We know that “narcissist” has become a bit of a buzzword recently, and some folks are quick to apply it to an ex-lover or family member or friend. While awareness of this concept is healthy, so is remembering that it is, in a mental health context, a serious condition that shouldn’t be applied to someone you’re mad at because they stole your mirror. ~ Eds.
I am an empath. I discovered I was an empath after I got involved in a very deep and highly destructive relationship with a narcissist.
I am writing this article from the perspective of an empath, however, would love to read the view from the opposite side if there are any narcissists that would like to offer their perception on this.
Through writing about the empath personality type I have connected with many other people who class themselves as an empath and time and again I have heard people tell me how they have also attracted relationships with narcissists. There is a link. So, I decided to explore it further.
This is my theory…
From my own experience and studies on the narcissist personality type, there is always one core trait: A narcissist is wounded.
Something, somewhere along the line, usually stemming from childhood causes a person to feel worthless and unvalued and, due to this, they will constantly and very desperately seek validation.
Here comes the empath, the healer. An empath has the ability to sense and absorb other people’s pain and often takes it on as though it were their own. If an empath is not consciously aware of boundaries and does not understand how to protect themselves, they will very easily and very quickly bond with the narcissist in order to try to fix and repair any damage and attempt to eradicate all their pain.
What the empath fails to realise is that the narcissist is a taker. An energy sucker, a vampire so to speak. They will draw the life and soul out of anyone they come into contact with, given the chance. This is so that they can build up their own reserves and, in doing so, they can use the imbalance to their advantage.
This dynamic will confuse and debilitate an empath, as if they do not have a full understanding of their own or other people’s capabilities, they will fail to see that not everyone is like them. An empath will always put themselves into other people’s shoes and experience the feelings, thoughts and emotions of others, while forgetting that other people may have an agenda very different to their own and that not everyone is sincere.
The narcissist’s agenda is one of manipulation, it is imperative they are in a position whereby they can rise above others and be in control. The empath’s agenda is to love, heal and care. There is no balance and it is extremely unlikely there ever will be one. The more love and care an empath offers, the more powerful and in control a narcissist will become.
The more powerful the narcissist becomes, the more likely the empath will retreat into a victim status. Then, there is a very big change—the empath will take on narcissistic traits as they too become wounded and are constantly triggered by the damage being in the company with a narcissist creates. Before long, an extremely vicious circle has begun to swirl.
When a narcissist sees that an empath is wounded they will play on this and the main intention will be to keep the empath down. The lower down an empath becomes, the higher a narcissist will feel. An empath will begin to frantically seek love, validation, confirmation and acceptance from a narcissist and each cry for help as such will affirm to the narcissist what they are desperate to feel inside—worthy. A bitter battle can ensue.
As an empath focuses solely on their pain, trauma and the destruction of their lives, they become self-obsessed and fail to see where the damage is coming from. Instead of looking outwards and seeing what is causing it, the empath will turn everything inward and blame themselves.
An empath at this stage must realise the situation they are in and wake up to it, as anyone who is deeply in pain and has been hurt can then become a narcissist themselves as they turn their focus onto their own pain and look for others to make them feel okay again.
Any attempt to communicate authentically with the narcissist will be futile as they will certainly not be looking to soothe and heal anyone else. Not only this, they are extremely charismatic and manipulative and have a powerful way of turning everything away from themselves and onto others. A narcissist will blame their own pain on an empath, plus they will also make sure the empath feels responsible for the pain they too are suffering.
An empath will know that they are in a destructive relationship by this stage and will feel so insecure, unloved and unworthy and it can be easy to blame all of their destruction onto the narcissist.
However, an empath should not be looking to blame anyone else. An empath has a choice, to remain the victim, a pawn in the narcissists game or to garner all strength they can muster and find a way out.
Emotionally exhausted, lost, depleted and debilitated an empath will struggle to understand what has happened to the once loving, attentive and charismatic person they were attracted to.
However we allow ourselves to be treated is a result of our own choices. If an empath chooses to stay in a relationship with a narcissist and refuses to take responsibility for the dynamic, they are choosing at some level what they believe they are worth on the inside. An empath cannot let their self-worth be determined by a narcissist. It is imperative they trust and believe in themselves enough to recognise that they are not deserving of the words and actions the narcissist delivers and to look for an escape.
In an empath’s eyes, all they searched and looked for was someone to take care of and love and to ultimately fix.” That is where the trouble began and that is the most profound part of this that an empath must realise.
We are not here to fix anyone. We cannot fix anyone. Everyone is responsible for and capable of fixing themselves, but only if they so choose to.
The more an empath can learn about the personality of a narcissist the sooner they will spot one and the less chance they have of developing a relationship with one. If a relationship is already underway, it is never too late to seek help, seek understanding and knowledge and to dig deep into one’s soul and recognise our own strengths and capabilities and do everything we can to build the courage and confidence to see it for what it is and walk away—for good.
The chance of a narcissist changing is highly unlikely, so we shouldn’t stick around waiting for it to happen. If a narcissist wants to change, then great, but it should never happen at the expense of anyone else. They are not consciously aware of their behaviour and the damage it causes and in their game they will sacrifice anyone and anything for their own gain—regardless of what pretty lies and sweet nothings they try to whisper.
An empath is authentic and is desperate to live true to their soul’s purpose and will very likely find the whole relationship a huge lesson, a dodged bullet and painfully awakening.
A narcissist will struggle to have any connection to their authentic self and will likely walk away from the relationship very easily once they realise they have lost their ability to control the empath. The game is no longer pleasurable if they are not having their ego constantly stroked, so they will seek out their next victim.
The ability for these two types to bond is quite simply impossible. The narcissist’s heart is closed, an empath’s is open—it is nothing short of a recipe for a huge disaster, and not a beautiful one.
“Boys imitate what they see. If what they see is emotional distance, guardedness, and coldness between men they will grow up to imitate that behavior…What do boys learn when they do not see men with close friendships, where there are no visible models of intimacy in a man’s life beyond his spouse?” -Kindlon and Thompson, Raising Cain
(With thanks to BRETT & KATE MCKAY)
American men, in an attempt to avoid any possible hint of committing unwanted sexual touch, are foregoing gentle platonic touch in their lives. I’ll call it touch isolation. Homophobic social stigmas, the long-standing challenges of rampant sexual abuse, and a society steeped in a generations old puritanical mistrust of physical pleasure have created an isolating trap in which American men can go for days or weeks at a time without touching another human being. The implications of touch isolation for men’s health and happiness are huge.
Gentle platonic touch is central to the early development of infants. It continues to play an important role throughout men and women’s lives in terms of our development, health and emotional well being, right into old age. When I talk about gentle platonic touch, I’m not talking about a pat on the back, or a handshake, but instead contact that is lasting and meant to provide connection and comfort. Think, leaning on someone for a few minutes, holding hands, rubbing their back or sitting close together not out of necessity but out of choice.
Yet, culturally, gentle platonic touch is the one thing we suppress culturally in men and it starts when they are very young boys.
While babies and toddlers are held, cuddled, and encouraged to practice gentle touch during their first years of their lives, that contact often drops off for boys when they cease to be toddlers. Boys are encouraged to “shake it off” and “be tough” when they are hurt. Along with the introduction of this “get tough” narrative, boys find that their options for gentle platonic touch simply fade away. Mothers and fathers often back off from holding or cuddling their young boys. Boys who seek physical holding as comfort when hurt are stigmatized as cry babies.
By the time they are approaching puberty, many boys have learned to touch only in aggressive ways through rough housing or team sports. And if they do seek gentle touch in their lives, it is expected to take place in the exclusive and highly sexualized context of dating. This puts massive amounts of pressure on young girls; young girls who are unlikely to be able to shoulder such a burden. Because of the lack of alternative outlets for touch, the touch depravation faced by young boys who are unable to find a girlfriend is overwhelming. And what about boys who are gay? In a nutshell, we leave children in their early teens to undo a lifetime of touch aversion and physical isolation. The emotional impact of coming of age in our touch-averse, homophobic culture is terribly damaging. It’s no wonder our young people face a epidemic of sexual abuse, unwanted pregnancy, rape, drug and alcohol abuse.
In America in particular, if a young man attempts gentle platonic contact with another young man, he faces a very real risk of homophobic backlash either by that person or by those who witness the contact. This is, in part, because we frame all contact by men as being intentionally sexual until proven otherwise. Couple this with the homophobia that runs rampant in our culture, and you get a recipe for increased touch isolation that damages the lives of the vast majority of men.
And if you think men have always been hands-off with each other, have a look at an amazing collection of historic photos compiled by Brett and Kate McKay for an article they titled: Bosom Buddies: A Photo History of Male Affection. It’s a remarkable look at male camaraderie as expressed though physical touch in photos dating back to the earliest days of photography.
The McKays note in their article the following observation:
But at the turn of the 20th century, … Thinking of men as either “homosexual” or “heterosexual” became common. And this new category of identity was at the same time pathologized — decried by psychiatrists as a mental illness, by ministers as a perversion, and by politicians as something to be legislated against. As this new conception of homosexuality as a stigmatized and onerous identifier took root in American culture, men began to be much more careful to not send messages to other men, and to women, that they were gay. And this is the reason why, it is theorized, men have become less comfortable with showing affection towards each other over the last century.
Spend some time looking at these remarkable images. You’ll get a visceral sense of what has been lost to men.
These days, put ten people in the room when two men touch a moment too long, and someone will make a mean joke, express distaste, or even pick a fight. And its just as likely to be a woman as to be a man who enforces the homophobic/touch averse stigma. The enforcement of touch prohibition between men can be as subtle as a raised eyebrow or as punitive as a fist fight and you never know where it will come from or how quickly it will escalate.
And yet, we know that touch between men or women is proven to be a source of comfort, connection and self-esteem. But while women are allowed much more public contact, men are not. Because how we allow men to perform masculinity is actually very restrictive. Charlie Glickman writes quite eloquently about this in his article, Escape the “Act Like a Man” Box. Read it. It’s a real eye opener.
“As much as gay men have faced the brunt of homophobic violence, straight men have been banished to a desert of physical isolation by these same homophobic fanatics who police lesbians and gays in our society.”
Male touch isolation is one of many powerful reasons why I support gay marriage initiatives. The sooner being gay is completely normalized, the sooner homophobic prohibitions against touch will be taken off straight men. As much as gay men have faced the brunt of homophobic violence, straight men have been banished to a desert of physical isolation by these same homophobic fanatics who police lesbians and gays in our society. The result has been a generation of American men who do not hug each other, do not hold hands and can not sit close together without the homophobic litmus test kicking in.
The lack of touch in men’s lives results in a higher likelihood of depression, alcoholism, mental and physical illness. Put simply, touch isolation is making men’s lives less healthy and more lonely.
