Month: July 2017

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I’m not that sexually experienced. How can I be more confident in bed?

Buck up, champ: Feeling a little anxious about your sexual history (or lack thereof) is totally normal. Here are 10 ways to improve your sexual performance without having to have sex first.

by Vanessa Marin

[E]veryone has anxiety about being great in bed, but when you don’t have much sexual experience that anxiety can feel sky high. For some guys, that concern about experience turns into a horrible cycle: You don’t feel confident about your sexual experience, so you end up not having sex, and your experience level remains the same.

Here’s the good news: Experience is a good teacher, but you can still learn how to be great in bed without it. Here’s how.

1. Put it in context

As a sex therapist, I can tell you that just about everyone has self-confidence issues when it comes to sex—even people with a lot of experience. The insecurities are different from person to person, but they’re insecurities nonetheless. And keep in mind that many of the women you’re intimate with may be inexperienced or insecure as well. You’re certainly not alone.

2. Do your research

You can school yourself on how to have great sex without having any experience whatsoever. I also recommend Guide To Getting It On: Unzipped by Paul Joannides or The Big Bang by Nerve for general sex education topics like STIs and pregnancy prevention, anatomy, communication, and consent. She Comes First by Ian Kerner is a fantastic guide to the art of pleasuring a woman, and I recommend it to almost every man in my sex therapy practice. Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski is a great book about female sexuality in general.

One caveat: Don’t get your sex education from porn! Porn is meant to be entertainment, not education. Porn sex has very little resemblance to real sex. It’s all about angles, lighting, and editing. Most of the moves you see in porn simply won’t go over well in the real world.

3. Take care of your body

One of the best things you can do to improve your confidence is to take great care of your body. Sex is a physical act. Not only do you need endurance, but you also have to feel comfortable and confident in your own skin. You already know what you should be doing—eat right, get enough sleep, and exercise regularly. Exercise, in particular, can also have added sexual benefits, like increasing your sex drive and improving your erections and your orgasms.

Grooming is important too. Wear clothes that flatter your body and make you feel good. Get your hair cut and your beard trimmed. The better you feel about yourself and your body, the more confident you’ll feel in bed.

4. Masturbate

Yes, masturbation can improve your partnered sex life! Most men masturbate pretty thoughtlessly, zoning out to porn while they try to get the job done as quickly as possible. This actually serves to disconnect you from your body, and decreases your control over your erection and orgasm.

Instead, you can use masturbation to help increase your stamina. First, think of how long you’d like to last with a partner. That becomes your new masturbation session length. During that time, really pay attention to your body. Notice what it feels like when you start getting close to orgasm, and train yourself to back off when you’re on the edge.

You can also practice purposefully losing your erection, then getting it back again. This will help decrease anxiety about losing your erection with a partner.

5. Go slow

When you’re feeling anxious about sex, you’re more likely to rush. Lots of inexperienced men have the tendency to jump right to intercourse, but it’s so much more fun to take your time and go slow. Spend plenty of time on kissing, touching, and performing oral sex, and even slow down your physical movements. A slower pace will help dramatically decrease your anxiety levels.

Plus, keep in mind that most women feel more physical pleasure from oral sex and fingering than from intercourse, and a lot of women love being teased. She’ll appreciate your pace, too.

6. Focus on her pleasure

Being fantastic in bed means genuinely caring about your partner’s pleasure. It’s arguably the most important quality in a great lover. If you spend time specifically focusing on her body—taking your time with her, kissing her all over, fingering her, going down on her—you’re going to impress her way more than the guy who has a ton of experience but is selfish in bed. Plus, seeing the pleasure that you bring her will naturally help you feel more confident.

7. Treat her like an individual

I’m all about sharing sex tips and techniques, but the reality is that every woman likes different things. No one technique is going to work for every woman. This is great news for you because it shows that experience only goes so far. We’re all beginners when we have sex with someone brand new. Try to explore her body with openness and curiosity. Pay attention to how she responds to your touch. Does she moan? Does she start breathing more heavily? Does she arch her body toward you? Don’t be afraid to ask her what she wants or likes! One super-simple way to ask for feedback is to try two different things on her, and ask her, “Do you like it better when I do this or this?”

8. Keep it simple

So many men overly complicate sex, especially when they’re feeling anxious. Technique is important, but you don’t need to go crazy trying out a million different things on her. The key to female orgasm is actually consistency, not complicated tongue maneuvers or finger gymnastics. Switching things up usually throws her off and distracts her. Find something simple that seems to be working for her, and stick with it. Increase your pace and pressure gradually, but stick to the same basic technique.

9. Don’t think of it as a performance

One of the biggest mistakes that sexual newbies make is thinking of sex as a performance. They get overly fixated on the idea of maintaining a perfect erection, having the utmost control over their orgasms, and mastering their technique. But the truth is that no one likes feeling like they’re having sex with a robot. She doesn’t need you to perform for her like a circus animal. She wants to feel connected to you, and she wants to have fun. You can do that, even without any prior sexual experience.

10. Have a sense of humor

Sex is never perfect, no matter how much experience you have. Sex can be awkward, weird, and sometimes downright hilarious. You’re bound to try out a position that doesn’t work, bump foreheads, or get a cramp in your leg. Having a sense of humor is so important in those moments. If you can laugh it off, you’ll get back to the fun much faster.

Complete Article HERE!

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‘I finally felt like one of the guys’

How toxic masculinity breeds sexual abusers

By Jane Gilmore

“I’m a guy. I’m supposed to have sex. I’m supposed to be like every other guy. And so I’m like them, but [when I did this to the girls, I thought] I’m even better than them [dominant popular boys], because I can manipulate. They don’t get the power and the excitement. They have a sexual relationship with a girl. She can say what she wants and she has the choice. But the girls I babysat didn’t have the choice.”

This was Sam* explaining why he abused two girls, aged six and eight.

Sam, 18, was a foster child, abandoned by his biological parents and adopted when he was five by what he says was a loving, affectionate family. His adoptive parents both worked, but his mother did all the cooking, cleaning and caring for the children. His father “mowed the lawn, loafed around and worked with his tools”; he was in control of the family.

Sam was never the victim of physical or sexual violence at home, and he never committed any violence against his family.

School was a very different experience for him. He was short and heavy, and was subjected to constant bullying by the “popular dominant boys”. They told him he was “fat” and a “wimp”, that he would never fit in. He couldn’t play sport nor fight back when he was beaten up at school; the boys he perceived as popular and dominant shamed him by feminising him.

Sam understood this as his failure to be a “real man”. He wasn’t masculine enough for the “cool” boys to accept him. His body “served as an antagonist in his construction of masculinity”.

In his early years at high school when Sam started learning about sexuality, most of his understanding came from listening to the boys’ conversations there.

“Kids were talking at school about blow jobs and getting laid, telling dirty jokes and about having sex and stuff like that,” he said.

