My teenage son came to me the other day and proudly declared that out of all his mates, he’s the only one who has made love.

Once I got over the initial shock of him being so open with me – even though all three of my children are really open about their sexuality, since I’ve brought them up that way, it still surprises me as I could never have been that open with my parents – I asked him if he meant that his friends haven’t had sex yet.

“No, Mum,” he clarified “they’re having sex, but it’s just that boring teenage sex. Me and Kate, we really make love.” He had a big, satisfied smile on his face.

“So, what’s the difference between regular sex and love-making?” I asked.

“Oh, Mum, we spend ages making out first. Then only when we’re like, really really into it, that’s when we have sex. And we do it really slowly and it feels sooo good and we can just go on and on for ages. You know, it’s all that stuff you told me makes it good. And some other stuff we’ve, you know, found out ourselves. Kate just goes into this zone and it’s really good. Yeah, none of my mates do it like that.”

Why am I sharing this (with his, slightly reluctant, permission)? A couple of reasons.

Firstly, to show that having an open dialogue with your kids is so beneficial in helping them have a quality, life-enhancing sex life. If you don’t, they’re going to get their sexual inspiration from porn, and they’re not going to learn about quality sex from that medium.

And secondly, we often think that young people, particularly young testosterone-fuelled men, have to have hard and fast sex and it’s only later that we can develop a softer, more loving sexual style – and that’s if you even believe that sex can evolve in this way, for a lot of people the belief is that it’s hard and fast when you’re young and then it dwindles to nothing. But as my son shows, and his older brother is the same, teenagers can ‘make love’ too.

Now to put those two points together, young people can have quality sex, they can ‘make love’, and it helps if their parents are open to guiding them in discovering that. But of course, to have that quality of communication with your children, you need to be comfortable with your own sexuality first. So, it’s good you’re reading my blog! Because for most of us there’s a lot of growth in self-awareness and understanding to be done to be able to engage with sexuality in such a normal, natural way – no negative emotions of shame, guilt, fear, disgust, embarrassment, frustration, resentment, etc; instead, just feelings of goodness, pleasure, safety, trust, joy, freedom and, yes, love.

Take a group of couples who love each other, put them in a beautiful environment with no distractions, teach them to connect more deeply, inspire them to explore and play, and what do you get…?

Well, as one man who attended one of my couples retreats put it:

"I thought this retreat would expand our sex life, but it didn’t so much expand as turn our sex life upside down! I’m now seeing the world with a new, exciting, slightly bewildering light.”

It’s hard to explain that to someone before they’ve experienced it. “What do you do?” people ask me. My answer could indeed be: “I turn people’s sex lives upside down.”

You see, when you are able to be very present in your body you can connect more deeply with your partner, you can become more intuitive in your relating, and you open to subtlety of sensation and the calm, full, ecstatic feelings that engenders - and that means more connection, more feeling, and more fun!

In the retreats I teach centredness, presence and mindfulness as the basis, then from there we explore the concepts of connection, energy and sensation - and voila! The combination opens people up to experiences that are so much more than the standard genital friction we consider sex in mainstream thought. As I always say, there’s nothing wrong with a good bit of genital friction, the point is that there is so much more.

People are always coming to me saying “there’s got to be more to this sex thing”, their routine sex just isn’t doing it for them, and they’re not getting much inspiration from what tends to be superficial, sleazy portrayal of ‘good sex’ that’s out there. Most people I encounter have either been turned off or have tried it and come away emptier.

Another man at a retreat put it well:

“We were looking for something, but we didn’t know what it was. Now we do. It’s an intriguing, intangible thing and we’ve found it. Thank-you."

That’s what I do: I turn sex lives upside-down, inside-out and open them up to the wondrous possibilities that is human sexual potential.



Come and experience this for yourselves at one of my wonderful Couples Retreats: three days in the Blue Moutains near Sydney or five days in Bali!

