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As anyone who has been depressed will tell you, depression isn’t just about feeling blue.
It is an incredibly complex condition which brings with it a whole slew of emotional, mental and physical symptoms with it. For men and women both, part of the problem can revolve around their sexuality – and this in turn can cause problems in a relationship at the time when the depressed person most needs the support. Fortunately, there are ways to help treat this particular problem and restore intimacy and pleasure to a relationship.
Depression and Male Sexuality
It is common for both men and women to experience sexual problems as part of their depression – but the ways in which this presents itself can be different. Healthline notes that in men, depression will often express itself as feelings of low-esteem, anxiety and guilt and this, in turn, can cause problems with erectile dysfunction, delayed orgasm, premature ejaculation or just a loss of interest in sex itself.
There is still a lot we just don’t know about exactly how depression affects the brain. But according to Net Doctor, researchers have learned that the chemical changes which take place when someone has this condition can lead to an increase in emotional withdrawal and low energy levels so that activities like sex, which require a connection to your partner as well as physical energy to perform, can become a challenge. This can be hurtful for the person’s partner and make them feel unwanted or unloved, putting a strain on the relationship that can, in itself, be difficult to deal with.
To make matters worse, many antidepressants are notorious for their side effect of causing sexual dysfunction or loss of interest. Included in this group are MAOI inhibitors, SSRI’s and SSNRI’s and both tetracyclic and tricyclic antidepressants.
What to Do
So the long and short of it is, both depression itself and some of the treatments for depression can both put a damper on a guy’s sex life. So what are some solutions to the problem?
Get the Treatment You Need
Depression is not a choice that people make – and it is usually not a problem that goes away by itself. If you have not yet been diagnosed, talk to your doctor about the symptoms you are having and get started on a plan of care that involves the combination of medications, therapy and lifestyle changes that are right for you.
If you are already being treated for depression and suspect that your anti-depressants might be putting the kybosh on your sex life, find out if you can switch medications. While it might take a little time to take effect, there are some drugs which do not seem to effect one’s libido, including Wellbutrin and Remeron.
Exercise
Both Healthline and Everyday Health recommend regular exercise – preferably with your partner – as part of a program to help reconnect sexually. First, it gives you and your partner time together doing something enjoyable and this alone can be good for a relationship. It also helps to release feel-good chemicals like endorphins that help fight depression naturally and keeps you in good shape so that you feel good about yourself and the way you look. All this can go a long way to enhancing your sex life.
Take Your Time
According to Everyday Health, sex therapist Dr. Sandra Caron also has a few tips for couples who are struggling to overcome the barrier that depression has placed on their sives. She recommends, first of all, that couples engage in more foreplay and other physical expressions of intimacy – hand holding, caressing, massage – before engaging in intercourse itself. Depression tends to slow down all responses, so taking this extra time to achieve arousal can help enhance the pleasure for both partners. She also recommends the use, if needed, of estrogen creams or lubricants and even erotica (like lingerie or sexy movies) to help sparthe mood.
Open Up
Probably the most important advice for men who are trying to reconnect with their partner sexually is to open up and communicate with your partner. This can be more difficult for men to do in general, but is even more of a challenge when it comes to talking about intimate issues like sexuality, desire and arousal. But being honest about how you are feeling and letting your partner know that it is the depression that is a problem and not a loss of interest or a loss of love can be an incredibly powerful way to overcome this challenges and get support from your loved one at a time when you need it the most. Also, partners can be more understanding and supportive if they understand more about what is going on – otherwise, it is easy to interpret a low mood or lack of responsiveness as being hostile or unloving.
In short, depression is a difficult condition with a whole slew of symptoms that go far beyond just feelings of sadness or being blue. And when depression begins to affect a person’s sexuality, this in turn can lead to a strain on intimate partner relationships. However, while there are no quick solutions to this problem, getting on a treatment program that is tailored to someone’s individual needs as well as exercising regularly, spending time with a partner to engage in more foreplay and simply opening up and talking about the problem can all help to reignite the sexual spark in a relationship – and hopefully make the battle against depression that much easier.
Complete Article HERE!
1. Sexual play doesn’t have to end in orgasm to be satisfying. Yes, we like climaxing. And we expect to get there most of the time. But we don’t experience what guys refer to as “blue balls”—we don’t have nuts that can be brought to the brink of busting and then abruptly deprived of fulfilling their orgasmic destiny—so there’s no reason to feel bad or subhuman or inadequate if you get off before we do. Don’t expect us to beg you to finish us off like you might want to be in the same situation. We’re just fine curling up and falling asleep, or getting on with our day.
