7WAY YOU CAN KEEP YOUR MARIAGE SEXY
4. Step out of your comfort zone. If your the Chinese delivery restaurant knows your Friday night order by heart, listen up: One of the best ways to stay hot for each other is to do new things together. "Novelty drives up dopamine in the brain and that's linked with feelings of intense romantic love," Fisher says. Adds Karen Holland, founder of reinventingrelationships.com: "Doing any new activity together makes people feel alive, and we connect that high with our partners." So forgo your dinner date, and take a hike through a local nature reserve or explore a local city. Anything that gets your adrenaline going will get your hearts racing for each other.

5. Have an affair… with your partner. Having an affair with your spouse can bring back the feelings of excitement and closeness—not to mention the smoking-hot sex—that you had when you first met, Love says. So send each other sexy texts when you least expect it, buy racy lingerie, sneak away for a nooner at a hotel, or meet at bar and pretend you don't know each other. "Tap into that playfulness and passion—and you'll start looking at your partner in a new, sexy, light," she says.

6. Celebrate the good times. Couples who celebrate joyous moments together have the happiest, most trusting, and most committed relationships, a University of California study found. "When you share your spouse's excitement—whether it's completing a 5K or getting a new job—you project that joy onto your partner," Holland says. "And nothing is more attractive than a person who loves her life." So celebrate each other's big and small successes to become a person that everyone wants to be around—especially your spouse.

7. Compete! Pitting yourself against your guy can boost attraction, add chemistry, and lead to a hotter sex life. A Pennsylvania State University study found that competition ups libido-boosting testosterone in men and women. "People interpret that competitive rush

HOW YOU CAN KEEP YOUR MARIAGE SEXY FOREVERER1. Flaunt your sexy self. The first step to staying attractive to each other: Feeling attractive. There's nothing more appealing to a man than a woman who feels sexy in her own skin. And there's no bigger libido-booster for women than feeling that way, says Houston-
based intimacy expert Mary Jo Rapini. Only you know what makes you feel sexy—whether it's wearing sexy underthings or getting in a great sweat session at the gym—but there is one feel-sexy secret that's universal: Talk about sex. Fisher's study found that women who talked about sex with their spouses for 10 minutes a day had the same sexual desire as women who took a libido-boosting medication. And chitchat benefits men, too: "Ninety-five percent of men and women say that talking about their relationship boosted intimacy," Fisher says. Talk about a win-win! 3 Secrets To Exuding Sexy

2. Have sex. Lots of it. Two-thirds of women don't get aroused until they're already in the act, says marriage and family therapist Pat Love, author of Never Be Lonely Again. Translation: Don't wait to "feel" like having sex to do it. "The more sex you have the sexier you feel and the more you'll want to do it," Fisher adds. Another bonus: The dopamine and oxytocin that's released after sex will make you feel closer than ever.

3. Be a little selfish. The happiest marriages are the kinds in which both spouses have their own hobbies and interests, according to a Monmouth University study. "People want a partner who makes their life more colorful," Rapini says. "After all, that's why you fell in
love with him and him with you." Maintaining those interests and finding new ones keeps your relationship fresh and guarantees that you'll stay irresistible to each other, she says. So take a French lesson and encourage him to indulge his love of bird watching. You'll both learn something new about yourselves—and each other. Be A Selfish Lover!4. Step out of your comfort zone. If

HAVING A BABY IMPROVED HER SEX LIFE SHE NARATES
Three weeks before the birth of my first daughter, when I was swollen, uncomfortable and horrified by my bloated body, distended fingers and inability to see my toes, my midwife suggested I have more sex.

I laughed.

"Seriously," she told me. "If you want her to come sooner, try having more sex."

If only it were that easy. I have always been comfortable with sex. I learned early to please myself and took that with me into relationships, often acting the part of the "male" who just wanted to get off as opposed to the "female," looking for love and transcendence through sex.

Since discovering that sex had a function beyond fun and feeling good, my mojo had lessened considerably. Every time my husband came near me, I worried about the baby—would all that jostling hurt her? I worried about the way my body looked—could I really seem attractive to anyone? And most of all, I worried about discomfort. What positions might work for someone who could not lay on her stomach, back, side or pretty much in any position that did not involve three propped pillows? My husband had similar concerns but was more inclined to go for it. Watch: Sex During Pregnancy

In spite of my reservations, I took her advice, contorting my unfamiliar body into positions it was not meant to access, sitting on my husband's lap, the fear—"death by crushing"—humming in my ears. The sex was good, albeit bizarre, but awkward as they were, those encounters achieved the desired results. We had an early birth. Our daughter emerged from my womb two weeks early, her birth a product of the same process that created her.