His understanding of sex and his own sexuality was that he had to have sex to be a proper man.

“Well, I’m a guy, so this is something that every guy does, that I want to be part of. I want to be like the other guys. I want to know what it feels like. I want to know what goes on.”

He didn’t think he could have relationships with girls his own age because he believed what the popular boys had told him for years – that his body and personality were not acceptably masculine, and therefore no girls would like him.

So at 15 he started babysitting for local families, and sexually abused the little girls in his care. He deliberately chose girls he saw as quiet and vulnerable. He didn’t use physical force, he used coercion, fear and control to manipulate his victims into submitting to the abuse.

“I felt that I was No.1. I didn’t feel like I was small any more, because in my own grade, my own school, with people my own age, I felt like I was a wimp, the person that wasn’t worth anything. But when I did this to the girls, I felt like I was big, I was in control of everything.”

This terrible and tragic story comes from a paper written by James Messerschmidt, a professor of criminology at the University of Southern Maine. It’s a summary of several books and papers he’s written about the relationship between violence and masculinity, or at least the twisted version of masculinity too often imposed on boys and young men.

Zack*, the other boy in Messerschmidt’s paper, had very similar experiences. He was bullied for being short, overweight, bad at sport and wimpy. Zack, like Sam, decided that sex was a way to prove to himself and others that he was a “real man”, and he started sexually abusing a vulnerable young girl.

“It made me feel real good. I just felt like finally I was in control over somebody. I forgot about being fat and ugly. She was someone looking up to me, you know. If I needed sexual contact, then I had it. I wasn’t a virgin any more. I wanted control over something in my life, and this gave it to me. I finally felt like one of the guys.”

It would be comforting to think of Sam and Zack as aberrations: tragic, but unusual in their experiences.

Sadly, the truth is that they are likely to be typical of the boys and young men who turn to violence to confirm their male identity and align with what they think is a desirable masculinity.

Study after study after study after study after study has found that domestic and sexual violence is usually based on a need for control, based on toxic misunderstanding of what gender roles should be.

These studies include wide-ranging research, surveys and interviews with both victims and offenders. They all show that violence is most likely to occur in cultures that strongly enforce gender roles and unequal power relationships between men and women.

The notion that “real men” are sexually powerful, dominant, strong and never to be rejected does enormous damage to boys and men, which in turn leads to them doing enormous damage to girls and women.

Boys who fail the masculinity test suffer excruciating rejection, and this doesn’t just reinforce toxic masculinity in the boys seen to fail, but also confirms it for the boys who pass.

Anna Krien’s 2013 book Night Games was a searing insight into the world of “successful” masculinity in Australia, where the young men who achieved all the “real man” targets of being tall, strong, powerful and excelling at sport lived in a culture of sexual entitlement and an expectation that everyone would see women as objects, not people.

Sam and Zack’s stories are the ones we need to tell people who think anti-bullying and respectful relationship education in schools is a waste of time, or worse, a means of diminishing men.

Our schools are littered with potential Sams and Zacks, and with the boys they thought of as popular and dominant. All of them are damaged by the ideas they teach each other about being a real man.

And all of them damage women when they carry those ideas into adulthood.

* Not his real name

Complete Article HERE!

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I thought that everything was completely normal down there, but then…

Name: Shaon
Gender: Male
Age: 20
Location:
I am a 20-year-old male and recently on a forum I post on someone was talking about how they had to get a circumcision as an adult because they had a condition called phimosis. Up until a couple of days ago I thought that everything was completely normal down there, I have been able to masturbate normally for as long as I’ve been doing it. I’ve been doing a lot of reading on the internet about the condition and I think I might have it but I’m not really sure and I can’t bring myself to go to a doctor about it. I don’t have any picture now but I can take some and I’m wondering if you would be able to tell me if I have phimosis simply by looking at pictures. Thanks for your help.

So you’re reading around on the internet…that’s a good thing. What’s not so good is that your casual reading around has brought you to the conclusion that you have a medical condition called phimosis. Even though, up to this point, you believed everything in your nether regions was working perfectly fine.

That’s the problem with having just a little information. It tends to lead to more questions then answers.

For those in our audience unfamiliar with the term phimosis, it’s a condition in which the foreskin of the penis cannot be pulled back past the glans.

Shaon, you’re welcome to send me photos of your unit, but I can’t promise that I’ll be able to tell you for sure if you have phimosis or not. (Remember, I’m not a medical doctor, so don’t expect a medical diagnosis.) If you do send photos, you will have to include some of your erection with your foreskin pulled back as far as it goes.

So, let me ask you a couple of questions.  Can you retract your skin over the top of your dickhead? Are you able to retract your foreskin while your dick is hard as well as soft? When you shower or bathe, do you clean out under your foreskin?

Also, you should know that there are lots of ways to stretch your foreskin, so you shouldn’t ever have to worry about circumcision.

May I suggest that you take your time and read around my site for all the posting and podcasts that I’ve done under the topic “foreskin”? To do that, simply use the CATEGORIES pull-down menu in the sidebar of my site. Look for the heading Body Issues. Under that you will find the word “foreskin”. Every thing is alphabetized for your convenience.

And there’s more under the topic “Uncut”.

Good luck

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How to Talk to Your Younger Sibling About Sex

Since older siblings can sometimes be the best sex-ed teachers, here are four important topics to cover and a few links about how to get the conversation started.

By

[P]ositive sexuality is at the forefront of conversations being had by student activists on college campuses. Dismantling the societal constructs of traditional masculinity and femininity and redefining campus sexual scripts are priorities aiming to decrease sexual assault rates and increase discussion about what perpetuates them.

As a result, college students are in a prime position to be instigators of conversations amongst younger groups, because they are at the core of the rapidly changing dialogue prompting social changes that support young adults in expressing their sexuality and promoting safe sexual climates for everyone.

Being a mentor to the younger kiddos in your life, and more specifically the youngsters in your family, can be a tricky yet invaluable role to fill. If you decide to open up a conversation about sex with younger siblings, some awesome topics to include are consent, gender identities and expressions, contraceptives, birth control and the construct of virginity. There are certainly other categories to include, and questions will likely arise about the many nuances of sex, but starting with broad ideas essential to healthy sexuality will set up the conversation to be productive and meaningful.

1. Consent

It’s never too early to start introducing principles of consent into children’s lives, nor is it ever too late. If your siblings are elementary school-aged, having a conversation with them about consent does not have to centered around sex, because consent is applicable to any and all interactions, whether sexual intentions are present or not.

Teaching young kids to ask for permission to hug someone or to sit close to someone plants the seed for healthy habits of asking for and offering consent to grow. If younger individuals become accustomed to asking for consent in small, everyday ways, they will be more aware and respectful of others’ boundaries. As they grow into adolescents and college students, the concepts of consent will be second nature and clearly understood when they do enter into sexual contexts where consent is required.

