Category: Sexual Performance Issues

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5 questions we kept asking therapists during lockdown

by Kayleigh Dray

Is it normal that we haven’t had sex in ages? And how do we start (ahem) doing it again? Here are the five questions we most wanted to ask a couples therapist over lockdown, answered.

Whether you believe a second wave is inevitable or not, there’s no denying that the long weeks we spent in coronavirus lockdown were a funny old time indeed. In a bid to flatten the Covid-19 curve, we stayed indoors as much as possible, we worked from home if we were able, and we avoided public transport like the literal plague.

But how did all that social distancing impact our relationships?

Or, to put it more bluntly, what did it do to our sex lives?

In a bid to learn more about how our (ahem) Netflix ‘n’ Chill vibes changed during the pandemic (if at all), we reached out to Dr Kalanit Ben-Ari.

And the psychologist, author, and couples therapist came up trumps, revealing the five questions she was asked most during lockdown, as well as the answers she offered up.

Prepare to feel extremely seen.

We’re experiencing burnout due to being together 24/7. How can we add a bit of spice and excitement to our sex life?

Lockdown has forced many of us to spend more time at home than ever before. Even though this extra time brings its own set of perks, being cooped up with your partner constantly can take away the opportunity to miss each other, and each day becomes predictable, routine, and lacks spontaneity.

With lockdown life now the new normal, it’s become all too easy to fall into the same well-worn routine that leaves spontaneity and novelty on the backburner. That’s why it’s vital to find different ways to create some space to give you both the chance to develop your passion, or even just relax and recharge your batteries. Igniting new energy and experiences can add a splash of excitement that, in my opinion, is necessary to stimulate relationships.

As with all new things, communication is key. Have a chat with your partner about what each of you would like to do to bring a new sense of spice to your sex life. Ask each other questions. 

Try something like:

  1. What does sex mean to each of you? 
  2. What would you both like to try? 
  3. How would trying new things benefit not just your sex life but your relationship as a whole? 
  4. And, how can you make the process of discovery more fun and exciting?

An easy way to begin is to take it in turns to bring something new to the bedroom each week. One thing I often suggest to my clients is to learn a massage technique to generate desire. You could do an online course or watch clips to get to grips with techniques, bringing your newfound skill to your partner each week is what matters. This will help keep the spark of spontaneity and novelty alive and build anticipation for each new encounter.

We haven’t had sex for months, how do I initiate it now?

Establishing an intimate and mindful connection should be your top priority rather than putting an emphasis on purely having sex to achieve an orgasm. When life takes over it can be all too easy to avoid intimacy, which is why it’s so important that you schedule and loosely plan ‘date nights’. That way you enjoy the anticipatory build-up to them. Clear your to-do list so that you can be fully present in the moment without any distraction and show up with excitement rather than an anxiety of the unknown.

I often recommend to my clients to read Hot Monogamy: Essential Steps to More Passionate Intimate Lovemaking by Jo Robinson and Patricia Love as it includes exercises couples can explore together. I also strongly recommend keeping the bedroom a screen-free zone by removing all phones, laptops, TVs and tablets. Then, take the opportunity to go to your bedroom together an hour earlier than usual, giving you a better opportunity to connect.

It may feel intimidating in the beginning, but by continuing to practice being present and mindful in the moment (rather than having your thoughts drift to the past or future worries) you’ll experience real, fulfilling progress.

My libido has been low since the Covid-19 outbreak. What can I do to increase it?

First of all, take the time to learn about your body fully. Get to grips with what turns you on and what turns you off so that you become the master of your own desires and needs. Deepening your understanding of your body means you can talk to and teach your partner about what you like and the new things you learn without shaming or criticizing what they already do for you.

Secondly, focus on becoming the master of your partner’s body. Learn from their non-verbal reactions and ask them what, where, and how they like to be touched. Consider getting your partner to demonstrate what they like or write instructions as a fun way to discover each other. The main idea here is to be relaxed, mindful, and present during intimate moments with your partner so that you both let go of any expectations or worries around performance anxiety.

A fun exercise to try out is taking turns showing each other how you like to be touched. Do it to your partner, then your partner copies, and does it to you. Keep going for half an hour and you’ll notice the difference in desire in no time.

How can we create space for sex when the children are at home all the time?

Many couples feel self-conscious about having sex when their children are in the next room. For many, it can be a huge turn-off. However, as there are still a few weeks until the summer holidays come to an end and kids (potentially) go back to school, I recommend that parents create strategies that give them the time and space to connect intimately sooner rather than later. Strategies will differ depending on the age of the children but there are simple steps couples can take to carve out more time together.

Why not consider arranging playdates for your children at the same time? Or wake up an hour earlier than the children in the morning? Or maybe even try to squeeze a nap in during the day so that you’re more alert and awake at night when the kids go to bed? 

If you have a babysitter or family member helping out with childcare, get them to arrange a day out for your kids or a movie day so you and your partner can get some alone time. As long as you’re actively looking for opportunities to plan and create space for sex and intimacy, you’ll find a way that works for you.

Our anxiety over Covid-19 is harming our ability to enjoy intimacy together. What can we do to let go of our worries?

The past few months have been overwhelming, to say the least, with many couples experiencing the financial and mental health fallouts of living through the coronavirus pandemic. During such times of stress, some people crave intimacy, whereas others prefer to avoid it at all costs. Neither is better or worse than the other, each is just a different way to manage anxiety.

Know that it’s OK to not feel OK during this time. Millions of people around the world are worried too and it’s perfectly natural to feel anxious.

You can take easy steps to help limit your anxiety levels each day. From listening to music, playing an instrument or going for a walk and getting active outdoors, to having massages, practising mindfulness, meditation and breathing techniques and using aromatic oils like Frankincense – all of these activities will help focus your mind in the moment.

And, by remaining in the present (rather than worrying about the past or future), your anxiety levels will decrease.

The key is to determine what the focus of your mind is. Focus on being mindful of your romantic relationship, take deep breaths together, hold eye contact, soften your eyes, and connect with each one of your senses. Be aware of your body and ask your partner for an extra-long hug several times a day. We all need a good hug once in a while, especially now when distance is the new normal. Focus on taking little steps to improve and get joy from your relationship will slowly drop your anxiety level.

However, if you feel your anxiety levels are constantly high and your work, wellbeing, and relationships are beginning to be negatively affected by it, it’s advisable to reach out for professional help. Reaching out for therapy can support you to achieve the intimacy experience you desire.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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5 Things Getting In The Way Of Black Women’s Sex Lives

By Ashley Townes, Ph.D., MPH

Like many other aspects of our society, sexuality education in the United States often reflects majority populations—i.e., white experiences.

While there’s been some research dedicated to understanding the sexual lives of Black women, much of it focuses on identifying what types of sexual behaviors they’re engaging in, messages of risk and prevention, and health disparities between Black women and white women. This approach to understanding Black women’s sex lives can have negative consequences such as stereotypes, stigma, and bias from doctors. Not to mention, this approach leaves out all of the aspects of their sexual lives that are exciting, fun, and pleasurable.

According to my professional work as a sexual health researcher and my personal experiences as a Black woman myself, here are five things that get in the way of Black women’s sex lives being authentic, shame-free, and enjoyable—and how Black women can overcome them:

1. Stereotypes and myths about Black sexuality.

The sexual lives of Black women have historically been misrepresented by stereotypes and myths. A few historical images that Black women have been labeled as include the mammy, jezebel, welfare mother, and angry Black woman. In general, Black women have also often been portrayed as being sexually experienced and/or engaging in sexual risk-taking behaviors rather than as being sexually responsible and having sexual autonomy. Many of these stereotypes and myths persist in mainstream media, affecting how people view Black women and their sex lives.

Stereotypes and myths are harmful to Black women because they affect how they view themselves and how they believe they are viewed by others. Stereotypes and myths might also play a role in dating, relationships, and sexual behaviors. For example, the idea or belief that Black women are “promiscuous” may cause a woman to feel ashamed of her true sexual identity and behaviors. A woman may feel embarrassed to have sexual conversations for fear of being judged. She may even feel obligated to have a certain kind of sexual life (perhaps due to respectability politics—messages received about how Black women are to act, speak, dress, etc.).

2. Health disparities in sexual health care.

Education, income level, and insurance status can all affect a person’s access to health care and its quality, and these same factors also affect racial differences seen in sexual health care. Black women can often feel that they are not listened to or treated fairly by doctors or the health care system, or they’ve had negative experiences receiving sexual health care specifically.

As the fight for social justice has gained more attention due to the many Black lives that have been subjected to police brutality, it is important that the fight for sexual and reproductive justice remains a part of the conversation to end racism, discrimination, and stigma in health care settings. Health equity is a social justice issue, and until the distribution of wealth, education, housing, and various other privileges are addressed, Black women will continue to bear a higher burden of disease, illness, and even death.

3. A lack of culturally sensitive sex education.

America lacks comprehensive sexuality education in general, but this is especially true when it comes to culturally sensitive sex education. Information that includes the historical and present-day views of Black sexuality is important for youth and young adults to understand the context behind the images they see in the media. Sexuality education should promote exploration and knowledge related to sexuality rather than reinforce or support stereotypical messages about minority groups.

In addition, there is a shortage of trained sexuality educators in cultural sensitivity and, therefore, many missed opportunities for Black girls to receive sexuality education that is unbiased. Black women need sexuality educators who are able to understand the social and cultural factors that affect Black women’s sexual lives and even have experiences similar to Black women. Diversity in sex education matters.

4. A focus on prevention instead of pleasure.

Sexuality research and sex education materials reflecting Black women tend to highlight adverse sexual and reproductive outcomes, such as the rates of unintended pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections (STIs). Meanwhile, the average sex ed class for Black teens seldom mentions more positive research such as data from the 2018 National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior, a huge survey that revealed tons of really hopeful insights about Black women’s sex lives. The survey revealed that Black women engage in a variety of sexual behaviors, most find their recent experiences to be pleasurable, and most experienced an orgasm.

The fact that most mainstream conversations about Black sexuality have to do with talking about risks and negative sexual outcomes means we are lacking conversations about Black pleasure. Without open conversations about pleasure, women learn to feel ashamed or embarrassed to discuss their sexual desires with their partners. But sexual communication is important for sexual development and self-esteem. In fact, the ability to communicate about sex and pleasure can strengthen sexual relationships and improve sexual satisfaction overall.

