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The new sex cushions

My partner hates when I get strange packages in the mail. He usually assumes (correctly) that it’s some wierd, new, sexual device that I’m going to chase him around the house to try out with me. I got a smaple of the new Liberator sex cushions that are like little wedges to ergonomically adjust your posture and make sex easier. Man, sex can look funny sometimes. I could describe the pictrue of me trying to adjust this under my hips (all in the name of science), but it loses something in the description.  Suffice it to say, that I have difficulties being acrobatic. No swinging from the chandelier for this pushing middle age sex therapist.  Imagine curvy, plus sized blonde upside down. Hey, if you’ve got it, flaunt it, if not for God’s sake cover it up….
So why would you want a sex cushion? Sex furniture is the rage. And it can help with anyone not perfectly bendy.
There are a few different kinds of furniture that will help you and your partner do those positions that appear int he Kama Sutra.
WEDGES – These triangle pieces of foam are meant to support your body if you have to maintain a position for an extended period of time. They can be used for non-sexual purposes as well. You’ll have to buy more than one (different sizes) if you want the most versatility – just keep in mind that they are sometimes pricey. Very beginner-friendly.
BEDS – It might sound like a no-brainer, but we’re not talking about the one in your bedroom. These are usually inflatable OR custom made to have the ability to attach restraints.
CHAIRS – This group has several subgroups

  • Queening Chairs – Low seats that allow for one person to sit while another lies on their back and performs oral sex. A smother-box is the same idea but with the ability to be locked or restrained inside. Some can look like simple stools while more elaborate ones can look like thrones.
  • Chaise lounges or sofa chairs – One step further than wedges. They support the entire body for various sexual positions. Some can include restraints.
  • Thrones – Can be included in bondage furniture or queening chairs if they are altered accordingly (as well as high-back chairs made to look royal or menacing and aid in role-play).
  • Balls – Much like the posture/exercise balls you see at offices, except these have a dildo attached to them. Yay!

If you are looking to try them and don’t want to make the big investment consider a weekend at a sex resort. My favourite is Secrets in Orlando. Secrets is one of the only lifestyle resorts in the US and is a very special place. A weekend to try the furniture can cost much less than the $850 starting price to buy some. Have a look at my favourite room at the resort.

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Another day, another premature ejaculator

Pe_1 I know it’s frustrating. Believe me, I understand it.  I speak to men all day long, who just can’t hang on. It’s also teeth nashing time to be the partner of someone who is a little quick.  If women need 10-14 minutes of intercourse (with indirect contact on their clitoris), and the average guy ejaculates in 4 to 7 minutes, Hell, you do the math.  No wonder 95% of all women have faked it at some point in their lives. ooh, yess..hmm maybe we should paint the ceiling beige…oh yess oh, oh.

So what’s a man (and his concerned partner) to do? There was hope for a new SSRI anti depressant called dapoxetine. It got shot down in the US, is still under advisement in Canada, and will get the nod from the government in the UK. Side effects including dry mouth, vomiting, and get this, erectile dysfunction.  Like many medications, the cure can be worse than what ails you, but for a short term it may help slightly.  And slightly being the operative word. In the trials, men went from lasting one minute to a whopping three minutes (not even average), and it causes erectile dysfunction. Taking anti depressants are one of the top five reasons for erection loss, so taking them for another sexula problem doesn’t make sense.

So, here is Sue’s try-this-at-home,  premature ejaculation therapy for couples.  Instead of watching TV every night this week, or even while you are watching TV, grab some oil, or hand cream and stoke the penis in question.  Rub it when you have a minimum of a half hour to play with. Stroke it until you (or your guy) says "I’m close", then feel at the base of the penis where the tube that runs from the testicles (at the front where the penis and testicles meet) and squeeze – hard. With some practice, you should be able to feel the hard pressure of the semen behind your hand. By pressing down, you send it back into the testicles, and prolong the experience.  You should get close and pull back, six or seven times at least until he begs you to let him go. You can choose to continue the evil treatment or take pity on him.  Get to the point where you can do this for an hour at a time, and you can start trying it during intercourse. I guarantee that you’ll hit at least four minutes after a month, and don’t have to worry about taking pills. 

Besides, it makes watching TV more fun than ever, kick starts your sex life further, and appeals to the sadist in every woman.  Sounds like a win/win to me.

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Playing sailor girl

Fantasy2 I was cleaning out my purse this morning (a weekly occurance) and found the list of role playing fantasies that were brainstormed during my workshop last week with Midori. I thought if you were bored, (and given Halloween costumes are dirt cheap right now – I ought an angel one for $1), I thought i would write out the list of suggestions.  If there isn’t something here that turns your crank, well then you may have given up sex for longer than the Leafs have been losing….

