Think You Can’t Have Good Sex After a Chronic Illness Diagnosis?

Think Again!

Your sex life shouldn’t be halted because of bad advice, embarrassed doctors, or a lack of knowledge.

by Amy Mackelden

Receiving an unexpected diagnosis can affect every aspect of your life, including your sex life.

There are so many misconceptions when the topics of chronic illness and sex converge, making it a potentially scary subject for anyone learning to live within their “new normal.”

I was diagnosed with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis (RRMS) 2 weeks after my 30th birthday, and I had a plethora of questions on my mind, some of which involved my sex life.

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a chronic condition in which a person’s nervous system attacks itself, creating lesions on the brain and spine, often damaging the nerve pathways. This can result in numbness, tingling, itching, nerve pain, spasticity, mobility changes, and many other symptoms.

As a result, I knew my sex life was going to change, but I had no idea how.

It took some time, but I eventually discovered it was possible to have a satisfying sex life while living with a chronic illness and disability.

It might seem obvious to anyone who’s living with a lifelong condition or disability that sex is often an important aspect of our lives. However, when it comes to seeking medical advice following a life altering diagnosis, sex regularly goes unmentioned.

Research shows that many healthcare providers have limited knowledge of and confidence in talking about sexuality and chronic illness and disability. They’re also commonly really uncomfortable bringing it up with patients.

Meanwhile, research is limited on sexual dysfunction related to chronic illness. It makes sense, then, that some medical professionals may be uncomfortable addressing the subject with patients.

However, this lackluster response can sadly make those of us with chronic conditions feel as though we’re asking too much, or that the support we need just isn’t available.

If, like me, you’ve broached the subject of sex with a medical professional, it’s likely that you’ve also had mixed results.

Some suggestions have been helpful, from “use more lube” to “have sex earlier in the day to avoid fatigue.”

Others have made me question whether my sex life is important, and more specifically, if anyone else believes that my sex life is worth saving.

However, it’s crucial to find the right healthcare provider who understands the unique needs of someone facing a difficult diagnosis or lifelong condition.

It’s impossible to explore all of the ways that a chronic illness or disability might affect a person’s sex life, especially as each individual will be affected differently.

After finding out that I have MS, my sex life changed, first for the worse, and then for the better.

I had a major relapse that affected both of my legs and caused numbness from the waist down. This made sex an uncomfortable experience for several months afterwards, and I lost the ability to feel orgasms.

There were times I wondered whether I’d ever experience an orgasm again. Sex itself felt strange and made me tingle all over, not in a good way.

My body has also been affected by pain, mobility changes, and fatigue, but I’ve persevered in spite of any difficulties because I didn’t want to give up on having a sex life.

While I’ve spoken to some wonderfully supportive doctors and medical professionals, it’s also been suggested that companionship is more important in a relationship and that I should make the most of what I have, even if it doesn’t involve sex.

The implication, of course, was that sex was somehow less important to a person with an incurable illness, but that’s simply not the case.

When it comes to disability, people often speak of accessibility, so why shouldn’t the same parameters extend to having sex?

Here are some of the things that might make sex more accessible (and more fun!) if you’re living with a chronic illness.

Communication is key

While it might sound obvious, communication is key in any relationship.

“Some people believe that if two people love each other, sexual activities should automatically feel mutually wonderful and satisfying,” says Lee Phillips, EdD, LICSW, a licensed clinical psychotherapist and AASECT certified sex therapist.

“The number of sexual problems reported by people with chronic illness demonstrates all too conclusively that there is nothing automatic about sex,” says Phillips.

It’s all too easy to feel frustrated when sex and intimacy don’t magically happen the way we want it to.

When one or both partners in a relationship have a disability or chronic illness, it’s more important than ever to talk through any issues or concerns there might be.

For instance, sometimes my condition affects my ability to physically feel anything during penetrative sex, and I always let my partner know about any new symptoms or changes I’m experiencing.

“Sexual communication is critical because it can address sexual likes and dislikes, turn-ons and turn-offs, sexual needs and desires, sexual fears and concerns, past positive sexual experiences, and past negative sexual experiences,” says Phillips. “It is the key ingredient for enhancing a sex life.”

Explore intimacy and your ‘new normal’

While not everyone will be interested in therapy after receiving a surprising medical diagnosis or adjusting to life with a disability, finding a therapist who understands your needs could make all the difference.

“I always call therapy the safe container,” says Phillips, who hosts the Sex & Chronic Illness podcast.

“It is the place where people who are chronically ill feel safe and it is a place where they are not judged. It is the place where they can learn the skills in using their voice. This helps them become more aware and assertive in expressing their sexuality.”

If you’ve recently received a diagnosis, then it’s possible you’re feeling shell-shocked and lacking in confidence.

This is why considering therapy and finding a specialized therapist could be particularly helpful, especially if you’re dealing with relationships, intimacy, and sex.

“We have to realize that when so much changes in a person or a couple’s life due to chronic illness, a satisfying sex life can be one way to feel healthy and normal,” says Phillips.

Get creative

Whether you’ve always hoped to explore your sexuality in more depth, or you’re looking to spice things up post-diagnosis, it’s always possible to create more fun, excitement, and surprises in your sex life.

“When living with a chronic illness, sex can be a powerful source for comfort, pleasure, and intimacy,” Phillips says. “Therefore, I always say that you have to get curious about your partner and get creative with your sex. People start to look at this as a new sexual adventure because so much has changed due to chronic illness.”

If, like me, your physical sensations have changed with your chronic illness, you might need to try new positions and techniques to achieve orgasm or feel good during sex.

If you can, try viewing this as a positive thing rather than a burden and an opportunity to create greater intimacy with a partner.

Depending on your illness or disability, you may not be able to restore sensation to certain part of your body. That doesn’t mean pleasure isn’t possible.

“Focus should be on stimulation to the chosen area without any plans of moving to any other areas or having sexual intercourse,” says Phillips. “These exercises place the emphasis on intimacy and pleasure over the goal of performance and orgasm.”

If your body has changed because of a chronic condition or disability, then using toys or props might help. (If you have regularly bemoaned the lack of fully accessible sex toys, a new company, Handi, might soon have the answer.)

Don’t give up if you don’t want to

Perhaps the most important thing to remember is that the choice of whether to have a sex life is yours and yours alone.

Whether you’re working on your orgasm solo (like I needed to do), or you’re embracing sexual intimacy with another person, your sex life is yours.

It shouldn’t be halted because of bad advice, embarrassed doctors, or a lack of knowledge.

Complete Article HERE!

Understanding Your Own Sexuality Will Give You Confidence With Others

By Cindy Cummings

Intimacy and sexuality can be an anxiety-inducing subject for many young people. One study, analyzed by the UK’s Guardian Newspaper, found that 35% of young people experienced at least one problem in the bedroom, with 8% reporting anxiety and 10% reporting a lack of enjoyment. The problem often stems from a lack of self-awareness. Understanding yourself and your body will help you to be confident in intimacy with lovers, and ensure that you have a healthy and fulfilling grasp of your own sexuality.

Exploring your own body

There’s no shame in wanting to explore your own sexuality and sexual preferences. As the Australian health service highlight, knowing exactly what you enjoy and what makes you happy is an important part of identifying your sense of self and, by extension, self-worth. How can you achieve this? Looking to experiment with your own sexuality, whether that be with realistic sex toys like fleshlights or vibrators, or through reading about similar experiences online, can help you to develop a clear picture of your own preferences and build a foundation for future relationships.

Becoming confident

It’s straightforward to establish what you like – but how can you turn that into self-confidence and awareness of your own body? You might think that those in long-term, committed relationships benefit the most from this sense of self-esteem. However, studies reported by Psychology Today have shown that married men often have a lower sense of sexual self-esteem. Developing this confidence is not so different from developing good mental health habits elsewhere – if you look after yourself and accept your inner qualities and personality, you will develop confidence.

Transferring that confidence to partners

Sexual activity in itself is a boon to mental health, confidence, and shared understanding. Healthline report that it provides benefits to multiple areas of your life, including physical, intellectual, emotional, and psychological wellbeing. However, going into a relationship with someone and carrying their stresses can lead to the opposite impact. Having a well-founded sense of self and being able to communicate that will give a much healthier start to any relationship, and will break with the conventional wisdom of needing to be a strongman in the relationship.

Building confidence in yourself will enable you to react well with others. Sex is about understanding, being relaxed, and not carrying anxieties. Start with yourself before you make the jump into a relationship – you’ll thank yourself, and you’ll build a foundation for a strong future.

Complete Article HERE!

Sex between straight men challenges traditional sexual identities

Attractions, behaviours and identities do not always align, says UBC professor Tony Silva

By Craig Takeuchi

If straight men have sex with other men, that means that they’re closeted, and have internalized homophobia, right?

Not necessarily, according to University of British Columbia sociology professor Tony Silva.

Silva’s new book Still Straight: Sexual Flexibility Among White Men In Rural America (New York University press, 264 pages, $28), poses a challenge to and questions those notions about straight and LGBT people.

Drawing upon interviews with 60 white men from rural areas in the United States over three years, Silva delves into the sex lives of straight men who have hookups, sexual friendships and secretive loving relationships with other men, but remain mostly attracted to women and strongly identify with straight culture.

Although straight men have been known to have sex with other men in all-male environments, such as prison or the military, this murky area of sexual identity and experience has been clouded by issues of secrecy, privacy, homophobia and denial.

Also, though this isn’t the first look at this subject, examination of this area remains limited.

Silva makes the assertion that the men he focuses on in his book aren’t closeted, bisexual or experimenting, and that they aren’t a version of the tortured love story in Brokeback Mountain.

In a recent Q&A with the University of British Columbia, Silva explains differentiations about sexual behaviour, attraction and identity, and addresses issues of homphobia.

Why do straight-identified men have sex with other men?

The majority of the men I interviewed reported that they are primarily attracted to women, not men. Most of these men are also married to women and prefer to have sex with women. They explained that although they loved their wives, their marital sex lives were not as active as they wanted. Sex with men allowed them to have more sex. They don’t consider sex with men cheating and see it as a loophole in their marriage contract.

Some of them also have stereotypical beliefs about women’s sexuality and think that if they have extramarital sex with women, the women could become “emotionally clingy” and that it could threaten their marriage. People who live in small towns and rural areas typically consider marriage as an important part of their identity. These men think that sex with men is a lot less complicated with no attachment. I find it particularly interesting and ironic that their conservative beliefs about gender actually encourage them to have sex with men.

Other men chose to have sex with men for reasons related to masculinity. Some men enjoyed receiving anal sex from other men because this act allowed them to experience pleasure, but without the pressure they felt when they had sex with women. For example, several men explained that they felt like they were expected to be in control when they had sex with women, but not with men. Several single men were lonely or wanted to experience human touch, but were unsure how to do so platonically in a way that felt masculine. Sex helped them connect with other men in a way that felt masculine to them, ironic as that may sound.

Why do these men still identify as straight? Why are they not considered bisexual?

Most of the men identified as straight because they felt that this identity best reflected their romantic relationships with women, their integration in communities composed mostly of straight people, or the way they understood their masculinity. Identifying as straight also meant they could avoid stigma and feel connected to a socially dominant group. Many felt that sex with men was irrelevant to their identities given other aspects of their lives. They felt that heterosexuality and masculinity were “normal” and expected of them.

Furthermore, sexuality is multidimensional and attractions, behaviours and identities do not always align. Sexual identities may describe how individuals perceive themselves, but they do not always indicate a person’s attractions or sexual behaviours.

For example, when a “closeted” gay or bisexual man has sex with another man, he views that sex as reflecting his secret gay/bisexual identity. When a straight-identified man has sex with another man, he views himself as straight despite sex with men.

While many people understandably think that men are “closeted” if they have sex with other men yet identify as straight, this is not exactly true. These men are secretive about their sexual behaviour, but not their identity. In fact, sexual encounters with men are mostly irrelevant to their identity.

How do these men view homosexuality and LGBTQ2+ rights?

A minority of the men I interviewed were homophobic and held prejudice against LGBTQ2+ people and this prejudice makes the thought of an LGBTQ2+ identity unappealing to them. However, the majority of the men, supported same-sex marriage and the right for same-sex couples to raise children.

