Parenting Pointers: Celebrating the Physical Side of Sex

How Can We (Re)Discover Each Other’s Sexual Hot Spots?

I hear many couples bemoaning the fact that things just aren’t as “hot” between them since they got married. They reminisce about their season of dating and how the urge to have sex with each other felt absolutely, positively overwhelming at times. Yet after the vows are exchanged, the sexual tension disappeared. They wonder, “Where has the spark gone? And can we ignite it once again?

First, we have to accept the fact that marital relationships naturally go through peaks and valleys, ups and downs, and sexual highs and lows. But when we experience those sexual lows, we don’t have to stay there. We can return to a season of marital and sexual bliss! We know, because we recently did just that—accidentally.

When I had a hysterectomy in 2012, my doctor warned me, “No sexual activity for a minimum of six weeks.” So I braced myself for a l-o-n-g dry spell. But what we soon noticed is that because we knew we couldn’t have intercourse, we focused a lot more attention on all of the other things that we could do without crossing that line.

We kissed. A lot. Long, sweet, slow kisses. And it really got our juices flowing. Kind of like when we were dating, and would find ourselves so aroused by one another! And we caressed and touched a lot more. We weren’t in a mad rush to hurry up and go straight to intercourse. Because we knew we couldn’t. And this got our juices flowing all the more.

And we talked. A lot more than before. Mostly about how great it was going to be when we could have sex again. But I didn’t want to go back to sex as usual. I wanted us to take these valuable lessons into this next season. Great sex isn’t just about the penis going inside the vagina. It’s about the wet, wonderful kisses . . . the soft, gentle caresses . . . the sweet, intimate words exchanged . . . the passion that is stirred when two people take their time to really discover—or rediscover—how to get each other’s sexual motor revving high.

So to find that sexual “high gear” once again, perhaps you should kick things down into “low gear” for a while—at least until your sexual motor has a chance to really get revving once again! S-l-o-w down, and rediscover the fun of foreplay!

I asked several women and men to share their favorite foreplay activity, and here are a few responses:

·       “I love it when my husband holds my hand or puts his arm around me when we’re sitting on the couch watching TV. It makes me feel like I did when we were courting.”

·       “When my wife kisses me and the ‘peck’ kiss turns into a ‘French’ kiss, I go weak in the knees! When she initiates that kind of kiss, I pretty much know that I’m not going to be turned down for sex, and that gives me confidence to go for it!”

·       “When I’m doing dishes at the kitchen sink, I love it when my husband wraps his arms around me from behind and kisses the back of my neck.”

·       “There’s something about being touched along the sides of my body from underneath my arms down the sides of my ribcage down to my hips and thighs—that drives me wild. There’s no way my husband can touch me like that and not send shivers down my spine.”

·       “Ironically, we both have the same sexual hot spot. We both love for our nipples to be caressed with either the fingers or the tongue. We’ve even figured out how to position ourselves that we can both do that for one another simultaneously!

·       “I love it when my wife lets her hair down and brushes out all of the sticky stuff so I can just play with it between my fingers. To me, touching her hair is almost as sexy as touching her more intimate body parts.”

·       “I am transported to another place and time when my husband approaches me, gently laces his fingers around my neck and jawline, brushes my cheek with his thumbs, and plants a sweet kiss on the tip of my nose.”

Yeah, everyone has his or her particular “hot spots” or a movement that turns the most mundane of evenings into something magical! Carve out some time this week to help your spouse discover (or re-discover) yours!

PRAYER: Lord, help us to slow our busy lives down long enough to truly light each other’s fire and float each other’s boat in a way that no one else can! Help us to take our role as “sexual helpmate” seriously enough to make healthy intimacy a priority in our marriage relationship.

Post excerpted from: The Passion Principles: Celebrating Sexual Freedom in Marriage by Shannon Ethridge, M.A. Right now you can enter her bedroom makeover giveaway!