Month: January 2023

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The Victorian Reformers Who Defended Same-Sex Desire

— Confronting severe legal and social sanction, they sought to change the culture. A scholar and a novelist return us to a hinge of history.

To live in the world as they dreamed it could be, sexual dissidents risked everything.

By Nikhil Krishnan

E. M. Forster’s friends tried more than once to persuade him to publish “Maurice.” The novel, which he wrote when he was thirty-five, moldered in a drawer for decades afterward, with a note attached that read, “Publishable. But worth it?” In other words, was it worth the risk to career, friendships, and family for someone with his literary reputation and social standing to publish a novel whose main character was an “unspeakable of the Oscar Wilde sort”? “I am ashamed at shirking publication,” he told Christopher Isherwood, “but the objections are formidable.” One friend put it to him that the French writer André Gide’s memoirs made no secret of his homosexuality. “Gide hasn’t got a mother,” Forster replied ruefully.

He meant, of course, a living mother, to be shocked and anguished by the revelation. But the death of Forster’s mother made no difference. Formidable new objections arose, concerning the risks to the reputation of Bob Buckingham, the manly policeman who was Forster’s almost-lover for many years. As the Freudians have long told us, the real censor isn’t so much the flesh-and-blood mother as the one inside. Meanwhile, cowardice is good at masquerading as prudence or social responsibility or simple kindness. Whatever will the neighbors think? What about the children? And what will it do to poor Mama?

One of the ways in which the internal censor makes itself felt is through the familiar prickings of shame, an experience that has linked gay people across generations. And when moral modernizers, in the late nineteenth century, began to argue that homosexuality was no reason for shame—and when, conversely, the perils of their stance were made clear by the public reaction to the trial of Oscar Wilde—gay writers had to confront another, more complex feeling: shame at feeling ashamed, at being afraid, at being a liar.

Tom Crewe’s début novel, “The New Life” (Scribner), is a genealogy of both kinds of shame, tracing a line back to the first generation of men to seek a way out of these burdens. A Victorian historian by training, Crewe makes it clear that his two principal characters are modelled on real figures. One of them, John Addington, is drawn from the life of John Addington Symonds, an independently wealthy scholar, poet, and critic. Symonds published the first complete translation of Michelangelo’s sonnets, which was based on the original manuscripts and did not evade the fact that many were love poems addressed to a man. He was also among the first to insist that Plato’s celebrations of male-male love were entirely in earnest, and reflected a historical reality of (aristocratic) life in ancient Athens. By the time Crewe’s story begins, in 1894, his Addington is about to take a grave risk, by publishing a book that he knows is bound to occasion scandal.

That book, “Sexual Inversion,” was real; Symonds wrote it with the pioneering sexologist Havelock Ellis, helping him collect the set of anonymized case studies it presented. In Crewe’s novel, a Havelock Ellis-like character appears as Henry Ellis, and ends up playing sense to Addington’s sensibility. Both men are married, not quite happily. Ellis’s wife, Edith, like her historical counterpart, is a “female invert” who maintains an independent household with another woman; Addington’s wife, Catherine, is resigned to the fact that her husband insists on bringing his lovers home, only because she has no power to stop him.

“The New Life” immediately announces the liberties that a novelist enjoys and a historian does not: it opens with a wet dream, in which Addington finds himself wedged intimately against the body of another man in a packed train carriage. When Addington awakens, spent and vaguely ashamed, he apologizes to his wife for the “spill,” a “soft, married word, evoking nothing of its violence, the stuff that was wrenched from him.” “Wrenched from him”: Addington experiences his sexuality, in these moments, as something entirely external, a compulsion, a necessity.

Why else would he dare to let his eyes linger on the bodies of strangers, collecting material for future fantasy from the paltry images that Victorian male dress codes allow him: “the twist of hair on a nape; the way loose collars sometimes showed a glimpse of naked shoulders; the way trousers encircled a waist, brought out its beauty, like a bracelet on a woman’s wrist”? Why else would he risk exposure as a voyeur in arcadia? Watching in open-mouthed wonder the bathers in London’s Serpentine Lake, he sees an almost classical scene: “The dance of light, the sound of water; men in the company of men, nakedness carelessly worn; everything natural, pure.” The men he ogles are, of course, nearly all working class, “their physiques molded and stamped by labor.” Addington idealizes even as he objectifies, seeing in them the possibility of “another kind of life.”

“Another kind of life” hints also at Crewe’s title. The New Life is, among other things, the name of a reformist society to which Henry Ellis and his wife belong. Its historical counterpart, the Fellowship of the New Life, sought to transform society by transforming individual character. In Crewe’s novel, the Society of the New Life is what brings the two together in the first place. For Ellis, who is almost certainly what came to be called “heterosexual,” the topic of nonstandard sexuality is related to the problem of Edith and her possessive female lover; the book he is writing with Addington is a way of trying to understand his wife. There is also what Crewe terms Ellis’s “peculiarity, tickling, warm” (and shared by his historical counterpart): prone to impotence, he is aroused by the spectacle or even the thought of a woman urinating.

Addington lives out, in his own small, somewhat squalid way, his vision of the future. He picks up, or, rather, is picked up by, a man of a lower social class, a Mr. Feaver, who works in a printing shop as a compositor. Open about his sexual desires, Feaver is too comfortable in his own skin to occupy a permanently inferior position in their relationship. Feaver is installed in Addington’s house and is allowed to befriend his daughters; Catherine Addington is left simply to put up with the situation. She must, in her husband’s self-lacerating assessment, be sacrificed “on the altar of his integrity.” If he is to address the world, Addington believes, “he must further shed the disguise it had bid him wear in the years of his quietude.”

The “new life” is not just a vision of liberation. Addington has already known sexual freedom of a sort, in childhood, when the hairy older boys at his boarding school made “tawdry playthings” of younger ones. What Addington wants is a sexuality that belongs within a larger picture of the good and the beautiful, something he gets only from his classical studies: “He read the Symposium; he fell in love with the possibility of love between men, chaste, clean and elevating.” Like Forster’s Maurice a few decades later, he disobeyed his tutors’ injunction to disregard the text’s celebratory portrayal of “the unspeakable vice of the Greeks.” The historical Symonds was the author of the pioneering, though privately printed, pamphlet “A Problem in Greek Ethics,” which made the case for not ignoring the homoerotic parts of Plato’s Symposium. Its companion essay, “A Problem in Modern Ethics,” was—as Shane Butler observes, in “The Passions of John Addington Symonds” (Oxford), a monumental new monograph—“the first to import a recent German coinage into English print, as ‘homosexual.’”

Still, Addington, like his historical model, cannot subsist entirely on Platonic abstractions. Earlier in his life, he found himself paying a soldier to undress for him. Crewe’s laconic monosyllables evoke the full pathos of the situation: “That was all. He sat in a chair and watched him undress; made him stand there, turn about. He lived on it for a year.”

Symonds, with his privilege and filigreed verse, was a very odd type of social prophet, and so is his fictional counterpart. Living half openly with a male lover is one thing. It is quite another to enlist Ellis in producing a book of case studies on “inversion.” Yet Addington’s hopes are high. Such a book might achieve in England what the writings of the German jurist Karl Heinrich Ulrichs—notably the twelve-part study “The Riddle of Man-Manly Love”—did in Germany: set forth a non-pathological language for talking about what Plato had once described, and show, in Addington’s words, that homosexuals “are neither physically, intellectually, nor morally inferior to normally constituted individuals.”

Ulrichs’s scientific sexology provides one model for what needs to be achieved; Walt Whitman’s poetic effusions provide another, offering a vision of homosexuality as what Ellis terms “the normal activity of a healthy nature,” without the old shame at its heart. If the book succeeds, Addington reflects, it might convince at least a few people that the sex instinct can assume “countless forms, all within the range of human possibility, all conducive to happiness.”

Addington is enraged and distressed that the first man to draw widespread attention to his cause is, as he sees it, an unworthy standard-bearer. Like others at the time, he recognizes Oscar Wilde’s stupidity in suing his lover’s father for defamation when Wilde had made it so easy to establish the truth of the supposedly defamatory epithet (“somdomite”). But Addington’s anger goes further: Wilde, in his wantonness, had no standing to “invoke the Greeks in his defense. To drag idealism into it. Shakespeare and Michelangelo. A pure and perfect affection, indeed. The love that dare not speak its name, indeed. He has brought each and every one of us down with him.”

In fact, one of the historical Symonds’s most important achievements was distinguishing that morally neutral predilection “homosexuality” from the tendency with which it was often conflated: “pederasty.” Wilde notoriously blurred the lines in his own conduct, a fact that any attempt to make a gay saint of him must face up to. Crewe’s Addington recoils at seeing Plato invoked “to justify the man who pays a boy drunk on champagne to share his bed, who deals with blackmailers as others do with their grocer.” In his more honest moods, Addington decides that his sharp distinction between the good invert and the bad, like that better-known Victorian distinction between the deserving and undeserving poor, will not stand the test of reality. There is no such thing as a blameless life: “It is all furtiveness, lies, greed, vice, hurting other people out of fear.”

Certainly, there are excuses, some of them good ones: “It is all an effect of the law.” But the fact that one hurts other people out of fear of the law, Crewe makes plain, hardly changes the fact that one does hurt them. When Catherine reads the account in Addington and Ellis’s book that is clearly by and about her husband, she is understandably unforgiving: “I was not free to go into the streets, to go with soldiers to their dirty lodgings. I was not free to bring strange men to this house. I was not free to install in it a man of another class, twenty years younger. But it is you who have been lonely. It says so in your book.”

Addington’s mode of self-reproach has a different sting. Every so often, he has a crisis of faith: “Irrumatio, fellatio, paedicatio. For these he had eschewed study, art, friendship; he had sacrificed all the comforts of a home, the dignity of a marriage.” The Latin euphemisms are one sign of the shame, as is the idea that sex must contrast with, not complement, both comfort and dignity. Crewe is drawing on Symonds’s own yearning for purity. Symonds once declared his personal motto to be In mundo immundo sim mundus: “In an impure world, may I be pure.” In a memoir intended to be published many years after his death, he wrote of how it was through reading Plato’s Phaedrus and Symposium that he “discovered the true Liber Amoris at last, the revelation I had been waiting for, the consecration of a long-cherished idealism.” Plato made him see “the possibility of resolving in a practical harmony the discords of my inborn instincts.” It “filled my head with an impossible dream, which controlled my thoughts for many years.”

Crewe has written another Liber Amoris, another “book of love,” that spells out more precisely than Symonds ever managed to do how Platonic idealism, as Shane Butler says in his monograph, “gives even as it takes away.” Helpfully, this idealism allowed Symonds “to distinguish his desires from the crass and often violent homosocial rites of passage of the British ruling class.” Yet, Butler adds, “it was mapped across a dualism” that he could not transcend. Symonds’s desperate desire for cleanness coexisted, after all, with the fantasy he recorded in his anonymous case study for the book he wrote with Ellis: to service a group of sailors and to be their “dirty pig.” His Platonic ideal of love, in any case, contains a large non sequitur. Why must love be chaste to be clean, clean to be elevating? Why must it be elevating at all?

In “The New Life,” Addington’s academic friend Mark Ludding presents him—as the Cambridge philosopher Henry Sidgwick presented Symonds—with the utilitarian case against public candor. Addington can try all he likes to portray himself as nothing but “a disinterested sympathizer, determined on reforming the law,” but, after the Wilde trial, who will believe him? How, in any event, would such candor make him, his family, the world happier?

Ludding, looking at the situation impartially, from “the point of view of the universe” (to quote Sidgwick’s most notorious coinage), has arrived at a simple injunction: never to act on his own feelings. Thinking about his wife, Ludding can say to Addington, “I have not given her all of myself. But I have given all that I could. I can say that before the universe.” That remaining part of himself he has given to no one. Addington isn’t persuaded by the argument. He’s convinced that the universe, or at least their corner of it, can and will change: “I listened to him too long, balancing the one thing against all the others. Now I understand that life is absolute. It is the only interest.” He adopts as a utopian credo, in defiance of Ludding’s stern counsels, a line he has borrowed from Ellis: “We must live in the future we hope to make.”

