It was so exciting when he took the lead in bed

My boyfriend and I have been together for five years. The sex is great, but we know what we like and we stick to it. 

When we first got together he would always initiate sex, and I miss that passion.

It’s not that I prefer casual sex — I find sex in a long-term relationship much more exciting. How can I encourage him physically to act like that again? If I spoke about it, he’d take it personally.

A. Casual sex is something of a misnomer, for women at least.

Generally, if a woman likes a man enough to have sex with him, she hopes that it will lead to something more, and only a tiny minority enter into sexual liaisons with the express intention of restricting their involvement to a one-night stand.

All relationships start somewhere, and when the planets align and those tentative early explorations consolidate into something resembling commitment, sex gets immeasurably better.

In addition to sexual passion, novelty and excitement, there is a new-found sense of trust, validation, reciprocity and security.

That unique combination of lust, plus love, is what makes the romping of those early days so memorable.

Five years down the line, the emotional connection is even more robust, but passion and excitement, which are always to some degree predicated on novelty, have decreased accordingly.

The sex sessions which once left you breathless settle into an easier but more predictable intimacy. It’s still good. But it’s not the same.

Most long-term couples blame overfamiliarity and domesticity for the decline in the intensity of their sexual connection, but it is a little more complicated than that.

The sex therapist Esther Perel argues that the very elements that nurture love — reciprocity, mutuality, protection, closeness, emotional security, predictability — are sometimes the very things that stifle desire.

Love wants a certain kind of closeness; desire needs space and distance to thrive.

The psychologist Marta Meana comes at it from a different angle. She believes that a woman thrives on sex in a new relationship because it signals her “unique desirability”.

Her new man has chosen her above anyone else and the boost that gives to her sense of self is integral to her interest in sex. Once commitment has been achieved, sex, and possibly her new man, lose their erotic charge.

You frame your question in terms of a desired change in your boyfriend’s behaviour, but, reading between the lines, what you are really yearning for is a return to the early days when your boyfriend’s sexual assertiveness left you in no doubt of his desire for you. Back then, he took the lead because he couldn’t wait.

Now, the urgency of his need for you is less evident and that leaves you feeling vaguely dissatisfied. Yours is an existential, rather than a concrete, crisis; you want to rewind to an idealised version of your present sexual relationship without relinquishing any of the advantages that come with commitment.

I can understand why you don’t want to talk to him. It is a genuinely difficult complaint to articulate, but to try to do so without using words? Good luck with that.

You say you don’t want to talk about it, but your reluctance to talk suggests insecurity, rather than sensitivity. Are you worried that if you share your complicated sexual aspirations you will cause offence, or worse, be rejected? Take that risk.

It is an opportunity for change. The unease you will create by forcing yourself to reveal your confusion will jolt you out of your complacency. Vulnerability can be transformative.

The philosopher Alain de Botton says the best way to kick-start a meaningful conversation is to ask someone what they are really afraid of, but in a sexual relationship, revealing your own fears is infinitely more difficult and more liberating.

If you give yourself permission to share how you really feel, you simultaneously give yourself permission to ask for what you need, to experiment, to push boundaries, to liberate aspects of yourself and your sexual desire that you might previously have withheld.

All relationships change over time, and you and your boyfriend can’t turn back the clock, but you can take your relationship to the next level. Sexual intimacy is not about mastering techniques, or being ravished 365 nights a year — which would, let’s face it, also get boring — it is about allowing yourselves to know each other all the way through to the core, to really see, hear and feel each other, to be aware of each other’s triggers and sensitivities and to appreciate each other’s strengths and weaknesses.

It is a lifelong learning process, which is endlessly rewarding, but it is one that begins and ends with communication.

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