Recently, when visiting my 87 year-old father for a few days, I made a point to touch him more. To make contact. To express my affection, not just by flying a thousand miles for a visit but to touch the man once I got there. It may seem simple, but choosing to do so is not always a simple thing. It can raise a lifetime of internal voices, many of which speak of loss and missed opportunities. But I hugged him. I put my arm around him as we shared a cigar and cocktails. I touched him whenever I walked past his chair. Each evening, we would watch a movie. As part of that nightly ritual, I would sit in the floor, take off his shoes and socks and rub his bare feet for while. It is something I will remember when he is gone. Something I did right. Something that said to him, I love you. Spoken on the same deep touch levels by which he connected with me when I was a toddler sitting next to him, his strong arm around me as I watched the late show fifty years ago.
This touch thing is so crucial. I kiss and hug my son constantly. He sits with me and on me. I make a point of connecting with him physically whenever I greet him. The physical connection I have with him has been transformative in my life teaching me about my value as a human being and a father.
We need to empower men to touch. We need to fix our sexually repressed/obsessed American culture and put an end to distorted and hateful parts of our culture that allow homophobic people to police all men everywhere down to the very tips of our fingertips.
It’s too late in my life for the impact of these stigmas to be fully undone, but I have great hope for my son. When we collectively normalize gay life and relationships, my son, whatever his sexual orientation turns out to be, will be free to express platonic affection for others, be they men or women, in any way he sees fit. The rabid homophobes who have preached hate in America for far too long will finally be silenced, and men will be free to reach out and touch each other without fear of being labeled as somehow less of a man.
It’s a dream for a better America I can already see coming true.
It turns out candles, lingerie, and jazzy tunes are more than romantic cliches—they might actually kinda work. At least, that’s according to a new study of long-term heterosexual relationships finding that sexually satisfied couples regularly engage in these and other forms of foreplay and mood-setting.
Sexually successful couples’ lives don’t look exactly like gauzy, soft-focus films, though: They were also more likely to have experimented with sexual variety—from anal stimulation to acting out sexual fantasies to using a sex toy together. And they had sex and orgasms more frequently.
“It was encouraging to learn that more than one-third of couples kept passion alive, even after a decade or two together,” said Janet Lever, a study co-author. “That won’t happen on auto pilot; these couples made a conscious effort to ward off routinization of sex.”
The study, published in The Journal of Sex Research, surveyed more than 38,747 heterosexual men and women in the United States who had been with their partner for at least three years. Researchers had participants rate their sexual satisfaction currently and in the first six months of the relationship. The majority, 83 percent, said they were sexually satisfied at the start. Ah, but passion does often wane: Just over half, 55 percent, said they were presently satisfied with their sex lives, while the rest either felt neutral or dissatisfied.
Satisfied couples were far more likely to have experimented with sexual variety. For example, among dissatisfied men and women, 33 and 45 percent respectively said they or their partner had worn sexy lingerie or underwear in the past month. But among their satisfied counterparts those numbers rose dramatically to 67 and 71 percent. Consider the percentage that reported recently trying a new sexual position: 22 and 25 percent of unhappy men and women, compared to 59 and 63 percent of their sexually stoked counterparts.
The aforementioned cheesy, mood-setting measures also saw higher, although much less dramatic, numbers among the sexually satisfied: 23 and 20 percent of contented folks reported lighting a candle or dimming the lights during their last sexual encounter, compared to 11 and 9 percent among the dissatisfied. (You heard it here first: Candles can’t compete with anal play.)
Fulfilled couples also, as David Frederick, lead author of the study, put it, “practiced effective sexual communication.” It’s true: satisfied folks were far more likely to report praising their partners in bed or their partner asking for something they wanted in bed. But it’s also somewhat startling just how little sex talk there was, even among the happy couples. Satisfied or not, more people tried out sexy lingerie and undies in the last year than asked their partners in the past month for feedback on how something felt during sex. In fact, more men across the board reported experimenting with anal stimulation than having a partner who “asked for something they wanted in bed.”
It’s important to note that the study didn’t establish causation, so we can’t say that lingerie or candles directly lead to sexual satisfaction—maybe the sexually satisfied are simply more open to exploration! Or maybe those who are open to exploration are more sexually satisfied. Frederick points out that the two groups respond very differently when it comes to tips found in articles just like this one. ”Almost half of satisfied and dissatisfied couples read sexual self-help books and magazine articles,” said Frederick, “but what set sexually satisfied couples apart was that they actually tried some of the ideas.” No pressure.
The proof that one believes is in action. — Bayard Rustin
The best way to destroy a culture is to deny, suppress, or appropriate that people’s history. A culture without its art, without its myths, without its heroes will soon wither and die. For millennia indigenous peoples all over the world have suffered this kind of cultural rape at the hands of more powerful invaders. In America, slavery and segregation did its worst for African culture. And, in a rather different way, homophobia robbed LGBT people of their sense of self.
Do you know who Bayard Rustin is? I’m gonna guess not. That’s no surprise really, because his life exemplifies the impact that both segregation and homophobia has had on our culture. Despite being pivotal to in the struggle for civil and sexual rights for well over 50 years, he is all but forgotten now. His memory has been whitewashed, if not totally wiped out, and our culture is the poorer because of it. But thanks to Time On Two Crosses this American patriot is reinstated to his rightful place in the American pantheon.
Time On Two Crosses showcases the extraordinary career of this black, gay civil rights pioneer. The book combines classic texts ranging in topic from Gandhi’s impact on African Americans, white supremacists in congress, the antiwar movement, and the assassination of Malcolm X, with never-before published selections on the call for gay rights, Louis Farrakhan, affirmative action, AIDS, and women’s rights.
Bayard Rustin was a key civil rights strategist and humanitarian whose staunch advocacy of nonviolent resistance shaped the course of social protests from the 1950’s through the close of the twentieth century. And he was also openly gay at a time when that simply didn’t happen, especially among people of color.
Perhaps because of his unique position at the crux of the struggle for civil rights and sexual rights, Rustin insisted on the interconnectedness of all human rights and justice movements. He focuses not only on overturning racism and prejudice but also the systemic causes of injustice and disparity in the US and around the world. And his message on many issues is as relevant today as it was in his lifetime. He writes of himself:
“I am Bayard Rustin, Chairman of the Randolph Institute and Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, which is composed of over 150 national groups dedicated to human rights for all. As one who has been active in the struggle to extend democracy to all Americans for over fifty years I am opposed to any attempt to amend the recently enacted law banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.
I have been arrested twenty-four times in the struggle for civil and human rights. My first arrest was in 1928 merely for distributing leaflets on behalf of Al Smith’s candidacy for President in a climate of anti-Catholic hysteria. Since that time I have fought against religious intolerance, political harassment, and racism both here and abroad. I have fought against untouchability in India, against tribalism in Africa, and have sought to ensure that refugees coming to our shores are not subject to the same types of bigotry and intolerance from which they fled. As a member of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council I have fought anti-Semitism not only in the United States but around the world.”
But Rustin’s sexual openness and his controversial political positions came at a great personal cost. He wound up behind bars for practicing his nonviolent Quaker faith (from 1944 to 1946 in a Pennsylvania prison for conscientiously objecting to serving in World War II) and for practicing homosexuality (60 days in a California jail for “sex perversion” in 1953). And his many achievements — like pioneering one of the first Freedom Rides, refusing to give up his seat on a segregated bus in 1942, more than a dozen years before Rosa Parks did, and helping found the Southern Christian Leadership Coalition to support the efforts of a then young, largely unknown minister named Martin Luther King Jr. — often were tainted under the threat of exposure for his unpopular behavior and criminal convictions.
Bayard Rustin introduced Martin Luther King, Jr. to the precepts of nonviolence during the Montgomery Bus Boycott, thereby launching the birth of the Civil Rights Movement in 1955. When that movement needed a man who could get things done, even his detractors acknowledged he was the best organizer in the country. He was the man who was able to turn out 200,000 people on the Capitol Mall in an orderly fashion when no one else had ever done such a thing. He singlehandedly created the blueprint for the modern American mass political rally. The 1963 March on Washington was the pinnacle of his notoriety.
Few African Americans engaged in as broad a protest agenda as did Rustin; fewer still enjoyed his breadth of influence in virtually every political sector, working with world leaders like Kwame Nkrumah, President Lyndon Johnson, and Golda Meir. Yet, for all his influence and all his tireless efforts, Rustin remained an outsider in black civil rights circles because they refused to accept his homosexuality, which remained a point of contention among black church leaders, a controversy that sometimes even embroiled Dr. King himself.
The very people who he was fighting for shunned him. He was indeed the proverbial prophet “not without honor, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house”. (Mark 6:4)
For example, in 1960, Rustin and MLK were preparing to lead a protest of African Americans outside the Democratic National Convention. This would have deeply embarrassed the leading elected black politician of the day, Rep. Adam Clayton Powell. Powell threatened to spread a rumor that Rustin was having a sexual relationship with King. King canceled the protest, and Rustin resigned from the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, an organization he helped found. Bayard Rustin felt that his homosexuality, which he never tried to hide, put him in a unique position, a minority within a minority, as it were.
That year was not the first time Rustin was forced to negotiate how much sex could be a part of his life. After his 1953 arrest, in which he’d been picked up with two men in the back seat of a car in Pasadena, California, he wrote, “Sex must be sublimated if I am to live in this world longer.”
Though marginalized by the Civil Rights movement he helped found he was not embittered by the experience. Yet, when one lives in a society in which they’re constantly being told that they’re less than or that they’re not as good as, because of being black, or a Jew, or gay, or anything else deemed less than, a certain amount of the negation is bound to get internalized. That can’t be helped.
Despite it all, Rustin remained upbeat. In 1986, just a year before he died, Rustin gave a speech at the University of Pennsylvania in which he exhorted gay people to “recognize that we cannot fight for the rights of gays unless we are ready to fight for a new mood in the United States, unless we are ready to fight for a radicalization of this society.”
Veering into the economics of poverty, Rustin said, “You will not feed people à la the philosophy of the Reagan administration. Imagine a society that takes lunches from school children. Do you really think it’s possible for gays to get civil rights in that kind of society?”
His thoughtful writing ennobles us all. Rustin never fails to come down on the proper side of a moral or ethical question, no matter whom it may offend or support. He was willing to stand up for people — even though they had mistreated him — if it was a matter of principle.
Rustin’s legacy doesn’t live in the past, but in the present and future of America. His work linking sexual, racial, and economic rights was not only forward-thinking in 1963, but it is also forward-thinking today.
“We need, in every community, a group of angelic troublemakers,” Rustin said in one of his most famous quotes.
Time On Two Crosses is the first comprehensive collection of Bayard Rustin’s writings ever published, comprising forty-eight essays, speeches, and interviews, many of which were never widely available. From the birth of nonviolent direct action to the rise of Black Power, Rustin’s writings function as a road map for the meandering course of the black protest movement over the past century.
As a gay man, I found Bayard Rustin’s writing fascinating and uplifting. They give an unvarnished look into the civil rights movement through the ‘50s and ‘60s, and also a view into the heart and mind of one of the most remarkable men of our time. The book also includes twenty-five photos from the Rustin estate and a foreword by Barack Obama, and an afterword by Barney Frank.
Bayard Rustin is a true hero for the ages. And Time On Two Crosses is a marvelous and edifying read.