Adult shops these days can be classy, tasteful, staffed by friendly well-informed assistants, full of a huge range of products to titillate and pleasure. They’re great.

But you know what? You can find a whole heap of stuff in your own home that you can bring into the bedroom to augment your love play.

Come, let’s look around your house to see what goodies we can find…

In the Kitchen

Let’s start in the kitchen.

You can find some great implements for sensation play here. What can you see that you could run over your partner’s skin? Forks are fabulous. Other pronged implements such as a spaghetti ladle, skewers, (blunt) knives. Experiment with the sharpness, it can be quite delightful (or not, in which case don’t). Or something smooth perhaps? Try the back of spoons of different sizes, ladle or teaspoon. Warm them up in hot water to add the element of heat for some temperature play.*

On the subject of temperature play, you can’t go past ice for thrilling sensation - run it over your partner’s skin, hold it in particularly sensitive spots, make your mouth cold with it then lick, kiss or suck various parts of your partner’s body. (Random tip, run an ice-cube up and down her back when you’re having sex from behind.)

You’ll find all sorts of interesting items if you fancy a bit of impact play - a flyswat, wooden spatula, maybe even a cheese board…

Cornflour makes a great massage medium, particularly on hairy men as oil tends to matt the hair.

Speaking of oil, you can use a lot of cooking oils as massage oil - macadamia or avocado oils are good.

If you want to try out some restraint, there’s no need to buy expensive bondage tape when you can just use ordinary old cheap plastic wrap from the larder. It’s so nice and wide you can bind broader areas of the body than other more regular forms of restraint.*

And then there’s food. There are so many delectable ways to incorporate food and drink into your love play.

• blindfold your partner and give them tastes of various foods and drinks
• slather jams or cream or sauces over select parts of your partner’s body and consume
• decorate your prone partner with delicacies, and take your time eating them
• drizzle liqueur, sauce or honey over your partner’s body and lick it off
• share something long (spaghetti, liquorice stick, cracker sticks) starting at each end and meeting in the middle
• both be blindfolded and try feeding each other (warning - gets messy!)

A few words of warning if you’re going places you haven’t been before:
*Test the temperature of anything you’ve heated up before you apply it to your partner’s skin to make sure it’s not too hot.
*Of course, never cover your face with plastic wrap. Also, have some scissors on hand in case the person being wrapped wants it removed quickly.

In the Study/Den

A quick stop off in your study or den to check out paper. Various thicknesses of paper and card can provide interesting stimulation on the skin - try running the edge of a business card along your partner’s skin for starters.

In the Bathroom

The bathroom is nearly as good as the kitchen. Check out the

• make up brushes
• body brushes
• loofah
• comb
• cotton wool

and imagine how you could play with them…

In the Laundry

Into the laundry where we’ll find those delicious items of pleasurable pain - clothes pegs! Use them on nipples, scrotum - if you’re game…

And while you’re there, you might also find some rope, stretchy rope with hooks on the end (do those things have a name?). Or for less out there pleasuring, imagine what you could do with those paint brushes…

In the Bedroom

Now heading back to your bedroom with all the goodies you’ve found, you might find there are some other ‘multi-purpose’ items in your bedroom:

Wrap a bead or pearl necklace around your hand and stimulate your partner’s penis; use belts, scarves, stockings for restraint or blindfolds.

Elsewhere in the house

And who knows what else you might find. I once found a long pink furry thing in a kid’s bedroom that was wonderful for running over naked flesh! (I have no idea what it was.)

So, step out of the box of ‘sex toy’ and get creative (and save a bit of cash to devote to more expensive sex toys like a quality vibrator!)

Explore, experiment, and enjoy!

How do you describe the act of intercourse? Do you call it ‘penetrative sex’? If you do, which wouldn’t be surprising as it’s such a common term, have you ever thought about what the word actually means and symbolises?

Penetration means ‘breaking through resistance’. Which might have applied to sex in the bad old days when a wife was supposed to just submit to her husband whether she wanted to or not, so it may well have been an act of breaking through resistance. But now, in 2020, do we really want to think of sex as an aggressive act?

