Most men learned about sex from porn, which taught them to perform and race toward a finish line. Your wife doesn't need a hundred tricks. She needs to feel that you're completely with her, and that you want her, rather than simply wanting sex.

That kiss on her neck, given with no agenda, was a perfect beginning.

Sex educator Emily Nagoski, author of Come As You Are, describes two natural styles of desire. Spontaneous desire seems to appear out of nowhere, while responsive desire wakes up in response to pleasure and the right atmosphere. Many women in long-term relationships experience desire mostly the responsive way.

So if she's carrying the household in her head and the only time you reach for her is when you want sex, her body learns to brace when you come close. Here's the delicious part: you have far more power to reawaken her desire than you think.

She wants to feel that you can't keep your eyes off her and that there is nowhere else you'd rather be. She wants you to hold her with certainty while noticing the smallest change in her breath.

Think about the last time she gave you a hint, maybe a sigh when you rushed or the way she gently guided your hand somewhere else. If you went silent or a little wounded, she noticed, and she learned that speaking up costs something.

Your job is to make telling you safe, and even fun.

At lunchtime, you send her a text: I can't stop thinking about you.

That's all. There's no so, tonight? tucked in at the end.

Across town, sitting in a meeting she doesn't want to be in, she reads it and feels a flush rise up her chest. I always teach the men I work with that feeling wanted is so often the doorway into a woman's own desire. A few of my favorite ways to show her:

• Be present with her.

• Pay attention to what she likes.

• Buy her flowers.

• Tell her she looks incredible in that dress.

• Reach for her hand.

• If she makes you dinner, tell her it was incredible and thank her.

• Constantly find ways to show your love and appreciation.

That evening, you stop for flowers on the way home. You walk in to find the breakfast dishes still in the sink and her slumped at the table, looking exhausted. You set the flowers in front of her, kiss the top of her head, roll up your sleeves and start washing without a word.

She leans against the counter watching you, flowers in her arms, and her whole face softens. The man who notices what she's carrying is the man she longs to be carried by. A woman can't fully open to a man while part of her is bracing for his mood or managing everything alone, which is why I go deeper into this in How to Make a Woman Feel Emotionally Safe With You.

When the last plate is dry, you take her hand. "Tonight is about you," you tell her. "I'd love to cater to you. Let me give you a massage."

On the couch, you hold her gaze while she's telling you about her day, until she stops mid-sentence and laughs. "What?"

"Nothing," you say. "I just like looking at you."

Then you offer her something she's never been offered before: a pleasure menu. "Tell me what you'd love tonight," you say, your thumb tracing slow circles on her wrist. "A long massage. A bath I run for you. My hands, my mouth, anything you want, as slow as you want. What would you love to receive?"

She blinks at you, and then a slow, shy smile spreads across her face. No one has ever asked her that.

I'm doing it, you think, watching the color rise in her cheeks. I'm actually doing it.

That night in bed, you warm the oil between your palms and take your time, working the tension out of her shoulders and down the length of her back, letting her feel through your patience that you're happy right here.

If she drifts toward sleep, you hold her and let her, and she falls asleep feeling adored instead of guilty. A woman who can say no without disappointing you becomes so much freer to say yes. If her no ever stings, my article on emotional safety shows you exactly how to meet it.

Tonight she isn't sleepy. She rolls over beneath your hands and her body melts against yours, and you feel the invitation in the way her fingers curl into your shirt.

You roll her onto her back and gather her wrists above her head in one hand, slowly enough that she could stop you, and then you simply look at her.

"Still with me?" you murmur against her mouth.

"Yes," she whispers, and you feel her hips rise to meet you.

If she ever goes still in a way that isn't pleasure, or her body tenses, you pause and ask. If she says stop, you stop immediately and stay warm. A woman who knows you'll honor her no in the middle of things can give you everything, because nothing is being taken from her.

Partway through, she whispers, "Not like that."

Your ego wants to flinch. Instead, you look at her with even more hunger than a moment ago. "Show me."

Afterward, lying together in the dark with her head on your chest, she surprises you. "Can I tell you something? Sometimes I think about you taking complete control of me."

A slow smile spreads across your face. "Tell me more."

She does, shyly at first, and then with growing heat. My article on how to tell your partner your fantasies has beautiful ways to keep these conversations flowing, from her side and yours.