For Melissa Mothershed, a mother of two who's been married for 12 years to a man who travels frequently for work, booking a date to have sex with him is the only way to guarantee intimacy.

“We take the kids to grandpa’s house once a month and have a night together,” says Mothershed, 34, who lives in Seattle.

"I think if you don’t put effort into your relationship, you’re in trouble," she says. "And, for us, the anticipation is great and makes the night worth waiting for.”

Enter scheduled sex, another appointment to put in your Palm Pilot. And one that appears to be growing in popularity. The new Elle/MSNBC.com Sex and Love Survey found that half of respondents make regular date nights.

While couples may fear that once you start penciling in a roll in the hay you’ll lose any feelings of spontaneity and fun, both experts and couples in long-term relationships tend to emphasize the positives that can result from a hot night planned either weekly or monthly.

The good news: Scheduled sex isn’t as boring as it sounds.

“Because couples’ lives are so intensely busy, it’s good to schedule sex,” says Jane Greer, a psychotherapist in New York City. “If you don’t make the time to flirt and plan in the time to sexually connect, it just won’t happen. People tend to collapse under the burden of responsibility and push aside sex.”

Think of it as foreplay
Proponents of scheduled sex think it’s one of the best things you can do to stay connected because it gets couples to talk more about what they want from their partner and it helps strengthen that all-crucial sexual bond.

In addition, counting down the days until you have sex can serve as a unique kind of foreplay. “Flirting and planning a sex night can actually end up turning you on and exciting you,” Greer says. “As you anticipate being together, it’s a great energy booster, kind of like a jumper cable starting up a rundown engine.”

If it works for you, pinpointing a day or night when you can focus on being intimate will help transport you back to those elation-filled first dates with your partner, says Lori Buckley, a clinical psychologist in private practice in Pasadena, Calif.

“You want to think back to the beginning of your relationship,” she says. “Back then, you planned exactly what you were going to do together on your date and, once you started having sex, you probably spent a lot of time thinking about what outfit to wear, what perfume to spritz to turn him on. Now that you’re a couple, fantasizing about your night can add excitement if you think about it this way — not that you’re too tired to have sex.”

Phyllis Hill, 43, a marriage/sex trainer in Nashville, Tenn., has been having regular "sex date nights" about once a week with her husband, Glenn, also a marriage/sex trainer, for more than half of the 23 years they’ve been married.

“Many people think of a date night as dinner and a movie,” says Hill, who has four children, ages 10, 16, 19 and 22. “Couples often spend money they don't have and get home late, too tired for anything but quickie sex. Our idea is send the kids to a friend’s house for the evening and have dinner at home with sex as the main menu.”

The result: Hill says her marriage is hot, fueled by these sex dates, which are specifically meant to add a little "extended playtime for exploration and experimentation" to their relationship.

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