Bust out of a sex rut: if your sack sessions have gotten a little stale, try these saucy strategies to stake things up!

* File this in the go-figure folder: When you're in the early, adrenaline-infused phase of a relationship, the sex is off the charts. Then as the love becomes more intense and you settle into couplehood, the nooky often cools off. "Even good sex can become routine," says Ian Kerner, PhD, author of She Comes First. "You may have an orgasm every time, but it's a little mechanical and boring because it's always by the same route." Thankfully, you don't have to sacrifice lust for love. Reviving your sex life is easy--and a hell of a lot of fun. Here, steam-it-up solutions for banishing bedroom boredom.

SEX RUT 1

"We Always Do It at the Same Time"

Yon wash your face, brush your teeth, catch Leno's monologue, then--bam!--get busy. It's as if a mental "let's do it" alarm goes off. Sound familiar? "When you always have sex at the same time, it becomes another thing you squeeze into your schedule," says Barry W. McCarthy, PhD, author of Rekindling Desire.

Steam-it-up solution: To make your passion less predictable, tap into the fact that you're not amorous only during a scheduled time slot. "Act on your erotic instincts whenever they strike, despite the fact that it might seem inconvenient at the time," advises Kerner. Does the sight of him washing his car rev your engine? Drag him indoors and jump his bones. Who cares if it's Saturday afternoon? "When you give in to your lusty urges at different times of the day, the act itself will be hotter because it's unexpected or at least unplanned," says Kerner.

That's what Shannen *, "24, discovered when her randy routine became too rote. "One night, we were cooking dinner and Brad got some gravy on his face. I was feeling playful, so I licked it off," she recalls. "I decided to taste-test the rest of him, so I swiped a dab on his neck and licked it. Then I lifted his shirt and dripped some on his chest and abs. Well, one thing led to another, and before I knew it, he lifted me up onto the counter and we were going at it."

SEX RUT 2