This scenario is totally normal every so often. Yet for a lot of couples, this isn’t just a once in a while scenario. “Dead bedrooms,” as they’re called, are very real.

Dead bedroom relationships are clinically defined as those in which a couple has sex fewer than six times a year, Holly Richmond, PhD, a sex therapist in New York City, tells Health. While they are incredibly common, the definition of a dead bedroom can be subjective and depends on what each partner means by sexless, she says.

“I have had couples come in and say, ‘We’re in a sexless relationship. We’re only having sex once a week.’ It’s a different experience for everyone, but when we refer to it clinically, it’s generally less than six times a year,” says Richmond.

While sex no more than every two months sounds extreme, this infrequency is something a lot of people can relate to. The subreddit r/DeadBedrooms has over 165,000 members; it’s dedicated to the sexless relationship phenomenon and continuously racks up a stream of posts that all point back to the same relationship problem: couples who are getting it on a lot less often than one or both partners would like.

While these posts can vary when it comes to how often couples are having sex, many users have written in about being intimate just once every few years.

So why are so many couples in dead bedroom relationships? Many factors play a role, Richmond explains. One of the most common is simply the natural progression of being part of a long-term couple, when the sex-all-the-time honeymoon phase subsides.

“Couples will come in and say, ‘We had such great sex or so much sex in the beginning, and now we’re hardly having any,’ says Richmond.

It’s normal for relationships to change over time, and sex occurs less often than it did early on. When this relationship stage sets in, Richmond says that couples need to work at keeping the spark alive.

“Fire needs air. So creating autonomy, space, and novelty in your relationship is how you work to fix it,” she says. “It’s often just a natural loss, one where the couple isn’t working hard enough to keep the desire alive. And then what happens is one partner or the other has been rejected over a series of months or years, so the initiating partner stops asking because the rejection hurts too much. So then they get into a cycle of no one asking and no one initiating, or they just get into a rut.”

Of course, this isn’t the only factor creating a dead bedroom relationship. Work stress, libido-lowering medications, chronic illness, and injuries are all factors that can influence intimacy. Becoming a parent is another major reason couples lose their spark in the bedroom.

“Having a newborn can be exhausting for both parents, but particularly for women, because of the constant breastfeeding and eventually having to go back to work. Iit can be hard to balance it all,” she says. “Sometimes the couple will bring the baby or child into the bed, so then they have to find space or make space to have sex.”

So what are couples supposed to do when all these things hit and their formerly hot sex life is now circling the drain?Richmond says there are ways to work through these road blocks.

“It’s about cultivating eroticism—and that doesn’t mean sex,” she says. “Eroticism can just be that life force, that energy and connection, in your relationship.”

Richmond advises that couples can do this by finding 15 minutes a day to just turn off their phones and sit together, spending time having a meaningful conversation and appreciating each other. She often tells her own clients to not immediately try to reintroduce sex, but to reintroduce their connection first, she says.

“It’s important to open up those lines of communication again,” says Richmond. “Asking one another how they feel about their current sex life, rather than pointing fingers, is a good place to start.”

Look up friends with benefits in a thesaurus, and the first synonym might be “messy.” You know, messy like Mila Kunis and Justin Timberlake in their iconic 2011 rom-com. Which made me wonder, can being FWB ever be a good idea?

I asked Holly Richmond, PhD, a certified sex therapist in New York City. Turns out, Mila and Justin may have been onto something. Being FWB actually can be healthy, she says—if you’re careful about it, that is.

In fact, for some people, FWB relationships work even better than more traditional monogamous relationships, explains Richmond. For example, if you’re at a point in your life where you don’t have time to date seriously (say you’re putting in extra hours at work to get a promotion), starting a casual relationship with clearly defined guidelines—emphasis on the guidelines—could be smart.

As with all relationships, communication is key to keeping your sanity in a FWB situation. So if you’re not comfortable being overly communicative (yes, that means sharing your feelings) with your FWB, then you might want to rethink things. “I absolutely have a lot of clients where friends with benefits has worked beautifully,” Richmond says, “but only because they have communicated well and both targets have been on the same page.”

