I have a handful of related questions to answer this week. One reader asked how she might improve the sexual relationship she has with her spouse, whom she adores but who has a lower level of sexual interest. Another woman in a similar situation wrote me to ask about navigating the non-exclusive sexual relationship she’d […]
Melinda Myers
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Must be Present to Win
I love good smut as much as the next person — maybe more — but there’s something tragic about porn being our main source of sexual information. Decades ago, young people learned about sexuality from their misinformed classmates. As scary as that was, in some ways it might have been less harmful than what’s out […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Who started it? Who cares?
One of the most frequent complaints we therapists hear is about one partner not initiating sex as much as the other. It often sounds something like, “Our sex life is pretty good, except it’s always me who starts it. I’d really like it if she/he would show some interest once in a while.” Often, the […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Ouch.
What does it mean when sex hurts? I’m not talking about consensual power-exchange here — that’s a topic for another day. I’m talking about pain that happens when it shouldn’t, like when you’d like to be fully immersed in the joys of deeply satisfying and pleasurable sensations, and find yourself wincing instead. It’s a common […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
We Need to Talk
For something as delightful as having sex, people sure do worry a lot about it. It seems to me that we have a hard time managing our expectations about sex and, to quote a therapist friend of mine, we tend to “compare our insides to other people’s outsides.” In other words, it can seem like […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
The Kit
In my work as a psychology teacher, and particularly in my practice as a psychologist, I’ve been witness to far too much suffering about sex. For something as potentially joyous, affirming and even spiritual as sexuality can be, it seems tragic to me how conflicted some of us are about this essentially human behavior. Occasionally […]