What are your favorite erotic activities? How about your partner—do you know what he'd put on his list? Can you name your girlfriend's all-time favorite fantasy?

Conventional wisdom would have you explore your mutual desires this way: Each of you fills out a yes/no/maybe list. On your "yes" list, you itemize all the erotic activities you enjoy now or would like to try. Your "maybe" list represents the things you might like to try or might enjoy under particular circumstances. And your "no" list—well, that's self-explanatory, isn't it? (Not necessarily.) Then you and your partner compare lists, circling the interests you have in common. You make a list of your shared yeses (and maybe your maybes) and voila—there's your sex life.

That's fine for a while. But a life? Will the range of sexual activities you share now serve you as a couple five years from now? Twenty years from now?

If you limit your shared sex life to the items on your "yes" list, you narrow your possibilities. Over time, that gets old. Sure, today you become instantly aroused at the thought of your lover whispering a salacious story as she lightly draws her finger over the velvet softness of your perineum. But five years from now, won't you want, well, more? A new fantasy perhaps, or a further exploration?

If you want that thrill to last, take a look at your "no" list. What are the items you don't hold in common? I'm not suggesting that you do anything that will traumatize you. (The idea isn't to create new material to bring to a therapist.) I am suggesting that you make room in your repertoire for erotic activities that one of you likes and the other doesn't. If you want to have hot sex five years from now, you'll need to create a shared sex life that's expansive, not contracted.

How do you deal with those differences in sexual interests? You create ways to accommodate both of you. Your lover likes sex in public, but you don't feel like exposing yourself to the elements, much less arrest? Take him to a sex party. OK, maybe that's only semi-public—or way beyond your comfort zone. You can spin him a tale. Tell him about unzipping his jeans in some very public and inappropriate place—while you really are unzipping his jeans in a safer venue, like your living room.

Take advantage of all the erotic possibilities your differences may offer. You may find yourself enjoying activities you never considered trying. Working that out can open you to new possibilities that will enrich your erotic life. Your sexual tastes, frequency, and range of interests will broaden as you experiment with those of your partners.

One woman wrote to me that she discovered her love of anal sex by trying it for her girlfriend. She didn't think she'd like having her partner's fingers probing her rear, but she surprised herself. Now she's a proud back-door Betty. Another said, "I always thought I was a redneck conservative, but it actually turns out, I'm a fairly kinky woman."

Take another look at that list. Does the thought of wearing a blindfold make you nervous—yet make your blood pound? What about masturbating in front of your partner as he reads aloud from explicit erotic fiction? Are you willing to take your girlfriend shopping for a sex toy? Play with a sex toy?

Don't worry if you feel silly or awkward trying something new. Experiment in the spirit of adventure and curiosity. You don't have to commit to incorporating a new activity into your repertoire—unless you want to.

Differences in sexual interest do not necessarily indicate incompatibility—in fact, your differences are a priceless resource. Your differences may be the frisson that makes those sparks fly.

Copyright 2005 by Felice Newman. Please feel free to link to this page; please do not reprint without permission. Adapted with permission from The Whole Lesbian Sex Book: A Passionate Guide for All of Us (Cleis Press).