I feel the fire in my loins when he looks at me a certain way. With head tilted down and cocked to the side, his eyes penetrate me with devilish allure, while his lips part in smoldering desire. He seemed to instinctively know my erotic preferences the first time we had sex. I didn’t have to explain my lust for intensity; he picked up on it like an animal smelling food from a mile away. Besides chemistry, there is something between us that makes us sexually compatible. Could it be our matching libidos? Naughty synergy? A similar degree of openness?

When it comes to sexual compatibility, the first thing most people think about is technique. Some like it gentle; others like it rough. Then there are those chameleons who prefer a little of both. Technique is relative to sexual need. If she requires intensive oral sex to reach orgasm and his tongue has attention deficit disorder, they have a problem. As with the curse of the bad kisser, some people are blind to the signs of dissatisfaction and immune to coaching, doomed to force poor skills on every person they meet in bed. There were times when I was so turned off by bad technique that I didn’t even bother to show the person what I like. Technique is important, but it’s not everything. I’d like to believe that any couple has the potential to overcome technical difficulties with good communication and willingness to compromise.

If you’re lucky to have a partner whose technique pleases you, it doesn’t make much difference if you want it several times a week, while she’s content with a monthly roll in the hay. Frequency of sex is a major issue in many relationships—one of the top irreconcilable differences in failed marriages. In the best of sexual connections, libidos are aligned. Frequency naturally changes over the course of a relationship (couples have more sex in the beginning of a romance than after 10 years of marriage), but a significant difference in this area is likely to cause an erotic rift. If the relationship continues, the one with the stronger drive will eventually seek pleasure elsewhere, either from other lovers, porn or any combination of extramarital sexual stimuli.

Christians who vow abstinence until marriage don’t seem to understand the importance of sexual compatibility in a relationship. They believe that everything will fall into place once you are committed to someone. “Sexual compatibility won’t be an issue because you won’t have any previous experience to compare it to,” says a source on iamnext.com, a Christian website for college students. “If that foundation of trust and commitment is in place, then your sexual relationship can only get better with time.” Of course trust and commitment are important in a long-term relationship, but they have nothing to do with individual sexual preference. If both partners have no prior sexual experience, they may feel sexually unsatisfied and not know why. Through their post-marital sexual explorations together, they may discover differences that they had no way of knowing before marriage. Maybe she finds that sucking cock disgusts her, even if it is her committed husband’s cock. And what if he realizes that he’s a submissive who craves regular spankings, but he married a woman who prefers to lie on her back and spread her legs every time he gets an erection? There is no way to gauge sexual compatibility without having sex. 

There is also no other way to determine how well two bodies fit together. My first boyfriend had a huge penis. I was a petite virgin. He never made it completely inside. Size isn’t everything, but a small woman and a big man may have problems melding. That’s not to say that two people of diverse proportions can’t have a satisfying sex life together; they just may experience certain limitations.  

Limitations are not only problematic as a result of physical disparity; self-imposed psychological or moral barriers often cause limitations as well. Openness is a key ingredient in my erotic recipes. Since I am a tremendously open sexual being, I prefer partners who are equally comfortable with their sexuality and open to the gamut of sexual experience. However, you need not have fucked over 50 people or have engaged in various group sex activities to be sexually open.

A healthy dose of non-judgmental curiosity (plus good technique and a raging libido) is often enough for me to feel compatible with a lover. Are you squeamish about masturbating in front of someone? Do you find dirty talk offensive? Are you homophobic or bi-phobic? Does anything other than conventional, vanilla, heterosexual sex make you cringe?

Does the idea of having sex in a stairwell trigger anxiety? These are questions that you need to ask yourself in order to know whether or not you’re sexually compatible with someone, whether that someone is a spouse or a casual partner.

I’ve been fairly sexually compatible with most of my lovers, but sometimes someone comes along who seems to have dropped out of the universe into my erotic radar, someone whose sexual energy seems to match mine like two stars in a constellation. That someone who ignites fire in my loins also ignites something in my soul. What it comes down to is this: There’s more to sexual compatibility than what meets the crotch.