20 Reasons To Have Sex Right Now

My work as a couples counselor is to help you create passion in your relationship. Sexual passion is certainly one strong contributor to overall passion.

According to Drs. Patricia Love and Steven Stosny, “Studies show that, when things are going well, sex contributes only 15 percent to the overall satisfaction of a relationship. But if things aren’t going well, it contributes 85 percent to the dissatisfaction.”

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In keeping with this theme of passion, I present to you the following, excerpted with permission from the book How To Improve Your Marriage Without Talking About It by Drs. Love and Stosny.

Twenty Reasons to Have Sex When You Don’t Feel Like It

1. Because you said so
Even though you may not have promised to “love, honor, and have sex once a week” when you made a commitment to your relationship, it was understood that sex would be part of that bargain. Imagine how the marriage rates would go down if people said, “I’ll marry you, but don’t expect sex.” If you polled one thousand people on the street and asked them, “Is it reasonable to expect to have to have sex when you are married?” the overwhelming majority would say yes. If you expect a monogamous commitment from your partner, then it stands to reason that you will be a cooperative sex partner.

2. Sex helps you forget
Oxytocin, which triggers orgasm, has an amnesic effect that lasts up to five hours. So for a period of time you forget that he maxed out your Visa card or she was an hour late getting home from work. Women get an additional benefit. During orgasm that parts of the brain that govern fear, anxiety, and stress are switched off. (Faking orgasm gives no such benefit.) Sex Makes Our Brains Bigger. Seriously.

3. Sex rewires you for pleasure
Every time you share a positive experience with your partner, your brain comes to associate him or her with pleasure. You can transform any relationship simply by increasing the number of enjoyable times you share together.

4. Sex puts the “P” back in partnership
Passion is what separates your relationship with your intimate partner from those with girlfriends and buddies. Yes, you two are best friends and confidants, but without sex you will not have passion.

The following are from a 1997 study in the British Medical Journal- 

5. Heightened sense of smell
After sex, production of prolactin surges, causing stem cells in the brain to develop new neurons in the brain’s smell center (olfactory bulb).

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6. Weight loss
Rambunctious sex burns a minimum of two hundred calories, about the same as running fifteen minutes on a treadmill. British researchers determined that the equivalent of six Big Macs can be worked off by having sex three times a week for a year.

7. Reduced depression
Prostaglandin, a hormone found in semen, modulates female hormones. Orgasm releases endorphins, producing a sense of well-being and euphoria.