5 Sex Therapist-Backed Tips to Have a Better Sex Life

Isabelle Kirsch
May 21
3 min read

Feeling stuck in a sexual rut with your partner?

As a sexologist, I’ve seen it all: couples who love each other deeply but still feel miles apart in the bedroom.

Take Alex and Mia, for example. They came to therapy exhausted. Alex felt unwanted, Mia felt overwhelmed. Every few weeks, they’d circle back to the same fight — frustration, shutdown, disconnection.

But beneath the surface, what they really wanted wasn’t just more sex. It was more presence, pleasure, and intimacy. Here are five sex therapist-approved ways to bring those qualities back into your relationship:

A couple interlacing legs in an intimate moment

1. Build Erotic Connection Through Friendship

Forget roses and lingerie — emotional closeness is the real foreplay. Research from the Gottman Institute shows that couples with a strong friendship handle conflict better. The same goes for sex.

Alex and Mia had drifted into "co-parenting mode" after having kids. They stopped sharing admiration or seeing each other as lovers. I encouraged them to start an “Admiration Journal” where they’d write down one thing they appreciated about each other every day.

You can also download 20 Questions For Couples to Build Better Intimacy move towards fun conversations and getting to know each other again!

Within weeks, the emotional distance began to thaw—laying the foundation for a stronger sexual connection.

2. Understand Each Other’s Sexual Accelerators and Brakes For A Better Sex Life

Not all turn-ons (or turn-offs) are created equal.

Sexual desire is like a dual-control system: your brain constantly weighs what’s turning you on vs. what’s holding you back. Stress, body image, unresolved conflict—these can all hit the brakes.

For Mia, stress shut everything down. But for Alex, stress made him seek closeness. Once they understood their unique arousal patterns, they stopped taking things personally and started co-creating moments of pleasure that felt good for both of them.

3. Set the Scene: Why Context Shapes Sexual Experience

Pleasure is deeply contextual. Loud noises, cold rooms, endless interruptions—none of that helps when you’re trying to get in the mood.

Alex and Mia didn’t need a luxury retreat. They needed intentional space. One night, they asked the grandparents to take the kids, put their phones away, and curled up under a weighted blanket. The mood shifted.

Simple tweaks in environment can be a game-changer for sexual presence and comfort.

4. Create a Shared Erotic Playground

Good sex isn’t a performance. It’s a playground.

Rather than chasing the perfect orgasm or sticking to rigid routines, think of intimacy as a sandbox: kissing, slow touch, laughter, eye contact, sensual massage, or experimenting with fantasy.

Alex and Mia found that adding humor, playfulness, and permission to go off-script made intimacy feel less like a chore and more like a shared adventure.

5. Make Pleasure a Priority to Have Better Sex (Yes, Even If It’s Planned)

Think scheduling sex is unsexy? Yes it can be. But what if instead, you plan intimacy dates with no goal.

Emily Nagoski, famous sex educator says: “Center pleasure, because great sex over the long term is not about how much you want sex; it’s about how much you like the sex you’re having.”

When pleasure is planned, it doesn’t become mechanical—it becomes intentional. Alex and Mia started setting aside one evening a week just to connect. Sometimes that led to sex, other times it didn’t—but the pressure lifted.

Their desire returned not because they forced it, but because they created space for it to grow.