Happy Nude Year

R ESOLUTIONS ARE usually about activities mired in guilt and dipped in misery: quitting smoking, cutting back on drinking, paying down debt, adopting some new diet.

It was the Romans who invented the tradition, as they made promises to Janus (who gave us the name January), the god with one face that looks back on the year passed and another face that looks forward, to try to be better Romans the next year. It caught on: today fully half of all North American adults vow to wipe their slates clean each January. And the duller and heavier selfdenial categories make up the vast majority of self-promises.

But shouldn’t sex be a pleasure? Why, resolution is a phase in the sexual response cycle. It follows all these other good phases: excitement, plateau, orgasm and resolution. In practice, resolving to have more or better sex is not a pleasure when things are going badly in the bedroom. Avoidance and denial breed avoidance and denial. Facing up to problems with a partner is embarrassing; it is much easier to let Letterman lull you both to sleep.

I’d like to suggest a proven successful way to go about resolving to have a hotter life. First off, it is the relationship that needs the attention. That is from whence horniness flows.

A study by Impett, Strachman, Finkel and Gable, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology in 2008, found that the key to improving sexual desire lies in something called approach goals. That means thinking about what you want in your relationship in terms of having fun with your partner, growing closer and fostering a deeper relationship. Basically, it means thinking about positive things instead of negative ones.

The upshot? If pleasing your partner matters to you, you will wind up pleasing yourself. “Repeatedly engaging in sex for approach reasons, in turn, may promote greater sexual desire.” Sort of like eating increases hunger in the long term.

Do not top your new-you to-do list with something unattainable: failure also breeds failure. So instead of promising to have twice-weekly relations, start with increasing lingering touches, kissing and cuddling. If your bed has gone cold, you have to light a spark before you have a bonfire.

Then break down the possibilities. This is where the fun gets injected back into proceedings. I’m not a fan of counting or keeping tally as that promotes competitiveness. Cut the strings on giving and receiving of attention.

There are some simple ways to free up your routine. Change the time of day you engage your partner. Change up the order of events: this takes a conscious effort at first, but the spice of the variety will quickly take on inventiveness momentum.

Adventure can also be added in small doses. A blindfold is a simple first step, and if it works for you both, you can move up to homemade handcuffs. The full Fifty Shades BDSM gear can be intimidating, but why not pop into a sex shop together? Just to look around. That can be quite an exhilarating experience, holding hands together just outside your comfort zone.

All intimate gear shops are welcoming places, really: the staff is not staring at you. If you really can’t get your bottle up to walk through the triple X door (or one of the more tasteful inclusive sex-toy salons that are proliferating like rabbits), then there is always the Internet.

But the resolutions that will pay off in the bedroom include exercising more and eating right. And it isn’t just your guns that you should be polishing in the gym: the biggest difference both men and women can make

“It is the relationship that needs the attention. That is from whence horniness flows”

to their sexual satisfaction is Kegel exercises. Just look them up online and add them to your routine while you are brushing your teeth.

And above all, vow to love yourself more. That’s right – if you love yourself (and we aren’t talking masturbation here, but that is all right, too), you will be sexier. Period.