Apologies for the aggressively search-engine-targeted title here, it’s a question many people ask: how do I keep having fun sex in a long-term relationship? Sometimes it’s framed as ‘how do I keep sex alive’ or ‘how can I introduce new kinks to my partner?’. As I’ve written before, I find it upsetting how easily people assume that sex inevitably falls by the wayside when you’ve been with someone for a few years. My response to ‘sex just dies eventually in long-term relationships’ is ‘not in mine!’. Sex is one of my top priorities, and as a result the two long term relationships I’ve had were both satisfyingly fucky right up to the bittersweet, tortured end. So when a reader asked about sexual adventures, I thought I’d have a go at trying to articulate how I (and my partners, if they’re game) go about creating a culture of sexual exploration when we’re together. This isn’t just a guide for people who feel like their sex life has waned over time, but also for those in sexually active relationships who want to know how to introduce new kinks and sparks. Hopefully I can cover all this off in the same post, because I’m clever and great at multitasking. Also because I think the approach is similar no matter which of those situations you find yourself in.

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This gorgeous piece on waking him with a blow job is written and read by Molly Moore. Note that this piece involves sleep sex – an activity you should never do without the express prior consent and enthusiasm of your partner. 

When I wrote this piece, Michael and I were still in a long distance relationship. He was in the USA and I was here. Later that month he would get his VISA and move here and 18 months of mainly being apart would finally come to an end. We used to sleep together on Skype but because of the time difference he would get to watch me sleep during his evening and I would do the same during my morning. I wrote this whilst watching him sleep.

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There’s never a bad time to hear this, right? You deserve to be loved. I don’t mean, in a basic way, that you as an individual are entitled to romantic love, or sex or companionship or whatever: those things can only be given freely, if other individuals choose. I mean that you deserve to be treated with love, by those who say they feel it. You deserve to be loved by them in practice, not just words.

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Some men have worried in the past that they’re not able to dispense exactly the kind of love that I crave – i.e. relentless praise, on an almost minute-by-minute basis, lest I wilt like a houseplant you’ve forgotten to water. To be honest, I often find myself worrying about this too. In an ideal world I’d be the recipient of an almost constant stream of written, physical and verbal encouragement – reminders that I’m sexy, fun, valid, wanted, loved. A good girl. I need this kind of thing so much that those I rely on to help me feel loved might think it borderline sarcastic to plough on even during the (frequent) periods when I’m not doing much to deserve it. I understand this. But there are other ways to make me feel loved, and one of the ways I practice love in return is by noticing and mentioning them…

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The first time I tried to get this man to hold my hand, we were walking beside a London canal in the early evening darkness. I thought it was romantic – the lights reflected off the water, the gentle strolling pace, the early days of a relationship that felt extremely exciting. The first time I tried to hold his hand he let me do it for exactly half a second before pulling away and announcing “I’m not much of a hand-holding person, actually.” It was useful feedback, of course, and I respect how good he is at articulating his boundaries. However, as I explained ten seconds after I’d collapsed into awkward giggles, he could have said it a little more quietly… so the guy walking past at that exact moment didn’t witness my humiliating rejection. I tell you this only so you can see that the man in question here is not, traditionally, a hand-holding kinda guy. He’ll do it if we’re sitting on the sofa, but when we’re out and about the closest he comes to a PDA is the odd subtle smack on my arse or a peck on the lips. He doesn’t like being publicly affectionate, and would rather save certain types of physical contact for when we’re alone. Fair play.

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