Month: June 2021

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How Much Blood Does It Take to Get Hard?

by James Roland

An erection is the result of increased blood flow to the penis. But you may be wondering exactly how that works, and whether there’s a specific amount of blood that your penis needs to achieve an erection.

In some cases, reduced blood flow to the penis can cause noticeable changes in the penis. But many other parts of your body, like your nervous system and hormones, also impact how and when your penis gets hard.

Read on to learn more about what blood has to do with erections. We’ll also cover what you can do if you feel unsatisfied by your erection when you masturbate or have sex.

The actual amount of blood needed to get hard varies among people. On average, it’s thought to be about 130 milliliters (mL), or 4.4 ounces. It’s a small fraction of the 1.2 to 1.5 gallons (4,500 to 5,600 mL) of blood circulating throughout the adult human body at any given time.

Because an erection needs a relatively small amount of blood, there’s no increase in blood production in the body. But blood is redirected to supply tissue in the penis, which means that a little less blood can be directed elsewhere in the body.

Here’s exactly what happens to the penis physiologically during an erection and how blood is involved in this process:

Inside the shaft of the penis are two columns of spongy tissue called corpora cavernosa. This tissue contains blood vessels. When your penis is flaccid, arteries are constricted, supplying just enough blood flow to keep the tissue in the corpora cavernosa healthy.

When you become aroused, the smooth muscles of the arteries in the penis relax, allowing the blood vessels to expand and fill with more blood. This expands corpora cavernosa tissue too, making your penis larger and firmer.

To make an erection happen, the brain, nervous system, blood vessels and certain hormones are recruited. Here’s how this part works:

  • Nerve signals from the brain based on arousing stimuli, like visual imagery or erotic thoughts, can cause the muscles in the corpora cavernosa to relax.
  • Sensory stimulation of the penis or surrounding area can trigger a similar response, with nerve impulses signaling to the tissue in the corpora cavernosa to prepare for sexual intercourse.
  • During sexual stimulation, the body releases a chemical called nitric oxide (NO). This helps dilate the blood vessels and activate an enzyme called guanylate cyclase to trigger the release of cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP). This chemical relaxes the spongy tissue and allows it to become engorged as arteries expand with greater blood flow.
  • After an orgasm, the additional blood that engorges the corpora cavernosa will start to flow out through veins in the penis. The same amount that entered at the start of the process will also exit.

What if blood doesn’t flow back out?

Blood that doesn’t properly flow back out of the penis can result in a condition called priapism. Blood pooling in the penis this way can damage tissue in the corpora cavernosa.

Priapism is more common in people with blood disorders, like sickle cell anemia, but can also be brought on by medications or other factors, like the use of cocaine or conditions like leukemia.

In addition to blood, the hormones testosterone and oxytocin may both play a role in getting and maintaining an erection.

A 2016 review in the The Journal of Sexual MedicineTrusted Source notes that testosterone may play a role in the timing of an erection by helping to relax the penile arteries so they can fill with blood.

Some individuals with ED and low levels of testosterone may benefitTrusted Source from testosterone therapy, but levels below the normal range are still enough to achieve a healthy erection. Testosterone also drives sexual desire, and low levels may cause a drop in libido.

Oxytocin has also been identified as an important component in arousal. But researchers in the 2016 review noted that the use of oxytocin to create sexual arousal needs to be studied more.

Several factors can affect blood flow to the penis or the ability of the penis to become erect, like:

  • Circulation problems. Cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, diabetes, and high cholesterol can reduce blood flow to the penis and other parts of the body.
  • Nervous system dysfunction. Neurological disorders like multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, and Parkinson’s disease can interfere with proper signaling from the brain to initiate the sexual arousal process.
  • Tissue damage. Radiation treatment to the bladder or prostate can sometimes harm the nerves and blood vessels that bring nerve and chemical signals to the area for arousal and blood vessel dilation. This can make it difficult or impossible for the penis to engorge itself with blood.

A lifestyle that focuses on good physical, mental, and emotional health promotes good circulation. This is one way to help increase the likelihood of erectile function.

Try these tips to support healthy erections and overall well-being:

  • Consider quitting or cutting back on smoking. The chemicals in cigarette smoke can injure your blood vessels.
  • Get regular aerobic exercise. Exercising throughout the week helps improve circulation, energy, and overall fitness and self-confidence.
  • Eat a balanced diet. Focus on vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and lean protein sources.
  • Address mental health issues like depression and anxiety. These can affect not just your sexual health, but your overall health.

A 2018 studyTrusted Source found that following a Mediterranean diet was associated with a reduction in ED symptoms, compared with a typical Western diet high in fat and processed sugars.

Another 2018 studyTrusted Source also found that an exercise regimen of 40 minutes done four times a week decreased ED within 6 months, especially for individuals experiencing ED caused by cardiovascular disease, obesity, or a sedentary lifestyle.

An occasional episode of ED or erectile dissatisfaction, an erection that isn’t firm enough for satisfactory intercourse, is normal. This can occur when you are:

  • tired
  • distracted
  • stressed
  • under the influence of alcohol

If you notice frequent ED or dissatisfaction even with lifestyle changes, especially if there’s no obvious trigger, talk with a primary care professional or a urologist.

Other signs that you should see a doctor include:

  • Noticeable changes in your sex drive. These could be triggered by hormonal changes or factors like stress, depression, poor sleep, or relationship troubles.
  • Premature ejaculation. This is especially the case if you’re ejaculating much earlier than you typically expect.
  • Painful erections. These can result from tissue damage or infection.
  • Pain when urinating. This might be a sign of an infection or other conditions that can affect your urinary tract.

The most common ED treatments are medications like PDE5 inhibitors. These include tadalafil (Cialis) and sildenafil (Viagra). These drugs work by protecting cGMP, which encourages blood flow to the penis and greater blood retention in the corpora cavernosa during sexual activity.

Another possible treatment is a vacuum erection device (or penis pump), a tube that you place over your penis.

A handheld pump pulls air out of the tube, creating a vacuum that triggers blood flow to the penis. A ring is then slipped around the end of your penis when you remove the pump to help maintain the erection during sex.

Penile injections or penile implant surgery can also help treat severe cases of ED or those that are caused by another condition like diabetes (known as refractory cases).

Healthy blood flow to the tissue within the penis helps produce an erection, and it only takes about 130 mL to get you hard.

But creating the right environment for proper blood flow involves the brain and nervous system, plus certain hormones and chemicals. Many factors go into healthy sexual function, and many issues can interfere with it, too.

If you notice changes in your erectile function, see a doctor. It’s a common concern and often one with a variety of effective treatments.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Ancient Greek and Roman erotic art

Explicit erotic art was common in ancient Greece and Rome. Sex is ubiquitous in the black-figure and red-figure vases of Athens in the 6th and 5th centuries BC. The Romans were also surrounded by sex.

Mosaic depicting Leda and the Swan, from the sanctuary of Aphrodite in Paphos, circa 3rd century AD. It is currently located at the Cyprus Museum in Nicosia.

By Craig Barker

LP Hartley’s saying “the past is foreign” is rarely held more firmly than in the field of sexuality in classical art. The erotic images and depictions of the genitals, especially the phallus, were very popular motifs in a wide range of media in ancient Greece and Rome.

Simply put, sex is everywhere in Greek and Roman art. Explicit sexual expression was common in the Athenian black-figure and red-figure vases of the 6th and 5th centuries BC. They often have spectacular confrontations in nature.

The Romans were also surrounded by sex. Bronze carved as a chinchin nabla (wind chime), often found in the gardens of Pompeii’s house, is carved in relief on a famous wall panel that tells us the famous habitat Felicitas from a Roman bakery. (“Happiness dwells here”).

But these erotic acts and classic images of the genitals reflect more than a culture of sexual attachment. The depiction of sexuality and sexual activity in classical art seems to have had many uses. And while our interpretation of these images is often censored in modern times, it reveals a lot about our attitude towards sex.

A modern reaction to ancient erotic art

When antique collection began in earnest in the 17th and 18th centuries, the openness of ancient eroticism embarrassed and embarrassed the Enlightenment audience. This embarrassment was exacerbated after the excavations began in the rediscovered Roman towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum.

The Naples National Archaeological Museum’s Gavinette Segrate (the so-called “secret cabinet”) best represents the modern reaction to classical sexuality (repression and repression) in art.

The secret cabinet was founded in 1819 when King Francis I of Naples visited the museum with his wife and little daughter. Shocked by the blatant depiction, he ordered to remove all items of sexual nature from sight and lock them in a cabinet. Access is restricted to scholars with “mature age and respected morals.” I will. In other words, it was only a male scholar.

A metal shutter was installed in Pompeii itself because the explicit materials such as the mural paintings of the brothel were preserved as they were. Until the 1960s, these shutters restricted access only to male tourists who were willing to pay extra.

Of course, the secret of the collection in the cabinet was sometimes difficult to access, but it only increased its fame. John Murray’s Handbook to South Italy and Naples (1853) sacredly states that it was very difficult to obtain a permit.

Therefore, few people have seen the collection. And those who have it are said not to want to visit again.

The cabinet was not open to the public until 2000 (despite protests by the Catholic Church). Since 2005, the collection has been exhibited in a separate room. The object has not yet been reintegrated with modern non-sexual crafts, as it did in ancient times.

Literature also felt censors’ anger, and works such as Aristophanes’ plays were mistranslated, obscuring “unpleasant” sexual and catalog references. Unless trying to claim moral and liberal dominance in the 21st century, the depiction of the infamous marble sculpture of bread mating with the goats in the collection still shocks the modern audience.

Censorship of ancient sexuality is probably best reflected in the long tradition of removing genitals from classical sculpture.

The Vatican Museums, in particular, were famous for (but not limited to) modifying classical art for modern morals and sensations. In the case of irregularities, it was common to apply carved and cast fig leaves to cover the genitals.

It also showed the modern willingness to associate nudity with sexuality and would have embarrassed the ancient audience, where the physical form of the body itself was considered perfect. Have you misunderstood ancient sexuality? Yes, yes.

Ancient porn?

It is difficult to determine how much the ancient audience used explicit erotic images for awakening. Certainly, the erotic scenes that were popular on board would have given the Athenian party an exciting atmosphere over a glass of wine.

These types of scenes are especially popular with kylix or wine cups in the tond (the center panel of the cup). Hetaira (cans) and Polnai (whores) are likely to have attended the same symposium, so the scene may have been used as a stimulus.

In the late Greek and Roman eras, the painted eroticas were replaced by molded depictions, but their use must have been similar.

The Romans’ application of sexual scenes to oil lamps is probably the most likely scenario, and the object may have actually been used in a romantic scene. Erotica is often found in molded lamps.

Phallus and fertility

Ancient Greek erotic art
Delos Museum.

Female nudity was not uncommon (especially in connection with the goddess Aphrodite), but the phallic symbol was at the heart of many classical arts.

Fars is often depicted on Hermes, Bread, Priapus, or similar gods of various art forms. Its symbolism here was not considered erotic, but was related to protection, reproduction, and even healing. We have already seen phallic use in various home and commercial situations in Pompeii, which clearly reflects its protective properties.

The helm was a stone carving with a head (usually Hermes) on a rectangular pillar, on which the male genitals were carved. These blocks were placed on borders and borders for protection and were so highly regarded that many people said that when the Athens Herm was destroyed before the Athens fleet departed in 415 BC, this was the Navy. I believed it would threaten the success of the mission.