Unless you’re living under an unfuckable rock, you’ve obviously heard of your Kegels. You might even already be doing them a few times a week in the hopes of toning your pelvic floor, keeping your bladder in check, or turning your otter pocket into a delicate vise that firmly grips anything that dares to lovingly enter it. If you aren’t yet doing Kegels, it might be because you have the same fear that many women do before starting an exercise regimen: Will it make me look mannish? While some doctors might dismiss your deeply held concern as “ridiculous” or even “what are you talking about”, experts confirm that improperly-done Kegels can make your muscles become bulky, beefcake-y, and super manly. No thanks! Here are the best ways to use kegels to keep your snatch sexy, slim, and ultra-feminine:
1. Use the right pussy weight.
They look like hella fancy jade tampons and you can find them pretty much anywhere: Amazon, Craigslist, Goodwill. No matter your budget or sanitation standards, you can find something weighted and sphericonical to shove into the ol’ love canal. Just be sure that no matter what you do, you get the pink, purple, or glittery ones. The last thing you need is to end up with a pelvic floor that purposely wipes wing sauce on your shirt during football games all because you popped some navy blue or slate-gray eggs into your lady hole. Yikes!
2. Don’t add liquid calories with sugary lube.
When you insert your weights, be sure to use a low carb, high-protein lube. If you can afford to splurge on the gluten-free variety, even better. Choosing a lubricant that has too much sugar and fat is just gonna pack on the pussy pounds and before you know it your once-demure munchbox will be shopping for Gold’s Gym posing tank tops and challenging strangers to arm-wrestling matches on the street.
3. Low weight + High reps = Tight, feminine poon.
For a lean vagina, high reps with a low weight is key. Aim for five sets of 1,000 reps; 50–75 times a week. You can literally do them from the time you wake up until the time you pass out from exhaustion and loneliness, as long as you’re using something that weighs less than a dwarf hamster. If you go for low reps and a higher weight, say, something in the guinea pig range, you run the serious risk of developing a rippling, meaty eight-pack of a punani; the kind that rips off its TapOut shirt in public while screaming, “YOU WANNA GO THEN?!? LET’S GO!! COME AT ME, BRO!!”
4. Remember to breathe, but not too hard.
You might have heard that slow, even, deep breaths are best while Kegeling. This is a really common misconception; one that will lead you down the road of an aggressively full-bodied and overly aggressive vagina. You want to keep your breaths airy, shallow, and helpless-sounding. Restricting the flow of oxygen to your pelvic walls will help them stay sexy, trim, and delicately taut. Remember: This exercise is for you and also him!
5. Do it right, do it tight.
Nothing is more important than proper form. You NEVER want to perform Kegels in street clothes, old gym shorts, or comfy sweatpants. If you don’t have access to a full line of Lululemon apparel, lacy Victoria Secret underwear will do. Another option is to squeeze out your reps while completely nude and covered in rose petals that have been misted with vanilla oil. Again, that’s optional, but remember: Your pussy shouldn’t look like it’s killed a man with its bare hands before!
Now that you’ve got the basics down, it’s time to get to work—just don’t work too hard or you could get a bodybuilder of a salami-hider! Remember, if you feel the burn, you’re doing wayyy too much! Or you should call your doc; could be the clap. Happy sweating!
A psychologist explains why sex addiction therapy is more about faith than facts, as told to Tierney Finster
Self-labeled sex addicts often speak about their identities very clinically, as if they’re paralyzed by a scientific condition that functions the same way as drug and alcohol addiction. But sex and porn “addiction” are NOT the same as alcoholism or a cocaine habit. In fact, hypersexuality and porn obsessions are not addictions at all. They’re not included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), and by definition, they don’t constitute what most researchers understand to be addiction.
Here’s why: addicts withdraw. When you lock a dope fiend in a room without any dope, the lack of drugs will cause an immediate physiological response — some of which is visible, some of which we can only track from within the body. During withdrawal, the brains of addicts create junctions between nerve cells containing the neurotransmitter GABA. This process more or less inhibits the brain systems usually excited by drug-related cues — something we never see in the brains of so-called sex and porn addicts.
A sex addict without sex is much more like a teenager without their smartphone. Imagine a kid playing Angry Birds. He seems obsessed, but once the game is off and it’s time for dinner, he unplugs. He might wish he was still playing, but he doesn’t get the shakes at the dinner table. There’s nothing going on in his brain that creates an uncontrollable imbalance.
The same goes for a guy obsessed with watching porn. He might prefer to endlessly watch porn, but when he’s unable to, no withdrawal indicative of addiction occurs. He’ll never be physically addicted. He’ll just be horny, which for many of us, is merely a sign we’re alive.
There haven’t been any studies that speak to this directly. As such, the anti-fapper narrative is usually the only point discussed: Guys stop masturbating after they stop downloading porn, and after a few days, they say they’re able to get normal erections again. This coincides with the somewhat popular idea that watching porn leads to erectile dysfunction, a position that porn-addiction advocates such as Marnia Robinson and Gary Wilson state emphatically. (Robinson wrote a book on the subject, though her degree is in law, not science, and Wilson, a retired physiology teacher, presented a TED Talk about hyperstimulation in Glasgow.) These types of advocates are wedded to the idea that porn is an uncontrolled stimulus the brain gets addicted to because of the dopamine release it causes. According to their thinking, anything that causes dopamine release is addictive.
But there’s a difference between compulsion and addiction. Addiction can’t be stopped without major consequence, including new brain activity. Compulsive behavior can be stopped; it’s just difficult to do so. In other words, being “out of control” isn’t a universal symptom of addiction.
Then what, exactly, does it mean when Tiger Woods and Josh Duggar go to rehab for sex addiction? Or when Dr. Drew offers it up on TV for washed-up celebrities? The answer is simple: They’re giving free marketing to the new American industry of sex addiction therapy. Reformers Unanimous, the faith-based treatment program chosen by Duggar, is likely to gain a number of new patients thanks to the media frenzy surrounding his admission to their facilities after the Ashley Madison hack exposed the affairs Duggar blamed on porn addiction.
These programs are similar to traditional 12-step models, except even more informed by faith. By misdiagnosing patients from the start, they gloss over the underlying issues that might make someone more prone to compulsive sexual behaviors, including Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and depression. Plenty of compulsive and ritualistic sexual behaviors aren’t addictions; they’re symptomatic of other issues.
Unfortunately, that’s just scratching the surface of the faulty science practiced by these recovery centers. For instance, according to proponents of the sex addiction industry, the more porn someone watches, the more they’ll experience erectile dysfunction. However, my recent study with Nicole Prause, a psychophysiologist and neuroscientist at UCLA, showed that’s absurd. While advocates of sex and porn addiction are quick to correlate the amount of porn a guy looks at to how desensitized his penis is, our study showed that watching immense amounts of porn made men more sensitive to less explicit stimuli. Simply put, men who regularly watched porn at home were more aroused while watching porn in the lab than the men in the control group. They were able to get erections quicker and had no trouble maintaining them, even when the porn being watched was “vanilla” (i.e., free of hardcore sex acts like bondage).
There is, of course, other evidence that porn isn’t a slippery slope to physical or mental dysfunction. A paper just came out in the Journal of Sex & Marital Therapy from German researchers that looked at both the amount of porn consumed by German and Polish men and women and their sexual attitudes and behaviors. It found that more porn watched meant more variety of sexual activity — for both sexes.
Despite these results, there’s still an entire publication, Sex Addiction & Compulsivity, committed to demonstrating that porn creates erectile dysfunction. Its very existence suggests sex addiction and its treatments are real, yet the journal doesn’t take a stance on any particular treatments. And while its resolutions come from peer-reviewed articles, these articles only get reviewed by people who already believe in the notion of sex addiction.
Which is why the journal has zero impact. The number of times a scientific journal gets used in other scholarly work is measured by something called the Journal Citation Reports (JCR). That number determines a journal’s official impact factor. So far, Sex Addiction & Compulsivity has a JCR impact factor of 0.00. Nobody cites anything from it, except maybe their own cult of followers who publish on blogs and personal websites.
The journal benefits from a very 21st century way of creating a veneer of objectivity. As long as there are papers in it, people can cite them as “scientific.” Even if the work — and the people who oversee it — are anything but. An influential associate editor there is David Delmonico, a professor who runs an “internet behavior consulting company” that offers “intervention for problematic Internet behaviors.” He believes sex addiction is real because he’s wary of the supposedly horrible effects the internet (and all the porn there) can have on human behavior.
Such porn-shaming isn’t all that different from the guilt conservatives attach to sex, even though conditioning men to feel bad about their sexual behaviors only leads to the kind of secretive, damaging behaviors evidenced in the Duggar story. What’s worse: when sexuality is labeled a “disease” like addiction, guys no longer have to own their sexuality — or their actions. It’s unnecessary to explain why they cheated because it’s beyond their control. And so, the “addict” stigma is preferable because it’s one they can check into rehab and recover from. Being considered an “adulterer,” on the other hand, is harder to shake.
Sex is a craft; and just like any other craft, one improves with study and practice. In our Western Society, sex is taboo, and most of us look on it with varying degrees of shame and embarrassment, but this need not be the case. Whatever your feelings are personally about sex, the fact remains that the more you practice sex with one partner or with many, the better at it you will become. This holds especially true if you take interest in actually being good at it, which is a loaded situation, especially for women. You don’t want to be ‘too good’ because then you’ll raise suspicions about how many men you’ve slept with, but you also want to be ‘good enough’ to please your partner and keep them satisfied.
So as I’ve mentioned, for many sex is a minefield, both emotionally, psychologically and physically. Since I am not a licensed therapist, I cannot walk you through the emotional or psychological aspects of this situation; however, since sex is my craft, something I’ve spent years and years of my life indirectly studying and practicing, I can offer you some physical tips to improve the quality of sex you are or will have. Whether you’re a male or a female, gay or straight or bi, in a monogamous relationship or seeing multiple partners, these tips should improve the sex you’re having. They are general, all around tips for increasing satisfaction and intimacy levels.
Let’s get started!
7. Just Relax!
First of all, sex, as mentioned above, is a very loaded experience for many people. Even for men, despite what most women thing. Men, as much as women, and perhaps more so, experience a large amount of anxiety when it comes to sex, even if they don’t show it, or don’t admit to. Mostly, men are anxious about the actual performance, and if they are with a new partner, being able to please their partner. This is a huge male insecurity—to somehow come up short on actually pleasing the person they are with. Women tend to be more insecure about their looks and their bodies; but either way, there’s a ton of anxiety that happens whenever sex is involved.
Anxiety has no place in the bedroom, though. It makes sex a rushed and shameful affair, and anyone would be hard pressed to enjoy sex if they are too worried about their performance or their looks. So relax! Maybe have a drink beforehand (but not too many!), take a hot bath, sit and meditate for a while. Do something that loosens you up and gets you out of your head, and into your body. Sex is best experienced in a physical way, so when you’re having it, the place to be, mentally, is inside your body, not your head! This is especially true for women, because so much of our orgasm is mentally based. If you can’t let go and get outside of your own insecurities, you’re never going to have a great orgasm. Men as well can experience performance problems if they are too nervous, so do what you can to minimize the anxiety, and also know that whoever your partner is, they obviously like you enough to want to have sex with you, so bare it all! What have you got to lose?
