting the pressure on the other person. This is not fair, not sexy, and doesn’t get what you want.

Now let's look at what you need to do. There are five steps to the approach that does work.

• Share of self.

You’re the one who wants it, so say that it’s what you want. That sharing of self is showing a vulnerability that draws the other person in. You’re not pressuring them to want what you want, you’re just sharing.

“Hey babe, I’m feeling like…” “I’m in the mood for…” “I was thinking that while the kids are off with your mother that I wouldn’t mind…”

• Offer a suggestion

When you share of yourself, it’s important to state it in a way that sounds like a suggestion rather than demanding. Notice the examples above sound like suggestions, offers, rather than demands. You’re not saying: “I want to have sex now.”

The suggestion allows for that most arousing of things – anticipation. It might just be a small moment, but when that moment is rich with potential, with anticipation, it gives it an erotic charge that is the essence of the dance.

• Let them respond

Then you invite them to respond with where they’re at. Make sure you ask an open question, not a closed question. A closed question has a yes/no answer, which in these situations can create pressure: “I’m thinking I wouldn’t mind spending some time in the bedroom. Do you want to?” Can you see how that puts the other person in the dilemma of answering with a yes or no?

Instead, ask how they feel about your suggestion: “I’d like to… How would that be for you? How does that sound? Where are you at with that suggestion? Thoughts? I’m curious to know how you feel about that suggestion…” Can you see how those phrases allow the other person to express how they really do feel about your suggestion. There’s no pressure to say yes or no.

It's from here that there can be a playful, flirty interaction to create a situation where you both want to proceed, or to postpone for a while, or to not go ahead with that suggestion but come up with some other mutually pleasurable option.

• Be enticing in vocabulary, tone and body language

Notice how the language I’m using here is soft and suggestive. It’s a little vague, not too direct. This makes it enticing. It enables the other to engage without pressure and opens the possibility for the dance, for the erotic feeling to emerge, for desire to grow and the mood to be created. When you also make sure you are looking at each, smiling, it draws the other in as an equal, and allows the two of you to have a light interaction that starts creating the mood. Even if the dance leads to postponing or doing something else, the erotic connection lingers and is still hovering when the right time does occur.

• Know it’s the non-linear model

Remember that it’s a non-linear model of sex. I’ve written about this in many other blog posts. There’s no pressure to go through all the steps until you “finish”. You just engage where you’re at in that moment. A kiss is just a kiss, not an entrée to intercourse, unless that’s where the encounter mutually leads you. It’s simply about connection through pleasure, moment by moment.

When you engage in this way, you do it all through life. In fact life becomes a dance. And you’re living in the ‘simmer zone’ of connection!

There's so much pressure on penises! They're supposed to rise on command, stay hard for ages, ejaculate at just the right moment... No wonder so many of them have 'performance issues'. I'm so glad I don't have one - well, I do, but it belongs to my partner - but if I had one myself, I'm sure mine would collapse under the pressure too.

So, for a start, I want to stress that it’s totally fine for a penis to have a rest during proceedings. Everything does not have to come to a grinding halt just because the penis isn’t hard. There are plenty of other things you can do: use other parts of the body, focus on other parts of the body, gaze into each other’s eyes while gently running fingers along your beloved’s skin,  have a chat…

Remember, when you move away from the linear model of sex with all its quantitative KPIs and pressure to perform to a non-linear model where the only KPIs are pleasure and connection, then all that matters is what’s happening in this moment and what you are co-creating in this moment. It is seriously so much less pressure. And with that less pressure, paradoxically, the penis is less likely to have a rest, or will rise again if it does.

So take the pressure off!  Make sure you’re in a relaxed environment, you’re taking plenty of time to simply enjoy each other’s company, sinking into yourself to sync in together, breathing slowly and deeply, really paying attention to the connection between you. Allow the arousal to build, no rush, no pressure. Breathe the arousal all through your body. Really feel with your penis when it’s inside your beloved. Feel her holding you warm and snug. Let your love flow through your penis to her and draw the deliciousness of your connection back through it into your own body. 

