Question: How can I reignite the passion in my relationship? My partner and I have been together 14 years, and I feel like we’ve become more like roommates rather than partners.  We enjoyed a healthy sex life early in our relationship, but now we rarely have sex.  I find myself thinking about other men and looking at internet porn more and more often.  Is there any hope for us?

Sex Starved Gay Couple, MN

Yes there is hope. Most couples, gay and straight, experience exactly what you wrote in terms of enjoying a healthy and often hot sex life early in the relationship and then it tapers off to less than hot and even mundane. Every couple should know this is normal and that it takes work to keep any sex life hot and interesting. It isn’t only gay couples’ for whom sexual activity tapers off after their initial “honeymoon” period. For both gays and straights, sexual excitement wanes after the first two or three years.

New lovers feel an elation, exhilaration, and euphoria mostly due to their bloodstreams being flooded with chemical cousins of amphetamines such as phenylethalimine (or PEA), dopamine, oxytocin, norepinephrine–all natural stimulants and painkillers. So if they feel drugged, it’s because they are! When first released, PEA is at its most potent, which is why you never forget your first love. PEA eradicates pain, lowers anxiety, makes the world bright and renewed-but above all, it heightens sexual arousal and desire for the beloved.

Then there is the social pressure. Gay male couples feel more pressure than their heterosexual counterparts to remain sexually fresh, new, and exciting. That’s the popular stereotype. “All gay men love sex and have it a lot” trumpets the popular press. “If I were gay,” straight men joke,” I would be having sex all the time with my partner! Guys always want it!” So gay couples think that other gay couples are enjoying all kinds of adventurous sex. After all, aren’t men, gay men in particular, supposed to be sexually open and alive? But this is often not the case at all.

To bring passion and sex back into your relationship, you have to want to do it–and know that this time around, it takes work. It wasn’t work in the beginning, when nature was on your side, drugging you with excitement and ecstasy. To bring it back in healthy doses now, you’re on your own-and you can.

1.  Plan time for sex.
Most couples–gay and straight–insist they shouldn’t have to plan for sex, which should come naturally and spontaneously the way it did in the beginning of their relationship. But after the first five years, you must make time for it. Planning can help you anticipate being together, making the coming experience more exciting.

2.  Focus on some detail(s) you find attractive about your partner.
Is your partner not quite as attractive as when you first got together? He’s put on some pounds, lost some hair, and doesn’t seem as hot to you now. Then focus on what you do like about him-his genitals, hair, feet, hands? The way he kisses? Focus on any aspect of him that most arouses you.

3.  Fantasize about some hot experience you had in the past.
It can be an experience and/or fantasy with your current partner, or with someone else. The popular press media claims that not being fully present with a partner during sex is destructive and to fantasize about anyone else is like cheating. Not true! If that’s the only way you and your partner can enjoy sex, that might be an issue. But doing this every so often can spark sexual excitement in you both.

4.  Watch porn together; get on the webcam with other guys on the Internet.
This should only be done if both of you agree on it. If one doesn’t then it is not a good idea. If while doing it, one partner becomes uncomfortable then you should both stop. Communication is key on this one. This aphrodisiac can heighten your sexual desire-and thus, for each other. There’s nothing wrong with being stimulated outside your relationship, if you bring that sexual energy back into the relationship with your partner. Again, this is no problem unless it’s the only way you can have sex together or one of you is jealous. This would not be recommended if so.

5.  Role-play.
Have you and your partner ever discussed your deepest, darkest sexual secrets? Maybe one or both of you like to be spanked? Maybe humiliating someone (or being humiliated) sexually turns you one? Perhaps you’ve never told him of your fetish of licking his feet or armpit? Fantasy role play can help you escape daily living, forget about your busy lives, and perhaps even problems in your relationship. Remember, you should only do this when you feel good about each other. The goal is to connect, not disconnect.

6. Don’t make sexual contact the goal.
After a long drought in a relationship, engaging in sex immediately and directly may be too tall an order. If so, give each other massages. Take a bath or shower together, lie naked beside each other, kiss, rub strawberries on each other’s lips and feed each other. But whatever you do, don’t have sex! If you both honestly decide to, fine-but your goal should not to create any pressure to perform.

Joe Kort, MA, MSW, is a psychotherapist who specializes in gay affirmative therapy, relationship therapy, sex therapy and sexual addiction. He is the author of 10 Smart Things Gay Men Can Do to Improve Their Lives, 10 Smart Things Gay Men Can Do To Find Real Love, and  Gay Affirmative Therapy for the Straight Clinician.  He provides training to straight clinicians around the country and  is an adjunct professor at Wayne State University, teaching gay and lesbian studies. His website is www.joekort.com.