New things to try in bed when sex has got too predictable

Start with the no-shopping stuff

No special kit. No certificate in rope bondage. Half the good stuff is annoyingly simple, which is humbling, but there we are.

I keep coming back to something in The New Joy of Sex that reframes this entirely. Alex Comfort makes the case that gourmet sex works the same way as gourmet cooking: it starts from the point where you already know how to enjoy the basics, and the extra depth comes from curiosity, imagination, and a willingness to try. More than that, he argues that the more regularly a couple makes love, the higher the deliberately contrived peaks they can reach, just as the more you cook routinely, the better banquets you can stage. Novelty isn't a substitute for the steady baseline; it sits on top of it. You're not patching a failure. You're turning up the dial on something that already works.

• Switch up your go-to position: If you've been doing missionary-to-doggy-to-done for the last however many months, just... stop. Break the sequence. If someone's always on top, swap. Try spooning sex: on your sides, pressed together, much less athletic than it sounds and weirdly intimate. Tiny tweaks count too. Change the angle. Move to the edge of the bed so someone's feet are on the floor. Put a pillow under hips. Let it be clumsy for a minute; clumsy means you're awake instead of running the same private script again.

• Make out like teenagers: When was the last time you kissed, really kissed, for more than thirty seconds without it being a runway straight to sex? Try this: twenty minutes of kissing and touching over clothes, and absolutely no rushing to intercourse. Long, slow, deep kisses. Hands everywhere. Stay there until you are both a bit annoyed by how much you want to skip ahead. That old stomach-flip feeling is not dead. It just got buried under laundry.

• Pick a different time: If sex has become an 11pm eyelid-fight, the timing is part of the problem. Morning sex has a different energy. Lazy, warm, unhurried. Sneaking off in the afternoon when you were meant to be doing emails has its own private little charge. Even before-dinner instead of after-Netflix can make the whole thing feel less stale. Your body may have opinions your calendar has been ignoring.

• Leave some clothes on: Don't get fully naked straight away. Maybe the underwear stays on. Maybe the shirt stays half-open. Maybe the skirt gets shoved up and the trousers only make it to mid-thigh. That has a rushed, hallway, couldn't-quite-wait charge to it. Also, very practically: if one of you gets trapped in body-checking mode, a bit of fabric can keep you in the room instead of watching yourself from the ceiling.

• Add a mirror, or just use your eyes: If there's a mirror near the bed, angle it so you can catch yourselves in it. There's a voyeuristic charge to seeing things from the outside: the arch of a back, the grip of fingers on skin, almost like watching someone else. No mirror? Try not looking away. It sounds laughably basic until you do it and realise how often you normally hide in your own head. Most of us close our eyes or bury our face somewhere. Actually looking at each other forces you to be present, and yes, it can feel like a lot. The useful kind of a lot.

• Let the usual passenger drive: If one of you always initiates and the other always follows, swap roles on purpose. Tonight, the one who usually waits makes the first move. Start it, direct it, say what you want. The one who usually takes charge can hand over the reins for once. It does not have to turn into a whole capital-D Dynamic. Just break the groove and see who shows up.

It requires being present and willing to feel a bit ridiculous for five minutes, which is most good sex anyway.

Wake up the senses

The body gets lazy when it knows what is coming. So take away sight. Add cold. Drag something odd across skin. Suddenly it stops guessing and starts listening. I like sensory play because you can do most of it with whatever is already in the house, and because it is often the first little doorway into "oh, maybe I am kinkier than I thought."

• Blindfolds: If you only try one thing from this entire list, make it this. Once you cannot see, every touch gets a second of suspense before it lands. Your skin becomes hyper-aware. A kiss on the neck that might normally be pleasant becomes electric because you didn't know it was coming. It's also a gentle introduction to power exchange, and I don't say that lightly: the person who can see is steering the moment, and the blindfolded person is choosing to trust them. Control and surrender, right there, even in this seemingly mild form. If you've ever wondered what the fuss about BDSM is, a blindfold will give you a taste. As Janet W. Hardy writes, a blindfold or sensory deprivation can turn even a simple feather touch into "an ecstasy of suspense." Agree in advance that the blindfold comes off immediately if anyone says the safe word. For materials and scene ideas, see our blindfold sex ideas.

• Ice and wax: Skin gets dramatic about temperature, which is useful. Start with ice: inner thighs, nipples, stomach, then your mouth following the cold track. The contrast is something else. Keep a towel nearby unless you want a wet patch argument later. If you want heat, be boring about safety before you get sexy about it: soy or beeswax candles, not random scented paraffin from the bathroom shelf. Test on your own wrist first. Start on back or thighs. If that already sounds like admin, use warm massage oil or a hot towel.

