If there is a topic that most Nigerian ladies do not like talking about, then that is sex. Yet, sex is a bit like cooking dinner for someone. You can slave over a hot stove for hours and produce the perfect meal – but if they don’t like what you’re serving, it’s all pointless. There’s no magic formula or skill that works on everyone – but there are mistakes that a lot of us make that can be the kiss of death for our sex lives. Here are six of the most common: stop making them and your sex life will improve dramatically.
1. Not Wanting To Talk About Sex: Imagine if your lover chose what books you read and what programs you watched. You’d be incensed, right? How could they possibly know what you feel like at that exact moment without asking you? Most people have no problems agreeing with this statement. Apply the same logic to the bedroom, however, and they become quite indignant. Sex should be spontaneous, instinctual, something that ‘just happens’. Sex should all come naturally. Nice thought – pity it doesn’t work like that in real life. Will someone please tell me why people say, ‘If you have to tell your lover what you want, it takes all the fun out of it’? Lots of people expect their partners to be sexual mind-readers. They think, ‘If he or she really loved me, they’d know exactly what to do in bed to make me happy.’ Rubbish. If there’s one thing you can do to instantly improve your sex life, it’s to talk to your lover about sex, as clearly and specifically as you can.
2. Never Wanting To Try New Things: Monogamy is hard. Making love to the same person, over and over again, without getting bored is difficult. Our bodies become desensitized when we have sex with the same person, repeatedly, over a long period of time. Your only hope of remaining stimulated and interested long term is to make sure what you do together is fresh and original. If you’re not open to trying new things, you are virtually ensuring your sex life will be routine and mind-numbingly dreary. Even worse is responding to your partner’s request for something new with ‘Don’t you like having sex with me?’ or ‘Why aren’t I enough?” Translation: What’s wrong with having sex in the missionary position and doing exactly what we’ve done for the last ten years?
3. Over-reacting To Erection Problems: Men are humans, not machines: his penis is made of flesh and blood not steel. Not getting an erection now and then is normal at any age; if he’s over 40, some type of erectile dysfunction now and then is even more likely. Most of the time, it’s down to drinking too much, feeling tired or stressed or worrying about performance. Long-term problems start if either of you make too much of a fuss about it. The more relaxed you are about his erections, the less anxious he’ll be the next time around and the more likely it is everything will be back in top working order.
4. Thinking Masturbating, Fantasising About Other People And Watching Porn Aren’t Cheating: You will be furious at the suggestion any or all of those three aren’t cheating, but most people with a healthy sexual appetite and attitude to sex don’t have a problem with any of them. Sexting other people, interacting with people sexually (via a web cam etc) are a totally different matter – so is porn addiction or watching really dodgy porn. Apart from that though, all of the above are simply a way of introducing variety to sex without physically cheating on a partner. It doesn’t mean your partner doesn’t fancy you or doesn’t love you if they do any of the above. A recent, reputable survey found eighty percent of people in a committed, happy relationship admitted to thinking about other people now and then, while having sex with their partner.
5. Not Wanting To Give Or Receive Oral Sex: Oral sex is one of the most pleasurable aspects of sex and to deny your partner the right to give or receive it, without a very good reason, isn’t fair. Most of the reasons why people don’t like oral sex (taste, smell, not wanting to swallow) are easily solvable (shower together as part of foreplay, change position and technique for maximum control, don’t swallow but don’t abandon at the crucial moment either). If you secretly think it’s ‘dirty’, it’s time to challenge your sexual beliefs and what’s influenced you (parental influence, early sex experiences).
6. Thinking Desire Should Be Spontaneous And You Shouldn’t Need To Plan For Sex: ‘Planning for sex’ are words just about all couples dread because they think it (a) means the lust has gone, (b) they must be really unhappy sexually to go to such extremes, and (c) it sounds like hard work. Wipe all three thoughts from your head and accept that it’s possible to put a little intellectual effort into your sex life without losing spontaneity. It’s utterly ridiculous to think you’re going to be ripping each other’s clothes off in the hallway when you get home from work after two decades together. Desire needs a nudge in long-term relationships. Simmering is an American technique which therapists often find quite successful. Every time you have an erotic thought during the day, write it down then use it as a jumping-off point. Develop a fantasy around the thought and tell your partner what it is and what you’d like to do with it before you see them. By the time you see each other, you’re ‘simmering’ with desire. Writing ‘10 pm Saturday’ and sticking a note on the fridge won’t work: simmering will. If you don’t actively try to vary your sex life, you’ll end up doing that fumbled first-thing-in-the-morning or last-thing-at-night bleary, half-hearted stuff all the time.
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