Discovering Your Couple Sexual Style

Winner of the 2009 Smart Marriages® Impact Award Think all sex should be earth shattering? The quality of most couple sex doesn't measure up to the much distorted image of the perfect romantic love/passionate sex encounter portrayed in popular culture. In Discovering Your Couple Sexual Style: Sharing Desire, Pleasure, and Satisfaction, renowned marital and sex therapist Barry McCarthy and his wife Emily McCarthy urge couples to ignore what they see on TV, in books, or online, and discover their own unique sexual style. The McCarthys offer three guidelines for sexual satisfaction: develop positive, realistic sexual expectations; explore sensual and sexual options; and communicate sexual desires. With this foundation, couples can take a straightforward survey to determine which of four couple sexual styles best fits their relationship. Based on three years of research and treating more than 4,000 individuals and couples, Discovering Your Couple Sexual Style provides information, guidelines, exercises, and case studies that will help readers find their own sexual voice and develop a mutually satisfying sexual style.

Barry McCarthy, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist, professor of psychology, and certified sex and marital therapist. He has published extensively on couples and sexuality and given more than a hundred workshops around the world. Emily McCarthy, having worked for years as a speech therapist, now collaborates with her husband on books that address issues faced by married couples.

Introduction. Part I: Developing a Healthy Couple Sexuality. Establishing Positive, Realistic Sexual Expectations. Determining Your Couple Sexual Style. Communicating Your Sexuality: The Five Dimensions of Touch. Successfully Implementing Your Couple Sexual Style. Part II: Enhancing Desire and Satisfaction. Keeping Your Sexual Options Open. Building Bridges to Desire. Indulging in Eroticism and Sexual Fantasies. Optimizing Sexual Intercourse. Savoring Orgasm and Afterplay. Part III: Surmounting Sexual Challenges. Overcoming Sexual Inhibitions. Dealing with Illness and Sex. Looking for Help from Pro-sex Medications. Confronting Sex and Aging. Part IV: Maintaining Healthy Couple Sexuality. Nurturing Sexuality as Intimate, Erotic Friends. Maintaining Sexual Vitality. Appendix A: Choosing an Individual, Couple, or Sex Therapist. Appendix B: Sexual Health Books and Resources.