Some people find that erotic or instructional videos give them a few ideas too. These are now widely available at local video stores. If you are going to check some of them out it helps to have an open mind and a sense of humor, because a poor quality video can be as erotic and tasteful as a pile of last night’s dirty dishes.

Technique can’t substitute for real passion and sexual chemistry. Sex can become boring because you no longer find your partner sexually attractive. This is a difficult one to fix. The reality is that passion and chemistry are not always forever, but if the sexual feelings have just gone into hibernation because there are resentments and dissatisfaction with the rest of the relationship, then counselling is worth a try.

For some people the non-sexual aspects of their relationship are enough to outweigh the sexual, so sexuality is not such a high priority.

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The more you see of relationships the clearer it becomes that chance plays a major role in their success. When you consider the changes we go through as we get older, it’s a wonder that any two people who had compatible goals and needs in their twenties are still on the same wavelength at sixty or seventy. People would need to change in the same direction as they get older to continue to fulfil each other’s needs.

Add to this the well established fact that respective sexual peaks of men and women happen in totally separate decades of life, then you start to suspect there really might be something to this theory about the Creator with a wry sense of humor. But let’s take a look at this ‘well established fact’.

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Contrary to popular folklore, it is virtually impossible to tell how long it is going to last in the early stages of any relationship. It would help to have a crystal ball because some relationships that seem ‘made to measure’ fall apart at the seams, while others that seem doomed can blossom into the ‘love of a lifetime’. Obviously factors outside the relationship have an impact on how long it lasts too, like financial pressure, work commitments, family expectations, and cultural and religious differences.

Some people in a longterm relationship didn’t make the decision at all. It just happened. There you are one day, thinking how well you get along with your partner, and you realize you have been getting along well and happily making compromises for some time. Nevertheless, at some stage you will face a turning pont in the relationship that will make you confront your feelings about sexuality. That might be at a time when you make the decision to give up other partners, to stop using condoms, to live together, to marry or to have children — decisions that will shape the rest of your life.

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If you’re a little less lucky you won’t have symptoms but your partner will and they will tell you about it so that you can both be checked out and treated. One of the ways we can minimize the damage and prevent an STD spreading is a procedure known as ‘contact tracing’. This is where a person who finds out they have a sexually transmissible disease makes sure that any possible recent sexual contacts are notified that they are at risk and should be checked out or treated. ‘He was six foot two, blond and had a great smile’ is going to make it hard to identify a casual encounter, but you get the point.

Those who are even less lucky will not have a clue until it’s too late. Unfortunately with some infections, like chlamydia, a lot of people will fall into this last category. You can look and feel completely healthy and still have an STD. Because of this, it pays to have what we in the business call ‘a high index of suspicion’. If you think there is a possibility that you have been in contact with an infected person, or you have had unprotected intercourse with a new partner, it’s worth getting a checkup just to be sure.

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It also helps to know things like how to put a condom on and take it off again correctly, that you need to keep squeezing the teat, at the end until the condom is rolled right down to the base of the penis, and that using a water-based lubricant helps to prevent the condom from breaking.

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Newer ‘morning after’ pills, male contraceptive pills, pregnancy vaccines and hormone implants are all on the horizon as researchers try to meet the needs of people in different situations.

Whatever contraception you decide is best for you, now or in the future, making a choice means confronting your attitudes and behaviors about sex, and getting in touch with the sexual attitudes of your partner.

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There are some people who just can’t seem to find a contraceptive option that suits them. So the search for more alternatives continues, and the contraceptive options in the future will need to take into account more than reliability and safety. There is absolutely no point in a company expending enormous amounts of money and resources on a product that nobody wants to use, so the first step will always be to ask how this method fits into a person’s sex life.

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In other cases it depends very much on the relationship between the partners, and how much each person’s life is likely to change as a result of the decision. Far beyond the issue of who gets the morning sickness, the backache and the labor pains are the longer term questions: Who will have the responsibility for childcare? Who will cope with the reduced income? Who will have to compromise their career plans? As a rule of thumb, the right of each partner to make the decision will be reflected in the answers to these questions.

It’s not just your own contraceptive choices that force you to face your attitudes to sex. People say children grow up so fast that you turn around one day and they are adults, but it’s not until you witness your own child’s development at point-blank range that you realize the truth of this. The issue of a young person becoming sexually active can be a very confronting experience for a parent.

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The trouble with withdrawal is that it doesn’t account for the estimated seventy percent of men who produce some fluid before they orgasm, the so-called ‘pre-ejaculate’, and the fact that this fluid can contain enough sperm to result in a pregnancy. Nor does it account for accidental loss of control in the heat of the moment.

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His sexuality and self-worth ate challenged, as the distinction between his roles of sperm donor and lover become blurred. I do know of men who find it particularly difficult if they suspect that their partner is initiating the sex only at times when she knows she is ovulating, and resent the loss of spontaneity. It helps to have a sense of humor. Robert said, I’d be in the middle of a meeting and I would get a phone call from Julie to come home; the clinic had called her to say the time was right, so we had to do the deed. My friends at work used to give me heaps. I reckon they were just jealous.’

One woman said, ‘After we made the final decision to stop IVF in one way it was a relief that the pressure’ was off but our sex life disappeared for months. It was like there was no point to it anymore. I had absolutely no libido anyway, and I think that was partly because I was just emotionally exhausted and I was also sick to death of my body being poked and prodded for years. I felt I had been invaded and just needed to have my body to myself for a while.’

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