Has your sex life become “The Day of the Dead”?

Posted on November 13, 2014

November is, among other things, the time to celebrate the famous and colorful Latin American holiday Dia de los Muertos or Day of the Dead in English. This is a lovely day, which corresponds to the Christian All Souls Day, when it is believed that our dearly departed return to the Earth for a day to visit, sing, dance, drink and eat with us, the living. Waking back up from the dead, if you will.

Well, hopefully your sex life has not turned into its own Day of the Dead. If it has, don’t despair, because there are ways to resuscitate and rejuvenate it. Sometimes it takes a little work, and us living human beings are often averse to work. Especially when it comes to something that many think should just automatically and always be fabulous and bursting with life. Put a little effort into trying some of the following suggestions and your sex life will be reborn. Or at least no longer camping out in the cemetery.

1. Be sexual in a new place: this could be as close as down the hall in a different room, down the block in the No-Tell Motel or across the globe in some far flung romantic city. The point is, our brains come alive, interested and more curious with novelty. And interest and curiosity increase arousal.

2. Kiss: That may seem obvious, but I’m not talking about the perfunctory, grandma type peck on the cheek. I’m talking sloppy, wet, long, deep, soft, open lips, lots of tongue type of kisses. This is something that often goes by the wayside in long term relationships. But a full bodied kiss is bound to wake you and your partner up.

3. Try something new: Go ahead and bust out something that you’ve been wanting to try but haven’t yet. Or at the very least talk about it with your partner. Be open and experimental. Whatever you try may end up being the greatest thing since sliced bread. Or it may completely fall flat. Keep your sense of humor and play, and even if you never do it again, you may have a good laugh about it.

4. Be sexy & provocative when you’re not in the bedroom. Wear silky boxers or a lacy bustier under your work clothes. Send a flirtatious, sexual email or text. Leave a suggestive phone message in your most sultry voice. Whisper something a little “dirty” in your partner’s ear while in a public place. Leave a love note in your partner’s lunchpail or purse.

5. Do something that turned you both on way back when, when you were dating. Think of why sex was so hot then, and try to recreate some of that.

6. Read erotica to one another. Watch a steamy movie, or pornography, if that works for both of you. Undress one another-very slowly. Take a bath together.

The possibilities are endless. The famous sex therapist Marty Klein likes to remind us that sex is a combination of friction and fiction. There are only so many things we can do with friction, but the possibilities of what we can do with fiction (our minds) is infinite. We all just need to show up for our sex lives and put a little effort into them. When we do, our whole being is filled with new life.