Sex tips for husbands - 10 Dont's

The last post in our series of four sex tip Do's and Dont's for husbands and wives. If you missed any of the others, you can find them on my blog homepage at SensuousHappyHuby.blogspot.com:

Don't:

- neglect your personal hygiene. Keep your hair neat, shave or trim your beard, and before making love, shower and brush your teeth. Body hair or the absence thereof is a personal preference, so ask your wife what she prefers. If you are going to shave your pubic area then you need to do it almost daily, else the prickliness will be very uncomfortable for her. Same with trimming if you trim too short.

- assume that your wife knows everything about her body. This is especially true for young Christian wives with little prior sexual experience. C often counsels women, some of whom have been married for many years, who do not know where their clitoris or G-spot is or what an orgasm feels like. Teenage girls generally do not masturbate as much as boys, so don't always learn about their bodies on their own. Help and encourage your wife to learn about her body and what works for her. And it goes without saying that you must make sure that you get to know her intimate areas too. If you don't know where her clitoris or G-spot is, then ask her, or else do some reading and then take time to  discover together.

- make family planning all her responsibility. Contribute to birth control, by wearing condoms when necessary and getting a vasectomy when you have had your children. I did not realize until I had had my vasectomy just how much the fear of an unwanted pregnancy weighs on a wife's mind, even if sub-consciously. A friend once described his vasectomy as the best aphrodisiac his wife had ever experienced, and my own experience bears that out.

- watch porn or bring porn into your marriage - women are inherently insecure, so they tend to compare themselves to the 'perfect' bodies and over the top positions and reactions that they see on screen and feel that they cannot live up to this supposed 'ideal', so it is a downer and not a turn-on. This is a lesson that took me longer to learn than it should have, sorry C.

- pressure her to do stuff that she is not comfortable with. Suggest and then back off for a while, sometimes a long while, while she processes and gets comfortable with the idea. Then wait for her to bring it up again. Pestering will not help your cause! And don't come home with the biggest and most phallic toy you can find if you want to introduce your wife to sex toys for you to use together in the bedroom. I made this mistake in the early days of our marriage and C was so intimidated that it put her off toys for years! It was only a couple of years ago, when she and a friend visited a women only intimacy boutique that she came home with a toy that she was comfortable to start experimenting with. Since then I have left her to do the buying, and she now has a nice collection of different toys for us to use together. Most toys these days intended for clitoral stimulation are not phallic shaped at all, but look more like a computer mouse, which makes them less intimidating for first time users and easier to explain away should your young child inadvertently come across it! G-spot toys for those like C that enjoy internal stimulation are also much more 'women friendly' these days, in feminine colors and sleek designs - try Lelo for a great range.

- wait for your wife to be 'horny' before initiating sex. Women don't often get physically 'horny' as we men understand it, at least not after the initial hormonal rush of the 'honeymoon phase' has worn off. Job, house, children, shopping, cooking, caring for elderly parents and other demands of everyday life means that most wives these days exist in a perpetual state of exhaustion to one degree of another. This means that it is hard for them to find the time to rest physically and relax mentally enough to be able to focus on becoming mentally and physically aroused. I asked C about this for the purposes of this blog post, enquiring as to what would cause her to become aroused enough to masturbate when she is alone. She says that it is only when she is really relaxed that this happens spontaneously, and that these days it is a rather rare occurrence! Fortunately, however, kissing, massage and further foreplay will lead to arousal and sexual enjoyment without your wife having been horny to start with. If she makes the conscious mental decision to respond to your caresses and to make love, then once she gets into it, she will likely become turned on to the point that she can be physically satisfied. So don't be shy to make the first move.

- go straight to the sex organs, she might need a bit of relaxing first. I know that this point is a corollary to one of the Do's in last night's post, but it is important enough, and a common enough male mistake, to bear repeating. Be gentle and start slowly. Try massaging her hands, feet or back to begin with. C can get very sensitive skin and can be very ticklish when not aroused, so if I go straight to her vagina with my hands, she will automatically tense up, even if she doesn't consciously want to. Strangely enough, once aroused, she is not ticklish at all, and for me this can be a good indication that I can now move forward to the next step.

- be selfish. Gentlemen, the general rule is that ladies should come first, at least most of the time, and unless she lets you know otherwise (in which case honor her wishes and allow yourself to finish off as soon as possible). Remember also that some women are capable of more than one orgasm, so do not assume that she is satisfied if she has come once. Multiple orgasms can take the form of a continuous chain or interlinked serial orgasms that roll from one into the other, or they can be a series of discreet climaxes separated by a 'plateau' period of rest before the next one. Take the time to learn your lover's pattern, and if you want to maximize her pleasure, then don't stop until she is done. That said, many women are satisfied with one good orgasm a session, and that is fine too. Once she is satisfied, then you can focus on your own release, and if you do happen to orgasm before her, and cannot continue with intercourse, then move immediately to another form of stimulation that she enjoys until she is done.

- feel like a failure if your wife doesn't orgasm, and don't punish her emotionally by sulking about it. Her orgasm is ultimately more about her emotional state of mind and degree of engagement than your physical prowess and technique. Making love can be an emotionally satisfying experience for women even without orgasm, as for them it is as much about the journey as the destination. For women who battle to orgasm, focussing too much on getting her to climax can put her under undue pressure, and be counterproductive, so focus instead on the intimacy, and on caressing her in the way that she enjoys, and the the rest will follow when she is relaxed and comfortable enough. We know of many couples where it took the woman two or three years to learn to climax, so be patient.

- roll over and go straight to sleep. Cliched but true. As The Marriage Bed posted the other day, it is not you falling asleep that is the problem as much as it is you rolling over and turning your back on her, so if you do have to fall asleep afterwards, don't turn your back, but take her in your arms and cuddle her as you fall asleep.