GOALS FOR 2023: Integrating More Intimacy and Avoiding Bad Sex   To help Dr. Diana explore these goals for 2023, she welcomed back Dr. Ashley Mader to Love, Lust and Laughter. Dr. Ashely is a sex therapist, educator, and consultant (www.ourshine.org).   We two sex therapists talked about “How to Have Bad Sex” and how to turn those negatives into positives.   Having bad sex requires that you: Compare Yourself to Others. Sexuality may be the most subjective aspect of human experience. Forget the magazine quizzes and the six-step sex books! If you want to do something useful for your sex life, focus on yourself and anyone you’re having sex with – and don’t turn away. Be fully present.   Ignore Your Body: The idea of a perfect body is fiction. You may be ignoring your body at the expense of genuine sexual pleasure and empowerment. It’s not easy, but working with the body you’ve got is a crucial part of improving your sex life. Get out of your head and into your body! Lots of sex surveys reveal that guys are not complaining about the size of their partner’s rear end. By the time a man wants to sleep with a woman, he finds her attractive. People struggle to get fully in their bodies. Some have trouble relaxing enough to enjoy what is being shared sexually. Learn to massage and be massaged. (You can find several sensual touch exercises in Chapter 5 of Dr. Diana’s book Love in the Time of Corona: Advice from a Sex Therapist for Couples in Quarantine).  This kind of touching can help the body put down its armor.   Grow Up, Get Serious:  Sex is the closest thing adults have to the kind of play we engaged in when we were kids. (Innuits of Alaska call sex “laughing time”!) If you make sex just one more thing that’s serious and routine, you lose much of the power and the magic of sex! Remember to occasionally use eye contact as you pleasure each other.   Let Fear be Your Guide: Sex can be scary … in part because sex demands that we give up control and expose ourselves. Thus, many don’t talk about their desires, don’t tell their partners what they really want to do. If you’re in a safe relationship where there is trust, fear doesn’t have to be your guide.   Dr. Ashley is interesting and fun! She plans to return on the 7th of February to talk about putting more romance into your relationship! Stay tuned