The famous frescoes of the House of the Vettii in Pompeii depict Priapus, the minor and guardian deity of livestock, plants and gardens. He has a huge penis, a bag of coins, and a bowl of fruit at his feet. As researcher Claudia Moser writes, this image represents three types of prosperity: growth (large members), fertility (fruits), and abundance (bags of money).

It is worth noting that a casual look at the museum’s classic sculptures reveals that the bare gods and heroes’ penises painted in marble are very small. Classic cultural ideals often value small penises over large ones and surprise the modern audience.

All the expressions of the big penis in classical art are related to desire and stupidity. Priapus was terribly despised by other gods and was thrown out of Mount Olympus. For the Greeks and Romans, the bigger it was, the better.

Ancient Greece: Mythology and Sex

Classic myths are gender-based. There are many stories of incest, marriage, polygamy, and adultery in mythology. Therefore, the artistic depictions of myths end up portraying these sometimes explicit stories. Zeus’s reckless attitude towards women’s consent in these myths (in many cases he raped Danae in the form of a swan in the form of Leda and Rain) was male domination and female. Strengthened the idea of ​​female contempt for subordination.

The penis was also emphasized in the delightful portrayal of Dio Brando. Dionysus, the god of Greek wine, drama and transformation, is not surprised by his followers, the male satyr and the female menard, and their depictions on the wine vessels.

The satyr was a half-human half-goat. Somewhat comical, but also tragic in a way, they were deep-rooted masturbation and party animals that loved dance, wine and women. In fact, the term saturia is still alive today and is classified by the World Health Organization’s International Classification of Diseases (ICD) as a form of hypersexuality in men, alongside the female form of nymphomania.

The intent of the (upright) satyr on the penis is clear from the appearance of the vase (even if they rarely catch the manado they are chasing). At the same time, their huge erect penis shows the “beastiness” and grotesque ugliness of a large penis, in contrast to the classic ideal of male beauty represented by a smaller penis.

The actors who performed the satyr play at the dramatic festival appeared on stage and in orchestras in fake phallic costumes to show that they were not humans, but Dionysian mythical beasts.

Early classical art collectors were shocked to learn that the Greeks and Romans they admired were earthlings with varying sexual and desires. However, by emphasizing the sexual aspect of this art, they underestimated the non-sexual role of the phallic symbol.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Sex is back, but it’s going to be different

– and hot

The new sexual revolution is here, and all it took was a deadly pandemic

By

Welcome to the summer of love. The Whoring 20s, Shot Girl Summer, the smell of meat and lotion. A bus passed by yesterday, its side painted with an advert encouraging passersby to “vax, wax and relax”. The new sexual revolution is here, and all it took was a deadly pandemic and a year indoors. It’s true, it’s coming, look, there!

Big women swaggering through a pollarded boulevard, feeling themselves like they’ve never feeled before, suited men singing soul songs under their breath, teenagers standing so close they’re talking in each other’s voices. There’s a picnic by the swings where someone has served themself with mayonnaise on a soft baguette. In the supermarket, women stand mesmerised by the erotic hum of a freezer, and someone inhales the cut flowers with a heavy-lidded smile, and a man gruffly counts peaches. A parking attendant kisses his own lips, the tune of an ice-cream van sounds drunk and yearning. When did everyone get a body? When did everyone descend from the live-work space of their minds and knock through to the basement of those hips, that hair?

Yes, sex is back. For a while there it was touch and go whether it would survive the night, having evolved, devolved over the years into a new kind of touchless touch, many young people choosing to pursue relationships online rather than on sofas. But now, having had time to consider our futures, time to swipe our phones with thrice-washed hands and a new professional grade level of attentiveness, having come to new realisations about touch, loneliness, the pandemic-imposed limits of our new lives and the self-imposed limits of our old ones, the world is ready for its return.

For some, this will simply mean more. It will mean stepping out of the house, a prick in each arm and another in the thigh for luck, and slipping straight into a stranger’s dress, a colleague’s bathroom, the idling Volvo of a dad waiting for the end of Year Six streetdance. Good luck to you comrades, congratulations. But for many, the end of our lockdowns will result in a different kind of sex. New kinks have bred in isolation – a genre of Covid porn is thriving on certain laptops, and fantasies are feverish and confused, dystopian, dreamlike. The danger of touch, the forbidden thrill of brushing past an ungloved wrist, masks no longer only for the unvanilla – sex has changed shape. As has dating. Those months on apps, when people were forced to engage in different kinds of communication beyond just meeting in a bar and thinking this’ll do, are (according to a report Cosmopolitan commissioned from the Kinsey Institute) leading to more considered interactions. They predict “the death of the one-night stand”, and a grand move away from destructive dating habits, towards more experimentation, more thoughtful commitments, more pleasure, and fewer people settling for less – a whole resetting of sexual expectation.

Of course, for many of us, it won’t be easy. Not because we’re not sexy and attractive. No, not that at all. We are all insanely attractive right now actually, thank you, incredibly soft and awkward in our beauty. Everyone is gorgeous and no one is OK. So it will be difficult in the way that all attempts at resocialising are difficult, as we step gingerly into the wild, looking backwards with a scared and red-eyed wonder before trotting cautiously towards the trees. How does a “kiss”, what is to “sex”, who is “hand”, a whispered hiss of questions will echo around the clubs at 2am, two people will insist on time-outs during dinner, just to quickly revise the rules about what is meant to happen next.

The trick will be to weaponise this awkwardness, and transform it into a series of exquisite tensions. It is a chance to be naive again, to purr as a person presses your back like a cat on Instagram or a David Attenborough cub. People are excited simply to sit across from a person they admire, simply to pull the window closed or wetly kiss their cheek – each drop of this excitement must be noted, harnessed and claimed as adorable. There will be people who want to lie fully clothed on top of the covers and breathe at each other. There will be people who want to use all the knowledge accrued from twice-daily Zoom meetings to direct erotic films with high production values and a plotline about office politics. There will be people who unload all the therapy they’ve had across the year on to their partner’s bed and roll around on it. There will be someone for everybody, once they’ve worked out how to say hello, I like you.

It’s going to be a good summer. It’s going to be an interesting summer, with moments of pain, and the sometimes bastard thoughts that make us human. It’s going to be hot, but in ways that occasionally burn, a humid bewildering kind of heat. It’s going to be the summer of complicated, radical, ageing, queered, distanced, unlikely love. Welcome, enjoy, and please wash your hands.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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These Erotic Audio Platforms For Women Are Just What The Doctor Ordered

Better than a one-handed read.

By Kinsey Gidick

When it comes to getting in “the mood,” sometimes a little fantasy fiction is in order. But who wants to pull out a conspicuous paperback with a picture of Fabio on the cover? Romance novels are great and all, but for a more subtle X-rated option there are erotic audio stories.

Bodice-ripping earworms are all the rage right now, and the audio space doesn’t just offer sexually explicit stories. There are now entire apps dedicated to adult literature. Thanks to these catalogs of spicy narratives, you can find just the right tale to suit your mood. In fact, some apps even let you drill down based on fantasy preference while others are intended specifically for a female audience. And if that’s not enough to get you where you need to go, consider that some vibrators can now be synced with audio erotica for the ultimate story climax.

And while many of the apps selling sexy stories require a membership, you can also find free audio erotica as well. So budget need not be a deterrent to enjoying tantalizing tales. All you need is a computer or mobile device to tune in. Just put on your headphones, sit back, and enjoy the show.

1

A Sexy Story Membership

Dipsea

Founded by women, for women, Dipsea is a feminist platform for audio erotica. With many stories to choose from, members can select a monthly or annual plan and then listen to hundreds of stories based on sexual preference and mood.

2

A Steamy Audio Subscription

AudioDesires offers audio sex stories in a membership platform. One reason users might like this app is because it gives a short synopsis of each story, describes the audience (for instance, people who want to listen about a him + her scenario), includes the length of the episode, and mentions what will be included. For instance, in the case of “The Mechanic” AudioDesires says it will include: “dirty talk,” “finger play,” and “from behind.”

3

An Ethical Erotica Option

The tagline of the website Quinn is “quinn girls finish first.” And that goes beyond the content. Quinn, Mashable reports, focuses on “ethical content” that appeals to women. Better yet, all of Quinn’s content is free and ad-free so there are no interruptions.

4

An Easy Entry to Erotica

Audible is an Amazon owned audio book company, but naturally it offers erotica too. That means that while you’re searching for your next road trip audio book, you can quietly tuck a few steamy tales into your cart as well.

5

A Hot Story in Your Audiobook Queue

The eBook site Scribd is another option for audio erotica and has 54,511 results in English, just to give you an understanding of the scale of options. As a bonus, Scribd offers a 30 day free trial, so you can binge listen first before you commit to the service.

6

A Free Erotica Site

Just like the name suggests, literotica is a free erotic fiction website. But it’s now expanded to include audio erotica too, so you can fully indulge your sexy voyeur fantasies without having to read a screen. All stories are submitted by site users, often recorded by the author themselves.

7

A Vibrator-Synced Audio Space

Vibease is a bluetooth vibrator that allows you to sync it with short audio stories. In fact, Vibease now has a growing catalog of audio stories to choose from that are organized by tags like “Male Voice,” “New Release,” “Guided Session,” and “BDSM.”

8

A Sexual Wellbeing Audio Store

Emjoy calls itself a sexual wellbeing platform and that’s because it’s focused on delivering 300+ audio sessions and sexy stories for all types of women. The idea is that sexual health is a part of self-care, so the app doesn’t just serve up steamy stories. It offers information on how topics like “how to feel confident about your breasts” and “how to give and receive the perfect sensual massage.”

Ready to start your sexual audio journey? Tune in to any of these story apps and sites for a hot sec.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Why more women identify as sexually fluid than men

By magictr

The way we think about sexuality is changing. Where once there was a single, well-known rainbow flag, a symbol of pride, today a wide range flies to show the diversity of sexual orientations.

People seem increasingly open to discussing their sexuality, and less conventional identities, even previously “invisible”, have become part of an increasingly dominant discourse.

Open dialogue, sexual identities they have become less rigid and more fluid.

But the most recent data shows that this change is more prevalent in one group: In many countries, women are now embracing sexual fluidity at much higher rates than in the past, and more significantly, than men overall.

How do you explain this difference?

Experts believe that there are many factors fueling this progression, especially changes in the social climate that have allowed women to break out of conventional gender roles and identities.

But in light of this, the question remains: what does it mean for the future of sexual fluidity for all genders?

A remarkable change

Sean Massey and his colleagues at the Binghamton Human Sexualities Research Laboratory in New York have studied sexual behaviors for about a decade.

In each of their investigations, they asked participants to report their sexual orientation and gender.

They had never looked at the evolution of that information over time, until they realized that, in fact, they had a treasure in their hands.

“We thought, my God, we’ve been collecting this data for 10 years,” explains Massey, associate professor of studies on women, gender and sexuality at Binghamton University.

“Why don’t we check it out and see if there is any trend to be seen?”

And so they discovered that between 2011 and 2019 college-age women they had moved further and further away from exclusive heterosexuality.

In 2019, 65% of the women consulted said they were only attracted to men, when that percentage had been 77% in 2011.

The number of women reported having sex exclusively with men also decreased in those years.

Meanwhile, men’s sexual attraction and behavior remained mostly static in the same period: about 85% reported being attracted only to women, and about 90% said they had sex exclusively with women.

