Five relationship experts describe how best to satisfy your partner, yourself and each other.

1. Step out of your sexual comfort zone

In addition to talk therapy, Nathalie Sommer helps clients using somatic sexology. This involves teaching them to connect with their emotions and thoughts and listen to the messages their body is sending them. This, the Hong Kong-based relationship and intimacy coach and erotic blueprint coach says, helps her clients feel fully alive, which opens them up to more intimacy, connection and pleasure.

“Couples who report higher levels of sexual satisfaction are usually the same ones who make the effort to try something new or different,” she points out. “Why not read some erotic stories with your partner, plan an adventurous date together or seduce your partner by sending them a sexy text or photo?”

It’s equally important to long for each other, spending time apart from your partner every now and again. “Distance fuels mystery, longing and anticipation – the hallmarks of desire. We tend to desire our partner more when we’re not with them. I’m not suggesting taking separate holidays or living in separate homes, but it’s a good idea to keep some distance from your lover from time to time.”

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2. Own your sexual energy

Christina Nikolovski of Tantra Path in Singapore has worked with couples and individuals who wanted to transform their sex lives for the better, helped men and women with emotional and physical issues reclaim their sexual confidence, and once, taught a 65-year-old woman how to orgasm.

Tantra is an ancient Indian practice that teaches that we all have feminine and masculine energies within us. Nikolovski guides her clients in helping them own these energies so that they can enjoy greater intimacy with their partners.

“Owning your sexual energy is the first step towards having a more fulfilling, passionate and intimate relationship,” she says.

“This means owning your shame, understanding your desires, knowing your boundaries, being comfortable with your sexuality, and appreciating your body and the types of experiences it wants to offer you. Before engaging with your partner you must first learn to develop this intimate relationship with yourself.”

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3. Follow these four paths to better sex

For the last 10 years, Dr Martha Tara Lee of Eros Coaching in Singapore has seen clients for various reasons, from low libido and erectile issues to communication problems and vaginismus, a painful condition that can make it difficult or impossible to have sex.

Through her face-to-face or online sessions, she may teach her clients how to love their body, enhance their sexual satisfaction, communicate better with or without words, release their sexual inhibitions or experiment with sex toys.

Lee, a relationship counsellor and clinical sexologist, says that the four secrets to a more fulfilling sex life are energy, communication, respect and playfulness.

“Many of us are exhausted all the time because we’re overworked, and this can affect our sex drive. It’s therefore important to protect our energy by maintaining a healthy work-life balance,” she says.

“When it comes to communication, we must learn how to express our thoughts and feelings to avoid misunderstandings with our partner. And finally, respect and playfulness – these go hand in hand. It’s important to trust and respect our partner to feel safe with them, but having a sense of fun, creativity and adventure is just as essential to bring down any walls that may exist.”

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4. Understand and celebrate your differences

A former documentary filmmaker – one of her early projects was a feature documentary called Sacred Sex – Cynthia Connop of Living Love in Australia has been conducting workshops Australia-wide since 2008 and in China since 2014.

She says that if couples want to boost intimacy in the bedroom, they have to learn how to celebrate their feminine and masculine essences, something that she teaches in her programmes.

“It’s important to cultivate polarity and attraction between these masculine and feminine essences so that they are magnetised to each other,” she says. “When we are all the same, there is no spark or passion. If one person is guiding and the other is surrendering, we have intimate polarity. So seek to understand and celebrate your differences.”

You should also prioritise love and focus on the connection you share with your partner, Connop, a facilitator and trainer, adds. And when you are being intimate, aim to give and receive pleasure, be open to trying new things, and avoid putting pressure on each other to perform. Don’t forget to have fun, too – for instance, when something goes wrong in the bedroom, try to have a sense of humour about it.

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5. Don’t be afraid to talk about sex

Sexologist, sex educator and coach Sara Tang, of Hong Kong-based Sarasense, has been coaching in the last year, although she has been writing and speaking about sex for eight years. Before becoming a coach, she studied human sexuality at university in the United States, and, between 2011 and 2015, she ran a business selling sex toys through pleasure education parties.

As a coach, Tang doesn’t see her role as directing her clients and giving them instructions. Rather, she brings them on a journey to help them understand themselves better as sexual beings and bring them closer to their goals.

She says that learning about sex is the first crucial step to enjoying sex – this is because our sexuality is always evolving, our bodies are always changing and our knowledge about sex is always advancing. Second, she recommends being curious and exploring what turns you on without shame. And finally, don’t be afraid to talk about sex.

“People who communicate about sex have better sex,” she says. “It’s a mistake to assume that everyone experiences sex and pleasure in the same way. Everyone’s different. Ask your partner what they like and be open about telling them what you like as well.”