5. Mistrust of medical providers.

Sexual communication is not only vital to sexual relationships; it is essential for doctor-patient relationships. Meeting with health care professionals for preventive care and to discuss sexual health concerns leads to a better sex life. Unfortunately, much of Black history in America stems from elements of slavery that has affected several generations. Medical experimentation on Black bodies is not just a thing of the past, and that history comes with understandable mistrust of information and treatment from medical providers. Throughout history, Black women have endured medical mistreatment and tend to feel as if they are unseen and unheard.

More than ever, Black women need access to quality sexual health care and, more importantly, a trusted medical provider. They deserve to feel like their sexual health care experiences are provided in a confidential, respectful, and nonjudgmental manner.

How Black women can take control of their sexual lives.

For many Black women, this is not new information. These issues and challenges have been persistent for quite some time. But what can you do about them?

First, become your own advocate. This means learning what resources are available in your area, finding out what preventive screenings and services are recommended before your appointments, and being prepared to ask questions when interacting with medical providers.

Second, find the things that work for you. This can include finding a doctor that understands your experiences as a Black woman (yes, it is OK to shop around for a doctor), finding Black sexuality educators to learn from online, and working to unlearn messages that have been harmful to your sexual development.

Lastly, work toward sexual agency. This means you have the ability to produce the results you want for your sexual life. The key to having a healthy and positive view of your sexual life starts with you.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Understanding These 2 Types of Sexual Desire Will Help You Feel In Control of Your Libido

Introducing: Spontaneous and responsive desire.

By Gabrielle Kassel

By now, you’ve probably heard a sexual health pro say—punctuated by 👏👏👏, of course—that porn is entertainment, not education. And that’s true. But there’s another type of media that shoves lies about what sex “should” (eye roll) look like down our collective throat: Romantic comedies.

One of the ideas these films have implanted into our brains? That the desire to get it on hits you out of nowhere—BAM! As a sex writer, this really gets me heated (as in, mad, not horny) considering only an estimated 15 to 20 percent of cisgender women (vs. 75 percent of cisgender men) primarily experience sexual desire in this way, according to sex researcher Emily Nagoski, Ph.D., in her book Come As You Are. (ICYDK, here’s the definition of “cisgender” and more about gender identity.)

“Most often depicted in movies, spontaneous desire is the urge for sex that hits you out of nowhere,” says Jill McDevitt, Ph.D, resident sexologist for sex toy emporium CalExotics. But what’s much more common for (cisgender) women is something called responsive sexual desire, which is when the desire comes in response to (or after) sexual activity has already (consensually) started. Meaning, sexual activity begets arousal, versus the other way around.

As McDevitt puts it: “Spontaneous desire is sex on the kitchen counter. Responsive desire is watching Netflix together, and starting to feel a tingle when your partner starts to trace the outline of your shorts during the sex scene in the movie you’re watching.”

The good news: Once you understand how these two types of sexual desire work, you can hack your sex life so you can start having as much (or as little) sex as you want! But first, scroll down.

Spontaneous vs. Responsive Sexual Desire

First things first: Both styles of sexual desire are normal and healthy. Unfortunately, people (especially cisgender women) who primarily experience responsive desire assume that they’re sexually defunct because their desire doesn’t look like Mila Kunis’s in Friends with Benefits. (See: Why Your Lack of Sex Drive Isn’t a Disorder)

Such is not the case, assures Zhana Vrangalova, Ph.D., professor of human sexuality at New York University and resident sexpert for sex toy brand LELO. “Most of these folks can experience desire/arousal, but they (and their partners) aren’t giving responsive desire a chance,” she says.

What does responsive desire look like IRL? Rather than waiting for a sudden urge to get down, you might say, “hey babe, any interest in me giving you a massage and seeing where that goes?” Or, “how would you feel about turning on porn and masturbating side-by-side, and seeing if that gets us in the mood?”

If you’re skeptical, you shouldn’t be. After all, “sex itself is not better just because it starts with spontaneous desire—people report just as much pleasure and enjoyment regardless of how it started,” says Vrangalova. Besides, the type of desire isn’t a measure of how good the sex was. How pleasurable it was is!

Deducing Your Own Sexual Desire Style

According to Nagoski’s aforementioned research, about 75 percent of men and 15 percent of women primarily experience spontaneous desire, whereas 5 percent of men and 30 percent of women primarily experience responsive desire (all cisgender). But for the rest of folks, sexual desire is context-dependent, says sexologist Jess O’Reilly, Ph.D., host of the podcast Sex with Dr. Jess. Meaning, “sometimes they’ll experience more spontaneous desire and other times the desire is more likely to happen responsively,” she says.

It’s common for context-dependent types to primarily experience spontaneous desire at the start of a relationship and responsive desire as the relationship ebbs on, or during high-stress, busy bouts of time. (After all, stress can lead to lower libido and even an inability to climax.)

Odds are, you were able to deduce your main type just by reading the above definitions. If not, I recommend investing in Nagoski’s books and flipping to the end of Chapter 3. There, you’ll find a “Sex Contexts” worksheet where she instructs you to journal (in detail!) about three of both your best sexual experiences as well as the “meh” ones. In reviewing these experiences, you’ll likely notice common themes around when and where sex took place, as well as whether the activity erected from spontaneous desire, responsive desire, or neither. For instance, if your top sexual experiences happened in coatroom closets at weddings, odds are you tend to experience spontaneous desire. If your top sexual experiences happened after day-long romantic dates or sexting sessions, odds are your desire leans responsive.

How to Lean Into Responsive Sexual Desire

So you primarily experience responsive desire and your partner primarily experiences spontaneous desire. Or, you both primarily experience responsive desire…now what? Fear not! “There are lots of different ways couples with different sexual desires can meet in the middle,” says sexual health expert Lyndsey Harper, M.D. ob-gyn, founder and CEO of Rosy, a sexual health technology platform.

1. Schedule sex.

Don’t be so quick to dismiss it. (After all, it works for sticking to your workout routine—why not extend it to your sexual wellness as well?) Sitting down with your planners and Google calendars and plotting out between work, birthdays, and exercise when you’re going to make time to ~get it on~ may not sound sexy. But “when the partner with responsive desire knows sex will happen at a certain time, they can seek out arousal tools, like erotica, ethical porn, masturbation, or ahead of time to help themselves get in the mood,” says Dr. Harper. (Or, good ol’ daydreaming.)

Plus, assuming you clear out your calendars for longer than, like, thirty minutes, it also ensures there’s plenty of time to do things that help the responsive desire partner get in the mood (think: showering together, kissing, etc.) versus feeling pressured to be ready to go ASAP.

If scheduling sex far ahead doesn’t feel right for you and your partner, consider scheduling date nights instead, and touch base that day about whether sex is on the table or not. Or, try some of these other suggestions first.

2. Intentionally take turns initiating sex.

Often in relationships where one partner experiences spontaneous sexual desire and the other experiences responsive sexual desire, the spontaneous person begins to feel like they’re always the initiator, says Vrangalova. Then, the partner who experiences responsive desire may begin to feel like their partner is constantly pestering them for sex, and feel guilty for saying no. This can lead to resentment on both sides. To interrupt this cycle, she suggests agreeing to take turns extending invitations to one another to have sex. Just remember: Your partner always maintains the right to say no.

Here’s how it works: Pre-determine a period of time within which you’ll each initiate, says O’Reilly. Maybe you’ll plan to initiate sex once per week, and alternate who initiates each week. This way, the responsive desire partner(s) can actively seek out arousal once they’re aroused, says Dr. Harper. (More here: How to Ask Your Partner for More Sex Without Offending Them)

3. Don’t make sex the objective.

Going from zero-percent horny to sex (of any kind) can be super daunting, especially when you’re working or busy child-rearing. Unfortunately, for a lot of couples, lines like “hey, babe, want to try to have sex tonight?” or “want to smash?” are common-place.

Vrangalova’s suggestion? Try asking “I’d love to take a shower together at the end of the day” or “how would you feel about a good old-fashioned makeout session?” instead. Why? Because making things like long passionate kisses, sensual massage, watching porn, reading erotica together, dirty talk, fantasy sharing, hand play, or even cuddling can feel more accessible to a not-currently-turned-on partner. (See More: 10 Foreplay Ideas That Can Be Even Hotter Than Penetration)

“If it progresses to sex from there, great. If not, that’s okay, too!” she says. “You’ll still get the benefit of spending intimate time together.” (And, if it’s applicable, the benefits of human touch.)

4. Lean on pleasure products.

“Research reveals that vibrator use is positively correlated with desire, lubrication, orgasm, lower levels of pain, and overall sexual satisfaction,” says O’Reilly. “So, sometimes some vibration or suction is just what your body needs to get in the mood.” Rather than going right for your hot-spots, spend some time using the vibe on your inner thighs, back, chest tissue and nipples, and the fleshy part of your bum, she suggests. Think of it as a self-care massage—and then let it turn sexual if it feels right.

5. Do a little extra sex ed.

Specifically, read books on this very topic such Mind the Gap by Karen Gurney or Come As You Are by Emily Nagoski.

Why? Because the greatest obstacle most couples face is their expectation around how sex “should” work, says Vrangalova. “Many people get stuck in this notion that you should only have sex if both partners are spontaneously horny at the exact same time—and refuse sex when that’s not the case.” (Sound familiar?)

Both of these books go into even more depth on topics discussed in this article to help you better understand just how normal any type of sexual desire is and how the messages you might have absorbed through pop-culture are pleasure-blocking your sex. Both also feature exercises you and your boo can do together to help you better understand your preconceived notions about desire, and how to troubleshoot them for boosted pleasure. (Get more wisdom from Nagoski here: How to Get More Pleasure By Shifting Your Mindset.)

What If These Don’t Work?

Okay, so you thought you primarily experienced responsive desire, gave these tricks a try, and still can’t find your libido? First, talk to your healthcare provider. Certain medications, mental health illnesses, and chronic conditions like heart disease, diabetes, and cancer can affect sexual functioning.

If you get the clear from your doc, think about why your body (specifically something known as your sexual inhibition system) might be intentionally keeping you from getting turned on. If your body perceives that it’s in danger, it can actually shut off your ability to get aroused. For instance, if you’re concerned about getting unintentionally pregnant, contracting an STI, or being socially shamed for who/how you’re having sex, arousal just won’t work. Ask yourself: What can I do to limit the (perceived) risk of the sex I want (keyword) to be having?