Worse still, the term ‘penetrative sex’ gives agency to the ‘penetrator’ - the man - who does it to a resistant, or at least passive, recipient – the woman.

Is this really the concept of intercourse we want to be perpetrating these days – that it’s something done to a woman by a man? Of course not, yet we still use the term.

Now you might say it’s just a word and it’s not meant in that way. But words have power. Think of the difference between ‘penetrative sex’ and ‘invitational sex’ or ‘envelopment sex’. Don’t the last two terms feel softer, welcoming, and give equal or more agency to the woman. When you hear those terms, your body softens and opens, as opposed to the word penetration, which makes the body contract.

I’ve had women with vaginismus (a condition of tight pelvic muscles which prevent the penis, or even fingers or tampons, entering the vagina) recover simply by changing the language they use for sex. Rather than conceptualising it as something done to them, they realise that it is something they invite when they are ready and that the act is one of them enveloping and holding their partner’s penis with their vagina. They have agency. It sounds much more equal and so much more pleasurable that way. Their bodies relax and their faces open up with smiles of delight when they realise how their language has led to an attitude that is counterproductive to the experience they want, and how it can be changed so simply.

So, what else can we call it? Intercourse is a fairly dry term, but definitely useful in clinical and medical settings, I’d much rather we use that term in those situations, rather than ‘penetrative sex’. (I feel I’m on a one-woman crusade trying to change the language of my profession.) It’s a bit dry for personal use though, so what else do we have? Fucking, shagging, bonking are more casual, sometimes a bit crude depending on the mood. Making love is good, but sometimes too romantic…

I like to call it PIV: penis in vagina. So, I tell women, when you’re ready for some PIV, invite him in and give his penis a good cuddle with your vagina. Or as a participant in a recent couples retreat said – VEP: vagina enveloping penis.

Whether you prefer PIVving or VEPping, they are light-hearted neutral terms that lack the baggage of patriarchy and aren’t too soft and romantic or too direct and crude, and they say it like it is – two sets of genitals joining together.

So, are you in the mood for a bit of PIV? Do you fancy some VEPping tonight…?

Seriously. Yes, you read that correctly: guys, take your penis for a walk. No not on a leash (unless you’re a bit kinky!)

What do I mean by that rather absurd suggestion? I mean, get connected with your penis.

As you go out and about, be aware of your penis. As you feel the warmth of the sun, notice your penis feeling it too. When you savour your coffee, notice your penis savouring it too. When you observe the women around you and feel their feminine energy, have your penis feel it too. When you feel the power of swimming laps or going for a run or pumping weights, have your penis feel the power too. When you’re cheering your team on and getting excited at a goal, feel your penis cheering along. When you’re sharing a laugh with mates or at the movies, your penis laughs along with you. When you’re feeling thoughtful and reflective, your penis is meditative too.

It sounds strange, but the more you do this, the more connected you will become with your penis. Rather than it being an out-of-control creature with a mind of its own, it will become your partner in pleasure. You’ll be a team.

Then, when you’re making love to your woman, your penis will be on your side, you’ll be connected. You’ll really be present in your penis; in fact you’ll be connected to your whole body - and you’ll feel a lot more. When you’re connected and present within yourself, you can connect a lot better with your partner and she’ll feel it too. Then it becomes a positive feedback loop for both of you, and sex becomes truly awesome.

It starts outside the bedroom. Take your penis for a walk.

*******

And ladies, can I suggest you take your imaginary penis for a walk. It’s a good experience to imagine that you have a penis and wander around with it for a while. What do you notice? Probably the first thing is that you walk with your legs a bit wider!

When I get women to do this in workshops, they’re often surprised at how real it feels, and also how vulnerable it feels. Women aren’t used to having their genitals so exposed, so it can be a shock to even imagine it.

