It’s paradoxical, but for most of us, the more invested we become in keeping our relationship, the safer we tend to play it sexually. 

It gets harder and harder to stay erotically naked the more we feel our partner can see us—including the parts of us we fear are shameful. Immersed in a sex-negative culture, even the most adventurous of us relinquish parts of ourselves that we think might be wrong in some way. 

Yet when we opt for “safe sex,” repeating the same things over and over, we keep the juicy, more edgy aspects of ourselves hidden. We’ve stifled our growth and clipped Cupid’s wings. No wonder our passion becomes flat.