First, both people need to understand what the other is hoping (or not hoping) to get out of the relationship. It might seem obvious, but if one person is only in it because they think the arrangement will eventually turn into something more serious, while the other has absolutely no intention of that happening, then that’s a problem.

Richmond also advises asking questions: Are we seeing other people? Do we have to tell each other if we go out with someone else? What about if we sleep with another person? How often should we expect to talk—every day, or less frequently? Are we telling our friends that we’re hooking up?

Few FWB relationships look the same. Some are purely physical, while others are more emotional. That’s why it’s important that you set guidelines specific to your situation—and then communicate openly and consistently, especially if your feelings start to change, Richmond says.

Unlike most traditional relationships, you can actually discuss if and when your FWB setup will need to end before it even begins. It may seem strange, but Richmond says establishing this beforehand will help ensure you’re on the same page when it’s time to part ways. Maybe it’ll be when one person begins seeing someone else seriously. Or perhaps when one of you feels like you’re starting to catch feelings for the other.

Regardless, a telltale sign that it’s time to break it off is that the relationship no longer meets your needs. You want a more emotionally supportive partner? Or one you can show off in public, and oh yeah, isn’t seeing anyone else? If you answer yest to any of these, it’s time for a sit-down. “Yes is a fine answer,” Richmond says, “but that has to lead to a conversation with the other person involved in the situation.”

Don’t get us wrong, coming to that conclusion and then having the end-it conversation takes some emotional maturity. But again, that’s something to seriously think about before you get into a FWB relationship in the first place: Would you be able to break it off when you need to?

Being FWB isn’t always a bad idea. But as most people know from experience (and rom-coms galore), they aren’t simple. Even when you go into them with set guidelines, the boundaries can get blurred. It’s natural to catch feelings for the people you’re intimate with. If that happens, and you find yourself wishing your “friend” was more then, well, a friend, then you owe it to yourself to speak up about those feelings.

A new study published in the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy surveyed 410 people who were in sex therapy at the time. They were asked about their sex lives, childhoods, levels of psychological distress, and how mindful they consider themselves to be. The results showed that people who experienced childhood trauma tended to be less satisfied with their sex lives than those who didn’t.

What’s interesting here is that the study defines childhood trauma as not only sexual abuse but also as parental neglect, exposure to aggressive or emotionally abusive behavior between parents, being bullied or put down by peers, and more.

Here’s where psychological distress and mindfulness come in: The survey also found, perhaps unsurprisingly, that people with childhood trauma suffered more daily psychological distress (think moments of worry or anxiety). Heightened psychological distress correlated with lower mindfulness (meaning less of a focus on the present moment), and that difficulty to stay mindful led to unsatisfying sex.

“Psychological distress (i.e., depression, anxiety, irritability, cognitive impairments) may encourage the use of avoidance strategies to escape from suffering or unpleasant psychological states, which may in turn diminish attentiveness and awareness of what is taking place in the present moment,” the researchers wrote in the paper.

“The numbing of experience or low dispositional mindfulness may diminish survivors’ availability and receptiveness to pleasant stimuli, including sexual stimuli, therefore leading to a sex life perceived as empty, bad, unpleasant, negative, unsatisfying, or worthless,” they continued.

Holly Richmond, PhD, a certified sex therapist in New York City, tells Health that this is something she often sees in her practice, and she thinks it might be because trauma survivors are subconsciously always in fight, flight, or freeze mode.

“Most people know about fight or flight, but the most common response for children is actually freeze,” Dr. Richmond says. “There’s hardly ever a time when a child is going to outfight an adult. With fleeing, how fast can they really run? But freeze can mean literally just laying there until it’s over or completely dissociating.”

Unfortunately, that dissociation can follow us into adulthood, and our subconscious can trigger it even when we’re experiencing something that’s supposed to be positive, like sex. “You never know what the trigger is going to be,” Richmond says.

