Good sex is like good food. If you want a good meal, you've got two choices.

1) Plan in advance: set a date, go through the recipe books, do the shopping, set time aside for the cooking, start work in a clean kitchen, enjoy the process of cooking, lay a beautiful table, plate the food up well - then you have an amazing meal.

Or, if you want a more ‘spontaneous’ good meal:

2) Have a well-stocked kitchen: plenty of good ingredients in the larder and all the right implements in the cupboards, plus have plenty of practice at throwing things together - then you grab all the right elements to put an amazing meal together at short notice.

It’s the same with sex. If you want a really good encounter, you can:

1) Plan in advance: set aside some time, create a lovely environment, ensure you’re not too tired, put some thought into what you might do - then you can have an amazing sexual encounter.

But if you want a more ‘spontaneous’ good sexual encounter:

2) Have a well-stocked ‘love larder’: so that you’ve got what it takes to move into a sexual encounter easily and smoothly.

So, what’s required for a well-stocked “love larder”?

First - you’ve got to have a good connection. The two of you need to be getting on well, focusing on yourselves as lovers through positive small acts of loving kindness, with a yummy edge, throughout the day, and making sure you have some quality chill-out connecting time together for at least ten minutes every day.

Second - you’ve got to have the time. You can’t be too rushed or too tired. So last thing at night is not a good idea. If it has to be in the evening, get to the bedroom as early as you can. Otherwise, focus on daytime, weekends (Sunday lie-ins are great) or have sex before dinner not after.

Third - you’ve got to have the space.You need a gorgeous bedroom - make it a boudoir. The more enticing your bedroom is, the easier it is relax into some gorgeous love-making, or hot and heavy shagging, or both - whatever takes your fancy at the time. You need to consider your Bedroom as a Sanctuary, a place away from the cares of the world, where you can leave all that behind and simply focus on the two of you.

Fourth - you need the right equipment.Everyone needs a comfortable bed, plenty of cushions, good music and soft lighting. Have on hand a bottle of lube, tissues or wet wipes and water. Then there are the additional items that will depend on your personal eroticism that you’ll want to have close by: blindfolds, ties, vibrators or dildos, massage oil, ticklers or erotic storybooks. And you may want to have other items available, such as lingerie or dress-ups or other toys that you like to bring out now and again.

Five - you need the right attitude. It doesn’t matter if you’ve got the connection, the time, the place and the goodies if you’re allowing false or limiting beliefs to hold you back from letting go and playing. So if you’ve got “stuff”, “issues” or beliefs around being “too old” or “the wrong appearance”, or if you think that sex is about performance and “doing” things to the other person, if you can’t receive or you can’t give, if you’ve got fixed ideas about sexual roles, if you limit yourself with unnecessary views on what’s sexually acceptable or not, or any number of other self-imposed limitations, then you’re not going to have as much fun and pleasure (with all the associated health and wellbeing benefits) that you could. It’s important that you approach sex with curiosity, lightness and playfulness.
Remember that sex is Playtime for Grown-Ups!

So, what’s missing from your love larder? What can you do individually and as a couple to stock it up?

From my column in Body+Soul

Question: "I want to reinvent my sex life in 2020, really take it by the balls, so to speak. I’m married and in my mid 30s. My husband is a good lover but until recently I’ve been quite conservative in the bedroom, so it’s not like I've asked much of him! We don’t have kids yet and I’d love to get a bit wild with him before that all happens. This new desire started when we discovered a fantastic vibrator that gave me firework orgasms, and now I’m thinking about what else I’m missing out on. How do I flex my newfound interest in sex?"

Answer: Congratulations on starting to wake up to your sexuality! Sex is playtime for adults, and you’ve started playing!

So, how to flex this newfound interest? The first thing is to find out what you both like. Create a congenial environment for sharing, chilling out on the back veranda with a glass of wine, or over a romantic dinner out. Then broach the topic by asking questions like:

• what’s the best thing we’ve ever done?
• what’s something you’d do if you had no inhibitions?
• what do you fantasize about?
• how do you like to be touched?
• how do you like things to be initiated?
• what’s the most erotic scene in a movie you’ve ever seen?
• what’s your greatest turn-on?