Also: Reflect on your relationship. How are you feeling about your boo? No doubt, it’s pretty tough to get turned on by a partner you’re feeling resentful of or aren’t feeling comfortable with. Addressing any underlying relationship issues (or TBH, calling it quits) may help.

Regardless, know that any way you experience sexual desire is ok. If you can relinquish the idea of there being a “normal”—because, truly, there is no “normal” in anything sex-related—that just might help you get there.

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7 ways to boost your sex drive

By Ashley Laderer

  • You can increase your sex drive by reducing stress levels, gaining a better understanding of what turns you on, letting go of performance anxiety, and reducing negative anticipation among other methods.
  • Getting enough sleep could also increase your desire for sex since sleep quality can influence libido.
  • You could also try talking to a therapist since this can help you address issues like shame surrounding sex, body image, or trauma.
  • Media and societal norms lead people to believe that they should be ready to have sex at any given moment. While this is the experience of some people, it certainly isn’t the case for everybody.If you’re looking to increase your sex drive, there are a few things you can do to boost your desire. Here is what the research says.

    There is no such this as a normal sex drive

    Everyone’s libido is different, and the same person’s sex drive might fluctuate over time, depending on circumstances. This is normal. According to sexologist and sexuality counselor Jess O’Reilly, Human Sexuality PhD and host of the Sex With Dr. Jess Podcast, there’s no universal standard or rule of thumb when it comes to sexual desire.

    “Low desire is only a problem if you deem it one or you find it distressful. Some people want sex several times per day and others don’t want it at all, and all experiences can be perfectly healthy,” says O’Reilly.

    However, if you do find your lack of sexual desire distressing and you want to be more interested in sex, O’Reilly recommends looking at whether your libido is low due to lifestyle or relational factors, which could range from trouble communicating with eachother, lacking emotional connection, or dealing with existing conflicts such as fighting over money or kids.

    Reduce stress levels

    Stress can cause various physical symptoms including a lower libido. 

    O’Reilly says your levels of cortisol — commonly referred to as the stress hormone — rise when you’re stressed out, and this can interfere with your sexual desire and arousal. A 2018 survey conducted by the BBC found that 45% of respondents said that stress negatively affected their sex drive.

    However, learning to reduce or manage stress can be difficult. Don’t be afraid to ask for help and support, whether it’s from your partner or a therapist. You can also try stress-relieving activities, such as meditation or exercise. Mindfulness has also proven to help improve sexual desire and sexual functioning, especially in women.

    Understand arousal and learn what turns you on

    For many people, the desire for sex isn’t there 24/7. “Desire does not always occur spontaneously. Most people need to get aroused first, and then they might experience desire. If you sit around waiting for sexual desire to occur on its own, it simply may not happen,” says O’Reilly.

    There are plenty of ways you can ramp up arousal, and thus, desire. Try some of the following:

    • Fantasizing
    • Sexting
    • Watching porn
    • Reading erotic stories
    • Touching yourself
    • Experimenting with sex toys
    • Having your partner kiss and touch you without the expectation of sex
    • Listening to erotica
    • Enjoying music that feels sexual to you

    Get creative and experiment with what turns you on most and increases your desire. O’Reilly says that once you’re aroused, it’s much more likely that desire for sex will follow.

    Expanding your definition of what sex means can also be helpful. If you are not excited by the type of sex you have been engaged in, trying something new can be exciting.

    Let go of performance anxiety

    Performance anxiety, pressure, and stress surrounding sex is likely to curb your arousal and your desire. “Pressure is the antithesis to pleasure, so if you feel pressure to have sex in a certain way, look a certain way, have an orgasm, get hard, get wet, make specific sounds or want sex with a specific frequency, you may find that you lose interest altogether,” says O’Reilly.

    Take time out to really get to know yourself sexually. O’Reilly says that spending time better understanding your body’s unique responses through masturbation can help you to be more at ease when you’re with a partner. She also highly recommends using mindfulness during masturbation, and mindfulness in general, which will result in benefits in partnered sex.

    Practicing mindfulness has been studied with great results in regards to libido. A 2014 study published in Behaviour Research and Therapy examined 117 women who struggled with low desire. After mindfulness training, there was a significant decrease in “sex-related distress.”

    With practice, mindfulness can help you stay in the moment, enjoy pleasure, and let performance anxiety roll off your back. Talking to a therapist or opening up to your partner about your performance anxiety can also be helpful.

    Get enough sleep

    Sleep affects many aspects of your health and behavior, including your sex drive. A 2019 study published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine found that lack of quality sleep is correlated to low libido, as well as difficulty orgasming in women.

    O’Reilly says exhaustion can lead to lack of desire for sex.In this case, you should be prioritizing sleep over sex. Once you take care of your sleep habits, you may notice a difference in your libido, according to O’Reilly.

    Address relationship dissatisfaction

    When you’re in a relationship and you’re experiencing issues with your partner, it’s likely that those problems will spill over into the bedroom and leave one or both of you less likely to want sex.

    “If you’re harboring resentment, dealing with a partner who doesn’t want to engage, struggling with ongoing conflict, recovering from hurt and trauma, it’s unlikely that you’ll want sex spontaneously,” says O’Reilly.

    It’s best to work on these issues with your partner rather than sweep them under the rug and hope they go away. O’Reilly suggests talking about underlying sources or tension, and being open about issues. You can do this alone with your partner or with the help of a couples’ therapist.

    Reduce Negative Anticipation

    You might not be looking forward to sex if you are worried about potential or actual negative consequences.

    If you don’t want to get pregnant or are worried about STIs, use barrier methods such as condoms and hormonal birth control. Be sure to have conversations with any partner about your comforts and concerns.

    Some people also experience unwanted pain with sex. This is not something to be excited about. Ask your doctor about any pain or discomfort you experience.

    If you regularly have issues with reliable erections and control over orgasms, you might be worried about sex being pleasurable for you and your partner. Make an appointment with a urologist if you have any issues with erections or orgasms.

    Talk to a therapist

    Talking to a general therapist or a sex therapist can help you deal with underlying psychological reasons that you might be experiencing low sex drive. O’Reilly says this can be particularly helpful if you’re dealing with shame surrounding sex, body image, or trauma.

    There is nothing to be embarrassed or ashamed about regarding sex or seeking therapy to help with your sex life. This can be a way to examine the sources of your distress. If there is an underlying psychological cause, then simply trying to boost your libido probably won’t help. You need to address the fundamental issue at hand, first.

    Try out these tips to give your libido a boost and you’ll be on your way to wanting – and enjoying – sex again.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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SexTech and Disability

— Why These Markets Matter

By Wednesday Lee Friday

Everyone enjoys sex—or could, if they had access to the right products and solutions. Most SexTech is designed with able-bodied consumers in mind, which begs the question: What about the disabled market?

We spoke to leaders at three prominent adult product companies to examine the state of SexTech in terms of accessibility and meeting the needs of those with disabilities. Andrew Gurza, Chief Disability Officer at Handi; Dr. Soum Rakshit, Co-Founder and CEO of Mystery Vibe, and AJ Vitaro, President of Zen by Design.

Responses may be slightly edited for clarity or brevity.

SexTech Magazine: In terms of numbers, how big is the market for able-inclusive products? Is there enough potential revenue on the table to attract industry attention? In other words, does servicing this community make financial sense, as opposed to simply being ‘the right thing to do?

Dr Soum Rakshit: My research shows that 15% of people have some sort of physical disability (not including blindness), though many aren’t disabilities we can see. Setting aside numbers though, good designs should work well for everyone. When we designed Crescendo, versatility was our core concept. This involved adding a lock, making buttons flush, and adding a remote or app control for those who might not be able to reach buttons during use.

AJ Vitaro: Paralysis, for example, due to a wide variety of conditions and injuries, effects nearly two percent of the population in The United States alone. However, being in the furniture design business for over twenty years and connecting with thousands of people, it leads us to believe that these numbers are even higher than anticipated. As far as revenue potential for our company in particular, it is not a target market for us, per say; however, we do attract those with disabilities due to the supportive, ergonomic nature of The Tantra Chair ®.

STM: On a scale of 1-10, how has the SexTech industry performed in terms of able-inclusivity? 

Andrew Gurza: I would rate the SexTech industry a 3/10 in terms of their inclusivity of the disabled population. That isn’t to say that companies haven’t attempted to address the inclusivity gap, however, we rarely see disabled people in the marketing or creation of the products themselves, and if they are considered, it seems to be an afterthought or a PR stunt versus being integrated into the strategy from the outset.

We are one of the only companies with a Chief Disability Officer and disabled Co-Founder who advises on the lived experience and has been integral to the branding and product design. We hope to be setting a positive example of inclusive design and integration.

STM: Can you take us through the launch of one of your inclusive products?

AJV: When we develop a product, the creative process is arduous, time consuming and extremely detailed. Sometimes it can take us over three years to perfect a design concept, and this was true for The Tantra Chair ®. We work with the dimensions of the human body across a very wide spectrum to come up with designs that nurture the majority of people whether they are struggling with an injury, disability or in perfect health. In our initial years, we were very surprised by the amount of people with injuries or disabilities that were pleased beyond measure because they were able to be comfortable again during intimacy. We continue to hear this often and it is something that we are truly grateful for.

Dr. S.R.: We made the product with inclusivity in mind, but did not include people with disabilities in our user group. This wasn’t planned, and we have since added more diversity to test groups. Our purpose is to design products for everyone, not because you want to tick a box. When people put time into a design, it works for everyone.

STM: Products that are marketed to surmount a specific obstacle can often go mainstream unexpectedly. The Clapper, a device that turns off electric appliances by clapping hands, was invented with customers with mobility issues in mind. Similarly, weighted blankets were products used to calm children with autism and hyperactivity disorder. Now these blankets are immensely popular for an array of consumers.  

Still, we wonder if there’s concern in the industry that disability-friendly products will be less desirable to abled people. How might that be mitigated?

AG: Many of the people that we spoke with at Handi as we created our tech were both disabled and non-disabled alike, and they all told us that they wanted a toy that could work for everyone. When you design with disability in mind, you can create a product that is accessible to everyone. At Handi, we also understand that disability will affect everyone at some point in their lives, so we should be creating products with that in mind. It’s like a type of orgasm insurance – even if you don’t need it today, you may very well tomorrow. Not to mention, there’s something very compelling about a hands-free sex toy – which 76% of our able-bodied respondents were interested in.

