The start of a New Year offers the chance to turn over a new leaf. It’s a blank page in a fresh notebook. A chance to wipe the slate clean and make some big changes in your life. If your sex life has been neglected in the past year, there’s always the opportunity to spice things up.
Enjoying a happy and healthy sex life is about more than just quality and quantity. There are so many different factors that go into your sexual happiness. Being aware of how your mental health and your sexual satisfaction contributes to your relationships can help you to unlock hidden pleasures.
In this guide, we’re going to look at all the different ways you can spice up your love life in 2021 and beyond. You don’t have to do it all at once, but making time for these different tasks throughout the year could help you to enjoy more satisfying sexual relationships.
It doesn’t matter if you’re single and playing the field, in a new relationship or if you’ve been married for years. Every couple can benefit from increased awareness about their relationship. Read on to discover how you can make this awareness work in your favour as you embark on your most sexually satisfying year yet.
It’s easy for couples to get lost in each other’s company. You might have experienced an intense year of working from home and having little outside social contact. Now it’s time to focus on spending quality time together and quality time apart.
Time apart is just as important as time together. Enjoying your own company can help you to learn new things about yourself. And to be clear, we mean alone time in the bedroom. Learning how to satisfy yourself can help you to be more present in the bedroom. When you know what you like, it becomes a lot easier to ask for what you want.
Regular STI checks should be a part of your routine if you are having sex with multiple partners. And even if you’re in a monogamous relationship, there are benefits to regular checks. Women should always attend their cervical cancer screening, even if the past year may have prevented you from attending appointments.
If you’re enjoying sex with multiple partners or sharing toys, you should always make sure you’re getting regular STI tests to ensure you aren’t spreading anything without your knowledge. And if it has been a while since your last checkup, make 2021 the year you get back on track.
Nothing will bring a couple closer together like a shared fantasy. You don’t have to always know what you want, but when you’re more open to trying new things, you’re more likely to discover what works for you.
Fantasies are unique in that they don’t always work for you when you bring them into the real world. The fantasy of a threesome might not play out the way you expect, and it might be better left alone inside your head. But dress up, bondage play and new positions could open up a whole new world of sexual pleasure.
Learning how to be open and honest with your partner about what you want in the bedroom is one way to ensure you keep things interesting. And if you’re in the early stages of a new relationship, it’s a great way to make sure you’re sexually compatible.
Communication in a relationship is about more than just leaving a post-it reminding your partner to empty the bins or buy milk. Intimate communication is important to make sure you don’t let the spark in your relationship fizzle out. If the spark has gone, don’t worry, there are ways you can bring it back.
Communication is a two-way street, so you need to focus on saying what you mean and hearing what your partner says. Technology makes communication easier than ever before, so take it to WhatsApp if that’s the only way you can find the time. What’s important is that you’re talking about your relationship and your sex life, once you read
If you don’t protect your time together, you can guarantee that no one else will. When you put a date in your diary, you have to protect this time from being eroded by other life commitments. And if your partner makes the effort, you need to match their effort. There’s nothing worse than being the one in a relationship that always seems to be making the effort.
If you’re struggling for inspiration, try setting a weekly or monthly date night that cannot be moved or cancelled. Make this a special time for trying something new. And remember that this should be the bare minimum intimate contact you enjoy. If you’re scheduling every sexual encounter, you need to focus on your spontaneity in 2021.
Sex toys can do a lot of the heavy lifting in a relationship. This is to say that they can tell your partner a lot about what you are thinking and feeling without you ever needing to open your mouth. You don’t have to say “let’s try anal” if you’ve got a butt plug to do all the talking for you.
Making a regular date to choose a new sex toy together can help to keep your bedroom antics fresh and fun. With so many sex toys available, you’ll never be short of ideas. And if you’re lacking inspiration, you can always check to see what are the best selling sex toys at the moment.
Sex toys aren’t something that should feel intimidating. They aren’t designed to replace anyone, they are only intended to enhance your pleasure. And when both parties are having more fun, you’ll both get a lot more out of your encounters.