In “The New Life,” Crewe distinguishes himself both as novelist and as historian. He has clearly done what G.M. Young, the great scholar of Victorian England, once recommended: to read until one can hear the people speak. Crewe’s Victorians do indeed sound like human beings, not period-piece puppets. He has, more unusually, found a prose that can accommodate everything from the lofty to the romantic and the shamelessly sexy.

His way into the history avoids the riskier project exemplified by such novels as Damon Galgut’s “Arctic Summer” (2014) and Colm Tóibín’s “The Magician” (2021), which fictionalize the desires and repressions of, respectively, E.M. Forster and Thomas Mann. The use of the men’s real names makes the authors straightforwardly accountable to the known facts of the historical record in a way that Crewe is not. At the same time, Crewe’s project is distinct from that of, say, Alan Hollinghurst in “The Stranger’s Child” (2011), which traces the life and shifting posthumous reputation of a minor First World War-era poet who is evidently inspired by the handsome, bisexual Rupert Brooke but is ultimately very much an invention.

The relationship of Crewe’s novel to history is somewhere between these two models. The real John Addington Symonds died in 1893—of tuberculosis, at age fifty-two—a year after he started work on “Sexual Inversion” with Havelock Ellis, and two years before the prosecution of Oscar Wilde. Crewe conjures a world in which the Symonds character, buffeted by the attendant furor, is forced to confront the consequences of the work’s publication, in an obscenity trial. The element of “alternate history” is all the more potent for its subtlety. Crewe is not trying, wishfully, to give his characters the happy endings they were denied in life. In many ways, his fictional Addington and Ellis have an even harder time of it than their historical counterparts. Imagining them going through the anxieties of a trial becomes a way to probe not only the emancipatory project of Crewe’s eminent Victorians but also the mental toll of their stigmatized sexualities.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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How the ancient Greeks viewed pederasty and homosexuality

— In many city-states, it was perfectly acceptable for older men to have sexual relationships with young boys.

Pederasty in ancient Greece is well-documented through writing and art.

By Tim Brinkhof

  • In ancient Greece, pederasty was the practice of older men serving as mentors to young boys in exchange for sexual favors.
  • This practice was widespread, though customs and attitudes differed drastically from Greek city-state to city-state.
  • In Sparta, it was part of the culture; in Athens, laws were made to curb pederasty and homosexuality in general.

As the French philosopher Michel Foucault argued in his book The History of Sexuality, the things we consider acceptable and unacceptable are dictated by our cultures and, as such, are subject to change. Behavior that is tolerated in one part of the world might be completely inexcusable in another place or time period, and this is especially true when it comes to sex.

For a good example, look no further than ancient Greece. The way that Plato, Aristotle, and their contemporaries conceived of human sexuality was fundamentally different from the way we do today. Hellenistic scholars doubt the Greeks would have been able to understand the modern distinction between homosexual and heterosexual relationships. In classical antiquity, people didn’t care if you were attracted to men or women; what mattered was whether you were the dominant (active) or submissive (passive) partner in the bedroom.

Not only did the Greeks have a different way of thinking about sexuality, but they also condoned a type of semi-romantic, semi-sexual relationship that would never be permitted in Western countries today: pederasty. Pederasty, as David Bain summarizes in his review of Die griechische Knabenliebe by Harald Patzer, refers to “the practice whereby young men pursue pubescent boys and enter into short-term relationships with them which expire when the boy becomes a man.”

A relief depicting the poet Anacreon and his young lover.

Pederasty was widespread across the disjointed city-states that made up ancient Greece. In some of his philosophical dialogues, Plato suggests that even Socrates enjoyed the company of young, male lovers. But while pederasty itself was everywhere, social attitudes toward the practice varied from region to region. In some communities, like Sparta, relationships between boys and men were explicitly permitted, even institutionalized. In other places, such as Athens, laws were put in place to eradicate what was slowly being regarded as an archaic, unnatural tradition.

Pederasty in Sparta

Most of what we know about pederasty in Sparta comes from classical texts written by outside observers. One of the characters in Plato’s Laws stresses that homosexuality in the warrior civilization was not just socially acceptable, but universally practiced.

According to Plutarch, who was born long after Greece had been incorporated into Rome, pederasty was deeply embedded in the Spartan ritual system, specifically in the agōgē: the arduous training program that turned boys into soldiers. Describing life in the agōgē, Plutarch writes that shortly after the boys turned 12 years old, “they were favoured with the society of lovers from among the reputable young men.” He continues:

“The boys’ lovers also shared with them in their honour or disgrace; and it is said that one of them was once fined by the magistrates because his favourite boy had let an ungenerous cry escape him while he was fighting. Moreover, though this sort of love was so approved among them that even the maidens found lovers in good and noble women, still, there was no jealous rivalry in it, but those who fixed their attentions on the same boys made this rather a foundation for friendship with one another, and persevered in common efforts to make their loved one as noble as possible.”

In Sparta, pederasty was institutionalized.

It has been argued that pederasty originated from coming-of-age rituals that could date back as far as the Stone Age. In Sparta, the practice had adapted to the city-state’s unique culture, which emphasized community over family. Children were raised by the agōgē, not their parents. The older lovers — called erastes in academic literature — had as much authority over their beloveds as their biological fathers did. The idea, as Plutarch puts it, was that “they were all in a sense the fathers and tutors and governors of all the boys.”

Athenian laws

In ancient Athens, things were a little more complicated. While most Athenians believed there was nothing wrong with a man being in love with or feeling attracted to another man, there were, as David Cohen explains in his article, “Law, Society and Homosexuality in Classical Athens,” mixed feelings about males “adopting a submissive role that was unworthy of a free citizen.” There appear to have been no laws prohibiting homosexual relations in general.

There was, however, a law that prohibited you from committing what was known as hubris: the act of humiliating or dishonoring another person for one’s own gratification. A quintessentially Greek concept, hubris not only encompassed prostitution and sexual assault, but also “consensual” relationships. According to Cohen, men who consented to being the submissive partner were “often described as committing hubris against themselves.” Crucially, the same standards did not apply to slaves who — being slaves — were perceived as lacking both pride and honor.

“Current scholarship on pederasty,” Cohen repeats, “asserts that there was no law prohibiting an Athenian male from consummating a sexual relationship with a free boy without using force or payment.” That said, scholars have found many statutes that seem to address pederasty indirectly. The law against hubris is one example. Another is a law that prevented boys as well their teachers from entering a schoolhouse before dawn or after dusk.

Homosexuality and nature

Why did Athens seek to limit pederasty when so many other city-states, including Sparta, openly permitted it? This question does not have a clear answer. Evidence suggests that Athenians did not have any issues with age differences as time went on — young girls were married to older men all the time — but, rather, with homosexuality itself.

Greek art depicting two men fondling.

In Laws, Plato argues that homosexuality is unnatural because, in nature, male animals only mate with female partners. Even though this is untrue — research has revealed numerous examples of homosexual and bisexual behavior in other species — Plato’s argument, like all his arguments, had a tremendous influence on Greek society. Aristotle would reach the same conclusion, professing that, because males inseminate females, they must necessarily assume a dominant, active, heterosexual role. If they don’t, adds Xenophon, they would be taking the place of women.

It is notable that Plato, Aristotle, and Xenophon were unable to separate the idea of sex from biological reproduction, rejecting (or failing to consider) the modern notion that it is perfectly okay for people to have intercourse for the sake of pleasure, or that they should pick partners and sexual roles that they feel affirm their personal identities.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Taking a relationship break?

— These 9 expert-approved tips can help you make the most of your time apart

Keeping a journal during your break can help you discover whether the relationship still meets your needs

By Rebecca Strong

  • A relationship break offers space to explore things like compatibility, trust issues, or life stress.
  • Experts advise discussing break length, goals, and how you’ll keep in touch before you part ways.
  • To get insight during the break, reflect on needs, goals, and things you miss about your partner.

If you need some time apart from your partner but don’t feel ready to close the door on the relationship, you may find it helpful to take a break.

Relationship breaks are super common — and not just when dating: About 6%-18% of married couples have separated at some point.

Candace Kotkin-De Carvalho, a licensed social worker who works with couples, says some common reasons for needing a break include:

Trying to work through any relationship issues with your partner is always a good first step. But when no amount of discussion leads to a resolution, some space and time on your own may help you get some clarity on how to move forward.

The type of break you take — and how long it lasts — can vary, depending on your situation and specific needs. Ultimately, it’s all about finding what works best for you.

That said, these nine therapist-approved tips can help you make your break a productive one.

1. Choose an endpoint

Kalley Hartman, a licensed marriage and family therapist with extensive experience treating couples and Clinical Director of Ocean Recovery, suggests agreeing with your partner on how long the break should last.

The more complex your issues are, the longer your break may need to be. If your partner isn’t on board, you might consider a compromise like a shorter break, more frequent check-ins during the break, or temporary in-person visits.

2. Set clear expectations for the purpose of your break

De Carvalho advises clarifying what you both hope to get out of this time apart — and what you want from your relationship if you get back together.

For example, your goal for the break may involve figuring out changes you both need to make for the relationship to succeed, such as:

Whatever your expectations are, sharing them ahead of time can help you find a common goal to work toward — and a 2021 study involving older couples linked having more joint goals to higher relationship satisfaction.

3. Decide if — and how — you’ll communicate

Do you and your partner want to avoid texting each other, but schedule weekly phone calls to check in? Or would you prefer to cut off communication for the entirety of the break?

Hartman strongly advises discussing these types of things before taking some time apart.

You may also want to figure out if you’d like to keep certain subjects off-limits, like your relationship problems.

Lastly, Lola Noero, a licensed master social worker at Manhattan Therapy, suggests talking about how you’ll handle social media.

If you feel it will help create some mental distance, you might opt to temporarily unfollow or mute each other, or turn off notifications for each other’s posts.

4. Use this time for reflection

“Taking a break is an opportunity to focus on yourself and explore what you want out of the relationship,” Hartman says.

With that in mind, consider using this time to reflect upon your personal values, goals, and expectations. That way, when you reunite, you have a better chance of determining whether the relationship still serves your needs.

Tara McGrath, a licensed marriage and family therapist in private practice, recommends using a journal to prompt this kind of reflection.

You might try journaling about:

  • Your goals for the break
  • How your feelings evolve over the course of the break
  • Your hopes and desires for how the relationship might change when you get back together

5. Set boundaries around dating

De Carvalho says it’s important to make sure you’re on the same page about dating other people during your break.

These boundaries can vary widely from relationship to relationship. A few important questions to ask each other:

  • Will you remain exclusive and avoid dating others completely?
  • Is it OK to go on dates, but not engage in physical intimacy with others?
  • Are you free to have sex with other people?

Hammering out these kinds of details ensures you’re both aware of what constitutes cheating during your break.

6. Set boundaries around mutual friends

If you and your partner have mutual friends or are close with each other’s family members, that’s another topic you’ll need to tackle before taking a break.

You may decide it’s OK to hang out with mutual friends together — or to ask mutual friends to avoid inviting you to the same events.

When it comes to family members, you might agree not to communicate with each other’s parents and siblings while on the break, unless an emergency comes up.

There’s no right or wrong here, but establishing some ground rules around what’s comfortable for both of you will minimize the risk of awkward or painful misunderstandings.

7. Make the most of your “me” time

While it’s totally natural to occasionally think about your partner or the relationship during the break, De Carvalho recommends focusing on yourself instead and making the most of your alone time.

“Take up new hobbies, meet with friends, or spend more time with family — re-engage with people and activities you may not have had much time for while in the relationship,” she says.

Aim to participate in activities that help you reconnect with parts of yourself that may have gone unfulfilled in the relationship.

For example:

  • If you’ve been yearning to tap into your creative side, consider taking a sculpting class or ask a friend to check out a photography exhibit with you.
  • If spending most of your time with your partner got in the way of your workouts, take a few trial classes at local gyms and studios to find a physical activity you enjoy.

8. Allow room for missing your partner

If you find yourself missing your partner during the break, that’s OK — in fact, it’s very normal, according to Megan Harrison, a licensed marriage and family therapist in private practice and founder of Couples Candy.

When you feel lonely, Harrison recommends using that as a cue to turn inward and ask yourself what your life is currently missing. For instance, you may actually crave more quality time with friends or a job that allows you to connect with others more regularly.