If you’re the keener of the couple, don’t appear too eager or too pushy, allow time for your partner to open up. There’s no rush.

You might find you come up with plenty of ideas on your own, but to help you along the way, here are some simple suggestions to get your creative juices flowing.

Positions: there are numerous variations on the five basic positions of man on top, woman on top, from behind, side-by-side, and sitting and standing. Find a ‘sex positions’ web page and try out the possibilities.

Places: Get off the bed and onto the floor, on the windowsill, on couches, tables, washing machine (when it’s on), back veranda, in the shower, in the garden, under the stars.

Props: Check out your local sex shop or hunt around the house for items to spark up your play – the kitchen and bathroom are particularly good places to find ‘toys’.

Clothes: make undressing part of your play, undressing your partner or doing a striptease yourself; or leave some clothes on instead of being naked. You might find particular clothes are arousing, such as lingerie, leather, corsets, or ridiculously high-heeled shoes that you leave on…

Sensory arousal and deprivation: heighten your senses by blindfolding your partner (or both of you!) and feeding them delicious morsels of food; or touching them with different items both softer and harsher; or putting on headphones while delighting other senses. Have scented candles or incense, scented oils and lotions. Play sensual music in the background. Drip honey, liqueur, chocolate topping over your lover’s body and lick it off. Smear strawberry jam all over them with your body. If you feel wicked, explore the boundary of pleasure and pain with nails, clothes pegs, forks…

Role plays: Classic role plays can be arousing (even if not very PC!): teacher-student, master-slave, employer-servant, doctor-patient, warrior-captive, etc. You might role play a particular period of history or culture (the Queen of Sheba with her sex slave perhaps?) or be animals having a rough and tumble. You can take your role play out into the world: ‘strangers’ meeting in a bar, meeting your ‘escort’ or ‘gigolo’ in a hotel room.

Erotic talk and stories: You can describe an erotic scenario during your sexual play. Reading aloud erotic stories can be a big turn-on and help get you in the mood and feel creative. Speaking seductively can help your partner lose themselves, and the more aroused you are, the dirtier your talk might get.

Cameras: Take photos or videos of yourself as part of your sexual play. You can keep them for later if you like to watch, or delete them straight away if the turn on is the taking and not the watching. Combine with role plays for added effect.

Some of these ideas will turn you on and some will turn you off and some might be a tentative maybe... Whatever your reaction, hopefully they’ve sparked your creativity and are setting you up for a great, sexy 2020!

Foreplay is generally seen as what you do before you get to intercourse, to prepare yourselves (especially the woman) to be ready to receive “penetration” by the man. Intercourse is seen as a vigorous activity consisting of the man thrusting into the woman, or less frequently, the woman bouncing around on the man.

The problem with this limited view is that it assumes that:

• Intercourse is the “main event” or “the whole point” of sex and that other activities simply lead-up to that “main event”
• Intercourse is such a vigorous activity that plenty of preparation is required.

But let’s look at this differently. Let’s take a less linear view of sex and say that:

• Intercourse isn’t the main event, that it isn’t the whole point, that it’s just one of many elements and possibilities of sex and lovemaking
• Intercourse doesn’t have to be vigorous, so it doesn’t necessarily require lots of preparation
• Intercourse can, in essence, be part of the foreplay.

Now that’s a very different point of view!

You’ll notice that I often focus on sensuality and exploring the “valleys” of sex as well as the “peaks”, and particularly on softening and making the genitals more receptive. With this approach the lines between foreplay and sex blur and it all becomes part of a flow of lovemaking that changes every time and can last from moments to hours.

Gentle intercourse can start the whole sexual encounter, even without any movement at all! Having your genitals connected while gazing into each other’s eyes, or kissing, or simply lying there enjoying the feeling of genital connection - is a type of foreplay. That could be enough in itself, or it might lead on to more vigorous intercourse, or more vigorous oral or manual, or bring in toys, lie around in 69 for ages, get up and dance, chat, have a cup of tea, and then do it all again…

Anything's possible...

Create something wonderful and new every time!

