It’s important to talk about sex. Regardless of whether you’ve just gotten together or been together for 10 years. It’s still important to talk about it. Communication is the number one thing that can throw a wrench into your sex life. It can also be what keeps the gears greased. 

It’s normal enough to wonder if you’re having “enough” sex. Or sometimes, you might wonder why you’re not having more sex. No matter how much you wonder, though, until you talk to your partner, you’ll never know. Because having sex isn’t about the numbers game. It’s not about how much everyone else is getting intimate. It’s about you and your partner. 

How Often Should I Be Intimate with My Partner?

The answer to this is simple yet complex. It depends on you and your partner. How often do you want to be intimate? How often do they want to be intimate? How do you figure that out? Well, you talk about it. 

Talking to Your Partner About Sex

It can be hard for some people, but talking with your partner is essential for your sex life. It gets less awkward the more you practice. Some things you need to talk about are:

• What you already love about your sex life

• What they love about your sex life

• What you don’t like

• What they don’t life

• Boundaries around sex (think PDA or PM vs. AM sex)

• Protection and birth control

• How often you would like to have sex

• How often they would like to have sex

Increasing Intimacy

Wondering if you and your partner are having enough sex? Or maybe you just miss the spark you once had. Either way, there are strategies you can use to increase your intimacy. Some tips include:

• Focus on emotion first: Before you can focus on sexual intimacy, you need to focus on emotional connection. Make time each day to talk to your partner. Not just about what you did today, but how you felt about it. Listen to what they did and how they felt about it, too. Rekindling your spark means securing your emotional foundation.

• Change how you initiate: Some of the best ways to reignite a sexual connection is by breaking free of routine. If you usually are intimate in the bedroom, try another location. If your partner usually starts, you try initiating this time.

• Hold hands: It seems too simple that holding hands can help you improve your sex life, but it really can. Hand holding releases a brain chemical called oxytocin. It’s our bonding brain chemical that helps us feel affection. It also reduces stress, and studies show it’s the same chemical our brain releases during orgasm.

• Affectionate touch: For a similar reason, affectionate touch can help spice up your life, too. Affectionate touch can act a bit like teasing. One of our biggest sex organs is our brain, and our brain loves anticipation. Instead of going straight to "traditional" foreplay, offer a back rub.

• Practice emotional vulnerability: Let’s combine emotional connection with our biggest sex organ, our brain. When you’re emotionally vulnerable with someone, you’re programming your brain to think of them intimately. You’re also communicating to that person how comfortable you are with them. Emotional vulnerability establishes trust, and you can build on that by sharing your fantasies and desires to turn up the flame.

Still need help? 

If you feel you’ve tried all of this and still aren’t getting anywhere, it’s okay to ask a professional for help. Sexual relationships heal much more easily and quickly the sooner you address them. Talk to your partner about getting couple’s therapy. Explain that you want to learn how to better connect with them and that you think a professional can help you do that. Then, reach out!