Are you really too tired to have sex?

http://www.yourtango.com/proconnect/201074147/are-you-really-too-tired-sex

In this article, Dr. Trina Read tackles head on the “I’m too tired” excuse for a lack of sex in a marriage.  According to Dr. Read, “many a men and women has confessed that saying ‘I’m too tired’ has become a bad habit—they say it before they really think about whether they are or not.”

Where do you land on this?  Are you really too tired to have sex, or are you too tired to figure out what’s really wrong?

Thoughts?

Viagra for Women is Not for Me - a perspective

I love the Daily Beast website. Over the past year, it has slowly replaced CNN for my main source of news. Not only does it give a “cheat sheet” on the top hard news of the day, but it is also filled with blogs by various people who voice their opinions on everything from the oil spill, to the Israeli embargo on Gaza to sex. Today’s article speaks to the latter and the author is arguing against the commonly held view that women should be as sexual as men.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-06-16/flibanserin-viagra-for-women-is-not-for-me/?cid=hp:beastoriginalsL5

Tell me, what do you think?

Winning Isn’t Everything

Not too long ago, a dear friend came to visit us. During the course of her stay, we had much discussion about her new career. After years of working in the field of web design, she has taken to has taken up designing board games. She seems to have a natural talent for it; two of her prototypes have a very strong potential to be published in the next year.  Not bad for a newbie designer.

Because my repertoire of games runs the very uncreative gambit from Go Fish to Monopoly, I found this new world to be completely fascinating. The more I learned about the intricacies of the process of publishing games, the more impressed I became. And, of course, you can’t hang out with a game designer without playing a lot of games. So, after Riley was put to bed at night, our friend would pull out various games and we would play.

One game, Dominion, was addictive. We played every chance we could get. The hours would melt away, and I would look at the clock in horror when I realized it was late into the morning hours and we were still playing.

Needless to say, once our friend returned home, Eric and I immediately purchased the game. After all, TV had become incredibly boring in light of the fact that we could collect gold and potions and other such fun baubles.

Fairly quickly, however, I noticed a disturbing trend. Eric and I would play; he would beat me (badly); I would get angry; I would go to bed in a huff. Evidently, my husband’s skill at the game had escaped my notice when there were several people playing and was magnified when it was just the two of us. We were not just playing the game of Dominion on the kitchen table; it was manifesting itself in our relationship too. The fact that he won ALL THE TIME had me seriously pissed off.

Have you ever tried to have sex when you are pissed off? It doesn’t work so well. Pretty soon I noticed that it had been a long time since we had sex. (I will refrain from mentioning a specific time frame here only because I believe that every one should decide for their own relationship how much sex is “enough”. Just take my word that, for us, it was a long time.)

Since we both saw the pattern of drought that was emerging, we would start the evening with the best of intentions. “Let’s play a quick game and then have sex,” I would enthuse. (Why didn’t I reverse the order, you ask? Simply put, our five-year old does not go to sleep immediately at bed time, so we have a “no sex” safety-buffer zone for about an hour after we put her down.)

And then, after one game, I would want another…and another. But by the time my husband had thoroughly trounced me over and over, I was physically and emotionally exhausted and ready to call it an evening. “I don’t like playing with you,” I would pout. Until the next night came and I would ask to play again. Seriously, a therapist would probably have a field-day with me.

I did get me thinking, though. The game of Dominion might seem like a silly example, but there are lots of little irritations that we allow to invade our sex lives:

• He doesn’t pick up his socks and has no clue about the enormous amount of housework that I have to do = No sex for you buddy.
• She is watching her TV shows (again), so I will roll over and fall asleep. Pocket veto.

Really, at the end of the day, there are so many things that get in the way of a good sex life that really shouldn’t get in the way. Isn’t your sex life more important?

Finally, FINALLY, I took a bit of my own advice and decided to do something about this issue. I had a few options:

1)   I could stop playing the game.

2)   I could change my attitude towards winning. My husband, to his defense, was trying to teach me new strategies so that I could get better. He wasn’t being a jerk about the whole thing. Really. No, really.

3)   I could do some work during the “buffer” time, then have sex, then play the game. (And get pissed off or not at that point…either way it wouldn’t have impact on our sex life!)

4)   Try other options that hadn’t yet occurred to me.