To confirm these interview findings, I analyzed one nationally representative survey called the National Survey of Family Growth. I looked at the responses of straight-identified men who reported consensual sex with at least two other men, compared to those who had not, on questions about LGBTQ2+ rights and masculinity. They were similar in their attitudes to other straight men. In other words, straight men who have sex with men are no more prejudiced than other straight men.

Complete Article HERE!

Talking About Sex, Intimacy, and MS

By BNS Staff

This is Daana Townsend’s story:

My name is Daana Townsend, and I was diagnosed with RRMS in March 2004. I was 23. My mother and aunt also have MS.

My treatment journey started with Avonex and continued with Tysabri, plasmapheresis, and Lemtrada, and finally Ocrevus (my current DMT or disease-modifying therapy).

After being in what I refer to as denial about the impact of MS on my life, I finally decided to open up about my experiences as a Black woman with MS (a narrative often missing in the community).

In 2018, a friend and fellow MSer, Dawn Morgan, and I started the Myelin & Melanin podcast. We’re two Black women sharing our musings about life, MS, and everything in between.

This brings me to a juicy topic: Sex and intimacy.

During season three, we produced two different series on intimacy. Intimacy is one of those topics that is often glossed over when it comes to MS; people (including medical providers) are often more concerned with issues pertaining to treating MS. Intimacy often gets pushed to the wayside. 

This is problematic on many levels.

In our first series, we focused on “the basics.” We touched on the ideas of self-love, self-acceptance, communication, and honesty with partners. 

We also talked with medical professionals in the MS community to address the importance of having frank conversations with your medical team about sex. We also talked with members of and influencers in the MS community about their experiences in navigating intimate relationships (romantic and platonic).

Daana Townsend

We took things a bit further in the second series. We focused on issues that are often left out of the intimacy, MS, and disability narratives like pleasure, sexual superpowers, guilt, shame, love languages, kink, and BDSM (variety of sexual practices that involve bondage, dominance, and submission/sadomasochism). 

We welcomed a sex therapist, somatic sex educator, professional dominatrix (with MS), as well as members of the kink and MS communities to explore these nuanced issues with us.

We find that people with chronic illnesses and disabilities are seen as asexual and somehow not worthy of fulfilling sexual relationships. This is a problem, and we wanted to challenge the narrative. We did, and the conversation continues!

Complete Article HERE!

Is Consensual Non-Monogamy For You?

5 Open Relationship Myths Busted

By Paula Kirsch

Are you thinking of opening up your relationship to consensual non-monogamy?

Before you do that, it’s important to look at the myths surrounding relationships and why you might want to consider an open relationship.

A 2017 study by Haupert and colleagues reported more than 20 percent of the U.S. population has engaged in consensual non-monogamy at some point in their lives.

As a sex therapist who works with such couples and individuals practicing consensual non-monogamy and open relationships, I’m guessing that 20 percent may be a low estimate today.

In the Ethical Slut by Janet W. Hardy and Dossie Easton, the authors debunk several myths about relationships and non-consensual monogamy.

So, if you’re considering non-consensual monogamy, here are 5 myths about relationships that you need to know about.

1. The only “real” relationships are those that are monogamous.

Everyone is familiar with monogamy and knows how it works.

But, as my sex therapy supervisor once said, “If monogamy is the gold standard in relationships, what’s the divorce rate again?”

Sometimes, we have an unrealistic view that we will lose interest in all others just because we’re married.

How’s that working out for you?

2. Loving someone means it’s OK to control their behavior.

We know we can’t control anyone but ourselves in reality.

Again as evidenced by the divorce rate and the number of infidelities that occur in monogamous relationships, it’s unrealistic to think that we can prevent our spouse from having sex with someone else if they want to.

3. Jealousy is an insurmountable issue in an open relationship.

The interesting thing here is that it assumes being in a monogamous relationship will protect you from envy.

In monogamous relationships, people go to great lengths to hide their affairs and dalliances when having agreements.

Being honest and unlearning some of the “oughts” that lead to jealousy might be the more ethical and healing approach.

4. Having other partners for sex reduces intimacy in your primary relationship.

With agreements in place and open and honest conversation, you may find that having other partners rekindles new relationship energy that overflows into your primary relationship.

5. Sexual desire is a destructive force or the only proper way to have sex is within a committed relationship.

These sex-negative ideas are throwbacks to the beginning of patriarchal and puritanical religions that warn that women’s sexuality will lure men to their doom. (Think: the Garden of Eden mythology.)

In truth, what could be more creative than sexual desire, which we use to create new human beings, art, literature, music, and so much more? So much of our creativity resides in the sacral chakra — our sexual center.

You might like an open relationship if you find yourself in an “okay” marriage or partnership with no significant issues.

Still, maybe your partner doesn’t like some of the bedroom activities you enjoy. Or perhaps you have mismatched sexual desire, one of the most common problems I see in couples therapy.

Maybe you have an interest or hobby your partner doesn’t share.

It’s difficult for one person to check all our boxes.

No one person be everything to us and meet all our needs. An open relationship creates room for those needs to be satisfied.

The way I see it is through a lens of abundance. Life is short and there’s plenty of love available if you’re open to that.

As a therapist, I can tell you I have seen open relationships that work and don’t work — just like monogamous relationships!

Good communication skills are essential. And it’s crucial to work out agreements in advance so everyone is on the same page.

More often, a woman shows up in individual therapy with me, freaked out because her husband or partner wants to open the relationship. We explore what’s real, what’s going on in their relationship, and how she feels about dating.

She reads and researches, learning everything she can about how open relationships work, and often ends up with a fuller and richer life.

Yes! You can thrive in an open relationship!

Complete Article HERE!

One Year Without Sex, Love or Dating

One writer looks back over the lonely reality for single people in the UK during the pandemic.

By Shon Faye

Being single throughout the first lockdown might not have been so hard if I hadn’t begun 2020 still very much in a couple. I still remember the Christmas card he gave me and the message he wrote inside: “I loved spending 2019 with you, looking forward to more in 2020 and beyond”. I so wanted that to be the case. But a month later we were both sat in the bedroom of his flat, faces red with tears and my case packed to leave for the last time. “Can we still see each other?” he asked, his eyes glistening with the naive hope of an adolescent. Yet his 35-year-old rational brain surely must have told him the answer. He knew we couldn’t. The reason for the split was as simple as it was life shattering. He said he wanted children, one day. Children that I had never dreamed of myself nor could ever give him, even if I wanted to.

They call it a deal breaker – the ultimate one, really, as there is no hope and no compromise – yet the expression makes heartbreak sound like a boardroom negotiation. It would be more accurate to say the relationship had a terminal illness and I chose to assist its death with dignity rather than let it carry on to an inevitable, but uglier, end years down the line. To me, it was a cataclysm that left me confounded by grief. Grief that felt more like physical pain for months. Months that, unfortunately, happened to coincide with a pandemic, which turned the other aspects of my life upside down, too.

“Now’s the time to get really good at wanking”, my also recently single friend Gemma says matter-of-factly over Whatsapp voice-note, as if masturbation was a skill like kayaking or getting a soufflé to rise, before adding, “and phone sex”. It’s the end of March 2020 and pressure is increasing on Boris Johnson to put the UK into a full lockdown. In the six weeks since my breakup, coronavirus has become a growing global disaster. The advice is clear: do not leave home, do not touch anyone, do not date, do not fuck. 

Of course I can physically go without sex or dating – for the past six weeks I did just that. But I also told everyone that this was ‘actually fine’. Bragging constantly about a forthcoming summer of promiscuity was a lame attempt at a confidence trick on my own brain. In the immediate aftermath of my breakup, the idea of another man’s touch or his weight on mine truly seemed inconceivable and undesirable. Yet when this became officially illegal, I panicked.

In the year since the start of the first lockdown, single people have largely been ignored or erased in government communications about living with COVID restrictions. If, like me, you entered this pandemic single (or if you are in a couple where you don’t cohabit) sex has technically been illegal for most of it. There was a brief period where it was possible from July to October but any new relationship embarked upon during this time would need to have become exclusive and cohabiting within a matter of weeks to have survived the second wave. It’s safe to say most of us who went into this pandemic single still are and will be for some time to come.

Of course, no one actually thought it would go on this long. Most of the official advice a year ago wasn’t dissimilar to my friend Gemma’s – it was an era of Zoom dates, sex toys, phone sex and nudes, I was reassured by online magazines and sexual health charities all of whom sounded very upbeat about this new era of remote sexuality. Even a year ago, I sensed they were missing the point. Sex and dating, for the newly single me, were about reprising an old ritual of encountering other people in order to rebuild a coherent picture of myself as a sexual being.

It’s a common belief that any straight cis men who are titillated by the offer of sex with a transgender woman must be physically fetishising us. It’s an analysis I’ve always found tedious and reductive about what even the most casual encounters with strangers have taught me about people and about life. Some years ago, I anecdotally noticed that men on dating apps seemed much less bothered about the idea of being with a transsexual if they’d recently gone through a divorce or a long term relationship had ended. Their once imagined lives broken, they were hoping to see what a woman exiled from many heterosexual norms might have to teach them about their own failings. For years before I met my ex, I had gone “for drinks” with the sort of man who secretly hopes that by tasting my deviance, he’ll learn something more interesting about himself. It’s a vampiric exchange; a contract of heat and blood. I suppose last year I desperately hoped that the roles could be reversed. That, post breakup, with my own failed attempt at assimilating into heterosexuality, cis men might teach me about how to do normality better next time. That I would get to be the vampire.

I had taken the gamble to be single. I hadn’t chosen to be alone and bereft indefinitely.

Devoid of such luck, I instead spend significant parts of the first lockdown glued to Hinge and Tinder talking to people. In lieu of the ability to actually meet, I stay talking to men I may have previously swiftly turned down for a real date. I regale my friends who are bored with lockdown with stories of my improbable virtual interactions. At one point last summer, for example, I was talking to three different Army officers (don’t worry – different regiments!) despite the fact my politics are anti-imperialist enough to question if soldiers should even exist. When Vera Lynn died last June, my friend Huw cattily referred to me as “our very own Forces’ sweetheart” in the group chat.

At other times, the loneliness is too dark for jokes. Until things started to open up in July last year, I was tormented by memories of my ex flooding back to me in the hours, days and weeks spent alone in lockdown. His hand on the small of my back on a crowded tube platform, the time he rowed me around the Plaza España in Seville and I took the piss the whole time because being treated just like any other girl with a boyfriend on holiday was so unfamiliar, the specific way the cadence of his breath would change during sex, the way his face would melt into a disarming smile when I’d outsmarted him in a debate about some political point or other.

One criticism of government policy during the pandemic is that it has entrenched traditional norms in which only couples get the comfort of touch and intimacy. Having gone through the worst breakup of my life without even so much as a hug from a good friend or a gym class that promises to restore my self worth, it is inevitable that there have been moments in the past year I regretted my decision to leave my relationship. In breaking up with him, I had taken the gamble to be single and make room for another life, more suited to my own long term needs and desires. I hadn’t chosen to be alone and bereft indefinitely.

Given the pandemic’s side effect of reinforcing socially conservative romantic arrangements and aspirations, my rejection of my ex’s offer of precisely these things has also come back to haunt me at times. “You’re a transsexual and he was a tall, handsome, intelligent homeowner with great teeth: why the fuck did you do that?” my stimulus-starved brain started to bark at me. Sometimes, the queries were crueller: “Why don’t you want to be a mother anyway?”, the sadistic voice inside me asked. “Not much of a woman after all, you?”

I must first claw back the other parts of my life when this purgatory eventually ends.

Tired of second guessing my own judgement, I’ve given up on the pursuit of dating for now. It was brutal and I wouldn’t wish it on anyone but, in the end, time did the work in healing me from my breakup – we have all lived with restrictions for so long my relationship with my ex now feels like it took place in a different age, a time of crowded bars and packed restaurants. I can exchange a brief text with him now or even visualise his future wife and kids and not feel the searing pain. I can be glad he has the space for his own future, too.

