365 days of sensational sex
January 2, 2004
BY DELIA O'HARA Staff Reporter
Here's a New Year's resolution for you: Make sex with your significant other a top priority in your life. Protect your intimate relationship as if your life depends on it, because sex is one of the pillars of a happy, healthy life.
That's the message of 365 Days of Sensational Sex (Gotham Books, $25), a new book by certified sex educator Lou Paget, author of How to be a Great Lover, How to Give Her Absolute Pleasure and The Big O.
"People think of great sex as the pinnacle of spontaneity but it is so not," she says. "You have to plan for sex. Couples have to make intimacy a priority, and make sure they have time for the two of them. If they don't, their time gets gobbled up."
| Coitus non-interruptus
Here are a few of Lou Paget's favorite sex tips: * The most successful couples never stop courting one another. "Don't take that person for granted. Stay in shape. Look your best. Smell good. Never stop thinking of things that might make your lover happy." * Great sex is ageless. "Falling-in-love sex is different from being-in-love sex, but they don't take away from one another." * Your partner can't read your mind. "If you want to try something new in bed, communicate that desire." * Seeking out one another and touching throughout the day keeps couples connected. "Great lovers like being in one another's space." * Children should sleep in their own beds. "Parents should get a lock for their bedroom door, and the children should learn that when the door is locked, Mom and Dad are unavailable. The health of families relies on couples wanting to be together. You need to have the ability to relax, knowing you won't be interrupted."
Delia O'Hara
|
Paget designed 365 Days as a sexual recipe book for couples who want to rededicate themselves to keeping their relationship alive.
But while the book is full of illustrations of couples making love, descriptions of techniques and even tips on how to use "toys," its advice is by no means confined to what goes on in bed.
"People who have great sex and great intimacy are nice to one another," Paget says. "They are open to doing what it takes to keep their relationships going forward. They're not living in a fairy tale.
"They know it's work, but they have an awareness of the importance of taking care of the parts of their relationship that keep the two of them connected."
That connection requires communicating across the bafflements of the gender gap. "Men and women are both speaking English, but it's like they're speaking different dialects," Paget says.
For example, "men have no clue how important the little things are to her" -- the little things a man does outside the bedroom, that is.
"What happens at 8 a.m. when he's walking out the door is going to impact on what happens in the bedroom at 9 p.m.," Paget says.
As for women, they have "no clue how important it is for her to be sexual with him." The sex act itself is paramount for men.
That's a news flash?
Maybe not, but Paget says very few women understand the depth of a man's desire for sex.
"Having sex with a woman he wants to be intimate with makes a man feel connected to his masculinity. Women control access to sex," she says. "By being open to being sexual with him, a woman gives a man access to a feeling about himself as a man that he cannot get any other way."
You would think the Los Angeles-based Paget would have covered the waterfront in her three previous books, but 365 Days is based on the best ideas she has heard in the 10 years she has been giving seminars.
"I know when I've heard a little gem. This is a collection of a lot of those," she says. "What are the secrets of great intimacies? If something works for one couple, it could work for other couples."
Every couple defines intimacy for itself, Paget says. Her book contains "ideas from people who know what the real world is -- what it's like to be a parent, to have a job, to go through a pregnancy."
Sex can be a fertile arena for creativity, but unless people talk about what they do in bed, the cool new things they come up with never get an airing. "I'm in the catbird seat. I get told everything," Paget says, and she's happy to pass along what she's heard.
Her Russian tailor, who as a young man had very little privacy, filled Paget in on some great techniques he remembered practicing in the stairwells of his apartment building. And a friend of hers showed her the popular "Ode to Bryan"-- the all-out favorite hand maneuver for men using a coffee spoon technique.
Note to readers of 365 Days of Sensational Sex: The best tips on technique are illustrated, with drawings made from digital photographs "so they look like real people," Paget says.
Paget got into the sex business "driving out of the driveway of my own marriage," in which the "intimacy was ho-hum."
She was determined not to make the same mistakes again, but when she went looking for the secrets of great intimate relationships, she ran right into the "adult" industry, which is marketed to men.
"If the information had been out there in the way I needed it, I never would have done this," she says.
Paget, who is now happily involved in a new relationship, wanted to take a positive approach to sexuality, the aspect of human beings that is "most natural about us, and so special. I didn't want to talk about what's wrong or missing. I wanted to approach it more like dance steps, that we're all involved in this wonderful dance, but we haven't necessarily seen the steps that might work."
_______________________________________________ Sndbox mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://a8.mewebdns-a8.com/mailman/listinfo/sndbox_sandboxmail.net