9. Work with a couples counselor

If you and your partner want to make things work but can’t get past certain difficulties on your own, De Carvalho recommends seeking help from a professional.

Couples therapy provides a safe and supportive environment to:

  • Discuss emotionally-charged topics, like how to handle finances or whether to have kids.
  • Navigate and resolve any lingering concerns, like communication breakdowns, problematic relationship dynamics, or unproductive behaviors during conflict.
  • Learn how to set boundaries and balance your needs with relationship needs.
  • Determine whether staying together is the best decision for both of you, according to Hartman.

Couples therapy can last as briefly as three sessions or as long as 20 sessions. The length, and the approach you choose, depend entirely on your goals and the issues you want to address.

However long it lasts, couples therapy can do a lot of good — over three-quarters of couples say their relationship improved after counseling, according to the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapists (AAMFT).

If you suspect personal challenges — like attachment issues — are getting in the way of a healthy relationship, it could also help to try individual therapy during your break.;

Insider’s takeaway

Taking a break from your relationship can help you gain some insight into your needs and expectations, work through personal issues, or reassess whether your partner is a good fit for you.

Just know there’s no one-size fits all approach to taking a successful break. Only you and your partner can determine how to make it work — but defining a clear intent for your break offers a great place to start.

Keep in mind that there are some differences no amount of discussion may resolve — for instance, if one of you wants kids and the other doesn’t. In these cases, you might need some time to determine whether you can still move forward in the relationship.

However, the more expectations and ground rules you can set when it comes to exclusivity, the length of the break, and how much you’d like to communicate, the more likely you’ll benefit from your time apart.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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What Is Ethical Porn?

— How to Jerk Off Responsibly

Watching ethically-produced porn is one of the best ways of supporting sex workers. Here’s what you should know before your next wank. 

By Laura Holliday

At first listen, the term “ethical porn” might conjure up the same kind of images as “porn for women” – overly artsy drivel that’ll have you drying up quicker than a bad Hinge voice prompt. And when you like things as wet as I do, that’s a pretty depressing thought.

“The term ethical porn, unfortunately, brings up the same connotations as corporate social responsibility,” says Cindy Gallop, founder of MakeLoveNotPorn, a user-generated adult video platform that runs on a paid subscription model. (She prefers to use the term “social sex” to describe her platform.)

But while the name might sound pretty drab, ethical porn in reality is far more exciting – and all-encompassing – than it sounds, covering everything from BDSM to blockchain-enabled porn. Here’s what you should know before diving in.

Most of us were probably first exposed to what we typically see as unethical porn back in the 2000s, when tube sites like Pornhub became the default way to consume adult content. In the same way you’d download a sketchy Limewire song that might infect your parents’ computer, you could also access porn at the click of a button without knowing how it was made or who uploaded it.

Thankfully, the continued march of the streaming era and the criminalisation of revenge porn has led to most tube sites cracking down on illegal and pirated content. It’s also meant that conversations around ethics in porn are more commonplace.

Though there are a myriad of definitions out there, ethical porn is fundamentally porn that centers on the proper treatment of sex workers. “Simply put, [it is] porn that sticks to workers’ rights,” sex educator Evie Plumb explains. “The performer’s pay, safety and treatment is put first and is fair. Consent, sexual health and credit are paramount.”

What makes ‘ethical porn’ ethical?

Deciding what makes ethical porn ethical hinges on knowing what is unethical. “There’s revenge porn or image-based sexual abuse, which is not porn, and we should be really clear that that is nonconsensual and it needs to be taken down. Let’s get it the fuck out of here,” says Lilly Sparks, founder of ethical porn site afterglow, referring to the sharing of sexual content of someone without their consent.

“Then there’s what I like to call douchebag porn, which is like the mainstream tube sites,” she adds. “They’re just run the same way as any other industry. They don’t want to do anything illegal, but they’re in it for the money. Then I think there’s ethical porn, which at its simplest level, is just people who care about the impact of the porn that they’re making.”

Ethical porn can be divided, broadly, into three main areas. It’s content produced in an environment that is safe, where everyone is of age, consenting, and happy to participate. It also fairly compensates its creators for their time and work, like any other business. The final – perhaps the most hotly debated – aspect of ethical porn is the content itself.

For many feminists, ethical porn isn’t performative – it’s inclusive and centres a diverse set of bodies by rejecting the male gaze. Plenty of ethical porn sites are founded on this principle, and many also hope to eradicate unrealistic expectations of sex by dispelling any myths or stereotypes that people might be vicariously exposed to when watching mainstream porn.

Sparks stresses that it’s important not to kinkshame, though, and to recognise that what might seem performative for one person may feel pleasurable or empowering for another. “You shouldn’t yuck someone else’s yum,” she says. “If that performer wanted to get paid 200 bucks to show that guy her feet or whatever, like, who is this other person to say that’s not ethical?”

How do you know if the porn you’re watching is ethically made?

Unfortunately, there’s no singular FDA-style regulator distributing a stamp of approval to individual companies or studios, though trade associations like the Free Speech Coalition exist to protect workers’ rights to a safe working environment. Regulation is also made more complex when some sites are simply collections of homemade content, rather than material shot on location.

Still, there are broader signs to look out that will signpost whether the porn you’re watching has been ethically produced and curated. A transparent breakdown of the verification process is key to knowing that a company ensures its performers are of age and consenting, and many will be vocal about this on their websites and social media accounts. This verification extends to those on camera and those behind it. “We require two forms of government issued ID, one of which must be visual ID,” Gallop says about videos submitted on MakeLoveNotPorn.

Directors should also highlight that they are aware of each performer’s personal experience and limits, and that actors enjoy the content they film. “I send performers a long checklist in advance, with a list of sexual acts from kissing to triple anal, where they can tell me how much experience they have with it and how much they would like to do it,” explains director and intimacy coordinator Paulita Pappel, who founded the Lustery and HardWerk studios. “On this base, I can create scenarios and concepts catering to their wishes.”

Healthy filming conditions, like regularly scheduled breaks and on-set refreshments, are also strong indicators that a production cares about the wellbeing of its workers. While these might not always be openly listed, some studios, like Pink & White Productions, operate regular paid (obviously) livestreams, where viewers are able to see how the studio operates – allowing them insight into the production process.

When it comes to user-submitted porn sites, the presence of a strong curation or moderation team is a good sign. “Our human curators watch every frame of every video submitted from beginning to end, before we approve or reject and we publish it,” Gallop says. Sites that also use highly discriminatory language in their descriptions and advertisements are also seen by many, including Plumb, as being unethical and should be avoided.

Not all of this information is instantly accessible. Sometimes, it might even require a bit of digging. But the more that you talk about ethical porn, the more companies will see the need to release clear information about their filming practices. This, in turn, might allow performers to feel more able to report any unethical or harmful practices happening in the workplace.

How to pay for ethical porn

Every single person VICE spoke to stressed that paying for porn was paramount in becoming a more ethical consumer. While consuming free “douchebag porn” isn’t as unethical as it was pre-tube crackdown, you can’t always know whether performers have been fairly paid. Paying for porn cuts out a huge amount of ambiguity. It also greatly reduces the chances of accidentally consuming pirated content, which hurts individual performers and the industry as a whole.

“In the same way you pay for going to the cinema, for your streaming platform or music, porn needs to be paid for,” Pappel says. “Consuming pirated porn is not only a copyright infringement but a means to hurt the sexual autonomy of performers. It is disrespectful and harmful.”

There are a huge variety of subscription-based ethical porn sites to choose from depending on your own tastes and kinks – we’ve listed more at the bottom of this article, and many offer free trials so you can try before you buy. If you’re interested in cutting out the middleman completely or have particular performers you’d like to see more of, you can pay for their content directly.

“Creators are likely to post and promote work that they feel proud and good about making,” says Jet Setting Jasmine, a performer, psychotherapist and founder of Royal Fetish Films. “Find a porn star you like and buy directly from them or the scenes they advertise.” Supporting individual creators isn’t just limited to buying their porn, either – you can also get their merch, buy something off their wishlist or purchase something off their affiliate links.

Is OnlyFans considered ethical porn?

It’s impossible to write about porn without mentioning OnlyFans, which has revolutionised the way we consume explicit content online. While some in the industry dislike OnlyFans due to its self-identification as a fan platform – including, of course, its failed 2021 attempt to pull out of the world of adult content – other creators, like Anne, are happy enough with their experience of the site.

Anne, who is speaking anonymously under a psudeonym to protect her privacy, has been doing online sex work since September 2022. She says that the most exploitative thing you can do is illegally rip content from someone’s OnlyFans channel or consume it through third-party sources.

“No means no,” she explains. “In all honesty, once the law catches up with the digital space, anyone who contributes to performer exploitation should be considered a sex offender.”

She’s had to send takedown requests (or DMCAs) to sites that upload their images and videos without their consent and has grappled with the negative effects of this on her mental health.

Although piracy monitoring services like Cam Model Protection tracks copyright infringement, you can make their job easier by avoiding pirated content and reporting any that you see. Never visit a site that appears to source content from creators without their direct consent, or doesn’t clearly verify or credit creators. On OnlyFans, verified creators will have a blue checkmark – they will have obtained this by submitting photos of their government issued ID and passing an age verification check.

How to broaden the type of adult content you’re consuming

Most performers and directors that VICE spoke to agreed that ethical porn usually swerves stereotyping of people of color, LGBTQIA people and people with disabilities. Ensuring that everyone feels fairly represented is critical not just for performers, but also for consumers who might pick up behavior learnt from porn through osmosis.

“When we consume porn that doesn’t have context, and doesn’t humanize the folks that are in it, we can risk normalizing this and we can see these behaviors come out in real life situations where people can be harmed,” Jasmine explains. “Unfortunately, many people learn about sex and sexual relationships through NSFW content. [We] therefore have a responsibility to increase people’s porn literacy and also increase access to content that is safe to learn from.”

If you want to broaden your porn horizons or just fancy a change, you could try another format like audio-based porn – female-founded Dipsea is an ethical, audio-focused, subscription-based app featuring erotic stories and scenarios. Voice actors for Dipsea are paid fairly for their work, with top actors reportedly earning up to $200-$400 an hour. Animated porn is another way to bypass the concern of unethical filming conditions or – but again, make sure you’re supporting artists directly, and just don’t jerk off to AI-generated porn, which is often trained on images of sexual abuse.

Support sex workers

Despite what shitty school sex education might have taught you, abstinence is never the answer. Anti-porn and sex-critical movements would like you to believe that porn should be avoided completely, but considering that porn addiction might not even be real, this is probably bullshit, and a view that further stigmatises sex workers. That stigma has real-life consequences for sex workers, too.

“We have no access to basic business necessities like bank accounts, payment processors or email marketing – private companies like Mailchimp, Paypal and others do not provide their services, which has no legal ground, and it’s therefore blatant discrimination,” Pappel explains. “If we want ‘ethical porn’, we must start as a society – and it starts with the media – to stop discriminating against the industry.”

Jasmine agrees: “Normalization of people consuming porn and participating in the porn industry will hopefully yield access to better working conditions, reduced stigma and shame, cast and crew compensation and an overall better product.”

You might still occasionally boot up a questionable streaming site to avoid getting caught on your ex’s Netflix account, but most people implicitly understand that illegal downloads hurt the creators making stuff that entertains us. The same goes for porn – we have to want ethically-made porn for more to be produced and things to radically shift. In a way, I guess you could say that getting yourself off ethically is an act of activism.

Some more of our favorite ethical porn sites: 

CHEEX is a subscription service focusing on realistic sex and erotica, well as audio content and live pleasure workshops. It features a variety of award-winning porn performers, is ad-free, and doesn’t share data with third parties. All performers are of legal age, paid fairly, and tested regularly.

Aortafilms is an award-winning porn studio focusing on queer cinema. They feature performers across a wide range of bodies and identities who are tested and checked in with regularly. Performers are also welcome to suggest edits so they are represented in a way that they agree with.

Dreams of Spanking is the go to site for anyone with this particular kink. They are a sex-positive and inclusive studio who pay their performers fairly and prioritise performer welfare and informed consent.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Walk Your Way to Better Erections

— Taking a stroll for as little as 30 minutes a day can improve sexual health.

