It isn’t how much sex you are having that matters. A new study from the University of Colorado Boulder stays that what makes people happy is how much sex you THINK you are having.
Apparently, this makes you especially happy if you think you are having a lot more sex than other people.
Now I want my guy to be as happy as possible. So how do I convince him that he is actually having more sex than he is? Especially since he is deployed and we are having no sex at all.
That sounded kind of tricky to me. So I called Evelyn Resh, a certified sexuality counselor with The American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists.
It turns out that in our culture it is pretty tough to keep up with the sexually charged Joneses.
“Sexual content is everywhere we look,” said Resh. “Because of this we are under the impression that others are always having more sex than we are. This simply isn't true.”
But how do you find out what is true? Researchers know that people lie about sex. They lie to their friends. They lie to their partners. They lie to researchers.
“Until we are able to have open and honest conversations about sex, we will never really know how frequently people are actually having sex,” said Resh. “So comparing ourselves to them is a bit useless.”
OK. But I still want us to be happy with each other sexually. A satisfying sex life has long been associated with a strong relationship. Here are some tips from Evelyn Resh that may help:
Believe sex still matters.There are so many things that compete for our attention -- can’t sex just be something that goes on the back burner? Nope. Sex belongs on the front burner with someone keeping an eye on it. “In order to have sex as often as we might like to we first have to prioritize it, which is not something we do in relationships,” said Resh. “This is especially true for women. We tend to prioritize everything else over sex, especially if we have children.”
Do a little something sexy every day. When you want to claim a great sex life, defining sex is critical. “What constitutes sexual activity for you?” asked Resh. “Is it just intercourse? Is every thing else - kissing, bathing together, sleeping intimately, not sex?” Count up all the little sexinesses that happen every day. It reminds you that you have a sex life. “This is a complicated thing for many people to wrap their minds around but it can make all the difference in the world as to whether or not you feel sexually inadequate or not,” says Resh.
Look forward and look back. During deployment, military folks are all over the map on what they do to keep the fires burning (check out the comment section on our wife porn article here). But reminding each other that we had a good sex life before and that we look forward to a good sex life in the future is a pretty good start.
