Happy New Year! Today’s a day of new beginnings. The old year has washed away, and the new year is upon us. Let’s start the new year by putting great sex at the top of the list! And here are 9 great sex tips for HER to help you do that!

Maybe last year was tough. You were busy. You were tired. Your libido wasn’t great. You got into a rut. Sex became boring.

But it doesn’t have to be that way, and now’s the time to start fresh! Usually on this blog I give relationship advice, but today I’m going to steer more towards highly practical tips on how to make sex feel great for HER–the wife. We women sometimes have a more difficult time enjoying sex, so I’m going to give some specific tips on how to get those fireworks.

So here goes!

Great Sex Tips for Her #1: Try a New Position

Sometimes we get into a rut and we’re afraid to try something new. But new positions can make things feel more exciting.

I have one particular position I stick with for two main reasons: it tends to feel the best, and it’s really cold in the winter and I don’t like getting out of the covers! But there’s an easy way to deal with that. Get a space heater for your bedroom and turn it on when you’re getting ready to make love. Then the fear of being cold won’t hold you back as much.

And if you have an easier time reaching orgasm in one position (most women do), that’s no reason not to try other positions as foreplay. Moving around during sex, and changing positions, has several benefits: it helps him last longer; it helps increase the excitement factor; it helps you keep your mind on what’s going on (since we women are notorious for our minds drifting during sex).

A new position can honestly feel great! So try it. Get on top. Move your legs around and find a good angle. Or whatever works for you! Make it your goal this New Year’s that AT LEAST every third time you make love you’ll use at least 3 positions. So maybe two times are fun and simple, but the spice the third time up. Go 3 in 3!

Great Sex Tips for Her #2: Tilt Your Pelvis

Here’s something I talked at length about in The Good Girl’s Guide to Great Sex: for women to reach an orgasm, we have to have our the clitoris stimulated in some way. Normal missionary position sex doesn’t tend to do this. But with one simple trick you can make it so much better. Just tilt your pelvis up (like squeeze your butt muscles, and your pelvis will tilt forward). When you do this, you make the angle better, so that when he’s thrusting he will hit your clitoris. But you also “engage” that little bit of flesh yourself because the tilting actually squeezes the clitoris. Seriously. Just try it right now–tilt your pelvis. Feel the difference?

You can do this in any position and enhance the pleasure, but often you have to actually get the position to work first before you tilt, or he’ll have a hard time entering you.

Great Sex Tips for Her #3: Start with a Massage

Here’s one of course you’ll agree with: start sex with a massage. Keep some massage oil in the bedside table, or a massage candle, and start by massaging each other’s backs and legs. The benefits? It helps you relax first so that you can get rid of all the pinballs in your head of all the things you’re thinking about from the day. Also, if you massage naked, it’s very sensual, and it can get the libido going. It’s just a good transition time, and we’re more likely to get “warmed up” with a massage. It shows he cares, it helps our bodies relax, and it helps us calm down mentally, too.

Great Sex Tips for Her #4: Play Teacher

Just because you’re married doesn’t mean that you understand each other sexually. What feels good to one person does not necessarily feel good to another. And men tend to like being touched very differently than women do (men like things rougher and more deliberate; women tend to like things lighter). Also, just because something is an erotic zone does not mean that it wants to be touched all the time. For instance, many women don’t like their breasts touched roughly at all, or even handled that much, but when they’re highly aroused all of a sudden it’s exciting. So we’re different, and we like specific things.

Take a session or two where you play teacher. Tell him exactly what to do, like he is a pupil and he has to do everything you say. Pay attention to your body, and ask him to do anything you want. You can even be quite demanding! Then the next time turn the tables and let him be teacher. You just may learn a lot about each other.

It’s good to do this at least once a year, because hormonal changes will often affect what we want. We may think we’ve lost our libido when really our body has just changed and responds to different things now.

Great Sex Tips for Her #5: Think Pressure, not Friction

Men tend to feel aroused by friction–he likes the rubbing back and forth. That can be pleasurable for women, too, but what really tends to help us is pressure–pressure on the clitoris, but also the pressure of feeling “full”.

Instead of thrusting all the way out and all the way in, then, try for part of making love to get him as deep as possible and and thrust only a little bit, so that the pressure is quite intense all the time. To help this, try wrapping your legs around him, or even have him kneel while you lie down to help him go deeper. Other positions, like having you lie on your stomach while he lies on top of you, can help with pressure, too.

Note: for many women this is something which changes after childbirth. Before childbirth, pressure isn’t as great a turnon. After childbirth it is, because we’re a lot looser. So if you haven’t had any babies yet, this may not be as big a one for you.

Great Sex Tips for Her #6: Squeeze

To get that same feeling of pressure, try squeezing him while he’s inside you. That’s not as hard as it sounds. You use your Kegel muscles (the ones on the wall of vagina). They’re the same muscles that are engaged if you stop the flow of urine on the toilet. Do that a few times and you’ll feel what muscles I mean. Then try the same squeezing when you’re making love. This helps with that “pressure” feeling for you, and helps him feel great, too!

Great Sex Tips for Her #7: Use Lubricant

Seriously. It’s not a failure on your part if you need to use lubricant. It often enhances the pleasure right away. You may not need it all the time, but most women fluctuate through the month with their ability to get aroused quickly, and with the amount of lubrication we naturally produce. Some nights may be great, and others may not. Menopause or breastfeeding and pregnancy throw another wrench in the whole thing. Lubricant can help you get a leg up, so to speak, so that sex is arousing right away.

Great Sex Tips for Her #8: More Foreplay–And I’m Talking to You, Women!

Think of foreplay not as something that he does to you, but as something that you BOTH do. If you can become active BEFORE you start making love, you’ll find yourself much more aroused. Rub yourself against him. Climb on top of him and feel him. Take his hand and put it where you want it to go. Circle your hips and help him. If you’re lying there while he touches you, you can start to feel embarrassed, or bored, or nervous. If you’re engaged in the process, it’s more exciting for both of you.

Great Sex Tips for Her #9: No More Erotica or Porn

If you want sex to feel amazing, you need to be aroused by your husband ONLY, and not be fantasizing about something else in your head. The more you watch porn or read erotica, or the more he does, the more sex isn’t about any kind of spiritual intimacy, but it’s just about using each other. That ends up feeling cheap and impersonal.

And the best sex isn’t sex that’s “enhanced” by porn (one of the effects of porn is lower sexual pleasure); it’s sex when you feel very loved. Commitment is the best aphrodisiac. If you want more information about this, check out this ebook by Covenant Eyes about what sex does to your brain.

So let’s make a New Year’s Resolution for No More Boring Sex this year! Sex is so wonderful: it unites you not just physically, but emotionally and spiritually as well. Get rid of anything that robs you of that, and then decide that it’s going to be something fun that you both enjoy this year. It’s time for a new start; take it!

In fact, today’s a great day to launch into my book 31 Days to Great Sex. It’s January 1, and it’s the beginning of the year, so why not ask him if he’ll join you? It’s got exercises that will help you talk about what you want, help you flirt more, and help you connect. And, of course, there are days that help it feel great and spice things up, too. Pick it up today!