By Lauren Dodd

Seeking to improve your sex life as the new year kicks into gear? This one isn’t all that difficult. Resolve to walk your way to better erections.

Men who experience erectile dysfunction (ED), the consistent inability to get or maintain an erection satisfactory for sexual intercourse, may benefit from incorporating more heart-pumping physical activity—as little as a 30-minute walk—into their 2023 routine.

More than 30 million men in the United States experience ED, which can lead to higher rates of depression and anxiety. ED is generally seen as a growing public health concern. But a portion of ED sufferers may be able to improve their condition by simply adding extra steps to their daily life.

Medical conditions such as cardiovascular disease, the leading cause of death in men, produce changes to the penis’s blood flow and are common causes of ED, as blood flow is necessary to achieve and sustain an erection. Without the need of a doctor or a prescription, better sexual health may literally be around the corner for men who resolve to lace up their sneakers and head outdoors.

Better erections could be just a few steps away

Walking, one of the most popular forms of exercise in the world, is also one of the cheapest. No gym membership required.

Increasing your daily steps can be as easy as parking farther away from entrances or opting to take the stairs rather than the elevator. As little as 40 minutes of moderate to vigorous exercise four days a week—a grand total of 160 minutes—sustained over the course of six months can improve ED caused by physical inactivity, obesity, hypertension, metabolic syndrome and/or cardiovascular disease, according to a 2018 systematic review that looked at a decade of erectile dysfunction research.

Moderate exercise can be achieved by walking briskly at a pace of 4 mph or bicycling at a pace of 10 to 12 mph, according to Harvard research. Another Harvard study found walking 30 minutes a day was linked with a 41 percent decline in risk for ED.

Considering the leading causes of ED are atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) and diabetes, additional physical activity may improve more than just erectile function.

People who took 12,000 steps a day had a 65 percent lower risk of dying over the course of 10 years compared with those who took 4,000 steps a day, one 2020 study found.

“Higher step counts were also associated with lower rates of death from heart disease and cancer,” the study stated.

Quitting smoking or vaping and reducing alcohol consumption in the new year may also lead to better performance in the bedroom. Heavy smokers, even younger ones, are twice as likely to develop ED than their nonsmoking peers.

Heavy drinking doesn’t help, either. One study found men’s “episodic erectile failure” occurred at “significantly higher” rates in those consuming more than three standard units of alcohol a day. (One standard unit is any drink that contains 14 grams of alcohol, according to the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.)

Maintaining a healthy weight is essential

The risk of developing ED and losing sexual function increases along with a man’s waistline, according to Harvard research. A man with a 42-inch waist is 50 percent more likely to have ED than one with a 32-inch waist.

Regular physical activity such as walking can aid vascular health. It helps arteries by boosting nitric oxide production, thereby increasing blood flow to the penis and making it easier to get an erection.

One of the first suggestions Susan MacDonald M.D., a urology specialist at Penn State Health in Hershey, Pennsylvania, offers her male patients is to lose a little weight.

“There is an obesity epidemic in America, so odds are most of your readers have five to 10 pounds to lose,” MacDonald said. “If they were to start walking, that would help.”

Quitting smoking is another one of her top recommendations for men experiencing ED.

“If we’re making New Year’s resolutions here, stopping smoking is a huge one,” MacDonald explained. “I think if you’re smoking, you’re paying double, because you’re paying for the cigarettes and you’re paying for [medication] to fix the erectile dysfunction it’s causing.”

Symptoms of erectile dysfunction should be taken seriously because a man’s penile dysfunction may be the first red flag of other illnesses and disorders, she said.

“In most cases, it’s the disease process leading to the ED,” MacDonald said. “In cardiovascular disease, we see the ED before we see the heart attack.”

Walking can curb more than erectile dysfunction

Walking has been proved to lower blood pressure, ease joint pain, curb sweet-tooth cravings and improve sleep. It can also help ward off breast cancer, heart disease, stroke, and early onset Alzheimer’s disease and dementia.

During peak flu and cold seasons, walking is another way to boost your immune system to fend off germs. It can increase bone health and bone density in osteoporosis patients and improve a person’s balance.

In addition to physical benefits, walking can offer mental health perks, such as improving feelings of sadness, anxiety, anger and depression.

But as with anything, the trick to picking up a new exercise habit is to do so safely.

Anyone taking to the streets should map out a path in advance, use sidewalks when possible, choose a well-lit area, be aware of major changes in the weather, stay hydrated and wear bright, reflective clothing. If sidewalks are unavailable, public school tracks and indoor shopping malls can be additional areas to squeeze in a little extra physical activity.

Be sure to consult a primary doctor before making changes to your diet and exercise routine.

If lifestyle and diet changes improve your overall health but erectile dysfunction persists, even intermittently, a wearable device free of the negative side effects of medication may help restore sexual function. Eddie® is an FDA-registered Class II medical device designed to treat erectile dysfunction and improve male sexual performance. Its specific shape optimizes blood flow as it puts pressure on the veins of the penis but not the arteries.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Porn Teaches Teens, Especially Guys, How To Have Sex

— New Evidence And Long-Term Risks

By Shaun Harper

Most American teenagers across genders have consumed pornography, according to a new report from Common Sense, a nonprofit organization that aims to improve the impact of media and technology on kids and families. Common Sense partnered with Benenson Strategy Group to administer a survey to teens ages 13 to 17. Of the 1,358 people who responded, nearly three-fourths said they’d either accidentally or intentionally encountered online pornography. Most had recently done so.

Teens aren’t simply watching porn to satisfy their curiosities or as a stimulant for self-pleasure. Seventy-nine percent of survey respondents who’d consumed porn said doing so taught them how to have sex. Just over half had consumed content that depicted actors choking, assaulting, or otherwise inflicting pain on co-stars. Researchers have long contended that what porn watchers see in films oftentimes shapes their current and future sexual expectations and behaviors. Men, women, and genderqueer people can be harmed by this, including those who themselves aren’t porn consumers but are in relationships with partners who are or have been.

“Exposure to pornography at too young an age can lead to poor mental health, sexual violence, and other negative outcomes,” notes Jim Steyer, Founder and CEO of Common Sense. “The overexposure by teens identified in our report can normalize unhealthy views and behaviors about sex and sexual relationships that we don’t want young people to think are commonplace. In addition, with so much exposure to violent pornographic material, a major concern is how this might impact the sensitivity levels of teens to other types of violence.” Teens across all genders are susceptible to these negative outcomes, but prior research shows the risks are more pronounced among young men.

Exposure and consumption rates presented in the Common Sense report varied by gender. Boys comprised 48% of the respondents, girls were 46%, and the remaining 6% were genderqueer. Despite the fairly even number of cisgender teens in the sample, there were differences on a survey question about intentionality. Fifty-two percent of boys said they’d intentionally watched porn, compared to just 36% of girls. In some ways, this is neither new nor unexpected. Think back to pre-internet times… teenage boys were considerably more likely than were girls to have pornographic magazines hidden beneath their mattresses.

Even though the Common Sense report is focused on teens, the consumption differences among cisgender respondents presented therein are consistent with other research that is inclusive of teens and adults. In a 2022 study published in Sexuality Research and Social Policy, a peer-reviewed academic journal, researchers found that more than 97% of boys and young men had consumed pornography, compared to approximately 77% of girls and young women.

San Diego State University Professor Frank Harris III is one of the most respected and highly-cited experts on college men and masculinities. “A consequence of porn consumption among teenage boys is their tendency to pursue inequitable and oppressive sexual relationships during their young adult years,” he says. “For example, some young men may seek to assert themselves as men in sexual relationships by mimicking the aggressive or violent sexual acts that are often depicted in pornography.” Harris and other researchers also acknowledge that porn consumption can result in some young men objectifying and engaging in abusive emotional, verbal, and physical interactions with their partners. This includes, but isn’t limited to heterosexual men’s relationships with women.

In addition to discovering higher consumption rates among boys, there were also sexual orientation and racial differences in the Common Sense survey. Just over 74% of respondents identified as heterosexual; seven out of 10 said they’d been exposed to porn. Among LGBTQ+ teens in the sample, it was 89%. In addition, 69% of Black teens who’d watched porn indicated they’d viewed films that portrayed their racial group in stereotypical ways. It was 61% among Latino survey respondents.

The Common Sense report doesn’t offer a three-way intersectional analysis of the survey results by gender, sexual orientation, and race. I’ve watched 150 pornographic films on a website that has thousands of videos showing men having sex with men. Obviously, I did so entirely for research purposes. Obviously. These videos did not involve boys, teens, or any men who appeared to be under the age of 18. I did an analysis of these videos by race. Specifically, I watched 50 videos in each of these three racial groupings: white men having sex with white men; Black men having sex with Black men; and Black men having sex with white men.

One set of findings from my analysis are particularly relevant to the Common Sense report. Films with white guys having sex with each other often had plots and story lines; the actors talked to each other more often before and during sex; and there was more intimacy between partners (emotional gazing in each other’s eyes, gentle caressing, kissing, etc.). Videos involving Black men had less of this – even less so when the videos included only Black men. Undoubtedly, some women and heterosexual men have either accidentally or intentionally watched gay porn. But queer guys are the overwhelming consumers of this specific genre. These production differences teach powerful, unfortunate, and oftentimes racist lessons to consumers. The Common Sense report confirms that queer teens are among these consumers.

“The ways in which dominant male partners appear in pornography – usually with impeccably fit bodies and well-endowed penises, along with the ability to simultaneously please multiple partners and perform sex for long periods of time without climaxing – are unrealistic,” Harris adds. “This may lead some young men to develop negative perceptions of themselves as sexual partners if they cannot meet these expectations.”

The Common Sense report concludes with three recommendations. The first is to resist the presumption that teens will avoid porn, especially since so many of them accidentally encounter it online. Instead, the report suggests parents and family members should talk with teens about porn, regardless of how awkward those conversations are. The report authors also advocate for age-appropriate sex education curriculum that includes learning about porn, as well as stricter legislation to protect kids from accessing online sexual content.

Because its profits are so massive, I believe that as an act of corporate social responsibility, the porn industry ought to invest a portion of its billions into organizations that seek to eradicate violence against women and LGBTQ+ persons. There is also a role for porn production companies in helping men become considerably more mindful of the dangers associated with internalizing or attempting to reenact what they see in porn.

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Ever Feel Sad After Sex?

— You Might Have Post-Coital Dysphoria

What Are the Post-Sex Blues? Here’s How To Deal With This Common Issue

BY Rebecca Strong

After sex, some people feel a sense of euphoria, relaxation, and closeness to their partner. But that’s not the case for everyone.

According to a 2019 study, almost half of men report feeling sad, distant, or irritable after sex. This is often called “post-coital dysphoria” (PCD), or the post-sex blues. But why does it happen? And are there ways to treat it?

First things first: PCD is nothing to be ashamed of. As previously noted, it’s super common. More importantly, experts say it’s nothing to worry about, and often just goes away on its own with time.

That said, if this condition is negatively impacting your sex life, relationship, or overall mental well-being, know that there are things you can do to cope — starting with pinpointing what’s driving your PCD.

Here’s what to know about the common signs and causes of PCD, and how to treat it.

What Are the Signs of Post-Coital Dysphoria?

Experts say PCD can manifest in different ways. You may be experiencing this condition if you feel any of the following after sex:

  • Aggravated
  • Sad
  • Apathetic
  • Restless
  • Uneasy

These feelings may set in immediately after sex, or up to an hour or two after you finish.

Depending on personality and history, a person experiencing PCD may start crying or seem easily annoyed, says Dr. Carla Marie Manly, a clinical psychologist and relationship expert.

“Some people with PCD may feel the need to leave the room or the situation altogether,” she explains.

What Causes Post-Coital Dysphoria?

A 2019 study found that PCD is linked to:

  • Psychological distress
  • Childhood sexual abuse
  • Sexual dysfunctions

If you’ve had traumatic sexual experiences or are currently dealing with sexual dysfunction, then intimate situations can trigger all kinds of negative emotions — like fear or shame.

There are many other possible causes, too.

Since you have higher levels of the feel-good chemical dopamine during sex, your body releases the hormone prolactin afterward to bring you back to your baseline.

