The biggest obstacle to great sex is the idea that you “should” be having great sex.

This is an obstacle because if it “should” be good and it’s not, you judge and move into fear.  If it should be good and it’s not, there must be a reason, and your mind wants to find that reason. One place to start is your partner. If only she/he were more open. If only she/he were more adventurous.

Or maybe you blame yourself, or the chemistry. Whatever way you chose to resolve this dilemma, you stop investigating. And when you stop investigating, you stop learning and growing. You just stop where you are and sex doesn’t get any better. In fact, it gets worse.

We have this romantic notion that great sex just happens. If you love each other it’s great. If you’re sexy, beautiful people, it’s great. When in reality, great sex is reserved for those who cultivate great sex.

Is it any wonder that when it gets sticky, so many of us pull away?

Truth be told, what you get is the“starter kit.” You get the parts and the desire and interest, but the rest (the fulfillment, the satisfaction and the depth of connection) require ongoing attention, learning and growth.

Most people resist this level of deep engagement because the fantasy is so much easier and so much less risky.

To truly resurrect a boring sex life, you must drop this idea that it “should” be good and take responsibility for any lack of aliveness. Then show up ready to discover and learn.

Expectation is a barrier to intimacy and pleasure. By courageously letting it go, you truly show up. And through that there is the freshness you seek, and the depth of feeling and passion.

If there is one “tool” that makes sex exciting, each and every time, regardless of how you’re “doing it,” it’s presence. Put your attention on your breath, one breath at a time, and let thoughts dissolve into nothing. This will breathe life into an otherwise boring sexual experience and truly intensify your pleasure.

Karen Brody, copyright 2009. All rights reserved. For reprint permission, contact the author.

When I interview men who want better sex with their partners, it’s the same disheartening dialogue again and again. It’s like a bad broken record.

“I like sex more than she does. She’s just not that into it. I don’t know why she’s not that erotic. I love it when she climaxes and I’m really into being inside of her, and I’d love to try new positions, and ….I want to figure out how to turn her on.”

Even as the “therapist,” I’m bored. Why is it so challenging for men to get that we don’t care about what you need to achieve in bed?

If you want to turn a woman off in three seconds, just get really graphic about all of the things you want to try and do. Yuk.

It’s not that we don’t like these acts, we just don’t like the way you talk about them.

There’s no intrigue when you name positions. Tell her what you want to do to her in the way you look at her, or you savor your wine — how you feed her, or moan when you place your hands under her ass — or in how you smell her hair, or push her up against a wall and eat her alive with your eyes.

Men talk about sex and give away all of the details, when what turns women on is anticipation. It’s the possibility of what you’ll do and how she’ll feel with you that makes her ache for you.

Don’t tell her on a date that you give great tongue. Demonstrate it once you’re in bed. When you tell her, you spoil the fun. Now, she’s not in the play of her imagination, she’s wondering if you can possibly live up to your claim. Chances are you can’t.

“My wife doesn’t like to try new positions.”

This is because you haven’t learned to do the basic ones with any finesse.

Karen Brody, copyright 2009. All rights reserved. For reprint permission, contact the author.

I like to say that how you make love is how you do everything. Think about it.

If you hold back, if you rush through, if you avoid deep engagement, isn’t this also how you are in the rest of your life?

Sexcess is about making love to your whole life! It’s about taking the most desirable qualities from Great Lovemaking (connection, passion, pleasure, openness, growth, joy) into the whole of how you live.

So imagine this: if you simply focused on the quality of your lovemaking, how that would affect everything you do! I’ve seen miracles happen when people open to lovemaking in a deeply connected way.

Want more money? Greater Joy? Make love more. You getting the theme here?

A sexcessful person makes love to life. There is no separation between how you make love and how you live, and this has to come out of making love.

You can do a bang up job at your work and it might affect your connection as a lover, it might not. But, be better in bed and it WILL affect work. It will affect earnings and quality of relationship. That’s the magic of lovemaking – it permeates everything – and the result is always, unequivocally, more love.

Karen Brody, copyright 2009. All rights reserved. For reprint permission, contact the author.

Dear Men: Do you have any idea the kind of power shift you could affect with any woman if you learned to sometimes, even occasionally, say “no?”

One of the reasons women stay on top sexually is that they say “no.” Your desiring sex, more,  balances the tables in a woman’s favor. We are the choosers. You are the beggars. Think about it.

Learning to say “no” now and again gets a woman thinking. It gets her wondering, and it gets her turned on! Suddenly there’s a challenge, instead of an always ready, always hungry and always eager sex animal in her midst.