For parents and kids of all ages, it’s back-to-school time.
And while mastering reading and writing are unquestionably important for young people, sexuality is pretty important, too. That’s because of an intense brew of emotions, norms, laws, and cultural change that grammar school, high school, and college students face in 2019.
So let’s talk about some common concerns that parents have. The following apply to children of all ages.
~ Information and words won’t hurt young people.
Is watching porn a form of infidelity?
This is not a helpful question. Every time I hear it in session, in fact, I think it’s the wrong question. But women and men keep asking it, so let me answer it here.
The simple answer is, it all depends on how you define infidelity.
I’ve always said that I’m not one of those sex therapists who gives advice. I don’t tell you who you shouldn’t marry, which sex position “most women” like, or if you should try a threesome.
Rather, I see my job focusing more on education: providing facts about biology, laying out competing ideas about how to make decisions, and sharing my accumulated experience of how things tend to work.
Dear Doctor: You didn’t ask me or talk to me about sex. Not once.
I saw you for hip pain.
Given the way that so many kinds of sex involve our hips, asking about sex would seem important.
You didn’t.
Of course…
According to the new No-Fap movement, there’s an “epidemic” of “urges” to “fap”—to masturbate. To stem this destructive rampage of addiction and self-harm, there are programs all over the web designed to help men stop masturbating.
Guys who take up the No-Fap Challenge for 30, 60, or 90 days sometimes even excludes partner sex for as much as a year. These guys, usually still in their ‘20s, say they’re looking for freedom, self-discipline, and higher self-esteem.
Great goals. Bizarre (and rarely successful) strategy.
Just about every week I see a new patient who complains that he has trouble having orgasms.
Of course, I ask lots of questions. Does this happen only with a partner, or with masturbation too? What medication is he taking? How much alcohol is generally involved before and during sex? How does his partner usually respond? How does he usually respond?
And if he’s been bothered about this for a while, why is he coming in now?
I want to eliminate medical issues first, so I always ask if he’s seen a physician. Since many of these guys are referred to me by a doc, let’s skip over the possible health issues (such as diabetes, auto-immune diseases, and possession by the devil) and…