How to have better sex

"Better sex" gets marketed as a technique problem — the right move, the right toy, the right position. Those things help at the margins, but the biggest, most reliable gains come from four habits that have almost nothing to do with technique: talking honestly about what you want, slowing down, mixing things up occasionally, and taking care of each other afterward. Here's how to actually build each one.

1. Say what you want, specifically

Vague feedback ("that was good") doesn't give a partner anything to repeat. Specific feedback does. "I really liked when you did X" or "can we spend more time on Y" takes a few seconds and compounds over time — each specific comment makes the next one together better. This goes both directions: asking "what do you like?" is only useful if you're also willing to answer it about yourself.

2. Slow down the parts you're rushing

Most complaints about sex being unsatisfying trace back to pacing more than any single act — arousal that hasn't caught up yet, foreplay cut short, or an ending that comes right after things finally got going. Extending the beginning specifically (not just "more foreplay" in the abstract, but noticing which part you tend to rush and giving it more time) tends to have an outsized effect for a fairly small change — see our guide to what foreplay actually means for why rushing it causes real problems, not just a missed opportunity. Two of the simplest, most underused ways to actually extend it: our guide to nipple stimulation and massage covers both, and keeping kissing in the mix once things get going is another easy one that tends to drop off without anyone deciding to drop it.

3. Keep a small, low-effort supply of novelty

You don't need constant new material — you need enough that things don't run on autopilot. A new position tried every so often, a different room, a toy brought in occasionally rather than every time. Our guide to spicing up your sex life has a fuller list organized from easiest to bigger swings, and our beginner's guide to toys is a good starting point if you haven't brought one into the mix before.

4. Don't skip the after part

What happens in the ten minutes after sex shapes how the whole experience gets remembered almost as much as the sex itself. Staying physically close, a few words about what you enjoyed, or just not immediately reaching for a phone all signal that the connection mattered beyond the physical outcome. Couples who consistently skip this tend to report the sex itself feeling more transactional over time, even when nothing else changed — see our full guide to aftercare for why this window specifically matters and what it can look like.

Real habits, not just theory: in Tina Fetner's Sex in Canada survey (2,303 Canadian adults), most people already do this closeness piece at their most recent encounter.

A related but separate measure from the same survey — how emotionally intimate the encounter felt, a different question from kissing or cuddling specifically — varied more by sexual orientation: over 70% for straight men, straight women, and bisexual women, compared with about 68% for lesbians and about 54% for gay men.

The same survey also asked how pleasurable the most recent encounter actually was — most Canadians rated it positively, which is worth knowing if the four habits above feel abstract:

See all our verified Canadian sex-research stats →

5. Handle mismatches as logistics, not verdicts

Different desire levels, different preferences, or an off night are normal and not evidence of a deeper problem. Treating them as something to solve together — "what would make tonight good for you, even a smaller version of it?" — keeps sex a collaborative thing instead of a performance either person can fail at.

Putting it together

None of these four habits require a big conversation to start. Pick the one that feels most relevant this week — probably communication or pacing — and just do that one differently next time. The compounding effect of small, repeated changes tends to outperform any single big effort by a wide margin.