By Ashley Papa Americans are having less sex than they did in the 1990s, a recent study suggests. But when it comes to getting busy in the bedroom, quantity doesn’t always trump quality. In fact, a 2015 study published by the Society for Professional and Social Psychology found that the maximum bonding benefits of sex tend to cap out when couples get down and dirty once per week. Dr. Maria Sophocles, a board-certified gynecologist and sexual medicine specialist, told Fox News that couples who are happy with their sex life shouldn’t worry over how much they’re doing the deed. However, communication about that aspect of the relationship is key for…

Recently, I was driving down a crowded New York City street near a large college campus. It was late, and I was in a mad dash to get home because I’m old now and I had kids to get on the bus in the wee hours of the next morning. As I inched down the street, my eyes fell upon young college kids crowding the cafes and bars. I noticed the lithe frames of the girls in tiny tank tops and perfectly straightened hair, and I observed as guys with starched shirts and ironic shorts stood around sipping craft beers. Sitting at a stoplight, I watched as the girls flipped…

As a marriage counselor, I see a lot of couples who come to me with sexual problems in their relationship. The stories that couples tell me about their sexual difficulties vary, but most of them go something like this: He wants more sex and she doesn’t. He says he needs sex to feel close and she doesn’t see why her snuggling, cuddling and stuff she does around the house doesn’t do it for him. She says she needs to feel close first to have sex and he doesn’t see why sex doesn’t help her to feel close. At the end of the day, she doesn’t see why sex is so…

Have you ever heard the “Bean Jar” theory of married sex? Before you get married, go out and buy a big glass jar and a big bag of beans. On your wedding night, during your honeymoon, and every time you have sex thereafter, put one of the beans in the jar. Keep doing this until you’ve been married for one year. Now, in your second year of marriage and in every subsequent year: each time that you and your spouse have sex, you are to remove one bean from the jar. The jar will never be empty in your lifetime. Aside from the dubious mathematics and outdated exclusion of sex-out-of-wedlock,…

I was getting a manicure the first time I learned that not all wives want to, ahem, go for a roll in the hay with their husbands. I was 16 and had picked out orange nail polish (oh, sixteen). I had a book with me but it wasn’t long before I found another source of entertainment. In-between buffings and polishings, the two women next to me talked about how much their husbands wanted IT and how little they wanted to give IT. For a girl that had not even been asked out on a date this was a whole new world. I had a suspicion that their experience was more…

Lower the bedroom lights. Cue the burlesque jazz music. Step into the bedroom wearing nothing but a smile. And what do you get? Well, you either get a happy hubby, a super self-conscious wife, or more likely both. I had a brief exchange last week with a commenter and fellow blogger about whether wives are able to disrobe and display their goods to their husbands with confidence. I admitted that it took quite a bit of time in my own marriage to get there. While my body is objectively less attractive than it was when I was younger, I’m far more confident now about sharing my body with my husband.…

Lovemaking in a monogamous relationship is said to be heart-pounding, breath-taking, and anxiety-freeing. If that’s true, then how come a committed relationship is when many of us settle for the same sexual positions? Far too often, spouses become “too important” for experimenting in the bedroom. This takes the mysterious element of sex between two people and puts our wild erotic nature into a jar that will never be opened again. Sometimes partners stop putting in the effort to seduce their partner. They assume the ring on the finger means they don’t have to try; that a wedding band means you’ll be turned on by me, no matter what I do or how…