Regardless of the age of your siblings, consent is applicable to everyone and should be a frequent, continuing conversation. For siblings that are old enough to dive deeper, unpacking the mechanics of genuine and enthusiastic consent can include information about how things such as power dynamics, substances, coercion and intimidation can all influence the improper acquisition of consent. This is also a great time to emphasize that despite the common tactics used to unfairly obtain someone’s consent, the right to enthusiastically consent to sexual activity without the influence of outside factors is omnipresent, powerful and absolute.

Consent is a quintessential component of healthy sexual encounters! For more info on consent, and the “Yes Means Yes” campaign advocating for enthusiastic consent, check out https://www.yesmeansyes.com and have your siblings take a look, too for the scoop on all things consent and respect. As quoted in an article on everydayfeminism.com “conversations about consent—especially if those conversations are with children—are not always easy to have. They are, however, necessary if we’re trying to create a society in which consent is understood and respected by adults and children alike.”

2. Gender Identities

Another frequently skipped-over chapter in the sparse book of sex education in America is the section on gender identity. Thanks to celebrity stories in recent years such as Caitlin Jenner, Jazz Jennings and many other Hollywood young adults openly identifying as gender fluid, bisexual and indicating other identities along the gender-nonconforming spectrum, gender identity and gender rights have become popular topics. While many school sex education programs are a bit behind the times and have yet to add conversations about various gender identities into their curriculum, older siblings can try to fill some of the gaps.

The biggest point to emphasize to a younger sibling is the difference between sex and gender, and that gender is a social construct that is governed by expectations and norms that align with the gender binary system. To expand on that, include notes about how gender is made up of multiple components that fall along a spectrum; there are new models, like the gender unicorn, being developed to illustrate this idea; the colorful and simple designs are engaging for young learners and a great visual representation of the spectrums in general.

Most of all, encourage youngsters to explore and contemplate their own gender identity by questioning the norms they’re conditioned to live in accordance with, and support them unconditionally in their discoveries. Your unwavering love may serve as an example for when they find themselves being a support for a friend or peer one day.

3. Contraceptives

For siblings that are approaching the age of dating and having sex, a little brush up on contraceptive options is a helpful addition to sibling sex-education sessions. This goes for all gender identities, not just the ladies! Everyone should be aware of how to protect themselves and their partner of choice, so that everyone can feel safe and focus on other matters at hand. A quick browse through the “Birth Control” tab on teenshealth.org gives an extensive explanation of the various methods of birth control and contraceptives, the intended uses of each, the effectiveness rates and some FAQs.

While talking with a healthcare provider is the best idea for beginning a birth control plan, providing kiddos with information about their options allows them to reflect on what they’re comfortable with and choose an option that suits them if and when they need it.

4. Virginity

When younger siblings are thinking about becoming sexually active, a chat about the virginity construct can help them reflect on what sex means to them. There is heavy emphasis placed on the “losing of” one’s “virginity” and how the experience is meant to be transformative, pivotal and special. For some, the giving of virginity to another person signifies an act of deep trust, intimacy and comfort. For others, the concept of virginity is merely an ancient phrase sometimes used to label the beginning of their sexual adventures.

There is no right or wrong way to think about a first sexual experience, nor is there a universal definition of what composes the official loss of virginity, which some sex beginners don’t get the chance to contemplate before diving in. The concept of virginity loss is associated with impurity and places the person taking someone’s virginity in a position of power, while the person who “lost” it is seen as sacrificing something valuable.

Contemplating the idea that virginity is not a physical state or thing, but instead a construct that can be accepted or disregarded, allows young people to decide for themselves how they want to think of sex and define it in their own terms. First times are a lot of things, ranging from spontaneous, meaningful, messy, calculated or a combination of everything. Restructuring the way young adults think about their first sexual experiences gives them the power to conceptualize their sexual debuts as they choose to.

Beyond everything, the most important thing about having a conversation with siblings about sex is just to have it (the conversation). In the era of change kids are growing up in, the taboo topic of sex is not yet a conversation of full disclosure, even as it gains traction. Being an advocate for positive sexuality development by starting dialogue can help change this, one awkward chat at a time.

The following websites are excellent resources with information on the topics above and many more! They’ve got tips for curious teens and lots of advice for how to start a conversation.

Complete Article HERE!

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The 55-year-old newlywed

It’s not just about technique – it’s about being with someone who cares enough to invest the time

By

[I] had a few relationships in my 20s. In some, the sex was OK, in others just boring. I blame it on the fact that I was brought up to believe sex was functional, that men wanted it and women put up with it.

In my early 30s I married a man with limited sexual experience. He was from a religious background and wanted to wait till we were married: boy, was that a mistake. Sex was focused only on what he wanted. We were together for over 20 years and had three kids, and I can probably count the orgasms I had in single figures. Trying to talk about it caused angry outbursts. It was horrible and led to our breakup in my early 50s.

At that point, I decided to figure out if there was something wrong with me. I read Becoming Orgasmic and bought a vibrator, terrified my teenagers would hear me experimenting. I found that, like many women, I just needed sufficient time and attention to reach orgasm.

I began seeing a man, also just out of a sexless relationship, and we talked a lot about what we enjoyed before we did anything. For me, it’s not just about technique – it’s about being with someone who cares enough to invest the time. Sex is finally fun for both of us and we have been quite adventurous – even al fresco. We’ve been together for over two years, and recently married.

My message to other women is: you can start over in later life. This might involve a new partner. Take time to get to know your body after childbirth, breastfeeding and menopause. Do this on your own, if you prefer, then bring what you’ve learned into your relationship(s). And don’t settle for boring sex.

Complete Article HERE!

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Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down

Rope play is a great way to be a bondage top when you’re five-foot-five.

By Jorge Vieto

Consensual rope bondage, specifically as a top, is one of the most intimate types of play I’ve engaged in with other human beings in the realm of kink and BDSM.

The instant shift in power is a turn-on like no other for me. (Thankfully, it’s not hard to find folks willing to be tied up in this town.) However, when the person I’m interested in getting naked with has never been tied up, has limited experience, or is hesitant to be bound in my rope, things become a bit more intriguing. It’s my job to make being tied up with rope sound approachable, safe, sexy, and fun — and generally, that’s not hard to do. The art of negotiating a bondage scene with a “rope virgin” is what I call the chase.

Rope bondage binds me to another individual. If I am “showing my ropes” to someone I’ve never tied up before and who I just met for the first time, it instantly connects us. If I am tying up someone I have played with before, it brings us even closer. The amount of trust all my willing “victims” place in me shows their confidence in my skill is immense. They trust me so deeply as to let me take some, if not most, of their mobility away. They are left in a very vulnerable state — and to me, vulnerability is sexy as fuck.

