If you’re like most couples therapists, you know how to help partners communicate more clearly, handle conflict with less uproar, and connect more empathically. But when it comes to talking about sex, especially about how to address the lack of erotic vitality in a relationship . . .well, not so much.

In our professional training—and in our own personal lives—most of us just haven’t developed the capacity to talk about sex in a way that opens up new possibilities and challenges the sense of shame and secrecy in which it’s often shrouded.