Why more women identify as sexually fluid than men

Other surveys conducted in other countries, including the UK and the Netherlands, presented similar findings.

In general, more women have been reporting more same-sex attraction, year after year, than their male counterparts.

Power and freedom

“This is all too complicated to attribute to just one thing,” says Elizabeth Morgan, associate professor of psychology at Springfield College in Massachusetts, USA.

But gender roles and how they have changed and how not, can be an important factor.

Massey and his colleagues largely attribute evolution to cultural changes, such as the progress of feminism and the women’s movement, which have significantly changed the socio-political landscape in recent decades.

However, these changes affected men and women differently.

“There has really been progress around the female gender role and less on the male gender role,” says Massey.

While she doesn’t rule out the effect of the LGBTQ + movement on people who identify as sexually fluid today, Massy believes that feminism and the women’s movement play a role in why more women identify in this way than men.

And he especially believes it because no equivalent men’s movement has allowed men to step out of historical gender-based constraints in the same way.

“Fifty years ago, you couldn’t have a life if you didn’t marry a man and you could only establish yourself if he supported you,” Morgan adds.

In that sense, avoiding exclusive heterosexuality could be seen as part of the breakdown of women with traditional gender roles.

Meanwhile, as women have been able to find more freedom, men’s gender roles have remained relatively static as they continue to hold power in society.

“[Los hombres] They need to defend a very masculine gender role to maintain that power, and part of masculinity is heterosexuality. “says Morgan.

Sex coach and educator Violet Turning, 24, also points to the “fetishization” of two women having sex or kissing, specifically from the male gaze.

According to her, this has also contributed to making same-sex attraction among women more socially acceptable, albeit for the wrong reasons.

Meanwhile, people seem to find the idea of ​​two men having sex much less enjoyable, he notes.

A 2019 study that looked at attitudes toward gay men and women in 23 countries found that, for participants overall, “gay men are more disagreeable than lesbian women.”

An open dialogue

The spaces in which women can speak openly about their sexuality has also multiplied.

When Lisa Diamond, a professor of psychology and gender studies at the University of Utah, USA, began studying sexual fluidity in the early 1990s, her research focused on men.

Many of the study participants, he says, came from gay support groups, mostly male members, so the men were “easier for researchers to find.”

Why more women identify as sexually fluid than men

But Diamond wanted to inquire about women’s sexuality.

Thus began an investigation that lasted a decade and for which he asked 100 women every two years about their sexual orientation and behavior.

>Her book, “Sexual Fluency: Understanding Women’s Love and Desire,” was published in 2008.

In it he discusses how, for some women, love and attraction are fluid and can change over time.

This was at odds with the earlier line of thinking that described sexual orientation as rigid, a view that was arrived at from studies that had been conducted looking only at men.

Coinciding with the publication of the book, several famous Americans who until then had dated men, such as Cynthia Nixon and Maria Bello, made public your experience of same-sex attraction.

Star host Oprah Winfrey then asked Diamond to come on her show to talk about female sexual fluidity.

The concept and the practice had officially entered the general dialogue.

Likewise, Turning points out that language has evolved to recognize women as sexually non-binary.

For example, Turning says his lesbian partner belonged to a “gay heterosexual alliance (AGH)” at his high school, circa 2007.

That expression fostered the binary – the members were gay or straight, with no real options for those who might have identified somewhere in between, and it also didn’t contain any terms that specifically referred to female sexuality.

“Now, it’s like everyone has the option to identify themselves as queer, because it is widely accepted, “says Turning, who claims that the terminology has evolved to include people of all genders, including women.

What is the future of sexual fluidity?

Sexual fluidity may be on its way to entering more masculine spaces.

On TikTok he has become popular with young straight men pretending to be gay in his videos.

His followers, mostly women, enjoy it, according to an article by The New York Times on trend.

Regardless of whether these creators are really comfortable playing as queer or they do it to gain clicks, this trend suggests a shift in attitudes towards masculinity, which may pave the way for more men to embrace sexual fluidity in the future.

Sexually fluid women can also help pave the way.

More women talking openly about their fluent orientations means that more people will generally be arguing about alternatives to rigid sexuality.

“Our culture is very ashamed of sexuality,” says Diamond.

So, “anything that makes it easier and socially acceptable for people to reflect on desire without entering into judgment or being ashamed of it,” he adds, has the potential to get them to open up to the different possibilities or, at least, that consider the idea of ​​doing so.

“We must start freeing men from compulsory heterosexuality [y] traditional masculinity, “adds Massey.

“It may have a different, or maybe the same, result (than it did with women) in terms of allowing for more diversity in sexuality.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Effects of gender discrimination on health

by Zawn Villines

Gender discrimination has a significant impact on mental and physical health worldwide. It can limit peoples’ access to healthcare, increase rates of ill health, and lower life expectancy.

While it is true that women live longer than men on average, they experience higher rates of ill health during their lifetimes. It is likely that gender discrimination and inequity contribute to this.

In this article, we look at what gender discrimination is and include specific examples. We then explore the effects of this discrimination on mental health, physical health, and healthcare.

Sex and gender exist on spectrums. This article will use the terms “male,” “female,” or both to refer to sex assigned at birth. Click here to learn more.

Gender discrimination is any action that excludes or disadvantages people based on their gender. It includes actions that are deliberately unfair and actions that are unintentionally unfair.

Gender discrimination is fueled by sexism, which is prejudice based on sex or gender. In most countries, sexism devalues women and femininity and privileges men and masculinity.

Because gender relates to how someone feels, rather than their biological characteristics, anyone who identifies with a gender that their society deems less valuable can experience gender discrimination. This includes trans and other gender-expansive people.

Gender discrimination can take place in person-to-person interactions, as well as at an institutional or state level. It can occur:

  • In the workplace: Deciding not to hire or promote someone, treating employees differently, or paying them less based on their gender are all examples of workplace discrimination. Peers can participate by excluding women colleagues from important meetings, for example.
  • In schools: Preventing or discouraging girls and young women from participating in traditionally male-dominated fields, such as science, math, and sports, is an example of gender discrimination. Schools may also enforce gendered dress codes, punish those who do not conform to gender norms, or fail to punish bad behavior on the basis that “Boys will be boys.”
  • In relationships: People who prevent their partners from doing things on the basis of their gender are also acting in a discriminatory way. This might include stopping women from working, managing their money, and driving, for example.
  • In public: Sexual harassment and catcalling are unwanted, and they are forms of discrimination. These behaviors can make people feel unsafe, and they can restrict how people use public spaces. This limits a person’s freedom.
  • In institutions: Organizations, governments, and legal and healthcare systems can enact policies that discriminate against certain genders, either intentionally or unintentionally. Examples include laws that allow gender-based violence to thrive, that punish people for expressing their gender, or that disadvantage certain groups financially.

It is important to understand that discrimination based on gender can be coupled with discrimination based on race, class, disability, and sexuality.

Gender discrimination is a source of stress, and like any other stressor, it can directly affect mental health.

Research from 2020Trusted Sourcerefers to a study in which women who reported experiencing gender discrimination in the past 12 months scored more highly than others on a depression screening tool.

Depending on the situation, facing discrimination can also result in anxiety and psychological trauma.

The authors of the research paper argue that discrimination plays a key role in the “gender gap” in rates of mental illness. Women experience higher rates of most mental health conditions, including:

Women are also 1.5 times more likely to attempt suicide than men, although men are more likely to die by suicide.

For people assigned female at birth, biological factors may play a role in these differences. However, studies have found fewer gender differences in the rates of mental illness in societies with more equality among men and women. This suggests that inequity and discrimination play a major role in these disparities.

As the World Health Organization (WHO) notes, gender inequality is also a risk factor for gender-based violence.

Thirty percentTrusted Source of women worldwide have experienced physical or sexual violence at some point in their lives. The rate is higher, 47%, among trans people, and even higher among trans people of color and those who have done sex work, experienced homelessness, or have a current or past disability.

Experiencing any type of abuse or assault can lead to a mental health condition, as well as further complications that are traumatic in themselves. For example, if a person survives sexual assault, they may become pregnant, contract a sexually transmitted infection, or become excluded from their community.

Illness

Some research suggests that experiencing discrimination is correlated with worse physical health.

For example, a 2018 study found that women who experience discrimination at work are more likely to report ill physical health, and particularly women who have experienced sexual harassment.

Stress from any source can also contribute to many chronic conditions, including chronic pain, high blood pressure, and diabetes.

Less healthy living conditions

Gender discrimination can also lead to a person having worse living conditions and less access to the things that they need to survive and thrive.

For example, in the United States, the gender pay gap means that women earn less than men overall — even when performing the same jobs. The pay gap is wider for women of color.

Women also have higher levels of student debt, lower savings in retirement, and higher rates of poverty, in comparison to men.

Not only does this cause more stress, it also reduces a person’s ability to afford fresh food, safe housing, and health insurance. This results in health inequity — avoidable and unfair differences in the health of marginalized groups, compared with privileged ones.

Injury and death

Discrimination in the form of violence also directly impacts health. Female genital mutilation (FGM) is just one example of this.

FGM is unnecessary surgery to remove part or all of the genitalia of young females, who are typically younger than 15Trusted Source. Communities that practice FGM may believe that it will make girls more pure and suitable for marriage, and less likely to have extramarital sex.

People who survive the procedure can experience severe pain, bleeding, infections, and lifelong sexual health problems. Some die as a result of complications.

Gender discrimination has a profound effect on healthcare, reducing the speed, accuracy, and quality of treatment. It affects diagnosis and treatment in many ways, including:

  • Dismissal of symptoms: According to a 2018 reviewTrusted Source, doctors are more likely to view women’s chronic pain as psychological, exaggerated, or even made up, in comparison with men’s pain. This can leave people without support or treatment.
  • Incorrect or delayed diagnoses: Prejudices about gender can result in people getting incorrect diagnoses or having to wait for years for any diagnosis. For example, a 2020 articleTrusted Source found that it takes doctors 6.5 months longer to diagnose moderate hemophilia in females than in males, and 39 months longer to diagnose severe hemophilia. This is despite the fact that females are more likelyTrusted Source to notice symptoms of bleeding disorders, such as hemophilia.
  • Withholding care: Research from 2017Trusted Source found that doctors routinely deny cis women access to birth control until they undergo annual pap smears. This form of manipulation is unethical and harmful, as it denies a person the ability to choose what happens to their body when.
  • Obstetric violence: This involves forcing medical interventions onto a person who is giving birth, without their consent. The term also refers to verbal and physical abuse during labor. A 2019 studyTrusted Source found that out of 2,016 observed births taking place in Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea, and Myanmar, 41.6% of women experienced obstetric violence or abuse.

Gender discrimination also affects healthcare workers, the majorityTrusted Source of whom are women. For example, a 2019 reportTrusted Source on the British Medical Association found that the organization engaged in widespread discrimination against women, including bullying and sexual harassment.

In the face of this discrimination, doctors who are women are just as capable as doctors who are men. A 2017 study, for example, found that patients of female surgeons were 4%Trusted Source less likely to die within 30 days of a procedure, compared with patients of male surgeons. Each patient in the study had undergone one of 25 types of surgery.

Sexism reduces the health and well-being of everyone. If a person experiences discrimination and this damages their health, it has a knock-on effect on their family, friends, and the wider community.

A 2017 report notes that gender inequality contributes to unemployment and poverty among women and has adverse effects on child health and development.

