Bedroom routine.

Desire feeds on novelty, it's almost mechanical. When the body already knows what's going to happen (same room, same time, same order of moves, same length), it anticipates instead of discovering. And a brain that anticipates no longer gets carried away.

This isn't a failure as a couple, it's the price of comfort. You've built a reassuring intimacy, you've found what works, and you've stopped looking. Except that in love, boredom is the real danger, far more than arguments or overloaded schedules.

Rediscovering a taste for play often means rediscovering desire, because pleasure grows with the imagination you pour into it. Just one rule, valid for everything that follows: rule nothing out, force nothing.

So the rest of this article isn't about smashing everything. Just about moving the pieces of the set around, one at a time.

You've surely noticed it already on vacation, on a weekend in the countryside or in an unfamiliar bedroom: making love somewhere else is unsettling in itself. The place does half the work. It's the most obvious idea, and yet the one we think of least.

No need to go far. Drag the mattress onto the floor, settle into the living room sofa, take over the bathroom, the rug in front of the window. Simply losing your bearings (the nightstand on the left, the blinking alarm clock) is enough to put a little of the unknown back into your gestures.

And if you stay in the bedroom, transform it. A few things to keep within reach at all times: beautiful sheets, a heap of cushions, a mirror taken down from another room and propped near the bed, a folding screen or sheer curtains to carve up the space, scented candles (well away from the curtains) instead of the ceiling light, massage oil, the underwear you never wear.

It sounds trivial. In practice, a dim room with pockets of shadow and low light calls for completely different moves than a bedroom lit by a fluorescent tube.

One notch up is the famous quickie, the one you grab fully or almost fully clothed, skipping the foreplay, somewhere incongruous. The building's lobby while keeping an eye on the light timer, the car in a parking lot, the balcony at nightfall, the apartment while the guests are on their way... Those episodes often leave far more vivid memories than hours spent in bed.

Two conditions for it to work. First, agree on the principle beforehand, so you can say yes in three seconds the day the opportunity arises. Second, accept that it ends as quickly as it began: the deserted clearing never stays deserted for very long.

On the pleasure side, speed can leave her frustrated. Nothing stops him from caressing her clitoris during, or better, from placing his partner's hand right where it needs to be: she often knows better than he does how to get there fast.

After a few years, we tend to get straight to the point: two or three zones, always the same, in the same order. But the body isn't just the genitals, and the neglected areas are precisely the ones that can create surprise.

In practice, treat yourselves to an exploration with no goal. Twenty minutes, the one receiving gives nothing back, you travel over the nape of the neck, the small of the back, the inner thighs, the mons pubis (a simple pressure of the palm, firm and broad, already does a lot), the perineum, the feet. Men's nipples are often sensitive too, and rarely explored.

The perineum and the anal area deserve a special mention: the anus is a richly innervated zone, erogenous for many women and men alike, and sticking to very gentle external caresses is already something new in itself.

One last idea, borrowed from tantric practices: multiply the points of contact. Fingers intertwined, a leg wrapped around the other's waist, foreheads touching, eyes that never let go. The more points of contact there are, the more intense the exchange becomes, even without moving much.

Skin gets used to skin. Offering it something else reopens a whole channel of sensations for next to nothing.

Textures, first. A feather, a square of fur, a slightly rough upholstery fabric, silk, latex, leather. Leather and latex in particular act like a second skin and change how you perceive your own body as much as your partner's: you don't move the same way, you don't dare the same things. Even a pair of thin gloves changes everything, the touch becomes smooth, slippery, strangely silky.

Then clothes. An outfit chosen for being a bit of a pain to take off (lace-up corset, ten-button shirt, ankle boots, layered lingerie) stretches out the undressing, instead of dispatching it in ten seconds.

Finally, the blindfold. A scarf over the eyes, and the partner deprived of sight becomes hypersensitive to touch, sounds, smells. It's probably the cheapest and most effective novelty of the lot, provided of course that both of you are up for it.

Massage is the ideal way in when desire has dozed off, because it demands nothing. No performance, no penetration at the end, no orgasm to clinch.

How to: a well-heated room, low light, oil warmed between your palms, and one clear rule, the one receiving doesn't give back. Start with the back, with long slow presses of the whole palm, from the small of the back up to the shoulders. Then alternate the flat of the hand (broad, enveloping) and the fingertips (precise, almost tickly), then a feather or a scrap of fabric to scramble the senses.

