Sex is a journey that you take with other people, and nearly everyone wants to and has sex at some point in their lives, for all sorts of reasons, in all sorts of positions and with all sorts of sexy clothing thrown around the floor.

Despite this, there are quite a few universal rules and ideas about sex that people genuinely believe, despite the fact that everyone who has sex enjoys it in a different way.

As long as you both feel good, you’re doing it right, and communication is the best way to achieve that.

However, there are some really odd beliefs that emerge that are taken as common knowledge but are often completely wrong.

Sex Is Not Just Penetration

Much has been discussed in recent years about the “orgasm gap”, where amongst heterosexual men and women, the latter have far fewer orgasms than the former.

Part of the reason this persists is the idea that sex must involve intercourse, which is simply untrue. People orgasm in different ways, and very few women orgasm just from penetration.

If you stop thinking that sex begins and ends there, you will end up with a much more satisfying sex life.

Desire Can Be Planned

Whilst desire and sex can be spontaneous and passionate, it can also build and start when people expect and are ready for it.

Responsive desire, or the desire that comes from stimulation, is just as valid as that sudden spontaneous urge. Pleasure is pleasure, and as long as you want to, you can start slowly and build up that pleasure to where both of you want to take it.

Men And Women Both Want Sex

Couples do not always want as much sex as each other, and that can be an issue, but it is not the gendered issue that a lot of people think.

There is a belief that men want more sex than women, which is more obviously not always true, but also the belief that women’s sex drives fluctuate more, whilst men tend to always want it.

This is also not true, as a 2023 study suggests that both men and women have similarly fluctuating sex drives.

In other words, couples should have sex at their own pace that both people are comfortable with.