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From the moment your Mr. Right finally pops the question and sets a date, you are launched into a tizzy of detailed preparations for the glorious day you will walk down the aisle in a beautiful white gown ready to give your hand in matrimony. The day demands serious thought, planning, and organizing. There is no end to what needs to be considered and managed. As you go through all of it, like all brides, you start to realize a wedding is like a cake. Actually, a pie—everyone wants a finger in it. When you’re ready to tear your hair, you’ll hear that statement: A wedding is for the family. Maybe that’s true.

Aaaah, but the honeymoon? The honeymoon is an occasion solely for the newly-wedded couple alone. Which makes planning and preparing for it all the more satisfying. A romantic interlude of sharing new horizons, realizing that you’ve only just begun.

But a bride can get so wrapped up planning her wedding, that very often, she neglects to plan and prepare for time that involves her and her groom. So many brides, in fact, leave this important phase to the groom—who thinks this is only a matter of choosing a place. Or else, a bride usually figures that preparing for the honeymoon is simply a matter of deciding what nightgown and what bathing suit to bring along for the trip.

But all you brides and would-be brides out there, consider this: The honeymoon is important because it serves as a convenient segue from being separate sweethearts to being a magically married, united couple. Which is not to say that if you have a mediocre or even a lousy wedding tryst, you are setting yourself up for a similar kind of marriage. No. Let’s stress that. Of course not.

Still, if those two or three days you’ve set aside to be together, to be away from the pressures of work and family and in-laws—if that time can be romantic, sexy and smooth-sailing, why not? Getting down to the nuts and bolts of building your early life together will be that much easier when the right mood is set by a wonderful honeymoon. Think about that.

So, relax a little about your wedding day. Don’t obsess too much about the food and the flower girls. Believe it or not, all those details will handle themselves. Get into the right mindset. Take time out to dream a little more of your wonderful time with your husband…and make that dream come true.

First, Be Sure to Have a Honeymoon
Every newly-wedded couple must have some kind of a honeymoon. What’s more, every couple deserves it.

Bing, a 27-year-old administrative assistant, confesses ruefully, “We don’t really have the time or the money. Neither of us can take that many days off and all our saving are going to the wedding.” Frequently, when there is a budget to consider (as there often is), what’s necessary is a change in attitude. A honeymoon need not mean an extravagant trip abroad or a reservation at an expensive beach resort. True, this is the traditional ideal of a honeymoon, but really, it doesn’t have to be the case. An honest-to-goodness honeymoon must satisfy three conditions: you must have time, you must have solitude, and you must have a place to stay—away from home.

Two nights at the hotel count. Going on a roadtrip to Batangas or Tagaytay counts. Borrowing someone’s empty resthouse in the province or even somewhere as nearby as Antipolo counts. Just take a few days, and go somewhere you can be alone.

Virgie, now a mother of three teenagers, recalls that when she got married, she and her groom had decided on a simple trip up to Baguio, planning to stay for four days in the cottage of an aunt. Much to her consternation and disappointment, her father-in-law and sister-in-law decided to come along for the ride because they hadn’t been there in awhile. “I guess I should be grateful they opted to stay at an inn on Session road, but still, the trip up wasn’t what I thought it would be. Then, of course, we ran into them several times, and even spent one day together.”

“I always thought I had a great sex life,” remembers Amee , a 28-year-old stock analyst. “I usually had orgasms during oral sex though never while doing the deed.” Then she met Jason, a guy who encouraged her to voice her each and every sensation. “Jason made it clear that he loved it when I was supervocal in bed, so I started oohing and aahing in direct proportion to how much he was turning me on. And an amazing thing happened: He got so tuned in to my pleasure purrs that he started doing new moves that I had never even fantasized about. One night, while we were in the missionary position, he lifted my pelvis. I moaned and he lifted even higher. I had the most incredible orgasm of my life!”

