magazine issue 2 2021 / Special Issue: Human Sexuality

The Sex Tips You Won’t See In Magazines: Science-backed ways to stay sexually satisfied in long-term relationships

• written by Jessica Maxwell
• edited by Marlene Werner & Matthew Baldwin

Women should insert jade eggs into their vaginas to increase the chance of orgasm(1).

Don’t believe in sexual soulmates(2).

For a happier life, have sex once a week(3).

Which of these tips are click bait, and which are grounded in empirical research? I am trained in this area of study and sometimes cannot tell the difference! (Okay we all probably knew jade eggs were not the best idea).

Although it has been several years since researchers systematically analysed sex tips in popular magazines (4), these analyses suggest that this sex advice is often only weakly based on research at best, or completely misguided at worst. These magazines often perpetuate harmful gender and heteronormative stereotypes such as that a female’s role in the bedroom is to please her male partner, and that males are easily (and always) sexually aroused (5).

I do not want to insult the content of all sexuality articles found in magazines. Many of these magazines do their due diligence and consult with experts in the field, and there is some evidence that these magazines may even help women feel more sexually empowered (6). But valid tips from experts are intermixed with articles like “Use the Moon to Improve your Love Life”(7) and anecdotal evidence.

To help you separate fact from fiction, below I compiled practical tips distilled from recent research on sex and relationships. These are not just the by-products of one-off studies, but instead are based on several pieces of evidence that converge with broader psychological theories. And—spoiler alert—we will not be re-iterating the karma sutra or “15 Ways to Make your Hand Jobs Unforgettable(8).” We will focus instead on mindset and small behavior changes in your relationship that can boost your sex life.

Of all the areas of a relationship, sex is usually particularly important, and tends to be a core defining feature of romantic relationships (9; although this is not true of all individuals--such as individuals identifying as asexual). Typically, couples who are the happiest with their sex lives are the happiest in their relationships overall, and couples unhappy in their sex lives are unhappy overall(10). Sexual issues are one of the top reasons couples head to the offices of therapists, and more bleakly, divorce lawyers(11). On the bright side, improvements to your sex life can improve your relationship overall: when newlywed couples had higher sexual satisfaction, their marital satisfaction improved even 6-8 months later(12). Thus, heeding some of the following tips may have benefits beyond the bedroom.

1. Have sex this often. Let us start with the burning question on most people’s minds: What is the magic number of times a week a couple needs to have sex to stay satisfied? The happiest couples must be having sex multiple times a week right? Well, first of all, there is no one magic number for all. And whether frequency affects your relationship satisfaction may depend on your beliefs about how important sex is(13). But, on average, couples need less sex than you might think to maintain happiness: once a week is enough on average. This number comes from three correlational studies including data from a large US national survey(14). The researchers found that the association between sexual frequency and well-being is curvilinear. This finding means that at a certain point having more sex will not improve your well-being, and this threshold is around once a week. Now if you are having less sex than that, this is not a prescription to have sex at least once a week; in one experiment, instructing couples to double their sexual frequency did not boost their mood (15). In other words, prescribing sex once a week(3) is not an effective way to increase happiness in your life because there is yet to be experimental evidence to this effect.

Why does once a week seem good enough(16)? In part it might be that sex boosts sexual satisfaction for 48 hours afterward on average(17). Researchers followed two groups of newlywed couples every day for 2 weeks. They tracked whether the couple had sex and measured their sexual satisfaction each day. They found that each time a couple had sex, their sexual satisfaction stayed high for the following two days. This implies having sex can tide your sexual satisfaction over for a few days, meaning you do not need to be having sex every day to stay sexually satisfied. 

2. Challenge (and change) your sexpectations. Your sexual expectations (or “sexpectations” as fictional sex columnist Carrie Bradshaw(18) and I like to call them) reflect your mindset towards sex in relationships. Do you agree with the statement “In order to maintain a good sexual relationship, a couple needs to exert time and energy;”(19) or are you more apt to agree with a statement like “You have a certain type of sexual life and you really can't do much to change it”?(20) Studies have looked at whether people believe different aspects of their sex life including sexual attraction(21), sexual satisfaction(19), and sex life in general(20) can be changed or whether they are set in stone. These lines of research all converge on the same conclusion: Believing that your sex life can change is associated with better outcomes including higher relationship satisfaction, less problematic porn use, and greater ability to handle difficult phases of a relationship. In my own research(19), I have found that those who take a growth mindset towards their sexual satisfaction—believing it needs nurturance and maintenance like a garden—are more willing to and actually put in more work into their sex life. They are also not fazed when they disagree with their partner regarding their sex life. On the other hand, people who believe sexual satisfaction comes from simply finding their sexual soulmate are ill-prepared to handle sexual disagreements. Put simply, having a better sex life may start with your mindset about sex: remembering you have the agency to make it better is the first step.

