Improved communication, thanks to a subscription box

Sorry for neglecting my new blog! But now I'm back.

I recently subscribed to the Fantasy Box (review coming) but wanted to mention possibly the best part for my partner and I, and it isn't what I expected. In the first box (and possibly others, I'm not sure) there was a short questionnaire for each person to fill out. It was slightly racy (it is an "adult" box after all), but not so racy that I would have felt uncomfortable talking about it. I would have been fine discussing our answers out at a dinner, depending on the restaurant, but I'm also a health and sexuality educator by trade so I tend to forget that not everyone talks about sex every evening (most of the time I'm not talking about my sex life, mind you). There were definitely some questions and answers that I could see making people blush.

A lot of the questions my partner and I agreed on, and I think if we had to, we could have predicted each other's answers. However, that said, there were a few that were a surprise! Some of the questions included when you most prefer to have sex, what you would love to see your partner in, if you are more of a leader or a follower, and where you would most like to have sex (answers included the back of a taxi, a friend's bathroom at a holiday party, or your living room with the windows open knowing your neighbors could see you).

Instead of just going through and discussing our answers, we took some time out to talk about the answers. After dinner, we sat together in the living room - no tv and no phones! We each had a drink and some candles lit - just to start to get the feeling of romance started (without laying on rose petals on the bed or anything). I totally expected the questionnaires to be the most boring part of the box, and didn't expect to get anything from it! I was pleasantly surprised, and think that they were interesting and fun. I would love to see questionnaires in the future. I know that while I'm pretty open and comfortable talking about sex, my partner is still getting used to that. And I totally get that! Not everyone is comfortable, even with their partner(s), sitting there chatting about a sex act they want to do, their favorite underwear on their partner, or sex in public (for the record, not really for us - have you seen the back of some taxis? Some are really clean, but it's still not for me. Plus taxis aren't as common where we live as other modes of public transit).

I've used checklists and questionnaires for teaching before - more as handing them out and encouraging students to use them for themselves (to discover things they may or may not like) and in a relationship. I'm definitely planning to unearth some that I've used for teaching and even if we don't go through them, at least using them to help communicate.