Sex in marriage would be considerably easier if two people simply needed to love each other, own a bed, and occasionally remember where they put the children.
Unfortunately, the human body did not consult the wedding industry before designing itself.
You can love your spouse deeply, find them attractive, enjoy being close to them, and still discover that at 9:47 p.m. one of you is thinking, Maybe tonight, while the other is thinking, If one more human being touches me today, I may move into the garage.
Neither thought necessarily means anything terrible about the marriage. It does, however, complicate the evening.
Maybe one spouse wants sex more often. Maybe one prefers mornings while the other considers 6:30 a.m. a sacred time for coffee, prayer, and minimal eye contact. Maybe one person needs emotional connection before desire shows up while the other experiences sex as one of the ways emotional connection happens. Maybe somebody needs a shower first. Maybe somebody wishes their spouse would initiate. Maybe both people are waiting for the other person to initiate because each has constructed an entirely different explanation for what initiation is supposed to mean.
Then there are children, fatigue, medications, changing bodies, work stress, hormones, confidence, old messages about sex, religious or cultural expectations, disappointment, rejection, pleasure, pain, vulnerability, and the occasionally inconvenient fact that your spouse cannot automatically know what feels good simply because they correctly know your Chipotle order.
So perhaps the first reassuring thing to say about married sex is this:
Complicated does not automatically mean broken.
Sometimes complicated simply means two whole human beings brought their bodies, histories, expectations, fears, desires, and very different internal clocks into the same marriage.
That was always going to require a conversation.
Probably several.
Sex is rarely just about sex
One reason sexual disagreements can become surprisingly emotional is that sex may mean very different things to each spouse.
For one person, sex may be strongly connected to closeness. Being wanted sexually helps them feel chosen, attractive, and connected to their spouse. A stretch without sex may therefore register as more than we haven’t had sex lately. It may quietly begin to feel like you don’t want me anymore.
For the other spouse, emotional closeness may need to come first. When they have felt ignored, overloaded, criticized, or touched by small children since sunrise, their body may not move toward sexual desire simply because bedtime has arrived. They may experience their spouse’s initiation not as an invitation to connection but as one more person requiring something from them.
Now imagine those two people having an argument about frequency.
One says, “We never have sex anymore.”
The other hears, Nothing else I do for this family is enough for you.
The other says, “Why does everything have to lead to sex?”
The first hears, Wanting you is a problem.
Suddenly nobody is arguing only about sex. They are arguing about being wanted, being pressured, being appreciated, being rejected, being connected, and whether their needs matter.
This is one reason sexual conversations deserve more curiosity than accusation.
Before asking only, “How often are we having sex?”, it may be more revealing to ask:
“What does sex mean to each of us?”
Your bodies did not sign a synchronization agreement
Couples sometimes assume that if their sexual relationship is healthy, desire should appear in both people at approximately the same time and with roughly the same frequency.
That would certainly be convenient.
It is also not how many couples work.
Research with married couples has found that discrepancies between the amount of sex someone desires and the amount they experience can be associated with lower relationship satisfaction and stability and greater conflict. That does not mean every difference in desire is a crisis; it does mean persistent differences can matter and deserve compassionate attention.
Even the way desire begins may differ.
Some people frequently experience what we might call spontaneous desire: I want sex, therefore I want to become sexual.
For others, desire may be more responsive. They do not necessarily begin with a strong conscious desire for sex, but affection, relaxation, intimacy, touching, or arousal can create conditions in which desire develops. Rosemary Basson’s influential model drew particular attention to responsive desire in women in longer-term relationships and challenged the assumption that conscious desire must always appear first for a sexual response to be healthy.
That distinction can be freeing, but it needs an important footnote.
Responsive desire does not mean, “Just do it whether you want to or not.”
There is a meaningful difference between freely thinking, I’m not especially in the mood yet, but I’m open to seeing where affection goes, and thinking, I cannot comfortably say no because my spouse will sulk, pressure me, withdraw affection, punish me, or make me feel guilty.