In other words, you go from a major high to a sudden crash. According to Tufts University, that post-coital drop in dopamine may contribute to a low mood or other symptoms of PCD.

According to Dr. Lori Beth Bisbey, a therapist and sex and intimacy coach, performance anxiety can also be a factor.

“A history of depression, anxiety, or trauma can certainly aggravate PCD or increase the likelihood of it,” adds Manly.

“For example,” she explains, “if a person is already sad or depressed, the feelings can be magnified if the sexual intimacy was not connective or fulfilling. As well, if other stressors such as arguments, financial unrest, body issue images, etc. are at play these issues can be exacerbated given the vulnerability involved in sexual intimacy.”

How PCD Can Impact Your Sex Life & Relationship

“Post-coital dysphoria is unlikely to have a major impact on your sexual and romantic life if it’s experienced rarely,” says Dr. Justin Lehmiller, a social psychologist, research fellow at The Kinsey Institute and founder of Sex & Psychology. “However, if it’s a common occurrence, it can potentially be distressing — especially if you have a partner who does not understand it or takes it personally, in which case it may become a source of conflict.”

According to Manly, PCD can create ongoing feelings of disconnection, particularly if your partner notices that you seem cold or distant after sex.

Bisbey notes that PCD can also lead you to avoid sex and the negative feelings associated with it. Over time, this avoidance can begin to take a toll on your overall intimacy and relationship satisfaction.

“You may choose to use pornography instead of intimacy with a partner as solo sex often feels emotionally safer due to the lack of vulnerability,” adds Manly. “Over time, unaddressed PCD can actually tear a relationship apart due to the lack of emotional and sexual intimacy.”

How to Treat Post-Coital Dysphoria

If PCD is something you only experience once in a while, Lehmiller says it’s nothing to worry about.

“Psychologists think this may be a normal variation that sometimes happens following sex and that we shouldn’t pathologize it,” he explains.

On the other hand, if PCD is a persistent issue for you, and is triggering feelings of anxiety or depression, or negatively impacting your sex life or relationship, Lehmiller suggests consulting with a sex therapist. A licensed provider may be able to help you get to the root cause of the issue, whether it’s related to a mood disorder, an underlying sexual dysfunction, or a history of trauma.

Bisbey notes that it can also be helpful to tell your doctor about your symptoms of PCD, as they can help rule out any physical health issues that may be causing it.

While psychotherapy can be tremendously helpful, Manly notes that there are many other ways to address PCD — such as through support groups, self-help books, or journaling.

Manly also highly recommends being open and honest with your partner about the symptoms you’re experiencing. By openly discussing your feelings before, during, or after sex, you’re giving your partner an opportunity to be more supportive and accommodating.

“When partners work together to face PCD and address the issues with compassion, the relationship can actually become stronger and more loving,” adds Manly.

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Blue Balls

— A Cause of Testicular Pain

Anyone who has ever experienced “blue balls” can tell you that it is a painful and frustrating consequence of sexual arousal. Of the many causes of pain in the testicles and scrotum, blue balls are the most benign. It is not a serious medical condition, but that does not make it any less tolerable. Here is what you need to know about blue balls and what you can do to relieve the pain.

By Kristopher Bunting, MD

  • Blue balls (epididymal hypertension) is a real condition that causes pain and tenderness in the testicles and scrotum after prolonged sexual arousal without ejaculation or orgasm.
  • Blue balls is temporary, usually lasting no more than a few hours, but can be relieved through sexual release, a cold shower or cold compress, or the Valsalva maneuver.
  • Severe, persistent, or worsening scrotal or testicular pain may indicate a medical emergency, not blue balls.

What are blue balls?

Blue balls also called “lover’s nuts” or epididymal hypertension is a condition that causes scrotal and testicular pain. Epididymal hypertension can occur after prolonged sexual stimulation without sexual release. In other words, being sexually excited by foreplay or other sexually arousing activities that do not end in ejaculation or orgasm can lead to tender and painful testicles.

Medically speaking, the condition known as blue balls is poorly understood. There is little to no research into the causes and treatments of epididymal hypertension and there is only one known case report present in the current medical literature. This lack of published research is because epididymal hypertension is not a medical emergency and has no long-term negative effects on health. It is a real condition, but it is nothing to be alarmed about.

What are the symptoms of blue balls?

The primary symptoms of blue balls are pain and tenderness in the scrotum and testicles. The skin of the scrotum can also develop a slightly bluish tint. The experience varies between individuals but can be described as aching, heaviness, or fullness of the testicles. The discomfort may also be felt in the groin and lower abdomen. Blue balls do not cause swelling, bleeding, discharge, or fever. The pain subsides within a few hours (or less) without requiring treatment.

What causes blue balls?

While epididymal hypertension is not well understood, it is believed that a buildup of excess blood in the testicles after sexual arousal causes blue balls. Blood flows into the penis and testicles during sexual arousal and normally leaves the genitals after achieving orgasm. However, when the blood does not leave the testicles it can lead to pain.

Treating blue balls

There are several ways to relieve the pain of blue balls:

Give it time: blue balls typically only lasts for a few hours at most before resolving on its own.

Sexual release: ejaculating or having an orgasm through intercourse or masturbation can relieve blue balls quickly.

Cool it down: taking a cold shower or applying a cool compress (such as a towel soaked in cold water) may help relieve the pain of blue balls.

Try the Valsalva maneuver: the Valsalva maneuver can help relax blood vessels, allowing blood to leave the testicles.

Other recommendations for relieving the pain include distracting yourself to take your mind off of sexual arousal or exercising to increase blood flow out of the groin.

Other causes of testicular pain

Having blue balls can be a very unpleasant experience, but it is not a serious medical issue. However, many other conditions can cause pain in the testicles and scrotum, including some serious medical emergencies. Pain in the testicles and/or scrotum that is severe or is associated with bleeding, discharge, nausea, vomiting, fever, or swelling can indicate a serious medical condition. If you have symptoms other than mild to moderate pain or discomfort that lasts for up to a few hours, you should seek medical help immediately.

Testicular torsion is a medical emergency that can cause intense scrotal and testicular pain that usually comes on suddenly. Epididymitis or orchitis causes painful inflammation of the testes due to an infection that requires medical treatment. Testicular varicoceles can also cause testicular or scrotal pain. Varicoceles are caused by enlarged veins in the scrotum, similar to varicose veins, that can feel like a ”bag of worms”. While this is not an emergency, it may affect fertility.

Sexual arousal without sexual release can lead to blue balls, a real medical condition that causes pain in the scrotum and testicles. It is a temporary condition that resolves on its own and does not require treatment, but there are steps you can take to relieve the pain. Sexual release is the fastest way to relieve pain from blue balls, but this should never be used as an excuse to pressure anyone into sex.

While blue balls are not a serious condition, pain in the scrotum or testicles should always be a cause for concern. Seek immediate medical attention for severe or persistent pain in the testicles lasting more than a few hours.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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What Is Sex Therapy?

How Counseling Can Improve Your Relationship

And, yes, you can keep your clothes on.

By Stella Harris

“Last night I looked at some cheese and got an erection,” Otis Milburn—amateur sex counselor and the teenage son of a sex therapist—tells his best friend Eric in the opening minutes of Netflix’s Sex Education season two.

Although you might not find yourself sexually aroused by dairy products, most people will face some sort of sexual concern (not entirely dissimilar to Otis’) in their lifetime. In fact, more than a third of the population reports some difficulty with sexual satisfaction, according to the Cleveland Clinic. So, if you’re having worries around sex, you’re not alone.

Sex has been a taboo topic for so long that even doctors—heck, even gynecologists and urologists—often hesitate to bring up sexual issues. But sexual health is an integral part of one’s overall wellbeing. “Sex is a basic need on Maslow’s hierarchy. But sex is about so much more than physical release,” says Donna Oriowo, PhD, an AASECT-certified sex therapist and founder of AnnodRight, a sex and relationships therapy practice specifically aimed at serving Black women in the Washington, D.C. area.“Sex can impact your mental health and also your physical health, both positively and negatively based on experiences you have had.”

And that’s where sex therapy comes in. Just like hiring a personal trainer can help you with your physical health and a therapist can walk you through any mental blocks you may have, a sex therapist can help you improve your sexual wellbeing.

Meet the experts:

Donna Oriowo, PhD, LCSW, CST, is an AASECT-certified sex therapist and founder of

AnnodRight, a sex and relationships therapy practice specifically aimed at serving Black women in the Washington, D.C. area.

Shadeen Francis, LMFT, CST, is an AASECT-certified sex therapist, couples therapist, and speaker based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Ahead, sex therapists explain what exactly sex therapy is, how it works, how to know if you need it, and how it can help improve your relationship with yourself and others.

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What is sex therapy?

There are a lot of misconceptions surrounding sex therapy—that it happens in the nude, that therapists watch their clients have sex, or that the therapist touches the clients. While these sensationalized perceptions make for clickbait-y headlines and engaging television, in the real world, “sex therapy is a form of talk-based therapy that helps people improve their sex lives,” explains Shadeen Francis, LMFT, an AASECT-certified sex therapist based in Philadelphia. Just like other forms of talk therapy, sex therapy “can help you explore your patterns, support you to better understand the past experiences that have helped shape you, and teach you new strategies to achieve your goals, with a central focus on sex and sexuality,” she adds.

Of course, sex and sexuality cover a broad range of topics. So, what areas can sex therapy specifically help you unpack? Oriowo clarifies that this form of therapy may involve “talking about anything from sexual functioning, your sex life and satisfaction, to sexual trauma, sexual scripts, and sexual esteem [meaning, a person’s overall confidence in their sexuality and ability to enjoy its expression].”

How does sex therapy work?

Sex therapy works like any other form of talk therapy. By talking about your experiences and your feelings, your therapist is able to guide you through the issues you find challenging. Every therapist is different, but some may even suggest homework for you to try on your own or with a partner.

Speaking of partners, that’s where a potential difference comes into play. Traditional therapy is often between a client and a therapist, but with sex therapy you may choose to attend with a partner. Going to therapy with your S.O. can provide unique benefits, as well as a few challenges. Why? “In individual therapy, you are the star of the show,” explains Francis. “Individual therapy is a space that is designed to allow you to dive deep and be focused on what you need for your wellbeing.” In couples therapy, however, the relationship is the client, she says. Each partner’s experience still matters, but it’s not the sex therapist’s job to decide who is right or wrong. Instead, their role is to “offer support by prioritizing ways for you to relate to one other with clarity, kindness, and respect.”

Having a neutral third party to facilitate difficult conversations can make all the difference for people who are having trouble seeing eye to eye. “The unique benefit of couples therapy is that folks get to work through things in real time, for example, getting to practice new communication strategies with your partner with the support of your therapist, or having help sharing delicate information in a safer emotional environment,” says Francis.

That said, many people still prefer to attend sex therapy solo—either because they’d like a bit more privacy when digging into sensitive issues or because they’re not currently partnered. After all, you don’t need to be dating (or having sex, even) to see a sex therapist.

You can enjoy the benefits of sex therapy and work through sex and sexuality-related challenges, regardless of your relationship status.

Do I need sex therapy?

The combined stigma around talking about sex and going to therapy can make some people reluctant to seek out a sex therapist. But reaching out to a professional doesn’t mean there’s something “wrong” with you. “Everyone could use some extra support,” says Francis. “Given the amount of stress most people face in their daily lives, the reality is that most people are living with the consequences of unresolved trauma.” This may be trauma related to unfulfilling and/or awkward sexual experiences in your past, or, in serious cases, may stem from traumatic experiences, such as sexual assault.

According to RAINN, “every 68 seconds, an American is sexually assaulted.” While that may seem like an extreme number, statistically, it’s more likely than not that someone has had an unpleasant sexual experience in their lifetime.

Plus, with many schools lacking comprehensive and inclusive sex education programs, “sex therapy would benefit a lot of people,” says Francis.

But sex therapy isn’t only for those who have experienced sexual trauma. Many people seek out support because they’re dealing with common issues, such as performance anxiety, low sexual confidence, or mismatched levels of desire within a relationship.

