Editor’s Note: Dr. Judith Sills is a clinical psychologist and the author of five bestsellers. Her newest title, Getting Naked Again: Dating, Romance, Sex and Love When You’ve Been Divorced, Widowed, Dumped or Distracted came out last week. In honor of Valentine’s Day, Sills offers this excerpt from the latest tome…

The Sexual Mentor:
This transitional relationship reintroduces you to the physical pleasures of getting naked again. You might pay a brief emotional price, but the rewards can be terrific.
Here’s the thing. Sex is tricky. Before it can be fun, it’s anxious and uncomfortable. No, not for everyone, not all the time, and not always around the same issues. But for many

—especially with the prospect of facing the judgment of a new partner; — or if your last long-term sexual partner was your only one, or at least the only one in recent memory; — or if the only other person who has seen you naked lately is your doctor;

—or if you have some wild idea that your body is imperfect … and perhaps especially if your long-term partner came to that same conclusion and turned to some other, more attractive body to satisfy himself;

— or if you don’t mind the idea of sex but your actual experience of desire appears to have died;

— or if you have fixed on some personal inadequacy—your inability to orgasm, the gag reflex you can’t control during oral sex, your thunder thighs, morning gas, undereye circles—any or all of which would be painfully, humiliatingly revealed in bed;

—or for any other negative thought unique to your own history

well then, getting naked and enjoying sex might be, as noted earlier, anxious and uncomfortable. What then?

When faced with this discomfort, some of us grit our teeth and bulldoze our way through, and that’ll certainly work. These women are frank about their anxieties, but determined not to let those fears keep them out of bed. As one announced, “The first time I got to the third date and decided to make it a sexual encounter, I forced myself to leave the lights on. I didn’t back into the bathroom either, just turned around naked and kept on walking. It’s gotten easier.”

Truth be told though, this same woman and several others confessed that they chose icebreaker men, or men in whom they had little emotionally invested, to try out these first revealing naked walks to the bathroom. “I tried it out first with a man I was not remotely interested in having a relationship with,” said one widow, describing her first lover after forty years of marriage. “I thought of him as a, well, a test balloon.” All giggles aside, the test worked.

In other words, in one form or another, these women found sexual mentors. Maybe you should consider doing the same?

Literature and lore refer to an old, perhaps vaguely European cultural rite of sexual education. The idea was that, at a certain age, a young man would be introduced to sexual pleasures by a worldly older woman who knew the ropes and enjoyed herself in the process. In theory, at least, everyone profits. The young man becomes a more experienced lover, able to provide more physical pleasure to the suitable bride with whom he eventually settles. As for the older woman—well, she enjoys the same satisfaction that good teachers receive when sharing their wisdom and expertise with apt students.

To what degree, say, the French or Italians still practice this introductory education is not entirely clear. In any event, it’s not a tradition that has found much purchase in the far more sexually conservative soil of the United States. Our young men and women tend to learn on each other, at younger and younger ages, though we do provide plenty of prostitutes should a male prefer that more traditional venue.