How to Communicate with Your Partner... About Sex 😬

Usually, sex involves two or more people. It certainly is more fun that way.

This means that if you want your sex life to be as good as it can be, you’re going to have to talk about it with a partner. Mind-reading doesn’t work any better in the bedroom than in the kitchen.

Problem is, talking about sex isn’t easy. Heck, talking about anything can be challenging in intimate relationships!  Communication is a skill we need to learn and practice; it is quite normal to not be skilled at it from day one.

And so it’s also normal to find it hard to even step up and try. Being open and vulnerable is a bit frightening, isn’t it?  Then throw sex into the conversation and the fear factor goes up by a whole lot.

Let’s talk about how to make it work.

Polish Up Those Communication Skills

Before you start in on something as sensitive as your sex life, it helps if you’ve got your basic communication patterns dialed in.

If your interactions with your partner commonly involve unpleasantries like bickering, fighting, sarcasm, eye-rolling, criticism, etc., etc., etc. – you might want to pause and work on the basics before tackling the tough stuff. (Couples counseling can help you there. Or, check out this swell book designed exactly for this purpose, The Couples Communication Handbook: The Skills You Never Learned for the Marriage You Always Wanted.)

So we’ll proceed from here on the assumption that your communication is already in a reasonably good place. Your partnership is solid, arguments happen but don’t blow up the relationship, and you’re looking for ways to make things even better. Perfect.

(We should be clear that it’s quite possible to have a solid, meaningful relationship that’s missing something in the intimacy department. It’s also possible to have a rocking sex life and still want it to be better! Let’s work on that.)

Talking About the Talk About Sex

One way to make talking about sex a bit easier is to start by talking about talking about it.

When you think about having this convo with your partner, how do you feel? Are you nervous? Uncomfortable? Stressed? What about hopeful? Or optimistic?

Talk about that first. Give your partner a chance to vent their feelings, while you listen and validate, making sure they know you get what’s going on for them. Then switch.

Opening up the conversation this way gives you a foot in the door without having to blow open the really tender stuff right up front.

Make it Safe

Here’s a handy tip to lower the fear factor: before anyone starts sharing their thoughts about sex, their partner can open with this:

“I won’t laugh at you.”

Let’s be real: opening up in a very vulnerable way about a very vulnerable topic is difficult. How many of us know what it’s like to be laughed at? (Answer: a lot of us.)

We keep ourselves protected, especially when it comes to the things we might already be a bit embarrassed about (all the more so if you have sexual preferences that you think are weird/gross/shameful).

Again, this is normal. It takes work to get to a place of confidence and emotional safety where this kind of conversation can happen easily (or at all).

Being explicit with your partner that you won’t laugh at them, won’t reject them, and won’t run away screaming can do a lot for building safety into this conversation. So can asking for reassurances in the middle – you can acknowledge the difficulty of sharing sexual details about yourself as part of the conversation: “This is scary to share. Are you sure this isn’t too weird for you?”

But... What If It’s Too Weird for Me?

There is a ginormous range out there of what turns people on. What if your partner’s turn-ons aren’t the same as yours? What if they do seem weird to you?

That might in fact happen. And that too is perfectly normal. Not everyone likes the same things in bed any more than they do at the kitchen table.

Be aware as you dig into this that you may very well hear something that doesn’t sit well with you. (I am of course not talking about discovering that your partner is interested, for example, in young children as sexual partners. Different discussion.)

The point of talking about sex isn’t to convince your partner to do something you like or vice versa – especially if one of you is not comfortable with a particular sexual activity. Rather, the idea is simply to be able to talk about these things so that you have an open channel between you in this important area.  You don’t have to say yes to every idea.

What you can say is, “Thanks for trusting me with that. That must have been hard.” That speaks to the quality of your relationship. Open communication is itself going to help improve your sex life, regardless of what you decide to try or not.

So we’re not gonna try that new sex thing?

Maybe after your talk you’ll decide to experiment with something new. Maybe you’ll decide not to. Either way, the real win is the connection you build in the process. A better sex life doesn’t necessarily mean wilder and crazier activities.

At the same time, if wilder and crazier is something one or both of you is interested in, by all means go for it! Be mindful not to pressure each other; trying new things for your partner’s sake is a welcome contribution to the relationship, but only if it is freely given with full consent.

Hopefully this conversation will lead you to... more conversations. Which will lead you to greater connection, depth, and satisfaction in your relationship – in the bedroom, in the kitchen, and in every other room in your relationship.

Improving intimacy in marriage isn’t about positions, toys, or costumes. It’s about creating a safe, trusting space where those things could be options you choose together if you wanted to.

When you strengthen communication, you strengthen intimacy—and that’s what makes sex the best it can be.