• Feathers, fur, and strange fabrics: Texture is criminally underrated in sex. A feather brushed lightly across the torso will raise goosebumps on anyone. Fur, silk, velvet: drag them slowly across skin and watch the reaction. You can play contrast games: alternate between something impossibly soft (a silk ribbon) and something with a bit of edge (your fingernails, lightly scratching). Combine this with a blindfold and your partner won't know what's coming next: soft or sharp, warm or cool. That unpredictability is what keeps the nervous system firing.

• Sensual massage and body maps: Your partner's body is not just the three places you usually make a beeline for. Start with shoulders, feet, back, anywhere that does not scream "and now we are having sex." Then get closer to the charged places and back off again. Use different parts of your body, not just different pressure: fingertips, knuckles, the heel of your hand, hair across skin. The point isn't relaxation, though that happens too. It's getting every nerve ending so awake that by the time you do touch them there, it barely takes anything at all.

Sensory play is a nice corrective to the genitals-and-finish-line version of sex. Your whole body gets invited back in.

Make Foreplay the Main Event

Annoyingly late lesson: sex doesn't have to be defined by penetration. And there's a good scientific reason for it. Emily Nagoski's Come As You Are explains that many people, more than is ever acknowledged, don't experience spontaneous desire. Instead, their desire is responsive: it doesn't arrive before sex, it emerges during it, in a context that feels genuinely erotic. Which means the old script of "wait until you want it and then do it" will keep failing those people, every time. The foreplay is how desire gets switched on for them. Knowing that changed how I think about the whole warm-up: it's not a courtesy to someone else. For a lot of people it's the mechanism. But what if all that supposedly "pre-sex" stuff was the sex? What if orgasm was not the little bell at the end of the lesson? Honestly, the build-up is often where the filthiest charge lives anyway.

Try it. Dedicate a night to everything-but-penetration and see what happens.

• Plan a long, sensual massage exchange: Set aside at least thirty minutes per person. Warm up some good quality oil, coconut, almond, whatever you like, and take turns giving a full-body massage. Start with shoulders, back, thighs. Use slower strokes than you think you need. Let your hands drift toward the charged places, breasts, inner thighs, the crease of hip, and then be annoying and pull away. Edge close, retreat, make them wait. By the time you swap roles, you'll either pounce on each other or melt into the mattress and decide that was enough. Both count.

• Try "oral only" night: Take penetration off the table entirely. Once it is not waiting in the wings, oral stops feeling like a corridor you are supposed to pass through. There's no rush to "move on." You can actually take your time, pay attention to reactions, experiment with rhythm and pressure. Explore other erogenous zones too: ears, neck, nipples, the backs of knees. I find that when orgasm isn't the explicit end goal, it often arrives more easily. And if it doesn't? So what. You still had a good time.

• Kissing games and slow undressing: Turn foreplay into something deliberately drawn out. Set a timer and agree to just kiss, nothing else, until it goes off. Take clothes off like you are being paid by the hour. One item, then hands. Another item, then more hands. Make a rule: no penetration until you are both actually saying, out loud, that you cannot stand it anymore. What this does is force creativity. You have to find ways to drive each other mad with everything except the obvious, and that's where you end up teasing, petting, whispering filthy things, laughing. All the stuff that made early sex feel so alive and that routine quietly murdered.

• Edible touches: Melted chocolate, whipped cream, honey, all the sticky cliches. They are cliches because licking dessert off someone's skin is still fun. Feed each other strawberries or bites of whatever you already wanted anyway; drag a chocolate-dipped strawberry across lips and nipples. Taste is an erotic sense that hardly anyone thinks to use. The only practical note: keep sugary substances well away from internal genital areas (yeast infections are decidedly unsexy), and keep a warm damp cloth nearby for cleanup. Dried whipped cream in the sheets is nobody's idea of a good morning.

When you expand your idea of what counts as sex, the pressure around "performance" just... drops. Betty Dodson said, "Masturbation is a meditation on self-love," and I'd extend that: foreplay is a meditation on mutual desire. Enjoy it for its own sake. Whatever happens afterwards will only be better for it.

Change the Setting Without Creating Legal or Safety Problems

Have you ever noticed that hotel sex is almost always better than home sex? Same bodies, same person, but the ugly carpet and tiny kettle somehow help. Your brain has filed your bedroom under sleep, laundry, and scrolling your phone until you pass out. A hotel room hasn't absorbed all that yet. You just need to stop treating the bed like the only legal venue.