Dr. S.R. Yes, that’s a perception that can be mitigated with design. Imagine retrofitting something for disability access—a staircase, for example. It’s not going to look as good as a staircase that was designed for access from the beginning. Design is everything. The better the tech is, the less you’ll see it. Adult products push tech forward just as pornography did for internet speed, enhanced picture resolution, accessibility—even the battle between VHS tapes and Betamax was settled by adult content.

AJV: We don’t believe that disability-friendly products will be less desirable to abled people. With our product specifically, it can enhance the life of a person with a disability, an aging couple, or even healthy, adventurous couples.

STM: What should product designers and developers be aware of in order to create more inclusive products? 

Dr. S.R.: Things outside our day-to-day life are often invisible to us. So it’s important to keep updating. Pilot groups are vital to us, and we use 1,000 pilot users for each new product. Even if you can’t have a diverse focus group—piloting works.

AG: A big roadblock in the SexTech category is the lack of marginalized people involved in the creation of the final product from ideation to concept to production.  SexTech needs to actively include these voices all the way through the process if they want to truly be seen as inclusive. Otherwise it can come off as lip service. Talking the talk, but not walking the walk. One of the biggest needs that isn’t being addressed by the current SexTech, is the prevalence of people with limited dexterity or hand disabilities/limitations. The buttons on so many current products are small and not easy to use. Hundreds of millions of people live with this as a result of disabilities, and 63% of the people we surveyed said that they struggled with self-pleasure due to issues with hand mobility. We need more toys that are easier to use; have bigger buttons and are as hands-free as possible.

The only way to effectively address this is to hire more disabled people to work on the product and concept design. Listen to what they have to say; what are their frustrations with products? What are their frustrations with sexuality as disabled people? By truly listening to these stories, you can uncover a need, and from that, you can create a truly groundbreaking product that will not only change their sex life, but will change their life entirely.

AJV: This is a difficult question to answer, but many disabilities stem from nerve damage due to physical injury, stroke, etc. In most of these circumstances, the spinal column is damaged. We hyper focus on spinal support for everyone, may they have an injury, or not and this inadvertently attracts customers that want to maintain a healthy spinal column to those that are injured and limited in mobility. It makes perfect sense to create designs that will enhance the well-being of everyone.

STM: How should inclusion and representation be marketed? Do you lean toward separate marketing for each demographic, or one clear message for everyone?   

Dr. S.R.: We tend to use education rather than marketing, just letting people know what’s available to them. We’re proponents of reverse marketing; simply telling people about a product and inviting them to check it out often yields better results than click funnels and the like.   

STM: What do you see as the main challenges to marketing inclusive products?

AJV: We do not market our products (specifically The Tantra Chair ®) as a medical device for a variety of legal reasons. However, people with disabilities are inadvertently drawn to it, because they recognize that it can help them solve a physical problem or at the very least, create a much more comfortable experience for them.

Dr. S.R.: We have never marketed on the basis of inclusiveness. We think that might be divisive. If we make it a marketing point, people may think it’s not genuine. Inclusiveness should be done by default. The only time we talk about the inclusiveness of our products specifically is in award applications.

What we’re seeing is an industry moving forward to inclusivity as a matter of course. The way forward is to create and market SexTech products that can work for any user, and be effectively marketed across multiple demographics. Extending inclusivity into focus groups and test markets will go a long way toward making the very concept of ability-accessible products a thing of the past. That’s bound to improve sex lives—and every other aspect of life.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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5 ways men can last longer during sex

There are several reasons why you might ejaculate prematurely including poor body image, inexperience, and higher levels of testosterone.

By Madeline Kennedy 

If you are worried that you finish too quickly in bed, you are not alone – around 1 in 3 men in the US report having issues with premature ejaculation. It’s unclear why this happens, but scientists think it’s a combination of psychological and biological factors.

If you aren’t able to have sex for as long as you would like, there are several strategies that can help

How long does the average person last during sex?

The adult film industry often depicts sex going on for hours, which can give a false idea of how long sex should last, says Jamin Brahmbhatt, MD, a urologist at the PUR clinic.

According to a 2005 study conducted across 5 countries, vaginal sex generally lasts for around 5 to 6 minutes. 

However, there’s no correct amount of time for sex to last and it’s up to you and your partner to decide what works best.

Why you might not be lasting as long as you want to

It’s common for men to finish too quickly once in a while, but if you nearly always ejaculate after less than a minute of sex, you may be diagnosed with premature ejaculation.

  • Psychology: Though the exact cause is not well known, “there are definitely psychological aspects to premature ejaculation,” Brahmbhatt says. Studies show that anxiety, particularly anxiety about your sexual performance, is linked to premature ejaculation. Feeling depressed, stressed out, or guilty can also make you more likely to finish quickly. Men may also experience premature ejaculation at higher rates if they have poor body image or are victims of sexual abuse.
  • Experience: Your level of sexual experience can also affect how long you last in bed. “Men may also climax faster if they are not having sex often or this is their first time engaging in any sexual activity,” Brahmbatt says.
  • High amounts of free testosterone: Studies show that men with premature ejaculation tend to have higher levels of free testosterone, which can lead to symptoms like loss of energy and low sex drive. . However, scientists say that more research is needed to determine why this is the case.
  • Hyperthyroidism: Premature ejaculation can also be caused by hyperthyroidism, a condition in which the thyroid gland in your neck produces too much of a hormone called thyroxine. Researchers aren’t sure why thyroid issues affect your sex stamina, but after being treated for hypothyroidism, men are much less likely to experience premature ejaculation.

How to last longer during sex

If you are struggling with finishing too early, here are a five things you can do that may help.

1. Condoms

Since premature ejaculation may be a result of hypersensitivity, using a condom is a simple solution that may make sex last longer. The condom forms a barrier around the penis that dulls sensation and may lead to delayed ejaculation. 

2. The pause-squeeze method

The pause-squeeze method can be done while having sex or masturbating and involves:

  1. Having sex until you feel that you are about to ejaculate.
  2. Then, pulling out and squeezing the tip of your penis for several seconds, or until the need to ejaculate passes.
  3. And finally, continuing to have sex and repeating the technique as needed.

“They theory is you stop the flow, let the penis rest, and then go back at it to increase your time, Brahmbatt says.” 

Brahmbatt says that this can be one of the more difficult treatments for premature ejaculation because it takes a lot of self-control. Practicing repeatedly and communicating clearly with your partner may help ease the process.

Over time, you may be able to train your body to delay ejaculation without using the squeeze maneuver.

3. Pelvic floor exercises

Your pelvic floor muscles lie just below your prostate and your rectum and just like other muscles, they can be strengthened through exercise. Experts believe that if pelvic floor muscles are too weak, it may be harder for you to delay your ejaculation. 

To flex your pelvic floor muscles, act as if you are trying to stop yourself from peeing or passing gas and feel which muscles move. To tone these muscles, you should follow these steps:

  1. Tighten the pelvic floor muscles – you can lie down or sit if this makes it easier.
  2. Hold the muscles taut for 3 seconds.
  3. Relax the muscles for 3 seconds.
  4. Repeat the exercise as many times as needed.

See here for a more comprehensive guide to kegel exercises for both men and women.

To get good results, you should try to do 3 sets of 10 repetitions each day.

If you are still struggling with finishing too early, your healthcare provider can help you or refer you to another expert healthcare provider, since there are also some medications or procedures that you might benefit from.

4. Numbing medications

Numbing medications use ingredients like lidocaine and prilocaine, which work by blocking the nerve signals that make you feel pleasure and pain. These medications generally come as creams or sprays and when they are applied to your penis, you will have decreased sensitivity, and are approved for use in premature ejaculation.

Numbing creams or sprays should be applied to the penis 20 to 30 minutes before sex. Because sexual pleasure will feel less intense, you may be able to delay your ejaculation.

There are some drawbacks to this method, however, as the medication can also decrease your partner’s sensitivity to pleasure. “Make sure your partner knows you are using it — as a heads up and also to make sure they don’t have a history or allergic reaction or problem with its use,” Brahmbatt says.

5. Viagra

Though sildenafil (Viagra) is usually prescribed to treat people who have trouble keeping an erection, research shows that it can help with premature ejaculation as well.

A 2007 study found that Viagra worked well to delay ejaculation and was more effective than the stop-squeeze technique. At the end of the study, 87 percent of subjects using Viagra said they wanted to continue this treatment, compared with 45 percent of subjects using stop and squeeze.

Premature ejaculation is a common condition but it can cause difficulties in your sex life or relationships. If none of these methods work to help you last longer in bed, contact your doctor to help you come up with the most appropriate treatment plan.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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It took us long enough, but we’re finally paying attention to women’s pleasure

By Erin Magner

While the history of women and pleasure is fraught with stigma, it appears we’re in the midst of a pleasure revolution. Now, female-identifying founders are creating pornography, sex toys, sex-education platforms, and erotica, all of which normalizes and celebrates a woman’s right to get off. Not only are consumers turned on by this building movement—the global sex toy market alone is expected to be worth $35 billion by 2023, up from $23.7 billion in 2017—but investors, too, are shuttling millions of dollars into sexual wellness start-ups such as Dipsea, a sexy short-story app, and Unbound, an e-tailer selling sex toys and other bedroom accessories. In short, there’s never been a better time than now for having a vulva and loving to orgasm.

So how did we get to this place of openness when, just two decades ago, Samantha Jones’ unapologetic pursuit of big Os on Sex and the City was considered radical? While there have been many twists and turns throughout the history of women and pleasure, it can be argued that the modern movement’s roots first planted in the 1950s. Back then, attitudes toward sexuality were still, in many ways, informed by the repressive Victorian era—when society demanded a “don’t ask, don’t tell” attitude toward female desire. Yet in 1953, sexologist and biologist Alfred C. Kinsey, PhD, published his landmark (and controversial) book titled Sexual Behavior in the Human Female, which shed light on women’s then-rarely discussed habits regarding masturbation, orgasms, and sex before marriage. (Spoiler alert: Among the 6,000 women interviewed for the book, all of those activities were highly popular.) From there, the world slowly but surely opened its eyes to women as sexual beings.

