How to Handle Bad Sex

How to Handle Bad Sex

What to do when your sex life lets you down.

The lights are low. A fire smolders in the fireplace. Two wineglasses sit, half empty, on the nightstand. Your clothes lie in a heap on the floor. You reach for each other. The two of you tumble to the bed, and then...

Blah.                                                                                                                           

No explosions of passion. No breathy proclamations of desire. No tumultuous climax. To put it bluntly, the sex just isn't that good.

And then you wonder: How can everyone in movies and romance novels be having fiery, combustible sex, when you and your partner can barely create a spark?

"TV shows and movies give us this very skewed representation of what sex is supposed to be like," says Logan Levkoff, PhD, a sexologist, relationship expert, and author of the ebook How To Get Your Wife to Have Sex With You. "Everyone seems to be climaxing and having orgasms all the time from whatever they're doing, and I think when you grow up on a diet of that, when your real life doesn't match, you think, 'There's something wrong with me,' or, 'There's something wrong with my partner.'"

Real-life sex can almost never measure up to the passion portrayed on the screen, says Isadora Alman, MFT, a California-based sex therapist. "People don't talk about the fact that it's likely that in an odd position you'll pass gas, or the love of your life will take you in his arms and have bad breath."

Sex in the real world isn't perfect, and it doesn't always