What to Do if Your Sex Partner Refuses to Wear a Condom

2011-07-11

Safer sex

People are always complaining about condoms; they say they’re uncomfortable, kill their erections, or disrupt the intimacy or sensitivity of sex. Others feel that being asked to use a condom implies a partner’s distrust or promiscuity. If your partner uses his disapproval of condoms as an excuse to avoid wearing one, you’re not alone.

Condoms so drastically reduce the risk of becoming infected with a sexually transmitted disease (STD) and avoiding pregnancy, however, that it’s worth finding a way to change your partner’s mind. Here are a few time-tested strategies that may help.

Plan ahead

Before things get hot and heavy, set ground rules with your partner about what risks you’re willing to take and which measures you’ll take to protect yourselves and each other.

Get the right size

One condom does not fit all. Luckily condoms come in many shapes, sizes, colors, flavors, textures, and materials, so chances are pretty good that there’s a style that fits your needs for comfortable and enjoyable sex. “I encourage people to investigate different condoms and lubes with their partners to find what works best for them,” says Perry N. Halkitis, PhD, a psychologist specializing in HIV at New York University.

For instance, you can find condoms that are ribbed or studded to increase friction for both partners, or something with a warming lubricant. “Microthin” condoms minimize the barrier between partners without sacrificing safety. You can experiment with different shapes such as Trojan’s Twisted Pleasure or the extra-loose Pleasure Plus, which claims to simulate unprotected sex.

Try a dose of Reality

If you’re a woman who can’t get her man to wear a regular condom, you might try the Reality female condom, which you wear in your vagina. These should not, however, be used in conjunction with male condoms, as friction between the two can cause tears.

Adjust your attitude

Insisting on the use of a condom is about protecting not just you, but your partner as well. “Asking a partner to wear a condom is not an indication of a lack of love, but a true expression of the affection that you share,” says Halkitis.

Keep it up

Some men have difficulty maintaining an erection while wearing a condom. Sometimes a poor-fitting condom causes this, and other times, it’s psychological, related to a sexual dysfunction, or caused by alcohol- or drug-related erectile dysfunction (ED). If switching condoms (or sobering up) doesn’t resolve the issue, see your doctor

Be practical

Sliding on a condom doesn’t have to put the fun on hold. Do what you can to minimize the interruption, such as keeping an ample supply of condoms within arm’s reach.

Sex after kids: The art of the quickie

2011-07-05

Hey parents, remember sex before kids? Remember when lovemaking was long and languorous, when vacations and weekends (and every other moment of the day for that matter) potentially revolved around sex? Remember morning sex?

Chances are that many dads will get to sleep in this Father’s Day, but odds are their Sunday morning won’t include much post-coital cuddling – or coital anything for that matter. According to a recent survey by the online magazine Baby Talk, just 24% of parents say they’re satisfied with their post-baby sex lives, compared to 66% who were happy before they had children.

At Good in Bed, we believe that parenthood is about perfecting the art of the quickie and finding moments between the chaos and exhaustion to squeeze in some intimacy. Quickies don’t necessarily have to lead to orgasm, and they don’t even have to be wholly sexual.

Take a long hug, for example. Studies have shown that positive physical touch stimulates a brain chemical called oxytocin. Dubbed the “cuddle hormone,” it’s produced during a range of scenarios, including sexual arousal, orgasm and childbirth.

The result: Oxytocin helps to create a sense of emotional intimacy, relaxation, contentment and trust. Scientists have even found that oxytocin helps relieve stress, improve mood and lower blood pressure. Even better, you and your partner easily can boost oxytocin all day long: just a 20 to 30-second hug can raise oxytocin levels in both men and women.

Other potential quickies:

Re-discovering the art of the kiss. Believe it or not, less than 50% of people kiss their partners on daily basis. No wonder so many people are stuck in sex ruts. Once we stop kissing, it’s a sign that something needs to change.

Sending your partner a sexy text. These days technology is often depicted as a time bomb that could destroy a relationship at any moment, but couples in trusting long-term relationship can use sexy emails and texts with each other to cultivate their connection and build sexual anticipation.

Telling your partner about a sexy fantasy or dream. A study at Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario, found that intercourse is the most common sexual behavior in dreams. A healthy 37% of participants reported having a sexual dream once a week, while 19% reported dreaming about sex up to five times per week. So share the dream!

Hop in the shower together. With the summer heat come more excuses to shower – why not save the water and enjoy one together? If you’re headed for the beach, take some time to rub suntan lotion on your partner with meaning and verve.

These small connections may not be explicitly sexual, but they create “transferable” desire that adds up over time and contributes to lasting sexual desire and fulfilling sexual experiences.