• Try the sofa, or the counter, or the floor: The sofa is right there being underused. Kitchen counter, if the height works. Floor with a blanket thrown down. Up against a wall if your knees are feeling optimistic. Different furniture gives you different angles and a completely different dynamic. There's a we can't even make it to the bedroom energy to it that routine sex just doesn't have. A cushion under the knees on a hard floor makes the difference between sexy and a trip to A&E.

• Shower or bath sex: Shower sex is far better in concept than execution. Two wet, slippery people trying to have penetrative sex standing up is a recipe for an unsexy injury. However, shower foreplay is fantastic. Soap, warm water, hands, mouths. Then relocate before someone puts a foot through the shower screen. Bath sex is more forgiving: one person sits between the other's legs, the buoyancy helps. Water rinses away natural lubrication, so bring silicone lube.

• Do the outdoor fantasy without the criminal record: Wanting outdoor sex makes sense. Actually doing it can mean cold grass, insect bites, and a public indecency charge. Better: a private balcony or garden after dark, or a parked car somewhere secluded. Or try "hotel sex at home": fresh sheets, phones off, no talk of work or bills. Pretend the house belongs to sexier strangers for an hour.

• Get away, even badly: Book the local hotel or B&B purely because it is not your bedroom. Neutral room, door locked, someone else's sheets. If a hotel isn't possible, send the kids elsewhere and declare your own home a hotel for the night. It's amazing what happens when you give yourself permission to just focus on each other.

One practical note: actual public sex where non-consenting strangers could see you is illegal in most places. The basics of consensual risk-taking apply here: keep the danger private and imaginary.

Toys, Lube, and Sex Games That Actually Add Variety

I need to say this clearly because there's still a bizarre amount of shame around it: sex toys aren't a sign that something's lacking in your relationship. They're an addition. End of scandal. The first time may be awkward. If you already have a collection, maybe the drawer could use one genuinely new recruit. Either way, the range of what's out there now is enormous.

• Different kinds of lubricant: Lube is the most underrated upgrade you can make to your sex life. I will die on this hill. If you've only used the dusty bottle at the back of the drawer, or nothing at all because apparently friction is a personality trait, please fix that. Good lube makes everything easier on the body and much nicer in the head. Warming lube gives a slow heat; cooling peppermint gives that sharp little "oh" feeling. Flavoured lube is useful if oral usually feels like a favour. Silicone lube hangs around for ages, which is great for long sessions and water play, but not for silicone toys. For vaginal use, check the ingredients like a suspicious little chemist: no glycerin, no sugar, no thrush invitation.

• Vibrators and couples' toys: A small bullet vibrator is a good first buy: cheap, not especially intimidating, and rude for its size. During penetrative sex, try using one on the clitoris or perineum. It changes things. There are couples' vibrators designed to be worn during intercourse, with one part internal and one external. Cock rings are fiddly until they are not; move one half an inch and suddenly the whole purchase makes sense. For G-spot stimulation, try a curved vibrator or dildo. Treat the toy like a prop in the room, not a rival. Pass it back and forth. Watch each other use it. It is a tool, not a tiny plastic affair partner. And frankly, if someone feels threatened by a vibrator, that's a conversation worth having that goes well beyond bedroom variety.

• Let a game boss you around: If you both default to the same routine, outsource the next move to something silly, like sexy card games for couples. By the end you're both naked and laughing and the transition to sex is the most natural thing in the world.

• Remote-control toys: I'm a bit obsessed with the concept of these, I'll admit. Imagine trying to order dinner while they have a button that can make you lose your sentence. The power dynamic, the secrecy, the terrible attempt at a normal facial expression. It's foreplay stretched across an entire evening. Long-distance app toys can be fun when one of you travels. For device types and scene ideas, see our remote-control vibrator guide.

• Roleplay bits and pieces: We'll get more into fantasy and roleplay shortly, but on the practical side, one or two props can do a lot. Quick-release handcuffs or Velcro wrist restraints for light bondage worked into a position. A soft flogger or paddle if impact play has been hovering in the Maybe column. One costume piece can be enough: glasses, lingerie, a collar, whatever flips the switch. No shopping spree required. Sometimes the thing sitting in the drawer does half the permission-giving for you.

• Advanced toys, if you dare: For the more adventurous among you: sex swings exist, thrusting machines exist, things like the Sybian (an intense vibrating saddle) exist. These are probably beyond what most people need to inject novelty, but it's worth knowing the range is out there, partly because even browsing a toy shop together, online or in person, can be its own form of foreplay. Watch what makes your partner lean closer to the screen. Watch what makes them say "absolutely fucking not."