Recognizing what we need to change and then going and making that change is challenging. My problem was that I enjoyed the behaviour that ultimately led to my anger. I liked playing the game. I liked trying to win. But the long-term effect was counter-productive for my relationship. So I needed to change.

I personally chose a combination of options 2 and 3. We still play the game, and I still have delusions of beating Eric, but it no longer has a negative impact on our sex life. And in my mind, that is a pretty big win.

And I take my wins where I can get them, because they still aren’t happening in Dominion…but I’m not bitter (anymore)!!

Don’t Wait for the Movie

I love movies.  In fact, I am so ready for Prince of Persia to come out.  I watch them in theaters, I rent them, I watch them on TV.  I honestly love to watch a good movie - action, adventure, “chick-flick”, drama, comedy, documentary, art house, even some foreign films…pretty much anything but horror (and I used to love those too, but as I have gotten older I just can’t do them anymore).  My point is that I love movies.  They are a great way to relax, to escape, and to imagine yourself in another place and time.  They are like books, but without all the time consuming reading!

BUT, and there always seems to be a but, generally speaking, what movies are not intended to be is a form of education.  The things people “learn” from movies is actually fascinating in a horribly morbid way.  If you talk to enough people, you will find that many believe that movies are by their nature “historically accurate”.  That somehow the phrase “based on actual events” implies that everything (or anything) in the movie actually happened - or happens.

Nowhere is this truer than when it comes to relationships and sex.  Whether we realize it or not, we all pick up subtle things from movies that we expect to find in our actual lives.

I was talking with a dear friend the other day and we came up with a couple of laughable “truths” that movies have taught people.  For example:

Sex requires a soundtrack.
Don’t get me wrong…if my husband puts Def Leopard on the iTunes list and hits play then somebody’s getting “lucky”.  I do find that music can set the stage, but how many times in a movie have you seen people orgasm right as the soundtrack hits a powerful crescendo?  OK, how many times has that ever happened in real life??  Besides, how long should a romantic playlist be anyway?  How many songs would cover foreplay, sex and cuddling?  How awkward if the music stopped before you did - “sorry honey, I honestly thought 4 songs would be more than enough…” And what if you finished 2 tracks before your very favorite song came on…

Lets be honest about this one.  Sex does not require a soundtrack - unless of course you are trying to mask the noises from children who might be able to hear you.

Couples always finish together.
Did I mention I love movies?  I love how in movies every woman has an orgasm every time she has sex.  In fact, more often than not couples have amazing simultaneous, face-to-face orgasms every time they have sex.  Fiction is such a wonderful thing.  Most women cannot reach orgasm from vaginal penetration alone, and the rating system doesn’t encourage sex toy product placement to explain how this experience might be possible.

Women never walk around naked after sex.
I have never grabbed the sheets off the bed, wrapped them around me and walked to the kitchen or bathroom after sex.  Are you kidding me?  Then I would have to put the sheet back on the bed after I got back.  Nothing says “we just had good sex” like telling your lover to move his butt so you can put the sheets back on the bed after you tromp to the fridge for a post - coital snack.

You just had sex.  Pretty sure that him seeing you naked falls further down the intimacy scale than having sex with each other.  How many of you grab your husband’s button down dress shirt and put that on to go pee?  I love wearing my husband’s shirts to lounge in.  But again - just had sex, so him seeing me walk naked somewhere is not outside my comfort zone.

A sub-section to this is that in movies the sheets in a bed naturally make a “L” shape allowing his sculpted chest to be completely visible while her voluptuous chest is completely covered while they sit up, side-by-side in bed.  Because obviously women cover up their boobs and men flaunt their nipples and bellybuttons.

Sure - this happens all the time in real life.  Men never keep a t-shirt on in bed.  And women always prefer to go topless with the sheets covering them rather than to put a shirt on.  It is just like my life!  Yours too right?!

Sex makes babies, no matter what.
I want to be clear that sex is how babies are made - mainly.  But there have been a slate of movies that imply that getting pregnant is pretty much assured by having sex once. (Knocked Up, Juno, Secret Life of the American Teenager) As part of a couple who has tried for years to get pregnant, I want to be gentle when I say that’s a load of crap.  Now, if Hollywood were trying to actively reduce pre-marital sex, or dissuade young men and women from participating in sexual relations until they were “ready”, then maybe then I might cut them some slack.  But Hollywood has never been one to poo-poo promiscuity so I just have to call BS on this one.    Sex makes babies.  Sometimes.  And sometimes not.  Even when you want it to.