And women—know that not all men are into the type of so-called perfect bodies you see in the magazines. Plenty of men love a muffin top, or a tummy, so even if you think your body isn’t perfect, chances are the man you’re seeing probably disagrees with you. For every body type, there is a man who fetishizes it. Got stretch marks? Some men love that. Saggy boobs? There’s a man who loves those too. And men, your woman wouldn’t be with you in the first place if you didn’t satisfy her. Women don’t need or generally want a 12” penis and 3 hours of hard sex. Your 5” or 4” one is great because it’s attached to you, and so what if you only last 5 minutes? You’re your own worst critic and probably comparing yourself to male porn actors, which is absolutely ridiculous because no woman wants to have sex like that. Don’t aspire to it!
6. Be Gentle
Again, most people don’t want or even like porn sex in real life! Women like a soft touch, and most men like to start off slow, even if they enjoy harder stuff later on. The most erotic thing to both sexes is a soft and velvet touch.
Caress and undress your partner like they were a porcelain doll, and move with caution around them. Do not throw your entire body weight on top of them or accidentally smack them in the face with your elbow because you were not paying attention to where they were anticipating a move. Be aware of your own body and how it’s interacting with your partners, which is a key part of what I mean when I say ‘be in your body’. Be aware of where it is and what it’s doing. And make full use of subtle touches; a piece of hair that drags slowly across their face, or a breath of hot air from your mouth before placing your lips on their stomach. Sex is about the small, gentle, intimate moments between two individuals, and whether you’re going to see this person again or not should be irrelevant. If you’ve chosen to be intimate with someone, no matter who they are or what they mean to you, they deserve to be treated with respect and care because it’s a scary thing indeed to be intimate with anyone. We forget that sometimes, we forget the bravery involved in sex and intimacy, and how much we all risk in sharing this with each other.
So be gentle physically and emotionally with your partner. If they want something rougher later on, you can build to that. It helps to also ask your partner what they want out of the sexual encounter and what type of sex they generally like; however, most people who really enjoy rough sex with share that with you before starting sex, or pretty blatantly indicate it once sex has begun. If you are with a partner who enjoys rough sex, please do remember that human beings are fragile and even then start slowly and build pressure. If they like to be choked, don’t start with a full on grasp of the throat. Start with a gentle but firm grasp of the neck and continue to apply pressure, while gauging their reaction. This applies to all sorts of situations, anal included. Always start slow and gentle.
5. Move Slowly
Slow is always sexy. Always. Sure, there are times, especially towards the end of sex that things can get faster and heavier, but in the initial seduction and foreplay of sex, rushing things and moving fast is really a buzz kill. Unless you’re having a quickie in the coat closet, take your time to enjoy your partner.
Move slowly and pour like water over your partner. A large part of sex is just simply the way you move—be smooth and have rhythm. The best sex is always with people who have a kinesthetic intelligence; i.e. they are very gifted with the way they move. Not all of us can be so gifted and some of us are clumsy and awkward, but that’s where practice comes in. Practice moving in slow motion, trying to feel all parts of your body at once and to glide them over things very slightly. It helps to be in good physical shape, not for looks, but simply because being in good shape makes this aspect of sex much easier. If you’re strong enough to hold yourself up off of your partner instead of laying, full body weight on top of them, it’s much more enjoyable for your partner; plus, later on, once the sex gets going, you’re going to be able to have better rhythmic strokes and you’ll be able to last longer on top and not end up sweaty and winded after 2 minutes of pumping.
Foreplay is an important, if not the most, important part of sex, and when you’re playing with your partner, do it slowly. Most people rush through foreplay or forget it all together, skipping straight to the actual insertion. This is a mistake because foreplay is the singular best way to build intimacy between partners. Sticking something inside of someone doesn’t build intimacy—laying next to each other, gazing into each others eyes, and running ones fingers across one’s skin, that does. The act of sex, in and of itself, is not intimate which is why porn stars don’t fall in love with each other. If you’re with a person you love deeply, or desire to, give them the time to get to know your body as well as your mind and soul. Use your hands to caress their hair and their head while you’re kissing them, and pull them closer to you, or sit on their lap and use your breath to tickle their earlobes. Ears are such an underrated erogenous zone on both men and women.
Even if you’re not trying to emotionally connect with your partner, these slow, sexy moments do help turn them on. Women especially need a lot of foreplay to get close to orgasm, and most men forget this or rush through it, despite wanting to please their partner. Men, in general, watch too much porn and focus too much on the orgasm a woman has during penetration, which is a mistake. Most women don’t orgasm from penetration, despite misleading porn movies. So if you’re genuine and want to please a woman, give her slow foreplay! There’s a reason the word ‘slowly’ shows up often in erotica—it is simply sexier.
4. Skin To Skin Contact
One of the greatest things in sex is the feeling of another human being’s skin touching your skin. It’s an underrated pleasure, and one that many people don’t notice until they haven’t experienced it for a while. Skin to skin contact stimulates a vast variety of neurotransmitters in our brain that bring us feelings of connection and empathy with each other. Not only that, but the feeling of another human’s skin on yours is also a very big turn on. No matter how badly you may want to keep your bra on if you’re ashamed of your boobs, or no matter how much you might want to be lazy and not get fully undressed, I urge you to get over your fear and don’t be lazy and go ahead and get fully naked. You cannot have a truly enjoyable sexual experience without a bit of skin to skin contact.
Even if you’re in a hurry and having a quickie, make time to touch each other. Put your hands up her shirt or down her pants, or kiss his neck and let your hands brush against his stomach. Make sure that your bodies touch and get close to each other; sex should be intimate even if it’s with someone you’re not interested in falling in love with. If the sex is robotic and lacking in human connection, you’re doing a disservice to your partner and it borders on being unhealthy. As I’ve said before, you don’t have to love someone to be intimate with them, and everyone deserves human compassion and care if they are willing be to brave enough to be intimate with you. So make and effort to connect with your partner through skin to skin contact and other things, such as kissing and eye contact.
And lastly, one of my favorite things to do is to smell your partner. Not smell their cologne or their perfume, but to really smell their body and their scent. This is especially important for couples who are in love, as smelling your partner should turn you on and help stimulate you for sex. One of the largest signs of basic compatibility is finding your partner’s natural body scent attractive. It’s also, on the scientific side, a good indicator of reproductive compatibility and a sign of a good genetic match for you.
3. Focus On Your Partner
Focusing on your partner is so important! For a mutually satisfying sexual experience, you must always keep an eye on your partner’s reactions to your sexual moves. Do not just continue doing what you’re doing, and as assume that because a previous sexual partner enjoyed your technique, that your current sexual partner will enjoy it as well. This also applies to what you see in pornography—just because a woman paid to pretend she enjoys some sexual move you saw in a porn does not mean a real woman, or the woman you are with, will enjoy it as well. Always keep an eye out to gauge how your partner is reacting to how you’re treating them and if they look uncomfortable or even bored, switch it up!
This is especially important during intercourse, because you can learn a lot about your partner and their likes and dislikes by just watching their body react to the things you’re doing together. A man’s body is more obvious about whether it likes or dislikes something, but women have tell tale signs of arousal too; namely, perky nipples, flushed cheeks or faces, and becoming lubricated. If you’re having sex and you don’t see these signs of arousal, switch it up and try something else. Don’t keep doing what you’re doing, and expect your partner to tell you if they dislike something. A lot of people have a hard time voicing their feelings during sex, or in the bedroom, so it’s always good to either make the first move yourself and ask “are you enjoying this?” or if they are obviously not, try something else or ask them what they would prefer. Women especially think that being assertive and knowing what they like and dislike during sex and voicing these opinions and thoughts is a turn off for most men, and are unlikely to really be sexually forward in that manner. However, women should remember that in general, this is NOT true and that most men actually love a woman who knows what she likes and dislikes and who isn’t afraid to tell them straight away!
Which leads me too….
2. Communicate, communicate, communicate!
Whether you’re shy or reserved or outgoing and outspoken, you must, either verbally or nonverbally, communicate with your partner! This is very, very important and it is one of the most important things to do if you’re looking to have better sex!
Sex is all about learning what another person likes and learning what you like. Sex is about exploration, and if you’ve chosen to include another partner, it is very important that you share that experience with them. You cannot properly share the experience or have any intimacy with someone who you don’t communicate with. Whether it’s telling them your life’s story and all of your personal turn ons, or simply telling them “faster” or “slower”, communication helps both of you figure out how to please each other. Otherwise, it’s a crap shoot, as human sexual preferences are infinitely variable. What works for one person, won’t for another; what is appealing to one man or woman, is disgusting to another one. Don’t ever assume that you know everything there is to know about sex, or that you know the one true way to great sex and that you will force that one way of having sex onto every partner you may have! The most important thing to remember is that there is no one right or wrong way to have sex because every single person has a special and different sexual “formula” that they prefer and the only way to figure out this formula is to communicate with your partner!
There are two ways to communicate—either verbally or non-verbally. You can either talk to your partner and ask them outright what they like or prefer, or if that’s uncomfortable, be very aware of their reactions to the moves you make in bed. It’s often easy, if you’re paying attention, to figure out what someone prefers in bed. If they are into slow, soft sex, if you experiment and go faster, they will give you signs of discomfort. Obviously it’s easier and more ethical to ask up front, but many, many people are too uncomfortable with the topic of sex to be that forthright. So switch things up and gauge reactions and find out what turns on your partner and what doesn’t, and don’t for a minute think that you can “change someone’s mind” or “turn them on” to a sex act, such as anal, that they show a fundamental dislike towards. Not everyone likes the same thing, and just because your ex-girlfriend was really into anal does NOT mean all women are into it! We are all born with our own sexual formula and it doesn’t change, in general, ever; and if it does change, it’s a self discovered change, and it happens when we are ready to explore more or different sides of our own sexuality. You cannot force anyone to like or to try a sexual experience simply because you want to, or because you yourself enjoy it. That is always unethical and uncalled for.
On the flip side of this, it is also advisable for you to be expressive in your enjoyment during sex. Be appreciative of your partner when they are doing something you are really enjoying! Be vocal, be intimate—grab their butt and pull them deeper into you or closer to you, or reach up and kiss them passionately! It’s never attractive to be a dead fish in bed (male or female). People want to know how you’re feeling, what’s going on with you, and there’s no better reward for good sex than returned passion. Don’t be afraid to look stupid, and don’t be self-conscious; sex has no room for such hang ups. Let the feelings and sensations flow through you and generously release passion. Your partner will love it, guaranteed.
1. Eye Contact
This is the very first thing I say to people who ask me how to have better sex. Eye contact. And I always get the same response, every time: “But isn’t that creepy/weird/uncomfortable/awkward??”.
I feel complete when I’m with you
Short answer: NO. I’m not asking you to stare at your partner, unblinkingly, for 10 minutes straight. I’m simply telling you to make prolonged eye contact with them while being intimate. Eye contact, more than anything else, builds intimacy and connection and eyes express more emotion than words, pictures and hand gestures combined.
