Hmmm…I can tie anything in with sex, can’t I? Probably, but bear with me here. I got to thinking about how 9 months after major storms and blackouts there is always a spike in the number of babies born. That’s a reality that we don’t really question much. So obviously more people have sex during a storm or a blackout than they might have otherwise. Part of that is intuitive. There is nothing much else to do. Most people cancel their plans and stay home. No electricity means no TV or computers. No distractions allow people to spend time together and do… what comes naturally. It seems to me that it would be worthwhile for us to consider the inverse as well. Maybe all the distractions in our life have a negative effect on our sex life, and maybe that’s something we can focus on fixing.
It’s true that many of the people I see don’t see making time for sex a priority. And the reality is that we are just pulled in every which way all the time by the beeping, ringing or blaring lights of our computers, telephones, television, i-pads and Facebook. It’s a problem and it can be an insidious one, one we are just not aware of. Before we know it, the evening’s gone, we haven’t said two words to our partner and they have fallen fast asleep with their phone in their hand. We wake up at 2 a.m. in front of the TV before we drag ourselves into bed. Not very conducive to a sex life is it?
So maybe we can pause for a moment and take stock of the good parts of hurricane Sandy, the part that made us slow down and connect to the other people in our lives. And maybe we can decide that we will do that sometimes even without having 60 mile-an-hour winds and power outages. Make some “unplugged time,” for you and your partner once or twice a week. And don’t make plans to go out. Stick to it. You may not end up having sex every time. Maybe sometimes you’ll just want to cuddle up and read or play a game of scrabble. But hey, you may also find that the cuddling and the connecting lead to some great sex.