Lovehoney Sex Expert Interview: Dr Jane Guyn

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1. What are some of your very best practical tips to help couples fully express themselves to each other sexually?

Tip 1: Learn how to communicate well.

My first tip for couples who want to enhance their sex life is to focus on passionate communication that is grounded in an interest in turning toward one another and deepening the relationship. Hold this communication with kindness, compassion, confidentiality, and a deep listening.

Make space for it in your lives in a way that allows enough time to be there so you can really flush out what you want and not communicate on the fly or in places you don't feel comfortable because it's not private.

Tip 2: Really explore kissing.

I think so many of us go quickly to the genitals. With heterosexually oriented partners, there’s a duality.

Males hold their erotic energy in the core, so from the head down to the groin.

Females hold our erotic energy in the periphery, so our hands, feet, head, and mouth. When we forget that erotic energy is not held in the same place for each gender, we expect everything to go straight to the groin, which is really a very male-oriented way to approach eroticism.

But the thing that's awesome about knowing where this eroticism lives is that the erotic energy in both genders meets in the middle - in the face and the mouth. This is why males and females equally enjoy kissing.

So learn to kiss your partner. Learn to become an expert at how your partner specifically likes to be kissed because we are not the same! Some of us like an open-mouthed kiss with a little bit of tongue, lots of lips, and a lot of air.

Other people like to have full contact, just the lips. Others like a lapping motion, lots of being invaded or entered by their partners' tongues - while some don't like that at all unless they're really deeply aroused.

So it's very important to know how to kiss your partner and to spend time doing it, because just this little peck of a kiss and then quickly getting to intercourse is not a turn-on for either gender.

Tip 3: Think about your erotic space

Think about your sex space and where it is that you like to have sex. Is it an interior environment that's highly private where no one can hear you? Or would you rather have sex in a hotel room on the first floor with the windows open and a little bit of the curtain drawn back?

Do you want to be in the back of your minivan? What about out on a camping trip or out on the edge of the dock on an isolated lake?

It depends on you and your partner to co-create a sense of where your erotic environment theme is. Then actually curate an erotic environment that's enticing for both of you.

Each of these three things are actually very low-hanging fruit for a lot of people, but they bring us into connection with our partner without even getting naked.

2. How can incorporating toys into the bedroom help strengthen and increase the level of play in a couple's sex life?

In a way, incorporating toys in the bedroom allows us to have the same impact as another person without all of the complications of having a third party in the bedroom.

For example, if you're playing with a beautiful flared glass dildo and heat it up under warm water, you can have a double penetration experience as a woman where your husband or male partner enters your vagina with his penis while you also experience anal intercourse from what would have potentially been another person, but isn't! It's a toy!

If you're a woman who orgasms more from clitoral stimulation than from vaginal or G-spot stimulation, you can also stimulate your clitoris while you're having intercourse and experience orgasm that way. So it's a way to add additional stimulation and fun to the bedroom and do it in the privacy of your own relationship.

It's also a way to share something you think your partner might like as a gift by bringing sexuality into the gift-giving part of your relationship. I'm actually waiting for a sexy toy to arrive in the mail today to share with my partner!

It's fun because you look forward to it! You get to think about different ways to express yourself sexually when you look at toys and wonder what they might be like.

They give you the opportunity to talk about what your actual desires are while you talk with your partner. They really have the potential to expand your relationship, increases communication between you, and increase your satisfaction.

3. Tell us more about Too Busy To Get Busy! What are some practical things busy lovers can do to reconnect and reignite their passion?

Too Busy To Get Busy is for couples who want to transform their relationship from a place where they may be sexless - which is six or fewer sexual experiences together in a 12 month period. It can take their relationship from this sexless place to a fully engaged sexual experience that works for both of them.

When they read the book, they'll understand there's a reason they've lost track of themselves sexually and that reason is this: we've been taught by our society that because we love each other, sex is going be easy. But in truth, love doesn't equate to great sex.

When we first know each other, sometimes we get passed the awkward communication piece with that new relationship energy, and so the rush, the passion, the beginning of the relationship for a lot of couples brings us what feels like great sex.

When we don't have the ability to communicate and that new relationship energy wanes a little bit, we don't know what to do. So we end up with gaps in our sexual connection and communication, we don't know how to bridge the gaps, and then it becomes awkward.

I hear it over and over in my practice. Two people love each other, but they've stopped being lovers. It's so sad and it's very difficult for them.

As a whole, we aren't given a conceptual framework - all we know is, "Get some lingerie, try some new positions, and you're gonna have a hot sex life again!" Well that's just not true!

We try that and it doesn't work and so we think, "Oh, forget it, we probably don't have chemistry, or we're not meant to be together." Sadly, so many marriages and relationships end and they haven't even explored what the options are. This book is the first step to working on exploring how to remove barriers in one or more of the seven different bedroom areas.

4. How can couples get better at talking to each other about sex and keeping the conversation connective and productive?

Realize that each person is bringing a lifetime of experience to the conversation and kindness is the most important piece that we can bring.

Even if you are the person who has the higher drive in your relationship and it seems to you that your partner is sometimes a low-drive person, isn't very sexual, or isn't as sexual as you are, you'd be surprised how much communication and progress you can make in your relationship when you come to the conversation with kindness and an open, non-judgmental attitude towards your partner.

So bring that open, non-judgmental attitude into the conversation with kindness and an intention to grow your relationship and become deeper and more intimately connected, and it will mean that each of you is willing to keep showing up for each other with communication.

Conversely, if you come into the conversation with either a judgmental edge or some kind of a demanding point of view that is not contextualised to intentionally improve your relationship, you can destroy your relationship in the course of one conversation. I've seen this happen more often than I care to tell you.

So come to the conversation with the intent to connect, with compassion and kindness, and with a non-judgmental and open attitude towards you both.

5. What's your very favorite bedroom advice to give couples?

Think about your grooming and show up for sex with your partner the way you would show up for sex with a new lover - whatever that means for you.

You may have a partner who loves it when you come in after a workout and you're just full of that smell of exercise, but if that's not your partner, then don't show up that way!

Think about what it is that you would do if you were going out on the hottest date with this new person who you thought was absolutely amazing, and bring that to your relationship - because that's the greatest gift you can give - to not just be in that head space, but in the embodiment of readiness for lovemaking with your partner.

Expect each other to do that for each other as a gift. When you do, it's really a welcoming. As you're preparing for sex, you're actually getting yourself into a feeling of openness.

As a woman, you're opening towards your partner. Maybe you are somebody who shaves your legs, wears certain scents, or certainly brushes your teeth to make sure you feel ready to be fully present and expansive, so as you're there together, you are able to let go with reckless abandon.

That's not to say that unexpected sex isn't also fantastic! But sometimes, it's just wonderful to really prepare for a sexual experience from top to bottom.

You also can follow Jane on Facebook.

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