The early history of women and pleasure

Four years following the release of Dr. Kinsey’s book, William Masters and Virginia Johnson began their pioneering work on the physical mechanisms behind sexual arousal at Washington University in St. Louis. Their most groundbreaking findings are still frequently cited today, like the four stages of sexual arousal—excitement, plateau, orgasm, and resolution—and the idea that women are able to have multiple orgasms. “Even the very suggestion that sexual pleasure might be important for women and not just men was massively radical during those times,” says Zhana Vrangalova, PhD, professor of human sexuality at New York University and resident sexpert for sex-toy brand Lelo.

As the history of women and pleasure progressed, a succession of cultural milestones continued to help champion the idea of non-procreative sex among women. First, the birth control pill hit the market in 1960, which officially allowed women to have sex without the prospect of pregnancy. Helen Gurley Brown’s book Sex and the Single Girl (1962) gave advice for sex and dating as an unmarried woman, and a group of Boston women later self-published the seminal Our Bodies, Ourselves (1970), which provided evidence-based information to teach women about their sexual anatomy. Then as the hippie counterculture spread a message of free love, leaders of the second-wave feminist movement encouraged women to take an active role in their own sexual experience. You know, like men had been doing for centuries beforehand.

Despite all of this progress, however, Dr. Vrangalova points out that the framework for female pleasure in the 1960s and early ’70s was still largely based on a male perspective. “Given that the ’60s were a time when women were still very much second-class citizens, the way sexual pleasure was conceptualized was the way men, rather than women, thought about pleasure,” she says. “There’s no doubt women participated, but it seems like they adopted the male-driven vision of sexual pleasure, rather than focusing specifically on female pleasure. This was an inevitable product of the times—even scientists across diverse fields believed that whatever findings were true of men were also true of women, more or less.” For instance, at this point in the history of women and pleasure, there was still a pervasive view that women, like men, should be able to reach orgasm through vaginal intercourse alone.

“The ’60s were a time when women were still very much second-class citizens, and the way sexual pleasure was conceptualized was the way men, rather than women, thought about pleasure.”
—sexologist Zhana Vrangalova, PhD

Thankfully, in 1976, sex educator Shere Hite’s book The Hite Report: A Nationwide Study of Female Sexuality re-emphasized the importance of clitoral stimulation in reaching orgasm—an idea put forth by Dr. Kinsey two decades previously. (It wasn’t until 2005, however, that researchers led by Australian urologist Helen O’Connell, MD, would actually create a full map of the clitoris’ internal and external structures.) Then, in 1982, a book titled The G Spot and Other Recent Discoveries About Human Sexuality, brought this then-little-known erogenous zone—and the concept of female ejaculation—into the public consciousness.

But soon after, new discoveries around women’s pleasure began to cool off, a phenomenon that Dr. Vrangalova attributes to the early days of the HIV/AIDS crisis. “Unfortunately, that swung the pendulum on sexual pleasure—male and female—back toward the more conservative end of the spectrum, and America entered the Dark Ages of abstinence-only sexual education,” she says. “This had the incredibly harmful effects of sexually crippling an entire generation of Americans with lack of information, increasing fear of sex and STIs, and increasing stigma around pleasure, especially if it was outside of long-term committed relationships.”

Women are sexual beings, but there’s a pleasure gap to close and stigma to stop

Fast-forward a decade, however, and pleasure once again started to creep back into the zeitgeist. But even in 1999, when Sex and the City was must-watch viewing, 40 percent of women still claimed to experience sexual disfunction, characterized by a lack of sexual desire and difficulty attaining arousal.

According to public-health researcher Katherine Rowland‘s new book, The Pleasure Gap, this feeling of sexual dissatisfaction still endures, despite all the strides that have been made during the past 60-plus years. “Among the women who I spoke to, the persistent low desire was heavily associated with the idea that sex should revolve around penetration as the main course, with maybe a polite prelude of a foreplay, rather than thinking about sex as a broader universe of intimacy,” Rowland previously told NPR. “It’s the combination of a larger culture that privileges male sexuality over women’s, a culture that doesn’t teach women that pleasure belongs to them. A lack of anatomical self-knowledge. And feelings of sort of persistent danger and women being often censored and censured for expressing their desire.”

Yet on all of these fronts, the tides have been slowly turning in recent years, thanks in large part to the rise of the digital age. “The internet and smartphones enabled unprecedented access to vast amounts of sexual pleasure information and to all sorts of alternative and more liberal sexual values and lifestyles,” says Dr. Vrangalova, who notes that online porn and erotica helped to normalize the concept of “a women’s right to pleasure.”

Furthermore, the #MeToo movement of 2017 set the stage for the current pleasure revolution. “There are a lot of women who relived their traumas during #MeToo…it wasn’t a linear path,” says Alexandra Fine, sexologist and CEO of next-gen vibrator company Dame. “But it does ultimately feel like it empowered women to reclaim their sexual pleasure as their own and to speak more openly about it.”

It’s that open dialogue around sex that’s leading women to get curious about their own pleasure patterns right now—and that’s clearing a path for companies to create products and services that help them get to know their own bodies. “[At Dame,] we’re hearing so many stories of women being really honest about what their sexual experiences are in an unfiltered way that wasn’t available before,” Fine adds.

What to expect from the next chapter in the history of women and pleasure

As knowledge gaps continue to emerge around women’s sexual pleasure, organizations like Allbodies—a digital sex-ed platform—are stepping up to fill them. Allbodies co-founder and doula Ash Spivak says there are still many vulva-owners who feel alienated by conventional pleasure wisdom, either because they’ve previously experienced trauma or by virtue of the fact that everyone’s body works differently. “We have so much emphasis on orgasms in general as being the pinnacle, but pleasure is a spectrum,” she says. “There’s so much room in there to really play around and that’s really never been taught.”

“We have so much emphasis on orgasms in general as being the pinnacle, but pleasure is a spectrum. There’s so much room in there to really play around and that’s really never been taught.”
—Ash Spivak, Allbodies co-founder

There are also plenty of institutions that aren’t yet ready for an open dialogue around female arousal at this point in the history of women and pleasure. For instance, Facebook still doesn’t allow advertising for sex toys—although it does allow ads for sexual-health companies, like those promoting erectile-disfunction treatments for men. And Fine says targeting this is the next frontier of the pleasure revolution.

“This conversation around advertising policy is a really interesting place where it’s showing up,” she says, noting that Dame sued the New York City MTA in 2019 for refusing to run its vibrator ads in the subway. Changing this reality is part of her bigger mission for Dame. “If we can’t have public discourse around sexuality because we think it’s inherently inappropriate, then we’re pushing sex to the shadows. And the things that happen in the shadows when it comes to sex harm women.”

Fortunately, research is continuing to unveil nuances of the female sexual experience, which can only help to erase shame and popularize the idea that there’s no one-size-fits-all path to pleasure. One 2019 study, for instance, debunked the idea that all orgasms are positive experiences—some women do, indeed, view them as negative at times, particularly when they feel coerced into having sex or pressured into climaxing.

Brands are even contributing to our collective knowledge. Dame, for instance, asks members of its Dame Labs community to test its prototypes pre-launch and then uses feedback to fine-tune each product. For instance, Dame engineers were surprised to learn when developing the company’s first internal vibrator, the Arc, that testers considered the toy’s external sensations to be even more important than its internal stimulation properties—even though testers said they would purchase the toy to use internally. The engineers edited the design accordingly, and as a result, pleasure won.

And while pleasure is a right entitled to all people, vulva-owners certainly included, Fine, for one, believes there are even bigger health gains to to glean from knowing as much as possible about the female sexual experience. “I really believe that sex is part of our wellness—it’s literally what creates our life,” she says. ‘Why would we think it’s not constantly impacting [us]?”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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How to Reconnect With Your Partner After Having Kids

Don’t wait for the most convenient time to rebuild intimacy. You’ll be waiting a long time.

By Christina Caron

First things first: This is not another article that simply tells you to “go on a date night.”

Nothing against date nights. The best ones can remind you why you fell in love with your spouse or partner in the first place.

Or they can involve staring at each other in a sleep-deprived haze over an expensive meal while intermittently glancing at your phone for updates from the babysitter.

If date nights aren’t working for you, or if you’ve been struggling to maintain intimacy for months — or even years — after having children, here are some different ways to stay close to your spouse or partner, despite the stresses and frustrations of parenthood.

Try not to become complacent.

Just as there was never a perfect time to have children, there will rarely be a perfect time to rekindle a connection with your partner.

It’s easy to push your romantic relationship to the side: “Let’s get through sleep training first.” Or: “As soon as I get back into shape.” Or: “Maybe when I’m less tired.”

Then winter arrives. “Everyone’s sick again? Let’s wait until we get better.”

But if you keep waiting, experts say, regaining intimacy can become increasingly difficult.

“It seems to have been the norm for so many couples to say to themselves, ‘Now that the kids are here, we’ll focus on the kids. Our day will come,’” said Michele Weiner-Davis, a marriage and family therapist whose TEDx talk about sex-starved marriages has been viewed more than 5 million times. “But here’s the bad news from someone who’s been on the front lines with couples for decades. Unless you treat your relationship, your marriage, like it’s a living thing — which requires nurturing on a regular basis — you won’t have a marriage after the kids leave home.”

Couples may start to lead parallel but separate lives — and discover they have nothing in common.

“They’re looking at a stranger, and they ask themselves, ‘Is this the way I want to spend the last few years of my life?’” Ms. Weiner-Davis said. “And for too many couples the answer is no.”

But all of that is preventable, she added.

“It’s absolutely essential not to be complacent about what I call a ho-hum sex life. Touching is a very primal way of connecting and bonding,” Ms. Weiner-Davis said. “If those needs to connect physically are ignored over a period of time, or are downgraded so that it’s not satisfying, I can assure people there will be problems in the relationship moving forward.”

Slow down and start over.

If you had a vaginal birth, you and your partner may expect to begin having sex as early as six weeks after the baby is born, if you have been physically cleared to do so.

For some couples, that signals “the clock is now ticking,” said Emily Nagoski, author of “Come As You Are: The Surprising New Science That Will Transform Your Sex Life.”

But a lot of women simply won’t be ready that early. And that’s O.K.

“After the postpartum checkup, I didn’t feel like myself, I didn’t feel physically ready to have sex,” said Emily Stroia, 33, who lives in Los Angeles. “In terms of libido, I didn’t really have one.”

