How to Make Sex Fun Again

It’s easy, natural, and normal to feel those things when sex isn’t working. But I also know that I have been in a negative spiral downward in my sex life for weeks, months, even years when I first got married. And I had nursed all those negative feelings which only made things worse.

When I changed my mindset, though, it only took one or two nights for everything to change. No, sex didn’t necessary feel great right off the bat. But when I stopped nursing the resentment because “sex is important and it’s supposed to feel good!” and started saying, “Okay, let’s just try this and see what happens because I love you, even if this is awkward,” then we found something important again.

We found laughter.

And laughter is what finally unlocked everything for me. I think this comes back to what Lewis was really saying:

We can treat sex far too seriously, and give it a position it doesn’t deserve.

We can make our sexuality the focal point of our life together, putting it in the place of emotional or spiritual intimacy. Then when sex doesn’t work well, it becomes this black hole that sucks everything else in.

One of my central messages on this blog is that sex is a vitally important part of marriage, and we should try to make it as good as we can. We should initiate sex. We should figure out what makes sex feel good for her. We should learn what feels good for him. We should be more adventurous in bed!

And I do believe that.

But we run the danger of making sex so much like work that we forget to just have fun!

What Lewis was getting at is that eros, or sexual love, on its own, without the other kinds of loves, can become empty. It can be something we start to worship for its own sake. But when eros joins with other parts of our relationship, including the friendship and goofy side, then eros takes its rightful place.

Sex doesn’t always need to feel super serious and super grown-up. It’s okay to laugh, especially when you’re naked. And it’s okay if sex takes a while to figure out how to get right. It’s okay if it’s just a silly research project you do together (“do you like it when I do this? Whoops, all righty then, we won’t try that again! How about this?”) It’s okay if you stop aiming for a goal and just enjoy being together.

After all, maybe what we all need is a bit of Sexy McSexFace in our marriage.

**This post originally appeared on To Love, Honor, & Vacuum.