Go figure

I spend hours weekly trying to improve ‘my craft’ by reading, studying or attending workshops in my chosen profession of a sex therapist.  One timeless text I’ve been reading isBernie Zilbergeld’s The New Male Sexuality.  As I reflect on Bernie’s writings and the latest rush of clients that have passed my threshold seeking relief for what sexually ails them, one concern that comes [no pun intended] up [again, no pun intended] is that of sexual compatibility between men and women.  Let’s take a minute or ten and think this through.

Zilbergeld claimed there were a minimum of three anchor points that males are taught regarding their sexuality – that it should be private, secret and above all else impersonal. As boys we receive clear cultural messages that masturbation is normal for us even though we are never encouraged to discuss our self-pleasuring escapades, thus, we learn at an early age that sex [as described as erection and ejaculation] is not based on relationships.  We are encouraged by our peers, family members, friends and social media that as a man – we should sow our wild oats.  It becomes all about the numbers and performance [another problem I will address in a later Blog].  Most of us hit the masturbatory trail at puberty and again for most – always know where and how to return to that path regardless of our age or position in our relationships.  Yes, please read between the lines, most of us never stop masturbating our entire lives and it happens all the time in committed relationships.  I remember reading some research findings not long ago that stated that men in committed relationships tend to masturbate more often than those single people…Go Figure.

So let us Go Figure…why do you think that is?  This question also brings me back to the therapeutic office where the wife is complaining that she does not understand how her husband can think of anyone but her during their sexual interludes.  Let me restate one perspective, boys have received cultural messages that it is ‘ok’ to masturbate to images found in magazines, movies and the Internet.  They learn to self-pleasure as they reach puberty and continually reinforce this behavior with secret, private and impersonal images of those they do not know or if they do know – do not necessarily have any emotional connection with that person.  So here is this young boy finding sexual pleasure in the images he has been exposed to for years and years and the fantasies he has created within his own mind – this is how he has been introduced and indoctrinated into his sexuality. 

Conversely, the women did not receive those same messages but ones that link sexual activity with emotional and relationship stability with one person.  Eventually, when they come together [they wish – and again no pun intended] as a couple – somehow there is supposed to be these magical transformations [mixing oil & water] where his sexual desires and satisfactions will now focus solely on just her, leaving behind forever the multitude of impersonal, secretive and private images of his past that had been reinforced for years…Go Figure!...again remind me, how is this to happen?

Now at this point some of you will vehemently deny that you support such a notion of sexuality and certainly are not promoting these kinds of behavior.  To drive home my point, I want to share a statistic I picked a few years ago at a presentation by Stefanie Carnes [daughter of Patrick Carnes famous for his work – Out of the Shadows: Understanding Sexual Addiction] had made to a group of Mental Health Professionals interested in learning about sexual addiction/compulsivity.  She presented a slide titled – Number of Porn Pages by Country – the top five countries included Japan [5] with 2.7 million pages; Australia [4] with 5.7 million pages; United Kingdom [3] with 8.5 million pages; Germany [2] with 10 million pages; and topping out the number one spot was the United States standing like a giant above the rest with 245 million pages.  In spite of that number being the staggering one that it is, another point comes to mind living in the capitalistic society that we do.  From a production and inventory capacity we are creating a huge amount of product that will need to be consumed…and what better way to create the demand for the supply than to prime our males with the desire and want for these private, secret and certainly impersonal images, thus, continually developing our boys to men along the lines Zilbergeld discovered almost two decades ago. 

As men, as a society, as a culture we need to break this pattern so that our sons and daughters can enter sexual relations with realistic and emotionally and relation-ally aligned expectations.  It’s all about choices and attitudes…Go Figure!

Ready to change your attitude about sex and life, visit the Contact page on my website, SexHealthDoc.com!  I see clients in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and via the internet.  

History - Even a Sexual One Has a Way of Repeating Itself

Some years ago I was listening to a member of the graduating class of the Liberal Arts University I attended deliver her commencement address. This wonderful young lady gave such a moving and memorable speech.  The part that stood out for me most was the following line: “We learn so much about history but we never seem to learn from it!”  These prophetic words would visit me time and time again.  Much has been said and written about sex and yet we do not seem to learn from it. 