Ms. Stroia, the mother of a 10-month-old, eventually starting having sex with her partner once a month — but before she became pregnant, they had sex nearly every week, she said.

“I still kind of forget that I’m in a relationship,” said Ms. Stroia, who is struggling with sleep deprivation. “I have to remind myself that I have a partner.”

After any potential medical problems are ruled out, Dr. Nagoski advises couples to “start over” with one another by establishing a sexual connection in much in the same way they might have done when they were first getting to know each other: making out, holding each other and gradually moving in the direction of bare skin.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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How to find body positivity after cancer

Cancer can change how you feel about you, your body and your sexuality.

By Good Housekeeping

Cancer changes everything. The diagnosis, the treatment and the aftermath can affect your work, your finances, your relationships and, even more fundamentally, how you think and feel about you, your body, your sexuality.

The impact of treatment for breast and gynaecological cancers can be far reaching. Sometimes the changes are very visible, such as a mastectomy, while chemotherapy, radiotherapy or a hysterectomy can cause other issues, including infertility, early menopause, fatigue, loss of libido and physical changes like narrowing and shortening of the vagina, vaginal dryness and painful sex.

Changes to your body and the way you feel about it can come as a shock post treatment, says clinical psychologist Dr Frances Goodhart. “Treatment can be gruelling and often your sole focus is on getting through it. When it’s over and you’re living with a changed body, worrying about cancer coming back and feeling as though you’ve lost part of yourself, you can struggle with the sense of who you are.”

You don’t have to love your body but it is important to be able to accept.

If you find yourself struggling, you are certainly not alone. Research by Target Ovarian Cancer in 2016 found that 69% of women with ovarian cancer suffered a loss of self esteem, 73% had difficulty with intimacy and 84% reported a lower sex drive. Similarly Breast Cancer Care researchers found that eight in 10 women were unhappy with their sex life after treatment and research by Jo’s Cervical Cancer Trust found that 67% of women experienced changes to their sex lives.

Given these statistics it’s clear that at least for some women, learning to love your body post cancer can be a very big ask. “Let’s be realistic – how many women actually love their bodies pre-cancer?” says Dr Goodhart. “So you don’t have to love your body but it is important to be able to accept it and recognise what it has brought you through.”

Read on for advice for finding that acceptance…

Try not to put off looking at your scars

If you have scars or other visible changes to your body, try not to put off looking at them with your doctor or nurse if this helps. Take it gradually – it’s normal to feel shocked and upset at first but for most women these feelings will ease over time.

Ask for help if you need it

And do it as soon as possible. Jo’s Trust found that two thirds of the women who experienced changes to their sex life didn’t tell a doctor. Your GP or clinical nurse specialist can provide practical help with issues such as vaginal dryness, tightness and pain and give you information on how to cope with sexual difficulties or put you in touch with someone who can help.

Intimacy doesn’t have to mean intercourse

Holding hands, cuddling, kissing, stroking can all help you to slowly get back to feeling closer and rebuild your confidence in taking things to the next level, or not. Remember it’s ok to not want to be sexual – it’s only a problem if it’s causing a problem.

Keep talking to your partner

What you have been through is scary for both of you and communication can break down if both of you avoid saying how you really feel to try to protect the other from hurt.

If you are single and want to meet someone, take your time

Dating can be hard and you are likely to feel frightened of rejection. It can be hard to know when to share the information about your cancer with a new partner – while there is no simple answer it’s important to reach a stage where you feel as though can you trust your new partner, especially if you have body changes that they don’t know about. Honesty is key to successful relationships and a loving partner should accept you as you are.

Allow yourself to grieve

You have experienced major changes to your body and a loss of confidence and certainty and it’s quite normal to feel sad, angry, defiant, even disbelieving about what has happened.

Express yourself

Talking to your partner, to a friend, to a counsellor or to other women who have been through it can help you to process what has happened and find your way forward. Some people find that writing a journal where you allow yourself to write exactly what you feel, or starting a blog.

Exercise can help boost your mood and your body confidence

One study found that twice weekly strength training after cancer helped improve women’s body image and feel better about their appearance, health, physical strength, sexuality, relationships and social functioning.

Find the positives

Despite the challenges, many women find that they emerge from treatment with a new found respect for their body. “It certainly takes time to rebuild confidence in your body but many women say that they start to reassess and to realise what their body is capable of. Women say to us if I can get beyond this I can tackle anything head on,” says Lizzy Rodgers, head of supportive services at Target Ovarian Cancer.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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How to Enjoy Sex After a Dry Spell

Get past any awkward moments and on to the orgasm.

By Rachel Zar, LMFT

When it’s been a while since you last had sex, jumping back into the sack can be downright scary. And that’s a natural reaction: Having sex makes us vulnerable, is intimate, and can send our brains into protection mode, dreaming up every worst-case scenario. I’m a relationship and sex therapist, and I’ve heard the gamut of worries from clients—that a new partner will judge their body or their skills, or that the old “use it or lose it” refrain is true for their sexuality, or that it will simply be awkward.

Reentering the sexual realm, however, doesn’t have to be intimidating. Whether you and your partner have been going through a dry spell or you’re starting fresh with someone new, here are a few ways to prep for the big moment.

1. Explore your body.

One of the best ways to remind yourself what it feels like to be sexual is to create opportunities for masturbation. Take some time alone in bed or in the shower or tub to explore your body, let yourself fantasize, and reconnect with your sexual self. If your body has changed since last you were here (maybe you’ve given birth or are going through perimenopause), use this opportunity to be curious about new ways you may experience pleasure. The better a sense you have of what feels best for you, the more you’ll be able to get aroused and help your partner help you.

2. Get out of your own head.

Much of the work I do with clients is helping them get out of their heads and into their bodies when it comes to sex. When you’re worrying about what your partner thinks of your thighs or what you’re going to have for dinner later, it can be hard to catch pleasurable feelings when they arise.

Mindfulness meditation may help: Studies show that it can reduce anxiety during sex and increase pleasure. So download an app like Headspace or Calm and dedicate 10 minutes a day to breathing and being in your body. It may just become the most important tool in your sexual toolbox (even better than a vibrator, I swear).

3. Set the scene.

Some advance thought can help you feel that much sexier in the moment, so consider what helps set the mood for you. Do you like bright or dim lighting? Background music or silence? Do you feel more confident in lacy lingerie or a T-shirt? Also, gather any props (like your favorite lubricant) so they’ll be on hand and you won’t need to scramble.

4. Focus on exploration vs. performance.

When you’re feeling anxious about getting the deed done, you may have the urge to rush toward the finish line. But giving yourself permission to take it slowly will help keep the pressure off (and that’s key, because pressure is a huge libido killer!).

My advice is to have a conversation with your partner in advance to set the tone and expectations. Instead of trying to go “all the way” the first time you reintroduce intimacy, start with some foreplay—like a sensual massage or some good old-fashioned making out—then allow things to build, or not. Remember, there are lots of ways to have sex. Focus more on exploration and play than performance and orgasm, and you’ll be setting yourself up for success.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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A Common Factor Among Couples Not Having Sex

According to a Psychologist

By Margaret Paul, Ph.D.

“I don’t care if I never have sex again.”

I hear this often from my married women clients, especially those who have children or are in their late 40s. The women who say this have one thing in common: They don’t feel emotionally connected with their husbands.

How lack of connection can affect your sex drive.

Not everyone needs emotional connection for sex to be great, but in long-term relationships, the lack of connection can be a huge factor in a person’s desire to have sex with their partner. In relationships between men and women, there can also sometimes be a chicken-or-egg problem when it comes to sex and connection: Many men say that they feel emotionally connected after sex, while many women need to feel emotionally connected in order to want to have sex. This isn’t a hard-and-fast rule, of course—everyone’s different—but I do regularly notice this conundrum among my clients.

Here’s the interesting thing: Many of my women clients say that when they visit their husband at work and see him in his power, they do feel turned on by him. But when he comes home, he becomes an anxious, complaining, needy little boy—and they are not turned on by that whatsoever.

What’s going is that their husband is powerful in the work arena but self-abandoning—and thus needy—in the emotional arena. He wants sex to relax and feel good about himself rather than to connect with his wife. Rather than taking responsibility for his own feelings of stress and anxiety, he’s coming to his wife expecting for her to make him feel better (or worse, to use her for his own comfort). This dynamic invariably leads to his wife feeling used by him rather than loved.

There is nothing erotic about a needy person.

The situation is also often reversed, where a man wants more emotional connection with a female partner whereas she is disconnected, self-abandoning, and needy. When someone is coming to you for sex that’s all about making them feel validated and soothed, it’s not much of a turn-on.

Having sex to connect—not out of neediness.

Sex in a long-term relationship thrives when both partners are loving and taking care of themselves and then sharing their love with each other. This means that each partner needs to do whatever inner work is necessary to come to their partner full of love for their partner rather than coming from emptiness and neediness. We cannot be loving and emotionally connected when we are rejecting and abandoning our own feelings and then expecting our partner to make us feel OK about ourselves.

This might be a hard pill to swallow—yes, you’ll need to do the inner work before you’re going to see your sex life really come back to life. The good news is, sexuality in general thrives when both partners are open to learning about themselves and about each other, which is what creates growth and newness in long-term relationships. Sex doesn’t become boring when the relationship isn’t boring, and it isn’t boring when learning and emotional growth are an integral part of a relationship. 

Partners also need to make time alone together a high priority—time to share their day, to support each other, to share a meal, to do something fun, and to laugh together. This is how to emotionally connect with your partner. Emotional connection occurs when both people are open and loving with themselves and each other, with no agenda other than to share their love with each other. If one partner has a sexual agenda, the interaction won’t feel loving and genuine. Sexuality will often emerge naturally from their authentic emotional intimacy.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Why you’re probably having less (or more) sex right now

By Alexandra Ossola & Natasha Frost

Most people in lockdown, as 75% of Americans are at the moment, are probably experiencing big changes to their usual routine. There’s no office commute, no school bus shuttle; there are no parties to attend, no group dinners to plan. It’s unsurprising, then, that for a lot of people, those changes may also be affecting their sex life.

For some, less sex during the pandemic is a given—for those who are self-isolating while single, making their usual sex lives too risky, or those whose partners are away or sickened by the virus. Meanwhile, those with the option of having more sex might well be taking it: Condoms may become the next item to be in short supply worldwide, while some have speculated that maternity wards will see an uptick in mothers giving birth nine months after the lockdowns began.

