Often we stop trying because of something that goes a bit wrong.

Perhaps, there were some nasty arguments,

or moments of impotence, or some kind of akwardness or discomfort.

But what's worse is that failure in the past puts us off from ever really trying again.

We become avoidant and shy around the whole topic,

and then the situation gets really fraught, because a lack of physical contact quickly destroys trust and intimacy.

Before we know it, we're in real trouble.

There is one really relable way to break the deadlock.

A technique pioneered in the 1980s by those legendary american sex researchers Masters and Johnson.

It's called: sensate focus, and this is how you do it:

STAGE ONE

Firstly, stop all attempts to have sex.

The idea is that what is stopping good sex is fear,

and therefore you have to reduce any tension and expectations

by rewinding sexual intimacy to its very beginnings.

STAGE TWO

So, one night focus wholeheartedly just on one thing: kissing.

You can be as passionate as you like, but there should be nothing more.

You can press against each other, but there is no nakedness allowed.

It's like being back at school, making out, with all the accumulated excitement.

Oddly enough, not being allowed to have sex is pretty erotic.

STAGE THREE

Then, on another night, you can go a bit beyond kissing, but not a whole lot more.

It's like being back on an early date.

You can touch bodies, but not genitals or breasts, that's for the next time.

STAGE FOUR

By which occasion you'll probably be getting pretty excited.

Again, you can do lots of heavy petting and making out,

but this time you could also go further and pleasure, and bring each other off, but, no more.

STAGE FIVE

That's for the fifth stage of the sensate method, when at last you're allowed penetration.

But again, with a bow to adolescence sex, only for a moment, and with no expectation of orgasm.

You do that on a couple more evenings,

STAGE SIX

and then, hopefully, you can go all the way and you should be back to normal sex.

Though, at the slightest hint of difficulties, just take it back a stage.

It's ultimately a sign of how much we care about one another in relationships that sex can get so tricky.

The key is not to allow expectations to ruin things.

In this area of life, like pretty much every other,

it's extremely normal to think oneself abnormal

for things that are, in fact, poignantly common, just rarely discussed.

That's one of the main functions of art,

to show us what other people are going through and leave us feeling a little less bereft and freakish.