“Little quickies are a great way to get our adrenaline going,” writes Naughty Mommy blogger, Heidi Raykeil: “From handjobs to frisky playful exhibitionism, to just taking a moment to feel each other up, quickies are a way of re-connecting and building up a reserve of sexual anticipation. Taking the big O out as a ‘goal’ really leaves more room for playful, fun stuff – as long as we know we can get that other fulfillment later.”

So sex or no sex this Sunday, take the time for a little quickie with your partner, even if it’s just that 30-second hug and a little appreciation of the clan you’ve created together. You’ve come a long way since the days of sex before kids, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still give each other some one-on-one time. Happy Father’s Day!

The joy of comfort sex

2011-07-04

Sex with a spouse is like ordering takeout from your favorite Chinese restaurant: Sure, you know what you’re getting and there’s no need to ponder the menu, but the meal is still consistently yummy and generally hits the spot.

The virtues of comfort sex are vastly underrated. We live in a culture that’s obsessed with what’s new and fresh, and sex is no exception: From magazine headlines that regularly trumpet newfangled positions and heretofore undiscovered hot spots, to our culture of serial monogamy in which couples regularly trade in their old partners for new in search of excitement, variety is heralded as the spice of life while familiarity breeds contempt.

But in my experience, the tried and true often has distinct advantages over the path not taken – especially when it comes sex.

First off, consider that many women don’t even experience orgasm the first few times they have sex with a guy, which some evolutionary anthropologists conjecture is like a built-in vetting mechanism: Because the female orgasm takes time to achieve, its mastery requires dedication and patience, an extended “getting to know you” process that encourages a woman to seek out relationships with the partner who will ultimately invest adequate time and energy in the effort to familiarize himself with her unique sexuality.

As Emily Nagoski writes in the “Good in Bed Guide to Female Orgasms,” “A woman is less likely to have orgasms early in a relationship. Her body needs time to adapt to the new partner, to learn to trust him or her, and to relax into the knowledge that her partner accepts and appreciates her body.”

This “getting to know you” process of familiarization extends into long-term relationships as well and allows us to reap the joys of comfort sex. When it comes to ensuring orgasm, predictability is a good thing. While sexual arousal involves both voluntary and involuntary physiological processes, orgasm itself is an autonomic (involuntary) response to voluntary sexual stimulation.

Once we consciously navigate ourselves across the threshold into orgasm, the body takes over and soars. When having an orgasm, we allow our entire being go automatic (or really autonomic). Comfort sex enables this seamless transition from the voluntary into the involuntary: You know where you’re going, so you don’t have to think about it – you can just let go.

With comfort sex, the mind doesn’t have to think about what it’s doing so the mind can disconnect and allow itself to be lulled into a deeper state of relaxation and deactivation.

Like most things we learn in life – learning to ride a bike, learning to drive a car – once we achieve a state of familiarity with what we’re doing we no longer think about what we’re doing, we just do it, and sex is no exception. In neurological terms, when you achieve familiarity with a process you’re no longer tasking the pre-frontal cortex with learning, but allowing those routines to get baked into your basal ganglia, a part of the brain which does not require conscious thought.

Any time you introduce newness or novelty into your sex life, you are tasking the pre-frontal cortex with learning and adapting, which means you’re thinking about what you’re doing and making it harder to cross the voluntary/involuntary threshold.

For some people this leads to an issue known as “spectatoring.”

“Spectatoring is the art of worrying about sex while you’re having it,” writes Nagoski. “Rather than paying attention to the pleasant things your body is experiencing, it’s like you’re floating above the bed watching, noticing how your breasts fall or the squish of cottage cheese on the back of your thigh or the roll at your belly…. You’re worried about the sex you’re having, instead of enjoying the sex you’re having.”

Comfort sex generally means knowing what works and having a sex script or two that you and your partner like to follow. For many couples, simultaneous orgasm is the goal, and the more a couple knows each other the more they’ll be able to synchronize their efforts and soar together to peaks of ecstasy. Predictable, but oh so pleasurable! Having a few sex scripts in your back pocket is also helpful when one or both partners has a sex problem of some sort.

For example, I work with many guys who suffer from premature ejaculation – the #1 sex problem men deal with – and it’s extremely helpful for these men to develop consistent sex scripts that they know will satisfy their partners. Comfort sex is their ally. The same is true of women who may have problems reaching orgasm. If a particular position or sexual context works, why not stick to it?

Of course, it’s only natural for couples to get bored, lose interest in sex, or look for ways to spice things up. Novelty and newness absolutely have their place, but my advice: don’t throw out the baby with the bath water.

Don’t attribute your boredom to the predictable routines of comfort sex. Instead, freshen up your sex script by extending foreplay and introducing novelty into the early stages of the arousal process.

Give your comfort sex a fresh context. Use novelty to let yourselves simmer and reach a sexual boiling point, but then transition into comfort sex to let yourselves soar. Incorporate some fantasy at the top of your sex-play, or try some role-playing. Take a sexy shower together, or explore something kinky together. Watch some porn together. You can figure it out.

