Wednesday, February 27, 2013

Vaginal Lube: A Little Extra




You don't have to dress up like a vulva to know that over the age of 55 or so, vaginal dryness can be a bit of a challenge. It's also true that you certainly don’t have to be anywhere near the second half of your life to benefit from a nice little bit of extra lubrication. In fact, even when everything’s in fine working order, making the decision to augment one’s own natural vaginal lubrication with a little something more can be a smart move for women of any age.

Naturally, you ask why. Well...

Because regardless of whether we’re young or old, gay or not, whether we’re having partnered sex or sex for one, well lubricated sex organs are way more sensitive and responsive than dry ones are. And while there are definitely devotees of a well tempered bit of friction, the fact is that lubricated vulvas are also less prone to injury during enthusiastic sex play. 

Of course, if you’re worried that your partner - if you have one - might take offense and wonder why enhancing the slip and slide factor is even necessary, you might suggest to him or her what others already know - that mutual lubing, as in "I lube yours and you lube mine," is a pleasurable act in itself and well worth the time it takes to accomplish it. And if your partner happens to be a guy, in this culture, anyway, penises have been known to appreciate and enjoy the heightened sensation that increased lubrication provides them as well.


Sunday, February 17, 2013

Senior Sex: Why Not Tell Grandma?






An increasing number of women whom I talk with about sexuality issues are decades away from being senior citizens - which means, of course, no old folks’ discount movie tickets for them for quite awhile. 

Not surprisingly, though, lots of these women are lucky enough to still have their mothers, aunts, older female friends and acquaintances – even their grandmothers – with whom they’re blessed to be able to share their lives. And since remaining in active touch with our sexuality tends to help us live longer and better lives, many of these young women know that they have a vested interest in setting the story straight insofar as it pertains to older women’s sexuality. After all, anything that can help women of our mothers’ generation stay vibrant and healthy is worth the effort, right?

With that goal in mind, I’m hoping that as younger women continue to take control of their own knowledge-base about their bodies, they’ll feel both motivated enough and emboldened enough to share what they learn with the older women in their lives. 

After all, age is just a number, or so they say, and in order to keep those numbers adding up, there are cogent, compelling arguments to be made that staying sexually active is a life-affirming thing, so long as one stays within the confines of whatever one’s health, and one’s doctors, will allow. Not that many doctors are interested in talking about the sex lives of their female patients over the age of 65 or so, regardless of the fact that we are born, live and die as sexual beings.

So okay, before you gasp and swear before all the angels that your mother, your auntie, or your grandmother would NEVER want to talk about her sexuality, much less consider tapping into it in some sort of active way, contemplate the following:

When it comes to characterizing the nature of postmenopausal sexuality, a recent survey of more than 600 older women between 50 and 85 reveals much of what lots of us already know. 

Conducted by Beverly Johnson, Ph.D., in conjunction with AARP’s Modern Maturity magazine, the survey asked women to describe their degree of interest, participation and satisfaction for a variety of sexual activities including reading and/or looking at erotic materials, kissing, embracing, intercourse, masturbation and engaging in oral sex. 

Johnson asked the women to describe themselves in both specific and general terms as a way to help interpret her survey’s results. One half of the women who participated were married. One third were widowed which is not surprising since at least in the US, women tend to outlive their male partners by an average of 6 years. Three-quarters described themselves as being satisfied with their lives in general. In terms of their physical health, 85 percent of the women in the study described their overall condition as “good,” while the most common health issues for these women were arthritis and hypertension. Forty percent had had a hysterectomy.

“I wanted to explore sexuality in older women from a broad perspective and not just equate sexuality with sex or sexual behaviors,” says Dr. Johnson. In that regard, she also asked respondents to characterize other aspects of themselves such as perceived level of self-esteem and intimacy. Highlights of participants’ responses included that:

Two-thirds of these women, between 50 and 85 years old, remained “very interested” in sexual intercourse. Around fifty percent said they participated in sexual intercourse “very often.” About one-third said they are “very interested, active in, and satisfied with” talking about sexuality, reading or watching erotic materials, daydreaming about sex, masturbation and oral sex. Thirty-eight percent said their overall sexual satisfaction had increased, rather than decreased, with age.


Since the participants in Dr. Johnson’s study weren’t chosen by random, we can’t really generalize about the entire population of older women based upon these results. But who needs to generalize, anyway? One woman's life, by one woman's life, our lived experiences are both meaningful and precious, no matter their frequency in the overall population. But beyond that, Johnson’s outcomes are proof positive that contrary to social stereotypes, there are large numbers of older women in the US who continue to feel positive, fulfilled and in touch with their sexual energy well into their 80s and presumably, beyond. Awesome, right?

Of course, it’s important – even critical – to note that the women in Johnson’s study used a broad definition of what being sexually active actually means, and that’s as it should be, for anyone, not just seniors. So often we make the mistake of narrowly defining what it means to be sexually active by suggesting that it’s only penis in the vagina action that makes the grade. Obviously, this is nonsense. Remember our reaction when a certain dearly loved former US President tried to assert that oral sex in the Oval Office and slipping a fat cigar into a White House intern's vulva was somehow NOT having sex? Though I remain an ardent fan of the guy, the bald-faced silliness of that particular notion still makes me smile.

In that context and every other, whether we’re gay, bi or straight, partnered or single, remaining active sexually includes a nearly limitless array of activities; oral sex, water play, masturbation, fantasy play, intimate touching and holding of all kinds, alone or in pairs or groups – happily, all of it counts.

And so the question becomes, why not tell Grandma? More than likely, she'll be happy to know that she's not alone in her feelings and that someone, at least, realizes and validates the importance of them, regardless of what society's rigid norms and negative expectations might be about grandmas "getting it on."





