Sit down together at a time when you are not in dispute over your ailing sex life. Open a bottle of wine if you're so inclined, and take out a piece of paper and draw a horizontal line across the page.
Beginning at the left hand side, make a smaller vertical mark through the horizontal line, and repeat this every few millimetres until you almost get to the other end. With a red pen, mark the end point of the line at the right hand side of the page with a cross. There you have it in a nutshell: the road map you will follow to rediscover your sex life, with the marks representing the stages you will go through to get there.
The first mark you made stands for prolonged eye contact. This is the most straightforward sexual action that you can engage in-if you think back, it may well have been how it all started in the first place. The next mark in turn indicates holding hands. After that comes being arm in arm, after that comes a hug, and after that an embrace that carries a greater intensity.
Next comes a kiss, just a basic one; on the lips if it feels right. Are you starting to get the idea? The seventh mark indicates a prolonged kiss, one that you may choose to hide from the children. After this it's only natural for the hands to wander, breaching the confines of clothing, and next come various stages of undress; maybe a bath or shower together. Nothing radical in any of that: standard fare for most, I gather.
By now you are probably half-way across the page and are starting to wonder what comes next. Well, this is the part where couples vary enormously. For some couples the next few marks leading up to the red cross reveal a rich repertoire of sexual activities that don't include what they think of as 'sex itself '; for others, their comfort levels require that such adventuring is best left to others.
This may be a good time to ask each other what activities reside in the zone of personal acceptability. It's not uncommon for people to surprise each other if the questions are actually asked. (And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, have a look at some photographs of the sculptures at the ancient Indian temples at Khajuraho or buy a copy of Alex Comfort's The Joy of Sex.)
Eventually you'll get to the red cross that represents sexual intercourse itself, or perhaps realise that this is no longer your goal. Your road map is now complete, and personalised for your own journey.
One thing you do need to know is that the trip you are about to embark on, only when you are ready, may take weeks or months to complete. It's rare to reach the desired destination in a couple of days. So: back to the pencil case. Pick a neutral colour, something like green or blue, and together, select a point along the horizontal line that represents your entire sex life-a spot where you are both happy to draw another vertical line. What you now need to agree upon is the fact that this line will not be crossed until you are both fully comfortable with everything that precedes it. For instance, you may choose to draw this line at the point where clothing begins to be discarded.
Now it's time to practise, whilst respecting the borders that have been established. This is important: incursions tend to breach trust and take you back to the beginning, so take your time and enjoy each moment for what it is, rather than for what you hope it may promise.
Restraining you sexuality can be powerfully erotic, and may allow you to experience the pleasures of freeing up your sensuality. Relearn the power of touch and what it feels like to be touched. Go in search of secondary erogenous zones you may not have known existed, or rediscover those that have been neglected recently. These are the parts of the body, richly endowed with nerve endings, that are especially arousing when touched, kissed or stroked. The genitals are still out of bounds, but you could try exploring the nape of the neck, earlobes, inner thighs, feet or any other nook or cranny that takes your fancy. Are you one of the privileged few who can achieve orgasm by having your eyebrows stroked? If you don't know, why not find out?
Learn to be sensitive to your partner, so that you know not only where they like to be touched, but also how. Men often make the mistake of touching their partners in the way they prefer to be handled themselves: directly, firmly and hastily. Similarly, women often touch their partners with a delicacy, tenderness and deliberation that more accurately reflect their own desires. She's going for distance. He's going for speed. This is a time for discussion, experimentation and learning.
After a while you will notice that it's time to move the green or blue line further along the page. It's usually obvious when it's time to do this, but you must make sure that it's done with mutual agreement. Continue as before, remembering not to forget what you've already reclaimed, and respect the boundaries you've agreed upon.
This is how it goes, step by step, until you get to the red cross. Along the way, try lying together at night holding each other's naked body, enjoying the warmth and savouring the trust and respect that goes with it. Maybe have a bath together in a bathroom lit with candles and incense-ylang ylang or sandalwood, famed aphrodisiac scents-if you feel that you can manage it. You are not in the bath to have sex, but rather to enjoy the experience of being intimate. For the women, if your partner has an erection that's okay, it doesn't mean that you have to deal with it. After all, what you are trying to achieve is safety in arousal. Then again, if you choose to, that's fine also.
Eventually most couples reach the red cross, and when they do it's usually much better than it was before they embarked on this course of action. Hopefully in the process of getting there you'll have carefully mixed together the essential ingredients of intimacy: trust, honesty, openness, clear and unambiguous communication, sharing, understanding, empathy and the giving and receiving of emotional support.
If all has gone well the caress will have replaced the grope, tenderness will have traded places with roughness (unless you both like it this way) and self-doubt will have been supplanted by confidence. You may have discovered that sex can exist outside of birthdays, New Year's Eve and anniversaries.
Does it work? Well, so far I've probably drawn hundreds of lines marked with green notches and red crosses with couples who've struggled to reclaim their sex lives after childbirth, and my overwhelming impression is that yes, it works.
I remember one of the first times I gave a talk that included this schema was to a group of midwives. A few weeks after the talk I received an anonymous message on my answering machine.
'Thanks for the talk the other day,' said the caller. 'I'm just ringing to say that business of drawing lines and crosses works...and I haven't even tried it on any of my patients yet!' Then came a giggle and the dial tone.
Extract from Rekindling: Your relationship after childbirth by Dr Martien Snellen. Published by Text Publishing.
