And no, we’re not talking about sex on the beach. Call us square, but we fail to see how a sandy crotch improves anyone’s sex life. Not to mention a mouthful of seaweed. Here are ten much better reasons why the arrival of warm weather is good for your love life:

1. Picnics: Picnic dates are ridiculously affordable (literally the cost of a sandwich) and incredibly romantic. You know that awesome sex you have after a super-romantic night out at the opera or a weekend in Paris? Well now you can have that kind of sex anywhere you lay your picnic blanket.
2. Alfresco sex: Speaking of that picnic blanket: suddenly sex in the great outdoors won’t lead to genital frostbite (click here for our 10 Rules for Doing It in the Great Outdoors first — we don’t want you to give a family of backpackers an x-rated surprise).
3. No more chapped skin: Is there anything less sexy than hands and feet that are dry and chapped from the winter air? You go to stroke your partner’s leg and end up accidentally exfoliating them. In the winter, you climb into bed and reach for the hand lotion to grease up your cracked appendages. In summer you can reach for the lube instead.
4. Open windows: Have sex in bed with the windows open so you can feel the refreshing summer evening breeze… it’s like having an extra person in bed whose job it is to caress your bodies. (Without any of that awkwardness that typically accompanies a three-way.)
5. Ice cubes: If you’re too cheap (or too green) to turn on the A/C, grab a bowl of ice cubes to cool each other down instead. It’s environmentally responsible foreplay! (Just keep those ice cubes away from delicate internal linings in the vagina.)
6. Food for thought: Heavy winter comfort food doesn’t tend to be an aphrodisiac — the last thing you feel like doing after enjoying a bowl of Irish beef stew is having hot monkey sex. Freshly picked strawberries with whipped cream, on the other hand…
7. The drive-in is open! Who cares what’s playing, just show up and get busy in the back seat. If your town doesn’t have a drive-in, then rent a zip car and keep driving — with the windows open, natch — until you find one.
8. Sleep naked! No more flannel PJs. Which is kind of like saying, more doggie-style! Less spooning.
9. Drink alfresco: Sitting at a sidewalk table outside a bar (bonus points if you can see fireflies) and drinking an ice-cold beer or glass of rose just makes people happy. And by “happy” we mean horny.
10. Fewer layers. Everyone wears less in warmer weather — not just your partner, but that hottie at the office, your oddly attractive mail carrier, and the construction worker fixing a pothole in your street. We all like to look — men and women alike — and in the summer we just have a little more to look at.

• This post is a part of Sundance Channel’s SUNfiltered Blog
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