Cancer patients and survivors can have trouble with intimacy

[P]eople who survive cancer treatment — a growing group now topping 5 million — often have trouble with intimacy afterward, both from the actual treatment and physical recovery and from the psychological damage of feeling so vulnerable.(Photo: Getty Images/Comstock Images) In the mirror, Kelly Shanahan looks normal, even to herself. But she does not feel …

Expert Shares Tips for Talking Sexual Health With Cancer Survivors

by KATIE KOSKO Sexual health can be an uncomfortable or embarrassing topic to discuss for many people, and for patients with cancer and survivors it can feel even more awkward. Nevertheless, sex ranks among the top 5 unmet needs of survivors, and the good news is, proactive oncology practitioners can help fill that void. Sixty …

How Finding Your Boyfriend’s ‘G-Spot’ Is The Secret To Unforgettable Sex

By Erica Suarez-Hillingdon There are various myths around the concept of prostate massage. Interestingly, as more men and women become aware of the benefits of massaging the prostate area, the taboos surrounding this highly sensual experience are breaking down. Despite what you may have heard, prostate massage is an extremely healthy activity that two people …

American Men Are Pretty Happy With Their Penises

By Jesse Singal For understandable reasons, society’s conversation about body satisfaction tends to focus on women. Women, it can safely be argued, face a lot more social pressure to look good all the time, to feel ashamed of their bodies, and to harp on minor imperfections. Men aren’t immune from all that, though. And one …

This Long-Lost Study On Victorian Sex Teaches A Very Modern Lesson

By Sara Coughlin What comes to mind when you picture Victorian-era sex? Corsets? Marriages of convenience and social bartering? Repression? Maybe, like, a lot of repression? Turns out, how we view that time in sexual history might be more than a little warped. We can start to get a better idea of what women of …

Are you getting any closer? A pocket-sized primer on female sexuality

By Clarissa Fortin Stay curious between the sheets, friends. Closer: Notes from the Orgasmic Frontier of Female Sexuality by Sarah Barmak (Coach House Books, 2016; $14.95) If it weren’t for Sarah Barmak’s Closer: Notes from the Orgasmic Frontier of Female Sexuality I might have gone for years of my life without ever finding out what my …

Large number of young people experience sex problems, study finds

By Denis Campbell More to be done to help with ‘sexual function’ as well as advice on STIs and pregnancy, say authors of survey Large numbers of young people experience sexual problems such as pain or anxiety during sex, the inability to climax and finding intercourse difficult, a study has found. A third (33.8%) of …

A handy history

Condemned, celebrated, shunned: masturbation has long been an uncomfortable fact of life. Why? by Barry Reay The anonymous author of the pamphlet Onania (1716) was very worried about masturbation. The ‘shameful vice’, the ‘solitary act of pleasure’, was something too terrible to even be described. The writer agreed with those ‘who are of the opinion, …