Those are not the same thing.
Sex in marriage should leave room for genuine willingness, genuine desire, genuine uncertainty, and a genuine no.
Love does not make consent less important.
It should make respect more important.
Sometimes the problem really is that one person wants morning sex
Not every sexual difference requires a deep psychological explanation.
Sometimes your spouse simply wants sex at a time when your body has filed an objection.
One person wakes up rested, affectionate, and interested. Their spouse wakes up looking as though consciousness arrived without permission.
“Good morning.”
“Is it?”
One person is thinking romance. The other has not yet established whether both eyes are participating in the day.
At night, the situation may reverse. The morning person used all available humanity by 9:15 p.m., while the night owl has finally finished work, dishes, children, texts, and responsibilities and is thinking, Well, hello there.
Neither person is wrong.
Timing is part of sexual compatibility too, and compatibility does not always mean naturally matching. Sometimes it means learning each other’s patterns and discovering where they overlap.
The same can be true of cleanliness.
For one spouse, desire can apparently survive an entire Saturday of yard work.
The other looks at them and thinks, I love you deeply. Please continue directly to the shower.
That does not necessarily mean they are rejecting their spouse’s body. Showering, brushed teeth, fresh sheets, or simply feeling clean may be part of what helps them relax enough to enjoy intimacy.
If you never discuss that, one spouse may hear, You think I’m disgusting.
The other may simply mean, I would like to participate in this experience without remembering that you mowed the lawn.
These are useful things to know about one another.
Who taught us who is supposed to initiate?
Some couples enter marriage carrying sexual rules they never consciously chose.
A woman may have grown up hearing, directly or indirectly, that a respectable woman should not seem too interested in sex. Maybe women who initiated, talked openly about desire, or appeared sexually confident were described as loose, inappropriate, unfeminine, or “bad girls.”
Then she gets married.
She loves her husband. She may desire him very much. But the old script does not necessarily disappear because somebody served wedding cake.
Initiating may still feel strangely vulnerable.
Meanwhile, her husband may be thinking, Why am I always the one who starts this? Does she actually want me, or does she simply agree when I ask?
That question matters. Qualitative research with heterosexual men has found that feeling sexually desired by a partner can be important to them too, despite traditional scripts that cast men mainly as the initiators and pursuers.
Men can also inherit their own exhausting scripts: a husband should always want sex, should always initiate, should automatically know what his wife enjoys, should never struggle with arousal, and should somehow interpret every unspoken signal correctly.
That is quite a job description.
Research also suggests that traditional heterosexual sexual scripts remain relevant to how people experience sexuality. A 2025 study of 829 women in relationships found that stronger adherence to certain traditional heterosexual scripts was associated with lower reported sexual desire, though an observational study like this cannot establish that the scripts themselves caused the difference.
Culture, family, and faith can shape these expectations too. Different communities communicate very different things about sexuality, modesty, masculinity, femininity, pleasure, initiation, and what a “good husband” or “good wife” is supposed to do.
Some of those messages may still serve your marriage.
Some may not.
Marriage gives you an opportunity to examine them together.
A useful question might be:
“What did we each learn about how a husband or wife is supposed to behave sexually—and do we actually want those rules in our marriage?”
That conversation may explain more than either spouse expects.
Sometimes nobody knows what feels good because nobody is saying anything
Here is another surprisingly common sexual strategy:
Say very little.
Hope for the best.
Evaluate internally.
Repeat for twelve years.
Your spouse may know which pillow you hate, how you take your coffee, what mood you are in based on the way you close a cabinet, and exactly what you mean when you say, “Do whatever you want.”
This does not mean they automatically know what feels pleasurable to your body.
Bodies are not standardized equipment.
What feels good differs between people, and it can change for the same person with stress, age, health, pregnancy, postpartum changes, medications, hormonal changes, emotional connection, context, or simply the day.