Not only will this approach mean your penis is more likely to stay hard longer, you are more likely to be able to choose if and when you ejaculate, and you’ll feel so much more pleasure during the proceedings that you really will feel that as pleasurable as an ejaculation is, it is just one delightful part of the extended pleasure of the entirety of lovemaking….

We like to think that we are mature rational people, and that we let the front part of our brain make decisions for us. This is the part of the brain that thinks and cogitates. It looks after the ‘executive’ functions of the brain.

But…actually, we can slip quite easily into the ‘primitive’ part of the brain, the part that responds to threat and danger with attacking and defensive responses. These responses can be intense, with raised voices, aggression and name-calling; or they can be withdrawn, shutdown, with stonewalling, absence, silence. Neither type of response is using the ‘executive’ part of our brain, both are responses governed by the ‘primitive’ part of our brain, in response to a threat.

And there is no one more threatening than our beloved! That person who is supposed to be there for us, who understands us, looks out for us, who keeps us safe and secure in the world. If they are in some way threatening to us – and those can be very little threats, a look, a tone, a gesture – then it means a lot.

Our nervous system is ancient, and it is blind. So, when it gets triggered, it doesn’t know if the threat is a sabretooth tiger about to leap out and eat us…or our partner saying ‘we need to talk’ with that look on their face… The response is ‘yikes!’ and we can very easily slip into that primitive protective mode.

You don’t want your relationship to be ruled by the primitive part of your brain. You don’t want to be triggering each other to respond from that part of the brain. You want to keep the executive part of your brain engaged, particularly when things get wobbly.

This means that as individuals we need to do our best to soothe ourselves, to stay calm. We can do that with breath, with consciously relaxing our body, with catching thoughts and feelings that reinforce the danger and the primitive response. And choosing to respond differently. Definitely, we should learn to do that and do our best.

However, that can be challenging when something has arisen between the two of us. It is a relational issue. So, to keep the dyad calm, it helps if we are being relational. That means that we are not just seeking to manage our own response through staying calm, which is called self-regulating, we are also seeking to help the other stay calm. This is called co-regulating.

When we are co-regulating, we are simultaneously self-aware and other-aware. We are seeking to keep ourselves and our partner regulated. When we are both doing this then it is more effective than each trying to regulate themselves.

So, you are doing your best to ensure that how you are behaving will not be threatening to your partner, that you are helping them to stay calm, even if the topic is challenging. We do this through eye contact, gentle touch, proximity, even tone of voice, using terms of endearment (such as sweetheart or babe). We also make sure that we don’t say too much in a rush and that we give our partner space to think and respond.

Essentially, we are seeking to keep each other safe and keep each other connected. That ensures our nervous systems stay regulated and we operate from the executive part of the brain.

Partners who master this skill can discuss all kinds of challenging topics and do it well. It’s a great skill to learn. In fact, I think it is an essential skill in order to create a truly supportive, loving, mutual, interdependent relationship.

I find that too much of our language and concepts around sex imply that speed is good and slowness is bad. This is really not at all helpful in creating great sexual experiences. Instead of people relaxing and chilling and opening to each other, there’s pressure to get aroused quickly and have intense experiences. And if there’s one thing that gets in the way of being able to become aroused, let alone to actually enjoy sex, it’s pressure.

For example, recent additions to our sex vocabulary are sexual ‘accelerators’ and sexual ‘brakes’, with the accelerators being good and the brakes being bad. Now I know that the intention behind the language is to identify what things are helpful to you sexually and what are hindrances. But why use language that implies speed is good and slowness is bad? Why not use terms like enhancers and detractors? Or as I like to think of it, in my usual evocative style, things that make you go ‘mmm’ and things that make you go ’ngh’.

