I know that most of you will know what I’m talking about when I talk about a “sexual comfort zone.”  Monogamous couples know this zone too well, as it becomes a place of true comfort and assured orgasm (a lot of the time).  Being in your sexual comfort zone can also be detrimental to your sexual life (and your life in general) because often times, your sexual comfort zone can become boring.  Maybe you’ve found yourself in a situation where you find yourself doing the same things, making the same sounds, or knowing which move comes after the next?  Maybe you find yourself fantasizing about some other person or some other situation that helps to be the catalyst in getting you off?

The thing about this situation is that you can change this.  You can change by getting out of your sexual comfort zone.  Don’t wait until your lover says something or confirms what you already know.  Instead, offer up some strategies that would help you two get out of your comfort zone and truly rely on each other’s sexual prowess to explore something new.  Maybe one of you is a novice when it comes to a new idea and maybe the other isn’t.  Regardless, the true teamwork lies in helping each other discover something new about each other.

There are plenty of ways that you can go beyond your sexual comfort zone, but here’s to name a few:

1)      You can role-play.  Role-playing is becoming more and more popular because of all the various sexual ideas that are out and about and in the public eye now.  You can do everything from pretending you are someone else to dressing up in a way that you wouldn’t normally dress.  This might even require you tapping into an alter ego and stretching yourself into a world unknown.

2)      Learn about an alternative sexual community.  There are several different alternative sexual communities, such as spiritual sexualities, BDSM sexualities, polyamorous sexualities or even swinging sexualities.  Whether it’s discovering tantra through sacred sexualities or trying some light BDSM behavior, you can learn new things in the bedroom that can excite you in a different way.  Even just learning about how other people navigate their sexuality can be something that you can apply to yourself.

3)      Research your favorite sexual positions.  Everyone has a favorite sexual position, but chances are that they don’t know too much about them.  Before you go running to the Kama Sutra and seeing more about why it is that you like that position so much, do some inner soul-searching.  What exactly is it that you like about that position?  Is it the way it feels?  Is it the way it looks in the mirror?  Is it the noises that the sexual position incites?  Ask yourself why you love it so much and see if there’s another position that would have the same answers.  This way, you can try those moves the next time you have sex and re-evaluate the position again.

Getting out of your sexual comfort zone can be uncomfortable at first, but the best thing about it is that you will always learn something from it and there’s no denying that kind of education.

Currently, I’m reading a book about sex research and what scientists have found in recent studies. I have to say, it’s really advantageous to be in school right now and have access to the most current research studies regarding sexuality. Although this book was published in 2009, I’m sure it took a year or two or more to get it published, so I’m always curious to know what the updated statistics are if there are any. 

One fact that I learned was that the average amount of people that sleep with before they find the “perfect partner” is 12. Now, if you have less than this or way more than this, it doesn’t matter. 12 just seems to be the average ​number. I guess the number 13 is lucky after all. 

I’m curious to know that if you have the ‘perfect partner’ at this ​time in your life and you average how many people they’ve slept with the number that you’ve slept with if the number would be 12. Something tells me, not so much, but I’m not genuinely 
​interested in that type of sex research. Although I see it as useful ​in some contexts, some people have lost track on how many people they’ve slept with and that causes skewed biases. Besides, how many people are completely truthful to a random survey ​about their sex lives without having them feel like it’s some sort of attack on their morals or ethics. I’ve found that most people who find that they identify with an “alternative sexuality” are the ones that really talk about their sex lives in more of an explicit and affirming way.

Millennials are now growing up in a ‘hookup culture’ of stigma-free casual sex. The stigma of religion isn’t carrying as much weight as it used to because of the contradicting dynamics of the social culture as time moves forward. Everyone is concerned with their own morality and ethics and sexual energy and individualistic sexuality are recognized as vehicles of self-seeking pleasure with the logical reasoning of sexual health benefits. And besides, how would you know what that “perfect partner” looks like and how would you know that you don’t have several “perfect partners” for you? Love has been romanticized as perfect actions that are constantly occurring, when in reality, there are always ups and downs with the perfect person. The perfect person is not perfect all the time and they’re not perfect for you all the time. Sometimes they suck at being your partner. But if you have an understanding of each other and you know how to communicate effectively, you can get over your partner being not perfect a lot sooner than if you didn’t. 

I didn’t find any updated articles about the amount of partners folks have recently, but I hope someone’s doing that study for the near future. Friends with benefits is a pretty hot subject, but the most recent research shows that friends with benefits have less actual benefits than those who are married or in monogamous relationships. I guess that’s another argument for monogamy, but I’m sure I will get to that another day!