What I see lacking many times is the motivation to change.  I apologize ahead of time for using a mechanistic analogy but many times I can explain to an individual or couple how the sex “engine” operates but that does not change its function.  In other words, just knowing you have 6-cylinder does not change into a V-8.  So the real question we need to continually ask ourselves is how we can learn from what we know about sex? 

The Beiter Sexual Preference Indicator, BSPI tells us that women and men do take up their sexuality differently.  Men appear to be more restrictive in their sexual expression while woman appear to be more variable.  The cultural messages for both men and women differ and that would help answer the difference.  As I think about it from a male perspective, I am reminded that many men were introduced into their sexuality around three common themes: secrecy, privacy and impersonal. 

For many of us our first exposure to the sexual in life was through printed images be they paper or videotape, that is through magazines or movies.  There was usually no dialogue going on with anyone when were first exposed – no pun intended.  No one sat me down and said, “ok, here is what is going on and what you are most likely to experience physically and emotionally and sexually.”  It was a private moment and a secret one and we typically do not know the person we are being exposed to – pun intended.  Even if our masturbatory trail was discovered, i.e. wet dreams, dried semen on sheets, towels, t-shirts, etc. nothing was usually said, thus, enforcing a code of secrecy and privacy.  Now let us add on top of this scenario, years of conditioning that is self-pleasuring to the point of orgasm without an emotional or intimate connection to anyone and what do you think we get?  Now try and couple this with an individual who has been “conditioned” to think that sex is special and should be reserved for that one special person whom you plan on establishing a long term relationship with and the result is – no surprise - sexual dysfunction or an inability to connect.  However, for many there is a surprise and once again I want to remind you that we need to go back to my original point that we have learned much “about” but little “from” and in my mind – no wonder!

How do we connect two people with such dissimilar backgrounds and foundational sexual messages?  I assure you, the expectations are real and sometimes seem almost surreal.  Think about how males are conditioned to expect and associate pleasure from impersonal connections with images of individuals they do not know and how this has spawned and daily feeds the flourishing phenomenon of Internet porn compulsive behaviors.  We now know that exposing very young males to pornographic images as a means of educating them around their sexuality has life-long and sometimes devastating consequences. 

I see it every week in my clinical practice.  A wife discovers – through the history function of the family computer – her husband surfing the Internet looking at pornographic images at night after she falls asleep and he is reprimanded into therapy because he has betrayed the trust in their marital relationship.  When asked if he would be there [in therapy] if he had not been caught – the answer is always “no”.  Typically, the only thing he sees “wrong” is that he got caught and that she is emotionally upset, but he does not rest the status of the relationship as having had an affair.  Often for him it was no different than what he has been conditioned to do when he feels “sexual” and that is go into private, secret and impersonal mode.  Does it mean that he is dissatisfied with his sexual relationship with his partner sometimes yes and more often “no”. 

Unfortunately, it takes events of these magnitudes to start the often, continued awkward dialogues around sexuality and to go even further around what arouses us to the point of distraction.  Does it not seem obvious that we could save ourselves a whole lot of grief and aggravation if we would just start educating everyone earlier with clear and consistent messages about human sexuality?  

Want to talk?  Visit the Contact page at SexHealthDoc.com.

Hardwired or Conditioned?

A little ‘aha’ moment of mine.  As a boy, I was raised/conditioned to keep my emotions in check.  Basically, as males we are taught to avoid being emotionally vulnerable in any relationship.  We receive continual reinforcement to keep tears away, private or deny them completely, probably by age 10.  We are taught to ‘hang tough’, ‘take it on the chin’, ‘rub dirt on it’, etc. 

Vulnerability is not an option for most males or so we are lead to believe.  As a result, we typically build elaborate cognitive labyrinths to keep any emotions from seeping through.  This means we are implicitly lead to enter into relationships armed with this way of being – i.e. not feeling with our partners.  Many male therapy patients have stated such when reporting past successes when they really did not “feel” anything for their partner, or in other words were emotionally disconnected. 