Indirectly, sexism also harms men. The need to live up to masculine stereotypes can result in men not seeking medical helpTrusted Source when they need it, behaving in ways that damage their health, and becoming involved in violence.

The economic cost of this is huge. Research from 2016 found that institutional gender discrimination costs the global economy $12 trillion, or 16% of the world’s total income.

Research from 2016 found that institutional gender discrimination costs the global economy $12 trillion, or 16% of the world’s total income.

Everyone has a responsibility to learn about and help end gender discrimination — it directly or indirectly harms everyone. People can learn more from:

  • UN Women, a United Nations entity that provides educational resources about the rights of women and girls
  • the WHOTrusted Source, which publishes reports, fact sheets, and articles about the impact of sexism on health
  • Birth Monopoly, Human Rights in Childbirth, and ImprovingBirth.org, which are working to educate about and end obstetric violence
  • SisterSong, which focuses on healthcare and maternal mortality among Black and Indigenous women
  • The Trevor Project, which works to end suicide and provide crisis intervention and other support for LGBTQIA+ youth

The effects of gender discrimination are global. This discrimination harms mental and physical health, leads to poverty, creates and enforces cycles of abuse and violence, and restricts access to healthcare.

Anyone can counter gender discrimination by learning about its causes, manifestations, and effects — and by taking action to stop it.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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How to Talk to Your Partner About the Orgasm Gap

by Hannah Resnick

Have you ever heard of the orgasm gap? Even if you are familiar with the term, you might not discuss it with your friends or even your partner, but it may still be present in your own sex life — especially if your sexual partners are male. The orgasm gap, also called the pleasure gap, is defined by Psychology Today as “the fact that in heterosexual sexual encounters, men have more orgasms than women.” Though often blamed on an alleged “biological difference,” it’s clear the orgasm gap is a product of our cultural views which prioritize male pleasure over female pleasure. Studies have also shown that women have more orgasms masturbating than with partners, and lesbian women have significantly more orgasms than straight women. This solidifies the fact that there is a huge problem with the way society sees men versus women and not with women’s bodies.

The issue with the orgasm gap is pretty clear: male-attracted women deserve to enjoy sex and orgasm as much as our male partners. But discussing the orgasm gap with a partner can be uncomfortable and even invalidating, especially for those who aren’t used to prioritizing their own pleasure. POPSUGAR spoke to Todd Baratz, a certified sex therapist and licensed mental health counselor, who shared some insight into how exactly we can close the orgasm gaps in relationships — starting with the relationships we have with ourselves.

1. Learn How History, Culture, and Politics Have Fueled Your Understanding of Sexual Pleasure

“Anxiety about prioritizing your pleasure is part of the orgasm gap,” Baratz told POPSUGAR. It reflects shame connected to “what it means to prioritize your pleasure and want more sexually.” Our outdated gender roles play a heavy part in this, as Baratz shared that cisgender women are socialized to believe that their pleasure isn’t as important as their cis male counterparts. “It’s easy to default to the values implied in the orgasm gap,” he said. “So the first thing you want to focus on is understanding yourself, your sexuality, and how politics, history, and culture have shaped it. Then you want to share what you learned about yourself with your partner.”

To really dig into this, reexamine gender and social constructs that you may have been taught growing up — i.e. how you were expected to act in a certain situation; morals you were expected to uphold; things that were thrust upon you by society, pop culture, and politics — and really ask yourself what you want. Breaking free from things you were taught from an early age can be extremely difficult, especially when there can be a lot of shame and guilt associated with sex and owning your sexuality, but taking a step back to reevaluate it is key in understanding your sexual needs.

2. Masturbate

Baratz explained that while there isn’t an order to whether you should talk to your partner or focus on learning what you like first, “it never hurts to know yourself first.” So if you don’t already masturbate, Baratz advises you to start! (If you haven’t masturbated a lot in the past and feel intimidated, check out our best tips for getting the job done.) Plus, if you do choose to focus on yourself first before bringing the issue to your partner, you can also immediately bring up specific things you like in order to enhance and prioritize your pleasure going forward.

“Talking about sex — no matter what the issue — is important if you want to experience arousal, pleasure, and an orgasm. Period,” Baratz said. “Start talking about sex right from the beginning of your relationship. And if you haven’t — start now! It’s never too late.” Making this a habit will ensure you and your partner are both on the same page and getting what you want.

4. Push Through the Discomfort of Discussing Your Pleasure

Number three is much easier said than done, right? It’s normal to feel weird about talking about pleasure with your partner if you’ve never done it before! How do you even bring it up? What do you say? “You [might] feel anxious or uncomfortable if you’ve never talked about sex or your pleasure openly,” Baratz explained. “Push through it — obviously only if you feel safe to do so. But it does require action, verbal communication, and some level of risk.” Only you can voice your needs.

5. Let Go of Myths About How You Should Orgasm

“You don’t have to come at the same time as your partner,” Baratz told POPSUGAR. “You can [also] use your own hands — your partner doesn’t need to be the one to get you off. Focus on bringing the exact same movements, rhythms, and types of touch that you employ during masturbation to partnered sex.” Basically, forget about those perfectly rehearsed movie sex scenes where the couple orgasms at the exact same time. That’s now how things are in real life, so experiment, explore, and learn what works for you.

Getting to know your body and having ongoing communication with your partner(s) is the ultimate way to close the pleasure gap. “You can work on teaching your partner and yourself all at once, but it has to start somewhere,” Baratz said, adding that, above all, the most important aspect in all of this is to “make sure you are with a partner who is safe and caring.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Why single people smell different

There is a wealth of psychological and biological information stored in our scent, but for some reason we choose to ignore it.

By William Park

King Louis XIV of France was obsessed with fragrance. Cut flowers adorned every room in Versailles, furniture and fountains were sprayed with perfume and visitors were even doused before entering the palace. Whether it was because his personal hygiene was not up to the standards we might expect today, or he just enjoyed playing with scent, Louis understood that smell is important.

Our body odour can reveal details about our health, like the presence of diseases (cholera smells sweet and acute diabetes like rotten apples). “It can also reveal information about our diet,” says Mehmet Mahmut, an olfaction and odour psychologist at Macquarie University, Australia. “There are a couple of studies that kind of contradict, but my group found that the more meat you consume the more pleasant your BO smells.”

Men find women’s body odour more pleasant and attractive during the follicular phase of the menstrual cycle, when women are most fertile, and least pleasant and attractive during menstruation. This might have been useful for our ancient ancestors to detect good candidates for reproduction, suggest the authors of that paper. Men’s testosterone levels might improve their scent, too.

While it can change depending on our diet and health, a lot of what makes our smell unique is determined by our genetics. Our body odour is specific enough, and our sense of smell accurate enough, that people can pair the sweaty T-shirts of identical twins from a group of strangers’ T-shirts. Identical twin body odour is so similar that matchers in this experiment even mistook duplicate T-shirts from the same individual as two twin T-shirts.

“This is important because it shows that genes influence how we smell,” says Agnieszka Sorokowska, a psychologist and expert in human olfaction at the University of Wroclaw, Poland, “so, we might be able to detect genetic information about other people by smelling them.”

Collectively we spend billions of dollars trying to change or disguise our natural body odour with perfumes and fragrances (Credit: Michal Bialozej)
Collectively we spend billions of dollars trying to change or disguise our natural body odour with perfumes and fragrances

Your HLA profile is very likely to be different to everyone else you meet – though some people, like your close relatives, will be more similar to you than others. From a genetic point of view, it is an advantage to have a child with someone who has a dissimilar HLA profile. “If you have a partner who is genetically dissimilar in BO and immune profile, then your children will have a better resistance to pathogens,” says Sorokowska.

These women put the T-shirts worn by men with the most dissimilar HLA profile first and last the most similar. So they were able to identify the men, and preferred the men, with the best match in terms of immune system genetics. They didn’t know that was what they were doing, of course – it was subconscious.

The specific mechanism that causes HLA-dissimilarity to result in a better-smelling BO is not known, says Sorokowska. “But it is thought that HLA results in the production of certain substances that are digested by our skin bacteria that produce a certain odour.”

Do humans use genetic information hidden in body odour to choose their partners? It would seem not. In a study of almost 3,700 married couples, the likelihood of people ending up with a HLA-dissimilar partner was no different to chance. We might have a preference for certain smells, and there might be a genetic reason for that, but we don’t act upon smells when choosing who we marry.

“But even though HLA does not influence choices, it influences sexual wellbeing,” says Sorokowska. People with congenital anosmia (the loss of their sense of smell) have poorer relationship outcomes, suggests Mahmut in a study with Ilona Croy at the University of Dresden, Germany.

Many of the experiments on body odour ask women to rank the t-shirts worn by men, and sometimes even their own husbands (Credit: Michal Bialozej)
Many of the experiments on body odour ask women to rank the t-shirts worn by men, and sometimes even their own husbands

Couples who had high HLA-dissimilarity – which presumably happened by chance – had the highest levels of sexual satisfaction and the highest levels of desire to have children.

This link was more strongly seen in women. Women partnered with HLA-similar men reported more sexual dissatisfaction and lower desire to have children. Though when evidence from multiple studies is taken into account, the effect might not be conclusive. 

To evolutionary biologists the emphasis on female choice makes sense. In nature, females tend to choose males, as it is the mother who invests the most in raising children and therefore has the most to lose by mating with a genetically inferior male. The female must be discerning in her choice, so looks for clues as to a male’s quality. This is why males are often colourful, perform dances, sing songs or offer gifts in nature – they have to prove their genetic quality.

The link between BO preference and genes spurred a fashion for T-shirt speed-dating and even “mail odour” services. But the evidence to support the idea we can make good dating decisions based on smell is unclear. We might say we prefer something, but in practice it would appear we do not make choices based on that preference. Why not?

One reason might be that real-life scenarios are too complex to use scent information accurately. Our other senses can distort the information we take in from smell. Based on body odour alone, we can make accurate assessments of other people’s neuroticism. But when shown a photo of that person alongside a sample of their BO “they got confused”, becoming less accurate, says Sorokowska. “And we are not able to rate neuroticism from faces alone.” She says that BO is more accurate for judging neuroticism, but faces are easier, and often we just do what is easiest.

In another study, married women brought in their husbands’ T-shirts and single women brought in a platonic friend’s T-shirt and these were mixed up with more T-shirts from random men.

“Did partnered women end up with someone whose BO they preferred to others?” says Mahmut. “Not necessarily. There was no overwhelming evidence they put their partner at number one.” In this case, the women had not chosen a husband who had the BO that smelled best to them.

In a separate study by Mahmut, strangers’ BO also smelled stronger than married men’s BO. He speculates that this might be because “there’s some evidence of a correlation between high testosterone levels and stronger BO. We know there is an association between a reduction in testosterone and getting older, which might be due to the things going on in a married man’s life as he gets over 40 – prioritising children and things like that. Men who are in relationships, and more so those that have had children, have lower testosterone.

Men can find women's body odour more attractive at key points in their menstrual cycle (Credit: Michal Bialozej)
Men can find women’s body odour more attractive at key points in their menstrual cycle

So, we know that we give off information about our reproductive quality in our BO, and we know that we can detect it, but we don’t act on it. Should we?

“If your sole interest is finding a partner with good genes, then perhaps you should pay attention to their smell,” says Sorokowska. “But for most people that is not the most important thing, and most people don’t do it.”

