Sex advice with Suzi Godson: Boyfriend wants sex anywhere but in bedroom

Swinging from the chandeliers is great, but eventually, we all crave hugs and cuddles, says Suzi Godson.

Q. My boyfriend thinks it’s boring to have sex in our bedroom. He likes doing it anywhere else — in the sitting room, the shower, sometimes even outside.

He says that having sex in bed is a sign of us being dull and middle-aged. It’s exhausting.

A. He is so wrong. Unless you are planning to remain childless, in which case ignore this entire paragraph, you and your boyfriend should enjoy the luxury of a soft double bed, with crisp, crumb-free, Calpol-free bed linen, as often as you possibly can.

Children, whether they are eight or 18, have no respect for parental privacy, and the sound of a key turning in the bedroom door exerts a magnetic pull.

In an ideal world, we middle-aged people would be able to lie in our beds making love.

In reality, parents who want to continue to have a sexual relationship have to prioritise opportunity over physical comfort in a way that oddly parallels your sex life with your boyfriend.

The upside of having sex in kitchens and bathrooms is that it stops it becoming routine. For you, sex on the living room floor simply isn’t as pleasant as it is on the bed.

For your boyfriend, it adds an extra frisson. Novelty makes it exciting, as does an element of risk.

Although genuine threat kills desire, moderate anxiety, which is mediated through pleasurable feelings such as excitement and anticipation, heightens levels of arousal.

On one level, your boyfriend’s reluctance to settle for (domestic) sex is an admirable attempt to keep things interesting, but it is also a very effective way of avoiding intimacy.

When you are doing it on the kitchen table, you don’t have to engage in pillow talk, and there are no post-coital cuddles in the shower.

He may not miss any of this — in fact the way he directs your sex life sounds like an active attempt to avoid it — but if he could begin to let his guard down, he would realise that great sex is not determined by geography or gymnastics; it is defined by trust, closeness and connectedness.

Swinging from the chandeliers is great, but eventually, we all crave hugs and cuddles and the luxury of falling asleep together.

I’m pretty sure that the real reason you find your sex life so exhausting is because there is never any down time.

Yes, a moderate amount of stress can escalate feelings of arousal and attraction, but as soon as a stressor is perceived to be a real threat, it becomes a turn-off.

Several studies have demonstrated that distraction, disturbance and interruption kill female sexual arousal.

What constitutes a distraction varies, but in your case, the very things that boost your boyfriend’s arousal seem to be negatively affecting your experience, so things need to change.

You’ve clearly been accommodating his preferences until now, but you need to find a better balance.

You could compromise by insisting on alternating sessions between the bedroom and other rooms in the house, but I suspect you would be better off insisting that you always spend 10 or 15 minutes snuggling and relaxing in bed after sex in a place of his choice.

If you gradually create a connection between being in bed and being emotionally intimate, it is only a matter of time before physical intimacy begins to creep into the bedroom too.

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