Combining the power dynamic and vulnerability that’s inherently a part of consensual rope bondage together with the contrast of different body sizes together is extremely hot to me, especially if the person that I am tying up is much larger and taller than myself. The beauty of using rope, and often blindfolds, is that — once placed on my bound prize — I become any size their imaginations make me in their blind, immobilized state. Or, if they like, they can also relish the difference in size as well.

As a rope-bondage top, it doesn’t matter to me that I’m only five-foot-five and 120 pounds — nor does it matter that most of the folks I tie up in my encounters are men who are twice my size (and sometimes more). With enough rope and know-how, I can tie them down like the six-inch-tall Lilliputians tied down Gulliver during his travels. And as a bear and a chubby-chaser who happens to be shorter and smaller than most people I know, having rope skills make it easier to have sex with men who tower over me. These skills come in handy in so many ways, especially if you want to tie them down and use them as your personal dildo or mount them without having to bring out your stepstool. I’m sure you get the picture.

Chasing down such beautifully massive “prey” is hard work. So having the ability to tie them down easily and quickly for inspection, exposing their naughty bits for me to enjoy and explore, is important. I can engineer an instant “portable fuck sling” with rope. Making their whole ride a lot more comfortable and enjoyable is key. Comfort increases the chances they’ll spend at least a few hours in captivity, being teased, tortured with pleasure, and forced to blow multiple loads. Over the years, I’ve adapted to tying up bigger bodies, learned to use thicker and longer pieces of rope, and memorized a few quick ways to extend rope and work with different levels of flexibility or lack thereof. These are all important things if you enjoy tying not only bigger folks, but also folks with different mobility and flexibility concerns. Once my prized catch is secured in whatever rope contraption I’ve decided to put him in, the real fun begins.

One quarter of the fun comes from the chase, another quarter from tying down my catch, and another from figuring out what makes them moan with pleasure the loudest. The last quarter comes from deciphering how to get them close to coming, so that I can bring them to the cusp and stop! Then, I start the process of bringing them close to climax over and over again until they have no choice to blow their load. For many, simply having my crotch buried in their face while I jack them off is good enough. For others, stimulation with an electric butt plug and conductive pads on their cock does the trick. For others, a good old-fashioned ass pounding by yours truly is just what they need. I get off on helping someone else get off, so if none of the above activities is going to get the job done, chances are, I will be able find something that will. That’s if they want to get off; if bondage snuggles or 100 gentle kisses strategically placed on their body is all they need, then I can do that, too.

As long as they’re tied up.

Once I’m done with them, I can release them unharmed. They can then go back to their natural habitats, tired, sweaty, and weak, sporting big smiles on their faces.

Complete Article HERE!

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Why Your Sex Drive is Crashing and How to Fix It

Expert tips on how to get your mojo back

By Linda Bradley, MD and Margaret McKenzie, MD

[A] low sex drive, also known as low libido, is one of the most common issues among our female patients. Most are very relieved to find out they are not alone in this struggle. This generally happens to new moms and menopausal women, or just simply when work and family life takes its stressful toll on a woman.

Sometimes we just aren’t in the mood for sex and that is OK. Being present in your relationship and having a responsive partner are important for continued sexual interest in your relationship. Knowing that fatigue and stress as well as problems in our relationship can cause us to have a low drive, you need to let your doctor know what’s going on in your life because social stressors affect sexuality.

There are a lot of external factors that could hinder your sex drive as well. Are you taking hormones or anti-depressants? How much do you drink? Any new illnesses? Sign of abuse in your relationship? Financial problems? Children or family problems? Lack of privacy in your bedroom? Your health care provider needs to probe deeply to determine if any of these factors may influence your libido. We want to help you get your mojo back and exploring these sensitive topics is warranted. In other words, we’re not being nosy or intrusive.

Women suffering from low sex drive report their sexual desire and receptiveness to sexual activity to be approximately none at all to once a month or even once every couple of months. While there’s no fast and sure cure, the first step to overcoming this would be to recognize it without blame or shame, then brainstorm ways to make sex a priority once again. There are various strategies women can adopt alone or together with their partner.

For instance:

  • Make if a point to enjoy some “you” time in order to de-stress.
  • Relax in a long (hot or cool) bubble bath.
  • Refuel emotionally through meditation or journaling.
  • Exercise regularly to increase your stamina.
  • Schedule a date night with your partner — and stick to it!

If sex is painful, or if hormonal problems are the issue, then medical attention is necessary. Generally, though, women have to come to grips with the fact that a strong, healthy sex drive doesn’t just automatically happen after spending years in a relationship. You must put effort toward it and make it a priority. In addition, as relationships age, and was we and our partner age, other factors like body image, chronic disease, blood pressure medications, anti-depressants, and certain hormonal therapies may impact sexual desire.

Having a lack of desire is one of the most commonly reported sexual issues that our patients bring into the arena of sex. Don’t be afraid to bring this up as many times as you need to. Doctors have many helpful solutions. So be bold and write it on your list of things to discuss at your visit with your doctor so you don’t forget.

Complete Article HERE!

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A new way to think about dementia and sex


There’s an urgent need for a new ethic of dementia care that supports the facilitation of sexual expression.

By and

[P]ersons living with dementia don’t have sex. Or they have weird sex. Or they have dangerous sex, in need of containment.

When it comes to dementia and sexuality, negative language and apocalyptic warnings abound. The aging population has been described in the media as a “rape case time-bomb.” Health practitioners often respond in punishing ways to sexual activity in residential care. And the sexual rights of persons living with dementia are largely ignored within residential care policy, professional training and clinical guidelines.

As critical social researchers, we argue that a new ethic of dementia care is urgently needed, one that supports the facilitation of sexual expression.

Practitioners and administrators often hold negative and judgmental attitudes about dementia and aged sexuality

Our research at the University of Toronto and the Toronto Rehabilitation Institute-University Health Network investigates embodiment, relationality, ethics and dementia. We are motivated by a shared concern about the reductive focus of dementia care on basic physical needs, and our desire to foster a more humane and life-enriching culture of care. We have explored how the sexualities of persons living with dementia are poorly supported in long-term residential care settings such as nursing homes.

Sex and dementia in the media

When we see persons living with dementia and sex linked in the media, it tends to be in high profile cases of

Institutional policies, structures and practices must support sexual expression.

alleged abuse. One example is the legal trial of Henry Rayhons, an Iowa lawmaker found not guilty of sexually abusing his wife who at the time was living with dementia in a nursing home. Another example is the wider investigation into sexual assaults in nursing homes in Ontario.

Vital as such investigations are to the safety of residents in long-term care, we rarely see sexual expression valued or as fundamental to human flourishing.

Our research has explored how these negative representations of the sexualities of persons living with dementia are also found within long-term residential care settings such as nursing homes.

Practitioners and administrators often hold negative and judgmental attitudes about dementia and aged sexuality. When faced with sexual activity, they can intervene in threatening and punishing ways. And long-term care policies, professional training and clinical guidelines tend to ignore the sexual rights of persons with dementia.