Only beautiful women have sex.
Luckily it is usually to beautiful men.  Did I mention I am looking forward to Prince of Persia…

Also, these beautiful women can have hours of mind blowing sex (ending with simultaneous orgasm of course), sleep wonderfully for hours afterwards and wake up with fresh breath and immaculate make-up.

Ok, those are some of the myths that get perpetuated through movies, but there are so many more.   I read a great article the other day and one of the issues broached by the author was how some men learn about sex by watching porn movies.  In her role as a counselor, she had a lady come to her that was confused because during sex, her lover would pull his penis out of her and slap her vagina with it, and then put it back in.  She was dumbfounded by this and was too embarrassed to say anything to him.  It just seemed bizarre to her.  Her counselor explained to her that this particular action is often done in porn to enhance the visuals for the camera.  He had obviously watched some pornography and was trying to be “good at sex” by doing what he saw on film.  It has nothing to do with sex, but the female actors usually moan when it is done (no doubt to enhance the audio for the movie) so he must think that women liked it and was trying to please her.  According to the article, the couple had, what I am sure was, an awkward discussion, but they were able to talk about it and put that particular move to bed, so to speak.

Here’s my question to you - what other subtle (or not so subtle) things have you seen portrayed as “normal” in movies that are worlds away from truth in real life?  Join in on this discussion.  You’re guaranteed to get a good giggle out of it.

Those Who Do Not Study History…

If you were under the belief that sex toys were a recent invention, check out this article.  German scientists recently discovered a sex toy which is 28,000 years old! Evidently, one end of the device was used to light fires and the other was used to… well, you know.

Somewhere, The Doors are singing, “Come on baby, light my fire.”

Prehistoric siltstone phallus, the world’s oldest sex toy, was also used as tool to ignite fires

By Rosemary Black

The world’s oldest sex toy was more than just a feel-good aid. The 30,000-year-old siltstone phallus doubled as a tool to ignite fires.
Read more: NY Daily News

Statistical Research on Divorce

This is a fascinating article on what puts your marriage at a higher risk of divorce. Are you in one of these risk categories? If so, then take this article as a nudge to keep working to keep your marriage strong and healthy.

The original article with references can be found here.

15 Ways to Predict Divorce

by Anneli Rufus

1. If you’re a married American, your marriage is between 40 and 50 percent likely to end in divorce.

2. If you live in a red state, you’re 27 percent more likely to get divorced than if you live in a blue state.

3. If you argue with your spouse about finances once a week, your marriage is 30 percent more likely to end in divorce than if you argue with your spouse about finances less frequently.

4. If your parents were divorced, you’re at least 40 percent more likely to get divorced than if they weren’t. If your parents married others after divorcing, you’re 91 percent more likely to get divorced.

5. If only one partner in your marriage is a smoker, you’re 75 percent to 91 percent more likely to divorce than smokers who are married to fellow smokers.

6. If you have a daughter, you’re nearly 5 percent more likely to divorce than if you have a son.

7. If you’re an evangelical Christian adult who has been married, there’s a 26 percent likelihood that you’ve been divorced—compared to a 28 percent chance for Catholics and a 38 percent chance for non-Christians

8. If you live in Wayne County, Indiana, and are over 15 years old, there’s a 19.2 percent chance that you’ve been divorced.

9. If both you and your partner have had previous marriages, you’re 90 percent more likely to get divorced than if this had been the first marriage for both of you.

10. If you’re a woman two or more years older than your husband, your marriage is 53 percent more likely to end in divorce than if he was one year younger to three years older

11. If you’re of “below average” intelligence, you’re 50 percent more likely to be divorced than those of “above average” intelligence.

12. If you’ve been diagnosed with cervical cancer, your likelihood of getting divorced is 40 percent higher than standard rates; it’s 20 percent higher if you’ve been diagnosed with testicular cancer.

13. If you have twins or triplets, your marriage is 17 percent more likely to end in divorce than if your children are not multiple births.

