UK Sex Coach, Sex Coaching

EXTEND YOUR COMFORT ZONE. Like all forms of coaching work, sex and relationship coaching works most successfully when a client is willing to embrace new ideas about themselves and their sexual potential and wants to understand and accept their own and their partner's sexuality. On many occasions I have worked with people who thought that their current sexual behaviour, repertoire and choices were all that they could be and all that they aspired to be, only to find that they had within them an undiscovered sexual self - who wanted more, could give and receive more and who could be far happier and more fulfilled than they could have imagined. Beliefs are the things that most get in the way of sexual exploration. The ideas you have about what sex is/ought to be, who you are and what you should and should not want to/do/feel/be all create and reinforce impoverished sexual aspirations.

KEEP AN OPEN MIND If you are going to be able to make sex great, you will need to learn to park up your inner critical voice that judges and finds fault with others and blames and resents anyone who thinks differently from you. Any type of relationship is healthier and stronger when individuals accept that the differences between them are OK and not a cause for dispute. I have worked with some clients who came to me because their relationship faltered as a result of the assumptions they clung to after finding out more about what excites their sexual partner - and then not liking it. You cannot afford to let knowledge about someone's sexuality mean all kinds of other things. If you find yourself thinking things like 'if s/he likes doing that, then we are totally incompatible', 'I would never want to do that and if s/he does, then they are seriously strange', 'this whole relationship is doomed', then try taking a step back and taking the emotion and judgement away and looking at the facts and ask yourself why does everybody need to share your view of the sexual world?

IN A COUPLE, A SEXUAL PROBLEM DOES NOT 'BELONG' TO ONE PERSON When a couple come to me and one of them is firmly identified (usually by both of them) as 'the one' with the problem, then my first step is usually to ask both of the couple to examine the part that they each play in keeping the situation as it is. For example, when a woman is seen as 'the' problem because she has lost interest in sex, then 'she' is not the problem and the coaching work becomes a question of reframing a problem as a message about something being wrong or missing in her life - maybe it takes a while to find as it could be any number of things (unresolved conflicts between partners, dissatisfaction with other parts of life, realisation that she is simply not receiving the sort of sexual stimulation that she needs to arouse her). Becoming disinterested in sex is not a sign that you are less of a man/women. It typically suggests that we need to look at what else is going on between you and your partner both in and out of bed and, especially if you are single, what direction your life is taking and how happy you are with it.

SOME SEXUAL STUFF TO BE AWARE OF

Seemingly little things can have a big effect upon sexual satisfaction. I have talked to clients who, because they don't respond sexually as they think they 'ought' to, are too scared to be tell the truth. There are a number of common things that people do to arouse their partner that can have the reverse effect. Your intention is good but poor communication means that, for years, you can keep on doing something that turns your partner off not on.

And this can be things like:

not liking oral sex. Men and women have told me that receiving oral sex does very little for them but that they are afraid to fess up to this as they feel they 'ought' to find it arousing.
women who don't get aroused by having their breasts touched. When researchers have surveyed women about what excites them, usually only about 50% say that having their breasts touched or fondled increases their sexual arousal. About half the female population do not really get off on this oft-used arousal technique. They are mostly indifferent. They don't hate it but it does nothing to increase sexual arousal. All this means is that ask your woman what she feels when you touch her breasts. If she is not that excited by it, you don't have to stop doing it but you will need to stop relying on it to arouse your partner.
being too rough with manual stimulation When you insert anything -finger, vibrator - into a vagina, remember to follow the natural channel of the vaginal canal. This means aiming slightly upwards (towards the small of the back and not in directly straight forward and ahead horizontal motion).

The factors that I have mentioned indicate the areas that you most likely need to address if you want to improve your sex life, your relationship with your partner and your feelings about your self and your sexual worth. Sexual knowledge is power because power gives you control (over yourself and the confidence to influence your partner and your environment). Taking control gives you options and choices because you understand that you are responsible for your own happiness. Use your new insights to overcome limiting beliefs by questioning how you can change your old habits into a new approach that inspires and excites you. This month's sex question is a good place to start practising your quest for sexual knowledge.