Women have often said to me that it’s changed the way they look at penises: they become less scary and more approachable. There is a tenderness and a respect that wasn’t there before. Try it.

After a couple of really full and busy years, I had hoped 2020 would be slower paced, but I wasn’t expecting it to be like this! With the bushfires at the start of the year there was no annual beach holiday to refresh and recuperate, so I thought a ‘stay-cation’ would be good as I could potter at home and get the house and garden looking good (when it wasn’t too smoky to go outside that is). And…I’m still pottering at home. The house and garden are looking amazing! I am fortunate than I can still get out of the house go to my clinic to see clients, mostly online.

It is interesting to see how clients are reacting to the pandemic restrictions. There are couples who are finding that spending more time together is solving their problems as what they mostly needed was more downtime together. Others are finding the forced time together is highlighting and exacerbating existing problems, bringing their troubles to the fore and forcing them to address them. Some single clients are withdrawing from the world while others are reaching out and finding that the longer ‘dating’ required at this time means they are forming better quality connections.

For me, at the start of the pandemic, like so many others I dropped into ‘production’ mode. What more could I offer, how could I help people more, what myriad of online course could I create to support others? Then I was hit with overwhelming tiredness. I didn’t want to do ‘more’, I actually wanted to do less.

It’s surprising how tiring this is. I was just reading an article about how for most neurotypical people (those not on the autism spectrum) spending hours in on-line meetings is much more mentally tiring than in-person. The reason for this is that you can’t get all the cues we normally get when in the presence of someone, so your brain is working much harder to find them and to interpret without them.

That was a relief for me as I’m finding doing session after session staring at the screen really exhausting. When I get a rare client come in person it’s an amazing relief. I feel my whole being react differently than if they are online. Technology and the ability to work online is a blessing these days, but understand too how challenging it can be.

But I feel the tiredness is more than that. The pace and intensity of life has become so great of late. Everyone is so busy, there is always so much to do. We live life focused on what we are doing rather than what we are experiencing, as if we are Human Doings rather than Human Beings. We live life from the outside in, rather than from the inside out.

It’s time to let our souls catch up. I’ve been letting mine catch up, which is why I haven’t sent out a newsletter for over a month. I'm accepting that what I do is enough. Sure, I could offer more, and I probably will offer more, but for now, let’s go at a pace that nourishes me.

There has been a movement of ‘slow’ and ‘simple’ over the past few decades. Slow cooking, decluttering and, my particular interest, slow loving.

My research in optimal sexuality (which I have been doing very slowly of late!) is showing that the best sex in long-term relationships is slow, couples with optimal sexuality take their time to really feel into the lovemaking, to allow their minds to still, their bodies to soften and their hearts to open. It also tends to be quite simple. While couples who have this optimal sexuality generally are open-minded and have a broad repertoire of sexual possibilities, they find that they prefer depth over breadth and that depth doesn’t necessarily require a lot of variety.

This approach gets you into a state of embodied mindfulness, one where you are really present to what you are experiencing. As a client said recently: “It’s revelling, luxuriating within my body.” From this space, there is so much ease and contentment that the simple joys are heightened. It's as though you really are experiencing life with body and soul. Experiencing this in lovemaking (solo as well as partnered) flows out into the rest of life (and vice versa), so that the whole of life is felt more richly, more soulfully.

As I sit here writing this in my pyjamas, enjoying my first cup of tea of the day in my beautiful garden, I do feel the deliciousness of this current moment. My soul is well and truly present. It has caught up and it is loving being back.

Let yours settle back in too. Experience rather than do. Live life, love life, from the inside out.

Our five senses of sight, sound, smell, taste and touch are wonderful tools to explore sensuality and eroticism. By suppressing or enhancing the senses you can create and experience all kinds of enchanting pleasures.