14. If you’re a female serial cohabiter—a woman who has lived with more than one partner before your first marriage—then you’re 40 percent more likely to get divorced than women who have never done so.

15. If you’re in a male same-sex marriage, it’s 50 percent more likely to end in divorce than a heterosexual marriage. If you’re in a female same-sex marriage, this figure soars to 167 percent.

Keep in mind that stats are just numbers - nothing is a guarantee.  There are a few of these that could apply to my marriage, but I am not concerned because of what they say.  We should always be working on our relationships regardless of any statistics.  A marriage is the very last thing we should ever take for granted, no matter what the “numbers” say!!

How is yours?

I Seem to Have Misplaced My Orgasm

I recently received this excellent question from a lady who was attending one of my Passion Salons. She asked:

My question is regards to orgasm. I love having sex with my husband and we have regular sex… but I orgasm maybe twice a year. I suppose it’s possible that my reactions are small or I am unaware with the signs. We have tried many toys to help, lots of oral sex but I am just not there.  Is this possible?  Could I be missing something?

Now while there are numerous ways to approach a situation in which a woman wants to enjoy orgasm more frequently (there are all sorts of psychological, physical and environmental reasons why orgasm might be difficult), there is one strategy that I would like to highlight for the purposes of this blog: LOOK FOR THE EXCEPTIONS.

When we look for exceptions, we realize that there are times when things do go the way we would like them to go, and we analyze the circumstances around these times. For example, he doesn’t always throw his underwear on the floor…occasionally, he will pick it up and put it in the laundry hamper. Or, she doesn’t always feel the need to have a deep heart to heart talk in the middle of a televised ball game.

The power for looking for exceptions is that when you identify the circumstances that produced positive results, you have a much higher chance of duplicating them and thereby getting what you want on a more consistent basis. Perhaps your husband puts up his dirty laundry on days when he is feeling successful. Perhaps your wife lets you watch the whole game uninterrupted (except to bring a beer) when she feels emotionally close to you already.

So, when I was responding to this lady’s question, I asked her, “What is different about the times you are able to orgasm? Are you away on vacation? Are you incredibly aroused? Have you had a drink of wine? Are the kids with the grandparents? Does he make love to you in a certain manner? Where is your mind in these times? Where are you (in water, in a bed, on the floor, etc.)? What position are you in? Did you just have a fight? Did you just have a heart-to-heart conversation? Does he smell a certain way? How much foreplay was there before you reached orgasm?  How long did it take you to reach orgasm?”

Pay attention when things go well. They didn’t just magically end up that way - something produced that effect. When you know what that “something” is, you can make it happen again.  And as my husband likes to say, “to quote G.I. Joe, ‘knowing is half the battle.’”

Having Sex to Relieve Mental Stress

With very little effort I found quite a few websites and articles that talk about taking a “mental health day”.  Some of them are as simplistic as, “don’t go into to work if you think you might need to kill your boss - take a mental health day and relax”.  Others are fairly lengthy explanations about the existence of World Mental Heath Day - which is evidently every October 10th.  The bottom line is that we all get stressed at times in our lives.  And there is some evidence that taking a day to focus solely on yourself has tangible benefits to your mental well being.  But when a friend of mine pointed me to this article, The Benefits of Sex for Your Mind and Body, I realized that we don’t have to take a day - or wait for October 10th - before we can do something to reduce the amount of mental stress we carry.  We can have sex.  The article lays out 10 major benefits of sex that all relate to helping your mind and your body relax.

1.     Sex Makes You Sleepy.
“The sexual release you have after having sex actually helps you sleep better at night,” says Dr. Yvonne Fulbright, author of The Better Sex Guide to Extraordinary Love Making.

2.     Sex Makes you Happy.

Fulbright said that in a recent study of 4,000 American women, those who had the lowest stress and best overall mental well-being were those who were the most sexually active.

3.     Not having sex can lead to depression.

4.     Sex causes an “orgasmic pregnancy.”

“Women are the most interested in having sex when pregnant because they feel really good about themselves overall.”

5.     Sex will boost your self-esteem.

Fulbright says that having sex boosts your entire self-esteem, not just your body image.

6.     It releases oxytocin and endorphins.

Oxytocin is commonly referred to as the “love hormone” because it leads to feelings of intimacy, closeness, and strong social connections with someone else.