If your antics have always been limited to the bedroom, why not make 2021 the year you try getting down and dirty somewhere new. Popular choices include the shower, the kitchen, the car, or al fresco in a field.
This one often goes hand in hand with trying to be more spontaneous. Sex outside the bedroom might not be what you’re expecting, but you can be sure you’ll have a lot of fun trying something new. It will push you to explore new moves, be more daring, and make spontaneous decisions.
If you’re tempted by the thought of shower sex but not sure where to get started, we published an entire article on the fine art of shower sex.
Trying a new position can help to unlock new possibilities for passion. Grab yourself a book of daring sex positions and see what you can already do, and then make a list of your goals. You might need to work on your strength or flexibility to achieve some of the more challenging positions, but this can be a great way to increase the intimacy in a relationship.
Working on your strength or flexibility is something that you will do outside of the bedroom. It’s a task that will require additional planning and thought. And it’s something that will spill over into a part of your life that has nothing to do with sex.
This is a great place to be if you want to spice up your relationship. This level of dedication will show your partner that you’re actively engaging in your relationship, not just a passive participant. And when you finally manage to achieve those elusive positions, you’ll have something to celebrate together.
Even the most confident person needs a little reassurance now and then. Make sure you make the effort to give your partner compliments and notice the little things they do. If they’ve been hitting the gym more often, or if they’ve made the effort to keep on top of their portion of the housework, throw a compliment their way. And make sure you really mean it.
When you’re giving out more compliments, you should also learn how to receive compliments. When your partner says something nice about you, don’t question their motives or ask what they want in return. Take the compliment and give yourself a moment to feel good about yourself.
Porn can be a great source of visual stimulation. It’s also a great source of inspiration. If you’re feeling like you’re in a rut, making time to watch a raunchy movie together could be just the thing you need to shake the cobwebs loose.
But porn doesn’t have to be found in the usual form. An erotic podcast or erotic fiction can be just as stimulating as a movie. For some people, reading an erotic passage together can be more exciting as it pushes you to use your imagination. Your imagination is one of the strongest tools you have in your sexual arsenal. And if you don’t feed it, it’s going to starve. Make sure you’re giving your imagination plenty to think about in different forms.
Dress up is one thing that struggling couples often turn to, but assuming an alter ego is just taking this one step further. If you’ve been together for a while and you’re craving the butterflies you get when you meet someone new, you could try to fake it.
An alter ego will allow you to try things you would never normally try, say things you would never normally say and embrace fantasies that may have gone undiscovered. You can go as far as you want with this. Some people will engineer a chance encounter and keep their alter ego a secret. Others will work on the scenario together, making sure that their partner knows what they can expect.
Dressing up is a huge part of assuming an alter ego, so go a little wild and see where your deepest fantasies can take you.
If sex is always a long and drawn out production, you should embrace the sensual treat of a quickie. And if you never seem to find the time for anything longer than a quickie, try slowing things down. This is all about bringing variety to your relationship. When you do the same thing over and over, it gets boring. But the bad news is that it is so much easier to try the same thing over and over.
If you’re going to get out of your rut, you’re going to need to put in a little effort. And this can sometimes be as simple as enjoying a quickie in the morning or enjoying a bath together in the evening.
Variety is truly the spice of life. If you want to slow things down, try exploring sensual massage. This can be a great way to connect with your partner and shower them with affection. A kissable massage oil is a great way to initiate things. And it won’t take long for things to heat up.
Whether you want more sex, better sex, or a closer relationship with your partner, remember that you get out what you put in. Be realistic in your expectations and don’t expect things to transform overnight. If you have a more voracious sexual appetite than your partner, it might take a little longer for them to warm to your ideas.
At some point, it’s also worth considering if you are really sexually compatible with your partner. Sexual compatibility is just as important as emotional compatibility. Even if every other aspect of your relationship appears flawless, if you’re a mismatch on the sex front, you might struggle to keep things interesting.
If you’re both willing to work on it, there’s no reason you can’t get on the same page. But you should also be aware that you might have to walk away if you cannot find common ground.