Mahmut agrees: “The usefulness of scent has somewhat decreased. We spent tens of thousands of years disguising what we smell like.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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9 benefits of masturbation

— why masturbating is good for you

Is masturbating good for you? A sex therapist explains 9 reasons to give yourself an orgasm in the name of self-care.

by Mia Sabat

Masturbation and self-exploration are natural components of human nature. Not only is masturbating pleasurable, but it helps us look after our minds and bodies while better understanding our sexuality. In addition to helping you get to know yourself better, it can also help improve your sexual relationships overall, by giving you the power to articulate exactly what you want when with a partner.

We spoke to sex therapist Mia Sabat at Emjoy, the sexual wellbeing audio app for women, about the health benefits of masturbation.

Is masturbation good for you?

Consider masturbation self-care – it’s a term that implies attending to your personal needs, and attending to your body without feeling guilt or remorse. Why shouldn’t masturbation fall into this self-care category? Masturbation is enjoyable, it enables people to take care of themselves in ways many other self-care rituals don’t, and it brings a wide range of positive side effects and health benefits that can improve people’s daily lives. Plus, it’s free! If you want to masturbate, and are curious to discover more about you and your sexuality, then masturbation can only be beneficial to your mind and body.

Am I masturbating too much?

Masturbating as often as we want is not a problem, unless it ends up being an obsession. If the need to masturbate is constant and we stop doing our usual daily activities to do it or if we can’t control it and end up practicing it in inappropriate places, then there is a problem.

Additionally, if we still do it, despite having irritated or broken skin in the genital region, we should consider seeking support.

Masturbating as often as we want is not a problem, unless it ends up being an obsession.

Many times an addiction can occur because, by masturbating, we release complex chemicals, the most important of which is dopamine. Dopamine is associated with a strong feeling of well-being and it is this feeling that often causes people to become addicted to masturbation. If you fear that you are in this situation, you should visit a sex therapist or your GP.

Health benefits of masturbation

Masturbation releases endorphins

Masturbation offers a wealth of both mental and physical health benefits. One of the best benefits of masturbation is that it comes with the release of endorphins, which are hormones that promote wellbeing and boost your mood.

Masturbation helps to relieve stress and reduce pain

Masturbation further helps your body to combat stress and even reduce, if not relieve, pain. With women, for example, the contractions and endorphins released during the climax can help reduce menstrual pain, with some studies even finding that orgasms effectively reduce migraines and headaches – talk about a natural pain reliever!

female orgasm

Masturbation boosts your immune system

In addition, more and more studies and research are concluding that masturbation and sexual stimulation benefit your overall health: alongside stress reduction, masturbating improves the immune system, helps to exercise the pelvic floor, and helps to improve sleep.

Masturbation helps us connect with ourselves

One of the most important, and often overlooked benefits of masturbation, is that self-pleasure allows us to connect with ourselves. Masturbation gives people the opportunity to understand their bodies, their reactions, and their sexuality, so they can try out new habits and ways to touch themselves when alone. This is crucial because when individuals get to know their bodies better, they are better able to communicate their needs and preferences, which allows them to engage in a more fulfilling sexual experience, both with their partners, and with themselves.

Masturbation gives you a greater understanding of your wants and needs

Masturbation helps us better understand our sexual wants and needs. The more we listen to our body, the more we will appreciate it, boosting our self-esteem and increasing our feelings of desire.

Masturbation increases libido

Both sex and arousal are born in the brain. The more we experience pleasure, the more we want, because we think more about it. When we haven’t had sex for a while, most of the time we don’t even think about it. One of the biggest queries and concerns is the loss of desire or not reaching orgasm: well, without any doubt, masturbation is one of the keys to changing this. But remember: the important thing is to connect with ourselves.

Masturbation can strengthen your anatomy

Masturbation and pleasure should be enjoyed. It should not be an obligation or feel stressful. In addition to the many mental health benefits, masturbation also helps to maintain the elasticity of the vulva and the vagina’s muscles and tissues.

Masturbation improves body confidence

Learning to appreciate and understand the beauty of our bodies is a very powerful thing. Realising that we can make ourselves feel good can help us accept, appreciate and love the amazing body that we have been given, consequently helping us to be kinder to ourselves.

oral sex and stis sexually transmitted diseases

Masturbation can boost our happiness and overall wellbeing

The more you enjoy masturbation, the more you want to do it. This happens because the brain’s reward centre is activated by pleasure and causes us to release hormones that make us feel happy, like serotonin or endorphins, for example. Many people mistakenly think that masturbation is a substitute for sex and it is not. Masturbation is a necessary and rewarding sexual practice, for those that choose to find happiness in that way.

Can masturbation cause a decrease in sexual sensitivity?

Definitely not. It is easy to understand if we take a parallel example: when we are in a jacuzzi, the jets of water put pressure on our skin. We may be numb for a little while after, but that does not make us lose sensitivity in that area forever. Exactly the same thing happens when you masturbate, either with your hands or using a toy.

What can occur is that we create an easy routine to climax and get used to it, as a habit, and then when we want to change the way we experience our pleasure, it can be difficult for our bodies and we get a bit nervous. But it is not because of the loss of sensitivity. The idea of ​​losing sensitivity is a myth, and it is very important that this myth is dispelled.

masturbation health benefits

Can masturbation help ease anxiety during lockdown?

The answer is very personal. Each of us manages our emotions very differently, and the same thing happens with our sexuality. During this period of lockdown, three scenarios are happening: people have completely lost interest in sex, people have an increased interest in sex, some have felt no difference. And I would add that this can fluctuate. We must understand that this situation is new, we don’t know how to behave and that there is not a personal care guide to what we are experiencing.

Three scenarios are happening: people have completely lost interest in sex, people have an increased interest in sex, some have felt no difference.

For this reason, although I do believe that this period of lockdown presents a great opportunity for use to be attentive to our bodies, we must also understand that there may be fluctuations and that not everyone is experiencing the same thing. If you feel like masturbating at the moment, now is as good a time as any. It can lower our anxiety levels, and allow us to sleep better, but only if our bodies and minds feel open to the experience. Never force it. If you are able to reach climax, though, an orgasm can help to dissipate emotional and physical tension, helping you to feel more at ease.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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If You Ignore Porn, You Aren’t Teaching Sex Ed

By Peggy Orenstein

Parents often say that if they try to have the sex talk with their teens, the kids plug their ears and hum or run screaming from the room. But late last month, those roles were reversed: After a workshop for high school juniors at the Columbia Grammar & Preparatory School promoting critical thinking about online pornography, it was parents who flipped out. Some took to the media — The New York Post, Fox News, The Federalist and other like-minded outlets jumped on the story — accusing the school of indoctrinating children.

While I don’t know the precise content of that presentation, I can say this: Refusing to discuss sexually explicit media, which is more accessible to minors than at any other time in history, won’t make it go away. As far back as 2008 — basically the Pleistocene era in internet terms — a study found that more than 90 percent of boys and close to two-thirds of girls had viewed online pornography before turning 18, whether intentionally or involuntarily.

I’ve been interviewing teenagers about their attitudes and expectations of sex for over a decade. When talking to boys, in particular, I’ve never asked whether they’ve watched porn — that would shoot my credibility to hell. Instead, I ask when they first saw it. Most say right around the onset of puberty. They not only learned to masturbate in tandem with its images but also can’t conceive of doing it any other way. “I have a friend who was a legend among the crew team,” a high school senior told me. “He said that he’d stopped using porn completely. He said, ‘I just close my eyes and use my imagination.’ We were like, ‘Whoa! How does he do that?’”

Curiosity about sex and masturbation is natural: good for girls, boys and everyone beyond those designations. And I am talking about children here, many of whom have yet to have a first kiss; adult porn use is a different conversation. One could also debate the potential for sexual liberation of ethically produced porn, queer porn or feminist porn, but those sites are typically behind a pay wall, and most teenagers don’t have their own credit cards.

The free content most readily available to minors tends to show sex as something men do to rather than with women. It often portrays female pleasure as a performance for male satisfaction, shows wildly unrealistic bodies, is indifferent to consent (sometimes in its actual production) and flirts with incest.

The clips can also skew toward the hostile. In a 2020 analysis of more than 4,000 heterosexual scenes on Pornhub and Xvideos, 45 percent and 35 percent, respectively, contained aggression, almost exclusively directed at women. Black women have been found to be the targets of such aggression more frequently than white women, and Black men are more likely than white men to be depicted as aggressors. In other words, teens are being served a heaping helping of racism with their eroticized misogyny.

Boys I interview typically assure me that they know the difference between fantasy and reality. Maybe. But that’s the response people give to any suggestion of media influence. You don’t need a Ph.D. in psych to know that what we consume shapes our thoughts and behavior even — maybe especially — when we believe it doesn’t. Any troll with a Facebook account could tell you that.

It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that adolescents who frequently use porn turn out to be more likely than others to believe its images are realistic. They’re also more likely to try out some of its dangerous moves like choking a partner during sex (a potentially lethal behavior), which, like heterosexual anal intercourse, appears to have been on the rise among adolescents.

Among college men, pornography use has been associated with seeing women as disposable and, for both sexes, a stronger belief in rape myths — such as that a woman “asked for it” because of what she wore or how much she drank. The combination of exposure and perception of porn’s accuracy has also been associated with an increased risk of sexual aggression, which was defined as pressuring someone into intercourse who has already refused.

To be fair, though, mainstream media use is associated with many of the same beliefs and behaviors, so even if you could block all the triple-X sites on the internet (and good luck with that), it wouldn’t be enough. Nor am I suggesting that viewing porn will turn a tenderhearted teen violent, though it could validate existing impulses among some.

Parents tend to underestimate their children’s consumption of explicit content, perhaps because the only thing ickier than thinking about your mom or dad watching porn is thinking about your daughter or son doing it. So, sorry to be the one to tell you, but teens watch significantly more porn and more-hard-core porn than their same-sex parent. Boys ages 14 to 17 have been found to be at least three times as likely as their fathers to have seen such things as double penetration, gang bangs and facial ejaculation. The differential between girls and their mothers was even higher.

Now consider that a nationally representative study released this year found that among 18-to-24-year-olds, pornography was cited as the source of the “most helpful information about how to have sex” — edging out talking to your partner.

It would seem a little education is indeed in order.

Pornography use is one of the issues teens most wanted to discuss in our conversations, and since I was often the first adult they felt they could talk to candidly about it, they had questions. They wanted to know how real, in fact, what they were seeing was and whether the behavior depicted in video clips — or some version of it — would be expected of them someday. Boys often asked about dose: How much was too much? They wanted to know whether their porn habits would affect their predilections, their desires, their performance, their satisfaction with a partner. Regarding that last concern, the answer may be yes: Frequent porn users (those who watch it once a month or more, a metric that made boys I met either burst out laughing or blanch) may be less happy than others with real-life sex.

“Porn literacy” may sound salacious, and it certainly makes for sensationalist headlines. But like other media literacy courses (including those aimed at reducing teen use of tobacco, drugs and alcohol or offsetting damaging messages about body image), when they’re done right, the aim is to reduce risk, help identify and question the incessant messages that bombard teens, encourage them to hone their values and give them more agency over their experience.

