Are You Boring in Bed?

What It Really Means

"I'm boring in bed!" With such a general statement, the true meaning varies from couple to couple. "Everyone's different and has his or her sexual preferences," say Em & Lo (Emma Taylor and Lorelei Sharkey), authors of Nerve's Guide to Sex Etiquette for Ladies and Gentlemen (Plume, 2004). "Which means everyone has his or her own patented set of sexual moves. But what seems like incompatibility might not just be chemistry -- it could be learned behavior, from books, friends, Hollywood movies, and bad porn. If this is the case, there's hope." Even more confusing, you may have received mixed reviews. Maybe with your first boyfriend, you felt like the most scintillating sexpot on the planet, but with Mister New-Guy, you're suddenly all thumbs. "It's absolutely possible to be super in bed with one partner, and horrible in bed with another," says Sandor Gardos, PhD, a California-based sex therapist who started MyPleasure.com. "It's just a matter of personal taste." In other words, there's no International Thrill-O-Meter to test your skill set against a universally accepted norm of what it means to be exciting in bed. This is just one of those messy problems you have to figure out for yourself, with each partner. (And with a little help from us, of course.)