From my column in Body+Soul

Question:"I’m single for the first time in 10 years. I’m over the heartbreak, and now I’m ready to have some fun – specifically, some fun on holiday. I’m going with some other single friends to a resort in Bali this summer. But I’m also prone to UTIs in summer, and I’m desperate to make sure that doesn’t happen on holiday and ruin my good time. What can I do to protect myself? And what are the other golden rules for healthy holiday sex?"

Answer: Singles fun in the sun in Bali sounds like a good way to move forward now you’re over the heartbreak. It’s good that you’ve waited, as too many people try to mend a broken heart by distracting themselves with new people, but you don’t necessarily make good choices in that state. It’s much better to take the time to get over the grief, anger and other negative emotions you inevitably go through at the end of a relationship. Rebound encounters, whether relationships or flings, are rarely based on clear emotions and made with clean choices.

So, now that you’re in a good place – it’s time to meet people and have fun! Before I focus on the UTI issue, I first want to make some comments on how to have the kind of fun you’re looking it for. It has to be consensual and it has to be safe.

Safe might not sound very sexy, but it’s essential. Like any other fun on your holiday, you want to be prepared and you want it to be safe. You wouldn’t go scuba diving or kite surfing on your holiday if you weren’t sure you were going to be safe. It’s the same with sexual fun.

So, the first rule of good holiday sex is: don’t get too drunk! A little alcohol can loosen inhibitions and ease awkwardness to help you get started, but too much means you lose judgement leading to poor choices that you’re are likely to regret, and could even be mentally and physically harmful.

For you personally, another reason to limit the alcohol is that it makes you more prone to UTIs. You also need to stay hydrated and drink plenty of water, which you can forget to do when you’re drinking, increasing the risk of succumbing to an UTI.

The second golden rule is that if you’re going to have sex with a holiday lover, use a condom. Without one you’re putting yourself at risk of catching sexually transmitted diseases. You might know that intellectually, but in the moment, people can get so carried away that the condom gets overlooked. So, make sure you’re carrying condoms with you. Don’t assume that because it goes on a penis that it’s the man’s responsibility to carry condoms. You’re both having sex, so you’re both responsible for all aspects of the encounter.

Some people feel applying a condom is awkward, so make the application playful. I am a big advocate of learning to put a condom on with your mouth (it’s actually very easy) as it’s a lot more likely to go on if it’s applied that way!

Carry a small tube of lube with you too. Dab a little on the tip of the condom once it’s on the penis and use your hands to playfully and sensually spread it over the head (he’ll enjoy that) to make for a smooth entry.

Those are the two most important things to keep in mind for sexy adventures on your holiday: minimise alcohol and use condoms. Some more advice for you particularly around preventing UTIs while you are away are:

- Make sure you’re clean, not just to avoid bacteria that might be hanging around your anal area and that can get transferred to your vagina during sexual activity, but also to remove chemicals that could be irritating. When you’re on holidays you might have sunscreen or insect repellent on your skin, so make sure that’s washed off.

- Avoid g-string type underpants and bikini bottoms as they can irritate your vulva more so than knickers and bikinis with a wider crotch and bottom.

- Make sure you pee before and after sex.

- And as romantic as it looks in the movies, sex on the beach is never good – the sand gets into all the wrong places!

Bon voyage!

I love using food metaphors when educating and inspiring people around sexuality. We understand the variety, the flavours, the processes and ingredients – from simple to complex - when it comes to food. So, it is with sex too.

One of my most important food analogies is that great sex is non-linear, more like a picnic than a three-course meal. More recently I wrote about ‘relationship vitamins’, all the little things that are needed to make a relationship strong and healthy and sexy.

Today I’d like to use the metaphor of a cake and icing (frosting for my North American readers). Icing is sweet and delicious, but on its own, it’s too sweet and is sickly rather than tasty. Icing is only good when it’s on a cake. When you have a delicious cake, and then you ice it – mmm, yummy scrummy!

When we’re talking about sex, what you’re actually doing is the icing. Everything that goes into yourselves individually and as a couple, is the cake. That’s who you are as a couple, your dynamic, how you approach and engage intimately and sexually.

