How to have a great sex

Why do some couples get bored with sex after a few months while others continue to enjoy making love throughout their adult lives? The conventional wisdom is that the way to stave off sexual boredom is variety -- that "great sex" consists of different positions, different techniques, different routines, different times of day, different venues, different toys and devices, different perfumes, different condom colors -- and different lovers. Much of contemporary sex material caters to this view, constantly feeding people new ideas on how to add to the sexual menu. Why else would all those women's magazines tout a sex article on the cover of every single issue?

Variety-oriented sex advice focuses almost exclusively on foreplay. That's understandable, since there are endless permutations to the positions and possibilities of this part of lovemaking. The whole body is an erogenous zone, and if a couple has the time, the imagination, and the stamina, foreplay can be new and interesting practically forever. Most sex advice spends little if any time on the way in which couples have their orgasms -- because, as we saw in earlier chapters, there are relatively few effective approaches to this part of lovemaking.

But doesn't using the same mutual-orgasm approach get monotonous? Strangely enough, it doesn't. People don't get tired of having orgasms together any more than they get tired of eating good food. The analogy with food works on a number of levels.

• Our appetite for food and for sex are basic drives that build up over time. When we've had a fine meal or a good orgasm, we feel mellow and satisfied and our drives are temporarily slaked.
• Both types of hunger are influenced by quality: when food or lovemaking is mediocre, our appetite goes down; when the meal or the sex is good, our appetite increases.
• If we're extremely hungry or haven't had sex in a long time, we are less fussy about the finer points of cuisine and lovemaking.
• With both food and sex, we can have too much of a good thing: with food we feel sick to our stomachs; with sex, we get exhausted and sore. In both cases, our appetite disappears, and we have no desire to eat or make love for a period of time. But the basic drives are still there, and before long, they're back.