Also, because this is taking place subconsciously, many people have no idea why they’re freezing up, and they get extremely frustrated with themselves. “We’re so hard on ourselves,” Dr. Richmond says, “so having an awareness of it can really help.”

“I have my clients look around themselves and say out loud, ‘I’m safe. Right now I’m safe,’ Richmond explains, when she’s treating patients who were traumatized as children. “There was a time in their childhood that they weren’t safe, but my mantra is, ‘That was then. This is now.’ The trauma was then. We know where that is; it’s in the past. This is now. Look around yourself. Are you safe? Almost 100% of the time the answer is yes.”

Hey, we’ve all experienced it. But thankfully, when your vagina decides to have a mind of its own, you can use lube as a quick and easy fix. The only problem: Some women have actually been shamed for needing lube. Their partners have made them feel like there’s something wrong because they aren’t getting wet enough on their own. Ridiculous, right?

First of all, guys who lube shame women are really just insecure. “For some reason, it’s a hit to a man’s ego if a woman isn’t lubricating, because they equate it to her level of arousal,” Holly Richmond, PhD, a certified sex therapist in New York City, tells Health. Sure, sometimes it really is about how turned on we are. But how wet a woman is can be about plenty of other things, too. “The male equivalent is losing an erection,” Richmond says. “Sometimes it’s about arousal, sometimes it’s about anxiety, or maybe they don’t feel well or they drank too much, or something else.”

How lubricated a woman is has to do with her estrogen levels, Richmond explains. Estrogen helps the vagina stay lubed, and because estrogen rises and falls throughout your cycle, lubrication levels naturally rise and fall as well. Everyone’s cycle is different, so it’s hard to predict exactly when a woman will hit those estrogen highs and lows. Yet “most women are only primely lubricated two thirds of the month,” Richmond says.

Estrogen levels also drop as you get closer to menopause, after having a baby, and while taking certain medications, such as some birth control pills and breast cancer treatments. Other medications, like cold and allergy and blood pressure drugs, can dry things up down there temporarily, as well.

Some ladies also just naturally produce less lubrication than others, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. “With sex there’s really no normal,” Richmond says. “Everybody is just so different.”

To set the record straight, a woman can be dry and still be seriously turned on. “Sometimes our brain and our body go two different ways,” she explains. But dryness can definitely make sex uncomfortable, so don’t hesitate to reach for the lube. If your partner seems confused, let them know that it has nothing to do with them and that it’ll just make sex more pleasurable for both of you.

“All sex is good sex as long as it’s consensual and pleasurable,” Richmond says. “For a lot of women, if they’re not using lube, it’s not pleasurable. So you can’t really call that good sex.”

During the show, Jada said that she knew when she married Will that his ex-wife, Sheree Zampino, would be a big part of their relationship. Will and Sheree share a son together, and Jada revealed that she understands the importance of their relationship to each other.

“You know what’s so interesting, though? Why it’s so not foreign to me too is that I’ve had a non-sexual throuple for years with Sheree,” Jada said. “When you have your husband that is taking care of another woman and spending time with another woman, it’s the same thing.”

But what exactly is a throuple? As it turns out, there’s more than one definition.

“Typically, if we’re talking about throuples, that would be under the banner polyamory,” Holly Richmond, PhD, a sex therapist in New York City, tells Health. “But every couple defines this differently for themselves.”

Dr. Richmond explains that throuples are a group of three individuals who are in a committed relationship to one another. Typically, she says, there will be two people who are closer, and the third person will be a continual presence in the relationship (like in Will and Jada’s case.)

A throuple is different than an open marriage, Dr. Richmond explains. In an open marriage, people will typically have a relationship with someone outside of their marriage, but their partner will not know the other person. Open marriages often involve sex, whereas throuples can be just three people with an emotional attachment who share their lives together.

That’s not to say, however, that throuples aren’t sexual. Dr. Richmond says that throuples typically have a sexual relationship with one another, but that will also include an emotional attachment.

“There are a lot of different models for this sort of relationship, but ultimately it involves all three people being accepting and involved in the relationship,” Dr. Richmond says.

