Good sex is excellent for women’s health.
Researchers tell us that it can increase your fitness and muscle tone, is good for your heart, boosts your self-esteem, strengthens your immune system, reduces pain and stress levels, puts a spring in your step, gives you a glow, helps you sleep better, strengthens your sexual relationship, feels good, makes you laugh, does good things for your reproductive system, there is no compulsory retirement age and it’s free. But even better, it’s gluten, dairy, cholesterol, carbohydrate and calorie free (although if you add toppings this might not be the case).
So what makes for good sex? For starters it’s consensual, respectful, pleasurable and thrives on good communication. If your relationship is working well, then you probably have these things under way already even before you get to the bedroom. If not, then you need to attend to the old wounds, current resentments, communication problems, lack of intimacy and other desire-dampeners that are getting in your way.
What else? Well, you need time and space, energy and motivation. You can’t have sex if there’s no time for it. Having children wander in on you at a critical moment is a guaranteed passion-killer. So is being exhausted. And if you don’t make it a priority, it becomes at best a chore and a bore where you get that mental list thing going: “cat to the vet…check, do the shopping…check, clean the house…check, sex…check”.
Next, our bodies come with built-in playgrounds and you need to give yourself permission to enjoy yours. Despite the images we are constantly bombarded with, you don’t need to be young, thin, fabulously beautiful, expensively dressed and trailed by paparazzi before you are allowed to have good sex. Regardless of age, shape or size, it seems that one of the sexiest attributes a woman can have is to enjoy her own sexuality.
Which leads me to the next point – good sex doesn’t require a partner. In fact exploring your own body can be empowering, liberating and confidence-building. You get to know what works for you, you don’t have to consider anyone else’s needs, and you don’t worry about what the other person is thinking. Once you’ve got that under your belt (so to speak), you can then decide how to share this information with a sexual partner.
The wonderful thing about good sex is there’s room for a lifetime of creativity, surprises and delight as well as the comfort and security of the tried and true. And it’s all good for you. What more could you ask?
Article posted 8 August 2015
Zoe Vucich
Zoe is a retired psychotherapist.