Less overtly, so often people have a speed-based concept of sex. Take the concept of libido, more often ‘high libido’ is attributed to people who get aroused quickly and  ‘low libido’ is attributed to people who become aroused slowly. And of course those with ‘low libido’ are seen as the problem. Why, because they are too slow. Which often leads to the slower one having sex before they’re ready, which,as  I’ve said before, is like eating food that’s undercooked – there’s nothing wrong with the food per se, it’s just not ready to be eaten.

But, like food, sex is best enjoyed slowly, with presence, savouring the experience of the eating. Not scoffing it down to get to the end. Or any other activity you do for pleasure together, like going for a walk or enjoying a show – you enjoy the process of the activity, not race through to the end of it!

So, whether it’s in the getting to sex phase or the having sex phase, take your time, enjoy the process, no pressure! Remember, the point of sex is connection through pleasure, so make every part pleasurable and connecting. It’s not what you do, it’s how you do it, how you’re experiencing it.

There is already so much speed in modern life. Take the pressure off, particularly in the bedroom, and take your time, savour your lovemaking. You’ll find it so much more enjoyable, connecting and rejuvenating – all the things sex is supposed to be!

Don’t think of sex as having Key Performance Indicators. Sex isn’t about performance, it’s about pleasure! So, let’s talk about our Key Pleasure Indicators.

Good sex comes from the appreciation of the experience not the performance of ‘correct’ acts. It’s about the feeling. So, you’re not looking at quantitative KPIs – how often, how long, how many orgasms etc. You’re looking at qualitative KPIs. These might include:

Does it feel good

Does it feel mutual

Does it feel connected

Do you feel present

Do you feel embodied

Do you feel free to express yourself

Are you paying attention to each other

Are you savouring the experience

Does it make you feel better for having done it

Does it increase joy, contentment, happiness, satisfaction in life

These are quite broad and I’m sure you have a lot more specific ones that relate to your own individual sexuality. So, I invite you to think about your own KPIs, and if you have a partner to discuss them together, lightly and creatively, and get clear on your mutual Key Pleasure Indicators. Then set about achieving them!

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 problems there. But it’s when the weather turns bad and the ocean is rough, that’s when the boat really matters. If you’ve got a boat that’s not shipshape, if it springs leaks and falls apart, then you’re not going to make it safely through to calm seas, and if you don’t have the technical skills and knowledge to sail your boat, then you might not make it through either. In fact, if you don’t know how to sail you might not ever leave the dock and enjoy even the fine weather.

So, to have a ‘boat’ that carries you well through life, you need two things:

1. You need your boat to be shipshape. You need to look after it, make sure it’s strong. This means cultivating a strong relationship, investing in the relationship, prioritising it, doing the things that make it strong.
2. You need to know how to sail the boat. This means you need to know how you two tick, you need to be experts on each other, you need to know how to be relational and put that knowledge into practice.

Sadly, too often people think their relationship should “just happen”, they shouldn’t need to invest in it, or learn from experts about how to make it great. You just ‘fall in love’ and live happily ever after. Nope, that is a recipe for disaster. Like anything else in life, whether it be career, health, wealth, parenting, sport, hobby, if you want it to be good you have to focus on it. It’s the same with relationships. When you look after your boat and sail it well, then you really can live happily ever after.

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’. It has positive connotations of sex, ones that are rich and luscious and sensual, not immature, coarse or sordid.

It’s much easier to drop into and let yourself go to the erotic than to the dirty. I mean, who wants to let go to something foul and squalid. We want to move away such things, not open up and embrace them.

Language is so important. And maybe the word ‘erotic’ isn’t the right one for you. Maybe the word for you is:

Amorous

Seductive

Sensual

Steamy

Lascivious

Titillating

Spicy

Arousing

Romantic

Tantilizing

Salacious

Sexy…

And look, possibly the word ‘dirty’ does work for you in a positive way. Which is fine, as long as it has positive connotations for you.

Whatever word is right for you, it’s one that makes you feel empowered and engaged.