The problem emerging for some men is when they truly do start to “feel” or become emotionally connected and/or vulnerable when getting intimately close to their current partner.  Anxiety levels spike as one feels emotionally vulnerable in ways that he typically cannot explain and had previously alienated himself from feeling.  As anxiety rises to the North – arousal and along with it erection usually heads for the Deep South.  Let me point out that my professional opinion about erectile dysfunction is that it is usually mislabeled.  If you have received a thorough examination from a competent urologist and you are able to masturbate without issue then guess what – the erection is working as it should or should not…where the problem becomes evident is when another person enters the picture – that is when the relationship with the ‘other’ becomes dysfunctional and not the penis.

The question remains is how do we educate/condition our males to permit a healthy exposure to becoming more accepting of vulnerability – emotional or otherwise?  Fathers have to teach their sons [what some if not most men do not even have a clue as to how] and we need to learn as a society to value emotions in all there wonderful variations and not limit them to a handful.   Just like the push in recent years has been to accept diversity, we need to do the same for the acceptance of and embracing of emotional diversity.

Connect with me by visiting the contact page at SexHealthDoc.com

Learning About Sex - From Science

Recently I finished reading my 21st book for the New Year.  My goal had been to read two books monthly – one business and one for pleasure.  As I am somewhat of an over-achiever, it still feels good to be ahead of the curve this month.  The book I just finished: Bonk by Mary Roach, deserves a 5-star rating as far as I am concerned.  It was funny, informative and highly entertaining.  It is one of those books you dread coming to an end.  She is a marvelous writer and excellent storyteller.

One of the points she made that really stuck out for me, and is the purpose of this blog, came as she was discussing the research Masters and Johnson had done on trying to tease out what researchers would label “amazing sex”.

I am going to take a giant leap of faith and guess that with the words “amazing sex” I got your attention, as it did mine.  Mary was interested in learning some special new technique that had eluded the laymen, but was only privy to the researchers who had combed through the work of Masters and Johnson.  Well she got what she was looking for.  It was not something new and wild but something most people who have ever been in a wonderful relationship have known.

What I found was this: The best sex [was experienced] by people who took their time.  They lost themselves – in each other, and in sex. They “tended to move slowly…and to linger at…[each] stage of stimulative response, making each step in tension increment to something to be appreciated…” They teased each other “in an obvious effort to prolong the stimulatee’s high levels of sexual excitation…Another difference was that the partners were almost as aroused by what they were doing to their partner as was the partner herself.”  

So here is your challenge – try to lose yourself in the pleasure and power of turning your partner on.  Take your time to become mindful of your partner’s level of sexual excitation and help her/him to expand her/his pleasure by helping to prolong it.  For those who want an even bigger challenge try talking more easily, often and openly about what you did and did not enjoy while being sexually intimate.

For more information on how you can improve your relationships, including your relationship with yourself, visit SexHealthDoc.com or CrosstheFinishLineCoaching.comhttp://CrosstheFinishLineCoaching.com.

Two Behaviors That Will Help You Lose WAIST

I recently read an article by Art Caplan, PhD titled: It’s Not Genes: People Are Fat Because They Eat Too Much.  Caplan talked about a research study conducted by the University of Cambridge where the results indicated that constant and easy exposure to fast-food restaurants correlated to being diabetic or being fat. 

It sounds like such a common sense thing and yet so many people want to blame it on “bad genes”.  I really liked his point: “Genes certainly play a role in how people handle food, but if you live in a culture that overwhelms you with opportunities to eat junk food and fatty food, even the best genes can easily be overwhelmed.” 

He further points out that, “Bad food opportunities are everywhere...it’s easy, quick and dangerous.”

So if you are looking for a quick and easy solution to getting your weight under control, I have one.  But it is not simple because it requires time and for you to stop engaging in two very undesirable behaviors. 

1.      Stop eating after your dinner, which I assume for most people can be done any 7:30 PM.  If you feel you must have something to eat, then find a fruit or vegetable that you enjoy. 