Emily Rothman, a professor of community health sciences at Boston University and the author of the upcoming book “Pornography and Public Health” (for which I provided a jacket quote), found that after taking a nonjudgmental, science-based course that she developed with colleagues, teens were less likely to believe that sexually explicit media was realistic, an easy way to make money or a viable form of sex education. They also better understood the legal implications of sending nudes when underage. And they weren’t more likely to watch porn — that is, just as comprehensive sex education does not prompt sexual activity (in fact, quite the opposite), talking about porn does not appear to motivate teens to seek it out

Adults who balk at such lessons often declare that children’s “innocence” is at stake, but one has to ask who is ultimately protected — and who is harmed — when we censor open discussion of healthy sexuality, bodily autonomy, pornography, sexual harassment and assault. Consider that a week after the Columbia Prep ruckus, parents at the Dalton School, where the same educator was the director of health and wellness, also took to The New York Post to protest an evidence-backed curriculum for first graders that suggested they should have a say in who hugs them and used anatomically correct names for body parts — crucial to preventing abuse.

And earlier in the school year, parents at Greenwich High School in Connecticut petitioned to have an adaptation from my book on boys, sexuality and masculinity removed from the 10th-grade curriculum, claiming it was too graphic. Among other things, I’d quoted the precise sexually degrading language that groups of male high school and college students used to describe their female classmates. Different ostriches, same sand.

Dr. Rothman’s porn literacy curriculum doesn’t include explicit images, though the language can sometimes be direct. Its larger mission is to build healthy relationship skills. “Teens need information about how what mainstream porn shows is not necessarily what is going to work in their sexual and dating relationships,” she told me. “It’s not a how-to manual. So we get them to be more skeptical of what they’re seeing and not accept it at face value.” Without that counterbalance, she added, they may develop expectations about sex that are, at the very least, unhelpful and often hazardous.

Honestly? I’d rather we didn’t have to talk to kids about explicit media, and I wish pornography weren’t, for so many, their first encounter with human sexuality, that it didn’t arrive so early to hijack their imaginations with its proscribed fantasies. But given all that, parents and educators need to work together to help kids develop a critical stance — to help them understand what’s untrue and what’s missing from those images — to ensure that, here in the real world, they proceed with consent, mutual respect and authentic intimacy. Awkward as it may be, we can no longer afford the luxury, or the false comfort, of silence.

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Handling Child Abuse Disclosures

When a child comes to you to talk about abuse they are facing, it is important to listen and act in a way to support the child and keep him or her protected. You have a responsibility to keep children safe.

Types of Disclosure

Disclosures can be direct or indirect. Most likely a disclosure will be indirect, which can mean the child does not share the details of the abuse without being prompted, or does so in a roundabout way. An example of this is, “Sometimes my step‐dad keeps me up at night.” A disclosure can also be disguised, for example: “I have a cousin who is being abused.” In other cases the disclosure can be through hints or gestures, or even through another child “My friend told me…”

The child is hoping that a caring parent or caregiver will get the “hint” they are offering.

Recognize the Clues

It is important to recognize the possible clues so that further questions are asked. Most children who disclose want the abuse to stop. When the disclosure is “missed” they may continue with additional hints, or not.

For many abused children, a class presentation on child abuse prevention is the first time they realize that what happens to them does not happen to everyone. Some children may try to protect the abuser, especially when the abuser is someone they love.

Support the Child

If a child does disclose abuse, never forget how hard it is for him or her to tell someone about abuse. It is hard to hear your child has been abused, and your initial reactions may be to not believe or show shock or horror, but it is important to support the child and help him/her to disclose.

Acknowledge his/her courage in speaking out. If you work with children, have a plan for supporting a child who discloses to you through the reporting period and in the days that follow. Regardless of how the child discloses, recognizing the possibility the child is being abused, believing the child, and discussing the situation with him or her further will, in most cases, bring out further details.

During the Disclosure

  1. Avoid denial. A common reaction to a child’s disclosure is denial. Respect your child by listening to what he/she has to say and taking what your child says seriously. Believe what your child is telling you.
  2. Provide a safe environment. Make sure the setting is confidential and comfortable. Avoid communicating with shock, horror, or fear about anything said, even though what you are hearing is likely shocking and horrifying. Your child may interpret your reaction as you being shocked and horrified by him or her and shut down. The child needs you to be confident and supportive. Speak slowly and maintain a calm demeanor. Tell your child he/she is doing the right thing and that you will do what you can to help them.
  3. Reassure your child. Reassure your child that he/she did nothing wrong and that you believe him/her.
  4. Listen and don’t make assumptions. Listen more than you talk, and avoid advice giving or problem solving. Don’t put words in your child’s mouth or assume you know what he/she means or are going to say. Let your child use language they are comfortable with. Let your child set the pace, don’t rush them.
  5. Do not interrogate. Don’t ask the child a lot of questions, especially leading questions, which means a question in which you provide a possible answer(examples: Did this or that happen? Were you at school? Did your uncle hit you on the leg?). This can be confusing for your child and he/she might shut down. Don’t ask your child for details. This can make it harder for your child to tell you about the abuse.

Listen to the child, letting them explain what happened in his or her own words. Don’t stop your child in the middle of the story to go get someone or do something else. Limit questioning to only the following four questions if the child has not already provided you with the information:

  • What happened?
  • When did it happen?
  • Where did it happen?
  • Who did it?
  • How do you know them? (If the relationship of the abuser is unclear.)
  1. Make no promises. Don’t tell your child that you won’t tell anyone what they tell you. Your child will have fears about what will happen next, so tell your child what you are going to do, what is going to happen next, and who else they will need to talk to. This will help your child feel some control over what happens next within the boundaries of the law.
  2. Document exact quotes. It may be helpful to write down exact quotes of what your child said in case of the involvement of other parties, such as school or child protective services.
  3. Be supportive, not judgmental. Don’t talk negatively. Even though your child may be disclosing terrible things that may have happened at the hands of a family member or friend, the child may still love that person and may only just be beginning to recognize that he/she was being abused. Reassure the child that he/she is not at fault and have done nothing wrong.

Don’t ask questions that imply the child was at fault –

  • Why didn’t you tell me before?
  • What were you doing there?
  • Why didn’t you stop it?
  • What did you do to make this happen?
  • Are you telling the truth?
  1. Have an understanding about abuse and neglect. Know the four kinds of child abuse: physical, emotional, sexual, and neglect.
  2. Report any suspicion of child abuse and neglect. If you suspect that your child or another child is being abused, report it to the proper authorities. When reporting child abuse to the appropriate authorities, it is important to have the following information: what happened, when it happened, where it happened, who did it and their relationship to the child. You will be asked for some identifying information such as your name, address, where you work, and how the child disclosed. All of your identifying information will be kept confidential.

Remember, it is the responsibility of adults to take action and keep children safe.

References

Smith, M. C. (2008). Pre‐professional mandated reporters’ understanding of young children’s eyewitness testimony: Implications for training. Children and Youth Services Review, 30(12), 1355‐1365. doi:DOI: 10.1016/j.childyouth.2008.04.004

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Choosing Everything

— Why Queerness Is Freedom To Me

By Rebecca Woolf

First, I want to give thanks to all the queer people who didn’t have the luxury of being offered opportunities to write essays about their queerness, and certainly not for pay. I recognize that the privilege I have in writing such an essay, specifically about mid-life queer awakening, is because of all the queer activists who refused to be minimized. I honor every person who has a story they cannot tell, and every person who has one, but was refused a platform — or wasn’t ever afforded the decency of having their humanity recognized.

The first time I had sex with a woman I was 38 years old. This is not counting the times I participated in male-gaze-y sexual situations that were so performative I instinctively duck my head as I write this out of cringe.

In other words, when I was younger, I got drunk and felt up my friends in front of dudes sometimes. Because I knew they would think it was hot.

Throughout my early twenties, I was almost always the straight girl in a sea of gays. And while I was always attracted to women, I was also petrified of them. I was so detached sexually at that point in my life that the idea of connecting with a person anything like me — even if only in body — was a paralyzing thought.

Beyond that, from the vantage point of a femme, straight-identifying white woman who had no experience with homophobia save for speaking out against it on behalf of my friends, it felt disingenuous for me to identify as anyone other than this version of myself: straight, but up for experimenting.

If I were to sexually identify my early 20-something self now, though, it would be “imposter.”  I was a woman masquerading as whatever the man I was fucking was turned on by; unable to articulate her own wants and needs and, frankly, unsure of what they even were.

But all of that changed when, after 14 years of marriage, I became single again at 37. What a relief it was to feel as if I could start over. I was my new life partner now, and to her I solemnly swore that the only gaze I would prioritize from now on was my own.

Entering a sort of reclamation phase, I opened myself up to every possible situation that excited me. There would be no labels on any of it. No expectations. Just freedom to move about the cabin without turbulence.

Unbuckled, wandering me.

Heteroflexible was a term I first heard via the sex positive dating app Feeld, and it was one that resonated immediately. It felt peripherally queer. Like strapping training wheels to my bike and exploring a new cul-de-sac. Beyond that, it suggested a sort of indefinability which appealed to the part of me who never wanted to be labeled again.

Sexually and otherwise, it felt like a misrepresentation for me to identify with a community that had been marginalized in a way I never felt I was — friends who had been kicked out of their homes, banished from their churches, spat on, beaten up or worse, all for coming out of the closet.

And as a cis, white, hetero-passing person, who has never struggled in the way so many of my friends have, I have found myself questioning whether or not there was even a need for people like me to come out. I live in Los Angeles after all. Queerness in our community is the norm. I can count how many straight-identifying girlfriends I have on one hand. Straightness comes as more of a surprise, if I’m being honest.

Not that we are, in any way, living in a post-biphobic society. Statistically speaking, bisexual people, specifically those with cis partners are the least likely to come out.

And it wasn’t until recently that it occurred to me that in the same way I claimed to be an imposter in my early-twenties — centering the male gaze as the only gaze that mattered — I found myself similarly centering all queer voices save for the ones I personally identified with: bisexual cis women.

Because we can pass as straight. Because we tend to engage in heteronormative sex. Because because because because because….

It wasn’t until I had my first solo, sexual, no-men-in-the-room experience that I realized, Wait, no, THIS is for me.

This is for me.

At one point I felt as if I’d left my body, so overwhelmed was I by the euphoria of connecting to another woman in a way I never had before.

When it was over, I cried. Beyond the sexual dynamic between women being so profoundly different, I felt like I had been reborn in my own image. The power of experiencing sex without men was overwhelming to me — not because I do not love sex with men but because, up until that point, sexual experiences without men didn’t exist.

It felt a bit like the dreams I sometimes have, where after years of living in the same house, I discover another room that had been there all along. How could I have missed this? Where have I been all my life?

This, of course, led to more experiences, which led to a love affair — my first and also hers — a coming-together so overwhelming I assumed, I would only ever love women after this.

I am done with men! There’s no going back! Cheers to a future with women ONLY.

But it wasn’t true, and months later, I am once again in a relationship with a cis man — one I happen to love very much.

I am now extremely aware of the fluidity of my sexuality, which is not unlike my fluidity when it comes to intimate relationships — the wanting, the needing of an open door. And a partner who not only respects that, but desires the same thing.

Many women who identify as bi, pan, or queer feel like the nuances of having a non-binary sexuality precludes them from being a part of the conversation. When you’re not queer enough to be gay and you’re not straight enough to be straight, your voice tends to come out as a whisper, your experience less validated. Perhaps because we have confused fluidity with fickleness; recognizing our inability to commit to a team without celebrating what that really means.

And even though I was in free-fall, life-altering-first-love with a woman, I found myself doing what I’d been working so hard NOT to do: pushing myself off the side, standing on the periphery, insisting that my experience was inconsequential. Not valid enough. As a person who claimed to be inclusive, why did I have such a hard time including myself?