The key point is not to head straight for the genitals. Circle around them, brush the inner thighs, move up, come back down, let the anticipation build. That slowness creates a tension that haste destroys every single time.

It's also an excellent school: lingering over your partner's body, with no other aim than learning how it reacts, teaches you more about their pleasure than years of rushed sex.

In a long-term couple, we often make love the way we manage a schedule: quick, efficient, before falling asleep. Desire likes the opposite.

A very simple exercise to retrain yourselves: leave a gap between each caress. One caress, then stop, let the sensation resonate, then the next. This slow tempo makes the tension climb, and the day you speed up and string them together, the effect is spectacular. Take real pauses too, including when everything is going well, especially when everything is going well.

The other lever is letting go of the goal. Aiming for orgasm as a reward sets up performance anxiety that blocks everything, on both sides. Think of the work, not the fruit of the work: be fully in the gesture you're making.

Tantric approaches push this logic all the way, with belly breathing, moments of total stillness and positions designed for minimal movement. The most iconic: he sits cross-legged on a cushion, she settles onto his thighs, legs crossed behind the small of his back, each wraps their arms around the other, and you look into each other's eyes, barely moving. Breathe in through the nose, out through the mouth, without forcing. Disconcerting for the first few minutes, very intense afterwards.

Over time, many people end up always doing the same thing, in the same spot, at the same speed. Here's how to seriously expand the repertoire.

First principle: never pounce on the glans of the clitoris. Contact that's too early or too firm is unpleasant, even irritating. Start wide: a flat, supple tongue covering the whole vulva without parting the lips, one long slow stroke from bottom to top, repeated, as if licking an ice cream. You can also hold your flat tongue still against the top of the vulva and barely move it, in little waves.

Then get more precise, without rushing: the inner lips you kiss, suck, massage with your mouth, the vaginal opening, the fourchette, the perineum, then the shaft of the clitoris, through the hood first, and the frenulum. Vary the patterns: circles, side-to-side, diagonal, up-and-down strokes, light at first then firmer and firmer. Very gently pinching the glans between your lips and sucking without forcing increases blood flow, and therefore sensitivity.

A pressure trick: form a diamond with your thumbs and index fingers laid flat on either side of the vulva, on the outer lips, and press. The area tautens, and everything happening in the middle becomes sharper. And meanwhile, the hands don't sit idle, fingers and mouth work together.

For men, routine often takes the shape of one single move, always at the same pace, all the way to the finish. Here too, there's plenty of room to play.

The hypersensitive zones are the glans, the frenulum and the corona, to be handled without roughness. The testicles are cradled in the palm of a hand and massaged very lightly, never pressing. Meanwhile, the other hand works alongside the mouth, and it's precisely the back-and-forth between the two (pressure that changes, speed that changes) that keeps habit from settling in.

The real secret is the pause. Stop dead just as everything is building, slow down, switch zones, stroke his belly or his inner thighs, then come back. You make it last, and the final intensity is something else entirely. Add eye contact and a few murmured words: tell him what you love, in whatever language sounds like you, it's a formidable accelerator.

Don't forget the rest of the body, so often neglected in men: the chest, the buttocks, the small of the back, the perineum. And for couples who want to explore further, the anal area offers a very particular sensitivity, provided you go with plenty of lube, very slowly, and above all because he asked. A desire like that is never decided on someone else's behalf.

We often think we need new positions. In reality, changing the rhythm in a familiar position often has more effect.

The principle, borrowed from old Eastern traditions, fits in one sentence: shallow, shallow, then deep, then wait. You stay at the entrance, make a few short strokes, go almost all the way in, pull back to the entrance and hold still for a few moments. That emptiness and that waiting often create a very strong sense of longing. Far from being dead time, stillness stokes the desire for movement.

Then alternate the crescendo (very slow at first, harder at the end) with its opposite. Alternate formats too: a whole evening one week, ten stolen minutes one morning the next. The quickie isn't meant to become the norm (on that diet, the other person would end up getting bored), but every now and then it seriously spices up a relationship.

Finally, play with who leads. In spooning, for example, ask yourselves beforehand: is he the one moving? Only her? Both of you? Fast? Slow? Deciding (or changing your minds halfway) completely transforms a position you thought you knew by heart.