And yet sexual feedback can feel terrifyingly personal.
“Slower.”
“I really like that.”
“Not quite like that.”
“Can we try something different?”
“I don’t enjoy that.”
Those are useful sentences, but couples may avoid them because they fear turning intimacy into a performance review.
Nobody wants to hear:
“Thank you for your efforts. I do have some notes.”
So people stay quiet.
Unfortunately, silence is not always kindness. If you never tell your spouse what feels pleasurable, what does not, what helps you relax, or what you would like more of, you leave them trying to learn you through guesswork.
The research here is remarkably consistent. A meta-analysis of 48 studies found positive associations between sexual communication and multiple aspects of sexual functioning. A larger 2022 meta-analysis covering 93 studies and 38,499 people found that sexual communication was positively associated with sexual and relationship satisfaction—and that communication quality showed stronger associations than simply how frequently couples talked about sex.
In other words, “We talk about sex” is not necessarily the goal.
Can we talk honestly and safely about our sex life? is the better question.
There are things married people think about sex and rarely say aloud
This may be where the conversation gets more uncomfortable, because the questions that matter most are often not the ones couples casually discuss while unloading the dishwasher.
One spouse may be thinking, I love you, but I don’t want sex as often as you do.
The other may be thinking, I can handle hearing no sometimes. What hurts is feeling like you never want me.
Someone may quietly wonder, Do you still find me attractive?
Someone else may be thinking, I wish you would touch me affectionately without every touch becoming an attempt to have sex.
A spouse may admit privately, Sometimes I say yes because rejecting you feels worse than having sex when I’m not really there.
Another may think, I miss being pursued. I don’t want to always be the one who initiates.
Someone may want to say, I’d like us to try something different, while fearing their spouse will hear, You are boring.
Someone else may think, I don’t want something new. I want to feel safer enjoying what we already do.
There can be even more vulnerable thoughts: I’m struggling to become aroused. I’m having difficulty maintaining an erection. Sex has started hurting. I don’t orgasm very often. I’ve pretended I was enjoying something because I didn’t know how to tell you I wasn’t. My body has changed and I don’t feel attractive. There are things I’d like to talk about, but I’m afraid you’ll judge me. Something from my past still follows me into the bedroom. I don’t even know what I like because nobody ever taught me that I was allowed to think about that.
Those are not small admissions.
But silence does not make them disappear.
In a U.S. probability sample of adult women, researchers found that some women who wanted to communicate about sex had withheld specific feedback for reasons including embarrassment, discomfort discussing details, and concern about hurting a partner’s feelings. More comfortable and specific communication was also associated with greater sexual satisfaction.
Sometimes protecting your spouse from one uncomfortable conversation creates years of confusion.
Kind honesty is usually kinder in the long run.
“Do you still want me?” may be hiding under the argument
A lot of sexual conflict sounds logistical on the surface.
“How often?”
“Why not tonight?”
“Why am I always initiating?”
“Why does every cuddle have to become something?”
But underneath some of those arguments is a much more vulnerable question:
Do you still want me?
That may mean:
Do you still find me attractive?
Do you enjoy being close to me?
Do you ever look at me and feel desire without me asking first?
If my body has changed, am I still desirable to you?
Those questions deserve tenderness.
But the spouse who wants sex more frequently is not the only person carrying vulnerability. Underneath “Why does everything have to lead to sex?” may be another question:
Can you love my body without always needing something from it?
Can we cuddle without me having to decide where this is going?
Can you kiss me without disappointment if it stays a kiss?
If I say no tonight, will you still be warm toward me tomorrow morning?
That matters too.
Sometimes a couple’s sexual relationship improves not because they immediately discover the perfect frequency, but because both people begin feeling safer telling the truth about what sex and affection mean to them.
Desire should not become a moral ranking system
When one spouse wants more sex than the other, couples can quietly assign roles.