At the end of the day, sex therapy can be a huge help for figuring out how to deal with the stress of simply living in the world—especially if you embody one or more marginalized identity. For example, people who are asexual often receive pushback from friends, family, and potential partners trying to insist there’s something wrong with them, rather than accepting asexuality as a perfectly valid identity. (Which, spoiler: It is.)

Even in situations where you’re not actively engaging in sex, sex therapy can help promote self-acceptance as well as help you build tools for communicating your desires and needs with others.

If you experience little to no sexual desire, you may be asexual. Here are some other gender and sexuality terms to know:

How do I find a sex therapist?

Choosing a therapist is a big decision, so it’s worth doing the research to find someone who’s a good fit for your needs. A great place to start is looking through the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors, and Therapists (AASECT) directory. Professionals who are AASECT-certified (like WH’s experts) have undergone additional training beyond their therapy licensure requirements and are more likely to be well-versed in a variety of sexuality topics. Psychology Today is another mental health professionals directory that allows you to search by keyword and specialty, helping you narrow down your options.

For folks who are kinky, queer, or non-monogamous, it can feel especially tricky to find non-judgmental professionals who won’t misunderstand you or require you to educate them. For these groups, the following resources can help you find a therapist who will recognize your identities and the nature of your most intimate relationships:

Moreover, when making a choice as personal as finding a sex therapist, a referral from someone who already knows you is often best. If you have a primary care provider, gynecologist, or another healthcare professional you like and trust, ask them if they have any people in mind.

And feel free to reach out to friends, too. Not everyone is open about seeing a therapist, but one of the best ways to shatter stigmas is bringing these conversations into the open. So why not solicit suggestions on Facebook? If posting to your wall feels too public, I suggest posting in private groups relevant to your identities, such as open relationship groups if you’re looking for a poly-friendly therapist.

How can sex therapy help my relationship?

Not only can sex therapy help you have better sex, but it can also help you develop a better relationship with yourself and your partner(s). According to Oriowo, sex therapy “helps you understand intimacy better, how your partner likes to give and receive intimacy, how sex plays into intimacy, and teaches you to communicate more effectively about your desires and needs.” And who doesn’t need that?

Here’s the thing: You don’t know what you don’t know. Even in relationships that are happy, healthy, and fulfilling, there are often small adjustments that can make a huge difference to your overall relationship satisfaction—especially in the bedroom. Sex therapy provides a safe space for you and your partner(s) to discuss any needs or desires that aren’t being met, and come up with a game plan, so you can enjoy even more Os.

If you’re still reluctant to get some extra support, remember these words shared by Francis, “You are deserving of peace and pleasure.” Because your satisfaction under the sheets is tied to your overall health and wellbeing, it’s worth prioritizing. And while talking about sex can feel scary (and, uh, awkward) at first, those conversations are worth having.

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Staying Healthy While Staying Open

— The Polyamory Dilemma

By Jenna Fletcher

Angie Ebba, 42, of Portland, OR, has two local girlfriends, one long-distance partner, and a platonic life partner.

Ebba is polyamorous, having multiple intimate romantic relationships at the same time. Her partners know about each other and have consented to the arrangement, she says.

Polyamory is becoming more common in the United States. In 2021, one in nine Americans said they’d been in polyamorous relationships, and one in six said they wanted to try it, according to a study by researchers at the Kinsey Institute.

While a high level of transparency is required to make polyamory work, those who practice it don’t always feel comfortable sharing their relationship status with health care professionals. The fear of disclosure is not unfounded. Of the those in the Kinsey study who said they weren’t and had never been interested in polyamory, fewer than 15% said they respect people who engage in the practice.

“I hear all the time from patients who have sexual questions and issues but are uncomfortable talking to their doctors or even other therapists,” says Ian Kerner, PhD, a psychotherapist and sex therapist in New York City. “As polyamorous systems are still on the outskirts of the mainstream, some doctors may have implicit biases or explicit judgments, especially if they are lacking in experience.”

Roadblocks to Care

People who practice polyamory face unique health issues. These include a potentially higher risk of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) from having multiple sexual partners, and anxiety or depression stemming from managing multiple relationships.

“It is of particular importance in OB/GYN given the risk of STI transmission, and its consequences such as infertility, vaginal discharge, and systemic illness,” says Cheruba Prabakar, MD, the CEO of Lamorinda Gynecology and Surgery in Lafayette, CA. “Disclosing information will allow the provider to think about the patient more holistically.”

Ebba does not tell her doctors about her personal life. She knows other people in these relationships who have felt judged in clinical encounters, and she avoids disclosure unless absolutely necessary.

“Primarily, I don’t let my providers know because I’ve already in the past faced discrimination and awkwardness for being queer; I don’t want that for being poly as well,” she says. “If I can avoid it, I will.

A study from 2019 of 20 people in consensual non-monogamous relationships – which can include polyamory – found most of them reported challenges in addressing their health care needs related to lack of provider knowledge, not enough preventive screenings, and stigmas that impacted their health and trust in the medical system.

“Polyamorous people often have trouble seeking out health care because they fear being judged by their doctor or other clinicians who don’t understand or respect their lifestyle choices,” says Akos Antwi, a psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner and co-owner of Revive Therapeutic Services in Rhode Island and Massachusetts. “They may also be reluctant to share information about their relationships with providers who aren’t familiar with the complexities of polyamory.” Sharon Flicker, PhD, a clinical psychologist and assistant professor of psychology at California State University-Sacramento, says she understands why people are worried about discussing the topic of multiple relationships with their health provider.

“Health care providers’ interactions with patients are often shaped by their mono-normative assumptions, that monogamy is ideal and deviations from that ideal is pathological,” she says. “Non-disclosure presents a barrier to sensitive care that meets the individualized needs of the patient.”

Flicker says health care professionals can seek training to reduce their biases, and to better understand and address the unique needs of people involved in consensually non-monogamous relationships. In addition, offering to answer any questions that a doctor might have after disclosure can open the door to dialogue, according to Prabakar.

“They may be simply embarrassed to ask, as many may not be familiar with” polyamory, Prabakar says.People in polyamorous relationships also can look for affirming language on the websites of health providers, which may mention welcoming patients of all sexual orientations or gender identities. A first appointment can serve as an interview to find out what kind of terms a provider uses when referring to non-monogamy.

Safely Navigating Sexy Time With Multiple Partners

Prabakar says sexual health and safety is at the forefront for her patients in polyamorous relationships because they are engaging with multiple partners.

She recommends anyone who has multiple partners use condoms and dental dams for the prevention of STIs, like herpes and gonorrhea, in addition to receiving regular screening tests for the diseases.

Tikva Wolf, from Asheville, NC, says she’s been in polyamorous relationships for 20 years. She says she has strict boundaries for engaging in new romantic relationships to protect her sexual health: She has sex only with people who know their current STI status, are clear communicators, and use protection.

“If the conversation feels awkward, or they don’t seem to know what they’ve been tested for, I don’t engage in sex with them,” she says. “I don’t start romantic partnerships with people unless they’re on the same page about relationships, and I don’t have casual sex.” Wolf says her actions toward transparency mirror the greater community of people who engage in polyamorous relationships.

Monogamy is the default setting, so there’s a tendency to be more transparent about specific preferences upfront in any relationship that doesn’t quite fit into that standard box,” she says.

Some research backs up Wolf’s hypothesis. A 2015 study in The Journal of Sexual Medicine found that polyamorous people reported more lifetime sexual partners than people in monogamous relationships, but were more likely to report using condoms and be tested for STIs. About one-quarter of monogamous partners reported having sex outside of their primary relationship but not informing their primary partner.

Kerner explains that each partner in a polyamorous relationship may have different ideas about sexual activity; some partners may be interested in casual sex, while others are interested in maintaining steady primary and secondary relationships.

“These systems are always different, and without clear boundaries, honesty, and communication – for example around the use of protection – the potential to contract an STI within the system increases,” and the potential for the polyamorous relationship to not work increases, he says.

Taking Care of Mental Health

Not only does a polyamorous lifestyle require talking about sexual health and romantic boundaries, it demands an openness with feelings as they come up.

“Couples in a polyamorous relationship don’t fully anticipate the emotional response they might have to their partner being with another person,” says David Helfand, PsyD, a therapist in St. Johnsbury, VT, who has worked with many polyamorous couples.

People may have feelings of insecurity or jealousy, which can lead to anxiety in navigating the complexity of multiple relationships.

“The first time your spouse goes on a date with another person, or you hear them in the bedroom with someone else, it can create an intense emotion that you might not know how to process or have been prepared for,” Helfand says.

Seeing a therapist can help with processing emotions raised by dating multiple people. Ebba says she sees a therapist regularly, in part for help setting boundaries on how much time to spend with different partners. “Poly relationships can be great because you have more support people in your life,” she says. “But you’re also giving more of your time and energy away too.”

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Maintaining Your Sex Life After Prostate Cancer

Sex may be different after prostate cancer treatment, but it can still be enjoyable

If you have prostate cancer and your healthcare provider recommends treatment, you might be wondering how your sex life may or may not be affected. You’re not alone if you have questions about this, as this is a common concern.

“Treating prostate cancer is about treating the whole person,” says urologist Raevti Bole, MD. “We have many effective therapies to help you resume intercourse if that’s your goal. But we want you to feel like you can talk to your provider and partner about your issues or concerns.”

Dr. Bole explains how your sex life may evolve after treatment and answers some commonly asked questions.

Can you have sex after prostate cancer?

Sexual and urinary side effects are common after prostate cancer treatment. “But yes, we can help most people get back to a satisfying sexual experience, though this may look different after treatment,” says Dr. Bole.

There are two gold-standard treatments for prostate cancer:

  • Radical prostatectomy removes your prostate gland and the two small glands at the base of your prostate called seminal vesicles. Pelvic lymph nodes may also be removed as part of this operation.
  • Radiation therapy delivers radiation to your entire prostate to destroy cancer-specific cells, and often the pelvic lymph nodes as well. If you opt for radiation therapy, you may receive androgen deprivation therapy to reduce testosterone in your body. This combined approach provides improved overall treatment.

New treatment options, such as high-intensity focused ultrasound therapy and cryotherapy, are being investigated for the potential to treat focused areas of the prostate gland and potentially lessen sexual side effects. But these treatments are typically only an option for certain types of prostate cancer, and you may eventually need a prostatectomy or radiation therapy down the line. Consultation with a urologist who specializes in prostate cancer is the best way to determine if you’re a candidate for any type of focal therapy.

Sex after prostate biopsy

To confirm a diagnosis of prostate cancer, you need to have a biopsy. During this test, your healthcare provider collects a sample of prostate tissue to look for cancer. They can do this in one of two ways:

  • Transrectal biopsy: This biopsy occurs by inserting an ultrasound probe into your rectum and then using a needle to pass through that probe to get the sample cells from your prostate.
  • Transperineal biopsy: This biopsy is taken by inserting a needle into the skin of your perineum (the area of skin between your genitals and your anus) to remove sample tissue cells from your prostate.

Though you may be sore for a couple of days, there aren’t any restrictions on sexual activity after having a biopsy. It’s common to notice old blood in your ejaculate for up to a month or two. This typically goes away on its own as you heal and isn’t associated with pain. Infection is a risk after a biopsy, though the risk is much lower when it’s taken through your perineum.

“For the vast majority of men undergoing an uncomplicated biopsy (either transrectal or transperineal), long-term sexual function should not be affected,” reassures Dr. Bole.

In most cases, if you’re feeling well, you should be able to ejaculate or have sex again when you feel ready. If you participate in receptive anal sex, you should wait for two weeks or until you’re fully healed, especially if you had a transrectal biopsy. But if you experience any blood, pain or swelling, you should refrain from sexual activity until you meet with your healthcare provider.

Sex after prostatectomy and radiation therapy

Once your provider confirms a diagnosis, they’ll discuss your treatment plan with you. Both prostatectomy and radiation therapy can affect your sexual performance in the following ways:

Anal sex safety

Your anus doesn’t create its own lubricant, so the tissue inside of your anus is delicate and susceptible to tearing. Luckily, that tissue heals relatively quickly. If you have anal sex, it’s important to let your surgeon know before you have your prostate removed. Your surgeon will help you determine when it’s safe to insert anything anally. In most cases, it’s OK to participate in anal sex after six weeks.

