5 Sex Tips That Are Especially Important For People In LTRs To Read

When you’re in a long-term relationship, you might have sex for a variety of reasons: because you need to relax after a stressful day at work, because your partner did something inadvertently sexy while unloading the dishwasher, or — hey — because it’s Tuesday and you’re in the mood. There doesn’t always have to be a specific reason why you want to crawl into bed with bae, but experts agree that having a healthy sex life is an important factor within a happy, fulfilling relationship. And not just because of the potential of orgasms at the finish line: Turns out, getting physically intimate can boost emotional intimacy, too.

But all too often, people in LTRs stop prioritizing sex, which can affect other parts of the relationship as well. According to Esther Boykin, a licensed marriage and family therapist and relationship coach, sex is a crucial ingredient in healthy relationships because it “has the power to truly bond you to each other,” and it can “nurture and maintain” emotional connection.

“Sex takes the power of touch as expression to a whole new level,” Boykin tells Refinery29. “Sex requires us to be vulnerable and attuned to our partners in ways that no other activity can.”

Plus, studies suggest that sexually satisfied couples tend to be happier in their relationships overall. If this is true, is there a way to harness the power of sex to get more emotional bang (so to speak) for your buck? As of now, there’s no scientific evidence that that’s the case, but we thought there might be a few specific sex positions that could potentially bring partners closer together than others. So we talked to sex experts to see which techniques they recommend to help make relationships happier and more connected.

Of course, each couple is different, so these aren’t one-size-fits-all, but at the very least, these positions provide a great start for couples looking to get out of their sexual comfort zones together. Ahead, five sex positions that just might make your relationship stronger.

(Need more sex-position inspiration? We've got you covered.)

The gap between what we learned in sex ed and what we're learning through sexual experience is big — way too big. So we're helping to connect those dots by talking about the realities of sex, from how it's done to how to make sure it's consensual, safe, healthy, and pleasurable all at once. Check out more here.