The problem with biomedical ethics

The sexualities of persons living with dementia are considered troubling partly because long-term care polices are shaped by biomedical ethics. This ethical approach relies on four core principles: autonomy, beneficence, non-maleficence and justice. These principles support intervening in residents’ sexual expression if it will cause harm to themselves or cause harm or offence to others.

However, this approach sets the bar for practitioners’ interference excessively high. It can restrict voluntary sexual expression by residents living with dementia in nursing homes.

Biomedical ethics also ignore the performative, embodied and relational aspects of ethical reasoning. It assumes that people are rational autonomous beings. It also assumes that self-expression, including sexuality, results only from cognitive and reflective decision making. Given that dementia involves progressive cognitive impairment, persons living with dementia may be unfairly discriminated against by this approach to sexual decision making.

A duty to support sexual expression

We use a model of relational citizenship to create an alternative ethic in which sexuality is seen as embodied self-expression. It is an ethic that recognizes human beings as embodied and embedded in a lifeworld. And one that views sexuality as an important part of being human.

Social and leisure activities supportive of the development of intimate relationships are essential within nursing homes.

This new ethic broadens the goals of dementia care. No longer do health professionals just have the duty to protect persons with dementia from harm. There is also a duty to support their right to sexual expression.

We argue that institutional policies, structures and practices must also support sexual expression. These should facilitate sexual rights. We must also introduce education for health professionals and the broader public — and policy initiatives to counteract the stigma associated with sexuality and dementia.

Social and leisure activities that are supportive of sexual expression and the development of intimate relationships are also essential within nursing homes.

Of course, protection from unwanted contact or sexual harm is still important. However, freedom of sexual expression should only be restricted when necessary to protect the health and safety of the individuals involved.

Complete Article HERE!

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How the Nazis destroyed the first gay rights movement

‘Damenkneipe,’ or ‘Ladies’ Saloon,’ painted by Rudolf Schlichter in 1923. In 1937, many of his paintings were destroyed by the Nazis as ‘degenerate art.’

By

[V]ery recently, Germany’s Cabinet approved a bill that will expunge the convictions of tens of thousands of German men for “homosexual acts” under that country’s anti-gay law known as “Paragraph 175.” That law dates back to 1871, when modern Germany’s first legal code was created.

It was repealed in 1994. But there was a serious movement to repeal the law in 1929 as part of a wider LGBTQ rights movement. That was just before the Nazis came to power, magnified the anti-gay law, then sought to annihilate gay and transgender Europeans.

The story of how close Germany – and much of Europe – came to liberating its LGBTQ people before violently reversing that trend under new authoritarian regimes is an object lesson showing that the history of LGBTQ rights is not a record of constant progress.

The first LGBTQ liberation movement

In the 1920s, Berlin had nearly 100 gay and lesbian bars or cafes. Vienna had about a dozen gay cafes, clubs and bookstores. In Paris, certain quarters were renowned for open displays of gay and trans nightlife. Even Florence, Italy, had its own gay district, as did many smaller European cities.

Films began depicting sympathetic gay characters. Protests were organized against offensive depictions of LGBTQ people in print or on stage. And media entrepreneurs realized there was a middle-class gay and trans readership to whom they could cater.

Partly driving this new era of tolerance were the doctors and scientists who started looking at homosexuality and “transvestism” (a word of that era that encompassed transgender people) as a natural characteristic with which some were born, and not a “derangement.” The story of Lili Elbe and the first modern sex change, made famous in the recent film “The Danish Girl,” reflected these trends.

For example, Berlin opened its Institute for Sexual Research in 1919, the place where the word “transsexual” was coined, and where people could receive counseling and other services. Its lead doctor, Magnus Hirschfeld, also consulted on the Lili Elbe sex change.

Connected to this institute was an organization called the “Scientific-Humanitarian Committee.” With the motto “justice through science,” this group of scientists and LGBTQ people promoted equal rights, arguing that LGBTQ people were not aberrations of nature.

Most European capitals hosted a branch of the group, which sponsored talks and sought the repeal of Germany’s “Paragraph 175.” Combining with other liberal groups and politicians, it succeeded in influencing a German parliamentary committee to recommend the repeal to the wider government in 1929.

The backlash

While these developments didn’t mean the end of centuries of intolerance, the 1920s and early ‘30s certainly looked like the beginning of the end. On the other hand, the greater “out-ness” of gay and trans people provoked their opponents.

A French reporter, bemoaning the sight of uncloseted LGBTQ people in public, complained, “the contagion … is corrupting every milieu.” The Berlin police grumbled that magazines aimed at gay men – which they called “obscene press materials” – were proliferating. In Vienna, lectures of the “Scientific Humanitarian Committee” might be packed with supporters, but one was attacked by young men hurling stink bombs. A Parisian town councilor in 1933 called it “a moral crisis” that gay people, known as “inverts” at that time, could be seen in public.

“Far be it from me to want to turn to fascism,” the councilor said, “but all the same, we have to agree that in some things those regimes have sometimes done good… One day Hitler and Mussolini woke up and said, ‘Honestly, the scandal has gone on long enough’ … And … the inverts … were chased out of Germany and Italy the very next day.”

The ascent of Fascism

It’s this willingness to make a blood sacrifice of minorities in exchange for “normalcy” or prosperity that has observers drawing uncomfortable comparisons between then and now.

In the 1930s, the Depression spread economic anxiety, while political fights in European parliaments tended to spill outside into actual street fights between Left and Right. Fascist parties offered Europeans a choice of stability at the price of democracy. Tolerance of minorities was destabilizing, they said. Expanding liberties gave “undesirable” people the liberty to undermine security and threaten traditional “moral” culture. Gay and trans people were an obvious target.

What happened next shows the whiplash speed with which the progress of a generation can be thrown into reverse.

The nightmare

One day in May 1933, pristine white-shirted students marched in front of Berlin’s Institute for Sexual Research – that safe haven for LGBTQ people – calling it “Un-German.” Later, a mob hauled out its library to be burned. Later still, its acting head was arrested.

When Nazi leader Adolph Hitler needed to justify arresting and murdering former political allies in 1934, he said they were gay. This fanned anti-gay zealotry by the Gestapo, which opened a special anti-gay branch. During the following year alone, the Gestapo arrested more than 8,500 gay men, quite possibly using a list of names and addresses seized at the Institute for Sexual Research. Not only was Paragraph 175 not erased, as a parliamentary committee had recommended just a few years before, it was amended to be more expansive and punitive.

As the Gestapo spread throughout Europe, it expanded the hunt. In Vienna, it hauled in every gay man on police lists and questioned them, trying to get them to name others. The fortunate ones went to jail. The less fortunate went to Buchenwald and Dachau. In conquered France, Alsace police worked with the Gestapo to arrest at least 200 men and send them to concentration camps. Italy, with a fascist regime obsessed with virility, sent at least 300 gay men to brutal camps during the war period, declaring them “dangerous for the integrity of the race.”