“Know your body and take your time,” advises Dr. Bole. “If you’ve waited to heal after prostate removal, but you have anal intercourse and notice pain or blood, talk to your surgeon who may advise you to wait longer.”

In some cases, having your prostate removed may affect your ability to enjoy receptive anal sex.

Erectile dysfunction after prostate cancer treatment

For some people, undergoing prostate cancer treatment can result in some difficulty getting or maintaining an erection. This erectile dysfunction (ED) occurs because the nerve bundles that help control erections sit behind your prostate.

Surgeons make every effort to leave these nerve bundles intact, but the nerves may become damaged. If the tumor has grown into your nerve bundles, your surgeon may remove the nerves entirely.

“Erectile dysfunction is not uncommon after prostate cancer surgery, but the level of effect is variable in the short and long term,” explains Dr. Bole. “Your prognosis depends on your erectile function before treatment, your age and whether your nerves were spared. Erectile function can improve for up to two years after surgery, but it’s possible that it does not return to normal. This is also affected by natural aging and any other health conditions you have.”

Radiation therapy can also affect the nerves around your prostate depending on the type of radiation, your age and health conditions. According to Dr. Bole, in general, five years after radiation therapy, about half of people have some level of erectile dysfunction.

Orgasm after prostate cancer treatment

You can orgasm after prostate cancer treatment, but it usually results in a dry orgasm. With a dry orgasm, no fluid comes out of your urethra when you climax. But you can still feel the pleasurable sensation of climax.

Why do you have a dry orgasm? If you had a prostatectomy, the procedure removes the seminal vesicles (which produce and hold your semen) and cuts the vas deferens, so there isn’t any semen to come out. And radiation therapy causes the tissues in and around your prostate, including your ejaculatory ducts, to become fibrous, or stiff and dense. Although there isn’t a reliable treatment to improve a dry orgasm, it’s a common condition where up to 90% of people who receive radiation therapy can develop dry orgasms over time.

Climacturia after prostatectomy

Climacturia is when you leak any drops of urine during an orgasm. Though this number can vary, on average, climacturia can occur in about 25% of people after prostate removal. Studies have found that of these people, only half of them have enough climacturia to be bothersome.

Lack of interest in sex after prostate cancer treatment

Androgen deprivation therapy often accompanies radiation therapy and reduces testosterone production in your body. When you have low testosterone, you could experience a decrease in your sex drive (libido). “The general stress and anxiety of treatment may also affect your desire to have intercourse,” notes Dr. Bole.

Infertility after prostate cancer treatment

If you’ve had your prostate removed, you can’t get someone pregnant through intercourse. After surgery, you no longer produce semen, which carries sperm when you ejaculate. Radiation therapy also reduces semen production and affects your ability to make sperm.

If you’re considering having children, talk to your healthcare provider before prostate cancer treatment. There are several options for preserving fertility before cancer treatment or retrieving sperm (if you have them) after treatment.

Treatment options for ED after prostate cancer treatment

Sex is often different after prostate cancer treatment, but it can still be enjoyable. “Treatments for ED are often focused on penetrative intercourse,” says Dr. Bole. “But the sexual experience is often not just about penetration. We work with you to discuss your goals for sexual health or intimacy with a partner.”

Treatments for ED include:

Erectile dysfunction medications

There are many medications to treat ED, including Viagra® and Cialis®. “These medications are often the first treatment we recommend,” says Dr. Bole. “They are inexpensive, and if you don’t like them, or they don’t work well for you, you can stop taking them at any point.”

Penile rehabilitation

The goal of penile rehabilitation is to reduce the risk of permanent ED before you have treatment. It focuses on increasing oxygenation and preserving the structures of the erectile tissues to prevent long-term damage. The theory is that helping people regain erections earlier than later after treatment could prevent long-term damage. Think of it as a “use it or lose it” approach.

This is an active area of research and there’s no standard protocol that’s been proven best for every person, says Dr. Bole. Your oncology team may recommend their preferred protocol, such as oral medication, to promote the early return of erectile function and, hopefully, longer-term recovery.

Penile injections

Medication you inject into the base of your penis, called intracavernous injections, can improve your ability to stay erect. Your healthcare provider can teach you how to inject the medication for times when you want an erection.

“The medication takes about 10 or 15 minutes to take effect and may not be the best option if you have a fear of needles,” notes Dr. Bole. “But if you’re looking for a better erection after prostate treatment, and the oral medications are not working, injections can be very effective.”  

Vacuum constriction device

A vacuum erectile device (also known as a penis pump) draws blood into your penis to help you get an erection. Usually, it comes with a rubber ring you slip down over the base of your penis to hold the blood in. It can be a good option if medications aren’t working well or you don’t want surgery.

Surgery

There are several types of penile implants to improve erections, including:

  • Malleable prosthesis, a noninflatable implant that’s always semirigid and you bend it up or down.
  • Inflatable implant, a device placed in your penis that inflates using a pump in your scrotum.

Climacturia treatment

If you have climacturia, pelvic floor muscle therapy can help you improve urinary control. This noninvasive treatment involves simple exercises to strengthen the muscles that help regulate urination.

Surgery is another option. Your healthcare provider can insert a sling made from synthetic mesh-like surgical tape around the area of your urethra to reposition it. The pressure caused by the sling often helps prevent leakage.

People with climacturia may also experience erectile dysfunction. “In the instance you experience both, we can do a combined surgery to put in a penile prosthesis and a sling to address both problems,” says Dr. Bole.

Therapy for you and your partner

Sex therapy, couples therapy and support groups are important resources for people who’ve undergone prostate cancer treatment and their partners. Sex can often be an uncomfortable topic, especially if you or your partner are experiencing changes in sexual behavior and are unsure of how to communicate your feelings. If you’re experiencing shame or embarrassment, or feel like you’re inadequate, please know that these side effects of prostate cancer treatment are common and (in most cases) treatable with the right tools and therapies.

Some therapeutic options that can be beneficial after your treatment include:

  • Couples therapy centers around your relationship with your partner. It can help resolve conflicts and find ways to communicate better about things that are upsetting to you and your partner. A couples therapist can help you discuss these issues, so they don’t interfere with your relationship.
  • Sex therapy focuses on sexual intimacy and helping couples show affection with and without penetration. That may include the use of sex toys or other activities you may not have considered before. Some sex therapists even specialize in working with people who have or who’ve had cancer.
  • Support groups connect you with others going through the same experience as you. They can help you understand what to expect and how others have handled specific challenges. Many people find support groups as a source of hope and comfort, and your healthcare provider can help connect you to these resources should you need them.

“Our goal is to make sure you live the longest, healthiest and most fulfilling life possible,” says Dr. Bole. “We treat cancer to protect your life, then we help get back your quality of life. If intimacy and intercourse are important to you, we can help you get back to experiencing those again safely.”

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The Hottest Sex Trends to Know About for 2023

By Sam Manzella

I’m sure you’ve made some personal or professional resolutions ahead of the new year, but have you thought about setting intentions for your sex life in 2023? A new year is a great opportunity to recalibrate how you approach, discuss, and think about sex.

What makes you feel good, honestly? Are there any new sex positions or innovative products that have piqued your interest? Perhaps most importantly, are there any unanswered questions you have regarding your sexual or reproductive wellness?

To kick off the new year right, SheKnows touched base with some experts in the sexual wellness space about sex-related conversations and products they foresee trending in 2023. Use their suggestions as jumping-off points for your own journey of sexual education, exploration, and satisfaction.

Happy New Year, pleasure seekers!

Prioritizing what you like during sex, not just what’s been fed to you

Let’s face it: All of us have internalized some messaging about what sex is “supposed to” be like. Whether they stem from porn, pop culture, or IRL convos, these ideals can stir up doubts, shame, or self-consciousness…and get in the way of us actually enjoying what we get up to in the bedroom. Sex educator Emily L. Depasse, MSW, MEd, who runs the popular Instagram account @sexelducation, recommends kicking off 2023 by checking in with yourself about where you learned your core values, beliefs, and preferences regarding sex.

“Asking questions like, ‘Do I leave my sexual encounters feeling satisfied?’ and ‘What sensations do I like and crave more of?’ or ‘What am I not telling my partner?’ might be great starter questions and can even turn into journal prompts, meditations, or intimate experiences with partners,” she tells SheKnows. This introspective work is a fantastic way of getting to know yourself, your body, and your desires better. Think of it as an extension of your self-care routine.

Upon doing some reflection, you might feel inspired to reach for different sex toys or try out new positions in bed. “Once you’re able to tune into your curiosity, rather than fear it,” Depasse explains, “you’ll be able to better visualize what you’re really seeking in bed and what might help get you there.”

Discussing sex openly and directly with your partner(s)

Although it may be uncomfortable at first, Depasse is a big fan of discussing your desires or concerns openly with your sexual partner(s). Consider getting candid about any insights or takeaways you glean from your top-of-the-year sex-trospection.

Polly Rodriguez, founder and CEO of the sexual wellness brand Unbound, echoes this sentiment. Throughout 2022, her team focused on growing Unbound’s TikTok following. She has noticed that viewers really enjoy content about how best to communicate their sexual wants and needs to a partner.

“The first step of that is understanding what you like and then sharing that with someone else,” Rodriguez tells SheKnows. “It’s so great to see that type of content resonate, and honestly, it’s so important.”

Incorporating toys into partnered sex

While many of us associate vibrators, dildos, and other sex toys with masturbation, these items can also be used during partnered sex. Rodriguez expects to see more partnered sex-forward toys on the market in 2023 as the world continues to bounce back from COVID-19-related isolation. “This could be anything from BDSM accessories to vibrators,” she explains, “but ultimately, [the focus will be] on products that encourage continued exploration with a partner.”

The good news? With a financial recession looming large, Rodriguez believes affordability will be a major concern for sex toy manufacturers in the new year. “Brands will need to continue to focus on accessible pricing without compromising on quality and product safety,” she says.

Depasse is also pumped that national retailers have begun stocking sexual wellness products on their shelves, making these items even more accessible to the average consumer in America. She thinks this trend will continue into 2023. “Dame launched in Sephora this year,” she explains, “and I see increasing numbers of sex toys and lubricant offerings at drug stores that go beyond the typical KY Jelly and Trojan brand.”

Experimenting with sexual wellness products that aren’t toys

Sex toys aside, Depasse is excited about the trend of holistic sexual wellness products — think CBD-infused lube to promote relaxation, or organic supplements to prevent UTIs or yeast infections. Basically, this category encompasses any sex-related products that aren’t toys.

Personally, Depasse is a big fan of products from Dame, a sexual wellness brand with a research-backed approach. “Dame came out with their Desire Gummies this year, and I was excited to try them because it wasn’t just another vibrator or sex toy that could change my bedroom experience,” she shares. “Momotaro Apotheca also launched an organic UTI supplement and vaginal suppository.

Continuing conversations about sexual and reproductive health

Unfortunately, one of the biggest sex-related news stories of 2022 was the Supreme Court’s reversal of Roe v. Wade in June. This landmark ruling safeguarded abortion access in the United States for more than 40 years. States are now able to restrict or ban abortions, and plenty already have.

As the year stretched on, frank conversations about reproductive rights and health care became more commonplace. A number of viral videos — including the “Roe v. Bros” TikTok series that made the rounds during the midterm elections — highlighted just how ignorant many cisgender men are when it comes to sexual and reproductive health for people with uteruses. In 2023, Depasse thinks we’ll see even more sex-related educational campaigns on social media — think Reels, TikToks, or YouTube videos.“When I look at this topic as a whole, most of the conversations are driven by women who are fed up with the lack of knowledge and understanding about reproductive health care,” she shares. “I think these conversations will continue into 2023 and shift depending on what legislation is passed.”

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This Yes-No-Maybe List Can Help Couples Explore Their Wildest Sexual Fantasies

— If one of your goals for the new year is to rev up your intimate life, consider one popular activity often recommended by sex therapists to couples looking to explore their desires: the Yes/No/Maybe list.

By Kelly Gonsalves

The Yes/No/Maybe list.

The Yes/No/Maybe list is an activity designed to help partners explore and share their erotic interests, including what they’d be curious about trying, what they already know they love from past experiences, and what’s a no-go. It’s perfect for couples or any set of sexual partners interested in learning about each other’s fantasies and seeing what overlapping areas of interest exist between them.