There’s a conundrum in feeling empowered by new freedoms and unworthy of experiencing sexual relationships that might be unfamiliar: Because so many of us have spent years in traditional relationships, we never had the opportunities to pursue them. It’s not because we haven’t wanted to, but rather because monogamous heteronormative relationships have not allowed us to.

It is because of this that, for many of us, we don’t know where to begin. Additionally, it is not uncommon for women to come into our sexuality later in life, perhaps because we realize how much of it has been wrapped up in performative heteronormativity. We are told our early experiences were just a phase (Oh, her? That was just her “experimenting” in college) while also struggling with our own internalized monosexism, which suggests exclusive heterosexuality and/or homosexuality is superior or more legitimate because it’s specific. This is not to mention the various forms of biphobia claiming that women are only attracted to other women because of the trauma we’ve experienced with men.

And, because we are so conditioned to get specific — to pick a team — we still feel, even in 2021, that wanting sexual relationships with people of different genders, often simultaneously, makes us indecisive when in reality, many of us, after years of struggling, have finally arrived as our whole selves.

It makes sense if you think about how our culture is so obsessed not only with binaries, but also with choosing one thing. We don’t think twice about asking our children what their favorite color is. Or asking our date about their favorite film. We want so badly for people to choose, to be decisive about one person or one gender or one sexual orientation. And then we get confused when The One isn’t enough, when we realize we don’t work that way.

Queerness isn’t just about sexuality and gender. It’s also about embracing healthy lifestyles that do not fit into a white, patriarchal, heteronormative box. This goes beyond intimate partnerships and intersects with inclusion of all people who deserve love, autonomy, pleasure, and joy.

And isn’t that the whole point of Pride? To pull at the seams of limitation so that everyone, regardless of their past experiences, can pour through the ever-expanding opening? So that all humans — regardless of gender expression or sexual orientation — can experience such moments of intense realization without the fear of repercussions? I want everyone who feels similarly to be able to explore their feelings unencumbered, to experience the euphoria of connection without obstruction.

I have long made an effort to center those who have always identified as queer. But, as a way to understand how to include myself — while also being mindful of the many privileges I possess as someone who has never had to fight against anyone else’s bias to love who I love — I have also spent this time embracing my own version of heteronormative defiance. It’s one that is personal to me, and no one else. It’s a reminder to myself that a person’s truth is theirs to experience, define, and prioritize — not on the periphery of other people’s experience, but to center as our own.

All of this is why, in the end, I knocked the heteroflexible from my dating bio and replaced it with queer.

It is a beautiful thing to stay open. To liberate ourselves from all gazes beyond our own. That’s queerness to me. It’s about embracing the nuances of sexuality and gender and defining ourselves as indefinable. It’s about allowing ourselves to trust our bodies, to listen to our own wants and needs — especially as women and mothers who have centered everyone else’s for so long, only to wake up and realize we have never even asked ourselves what we want out of love — out of sex; out of connection.

And, as we collectively celebrate Pride this month, no matter where we are in our journey and what it took to get to queerness, may we remember that Pride was always a protest against the puritanical fear of queer liberation, acceptance and joy. It has always been a celebration of freedom to live and love and fuck with abandon, in bodies that are worthy of uninhibited truth — filtered through no one’s gaze but our own.

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7 Ways to Reset Your Relationship

Experts say couples can emerge from the pandemic stronger than ever by learning from the past and looking toward the future.

By Jancee Dunn

As we emerge, blinking, from our pandemic seclusion, all of us have, in ways great and small, changed. So, too, have our relationships.

“During this time, couples may have been spending about as much time with each other as would normally be stretched across a two to three year period,” said Bryce Doehne, a clinical psychologist in Portland, Ore. “And they’ve had to occupy multiple roles that would have been previously filled by others, like friends, which is impossible.”

Now, as many couples plunge back into the hum of life, is a perfect opportunity for a relationship reset — to learn from our time hunkering down together and look toward the future.

Here is a seven-point plan to get started.

Do a relationship review.

First, have a sit-down together to assess what worked about your relationship — and didn’t — during quarantine, said Christiana Ibilola Awosan, a therapist in New York City. In order to make positive changes going forward, start by sharing with your partner what you learned about yourself during the pandemic, she recommended.

Then, Dr. Awosan said, consider using these prompts to continue the conversation: What did the pandemic show us about our relationship? What do we want to keep going forward? What do we want to discard? What has surprised you about me during this pandemic?

“Sometimes we tend to focus on what annoyed us about our partner, but there might be some good things that surprised you, like a strength you didn’t realize they had,” she said.

Voice your appreciation.

Perhaps over the past year, you haven’t felt like giving compliments to your partner — but positive feedback is important, according to a nearly three-decade study of marriage and divorce by Terri Orbuch, a research professor at the University of Michigan and a sociology professor at Oakland University. One of her divorced subjects’ biggest regrets was that they had not given their mate more “affective affirmation,” or encouragement and support in the form of words or thoughtful gestures. That includes compliments like: “You’re a great parent.” Dr. Orbuch has called the neglect of these simple acts “an overlooked relationship-killer.”

You know that fleeting moment when a burst of affection or attraction for your partner flits through your mind? “Don’t just think it,” said Don Cole, a licensed marriage therapist and clinical director of the Gottman Institute in Seattle. “It should not ‘go without saying.’”

“Many of us believe our partners should know that we love them, especially after being together for years,” he said. But research at the Gottman Institute, the renowned laboratory for the study of relationships, found that the most successful couples regularly “opened their mouths and actually spoke their words of love and respect and admiration.”

Those words are even more meaningful, Dr. Cole said, when you are specific. “My wife’s a trained soprano and I told her, ‘Yesterday you were walking around straightening up the house and singing, and I got a thrill down my back when I heard it,’” he said.

Why does specificity matter? Saying “you’re thoughtful” is nice, Dr. Cole said, “but when your partner tells a positive story where you demonstrated your thoughtfulness, that makes you more likely to hold that, to cherish it, to make you feel good about it.”

Build in time apart.

Make sure that each partner builds some alone time into their day, even if it’s a short walk. Liad Uziel, a senior lecturer in the psychology department at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, said that solo time and being with others “both shape our character from different perspectives.”

When we’re alone, Dr. Uziel said, “external pressure is reduced, we are often more in control of events and we can manage our time more freely.” Alone time, he said, is also important for what is called “identity consolidation,” in which one thinks of the past to process events, and the future to set goals.

In our relationships, taking time alone “offers a greater opportunity for each partner to develop their personal identity independently, which they can then bring to their relationship and strengthen it,” Dr. Uziel said.

Take time to connect.

Having less sex these days? It’s not just you. A recent online survey of 1,559 adults about their intimate lives by the Kinsey Institute at Indiana University revealed that over 43 percent of participants reported a decline in the quality of their sex lives since the pandemic began.

A sexual dry spell is no surprise, given that the pandemic’s stress and uncertainty were “libido killers,” said Shannon Chavez, a therapist in Los Angeles. If you need a nudge to get back in the game, she said, think of sexual connection “as a form of self-care, which is anything you do to take care of your overall health and wellbeing.” Prioritizing sex as health, she added, makes it easier to make time for intimacy.

That includes putting it on the schedule. “Scheduling sex can be better for your sex life than it sounds,” Dr. Chavez said. “People fear it takes the excitement out of it, but if anything, it adds anticipation by planning, and isn’t rushed or put on the back burner.”

Why not aim for sex once a week? Not only is this an achievable goal, but according to one study of over 25,000 adults, it’s actually optimal. Research published in 2016 in the journal Social Psychology and Personality Science found that weekly sex was ideal for maximum wellbeing. If the respondents, who ranged from 18 to 89, had more than that, their self-reported happiness actually leveled off — and that finding held true for both men and women, and was consistent no matter how long they had been together.

Go to a party.

While we’ve seen plenty of our partners during the past year, what’s been missing, said Kendra Knight, an assistant professor of communication studies at DePaul University, is social gatherings in which you view your partner through the eyes of others. She said that seeing your significant other at an event — dressed up, being witty perhaps — can renew your own attraction.

Our estimation of our partner’s attractiveness, sometimes referred to as “mate value,” she said, “is partially a function of others’ appraisals.” That can range, Dr. Knight said, from physical attractiveness to social attractiveness (if, say, they’re the life of the party) to so-called “task attractiveness” — for example, making a batch of their famous margaritas or crushing a backyard horseshoe game.

Of course, if you or your mate is not ready for big events, or never liked neighborhood block parties in the first place, you might just shoot for dinner with close friends or family. Each of us has our own comfort level about heading out into the wider world after so much isolation. “Check in with each other regularly and share how you feel about stepping out,” Dr. Awosan said. “And work on being kind and patient wherever your partner is at.”

Rediscover your playful side.

The past year and half has been heavy. Now that we’re heading into a summer with far fewer restrictions than the last one, it’s OK to think about bringing some levity back. Being more playful in your relationship can revive that sparkle, according to a review from Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg in Germany.

The study’s lead author, Kay Brauer, a researcher in the psychology department, found that people who scored high in “other-directed playfulness,” or goofing around with others, “might be particularly important for reviving relationships after the long stretches of monotony during quarantine.”

Playful people, he said, tend to share inside jokes, surprise their partner, give them affectionate nicknames or re-enact joint experiences, like your first date or that disastrous time you tried karaoke. Look for opportunities to create inside jokes or act silly, like having your next date at an amusement park. “If there was ever a time to surprise ourselves and our partner with the new and unexpected, it’s now,” Brauer said.

Making plans together, such as for a vacation, a home renovation project, or even just swinging by a new restaurant, activates our brain’s craving for novel experiences, said Dr. Knight, “which in turn can amplify attraction to and interest in our partner.”

It also reinforces your bond, Dr. Awosan said: “Research has shown that when couples work together as a team, their relationship satisfaction and quality increases.”

In the past year and half, “people have lost jobs, lost loved ones, a sense of self,” Dr. Awosan said. “We’ve all lost something.” Planning something to look forward to, together, symbolizes hopefulness and optimism.

“It’s about the future,” she said. “It says, ‘We are moving forward.’”

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How to Talk About Sex With Your LGBTQIA+ Child

“The talk” might need to include some unique information to support your LGBTQ child.

By Lisa Milbrand

The sex talk is one of the rites of passage of parenthood-and one that some parents meet with a bit of trepidation. Even if the topics and questions my daughters approached me with sometimes made me blush, I’ve always presented them with honest information and as many facts as I could muster.

But when one of your kids comes out as LGBTQIA+, that may present a new challenge-especially if you’re a heterosexual person whose school didn’t exactly cover LGBTQ sex back in the day.

If you live in states like New Jersey, Illinois, Oregon, Nevada, Colorado, and California, LGBTQ sexual health is covered as part of the sex ed curriculum. But in many other states, that’s not the case-and a handful of states, including Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Texas, and Michigan have laws that prevent schools from presenting any affirming LGBTQIA+ information.

“The lack of LGBTQIA+ sex education in schools erases those identities from the curriculum and leaves an already vulnerable population without the sexual health information they need and deserve,” says Daniel Rice, executive director of Answer, a national organization that provides inclusive sex education information to students and teachers. “Research has shown that also including non-heterosexual identities in the curriculum can decrease feeling of isolation and depression in LGBTQIA+ youth and can lead to lower instances of homophobia and transphobia in the school community.”