2. If you whine too much about your inability to make us orgasm once in a while even after we explain that sex can be pleasurable regardless, we are bound to start faking orgasms regularly. Faking an orgasm is called for on occasion, but we like to think of it as a last resort since it’s counterproductive to achieving future gratification by way of rewarding ineffective tactics. We don’t want to fake it more than we absolutely have to (for your good, and ours), so don’t make us.
3. We respect and appreciate your willingness to service us 99.9% of the time we want to get busy, but you can’t expect the same from us. We’re biologically programmed and societally conditioned to be more cautious about sex in general because we bear 100% of the physiological burden of getting pregnant and we’re the ones dealing with all the slut shaming. Please do not cite your “accommodating nature” as the reason why you should be able to select from a menu of on-demand sexual services at any time. If you avoid making this argument, we’re far more likely to have sex with you even when we don’t want to.
4. You might think we’re in the mood a lot less often than you are, but the fact is that we function differently. For a lot of women, desire doesn’t necessarily precede arousal. We need to be touched, caressed, and loved in order to crave sex. So instead of whining about how horny you are and how unlikely it seems that you’ll get laid that night because we’re a bit mopey or whatever, sneak up behind us and start rubbing our shoulders and work your way down to our waist, or go in for a boob grab. The key is physical contact, so touch us!
4. Foreplay doesn’t start twenty minutes before penetration. It is an all-day, every day phenomenon. If you want to increase the chances that we’ll mount you on any given night, tell us we’re sexy in the morning as we’re getting ready for work, or send us a text midday just to say you’re thinking about the way our ass looks when we shake it for you.
5. Tell us we’re beautiful without exaggerating. We know we don’t look like Gisele naked, so don’t make outrageous claims about how hot we are. Ridiculous compliments come across as insincere, so they’re ineffectual. We’d rather be appreciated for the way we look, flaws and all. Tell us what turns you on about us specifically, whether it’s something we’ve done or something we’re wearing, and avoid comparing us to other women at all costs. Start with “I love the way your…” or “I love it when you…”
6. We want to get weird with you. Don’t assume you’re special for having so many depraved thoughts. We can get there too, so clue us in to your innermost desires. The more comfortable you are with your sexual aspirations and the more you communicate them openly and honestly, the more likely we are to accompany you on your dirty journey.
7. We won’t necessarily think you’re a misogynistic prick if you want to objectify us in bed. Some of us actually want to be overpowered and/or objectified—as long as the bedroom objectification doesn’t seep into other aspects of our lives together. One of the staunchest feminists I know loves shouting, “I’m a cock hungry slut!” during sex. We’re totally capable of separating what happens during sex from the rest of our waking lives, so give us some credit and tell us what you want before dismissing the possibilities out there.
8. We want you to worship our vaginas just as much as you ache for us to build penis shrines. When you act like you’re eager to go down on us it means a lot, and your visible enthusiasm makes us a lot more psyched to reciprocate the favor. While you’re down there, tell us you love the way our vagina looks, smells, and tastes.
10. We’re aware that the reptilian part of your brain leads you to picture most of the hot young women you encounter naked. Keep this to yourself, no matter how much we claim to trust that you won’t act on those urges, or how often we assure you that we can handle hearing about them. We don’t need to be reminded that your natural instinct is to try to impregnate every hot breathing biped of the opposite sex. It does not make us feel great, plain and simple.
11. At a certain point, every woman realizes that there’s a serious downside to sleeping with hot guys, so stop feeling intimidated by them. The men who’ve gotten laid all their lives without putting much effort into luring a lady into bed pale in comparison to those who’ve had to work for it over the years. We would much rather have sex with a man who knows what he’s doing than an inexperienced Lothario who thinks a clitoris and a g-spot are synonymous.
12. Good-looking guys are nice to look at, but good looks won’t hold our interest for more than a few minutes, anyway. Your face and body are side dishes. The main course is how well you’re able to engage us—to make us feel like we’re the center of your universe, if only for a short stint—which requires self-awareness and self-confidence. We’ll swoon over how you hold yourself, walk, and talk—not how closely you resemble Brad Pitt.
Complete Article HERE!