January 2, 2004
BY DELIA O'HARA Staff Reporter
Here's a New Year's resolution for you: Make sex with your significant
other a top priority in your life. Protect your intimate relationship as if
your life depends on it, because sex is one of the pillars of a happy, healthy
life.
That's the message of 365 Days of Sensational Sex (Gotham
Books, $25), a new book by certified sex educator Lou Paget, author of
How to be a Great Lover, How to Give Her Absolute Pleasure and
The Big O.
"People think of great sex as the pinnacle of spontaneity but it is so
not," she says. "You have to plan for sex. Couples have to make intimacy a
priority, and make sure they have time for the two of them. If they don't,
their time gets gobbled up."
| Coitus non-interruptus
Here are a few of Lou Paget's favorite sex tips:
* The most successful couples never stop courting one another.
"Don't take that person for granted. Stay in shape. Look your best.
Smell good. Never stop thinking of things that might make your lover
happy."
* Great sex is ageless. "Falling-in-love sex is different from
being-in-love sex, but they don't take away from one another."
* Your partner can't read your mind. "If you want to try
something new in bed, communicate that desire."
* Seeking out one another and touching throughout the day keeps
couples connected. "Great lovers like being in one another's space."
* Children should sleep in their own beds. "Parents should get
a lock for their bedroom door, and the children should learn that when
the door is locked, Mom and Dad are unavailable. The health of families
relies on couples wanting to be together. You need to have the ability
to relax, knowing you won't be interrupted."
Delia O'Hara
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Paget designed 365 Days as a sexual recipe book for couples
who want to rededicate themselves to keeping their relationship alive.
But while the book is full of illustrations of couples making love,
descriptions of techniques and even tips on how to use "toys," its advice is
by no means confined to what goes on in bed.
"People who have great sex and great intimacy are nice to one another,"
Paget says. "They are open to doing what it takes to keep their relationships
going forward. They're not living in a fairy tale.
"They know it's work, but they have an awareness of the importance of
taking care of the parts of their relationship that keep the two of them
connected."
That connection requires communicating across the bafflements of the gender
gap. "Men and women are both speaking English, but it's like they're speaking
different dialects," Paget says.
For example, "men have no clue how important the little things are to her"
-- the little things a man does outside the bedroom, that is.
"What happens at 8 a.m. when he's walking out the door is going to impact
on what happens in the bedroom at 9 p.m.," Paget says.
As for women, they have "no clue how important it is for her to be sexual
with him." The sex act itself is paramount for men.
That's a news flash?
Maybe not, but Paget says very few women understand the depth of a man's
desire for sex.
"Having sex with a woman he wants to be intimate with makes a man feel
connected to his masculinity. Women control access to sex," she says. "By
being open to being sexual with him, a woman gives a man access to a feeling
about himself as a man that he cannot get any other way."
You would think the Los Angeles-based Paget would have covered the
waterfront in her three previous books, but 365 Days is based on
the best ideas she has heard in the 10 years she has been giving seminars.
"I know when I've heard a little gem. This is a collection of a lot of
those," she says. "What are the secrets of great intimacies? If something
works for one couple, it could work for other couples."
Every couple defines intimacy for itself, Paget says. Her book contains
"ideas from people who know what the real world is -- what it's like to be a
parent, to have a job, to go through a pregnancy."
Sex can be a fertile arena for creativity, but unless people talk about
what they do in bed, the cool new things they come up with never get an
airing. "I'm in the catbird seat. I get told everything," Paget says, and
she's happy to pass along what she's heard.
Her Russian tailor, who as a young man had very little privacy, filled
Paget in on some great techniques he remembered practicing in the stairwells
of his apartment building. And a friend of hers showed her the popular "Ode to
Bryan"-- the all-out favorite hand maneuver for men using a coffee spoon
technique.
Note to readers of 365 Days of Sensational Sex: The best tips
on technique are illustrated, with drawings made from digital photographs "so
they look like real people," Paget says.
Paget got into the sex business "driving out of the driveway of my own
marriage," in which the "intimacy was ho-hum."
She was determined not to make the same mistakes again, but when she went
looking for the secrets of great intimate relationships, she ran right into
the "adult" industry, which is marketed to men.
"If the information had been out there in the way I needed it, I never
would have done this," she says.
Paget, who is now happily involved in a new relationship, wanted to take a
positive approach to sexuality, the aspect of human beings that is "most
natural about us, and so special. I didn't want to talk about what's wrong or
missing. I wanted to approach it more like dance steps, that we're all
involved in this wonderful dance, but we haven't necessarily seen the steps
that might work."