After she was out, we held her between us—our twosome suddenly interrupted by the arrival of a third. We admired the blending of our features: his forehead, my eyes, his lips, my nose. She was mine, his, ours—the personification of our union.

In the early weeks, this connection did not translate to the bedroom. I wa

When we first married we were like children, discovering each other's bodies, chasing one another around the house, canceling plans so we could stay home in bed kissing, touching, learning to find the spots that would become like home, but at the time were foreign and unexplored. The miracles of modern birth control guaranteed consequence-free pleasure.

As we changed, so did sex. Immersed in graduate school, in our careers and in the business of marriage—the house buying, decorating, merging of finances and caring for our pets—we let our sex life drift into low tide, the passion slowly slipping back from the shore, revealing the rocks that had been hidden from view, ignored beneath the surf.

We had sex, of course, but what was once new and exciting became almost rote, boring at times. A sense of obligation pervaded our encounters, and I longed for the time when things were new, fresh and exciting. Our trips to the sex toy shop—once frequent, fun little diversions—dwindled to almost none. My husband never admitted it, but I think he felt the same. The Best Sex Toys for Couples

After three years of this, the pregnancy came as a welcome surprise—not planned, but not maligned either. Sex was never going to be the same, something I realized almost immediately. It seemed my organs had shifted and suddenly no position was comfortable and my body felt foreign, invaded.

Two months after the birth, I saw my midwife again. My body was still swollen, I had twenty pounds left to lose and had not managed to change out of sweatpants for three days. "If you feel up to it, you could start having sex again," she cheerfully told me after checking my stitches.

I didn't.

The idea of anything going into the place where something so large just exited was not only unappealing, it was downright absurd. I could scarcely sit down for weeks after the birth and was still taking sitz baths almost a month later.

Sex, it seemed, was for young people. And I—at 30—was officially no longer young. I realized this in a series of moments: paying the babysitter, buying my first Volvo, holding my infant daughter while she threw up. My time had passed, my fire now burned in the child who sucked at my breast, screamed at my feet and pulled on my hair. "How did we get so old?" I asked my husband, who reminded me that 30 was actually quite young. Discuss: Which is harder, marriage or motherhood?

In these desperate moments, my husband would pull me close, kiss my neck. But when his hands wandered, I grabbed them, directing them away from my swollen, milk-filled breasts.

And so he waited, waited until I ran out of excuses and hormonally charged diatribes against the act. He was patient, but would also remind me every few hours that there were "other sexual things we could do besides sex." I became resentful, but I also felt guilty. And so I agreed to try it.

It was like high school sex all over again. True, there was no gear shift in my back, but he was so scared to hurt me, his movements tepid and cautious, each touch punctuated with questions. "Is this OK?" "Does that hurt?" Meanwhile I was the quintessential 15 year old, hoping the act would keep us together, cement our new relationship as parents as well as lovers.

We continued in this fashion for a few weeks. I believed I was now a stereotype, the wife who stops trying after she has her child, whose idea of Saturday night attire includes sweat pants and a fleece sweater. But I refused to give in; to remind myself that I was still young and vital, I gritted my teeth and endured.

Until something started to shift and I realized I was not just enduring.

Before giving birth, I'd always had the vague notion that sex was fun and worth pursuing, kind of like cheesecake. Sex was a fashion show, a one-dimensional party. I always had orgasms, but I figured all those people who talk about transcendence and multiple orgas

But then transcendence found me. It found me in the strangest moments, in watching my husband hold our infant daughter, his hands cupping her tiny head. It found me as he cradled her to give a bottle or as he read Good Night Moon in the nursery glider, her tiny fingers pulling apart the pages. It found me in the memory of his hands during 11 hours of labor, his wet tears falling on my shoulders.

Instead of thinking about when it would be over or my flaws, I thought about what the act had created—our child. My body was scarred with irrevocable truths of motherhood: two silver streaks covering a fleshy pocket of skin on my stomach. And yet, I no longer cared. Read: Loving A Post-Baby Body

And my husband, surprisingly, was more than abs and shoulders, more than biceps and strong pectoral muscles. Objectification, once the way we related, intentionally or not, had become passé in the face of such a miracle. We had joined the ranks of so many mothers and fathers before us, united through more than just a piece of paper or a ceremony. We had created life together.

And the result? Hot sex—lots of it. I finally understand what all those bodice rippers and sex columns have been touting. Every touch, every move, everything that once seemed so routine was now charged with this new knowledge. It was one thing to hear him say he wanted me to mother his children. It was another to do it, to spend all day passionately loving something created from both of us and to then love each other in bed at night.