7.     Orgasms help mental health.

“Nothing is as relaxing as putting yourself in a place where you relieve stress,” says Dr. Gloria G. Bramer, a Georgia-based licensed clinical sexologist. “After you have an orgasm you release natural oxytocin to the brain, which balances you out.”

8.     Sex gets rid of cramps.

Bramer says that having sex may be the best way to relieve menstrual cramps. Many women say that by having an orgasm, they not only get instant relief from their cramps but also from other PMS related symptoms.

9.     Sex has healing powers.

Orgasm can help relieve chronic back and other pain.

10. Sex is connected to your libido.

Just as sex is tied to mental health and happiness, it’s also tied to your libido. Bramer says that when you are feeling stressed, your libido is going to suffer. This will in turn diminish your appetite for sex, which will also add to your risk of depression. Having sex is an instant mood enhancer that can reverse all of these symptoms.

Now, I will be the first to point out that the article, written by Colleen Moody, does not site source studies for these tidbits of information (other than the book by Dr. Fulbright and the quotes from Dr. Bramer), but I still find the list interesting.  These might be common sense things to some of you, but putting things into a neat little list can often be helpful.

Want to add to the list?  What mental health benefits do you find accompany sex and orgasm?

For those interested, you can find the original article here.

A Male Birth Control Pill??

Birth Control Pills for Men <- click for original article

I have to admit that, before reading this article, the idea of a male birth control pill had never crossed my mind. Men have condoms, why would they need a pill? But then my mind went to a conversation I had just last week with a client wherein she talked about her husband’s loathing for condoms. (My husband has always said it is like having a shower with your rain coat on.) She also had no desire to use the pill herself due to the side effects that she experienced. For couples in this situation, maybe a male pill would provide an alternate resource. Interesting concept.

What are your thoughts??

Perfectionism

I meet a lot of perfectionists in my line of work. Perhaps there is an unusually high correlation between perfectionism and sexual hang-ups.

Perfectionists do not like mistakes. They like to be correct all the time. There is no tolerance for error in a perfectionist’s world.

However, this is a problem in sexual relationship because good sex takes practice. Inherent in the concept of practice is the understanding that there is room to make mistakes. When you are “practicing”, mistakes are acceptable, permissible and even expected.

I have noticed that when perfectionists become extremely fearful of making mistakes, they give up all together. Perhaps they try a few times, realize that they are not living up to their own internal standards and then they give up. The worst culprits give up without even trying. They are terrified of mediocre and so they twist the old adage of  “If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well” to justify their inaction. And in doing so, they completely miss the value of battling through the awkward learning stage.

To combat the threat of perfectionism in our own household, I have a saying that I give to my young daughter, “We learn more from our failures than our successes.” Our failures are not just a vivid reminder that we are not perfect (which, as it turns out, is really ok); they also give us valuable clues as to the areas we need to adjust, change and grow in our lives so that we can be successful.

People who can grab onto this concept are high achievers.  Like perfectionists, high achievers have very high standards of what they want to accomplish in their lives. But unlike perfectionists, they embrace mistakes and failures as part of the normal learning process they must endure to get to greatness. They elicit and heed feedback because they can use the information to move past the awkward learning stage onto the skilled phase.

I met a high achiever this weekend at one of my Passion Salons. This woman shared that she had wanted to become better at oral sex. Now, I have met many women who realized they were not good at oral sex and so they just gave up. Instead, this woman asked her husband for feedback. What do you like? Is this working? What can I do to get better?

Unfortunately, her husband wasn’t particularly skilled at giving her the feedback she needed. Maybe he was embarrassed, maybe he preoccupied in the moment or perhaps he didn’t know the answer to her question! However, she wanted more information, so she rented a “how to” video and practiced her new learnings on her husband. He was thrilled. And when I met her, she had a confidence that emanated from her.

Here is a suggestion for you: try some “practice sex”. Set aside time when the two of you agree that you are going to practice something that you are not good at but you want to become more skilled. Allow for mistakes and mediocre sex during this time with a view that you need to go through the awkward to get to great.  Let go of your need to be right, or perfect or flawless.  Enjoy each other and the process and you’ll find that you really start to enjoy each other and the process!!

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