One becomes the rejected spouse.
The other becomes the withholding spouse.
One is needy.
The other is cold.
One only cares about sex.
The other does not care about the marriage.
Those stories can become dangerous because they turn a difference into a character verdict.
Desire discrepancy is a couple issue, not evidence that one person is sexually correct and the other is defective.
The spouse who wants sex more frequently deserves compassion for the loneliness, frustration, or rejection they may experience.
The spouse who wants it less frequently deserves compassion too. Repeated pressure can make sexual intimacy increasingly difficult to want, especially if saying no reliably produces conflict.
Neither spouse benefits from keeping score.
“I initiated the last four times.”
“We had sex twice last week.”
“You said no Tuesday.”
“I said yes Saturday.”
Once intimacy starts sounding like someone is presenting quarterly earnings, something has gone wrong.
Sexual concerns deserve to be taken seriously.
Seriousness is different from accounting.
Affection gets complicated when every touch has a destination
One quieter problem couples sometimes encounter is that nonsexual touch begins disappearing because its meaning has become uncertain.
A spouse avoids a long kiss because they do not want to “start something.”
They stop cuddling because cuddling seems to come with an expectation.
The other spouse notices the decrease in affection and feels even more unwanted, so they initiate sexually more often in an attempt to restore connection.
Now both people are accidentally strengthening the problem.
This is why couples may need to talk explicitly about affection that does not have to lead anywhere.
Sometimes a hug is a hug.
Sometimes kissing becomes more.
Sometimes lying together on the couch stays lying together on the couch.
Affection becomes safer when either outcome is possible without someone feeling tricked, obligated, or punished.
We have an entire future Journal piece planned around this because it deserves more room than we can give it here. But even in a foundational conversation about sex, it is worth asking:
“Can we be physically affectionate without either of us having to predict where it is going?”
That question can matter more than it looks.
Sex can become an exam neither spouse remembers registering for
Performance pressure has a remarkable ability to remove people from the experience they are actually having.
Instead of noticing pleasure, closeness, touch, and each other, someone begins monitoring themselves.
Am I aroused enough?
Am I taking too long?
Is my body responding correctly?
Did they orgasm?
Why didn’t they orgasm?
Do they think something is wrong with me?
Suddenly there appears to be an invisible clipboard above the bed.
Were all objectives achieved?
Was sufficient enthusiasm demonstrated?
Will there be a follow-up assessment?
This is an unfortunate amount of administration for a room containing no HR department.
Orgasm can be wonderful. So can arousal, desire, and sexual responsiveness. But when any single physical response becomes proof that the encounter “worked,” couples can accidentally replace pleasure with performance.
Bodies sometimes do unpredictable things. Fatigue, stress, health, medication, pain, and many other biological and psychological factors can influence sexual functioning. Current expert recommendations therefore emphasize a biopsychosocial approach to sexual difficulties rather than assuming there is one simple explanation.
The answer is generally not to panic and turn one body’s response into a referendum on the marriage.
Curiosity works better than accusation.
And when a new or persistent physical change, pain, erectile difficulty, arousal concern, or other sexual health issue is causing distress, talking with an appropriate healthcare professional can be an important part of caring for the relationship too.
“Normal” is not a particularly useful couple
Somewhere, another married couple is supposedly having exactly the right amount of sex.
Nobody knows who they are.
But they have caused a lot of trouble.
Couples hear numbers from friends, podcasts, television, social media, religious conversations, surveys, or that one person who speaks about their marriage with suspicious confidence.
Then the comparison begins.
Are we having enough sex?
There is no single frequency that proves your marriage is healthy.
Frequency matters if it matters to the people in the marriage. Sexual satisfaction matters. Feeling desired may matter. Feeling safe matters. Mutual pleasure matters. Affection matters. Being able to talk about disappointment matters.
But turning somebody else’s frequency into your marital grading scale is rarely useful.
