You’re good at sex, right?

I’ve spoken with a lot of couples over the years and I’m yet to have one single person look at me and say, “I’m bad at sex.” Of course, I’ve had couples talk about how they don’t have good sex. Yet anytime blame is placed it is always on the spouse. The individual assumes they are good at it and the reason their marriage struggles is because of something their spouse is doing to ruin the performance.

Yet how can this be? How can everyone be good at sex while so many couples are struggling to have good sex? And they are struggling. At many marriage conferences, I do a simple 10-statement True or False quiz in order to gauge the issue at play with the marriages in the room. One statement is “True or False, we have a meaningful sex life.” It’s not a very difficult question. “Meaningful” isn’t a high bar. I’m not asking if they are physical every day or if they are trying new positions every week. I just wonder if the physical connection they have with one another is meaningful. But in most cases that is the most likely question for the couple to answer “false” to.

Why? It’s because we aren’t as good at sex as we think. (See: 8 Lies We Believe About Sex)

It’s a combination of arrogance and ignorance that leads us to the misconception that we are naturally good at sex. We aren’t. While the desire might come naturally and some basic functions might occur without thought, truly becoming good at physical intimacy is not a natural occurrence. Believing it just occurs naturally is actually preventing us from achieving good sex.

What’s Required For Great Sex

My guess is that most (although clearly not all) couples have experienced great sex. You’ve had the experience where everything was right and the connection was electric. But for most, great sex tends to be the exception and not the rule. It’s because while any individual experience could be great, to regularly have great times in bed, some conditions are necessary.

To have consistently great sex we must:

• Know what we are doing
• Be comfortable with our bodies
• Be at peace with our spouse
• Focus on the moment
• Have the ability to give and receive love

While we might be able to do any of these at any single moment, we cannot consistently do these things unless we learn how to do them.

Who really knows how to give pleasure? We don’t. We might know what we like, but we do not naturally know what our spouse desires.

Who is fully comfortable with their bodies? In a social media age, we are quick to fixate on our imperfections which hinders our comfort in bed.

Who lives in regular peace sufficient enough to create a climate for great sex? With so much pressure and so many expectations, many couples struggle just to get along much less to be connected enough to be attracted to one another.

Who can focus in the moment? We are continually bombarded with so much stimulation that when it’s time to turn ourselves on we can’t turn everything else off.

Who truly has the ability to regularly receive and give love? Maybe we can do one or the other or alternate between the two, but who has the ability to do both? (See: 7 Signs of a Satisfying Sex Life)

The fact is the conditions required for great sex are not things which come naturally to us. We might be able to luck into those conditions on occasion (is that why they call it “getting lucky?”) but we cannot regularly create that climate unless one thing happens.

Do This

In order to have great sex, we must do the work. There is nothing important in life that we just naturally have the ability to do. While we have talents, even those talents have to be practiced, molded, and matured. We have to learn how to play an instrument, succeed at a sport, or develop a skill. It’s true in life and it’s clearly true regarding sex.

Great sex is a learned skill. It is something developed over a period of time and only the byproduct of great intention. Most couples never experience consistently great sex because they are not aware or willing of the work it takes to achieve mastery.

Yet mastery is possible.

5 Steps to Great Sex

1. Recognize and admit your ignorance. Until you believe that sex is not a natural gifting, but is a learned skill, you have very little ability to improve. (Read Chapter 1 of Happily: 8 Commitments of Couples Who Laugh, Love, and Last)

2. Choose a partner. Great sex requires learning and learning requires a partner–one partner. One reason people don’t experience great marital sex is because they keep on changing partners. While they think they are getting a different experience, they are actually getting the same experience over and over again. Great sex needs one partner over the span of one life in order to learn how to give and receive love.

3. Read books. Not those types of books. Read books about intimacy and marriage from people who know what they are talking about. Read individually and read as a couple. Skills are best learned through study/reading and then applying what you have read. (See: 5 Sex Books Every Married Couple Should Read)

4. Practice. Experiment with one another. Communicate what you would like and try it. Never put too much stock in one experience, but keep on trying to connect with each other. As a couple, you can’t get better at it without having it. If you aren’t having sex except for a medical reason, seek professional help.

5. Recognize that everything impacts sex. A couple with a bad marriage normally doesn’t have consistently great sex. Everything impacts the bedroom. In order to get better, a couple should improve their marriage. Call a counselor and go for a few sessions. Book a weekend at a marriage getaway. Any step toward improving your marriage is a step toward improving intimacy.

You will be bad at sex until you learn how to be good at it. Learning takes effort, energy, practice, and a good amount of time. I could be wrong, but I’m convinced that true sexual mastery may not happen until the third decade of marriage. But the decades of learning can be great fun.