Women especially feel awkward making strong eye contact with men because it’s inherently an aggressive thing to do. If you think about it, we find eye contact to be aggressive even in normal situations; aggressive and intrusive. However, if you ask a man what makes a blow job average or phenomenal, chances are he will say ‘eye contact’. So there is a fine line between staring too long and not at all, but I have a 3 to 4 second rule that seems to work well. If you’re having intercourse or oral, take a moment to look deeply into your partners eyes for 3 to 4 seconds, and if you want the connection, bare your soul in those moments. It’s difficult to describe how one bares ones soul through a look, but if you just think about an emotion you’d like to convey while looking at your partner, chances are it will come through your eyes. So if you’re truly enjoying yourself, look deeply at your partner with joy and happiness. They will pick up on that emotion, somehow. That’s the mystery and beauty of human connection; somehow, these things transfer.
Take my word for it—eye contact is sexy and it helps build intimacy and helps further communication between both partners!
I hope that this helps everyone who is looking for a better sexual experience, and remember that while love is not mandatory for all sexual activities, mutual respect and intimacy is! No matter who you are intimate with, whether it’s a one night stand, an escort, your wife, or your girlfriend or possibly a third partner, everyone who is brave enough to get naked and expose themselves to you deserves both respect and mutual intimacy. We must all remember and respect the power that the act of sex holds, and so while it can be fun and light hearted, it must always stem from a mutual and equal point of openness and willingness to be vulnerable with each other.
Slowly but surely, the common myth held that sexual abuse/rape happens to women only is fading, but when a man is sexually assaulted or raped, and grows up believing that myth, he feels even more isolated and alone. This page tackles some of the issues that are rarely talked about, yet have a huge impact on almost all male survivors, and if left unsaid and sorted out, can stop them from recovering fully, leaving a residue of bad feelings and fears behind. Some of the things that can trigger you off and leave you feeling as if you’re back at the point of being abused are as follows.
The smell of others, especially aftershave or other body smells, can cause you to flashback and trigger bad memories Many male survivors state that when having sex with a partner, that they feel dirty, and unclean once they have reached ejaculation, and this is connected to the sight, feel and sensation of seeing their semen, which reminds them of being abused, and that alone can ruin any sexual relationships they may have.
You may also feel wrong, bad and dirty, so will need to bathe often, usually after having sex with partners, and if masturbating, will only do so as a function, not for pleasure, because the sensation and good feelings have been taken away and you’re left feeling dirty and ‘wrong’ again. There’s also the fact that you can get obsessed with masturbation , not just once a day, but several times a day, which can increase when you feel stressed, lonely, screwed up, etc.
Many male survivors hide behind the fact that they remain non sexual, and in doing so, are not seen as being sexual beings, Others eat, drink, misuse drugs to stop people getting too close to them. By taking on the work that’s needed, you can remove the ghosts of the past and can regain control of your life
Male Survivors share many of the same feelings of female sexual assault survivors. Common feelings such as;
BODY IMAGE* Do you feel at home in your body?* Do you feel comfortable expressing yourself sexually with another?* Do you feel that you are a part of your body or does your body feel like a separate entity?* Have you ever intentionally and physically hurt yourself?* Do you find it difficult to listen to your body?
EMOTIONS * Do you feel out of control of your feelings?* Do you feel you sometimes don’t understand all the feelings you are experiencing?* Are you overwhelmed by the wide range of feelings you have?
RELATIONSHIPS * What’s your expectations of your partner in a relationship?* Find it too easy to trust others?* Find it too hard to trust anyone?* Find it difficult in making commitments?* Still feel alone, even though in a relationship?* Is it hard for you to allow others to get close to you?* Are you in a relationship with some-one who reminds you of the abuse, or who is no good for you?
SELF-CONFIDENCE * Do you find it difficult to love yourself?* Do you have a hard time accepting yourself?* Are you ashamed of yourself?* Do you have expectations of yourself that aren’t realistic?
SEXUALITY * Do you enjoy sex, really enjoy it?* Do you find it difficult to express yourself sexually?* Do you find yourself using sex to get close to someone?* End up having sex because it’s expected of you?* Does sex make you feel dirty?* Are you “present” during sex?
MAJOR SEXUAL SYMPTOMS OF SEXUAL ABUSE
Difficulties in becoming aroused and feeling sensations
Sex feels like an obligation
Sexual thoughts and images that are disturbing
Inappropriate sexual behaviors or sexual compulsivity
Inability to achieve orgasm or other orgasmic difficulties
Erection problems or ejaculatory difficulty
Feeling dissociated while having sex
Detachment or emotional distance while having sex
Being afraid of sex or avoiding sex
Guilt, fear, anger, disgust or other negative feelings when being touched
EXISTING EFFECTS ON MALE SURVIVORS.
Listed below are some of the current effects that sexual abuse, and after-effects it has upon a male Survivor.
Nightmares, (Intense, violent, sexual) – A real fear that everyone is a potential attacker. Intense shame. – Intense anger. – Intense guilt. – Fear in expressing anger/difficulties in being angry. A need to be in control. – A need to pretend they are not in control. A fear of being seen/fear of exposure.- Running away from people/situations. A fear of intimacy. – “Avoidism”. – Memories of physical pain. – Intense sexual flashbacks. Intruding thoughts. – Sexual dysfunction. – Asexual feelings. – Feeling unreal. – Self doubt. – Jealousy. – Envy. Sexual acting out. – Fear of men. – Fear of women. – Fear of speaking out. – Inability to relax. Disconnection with feelings. – Feeling alone. – Poor choice of partners. – “Out of body” experiences. Linking abuse to love. – Keeping secrets. – Forgetting childhood experiences. – Detached from reality. Inability to comfort their children. – Feeling inadequate. – Unable to accept compliments. – Low self esteem. Isolation. – Addictions/crime. – No emotions. – Fear of others motives. – Inability to say no. – Fear of rules.
COMMON REACTIONS TO SEXUAL ABUSE/RAPE
Emotional Shock: Feeling numb. Being able to stay so calm? Unable to cry.
Disbelief and/or Denial: Did it really happen? Why me? Maybe I just imagined it. It wasn’t really abusive.
Embarrassment: What will people think? I can’t tell my family or friends.
Shame or Guilt: Feeling as if it’s your fault, or you should’ve been able to stop it. If only you had…
Depression: How are you going to get through the day. Feeling so tired! It feels so hopeless.
Powerlessness: Will you ever feel in control again?
Disorientation: You don’t even know what day it is. You keep forgetting things.
Flashbacks: Re-living the assault! Keep seeing and feeling like it’s happening again.
Fear: Scared of everything. Can’t sleep, Having nightmares. Afraid to go out. Afraid to be alone.
Anger: Feel like hurting the person who attacked you!
Physical Stress: Stomach (or head or back) aches all the time. Feeling jittery and don’t feel like eating.
UNIQUE ISSUES FACED BY MALE SURVIVORS
There is great denial of the fact that men are sexually abused. Other than in prisons, most of us don’t ever hear about the topic of male sexual abuse. The need to deny is often deeply rooted in the mistaken belief that men are immune to being victimized, that they should be able to fight off any attacker if they are truly a “real man.” Another related ‘belief’ is that men can’t be forced into sex. These mistaken beliefs allow many men to feel safe and invulnerable, and to think of sexual abuse as something that only happens to women. Unfortunately, these beliefs also increase the pain that is felt by a male survivor of sexual abuse. These ‘beliefs’ leave the male survivor feeling isolated and ashamed. Below are some of the unique problems and concerns that male survivors do experience: For most men the idea of being a victim is extremely hard to handle. Boys are raised to believe that they should be able to defend themselves against all odds, or that he should be willing to risk his life or severe injury to protect his pride and self-respect. How many movies or TV shows depict the hero prepared to fight a group of huge guys over an insult or name-calling? Surely then, men are supposed to fight to the death over something like unwanted sexual advances…right?
These beliefs about “manliness” and “masculinity” are deeply ingrained in many men and lead to intense feelings of guilt, shame and inadequacy for the male survivor of sexual abuse. Some male survivors even question whether they deserved to be sexually abused because, as they think that they failed to defend themselves. Male survivors see their assault as a loss of manhood and feel disgusted with themselves for not “fighting back.” These feelings are normal but the thoughts attached to them are not true. Remind yourself that you did what seemed best at the time to survive–there’s nothing un-masculine about that.” As a result of guilt, shame or anger some men may punish themselves by exhibiting self-destructive behaviour after being sexually abused. For some men, this means increased alcohol or drug use. For others, it means increased aggressiveness, like arguing with friends or co-workers or even picking fights with strangers. Some men pull back from relationships and wind up feeling more and more isolated. Male survivors may also develop sexual difficulties after being sexually abused. It may be difficult to resume sexual relationships or start new ones because sexual contact may trigger flashbacks, memories of the abuse, or just plain bad feelings. It can take time, so don’t pressure yourself to be sexual before you’re ready.
For heterosexual men, sexual abuse almost always causes some confusion or questioning about their sexuality. Since many believe that only gay men are sexually abused, a heterosexual survivor may believe that he must be gay or that he will become gay. Furthermore, abusers often accuse their victims of enjoying the sexual abuse, leading some survivors to question their own experiences. Being sexually abused has nothing to do with sexual orientation, past, present or future. People do not “become gay” as a result of being sexually abused. However, there are certain issues that are different for men:
Concerns about sexuality and/or masculinity
Medical procedures
Reporting crime to law enforcement agencies
Telling others
FINDING RESOURCES AND SUPPORT
No matter what is said or done, no one “asks for” or deserves to be assaulted. Sexual abuse/rape is nothing to do with someone’s present or future sexual orientation. Sexual abuse comes from violence and power, nothing less. Unfortunately, the health profession are reluctant to recognise that men can be sexually assaulted. This also includes the Police Forces, though that is slowly improving at last This attitude, combined with ignorance affects the way they treat men who have been raped/sexually abused, often using a stereotyped view of masculinity, rather than focus on the physical assault, the crime becomes the focus of the medical exam or police investigation.
WHAT YOU CAN DO
Recognize that men and boys can and are sexually assaulted.
Be aware of the biases and myths concerning sexual abuse.
Recognize that stereotypes create narrow definitions of masculinity, and make it even harder for male survivors to disclose their rape/abuse.
As individuals and as a community, that we work harder to combat and challenge those attitudes.
It is important that male rape survivors have support, and are allowed to make their own decisions about what course of action to take. All too often, they feel forced to make statements or act against their abusers, without having had the time and space to think it through. I never advocate they prosecute their abusers, I suggest they perhaps begin their personal journey to recover from the traumas they are left with.
NOTHING JUSTIFIES SEXUAL ABUSE!
It doesn’t have to be this way though, you can overcome the issues listed and can recover. Just in case you need a reminder;
Men of all ages, and backgrounds are subjected to sexual assaults and rape.
Offenders are heterosexual in 98% of the cases.
Both heterosexual and homosexual men get raped.
Rape occurs in all parts of society.
Men are less likely to report being raped.
A PERSONAL VIEW.