Here they are:

rocker/groupie, football player/cheerleader, pimp/ho, parent/baby, cowboys, pirate, firemen, barmaid/saloongirl and lawman, knight/princess, strangers, stowaway and captain, POW/torturer, drill sargent/recruit, hitchiker, witch/mermaid,vampire and food source(?), santa/elves( hmmm Santa), virgin/rapist, dom/slave, kidnapper/victim, alien/human, teacher or coach/athlete, shrink/patient, john/hooker, poolboy, doctor/patient, warden/prisoner, housewife/pizzaboy, homeland security/innocent tourist, pilot/flight attendent/passenger, landowner/trespasser, bike courier/business women

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sex, exercise and weightloss

Cabdy So I binged on Halloween candy – again. I had been doing so well, but October has my weight up, not down and I am having difficulty fighting the lure of chocolate. Between Thanksgiving and Halloween , I seem to be surrounded. Sex and chocolate, my two favourite addictions –  so I thought I would look into how much sex I would have to have to burn off the calories from all those Hershey’s Kisses (a whopping 25 calorie per little, delicious chocolate morsel.)  So if I had sex for a half hour (20 minutes of foreplay, and 10 minutes of intercourse) I would burn 108 calories – or roughly 4 kisses. Considering I usually gobble a bag of the damn things, I need to spend the rest of the month on my back. Have a look at the website that will calculate how many calories you burn for each activity.  I found it discouraging, but maybe it will help keep you on the straight and narrow as well. intake versus output
If straight sex won’t do it, try this Great American Sex Diet, or bedrrom workout- lifting weights with your partner in between rounds of shagging. Maybe I can combine both?Sex_and_exercise_1
 
 
 
 

The business of sex

Escorts I was reading about the 27 year old single mother owner of one of the busiest escort agencies in North America.  Located – not in New York or LA, but in Fort McMurray, Alberta in the far north of cowboy country.  Fort McMurray a "gold-rush town" is home to some of the largest oil rigs around with loads of well paid, single, and obviously lonely oil workers. Apparently a sex trade worker can make up to $800 an hour, and hooking is a booming business in oil country.

But there are a few differences to the May West type of lifestyle in the new black gold.  For instance, in the traditional hypocracy of Canadian laws that effect prostitutes, it is not only illegal to discuss sex for money (it’s the solicitation, not the act that gets you in trouble), these girls only come to you there is no "in calls" so nowhere can it be said that there is a brothel.  It also can’t be in any parked car. Besides the crazy weather, the Transportation officers in Alberta wield alot of power.  If you are caught in a prostitution sweep, those officers can take your car as well as sending you off to see a judge.

It’s called the oldest profession, but I see big changes in the business of providing sex.  Advertising in a more “in your face” way, and now how being an escort like the new book by the Vivid Girls called How to be a XXX Porn Star (see August’s post) is now a job with a certain amount of cachet. Marketing sex in places like Fort McMurray is another example of how sex can go mainstream, and how if you have a certain amount of savve, you can turn sex into a mainstream business wherever you are.  Even in as redneck a place as northern Alberta.

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Hanging on to yourself

Picked up a book on my shelf that I hadn’t read in awhile.  An incredible primer on re-connecting sexually with your partner. A must read for anyone working with couples, and individuals wanting to re-connect between the sheets.  It’s called Resurrecting Sex, by Dr. David Schnarch. Here’s his site. I once did a seminar with the esteemed Dr. David Schnarch, the marriage therapist guru from Evergreen, Colorado, and author.  He was in Ottawa for a Planned Parenthood workshop, and I spent a few days training with him back in the early 90’s. I role played in a "fake marriage" for hours, and really got what he called "hanging onto yourself" and quieting yourself down during times of anxiety and anger in your marriage. He says that "the difference between an adult and a child is that the adult accepts that the only real choice in life is between productive anxieties and useless ones." He claims that by "holding onto yourself in the face of your anxiety, you actively create the world you want to live in."

As I work daily in my own marriage and a try and help some people through the pain of their’s I thought I would reflect a little on what hanging onto yourself -while everything else quiets down – may be just what the Dr. Schnarch ordered.  Pick it up if you are struggling – it makes sense.

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To rag or not to rag…hmmm

Menstruation3 So there is a new little pill that will will revolutionize your sex life, and change humanity forever. No, it’s not Viagra, it’s a new female birth control pill called Anya (like the singer) that will forever relegate your monthly curse to be nothing but a distant memory. Imagine, no more tampons, no more missed sexual opportunities, crotchless panties all the time, no more dry cleaning bills, cramping, leaking ect. Are you willing to give up the curse forever? 

Ask women whether they want to give up their periods, and you get many different answers (maybe depending on the time of month).  Instead of being tied to a lunar cycle, this new pill and the Seasonale one (which gives you 4 periods a year), can change your hormones so as not to be inconvenienced.  The downside is that they doMenstruation2n’t know the long term problems with eliminating your periods. I was told by one of the best endocrinologists in the country that it is a spectacularly bad idea. My training made it clear that if you didn’t at least occasionally bleed and clean out your uterus, you could develop polups and other nasties. Being on a pill continuously can also increase the toxicity levels in your body, and it’s really a fake bleed (or withdrawl bleed) anyway.

I wouldn’t go on it, but as I finish up my inconvienient monthly visitor, I certainly understand the appeal for women who choose to do it.