It’s not just time that’s helped: a brief late summer romance with a (slightly) younger man who unexpectedly slid into my DMs on Instagram managed to change my negative patterns of thinking about whether I’ll be alone forever: we didn’t work out long term but dating him showed me it may work with someone else. A second breakup, even if less intense, followed by a second lockdown, was a fucking chore. Again: no affirming spin class and no drinks with the girls. Since that whirlwind relationship ended so abruptly when we returned to lockdowns last autumn, the unsustainability of trying to build a serious relationship after all this solitude, anxiety and uncertainty has convinced me that I am not in the mindset to offer anyone else any kind of healthy relationship. I must first claw back the other parts of my life when this purgatory eventually ends.

The pandemic has shown single and coupled people alike that all relationships are practical things, built more on a mixture of chance, timing, proximity and long-term compatibility than they are on initial chemistry or sexual desire, which you can have with many people. I loved my ex-boyfriend so much that, at times a few years ago, he seemed like my only true happiness. But it was still right our relationship ended, as many have done during the pandemic for similar reasons: incompatibilities and insecurities were revealed with the removal of distractions and overexposure to one another.

In the year since lockdowns began, I have relied so heavily on remote support from my friends that my yearning for romantic reassurance has receded just as my need for in-person laughter and fun with my friends has grown to desperate levels. I long for the conviviality and spontaneity of the house party that runs until 6AM, the unplanned dinner out, the gossip and the sarcasm. After the hard work of surviving these lockdowns without friendship, how could the arduous work of building a lasting romantic love compete?

For years before I met the man I adored then had to leave, I would imagine meeting someone like him and the life we would build together. I would daydream about how such a man would smooth over every scratch and dent left in my spirit by the unenviable tasks of being trans and a woman in this world and make it stronger. Of course, I hope I’ll find love again after the pandemic but I no longer fantasise about the more fulfilled and resilient and powerful woman I’ll eventually turn into when I have it. Alone, I have already become her.

Complete Article HERE!

How I Have Sex

— “I Can End Up Feeling Nothing Even When All the Right ‘Spots’ Are Touched”

By

The first time I remember thinking about sex was at the age of 15, when I started dating my first boyfriend. As teenagers, we were curious about this and started thinking about it more when there was someone else to talk to. I explored sexual behaviors like kissing, fingering, and oral sex between 15 and 18, and 19 is when I had peno-vaginal sex for the first time.

But I hadn’t realized until then that I was demisexual. So even in my early 20s, I was meeting people on dating apps and thought of sex as something you had to do as a “right of passage” after dates. So I did meet up and have sex without really having an emotional connection. Rather, I thought I had some basic level of emotional connection with them — but I later realized that I was just grasping for straws. I was just creating a connection with somebody, but I didn’t actually have it with these people and didn’t enjoy these experiences. My friends kept talking about this amazing sex that they were having, and I realized only later that I was looking at the wrong place.

Since that time sex was something I thought about in connection with someone I had feelings for; I didn’t even think that it could be otherwise. Demisexuality, I would say, translates into kind of a conditional sexual attraction. I think a lot of people don’t know that sexuality, or any asexual spectrum identity for that matter, doesn’t have anything to do with sex drive. There may be some people who are demisexual and don’t experience any sexual attraction outside of their emotional attachment, but that’s not the case with me. Sexual attraction is like a spectrum: ‘Oh, I’ve met this person who I find really attractive’ versus ‘I am actually in love with this person, and I actually want to have sex with them.’ So I can find someone attractive but not want to have sex with them. And plus, sexual attraction occurs very selectively for me, much more selectively than for someone who’s not very sexual.

People say that everyone is a demisexual, that sex is better when you have an emotional bond. It’s not about if it’s better or bad, it’s that you don’t experience sexual attraction at all unless there is an emotional bond.

My current boyfriend and I, we started out as friends — which turned into friends with benefits. After some time, I felt attracted to him, and I wanted to have sex with him, even though he was romantically involved. We had an emotional bond as close friends, but it got better when we got romantically involved because it added another layer of depth to the emotional connection.

It doesn’t matter if my partner is demisexual or not, it’s just the emotional connection between us that counts. In my current relationship, it was emotional, romantic, and considerate. Realizing that I no longer ‘had’ to do this pointless casual sex rigmarole, and incidentally getting into a monogamous romantic relationship where I had deep emotional feelings for my partner, all made it so much better. I was lucky it all happened together.

I would say I feel a lot more agency when it comes to sex life, ever since I came out as demisexual. Instead of going along with the other person’s wishes, I’ve become more confident in vocalizing what I want and saying no when I want to. Earlier, I used to always be like: Okay, I’m not feeling it in this moment, but that’s not how I’m supposed to feel and the other person is expecting me to say yes, so I would just go along with that. I don’t do that anymore.

Building anticipation is the most important aspect of foreplay for me. It’s not so much about the specific acts done during it, as it is about creating that mood and the anticipation, and building up to that moment of urgency where you feel like you can’t wait anymore! One time that I particularly remember enjoying was when my partner made it completely about me and took it really slow. When I tried to reach out to reciprocate, he gently stopped me and told me to let him do what he wants to me. That made me feel like my pleasure was important and cared about, and the intimacy of that feeling made it the best foreplay I’ve ever experienced!

The usual pleasure centers do the trick for me. Nipples are particularly important — just stimulating them alone, without touching any other part of me, can suffice as foreplay if I’m sufficiently in the mood that day. Also, it’s very important for me that attention be paid to the less ‘usual’ erogenous zones—neck, back, torso, thighs. Simply being held like I’m important and desirable to the person is just as important as specific erogenous zones being touched, if you know what I mean. I can end up feeling nothing even when all the right ‘spots’ are being touched if the person doesn’t make me feel like they desire me (as opposed to simply wanting sex). I don’t think this deprives me of any pleasure — as someone who has had sexual experiences without emotional part, I didn’t enjoy them anyway. So I don’t think I’m missing out on anything.

Exhibitionism appeals to me — being watched while engaging in sex. Maybe because the thought of involving someone else in the bedroom feels exciting, but at the same time I’m not fully comfortable with the idea of actually having someone join us in the activity. So someone watching us is the perfect middle ground. I’ve tried clitoral and vaginal stimulating sex toys individually as well as in partnered sex. Clitoral stimulation from a vibrator is the fastest way for me to climax — probably the first time I ever climaxed with a sex toy! Four times in a row was a new feeling for me.

I would say I’m on the higher end of a normal sex drive, contrary to what people believe about demisexuals. People don’t understand the difference between sexual attraction and sex drive: sex drive is the desire to have some kind of sexual experience whereas sexual attraction means wanting to have sex with another person — and those things are not mutually exclusive.

On the whole, lust and love exist as separate frames. Sex drive, for me at least is completely independent of my sexuality. Because sex drive can exist independent of a partner, I can personally have a sex drive alone as well. But the drive to do it with somebody else, that only really occurs if I have a deep emotional attachment with them. But I do have to say that I’m more satisfied with partnered sex because there’s foreplay involved, which I typically get lazy and skip when it’s just me.

Physical attraction matters very little to me — if you compare it with the emotional connection, the physical is insignificant. I prefer people without a gym body. As somebody who myself has struggled with body image issues all my life, I once dated someone who had a six-pack and was a model. It was very intimidating to me and I couldn’t see past that exterior and engage with him as a person. I wanted someone who looked like a regular Joe.

People who actually end up falling in love and having serious relationships and sex within that relationship, and being monogamous with each other, it’s uncommon nowadays. I value monogamy — but I’m not 100% sure if my monogamy is connected to my demisexuality or not. But I am demisexual, and I am also monogamous. You can be monogamous or polyamorous — that’s independent of your sexuality.

Over time, the novelty factor around sex has, of course, worn off, because it can’t stay forever. I also find that I share some of the same thoughts about sex as before: the desire to feel intimate with your partner, when I experience emotions with someone, those things have remained constant. It’s just that the language I use now to talk about it is more evolved. I have become more corporate in how I feel and how I view sex: I feel this pressure to conform and think of it and approach it in the same way other people do. And I realized that your personal and social identity don’t have to be homogenous; everybody doesn’t have to be the same. That’s the most dominant change that I’ve experienced.

As a demisexual and bisexual, it can be kind of tricky to deal with which part of me is more important, so to speak. Am I equally both things? Which of it makes me more queer? There is also the whole aspect of a lot of queer people who don’t think that demisexuality makes you queer — which makes me feel like we’re being nudged. There may be demisexual people out there who choose to say that ‘I am demi, but I don’t feel like I’m queer, I’m still straight,’ and that’s their prerogative. But the problem is that a lot of people who are LGBTQ tacitly assert that you don’t have the right to identify as queer just because you are demisexual. That makes me feel unseen and sad.

I understand that the whole thing of slotting ourselves into a certain sexuality or gender. It’s not a strict label, but rather just a rough way to understand whereabouts on the spectrum a person might be. And that ultimately, to understand a person better, you need to ask them because they are the only ones who can answer those questions for you, because everybody is completely unique — even two demisexual people could be completely different. I’ve had this conversation with somebody else who was also a woman who was demisexual, and bisexual like me, and we still differ so much in how we approach sexuality and love and sex.

Complete Article HERE!

10 reasons why women may have a low sex drive

and what to do about it

By

  • Some causes of a low sex drive in women include taking medicines like birth control or SSRIs. 
  • Stress and not sleeping enough could also cause lowered libido.
  • Medical conditions like diabetes or heart disease may also cause a lower sex drive.

There’s no “normal” amount of sex drive. The right amount is whatever feels right for you. Yet, many women feel like their sex drive is too low.

One 2008 study found that — among a poll of over 30,000 US women — 15% of women ages 45 to 64 and 11% under 44 reported significant issues with low sex drive.

There are many reasons your sex drive can take a dip, including stress, medications, your period, or relationship issues. Here are 10 of the most common reasons you may have a hard time feeling sexual.

1. Shifts in hormones during your menstrual cycle

Your levels of sex hormones like estrogen, testosterone, and progesterone change throughout your menstrual cycle, which can affect your sex drive, says Kate Thomas, PhD, the director of clinical services at The Johns Hopkins Sex and Gender Clinic.

“We know that progesterone can have a negative impact on sexuality; the role of estrogen is less understood,” Thomas says.

You may notice that your sex drive is higher around the middle of your cycle, while you’re ovulating, but it may dip lower at other times, like during your period. This is partly because progesterone levels rise once you’re done ovulating, as your body gets ready to menstruate.

However, “increases and decreases in sexual drive appear to be quite individual,” Thomas says.

2. Hormonal birth control

Hormonal birth control methods like the pill, vaginal rings, and hormonal IUDs are linked with lower sex drive in women, Thomas says.

This is because hormonal birth control lowers your testosterone levels, which leads to a lower sex drive. Having less testosterone in your body can also make your vulva and clitoris feel less sensitive, which may make sex less appealing.

A 2013 review found that 15% of women taking birth control pills reported that their sex drive had decreased since starting the pill. 

If you have sexual issues while using birth control, talk to your gynecologist about non-hormonal options like the copper IUD.

3. Antidepressants

Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) are a type of antidepressant medication that can lower your sex drive. Some common SSRIs are sertraline (Zoloft) and escitalopram (Lexapro).

SSRIs work by raising serotonin levels in the brain, which can help boost your mood. But higher serotonin levels can also make you feel less interested in sex, Thomas says.

“Many women report lowered sexual drive when on SSRIs, but the most commonly reported side effect is difficulty reaching orgasm,” says Thomas. This is important because if you can’t orgasm, you may feel less interested in having sex.

If you’re having these symptoms, you may want to talk to your doctor about changing your dose or trying a different medication.

4. Diabetes

Having diabetes can reduce your sex drive, particularly if your blood sugar levels aren’t stable. When your diabetes isn’t well controlled, you’re more likely to have nerve damage and issues with blood circulation, which could affect sex drive.  

Diabetes affects the small blood vessels and nerves that feed and innervate the genital region,” Thomas says. “Thus, people who have the disease can experience a lack of sensation and feeling.”

Working with your doctor to get your diabetes under control may help bring back your sex drive and make it easier for you to feel aroused.