2.      Stop eating what I call purposeful sugars, such as cakes, cakes, cookies, candies and ice creams. 

If you can change these two behaviors consistently you will start to see your waist get smaller at a minimum, you will probably experience weight loss, cleaner blood, and so much more.  You don’t have to do this forever but it should become the rule and not the exception. 

Of course you can have a day – not days – where you treat yourself but you might just be surprised that once you give it up you may not want to go back because of the amazing way it makes you feel.

For more information on how you can improve your relationships, including your relationship with yourself, visit SexHealthDoc.com or CrosstheFinishLineCoaching.com

Six weird ways to loose weight

(Reprinted from Consumers Choice Health Newsletter published May 22, 2014)

Summer is almost here, and if you're like most people, you're scrambling to get your best summer body. You're not alone!  We all know that diet and exercise are tried and true ways to drop pounds.  But what you probably didn't know are the following 6 weird ways to lose weight that actually work.

1. A recent study published in the journal Appetite found that people who eat from red plates tend to eat less than people who eat from other colors. And it doesn't have anything to do with the color of the food or the way it contrasts with the color of the plate… it's specifically the color red that causes people to consume less.
2. Here's a neat trick French women are using to eat less… Next time you sit down to a meal, tie a piece of ribbon around your waist, under your clothes. This helps you stay conscious of your tummy, especially if the ribbon starts to get tighter as you eat!
3. A study conducted by researchers from Cornell and Binghamton Universities found that paying for food with cash instead of your credit card can help you eat less and make better food choices. That's because when you pay with your credit card, you'll be more likely to impulse buy junk food and other things that are bad for you. Instead, withdraw enough cash to last you the day and leave your plastic at home.
4. According to Dr. Alan R. Hirsch of the Smell & Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago, people who sniffed apples, bananas, or peppermint throughout the day ate less than people who did not. The sniffers also lost an average of 30 pounds more than the non-sniffers!
5. Hang a mirror across from your table. Studies have shown that people who eat in front of a mirror tend to consumer a full third less food than those who do not. Looking yourself in the eye as you eat is a great way to remind you of your goals and desire to lose weight.
6. Brush your teeth with a mint-flavored toothpaste after you eat.  The minty taste will actually trigger your brain into thinking the meal is over, which helps turn off food cravings.  Plus, the scent of mint helps suppress your appetite!

For more information on how you can improve your relationships, including your relationship with yourself, visit SexHealthDoc.com or CrosstheFinishLineCoaching.com.

Success = Put first things first

Building a business in a new state can sometimes feel frustrating and overwhelming.  Any business building can feel that way at times.

I want to be successful in developing two areas of business that I feel equally passionate about. One involves coaching executives to create, maintain and foster stronger relationships both professionally and personally. The other area involves working in a therapeutic setting to help individuals and couples create deeper bonds of connection and intimacy in their relationships.

Part of my daily ritual is to learn by reading something new and hopefully, useful in my life, either personally or professionally or both. Recently, I read Stephen Covey’s world famous – The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. While learning about habit 3 – Put first things first – he discussed an ingredient for success that he had read. He said that “successful people do what others who are not successful will not do!” As I thought about this statement, I reflected on two specific examples in my life where this really resonated for me.

The first area was achieving my doctorate degree. I know many people who were never able to finish the journey and enjoy the success. Unfortunately, these individuals gave up and stopped “doing”. After graduating, I researched completion rates for doctoral programs and was very surprised to learn about the high attrition rates experienced by many universities.

The second area that I reflected on, and one that I work at daily, is keeping myself physically fit. An interesting note is that others who have seen me recently have commented how fit I look. I attribute it to the fact that I lost waist and not necessarily weight. I was successful at losing my waist because of what I have been willing to do that many others cannot. I became determined to change two behaviors – one is to stop eating after my dinner and the second was to stop eating – what I called purposeful sugar products, e.g. ice cream, cookies, candies, cake…etc.

Being successful, like Covey reminds us is about putting first things first. If you want to achieve a goal, you have to take steps in that direction everyday – even and especially on, the days you do not feel like doing them.

What steps have you taken today to reach your goal of being successful?

For information visit: SexHealthDoc.com or CrossTheFinishLineCoaching.com.