“Ecosexuality is where ecology meets sexology,” Jennifer J. Reed, PhD, a sociologist from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, tells Health. “It is imagining ‘Earth as lover’ rather than ‘Earth as mother.’”

Dr. Reed explains that ecosexuality is an umbrella term for people who treat nature as a sensual partner to protect rather than a resource to exploit. How a person practices and expresses their ecosexuality, however, is up to them.

One of the most common ways to be an ecosexual is to use biodegradable and/or organic sexual aids and products. “A person that expresses their ecosexuality in this way may purchase environmentally friendly sex toys, all-natural sheets, or even organic tampons,” Holly Richmond, PhD, a sex therapist in New York City, tells Health. “Using products that don’t cause any harm to the Earth is one way a person may fulfill their attraction.”

On the opposite end of the spectrum are individuals who literally have sex with the earth to get aroused.

“For some people, having sex with nature or having sex with a partner and incorporating nature into intercourse is how they get turned on,” Richmond says. “It might be something about having the tactile feeling of dirt or grass on your skin, or knowing that you’re involving nature into your sexual experience.”

Ecosexuals “want to protect nature so much and are so enamored with the Earth and how it makes them feel that this is how they express their sexuality,” Richmond adds.

Ecosexuality is inclusive, Reed explains, and ecosexuals can fall anywhere on the sexual identity spectrum, from straight to gay to trans and beyond.

“Ecosexuality is one way to inspire people to engage by making the environmental movement more sexy, fun, and diverse,” says Reed. The framing of “queer, erotic, ‘irreverent environmentalism’ resonates with many people today,” she adds.

“The older I get, the more I think that I’m nonbinary,” Van Ness said in an interview with Out. “I’m gender nonconforming. Like, some days I feel like a man, but then other days I feel like a woman.”

For years he considered himself a gay man, he explained, but he recently realized nonbinary is actually a more accurate description. “I didn’t think I was allowed to be nonconforming or genderqueer or nonbinary—I was just always like ‘a gay man’ because that’s just the label I thought I had to be.”

So what does it mean to be nonbinary, anyway? “Someone who’s nonbinary doesn’t feel like they fit into either the culturally or societally stereotypic definitions of a man or a woman,” Holly Richmond, PhD, a certified sex therapist in New York City, tells Health.

But not everyone who identifies as nonbinary is the same. “For some people, this means they always land somewhere in the middle. They’ll never say ‘he’ or ‘she,’ but rather they’re always in that middle ground,” Richmond explains. “For other people, it can be fluid. It can change week to week or month to month, depending on what they want during that time.” (As Van Ness told Out, some days a nonbinary person may feel like a man, but others like a woman.)

A nonbinary person might also see themselves as a man and a woman at the same time. Or they may consider themselves to be transgender. A trans nonbinary person is someone who doesn’t identify with the sex they were born with (trans) and also has a gender identity that isn’t strictly male or female (nonbinary). A nonbinary person who doesn’t feel they’re trans may, like Van Ness, partially identify with the sex they were born with but also have a gender identity that isn’t categorized as exclusively male or female.

Those who identify as nonbinary might also have a range of sexual preferences. “They might choose someone who’s gender nonconforming, they might always choose a male, always choose a female, or they might consider themselves bisexual,” Richmond says.

A nonbinary person can be as private as they want about their identity. But in some situations, they might want to make their identity known, such as at the doctor’s office. It’s important for all medical records to include sex at birth, gender identity, and legal sex, so a person can get proper care. Doctor offices unfortunately aren’t required to record all of this information—which is why it’s important for the patient to offer it.

Another thing it’s crucial to clarify: pronouns. Van Ness said he doesn’t identify as a man and sees himself more fluidly, yet he does use he/him pronouns. But everyone is different, so always ask a nonbinary person how they want to be addressed. And remember, identities can be fluid, so a person’s might change over time.

“Any opportunity I have to break down stereotypes of the binary, I am down for it, I’m here for it,” Van Ness said. “I think that a lot of times gender is used to separate and divide… I think any way I can let little boys and little girls know that they can express themselves… no matter how they present is really important and exciting.”