The belief that the male population is the stronger sex, especially when it comes to sex, is deeply ingrained, believed, and supported within our culture, but not all men and boys are physically or emotionally strong, which explains why there are male “victims” of sexual abuse/rape. Male child sexual abuse is perpetrated by both men and women, of any sexual persuasion, with no regard towards the “victims” sexuality or safety. It holds scant regard for who we are, and is about gaining power and control over the “victim”. As children, we are placed in the care of our parents/guardians, family, family friends, schools, and more often than not, sometimes strangers. The ‘Danger Stranger’ campaign focused on the danger of strangers, with the intent of scaring children into not trusting strangers, but plainly ignored the fact that parents, siblings, family members, and those other “nice people” especially those people known as the “Pillars of Society”, are much more likely to sexual abuse children. As a result of our sexual abuse, we grow up with many mistaken beliefs, and many Survivors have fallen into a myriad of roles that include alcoholism, crime, depression, self harming, people pleasing, hardworking, etc. But, far from being powerless, we have drawn upon considerable reserves of inner strength to deal with, adjust and cope with the invasion of our bodies and minds.
Our previous actions in dealing with life may not have been what we wanted to do, and may have caused more pain on the way, but surely we have arrived at a time when we all need to face our past, forgive OUR actions, and move away from the guilt, shame and fear that has haunted us for so long. This possibly took many forms, but is something that we all need to forgive ourselves for, as long we don’t intend to ‘return there’. Some thoughts to have plagued male survivors have been “Perhaps I was to blame” “I should have told someone” “I was in the wrong place, at the wrong time” “I deserved it” “Maybe I gave out the wrong signals” “Maybe I’m gay”………,What we don’t want to hear is pity, or told “how awful” “so sad”, “poor little boy” as that concept is dis-empowering and perpetuates pity for the ‘victim’ and we are then seen as “not quite right”.
We are OK, we are capable of living our lives, and we are more than capable of overcoming the traumas that our abuser(s) left behind. I subscribe to the belief that in order to heal fully you have to face your abusive past, however difficult that may be, but in doing so, you can move on emotionally, forgive your actions, find inner peace, and be the person you want to be, not who ‘they’ wanted you to be. Please break the silence and demand the right to be recognized! If you want to join, we will support you in your struggle, be ‘here’ for you when you need us, and help you understand who you are, and what you want to be. The next step is from victim, to SURVIVOR, which is possible. It’s not easy, and involves you telling someone else all those deep hidden secrets, but once started, DON’T STOP!
WHEN Fleur first started working in the sex industry, receiving a phone call from a parent or guardian on behalf of a potential client was “unusual”.
“It’s not an experience that many people have to go through, arranging a sexual experience on the behalf of someone else,” she told news.com.au.
Miss Fleur, as she calls herself, became a sex worker at 18. Ten years later, she’s built up a diverse client base, including many people with disabilities.
“In a lot of ways, there’s no difference,” Fleur said of her clients. “I’m dealing with adults who have a fantasy that they haven’t been able to explore. The main thing that’s different is that sometimes, but not always, appointments are facilitated through parents or carers.
“Carers listen to their clients and take their needs seriously. But it’s not that these people are arranging appointments without consent. They are doing it on the instruction of the person with the disability.”
Rachel Wotton is a sex worker who works with people with disabilities.
About 4 million Australians, or one in five people, are living with a disability. More than million of these people are aged between 15 and 64.
In Australia and overseas, disability advocacy groups are trying to raise awareness about disabled people and sex.
Veteran sex worker Rachel Wotton is one of the co-founders of Touching Base, an organisation that allows people with disabilities to connect with sex workers.
She says the stigma surrounding the sex lives of people with disabilities is disheartening.
“It’s ridiculous. Just because someone can’t walk the same way as others, or doesn’t have the same technique to use their voice, doesn’t mean they haven’t got the same sexual desires as other people,” Ms Wotton told news.com.au.
“We are sexual human beings. How dare someone tell another person how they should or should not feel. The most beautiful thing about skin to skin contact is the idea of being.
“People need to move away from the idea that sex is intercourse. Our sexuality is expressed in many different ways,” said Ms Wotton, who has worked in the industry for more than 20 years and was featured in the documentary Scarlet Road.
Rachel’s client John died in November 2011. They both appeared in the documentary Scarlet Road.
Her clients live with a wide range of disabilities. One of her regulars, 61-year-old Colin Wright, came from a family that didn’t talk about sex. In the SBS documentary I Have Cerebral Palsy and I Enjoy Having Sex, Colin revealed that he found his first sexual partner through a carer.
“There was a lady who I felt close to so, one day, while we were alone, I asked Kerry if she would organise for me to visit a lady,” he told SBS. “To my surprise, straight away, she said ‘yes’.”
Ms Wotton says this is common in her line of work.
“Imagine if you had to ring your mother or carer and say ‘this is what I’d like to do, can you help me?’” Ms Wotton said.
“Imagine the fear of opening up about your sexual desires, as a middle-aged man or woman, to your family. Some of the parents have been amazing, and really work through this stigma. It’s very brave of them.”
Colin Wright is a client of Rachel Wotton.
When a carer or parent contacts a sex worker or sex work organization, they must provide the worker with complete consent from the client before the appointment can be scheduled.
“If someone’s father organises for me to see their adult son, I don’t care if he has paid me money. I’m going to make sure my client is consenting to the services,” she said.
“The only person who can give consent is the very person themselves. No one can give consent on their behalf.
“Some clients will contact me directly. Otherwise it’s parents or carers or support workers contacting on behalf of someone.”
Ms Wotton says the same protocols apply to any other service.
“It’s like any other appointment. The client is asking for available times, payment options, letting them know if it’s a home appointment and we discuss the disability of the client.
“The appointment is set up exactly the same as if they were ringing up for a dental appointment, hairdressing appointment or a tattoo,” she said.
“Of course people are nervous, because they have to speak with a sex worker and because of the myths around the industry. But once they talk to us, they see that we are general members of society like anyone else.”
Rachel Wotton has been a sex worker for over 20 years.
Ms Wotton and her colleagues will spend a good percentage of the discussion talking about what they can and can’t do with their clients.
“There is a stigma around sex work that we will do anything. That’s not true. We are negotiating, it’s a mutually consensual adult activity,” she said.
“People often think that if they can’t verbalise yes or no, they can’t give consent. That’s just ridiculous because there are so many ways that people can communicate. There’s boards, eye movement, nodding heads, hand signals, apps and even iPads.
“We know how people consent when they understand what services and experiences they are consenting to. They have the right to withdraw consent, and that’s for the sex worker as well.
“The sexual desires of those with a disability are in line with the rest of society. It’s as far as their imaginations go.”
Fleur says more education is needed about the sex lives of disabled people.
“Adults with disabilities have all the same needs and desires as anyone else,” she said.
“I think people should take a moment to think about their own lives, and if their needs and desires would change if they became disabled. We are only a car accident away from it.”
The law does not give a shit about sex workers. Neither do many people on Twitter.
On November 28, writer, director, and porn actress Stoya fired off two tweets that would upend the porn world.
@Stoya: “That thing where you log in to the internet for a second and see people idolizing the guy who raped you as a feminist. That thing sucks… James Deen held me down and fucked me while I said no, stop, used my safeword. I just can’t nod and smile when people bring him up anymore.”
Stoya was talking about her former partner, James Deen—the adult-video-industry icon, he of the boyish good looks and crossover media fame, whose swooning female fan base dubbed him “the feminist porn star.”
Deen was silent for a day and then posted to Twitter: “There have been some egregious claims made against me… I want to assure my friends, fans, and colleagues that these allegations are both false and defamatory… I respect women and I know and respect limits both professionally and privately.” He then went silent until earlier this week, when he gave an exclusive interview to the Daily Beast denying all allegations. He has not replied to a request for comment from The Stranger.
I believe Stoya. Unpleasant stories about Deen have circulated in the sex-work community since well before they were a couple, and in the days following her tweets, nine other women also came forward to say that Deen has assaulted them. One of the women, Joanna Angel, was in a relationship with him for six years. Their stories don’t sound like descriptions of misunderstandings or moments of bad judgement. They sound like persistently abusive behavior, dating back nearly 10 years in Deen’s life. I believe all of them.
However, one development of all this did pleasantly surprise me: Major porn companies responded swiftly to the womens’ allegations. Shortly after the allegations began coming out, major porn studios Kink.com and Evil Angel announced they would no longer work with Deen, effective immediately. Other adult businesses that had connections with Deen also distanced themselves, and non-porn website The Frisky dropped Deen’s sex-advice column from its site. In a matter of days, James Deen went from being the golden boy of porn to probably unemployable in the industry.
Of course, there was a backlash. Any allegation of sexual assault invariably brings forth strident deniers, and this was catnip for whorephobes. But it wasn’t just people accusing the women of “lying” and “slander.” One person replied to Stoya’s original tweet with “Rape a whore? Isn’t that just shoplifting?”
Defending a man accused of rape by calling his accuser a “whore” is especially irksome when that man is himself a sex worker. But there’s another reaction that bothers me, not only from outsiders, but also from a disturbing number of women in the sex industry. They’re defending Deen because Stoya accused him on Twitter.
Over the last two weeks, I have had a lot of conversations with people who say things like Deen is being tried in the court of social media. His professional reputation is ruined because he can’t prove himself innocent. None of them made a police report at the time, so how do we know it was REALLY rape? You can’t accuse someone of a crime without proof! There was a nearly constant thread of “innocent until proven guilty.”
But no one has filed criminal charges against Deen. He has exactly the same access to social media as his accusers do, he can talk to the reporters of his choice, and he has an agent and a lawyer to advise him. In my opinion, James Deen is not being victimized by the women who are saying he has harmed them.
When you say, “If it was rape, why didn’t you go the police?” here’s what it really means: If you don’t go to the police, you’re not allowed to talk about your sexual assault. Rape is like a ticket in a parking garage, apparently—if you didn’t get it validated by the powers that be, you will pay for that later. This is a silencing tactic, nothing more. No one spewing about “due process” to a sex worker who’s been assaulted until her ass needs stitches actually gives a shit about the sanctity of law.
And the law certainly does not give a shit about sex workers.
I have a lot of power and privilege for a sex worker, and still I can’t imagine going to the police if I were raped. To a sex worker, police are as likely to be the problem as they are to protect you from one. Take Oklahoma City police officer Daniel Holtzclaw, for example, who’s on trial for sexually assaulting 13 black women, many of whom had been sex workers. We’re supposed to get a rape-note stamp of approval from that guy?
Another gut-churning lesson on how sex workers fare in courtrooms is the case of Christy Mack, a nude model, dancer, and porn performer who was the victim of a horrifically violent attempted rape by her ex-partner, MMA fighter War Machine. Last year, War Machine, aka Jonathan Koppenhaver, allegedly entered her Las Vegas house, assaulted a friend of Mack’s who was also present, and then beat Mack so savagely that she suffered 18 broken bones, missing teeth, and a ruptured liver.
Koppenhaver was arrested and is now facing trial on 34 felony charges, including attempted murder. His defense? Since Mack was a sex worker, she enjoyed the attack. Koppenhaver’s defense lawyer, Brandon Sua, said in court that Mack’s career shows she had a “desire, the preference, the acceptability toward a particular form of sex activities that were outside of the norm.” Koppenhaver laughed openly when Mack testified in court, and at another point blew a kiss at the prosecuting attorney.