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Why sexual boredom may be because of too much intimacy

Sexy5 There’s an article in this week’s Maclean’s  Canada’s weekly magazine talking to therapisr Esther Perel about boring sex in marriages. She says in her experience it’s just as often the men who withhold sex in the relationship (not my experience in practice, but I know there are men who will turn it down).  She said two things that really resonated with me, and that I have been talking about for awhile.  The first is that "desire needs seperateness, a certain space in order to thrive….eroticism thrives on mystery, novelty and risk."  I think this is absolutely true, and having this Linda/Paul McCartney love affair where one person is everything and you never need to be apart (they only ever spent one night apart) is unrealistc for most people.  It can also make the sex seem stale after awhile. I think the best sex is keeping it hot in a committed relationship where you try everything and anything to keep the sexual antics and dialogue spicy.

She also talks about monogamy as a negotiation not an assumption. She says gay couples seem to understand this, but for everyone else, "monogamy is the sacred cow of romantic ideals".  Her suggustion is that throughout your married life you re-do your vows and add, change, edit, the meanings around sex may be the healthies model. I think I agree with her.

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It's amazing how men keep from pulling out thier penis's in polite company

Impotence I’m often astounded how guys hold it together.  How they don’t spontaneously combust – blow up from a serious lack of sex. The longer I’m a sex therapist, the more I believe that the average guy wants, and needs about 10 times the sex he’s usually getting. Most healthy men, in  a perfect world, would have sex a couple of times a day. These aren’t perverts, these are your husbands, brothers and fathers. Normal guys who think about sex all the time, and have to keep it under control.  It’s a wonder we don’t have any more date rapes, or men pulling it out at inappropriate times. How do they get any work done?  Hell, I know how distracted I am the few times a month when my hormones spike, but to feel that hourly, it must be a form of sweet torture.  I think we should have a national "change your man’s oil day".  Where we get the day off to boff like rabbits. I think it would increase our national productivity rate over the long haul

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Those boys have got to have it

The continum of sexual desire.  It ranges from men who aren’t that interested in sex (few, far between, and usually are on anti-depressants, thyroid medication, or have another health issue) to the sexually addicted.

I’m meeting men every week who have to use the bathroom at work to masturbate. Guys, who if they could would have sex five times a day.  I have patients who can’t get out of bed in the morning without ejaculating, and another who jerks off over 7 or 8 times a day. And that was just a sample of last week’s sessions. All the guys who are talking to me, ( and a surprising number who have been sexually exposed or abused as kids) seem to tie sex into their basis self esteem. Men  think about sex the way that I think about chocolate.  It always seems to be calling them. What’s surprising to me, is how well most men handle it. Why we don’t have more date rapes, or more guys being sexually assertive given just how horny they are surprises me.  I guess that’s why the escorts I’m hearing about are doing so well. Most men, can’t seem to turn it off, and are finding some outlet.

So if you are a HAVE TO HAVE IT guy, then you are not alone.  And if you think your guy is doing without it, you are probably wrong.

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Pass the bong…and the Viagra

Smoking2 I, like many of my peers, had a bit of a misspent youth.  A few of the wrong guys, a couple of crazy pranks, and lots of experimentation with illicit substances.  So now that I’m all grown up and a responsible sex therapist (ha), I’m seeing a bunch of guys for whom that lifestyle of partying is catching up with them.

I’ve recently seen a few 40 year old men with erectile dysfunction that I think is caused by what I call the Bob Marley Syndrome.  Too much ganja, and exposure to a number of women.  All of these guys had at least one STI (sexually transmitted infections,  the politically correct term for the clap), and they have smoked a lot of the dried week in their lives. 

I know that Impotence2two of the big reasons for  impotence is smoking and drinking excessively, especially of controlled substances. (included in that list is diabetes, anti-depressants, high blood pressure and it’s treatment, crazy chlorestoral levels).  I haven’t found a study in any of the new literature, and a few patients doesn’t prove cause and effect, but anything that clogs the smallest blood vessels (unfiltered tabbacco, and hemp), and a build up of phages and white blood vessels from an infection (like they are discovering is the reason for heart attacks), may be a scary story for some guys who think they can smoke ’em and love ’em with immunity.  A great excuse for Just Saying No.

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How to seduce someone new, and other parlor tricks

Seduction This Robert Greene’s book called The Art of Seduction (An Amazing read!)  he’s almost nepharious (in the most interesting possible way) about how to turn yourself into a sex Goddess like Marilyn Monroe, Cleopatra, or Eva Perron, or a player like Duke Ellington, Casanova, or Oscar Wilde.  It’s great!!  I read at least 5 sex and relationship books weekly, and this is the best book I’ve read this year.
It’s the science of sneaking up on a unsuspecting “victim” and bringing them to their knees with love, lust, eroticism, longing and want. My books tell you what to do when you get them into bed, but Greene’s book takes you from stopping them in their tracks with a single look, to having them swoon into your arms.  If you aren’t where you need to be with your lovelife, it’s time to be strategic. If seduction is the Art of War, this is the Manifesto…Sed333