Hey you,

Pillow Talk is your 5 minute read on how to enjoy your sex life whilst cultivating a confident, secure and pleasurable relationship. At the bottom you’ll find:

• 1 thing to try

• 2 questions to ponder

• 3 pieces of content we’re loving

If you’re looking for some support with your relationship and/or sex life book a free call. ☎️

I have one spot left for August.

I see you, sitting on the fence. Take a deep breath and come and chat to me. One beautiful soul in this community booked a call even though she was terrified she might be signing up to a sex cult…she was pleasantly surprised it’s not!

Date Nights Out, Intimacy Nights In

Dinner out, cinema and popcorn, drinks at the pub; traditional dates won’t save your sex life. Time to try something new.

In long term relationships it’s incredibly common for there to be desire discrepancy. One person wants sex more than the other. When this happens, the person with a higher desire often feels rejected and the person with a lower desire stops having sex they enjoy and starts having sex out of a sense of duty to the relationship.

As a fix, they decide they need more date nights. If they had more time away from home, an opportunity to get dressed up and something fun to look forward to they would desire more sex.

Whilst I love the idea, the reality hits different.

We’re guilty of doing the same in my relationship.

However, recently we’ve been trying something different and we both really love it.

Traditional Dates Won’t Get You Laid

When I was 24 I had my first London date. I’d met a guy and he’d asked me out. Having never dated in London I had no idea what to wear so I referred to my bible, Sex In the City.

I slipped into a sexy LBD, threw on an over the top fur coat and squeezed my poor feet into a pair of black stilettos #CarrieBradshaw.

He turned up in a hoodie and some trainers.

I was so over dressed and completely mortified.

Luckily, he didn’t care and we had an amazing date. Some people hate dating, they dread the whole affair, but this man made me fall in love with them. I was hooked.

So dating has always been something I’ve valued both as a single woman and in my relationships.

However, now I’m in a long term committed relationship and just like many of you, we also experience periods of desire discrepancy. And I’ve come to realise the things we/I love to do as dates rarely create the environment needed for a passionate fuck after ;)

I love to eat phenomenal food in beautiful restaurants but I get super bloated so if we want to have sex, dinner is off the table.

I really enjoy the cinema but we sit in silence for 2+ hours and never walk out feeling deeply connected to each other.

I’ve practically stopped drinking because I value the quality of my sleep, so we rarely go to a bar, get drunk and fool around.

Comedy nights are one of our favourite things to do but doing that once a month isn’t feasible. With the cost of a ticket, fuel to get there, snacks and drinks at the venue, we’re often spending $150+.

Cultural days wondering around the city, popping into art galleries and perusing independent shops are really wonderful but rarely end with us having a great shag on the back seat of the car in the middle of the day.

My point is that there are lots of really wonderful experiences I enjoy carving out time to do with my partner, and these things are important for us to do to feel connected, but they rarely set us up to have really fun, sensual, kinky (insert your favourite kind) sex.

And I hear this from my clients all the time. Most of us know dating our long term partners is important and most of us are doing it.

However, it’s not helping cultivate the sex life we want.

We’re trying, failing and feeling frustrated as a result.

Intimacy Dates Are Better

What is an intimacy date?

Intimacy dating is about sharing your thoughts, feelings and experiences with someone. It’s about creating an environment to be open, honest and vulnerable with your partner.

Essentially, it’s more intentional in it’s approach. It’s about bringing you closer together, navigating difficult or awkward conversations and learning more about each other in the process.

It also includes the introduction of sexual stimuli in the form of art, music, words, moving image and touch.

The goal is to foster emotional intimacy and create arousal (the bodies response to sexual stimuli) which in turn will generate desire (our mind wanting sex).

Why is this important? Well, in the early 2000’s a brilliant sex researcher named Rosemary Basson disrupted our understanding of the female sexual response cycle.

Before that, our understanding was based on Masters and Johnson research which outlined a linear model of human sexual response. It had four stages: excitement, plateau, orgasm and resolution.

Basson gave us something entirely different. She constructed a new model that proved that female desire is dramatically and significantly affected by numerous psychological and social issues including emotional intimacy, sexual stimuli, and relationship satisfaction.

So, if you’re in a long term relationship and experiencing desire discrepancy, instead of going out for dinner, getting drinks, hitting the cinema, or planning some other form of ‘traditional date’ you hope will lead to a sexy tussle between the sheets after, try an intimacy date instead.

My partner and I have been attending online intimacy workshops. To be perfectly honest, they are cringey AF.

The whole sexual wellness / sex coaching industry is pretty archaic with terrible branding, too much goddess / yoni language, and a lack of science. To engage with it you have to have a very open mind and suspend judgement because beneath the crap there is often very powerful and beautiful lessons.

Despite the cringe, we’ve really loved connecting in this new way and the impact is tangible.

More and better sex!

Should we start hosting Intimacy Date Nights? Would you come…I promise, nothing cringe!

1 Thing to Try This Week

…. you guessed it, an Intimacy Date.

Choose a night where you can carve out an hour of uninterrupted time before bed.

Ask each other these three questions:

1. When do you feel closest to me?

2. What’s your favourite sexual memory from our relationship?

3. Where do you enjoy being touched on your body the most?

Pick your sexual stimuli of choice: a short film, a massage, an erotic novel…whatever works for you. Share it together by either reading a passage, watching a section or giving/receiving touch.

If, after this ‘warm up’, you feel aroused, give yourself permission to follow that feeling and your desire will increase.

2 Questions to Ponder

1. Does an Intimacy Date feel possible in your relationship?

2. If you said no to an online workshop ran by us what’s holding you back?

3 Read/Watch/Listens

▶️ Po*n like you’ve never seen before - Erika Lust makes beautiful films

👂Erotic Literature - read others or write your own erotic story on Reddit

📚 Female Sexual Response: A Different Model - if you want to nerd out on Bossman’s theory

Have a really lovely week folks!

xx Billie xx

_{I’m Billie, a certified Holistic Health Coach, Sex Educator and author of a soon to be released sexual wellness manual with Penguin, TedX Speaker, and co-founder of Ferly (where we’ve helped 500,000 folk improve their intimate lives).}

_{I empower women to enjoy their sex lives and cultivate deeply intimate and nourishing relationships.}

_{How I can help you:}

✨ _{1:1 Coaching}

_{We’ll work together to cultivate a sex life you love and a relationship you’re proud of. I work in an evidence based way, drawing on the latest science. Our time together will be empowering, playful and transformative. Ready?}