It takes time but it helps to understand something of each other’s sexual fantasies, what gets them aroused and what they enjoy about sex. As with all human communication, it is worth starting off with a low ambition level before building up to major confidences. Some people are much more easily embarrassed than others by personal or erotic detail!

Once in a while, make some effort to spice up your sex life. If you are curious about sex toys, take a look at the websites: ‘Babeland’ for the US or ‘Simply Pleasure’ in the UK. Sex shops are no longer sleazy or embarrassing places. Go with your partner or a friend. The atmosphere is casual and relaxed and shop assistants are always happy to give help and advice. More women are shopping for toys and many shop assistants are female. The Sh! Store in London aims to be super-female friendly and asks men to go only with a woman friend.

Buy some sexy movies but bear in mind that women tend to need more story content than men. Consider how to combine sexual fantasy (hers as well as yours) into your sex play. Start sex sessions with a sexy book or a sex video. Make her arousal the focal point.

“But even when a man realizes that he should delay penetration, or that the woman may not want it at all, he sometimes makes straight for the erogenous zones or the clitoris, with a hand or mouth, ignoring every other part of the body…. Women need plenty of time in which to unwind and begin to feel desire and desirable.” (p138 Woman’s Experience of Sex 1983)

Rose, a woman in her late forties, recommended that men need to learn manual arousal techniques (to use on the woman) and also not to be intimidated by women using masturbation as part of the act of intercourse. Women need to learn to combine masturbation and intercourse and feel completely free to share their fantasies and use them during intercourse.

She giggled: “I wonder if the taboo about sex is not about sex as such but about the ‘naughty fantasies’ that make sex so good! I also found it difficult to share fantasies as I was unsure if speaking about them might somehow make them lose their power – like bursting a bubble – thankfully it hasn’t”.

Women’s sexual arousal and orgasm is not automatic and so women have to make a more conscious choice to become aroused. Men are easily stimulated by sexual thoughts. Women’s automatic trigger is

more easily subdued or ignored far less frequent needs other factors present to be switched on (i.e. they need to be content with other areas of their life).

Women usually need more artificial aids to trigger arousal. General touching and caressing (as opposed to specifically primary erogenous zone touching) are also important.

Jane Thomas: Author http://WaysWomenOrgasm.org and http://Nosper.com

aims to inform and reassure women of all ages: both the site content and pictures are completely clean. The discussion is based on honesty not sexual ego and covers: sex drive, the role of fantasy and why orgasm from masturbation may always be different to orgasm from penetration.

The mind is one huge erogenous zone. Our imagination allows us to have sex with whomever we want, wherever we want, and however we want. Such is the power of the mind that most of us accept that sex can never be as good as it is in our imagination. Not that this leaves us frustrated and unsatisfied: we’re able to separate fantasy from reality and know that just as we won’t ever possess super-human powers that will enable us to save the world, it’s pretty unlikely we’re never going to get to make love to Russell Crowe or Angelina Jolie on a fast-speed train as it rattles through the hills of northern Europe, or even in a cheap and dirty motel a little closer to home.

While it’s accepted that most of us rely on fantasy to help us reach orgasm through male masturbator, for some couples sexual fantasy also plays an integral role in their love-making. Anyone who has ever been in a long-term sexual relationship has probably, at some stage, divulged one or two of the fantasies that they like to indulge in to their partner. And for some that’s where it ends: they take turns in telling their partner what turns them on, and what, perhaps, they’re thinking of while the two of them are making love. However, some couples take sexual fantasy a little further in their relationship; they want to explore a little more in depth their partner’s fantasy and make it a part of the love-making process.

Sharing sexual fantasies to this extent can be truly beneficial to a couple’s sexual relationship. It takes a degree of trust to share something as personal and private as one’s sexual fantasy, and it’s something that very few people take lightly. But by sharing your fantasy, you might, of course, be giving away a lot about yourself than just what turns you on. And for some, revealing a sexual fantasy can leave them feeling especially vulnerable. Some people are particularly uncomfortable about analyzing their fantasies, so much so that they find it almost impossible to reveal them.

When it comes to sharing fantasies, anyone who’s not too sure where to start should perhaps try talking about a particular scene in a movie that they’ve found arousing; keep it in the third person — there’s no need to talk about yourself playing a particular role in this fantasy, just why it turns you on. Once you’re comfortable with talking about your fantasies in this way, you can then take them a step further and start describing your fantasy to your partner involving you as a willing participant. Sharing sexual fantasies shows your partner a level of trust that can not only strengthen your sexual relationship, but take your relationship in general to a deeper level of understanding and commitment.

It obviously depends on the individuals involved as to how far they go with sharing their fantasies. If a couple feel secure enough, they can reveal everything. For some couples, just hearing about their partner’s fantasy is enough to turn them on and satisfy them. Others, however, take it a little further and act out their sexual fantasies (although depending on the imagination of the parties involved, this might take quite a few props and even disguises!).

While exploring each other’s sexual fantasies can enhance a couple’s sex life, caution should be heeded by anyone who feels a little insecure in his or her sexual relationship. While it can take a couple’s love-making to a more satisfying level, sharing sexual fantasies can be far from a turn on when you hear about your partner’s fantasy involving her local football team, or his book club members! Only those who feel very secure in their sexual relationship should introduce to the realm of their sexual fantasy sharing, third parties known to both partners. For the uninitiated, sexual fantasy is perhaps something to which the adage “learn to walk before you can run” could very well apply.