5. Not sleeping enough

Missing out on sleep can throw off your nervous system, which controls most of your bodily functions, including your sex drive. “Anything that disrupts the fine-tuning of this system, like lack of sleep, will negatively impact sexuality,” Thomas says.

To deal with the stress from lack of sleep, your body produces more of a stress hormone called cortisol, while decreasing your levels of sex hormones like estrogen and testosterone, Thomas says. When these hormones take a dip, your sexual desire will too.

Not getting enough sleep can also make you feel irritable and fatigued, Thomas says, which can make it harder to get in the mood. Sleeping the recommended 7-9 hours a night can help rebalance your hormones, mood, and sex drive.

6. Depression

“Depression is a prime reason for not wanting to be sexual or not being able to focus when one is sexually engaged,” Thomas says.

This is because depression can cause serious symptoms like intense sadness and affect how your body functions. “These emotions can impact sleep, lead to fatigue, lack of motivation and decreased self-esteem, all things that lead away from a hearty sexual appetite,” Thomas says.

Getting treatment for depression using therapy or medication may help your energy and sex drive return.

7. Stress

When you’re feeling stressed out, your sex drive can take a hit. Women who find themselves stressed from job demands, children, and family responsibilities have little energy left over to focus on sex,” Thomas says.

Over time, stress can also raise your levels of cortisol and lower testosterone and estrogen, making it harder for you to get aroused.

Cutting down on stressful activities, exercising, and practicing relaxation techniques like deep breathing can help lower your stress levels.

8. Low self-esteem

If you feel bad about yourself, it can be hard to get in the mood for sex. This is especially true if you don’t like the way your body looks – you may be less likely to ask for sex or to feel comfortable getting intimate.

Your interest in being sexual often changes based on how you see yourself, Thomas says, including how attractive you feel, your body image, and your overall self-esteem, Thomas says.

Seeing a therapist or practicing gratitude may be a good first step to work on raising your self-esteem.

9. Heart disease

Heart disease decreases the blood flow throughout your body, including to your vagina and vulva. “Since blood flow to the genitals is what defines arousal, decreases most definitely have some impact,” Thomas says.

Cardiovascular symptoms such as fatigue, shortness of breath and chest pain also play a role,” by making sex more exhausting and difficult, Thomas says. Working with your doctor to regulate heart disease symptoms may be a good option to give your sex drive a boost.

10. Relationship problems

“One of the most common things we hear from women is how much issues in their relationship relate to their decreased interest in sex,” Thomas says.

Conflicts, mistrust, and stress can push you and your partner further apart, making it harder to feel intimate. “In order to feel sexually drawn to our partners we must like them first,” Thomas says.

Going to couples therapy may be a good option if you’re facing issues in your relationship. “Often these aspects of the relationship need to be addressed in order to even begin healing sexually,” Thomas says.

Complete Article HERE!

“For lots of us, lockdown has been a time of sexual self-discovery”

by

Much has been written about the global ‘sex recession’, with studies showing that – for reasons both practical and psychological – we’re having much less of it right now. It makes sense: social distancing and a very stressful year will do that to us. But there’s a flipside to this coin.

The recession stories focus on a pretty small part of the sexual spectrum. Yes, it’s true that partnered, in-person sex will have inevitably taken a back seat if you’re single, but the unprecedented boom in sex toys, online communities and sexual wellness brands suggests many of us have been putting all this alone time to good use. The past year has been a period of slowdown that’s prompted us to look inwards and reflect – and naturally, that’s extended to getting to know ourselves and our bodies a little better.

“For women especially, lockdown put the brakes on the idea that we’ve got to look for someone else to have a fulfilling sex life and made us think, ‘Actually, I’m going to do this for myself’,” says Lucy-Anne Holmes, author of Women On Top Of The World and speaker on the WOW UK Festival’s Sex In Lockdown panel. “We’ve long had this script of sex that’s penetrative and heterosexual, but of the hundreds of women I’ve spoken to for my book, most said that was their least favourite part of sex.” 

Her fellow panelist Nana Darkoa Sekyiamah, co-founder of Adventures From The Bedrooms Of African Women, agrees it’s high time we stopped thinking of sex as a two (or more) person job. “Masturbation is a form of sex we still tend to disregard,” she says. “But a lot of times, myself included, we can have the best solo orgasms and really lacklustre experiences with somebody else. You can absolutely have amazing sex on your own – and by necessity, more people are realising that.”

The proof is in our online shopping baskets. In the first two weeks of lockdown alone, sales of adult toys jumped 25% across the UK, while luxury vibrator brand Lelo has seen a 40% rise in orders over the past year and searches for ‘sexual wellness’ on Cult Beauty rose by a huge 850% in March. Globally, health organisations have encouraged self-pleasure as a sensible way to get our kicks in lockdown, and New York City recently told single residents concerned about Covid-19 restrictions that “you are your safest sex partner”.

Of course, the major shift to solo action has largely been out of our hands, but more of us than ever are clearly recognising the importance of sexual self-care and the effect it can have on our overall wellbeing. “Orgasm is the new apple a day,” sexologist Megan Stubbs recently told NPR. “It can help boost your immune system, boost your mood, decrease pain, reduce headaches, help you sleep better, give you better-looking skin, put a smile on your face – there really are no drawbacks.” When you consider this joyful list alongside studies showing that 78% of us feel happier and less stressed after an orgasm, it makes total sense that we’d see a spike in free, feel-good fun during a global pandemic.

And particularly for women, non-binary and queer people – historically the least encouraged by society to express our sexuality freely – being at home, in a safe space where we can explore on our own terms, has prompted some very positive developments.

Taylor Larbert, 28, has certainly seen the benefits. “Being trans, lots of my conversations and experiences connected to sex have been quite difficult or traumatic in the past,” she says. “But in lockdown I’ve come to have a really loving relationship with my body and my sexuality: I’ve had the space to figure out what I like and what I don’t, and I feel infinitely more powerful than I did a year ago.”

Hers is a story playing out across the country, as people use the time to tap into their true desires and try new things. The stay-at-home order has forced many sex-positive communities and events to go completely virtual – and this has actually caused numbers to skyrocket.

“It’s been a massive time for self-discovery,” says Emma Sayle, originator of the ‘zorgy’ (Zoom orgy) and founder of sexual empowerment platform Killing Kittens. “I’ve seen it first hand: there’s been a huge surge in people joining our virtual workshops. Beginners’ guides to kink, BDSM and tantric massages have been sellouts, so we’ve had to run more to keep up with demand.”

“We’ve also been finding that more than 50% of people coming to our events are first-timers; people who never would’ve dared to come to an IRL sex party or erotic workshop before Covid. But because they can engage from their own sofas, free to close their laptops at any time, it has opened up a whole new world for them to explore, join in, ask questions and find like-minded people.”

Poet, playwright and performer Dr Jessi Parrott makes one very important point though: for queer and disabled people especially, a lot of these markers of our new ‘pandemic sex lives’ are not really new at all.

“Having to navigate different avenues for sexual expression – online, for example – is something marginalised groups have long had to do, because the spaces for us to be together physically have often been quite fraught,” they say. “When your bodies and minds don’t fit with a stereotypical ideal of sexuality, expressing yourself sexually is quite a radical thing in itself.”

For Parrott, an extended period at home has brought them closer to themselves, though. “During this past lockdown, I’ve come to understand that I’m non-binary and that has changed my relationship with my body in a way I wouldn’t have thought possible. I’ve often had quite a clinical, detached relationship with my body and put that down to being disabled, but actually that was a lot to do with this form of dysphoria I’d been experiencing – and so these past few months have been revelatory and really lovely. I’ve realised that until you’re properly at home in your own body, you can’t necessarily experience pleasure and full sexual liberation.”

And that’s the crux of it: we deserve to spend time getting to know our innermost truths, wants and needs, to lavish the attention we tend to offer sexual partners on ourselves, too. Granted, many of us just don’t have the desire or mental space to focus on sex right now – and that’s OK – but as Holmes points out, it can be a vital part of taking care of both our body and mind.

“Having your own sense of sexual identity and making space for it is so important,” she says. “Sex is one of the best ways to connect to our body and listen to it. To ask, what do I need right now? Do I need to be caressed, do I need healing, do I need tension release?

“We’re so conditioned to focus on being desirable, but this is the perfect time to ask yourself what you desire. Take this time to think about what you really want – and then dare to go towards it.”

Complete Article HERE!

How Do We Date and Have Sex When Vaccinated (or Not)?

By

One year into lockdown measures in the U.S., life remains radically altered for most people. There have been 526,000 deaths in the U.S. and 2.6 million deaths in the world due to COVID-19. There are also multiple highly effective vaccines against virus. Rollout is slow, uneven, but steadily continues, and with it, the hope of returning to social interaction.

As of this writing, more than 18% of the U.S. population has received at least one dose of a vaccine. As more people acquire immunity, there are growing questions about what activities are safe for vaccinated people, how they might interact with each other and with the mostly unvaccinated larger public.

On March 9, the CDC released interim guidelines for individuals who are fully vaccinated. The major concern has been that while we know clinical trials have demonstrated that the vaccines are very effective at reducing illness, we did not know whether the vaccines reduce transmission to others.

Preliminary data suggests that the vaccines do indeed reduce the risk of passing the virus onto others. However, there’s still some uncertainty about whether it reduces it enough to prevent meaningful transmission, especially if there are additional surges (likely) with high levels of circulating virus. There is also still some concern that while the vaccines are effective against several new viral variants, that may not be the case for all variants.

So what do the interim guidelines mean for day-to-day life? There have been so many devastating consequences of social isolation: sick patients dying alone, grandparents who have not seen their grandchildren, and the crushing difficulty of raising children without outside support. One of the less-discussed questions I get from patients, friends, and family is about the impact of immunity on sex and dating.

Social animals need touch and companionship, and that includes sex and sexuality. Any sustainable public health measures must account for these needs. Many individuals who do not have partners within their household have had unique difficulties in navigating dating and sexual connection during pandemic social distancing measures.

And while the federal government anticipates having an adequate vaccine supply for all Americans by the end of summer, for the next several months, there will still be a great number who are not yet vaccinated. How do people navigate dating and sex during an ongoing pandemic?

One option has been for people to refrain entirely from any kind of dating or sex. We learned that this is not a sustainable strategy in the last pandemic—HIV/AIDS. Initially, in response to a troubling wave of young gay men dying (soon followed by others), the official government response was to advise abstinence. What we have learned repeatedly is that this is ineffective.

Several public health departments recall the lessons we learned during the HIV/AIDS epidemic, including dusting off the almost 40-year-old pamphlet “How to Have Sex in an Epidemic.” Recognizing sex and sexuality as a fundamental human need, they have issued guidelines on how to have safe sex during a pandemic.

Public health officials in the Netherlands, New York, British Columbia, and others have issued pragmatic guidelines for risk navigation. Whereas in STI prevention, the central tenet was to minimize the exchange of body fluids, with COVID-19, it is to minimize air exchange.

Those who have partners outside their household should get tested regularly for COVID-19 (about five to seven days after a sexual encounter). Quarantining before and after exposure can minimize transmission to others. Harm reduction is fluid—increasing transmission in one area of life (e.g., an outside sexual partner) can pair with decreasing it in other areas (e.g., quarantining, grocery deliveries). Take into account the COVID-19 dynamics in your region, increasing precautions if cases are increasing and hospitals are taxed.

For those who are vaccinated, using current CDC guidelines, here are general guidelines for dating others outside your household:

  • You can hang out with another fully vaccinated person indoors without a mask.
  • You can hang out with another unvaccinated person indoors without a mask, as long as that person does not have any conditions putting them at higher risk for severe COVID-19 illness.
  • You will have to navigate how much trust you have in someone’s stated vaccination status.
  • You can still hang outdoors, six feet apart, especially with a mask.
  • You should still avoid hanging out with unvaccinated individuals from more than one household and medium- or large-size gatherings. This includes activities like indoor dining.
  • When you are in public among people from more than one household, you should continue to mask, stay six feet apart, and avoid poorly ventilated or crowded spaces.