Even if Koppenhaver is convicted, it’s a stark reminder of what every sex worker learns: For us, there is no due process, no unbiased hearing. When it first became known that police were seeking War Machine for the assault, MMA fans on social media vilified Christy Mack as (of course) a lying whore. Then she tweeted pictures of herself in the hospital with shocking injuries, and public sympathy shifted considerably (if not completely) in her favor.
In the case of Deen, Stoya’s high social-media visibility is part of what made it safe for her to speak. Other women joined her, and their supporters made the hashtags #standwithstoya and #solidaritywithstoya go viral. If our suffering is plain, or our numbers many, then the court of public opinion is a place where sex workers may have a chance of prevailing.
James Deen is a porn brand whose stock has dropped. Doubtless that stings, but Deen is not headed to court and he’s not headed to jail, so the frenzied cries of “twitter lynch mobs” are absurd. It’s too soon even to say for sure his porn career is finished; other pop-culture heroes have recovered from sexual-assault accusations. Although really, if Deen truly can’t tell when he’s crossed over someone’s boundaries, is he really a guy who should be employed pushing them?
Moral questions about Deen’s behavior aside, it’s simply his job to have the consent of his scene partners, the professional trust of his producers, and the admiration of his fans. If he loses that? Then he loses his livelihood. That’s how fame works: You must cater to “the court of public opinion,” or the public will have no use for you.
Stoya punched a hole in the wall of silence about sexual assault against sex workers, as did all the women who joined her, and I’m grateful. You may decry the court of public opinion, but until sex workers are given equality before the law, we will use it, because it’s the only one open to us.
During sex, do you frequently find yourself thinking about grocery shopping, or getting distracted by the cobwebs on the ceiling? It’s frustratingly hard to turn our brains off when we’re being intimate, even though we all know how much better sex can be when we’re mentally present. These tricks can help.
Practice Outside the Bedroom
The key to all of this is mindfulness, or put less jargon-y, learning how to be more present in the moment. If you spend your entire day adrift in a sea of anxiety, multitasking, and overactive thinking, you can’t expect to be perfectly calm and centered the second your partner starts taking your clothes off. The best way to learn how to be more present in the bedroom is to practice slowing your mind down outside of the bedroom. Being present is a skill that requires practice, and it’s usually easier to make the space for that practice when you’re not naked with another person.
Meditation can help a lot here. I highly recommend Headspace, an app that teaches you how to meditate. Headspace takes a topic that seems befuddling to most people, and breaks it down into simple, easy-to-understand concepts. It guides you through structured meditation sessions, so you’re never left wondering what you’re supposed to be doing. Even 10 minutes of meditation a day will naturally make it easier for you to feel more present during sex. If ever there was a good argument for starting up a meditation practice, this is it.
Set Yourself Up for Success
The distractors that I hear about most frequently from my clients are clutter, electronics, and to-do lists. You can transform your bedroom a sex haven by making it a clutter- and electronics-free zone. If you’re a frequent to-do list ruminator, quickly jot down your list items before you go pounce on your partner.
Take a moment to think about any other distraction triggers that you might have. Do you tend to get distracted if you know there are dirty dishes in the sink? Or maybe the peeling paint on the wall always catches your eye. Take any necessary steps to remove that distraction. Some distractors can be eliminated permanently, while others may require ongoing effort, but the idea is to try to create more mental space for yourself. You don’t want to create a situation where things have to be perfectly in place before you’re able to be intimate with your partner, but you can try to keep your usual distractions at a minimum.
Expect Distraction
If you’re like most people, you’ve probably had the experience of thinking about the cupcakes you need to bake for your kid’s soccer team, and the consequent feelings of guilt for thinking about baked goods while balls deep in your partner. You get so derailed by your frustration that you wind up getting even more distracted than you were by the original thought.
The truth is that it’s impossible to be present and focused 100% of the time. You can’t stop your brain from thinking. You’re going to have unwanted (and incredibly random) thoughts pop into your head at all moments of the day, including during sex. If you have the expectation that your mind should be clear of all thoughts except for how much fun you’re having with your partner, you’re going to be bitterly disappointed. Instead, acknowledge that distraction is the price we pay for having brains. Try to reframe your goals and think about minimizing distractions rather than eliminating them altogether.
Don’t Fight Your Thoughts
Trying to prevent yourself from thinking never works, and usually just intensifies the distraction. You’ve got to figure out a way to let the thoughts just be, without making them take up even more space.
Headspace has a great metaphor where they compare mindfulness to sitting beside a busy intersection. Imagine that your thoughts are the cars driving down the roads. You can’t stop the flow of cars, but you can prevent yourself from hopping into one of the cars and driving off in it. Try to allow thoughts to pop into your head during sex, but don’t actively think about them. You may even find it useful to visualize them driving out of eyesight.
Use Your Breath
Focusing on your breath is one of the core principles of mindfulness. It’s a great way to let go of your thoughts and bring yourself back into the moment. When you feel yourself hopping into that little hot rod with one of your thoughts, take a deep breath and imagine gently opening the car door and escorting your brain out of the car. One particularly effective breathing technique is to imagine sending your breath down to your X-rated bits as you inhale, and back up to your nose as you exhale. This requires a bit of extra attention, and brings your focus back to your body.
Narrate What’s Going On
Here’s another super simple mindfulness technique that can work wonders during sex: Tell yourself a story (in your head) about what’s happening from moment to moment. It might sound something like, “now he’s running his hand up my thigh. Now he’s spreading my legs apart.” This trick gives your brain something to do, but focuses it on the sex itself. You can also narrate your body’s reactions to the events at hand, which will help you tune in to the sensation even more. For example, “now I’m feeling my breath start to quicken. Now I’m feeling my stomach flutter. Now my skin feels like it’s tingling in anticipation.” It’s like writing your own erotica.
Consider Your Choice in the Moment
Sometimes the best way to combat distraction is to remind yourself of the decision you have in front of you. You can allow yourself to get swept up in your thoughts, or you can make an effort to stay present with your partner. Try something like, “I can keep thinking about the asshole who cut me off on the freeway, or I can enjoy finally getting a chance to be alone with my incredibly sexy partner” or “I can spend all of my mental energy worrying about when I’m going to work out, or I can spend it on this beautiful ass in front of me.” You can try being gentle with yourself, like, “It’s okay to feel annoyed about my client no-show, but I’ll have plenty of time to worry about that after I’ve boned down,” or you can try being a little sassy, like, “am I really going to think about my mother while I’m getting it in?” These kinds of statements help bring you back into the moment and focus on what’s actually important.
Staying in the moment during sex can seem like a challenge if you’re used to constant distraction, but it’s much more doable than you might think. Plus, is there any great motivation for learning to improve your mindfulness skills than hotter sex?
Name: Marti
Gender: female
Age: 27
Location: Seattle
Is there such a thing as an asexual? The reason I ask is that I think I am one. I’m happy and well adjusted, but sex does nothing for me. I can’t orgasm. My genitals are icky. My marriage seems fine. I love my husband; we share the same values. And even if there’s nothing in it for me, I’m apparently pretty good at fellatio. We don’t do intercourse. Is this normal for some people? Are some people simply not wired to be sexual? I have no problems with love. I’m passionate about my husband and my friends, but it’s more of a cerebral thing.
Yeah, Marti, I do believe there is such a thing as an asexual. But I don’t think you’re one. Ya know why I say that? It’s because an asexual has an indifference toward sex. You, dear lady, exhibit disgust toward sex and things sexual…including your very own pussy. And that tells me you have an aversion to sex, which is completely different from what an asexual feels about sex.
I’d also have to challenge you on your statement that you are happy and well adjusted. I just don’t buy it, darlin’! And here’s a tip, if you have to go out of your way to tell someone you are happy and well adjusted, you’re probably neither.
In my estimation, a young married, albeit preorgasmic, woman who denies her hubby the old in and out, but begrudgingly blows him when absolutely necessary is NOT happy or well adjusted. SORRY! I don’t fault you for this, mind you. It’s just that since you have never known the joys of sex, you can hardly dismiss them as unimportant.
If we had access to your long-suffering husband I think he would tell a different tale than you, Miss Marti. I’ll betcha he’s withering on the vine for lack of nookie — the odd semi-obligatory blowjob he gets doled out to him on occasion not withstanding.
Listen darling, you got issues…big fuckin’ issues that need to be addressed ASAP. Don’t go trying to cover your shit with a happy face like asexuality. You’ll give all those real sexual ascetics a bad name if ya do.
Begin by resolving your anorgasmia, or as other call it preorgasmia. Because that, my dear, is the root of your sexual aversion. Work with a qualified sex-positive therapist. Learn to masturbate in a way that will bring you sexual satisfaction. Once you and your trusty vibrator slams yourself your first screamin’ meme of an orgasm, I believe you will change your tune about the rest of sex and your much maligned pussy too. I’ve written on this topic a lot. Use the search function in the sidebar, search for “preorgasmic,” and you’ll find it all. My posting: Hey, Where’s My Big “O”?, is one fine example.
We can only hope that your deprived spousal unit will stick around during this remedial period. But you’re gonna have to level with him. Tell him you’ve finally accepted the fact that you have a problem that you need to get to the bottom of it, so to speak. With his help and support and that of your therapist, you’ll find your way to real happiness and being an authentically well-adjusted person, not just someone who says she is.
Anything short of this kind of honesty will continue to rob your husband of the full-fledged sex life he ought to be enjoying with you his wife. If ya don’t you can be sure ‘ole hubby will find his satisfaction in a more welcoming pussy than yours…if he hasn’t already.
It appears that my posting of last week, Female Sexual Dysfunction Is A Fictional Disorder, caused quite a stir. As you recall, I was answering a question from a woman who asked if FSD, or female sexual dysfunction is real or a fictitious “ailment” that is being promulgated to sell pharmaceuticals to unsuspecting women. I replied; “I think that, for the most part, female sexual dysfunction, or FSD, is a fictional disorder. I also think pharmaceutical companies are trying to hit on a female version of Viagra to treat this imaginary disorder so they can make a bundle, just like they did with as the male version.”
Well, that didn’t sit well with some friends and colleagues. One among them, Dr. Serena McKenzie took the most exception. She sent me a little note: “Your blog on female sexual dysfunction being fictitious is – respectfully – fucking bullshit sir.” Ok then!
I invited Serena to make her case not only to me, but to all my readers. What follows is Serena in her own words.
Flibanserin, the first and only medication available for use in reproductive aged women with low libido, becomes commercially available this week after a rocky and controversial road that led to its FDA approval Aug. 18. The view on the medication whose brand name is Addyi (pronounced ADD-EE) ranges from a historical achievement in women’s health care to an epic failure of commercialized medical propaganda. Despite the lengthy debate that has surrounded flibanserin, what most people want to know is whether it will help their sex life or not now that it is here.