Irene, a telemarketer, relates an almost tragic story about her beautiful but uninformed friend Patricia. A stunning model, Patricia was rather shy and passive in bed. She had been sexually active for two years with her boyfriend, but, says Irene, “Apparently, she never really knew what the fuss about sex was all about—until she finally had the guts to ask me what she was missing.” It turns out that Patricia had never had an orgasm during all that time. “After they would have intercourse, her boyfriend would smoke a cigarette, roll over and sleep, leaving her bitin—without her even knowing it!” Patricia cried when she found out how lugi she had been. She promptly broke up with her insensitive beau but she also vowed that she would stop being shy and would start speaking up about her own needs.

Like Amee and Patricia, many of us settle for second-best sex, not only because we don’t know how to communicate to our partners what pushes our pleasure buttons but because we’re not always sure what those buttons are. Maybe that also explains why a study revealed that 20 percent of young women have trouble getting turned on and 26 percent are unable to reach orgasm. “Sure, we all wish that guys physically knew how to touch, lick, and stroke us every time. That way we wouldn’t have to explain all our turn-ons to them,” says Sari Locker, author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Amazing Sex (Alpha Books, 1999). “But you can’t expect even the most experienced man to be a mind reader. You have to overcome your awkwardness, take charge of your between-the-sheets pleasure, and show him how to satisfy you.”

That’s why we’ve consulted experts and real men and women alike to put together Cosmo’s complete guide to carnal communication. Read on to discover the tricks that could take your lust life from so-so to oh-oh-oh and the sneaky, sexy ways you can clue him into your cravings.

The Shape That’ll Make You Shudder
Stop-the-press sex shocker: Guys and girls have different ways of warming up pre-passion. “Women are aware of their erogenous zones—the backs of the legs, neck, and behind the ears—and they generally need these areas to be stimulated before they can become aroused below the belt,” explains Laura Berman, Ph.D., co-director and sex therapist of the Women’s Sexual Health Clinic at Boston University Medical Center. “Men, on the other hand, focus mainly on their erection as the center of their sexuality—they often don’t realize how much touching their partners need before being hot enough for more advanced foreplay, let alone intercourse.”

So how can you make sure you secure those crucial pre-sex strokes? Nudge him to give you “the swirl,” recommends Lou Paget, author of How to Be a Great Lover (Broadway Books, 1999). “To use this subtle seductive move, he traces slow soft circles and waves along your forearms, neck, the palms of your hands, and any other sensitive body spot,” Paget explains. “His circular touch electrifies the nerves under your skin more than if he just ran his fingers up and down in a straight line.”

Carol and her boyfriend use the swirl as a warm-up technique to prep for a night of slow, steady arousal. “After experimenting with different speeds and directions, I found the most incredible sensation occurs when my guy traces circles on my breasts—gradually getting closer and closer to my nipples,” says the 25-year-old receptionist. “He’ll also make incredibly tiny circular motions using just one fingertip on my clitoris. After a few minutes of such slow ecstasy, we’re both primed for the next sexy step.”

I am single, Filipina, and I enjoy my sexuality. I express it best when I’m in a relationship, but there are times when a girl simply needs to get down and dirty with a guy without the daily phone calls, the hard work of maintaining a loving commitment.

I am a woman who knows what it’s like to be emotionally committed to one man while having a no-strings sexual fling with another. I am a woman who has shared my bed with a man who had to be told where the clitoris was, and another who could have qualified easily for the Special Sexual Olympics. I am a woman who has had a couple of one-night-stands that extended into months.

Tonight, I am a bored woman. The bar where I normally hang out is so packed, people are holding conversations with their backs pressed to the creaking exhaust fans. The music shifts. Have I met anyone interesting? No. the answer has been “no” for the several months that have passed since my return to Manila. Tonight I have actually brought a book to keep me company till my friends arrive.

My favorite bodysuit, transparent where it counts and strategically embroidered, has been in a ziplock plastic sandwich bag for months. The red stilettos I laughingly call “Hey you guys” shoes gather dust. If this goes on much longer, my stash of rubbers will leak lubricant and spermicide and just gel together in one sticky, unusable glob.

Is it me? Are my non-tisay looks a complete turnoff? Are my silky tube tops scaring away the notoriously fashion-fearful Pinoy male? Do I have to PAY for it now? What does a woman have to do to get laid in Metro Manila?