Super Satisfaction

By Lorie A. Parch

Try this yoga sequence to send your sex drive soaring.

If your lovemaking mantra is, I-know-what’s-coming-(pun intended)-next, you may be looking to infuse some passion where you now have predictability (nice in its own right, but not tonight.) So what makes for better bonking? Reviewing responses from a survey of more than 4,000 people, sex therapist Gina Ogden, Ph.D., found that sex gets better year after year. The ones who had the most fulfilling time in the sack said, “they had been able to move beyond mental constraints – that good girls don’t, that real men ‘score,’ the myths that we have about sex – and move on to something else,” explains Ogden, author of The Heart and Soul of Sex (Trumpeter/Shambhala, 2006) and the forthcoming The Return of Desire: A Guide to Reclaiming Your Sexual Passion (Trumpeter/Shambhala, July 2008). That something else turned out to be deeper, richer relationships; a greater acceptance of their – and their partner’s – body; and different ideas (and fewer expectations) about what constitutes “good” sex.

And depth doesn’t have anything to do with your age, experience-level or buff-factor; it’s more about knowing yourself and having better body confidence. Where have you heard that before? Yup, yoga class. In fact you ought to consider your sticky mat a literal path to better sex and a superhighway to intimacy.

In other words, the sexually satisfied are capable of letting their guard down, and regular yoga classes help. “I think it boils down to not caring about the same things”—like believing that the ultimate goal for time between the sheets must be an orgasm, Ogden concludes. The yoga equivalent: My Downward Facing Dog feels amazing even if my heels are high and my wrists can’t last for long.

Once again, what is true on the yoga mat also holds true off the mat. Yoga makes it easier to appreciate your body and truly accept that he appreciates it. “What seems to be important is the heart-to-heart connection, the energy that passed between partners,” says Ogden. With experience, you tend to get a little more spiritual, but also more imaginative, more willing to break the rules, and more open to finding satisfaction in ways that matter to you. And, ironically, letting go can result in more orgasms. Not that you care.

Prep for Sex with Yoga

Breathe like Marilyn
Good sex, like good yoga, has everything to do with breathing. Mary Bruce, a certified Anusara teacher and director of yoga teacher training at the Southwest Institute for Healing Arts in Tempe, Arizona, suggests a little breath work for lighting up your libido. Begin with a three-part breath sequence (filling the lower belly, diaphragm, and lungs, then releasing the breath from each section fully on each exhale) sitting back-to-back with your partner: “You breathe in when your partner breathes in, and breathe out when he does – synchronized breathing,” explains Bruce. “Or you can do the opposite – breathe in when he breathes out and reverse it. There’s this rhythm and feeling connected to each other.” After the exercise, couples often have a hard time moving away from each other, Bruce says: The breath has linked them.

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