I’ve developed a model, the seven elements of sexuality, which I’ve described in an earlier blog article on sexual evolution (and which forms the basis of my online courses Luscious Woman and Black Belt in the Bedroom, my couples retreats and women’s retreats and my book Seven Sex Goddesses). These elements are all essential to having a strong, healthy, integrated sexuality. If you are weak in any of them, your sexuality will be out of balance.

These seven elements are the ‘cake’. Check out the diagram below.

If the cake isn’t good, if it’s under-cooked and soggy, over-cooked and hard, missing vital ingredients so tastes bad, then it doesn’t matter how good the icing is, it’s still going to be bad. Icing is pretty straight-forward, it’s the cake that’s the challenge.

So, it’s vital that you focus on these elements of your relationship and sexuality. If you’re missing any, or not developed in some, then focus on those. Then the icing will be pretty straight-forward.

Another way to think of this is that it’s not what you do sexually, it’s how< you do it, the attitude and approach and all these elements that underlie the what.

We tend to focus way too much on the what, and not enough on the why. It’s like putting all your attention on making the icing and ignoring the cake. What a disaster! Like so many people’s sex lives!

So, get baking!

From my column in Body+Soul

Question: "Hoping you can shed some light. Two months ago I decided to end a wonderful relationship, due to my partner's desire to have sex twice a day. He told me this is normal for him, and that he had it like that in his last two long-term relationships. It all came to a head when he told me he wasn’t ready for us to live together and be defacto. I felt I was being sexually used, and called it quits. But we still love one another and talk regularly and have huge chemistry between us. Can you help me? Is it normal in your 50s to be wanting sex twice a day, and how can we find a compromise?"

Answer: What’s normal is that everyone is different! There are so many elements to sex – the lead-up, initiation, timing, activities, pace, rhythm, location, atmosphere, props, aftercare – you’re always going to be different. Every couple faces the challenge of co-creating a sex life that suits you both.

But since you ask, let’s focus on the frequency point for a moment. In regard to what’s ‘normal’ in terms of frequency, the Australian Study of Health and Relationship a few years ago came up with an average of 1.4 times per week for partnered people. That’s about six times a month. Body+Soul also did a survey recently and discovered that 8% of respondents had sex most days (5% of those in their 50s), and another 36% answered that they had sex 1-3 times a week. At the other end of the scale, 15% said they never had sex and 20% said they had sex less than every three months (32% of those in their 50s). So, you can see there is a broad range of ‘normal’.

Your partner is definitely at the far end of frequency. If the average is six times a month and he’s wanting it 60 times a month, that’s ten times the average! Which is not to say it’s too much, only that if it’s more than you want, then there needs to be some understanding and co-creating.

Do you know why he wants it so often? Is it that he finds you so goddamn gorgeous that he can’t get enough of you? If so, while that’s flattering, perhaps what he really wants is connection and intimacy. In which case, twice daily bouts of quality conversation and cuddling could satisfy his needs, with less frequent genital engagement. Or is it that he has the urge to ejaculate twice a day and it actually has very little desire for you (as much as I’m sure he does like sex with you). In which case, masturbation is the best way to scratch that itch, and leave the partnered activity to when you’re both wanting connection and mutual pleasure. Or maybe he’s bored or stressed in life and uses orgasms like other people eat chocolate bars, that is, it’s something that gives him a quick fix and makes him feel better. In which case I suggest he do some soul searching about life, love and happiness, and stop imposing his dysfunctional needs on you.

And what about you? You mention nothing of your own needs and desires in your question. You talk more about your annoyance at his needs and feeling used if you meet them. You need to also know why you have sex. How do you like to get in the mood? How do you like to approach or be approached? What turns you on and what turns you off? Would you be open to frequent bouts of cuddling, only some of which turn into PIV (penis in vagina activity)? Until you can answer these questions, you can’t co-create a love-life together.

It sounds as though you two do love and desire each other. That’s a great start. So, forget about the quantity and get talking about the how and the what and the why. That’s what’s important. You will always be different, whether it’s with this partner or with someone else. The key to having a great sex life is being aware of yourself and being aware of your partner, and that requires talking about it openly, without feelings of entitlement or obligation. If you struggle to do this together, work with a qualified professional to help with the communicating. In this way you will get understanding, creativity and lots of love, intimacy, pleasure and great sex!

