Have you ever wondered, Gee, how do I get the lighting in my room to look more, uh, more, uh—huh. Sexy?

Don’t worry. I’ve got you covered. And, no, the answer, surprisingly, is NOT different-colored lampshades. You don’t need any razzle-dazzle to spice up your plain-ass room! You don’t need gels or filters—GELS? FILTERS? That’s shit you’d use in a fish tank! Your room is not a fish tank. 

You know what your room is? Well…It’s a room. You know what your room HAS? Potential. Potential to be a LOVE TANK.

Remember how in Blue Valentine Ryan Goosechild and Michelle Williams go into that cold, retro-futuristic “robot’s vagina” love motel room? Your room can be like that*!

(* But with less heavy-handed metaphorical blue tinting and less arguments and tears. Hopefully. No promises.)

Achieving sexy ambience is simple and you can do it simply by using this simple little simple trick. 

1. Got windows in your room? If yes, close them, do not let any light escape into the inside of your room. If no, perfect. You’re good…hermit.

2. Is it completely dark in your room? If no, solve this problem immediately. Perhaps you have a floor lamp, night lights, candles, or those little battery-operated tea lights going on, shedding light for all to see. SHUT. IT. DOWN. Get rid of them. Either throw them out the window, which shouldn’t be an option if you’ve barricaded them like I told you to do so, or shut them off. Flip ‘em off—if you interpret that as giving the finger to your light sources, so be it, but clearly I meant just shut the lights out. In the wise words of Nelly Furtado: Turn Off The Light. Except for one light:

3. There is a light that should never go out: your computer’s…or TV’s…or whatever screen on which you use to watch Netflix things.

4. Ooh, which reminds me: got a Netflix account? If yes, perfect. You’re good. If not, get one. Steal one. Whatever. 

5. Great! Now that you’ve hacked into your neighbor’s Netflix account, pick something to watch until your date/lover/Craigslist stranger has arrived at your place. When whatever it is you just watched has ended, keep the screen on the red “You have just finished watching [TITLE OF THING YOU JUST WATCHED]” screen. 

The beautiful red glow will make your room, ahem, LOVE TANK, look more sultry and pretty much communicate to your date/lover/neighbor that you’re ready to go Back to Browsing SOME PRIVATE PARTS.**

(**Not the Howard Stern movie.)

Unf! Look at that little red square of light it leaves on your floor. Seductive. Arousing! It’s almost exactly like being on a dance floor lit up by all bunch of crazy colored lights, right?

TRY IT! YOU WON’T REGRET IT!***

*** If you’re in the middle of an intimate practice when Netflix playback times out and the red glow goes away I should not be held accountable for any “lost moods” or “ruined nights.” You should have a back-up. You know? Get some of those battery-operated tea lights. Have some different-colored lampshades on hand. I don’t know. Why is this a thing you should even be caring about? Sexy lighting. Pft.