Whatever you decide, use novelty to enhance desire and jump-start the process of arousal, and then let yourselves fall back on the familiarity that you know will get you where you’re going.

You know the old joke in which one pedestrian asks another how to get to Carnegie Hall? The answer – “Practice.”

Comfort sex is no small feat. More than likely you’ve both put in a lot of time (and love) to achieve it. Enjoy the beautiful music you can make together.

How to Stop Incontinence From Sabotaging Your Sex Life

2011-05-20

It’s bad enough worrying about whether you’re going to make it to the bathroom on time to avoid an accident. But worrying about leakage during sex — that can really bring you down. If incontinence is sabotaging your sex life, at least you’re in good company. According to the American Foundation for Urologic Disease (AFUD), one in three women with stress incontinence avoids sexual intimacy because of fear of leakage during intercourse or orgasm.

5 Ways to Fix a Leaky Bladder Without Surgery

But don’t despair: Here’s a seven-step plan for coping with incontinence and getting your sex life back on track.

1. Prepare for sex.

One thing to take into account is when during sex you’re more likely to leak: If you have stress incontinence, you’re more likely to leak with penetration due to pressure on the bladder. If you have urge incontinence, you’re more likely to leak during orgasm. (Since women’s orgasms often don’t happen during intercourse, you can prepare for that moment separately.)

Either way, there are lots of things you can do to decrease the likelihood of involuntary leakage during sex while you’re working on a longer-term solution. You’ll need to experiment to see which of these makes a difference for you:

• Avoid coffee or tea for several hours prior to sex.
• Drink plenty of water well before having sex, but don’t drink any fluids for an hour before sex.
• Practice “double voiding” prior to sex: Go the bathroom, then fully relax the bladder (some people recommend massaging the abdomen) and go again.
• Put towels down, so you’re not worrying about linens if you do leak.
• Don’t be shy about taking a “bathroom break” during sex. For women with urge incontinence, taking a bathroom break between foreplay and intercourse or between intercourse and “after-play” can make sex much more relaxing.

2. Talk about it.

No, this probably isn’t an easy topic to bring up with your partner. But isn’t it worth a few minutes of blushing if the payoff is returning to your previously joyous sex life? You might start by mentioning that you’ve been to the doctor to get help with a problem you’re really embarrassed to discuss. Tell your partner how much you miss your formerly great sex life together, and let him know that your reluctance hasn’t been because of lack of interest but because of fear of leakage and embarrassment.

You may be pleasantly surprised by your partner’s supportive reaction; it’s likely that the problem isn’t nearly the issue for him you’ve been thinking it is. After all, men have aging-related issues that affect their sexual performance, too. Your guy is probably all too familiar with the fear and shame that can accompany age-related changes affecting sex. If talking privately isn’t solving your sexual issues, working with a couples counselor or sex therapist can make it easier to talk about difficult topics.

3. Experiment with new sex positions.

Now this one your partner should have no trouble getting on board with. Here are some options to try:

• Rear entry. When he stands or kneels behind you, it puts less pressure on the bladder and urethra.
• Side entry. Another position that prevents his weight from being on your abdomen and relieves pressure.
• Woman on top. When you’re on top, it’s easier to control the depth of penetration and to work those deep pelvic muscles you’ll want to strengthen.

4. See a specialist.

Ask your doctor for a referral to a urologist who specializes in incontinence. This isn’t an easy topic to bring up, but knowing how common it is might make it easier. Experts estimate that nearly one out of three women over age 40 struggle with incontinence at some point, but only 20 percent of them seek help. Wouldn’t you rather find a solution than remain a silent sufferer? Specify that you’d like a recommendation for someone who keeps up with recent research and training and is familiar with newer, more experimental therapies, such as biofeedback.

If you have any friends with whom you’d feel comfortable discussing this issue, ask if they’ve found a doctor they like. Personal referrals are a great way to find specialists who “get it.” Some hospitals and medical centers have specialized bladder health clinics where you’re likely to get up-to-the-minute expertise.

5. Strengthen your muscles with pelvic floor therapy.

Working with a physical therapist, you can rebuild strength in the deep abdominal muscles that support the bladder, using a program of exercises known as Kegels. (Many women try doing pelvic floor exercises on their own and don’t get the full benefit because they’re not doing them correctly.) Working with a pelvic floor therapist (PFT) with specialized training has been shown to increase the effectiveness of Kegels; one study found that when women worked with a PFT, 80 percent were able to control their incontinence.

