365 Nights and Just Do It are two books that came out this year, not too long after my book, Getting the Sex You Want. Seems like everyone’s catching on that “just doing it” is the way to get true relationship satisfaction and long term fulfillment.
But what happens when resentment, and sometimes frustration, get in the way? In other words, what if your partner isnt pleasing you in bed? It makes sense you wouldnt want to dive under the covers every night of the week!
Keep this in mind, however. No one knows your body and what gives you pleasure like YOU do. No one knows what turns you on, keeps you going, and gets you under those covers better than the person that lives in your body.
If your partner’s not turning you on, TELL them how to do it. In gentle words, without pointing out what they are doing wrong, send them some appreciations for what they are doing RIGHT. Tell them in an email, or text message, or a voice mail, or whisper it in their ear….”Honey, I really love when you do that thing with….(fill in the blank!)”
Dont expect your partner to read your mind. Its not an indicator that they care for you less if you have to share with them what turns you on and gives you pleasure. Its only a sign that you are two different people with distinct tastes and preferences, that change all the time.
Have fun with it, and even if you didnt do it 365 days this year, there’s always next year!
Tammy
Yes, Dear. Tonight Again. The New York Times Sunday Styles By RALPH GARDNER Jr June 8, 2008
LET¹S say you and your spouse haven¹t had sex in so long that you can¹t remember the last time you did. Not the day. Not the month. Maybe not even the season. Would you look for gratification elsewhere? Would you file for divorce? Or would you turn to your mate and say, ³Honey, you know, I¹ve been thinking. Why don¹t we do it for the next 365 days in a row?²
That¹s more or less what happened to Charla and Brad Muller. And in another example of an erotic adventure supplanting married ennui, a second couple, Annie and Douglas Brown, embarked on a similar, if abbreviated journey: 101 straight days of post-nuptial sex.
Both couples document their exploits in books published this month, the latest entries in what is almost a mini-genre of books offering advice about the ³sex-starved marriage.² The couples, though, are hardly similar. The Mullers are Bible-studying steak-eating Republicans from Charlotte, N.C. The Browns are backpacking multigrain northerners who moved to Boulder, Colo. The Mullers¹ book, ³365 Nights,² is rather modest and circumspect in its details. The Browns¹ book, ³Just Do It,² almost makes the reader feel part of a threesome, sharing everything they used to stimulate sexual desire (it¹s hard to visualize and even harder to explain). . . .
To many spouses, ³married sex² may sound like an oxymoron. And ³married-with-children sex² may sound like that elusive antimatter. Indeed, reigniting a couple¹s desire for each other has fueled an entire therapeutic industry ‹ from Kinsey to Dr. Ruth to Redbook. According to a 2004 study, ³American Sexual Behavior,² by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago, married couples have intercourse about 66 times a year. But that number is skewed by young marrieds, as young as 18, who couple, on average, 84 times a year.
Either way, those statistics put the Mullers and Browns in Olympic-record territory. That they thought a sex marathon would reinvigorate their marriages might say as much about the American penchant for exercise and goal-setting as it does about the state of romance.
But the couples may also be on to something. ³There¹s a strong relationship between rating your marriage as happy and frequency of intercourse,² said Tom W. Smith, who conducted the ³American Sexual Behavior² study. ³What we can¹t tell you is what the causal relationship is between the two. We don¹t know whether people who are happy in their marriage have sex more, or whether people who have sex more become happy in their marriages, or a combination of those two.²
Do these couples provide any answers? Did sex every single night make them happier in their marriages and in life?
Charla apparently had no intention of writing about ³the gift,² as she euphemistically refers to it. She was simply a homemaker and marketing consultant, who in 2006 wanted to give her husband a special 40th birthday present.
³This is something no one else would give him,² she said in an interview. ³It didn¹t cost a lot of money. It was highly memorable. It met all the criteria for a really great gift.²
For the complete article see with photos: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/08/fashion/08nights.html
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