Warning: Strictly adults only
If things are feeling a little stale in your relationship, or you’re single and looking for a new partner, we have a raft of stories featuring expert advice and top tips to get things back on track in the bedroom.
Twice, 12 or 24 times a month – is your sex drive normal?
How often do you have sex? So regularly you lose track? Once in a blue moon, or on every birthday? Or precisely twice a month, diarised, like comedian Katherine Ryan?
In a recent interview with The Times, the Irish-Canadian comic was both open and specific about the nature of her marital relations; she and husband Bobby Kootstra “have sex exactly twice a month”. Ryan logs it every time, “in case I do get pregnant”.
Whether this revelation engendered a “wow, that’s pretty often” or an “actually, that feels modestly achievable” reaction, it’s rare to hear anyone admitting how much – or little – sex they have. Ryan’s refreshing admission has done us all a favour – not least because it opens up the conversation.
How to have good sex in your 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s and 80s
From illness to stress, any number of things can affect intimacy. Here experts reveal the ways to boost bedroom satisfaction as you age.
Can you have great sex at any age?
“Yes, but we have to define what great sex means,” says Ammanda Major, a sex therapist and the head of clinical practice at Relate. “If you look at movies or social media, it’s generally people having multiple orgasms. But for many people, simply being together intimately can be rewarding.”
Sex can mean different things to different people, and it changes as we go through life. “We have to recognise how our bodies change over time and how the ageing process impacts us sexually. There’s something to be said for accepting that and working with what’s possible, rather than comparing yourself with everybody else.”
Could your relationship survive without sex? Four Kiwi women on how they make it work
“There’s so much more to intimacy than sex,” says Sarah, 34, a midwife.
“At the beginning of the year, I got really sick so my husband and I moved into separate beds so we could both get a good night’s sleep away from snoring and sweating and night fevers. We just needed space to spread out and get a night of real rest.
“That was four months ago and we’re still in separate beds. We slept in the same bed again a few weeks ago and neither of us got much sleep so it works so much better for us for now in so many ways. We definitely don’t plan on it being a forever thing – but it hasn’t had any damaging effect on our relationship.”
Our sex lives change over time – how to talk openly about it with your partner
While sex can be one of the most intimate experiences a couple can share, it can also be incredibly difficult to talk about it.
Marian O’Connor, a psychoanalytic couples therapist and psychosexual therapist at Tavistock Relationships, knows just how tricky a topic sex can be.
But with more than 35 years’ experience under her belt, she knows a thing or two about getting the conversation started.
If both partners are happy with the frequency of their sex life and the pleasure it brings, then action speaks louder than words. But, like anything that isn’t going well in a relationship, the more it is buried the more it becomes an issue.
Five exercises for a better sex life
Any physical activity can improve your sexual health. But a few exercises are especially beneficial.
As far as your muscles are concerned, sex is just another workout. And like most workouts, the more conditioned you are the more enjoyable it can be.
Yes, you can train for sex.
“It’s important to remember that sex is movement and it’s exercise,” said Debby Herbenick, director of the Centre for Sexual Health Promotion at the Indiana University School of Public Health. If you want to have satisfying sex, she said, you’ll likely benefit from moving your body outside of the bedroom.
I spent a year having casual sex – this is what I’ve learnt
When writer Kitty Ruskin set out on a mission to have no-strings sex, she learnt a lot about herself – and even more about the state of modern dating.
Few things make me feel like a prude but reading Kitty Ruskin’s memoir, Ten Men: A Year of Casual Sex, on my busy train commute is one of them. Perhaps it’s the bold title, or maybe the fear of someone reading the graphic descriptions of Ruskin’s sexual escapades over my shoulder, but I find myself trying to conceal the cover.
“I’m nervous about the reaction,” Ruskin admits when we meet. “I work in social media, so I can predict the hate that’s going to come my way.”
The book documents the now 30-year-old’s dating life during 2019, when she set out on a year of no-strings-attached casual sex. “I had one goal,” she writes in it, “to stop being so precious about who I had sex with. I decided to have sex with as many people as I wanted to.”
How antidepressants can affect your sex life and what to do about it
The reality of one of the common (and disappointing) side-effects of medicating to help mental health.
A few years ago, I found myself struggling with low mood and anxiety. It had come on gradually, triggered by worries over work and relationships. After I’d spent about a year trying deep breathing and cold water swimming, I finally cracked and rang the doctor.