Finally, continue safe sex practices that also prevent unintended pregnancy and infections that are not COVID-19, including chlamydia, gonorrhea, HIV, and syphilis. Even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, STIs were at a record high in the United States. Infections such as chlamydia and gonorrhea had been increasing 3 to 5%, and syphilis had risen 15%.

“These areas of public health have been underfunded for decades,” notes Dr. Hilary Reno, an associate professor of Medicine at Washington University and also the medical director of the St. Louis County Sexual Health Clinic and CDC Sexually Transmitted Disease Prevention consultant. The COVID-19 pandemic has taxed this further. There were shortages of chlamydia and gonorrhea tests as manufacturers repurposed swabs for COVID-19 tests. Contact tracers who would normally follow up with partners of infected individuals are now pulled into COVID-19 efforts.

Although many of STIs are curable (chlamydia, gonorrhea, and syphilis) or effectively managed (HIV), untreated they can have lasting consequences. “People are still getting STIs, but they aren’t getting tested, so now we have these undetected infections,” Dr. Reno notes. “When are they going to present? How are they going to present?”

It is important to continue to communicate about sexual consent, use barrier protection, and get tested regularly for both COVID-19 (if you are not yet vaccinated) as well as STIs. As more data about transmission emerges and more people get vaccinated, follow updates on recommended guidelines.

Sex, sexuality, and companionship are a critical part of human health and well-being. We already have decades of experience that an abstinence-only approach, stigma, and shame just exacerbate transmission and make risky behavior secretive. Providing people with reliable information and tools for the prevention of both COVID-19 and STIs allows them to sustainably and realistically navigate their lives while also keeping safe.

Complete Article HERE!

How to Be a Better Lover

— In and Out of the Bedroom

by Gabrielle Kassel

Maybe your current boo told you to up your game (ouch). Maybe you’ve always harbored sneaking suspicions that you’re subpar in the sack. Or maybe you just want to join the Greats.

Regardless, you’re here because you think you’re bad in bed — or at the very least, could be better.

Well, we’ve got some good news: It’s actually not possible to be bad in bed. Really!

That said, it is possible for your communication skills to need an upgrade. Or for your sex life to need a little zhuzhing up. This guide can help on both fronts.

Got an FWB coming over in 30 minutes and want tips stat? Or planning to get your flirt (and freak) on at the bar tonight? These tips are for you.

Listen to your partner’s verbal and non-verbal cues

Carly S., pleasure expert and founder of Dildo or Dildon’t, says there’s one caveat to the “It’s not possible to be bad in bed” thesis statement.

“If you’re completely ignoring your partner’s attempts to communicate with you, and steamrolling them into doing whatever you want, you’re a bad lover,” she says. TBH, at this point, you’re not having sex with your partner — you’re violating them.

Your move: Tune into what your partner is saying with their words, mouths, hands, and body.

“Are they pulling you closer? Or are they pushing you away?” asks Megan Stubbs, EdD, a clinical sexologist and author of “Playing Without a Partner: A Singles’ Guide to Sex, Dating, and Happiness”.

“Are they shifting their hips away from you, or toward you?”

These body cues can give you insight into what they like and don’t like.

Communicate, communicate, communicate

“Your partner isn’t a mind-reader,” Stubbs says. “For them to know what you do and don’t like, you have to tell them.”

For the record, she says, communicating can be as simple as saying:

  • “That feels good! How does it feel for you?”
  • “Yes! That!”
  • “A little more pressure, please!”
  • “Is your tongue getting tired?”
  • “Can you do that thing you were doing earlier instead?”

Check your ego at the door

If your ego is telling you, “If they need lube, it’s because they don’t like you” or “If they want a vibrator, it’s because you’re inadequate,” tell your ego to shut up.

“Sex toys and sexual wellness aids are inanimate objects that are designed to increase how pleasurable the sexual encounter is,” Carly says.

So, she says, if your partner expresses an interest in bringing those into the bedroom, your first thought shouldn’t be “I’m not good enough.” It should be “Wow! My partner wants to experience pleasure with me.”

Before we talk about the trees, let’s talk about the forest…

Confidence

“Confidence is a work in progress for everybody — but it’s work worth doing especially, if you want to be a better lover,” Carly says.

Confidence, she says, is key to asking for what you want in bed, graciously receiving feedback from your partner, and more.

To build up confidence, she suggests:

  1. repeating a self-love mantra to yourself every morning
  2. curating your digital spaces and unfollowing people who make you question your worth
  3. writing a list of things you like about yourself every week
  4. leaving a partner who puts you down
  5. trying therapy

Communication

Sensing a common theme?

“[Communication] should be happening before, during, and after sex,” Stubbs says.

Before sex, talk about:

During sex, talk about:

  • how it feels physically
  • what you’re feeling emotionally or spiritually
  • what you need to feel safe
  • if or when you want it to end

After sex, talk about:

  • how it felt emotionally and physically
  • if it’s something you want to do again
  • what you need in this exact moment (water, food, blankets, etc.)

Enthusiasm

Enthusiasm, as defined by Merriam-Webster, is a strong excitement of feeling.

In other words, it’s the antithesis of apathy.

And who the heck wants to get it on with someone who’s acting *shrug emoji* about having sex with them? Specific kinks aside, very few pleasure seekers do.

Some ways to express enthusiasm during sex:

  • Tell them you like how they look, smell, taste, or feel.
  • Compliment them.
  • Verbally and nonverbally affirm what feels good.
  • Don’t fake your orgasm

    Faking your orgasm is the opposite of communicating what you want in bed, according to Stubbs. “Faking orgasms positively reinforces bad technique,” she says.

    If you’ve been faking it up to this point, you could have an open and honest conversation. You might, for example, consider saying:

    “I’ve really enjoyed getting to know you emotionally and physically. But, before we continue having sex, I want to be transparent about the fact that I’ve been faking my orgasms. It isn’t that the sex hasn’t felt good — it has! — but I’ve been too shy to ask for what I need to orgasm. Do you think next time it would be OK if I touched my clit during sex?”

    Another option is to stop faking your orgasm, and start helping your partner bring you to orgasm.

    Masturbate

    Now that you’re getting laid, you might be tempted to let your solo sex life fall by the wayside.

    Don’t!

    “Having a masturbation practice makes it easier for you to know what you like sexually and easier to communicate that to your partner,” Carly says. In other words, solo sex might lend itself to better partnered sex.

    There are ways to be a better lover to your new(ish) partner.

    Begin talking about sex more

    Specifically: When you’re fully clothed.

    “Talking about sex outside the bedroom automatically makes it a lower stakes conversation,” Carly says. “Because of that, it can become easier for people to talk about their fantasies, desires, likes, dislikes, and more.”

    You might do this by:

    • asking your partner if they find a sex scene on the screen hot
    • inviting your partner to help you pick out underwear
    • watching a sexy music video together
    • telling your partner when you feel randomly aroused
    • sharing your sex dreams with your partner

    Make a yes/no/maybe list together

    Whether you and your partner see yourselves as being sexually adventurous, or not, Stubbs recommends spending an evening filling out a yes/no/maybe list (like this one or this one).

    “Doing so will give you both an opportunity to talk about your desires openly,” she says, “which is something good lovers give their partner’s space to do.”

    Take an online sex workshop together

    Who says pandemic-friendly date nights are limited to take-out, Netflix, and physically distanced walks?

    Try attending an online workshop together about sex, kink, or intimacy.

    You might say:

    • “Hey, are you free Saturday night? I found a fun Zoom event about [X]. I thought it could be fun!”
    • “I’m going to attend this online workshop I found on Thursday. Any interest in attending with me? It’s going to be all about [X], which is something I want to learn more about!”

    To find an event, you can search the #queersexeducator, #sexeducator, and #sexworkshop hashtags on Instagram and Twitter.

    That one caveat withstanding, being bad in bed may not be possible.

    But it doesn’t mean that improving your communication skills, learning to express your enthusiasm, working on your self-confidence and ego, and adding new “sextivities” to your repertoire can’t make you a better lover — they all can.

    Don’t take our word for it. Try ’em out yourself. The proof will be in the pudding pleasure.

    Complete Article HERE!

Do Women Really Become Less Interested In Sex Over Time?

Debunking The Myths

by Deborah J. Fox, MSW

A couple in their 30s, married for 10 years, sit across from each other in my office with tension and despair written on their faces. When I hear their story of sexual disconnection, it sounds all too familiar. Ben’s story is one of frustration that they only occasionally have sex. Sara’s story is also one of frustration because she’s at a loss as to how to fix this between them. They both agree that when they do engage in sex, the encounter itself goes well enough. Yet that doesn’t lead to another roll in the hay for quite some time.

Another familiar scene is the group of men meeting for happy hour, bemoaning their lot as married men who’ve accepted the “fact” that women lose interest in sex after they’ve been married for a few years.

Anecdotes abound, yet the mainstream understanding of why sex in long-term relationships diminishes suffers from an astounding lack of information about female sexuality—and it doesn’t have to be this way.

Yes, some women do say, “I don’t care if I ever have sex again as long as I live.” I think the truth is more likely, “I don’t care if I ever have the kind of sex, or the circumstances under which I’m having sex, again.”

In sexuality, knowledge is truly powerful. So let’s unpack the real sources of all this distress.

The power of negative messages.

First of all, we need to name the thing many people don’t want to name: The negative messages that girls are bombarded with since they found out they were girls have created enormous barriers to feeling sexually comfortable. Even today, there is still a staggering number of “Good girls don’t _____” messages, all designed to modulate what might come naturally:

Have you ever heard a cliché of “Girls will be girls” the way you hear “Boys will be boys?” Never. Yet the truth is, all people are products of their culture. Even women who feel like they know better than to buy into these negative messages they heard growing up can still nonetheless be affected by them.

The good news is, the lingering impact of negative messages can be softened. The first step is to identify the messages you got as a child from your parents and peers, including social media. How did those messages affect how you feel about sex? About your body? The next step is to reflect on how these messages might still be affecting you and find a way to minimize their continuing influence. That can look like talking to your partner or friend about these experiences, reading books on female sexuality, or seeking the help of a therapist.

Additionally, so many women have been exposed to inappropriate sexual comments and touch, sexual abuse, and sexual assault. The impact of these experiences is enormous and long-lasting, usually interfering with the ability to enjoy sex. There are effective strategies to release trauma’s hold on you (the best first step here would be to see a therapist), but this context cannot be ignored in any conversation about the idea that “Women just aren’t interested in sex.”

Likewise, a crucial misunderstanding when it comes to female sexuality—and a major source of sexual frustration in couples—is the idea that sexual desire just pops up for everyone in the same way. When it doesn’t happen this way in a relationship, there’s usually a lot of confusion and blame.

There are actually two basic types of sexual desire: spontaneous and responsive. We’re very familiar with the spontaneous type. You know, those who walk down the street on an average day regularly struck with a desire for sex. They seem to be up for sex most anytime. Sexuality researcher Emily Nagoski, Ph.D., tells us that about 75% of men are members of this group but only about 15% of women.

Because women often aren’t exposed to what is more typical of female sexual desire, they often end up saying, “What’s wrong with me?” or falsely concluding, “I’m just not a sexual person.”

Many women have what’s known as responsive sexual desire. For people with this type of desire, the context of the moment is critical to your openness to the idea of sex. If you’re tired, preoccupied with a work project or a troubled family member, stressed, or feeling blah, interest in sex is going to be hard to come by. These are not just factors affecting your interest in sex; they are central. There’s nothing wrong with you for not being interested. You just need a change in context.

A common experience for responsive people is that desire shows up after arousal. This is normal. It’s just not advertised. What this means is that you have to change the question from, “Am I feeling frisky?” to “Am I open to engaging in touch?” With physical touch, arousal may well show up, followed by, “Oh, now I feel very glad to be here, doing this!”

Most people don’t even know responsive sexual desire exists—even the very people whose desire works like this. I was once describing responsive sexual desire to my husband, and he said, “That’s interesting. That’s not what you see in the movies.” Exactly. The media, a major provider of sex education, only depicts spontaneous sexual desire.

As it turns out, spontaneous people often find themselves in relationships with responsive people. I’ve found this often to be true in same-gender couples as well. So these groups need to get to know each other.