I’ve just received final approval for my research project – hooray- and now I need couples to be my research participants.

The fancy, academic title for my research is:

The transformative potential of optimal sexuality within a relational context.

What this means in everyday language is:

Does having a great sex life develop you as a couple and as individuals, and if so, how?

There’s a great quote from John Welwood that says:

“intimate relationship…is such a provocative and powerful meeting place, where the psychological and the spiritual come together in a particularly potent way.”

I totally agree with this and am particularly interested in how a couple’s sex life contributes. I am sure, from all my years of professional experience, and from my own personal life, that developing a certain kind of sexuality, does transform you. A couple who attended one of my Bali retreats, describe this beautifully when they said that they felt their relationship “had changed frequency, as though we have shifted from AM to FM”.

In my last LoveLife Blog article, I described ‘optimal sexuality’ and what it entails. There are eight components to having this level of sexuality:

1. Being present: focused, aware and utterly immersed in the experience.
2. Intense emotional connection: a sense of connection, alignment, being in sync, merged with the partner.
3. Deep sexual or erotic intimacy: mutual respect, caring, genuine acceptance.
4. Extraordinary communication: heightened empathy and sensitivity.
5. Interpersonal risk-taking: sex experienced as an adventure, a journey, ongoing self-expression.
6. Authenticity: being genuine, uninhibited, transparent.
7. Vulnerability: getting ‘swept away’, revelling in the sensations and surrendering to the partner.
8. A sense of transcendence: bliss, peace, awe, the feeling of utter timelessness in encounters that are transformative and healing.

I’m looking for couples who self-identify as having this kind of sexuality who would like to explore with me how they’ve grown and transformed as individuals and as a couple through developing this level of sexuality.

What I mean by the term ‘transform’ is a qualitative shift in one’s life and/or worldview that is persistent (not merely a temporary shift that reverts to a previous state), pervasive (not confined to isolated aspects of one’s being or functioning), and profound (having an important life impact).

In evolving and transforming in this way you tend to have:

• an increased expansiveness of being,
• an increased openness,
• an enhanced awareness,
• an increased sense of connection, and
• a more authentic and meaningful existence.

So, if you feel your sexuality meets all or most of these criteria and feel that it has transformed you in this way, I’d love to interview as part of my research!

It will of course be totally confidentially and the reporting anonymous. I’ll need an initial hour or two of your time for an interview which will be recorded and transcribed for my research, and then a few months later, after I’ve interviewed all the participants (about six couples) and done my analysis, to see how you feel about my findings and whether they need modifying.

I’m sure it will be fascinating project to do and be involved in, so if you are interested, please let me know by email: jacqueline@jacquelinehellyer.com.

Cheers!

From my column in Body+Soul

Question:I've just turned 60 and have been married over 35 years to a very good lady who loves me, but over the years has lost interest in sex. These days, she would happily have no sex at all, and so my advances are almost entirely rebuffed. The problem is I can’t find release myself – I’m not able to masturbate (perhaps my Catholic upbringing has locked in some guilt that stops me). My question has two parts: Is having regular erections without release bad for my health (eg my prostate)? And then… what can I do? If I can’t change my wife’s mind or learn to self-pleasure, I’m afraid I’ll start looking outside my marriage."

Answer: First up, there is no conclusive scientific evidence that men need to ejaculate for their prostate health, some studies even indicate the opposite. So, let’s get that myth out of the way and turn to the more interesting part of your question. Better still, let’s turn it around and ask the real question – why sex? There are many reasons why we desire sex. Two of the main ones are: (1) we’re feeling horny and want an orgasmic release, and (2) we want to have a pleasurable, connecting experience with our beloved. Sometimes the two can happen at once, in which case if our partner is feeling similarly inclined, or can be seduced into feeling that way, then all good, we can have a lovely satisfying sexual encounter with that person.

