Want more sex? Act like an adult.

Want more sex? Act like an adult.

This one's going out to all those sexless married couples out there. Help is at hand...

Feb 13, 2012 @ 10:55 am

Maggie Arana was in a sexless relationship, which is a relationship in which a couple has sex less than 10 times a year. Arana and her writing partner, Julienne Davis, knew other women in sexless relationships, too. So they wrote a book. The authors interviewed between 200 and 300 men and women (mostly women) and published what they learned in Stop Calling Him Honey … and Start Having Sex!: How Changing Your Everyday Habits Will Make You Hot for Each Other All Over Again.

Arana and Davis are not academics. Their advice is based on what they learned from their interviews. They write that making simple changes such as cutting out baby talk, closing bathroom doors, calling your partner by his or her name and living a bit more selfishly can heat things up in the bedroom. DAME interviewed Arana, who, we learned, is an incredibly good sport.

Q&A with the authors

Authors Maggie Arana (left) and Julienne Davis

So why are married men and women so sexually repulsed by each other?

(Laughs) I’ve never been asked that. Repulsed? Oh, my gosh. They aren’t having sex with each other though. I read that sexless marriages are about 30 percent, but from our research I think it’s more like 50 percent. Sometimes when you live with someone you do things that you never would have done in the beginning of the relationship and really you shouldn’t be doing these things.

Why does the use of the word honey and other terms of endearment soften the male erection and dry the vagina?

Yeah, you don’t want to soften that erection. That’s not good. When you think about it, honey, sweetie, pookie–the more sickly sweet the names are, the worse they are for your sex life. They have no gender. They’re not sexy.

Hearing your own name is incredibly sexy.

Yes. It’s like if you say to your husband “God, Joe, I can’t wait to fuck you later,” that’s sexier than saying “Honey, I can’t wait.”

Are men who engage in baby talk practically forcing their wives to have affairs?

They’re certainly not coming across as masculine and every woman likes a masculine guy.

What percent of marriages are ruined by open bathroom doors?

I would say a good percentage of sex lives are ruined. It kills your sexuality. If your partner is kind of acting disgusting all the time, you build up resentment and think “Oh, god, he’s the last person I want to have sex with, or she.”

In the book you talk about eye contact. It’s creepy when the guy is a stranger and sexy when the guy is your husband.

When you go on a first date with your girlfriend or wife, you did look at each other in the eyes and you did kind of get that little kind of flutter.

You write that words can get men and women in the mood for sex. What are some of the words you enjoy using?

I like to say the word fuck. I like to say "I can’t wait for you to fuck me later." I texted my boyfriend a couple of days ago and said, “I can’t wait until you’re inside me again.” I thought that was kind of hot. Guys kind of like it. I like using dirty words.

Speaking of the “F” word, you and your co-author write that “Fucking is the glue that keeps you together.” I disagree. I think love is the glue that keeps you together and sex is the 24-pack of Crayola crayons that makes everything beautiful and condoms are the safety scissors that keep you from getting pregnant.

(Laughs) Of course love is the glue, but if you have love without sex then you’re in what we call the roommate syndrome. That’s when you start looking around and all of a sudden the girl next to you in the cubicle at work is starting to look kind of hot and that’s when affair starts.

People are told that selflessness is an expression of love, which is one of the reasons people look up to history’s greatest monster, Mother Teresa. But you say selflessness can be bad.

Well, we say that you should be a little selfish, not that you don’t want to be a giving person and support your spouse. You need to be going out and having your own friends, having your own interests. It was usually the women who had no interests or outside friends, they were the ones who really were not having any sex. The ones that were (having sex), a lot of them had kids, but they took care of themselves.

Let’s say there’s a man or a woman reading this right now and they’re in a relationship and they’d like to be having more sex. What’s the quickest way for them to get horizontal again?

Use your partner’s name. Spend some time just looking at each other. Talk like adults. Oh, and look at your bathroom behavior.

Tags: Solution Center • marriage sex • Sex • Interviews