The total number of Europeans arrested for being LGBTQ under fascism is impossible to know because of the lack of reliable records. But a conservative estimate is that there were many tens of thousands to one hundred thousand arrests during the war period alone.

Under these nightmare conditions, far more LGBTQ people in Europe painstakingly hid their genuine sexuality to avoid suspicion, marrying members of the opposite sex, for example. Still, if they had been prominent members of the gay and trans community before the fascists came to power, as Berlin lesbian club owner Lotte Hahm was, it was too late to hide. She was sent to a concentration camp.

In those camps, gay men were marked with a pink triangle. In these places of horror, men with pink triangles were singled out for particular abuse. They were mechanically raped, castrated, favored for medical experiments and murdered for guards’ sadistic pleasure even when they were not sentenced for “liquidation.” One gay man attributed his survival to swapping his pink triangle for a red one – indicating he was merely a Communist. They were ostracized and tormented by their fellow inmates, too.

The looming danger of a backslide

This isn’t 1930s Europe. And making superficial comparisons between then and now can only yield superficial conclusions.

But with new forms of authoritarianism entrenched and seeking to expand in Europe and beyond, it’s worth thinking about the fate of Europe’s LGBTQ community in the 1930s and ‘40s – a timely note from history as Germany approves same-sex marriage and on this first anniversary of Obergefell v. Hodges.

In 1929, Germany came close to erasing its anti-gay law, only to see it strengthened soon thereafter. Only now, after a gap of 88 years, are convictions under that law being annulled.

Complete Article HERE!

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8 Things That Happen to Your Body During Sex

Your heart quickens. Your hormones flow. See what else is happening, head to toe, in the heat of the moment.

By Anthea Levi

[E]ver wondered what happens to your body during a steamy session between the sheets? From the good (happy hormones! increased sensitivity!) to the not-so-good (increased risk of urinary tract infections, for example), here are eight things that happen when you’re having sex.

1. Happy hormones are released. Sex stimulates the secretion of hormones such as oxytocin, which makes you feel connected to others, and dopamine, which activates the brain’s reward center. The result: You feel satisfied and close to your partner.

2. Blood vessels widen. What do dilated blood vessels do for you? “Your clitoris and vulva become engorged, as do the vessels in the vaginal wall,” says urologist and sexual-health expert Jennifer Berman, MD. “This leads to more secretions and lubrication.” Your face and chest can also get flushed.

3. Sensitivity skyrockets. Your erogenous zones, including the nipples, ears, neck, and genital area, become extra sensitive because of increased blood flow and the release of sensation-enhancing neurotransmitters.

4. Bacteria may build up. During sex, bacteria from the vagina and anus can get into the urethra and multiply, leading to a urinary tract infection. Tip: Pee immediately after the act to flush out bacteria.

5. You burn (some) calories. A study in The New England Journal of Medicine found that a 154-pound person would burn 21 calories during six minutes of sexual activity. So a roll in the sack isn’t as effective as spin class, but a sexy half hour could torch around 100 calories.

6. Your heart races. Like any aerobic activity, sex raises your heart rate. It peaks when you orgasm and settles back to its baseline within 10 to 20 minutes, research shows.

7. Your muscles tense. “During orgasm, the pelvic floor muscles involuntarily contract,” says Dr. Berman. Actively tensing and releasing those muscles during sex can help boost engorgement, arousal, and pleasure. Kegels, anyone?

8. You feel relaxed. Your big O may be the ultimate chill pill: Orgasms trigger an increase in prolactin, a calming hormone that reaches its highest levels when we’re asleep.

Complete Article HERE!

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Here Are The Best Places In The World To Take A Sex Vacation

By Bobby Box

[W]eather, affordability and sight-seeing and shopping opportunities are all definitive factors when planning a vacation, but have you ever considered the level of a city’s sex-positiveness? . undefined

If you’re on the hunt for a sex-fuelled sabbatical and need some direction, you’re in luck. Adult mobile app portfolio Lazeeva has put in a ton of work and consulted an assemblage of permissable research to determine which cities around the world are the most “sex-positive,” which Lazeeva describes as “having or promoting an open, tolerant, or progressive attitude towards sex.”

To quantify how sexual a city is, Lazeeva’s team began by researching 10 critical factors in over 200 cities from around the world. These components include: gender equality, LGBT friendliness, access to contraception, swinger-friendliness, adult entertainment, porn consumption, sex toy consumption, sexual satisfaction, willingness to experiment and sexual activeness.

To quantify how sexual a city is, Lazeeva’s team began by researching 10 critical factors in over 200 cities from around the world. These components include: gender equality, LGBT friendliness, access to contraception, swinger-friendliness, adult entertainment, porn consumption, sex toy consumption, sexual satisfaction, willingness to experiment and sexual activeness.

After attributing a rank for each category, Lazeeva used in-house data and combined it with research from the UN, the World Bank, as well as various listings in each city for sex and sexual health resources available for swingers, LGBTQ groups and charities, to give a comprehensive and decidedly fair score to each city studied. They then crafted a near-encyclopedic ranking of the 100 most sex positive cities worth the stamp in your passport. We’ve narrowed it down to the top 10.

The most sex-positive city in the world is–drum roll, please…–Paris, France! Which proved to be exceptionally sexually-active and gay-friendly. The city of love also boasts quite a thriving swingers scene.

In a very close second comes Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which received top scores in sexual activeness and willingness to experiment. However, their paltry score in gender equality brought the overall average down significantly.

London, England came third, thanks, in great part, to their thriving adult entertainment scene and praiseworthy scores in LGBT friendliness.

The first American entry is none other than Los Angeles, USA, ranking fourth overall. The porn capital recieved top scored in–you guessed it–porn consumption, as well as very imposing scores in its willingness to experiment sexaully. We should add that both Playboy HQ and the Playboy Mansion are located here and, in case you couldn’t tell, we love us some sex.

If you like to swing, you might want to book a trip to Berlin, Germany, which ranks fifth. In addition to a prosperous swingers scene, they also received soaring scores in adult entertainment. But be warned: Berlin has horrible access to contraception. So bring rubbers.

New York City comes sixth. The Big Apple was impressive across the board, but boasted exceptionally high scores in porn and remarkably low scores in gender equality, which evened themselves out.

In seventh comes Sao Paulo, Brazil, who earned the highest possible score in sex toy consumption and a commendable score in their willingness to experiment. No doubt a winning combination for the sexually dauntless.

Vegas, baby! Coming in eighth overall, sin city proved prolific in–duh–adult entertainment and–double duh–its swingers score.

Ibiza, Spain, is known to be a party place, so it makes perfect sense that they’re sexually progressive. That is, if you’re a man. Gender equality in Ibiza, however, proved upsetting.