When I explain responsive desire to Ben, his jaw drops and doesn’t close for a while. Whereas Sara is nodding vigorously, “That’s me. That’s me—I’ve just never known how to explain it.” Likewise, when I explain that Ben likely walks down the street with every sixth thought being a sexual one, her eyes pop out of her head.

A consequence for many women growing up today is that sexuality wasn’t about them and their pleasure. With inadequate information about sex, many young women are often left to apply to themselves what they learn from their experiences with men—or the movies. If men just dive into erogenous zones at the outset of a physical encounter, then that’s what must be the way to have sex. However, when desire tends to follow arousal, a direct focus on erogenous zones can feel like an unwanted advance. Their bodies aren’t yet ready to be stimulated sexually.

What to do? Change the context. If you’re like Sara and have responsive sexual desire rather than spontaneous, what is the context that makes you feel open to physical touch? Instead of saying, “I’m not in the mood,” try asking yourself, “What could put me in the mood?”

Perhaps a conversation that would help you feel less stressed, a shared glass of wine or cup of tea, a foot massage, a hot bath, reading some erotica, having your partner wash the dishes and put the kids to bed. There’s a bridge between where your head is at the moment and where it could be—you just have to build it.

This is also a couple’s project. If you’re a spontaneous guy in a relationship with a responsive woman, find out what turns her on—and off. Do you approach her in a way that’s enticing to her? Do you send her affectionate or sexy text messages? Think of your early days of flirting—you showed interest and enthusiasm for everything about her. You paid attention to her. If she’s tired, do you offer to take on tasks to give her a break?

What about unresolved conflict or repetitive bickering? For those like Sara, this is a huge buzzkill. Many a time, a Ben type approaches his partner for sex several hours after they’ve quarreled, and she looks at him as if he’s sprouted a horn and gives him a look that says, “Are you [insert your favorite four-letter word] kidding me? I’m still furious with you!” Try finding a better way to resolve conflict so there’s not simmering resentment in the air.

When we understand responsive desire and the way it works, it exposes the myth that women lose interest in sex. Sure, most women probably do lose interest in the kind of sex they’ve been expected to enjoy—late at night when they’re ready to go to sleep, regardless of what else is going on for her.

Enjoyable sex happens in a context that takes you into account.

Getting back on that track of having a pleasurable sex life isn’t about the stars aligning just right. It’s about educating yourself, understanding what negative messages and experiences may be affecting your relationship, and understanding exactly how you and your partner’s sexual desire works. Equipped with that knowledge, you can work together with your partner to create a context in which you can both enjoy sex more fully.

Complete Article HERE!

Here’s How to Tell If You Love Someone

— and What to Do

by Crystal Raypole

Ask anyone if love is complicated, and there’s a good chance they’ll probably say, “yes,” or “sometimes” at the very least.

Part of love’s complications stems from the fact that it can be challenging when the person you love doesn’t feel the same way — or when they do, but your relationship fails to take off.

Love can also complicate life because it takes different forms, and you might not immediately recognize which type of love you’re feeling.

Deciphering your feelings and trying to identify exactly which type of love you feel — while tight in its grip — might not be the easiest task, but we’re here to help.

Keep reading to learn more about how to tell these related, but still uniquely different, experiences apart.

Love doesn’t always look the same.

Sometimes, it progresses through specific stages.

The first flicker of love, when you fall head over heels for someone, often seems more like infatuation, complete with plenty of excitement and nervousness.

If it’s mutual? The euphoric blissTrusted Source many people experience can keep you and your partner completely wrapped up in each other. Over time, that just-fell-in-love feeling often transforms into something less charged, but more stable and lasting.

Higher-than-usual levels of hormones, like dopamine and norepinephrineTrusted Source, drive the intensity of these early feelings. Eventually, these surging feelings often settle into a deeper affection with the help of oxytocin, a hormone that plays a role in attachment.

But feelings of love don’t always follow a linear path.

Maybe you fall for someone you just met, but you eventually realize the first blush of love has tinted your view. Once the first intensity fades, your feelings begin to wither without taking root.

You can also develop romantic love without experiencing euphoric, heart-pounding excitement. Someone who falls for their best friend, for example, might notice their long-standing platonic love become more romantic and sexually charged almost overnight.

And, of course, the love you feel for friends, or platonic love, can still run pretty deep — even though it doesn’t involve any romantic or sexual attraction.

People often talk about love as if everyone experiences it in the same way, but life experiences and relationship history can alter the course of “typical” romantic attraction.

If you’ve experienced relationship abuse or betrayal, you might feel cautious about letting your guard down again. This could temper the feelings of euphoria and impulsivity that often accompany the first stages of love.

In short, while there’s no single way to fall in love, you’ll probably notice a few key physical and emotional signs:

Your thoughts return to them regularly

Maybe you frequently think back to your last interaction or plan your next meeting. You want to tell them about your experiences every day: the great, the awful, and the ordinary.

If they’re having a hard time, you may worry about their difficulties and brainstorm ways to help.

When spending time with family and friends, you might talk about them a lot and imagine how much your loved ones will like them, too.

You feel safe with them

Trust is generally a key component of love. If you’ve experienced relationship trauma or heartbreak before, you might assign particular importance to this sense of emotional safety.

When you see them, you might notice your tension relaxes, in much the same way as it does when you return home after a long day.

It’s normal to want to protect yourself from pain. Feeling safe enough with someone to trust them with your personal weaknesses or vulnerabilities often suggests developing love.

Life feels more exciting

The rush of hormones associated with love can make everything seem more exciting, particularly when you know you’ll see them soon. Time might seem to fly by when you’re together and crawl like a turtle after they leave.

You might even notice renewed energy and interest in the mundane things you do every day. Folding laundry? Taking a walk? So much more fun when you’re in love (especially when they’re nearby).

You want to spend a lot of time together

Loving someone often means wanting to spend plenty of time with them, so you might find yourself craving their company more than ever before.

You might leave their company feeling somewhat unsatisfied, as if the time you spent together wasn’t enough.

You may not care much about what you do together, simply that you are together.

Another key sign? Your interest in spending time with them doesn’t depend on their mood or energy level. Even when they feel sad, cranky, or frustrated with life, you still want to show up and offer support.

You feel a little jealous of other people in their life

Jealousy is an emotion like any other. Generally speaking, it’s what you do with jealousy that matters. Talking about your feelings never hurts, but you might want to skip the digital snooping and social media stakeouts.

When you love someone, you might fixate on the other people they spend time with and wonder about their relationship to each other, or worry about potential threats to your love, such as an attractive coworker they mention regularly or an old flame who’s still part of their life.

Generally speaking, these worries tend to fade as trust develops.

Platonic love involves deep affection, but no romantic or sexual attraction. It’s absolutely possible for people of any gender to maintain a friendship without sexual tension or attraction.

When you love someone platonically, you might notice some basic signs of love.

You might also:

  • have similar interests, values, and goals
  • discuss emotions and relationships you have with others
  • support each other through difficulties
  • enjoy spending time together

Embracing platonic love successfully requires you to set any romantic feelings aside. Loving platonically doesn’t mean simply waiting and hoping the person will fall in love with you someday.

Good friendship behaviors can help you maintain platonic love. For example:

  • Communicate. Everyone has different communication needs, but you can maintain your closeness by calling or texting. When you do talk, try to spend at least as much time listening as you do sharing your own thoughts.
  • Set boundaries. Some platonic friends may be perfectly fine spending the night at your place, hanging out at all hours, or discussing the sexual details of your other relationships. Others may reserve these activities for romantic partners. Talking through boundaries can help you avoid any miscommunication.
  • Spend time together. Stay connected, even when you can’t physically see each other, by planning online chats, video game sessions, or virtual movie nights.
  • Offer emotional support. Love and friendship can make it easier to weather life’s challenges. Show your love by checking in with a friend or asking, “What can I do to help?”

Loving someone romantically usually involves a desire for a many-faceted connection.

You value their personality and want their friendship. You might lust after them a little (though you can experience romantic love without ever desiring a physical relationship).

Maybe you find their looks appealing, but you mostly want to spend a lot of time with them because you value them as a whole person and want to develop a lasting emotional connection.

Try these tips to cultivate and maintain romantic love:

  • Practice open communication. Relationships require open honesty to thrive. Sharing feelings, setting healthy boundaries, and discussing relationship goals early on increases your chances of a lasting relationship.
  • Avoid getting swept away by lust. In the early days of love, you might dedicate a lot of time to thinking (and talking) about what you’ve already done between the sheets (or anywhere else) and fantasizing about future encounters. This is absolutely normal. Just make sure you’re working toward an emotional connection, too.
  • Learn and grow together. If you want to make your love last, it’s essential to really get to know each other. This might mean discussing dreams and goals, sharing challenges and successes, and trying new things. You maintain your own identities, but you also develop a shared third unit: the relationship itself.

Romantic and platonic love are two different things, but many people consider them equally valuable.

Humans need connection to survive, generally speaking. Some people go through life without ever experiencing romantic or sexual attraction, and that’s OK. You can absolutely get the love you need from relationships with family and friends.

Others thrive with both friends and romantic partners in their lives. Perhaps you can’t imagine life without romance and pursue relationships in the hopes of finding the right partner.

Your friends, however, remain part of your life even as partners come and go (often supporting you through breakups).

In short, platonic love might not fulfill the same needs as romantic love, but it’s equally valuable and equally worth pursuing.

Friendship isn’t a silver medal or a consolation prize. In fact, platonic love may prove more stable and secure than romantic love.

If you’re experiencing confusing new feelings, you might have some uncertainty about how to handle them.

Falling for a friend, for example, can feel pretty terrifying. You think you could have a fantastic romance, but what if you end up losing the friendship instead?

Even when you love someone you know less well, you might wonder what your feelings mean. Do you truly want to develop a relationship? Simply get closer? Or, are your feelings just lust-driven?

Asking yourself the following questions can yield some insight:

  • Which type of connections do I find most appealing? Emotional, physical, or a combination of both, for example.
  • Can I see myself sharing my life with this person?
  • Do I want to experience different types of intimacy with them? Or do I just want more of what we already have?
  • Is a general desire for physical intimacy complicating my platonic love for them?
  • Do I actually desire romantic love, or is it something I’m pursuing because people think I should?

A sudden change in attraction or existing feelings for someone can pull the rug out from under you.

Not sure about the best way forward? You have a few options:

Talk about it

You can’t pursue any type of relationship until they know how you feel. If you’re already friends, think back to how your friendship developed. You probably bonded over shared interests and one (or both) of you expressed the desire to spend more time together. Romantic relationships often develop similarly.

Preparing to share your feelings often involves some preparation for potential rejection. If you don’t feel comfortable telling them in person, try a letter, but avoid email or text.

Once you feel ready, ask if they can set aside some time to talk instead of suddenly dropping it into casual conversation. Choose a time when the two of you have some privacy.

Don’t forget to offer them space to sort through their own feelings, especially if you already have a platonic relationship. It may take time for them to evaluate and come to terms with their own feelings.

Consider other factors

Before you confess your love, take a careful look at the situation. You can’t help who you fall for, but you can help how you choose to handle your feelings:

  • Do they already have a partner? If so, you may want to hold off on sharing your love.
  • Are they a good friend’s ex? Proceed with caution — particularly if the breakup hurt your friend or the relationship ended badly.
  • Has your friendship given you insight into bad behaviors? Maybe they lie to partners, ghost dates, or see multiple partners without openly discussing non-monogamy. People can change, yes, and it’s tempting to believe your friendship and love will inspire that change. Just be sure to consider potential outcomes for your friendship if this doesn’t happen the way you envision.

Let it lie

Perhaps you decide you’d rather cherish your friendship than take a chance on anything more. That’s entirely your choice. Remember: platonic love offers many of the same benefits as romantic love, and one isn’t necessarily better than the other.

Just allow yourself the time and space to fully address your feelings and come to terms with them. Accepting them completely can make it easier to let them go. Try spending a little less time with that person for now, or avoid hanging out one-on-one.

If you feel lonely or in need of physical intimacy, dating others may offer a way to create new connections and ease feelings of longing.

What if your feelings are unrequited?

It’s natural to hope the person you love returns your feelings, but romance doesn’t always play out as planned. Recognizing love sometimes requires you to accept that it may not flourish as you wish.

“If you love someone, let them go,” really does emphasize one key component of love. True, compassionate love means wanting those you love to find happiness and contentment, even when those needs conflict with what you want for yourself.

Resist the temptation to press your case by showing them what a great partner you’d make, since this will likely only damage your existing relationship.

Instead, show respect by honoring their feelings and giving them any space they ask for. Make it clear you intend to go forward by maintaining your platonic friendship. This can help ease any awkwardness that might come up.

Find more tips on recovering from unrequited love here.

Attraction and affection can change and grow over time, and people feel and show love in many ways.

Any type of emotional commitment can fulfill the human need for connection, provided you make the effort to sustain it.

Complete Article HERE!

Our Partners, Ourselves

— Why Is It So Hard To Know What To Call A Significant Other?

By Olivia Harrison

Because of a congenital heart defect, I have an annual checkup with a cardiologist. This yearly visit to the hospital — involving numerous tests, conversations about future surgeries, and a waiting room filled with babies who have only just embarked on the same lifelong journey of doctors’ appointments and arrhythmias that I’ve been on for almost 30 years — is always an existential trip. But perhaps one of the most daunting parts of the day is when the triage nurse asks for my emergency contact info. I give the name, phone number, and address without hesitation, but when she asks: “Relationship to patient?” I stumble. Technically speaking, the answer to this question is: “He’s my boyfriend” — but this particular title just doesn’t quite fit.

Answering with “boyfriend,” I have the overwhelming impulse to add more context. I hope the nurse will notice that my emergency contact hasn’t changed from the one I gave last year and that our addresses are the same, but either she doesn’t notice or, more likely,  she just doesn’t care. That doesn’t stop me from awkwardly joking, “Don’t worry, this isn’t just some guy I met on Tinder or picked up at a bar last weekend,” as she silently connects me to the EKG, having already moved on. For some reason, I need her to know that we live together, we’ve been in each other’s lives in one form or another for almost 10 years, and we’ve raised two beautiful cats together. “Boyfriend” just doesn’t get that message across.

“There is a practical history of people needing a word to label a serious relationship that doesn’t involve marriage,” says Lal Zimman, Associate Professor of Linguistics at University of California, Santa Barbara. This, of course, is the exact situation I’m in. The term “boyfriend” doesn’t conjure up associations with commitment. A boyfriend is someone you only see on weekends or someone who could easily ghost you at any time because your lives aren’t necessarily so intertwined. Despite wanting to make the seriousness of my relationship known, however, I almost never find myself thinking about marriage. It might be something we eventually decide to do, but it’s not a priority, and he’s definitely not my fiance. So what is he?

For many people in my position — I’m a cis woman in a long-term relationship with a man — the word “partner” has become the default term — more and more, using the word “partner” even continues after marriage. The implications are clear: A partner will likely stick around. A partner knows and even loves your family and will absolutely answer the phone when the hospital taps them as your emergency contact — a partner is your family. A simple fix, right? Perhaps, but, of course, “partner” doesn’t come without its own complicated history and associations and echoes of appropriation. And maybe that’s why I still have a hard time saying it.

As the term partner has become more and more widely used, it’s important to note why it not only feels like a progressive term, but also what it took to make it become a common one. Zimman points out that “partner” deemphasizes the terminology most associated with heterosexual marriage and traditional gender roles within relationships. Still, that progressive connotation is exactly what makes me self-conscious about using it as the label for one of the most significant relationships in my life. For a long time, I heard the word partner mostly used by queer couples, either because same-sex marriage was not yet legal or because gendered terms like “husband,” “wife,” “boyfriend,” and “girlfriend” simply didn’t fit. It was hard not to wonder if I would be appropriating the term if I started using it.

Interestingly, “partner” was defined as a term exclusively used for heterosexual couples for a long time before being widely adopted for queer relationships. According to Peter Sokolowski, Merriam-Webster’s Editor at Large, the word partner originally meant one who shares a parcel of land — that being the measure of wealth in medieval England, a type of currency that often came into play with marriages, which were thought of as economic, rather than romantic, relationships. This origin as an even division of wealth, and therefore power, speaks to its use in many romantic contexts even today though. “Merriam-Webster did not define a same-sex version of the word partner until 1993,” says Sokolowski. “Prior to that, it was simply a cross-reference to ‘husband, wife.’ So partner, if it was a romantic partner, was exclusively heterosexual.” It wasn’t until the dictionary’s 10th Collegiate Edition was released in 1993 that “husband, wife” was replaced in the definition with the word “spouse.” According to Sokolowski, the definition for partner then became “either of two people living together; especially spouse

Sokolowski also shared that the first use of the word partner recorded by the Oxford English Dictionary was taken from the private correspondence of a single family in the 16th century; each member of a married couple referred to one another as “partner.” John Milton also used the word in Paradise Lost in the late 17th century to reference a heterosexual spouse. The first example of partner being used to talk about queer relationships noted in the Oxford English Dictionary is from a publication called Gay News in 1977. “This is interesting because it was in 1978 that Berkeley passed the Sexual Orientation Non-Discrimination Ordinance whereby the city promised to provide equal treatment regardless of sexual orientation,” Sokolowski explains. “So basically, around the late ’70s, this idea of domestic partnerships came about, therefore connecting this word partner to a spouse-like relationship that was not yet legal in a marriage context, but was being made legal in a civil context.

Clearly, there is an extensive history of queer couples being excluded from the definition of the word partner because the existence of queerness and queer relationships was for so long wholly ignored. In the period from the late ’70s through the ’90s, though, things began to change. In a 1992 essay from Law & Sexuality, David L. Chambers explores the impact that the AIDS epidemic had on the fight for the legal recognition of domestic partnerships, specifically in San Francisco and New York. “AIDS had brought home the price that gay men and lesbians had been paying for the social and legal nonrecognition of their relations,” Chambers writes. “That price revealed itself when the biological families of gay men with AIDS tried to exclude their sons’ partners from hospital visitation or from participating in decisions about medical treatment. Conflicts continued after death, with struggles over burial and property.”

The urgency of having a relationship be recognized in the eyes of the law was also highlighted when many gay men with AIDS lost their health insurance because they had become too ill to work and could not obtain insurance coverage through their partners. In New York, many gay men who had cared for their sick partners found that they were not legally eligible to remain in their partners’ rent-stabilized apartment after their partners’ deaths. According to Chambers, in addition to emphasizing the need for legal recognition of same-sex relationships, the AIDS epidemic also brought into focus the significance of these partnerships for many gay men and lesbians. In his piece, Chambers quotes Jean Harris, a lesbian activist and chief of staff to Harry Britt, the openly gay member of San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors who first introduced domestic partner legislation in S.F., “AIDS made us realize that our lovers are our support systems. It made us more aware of the importance of primary relationships. It made love and relationships even more important than they had seemed before.”

This all speaks to the power of this word partner, as queer people were literally trying to save their lives by showing society-at-large that their commitments to one another mattered as much as those of heterosexual couples. Eventually, partner became more universally accepted as the term used by and for those in queer relationships, but that long and tragic fight for acknowledgment and acceptance is a big part of why I feel like I’m co-opting the word when I use it to describe my own heterosexual relationship. And yet, perhaps my discomfort is just a sign that the evolution of the word “partner” is still ongoing, and that there’s still a lot of work to be done with regards to the terminology surrounding our relationships

Sokolowski points to the way that the definition of the word “marriage” has changed in recent years as an example of how language surrounding relationships is still in flux. “Merriam-Webster’s definition of marriage is a great microcosm of how this works because initially we separated gay marriage from traditional marriage in our definition as a. and b. for the simple reason that whenever gay marriage was used in The New York Times or something, it was made extremely clear that this was gay marriage,” he explains. “It was always used with the term ‘gay’ in front of it, which means that they weren’t exactly equivalent, and that gay marriage was clearly regarded as a special case or special kind of marriage. So we separated them as a. and b., two different senses, and then later collapsed them into one, using the word spouse as we do for partner, because now the evidence shows that gay marriage is no longer a special case. It’s simply marriage.”

Sokolowski highlights the three stages of this evolution: First, gay marriage was not recognized; then, it became isolated as a special case, an asterisk on marriage; and finally, it was integrated into the traditional definition. “The same discomfort that the culture might have felt with the idea of same-sex marriage is sort of echoed in the discomfort we have in the use of new terminology,” he shares. “The British linguist, David Crystal says, ‘frequency breeds content,’ so the more often you hear it, the more comfortable you are.

Since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down all state bans on same-sex marriage in 2015, gay marriage has become less othered, and queer couples have embraced terms like husband, wife, and spouse with pride. Many have even left behind the term partner. However, depending on where you are, the association between the word partner and queerness still lingers.

Sarah S., who lives in D.C. with her partner, tells me, “I’m bi and in a hetero relationship. I intentionally use partner not only to normalize it for queer couples, but also because it does sound inherently queer right now, so it kind of affirms my queer identity to myself — especially as a woman who realized they were bi while in a relationship with a man.”

U.K.-based lifestyle blogger Luisa-Christie, who is also bisexual, feels similarly. “I think it’s fab when heterosexual people say ‘partner,’ because it normalizes gender-free language and it means that those people who are queer but maybe not out yet, aren’t outing themselves in potentially unsafe situations or in front of friends, family, or work colleagues they may not want to share it with.” Amber Grace, 28, agrees. “For me, using the term partner is inclusive of the whole spectrum of sexuality and gender, which is really important as my life has taught me that who we are and who we love is not something set in stone.”

On the other hand, Carla tells me that she resents this idea that genderless language and queerness need to be “normalized.” She says, “As far as I am concerned, I am normal. I feel that no matter what I say or what other queer people say about this, straight people, at the end of the day, will do whatever they want.” She also stresses that using certain words is not enough. “If straight people want to be allies, maybe do it in action. Do straight people stand up to any type of bullying? Are you providing a safe environment, everywhere you interact in your life, as a straight person? You don’t need to adopt language to be ‘inclusive.’ Be inclusive with your actions not with your virtue signaling. Hire people, stand up, ACTUALLY DO! Especially, in a workplace, which from my own experience has always been nothing but violent. Hearing people say ‘partner’? Meh! It doesn’t help me in any way — never has in the past and it won’t in the future, as long as we are being killed and experiencing harassment

Amber Grace acknowledges that this issue is complicated for some queer folks. “I have absolutely been privileged in my coming out, and have very rarely felt unsafe or unwelcome — at least in comparison to many others in the community,” she explains. “So I do understand why some feel that the term ‘partner,’ which, at least in part, was really created so that non-hetero couples could safely refer to their ‘more than friends’ in less than safe spaces, should only be used by people who need that protection. I think if I saw someone who was the opposite of an ally to LGBTQ+ use the term ‘partner,’ I’d be irritated.”

Australia-based designer Oliver Boston also emphasizes the importance of remembering why queer people often use the word. “I don’t think it’s up to anyone to tell a couple how they define their relationship,” they say. “I just wish that heterosexual people stayed aware that one of the reasons LGBT people use the term partner instead of boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife is because it’s still often unsafe for us to immediately disclose our sexuality. It is also a nod to the fact that until only recently it was illegal for us to marry or have our relationships recognized officially — and in many places, it’s still illegal. I guess the way I feel about it boils down to: Straight people can call each other what they want but just remember that the history behind why we do it is different.”

According to Zimman, the use of the word partner, regardless of gender or sexuality, is more common in certain places. “In the U.K. and Australia, ‘partner’ is used really widely as a label for straight couples,” he says. “Even within the U.S., there’s some variation. I had a conversation with a colleague not long ago who had lived on the East Coast, and he found that when he used ‘partner’ there, people immediately understood that he’s gay, but in California, when he uses partner, people don’t make that same assumption.” I know that, for me, because the word is so open to interpretation, I worry that some people might think I’m using “partner” not just because I want my progressive beliefs about relationships and identity to be known, but also because I want people to think I might also be queer.