Here are some suggestions to inspire you in your own sensual adventures:

Touch your partner with items of different texture and temperature. Try a feather, a piece of silk, a body brush, a loofah. Try things that have been heated or cooled, such as warm oil or ice-blocks. Use everyday items: the end of a belt, a scarf, a fork, the back of a spoon…

Try doing it blindfolded, or with the receiver's hands tied for a different effect (of course with their agreement!) Blocking out the main sense of sight can heighten the other senses, as can being restrained in some way (keeping in mind that not everyone is comfortable with restraint).

Feed your partner: have a selection of unknown items that they can’t see, make them all delicious, or mix them up (gherkins and chocolate!); feed your partner chocolate mousse or rice pudding. Or blindfold both of you and try feeding each other (messy, but fun!)

Arouse the olfactory: have scented candles or an oil burner in the room; wave perfume or essential oils or fresh herbs under their nose (and run the latter over their body)

Have music playing, and vary the types of music, noting the difference on how it affects your love-making and sensory play. Try putting headphones on one person while the other does delicious things to their body. Bang bongoes together, play a Tibetan singing bowl, tuning forks, rub the rim of a crystal glass or create some other interesting sounds.

And sight, the main sense. Try simply looking at each other, holding the gaze for a number of minutes. Have one look at the other, just simply looking - this can be initially confronting for the receiver, but can become highly erotic and arousing. Do a slow undress or striptease, model lingerie or do a simple yet sensual dance for your partner.

Then combine all the elements in various ways. This is wonderful play that arouses and pleasures without even having to involve the genitals. The possibilities are endless and only limited by your imagination.

So go forth and play! Become sensual explorers and experiment with sensation and the senses to take yourselves to new places of eroticism and sensuality…

From my column in Body+Soul

Question: "My wife and I have been married for 10 years. We have a great sex life and we tell each other everything - so why won't she masturbate in front of me? I think that it's hot and would bring us closer together, but she says it's embarrassing. I want to do it in front of her as well, but she thinks it's too private. How can she think this when we've lived together for more than 10 years? Am I being unreasonable? Should I just give up or keep trying?"

Answer:Imagine if there was something your wife wanted you to do, but you found the thought of it excruciatingly embarrassing. Let’s say she wanted you to do a striptease for her, yet you’d rather swallow broken glass than prance around in front of her removing your clothes. (If you actually think that’s a hot idea the analogy won’t work for you, but I’m sure you get my drift.) The essence of what I am saying here is that it’s very hard to do something sexual if you find it embarrassing. In fact, it’s hard to engage in anything sexual if you don’t find it a turn on.

You might think I’m contradicting my advice in my last column where I said that kissing is essential, not optional. That’s because it is a necessary part of connecting and growing in desire and arousal. So, my advice to that reader was to find out how they each liked to kiss and find an approach and style that they both liked.

Masturbating in front of your partner is different, it’s just one of many things you can do once you’re already in the mood and sexually engaged. It’s a nice-to-have, not a must-have. It’s a fantasy of yours, but it’s not a fantasy of hers, in fact it’s the opposite, it’s a turn-off.

Does that mean you should give up? Not necessarily. There’s more to explore here, to see if you can entice her into joining in with your fantasy and finding pleasure in it herself. Note that I use the word ’entice’. You need to make your desire inviting. If you are being too direct, too intense, and definitely if you are being too whiny about it, that’s not seductive. Seduction is the art of getting the other person to do what you want, for your mutual pleasure. That means you to have to be inviting, alluring, enticing.

And while we’re talking about words, let’s look at the words you’re using. You say you want her to ‘masturbate in front of you’, yet the word ‘masturbate’ is generally associated with solo activity done alone. As she says, she finds it private. There’s no particular reason why it should be only solo activity, other than thousands of years of social expectation that it should be. Add to those thousands of years a belief that masturbation is somehow wrong and shameful, you can see why a lot of people still have negative associations with it, and why it might feel weird and embarrassing to do it with a partner.

