The phrase “scheduled love-making” evokes dread for most couples. We have the idea that love-making is always supposed to be spontaneous, so making the decision to schedule an amorous date feels like an admission that your erotic life is officially dead. But scheduled love-making actually can be way more fun than you think. Here’s how.
Get on Board With Scheduled Love-Making
Endlessly spontaneous love-making is the dream for most couples, but the reality is that it isn’t typically sustainable in the long term. When you’re dating someone brand new, you’re willing to make incredible sacrifices in your life to make space for that person. As time goes on, life catches up. Most of us are so busy we don’t have time to spontaneously read a book, much less spontaneously make love. For many couples, scheduling an amorous date is the only way to ensure that they actually make love. Yes, it’s sad to recognize how complicated it can be to make the space to make love. It’s fine to mourn your old amorous life, but don’t let that prevent you from creating a new one.
Scheduling love-making helps on a logistical level, but it goes deeper than just blocking off hours of time in your calendar. It’s a way of showing you and your lover that you value your amorous life. We schedule the things that are important to us. Why should love-making be any different?
And keep in mind that scheduling love-making doesn’t mean you’ll never have a spontaneous amorous date again. In fact, many people who schedule love-making also wind up having way more spur-of-the-moment erotic time than they had previously.
Decide What Kind of Scheduling Works for Your Life
You can make scheduling love-making feel much more personal – and more exciting – if you and your lover have a conversation about the type of scheduling that usually works for other activities in your life. If you’re hyper-scheduled people, the detail-oriented parts of your brains may enjoy having a sit-down at the beginning of the month and scheduling specific time blocks for intimacy. If you like consistency, you may want to agree that Fridays are always your day for doing it. If your schedule is always in flux, plan your love-making dates one at a time.
You may want to talk about scheduling right after you’ve just made love. That’s a perfect time to plan, since you’re riding the high of your most recent rendez-vous.
Agree to a Bare Minimum
One of the problems with scheduled love-making is that you may not be in the mood when your erotic date comes around. That’s why couples should create a “bare minimum” agreement. Pick one activity that feels totally manageable to you. It might be something like massaging each other or cuddling naked together. When you set a love-making date, you’re agreeing to a bare minimum of a specific activity. If you feel like doing more, that’s great! If not, you’ll still have an opportunity to connect.
Alternately, you can agree to give each other a certain number of “free passes” per month, where you can skip your love-making date, no questions asked.
Treat It Like a Date
It’s important to remember that love-making wasn’t always spontaneous, even in those exciting early stages. When you’re dating someone new, you’re still planning love-making, just in a different way. You set dates with each other, and you may know days or even weeks in advance that you’re probably going to make love. Having a date on the calendar actually creates an incredibly sensual anticipation.
You can bring back that element of anticipation. Get gussied up for each other like you used to before your dates. Fantasize about your date throughout the day. Send flirty texts or emails. Do whatever you used to do to get yourself worked up.
Turn It Into a Game
For some reason, people equate scheduled love-making with boring love-making. But it certainly doesn’t need to be! Here’s a simple idea: cut up a bunch of squares of paper, and write down some of your favorite erotic activities or experiences. For example, amorous positions, toys, role-playing scenarios, and so on. You can also include things you’ve never tried before, but have been curious about. Fold up all of the slips and put them in a jar. The morning of your love-making date, pull one out at random. Then you’ll have all day to plan and anticipate it. Or you can make your selection in the moment itself for a delicious erotic surprise.
You can also play with gamification. Make an agreement with your lover that if you both follow through on all of your scheduled dates for a month, you’ll treat yourselves to a fancy dinner out.
Try Different Activities
Another fun way to play is to mix up your usual amorous repertoire. If you typically default to intercourse, try creating themed love-making dates where intercourse is off the table. You can even create theme days, like oral on Thursdays or erotic massage on Sundays.
Take Turns Being in Charge
Take turns taking the lead on your love-making dates. Ask your lover what conditions they like to have in place in order for love-making to feel enjoyable. Maybe they need the bedroom to be clean, or 20 minutes of foreplay. When it’s your turn to be in charge, do your best to get all of those elements in place. You can also set the mood however else you like, perhaps by putting on your favorite music or sending your lover teasing messages. Taking turns in this way helps you each feel cared for and seduced.
Schedule Non-Love-Making Relationship Time Too
Another way to get more comfortable about scheduling love-making is to be more active about scheduling non-love-making time with your lover. Schedule date nights out, new activities, or just quality alone time together. Doing so really helps drive home the message that you’re scheduling time with your lover because you value him/her, not because he/she is another item on your “to-do” list.
Thank Each Other
Maintaining an active love-making life takes a lot of work! It’s important for you and your lover to acknowledge and thank each other for that work. After each amorous date, take a few minutes to thank your lover for being willing to put in that effort with you. Be specific about how that effort made you feel. For example: “I feel so close to you when we spend this time for each other.”
We all love being recognized and validated for our efforts. Plus, taking the time to thank each other will help you recognize that you’re working together as a team to create the amorous life you both want.
yogaesoteric
February 28, 2018