First, it’s important to note where tantric sex comes from. “’Tantra’ is [from] an old Sanskrit language, [and tantric sex is] a very ancient way of being together. Tantra means ‘the weave,’” sex therapist Holly Richmond, PhD, tells Health.

She says her patients view tantric sex as “something almost mystical,” but her definition is a little clearer. “It’s not sex for just sexuality purposes or physiological release—but pleasure and sensuality and being together and taking time [to have sex],” Richmond explains.

All sex is about pleasure, sure, but tantric sex places an emphasis on focusing on pleasure while you’re having sex. Think: mindfulness during sex. You probably already know how beneficial mindfulness is in your everyday life can be, but you might not have thought about how beneficial it can be in bed. Here are five surprising ways tantric sex will shake things up between the sheets.

It takes the performance element out of sex

“Tantra is kind of like the anti-porn,” Richmond believes. While porn isn’t necessarily bad, it can make a person feel like whatever is happening on screen is the sexual norm. This puts the focus of sex off of pleasure and makes it more of a presentation. “Porn is performance-based, [but tantric sex] is all about helping people slow down and get out of this performance mindset,” she explains.

This means not obsessing over what your body is “supposed” to look like and getting into a deeper headspace of thinking and feeling. How can you and your partner achieve this shift? “Start with eye gazing. Sit together so you’re facing each other, holding hands, and gaze into each other’s eyes,” Richmond advises. This moves the focus away from anxious, desire-killing thoughts like, “Am I going to stay hard?” or “What does my cellulite look like?”

It allows you to communicate exactly what you like

As many mindfulness practices do, tantric sex requires concentrating on exactly what you’re experiencing in the moment. Richmond says that you and your partner should focus intensely on exactly what feels good while you’re touching, then letting each other know what strokes you want more of.

“Be as specific as possible,” Richmond advises. For example, you could say, “I love it when you touch me here,” she suggests. You could also note that you don’t like being touched in a certain area. “Focusing on touch—what does his hand on your stomach feel like?” Richmond says. “Get out of your head and into your body—that’s what tantra’s all about.”

Connection is one of the pillars of tantric sex

If you’re looking for ways to bond with your partner more deeply, tantric sex is for you. While fast, carnal quickies are fun, tantra is about getting into positions that require physical closeness and eye contact, so you connect on a more soulful level. “For better connection I almost always recommend positions where you’re facing each other,” Richmond says.

Tantric sex also encourages couples to devote a lot of time to getting it on. “This idea of a deeper connection that’s not just about getting off—it’s about longer sessions,” Richmond explains. As a guideline, she says the minimum amount of time tantric sex lasts is about 15 minutes. The maximum? Some of her clients have reported having tantric sex for “hours and hours.”

Considering the average regular sex session clocks in at seven minutes, this is a drastic increase in time spent having sex with your partner. Think of it as an investment that pays off with a deeper relationship and more intense pleasure.

You get to redefine what sex is

Practicing tantric sex means throwing expectations of sex out the window. “Redefine what sex is. Sex is absolutely not just penetration,” Richmond explains. Before you have tantric sex, don’t focus on what you think you and your partner should be doing in bed. Instead think: “What do you want it to be for you today? Do you want penetration? Do you want to masturbate together?”

Richmond says that often couples simply go through the motions when they’re having sex without stopping to think about what they want to do. Taking the time to figure that out is one benefit that will make your relationship more honest and open.

It can lead to better orgasms

If you’re not already convinced you should give it a try, this might convince you: more and better Os.

It’s not surprising that sex designed to intensify your connection with your partner and help you focus on what feels good might lead to a better finale. Richmond says her patients have confirmed this, telling her their orgasms are more intense during tantric sex. “The orgasms are better, especially if they’re looking into each other’s eyes,” she says.

Most of us have experienced this kind of instant, almost primal attraction. But a small number of people never have; they’re incapable of it. To be attracted to someone, they need to develop a mental or emotional connection to the other person, not a physical one.

That’s a demisexual in a nutshell.