Bookending the top 10 is one I’m willing many of us predicted would be higher on the list. This is, of course, Amsterdam in the Netherlands. Surprising, considering the city is host to the world’s only (legal) Red Light District and lax laws around drug use.

Understandably, if you didn’t want to book a nine-hour flight in the interest of sexual exploits, a number of American cities broke the top 10, most of which are located across the map, making them a fun little road trip. These sex-positive American cities include: San Francisco (11th), Miami (14th), Austin (19th), Chicago (25th), Seattle (35th), Portland (36th) and Boston (49th).

To see the full list of sex-positive cities, click here.

Complete Article HERE!

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College Students Want to Talk About Sex. They Just Don’t Know How.

By Amelia Marran-Baden

[F]ear of sexual assault on college campuses is twofold: Many students are afraid of being victims of assault, while others are terrified of being accused of it.

If that sounds ridiculous, consider this: Apps have popped up in recent years that allow students to sign virtual consent forms before engaging in intimate encounters. The contract on SaSie, one such app, prompts consenting parties to fill in their names and e-signatures, and add pictures of their photo IDs so as to provide “a legally binding modicum of evidence for students and adjudicators.”

Clear communication in sexual encounters is paramount and the stakes are high. Nonconsensual sex is rape. But it’s ridiculous to think that consensual sex should require a legal contract.

This is not the way for students to get clarity on healthy sex. If we are going to change a culture of normalized drunken hookups and damaging acts of sexual violence, we must get to the roots of the problem: communication and education.

Most colleges and universities require that freshmen and other new students attend orientation workshops to familiarize them with guidelines for consent, a term that is often narrowly defined to avoid confusion. Sex, our administrators and peer leaders tell us, requires verbal positive affirmation at each progressing stage of physical intimacy.

This is not a bad way to define consent, but it overlooks emotional intimacy and vulnerability entirely. When gymnasiums full of relatively inexperienced undergraduates hear an administrator explain “No means no” over a microphone, no matter how intently we pay attention or how much we agree with that statement, we are not receiving guidance on language that will help us communicate with future partners. Consent workshops can be as impersonal and utilitarian as an SAT prep book: fact-based, transactional, generalized and devoid of human emotion.

As a transfer student at Middlebury College, I sat through two such orientations and several mandatory forums about sex on campus. It was uncomfortable.

But I can see the connection between these awkward seminars and the rise of swipe-for-consent apps: Both are the outcome of a culture completely out of touch with healthy communication about sex, especially when it comes to educating young adults about it.

It’s not any school administration’s fault. There are no national guidelines for sex ed, and the curriculum for it varies greatly around the country, often from state to state. Fewer than half of the states require sexual education in public schools, and only 20 of them even require that it be medically, factually or technically accurate. Think about that.

To be clear, inaccurate sex ed isn’t to blame for all cases of sexual violence, which college-age women are three to four times more at risk of experiencing than all other women, according to a 2014 Department of Justice report.

Still, as young adults, we have no real guidance for modeling intimate behavior on anything other than the glamorized, highly choreographed sexual encounters we see on TV and in movies, music and pornography. Those media generally fail to include any language of consent at all. Nowhere are Americans exposed to the idea that talking to your partner before, during and after sex — regardless of whether you met five years or 15 minutes ago — makes sex better! Why is nobody teaching us that “great sex” happens when both partners are equally engaged in respecting and communicating their expectations?

To address this intimacy gap in our language, my peers and I started the Consent Project at Middlebury. We invite speakers to address topics like pleasure, anatomy and masculinity. On weekends we host a “Morning-After Breakfast,” where students talk about sex and relationships without judgment. Every breakfast begins with an icebreaker — a game of sex and anatomy trivia to loosen up language around taboos — and then students break into smaller groups to air out personal confusions.

The idea is to identify, through group communication and brainstorming, what defines good and healthy sex. Our goal is to develop a shared idea of consent that encompasses self-advocacy, respect and mutual fulfillment — and not to treat it like a checkbox.

In Consent Project meetings, students bring up topics that don’t necessarily come up in school-sponsored consent workshops. They talk about drinking to overcome inhibitions, only to wake up the next morning feeling unfulfilled, unsure and sometimes even regretful about their choices. Both women and men admit to feeling inadequate and a pressure to “perform.” Women more often voice frustration over not having their own sexual needs met or respected, while men express anxiety about sexual rejection. There are many elements that add to students’ confusion, but the role that drinking and recreation drug use play cannot be overstated.

It may seem like a small thing, but these conversations actually do seem to make students more comfortable. There is always a healthy amount of laughter despite the seriousness of the conversations. We get a lot of feedback from students who say they feel willing — or even excited — to start talking about sex more openly.

The miscommunication that can lead to sexual violence, on campus and off, is not unavoidable. Absent reform in the K-12 system, students can help create safe environments and learn from one another. Teachers, administrators and the media tell us only part of the story. Let’s learn to talk openly and respectfully about sex, pleasure and our boundaries, in all the ways we individually define them.

Complete Article HERE!

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Does Weed Hurt or Help Your Sexual Performance?

Should weed and sex be combined? What effect can cannabis have on your sexual performance?

By

What are two of the most titillating subjects to talk about? Sex and weed, right? Well, strap in, sweetheart, because we’re about to talk about both. In high school, a gym teacher posing as a health professional probably taught you that cannabis is bad for you and so is sex. Hopefully, by now, you have realized that the exact opposite is true. Safe sex is healthy, and as it turns out, cannabis can also play a part in your overall wellbeing. But should weed and sex be combined? What effect can cannabis have on your sexual performance? The answer is overwhelmingly positive.

Psychology 101

Pop quiz: what are the four stages of the human sexual response cycle, as described by Virginia E. Johnson and William H. Masters? Gold star if you said excitement phase, plateau phase, orgasmic phase, and resolution phase. Here’s how pot factors in.

Excitement Phase

According to Masters and Johnson’s revolutionary 1966 book Human Sexual Response, the first stage of the human sexual response cycle is the excitement phase. Also known as arousal. In this first phase, for all sexes, the genitals become engorged and more sensitive.

Consuming marijuana, a well-known aphrodisiac, before engaging in sex can increase and heighten arousal by helping blood flow, particularly in these vital areas. This is especially helpful for those struggling with erectile dysfunction. If prescription potency pills (like Viagra) aren’t for you, there are certain strains of pot that are said to be even better.

Plateau Phase

This second phase is characterized by increased sexual pleasure and stimulation. Know what else can increase pleasure? Marijuana is known to enhance sensation, especially during sex, and especially for women. One study even said that 90% of women who incorporated weed in their sex lives reported increased sexual pleasure. But don’t feel stiffed, dudes; 75% of men reported the same thing.