The childbirth books speak of diminished desire post-birth and suggest lubrication, but nobody talks about the other possibility. What if sex were better? What if all of the inhibitions and disparaging thoughts that once filled our heads fled? What if the very act of childbirth forced them out?

My husband felt it, too. We used to get up immediately after sex, always somewhere to be, something else to do. Now we would lie, tangled for hours, discussing our daug

WOMENSEXUAL SATISFACTION
Are women having orgasms in bed? Men seem to think so. According to the National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior, conducted by the Center for Sexual Health Promotion, 85 percent of men believe their partner climaxed during their most recent love-making session.

If that's the case, women everywhere deserve a shot at an Oscars for their in-bed acting abilities. Because, according to the very same NSSHB study cited above, only 64 percent of women reported reaching orgasm during their most recent sexual event—which means that the other 21 percent are most likely faking it. (Some men might have been with other men during their most recent sexual encounter, but according to the researchers the discrepancy is too large for that to be the only reason.)

What's more, an online survey over at SkinnyScoop.com reveals that a whopping 80 percent of women would prefer a massage to sex with their partner.

This doesn't seem all that shocking to me. On most days, I'd prefer a box of Cheez-its to another round of unsatisfying sex.

Why? In the 11 years since I first became sexually active, I have never experienced an orgasm during intercourse.

Not to say that I've never experienced an orgasm. One ex-boyfriend had magical fingers. One particularly bumpy bus ride brought me to a surprise climax. And my clitoris is having an intense love affair with my vibrator.

But an orgasm from intercourse alone? It's never happened. Bringing Sexy Back: 5 Ways To Increase Female Libido In Marriage

And a sexual history like mine isn't as rare as you'd think.

Next: Why two-thirds of women often don't orgasm during sex...

two-thirds of women don't typically orgasm during intercourse. This would be disquieting on its own, but even more depressing, 15 to 20 percent of cases seen by sex therapists involve women who have never had any orgasm at all, either alone or with a partner. How can this be?

One major problem is our pesky anatomy. In 1966, Masters and Johnson studied the logistics of female orgasm and found that women are most likely to reach climax through stimulation of the clitoris. That's great to know, but the truth of the matter is the clitoris is too darn far away from the vaginal opening to reap the benefits of your average in-and-out sex.

And when it comes to sex, men can oftentimes be in a hurry to get to the in-and-out.

Not only that, but pain during sex is also quite common.

In fact, 30 percent of adult women experienced pain the last time they had sex, compared to only 5 percent of men—and sexual pain doesn't exactly make one eager for more sex, nor does it allow one to relax enough to experience pleasure.

Women who have never had an orgasm may be suffering from anorgasmia, also known as female orgasm disorder. Anorgasmia may be psychologically induced, but could also be caused by other medical problems, such as multiple sclerosis, pelvic trauma, spinal cord injury, vulvodynia, or even a hormonal imbalance.

In addition to the above culprits, there are a plethora of things that affect women's libido and arousal levels and can lead to the inability to orgasm. Among these are stress, exhaustion, SSRIs (a common type of anti-depressant medication), and a pain-in-the-butt partner. (Seriously. That comment you just made about my thunder thighs does not make me want to sleep with you.) 5 Reasons Having Sex Is Better Than Being Skinny

Fortunately, there are some easy solutions.

If anatomy is your issue, you could follow sex counselor Ian Kerner's advice, and always follow the "intercourse plus" rule. What this means is that you should indulge in some intercourse, plus some clitoral stimulation. Or some intercourse, plus some anal play. Why? In a 20,000-participant study conducted by Juliet Richters at the University of New South Wales, only 50 percent of women were able to orgasm with intercourse alone. But the addition of extra activities—activities that stimulated their clitoris or other erogenous zones—increased their odds of achieving orgasm by 90 percent.

Is pain the issue for you? Try experimenting with different sexual positions or, if you're having problems with dryness, pile on the lube. If you're experiencing chronic pain you might want to check in with your doctor.

Other things that could help?

You could do kegel exercises regularly in order to strengthen the muscles that typically contract during orgasm. You could bring toys into the bedroom—even during sex—in order to add new sources of stimulation. You could stop thinking about that by-god orgasm, and instead concentrate on the other forms of pleasure you're feeling—after all, sex can be amazing without an orgasm. You could try a sexual arousal oil like Zestra, who is sponsoring this post.

More than anything else, though, you should identify what you like and what makes you feel good. You should talk to your partner about what makes your toes curl. You should communicate with each other so that you're having mutually rewarding sexual experiences.

You should breathe. And enjoy the moment. In the end, whether or not you reach orgasm is almost beside the point.

LADIES IF YOU WANA DATE MULTIPLE MEN THE FOLLOW THIS BELLOW