Two additional techniques can boost the effectiveness of pelvic floor therapy:

• Biofeedback. Computers attached to sensors can help you and your physical therapist know which muscles you’re working, measure muscle strength, and check whether you’re doing pelvic floor exercises correctly. Kegels can have the additional benefit of strengthening the muscles in the vaginal wall, so you and your partner may notice a sexual benefit as well. Interestingly, sex is great for the Kegel muscles, so as your revitalize your sex life, you may strengthen your bladder control as well.
• Electrical stimulation. Some clinics offer electrical stimulation (also called pelvic floor muscle electrical stimulation, or PFES) in combination with biofeedback for people with severely weakened pelvic floor muscles. A low-grade electric current causes the muscles to involuntarily contract so patients can experience what that contraction feels like, learn to replicate it themselves, and regain muscle control.

6. Practice bladder control.

Your urologist can work with you on a process known as “bladder retraining,” which involves determining your natural pattern of urination, then setting up and following a fixed schedule of timed toilet trips, whether you feel like going or not. When you feel the need to go between intervals, you buy time by using urge-suppression techniques such as Kegels, distraction, and relaxation. You’ll also learn techniques, such as double voiding, to completely empty your bladder when you go. Over time you’ll work to increase the intervals between bathroom trips and the amount of liquid your bladder can hold.

7. Try medication.

Many doctors consider medication for incontinence a last resort, but if you’ve tried bladder retraining and pelvic floor exercises, and incontinence is still seriously impacting your sexual relationship, then medication is a smart next step. There are a number of drugs classed as anticholinergics and antispasmodics that block the signal that triggers involuntary contractions of the bladder. Some of the most popular are Detrol, Enablex, Sanctura, Ditropan, Toviaz, Vesicare, and generics containing the active ingredient oxybutynin.

In recent years, timed release once-a-day versions of these drugs have become popular. But if incontinence during sex and exercise is your primary concern, ask your doctor whether it’s more effective to take an older, multidose formula. Some women say taking one dose of a multiple-dose drug just prior to sex works better than one dose a day

Inside women’s sexual brains, preferences and porn

2011-05-10

Sex and Self-Esteem

Losing your virginity can summon up all sorts of emotions. It can also be an exercise in self-esteem or self-doubt, depending on whether you’re a man or a woman, according to researchers from Penn State University who analyzed the debut sexual encounters of college-age males and females.

It’s probably not too surprising that young men report a boost in how they view themselves after first having sex, while young women end up slightly less pleased, according to the study, which was published in April’s Journal of Adolescence.

Researchers started with a group of 434 freshmen, ages 17 to 19, and continued to track them for four years. Four times over that period, students were asked to complete a questionnaire assessing their satisfaction with their appearance. Within that time span, 100 students lost their virginity; those were the students on whom the researchers focused.

Judging from the questionnaire results, that first sexual experience had different emotional ramifications for men versus women: researchers found that women’s happiness with how they looked decreased a bit after having sex for the first time, while men’s satisfaction rose.

“For women, it’s not an overwhelmingly positive experience,” says lead author Sara Vasilenko, a graduate student in human development and family studies at Penn State. “It may be because of sexual double standards, which suggest society might view sex more positively for men and more negatively for women. Premarital sex isn’t necessarily seen as acceptable for women.”

On the other hand, men’s self-image may soar in part due to cultural messages about masculinity. “Men who have sex may feel more attractive because they’re living up to these expectations of what is considered manly,” says Vasilenko.

Gay Friendly Communities Are Good for Straight Teens Too….

2011-04-19

A spate of suicides involving gay teens last fall reignited concern among youth activists and health experts over the disproportionately high rate of suicide among gay American teens. Now, a survey of high-school students in Oregon highlights a key risk factor for suicide — living in a socially and politically conservative area — not only among lesbian, gay and bisexual teens, but in heterosexual kids too.

The survey of nearly 32,000 11th-graders found that suicide attempts by lesbian, gay and bisexual teens were 20% more likely in conservative communities that were unsupportive of gays — areas with fewer same-sex couples, fewer registered Democrats, and schools that lacked gay-straight alliances or policies against bullying gay students — compared with communities that scored high on the researchers’ “social index.” That difference in risk persisted, even after researchers accounted for other suicide risk factors such as depression and bullying.

What’s more, the rate of suicide attempts among straight teens in conservative communities was also higher — by 9% — than in areas that were more politically and socially liberal. The finding suggests that widespread acceptance and support contribute to the well-being of all community members, not just those who identify with minority groups.

“The results of this study are pretty compelling,” said the study’s lead investigator, Mark L. Hatzenbuehler of Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, in a statement. “When communities support their gay young people, and schools adopt anti-bullying and anti-discrimination policies that specifically protect lesbian, gay, and bisexual youth, the risk of attempted suicide by all young people drops, especially for LGB youth.”

Still, according to the 2006-08 survey, gay teens were much more likely to have attempted suicide in the last year than their straight peers: among gay teens, the attempted suicide rate was a whopping 21.5% overall — five times higher than among straight teens.