In an established couple, a sex toy isn't a replacement, it's a discreet third partner who never invites itself to breakfast. All that's left is to pick the right one, and to introduce it properly.

For a first purchase, forget the oversized lifelike dildo, often seen as competition by him. Go for a small clitoral vibrator instead: a pebble, a soft shell, a beautifully designed object that doesn't look like anything familiar. It complements sex, especially when clitoral stimulation is lacking, without pretending to imitate anything. Another very gentle option: geisha balls, two hollow spheres joined by a cord, with metal beads inside that make the walls vibrate.

How to use the balls: insert them like a tampon, cord left outside for removal, and wear them standing up and on the move (walking, stairs, everyday chores), fifteen minutes to start with, up to an hour a day later on. Lying down, there's no point. The pelvic floor contracts on its own to hold them in, and you can add a simple exercise: breathe in while relaxing, then squeeze while breathing out. A side benefit: these contractions bring blood to the area, which can heighten sensitivity. After giving birth, wait for the green light from your midwife or physical therapist.

A word to defuse any reluctance: these objects are no modern fad. The dildo has been around since the dawn of time (tradition traces its French name, godemiché, back to the Latin gaude mihi, "delight me", an etymology prettier than it is certain) and it was made of oiled leather, polished stone, wood, bronze, ceramic or glass long before silicone. As for the vibrator, it was born in 19th-century England for purely medical purposes before going public as a pleasure object in the 70s.

One last tip: shop together, unwrap together, figure out together how to switch it on. The shopping and the first fumbling attempts are part of the game.

This is often where everything is won or lost. A good idea brought up badly comes across as a reproach, and it sets the couple back six months.

Timing first. You don't bring it up in bed, or right after disappointing sex, or in the middle of a fight. Pick a neutral, relaxed moment: a walk, a car ride, a drink. Then the wording: talk about desire, never about what's missing. "I'd really love to try this with you" is a world away from "you never do that".

Use a prop if words fail you, it's often easier. Watching a movie together and commenting on the scenes lets you share your tastes and curiosities without having to spell them out cold. A list written separately by each of you, then compared, works very well too: you only keep what's on both lists.

Suggest two or three options and let the other choose, rather than a single one that backs them into a corner. Accept a no without turning it into a drama or emotional blackmail: it isn't you being turned down, it's the idea. And remember that some desires only count if they come from the person themselves. Rule nothing out, force nothing: that motto works both ways.

A successful new idea is rarely about the right technique. It's mostly about someone watching their partner while they try it.

During, observe: the breathing that changes, the hips that rise to meet you or pull away, the hands that grip, the sighs. Alternate your moves and keep the ones that spark a reaction. Also ask out loud what your partner is feeling and what they want, especially with something new. Good to know: what worked once may leave them cold the next time, because pleasure varies with arousal. So you try again, later, differently.

For any game that's a bit more involved (blindfold, ties, a toy, role play), agree on a stop word or signal before you start. It's not a technical detail, it's what makes letting go possible: you only surrender when you're sure you can stop everything with one word.

And afterwards, have a kind little debrief. What I loved, what did less for me, what I'd like to do again. Three sentences are enough. Finally, if pain keeps coming back, if discomfort persists or if a lack of desire settles in for good despite your efforts, it's not a question of technique: talk to a doctor or a sex therapist.

The temptation, when you decide to wake up your sex life, is to try everything on the same night. Bad idea: too much unknown at once, nobody's at ease, and you come out of it convinced that "it doesn't work".

Do the opposite. One new thing at a time, repeated two or three times before adding another. This week, a change of room. Next week, the blindfold. The week after, the long massage. Your brain then links these experiments to pleasure, not to an ordeal.

The best example of this gradual approach is the way you go about a delicate practice like anal penetration: lots of lube, one finger first, a pause to let the muscle relax (it loosens a little more after each contraction), just a few centimeters, another pause, you ask what the other person is feeling, and you only go further if all is well. Pulling out deserves exactly the same slowness as going in, and you never go from anus to vagina without washing fingers and toys or changing condoms. Too hesitant for fear of hurting, you hurt, too hurried, same thing: what you need is calm strength.

Remember the principle, it applies to absolutely everything else: progress slowly, take breaks, talk, and be willing to stop along the way. That's how you build lasting habits instead of one exceptional night with no tomorrow.