This Is The Key To Great Sex In Long-Term Relationships, According To A Sex Educator

Once upon a time (around 2014) I wrote Come as You Are, a book about the science of women's sexual well-­being. Ironically, the process of thinking, reading, and writing every day about sex made me so stressed that I had zero interest in actually having any sex.

For months, nothing.

My partner was incredibly patient and understanding, even as I felt guilty.

Then the book was published! I went on a book tour! I traveled all over, talking to anyone who would listen about the science of women's sexual well-­being! And when I got home from these trips, I'd try to connect sexually with my partner, but most of the time I'd get into the bed and...just fall asleep.

More months! Of nothing!

It went on for so long that eventually I became distanced from my partner and from my own erotic self, knocked down and carried away by the fatigue, overwhelm, health issues, and existential crises that seemed to come at me in wave after wave of anti-­erotic daily life.

I missed sex. I missed that connection with my partner, and I missed the part of myself that plays in the erotic realm.

I am the kind of person who would like to continue developing a sexual connection with my certain special someone far into our old age. I want to be giggling and licking and snuggling when we're 95, if we're lucky enough to live so long.

And I'm far from alone—­which is why there are so many books and articles and general advice for couples who want to know how to have a happy sex life in a long-­term relationship. Most of us struggle at some point to maintain that connection, and we're looking for solutions.

As a science-­loving sex educator, I had a nerdy approach when it came to solving my own sexual difficulties: I went right to the peer-reviewed research. What I found there contradicted all the widespread (but false!) narratives about "keeping the spark alive." You may have an image in your mind of what a great long-­term sexual relationship is like—­what kind of sex those people have, how often they have it, where and when they do it, and what it feels like when they have it.

Some people think it's about frequency. It's not. There's very little relationship between frequency of sex and sexual or relationship satisfaction. Hardly any of us has sex very often; we are busy.

Some people think it's novelty and adventure. It's not. And it's not orgasms, sex positions, variety of sexual behaviors, or anything else. Honestly? If there's a "sexual behavior" that predicts sex and relationship satisfaction, it's cuddling after sex. Wildly original sex might be enjoyable for you (or it might not), but it is not what makes for a satisfying long-­term sex life for most people.

People think the key to satisfying long-­term sex is monogamy or nonmonogamy; watching porn or not watching porn; being kinky or vanilla. It's not. Those are all just different ways people engage sexually and emotionally with the world, and whether they work for you or not is a matter of personal experience. People can have great (or terrible) sex lives either way.

People think it's attractiveness, being conventionally good-looking, or it's having a perfect relationship or a perfect body, or it's "skills" like knowing a lot about how to give great oral sex. None of those things predict great sex in the long term. The idea of a "skilled" lover is a myth; unless you're trying technically demanding BDSM practice like breath play, the only "skill" you need is the ability to pay attention to your partner and to your own internal experience at the same time.

Perhaps above all, people think it's an out-­of-­the-­blue craving for sex, the hot-­and-­heavy horny feeling that makes people constantly want to put their tongues in each other's mouths. This is often what people mean when they talk about "the spark" that we're all supposed to want to keep alive.

And what do they do, these friends who prioritize sex and prioritize each other over any prefabricated notions of what sex is supposed to be?

They cocreate a context that makes it easier to access pleasure.

That's it.

Once I saw the pattern, it felt so liberating, so forgiving, so darn doable that I wanted to share it with everyone.

So I wrote this book, to explain this surprisingly simple truth about sex in long-­term relationships and to provide concrete, specific tools for maximizing the erotic potential in any happy long-term sexual connection.

This book represents my decades of experience as a sex educator, a decade of advancement in the research literature, and a decade of marriage in which my own sexual connection with my partner ebbed and flowed.

You might be in a monogamous partnership, or you might be in an open relationship, or you might be in a committed throuple, multuple (I think I made that word up, but it sounds right, right?), or polycule. Maybe you were in a long-­term relationship in which the sexual connection didn't last, and you'd like to understand why that happened and how to prevent it in the future. Maybe you haven't yet been in a long-­term relationship but you would like to be someday, and you want to know how to build a sexual connection, from day one, that will last. If you're a human who lives in a body and wants to know more about having good sex, ­really good sex, spectacular sex, and universe-­dissolving sex with another person over the long term, this book is for you.

The promise of Come Together is this: You will learn what great sex over the long term looks like in real life, how to create it in your own life, and what to do when struggles arise—­which they definitely will.