You do not actually know what is happening in that couple’s bedroom.
Frankly, they do not know what is happening in yours either.
Let everyone return to their assigned marriage.
Sometimes the bedroom is crowded with people who are not actually there
Nobody enters marriage sexually blank.
We bring history.
Maybe sex was never discussed in your family.
Maybe it was discussed only as danger.
Maybe you learned excellent boundaries before marriage but very little about how to become comfortable with sexual pleasure afterward.
Maybe your faith community taught clearly that sex within marriage was good, but after years of hearing don’t think about it, don’t do it, don’t go too far, your nervous system did not receive the wedding-night memo saying, All right, everyone, complete psychological reversal beginning now.
Maybe you learned from pornography.
Maybe you learned from previous relationships.
Maybe you experienced something harmful.
Maybe your parents modeled affection beautifully.
Maybe they never touched.
Maybe your culture attached particular expectations to masculinity, femininity, modesty, initiative, fertility, or sexual availability.
None of that automatically determines what your marriage will become.
But unexamined history tends to keep voting.
This is why “What did you learn about sex?” may be one of the most revealing conversations a married couple can have.
Not during an argument.
Probably not at 11:52 p.m. when one of you has just been rejected.
Pick a better time.
Marriage has survived this long. It can wait until Saturday morning.
Please talk about pleasure
This should not be radical advice for married people.
Sometimes it still feels like it.
Couples can talk about budgets, children, retirement, conflict styles, faith, vacation planning, and whether the air conditioner genuinely needs to be set that low, yet struggle to ask:
“What do you enjoy?”
Pleasure is not selfish when it exists within mutuality and respect. Knowing what your spouse enjoys is part of knowing your spouse.
And please do not assume silence means everything is excellent.
Research suggests that people communicate during sex through combinations of words, sounds, and body movements, and that people differ considerably in what feels natural to them. Many participants in qualitative research described sexual communication as something that develops with comfort and experience rather than appearing automatically.
The goal is not to make everyone suddenly narrate.
Nobody needs a live commentary track.
But both spouses should have some reliable way to communicate yes, I like that; no, not that; more; less; slower; different; stop; keep going.
If your spouse has to guess everything, they are not being given a fair chance to know you.
A good sexual relationship is not one where nobody ever hears “no”
This is worth saying plainly.
A healthy sex life is not measured by whether both spouses are always sexually available.
There will be nights when one person wants sex and the other does not. That can hurt. It can disappoint. It can be frustrating.
The answer is not pretending those feelings do not matter. The higher-desire spouse should be able to say, “I miss you,” or “I’ve been feeling rejected lately,” without being mocked for caring about sex.
But the other spouse must also be able to say no without anticipating punishment.
No sulking campaign.
No cold shoulder designed to teach a lesson.
No invoking marriage as an entitlement.
No keeping a ledger.
No turning kindness the following morning into evidence that the rejection “didn’t bother you enough.”
How a couple handles not tonight may tell us almost as much about their sexual relationship as what happens when both people say yes.
Safety makes honesty possible.
And honest desire is far more meaningful than compliance.
Talk about sex somewhere other than during sex
One of the worst times to begin a major conversation about your sexual relationship is immediately after something has gone wrong.
You are both vulnerable. Someone may already feel rejected, embarrassed, disappointed, or defensive.
This is not always the ideal moment to unveil the twelve-point strategic plan.
Instead, talk when you are clothed, reasonably rested, and nobody is currently requesting sex.
Ask each other what helps you feel desired. Ask what tends to shut desire down. Talk about whether morning or evening works better, how each of you likes initiation to happen, whether one person feels they initiate too much, whether affection has started feeling loaded, and what helps each person relax.
Ask what messages each of you grew up with about sex.
Ask whether there is anything one of you has avoided saying because you were worried about hurting the other’s feelings.
Ask what makes honesty feel safer.
And perhaps one of the most useful questions:
“Is there something about our sex life you wish I understood better?”