But if you’re not feeling in the mood, well, you’re not alone. On Twitter, users lamented that “general panic and despair” had led to the sudden disappearance of their libido, as one put it. Others described feeling “unappealing” or wanting to cuddle and eat snacks instead. In a poll of just over 9,000 people from NBC News, only 24% said the coronavirus outbreak had positively affected their sex lives (28% were neutral and 47% said it had affected them negatively).

Online, sex researchers and therapists acknowledge that people could really go either way. “After all, we know from a mountain of psychological research that two people can respond to the same situation in very different ways and that the factors that increase sexual desire in some can drive it down in others,” Justin Lehmiller, a sex researcher at the Kinsey Institute, wrote in a blog post.

Wondering what’s going on? There might be a few reasons why you’re feeling different about getting busy.

Fighting off the blues

“For plenty of people, when they get stressed out, sex is the farthest thing from their mind,” says Heather McPherson, a sex therapist based in Austin, Texas. Between worrying about elderly parents, figuring out how to exercise at home, and managing a new routine, “a lot of things can point toward not doing it, because you’re so focused on surviving,” she says. Meanwhile, “stress and anxiety and potentially losing your job will potentially take a toll on all relationships.”

Still, in such unusual circumstances, it’s hard to know which behaviors are most common, McPherson says. “We don’t really have good measures to go off.”

Some people may see the opposite effect altogether: “For some people, when anxiety and stress goes up, their libido kicks up,” with sex serving as a coping mechanism. This is the phenomenon dubbed the “apocalyptic hornies” by Men’s Health, perhaps contributing to a 17.8% increase in US site traffic to PornHub on March 24, compared to an average day.

Writing in Psychology Today, sex therapist Diane Gleim suggests that it all comes down to a delicate balancing act: “A person’s sex drive needs just enough anxiety/tension/uncertainty to get activated but not too much anxiety/tension/uncertainty or else the person can get overwhelmed, flooded, and then sex drive goes underground,” she writes. “Think of it like the Goldilocks principle: not too much (anxiety), not too little (anxiety), but just (the) right (amount of anxiety).”

One of the few studies into the relationship between trauma and the libido, published in the International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics, looked at the effect of the massive 2008 earthquake in Wenchuan, China, on the reproductive health of 170 local women. Researchers found a marked decrease in women’s satisfaction with their sex life: Before the quake, 55% of women surveyed said they were satisfied, falling to 21% afterwards. They had less sex, too: Before the quake, every woman surveyed said they were having sex at least once a week, and in the week immediately after, 89% said they had not had sex at all. Even a month later, 32% said they were still not having sex.

The economy sucks

If US history is anything to go by, a downturn in economic prospects is similarly bad news for the nation’s sex life. That’s according to studies on the nation’s birth rate: During years of prosperity, such as the 1950s, the US birth rate soared. Its greatest nadirs, meanwhile, coincided with times of economic hardship: the Great Depression of 1929, the 1973 oil crisis, and the 2008 recession.

Between 2008 and 2013, for instance, nearly 2.3 million fewer babies were born in the US than would have been expected if pre-recession fertility rates had persisted, according to one study from the University of New Hampshire’s Carsey School of Public Policy.

Some of this may be pragmatic, of course—who wants to have another child when they can barely afford the ones they have? Still, while birth rate isn’t a perfect measure for how much sex people are having (especially after 1960, when the pill went on sale as a contraceptive), it’s one of the better indicators widely available.

Too much togetherness

In long-term relationships, it can be hard to keep the mystery alive at the best of times. That goes double when you’re stuck together in the confined space of your own home, with few opportunities for independent activities or time apart.

Too much closeness, in fact, can actually hinder the kind of intimacy we look for in sex, sex therapist and relationship guru Esther Perel writes in her book Mating in Captivity:

It is too easily assumed that problems with sex are the result of a lack of closeness. But … perhaps the way we construct closeness reduces the sense of freedom and autonomy needed for sexual pleasure. When intimacy collapses into fusion, it is not a lack of closeness but too much closeness that impedes desire.

Love rests on two pillars: surrender and autonomy. Our need for togetherness exists alongside our need for separateness. One does not exist without the other. With too much distance, there can be no connection. But too much merging eradicates the separateness of two distinct individuals. Then there is nothing more to transcend, no bridge to walk on, no one to visit on the other side, no other internal world to enter. When people become fused—when two become one—connection can no longer happen. There is no one to connect with. Thus separateness is a precondition for connection: this is the essential paradox of intimacy and sex.

During this interminable period of intense stress and anxiety, it’s hardly surprising if you find your libido vacillating from one extreme to the other. Sex therapist McPherson said many of her clients had found themselves settling gradually into a new routine after a few weeks in lockdown. As human beings, “generally, we’re pretty resilient,” she says. And when it comes to sex in quarantine, there’s one undeniable upside: “You certainly have enough time to do it.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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10 tips to keep your penis healthy

WHEN it comes to talking about matters down below, it can be a pretty sensitive topic.

Most of us prefer to keep discussions about our privates, well, private.

Keeping your penis healthy is important – here are some essential tips

By

But keeping your todger in good working order is important – especially as you get older.

Research shows that looking after your member can reduce your risk of erectile dysfunction and prostate cancer.

It’ll also help you enjoy a long and happy sex life well into the future.

Not sure where to start?

Here, male sexual health expert Kerri Middleton, from Bathmate, reveals her top tips to keep your penis healthy…

1. Workout

You’ll be pleased to know that the number one tip is to use the tool you’ve been gifted with.

A study by Harvard University found that blokes who ejaculate more frequently — upwards of 21 times per month — have a 33 per cent lower risk of developing prostate cancer.

Men who have sex at least once a week are less likely to suffer erectile dysfunction than those who roll in the hay less often.

A Finnish study has shown that the more you use it, the better your erections will be.

And don’t worry if you’re going through a dry patch – masturbation counts, too.

But it’s not just your penis that you need to work out to keep performing at your best – it’s your entire body.

Plenty of evidence links a sedentary lifestyle with erectile dysfunction, so if you want to improve staying power be sure to enjoy plenty of aerobic exercise.

Running and swimming are the best for penile health.

2. Let go of stress

Leave your stress at work and minimise stressful situations in your home life to keep your member strong.

Excess adrenaline is released into the bloodstream when you’re in a state of worry, causing your blood vessels — including the ones in your penis — to contract.

There are plenty of methods you can use to ease tension and unwind, from meditation to laughter or pumping iron, all of which can help with performance.

3. Cut down on booze

One way many people choose to relieve stress after a hard day’s work is hitting the bottle.

However, if you want to enjoy a healthy sex life long into the future, alcohol can seriously scupper your desire.

Binge and heavy drinking causes nerve and liver damage and can affect the careful balance of male sex hormones.

Even in the short term, alcohol curbs sensitivity and decreases reaction time, leaving you less able to perform.

4. Ditch cigarettes

It’s no secret that cigarettes harm your blood vessels and have a negative impact on your heart health.

Remember that your heart is the ultimate titan, pumping blood throughout your body — including your penis.

Nicotine also makes your blood vessels contract and can stifle blood flow down below.

5. Drink plenty of water

Water keeps everything flowing, especially the plasma and blood cells that make your member stand to attention.

If you’re dehydrated, the blood simply doesn’t flow as well as it should.

So, if you’re worried, up your daily intake of straight H2O to the recommended amount of eight glasses per day.

6. DON’T skip coffee

It’s a little-known fact that coffee consumption and healthy erections are linked.

Drinking coffee is said to speed up the metabolism and get the heart rate going in a healthy way, contributing to blood flow and a healthy member.

Caffeine also causes the arteries in your penis to relax, promoting blood flow to the nether regions.

A study found that drinking two to three cups a day has a particularly positive effect on blokes who are carrying a few extra pounds.

Keeping your penis in good health shouldn’t be a strain.

All of the components required to lead a healthy lifestyle contribute to blood flow, sperm count and testosterone levels and help fight disease.

Get into a mindset where looking after yourself is a priority, and the rest will follow.

7. Get a good night’s sleep

It’s all too easy in our busy society to allow sleep to fall by the wayside.

Between working, playing, relaxing and chatting, there’s barely enough hours in the day.

Still, rest is one of the most vital components of a healthy lifestyle.

Not getting enough sleep is connected to several health issues that contribute to downstairs disappointment such as high blood pressure, diabetes and obesity.

8. Eat well

We all know how important diet is to our overall health, but not many men realise how vital it is to eat the right diet for your penis.

The fuel you put in your body won’t only help erections – it also improves sperm count, sex drive and even affects your risk of prostate cancer.

The foods to avoid:

  • Anything deep-fried
  • Processed meats like bacon
  • Soy
  • Fizzy drinks
  • Sugar
  • Refined carbohydrates like white bread and breakfast cereals

The best foods to eat include tomatoes, salmon, olive oil and oysters.

Another type of food associated with male sexual health is anything spicy.

A French study has found that men who consume more spicy foods have higher testosterone levels than those who shy away from them.

Serrano peppers increase testosterone levels by reducing the amount the kidneys flush out while capsaicin releases chemicals that increase your heart rate, mimic arousal and kickstart your libido.

9. Check cholesterol levels

Not being able to get it up becomes more of an issue the older you get — but it doesn’t have to.

The reason age is tied into loss of erectile function is because as we age, we tend to put less effort into leading a healthy lifestyle.

High cholesterol narrows the blood vessels, which is the leading cause of erectile dysfunction.

Keeping fit, eating healthily and avoiding cigarettes and alcohol are the ideal ways to lower cholesterol.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Goal-Oriented Sex Could Be Ruining Your Intimate Life

By Vanessa Powell

While many women understand that overall pleasure, exploration, intimacy, and play should all be at center stage in a sexual experience, and not simply an orgasm (although, let’s be clear, it is still an important component), the latter often eclipses all else — which is why and how things can often go south. In fact, sex experts agree that goal-oriented sex can actually take the fun out of it for women altogether.

Thanks to social movements like The Cliteracy Project, an art series with the mission of educating a largely “il-cliterate” culture, women are more open to talking about their sexual experiences, preferences, and struggles than ever before. One of the major focal points of female sexuality to emerge in recent years involves the very real orgasm gap between men and women and the root of its existence. According to a 2016 study from the Archives of Sexual Behavior that looked at more than 52,500 adults in the U.S. — including those who are lesbian, gay, and bisexual — 95 percent of heterosexual men reported they usually or always orgasmed during sex, compared to just 65 percent of heterosexual women.

