PLEASURE WORLD

Does your sex life have the personality of a Kansas zip code? Does it create the kind of yawns they name hurricanes after? Last week we used a simple sentence to define great sex. This week we tease the definition out further with a quick lesson on taking your erotic temperature and using the results to heat things up.

If you’re feeling that a vow of monogamy is the death of sexual excitement, you’re wrong. It’s actually the beginning. Because truly mind-blowing sex requires trust, not just lust. Expressing the full range of your sexual desires depends on having a partner who’ll be there for you physically and emotionally.

So how do you go from bored in the bedroom to sensational in the sack? Trial and error. Sexual experimentation is a lot like cooking. It helps if you don’t mind getting dirty. Or finding the right tool. And it really helps if you’re working off a recipe.

Your aim is to get a collection of underwear-lowering recipes. And the only way to do that is to co-author a sexual cookbook with your partner. First assignment? Take your erotic temperature.

Make a list. On the left side of the paper, pick every place, position, fantasy, toy and role you can think of (blindfolds, spanking, oral in front of a CL editorial meeting, that kind of thing). As you make up the list, remember what Alfred Kinsey said: “The only unnatural sex act is the one you can’t perform.”

Now, check your inner thermometer and circle the appropriate temperature: cold, cool, lukewarm, warm, HOT. Make sure you both do this at both ends of the household — avoid trying to encourage, shame or otherwise influence each other. At least not yet.

What if you can’t think of any fantasies, positions or acts you want to try? Make it up. It’ll take the pressure off of giving the answer you think you’re supposed to give and free your imagination to connect with your true desires.

Done? Now you’ve got a list of things you’re dying to try, wanting to try, trying to try and no-way-you’re-going to try. Compare your lists and put on your shocked face.

After so many years with the same partner, you’ll bet the farm you know what their answers will be. Trust me, you’re in for a couple of surprises. Every time we did a sexual inventory on “The Sex Inspectors,” the couples were stunned at the desires their partners had never voiced. Take Nick and Sarah, for example. Nick was the adventurous one; Sarah the shy one. Or so he thought. I remember Nick looking at the circled lists, turning to Sara and saying, “I’ll be damned. Not in a million years did I think you’d go for that.” Sarah blushed, looked at the ground and said, “Because you never asked, darling.”

Start off by activating the fantasy/role-play/whatever that you both designated as hot and work your way down. What if you’ve labeled something hot and your partner labeled it cold? Time for sexual reciprocity. Meaning, “If you do my ‘cold’ I promise I’ll do your ‘hot.’” That kind of compromise builds trust, enhances intimacy and opens new sensual vistas for both of you.

Distill the sex play you both agree to try into something that can be done without special effects, elaborate costumes and a cast of thousands. It’s unrealistic to blow up the garage every time you want to act out a love scene in Kabul, but what about putting something on the stereo with heavy bass to rumble your innards?

Next week, in part three, we’ll take a more in-depth look at spicy possibilities, from creating unusual spaces for sex to merging the two admonitions you were taught as a kid: “Don’t play with yourself” and “Don’t play with your food.”

By Michael Alvear

Tags: sex lives