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Sunday, February 10, 2013

Aphrodisiacs: Food for Thought




“Homemade white cheese, sizzling in a pan melting inside a folded tortilla… My mouth salivates at the thought of the hot steaming tamales I would be eating… if I were home.”

                                         “How To Tame a Wild Tongue,” 
  ~ Gloria Anzaldua 


I suppose it’s almost a no-brainer that whatever our cultural/racial/ethnic backgrounds, the natural collaboration of food and feelings is common to the experience of us all, generating a mix of visceral reactions in us that can span the enormous gamut of human emotions. For Anzaldua, memories of her Mexican girlhood, the loving warmth of home and family, were all tied up in the seductive sensory impact of hot, spicy, savory dishes that nourished her at her roots.

I remember a recent talk I was invited to give about, what else? Postmenopausal women and sexuality. My audience was to be a group of retired and semi-retired professional women. The venue? A high-end country club on Florida’s Gulf Coast. As is usually my preference, I arrived a bit early and to my happy surprise, was greeted by the group’s Chairwoman and the most beautiful display of fat, luscious freshly-dipped chocolate-covered strawberries that I have ever seen. “We hope you like them,” the Chairwoman beamed. “So ripe. So decadent. So perfectly juicy!” …. Indeed!

Of course, as Valentine’s Day approaches, the intricately entwined relationship between certain foods, desire and the performance of sex is often on our minds. And when you stop to think about it, the presumed connection between particular foods, desire and the performance of sexuality has been a source of human fancy and fascination since ancient times.

Called aphrodisiacs in honor of Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of sexuality and love, we can’t get away from the notion that some foods have particular use when it comes to enhancing our sexual energies and desires. And when it comes to what really works in terms of libido-enhancement, torrents of folk wisdom have ebbed and flowed over time. 

Depending upon where you stand on the planet, it’s not out of the question to hear praises sung for the ingestion of emu eggshells sold in capsule form, or a nice, big helping of horny goat weed. And while almost anything is possible theoretically, scientific proof about lots of this stuff is pretty hard to come by. 

Still, the world is a wide one, as we learned in our girlhoods. Take the exotic truffle, for example. Ancient Greeks and Romans once thought that eating these earthy, buttery-tasting fungi greatly enhanced erotic pleasure and performance; some folk still do. And we’ve all heard the lore about oysters and their reported impact on the prowess of the notorious Don Juan. As legend has it, he regularly downed massive quantities of the hapless creatures as a way to ensure a long-lasting, rock-hard erection and make legend his ability to send many a swooning partner over the edge.

Indeed, Eastern cultures often look to the relationship between yin and yang-oriented food items as a way to affect sexual energy and performance; yin items are thought to be more passive and cool, like vegetables, while yang items are thought to be hotter, more protein packed, like meats. And let’s not forget, that some culture traditions prize certain exotic animal parts, like tiger penises, as the gold standard in maximizing sexual energy regardless of the fact that these animals and many others with sought after sex organs are in danger of becoming extinct.

And as always in the US, history frames our present reality. In fact, since reality really is shaped by our language, it’s easy to see how we’ve framed women’s sexuality in food-related terms, with objectifying words and expressions like “tart”, “tomato” or “tamale” which sound silly now, but were once commonly used in the US to describe women who were seen as hot, spicy, sexually exotic and permissive.  And let’s not forget the cultural use of the word “cherry” in referring to a female’s virginity.
Even today, such ubiquitous and well-known terms of endearment still in use like “honey”, “sweetie,” “sugar” and the like, all find their origins in reference to foodstuffs that sit easily on the tongue. What’s more, in 19th century New Orleans, brothels catering to gentlemen of the land-owning aristocracy often threw parties at which their affluent male clients were invited to spoon out and enjoy a rich, sweetened caramel custard that had been packed into the plump vaginas of young mulatto virgins.

Really… Can you imagine?

While there’s no real scientific proof to support such claims, generally, foods are thought to evoke sensuality if they exhibit one or a combination of the following characteristics: smooth, rich, creamy, exotic or spicy. In that regard, and based largely upon a wide expanse of cultural folklores, most edible aphrodisiacs have fallen into five general types over time.

First, foods that create warmth and moisture such as curries and peppers were thought by many cultures to arouse heated passion. 


On the other hand, cold foods like lettuce and other green leafy foods were thought to chill passion and slow things down.  Second, foods that stimulate the senses (sight, smell, taste, and touch) in a pleasurable way were thought to stimulate passion. Think about the old standbys here: rich, smooth chocolates, red ripe strawberries, thick, creamy caramel custards, not necessarily spooned out of someone’s vagina, and so on.

Third, foods that were involved in reproduction such as fish eggs or roe, bird eggs, and animal genitals were believed to increase sexual desire and potency, and foods considered rare, expensive or otherwise hard to obtain were believed to be sexually exciting. Of course, as these items became more common, their reputations as aphrodisiacs diminished. 

Fourth and finally, foods that resemble male or female genitalia were thought to increase desire, hence the reputation of Don Juan’s oysters, corn, some fruits and root vegetables like bananas, cukes and carrots. Lots of folks call this sympathetic magic. Cool, right?

But on Valentine’s Day, though we’re not likely to be interested in serving our partners some of the truly exotic, storied sex-drive enhancers like ambergris, a thick semi-solid substance regurgitated from the gut of sperm whales, or a tasty side serving of tiger penis stew, many of us might still be looking forward to something special for that romantic dinner. And for those of us who aren’t partnered, whether by chance or by choice, there’s reason aplenty to treat ourselves to something especially, deliciously, lustfully decadent as well.

Happy Valentine’s Day!