Then try not to interrupt the answer by explaining why they should not feel that way.
The goal of the first conversation is not necessarily to solve everything.
It may simply be to finally know what is true.
Okay, but how do we make this conversation less awkward?
Telling couples to “communicate about sex” can be a little like telling someone who is afraid of flying to “just relax.”
Technically useful.
Operationally incomplete.
Sexual conversations are awkward partly because they matter. Nobody wants to hurt the person they love, expose something vulnerable, sound dissatisfied, seem demanding, or accidentally turn Wednesday evening into a formal review of bedroom performance.
Research suggests that this hesitation is not unusual. In interviews about communication during sex, people described holding back because they did not want to interrupt the mood, discourage a partner, or risk feeling judged. Some preferred discussing certain sexual topics before or after sex, while others relied more heavily on nonverbal communication during it. Greater comfort with a partner appeared to make sexual communication easier.
So couples may need more than the instruction talk about it.
They may need a few handles.
Start clothed
If the subject already feels vulnerable, the first significant conversation probably does not need to happen while both of you are naked and one person is wondering whether the conversation itself means sex has now officially been canceled.
Try the couch.
Take a walk.
Talk over coffee on Saturday morning.
Use a long drive if eye contact somehow makes both of you suddenly forget the English language.
Some participants in research on sexual communication specifically described preferring sexual conversations before or after sexual activity rather than during it.
The point is not the location. It is lowering the stakes enough that nobody feels evaluated in real time.
Instead of beginning with:
“Can we talk about what you just did?”
—which carries the emotional warmth of an unexpected meeting with Human Resources—
try:
“I’ve been thinking about how we can make sex feel even better for both of us. Can we talk about it later?”
Same marriage.
Same subject.
Very different entrance.
Start with what you enjoy, not only what needs fixing
One of the easiest ways to make sexual communication feel like criticism is to ensure that the only time your spouse hears feedback is when something is wrong.
Tell them what works too.
“I really like when you…”
“I love when we…”
“I feel especially close to you when…”
“I’d like more of…”
Studies of sexual self-disclosure—how openly people share sexual preferences with their partners—have found associations with greater sexual satisfaction and functioning in long-term committed relationships.
Giving positive information is not manipulation or sugarcoating.
It is useful data.
And “I love this; can we do more of it?” tends to land somewhat differently from “You have been doing this incorrectly since 2017.”
One invites curiosity.
The other causes a person to begin defending their entire sexual résumé.
Try “I like, I’d like, I’m curious”
This is not a research-validated formula. It is simply a practical structure that fits what the broader research says about specific, open sexual communication.
Each spouse completes three thoughts:
I like…
Something already present in your sexual relationship that you enjoy.
I’d like…
Something you would appreciate more of, less of, or differently.
I’m curious about…
Something you might want to talk about or possibly explore together, without the statement automatically becoming a request or expectation.
That could sound like:
“I like when we take our time.”
“I’d like you to initiate sometimes because it makes me feel wanted.”
“I’m curious whether mornings might actually work better for us than waiting until we are both barely conscious at night.”
Notice what this framework does.
It gives both people permission to talk about what is good, what could be better, and what is simply open for conversation.
And “I’m curious about” is not consent.
Your spouse is allowed to answer:
“That sounds interesting.”
“Maybe.”
“Not for me.”
“I need to think about it.”
Curiosity can open a conversation without obligating either spouse to walk through the door.
During sex, small words are enough
Not every piece of sexual feedback requires a summit.
Sometimes two or three words are plenty:
“Right there.”
“I like that.”
“Slower.”
“Softer.”
“More.”
“Different.”
“Pause.”
“Keep going.”
Research suggests that people naturally communicate during sex through verbal, vocal, and bodily cues, and many people prefer nonverbal signals for communicating pleasure. Verbal communication may become especially useful when something hurts, is uncomfortable, or needs to change.
