By Dr. Katie Schubert
As a sex therapist, people sometimes email and call me to ask if I can answer a “quick question” for them. Human sexuality is complicated, and a “quick question” generally has a convoluted answer. However, sometimes I am able to provide a general answer or offer a starting place for those seeking answers. When I polled my students, friends and family about “quick questions” they would like answered by a sex therapist, I was flooded. I narrowed the submissions down to two.
INTEREST IN SEX IS GOING, GOING, GONE
I am a 40-year-old woman, married 18 years, with twins, age 15, and a 12-year-old. I am a stay-at-home mom. I spend a lot of time driving the kids to their activities every day. My husband continues to be very interested in having sex, but I couldn’t care less. I’m nowhere near menopause, but I think my hormones are off or something. I have no awareness of desire anymore. What’s happening to me? I still love him very much.
This is a complaint I hear from a lot from women. A recent study published by the National Institutes 
of Health found that the prevalence of sexual dysfunction among all women is estimated to be between 25 and 63 percent. Those figures are even higher for postmenopausal women, at 68 to 86.5 percent. Also, sexual dysfunction is more common in women (43 percent) than in men (31 percent). Further, the Global Study of Sexual Attitudes and Behaviors found that between 26 and 48 percent of women over 40 reported a lack of interest in sex.
To answer your question, you could be experiencing a lack of desire for many reasons. Part of the sex therapy process would be to uncover these reasons and develop ways to increase your desire. Being a stay-at-home mom is a full-time job and exhausting. Are you getting enough sleep? Lack of sleep can lead to reduced testosterone levels, which may contribute to a low libido or feelings of fatigue. Was your libido always low, or has it declined over the course of your marriage? It is not uncommon for a person’s sex drive to change over time. Fluctuations in libido often coincide with stress levels, major changes in your life or your relationship, or hormonal changes. How is your relationship with your husband? Does he make you feel guilty for not having sex? Does he help out enough with the kids and around the house? If you are harboring anxious feelings about needing to have sex, or feeling resentment toward your husband for not helping enough with the kids or house, the last thing you will want to do with him is be intimate.
Sex therapists use a process called sensate focus with couples experiencing situations similar to yours. Through sensate focus, couples are given a series of homework assignments geared toward rebuilding intimacy and trust in a relationship in an environment with reduced pressure and anxiety. The exercises begin with nonsexual massages and gradually work up to sexual touching and intercourse.
The fact that you love your husband is not indicative of how much sexual desire you should have for him. However, loving your husband is a great foundation and will help resolve this issue with more ease.
SURPRISE! WIFE FINDS HUSBAND IN HER BRA
I came home early from work one day last week and found my husband sitting in the family room dressed in my bra and panties and watching a sexually graphic movie on TV. He got really angry that I “caught” him. Is this common? What’s going on with him? I am horrified.
First of all, cross-dressing does not mean your husband is gay, bisexual or transgender. Most men who cross-dress are heterosexual and married and simply enjoy the practice. There are varying estimates of the prevalence of male cross-dressers in the United States, ranging from 2 percent to 10 percent. In a study published in the Journal of Psychology and Human Sexuality (Reynolds & Carson, 2008), researchers found that most of the heterosexual men who engaged in cross-dressing did so to achieve a feeling of “comfort and peace.” Men in the study said they cross-dressed to fulfill a biological, genetic or innate desire.
There have been several studies focusing on the wives of cross-dressers. One of these studies, published in the Journal of Psychology and Human Sexuality (Reynolds & Carson, 2008), found that most wives did not support their husband’s cross-dressing, but rather tolerated it. Generally, the wife’s biggest source of anxiety about their husband’s cross-dressing was that other people might find out.
If you and your husband were to pursue therapeutic services, it is likely that a therapist would first explore the feelings you both have about his cross-dressing. Often issues arise in relationships due to a lack of communication. You may be horrified by his cross-dressing because you do not understand why he does it or what it means about him. If you are given the space to ask questions and he is given the space to answer your questions, you both may feel more at ease with his cross-dressing. In the therapy session, you both may be asked what it would take for you to tolerate his desire to cross-dress. Most of the time, compromises must be made in order for both partners to feel as if their needs are being met. For instance, you may be able to work with your husband to set limits on his cross-dressing activities so you are more comfortable with his behavior.
Rest assured, your experience is not unique. In our society, gender norms are quite black and white. Any sort of behavior that does not fit into our rigid expectations is seen as taboo. The best thing to do in your situation is to learn more about cross-dressing, whether that means reading up on it or seeking the assistance of a sex therapist.
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!