First Things First
While sexual concerns can be difficult to discuss for many women and their partners, it is important to acknowledge that sex and intimacy are some of the great extraordinary experiences of being human. When sex goes badly, which statistically it does for 43 percent of U.S. women, the consequences can devastate a relationship and personal health. One of the biggest applauds I have for the FDA is their statement of recognition that female sexual dysfunction is an unmet clinical need.
Sexuality Is Mind-Body But Not-Body?
Sexuality is usually complicated, and problems with sex such as loss of libido are multifactorial for most women. Antagonists to flibanserin cite psychosocial contributions such as relationship discord, body image, or history of sexual abuse to be the most pinnacle causes of a woman who may complain of problematic lack of sexual desire, and that sex is always a mind-body phenomenon. While these factors often implicitly correlate to loss of sexual interest for a woman, they don’t always, and you cannot advocate that women’s sexuality is all inclusive of her mind, body, and spirit — and assert simultaneously that a biochemical contribution which flibanserin is designed to address in the brain to improve satisfying sexual experiences does not exist.
(c) Myles Murphy; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation
The Biochemistry of Sex
Antidepressant medications that alter brain biochemistry are notorious for having sexual side effects which can be prevalent up to 92 percent of the time, and are known to decrease sexual interest, disrupt arousal, and truncate orgasm in some women. Ironically, flibanserin was originally studied as an antidepressant, and while the exact mechanism of how a medication can impair or improve sexual interest is unknown, it should not be difficult to consider that if biochemical tinkering can crush sexual function, it may also be capable of improving it.
Efficacy Data Dance
Flibanserin is a pill taken once nightly, and has been critiqued as showing only modest increases in sexual desire, with improvements in sexually satisfying events rising 0.4 to 1 per month compared with placebo. However just because flibanserin has lackluster efficacy data, that does not mean it is ineffective, and even small improvements in sexual function can be life altering for a woman struggling with disabling intimate problems. If only 1 percent of women with low libido were to improve their sexual function with use of flibanserin, that equates to 160,000 women, or the population of Tempe, Arizona.
Blue Sky Side Effects
Flibanserin has side effects, and the sky is blue. All medications have pro and con profiles, and for flibanserin the most common consequences of use include fatigue, dizziness, sleepiness, and a rare but precipitous drop in blood pressure. Women may not drink alcohol while taking this medication. Providers who will prescribe it and pharmacies that will dispense flibanserin must be approved through what is called a Risk Evaluation and Management Strategy, or REMS, which means they are educated on advising women on how to take flibanserin safely. While a REMS program is arguably overkill compared to numerous higher risk, common prescriptions which do not require a REMS, it is an excellent opportunity for clinicians who have a background in sexuality to be the main applicants since they are far more qualified to assess proper candidates for treatment as well as continue to endorse holistic measures alongside flibanserin. Women who are interested in trying flibanserin should only obtain it from sexuality trained professionals.
The Proof Is In The Sexy Pudding
If flibanserin is worthless, the marketplace will bury it in a shallow grave quickly. Women will stop paying for it, and conscientious medical providers will stop prescribing it. Yet 8,500 women taking flibanserin were studied, over a 1,000 of them for one year, and the data suggests it will help some. Women deserve to be educated on their options, because sexual health is worth fighting for.
Changing The World, One Orgasm At A Time
We simply cannot overlook how astronomical of an achievement it is to even have a mediocre medication approved for female sexual dysfunction. Women’s sexuality has been ignored by medicine for most of history. At least now we have something to fight over.
The controversy about flibanserin is in fact magnificent, and frankly, the entire point. We must talk openly about sexuality and sexual concerns to improve them, personally for one woman at a time, but also uniformly to embrace female sexuality as a vastly larger societal allowance.
A satisfying sexual life is far more than the restoration of sexual dysfunction, it’s a thriving, multi dimensional, ever evolving weave of psychology, relationships, life circumstances, and yes can include a milieu of biochemistry and neurotransmitter pools.
Is a pill ever going to replace the vastly complicated arenas that fuse into our sexual experience? Of course not — it’s absurd and lazy-minded for anyone to suggest that is even being proposed. But it is necessary and inherently responsible to allow for all possible puzzle pieces to be utilized through the ever evolving navigation of sensuality, intimacy, and erotic fulfillment.
So will flibanserin make your sex life better? Maybe. But considering the conversation about it valuable as well as its use as merely one tool among many options to improve sex and intimacy would be the better bet. Ultimately, we “desire” sex that is meaningful, erotic, and dynamic. The journey of seeking sexual vitality deserves every key, crowbar, heathen kick, graceful acrobatics, or little pink pill that lends its part to the process, no matter how small or big, for the opportunity to discover and embrace a sexual aliveness.
Follow Serena McKenzie, Holistic physician, certified sexual medicine specialist, sex counselor, medical director of the Northwest Institute for Healthy Sexuality on Twitter: www.twitter.com/SexMedDoc
Name: Sharon
Gender: female
Age: 30
Location: PA
I’ve been reading a lot lately about FSD, or female sexual dysfunction. Is there such at thing? It strikes me as a fictitious “ailment” that is being promulgated to sell pharmaceuticals to unsuspecting women. What are your thoughts?
I share your skepticism. I think that, for the most part, female sexual dysfunction, or FSD, is a fictional disorder. I also think pharmaceutical companies are trying to hit on a female version of Viagra to treat this imaginary disorder so they can make a bundle, just like they did with as the male version.
So much of female sexuality is caught up with the cultural context of a women’s role in society — family obligations, body image and patriarchal views of marriage, etc. For the most part, men aren’t nearly so encumbered. So when one talks about female sexuality, particularly when the notion of a condition or a disorder arises; ya gotta ask yourself, what’s going on here?
I too have been noticing a lot of discussion in the popular culture lately about female sexual dysfunction. My first response is to ask myself, who’s raising the issue and why? Sure some women, like some men, experience difficulties in terms of desire, arousal and orgasm, but what of it? Is it a syndrome? Is it really a dysfunction? I personally don’t think so. The sexual difficulties most people experience can be explained and dealt with in a less dramatic way then with drugs?
And here’s an interesting phenomenon; the repeated appearance of the term female sexual dysfunction in the media lately actually gives the concept legitimacy. I’m certain the pharmaceutical industry is hoping that it will. If they can make the connection in the public mind between what women experience in terms of desire, arousal and orgasm concerns and what men describe as erectile dysfunction, then most of the work is done. In other words, I think the entire effort is a marketing ploy.
I think we can safely say that, in order to determine what female sexual dysfunction might be, one has to clearly understand what a “normal” sexual response is for a woman. This is where we traditionally run into problems. Sex science is notoriously lacking in this endeavor. One thing for certain, although both women and men have a discernable sexual response cycle, a woman’s sexual response is not the same as a man’s. Even though we can’t say with certainty what “normal” is, therapists are famous for turning difficulties into disorders. And once you have a disorder it becomes the basis for developing a drug therapy. So you can see how this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Currently there’s a real buzz among clinicians concerning the efficacy of Addyi, the so-called “female Viagra”. But most sexologists, myself included, are unimpressed. Basically, the drug in question is an antidepressant. When I heard that, red flags began to fly. Antidepressants are notorious for their adverse side effects, especially in terms of sexual arousal in both men and women. The second problem with the study was the whole notion of desire and distress. Lots of women experience diminished sexual arousal but are not distressed by it. But if there’s no distress, clinically speaking, then it can’t be considered a disorder. You see where I’m going with this, right? If there’s not a “disorder” there’s no need for a pharmaceutical intervention.
According to the research some of the women in the clinical studies leading up to the approval of the drug claimed they were less distressed by their “condition,” Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder, than they were at the beginning of the study. According to clinical trials of Addyi held in 2013, only 8% – 13% of the women experienced “much improved” sexual desire and only about 2 more satisfying sexual encounters per month were had. In other words, when behaviors were studied, the actual number of satisfying sexual episodes reported by these less distressed women hardly changed of all. This indicates to me that the antidepressant helped lift the spirits of the distressed women, but did nothing to increase their satisfaction with their sexual outlet.
Twice the FDA rejected Addyi for its severe side effects and marginal ability to produce the effect that it is being marketed for. And despite the fact that the drug is now available, those side effects still exist. Women who take the pill are likely to experience dizziness, nausea, drowsiness, fainting spells, and falling blood pressure. Coupled with alcohol and even hormonal contraceptives the odds of these potential side effects occurring increase. Persons with liver ailments, or taking certain other medicines, such as types of steroids are also at higher risk. On the other hand Viagra has very mild side effects that may include headaches, indigestion, blue-tinted vision and in some cases a stuffy nose.
While a man can pop Viagra an hour or so before he plans to have sex, women who are looking for increased sexual desire need to take Addyi daily for up to a month before they should expect to see any effects.
Name: Clare
Gender: Female
Age: 40
Location: St Louis
My best friend can’t bring herself to sever her ties with her ex-boyfriend. Even though their last attempted reunion ended in a very violent fight. My friend has this weird nostalgia for the relationship she had with her ex at the beginning. Back then, before he started drinking and drugging, they did have a couple of good years, but that was a long time ago. I’m very concerned for my friend. She’s often depressed and she is pulling away from her friends. I think she is seriously considering getting back with her no-good, two-timing ex. I know that my role as a friend is to love and support her, but her ex is not to be trusted. I fear as much for her safety as for her heart. What’s a friend to do?
So many things are going on here, Clare. It’s hard to know where to begin. Your friend can’t sever her ties with her ex because she doesn’t want to. Even if she wanted to end it once and for all, it’s not an easy thing to do.
Anyone who has been there will tell ya that quitin’ a bad relationship is as difficult as quitin’ booze or dope…maybe even harder. Most folks in poisonous relationships can’t extricate themselves because they are part of the toxicity. Bad relationships, like the good ones, are completely dependent on the participation of both individuals in the couple. Each one feeds off the other and each one’s bad behaviors rewards and facilitates the pathologies of the other.
There is no such thing as a good, psychologically healthy person in a bad relationship. There may be one in the couple that is less culpable, or less abusive, or less self-destructive, but there is never one that is without blame.
Like all junkies, your friend is hooked. Her depression and withdrawal are outward signs of the pathology. Nothing is gonna change this for her until she acknowledges that she is caught in a downward spiral. Domestic violence — and we ought to label the nature of your friend’s relationship for what it is — will escalate. It always does. Will your friend get out in time? There’s no guarantee. Is there anything you can do? Well that, Clare, is a more difficult question to answer. If you do too much you are at risk of supporting her habit. Or worse, you could be co-opted into the pathological dynamic of the relationship.
The best you can do is to tell your friend how you feel about her predicament. Speak your mind in no uncertain terms. If you decide to confront your friend with an intervention, I suggest that you have some well-considered resources to hand her while you are doing so. For example, you could do some legwork and find some local domestic violence resources — a hot line, a shelter, counseling referrals and the like. Once you make this intervention and it’s over, drop it. Drop it for good. This is the hardest thing a friend has to do, but constantly badgering someone in your friend’s condition is counterproductive. If you can’t stand to witness the self-destruction, take your leave of the friendship and hope for the best.
However you play this, don’t hold your breath for a happy ending. They happen sometime, of course, but real life is so not like the movies.
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