Orgasmic Phase

Who doesn’t love an orgasm? Ganja can help you get there. So can the products that combine it with sex, like Foria Pleasure lube and the Sexxpot strain. While it can be agreed upon that stoned orgasms are pretty great for everyone, women especially have experienced longer and more intense climaxes when smoking up before getting down.

Resolution Phase

After orgasm, the muscles in your body relax, breathing slows, and blood pressure drops. There’s also a release of oxytocin. Marijuana is also associated with oxytocin. So it stands to reason that combining sex and pot leads to increased feelings of intimacy, which can lead to a stronger relationship, which in turn, leads to better sex.

Complete Article HERE!

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A Sexless Marriage

Name: Tammy
Gender: Female
Age: 36
Location: Springfield IL
My parents were Laurel Canyon hippies of the first order, free love, drugs and all that stuff. I used to be disgusted by all the sex my parents were having with other people. I just couldn’t understand why they didn’t just want to be with one another or divorce and remarry someone else. As soon as I could, I left the west coast for the Midwest. Now all these years later my own marriage is in trouble. My husband unilaterally ended our sex life after the birth of our last child three years ago. I haven’t let myself go. I’m still very attractive and have even improved my body after the babies. But nothing I do brings him back to bed. He said that we have children now, and people with children don’t do that sort of thing!

To spite him for shutting me out, I turned to another man for sex. I just wanted to feel desirable again. I fear my affair will be found out and it will destroy my marriage. Funny thing, my parents with all their multiple sex partners remained happily married for 51 years till my father’s death two years ago. They were honest about their lives; I am not! I feel ashamed, but I am also having the best sex of my life and I won’t give it up.

My husband is a decent man and a good father. How can I continue to live this lie? If I come clean it will likely break up my family and I’ll look like a cheating slut. Is there any other option? I wish I could have been more accepting of my parent’s lifestyle; maybe the karma wouldn’t be so rough now.

[A]hhh, bad luck doll! That karma thing sure enough can be a bitch.

If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard this same story from a frustrated and desperate man or woman trapped in a sexless marriage, I’d have enough money to lay down my keyboard, give up my status as the most fabulous and revered sexpert in the universe and retire to Maui. Unfortunately, by the time I hear from most of the people they have already suffered through years of abstinence, all the while begging and pleading for the sex they want and need. By the time they write to me it’s often way too late. The die is cast. They’re married with kids and often have a stray affair workin’ on the side. As you suggest, Tammy, it’s a pretty unbearable situation.

My first thoughts are that by the time things get to the point of sheer desperation, a happy ending is virtually impossible. A lot of people are gonna get hurt regardless of how this resolves it self. If that’s a given, maybe you should be asking yourself; what can be salvaged from the impending wreck?

Tammy, you write something very telling in your message when talking about your parents. You say, “They were honest about their lives; I am not!” In the end, if you can reclaim your integrity, regardless if it means the demise of your marriage and family, as you currently know it, you will have regained something of inestimable value.

I also want to address your comment: “If I come clean it will likely break up my family and I’ll look like a cheating slut.” Perhaps, but at least you’ll no longer be a lyin’, cheatin’ slut. Come on, how could what others think of you trump what you already think of yourself. You are down on yourself because you expect sex in your marriage. And when that disappeared, you didn’t shut down as a sexual being. Does that equation make you so bad, a slut even?

I wholeheartedly believe that married people deserve a rich and fulfilling sex life, unless there’s mutual agreement for another arrangement. Unilaterally depriving a spouse of a rich and fulfilling sex life is an act of sexual violence. It’s the kind of sexual violence that will cause frustration, anger and desperation. And inevitably lead to infidelity, which in turn destroys the marriage and traumatizes the kids. So Tammy, if you are a cheating slut, what does that make your husband? Neither you nor your old man is without blame. So time to buck up, darlin’, and do the right thing. Regardless of how the chips fall.

And one more thing, you say you were disgusted by your parent’s hippy, free love lifestyle — at least they were open an up-front with you about who they were. Consider the trauma your kids will experience when they learn dear old mom was bumping someone other than dear old dad. What kind of example are you setting for them? You see where the honesty thing is a good idea right from the get go, huh?

Ok, so I think there’s a consensus that the truth must be told. I suggest that you generously offer your husband the first right of refusal. He may not deserve it, but that’s the way to go nonetheless. Offer to stay with him and raise your kids together, but not in a sexless marriage. If he can’t bring himself to bone you the way you need it, when you need it, with vigor and passion; then he needs to free you up to find that bone in someone else’s drawers. And if he can’t live the cuckold life he ought at least to be man enough to leave the marriage with as little stink as possible.

Good luck

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Benefits Of Frequent Sex As You Age

A High Sex Drive May Protect Language And Visual Skills

Sex shouldn’t stop just because you’ve gotten older.

By

[D]eclining brain power is a real worry for some people as they age, but new research from England suggests a fun and healthy way to keep your mind sharp, no matter how old you get – sex. According to the study, frequent sexual activity has been linked to improved brain function in older adults, adding yet another health benefit to everyone’s favorite activity.

The study, published online in The Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological and Social Sciences, found that people who had sex more frequently scored higher on tests to measure their verbal fluency and their ability to visually perceive objects and spaces between them. This suggests that sex can act as a sort of exercise for the brain, helping to keep it sharp as we age, though researchers aren’t sure exactly why.

“We can only speculate whether this is driven by social or physical elements — but an area we would like to research further is the biological mechanisms that may influence this,” Lead researcher Dr Hayley Wright said in a recent statement on ScienceDaily. “Every time we do another piece of research we are getting a little bit closer to understanding why this association exists at all, what the underlying mechanisms are, and whether there is a ’cause and effect’ relationship between sexual activity and cognitive function in older people.

For the study, the team from Coventry University and Oxford University interviewed 73 people between 50 and 83 years old about their sex lives. The volunteers were asked to fill out a questionnaire which asked how often they had sex, as well as other general questions about their health and lifestyle. The volunteers also took a standardized test that measured different aspect of their cognitive function, such as their ability to pay attention and remember facts, as well as their language and visuospatial skills. Results revealed that increased sexual activity was linked to increased verbal fluency and visuospatial skills. However, sexual activity seemed to have no affect on their attention skills, memory, or language.

This isn’t the first study to look into the benefits of sex in older individuals. For example, in 2016, the same team found that the protective effects of sex on the brain were stronger in men than women. The team speculate that sex may help protect the brain through the release of dopamine and oxytocin, two hormones that not only cause good feelings, but are also vital to brain function by improving connectivity between certain parts of the brain.

Regardless of why sex is helpful for the brains of older individuals, these results suggest that sex is an important part of our health and shouldn’t be discarded just because you age.

“People don’t like to think that older people have sex — but we need to challenge this conception at a societal level and look at what impact sexual activity can have on those aged 50 and over, beyond the known effects on sexual health and general wellbeing,” said Wright.

Complete Article HERE!