Nobody needs to become a sports commentator.
But silence does not need to carry the entire workload either.
Your spouse cannot reliably distinguish between:
This is amazing.
This is fine.
I wish this were different.
and
I am currently planning tomorrow’s grocery order.
That is a lot of responsibility to place on eyebrow interpretation.
Create shorthand before you need it
Some couples may find it easier to agree ahead of time on a few simple phrases.
“More like that.”
“Different.”
“Pause.”
“Can we switch?”
“Keep going.”
Some people use a familiar green, yellow, red shorthand: green means comfortable/continue, yellow means slow down or check in, and red means stop.
That is not a scientifically validated marital-sex operating system.
Please do not laminate it.
The usefulness is simply that vulnerable moments sometimes become easier when nobody has to compose a paragraph.
Whatever words you use, both people need to understand them, and using them needs to be emotionally safe.
Let nonverbal communication help—but don’t make it do everything
Moving closer, guiding touch, changing position, kissing back, pulling away, relaxing, sounds, facial expressions, and body movements can all communicate useful information during intimacy.
Research confirms that sexual communication is not limited to spoken words; people use verbal, vocal, and bodily communication in different combinations.
But nonverbal communication has limits.
It can help communicate pleasure and preference.
It should not be expected to carry the entire burden of discomfort, boundaries, or consent.
If something hurts, feels wrong, or needs to stop, clarity is kinder than hoping your spouse correctly interprets a shoulder movement.
Have a tiny debrief, not a performance review
Afterward does not need to become:
“So, on a scale from one to ten…”
Please do not introduce Yelp into the marriage.
But every once in a while, you can ask something simple:
“What did you really enjoy?”
or:
“Anything you’d want more or less of next time?”
Then try to receive the answer without immediately defending yourself.
This matters because research participants have described withholding sexual feedback specifically because they worried about discouraging or hurting a partner.
If every suggestion receives:
“Wow. So apparently I’ve been doing everything wrong for eleven years?”
your spouse will quickly learn that silence is cheaper.
A more useful response is:
“Okay. That’s helpful.”
Even if your ego needs to go sit quietly somewhere afterward.
When performance anxiety takes over, take performance off the table
There is also a more formal approach from sex therapy worth knowing about.
Sensate focus is a structured therapeutic approach that shifts attention away from performance goals and toward sensation, touch, and present-moment experience. One of its central ideas is reducing pressure for a particular sexual outcome so that intimacy is not continually being evaluated by whether it “worked.”
The research base is still developing, but a 2024 randomized controlled trial of an online sensate-focus intervention with heterosexual couples reported improvements in some aspects of sexual functioning and intimacy. Contemporary expert recommendations also include sensate focus among approaches clinicians may use as part of a broader, individualized biopsychosocial treatment plan for sexual difficulties.
There is a useful idea here even for couples who are not receiving sex therapy:
What if, sometimes, nothing has to happen next?
Touch can simply be touch.
A kiss can remain a kiss.
You can notice pleasure and closeness without somebody internally monitoring whether the evening has met all performance objectives.
For couples dealing with persistent sexual pain, trauma, erectile difficulties, orgasm concerns, significant distress, or other ongoing sexual difficulties, it is better to involve an appropriate healthcare professional or qualified sex/couples therapist rather than trying to turn a Journal article into individualized treatment.
Make awkwardness allowed
Perhaps the most useful technique is also the least sophisticated:
You are allowed to be awkward.
You can tell your spouse:
“I feel ridiculous bringing this up.”
“I’m nervous you’re going to hear this as criticism.”
“I don’t quite know how to say this.”
“This is embarrassing, but I want us to be able to talk about it.”
Naming the awkwardness can remove some of its power.
You may both laugh.
Somebody may suddenly find a pillow extremely interesting.
There may be an unnecessarily long pause.
None of that means the conversation is going badly.
