How To Spice Up Your Sex Life

Halloween Hottie - Tips for Getting Sexy This Halloween

Advice Seeker: Dear April,

My marriage needs some spicing up, and I thought Halloween would be the perfect time to let my wild side out. I don't want to be tacky, but I want to have some fun with the man I love on this usually outrageous night. Do you have any tips on spicing Halloween up this year?

Sincerely,

Halloween Hottie

April Masini's advice:

Dear Halloween Hottie,

You're right. The holiday is the perfect time to experiment with otherwise out-there sexual ideas.

Here are a few Halloween ideas of my own:

* Dressing up in costume is a GREAT way to spice up your sex life -- and not just in the way you're thinking, and I know you're thinking it. Any time a couple gets out of their day to day routine, they will have an opportunity to explore sides and facets of themselves as individuals, and their collective self as a couple.

* Examining the reluctance that a man or a woman may feel about dressing up in costume is a great way to explore facets of the self and the couple. If the reluctance is based on discomfort with trying new things, then baby steps are always a great solution. Try going in a mask, instead of full on costume, the first time or two. Work your way up to a full on costume, based on your comfort with the situation, balancing trying new things with not trying too much new at once.

* Putting on a costume gives people "psychological permission" to behave differently than they normally do. Wearing something sexy, silly, mysterious or scary evokes feelings in the costume wearer -- and the partner of the costume wearer -- and these evoked feelings can lead to new behaviors like silliness, sexiness, edginess, etc.

* The downside of costume-wearing is if it's a crutch for not being yourself, and the behavior becomes addictive and "rut-like". For instance, if one person in a couple can only have sex or only have a good time, or only flirt, when they're in costume, and then feels the need to be in that costume in order to have those feelings, more and more often, then there may be an underlying psychological problem.

* A possible downside is forcing a partner to do something that they don't want to do. For example, if a woman makes her partner feel lousy about himself because he won't dress up in costume, then she's got a lousy-feeling partner, and that doesn't serve anyone. Allow for a margin of discrepancy in healthy relationships.

And if you need some more hard core role playing ideas....

How about playing doctor to her nurse? Or prisoner to his (or her) warden? If you hit the costume stores you'll load up on ideas. In fact, take it to the next level, and make a sex shop stop just for fun -- and THEN hit the costume store. Layer your experimenting with costumes and sexual fantasies played out on October 31.

More of a crafty couple? How about x-rated jack o'lanterns? Get some carving tools and a couple of big pumpkins, and let your imaginations go wild as you carve each other pumpkins with punch -- an x-rated punch!

Bobbing for apples -- and last one up with a Winesap or a Macintosh has to shed one item of clothing -- until it's stripping for apples!

More sex-boosters on Halloween?

Make a trail on your partner's body with candy corn, and eat your way to oblivion.

Truth or dare -- only instead of asking truth or dare, ask Trick? Or Treat? And let your partner choose. You deliver.