Talking about sex honestly and openly with your kids is the best way to ensure they grow up to have healthy, happy relationships, no matter who they love. Here’s how to make sure your conversations with your child about sex are inclusive and supportive of them.

Start early

“Data indicate that the vast majority of parents never talk to their child about sex-or not until adolescence at the earliest,” says Ritch Savin-Williams, professor emeritus of developmental psychology at Cornell University, and author of The New Gay Teenager. “Even then, it’s usually a discussion from a ‘it’s dangerous’ point of view-‘don’t do this, don’t do that.'”

Starting early gives you a chance to add onto the conversation, starting with body parts and the basics of where babies come from early on to more grownup conversations as they get older.

You don’t have to have all the answers to have the talk

Can’t tell the difference between bisexual and demisexual? Not sure exactly why a lesbian teen should still be encouraged to use protection? Then this conversation can help you both find common ground and become more informed. If a question comes up that you don’t know the answer to, suggest that you and your child look it up together to find information-especially when researching sex terms on the internet can lead to some pretty questionable content really quickly.

Keep it gender neutral

Try to talk in more neutral terms, especially early on-use the word “partner,” for instance, instead of boyfriend/girlfriend or husband/wife. “Try not put it in an assumed heterosexual way-leave the pronouns neutral, describe things from both a girls’ perspective and boys’ perspective in terms of parts,” Savin-Williams says. “Keeping gender neutral is even more important as your child gets to be 10 or 11 or 12, when you might need to really consider that your child could be not straight.”

Be LGBTQIA+ inclusive, even if you think your child is cisgendered and heterosexual

Even if your child has expressed preferences for the opposite sex, providing positive LGBTQIA+ information can help them support friends and classmates who are LGBTQIA+-or feel more comfortable coming out to you if they’ve been hiding that part of themselves.

“One of the most common mistakes parents make when talking about sex is assuming their child is cisgender and heterosexual,” Rice says. “This can lead to many other assumptions, including the types of contraception or protection against STIs that they may need, the pronouns they may identify with, their future plans around marriage and having children, and much more.”

Being inclusive can help ensure that your child doesn’t engage in some risky sexual behaviors without having the information they need to stay safe, and ensures that you aren’t left in the dark.

“Parents sometimes think they’re protecting their child by not talking, but they’re actually putting their kid at greater risk,” Savin-Williams says. “Your child is going to be driven by hormones, curiosity, and their friends. It’s not like kids don’t have access to information-they can Google it, and the Internet becomes the sex educator. You’re not hiding anything from your child.”

Share your values-in an inclusive way

As you talk about sexuality, you might start to delve into your own belief system about sex and relationships. You might have conversations about which types of acts you might want your child to reserve for a committed relationship or marriage, and which might be OK as they start dating.

“Most parents-regardless of their child’s sexual orientation-usually don’t want child to be sexual with anyone until they leave home,” Savin-Williams says. “That kind of a conversation is difficult. As your child approaches adolescence, the parent could say, ‘these are the kinds of activities that are off limits, but these are the kind of activities we could talk about.'”

Don’t out a child who’s not quite ready to come out

Even if you suspect your child may be gender fluid or a member of the LGBTQIA+ community, you shouldn’t assume that-or push for them to share the information with you. “Parents should never pressure their child into coming out or putting a label on their sexual or gender identity,” Rice says. “Each person needs to have control of this process in their life and should get to choose when, who, and how they come out.”

Keep in mind that gender is part of the equation, too

“With this generation, gender has become really important topic of conversation-how comfortable they are in their gender, and what gender feel they are,” Savin-Williams says. “Gender nonconformity or behavior-those kinds of things are visible to parents, so some become frightened by what it means and begin to impose more ‘appropriate’ gender behavior for their child.”

Rather than pushing traditional gender roles or appearance, Savin-Williams recommends just talking with your child. “You might say something like, ‘I noticed you seem to feel comfortable with both genders.'” Then ask what kinds of feedback they get from other people to help open the conversation.

Make sure this isn’t just a one-time-or one-way-conversation

The sex talk isn’t a one-and-done kind of thing. Continuing to talk about it with your child, and to listen to what they have to say, gives you some insight into how they’re feeling and what’s going on with them, and allows you to add more detail and nuance as your child gets older.

Look for opportunities to bring up the topic. “Look for teachable moments in television shows and movies where you can bring up the topic of sexual identity or gender identity,” Rice says. “Open the door to the conversation, then let your child do most of the talking while you listen. If they’re not ready to talk about the issue, that’s OK-don’t pressure them into having the conversation. If they do start sharing their thoughts, it is important to listen in a non-judgmental manner, and after they have shared their thoughts, then share yours.”

Having smaller talks over the course of years ensures that you continue to be a guiding force in your child’s life, as they start navigating the world of romantic and sexual relationships.

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The Porn Crisis That Isn’t

Some states now consider pornography to be a health threat. But stigmatizing porn can do more harm than good.

By Olga Khazan

If you ask some people, America is in the middle of a public-health crisis. No, not that one.

Legislators in 16 states have passed resolutions declaring that pornography, in its ubiquity, constitutes a public-health crisis. The wave of bills started five years ago, with Utah, which went a step further this spring by passing a law mandating that all cellphones and tablets sold in the state block access to pornography by default. (The measure will not go into effect unless five other states pass similar laws, but that’s very possible: Alabama is now considering a similar bill.)

Groups such as the National Center on Sexual Exploitation, an anti-obscenity nonprofit that produced model legislation for the porn-blocking bill and the public-health-crisis bills, argue that pornography increases problematic sexual activity among teens, normalizes violence against women, contributes to sex trafficking, causes problems in intimate relationships, and is “potentially biologically addictive.”

NCOSE seems to have pushed Utah state Senator Todd Weiler to support the public-health-crisis legislation in 2016. “They told me, ‘If you can pass this, we can get this passed in 15 more states. We just need one legislator to stick his neck out,’” Weiler told Governing magazine in 2019. Arizona state Representative Michelle Udall told me that she introduced her state’s public-health-crisis bill in 2019 after hearing from constituents involved with the anti-porn group Fight the New Drug, and that NCOSE gave her a booklet with data and studies on porn. She read that the average age at which children are being exposed to pornography is 11, and she had an 11-year-old at the time. She wanted the resolution “to improve awareness of the issue, especially as we talk about children and their exposure,” she told me.

Content filters that block kids from accessing porn have broad support among public-health experts. But, these same experts say, porn is not a public-health crisis. Though the state-level measures don’t do much beyond “calling for” research and policy changes, they run the risk of stigmatizing adults who watch porn.

Several public-health experts told me they worry that the measures are creating more problems than they solve, by telling people that a small but regular part of their sex life is actually a “crisis.” This stigma will likely disproportionately affect people who already feel ashamed about the porn they watch, but leave relatively unruffled those who embrace porn—even in its most exploitative forms.

That sense of crisis can spur some people who disapprove of porn to commit violence. The man who killed eight people at several spas in Atlanta in March plotted further “similar acts” against “the porn industry,” police said. In April, a mansion owned by the executive of Pornhub, one of the most popular porn sites, burned down in an apparent act of arson.

Whether porn is actually harming the health of adults who watch it is frustratingly hard to determine. Most studies of porn raise questions of correlation and causation: Is someone depressed and lonely because they watch too much porn? Or are depressed, lonely people drawn to porn?

Public-health experts worry that teens, in particular, incorrectly see porn as an instruction guide for having sex. For that reason, researchers, policy makers, and porn stars alike support limiting kids’ access to porn. The best way to do that, and to contextualize whatever they do happen to see, is through a combination of content filters, comprehensive sex education, and conversations about how porn isn’t a realistic view of sex. “You need to instill in your child their own personal brain filters,” Emily Rothman, a health-sciences professor at Boston University, told me.

Porn can be bad for adults too. A small number of adults—roughly 11 percent of men and 3 percent of women—consider themselves somewhat addicted to porn, even though a number of scientists dispute whether “addiction” is an appropriate label for watching lots of porn. Believing that porn is morally “bad” is strongly correlated with feeling like you have an addiction to pornography, regardless of how much porn you actually watch. “The best predictor of self-perceived sexual-use problems, like pornography addiction, is high levels of religiosity,” says Bryant Paul, a media professor at Indiana University and a faculty affiliate of the Kinsey Institute, which studies human sexuality. “It’s a better predictor than actual amounts of use.”

Even setting addiction aside, porn might pose other problems. Some studies have found that watching porn reduces sexual satisfaction, especially for men who watch porn more than once a month. Watching porn is associated with increased aggression in some people, although not in the majority of porn users.

But other studies have found that watching porn can be part of a healthy sex life, especially for sexual minorities, women, and couples. In one study, Taylor Kohut, a psychologist at Western University, in Ontario, found that couples who watched porn together “reported more open sexual communication and greater closeness than those that did not.” Another of his studies found that most partnered people think porn has had “no negative effects” on their relationship, and many also thought that watching porn improved their sexual communication, sexual experimentation, and sexual comfort. “There’s a lot of evidence to suggest that couples that watch porn together, it can improve their sex lives,” says Paul, who wasn’t involved in those studies. If the United States is in a sex recession, pornography could help Americans get back in the black.

Porn might also be helpful for individuals whose sexuality has not always been widely accepted. For LGBTQ people living in conservative areas, watching pornography might be the only sexual experience they’re able to access. One study found that for women, watching porn “was associated with their own and their partner’s higher sexual desire and with higher odds of partnered sexual activity.” In a recent paper arguing that pornography does not qualify as a public-health crisis, Rothman and a colleague write, “For some, pornography use is associated with health-promoting behaviors, including increased intimacy, ‘safer’ sexual behaviors (e.g., solo masturbation), and feelings of acceptance.”

Anti-pornography groups dismiss all of these findings. They say that the porn-positive studies are outliers in a sea of research showing porn’s detrimental effects on relationships.

But here’s the thing: Kohut has observed that in relationships, what seems to matter is that partners have similar opinions about porn. If you both like porn, he suggests, watching it will probably be fine for your sex life. Some couples might even find that they can build intimacy by showing porn to each other, as a way to tell each other what you like. But if only one of you watches porn, and the other hates it, you might encounter relationship tensions like those of couples who fight over marble countertops or in-laws or baby names. The secret to a happy relationship that includes porn, in Kohut’s view, is to find someone who likes it the same amount as you do.

A recent Atlantic/Leger poll of 1,002 Americans largely supported this acceptance of porn. We presented participants with a list of questions about porn, and many of them yawned and said, “So what?” Most Americans have watched porn, according to the poll. But most spend less than 20 minutes a week watching it, and 79 percent of those who watch porn said they don’t feel addicted to it (17 percent of respondents who had watched porn in the past year said they had ever felt like they were addicted to pornography). Only 6 percent of people said they’d begun watching porn when they were younger than 12. Most said that watching porn had no effect on them or their relationships, and 79 percent of those with children said they didn’t struggle to control their children’s access to porn. And just like public-health experts, most respondents—53 percent—said they didn’t think porn was a public-health crisis. Only 25 percent said it was.

Porn makes for an easy target. But legislators focused on labeling it as a public-health crisis should consider what problems they are actually trying to solve. Many researchers and adult-entertainment workers support measures that would reduce kids’ access to porn, ensure that porn videos portray only consenting adults, and mandate fair wages for sex workers. Calling adults’ legal use of pornography a “public-health crisis” doesn’t do any of that.

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