Sex File: My orgasms are better without him

Perhaps you felt anxious sharing the fact that you masturbate, but statistically it would be much more unusual if you didn't: in a 2018 global survey of 13,000 men and women, 92% of men and 78% of women said that they engaged in solo sex.

My husband and I have an active sex life but, if I'm honest, I've always had better orgasms on my own. Is it too late to turn that around? I'd love to feel more intimate with him now that our kids will both be at university and we're in the next chapter of parenthood.

That solo sex delivers stronger and more pleasurable orgasms for you is not particularly unusual. You know your mind and your body better than anyone else, so it stands to reason that you instinctively know how to maximise the pleasure you get from solo sex. The real issue, of course, is that you never thought to share any of this information with your husband. If you had done so 20 years ago, by now he would be incredibly proficient at delivering the kind of stimulation that enables you to have amazing orgasms by yourself. By keeping your techniques to yourself, you denied him the opportunity to learn how to be a better lover.

I am not sure why you maintained such a divide between the sex you had with yourself and the sex you had with your husband. Perhaps you felt anxious sharing the fact that you masturbate, but statistically it would be much more unusual if you didn't: in a 2018 global survey of 13,000 men and women, 92% of men and 78% of women said that they engaged in solo sex.

Fortunately, you and your husband already have a regular sex life, so you just need to enhance what you are doing. Even if you can't bring yourself to show your husband how you stimulate yourself, encouraging a man to do more of what you like and less of what you don't is not rocket science. Communicate your desires with a guided hand or words of encouragement, and reward what works with gratitude and flattery. These simple interactions are how we learn to give pleasure and also how we ensure that we receive the kind of stimulation that works for us.

One way to increase the intensity of the orgasm you have with your husband would be to introduce edging. Edging is a technique that involves controlling and delaying orgasm in order to build arousal. Taking turns, the person who is giving pleasure stimulates their partner until it is obvious that they are on the brink of climax. At that point, they stop or slow their movements so that the intensity subsides. It is a mindful interaction where the person giving pleasure is reading their partner's body to establish where they are at every point in the path to orgasm, while the recipient rides the wave of pleasure as it gathers force and then recedes.

Edging helps you to enjoy the journey rather than focusing on the destination, and repeatedly bringing each other to the edge of orgasm increases tension and leads to a much more explosive climax. It also allows you to feel like you are controlling the process for each other and that is incredibly sexy. Most importantly, trying something new forces you to talk to each other about sex, and that, of course, is the thing that will actually change everything. You can't rewrite the past, but if you embark on a new voyage of sexual discovery together, you will definitely rewrite the future.

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