Redbook - August 2008
excerpts from "Make Your Man Better in Bed"

Follow this playbook to coach your guy to sexual greatness -- by Anka Radakovich.

Yes, you love the man in your life. No, you wouldn't change a thing about him. But let's be completely honest here -- isn't there something he does (or doesn't do) in bed that you would love to fix? Problem is, the last thing a man wants is to be your personal home-improvement project, especially in the bedroom.

So for the last couple of months, a few girlfriends and I decided to see if we could quietly improve our sex lives -- without our husbands' or boyfriends' knowing what we were doing. We deployed a few strategic techniques to tweak the way our men behaved in bed. And it was all good. Even more exciting, nobody's guy complained. (Men rarely complain when they get to have good sex.) Here's what we tried -- and how it works.

Coach HIM
Like a football coach who urges his team on to victory we women can guide our men to big wins in the boom-boom room. "Coaching a man in bed means inspiring him to high performance," explains Martin Sage, a business coach and motivational speaker. "And the best way to do that is with positive reinforcement and positive thinking. Men are simple; we want to know how we're doing, and we want you to cheer us on to victory."

To motive your man to do better, Sage recommends "lighting him up," or pumping up his enthusiasm with encouraging comments. You want to fill him with positive energy and make him feel alive. "Structure your intimate time to resemble halftime at a great event -- a celebration!" says Sage.

Catherine, a 35-year-old publicist in New York City, told me she was frustrated because her husband always rushed things during sex. He'd skip over foreplay and go from kissing straight to intercourse. Annoyed one night in bed, she asked him what his hurry was. "That did not go over well," she reports. "Unfortunately, he felt criticized -- I think I put his lights out."

Caterine's Plan B was to try the Sages' "light him up" coaching philosophy. First, Catherine psyched herself up before sex --like an athlete does before he plays in a big game. (When you yourself are "lit up," say the Sages, your man will listen to you more.) Then she started giving her guy step-by-step positive feedback: As we began kissing, I told my man he was so sexy and so hot and was such an incredible manly sex machine that I wanted to enjoy every minute with him. At first, he started laughing, but as I kept building him up and providing him with his own private cheering section, he completely responded to it. It made him more relaxed and it didn't seem like he was in such a hurry. I remember thinking that I often complimented him when we first met and that I don't do that anymore."

Catherin's husband enjoyed the positive feedback so much that he started slowing down -- which, of course was her goal all along. "All of a sudden, he lingered more and took his time. I think that my enthusiasm got him excited about being a good lover boy, and then he wanted to do even more. So instead of 30 seconds of foreplay, now I get a whole 20 minutes!" The key, says Martin Sage, is to keep it positive. "Appreciation and acknowledgement make him eager to please you, " he says. "After all, your pleasure is his ultimate goal."