People in qualitative research have described sexual communication as a skill that develops with time, experience, comfort, and greater ability to understand and express one’s own sexuality.
The goal is not to become the couple who can discuss every sexual preference with the emotional composure of two people reviewing a grocery list.
The goal is to become the couple who knows:
We can tell each other the truth here, even if we blush while doing it.
Maybe complicated is an invitation to know each other better
Sex carries unusual weight because it asks spouses to be known in ways that are both physical and emotional.
This is my body.
This is what I desire.
This is what I don’t desire.
This is what makes me nervous.
This is where I feel confident.
This is where I feel ashamed.
This is what I enjoy.
This is what I wish you understood.
This is where my body has changed.
This is what rejection means to me.
This is what pressure feels like to me.
This is how I know you want me.
No wonder sex gets complicated.
Look at everything we put in the room with it.
Perhaps the goal is not to create a marriage in which sex becomes effortlessly uncomplicated forever. People change. Bodies change. Seasons change. Children arrive. Stress rises and falls. Health changes. Desire changes. What worked five years ago may require another conversation today.
The better goal may be to become a couple capable of talking about those changes without turning each other into the problem.
A marriage can make room for the spouse who wants more sex and the spouse who wants less. For morning and evening. For spontaneous desire and desire that needs time. For “please shower first.” For “I wish you would initiate.” For “I don’t know how to tell you what I like.” For “I need you to slow down.” For “I miss feeling wanted.” For “I need affection that isn’t asking for anything.” For “something has changed in my body.” For “I want us to figure this out together.”
Those conversations may be awkward.
You may laugh because you’re nervous. Someone may hide their face in a pillow. You may discover that after five, fifteen, or thirty years of marriage, there are still things about your spouse you did not know.
Good.
Knowing each other is not something you finish.
And maybe that is part of what sexual intimacy can become over a lifetime: not two people who magically know everything, but two people who keep making it safer to tell the truth.
Sources & Further Reading
Allen B. Mallory, Dimensions of Couples’ Sexual Communication, Relationship Satisfaction, and Sexual Satisfaction: A Meta-Analysis, Journal of Family Psychology (2022). The meta-analysis included 93 studies and 38,499 people in current relationships.
Allen B. Mallory, Amelia M. Stanton & Ariel B. Handy, Couples’ Sexual Communication and Dimensions of Sexual Function: A Meta-Analysis, The Journal of Sex Research (2019).
Uzma S. Rehman, Alessandra H. Rellini & Erin Fallis, The Importance of Sexual Self-Disclosure to Sexual Satisfaction and Functioning in Committed Relationships, The Journal of Sexual Medicine (2011).
Rosemary Basson, The Female Sexual Response: A Different Model, Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy (2000).
Brian J. Willoughby, Adam M. Farero & Dean M. Busby, Exploring the Effects of Sexual Desire Discrepancy Among Married Couples, Archives of Sexual Behavior (2014).
Debby Herbenick and colleagues, Women’s Sexual Satisfaction, Communication, and Reasons for (No Longer) Faking Orgasm: Findings from a U.S. Probability Sample, Archives of Sexual Behavior (2019).
Léa J. Séguin, “I’ve Learned to Convert My Sensations into Sounds”: Understanding During-Sex Sexual Communication, The Journal of Sex Research (2024).
Audrey Lutmer & Alicia M. Walker, Patterns of Verbal and Nonverbal Communication During Sex, Archives of Sexual Behavior (2024).
Sijia Huang, Ziyi Li & Pekka Santtila, The Effectiveness of Online Sensate Focus Exercises in Enhancing Sexual Function and Intimacy Among Chinese Heterosexual Couples: A Randomized Controlled Trial, Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy (2024).
Lori A. Brotto and colleagues, Psychological and Interpersonal Dimensions of Sexual Function and Dysfunction: Recommendations from the Fifth International Consultation on Sexual Medicine (ICSM 2024), Sexual Medicine Reviews (2025).