But, if we’re feeling aroused and our partner isn’t and doesn’t want to engage, then what do we do with that arousal? Well, that’s actually our own issue, not our partner’s. A lot of people are confused about this issue, they think their partner is responsible for their sexual satisfaction. That only applies to the second kind of desire above, one where both partners are wanting to engage in a mutual encounter. If only one does, particularly if the drive is simply for orgasmic release, that’s where solo sex comes into the picture.

A healthy sex life incorporates partnered sex and solo sex. They are two different things. Solo sex is not the fall-back position when you can’t get ‘the real thing’. Partnered sex is for when you both want a mutually enjoyable encounter for pleasure and connection. Solo sex is when you are aroused and just want an orgasm, particularly if your partner doesn’t or can’t. Now, the suppression of sexuality by religion over the past few millennia has really confused a lot of people. The whole ‘masturbation will make you blind’ kind of thinking can get deep into our unconscious and make us really believe that it’s bad and make us feel guilty for wanting to touch our own bodies!

It feels good to touch our genitals. It’s relaxing and reassuring and rejuvenating! Our hands reach to exactly the right length to enable this and the dexterity of our hands and fingers means that we can give ourselves just the right kind of stimulation to provide wonderful pleasure and orgasmic release. Add to that our brilliant minds with all the memories we can recall and fantasies that we can create, and you have the perfect combination for a great solo experience that will make you feel calm and relaxed, and will no doubt also reduce the pressure you are probably putting on your wife.

Which brings me to the second part of this question – how to get your wife interested. I see so often in clinic that if one partner is very needy of sex, it pushes their partner away. Neediness and pushiness are not sexy. Pressure is the biggest turn-off. If you want your wife to join you in sexual connection, you need to entice her. You need to find out what would engage her, how she would like to be approached and what she would find pleasurable. It’s going to be a lot easier for you to do that if you’re not desperate, thanks to having a healthy solo sex life.

If you’re really struggling with this, I recommend you get support from a well-qualified Sex Therapist like myself. But see how you go and try gradually getting used to pleasuring yourself. Use your mind to involve your wife in your fantasy thoughts,, and allow yourself the pleasure of orgasmic release while imagining her involvement. Then, at a later time, have a chat with her about how you love the connection and pleasure and tenderness of making love with her, and how you would like to reinvigorate your love life in a way that would bring her satisfaction and strengthen the beautiful bond you have.

Can you see how this relaxed, mutual, and enticing approach will be more likely to engage her in conversation and through that to cuddles, kisses and beyond!

I am really interested in human sexual potential. What is truly great sex? And why should we aim for it?

Well, most sexological research seems to have been focused more on quantity than quality. There’s a big focus on functioning genitals, with the assumption that if he’s erect and she’s lubricating, well, off you go then, that’s all you need for sex.

More recently there is more attention placed on pleasure, which is great, but again, it tends to focus on quantity rather than quality. How many orgasms are we having and how big are they?

But I work a lot with people who do have functioning genitals and satisfactory orgasms, yet they still say there’s something missing, that there’s got to be more. And yes, there is! I believe our human sexual potential has a lot more to do with depth and transcendence than in functioning genitals and quantifiable orgasms.

My clinical experience backs this up, not to mention my own personal experience, but I hadn’t seen much in the scientific literature until I came across a wonderful study by Drs Kleinplatz and Menard* that define what they call ‘optimal sexuality’ in exactly the same way I think of human sexual potential!

They’ve come up with eight components to this optimal sexuality:

1. Being present: focused, aware and utterly immersed in the experience.
2. Intense emotional connection: a sense of connection, alignment, being in sync, merged with the partner.
3. Deep sexual or erotic intimacy: mutual respect, caring, genuine acceptance.
4. Extraordinary communication: heightened empathy and sensitivity.
5. Interpersonal risk-taking: sex experienced as an adventure, a journey, ongoing self-expression.
6. Authenticity: being genuine, uninhibited, transparent.
7. Vulnerability: getting ‘swept away’, revelling in the sensations and surrendering to the partner.
8. A sense of transcendence: bliss, peace, awe, the feeling of utter timelessness in encounters that are transformative and healing.