So, why are people creating a goal around something that should just have to do with mutual pleasure? Well, much of it can be traced back to a more archaic view of male and female sexuality — and orgasms in general. “Because the male orgasm is crucial to procreate, our society has built this idea that the male orgasm is crucial for sex; that sex begins with a hard penis and ends with a flaccid penis. Since women don’t have to orgasm to create life, it took a different level of societal importance,” says Shan Boodram, certified intimacy educator to The Zoe Report. “With that said, the majority of sex today has nothing to do with the desire to procreate. In fact, the orgasm numbers for women skyrocket in same-sex partnerships compared to heterosexual relationships. When you are with a same-sex partner, there is nothing to prove — it’s just about what feels good, and that is when naturally more orgasms and more pleasure occurs.”

Moral of the story here? Sex should be about being in the moment, true intimacy, and enjoying one another. It’s not a race to the finish line. “If you look at sex like, how good can I feel for as long as I want to feel it and for as long as my partner wants to feel it, great,” says Boodram. “And if an orgasm is the final result, even better. But if it’s just that you got more play time and felt great and relaxed, it’s still a successful sexual experience.”

Why Goal-Oriented Sex Is Sabotaging Your Intimate Life

Ashley Manta, sex and relationship coach and creator of lifestyle brand CannaSexual, seconds this notion. “Goal-oriented sex often robs the participants of the pleasure and joy of the experience,” says Manta. “Often the pressure to be demonstrative while receiving pleasure and to reach an arbitrary goal, in this case the orgasm… keeps them fixated on a point in the future.” Like anything in life, if you take yourself out of the present moment, it becomes difficult to enjoy.

Again, to be clear, orgasms are absolutely important and should be enjoyed by all, however, according to Sensual Embodiment Coach and Priestess of Passion, Ani Ferlise, “our attachment to the orgasm is ignoring all the amazing, healing, and nourishing pleasurable experiences in our bodies! We as a society are addicted to this very specific kind of pleasure based off of a male-bodied orgasm — a buildup of sensation, then a release. It’s the false promises that movies and porn portray. It’s two minutes of extreme penetration and there are fireworks… probably not going to happen.”

When one can detach themselves from the notion that climaxing makes the overall sexual experience a success, one can then truly become sexually free. Redefining what the orgasm is for you can actually help you relax more easily into one.

How To Be More Mindful With Your Sex Life

Ferlise holds Sex Magic coaching programs and workshops to help women cultivate their sacred sexual energy which, in turn, become a microcosm to nurturing passion, vibrancy, and connection in their overall life. One thing prevalent in her teachings is mindfulness, which is about remaining present in the moment and being aware of one’s bodily sensations. Intimacy starts with eye contact and can trickle into a conversation, a physical touch, or an energy exchange, even before any clothes are taken off. Allowing yourself to be vulnerable and to feel the desire, lust, and emotions as they come can help redefine the orgasm.

“Letting yourself sink into all the subtle sensations of pleasure, really leaning into it and feeling it in your body, and taking the same stock in that, can help you come back into your body and turn up the pleasure all over,” Ferlise says. When one is hyper focused on outside factors, they can train themselves to disassociate during sex, pushing their minds away from sensation, which ultimately decreases the amount one is able to feel.

Top Sex Tips For Ultimate Pleasure

Teach Your Partner What You Like

Manta tells her clients to “relax and breathe… and focus on what brings you the most pleasure, instead of what you think is going to get you off. Mimic the things you do when you’re masturbating and show your partner how you enjoy being touched.” Exploring self-pleasure is a great place to start in knowing what you like and dislike. Intimacy is uniquely personal — everyone’s body and interests are different, and we should communicate that to our partner or partners.

Get Out Of Your Head

One major complaint Ferlise says many women have during sex is that they think too much about how they look, how their partner feels, and how they are performing. “Adding all the body shame, the fear of being seen, and the fear of vulnerability, the fear of being broken because you think you can’t orgasm, the shame of not performing right — that so many women experience — it leads to a disconnect in your body and can cause you to check out during sex,” Ferlise says. Evidently, your partner will be much more turned on and notice the level of intimacy if you can truly unwind by letting go of these inhibitions.

Accessorize Your Sex Life

Adding tools into the mix can help build confidence in the bedroom. If you don’t feel completely comfortable being naked, try wearing sexy lingerie you feel great in. If you find yourself worried about lubrication and all that comes with it, try enlisting lube or organic coconut oil on your vulva to help ease your mind.

Get Moving

Movement is a helpful tool to be more present. “Move your body sensually in whatever way feels good,” says Ferlise. “Start to breathe into yourself deeply and focus your mind on your [vagina] and allow yourself to make some noise. As you exhale, you can moan and release sound. Your throat and your jaw are directly related to your pelvic bowl, and if they are tight and closed, so is your pelvic bowl.”

How To Embrace The Sex Life That Works For You

Women have an incredibly powerful sexual energy with great orgasmic potential. But this expands far beyond society’s picture of the “Big O.” Not only has culture suppressed the conversation and education around sex but it has put the female orgasm into a tiny box when it deserves so much more than a toe curl and high-pitched moan.

Everyone has the right to feel comfortable and unapologetic in their sexuality, whether that be via BDSM or missionary style twice a week. Closing the pleasure gap starts with experiencing and experimenting what works for you and letting go of the goal-oriented mindset. Don’t negate the importance of orgasms, but rather shift your mind to focus on how to achieve more overall pleasure. You deserve to feel safe and free in your body, as you are, at its highest potential.

Below are some products that help enhance sexual pleasure and health for people with vulvas. A happier healthier sex life should be on the top of everyone’s to-do list.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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My First Time Pegging Someone Changed How I Think About Sex

“Pegging is the ultimate tamer of men… It’s like having a nuclear weapon in your armoury.”

by Nichi Hodgson; as told to Sirin Kale

I was interning at a now-defunct erotic magazine when I met our resident dominatrix at the office Christmas party. She asked me if I wanted to be her vanilla girl assistant, and as I wasn’t getting paid there, I thought, I might as well try.

Back then, I knew nothing about pegging – I hadn’t even seen it in porn. We called it strap-on play back then [the term pegging was coined by sex columnist Dan Savage in 2001]. She had to teach me everything. She showed me her equipment: the leather harness that was specially made, her various cocks of different colours, widths and shapes.

I watched her do it to other people and saw the pleasure that men got out of it – there are huge swathes of men in the world who are desperate to be pegged. The sight of a beautiful woman dressed up in black leather gear wearing a harness and a cock is magnificent! It’s triumphant. Everyone should see it at some point in their life.

One time, a guy requested a strap-on session with the dominatrix. His dream was to be penetrated by two women separately. It started with a spanking session and some small penis humiliation, and then the dominatrix made him worship her cock. After a while, she was like, “Enough of this, it’s time to get fucked.”

She spread him on all fours, propping him on his forearms. Then she put a condom over her cock, got tons of lube and started off using her fingers to get him loose enough. She slid into him, thrusting quite gently at first and then building up the pace and depth; he wanked himself off at the same time.

He came, and then after he’d rested for a bit, she said, “Jamie” – that was my fake name back then – “is going to lose her strap-on virginity.”

We’d bought my cock and harness the week before; it was a good six inches long and a nice girth. I remember being pleased with the overall effect when I looked in the mirror. The dominatrix put a condom on me, lubed me up and showed me what to do. He was already open by that point, so I didn’t have to break him in again – I just entered him. I remember it so distinctly; it was mesmerising.

Pegging him changed my perspective on sexuality. I became more empathetic to men. Fucking someone is, physically, quite hard work. When I was younger I didn’t put that much effort in when I was having sex, in terms of thrusting or doing the actual manoeuvring. Also, when someone is opening their body to you, they’re quite vulnerable – you have a magnificent amount of power. I’d never thought about sex like that before because I’d never felt physically vulnerable in that way.

I wasn’t aroused, but it was psychologically interesting. Pegging is the ultimate tamer of men. They love it. It’s like having a nuclear weapon in your armoury.

I carried on working as a dominatrix, seeing my own clients. Often, you’d find yourself having to disappoint clients who’d seen hardcore porn where people are being absolutely rammed, and they’d want it really full on. But if you haven’t done it much, you can’t take it like that. When you start to feel the resistance in someone’s body, you have to stop, otherwise you’re going to hurt them. So the fantasy doesn’t always match up to the reality.

It’s hard for me to peg someone I’m in love with. There’s an exchange of energy – for nearly all men, there will be some unsettling feelings afterwards. Even if they fantasise about submitting to women, there’s this fear that you’ve given up something in the process of letting women fuck you. Men can feel belittled, upset or regretful afterwards – which is interesting, because women allow men to fuck them all the time, but they don’t feel subjugated.

After I’d finished working as a dominatrix, I was quite cagey about pegging men in romantic relationships. Even if guys said they liked it, I felt like they were seeing the dom, not the person. I did meet a romantic partner who was really into pegging, and I felt proud of him for being really honest about his desires.

We pegged a couple of times a year. I remember the first time we did it he was lying on his back looking up at me, so we could kiss at the same time. It was more intimate – less about getting rammed, and more about him relinquishing to me. For a man to give that up is quite sexy.

We probably pegged for about 15 minutes. It was a very wholesome sexual experience; we were both very engaged and present. It was sensual and loving, not about humiliation. That’s what’s great about pegging. It can be whatever you want it to be – the limit is your imagination.

A strap-on has to feel like an extension of your body in order for you to be really in control of it. It’s best to buy a harness, and separate differently-sized cocks, as they tend to be better quality and you can work your partner up through the different sizes.

Lots of men are apprehensive about being dirty, which prevents them from being able to let go and enjoy it. If you’ve got someone who’s pegging-curious, get them in the shower and soap them up to help them relax. Don’t give them an enema – that can leave water in the body, creating more chaos. You’ll need lots of lube.

Everyone is capable of pegging. You have to build up to it gradually and find the right man who’s genuinely interested in it. I think a surprising number of men are into it and want to try it. And lots of women would gain sexual confidence from pegging.

Once I felt like I could wield a cock and dominate someone in that way, things flipped for me. Pegging men helped me not to be as afraid of male sexuality. I saw how vulnerable men can be – if they are open enough.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!