Magnificent Sex

Continuing Developments: Transfer Across Relationships or Is There Life After Death? Colleagues have asked us frequently whether these ways of being together are unique to the relationship or if they are translatable/transferable across relationships. The answer is unexpectedly both.

Knowledge, Depth and Shared History In many cases, the accumulation of knowledge over time and deep familiarity at every level is part of what makes sex magnificent. This knowledge covers a wide spectrum, from the sexual to the non-sexual, including extraordinary lovers’ bodies, their physical responses, their desires, feelings, thoughts, dreams an

Changing, Growing and Maturing Together For magnificent sex to be possible long-term, it was important not only that extraordinary lovers embraced change and growth in themselves as individuals but that this attitude also characterized their relationships.

Continued Growth Over Time The journey towards magnificent sex was a long one for many people.

Maturity and Personal Development Maturity was an important contributor to developing the capacity for magnificent sex and perhaps part of the reason that so many of our older participants told us that sex began to improve in their 50s, 60s or later.

“Bien dans sa Peau”: Comfort with Self In our research team, we spent considerable time looking for just the right words to capture our participants’ experiences. In this instance, it was research team member Nicolas Paradis, M.Ed., who found precisely the right expression for this element: “Bien dans sa peau”, a French expression which means to fe

Letting Go and Overcoming Before magnificent sex could be possible in their lives, extraordinary lovers had to let go, deconstruct or overcome the restrictive ideas about sex and themselves that had become embedded in their minds.

Unlearning For many, the first steps along the path towards optimal sexual experiences involved unlearning much of what they previously thought they knew about sex and sexuality.

The sex therapist interviewees believed that great sex fades after the first couple of years of the relationship; they focused on the need for normal sexual functioning in order to have sex at all; and they rarely mentioned the importance of playfulness for optimal sexual experience. In