Now, you can see that there’s no mention whatsoever of functioning genitals here! Not even a mention of orgasms. Which is not to imply that functioning genitals and orgasms aren’t good things, but that great sex is about far more than that. These components are about attitude and experience, not performance and achievement.

Thank-you doctors! I’m currently doing academic research into what are the benefits to having this type of sexuality, and I’ll shortly be looking for participants in this study. So, if these eight components resonate with you and you feel that they represent your experience of sex within your relationship, I’d love to hear from you!

And if you feel that this is still way beyond where you are now in your sexuality, then please continue to engage in my offerings to help you discover your extraordinary potential - from reading my blog, enrolling in an online course, workshopor retreat, or by seeing me and my colleagues at the LoveLife Clinic.

Being fully in touch with your sexuality and having that beautiful powerful energy pervade your life is a truly awesome thing.


*Kleinplatz, P.J. & Menard, A.D. (2007). Building blocks toward optimal sexuality: constructing a conceptual model. The Family Journal: Counselling and Therapy for Couples and Families. 15(1)

From my column in Body+Soul

Question:I am 45 years old and have been single for 8 years since my marriage ended – I’ve been so busy raising my two kids and working it wasn’t really an issue. But now I want back in the dating game. I hate the fact that if I died tomorrow my ex-husband would be my last sexual partner. Question is… how on earth do I do it? Dating sites just don't do it for me, they seem too risky. I don’t have any physical issues, but I’m aware my body isn’t what it used to be. So how do I get my confidence back? I’m not necessarily looking for a relationship - just some action!

Answer: I had a client once who said she felt “like a very experienced virgin”. She’d had lots of sex in her life, but so long ago that facing the prospect of getting sexually active felt like being a virgin all over again.

With more people having serial relationships these days, the challenge of finding new partners is common. And as you point out, the two key issues are: how to feel confident and how to actually meet someone.

First up, the confidence issue. That’s a big one for women in our society where we’re constantly bombarded with unreal expectations of beauty. There’s an impossible quest for perfection, for an eternally smooth, taut youthful body. Yet, what men find the most attractive in a woman is less about the ‘perfection’ of her body and much more about how she feels about it. I run women’s workshop where I have a panel of men. Inevitably there is the question of “what do you find the most desirable in a woman?”. The immediate answer from all the men is always ‘confidence!’.

Keep in mind too, that the men you’ll be seeing are also aging – losing their hair, getting paunchier, more wrinkles. It happens to all of us! Yet our bodies have also lived, birthed children, had adventurers, carried us through life this far and will continue to do so to the end of our days. That’s a pretty miraculous thing and something to be always grateful for. Tapping into that appreciation of our bodies is what brings confidence. We can always decorate the outside with clothes and make-up and hair-styles if we want, but it’s on the inside where the confidence lies.

Now, with confidence (reasonably) intact, what about the vexing question of where to find a man? Well, you could walk into any pub in the land and call out “I want sex, who’s willing?” and no doubt you’d get laid pretty quickly! But I’m assuming you’re more discerning than that, and want to meet men who you actually like.

These days online dating is a good way to meet people. If risk is your biggest concern, then make sure you get to know a man through texting and phone calls. You only meet once you have a good feeling for him, and that’s less a ‘date’ and more a low-key catch-up to see if you click in real life. Meet for a coffee, a walk in the park, check out an art exhibition – whatever you find appealing and not too intense.

If you’d prefer to meet someone IRL (dating lingo for ‘in real life’), then the important thing is to get out and meet new people. The best way to do that is to do things that you enjoy. If you meet him doing things you enjoy then it means he does too, and that’s a good basis for a relationship. At the very least you’ll make new friends through the activities and potentially meet someone through the new friendships.

Before all that though, here’s an exercise you’ll find invaluable: draw up two columns, one for ‘him’ and one for ‘me’. In the ‘him’ column write down all the things you’d like in a man. This is not a check-list, it’s so you can get a felt sense of the kind of man you want to be with. This way you’ll be much more likely to recognise him when you meet him! And the ‘me’ column is important because you need to know what it is about youthat is going to make you a good match for him.

Then, the attraction can begin!