3. Bake a pie. No that is not some kind of new sex position (that I am aware of!). Baking a pie is one example a participant gave in a research study when asked to report if they engaged in an activity with their romantic partner that day that led them to feel a sense of excitement, or new knowledge about the self/the world (22). It turns out trying something new with your partner outside the bedroom--even baking a pie for the first time or painting an apartment--can help with passion in the bedroom. This is because that feeling of excitement we get when we are just starting a relationship with someone and getting to know them is what leads to passion(23). When we know everything about our partners, we lose passion. Trying something new and seeing a new side of ourselves or our partner, what researchers call self-expansion, can do wonders for our sexual desire and relationship quality(24). Indeed, when individuals were told to try something new and exciting in their romantic relationship, they reported greater sexual desire 72 hours later, versus those who did not receive such instructions (22). So remember the key to ‘spicing’ up your sex life does not reside solely in the actions you take in the bedroom…anything you and your partner do to step outside your comfort zone can inject new life into your relationship and sex life.  

4. Fantasize. Fantasy is more than a Britney Spears fragrance and a 90s smash hit from Mariah Carey. Your sexual fantasies are intertwined with the broader context of your relationship; for example, individuals who are more insecure about their partner’s affections tend to imagine their partner expressing the affection they crave in their sexual fantasies (25). And the association goes both ways…your fantasies can affect your relationship. A recent series of four studies, using a combination of experimental and daily experience approaches, indicates that fantasizing about your partner can have benefits in the bedroom and beyond (26). Participants wrote out in detail the sexual fantasies they had about their partner, as opposed to other members of the opposite sex. Fantasizing about one’s partner led to more sexual desire for the partner, as well as an increase in other behaviors beneficial to relationships such as doing things to make their partner happy, expressing love for a partner, etc. Whereas fantasies about other individuals did not have these benefits. In short, why not swap your usual celebrity fantasy with one involving your partner…a fantasy with your partner has a greater chance of coming true afterall!

5. Meet your partner halfway. Does your partner enjoy sex in the morning while your idea of morning exercise is rolling over to hit the snooze button? Does your partner have a favorite sexual position that you could live without? Should you give in to your partner’s (or partners’) desires? The answer is yes…sort of. Being willing to meet your partner’s sexual needs—such as engaging in their preferred sexual activity--can benefit both you and your partner, including you having higher desire(27), and your partner being more committed to the relationship(28). In consensually non monogamous (e.g., polyamorous and open) relationships, perceiving one partner is willing to meet your needs can also benefit your relationship with your second partner (29). But there is a big caveat to all of this: a willingness to meet a partner’s sexual needs is not healthy when taken to the extreme. What does the extreme look like? Healthy: “During sex, I was focused on meeting my partner’s needs.” Not so healthy: “During sex, it was impossible for me to satisfy my own needs if they conflicted with my partner’s needs.” In short, the extreme, unhealthy version is when you are putting your partner ahead of yourself, and neglecting your own needs. How do researchers know this? Well, in one study they followed couples for every day three weeks. On days when people put their partner’s need above their own (i.e., extreme willingness to satisfy partner’s sexual needs), they experienced lower sexual and relationship satisfaction. But on days when people endorsed a healthy willingness, both partners were more satisfied in the bedroom and with their relationship overall (30). Just remember there is a fine line between giving in and giving too much.

6. Make “no” sexy. What is hopefully clear from the above tip is that you should not always say yes to sex if it is not in keeping with your needs. But what do you do if your partner wants sex and you don’t? You could always borrow some ideas from this wife whose husband made waves online for recording her reasons for declining sex including “I might be getting sick” and “I’m watching the [Friends re-run]”(31). Or you can make use of reversible pillow case (32) that says “Not tonight (sorry!)” on one side and “Tonight (woo hoo!)” on the other. As you might have guessed there are better and worse ways to turn down your partner’s advances. Research suggests rejecting your partner in a reassuring manner—such as reminding them you are attracted to them, expressing love or offering a rain check—may even be better for your relationship satisfaction than having sex for the wrong reasons (e.g., to avoid a fight).(33) On the other hand, the aforementioned passive declines (i.e., “I might be getting sick”, the “Not tonight” pillow) are better for your relationship than rejecting your partner in more hostile ways (like criticizing the way they initiated sex; (34)). Research into how to best reject your partner’s sexual advances is relatively new, so it is important to keep in mind that it is unclear how these strategies might change over the course of a relationship, and perhaps have diminishing effectiveness when used repeatedly over several years.

What do all these sex tips have in common?

When it comes to sex, focusing on mechanics is important, but the relational aspect is also important. There is growing recognition that we cannot separate out sex from the broader relational context (35). As the body of research on sex in relationships continues to grow, more attention can be paid to exactly what aspects of sex (e.g., orgasm, cuddling, touch) yield the strongest relationship benefits.

One thing to keep in mind is much of the research I discussed was focused on monogamous couples, with a high proportion of the participants identifying as heterosexual. Thus, greater diversity in samples is needed to test whether these tips apply to other relationships. Of course, diversity is a concern for all psychology studies, but I would argue it is particularly important for sexuality, in which cultures may have different views. For example, in cultures where sex is more taboo(36), is once a week still the optimal frequency? In cultures that value the concept of fate(37), is the belief in sexual soulmates more beneficial? Do these tips extend equally to the increasingly common casual relationships like Friends With Benefits (38)? How about to couples undergoing transition periods (menopause, empty-nesters, etc.)? Sex researchers do not have definitive answers to all of these questions yet.

Overall, read sex tips you see in magazines and on the Internet carefully. There is nothing wrong with trying out some new tricks (skip the jade eggs though(1)), but keep in mind it might just be your approach to sex in your relationship that needs to shift.

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