Even intimacy experts can fall into a physical funk.
Vanessa Marin, a sex therapist, realized she was “bristling” every time her husband, Xander, was attempting physical contact because it had become synonymous as a precursor for sex, which Vanessa admitted to HuffPost, she didn’t always desire.
To combat what she dubbed “the bristle reaction,” she enforced a new policy in their marriage: a nightly make-out sesh.
“This nightly routine has taken the pressure off of us to have to have sex if we start making out, and it’s really allowed us to enjoy making out just for the sake of making out,” she said in a TikTok video last year.
By getting hot and heavy without going all the way, the nightly routine broke the mental connection between kissing and sex.
“Enjoying short and intentional kisses and making that a priority is a way to prioritize intimacy in your relationship, as well as potentially creating the conditions for responsive desire,” NYC sex therapist Megan Fleming told HuffPost, highlighting the importance of making kissing “the main event” in this scenario.
Vanessa and Xander agreed to not have sex during the first month of their mandatory make-out rule to emphasize “the point of the ritual.”
“We really wanted to break that connection between making out and having sex, so there were even times in that first month where we both got turned on and we made ourselves get out of bed,” explained Vanessa, who noted their nightly kissing only lasts for a few seconds to a few minutes.
However, scheduling a time to be intimate in this way can “be a buzzkill,” especially for those that see “spontaneity” as a turn-on, warned Celeste Hirschman, the co-founder of the Somatic Institute of Sex and Relationship Coaching in California.
“Other people might not like it if they feel like it takes away from the feeling that their partner desires them,” she noted.
But it seems to work for Vanessa and her husband of 13 years, who have maintained this routine for years now.
“We don’t force ourselves to do it, but those times are pretty rare, and actually, knowing that we have this little tradition kind of helps us smooth over a lot of arguments,” she said.
“The only exceptions have been if one of us is sick ― we’re not trying to pass germs around, so we don’t do it then ― or if we’re really at odds with each other.”