So, get out the thesaurus and find the language that is right for you!…

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 fascinated in each other, you’d spend hours talking or dancing or having fun. So, by the time you got home you couldn’t wait to rip your clothes off….

That wasn’t spontaneous. There were days and hours of looking forward to, thinking about, engaging with, before you got sexual.

Then time passes and people move in together, and all of life comes into the relationship: work, logistics, kids, finances, etc., etc. They work all day, deal with life matters, maybe sit in front of a screen for an hour or more… then collapse into bed exhausted, totally spent… and think they should suddenly turn into some ravenous sex fiend and have spontaneous sex!

No. It wasn’t spontaneous at the beginning. It was good because the conditions were right. Like anything else good in life. Think about it – how often has an experience been spontaneously good? Occasionally perhaps, but not regularly. You want to catch up with friends, go to a show, play some sport, have a holiday, cook a good meal – it all takes planning, making space in your life, making sure you have in place the elements that make it good. If you want a good meal you have to make sure your kitchen is stocked with the right ingredients, you need the time and energy to cook, and have the knowledge and skills to cook well. If you have all of those, then yes, you can spontaneously cook a good meal.

So, if you want to ‘spontaneously’ have good sex, you can if you’ve set up your life to enable sex to happen easily. That means you need to:

• create the time and space in your life
• not be too tired
• not be too distracted
• be feeling connected with your partner
• be in a relaxed, appealing environment
• pace the approach and interaction so that you both become aroused, don’t rush it
• know what each other likes and needs in general
• be able to communicate what you want and need in the moment
• not have expectations that cause pressure and anxiety
•  enjoy the pleasure of connection and co-create a lovely experience moment by moment

Have all that happening, and you’ll live in what I call the ‘simmer zone’, where you’re feeling loved-up, connected, relaxed and alive. From that space sex can be spontaneous, because you’ve made your life and relationship sex-friendly.

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 meditation are obvious ones, but it can expand to include some of the martial arts and other physical activities such as dance and yoga, volunteering, creative arts, being in nature. But it’s less about the activity itself that makes it a practice, and more about the way in which it’s engaged. Which is why sexual intimacy can also be a spiritual practice.

A practice is engaged in with intention to engage in a certain way and with attention during the experience. It’s mindful, both in the sense of bringing mindfulness to the experience and also for the experience itself to be a mindfulness practice. In the case of sex, regular readers will remember that the academic research I did a few years ago explored how sex itself becomes a mindfulness practice, heightening both the lovers’ experience in the moment, and taking from that experience an ongoing sense of presence and engagement in the rest of life.

It’s also about bringing a sense of the sacred into the experience, to create a sacred space of time and place. In the case of sexual intimacy, the lovers enter into it consciously, with the intention of creating a beautiful experience of pleasure and connection together. Then as the experience unfolds, each pays attention to what they are feeling and wanting to express in the moment, while also paying attention to what the partner is feeling and wanting to express in the moment - and through that they co-create positive meaningful experiences, whatever the activity and however long they stay engaged.

The lovers don’t rush in. There’s what I call a ‘chilled build’ - they take their time first to connect and then to become aroused. There are no expectations of outcome, other than pleasure and connection. There is no need for it to follow the standard linear approach, and even if it does, that happens through focused co-creation, not expectation. Then the experience comes to a close when the lovers feel it’s right.

This approach to sexual engagement can potentially last for hours, but what really matters is that it heightens any kind of sexual encounter, so a sweet and simple cuddly encounter under the covers can be enriched when considered a “practice” and not just a quickie and definitely not as a duty or obligation.

It’s simple really, just as a meditation practice is simple. But it’s not necessarily easy – you have to practise at making sex a practice! You need to change your mind set about what drives a sexual encounter, how it is initiated, how it is engaged with and how it’s concluded.

But once you do, the depth of feeling, both physical and emotional, that you can attain is so beautiful. It can feel not just mindful, but also bodyful and soulful. Then you really are making love.