So, let’s reframe it a little. Rather than using the term ‘masturbate’, which, let’s face it, is not a very erotic or sensual word, and use different, more enticing terminology. Letting her know that you find the idea of her touching herself a turn-on, is a softer way of introducing the concept. Can you see the difference between: “I want you to masturbate in front of me, it’s hot” and “The thought of you touching yourself turns me on”? The language and approach of the first is direct and blunt whereas the language and approach of the second is gentle and enticing.

Now let’s take this a little further. Share with her your fantasy, tell it as a story. It’s not something she has to do, it’s just a story of what turns you on. When there’s no pressure to act on your partner’s fantasy, it’s easier to hear, and that opens up space to enjoy the concept of the fantasy, and maybe (although not necessarily) find the pleasure in the act too.

Here’s a different angle: your question implies that she does masturbate on her own, and is comfortable with that, the problem is that she doesn’t want to do it front of you. So let’s explore ways in which she could do it without you seeing her. Imagine if you were blindfolded. That might give her enough psychological safety to give it a go. You wouldn’t be able to see her, but you could hear her, and feel her movements in the bed. That could be very arousing, and get her gradually used to it. Another idea is to encourage her to touch herself during intercourse when you’re in a position where you can’t see what she’s doing, eg from behind, or if the lights are out. As she gets more comfortable with these approaches you can change the situation to make it more overt, at a pace and within the boundaries that she feels good about.

Have a chat with her and see if any of these approaches would work for her, and you never know, your fantasy might gradually come true. And if it doesn’t, well, there are plenty of other ways to enjoy sexual pleasure together.

If you look at all the other sex advice sites on the Internet you’d think the secret to great sex was only through sex toys. If you read the advice in popular magazines you’d think the secret to great sex was only through being in some fabulous position. And if you read the advice in the endless spam that gets past your email junk folder, you’d think it was only in some little blue pill.

But no. Great sex does not come only from pills, props or positions.

Sure, they can help. Lots of things can help, but pills, props and positions – the Three Ps - are only the icing on the cake.

You need to know how to make a great cake before you ice it.

You need to know about making the time and the place, about surrender and sensuality, about intimacy and eroticism. That’s the starting point of great sex.

Then if you want to add a few toys or try out some new positions (and possibly even try pills or sprays to aid erection – but only under medical advice), then go for it. But a dildo on its own won’t spice up a flagging sex life.

Let’s look at something really basic to see what I mean - good ol’ fashioned missionary position: man on top, woman on bottom.

Try it like this:

• She semi-reclines on a bed of pillows wearing a silk chemise while he feeds her cherries as he moves within her;
• She moves to the side of the bed and dangles her head over the edge;
• She puts her feet on his chest;
• Or crossed behind his back;
• Or one up and one down;
• They roll off the bed and continue on a bear rug on the floor;
• She lies blindfolded, listening to music through headphones as he moves at a consistent rhythm;
• They play trance house music and move to the beat that goes on and on and on…
• Her hips are slightly raised. He kneels before her. He’s deep inside without moving and she grinds her pelvis slowly, delicately, with tiny, little movements and she feels the tingle build to a charge that spreads throughout her body;
• They lie together barely moving, looking into each other’s eyes, and keep on looking past the point of comfort until they pass into another realm;
• He changes the depth and pattern of his thrusts - four shallow to one deep;
• He increases the depth of his thrusts in a series of seven, each a little deeper than before;
• She raises herself on her arms and thrusts hard back at him as he thrusts hard into her;
• He keeps his eyes open looking at her as he comes;
• She does the same;
• He grinds his hips instead of thrusting;
• She squeezes her vaginal muscles with each of his withdrawals;
• They do it on the kitchen table, still clothed, both so hot after a luscious evening out…


And I haven’t even started on what they might be doing with their hands and mouths as this is going on.

Add passionate kisses, licks or bites to the neck, fondling and kissing of breasts, tweaking of nipples (his and hers), stimulation of clitoris with fingers, inserting of fingers into vagina along with penis (his or hers), sucking of her toes, pulling of hair, stroking of bodies in general…

So, is missionary really all that boring? Wouldn't a few subtle shifts make a such a difference...?

