How to Initiate Sex With Your Partner Without Feeling Awkward

Sex should be fun, but it can also be complicated. Welcome to Sexual Resolution, a biweekly column by sex therapist Vanessa Marin that answers all your most confidential questions to help you achieve the healthy, safe, and joyful sex life that you deserve.

Relationships require us to try to gain an understanding of our needs, find constructive ways of sharing those requests with our partners and work together as a team to fill the needs of both people in the relationship. Unsurprisingly, this can be a really tricky process.

This week, our questions revolve around making requests of your partners. For our first reader-asked query, I address how to get a partner to follow through on the changes they’ve said they will make but maybe haven't implemented yet. Then, I answer a question about how to get more comfortable initiating sex from a reader whose partner is tired of always being the one to get things going.

QUESTION: I've been asking my boyfriend to make some changes to our sex life for months. He's really good at listening in the moment and making me think he has understood, but then nothing ever changes. He hasn't even attempted to try something new or different once. How do I get it across to him that I need him to do more than just listen? — Looking for Action, 28

VANESSA: Working with couples has always been fascinating for me because of how differently two humans can experience the same situation. I’ve worked with lots of people who, like you, say they’ve been really clear with their partners about what they need. So clear that they can’t possibly imagine there being any sort of miscommunication. But when I talk to the partner, they’ll frequently have a completely different understanding of what was said. It can be truly mind-boggling at times. How is it possible for one person to say ABC and the other person to hear XYZ?

I wonder if this might be the case in your relationship. Perhaps you think you’ve been really clear with your boyfriend, but for some reason or another, he just hasn’t heard what you’ve been saying or has incorrectly heard you. The mistranslation might be: