Tag: sex therapist

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An Overview of Male Anorgasmia

By Jerry Kennard

Male anorgasmia is the persistent inability of a man to have an orgasm, even after sexual stimulation. Anorgasmia, or Coughlan’s syndrome, affects both men and women, but it’s more common in women.

Male anorgasmia can be distressing to those who experience it, especially since it often occurs with delayed ejaculation. This is when an orgasm is possible, but it’s difficult and takes longer to achieve.

It’s estimated that about 8% of men have delayed or absent orgasm.1 It’s less common among younger men and increases with age.

The condition should not be confused with erectile dysfunction (the inability to achieve an erection) or low libido (lack of sexual desire). However, these conditions may co-exist.

There are multiple causes of male anorgasmia. They include:

  • Physiological problems present at birth
  • Side effects from surgery
  • Medications
  • Psychological issues

A treatment plan can be created once the cause has been identified. Then a man should be able to regain normal and satisfying sexual function.

This article will explain the types and causes of male anorgasmia. It will also address diagnosis and treatment as well as how to cope with this condition.

Physiology of the Male Orgasm

The male orgasm is a complex process. It is the third of four distinct phases in the sexual response cycle: Desire (libido), arousal (excitement), orgasm, and resolution.

Male orgasm results from sexual activity and arousal. It involves multiple hormones, organs, and nerve pathways.

Testosterone, a hormone produced in the testicles, plays a central role in this process by enhancing sexual desire that leads to arousal, erection, and ultimately, orgasm.

Also involved are contractions of the muscles of the penis, anus, and perineum. This space is located between the anus and scrotum. Ultimately, these contractions propel semen from the body.

During orgasm, the reward center of the brain floods with neurochemicals. These chemicals are responsible for the intense emotional response associated with an orgasm.

A man may be unable to achieve a normal orgasm when physical or emotional issues affect any of these parts of the process.

Types

Men can experience one of two types of anorgasmia:

  • Primary anorgasmia, when a person has never been able to have an orgasm
  • Secondary, or situational, anorgasmia, when orgasm can be reached only under specific conditions, such as during oral sex or masturbation

Causes

The potential causes of male anorgasmia can be divided into two categories: physiological and psychological:

Physiological

  • Conditions such as multiple sclerosis, neuropathy (nerve damage) caused by diabetes, and uncontrolled hypertension (high blood pressure)
  • Hypogonadism (low testosterone levels) and endocrine disorders that affect hormonal balance
  • Complications from prostate surgery (prostatectomy) or radiation to treat prostate cancer
  • Cauda equina syndrome, a rare condition in which exposed nerve fibers at the bottom of the spinal cord become irritated
  • Congenital absence of the bulbocavernosus sphincter to contract during ejaculation
  • Substance abuse (especially heroin use)
  • Prescription side effects with certain medications, such as antipsychotics, opiates, and antidepressants, particularly selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) like Prozac (fluoxetine)

A study of about 2,000 men evaluated for the sexual effects of antidepressants found that the inability to achieve orgasm was seven times more common in those who took SSRIs.

Psychological

  • General mental health issues such as anxiety, stress, depression, relationship difficulties, and hostility
  • Sexual performance anxiety (the most common psychological cause of anorgasmia), which can affect men of any age and can be intensified by erectile dysfunction
  • Negative attitudes about sex tied to a repressive religious upbringing or family/parental issues
  • Early sexual abuse and trauma
  • Certain phobias, such as haphephobia (fear of being touched) and genophobia (generalized fear of sexual intercourse)
  • Grief, including that brought on by the loss of a partner

Diagnosis

To treat male anorgasmia, it must be diagnosed accurately. If you’re dealing with this problem, a visit to your primary care healthcare provider can get the process started.

Your healthcare provider will do a thorough physical exam and review your medical history. This may include an evaluation of all medications you take or have taken in the past.

It’s possible that your anorgasmia started about the same time you began taking a new medication.

This initial evaluation will steer the next move: either more tests or a referral to a specialist. This could be a urologist for a physical cause or a mental health professional for a psychological issue. You could get a referral to both.

Tests commonly used to help diagnose the cause of male anorgasmia include:

  • Blood tests to measure levels of hormones such as testosterone, thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH), and prolactin, a hormone that affects testosterone levels
  • Biothesiometry to measure whether there’s a loss of sensation in the penis
  • Penile sympathetic skin response to test the function of nerves supplying the penis
  • Sacral reflex arc testing, another way to evaluate the function of the nerves that supply the genital area

Treatment

  • Testosterone replacement therapy such as Tlando (testosterone undecanoate) or a dopamine-promoting drug, like Dostinex (cabergoline), may restore a man’s ability to orgasm
  • Therapy and/or medication for depression, anxiety, or other mood disorders that contribute to male anorgasmia
  • Psychotherapy to overcome sexual performance anxiety or past sexual and non-sexual trauma
  • Couples counseling, which may help resolve relationship issues
  • Sex therapy to treat certain sexual issues
  • Instruction in digital prostate massage to help stimulate what some people consider to be the male G-spot

    • Sometimes, changing the dosage of a prescription is all that’s necessary to return sexual function to normal. It’s a simple “cure” that serves as a reminder about why it doesn’t pay to postpone a trip to the doctor.

    What About Viagra?

    Medications such as Viagra (sildenafil) and Cialis (tadalafil) increase blood flow to the penis. They treat erectile dysfunction but will not enhance libido or make it easier for a man to reach orgasm.

    Coping

    Male anorgasmia, like any type of sexual dysfunction, can take a big toll on a man’s physical, psychological, and emotional life. It may have similar effects on his partner.

    The most important step is to seek a medical diagnosis. It does no good to allow fear or embarrassment to prevent you from confronting the issue.

    Usually, there is hope. But an effective treatment may not be possible if you:

    • Have had a radical prostatectomy (a surgical procedure on the prostate)
    • Have suffered severe pelvic trauma
    • Have multiple sclerosis

    In this case, the best solution may be to focus on enhancing sexual pleasure and intimacy without orgasm. A psychologist or sex therapist can help you embrace a healthy sexual lifestyle in ways you may not have considered.

    Summary

    There are two types of male anorgasmia and two primary causes: physiological and psychological. Diagnosis is straightforward, and many treatment options exist.

    Coping with the condition can be difficult for the man as well as his partner. But taking a proactive stance and seeing a physician as soon as possible can help both people resume their sexual activities with confidence.

    A Word from Verywell

    Male anorgasmia can be frustrating and embarrassing for a man at any age or stage of life. There are many possible reasons why a man does not reach orgasm. However, once the cause is clear, effective treatment options abound. They can restore sexual function to normal.

    Frequently Asked Questions

    • What is male anorgasmia?
      It is the medical term used to describe the inability to reach orgasm despite sexual stimulation.2
    • How common is male anorgasmia?
      Anorgasmia is thought to affect around 8% of people with penises. The risk increases with age.1
    • What is situational anorgasmia?
      Situational anorgasmia is the inability to achieve orgasm in specific sexual situations, such as during oral sex.
    • What are medical causes of male anorgasmia?
    • There are many physiological explanations for male anorgasmia. The most common are:

      • Low testosterone (often age-related)
      • Uncontrolled high blood pressure
      • Prostate surgery or radiation
      • Alcohol or substance abuse
      • Cauda equina syndrome, a rare spinal cord condition
      • Neurologic disorders like diabetic neuropathy
    • Can medications cause male anorgasmia?
      Yes. Among the most common causes of male anorgasmia are antidepressants called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). These include Celexa (citalopram), Lexapro (escitalopram), Paxil (paroxetine), Prozac (fluoxetine), and Zoloft (sertraline).
    • Are there psychological causes of anorgasmia?
      Yes. Sexual trauma, performance anxiety, depression, and other psychological issues may cause anorgasmia.
    • How do you diagnose male anorgasmia?
      To help pinpoint the cause, healthcare providers often take a blood test to detect any hormonal or metabolic abnormalities, conduct in-office tests to evaluate penile skin sensitivity and erectile function, and possibly make a referral to a mental health professional.

      Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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    Sex surrogate therapy

    — What is it and how does it work?

    by Rachel Ann Tee-Melegrito

    Sex surrogate therapy is a three-way therapeutic relationship to help a person feel more comfortable with sex, sensuality, and sexuality. It involves working with a licensed therapist and a surrogate partner to manage potential issues with intimacy.

    Also known as surrogate-assisted therapy or surrogate partner therapy, this treatment aims to help build self-awareness and skills in physical and emotional intimacy. A person sees both a sex therapist and a surrogate partner to help develop a healthy self-concept and improve sexual functioning. While this treatment can involve intercourse with the surrogate partner, it does not always.

    A person may seek this type of therapy because of sexual dysfunctions or any trauma, fears, or anxieties they experience related to sex. Sexual health and satisfaction can play a crucial role in a person’s health and well-being, and forming sexual relationships may impact happiness and fulfillment.

    In this article, we discuss what sex surrogate therapy is, how it works, who can benefit from it, and how it differs from other practices.

    Surrogate partner therapy is a three-way therapeutic relationship among a licensed therapist, a client, and a surrogate partner.

    The treatment typically involves a variety of therapeutic experiences, sometimes including sexual intercourse, to explore and resolve barriers preventing a person from having physical, sexual, and emotional intimacy.

    Dr. William Masters, a gynecologist, and Dr. Virginia Johnson, a sexologist, introduced the concept in their book, Human Sexual Inadequacy, which they originally published in the 1970s.

    The course of therapy usually begins with the therapist and the client determining goals and creating a treatment plan to address the issues behind the client’s difficulties.

    The therapist may recommend surrogate partner therapy if they deem it helpful. Partner surrogates work in collaboration with the therapist and the client. They receive training to mentor, coach, and help clients meet their treatment goals.

    Similarly to the way exposure therapy enables a person to face their fear, this treatment provides access to a safe partner to allow a person to practice techniques, among other skills.

    The goals of this treatment may include building self-awareness and self-confidence, developing effective communication, training social skills, and developing physical and emotional intimacy skills.

    Surrogates guide clients through the program and gradually progress through varied therapeutic experiences that aim to explore, build the client’s skills, and promote their healing. The plan may incorporate:

    • relaxation and meditation
    • eye contact
    • effective communication
    • sensate focusing
    • sex education
    • body mapping
    • one-way or mutual nudity
    • one-way or mutual touching
    • genital-genital contact

    A person may opt for local therapy, which is when the therapist and the surrogate are both available in the local community. It usually involves meeting with the therapist for 1 hour per week and meeting with the surrogate partner for 1–2 hours per week.

    Alternatively, they may use an intensive setup, which is when the therapist-client and surrogate-client sessions overlap to facilitate rapid growth and change for the client. This involves meeting with the surrogate partner for 2–3 hours per day and with the therapist for 1 hour per day. Intensive therapy typically lasts for 2 weeks.

    It is important to note that the therapist is not involved in the sessions between the surrogate and the client. However, open, proper, and consistent communication among all three team members is fundamental for the approach’s success. All team members make a mutual decision to terminate therapy, typically when the client achieves their goals.

    Generally, individuals considering sex surrogate therapy have been undergoing sex therapy or psychotherapy for months to several years to deal with concerns such as self-confidence, body image issues, fears, and sexual dysfunctions.

    The range of concerns and conditions that may prompt the therapist or the client to consider a partner surrogate may include:

    Some researchers suggest that sex surrogate therapy may help treat sexual difficulties among transgender people who have recently undergone gender confirmation surgery. Some evidence also suggests that it may be beneficial for people with disabilities to help them learn about comfortable ways to experience sex.

    While some individuals may benefit from this therapy, more research is necessary. Additionally, it may be advisable to establish clarity on the ethics and legality of this practice.

    There is some overlap between sex therapy and sex surrogate therapy, as both treatments aim to help resolve sexual issues.

    While sex therapists may provide sex-based exercises to perform at home in between sessions, such as watching porn or masturbating, they do not participate or offer hands-on exercises to help their clients practice and develop these skills. Sex therapy is essentially a form of talk therapy.

    Sex surrogate therapy may often involve a sex therapist as a licensed professional in addition to a certified surrogate partner. With consent, a person may be able to practice physical or sexual intimacy or techniques that a sex therapist advices with the surrogate partner.

    Becoming a sex therapist typically requires a person to earn a master’s degree in a related field such as mental health, therapy, counseling, or psychology. In contrast, a person does not need any specific degree or course to qualify as a surrogate partner.

    Many people may see sex surrogate therapy as a form of sex work. However, the two have different goals.

    Sex workers receive payment in exchange for consensual sexual services. Sex surrogate therapy aims to provide a safe, structured environment where the client can explore intimacy and resolve barriers that prevent them from developing physical and emotional intimacy with a partner.

    Sex surrogate therapy may also include sensual and sexual contact, but the focus is on developing skills and healing. In some cases, surrogate partners never have physical contact with their clients.

    The International Professional Surrogates Association (IPSA) Code of Ethics states that the term “surrogate partner” applies only when the therapeutic relationship includes the involvement and participation of a licensed therapist. The surrogate may act as a substitute partner or a co-therapist.

    There are currently no laws regulating or prohibiting sex surrogacy therapy. While paying for sex is illegal in most of the United States, this type of therapy does not always involve the exchange of money for sexual services, so it may fall into a legal gray area.

    Sexual gratification is not necessarily the sole aim of the treatment. The treatment is also a therapeutic tool to help people overcome sexual challenges and improve their sexual health. Although the rationale for using a surrogate partner may be for sexual engagement, sexual contact is not mandatory and occurs only if necessary for the client to reach their goals.

    Like any decision in a traditional therapeutic relationship between a client and a therapist, the decision to engage in intercourse as part of treatment is the choice of both parties and requires informed consent.

    Since its establishment in 1973, IPSA has not experienced any legal issues.

    A person may be able to access a partner surrogate through a licensed therapist, who can tap into their network of partner surrogates.

    A person may also refer to IPSA’s list of surrogate partners. However, because not all surrogate partners want to post their personal information publicly, a person may also connect with IPSA’s referrals coordinator to be connected with a trained and certified professional surrogate partner.

    Moreover, because some surrogate partners have profiles on social media platforms, a person may encounter people who claim to be IPSA certified or IPSA members. Individuals or therapists may contact the IPSA referrals coordinator to confirm.

    While a specific degree or course is not a prerequisite for applying to IPSA’s Professional Surrogate Partner Training Program, the training committee does look for certain qualities, such as:

    • emotional maturity
    • evolution through personal therapy or other growth-oriented life experience
    • comfort with one’s body and sexuality
    • readiness to be involved in a close, caring relationship with others who are having difficulties with emotional, physical, and sexual intimacy

    Interested applicants may begin their training application process with IPSA. They will need to fill out forms that require them to share very personal information.

    Applicants need to go to Southern California for training, which has two phases. The first involves a 100-hour didactic and experiential course. Upon completing this, a person can enter a multiyear, multiclient supervised internship for phase 2.

    Sex surrogate therapy is a therapeutic relationship involving a client, a therapist, and a surrogate partner. It can offer a place of healing and growth for people who are having difficulty with fears and anxieties about sex, their sexuality, or intimacy.

    However, the therapy may not be suitable for everyone, and it does not necessarily involve intercourse with the surrogate partner. Individuals who are working with a sex therapist and interested in trying sex surrogate therapy may discuss it with their therapist. It is up to a licensed therapist to determine whether a person may benefit from a surrogate partner.

    Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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    Putting the Sexy in Safe Sex

    Experts have long been calling for education programs to include the pleasures of sex. A new meta-analysis looks at the effects of doing so.

    By Hannah Docter-Loeb

    There’s a Crucial Component Missing From Most Sex Education Programs

    “Don’t have sex, because you will get pregnant and die,” goes a famous line from the 2004 film Mean Girls. The scene is a send-up of abstinence-only sex education, the dominant form of sex ed in the U.S. In it, North Shore High’s Coach Carr encourages a gym full of teenagers to refrain from sex altogether. “Don’t have sex in the missionary position, don’t have sex standing up. Just don’t do it, promise?” he says, before offering the class a plastic bin full of “rubbers.”

    In a recent episode of Netflix’s Sex Education, the vibe is quite different. “You shouldn’t be shamed for having sexual desires,” says Maeve Wiley, a character who co-runs a sex therapy clinic at her high school to help peers with their sexual frustrations and problems. “You make sex sound terrifying, but it doesn’t have to be,” she says to a school official trying to preach abstinence-based education. “It can be fun and beautiful and teach you things about yourself and your body.”

    Sex Education has been applauded for its sex-positive attitude, especially because programs that teach safe sex, whether to tweens or to adults, still often take a more Coach Carr approach. It’s not always easy to get people on board with the idea that sex ed should teach that sex is fun. In Rhode Island, state Rep. Rebecca Kislak recently introduced legislation that would require sex education to “affirmatively recognize pleasure based sexual relations.” The proposal was met with criticism earlier this month from lawmakers, teachers, and parents. One parent called it “disgusting.” It would certainly represent a shift: “When it comes to sex, it’s been an almost exclusive focus on the dangers and the harms that can happen,” says Anne Philpott, director of the Pleasure Project, an international education and advocacy organization that “puts sexy into safer sex,” as she puts it, by promoting pleasure-based education.

    Putting the sexy into safer sex isn’t just fun. Playing up the positives of sex, à la the characters on Sex Education, can actually make people more likely to take precautions against sexually transmitted infections. Philpott has data to prove it, presented in a study titled “Incorporating Sexual Pleasure in Educational Sexual Health Programs Can Improve Safe Sex Behaviors,” published Friday in the journal PLOS One. The study is a collaboration between Philpott and the Pleasure Project team, in conjunction with researchers at Oxford, the Case for Her, and the World Health Organization’s Department of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Research.

    Philpott and her colleagues analyzed past studies that looked at pleasure-inclusive sexual health interventions around the world from 2005 to 2020. Pleasure-based sex education can take a number of forms, but at its core is devoted to normalizing sexual activity and teaching individuals that sex is supposed to (and should) be an enjoyable experience. “Programs that deal with pleasure are going to be more comprehensive and provide, in addition to conversations about pleasure, skills around communication, negotiation, and refusal,” Leslie Kantor, professor and chair of Rutgers’ Department of Urban-Global Public Health, explains.

    Philpott’s team cast a wide net at first, screening thousands of experimental research studies on sexual and reproductive outcomes of sex intervention programs. “We then had to trawl through all of that and narrow it down to all the abstracts that were experimental trials and then look for any of those that were pleasure-inclusive,” as defined by the World Association for Sexual Health in its 2019 declaration. There weren’t many. Just 33 unique interventions fit the pleasure criteria and measured the impact on sexual health outcomes.

    Out of the 33 interventions, the research team narrowed its focus to eight studies that reported condom use as an outcome. These studies tested the effectiveness of many different sexual interventions, from sex education in Brazil’s public schools to community-based HIV prevention workshops in Atlanta. After analyzing the data from all eight studies, the team found that pleasure-based programs had an overall moderate, positive, and significant effect on condom use—that is, the sex-haver was more likely to use one—in comparison to interventions that did not also teach about the role of pleasure in sex.

    “This study helps support the idea that a focus on pleasure is correlated to sex that’s less risky,” says Rosara Torrisi, founding director of the Long Island Institute of Sex Therapy, who was not involved in the work. “Correlation doesn’t mean causation. But it’s a great place to start and keep exploring.”

    The meta-analysis backs up what experts have long been arguing about pleasure-based education methods: that they can provide students with a feeling of autonomy around sex. According to CUNY Graduate Center’s Michelle Fine, who was one of the first to recognize the missing discourse way back in 1988, centering pleasure is “the portal to entitlement,” as it allows individuals to have control over their sexual decisions and sexual experiences. “It’s a way to envision how can I engage this sphere of social life in a way where I have a voice, I have opinions, I have choice, I can control, I can say yes, I can say no, I can say who,” she says. “If you don’t engage desire, all you’re left with is fear or victimization, and those are very vulnerable positions.”

    When people feel comfortable discussing their wants, they are more likely to broach the topic of safety measures. Teaching people to articulate “what they’re interested in and whether or not they liked what’s happened previously, that’s pleasure-based and skill-based,” Torrisi says. It can open the door for people to have conversations with their partners “around how to actually have safer sex.”

    Fine, who was also not involved in the study, pointed to the study’s sample diversity as an indication that pleasure is a broadly useful component of sex ed. Participants in the programs the researchers analyzed varied in age, nationality, and structural vulnerabilities they had experienced, she noted. “This heterogeneity adds to the robust findings that an incorporation of pleasure/design into sex education projects has positive effects on learning, attitude, and behaviors.”

    >And Philpott hopes that her work will lead to more funding for pleasure-based education. “Not only does this mean we have more real conversations about sexual health and sex education, but it actually makes those interventions more effective and more cost-effective,” she explains. She hopes that an increased focus on pleasure-based interventions—the pleasure wave, as she calls it—will only get stronger. “For a long time we’ve been advocating for the why we need to do this, and now with the evidence, we need to move to the how, and get people to the next stage.”

    Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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    First FDA-Approved Sex Therapy App

    Lover, the digital therapeutic app for improving people’s sex lives and treating sexual problems, is the first sexual app to be approved by the FDA.

    By

    FDA Approval for Lover App

    Lover, the digital therapeutic for improving people’s sex lives and treating sexual problems, has been approved by the FDA for its Safer Technologies Program. The app, co-founded in 2019 by Dr Britney Blair and entrepreneurs Jas Bagniewski and Nick Pendle, has been downloaded over 200k times across 166 countries in the last year and reports an 87% ‘satisfaction’ rate for users who want to improve their sex lives.

    The STep program aims to enable people to access safer medical devices for ‘less serious’ (ie ‘non life-threatening or reasonably irreversible’ ) for the improvement of health outcomes. The FDA has stated that Lover has been shown to provide “significant safety advantage in treating and/or diagnosing less serious diseases or conditions” and “can also provide an important public health benefit.”

    Co-Founders Nick Pendle and Jas Bagniewski say,

    “We are delighted to be the first digital therapeutic for sex approved by the FDA. Since our launch, Lover has always aimed to be the most effective sexual wellness app on the market, and the FDA’s approval into their STeP program is the ultimate endorsement of this. We have long-believed the product, exercises and educational content we have built with Dr. Britney Blair and her team of experts can help millions of people enjoy better sex and happier relationships, and we’ve been proven to be a safe and an efficient way to deal with sexual problems. Lover works, and we couldn’t be prouder that following a rigorous review, the FDA agrees with us.”

    User Efficacy Data

    To be approved Lover provided user efficacy data which reported the distress level that a specific sexual issue was causing on a scale of 1-10. On average a distress level is usually around 6.9/10, when a user joins. After 2 weeks this is shown to drop to 3.7/10 on average.

    Other efficacy stats reported by the app state that users had less distress connected to their sexual issues after using the app (87%), that the women were more easily and more consistently able to climax (92%) and an increased libido for females following app exercises (70%). For men, 94% reported less distress after the Erectile Dysfunction course and 62% of men reported improved erections.

    Lover bills itself as being a ‘science-based approach to solving sexual problems,’ guiding users through a process of self-discovery through personalised advice and educational content. After a private 30 minute consultation of personalised 1-2-1 coaching and goal-setting, clinically proven advice and exercises are curated to steer users towards a fulfilling, healthy sex life, which the co-founders believe is essential to personal wellbeing and relationship satisfaction.

    What the FDA Approval Means for Lover

    The co-founders set out to provide a service that was not prohibitively expensive, yet as informative and effective as face-to-face therapy, or even prescribed medication. Using an app also eliminates the embarrassment that so many experience when having to speak to a professional face-to-face: Lover is completely private and personalised.

    Co-Founder Dr. Britney Blair says,

    “To receive this approval is a game-changer for us as it means Doctors and Clinicians can feel even more comfortable in recommending us as a viable alternative to traditional forms of care for sexual dysfunction. For most of us, sex and sexuality is a core part of our identity and crucial to relationship satisfaction. It affects our confidence, and our ability to connect with ourselves and our partner. Prioritising your sex life and your sexual pleasure may very well help you move the through the world happier, healthier and more satisfied in your relationship. Going to see a doctor about your sexual health is not easy. It can be embarrassing to talk about, time-consuming and expensive. With Lover, we hope we can help many more people than my team could ever see at our clinic. We want to make sexual wellness accessible to everyone.”

    Lover is free to download and the first activity in your personalised goal is free to use. There are 2 membership options: 3 month access for $59.99 (£51.99 in UK) or annual access for $119.99 (£102.99 in UK).

    Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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    How To Know if You and Your Partner Could Benefit From Sex Therapy

    By Rebecca Norris

    Therapy is not simply a solution to a problem—whether the focus is personal, romantic, financial, sex-focused, or otherwise. And with specific respect to sex therapy, in particular, it’s important to know that the benefit extends to folks far beyond just those who are on the brink of breakup and are in dire need of professional help. Rather, just like seeking general therapy on a regular basis can help people live their most authentic life, sex therapy can help couples (and individuals) embrace their most fulfilling sex life—even when there’s no specific “problem” that needs solving.

    With that in mind, keep reading for sex therapists’ take on must-knows about the benefits of sex therapy, including what it includes, how it may benefit you and your relationship, and more.

    Who can enjoy the benefits of sex therapy?

    Ready for it? Everyone. And that includes the folks in a honeymoon-phase state of bliss. “Think about how many transitions and experiences we go through in our adult lives: dating, breakups, infidelity, traumatic events, fertility challenges, pregnancies, postpartum recovery, health crises, natural aging, and beyond,” says Kimberly Sharky, relationship expert and sex coach with Union Square Play. “Each of these moments has potential to interfere with our connection to our sexual selves and with our sexual partners.”

    With the guidance of a specialized sex therapist, when any of the above-mentioned moments comes to fruition, folks may be better adept at processing and then proceeding in such a way that avoids negative interference with the relationship. “While the guidance of a skilled therapist is a valuable resource in times of crisis, it is really best utilized during more stable times in our lives when we can benefit from a more grounded examination of our challenges and potential,” Sharky says.

    As for how often to go to sex therapy, the answer is subjective and personal (as is the case with all forms of therapy). “It depends upon the degree of support that is necessary in order to build momentum and maintain positive progress,” Sharky says. “Your therapist will include recommendations in this regard once they have met with you once or twice and will then be able to create a collaborative game plan with you.”

    What can sex therapists help with?

    In addition to helping folks navigate life’s big moments and their impact on us, sexually speaking, Lovehoney sex and relationships expert Megan Fleming, PhD, says the benefits of sex therapy are particularly pronounced for cultivating an authentic and realistic understanding of sex and pleasure—which is something many people don’t have. “Most of us don’t receive sex-positive explicit sex education,” she says. “Too often, couples get caught up in scripted sex or sex that doesn’t feel worth having. Sex therapy gets back to the basics of giving and receiving pleasure.”

    “Too often, couples get caught up in scripted sex or sex that doesn’t feel worth having. Sex therapy gets back to the basics of giving and receiving pleasure.” Megan Fleming, PhD

    By working with a sex therapist, Sharky says couples are able to stoke more eroticism in their relationships (particularly in long-term unions). Additionally, she says that sex therapists can help couples resolve differences in sexual interest or desire. “The bulk of work in sex therapy revolves around helping couples remove obstacles to pleasure, whether they be rooted in anxiety that drives inhibition, interpersonal frustrations that deplete interest in connecting sexually, or countless other ways that the freedom and expression of great sex can be affected by everyday life and the complexities of long-term love,” Sharky says.

    Considering that “the biggest sex organ is our mind and there’s no limit to our erotic imagination and therefore what’s possible,” says Dr. Fleming, working with a sex therapist to harness that state of mind is worth all folks’ time.

    According to relationship and sex therapist Rachel Wright, LMFT, sex therapy can be just as beneficial for individuals as it can for couples. “Sex therapists work with individuals, couples, triads, quads, and groups,” she says, caveating that it’s the individuals who put in the most dedicated work with a sex therapist who benefit most. “Understanding your libido and your sexuality is a part of understanding yourself, which is a big piece of any form of psychotherapy.”

    Furthermore, seeking sex therapy after a relationship or while single in general can also be particularly helpful. “It can be liberating to address sexual concerns on one’s own, which can often positively affect how that person engages in dating and early relationship-building,” Sharky says.

    And in fact, for some, sex therapy may be a more honest, open, and vulnerable experience when done without the participation or gaze of another person. Basically, it can help you be your best, most authentic you, which lends itself to relationship health and general health alike.

    Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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    How To Know When To Walk Away From A Sexless Marriage

    by Jessa Zimmerman, M.A.

    One of the top issues that present in couples and sex therapy is a difference in levels of sexual desire. A discrepancy in desire is normal, but sometimes couples will struggle with conflict or avoidance around sex if they don’t manage that difference together. Sexless marriage, generally defined as having sex fewer than 10 times a year, is the extreme result of difficulty navigating sexual interest between two people.

    A sexless marriage may be grounds for divorce for some people, depending on how important sex is to them and how much work has been put into solving the issue as a couple. Some couples rarely or never have sex, and both people are totally fine with that. There is no “normal” or “healthy” level of sexual desire or activity, so if it’s working for both people, there’s nothing to change or worry about. In a relationship where at least one person is unhappy with the lack of sex, there are many steps you can take to address undesired sexlessness within the marriage first before turning to divorce. As with so many other reasons to end a marriage, it’s worth trying to improve it first.

    First and foremost, it’s important to consider the reasons for the lack of sex. If one person has become ill, disabled, or otherwise unable to be physically intimate, that’s very different from your partner being unwilling to engage with you sexually. Changes in sexual functioning can still allow physical intimacy, even if it doesn’t look like it used to. You may need to reevaluate your definition of what constitutes sex: If you only think about sex as being intercourse or penetrative sex, you are limiting the many types of sexual experiences you two could be enjoying together. Relatedly, the changes we face as we age and weather may mean we have to adjust our expectations. Those losses certainly should be grieved, but they can also be tolerated and supplemented with other satisfying sexual experiences.

    You should also consider how the lack of sex in your marriage is related to other issues between you. When couples struggle to be kind to and supportive of one another, when their communication is dripping with criticism or contempt, or when they are gridlocked over other significant topics in their lives, it’s common to not want to have sex. If you’ve got other significant areas you have to address, do that work before you assess your sex life. Making changes to improve your overall relationship health usually has to happen before sexual intimacy can be created in a relationship.

    Sexless marriage divorce rate.

    There is no concrete statistic on how many people divorce because of a lack of sex in their marriage. A 2017 study of U.S. General Social Survey data from 2002 found 16% of married couples were in a sexless marriage (no sex in the past year). A 2018 survey that found over one in four relationships are sexless. We don’t know specifically what percentage of these couples were unhappy with the lack of sex, however. We also know that about 50% of marriages end in divorce. But so far, there is no study that ties these stats together.

    Even if we did have a study showing how many couples got divorced due to a sexless marriage, we’d have a hard time knowing whether sex was really the issue—or just a symptom of other problems. I can say that lack of sex shows up in my therapy practice regularly, and couples often wonder whether their relationship can survive if that doesn’t change. Many people are certainly considering divorce.

    When to walk away from a sexless marriage:

    1. Your partner refuses to work through this issue with you.

    There are so many obstacles to sex in a relationship, so there are many things you may need to talk about and change in order to create a sex life that you can both enjoy. Before considering divorce, you should bring up your concerns to your partner, have an earnest conversation about what’s in the way, and see how you can work as a team to address the issue. There is a lot you can do toward improving a sex life with your partner, but it does take both of you to step up to the table and address what needs to change.

    Before you conclude that your partner isn’t willing to help, make sure that you have done everything you can on your side of the court. Bring up your concerns in a collaborative way, without blaming and shaming. You can support a partner with lower libido simply by being willing to explore how you are contributing to roadblocks for your partner. Have true curiosity about how sex could work better for them and what they need to access or cultivate their own desire for sex. Approach sex like it’s play rather than having specific goals and outcome that could set you both up for failure.

    If you’ve been doing all of this, and your partner still refuses to talk about it and won’t be a collaborative teammate with you in creating physical intimacy in your relationship, it could be time to leave.

    2. Your relationship issues are so big that there are other reasons to divorce.

    Lack of sex in a relationship can be a symptom of other significant issues. In that case, it’s the other issues that really create grounds for divorce, if you can’t work through them.

    For example, if the two of you have toxic communication cycles, including blame, shame, criticism, gaslighting, or abuse, that can nix your sex life—and bring your marriage to its end. Likewise, if you can’t get on the same page about money or parenting, you may not be able to save your marriage. If you have power struggles, infidelity, lying, or cruelty, your relationship may not survive. In all these examples, your issues go way deeper than the lack of sex in your marriage. If they aren’t addressed and changed, you may very well decide to leave your marriage.

    3. Your sexual interests are so different that there are not ways to enjoy sex together, and you don’t agree to find another way to explore those interests.

    Sometimes couples have what we call an “erotic conflict.” Each person has things that turn them on, a vision of the kind of sex they want to have and with whom. Sometimes, what we want is mutually exclusive with the desires of our partner. For example, if one person is kinky and that is a turnoff for their partner, they may struggle to find sex they can share and enjoy. Likewise, a person’s sexual orientation could get in the way—if they are not attracted to the gender of their partner.

    In sex therapy, I am always trying to help couples find the overlap in their desires (think of a Venn diagram), but occasionally there is none. Some couples decide to address this by using fantasy and masturbation while staying married. Others decide to implement some type of open marriage in which they can meet their needs outside the relationship but remain married. But if those options aren’t desirable, you may decide to divorce over this lack of sexual compatibility.

    Can a sexless marriage survive?

    Yes. If you love your partner and you value your relationship, there are ways to address the lack of sex between the two of you as long as you’re both willing to work together. We are inundated with messages that sex should come naturally and that something must be very wrong with our relationship if we are having a hard time in the bedroom. But the truth is that it’s common, almost universal, to struggle with sex at some point over the course of a relationship. These difficulties present an opportunity to address issues, to talk to our partner with openness, and to recreate your relationship and sex life to suit you now.

    Lack of sex is usually a symptom of other things. Sexual desire changes over time, and especially when it comes to sex in long-term relationships, having different levels of desire is normal. Things change in our lives in ways that make our sex life more difficult. All of these are normal and common experiences.

    If you want to stay in your marriage and enjoy a sex life together, you can step into the work it takes to make that happen—and invite your partner to do the same. You’re not alone in these struggles, and your relationship doesn’t have to end—unless you truly face irreconcilable differences.

    Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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    The Forgotten History of the World’s First Trans Clinic

    The Institute for Sexual Research in Berlin would be a century old if it hadn’t fallen victim to Nazi ideology

    Magnus Hirschfeld, right, and his protege and partner Li Shiu Tong, left, at the Fourth Congress of the World League for Sexual Reform, 1932.

    By Brandy Schillace

    The first gender affirmation surgeries took place in 1920s, at a facility which employed transgender technicians and nurses, and which was headed by a gay Jewish man. The forgotten history of the institute, and its fall to Nazis bent on the euthanasia of homosexuals and transgender people, offers us both hope—and a cautionary tale—in the face of oppressive anti-trans legislation in the United States.

    This story begins late one night in Berlin, on the cusp of the 20th century. Magnus Hirschfeld, a young doctor recently finished with his military service, found a German soldier on his doorstep. Distraught and agitated, the young man had come to confess himself an urning, a word used in Germany to refer to homosexual men. It explained the cover of darkness; to speak of such things was dangerous business. The infamous “Paragraph 175” in the German criminal code made homosexuality illegal; a man so accused could be stripped of his ranks and titles and imprisoned.

    Hirschfeld understood the soldier’s plight; he was, himself, both homosexual and Jewish. He had toured Europe, watched the unfolding trial against Oscar Wilde, and written an anonymous pamphlet asking why “the married man who seduces the governess” remains free, while homosexual men in loving and consensual relationships—men like Oscar Wilde—were imprisoned. Hirschfeld did his best to comfort the man, but upon leaving his doctor, the soldier shot himself. It was the eve of his wedding, an event he could not face.

    The soldier bequeathed his private papers to Hirschfeld, along with a letter: “the thought that you could contribute to [a future] when the German fatherland will think of us in more just terms,” he wrote, “sweetens the hour of death.” Hirschfeld would be forever haunted by this needless loss; the soldier had called himself a “curse,” fit only to die, because the expectations of heterosexual norms, reinforced by marriage and law, made no room for his kind. These heartbreaking stories, Hirschfeld wrote, “bring before us the whole tragedy [in Germany]; what fatherland did they have, and for what freedom were they fighting?” In the aftermath of this lonely death, Hirschfeld left his practice to specialize in sexual health, and began a crusade for justice that would alter the course of queer history.

    Hirschfeld called his specialty “sexual intermediaries.” Included beneath this umbrella were what he considered “situational” and “constitutional” homosexuals—a recognition that there is often a spectrum and bisexual practice—as well as what he termed “transvestites.” This group did include those who wished to wear the clothes of the opposite sex, but also those who “from the point of view of their character,” should be considered as the opposite sex.

    One soldier with whom Hirschfeld had worked described wearing women’s clothing as the chance “to be a human at least for a moment.” He likewise recognized that these people could be either homosexual or heterosexual, something that is still misunderstood about transgender people today. Perhaps even more surprising was Hirschfeld’s inclusion of those with no fixed gender at all, akin to today’s concept of gender fluid or nonbinary identity (he counted French novelist George Sand among them). Most importantly for Hirschfeld, these men and women were acting “in accordance with their nature,” not against it.

    If this seems like extremely forward thinking for the time, it was—possibly more forward thinking than our own. Current anti-trans sentiments center on the idea that transgender is both unnatural and new. In the wake of a U.K. court decision limiting trans rights, an editorial in the Economist argued that other countries should follow suit, and an editorial in the Observer praised the court for resisting a “disturbing trend” of children receiving medical treatments as part of a gender transition. But history bears witness to the plurality of gender and sexuality; Hirschfeld considered Socrates, Michelangelo and Shakespeare to be sexual intermediaries; he considered himself (and his partner Karl Geise) to be the same. Hirschfeld’s own predecessor, Richard von Krafft-Ebing, had claimed in the 19th century that homosexuality was natural sexual variation—and Hirschfeld believed that a person was congenitally born that way.

    This was no trend or fad, but a recognition that people may be born with a nature contrary to their assigned gender. And, in cases where the desire to live as the opposite sex was strong, Hirschfeld thought science ought to provide a means of transition. He purchased a Berlin villa in early 1919 and opened the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft (Institute for Sexual Research) on July 6. By 1930 it would perform the first modern gender affirmation surgeries in the world.

    A PLACE OF SAFETY

    A corner building with wings to either side, the institute was an architectural gem that blurred the line between professional and intimate living spaces. A journalist reported it could not “be a hospital,” for it was furnished, plush, and “full of life everywhere.” It’s stated purpose: to be a place of “research, teaching, healing, and refuge” that could “free the individual from physical ailments, psychological afflictions, and social deprivation.” Hirschfeld’s institute would also be a place of education. While in medical school, he’d experienced the trauma of watching as a gay man was paraded naked before the class, to be verbally abused as degenerate.

    At his institute, Hirschfeld would instead provide sex education and health clinics, advice on contraception, and research on gender and sexuality, both anthropological and psychological. He worked tirelessly to try and overturn Paragraph 175, managed to get legally accepted “transvestite” identity cards for his patients, and worked to normalize and legitimize homosexual and transitioning individuals. The grounds also included room for offices given over to feminist activists, as well as a printing house for sex reform journals meant to dispel myths about sexuality. “Love,” Hirschfeld said, “is as varied as people are.”

    The institute would ultimately house an immense library on sexuality, gathered over many years and including rare books and diagrams and protocols for male-to-female (MTF) surgical transition. In addition to psychiatrists for therapy, he had had hired Ludwig Levy-Lenz, a gynecologist, and surgeon Erwin Gohrbandt. Together, they performed male-to-female surgery called genitalumwandlung—literally, “transformation of genitals.” This occurred in stages: castration, penectomy and vaginoplasty. (The Institute only treated men at this time; female-to-male phalloplasty would not be practiced until 1949 by plastic surgeon Sir Harold Gillies). Importantly, patients would also be prescribed hormone therapy, allowing them to grow natural breasts and softer features.”

    Their groundbreaking studies, meticulously documented, drew international attention—and international patients, as well. Rights and recognition did not immediately follow, however. After surgery, some transwomen had difficulty getting work to support themselves, and as a result, five became nurses at the institute itself. In this way, Hirschfeld sought to provide a safe space for those whose altered bodies differed from the gender they were assigned at birth—including, at times, protection from the law.

    LIVES WORTH LIVING

    That such an institute existed as early as 1919, recognizing the plurality of gender identity and offering support, even through affirming surgery, comes as a surprise to many. It should have been the bedrock on which to build a bolder future. But as the institute celebrated its first decade, the Nazi party was already on the rise. By 1932, it was the largest political party in Germany, holding more parliamentary seats, and growing its numbers through a nationalism that targeted the immigrant, the disabled, the “genetically unfit.” Weakened by economic crisis and without a majority, the Weimer Republic would collapse. Hitler was named chancellor on January 30, 1933 and would enact policies to rid Germany of lebensunwertes Leben; that is, “lives unworthy of living.” What began as a sterilization program ultimately led to the extermination of  millions of Jews, “Gypsies,” Soviet and Polish citizens—and homosexuals and transgender people. The Nazis came for the Institute on May 10, 1933. Hirschfeld was out of the country. Karl Geise fled with what he could carry; everything else would perish by fire.

    The carnage would flicker over German newsreels, the first (but by no means last) of the Nazi book burnings. Troops swarmed the building, carrying off a bronze bust of Hirschfeld and all of his precious books. Nazi youth, women, and soldiers took part, the footage and its voiceover declaring the German state had committed “the intellectual garbage of the past” to the flames. Soon, a tower-like bonfire engulfed more than 20,000 books, some of them rare copies that helped to provide a historiography for nonconforming peoples; they could never be replaced.

    The Nazis also stole lists of clients, adding the names to “pink lists” from which to poach homosexuals for concentration camps. Levy-Lenz, who like Hirschfeld was Jewish, fled Germany to escape execution—but in a dark twist, his colleague Erwin Gohrbrandt, with whom he had performed so many supportive operations, joined the Luftwaffe and would later contribute to grim experiments in the Dachau concentration camp. Hirschfeld’s likeness would be reproduced on Nazi propaganda as the worst of offenders, both Jewish and homosexual, all that the Nazis would stamp out in their bid to produce the perfect heteronormative Aryan race.

    In the immediate aftermath of the Nazi raid, Karl Geise joined Hirschfeld and his protege Li Shiu Tong, a young medical student, in Paris. The three would continue living together as partners and colleagues with hopes of rebuilding the institute, until the growing threat of Nazi occupation once more required them to flee. Hirschfeld died of a sudden stroke in 1935 while still on the run. Giese committed suicide in 1938—and Hirschfeld’s protgege Li Shiu Tong would abandon his hopes of opening an institute in Hong Kong for a life of obscurity abroad. 

    Their history had been effectively erased—so effectively, in fact, that though the newsreels still exist, and the pictures of the burning library are often reproduced, few know they feature the world’s first trans clinic. The Nazi ideal had been based upon white, cishet (that is, cisgender and heterosexual) masculinity masquerading as genetic superiority. Any who strayed were considered as depraved, immoral, worthy of death. What began as a project of “protecting” German youth and raising healthy families had been turned, under Hitler, into a mechanism for genocide.

    A NOTE FOR THE FUTURE

    The story of Hirschfeld’s institute at once inspires hope and pride for an LGBTQ+ history that might have been, and could still be. It simultaneously sounds a warning. Current legislation, and indeed calls even to separate trans children from supportive parents, bear striking resemblance to those terrible campaigns against so-labeled “aberrant” lives. Studies have shown that supportive hormone therapy, accessed at an early age, lowers rates of suicide among trans youth—but there are those who, counter to Hirschfeld, refuse to believe that trans identity is something you can be “born with.” Richard Dawkins was recently stripped of his “humanist of the year” award for comments comparing trans people to Rachel Dolezal, a civil rights activist who posed as a Black woman, as though gender transition was a kind of duplicity. His comments come on the heels of yet more legislation in Florida banning transgender athletes from participating in sports, and an Arkansas bill denying transgender children and teens supportive care.

    The future doesn’t always guarantee social progress. Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexual Research, with its trans-supportive community of care, ought to have provided a firm platform to build a future that indeed thought of “sexual intermediaries” in “more just terms.” But these pioneers and their heroic sacrifices help to provide a sense of hope—and of history—for LGBTQ+ communities worldwide. May we learn the lessons of history, because where we go from here is up to us.

    Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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    What is mindful sex and how do I do it?

    BY LAURA MIANO

    “What is mindful sex and how do I do it?” – Looking For Contentment 

    Hi, Looking For Contentment. Great question – your sex life is probably about to go from good to stunning with a question like that. I’m quite happy for you. Derived from Eastern traditions, mindful sex has gained widespread attention in the West in recent years, and for good reason – it’s pretty incredible.

    If you’ve tried mindfulness in your daily life and experienced any of the benefits it offers, you are about to experience a similar revolution in your sex life. Before I go into what mindful sex is, let me educate you on what mindful sex is not. Chances are you might have experienced any one – or all – of these phenomena.

    Performance anxiety is a big one, and maybe the biggest culprit of sex that is not mindful. If you notice yourself ruminating over things like pleasuring your partner in the ‘right’ way, looking sexy to your partner, whether your body looks good from a certain angle, whether the face you’re making is ‘too much’ or if you’re acting too sexual or not sexual enough, you might be suffering from performance anxiety, and/or it’s lesser-known sister, spectatoring. These involve anxiety over how you act or look in a sexual experience.

    You might also find that during sex you have a goal-oriented mentality like actively working toward achieving an orgasm, having your partner achieve an orgasm, or doing certain acts that you think are obligatory during sex. Further to the last point, if you are having sex by deliberately following a certain structure such as kissing then foreplay then penetrative sex, you also might not be having mindful sex.

    If you find yourself becoming distracted by your thoughts, like wondering about the errands you need to run tomorrow or using sexual fantasies to help you achieve arousal, these also digress from mindful sex. The latter is absolutely healthy to do, it just doesn’t fit the criteria of ‘mindful’ sex.

    Another phenomenon that falls outside this criterion is a form of dissociation called depersonalisation. This is when a person can’t feel their body or connect with their sexual identity and might occur in people with a history of sexual trauma. Although this is not mindful sex, just like the others, overcoming disassociation is best worked through with a trained sex therapist, sexological bodyworker or psychosomatic counsellor, as engaging in mindful sex can be more challenging for people with this condition, compared to the others I described earlier.

    So now that you know what mindful sex is not, let’s get into the fun stuff – what mindful sex is! Mindful sex involves being vulnerable, surrendering to the present moment and letting any distracting thoughts simply come and go during a sexual experience. Any preconceived ideas of what sex should look like, how long it should go for or what sexual acts or events need to occur, can all say bah-bye.

    It involves being physically, psychologically and emotionally cognisant when you’re having sex. That is, bringing 100 per cent of your awareness to how and what you are feeling during the experience, and the emotional and sexual connection you are forming with your sexual partner (sexual partner being a one-night stand, casual fling or long-term partner).

    In psychological terms, your conscious mind is called a limited capacity system because you can only process a certain amount of information at any given time. Imagine your mind is like a bubble, when you are filling it up with your anxious, distracted or goal-oriented thoughts, you leave less space to consciously process the stimulation and pleasure. What mindful sex does is push those thoughts out and utilise the whole bubble by only processing information that is relevant to your pursuit of pleasure, connection and arousal.

    This means you start psychologically experiencing deeper layers of sex that you might not have had the capacity for before. This can lead you on a really incredible journey of pleasure and change how you actually physically have sex too. For example, when you truly tap into your pleasure, maybe you actually don’t want to follow that cookie-cutter mould of sex I mentioned before. Sex that is mindful might start to look completely different to the sex you were having before.

    So why is it worth doing? Well, you can experience a range of benefits including deeper intimacy and connection with your partner, a deeper understanding of and connection to your own sexuality, boosted self-esteem and body image, less performance anxiety, more connectedness and awareness of your body, heightened pleasure, more pleasure literacy, and easier and better orgasms.

    Not to mention, if you use your mindfulness skills learnt during sex in everyday life, you could start to experience positive changes in your mental health more generally. There really isn’t enough space in this article to list every benefit but take my word for it – mindfulness will do you well.

    So now that I’ve gone total sales pitch on you with mindfulness, you probably want to know how it’s done. There are no defined steps, obviously, but if you try any of the following techniques you’ll be well on your way. Also remember, with the exception of partner-related tips, any of these can be used during solo sex (i.e. masturbation).

    Try to set up your environment in a way that makes you feel sensual, relaxed and safe. This might include a clean and tidy room, dim lighting, soft music, and a nice scent. You’d be surprised how much it can impact you on an unconscious level.

    You should also try to remove any preconceived ideas of what sex should look like. This might be hard to do completely (we internalise a lot on an unconscious level), but if you find yourself thinking things like ‘I should probably do x now’ or Have I been doing x for too long?’, push those thoughts away and return to what you are feeling.

    On top of this, instead of trying to achieve an orgasm, focus on experiencing pleasure. Many people who struggle to orgasm do so because they are too focused on it. Move away from the orgasm goal and get comfortable with just being.

    You should also let thoughts come and go by gently pushing them away when they appear. Try mindfulness techniques like The Five Senses exercise, focusing on your breath, deep breathing or imagining your thoughts disappearing on a moving cloud.

    You can also be mindful by pursuing your own pleasure at the start of the experience, instead of putting your partner first. This can kick start that gorgeous dance of reciprocal arousal that two people achieve when one person becomes aroused because the other person is aroused, which then keeps repeating and can create a really beautiful cycle of shared pleasure.

    Other steps to try are synchronised deep breathing and eye gazing with your partner. These will be great for creating trust, intimacy and a deeper sexual connection with the person you share these with.

    I’m trying my best to stay realistic here, but mindful sex is truly your ticket to wildly pleasurable and mind-blowing sex. If you haven’t tried it, I suggest giving it a go. Whether you are exploring solo or having sex casually or with a committed partner, mindful sex will reshape your whole understanding of pleasure and satisfaction. Trust me, you need to try it.

    Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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    How sex surrogates are helping injured Israeli soldiers

    In many countries surrogate sex therapy – in which a person is hired to act as a patient’s sexual partner – is controversial, and not widely practised. In Israel, however, it is available at government expense for soldiers who have been badly injured and need sexual rehabilitation.

    By Yolande Knell and Phil Marzouk

    The Tel Aviv consultation room of Israeli sex therapist Ronit Aloni looks much as you would expect. There is a small comfy couch for her clients and biological diagrams of male and female genitalia, which she uses for explanation.

    But what happens in the neighbouring room, which has a sofabed and candles, is more surprising.

    This is where paid surrogate partners help teach some of Aloni’s clients how to have intimate relationships and ultimately, how to have sex.

    “It doesn’t look like a hotel – it looks more like a house, like an apartment,” says Aloni. There’s a bed, a CD player, an adjoining shower – and erotic artwork adorns the walls.

    “Sex therapy is, in many ways, couple therapy and if somebody doesn’t have a partner then you cannot complete the process,” she goes on. “The surrogate – she or he – they’re there to model the partner role in a couple.”

    Although critics liken this to prostitution, in Israel it has become accepted to the extent that the state covers the cost for soldiers with injuries that affect their ability to have sex.

    Woman and man embracing
    Sex is part of life, it’s the satisfaction of life… it’s not that I’m being Casanova – this is not the issue

    “People need to feel they can pleasure somebody else and that they can get pleasure from somebody else,” says Aloni, who has a doctorate in sexual rehabilitation.

    “People are coming for therapy. They’re not coming for pleasure. There is nothing similar to prostitution,” she adds firmly.

    “Also, 85% of the sessions are [about] intimacy, touching, giving and receiving, communicating – it’s about learning to be a person and how you relate to other people. By the time you have a sexual relationship, that’s the end of the process.”

    Short presentational grey line

    Mr A, as he wants to be known, was one of the first soldiers who got Israel’s Ministry of Defence to pay for sex surrogate therapy after a life-changing accident nearly 30 years ago, when he was an army reservist.

    A fall from a height left him paralysed from the waist down and unable to have sex in the ways that he had previously.

    “When I was injured I made a list ‘To Do,'” he says. “I have to [be able to] do a shower by myself, I have to eat, dress by myself, to drive by myself and have sex independently.”

    Mr A was already married with children, but his wife did not feel comfortable talking about sex to doctors and therapists, so she encouraged him to seek help from Aloni.

    He explains how Aloni gave directions and feedback to him and his surrogate partner before and after each session.

    woman sitting on bed
    “You start from the beginning: you’re touching this, you’re touching there and then it’s building step-by-step until the last stage of getting an orgasm,” he says.

    Mr A argues it was right for the state to pay for his weekly sessions, just as it did other parts of his rehabilitation. Today the cost of a three-month treatment programme is $5,400.

    “It wasn’t the goal of my life to go to a surrogate, OK, I was injured and I want[ed] to rehabilitate in every aspect of my life,” he says, sitting in his wheelchair, in a tracksuit, on his way to play table tennis.

    “I didn’t fall in love with my surrogate. I was married. It was just to study the technique of how to get to the goal. I took it as a very logical thing that I have to do.”

    He blames Western hang-ups about sex for any misconceptions.

    “Sex is part of life, it’s the satisfaction of life,” he says. “It’s not that I’m being Casanova, this is not the issue.”

    Short presentational grey line

    A steady stream of people of different ages and backgrounds visits Aloni discreetly at her clinic.

    Many are struggling to have a romantic relationship because of intimacy issues or anxiety, or have suffered sexual abuse. Others have physical and mental health conditions.

    Aloni has focused particularly on disabled clients since the start of her career. Several of her close relatives had disabilities including her father, a pilot, who suffered a brain injury after a plane crash.

    “All my life I was next to people having to deal with and overcome different disabilities,” she says. “All these people were very well rehabilitated and so I had this very optimistic approach.”

    Aloni became close to a surrogate who worked with disabled people while studying in New York.

    When she came back to Israel in the late 1980s, she gained the approval of leading rabbis for the use of sexual surrogates and started providing therapy at a rehabilitation centre on a religious kibbutz – a rural community.

    The rabbis had one rule – no married men or married women could be surrogates – and Aloni has followed it ever since.

    Over time, she has won backing from the Israeli authorities. Out of about 1,000 people who have had surrogate sex therapy at her clinic, dozens have been injured army veterans – many with brain trauma or spinal cord injuries, whose treatment has been funded by the state.

    Aloni believes that Israel’s family-oriented culture and its attitude towards its armed forces has worked in her favour. At 18, most Israelis are called up for military service and they can continue as reserve soldiers into middle age.

    “We are in a war situation all the time since the country was established,” she says.

    “Everybody in Israel knows people who were injured, or died and everybody has a positive approach to compensating these people. We feel obliged to them.”

    Short presentational grey line

    A tall man of about 40 is sitting in his garden in central Israel with a blanket across his lap. He is a former reserve soldier whose life was shattered in the 2006 Lebanon War.

    David – as we will call him – was left unable to talk or move.

    Lebanon war

    He can only communicate with the help of his occupational therapist – if she supports his arm and holds a pen in his hand, he can write on a whiteboard.

    “I was just an ordinary person. I’d just got back from a trip to the Far East. I was studying in university and worked as a barman. I used to love sports and being with friends,” David says.

    When his military unit came under attack, he suffered serious leg and head injuries and went on to spend three years in hospital.

    During that time, he says he lost the will to live.

    Things only began to turn around after his occupational therapists suggested surrogate sex therapy.

    “When I started the surrogate therapy, I felt like a loser, like nothing. In therapy. I started feeling like a man, young and handsome,” David says.

    “It was the first time that I felt that since my injury. It gave me strength and it gave me hope.”

    This was an intimate relationship that David started, knowing that it would have to end. So was there a risk that he would be emotionally hurt?

    “Initially, it was difficult for me because I wanted the surrogate all to myself,” he says. “But I realised that even if we’re not partners, we’re still good friends. And it’s worth it. It’s worth everything. It just helps you rebuild yourself all over again.”

    While the usual rules are that surrogates and clients cannot be in contact outside of the therapy, David and his surrogate – a woman who uses the alias Seraphina – were given special permission by Dr Aloni’s clinic to stay in touch when their sessions ended.

    Since the treatment, those close to David say they have seen a transformation in him. He has been focusing on plans for the future.

    While having a sex life remains very difficult, before Covid-19 struck he had begun socialising more, going out with the help of his carers.

    Short presentational grey line

    Seraphina has worked as a surrogate with Ronit Aloni for over a decade. She is slim with bobbed hair and is warm and articulate.

    Recently she published a book about her experiences. Titled More than a Sex Surrogate, the publishers describe it as “a unique memoir about intimacy, secrets and the way we love”.

    Like all of the surrogate partners at the Tel Aviv clinic, Seraphina has another job. Hers is in the arts. She says she took on her role for altruistic reasons.

    “All those people that suffer under the [surface] and have all those hidden secrets that they walk around with, I really wanted to help because I knew I had the ability,” she explains.

    “I had no problem with the idea of using sexuality or my body or touch in the therapy process. And the subject was fascinating to me, sexuality was fascinating to me.”

    Seraphina describes herself as “like a tour guide”, saying she takes clients on a journey in which she knows the way.

    You cannot rehabilitate a person without rehabilitating their self-esteem, their perception of being a man or a woman

    She has worked with about 40 clients, including another soldier, but says that the severity of David’s injuries posed a unique challenge. She learned how to help him to write so that they could chat privately.

    “David is the most extreme case ever known. It was like walking in a desert – you had no idea of the direction [in which] to go,” she says.

    “I had to be very, very creative because he doesn’t move at all. I moved his body as I imagined he would have moved if he could. He felt his body but he could not move it.

    “He always said: ‘She knows exactly what I want, even if I don’t say anything.’ So, it was really flattering.”

    While being a surrogate, Seraphina has had boyfriends who, she says, accept what she does. But she knows other women and men who have stopped acting as surrogates for the sake of their personal partners or to get married.

    She explains that saying goodbye to clients after they have been intimate is necessary but can be difficult.

    “I say, it’s like going to a vacation. We have an opportunity to have a wonderful relationship for a certain short time and do we take it or give it up?

    “And it’s the happiest break-up anybody can have. It’s for good reasons. I can cry sometimes, but at the same time, I’m so happy.

    “When I hear that anybody is in a relationship or had a baby or got married, it’s unimaginable how happy and thrilled and thankful I am for what I do.”

    Short presentational grey line

    Late in the evening, Ronit Aloni is still working, giving an online lecture to a group of sexologists from Europe and as far afield as South America.

    She recounts cases and quotes studies suggesting surrogacy is more effective than classic psychological therapy at treating sexual problems.

    Zoom seminar on sex therapy

    “This is most interesting, those therapists who did already work with surrogates all of them said that they will do it again,” she tells them.

    With modern surgery helping more severely wounded soldiers to survive she believes surrogate treatment could be used more widely.

    “You cannot rehabilitate a person without rehabilitating their self-esteem, their perception of being a man or a woman,” she says.

    “You cannot ignore this part in our life. It’s very important, powerful. It’s the centre of our personality. And you cannot just talk about it. Sexuality is something dynamic, is something that has to be between us and other people.”

    In Aloni’s view, modern society has developed unhealthy attitudes towards sex.

    “We know how to joke about sexuality. We know how to humiliate people, we know to be very conservative or too extreme about sexuality,” she says.

    “It’s never really balanced. It’s never weaved into our life in the way it’s supposed to be, and sexuality – it’s life. This is how we bring life. It’s nature!”

    Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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    Navigating your way through a toxic relationship

    —being in one or getting out

    By Summer Hoagland-Abernathy

    This is the third time in five weeks you’ve stormed out of a restaurant because you thought your mom was going to be nice to you today. Then, she wasn’t.

    Each time, she apologizes and tells you she loves you and you shouldn’t take everything she says so seriously, and each time, you say you guess it’s okay, and you make plans to catch up over lattes.

    But this time, as you stomp to the bus to get back home, you wonder how much longer you can keep doing this. It’s emotionally exhausting to have to forgive someone and then put energy back into your relationship, only to trash it when the situation gets bad again.

    What should you do if you think you might be in a toxic relationship? The Chronicle spoke with mental health and relationship experts to find out.

    Start off with weighing the pros and cons of the relationship, said psychologist and friendship expert Irene S. Levine. Specifically, about potentially toxic friendships, she said these relationships are built up over time, so you do not want to immediately disregard the person. But the relationship should feel good for all parties, so you should respect yourself as well.

    “Friendships are voluntary relationships, and they should be rewarding,” she said. “If they’re not, it may be time to end the friendship, but you have to bear in mind that this person was your friend, so you want to do it in as kind a way as possible.”

    Hollie Schmid, marriage and family therapist at Relationship Reality 312, said some of the steps you should take in a situation like this depend on if the other person is a friend, family member or a romantic partner. But in any case, she would recommend vocalizing your feelings using statements like “I feel x, y and z” instead of “You did x,” which make the receiver defensive.

    She said there are levels to toxicity. If the toxicity involves manipulation, gaslighting, or emotional abuse, Schmid recommends going to therapy for further help if the toxic person is a family member or romantic partner. Having an unbiased person speak to your partner or family member about their behavior is the best route, but if they are not willing to change or seek help, having therapy to help yourself will be beneficial.

    If the level of toxicity involves physical abuse, individual therapy would be more appropriate than relationship therapy, said Jennifer Litner, sexologist and director of Embrace Sexual Wellness.

    She said to identify how safe you feel. Think about the repercussions of leaving, and use that knowledge as you create a safety plan and support system for getting out of the relationship.

    Identifying when it is time to leave can be difficult. Lizzette Arcos, a psychotherapist at Youth & Family Counseling, said to think about it metaphorically—how much fast food can you eat before you start to feel sick? You should have a healthy balance between fast food and vegetables, just as you should have a healthy balance between traits of a person that make you upset and traits that make you happy.

    “If you weigh the pros and cons of what they bring to the relationship and what you bring, you can see their toxicity,” Arcos said.

    Catalina Lawsin, Ph.D, a clinical health psychologist specializing in sex and relationships at her private practice, advises to be wary of only using “toxic” to describe your relationship.

    It is a subjective descriptor, she said, that could describe someone who is undergoing physical abuse every hour of the day or someone whose partner comments on their appearance whenever they go to dinner.

    “The more we can specify and localize a problem or concern, the easier it is to manage,” Lawsin said. “I do think if that’s how someone is describing their relationship or their experience, then now delve deeper into what that is.”

    Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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    I’m A Sex Therapist

    — Here Are 6 Questions I Get Asked About Sex In Long-Term Relationships

    By Dania Schiftan, Ph.D.

    As part of the 10-step program for increased sexual responsiveness that I lead women through in my new book Coming Soon, I also share dozens of questions I commonly receive from people about the sex they’re having (or not having) in their long-term relationships. Here’s just a smattering of those questions and how I answer them:

    1. At the beginning of my relationship, I came to orgasm much more quickly and more often during sex. Why is that?

    Emotional passion, which is usually greater at the beginning of a relationship than later, influences our desire for sex. Hormones massively boost our sensations and cause us to feel touch more intensely. Couples also tend to move much more at the beginning than they do later. The desire to explore a new body calls for activity. When a relationship is new, we are usually in a phase where everything flows, and time flies. At this stage, we’re sending and receiving stimulation that leads to greater desire and more orgasms on all levels and through all channels. Some couples look back wistfully at the beginning of their relationship and think they’ve lost this passion for each other. But this, too, is a fallacy because passion can also be learned!

    2. Won’t I be emotionally absent if I just concentrate on myself during sex? Won’t the sex be impersonal if I’m getting lost in my own world?

    You’re not absent—you’re just focusing on yourself and on your sensations and experience with your partner. If you’re thinking about your grocery list or feeling annoyed by your partner during sex, you’re much more absent. But sure, at first your partner may be confused to see you moving more or taking more care of yourself. In the long run, he’ll benefit from this too.

    Apart from that, many men say it’s important to them to feel how aroused their partner is. If two people lie in bed, each waiting for the other to become aroused, not much will happen. The arousal of one person has a positive effect on the arousal of the other.

    3. Won’t the sex be worse if I’m more selfish?

    The sex will change, but it certainly won’t get worse. Over time, it will get much, much better—because you’ll enjoy it more, and that will turn your partner on. By concentrating more on your sensations, you’re more in the here and now, and you can react more to your partner’s arousal. Neither of you will be distracted by unerotic things like your last credit card bill. But yes: Improving sex means changing it. And with change comes risk. If you do what you’ve always done, you at least know what you’re getting. It takes courage to trade something familiar for something new. Dare to try it.

    4. What should I do if I don’t feel like sex—for example, if we just had a big fight?

    Of course, you don’t have to have sex then, or ever. But maybe you’ve noticed that you can use your body to influence your feelings, and not just the other way around. Anger, bad moods, or stress can change for the better if you and your partner have a nice, passionate time on a physical level. You don’t need to be in perfect harmony for that.

    Having sex despite a fight can have a totally positive effect on your relationship: On the one hand because sex and orgasms help you to relax, and on the other hand because it’s a way to come closer to each other again. But how can you open yourself to sex when you feel no desire? By throwing yourself into it even if you don’t feel like it. Think of the party principle: Go to your partner, make out with him, stroke him tenderly. That way, you stop the downward spiral. Of course, I’m not saying you should have sex against your will. It’s just about giving yourself or each other a chance to see whether your appetite grows when you taste the food. Like the words one of my students has as a tattoo: “When you cuddle, you repair each other.”

    5. What should I do when my partner doesn’t feel like it?

    After a while, many couples end up in a pattern of “reverse seduction.” This subject would be enough to fill a book, but in short what it means is this: The partners blame each other, are easily offended, and have very specific ideas about how they want to be seduced. But seduction actually means, “How can I get the other person to do something that I want to do?” As a seductress, you have to think about how you can motivate your partner to participate. For example, if you want to go see a sappy movie and you know it’s not the kind of film your partner likes, you have to get creative and think about how you can get her to come anyway. You promise popcorn and rave about the actress. You think about what she might go for. If you know her soft spots, you exploit them. Translated to the bedroom, this means, “How can I make sex appealing to my partner again?”

    6. We’ve known each other so long. Wouldn’t it be strange to suddenly pretend I don’t know what my partner wants?

    Rethink your understanding of seduction. In your daily life, you’re often trying to make what you want appealing to your partner. Why shouldn’t you do the same with sex? Think about how you seduce him in other parts of life, and transfer this to sex. Let go of clichés. Seduction doesn’t necessarily mean a garter belt and negligee. It starts long before sex. It could be text messages, long looks, playing with closeness and distance, casually stroking his arm, and then going away again. But if you want to wear a garter belt, go for it! Courage always pays off.

    In a long-term relationship, you experience a lot together and know each other inside and out. This is wonderful, but it also brings you so close that you rarely have a chance to long for your partner or see him from a distance. This happens automatically: The other person is always there. An erotic relationship, therefore, requires a little distance and space now and then: alone time. This is very important for your sexuality as well. I advise my patients to spend time alone or with friends and to deliberately plan time for themselves. This leads to being excited about each other again—and maybe even to feeling in love.

    Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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    25 Best Couples Therapy Techniques, Exercises, and Activities to Try in 2021

    by Jillian Goltzman

    Online resources and telehealth has made couples therapy more accessible than ever.

    If you’re looking to engage in self-improvement and enhance your relationship, there’s a multitude of techniques and exercises at your fingertips.

    Couples therapy techniques

    Reflective listening

    “Reflective listening is a highly beneficial exercise where the couple take turns being active listeners,” says Laura Louis, a licensed psychologist at Atlanta Couple Therapy.

    Use “I” phrases instead of “you” statements. For example, say “I feel hurt when you do X” instead of “You’re wrong for doing X.”

    “When couples take turns being active listeners, it boosts healthy communication skills as well as conflict resolution skills for the couple,” Louis says.

    Emotionally focused therapy

    Many therapists use a method called emotionally focused therapy (EFT).

    The goal is for couples “to identify maladaptive patterns within the relationship that are interfering with secure bonds and attachments,” says Ansley Campbell, a clinical director at The Summit Wellness Group.

    People “learn and utilize techniques to heal or create safe and secure attachments within the relationship,” she explains.

    Narrative therapy

    The practice of narrative therapy revolves around people describing their problems in narrative form and rewriting their stories. This can help them see that no single story can possibly encapsulate the totality of their experience.

    “There will always be inconsistencies and contradictions,” says Sam Nabil, CEO and lead therapist at Naya Clinics.

    Narrative therapy may be helpful for couples who feel like their relationship is failing due to both of their faults.

    “These couples often believe that they’re subject to this romantic pitfall and emotional trauma because they have been a ‘failure’ from the start and it is what they ‘deserve,’” Nabil says.

    Gottman Method

    The Gottman Method is a popular method practiced among couples therapists. The technique is designed to help couples deepen their understanding of one another while managing conflict in their relationship.

    The Gottman Institute has more than 40 years of research under its belt. It provides live workshops and take-home training materials for couples, but many therapists have also trained using the Gottman Institute’s methods.

    Imago relationship therapy

    Imago relationship therapy, developed by Dr. Harville Hendrix and Dr. Helen LaKelly Hunt in 1980, emphasizes the connection between adult relationships and childhood experiences.

    By understanding childhood trauma, the therapy seeks to make couples more empathetic and understanding of one another.

    Solution-focused therapy

    If you’re experiencing a particular issue or want to work toward a specific goal, solution-focused therapy is a model to consider.

    According to the Institute for Solution-Focused Therapy, the practice is “a short-term goal-focused evidence-based therapeutic approach which helps clients change by constructing solutions rather than dwelling on problems.”

    Couples therapy exercises and activities

    Get crafty

    “Having a physically visible vision board can help remind you of your shared desires and goals for when you are having issues within the relationship,” Louis says.

    She advises couples to get crafty by writing down goals and collecting pictures that embody your relationship desires.

    “It’s a tangible reminder that a marriage is a work in progress, and that it takes hard work and time on both ends to create a strong, healthy, and long lasting relationship,” she says.

    Find deeper topics to engage with

    Get over surface-level conversations and ask your partner questions other than “What’s for dinner?”

    Kelly Sinning, a Colorado-based licensed professional counselor, likes to give her clients the homework of simply talking with each other.

    “Oftentimes, we get so busy and caught up in the day-to-day needs, we don’t realize that we stop having conversations about anything else,” she explains.

    Express appreciation

    Expressing gratitude and communicating what works in your relationship can help strengthen your appreciation for one another.

    “Make it a habit of expressing appreciation daily through in-person conversations, texts, or a sticky note in a place your partner will find it,” suggests Meagan Prost, a licensed professional clinical counselor at Center for Heart Intelligence.

    Identify your partner’s love language

    Just because you’re in a relationship doesn’t mean you experience love in the same way.

    “The 5 Love Languages” by Dr. Gary Chapman has helped couples identify what makes them feel loved so they can show up for each other.

    The five love languages are based on the idea that each person has a preferred way of receiving love:

    • receiving gifts
    • acts of service
    • words of affirmation
    • quality time
    • physical touch

    Take the online quiz with your partner to discover your love language and better understand each other.

    Schedule important conversations

    Are you looking to have an important or difficult discussion with your partner? Take it from the experts: Serious talks are best when you have a plan.

    “We often engage in conflict because the timing is wrong, and we aren’t in a frame of mind where we can thoughtfully engage in conversation,” says Alisha Powell, PhD, LCSW, with Amethyst Counseling and Consulting.

    She advises tough conversations be scheduled in advance so no one is caught off guard.

    Pencil in one-on-one time

    While life can feel hectic, don’t let outside pressures override time with your partner.

    “Scheduling an hour of ‘couples time’ to get intimate is a great start. Scheduling an hour of time to focus on topics that will help improve the relationship can be done several times a week or once a week,” says Grazel Garcia, LMFT.

    Fill your intimacy bucket

    As a couple and as individuals, understand that you both have intimacy needs.

    Garcia calls this the “intimacy bucket,” which includes the following types of intimacy:

    • intellectual
    • experiential
    • social
    • emotional
    • sexual

    Spend time finding exercises in each bucket. For example, you can explore a new hobby together or socialize with mutual friends on a Zoom game night.

    Practice partner yoga

    Consider teaming up with your partner for couples yoga.

    Partner yoga allows you to balance together with your partner, establishing and strengthening trust as you flow through tandem moves.

    A 2016 study linked mindfulness to increased relationship satisfaction. By synchronizing your breathing, you’ll be one with your partner during your practice — and the benefits may even exceed your yoga class.

    The 6-second kiss

    Don’t knock this technique before you try it. Dr. John Gottman, founder of the Gottman Institute, advocates for the 6-second kiss. It’s a way for couples to add a dash of romance seamlessly throughout the day.

    The kiss is just long enough to be passionate while also acting as a distraction from the busyness of the day.

    Show interest in each other’s day

    When was the last time you asked your partner what they were most excited about for the day?

    Spending a few moments discussing your partner’s agenda and goals will help support them and make them feel cared for in your relationship.

    With her clients, Prost finds that “curiosity can help your partner feel connected to you.”

    Share a list of things you want from your partner

    Write down three things your partner could do weekly that would make you happy. Share your list with one another while looking in each other’s eyes.

    The lists may not be something your partner can do every day, but a reminder of things they can manage to do once a week to help build trust and communication.

    “The point is that we all show and need affection in different ways, and honoring those differences is essential to feeling heard and understood,” says Nyro Murphy, LCPC.

    Have an icebreaker

    You might remember icebreakers from summer camp or work seminars, but this go-to conversation-starting game may help reinvigorate your relationship and teach you something new about your partner.

    Reintroduce yourself to your partner by setting time to discuss icebreaker questions that dig beneath the surface.

    Connect through music

    Remember the days of making your school crush the ultimate mixtape?

    A 2011 study found that shared music preferences create stronger social bonds.

    Feel the nostalgia and curate your own playlist of songs that remind you of your partner and the moments you’ve shared. Swap your playlists and get a peek into each other’s romantic side.

    Start a book club for two

    Reading can allow you to share an experience together at your own pace. Alternate the responsibility of choosing a book that’s grabbed your attention, and set a date to discuss it over dinner.

    Eye gazing

    Initiating long-held eye contact with your partner may help you two feel a stronger connection.

    Prolonged eye contact can help you recognize emotions, build trustTrusted Source, and increase intimacy.

    A 2018 study associated eye gazing with “self-other merging,” reducing the boundary between yourself and the other person to feel unity.

    As the saying goes, the eyes are the window to the soul, so why not give it a try?

    Practice gratitude

    Gratitude has many benefits, including boosting well-being for yourself and your relationship.

    A 2017 studyTrusted Source found that sharing gratitude with your partner increases oxytocin, a hormone that helps calm you and decrease stress. Researchers in the study found that gratitude led to a “greater experienced love” in the 129 participants.

    At the end of each day, take time to share three things you’re grateful for with your partner.

    Increase your cuddle time

    There’s a reason why cuddling with your partner feels so good: Cuddling causes your body to release oxytocin and reduces cortisol, the stress hormone.

    Penn Medicine reports that hugging can also lower resting blood pressure and regulate sleep patterns. If you’re feeling warm and fuzzy, your body is doing its job!

    Invest in a therapy workbook

    Find a couples therapy workbook in a book store or online and take time each week to go through assigned activities with your partner.

    Dr. Annie Hsueh, PhD, of Hope and Sage Psychological Services, recommends her clients read and answer the question prompts in “Hold Me Tight” by Dr. Sue Johnson.

    Hsueh also recommends “The Couple Home Connection System,” a workbook filled with exercises designed to help couples connect in “deeper, more meaningful ways.”

    Unplug from your devices

    According to a 2014 report by the Pew Research Center, 25 percent of people in a serious relationship say cellphones distract their partner when they’re alone together.

    If distraction and a feeling of absenteeism is infiltrating your relationship, experiment with setting aside time to fully unplug and communicate with each other.

    Every relationship has conflict. Learning how to handle your conflicts can not only patch up your issues but also make your relationship much stronger.

    In couples therapy, a licensed counselor works with two people to improve their relationship.

    Like any form of therapy, couples counseling requires a commitment and willingness to open up from both involved parties.

    According to the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy, more than 98 percent of people reported marriage and family therapy services as good or excellent.

    Counseling doesn’t have to be a guarded practice reserved for any “type” of person. Couples therapy can help anyone in a relationship, regardless of demographics like sexual orientation and age.

    “Couples can form a more secure bond with one another and be able to have vulnerable conversations without pushing the other person away,” Hsueh says.

    When committing to couples therapy, come with an open mind, and be ready to break down the barriers of communication.

    If you’re in need of a relationship refresh, counseling may be a great option for you.

    No matter your situation, every couple can benefit from participating in couples therapy and acquiring a toolkit to deepen their connection with their loved one.

    “The benefits to couples therapy are endless. The mere act of seeking couples therapy can be a demonstration of the significance and importance you place on your relationship,” says Nikki Young, LMFT.

    “My goal in couples therapy is to teach couples how to navigate life together as a team, so that ultimately they say, ‘Hey, thanks for the support, but we got it from here,’” she adds.

    The perks of couples therapy can include:

    • having a third-party mediator to help facilitate constructive conversations
    • finding new ways to communicate with your partner
    • decreasing distress and conflict within your relationship
    • being intentional with your time and words
    • setting time to dedicate to the improvement of your relationship
    • creating a safe, calm space in therapy to discuss difficult topics
    • practicing techniques to enhance emotional and physical intimacy
    • forming action plans to make your relationship a priority
    • identifying harmful or damaging patterns in your relationship and working around them
    • rebuilding trust with one another
    • establishing healthy boundaries in your relationship
    • having a therapist who can identify underlying issues and emotions you might not be aware exist
    • discovering and developing valuable skills to manage conflict
    • finding common ground and learning to relate to each other in a loving, kind way
    • feeling supported and listened to in your relationship
    • building skills to identify your needs and wants in a relationship

    When it comes to committing to couples therapy, partners can start therapy for any reason that causes them conflict, distress, or mistrust.

    Some common reasons couples may seek therapy include:

    • the need to rebuild trust after infidelity or deceit
    • to enhance physical and emotional intimacy if you’re feeling unsatisfied
    • to overcome trauma
    • going through a transition together, like parenthood or a big move
    • having different, conflicting views on how to parent
    • to help manage substance use disorder recovery for one or both partners
    • to learn more about the relationship and prevent future
    • feeling lost in the busyness of life
    • experiencing the grief of losing a loved one
    • the desire to have fun within your relationship and reignite your spark
    • anger issues that make it difficult to resolve conflict in a rational way
    • wanting to define the significance and seriousness of a relationship with the help of a third party
    • working through infertility
    • blended families and step-parenting
    • career pressures and job changes
    • financial problems

    “Oftentimes, couples wait to seek therapy until they have reached a point of crisis within their relationship. And while this is likely a fitting time to seek couples therapy, please consult with a provider to ensure couples counseling is the right avenue of support,” Young says.

    But in dangerous or dire situations, mental health professionals may advise another path.

    “There are times when couples therapy is not indicated, such as situations of characterological domestic violence or an ongoing affair. In situations such as these, the therapist will likely recommend individual counseling instead,” she says.

    No problem is too big or small for therapy, especially with the help of an experienced licensed professional.

    From feeling disconnected to your partner to overcoming infidelity, exercises and techniques developed by licensed therapists can rehabilitate your relationship and improve your communication skills.

    Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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    The Woman Who Taught Us Pleasure

    Remembering Betty Dodson, the pioneering sex educator.

    By

    Betty Dodson, the pioneering sexologist, educator, and author, died in New York City on Saturday. She was 91 years old.

    Dodson built her career around educating women in the art self-pleasure. In the 1970s, she began hosting masturbation workshops in her Manhattan apartment, in which women got naked, examined one another’s vulvas and then practiced pleasuring themselves with a vibrator. (Or, as Dodson put it last year when asked what happens in her workshops: “Everyone gets off.”)

    She was inspired to start the workshops, she said, after attending several orgies and realizing that even the most freewheeling, sex-positive women often struggled to orgasm. Effective masturbation, she believed, was a form of liberation for women, a way for them to learn to prioritize their own sexual experience and reduce their dependence on men. As she wrote in her 2010 memoir, Sex by Design: The Betty Dodson Story, “Instinct told me that sexual mobility was the same as social mobility. Men had it and women didn’t.”

    Born in Wichita, Kansas, on August 24, 1929, Dodson moved to New York when she was 20 to pursue a career as an artist. She was briefly married to an advertising executive, but the two were sexually incompatible; she was “not orgasmic” with him, she once told Salon. Dodson said her sexual shame and dissatisfaction led her to start drinking heavily. After her divorce in 1965, she got sober, and, according to the New York Times, it was in Alcoholics Anonymous that she met a man who, she said, taught her about self-pleasure and would remain one of her sexual partners until his death in 2008.

    Dodson’s own sexuality was fluid. She described herself as “heterosexual, bisexual, lesbian.” Her attitude toward men, the Times noted in a profile of her earlier this year, was occasionally dismissive. “Men are so two-dimensional,” she said. “If there is anything interesting about them, it’s because of the women they’ve been with.” There were exceptions, though. She recalled with fondness, for example, Eric Wilkinson, the man she lived with for over a decade when she was in her 70s and he was in his 20s. “He was so beautiful. He had the perfect body, broad shoulders, good-size genitals, and tight bones.”

    Gruff, blunt, and wickedly funny, Dodson’s teachings have been hugely influential in how women’s sexual health and pleasure are discussed today. Her book Sex for One has been translated into over 25 languages; her self-pleasure workshops are taught by “bodysex leaders,” as they are known, around the world; and she even worked as an adviser for New York’s popular Museum of Sex. “Betty had it all,” Annie Sprinkle, the 1970s porn star turned sex educator, who was a student of Dodson’s, told the Times. “She popularized the clitoris and clitoral orgasms, and gave the clitoris celebrity status.”

    But even if the conversation around female pleasure has come a long way from where it was when Dodson was first attending orgies, there’s still a long way to go. Consider her appearance last year on The Goop Lab, Netflix’s docuseries about Gwyneth Paltrow’s lifestyle company. In an episode called “The Pleasure Is Ours,” Dodson preaches how important it is that women “run the fuck,” and she makes Paltrow’s cheeks blush the same shade of millennial pink as the couch she’s sitting on. She also corrects Paltrow’s terminology. When the Goop founder boasts that “vaginas” are her favorite subject, Dodson cuts her off. “The vagina’s the birth canal only,” she says firmly. “You wanna talk about the vulva, which is the clitoris and the inner lips and all that good shit around it.”

    It’s a telling moment. Paltrow is a woman who advances and profits from the notion of female pleasure by peddling expensive jade yoni eggs and a candle that supposedly smells like her vagina. (Did she mean vagina or vulva? I guess we don’t know.) But she’s iffy on the specifics of female anatomy, and a comment about women “running the fuck” makes her blush. Clearly, Dodson’s message of open and honest communication around female sexual pleasure is as relevant today as it was when she hosted her first masturbation workshop in the 1970s.

    As for her own pleasure, Dodson never stopped enjoying it. As she told the Cut back in 2011, when she was 83: “Last month, I had a knockout [orgasm]. I went, ‘Whoa, girl. You still got it.’”

    Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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    Here’s What a ‘Sexpert’ Wants You to Know About Sex Toys

    (No, You Can’t Use a Vibrator Too Much)

    ‘Taking time to challenge and explore ideas around pleasure will help with your sex education.’

    By Atalie Gimmel

    While sex toys used to be seen as gratuitous and only for the sexually “adventurous,” they’re now commonplace—especially at a time when city governments are advising that “you are your safest sex partner” amid COVID-19. The “sex tech” industry is booming—and experts are linking their overall use to increased rates of orgasms, especially for women. Despite the taboos that surround sex toys, and for that matter, female sexuality and desire, research tells us that the use of sex toys increases the frequency of orgasms. Not only that, but sex toys have also been linked to fascilitating orgasms for perimenopausal, menopausal, and post-menopausal women with orgasmic disorder.

    “Only four percent of people with vaginas orgasm most reliably from penetration alone,” says Dr. Laurie Mintz, a professor at the University of Florida and licensed psychologist. “The rest need clitoral stimulation, either alone or coupled with penetration.” The author of “A Tired Woman’s Guide to Passionate Sex” and “Becoming Cliterate,” and ‘sexpert’ for sex toy company LELO, Mintz is an expert on the art—and science—of the orgasm. Naturally, the topic of sex toys comes up regularly. Plain and simple, she explains, “people with vaginas who use vibrators have easier and more frequent orgasms.”

    Below, Dr. Mintz answers your top questions about using sex toys—submitted via the @VogueWeddings Instagram—including how to get started, which ones work best with a partner, and whether or not it’s possible to use them too much.

    What is a good vibrator to start with?

    If you’re a first-time vibrator user, check out the sex toys at LELO. Additionally, both the stores Babeland and Good Vibrations have sections for first-time vibrator users.

    I’ve never owned one, what sex toy should I get first?

    I suggest a clitoral vibrator that has different speeds that you can experiment with. The overwhelming majority of people with vaginas need clitoral stimulation to orgasm and this is why I recommend starting with a clitoral vibrator. Additionally, the intensity of the vibrations enjoyed will vary among people with vaginas and this is why I recommend variable speeds/intensities.

    How do I let my partner know that I only orgasm with sex toys?

    You can’t overdo your vibrator use. So if you always need a vibrator to orgasm, let them know this and, more importantly, always use a vibrator! It’s that simple.

    How can I introduce sex toys into my relationship?

    Imagine yourself swimming in a pool with your partner. You’re having a great day swimming, and there happens to be a raft there, and you jump on and off the raft. At the end of the day you don’t call your friend and say, ‘my raft and I had so much fun, and oh my partner was there too.’ The same is true for using sex toys. Make sure you and your partner both understand that sex toys are not a substitute for a partner, but rather tools that provide additional stimulation—and then the fun part: go shopping!

    Is it possible to use a vibrator too much? Will it cause damage?

    Sex toys cannot make your clitoris loose feeling or damage it permamently. If you use it for a while and start to go numb, just take a break—just like if your butt goes numb from riding a bike.

    I’m thinking about gifting my partner a sex toy; is that weird or offensive?

    Giving your partner the gift of a sex toy is not weird at all. In fact that message it gives is beautiful, it says you care about their pleasure.

    What toys do you recommend for both partners to enjoy?

    For two people with vaginas having sex, bring whatever toy you use on yourself and teach your partner how to use it on you if they don’t know; you can even use it alone while your partner kisses or caresses you in other areas. If one person has a penis and the other has a vagina, you can also bring whatever you normally use and instruct your partner on how to use it on you; you can also try a cock ring with an attached clitoral vibrator—the person with the penis can wear it during intercourse, stimulating their partner.

    What is the proper way to sanitize and clean your sex toys?

    Most sex toys can be cleaned with mild antibacterial soap and warm water. Wash them for at least 20 seconds and dry them with a clean towel. Additionally, you can purchase sex toy cleaner. I personally use LELO’s cleaner which you simply spray on, wait five seconds, and rinse off.

    Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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    5 questions we kept asking therapists during lockdown

    by Kayleigh Dray

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

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

    But how did all that social distancing impact our relationships?

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

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

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

    Prepare to feel extremely seen.

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

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

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

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

    Try something like:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

    Complete Article ↪HERE↩!