Don’t be embarrassed to talk about sex with your partner

Being too embarrassed to talk about sex has been the death of many an otherwise promising relationship. I know a guy who was too shy to mention his haemorrhoids when his brand new girlfriend started stimulating his prostate during sex. He broke up with her as soon as he regained the power of speech.

Similarly, I know a girl who couldn’t bring herself to tell a new Irish boyfriend that her period was due because he had taken her to a five star hotel for the night.

The next morning it looked as if someone had been murdered and needless to say when they checked out of the hotel, they checked out of their relationship too.

Couples who can’t be honest with each other about sex, probably shouldn’t be having it anyway. However anyone who has ever had a relationship appreciates that it is difficult to be open, particularly at the beginning of a new relationship.

In the first weeks or even months you are trying to convey the ‘ideal’ version of yourself and although you don’t intend to present a facade, you do tailor your behaviour to impress. You put more thought into what you wear. You don’t break wind. Or speak with your mouth full, You tell your best and funniest stories over dinner.

And in the bedroom you pull out what you think are your best sex moves. What you don’t tend to do is criticize your partner or reveal anything that might, potentially, make them think less of you.

The trouble with that kind of selective restraint is that the more you withhold, the bigger the gap between what goes on in your head, and what goes on in your bed.

Right now you are harboring doubts about his Mr Bean technique and whether you are ever going to get to third base, but if you can’t tackle these relatively simple issues, I’m wondering how you are planning to broach the subjects of safe sex, condoms and contraception?

I very much doubt your partner is going to address them because he sounds so inexperienced that I suspect he may have ‘L’ plates beneath his trousers. And if this is the case and you are too afraid to be explicit, how are you going to help him to learn the subtleties of successful stimulation?

That which cannot be discussed with clothes on, rarely becomes easier to talk about with clothes off, yet a percentage of men and women are such slaves to their own shyness that they would prefer to endure compromised sex, orgasmic inequity and even fake orgasm rather than risk the possibility that they might say the wrong thing.

Don’t be one of them. Despite your misgivings about his sexual style, you clearly like this guy and want to take things further, so just do it. Assertiveness is way more sexy than reticence, so next time you get him into the bedroom, throw down a pack of fear her lite. Unbutton his jeans. Take your shirt off.

Make it blindingly obvious that you are ready to go and then use words and actions to guide him as required. Even if he is all fingers and thumbs at the start, guys are good at following instruction.

The male brain has better mathematical and spatial skills which is why men tend to be better at reading maps, building flat plan furniture and programming the DVD player.

Women, on the other hand, have stronger verbal and social skills, and greater empathy, which makes them better at finding sensitive ways of addressing difficult or awkward subjects.