“In the past, same-sex couples would sometimes use a ‘they’ pronoun in reference to their partner to just avoid gendering them and avoid bringing their sexuality up. It seems like some straight people might be doing something similar, but reversed. They might use the word partner because they want to leave some mystery or openness about the gender of their partner,” Zimman acknowledges. When I asked Zimman how he felt about this type of trickery, which is all too common among liberal, white, straight people, he said that, as a linguist, he is not inclined to make judgments about what is better or worse in terms of people’s language use. He did offer this, though: “The word partner could potentially be taken as a way of hiding the person’s actual sexual orientation, but of course, we do a lot of other things besides just using words to describe our relationships. So a conclusion on whether there’s any kind of queer-baiting going on is really something that you get from the full context. There’s a difference between a person who presents themselves consistently as ‘maybe I’m queer and I kind of want people to think that about me, even though I’m not’ versus a person who uses the word partner but also uses a pronoun to refer to their partner or has other things to say about who they are and how they identify. I think we don’t have to put as much pressure on this word partner to be what really matters in terms of how we’re presenting ourselves. Let’s start thinking about it more holistically.”

Zimman’s point that one single label — whether it be partner or boyfriend or emergency-contact — doesn’t have to do all heavy lifting when explaining who you are is an important one. It’s a reminder that saying the word partner feels complicated because identities and the nature of our many relationships themselves are complicated — and our collective history of inequality toward and stigmatization of queer relationships only makes it more so. Acknowledging that may make it easier to approach language without so much judgment, and more like a linguist — or even a busy nurse who can’t be bothered to reassure you that she understands that you’re in a serious relationship.

Complete Article HERE!

How to Have a Threesome

— Whether You’re Single or in a Relationship

by Gabrielle Kassel

Third time’s the charm? More like: add a third, have a climax!

Today we’re talking all things three-ways.

Whether you’re monogamous, monogam-ish, open, polyamorous, single, dating, married, or somewhere in between, you’ll find something in this beginner’s guide for you.

The definition of threesome is probably looser than you think it is.

Ready? A threesome is sex between three people.

And sex is any meaningful act of pleasure that happens in person or with the help of technology, as defined by sex educator, psychotherapist, and marriage and relationship expert Rachel Wright, MA, LMFT.

So a threesome could be anything from an R-rated group chat or a three-way phone sex call to an oral sex chain or an Eiffel Tower.

“Threesomes aren’t a cure-all for a broken relationship,” says certified intimacy educator and sex coach Stella Harris, author of “The Ultimate Guide to Threesomes.”

“The added pressure of an extra person is likely to amplify any cracks in a pre-established relationship’s stability,” she says.

Basically, a threesome is the opposite of a Band-Aid.

“For threesomes to go smoothly when there’s an existing couple involved, that relationship already needs to be solid,” she adds.

A solid relationship is one in which you can:

  • talk about both your wins and insecurities
  • hear your partner and feel heard by your partner
  • trust each other

Think about it: A threesome offers more hands, holes, and lips, as well as more scents, tastes, and sounds.

So the most common reason people have threesomes is to experience pleasure.

But there are other reasons, too. You might want:

And, hey, taboos can be hot!

The disparity between the number of folks who want to have a threesome and the number of folks actually having them is probably a lot larger than you’ve been led to believe.

Ready?

According to a survey of 4,175 adults conducted by Justin Lehmiller, PhD, a sex researcher and author of “Tell Me What You Want: The Science of Sexual Desire and How It Can Help You Improve Your Sex Life,” 87 percent of women and 97 percent of men fantasize about having sex with more than one person.

The survey didn’t break this fantasy down into specifics, so this figure could include other forms of group sex, too.

All that said, some researchTrusted Source suggests that only 10 percent of women and 18 percent of men have actually had a threesome. Sigh.

It’s important to note that neither the survey nor the 2017 study mentioned above polled folks of other genders.

A sad consequence of living in a sex-negative society is that many often assume that threesomes are reserved for the kinkiest among us.

While there’s nothing (!!) wrong with this, the truth is that engaging in group sex doesn’t have to say anything about who you are.

Anyone who wants to have a threesome can have one!

N-O-P-E!

You can be any gender, sex, or sexuality and enjoy a three-way.

“There’s a common fear amidst straight men that you can’t be in a threesome with another man and still be straight,” explains Shelby Ring, sexuality advocate and lead educator with Ruby Riot Creatives (a boutique videography firm based in Charleston, South Carolina).

“But you can absolutely have a threesome with another man and still be straight as a door nail.”

Remember:

  1. Being in a threesome with someone doesn’t necessarily mean you’re going to be touching them.

  2. Sexual acts don’t determine sexual orientation — only self-identification does.

Historically, threesomes have been named according to the make-up of males and females in them.

These terms include:

  • MMM: Male-male-male
  • FFF: Female-female-female
  • MFM: Male-female-male
  • FMF: Female-male-female
  • MMF: Male-male-female
  • FFM: Female-female-male

Nowadays, these designations are considered out of style.

The terms “male” and “female” suggest a biological binary that doesn’t exist.

Sometimes, the phrases “penis-owner” and “vagina-owner” are used to explain the make-up of a threesome. For example, PPV means a threesome with a penis-owner, penis-owner, and vagina-owner.

But these terms can create gender or genital dysphoria in folks who don’t feel connected to their genitals.

The best way to describe the configuration of your threesome is by the genders of each person involved. Are two of you nonbinary and one of you gender-fluid? Just say that!

A threesome isn’t a puppy! You can’t put it in a box with a bow under the Christmas tree, whip it out mid-romp, and yell “surprise.”

Introducing a third person into the bedroom requires tact and lots of open communication.

For instance, you might say:

  • “Babe, have you ever had a threesome? Or wanted to have a threesome?”
  • “I had the hottest threesome dream featuring you, me, and Ruby Rose last night. Can I tell you about it?”
  • “I recently read an article about threesomes, and it made me think it’s something that might be really fun to try together. Is it something you’d ever be interested in?”

Another option: Watch an episode or movie with a threesome or group sex scene together, then do a temperature check.

Popular movies and shows with group-play representation include:

  • “Sense 8”
  • “The L Word”
  • “Vicky Cristina Barcelona”
  • “Easy”
  • “House of Cards”
  • “Elite”
  • “Game of Thrones”

While watching, you might consider saying, “Do you ever fantasize about doing that?” or “Have you ever wanted to have a threesome with me and another person?”

Of course, if they’re recoiling with discomfort, read (!) the (!) room (!).

 

Before you and your partner decide to move forward, Harris recommends that you both examine why you want to have a threesome.

“Are your ‘whys’ compatible? How does hearing their reasons make you feel?” she asks.

You’ll also want to discuss your relationship with jealousy.

“Are you prone to jealousy or insecurity? Do you feel comfortable speaking up for yourself and your boundaries?” she adds.

“Remember: Multi-person play can end up pressing on any weak points in your confidence or relationship.”

This depends on a variety of things, like whether you’re looking with someone else or alone and if physical distancing orders have been lifted.

Use a dating app geared towards threesomes

“There are dating apps geared toward kink or open relationships, which allow you to screen for people who are game for this kind of play before making your approach,” Harris says.

Some popular threesome dating apps include:

Or respectfully use another dating app

Obvi, there are other dating apps, too.

If you use an app that isn’t geared specifically toward group sex, Harris recommends that you “make sure to be transparent that you’re dating as a couple, or that you’re single and looking to join a couple.”

Attend an IRL or URL sex party

“In a sexually charged environment, like at a sex club or play party, these kinds of proposals typically feel pretty natural,” Harris says.

To find the sex clubs nearest you, hit up Google. Search for “sex club in [insert city here].”

To find a local play party, ask the educators at your local feminist sex shop.

Look within your polycule

If you’re polyamorous, you might consider looking within your non-monogamous network! As the saying goes, a polycule that plays together stays together…

You might say:

  • “My other partner finds you incredibly beautiful, and we were wondering if you might be interested in sleeping with us both?”
  • “You know my other partner? We’re interested in having a threesome together. Is that something you might be interested in?”

Don’t only talk about the potential threesome

Whether IRL or URL, “make sure to show an interest in the potential third beyond just sex,” Harris says.

Instead of launching right into threesome talk, get to know them.

“You want to find people you can enjoy talking to, not just fooling around with,” she says.

“Before you start playing, clarity is crucial,” Ring says.

Before clothes start coming off, she recommends discussing:

  • STI status
  • the sex acts that are “acceptable sex acts”
  • the birth control methods that are going to be used and by whom
  • the barrier methods that are going to be used, by whom, and when
  • the desired frequency for the three-way
  • whether there’s potential for the three-way to evolve into a (romantic) triad
  • where everyone will be sleeping after the threesome
  • the types of interactions you’ll have in the days, weeks, and months after the threesome

“Though these conversations may be uncomfortable at first, the more clarity you have, the better,” Ring adds.

Plus, having these clear communications upfront may be a great precursor to feel out the others’ emotional intelligence, too.

“If someone flares up at the thought of having to get STI tested, or becomes extremely reactive when talking about off-limit sex acts, that’s a red flag.”

There’s just one rule for group play: Everyone involved needs to feel — and encouraged to feel — safe, comfortable, and respected.

Beyond that, it’s up to you all to decide who touches who, when, how, and in what order.

Be direct

Wondering how the heck to go from talking about the weather to talking about how wet (or hard) you all are? Harris recommends being direct.

“Sometimes the best way to get there is simply by being direct,” she says. “You might say ‘Would you like to go upstairs/to the bedroom?’ or ‘May I kiss you now?’”

“As long as everyone knows the plan is for a threesome, you don’t need to be coy at this point.” Fair.

Let the more experienced person be the top

Has someone in the group had a threesome before? Harris suggests letting them take the reins.

“If someone in the group is more experienced, it can help if everyone agrees to let them take the lead.”

Consistently communicate

Just as constant communication is the key to pleasurable two-person play, it’s also key to three-person play, says Luna Matatas, sexuality educator and creator of Peg The Patriarchy.

Here are some questions you might ask throughout:

  • “How does this feel?”
  • “Do you like it like this [performs one type of touch/lick/bite], or like this [performs another]?”
  • “How are you doing, baby?”

Some folks are OK with a quick check-in before they’re out the door. Others want to cuddle or hop in the shower. Some pairs want to Talk It Out after the third leaves.

There’s no wrong post-threesome move, per say. But you do want to be respectful of everyone’s emotional, physical, mental, and spiritual needs.

“Like with most things, the only way to be sure you’re on the same page is to ask,” says Harris.

You might say:

  • “Does anyone need water or food?”
  • “How are everyone’s muscles, genitals, and energy levels? Does anyone need ice, a heating pad, lube, or CBD suppository?”
  • “How are you feeling emotionally?”
  • “What are you thinking about?”

“You can also check in with your threesome group the day after and invite any conversations now that the sexy dust has settled,” Matatas says.

Sure, you could you whip out Siri and ask, “What does DP mean?” Or you could pursue the short threesome term sheet below.

Unicorn

A unicorn is an omnisexual (i.e. pansexual or bisexual) individual who’s down to hook-up with both members of a pre-established couple in a no-strings-attached three-way.

Historically, the term referred specifically to bisexual women, but it has since expanded to refer to eager thirds across the spectrum.

Guest star

Often used synonymous with unicorn, the term guest star suggests that the third (who is not part of the established couple) is going to receive the majority of the attention.

Daisy chain

Daisy chaining is the three-person version of 69-ing. It involves everyone simultaneously giving and receiving oral sex.

Double penetration (DP)

Any sex act that involves one person having one or more orifices — anus, vagina, or mouth — filled with two things.

This could include any combination of penises, dildos, ball gags, butt plugs, other sex toys, or fingers.

Double vaginal penetration (DVP)

This happens when a vagina-owner has their vaginal canal simultaneously filled by two penises, two dildos, or one of each.

Threesomes can be pleasurable as long as there’s plenty of chit-chat along the way.

So, in the words of Tash Sultana and Matt Corby, “Let’s talk it out, talk it out, talk it out. Baby let’s talk it out, talk it out, talk it out.”

Complete Article HERE!