From my column in Body+Soul

Question: "My husband and I have been happily married for 10 years and recently he's wanted a lot more sex. At first, I thought it was great, but he can't seem to keep his erection up and I can't help but feel disappointed. He's started smoking marijuana a lot more heavily lately - could this be to blame? What can I do?"

Answer: There is so much pressure on penises. The poor things are supposed to rise to attention on command, stay hard for hours, only ejaculate when desired - and if they can’t do that, then the sex is considered poor, he has 'failed'. No wonder so many men suffer from performance anxiety!

As a society we’re adding to that pressure with all the porn that’s being watched, with endless footage of big hard cocks that appear to last for hours (never mind the reality that there are teams of women off set whose sole role is to keep the leads hard). And even on a more positive note, now that we quite rightly acknowledge the female partner’s right to pleasure, that can also add to pressure.

So, let’s take the pressure off your partner’s penis by looking at sex more holistically and what you can do as a couple to reduce any pressure he might be feeling.

But first, let’s address your question about marijuana and erections. Smoking marijuana can increase desire, which may be why he’s more interested lately (in many men though it can have the opposite effect, so readers, please don’t take up smoking pot to increase desire!). Theoretically it could adversely affect erections as there are cannabinoid receptors in the smooth muscle tissue of the penis. However, there isn’t much scientific evidence to show that this does happen.

But, and this is a big but, if he mixes the marijuana with tobacco, then the tobacco could be affecting his erections. Smoking tobacco restricts blood flow to the veins and arteries, and if there is one part of the body you want good flow to, it’s the penis! Men who smoke tobacco are much more likely to have erectile problems.

At a psychological level, some people find that smoking pot increases anxiety. So, if he’s having sex when stoned and some performance anxiety kicks in, it could be worse than if he’s sober.

On the topic of anxiety, I’m curious as to why he’s smoking so much. Is he more stressed in life? Does he feel he needs it to relax? Because if that’s the case, the underlying stress is still there even if he’s covering it by getting stoned. It’s even possible that stress is lowering his libido so he’s smoking to increase it, possibly to please you, and is indirectly putting more pressure on himself.

As you can see, there are a lot of unknowns here, so you two really need to get talking. I’d be talking to him at two levels. Firstly, why is he smoking heavily? What’s going on in life that he feels he needs it. Is there underlying stress or anxiety that he is effectively self-medicating for? Based on that discussion, you may well be able to work together to reduce his stress and that could have the outcome of a more satisfying sex life. Professional help could help him and you as a couple if this is a challenge for you.

The other important topic of discussion is: how does he feel about sex and how you engage sexually as a couple? Explore what’s going on for him throughout the varies stages of your sexual encounter. Are there moments or periods of stress? How can you support him to ease those feelings and return to a calmly engaged state? Do either or both of you have unrealistic expectations?

Get more information on what’s going on for him (and you) so that you can look at ways to do it differently. Get used to the fact that penises rise and fall, get used to making love with a soft penis. There are so many ways to have sex without an erection (hey, lesbians do it all the time!).

If you want something hard and phallic inside and there’s no erection on hand to satisfy, well then, he can use his hands! Talented digital stimulation of the vagina is a wonderful thing. Or use toys - dexterous use of dildos and vibrators is a similarly excellent experience. Or check out the pantry and grab a carrot, or a zucchini, or a … you get the picture!

I was on talk back radio once and a lovely man called up to say ever since he became impotent due to a heart condition, he and his wife had been having better sex than ever, because he’d become so skilful with his hands!

The erection, like quality sex, will ebb and flow. As your lovemaking becomes more fluid and responsive, you’ll flow with the state of the penis - if it’s hard, go for the shag, if it’s not, go for the myriad other pleasures that don’t require a rock-hard cock.

You’ll find that with this attitude, paradoxically there will be less stress and therefore more erections anyway!