Following a brief chat over the phone, I was prescribed sertraline, a common serotonin re-uptake inhibitor (SSRI) known to lift the mood.
Within a few weeks, these magical pills had – despite my scepticism – worked wonders. The negative thoughts had disappeared, I felt calmer and more like my old self. I was very grateful. There was, however, just one problem: I couldn’t orgasm.
The truth about sex after you’ve had a baby: 5 mums share their stories
What happens between couples in the bedroom after there’s a new arrival? Sinead Corcoran Dye talks to five mothers to find out.
“I didn’t want him anywhere near me,” says Loretta, 37, who has been married for five years and is mum to a 4-year-old daughter.
“Before we had a baby, my sex life was never something that I was going to rave about, but it existed.
“There were ebbs and flows. I work fulltime in digital marketing so, if work was super busy or one of us had a big project on, it would be less. We didn’t have a schedule but it would be a few times a month, which I was happy with.
“I remember we went to see Fertility Associates to get pre-checks before we started trying to have a baby. And they told us there was no need to track my cycle ... ‘as long as you’re having sex three times a week’. And I was like, ‘Who is doing that?’”
How not to let having kids ruin your sex life - five key ways
A new book aims to help knackered parents have more (or at least some) sex. Mum-of-one Laura Pullman speaks to its author and gets some surprising tips.
Invest in a lock. That’s the advice of Dr Karen Gurney on how best to avoid your children walking in while you’re having sex. Being hyper-vigilant to the sound of pattering small feet isn’t – quelle surprise! – conducive to getting into the groove. “That level of distraction is not good for your sex life,” says Gurney, who is on a valiant mission to help parents find sexual fulfilment.
How testosterone could boost your sex drive in midlife
Could testosterone therapy be the answer to reinvigorating your libido? Here’s everything you need to know.
Menopause is a time when empty nests and freedom from unwanted pregnancies could lead to a newfound liberation in the bedroom. But all too often, menopausal symptoms get in the way. One survey found that while 84 per cent of perimenopausal and menopausal women thought an active sex life was important, more than 50 per cent reported that their sex drive had nosedived, and fewer than a third sought help for it. But today women are increasingly refusing to allow menopause to sabotage their sex lives.
NZ sex coach’s tips on how to create a balanced relationship with porn
Sex and relationships coach Michelle Kasey explains how to develop a healthy relationship with pornography to create “truly satisfying sexual lives”.
Before the internet age, accessing pornography was a task that required effort. Whether it involved a secretive visit to an adult movie theatre, a discreet browse behind the curtain at Blockbuster or the sheepish purchase of a Playboy magazine, accessing adult content was not always straightforward.
Since the rise of the internet in the late 20th century, an abundance of porn is at our fingertips, leading to an explosion in its consumption. Studies indicate that a considerable number of men and women from all walks of life consume porn regularly.
The best sex advice might also be the hardest to follow
Some couples would rather get divorced than talk openly about their intimate lives.
As a reporter who covers sex and intimacy, I spend a lot of time listening to experts extol the virtues of open, honest communication. To have good sex – and to keep having good sex over time – couples must be willing to talk about it, they say.
But some people would rather leave their relationships than have those conversations, said Jeffrey Chernin, a marriage and family therapist and the author of Achieving Intimacy: How to Have a Loving Relationship That Lasts – especially if things in the bedroom aren’t going particularly well.
“One of the things I often say to couples who are having trouble is: ‘I wish there was another way through this,’” he said. “But the only way I know to have a better sex life, or to resume your sex life, is to discuss it.”
‘I’m a divorced woman in her 40s with a fun and varied sex life. Is this okay?’
A reader decided to give casual dating a go on Hinge but she says the more she enjoys herself, the more she feels as though she’s doing something wrong. Annabel Rivkin and Emilie McMeekan give their advice.
We have all been brought up with such a powerful narrative around the many ways that we, as women, should feel ashamed of ourselves that we are not at all surprised you are doubting your decisions. Saddened, but not surprised. Indeed, this corrosive, patriarchal narrative (Harrison Butker would, presumably, approve) is so noisy that, if there ever happens to be a void – a moment when no one else is shaming us, judging us, telling us we are used goods, over the hill, that we are cheapening ourselves and that no one will ever want us if we persist; telling us that we are a terrible example to the children we do not deserve to have – we fill the silence by telling ourselves all of these things.