A demisexual is someone who is hardwired to seek an intense, solid, securely attached relationship before they can even think about sexual intimacy, Holly Richmond, PhD, a sex therapist in Southern California, tells Health. For a demisexual, intimacy is on a platonic level—at first. Sexual attraction develops as the relationship deepens.

“A demisexual is not going to walk down the street, see a hot guy, and think, I want to sleep with that person,” Richmond says. Celeb crushes, romcom flicks, love (or lust) at first sight? None of this resonates with a demi. “it just doesn’t make sense to them,” she adds.

A relationship for a demisexual typically starts as a friendship and may blossom into something more. Sex is still important; there’s nothing wrong with their sex drive. But what turns them on has to do with brains and personality rather than a toned physique. “They really need to know someone to feel sexually attracted to them,” Dr.Richmond affirms.

How would you know if you’re a true demisexual, rather than a person who just isn’t into hooking up or getting sexual with someone early on? Think about how your romantic and sexual relationships have started. If it took time to get to a place where you felt chemistry, and the lead up to becoming a couple involved lots of talking and platonic time together, you might be a demi.

It’s hard to know how many people are demisexual, especially since the term has only recently entered the lexicon. But Richmond believes that in the past three years, more people are using the word to describe their own sexual orientation. It’s similar to the recent uptick of people who identify as asexual (feeling no sexual attraction at all to anyone).

Yet just like those who identify as asexual, people who are demisexual can still develop serious, fulfilling, long-term relationships with others. They just get to that place in a different way that doesn’t rely on physical chemistry.

It goes without saying, though, that breakup sex can be messy. If one partner was just dumped, for example, they could be hoping that sex will make their ex rethink the breakup. But Holly Richmond, a certified sex therapist in New York City, says breakup sex won’t save the relationship, and if it does, it’ll likely only last a few weeks.

So why do we have a burning desire to have breakup sex, and is it ever a good idea? We asked sex therapists for the facts.

Why do we want to have breakup sex?

Breakup sex means something different for everyone. “Having sex one last time can be about celebrating everything that was good in the relationship,” Richmond says. “Relationships usually end for emotional reasons, not sexual ones, so it’s like that last connection to something that was really amazing for the period of time that you were together.”

If both people understand why they can’t be together and are comfortable with the breakup (say, for example, they’re moving to different cities or one wants to have kids and the other doesn’t), sex can be purely about connecting one last time, Richmond says. “It’s like saying, ‘This just isn’t going to work, but I really do love you.’”

On the other hand, if one person doesn’t want the relationship to end, “they might want to have sex as a way to say, ‘Look how great this is. Are you sure you want to leave this?’” Richmond says. It’s probably no surprise that this is when things can get messy…

How does breakup sex affect us emotionally?

If one person is still holding onto a relationship while the other is ready to say so long, having breakup sex can actually prolong the emotional rollercoaster for the partner who hasn’t yet moved on, Richmond says. “The question becomes, ‘Am I wanted? Am I not?’”

Sure, sex might make you feel good temporarily, but when you put your clothes back on and go your separate ways, you’ll probably be more confused than you were before. There’s also a chance you could feel ashamed or even used by your ex, adding onto to the pain. “You might feel good in the moment, but oftentimes, that feeling doesn’t last,” Rachel Needle, PsyD, co-director of Modern Sex Therapy Institutes in Palm Beach, Florida, tells Health.

Is breakup sex ever a good idea?

For breakups that end in a completely mutual understanding, having sex can be a “beautiful, connected ending,” Richmond says. She explains that in cases where both partners are truly resolved (we know, it sounds too good to be true, but it really does happen!), breakup sex can be a good idea.

The “I want to get you back” kind of sex, however, is not a good idea. Accepting a breakup takes time, and trying to ease the pain with sex will only prolong the process, Richmond says. Breakup sex unfortunately isn’t going to give you the closure you’re craving. Closure comes from putting the relationship behind you and prioritizing yourself. Don’t get us wrong, it’s not easy, but holding onto something that isn’t there will only hold you back.