Whatever you introduce, keep a sense of humour about it. The first time with any toy is probably going to involve fumbling, nervous laughter, and maybe a vibrating ring making a break for freedom at the worst possible moment. Laugh, adjust, carry on. Playing with it together matters more than doing some sleek product-demo version of sex.

The fantasy you've been keeping to yourself

A lot of people have a fantasy they've never told anyone about. Maybe it has costumes and dialogue and a plot you've been quietly editing for ten years. Maybe it is much simpler: being held down, being spoken to in a certain tone, calling someone "sir" and meaning it. Whatever it is, it has probably been running in the background while you act normal and load the dishwasher. And you still haven't said it because... what if they think it's weird? What if they look at you differently?

Here's the thing: they almost certainly have one too. Sometimes the hottest part is simply moving it from your private head-cinema into a room with another person.

• Swap fantasies without judging: Do it when nobody is naked and nobody is trying to perform. Try, "Tell me one thing you think about but haven't asked for." Then actually answer too. You might find overlap you never expected. Even where your fantasies differ, listen with curiosity rather than judgement. Not every fantasy needs to be acted out; some are hottest when they stay in the realm of imagination or dirty talk. But knowing what turns your partner on, even theoretically, is useful. The air changes once you know. If saying it feels too exposing, write a short fantasy on paper and swap pages. Reading their words, their specific scenario in their handwriting, can be a turn-on in itself.

• Baby steps into roleplay: Full theatrical roleplay with accents and costumes can feel ridiculous if you jump straight into it. Start smaller. Dirty talk is roleplay: you're narrating, exaggerating, creating a power dynamic with words alone. During sex, try something like "You've been so bad... I'm going to make you beg." That's a whole dynamic in one sentence, and the effect it has on the right person is something to behold. Phrases like "good girl," "yes sir," or calling someone a "slut" can create real intensity, but only if you've checked in advance that your partner is into it. Some people love it; others would find it jarring or hurtful. This is where that Yes/No/Maybe list earns its keep. Another easy entry: pretend you've just met. Go to a bar separately, flirt like strangers, go home together in character. It will feel silly at first. If the chemistry is there, the embarrassment falls away. If you want scenarios to steal, we've rounded up 100 roleplay ideas, from sweet to spicy.

• Use one prop, maybe two: You don't need a wardrobe department. One prop can do the job: glasses and a ruler for a strict teacher, a loosened tie for a nervous office worker, handcuffs for an arrest scenario. Voice and attitude do most of the work: a clipped tone, a commanding posture, a deliberately submissive "yes, ma'am." It helps to have a clear start and stop signal for roleplay. Some people use a physical object, such as a collar or a particular accessory, as the marker: when it goes on, you're in character; when it comes off, you're yourselves again. A safe word works here too. Having that boundary in place is what lets you actually lose yourself in the scene.

• Dirty talk and erotic audio: If talking during sex doesn't come naturally, practise outside of it. Read an erotic story together and take turns with the steamy bits. Borrowed words feel less naked at first, and that helps. In the moment, if your mind goes blank, just report from the scene: "You feel incredible," "I love watching you like this," "God, you taste good." Those are all dirty talk. None require a theatre degree. And if something comes out ridiculous, which it will at some point because words during sex are inherently a bit absurd, laugh about it. One of the best things about a long-term partner is that you can crack up mid-sex and it doesn't ruin anything. It makes it better.

• Stay true to your comfort level: You and your partner might talk about a threesome during sex, describing it in vivid detail, finding it massively arousing, while having absolutely zero intention of actually doing it. That's not dishonest; it's using your imagination, which is free and carries no risk of jealousy or awkward breakfasts. Conversely, if you try a roleplay and it just feels wrong, too silly, too uncomfortable, too far from who you are, stop. No guilt, no pushing through. Fantasies are tender little admissions, even the filthy ones. If your partner tells you theirs, receive it warmly, even if (especially if) it's not your thing. Because the moment someone feels judged for what turns them on is the moment they stop being honest with you. And that's what kills a sex life. Not routine, not age, but the not-saying-anything.

Jack Morin's research on eroticism found something that rings very true to me: breaking taboos and stepping outside your usual identity can be intensely arousing. The quietest, most buttoned-up person might discover they love being commanding in bed. The one who's always in charge at work might crave submission and be terrified to admit it. Roleplay gives you permission to explore those contradictions without having to be them permanently. You're just playing. And play, with someone you trust, is an aphrodisiac in its own right.