So, how does it work?

First, each of you will get your own individual copy of a lonnnng list of sexual activities, fantasies, kinks and fetishes, accessories, and more. There are lots of versions of this on the internet (we link some of our faves below), but some possible line items that might appear on the list include:

  • Anal sex
  • Pegging
  • Fingering
  • Dirty talk
  • Sexting
  • Making videos
  • Threesomes: FFM
  • Threesomes: MMF
  • Group sex
  • Public sex
  • Mutual masturbation
  • Spanking
  • Biting
  • Choking someone
  • Being choked
  • Bondage: being tied up
  • Bondage: tying someone else up
  • Role playing
  • Outdoor sex
  • Double penetration
  • Erotic massage
  • Watching porn together
  • Watching porn alone
  • Vibrators
  • Cock rings
  • Swallowing cum
  • Period sex
  • Food play
  • Foot play
  • Handcuffs
  • Cuckolding

The list goes on! And it can get detailed.

Next to each item, you’ll have the opportunity to write in your own personal interest level:

  1. Yes (I’m into it or willing to try it)
  2. No (Not for me/not open to it)
  3. Maybe (I could be interested with more conversation, information, and/or in a specific situation).

Some versions of the Yes/No/Maybe list—like this one from AASECT-certified sex therapist Jessa Zimmerman, M.A., CST—also feature a fourth option: Open to fantasizing about it, but not actually doing it IRL. (Which is an important and often helpful distinction, “because many people are aroused by the idea of certain acts but wouldn’t want to actually do it,” she tells mbg.)

Each person will fill out their copy of the list separately and in private—and the privacy is key here, because you want to feel open to answer totally honestly, without feeling influenced by the way your partner reacts to a certain line item.

After you each complete the worksheet by yourselves, that’s when you’ll then come together to review your responses together and look for areas of overlap where you can explore together if you so choose.

Why sex therapists love it.

The activity is often recommended by sex therapists because it allows partners to easily get to know each other’s most intimate desires, exposes them to new ideas they may not have considered but find intriguing, and gives them an easy way to bring up a kinky interest that perhaps they haven’t been able to talk about thus far.

“I think these are wonderful tools to explore erotic interests, but they are even better to open conversation,” Zimmerman adds.

That is, in addition to being a great source of inspiration, perhaps the biggest benefit of the Yes/No/Maybe list is that it simply opens up the lines of communication.

Couples can sometimes go years without ever meaningfully talking about their sex life, and it does them a great disservice. We know from research that people who talk more about sex tend to have more satisfying sex lives, whereas those who have less sexual communication tend to enjoy their sex life less, too.

“If neither partner knows what the other’s expectations, desires, or needs are around sex, there isn’t much chance of continually making it better,” AASECT-certified sex therapist Holly Richmond, Ph.D., LMFT, CST, previously told mbg. “Couples that talk about sex can have better, more exciting sex the longer they are in the relationship, which is exactly the opposite of what we’ve been told to believe, that sex gets worse or more boring the longer you are together.”

In other words, the key to a sustainably steamy sex life is being willing to sit down at talk about it. And if it’s not something you’ve been doing much of lately in your relationship? The Yes/No/Maybe list is one simple and pretty fun way to get started.

Tips for doing the activity as a couple.

Find a copy of the Yes/No/Maybe list that speaks to you. We love the one from Zimmerman linked above, or you could also try this one from AASECT-certified sex therapist Diana Sadat, RCC, CST, this one from sex educator Sunny Megatron, or any other you’re vibing with.

“I recommend people treat this exercise as a discussion starter, with curiosity and without judgement,” says Zimmerman. That includes judgment toward your partner and judgment toward yourself.

Exploring sexual interests with a partner can be an extremely fun activity, but it can also be vulnerable stuff. Stay open-minded and affirming with each other as you talk through your lists, while also being vocal about your boundaries and respectful about the other person’s.

(Remember: A relationship becomes safer, and feels all the closer and warmer, the more we’re able to say no to each other with ease. So celebrate each other’s “no”! It brings you closer every time you do.)

Also remember that none of this means you have to do anything on the list, Zimmerman reminds, no matter what you answered on the worksheet. Either way though, “you can talk about what is appealing about particular sexual activities (or what is not) and under what circumstances you’d find it interesting.”

The takeaway.

The Yes/No/Maybe list is a lighthearted, straightforward, yet eye-opening way to kick off a conversation with partners about the things that turn you both on.

Suggest the idea to your partner to see if they’d be interested in doing this on your next date night (feel free to shoot them the link to this article!), and then come into the activity together with open minds and a spirit of playful exploration. You’ll be sure to walk away with a good bit of inspo for where to go next.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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How To Introduce Power Play Into Your Sex Life

Is it getting hot in here?


By Jessica Estrada

Whether you want to reignite a spark in the bedroom or are just down to try something new with your partner, power play (with continued consent, of course) may be the thing to spice up your sex life. Carol Queen, Ph.D., a staff sexologist for Good Vibrations, defines power play as play that involves differential roles, usually a submissive partner and a dominant partner. This type of power play, she says, applies to most BDSM as well as other forms of kink (think role-playing) and some forms of rough sex.

With that in mind, while people participating in power play tend to find this type of play erotic, Queen says it doesn’t always involve sexual activity. “Some go on to have sex with this heightened arousal and power-infused role-play to add passion and excitement,” she says. “Others do not choose this.” Either way, she says the benefits of power play are many, including pleasure, excitement, increased partner intimacy, and an enhanced way you see yourself and the world. Into it? Keep reading to learn how to introduce power play into your sex life.

How To Introduce Power Play Into Your Sex Life

1. Get On The Same Page

First and foremost, it’s important to talk to your partner about incorporating power play. “Find out if your partner is interested, if they have any concerns, if either of you feels the need for more information,” Queen says. If so, she encourages doing more research about power play, taking a class, or talking to an experienced friend or expert about it until you both feel comfortable taking the next steps.

2. Create A Yes/Maybe/No List

The next step is to get clear on what you’re most excited to try and your limits and boundaries. To do so, Queen suggests creating a yes, maybe, and no list, which details what you’re willing to do, things you may be into trying, and what things you’re not interested in trying. Then compare lists and find what is compatible for you to explore together. “If you’re interested in different things, figure out if either of you is happy to facilitate the other’s fantasy, or look at your maybe lists and see if there’s a way to address the elements that prevent those items from being yesses,” Queen says.

3. Choose Your Safe Word

Next, decide on a safe word other than the word no. Queen says it should be a word that would not likely come up when you’re in character during role-play. The word “red,” as in red light means stop, is a common safe word. If there’s a chance you may not be able to be heard — for instance, if it’s noisy or you are gagged — Queen recommends using a safe gesture, such as holding an item and dropping it.

And most importantly, when the safe word (or gesture) is used, respect it and give the other person what they need, whether that’s taking a break or stopping altogether. If your partner doesn’t respect safe words, Queen doesn’t recommend playing with them again as it is a breach of trust.

4. Decide Your Roles

“Even if you are not doing role-play per se, power play implies a top and a bottom (dominant and submissive),” Queen says. But these don’t have to be set in stone. “People switch all the time, but you need to know who is the ‘do-er’ and the ‘do-ee.’ Unless, you know, your fantasy is to [wrestle] and see who can overpower the other,” she says. Whatever your role, Queen adds that both of you can use the safe word at any point.

5. Check In With Each Other

Once you’ve experimented with power play (more on how to do that below), Queen emphasizes the importance of checking in with each other afterward, whether it’s right after or after you’ve had some time to process the experience. Ask each other how you’re feeling and figure out what you loved or would change if you did it again.

Power Play Game Examples

Blindfold

If you’re just dipping your toes into power play, incorporating a blindfold is a beginner-friendly way to try it out. “Blindfold one of you, and the other person touches and teases them, maybe uses toys or a massage candle, does light BDSM play like slapping or pinching,” Queen says. “The blindfold is a power toy because it removes one of your senses and it also intensifies the others.”

Role-Play & Sex

Another way to experiment with power play is to choose personas or characters to play. “Pretend to be strangers and seduce each other, or pick matching roles that include power differential to explore,” Queen says. Think mistress and butler or coach and athlete. “Remember, this is fantasy, and you can use your safe word if it goes in a direction you’re not feeling.”

Bondage

Lastly, if you want to take things up a notch, Queen suggests trying bondage with fuzzy cuffs. She says metal handcuffs can cause discomfort when you thrash around. Don’t have handcuffs on hand (no pun intended)? The submissive can put their hands somewhere and not move. “This is exciting with sex play but also a way to explore spanking and other impact play,” she says. “The butt cheeks are good, safe places to explore impact. Start mild, and escalate if desired.”

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!

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Five signs your relationship is on the rocks

— Every couple has their ups and downs, but sometimes a relationship never recovers from a difficult period.

By

While processing conflict and working on your interactions is admirable, aiming to repair a dying relationship is a time-waster for everyone involved.

The key to sorting things out – whether that’s together or not – is seeing the signs you’ve reached the point of no return.

That allows you to go your separate ways if need be or come up with a game plan to change things if you see something worth salvaging; rip the plaster off and save yourselves the heartache later on.

According to sex and relationship therapist Lauren Consul, there are a few red flags that suggest you’re flogging a dead horse romantically.

If her warning signs read like a memoir of your partnership, it might be time to move on.

Getting stuck in the content during arguments

Lauren, 34, says that a clear sign your relationship is on the rocks can be seen in your arguments.

Are you getting to the root of the issue or focusing on surface level squabbles that go nowhere?

‘Two people can experience the same thing but feel completely differently about it,’ says Lauren.

‘If we get stuck in the “right sight” we are saying one person’s experience is valid and the other is not.’

Two Angry Man Fighting With Each Other. Disagreement.
Some couples can struggle to see the wood for the trees in disagreements

If disagreements are circular and you’re rowing about who did what and who’s in the right, you’re destined to become resentful as underlying causes fester unchecked.

Lauren adds: ‘The best way to overcome this is if we can take a pause and reflect on what we are hearing from our partner and validate them.’

Not taking responsibility

LA-based Lauren argues that couples for whom sorry is the hardest word may struggle long term.

When one partner won’t take responsibility, they place the success (or failure) of the relationship onto the other. For example, taking the ‘well if my partner would just change or do this differently, everything would be fine,’ approach to problems.

‘It is a lot easier to point the finger at our partner,’ comments Lauren. ‘But what you do impacts your partner which then impacts you – behaviours get reinforced.’

Losing curiosity for each other

As a relationship progresses, you’re naturally going to fall into certain routines and lose that ‘first flush of love’ feel.

However, if you’re no longer curious about your partner and assume you know them already, that’s a bad omen for your future.

Emotional Black Married Couple Having Reconciliation After A Fight.
Support and respect are cornerstones of a healthy partnership

Lauren says: ‘When we start dating, we ask lots of questions and are interested in each other, but over time we forgot or start presuming and stop asking our partner questions.

‘It is all about continuing to ask questions – how are they feeling? What are they thinking? And what their long-term goals are.’

As they say, the grass is greenest where you water it most, so put the effort in like you did at the beginning to come back from the brink.

Words and actions that don’t align

When the trust is gone in a relationship, it’s difficult to get it back.

If one partner makes big promises but fails to follow through, the other can feel let down.

Saying ‘I love you’ but not showing it, for example, signifies that your words are meaningless. And building a relationship on a shaky foundation can lead to collapse.

‘The first step is awareness but that alone is not enough, we have to have motivation,’ Lauren says.

‘We need to start to recognise how these things are showing up in the relationship and why they are showing up and then we can shift it.’

Lack of support and teamwork

Lauren says that feeling like your partner doesn’t have your back can be the death knell for your relationship.

She explains: ‘A common one I see is that one partner will take the side of their mum or dad or even siblings over their partner – and that is really painful for people, as it is saying you are not my core family.

‘It is that transition of “we are in this together” – it is about coming together and understanding how you are feeling about this and how can we work on this.’

It’s imperative you approach things as a team; otherwise what’s the point of being together?

No couple is perfect, but support, trust, respect, and collaboration set apart those that go the distance from those that don’t.

Complete Article ↪HERE↩!