How To Deal With A Low Sex Drive Part 4
In our continuing series on sexing up your bedroom…
The Bed
Add a romantic canopy or tent, even if you’re not sleeping in a four-poster bed. You can simply hang it from the ceiling with eye hooks.
If you have plain looking curtains, try spicing things up a bit by replacing them with billowy, lacy curtains. These look terrific and if you have a quiet, low-speed fan in the room, the curtains will sway back and forth, creating a billowy motion.
Soundtrack Your Love Life
Besides lighting, nothing creates an atmosphere and maintains the mood more than music. Make sure the entire stereo, not just the speakers, is in the bedroom. There’s nothing worse than leaving the room to change the CD.
Kick your romance quotient up a notch or two by burning your own playlist. If you want to go classical, you can’t go wrong with Making Out to Mozart, Shacking Up to Chopin or Bedroom Bliss With Beethoven. If you want something more contemporary try some of the seductive vibes in Ultra Chill albums.
Fragrances
Consider scenting the room with a more masculine scent. Specifically, lavender. French studies reveal that men respond more favorably to rooms scented with lavender.
Bedroom Don’ts
If you want your bedroom to be sexy, clean it. Laundry piled on the dresser, mountains of loose change and dirty clothes on the floor are enough to make a Viagra pill go soft. Anything that doesn’t promote a romantic or relaxing atmosphere has to go, including…
Pictures
No photos of the family. When your partner yells “WHO’S YOUR DADDY!” he doesn’t want to be looking at a picture of your father. It’ll just confuse him.
And please, no pictures of ex-boyfriends. They’re okay for one-night stands but if you actually know the name of the guy you brought home (a good sign you want to date him) then ditch the ex pics.
Pets
It’s okay to have an animal in the bedroom if it’s you on all fours. Otherwise, keep them out. Do you really want your cat coughing up a hairball when you reach the moment of truth? Or a dog that pokes you with a cold wet nose in an inappropriate spot? Close the door on Fido and Frida.
Clutter
Papers, clips, staplers, pens, dirty laundry, clean laundry, keys, spare change, PLEASE. Nothing kills a romantic mood faster than clutter. If you have a small bedroom, just eliminating clutter can make it look a lot bigger. Have a designated storage space (a decorative box for instance) for spare change, papers and anything else that’s cluttering the room.
Miscellaneous Items
Laundry: If it absolutely can’t go anywhere but the bedroom, at least keep it in a shut hamper without stray socks or sweaters hanging out of it.
Exercise equipment: Another bad idea in the bedroom. There is nothing romantic, relaxing or soothing about something that looks like a medieval torture device NASA threw out of the shuttle.
Television: It’s a WMD–a weapon of mass distraction. Take it out of the room, unless you’re going to watch an erotic video together. If you can’t bring yourself to do it, how about a compromise? Hide your television (and other electronic equipment) inside a large armour, so it doesn’t take away from the romantic look of your room.
Bedroom Do’s
There are three items you might consider putting in your bedroom:
Aquarium: It’s relaxing and adds a touch of nature
A tabletop fountain or waterfall: water is symbolic for renewal
An upholstered bench: It tends to make the bed bigger and more inviting.
From Sensuality To Sexuality
Remember, there is a point to all this emphasis on sensuality. It trains your mind to take a back seat to your body. It keeps you in the moment and out of your thoughts.
Cultivating sensuality means training yourself to be aware of what your body likes. By giving yourself fully to the sensation of pleasure, you bypass your inner critic. By emphasizing the primacy of your senses, your body can reset the wiring in your mind. Our first-order goal is to enhance your sense of well-being which promotes sex which reinforces well-being which increases sexual desire. Cultivating sensuality on a daily basis will pull you into this reinforcement cycle.
When you allow your body to experience joy, you gain a better appreciation of it. You will do things for it the way it does things for you. The mind-body connection is a dance. You’ve been letting your mind take the lead and all it’s done is step on toes, wrench backs and move the wrong ways. It’s time to let your body take over for a little while. It’s a wonderful partner when you learn to follow its lead.