Many people think performance anxiety around sex is inevitable. But the reasons can be understood, and the anxiety changed–so that people can enjoy a broader range of sexual experiences, free from the fear of disappointment and self-criticism.
You’re having sex with a new person: Do you feel excited? Anxious? Self-conscious? Lonely?
Are you so busy trying to do it right that you don’t have much bandwidth available for pleasure?
Three factors shape our experience of sex with a new partner: communication; self-consciousness; and the use of alcohol.
Here are seven different ways in which sex with a new partner can be disappointing–and what you can…
In America, sex and alcohol go together like peanut butter and jelly. Or a fish and a bicycle. Or desire and guilt.
Consciously or not, people combine alcohol and sex for four main reasons: to increase desire, disinhibit themselves or a partner, cope with pain, or manage anxiety.
Unfortunately, mixing alcohol and sex can have some very unwanted consequences. For starters…
The world has come a long way in recognizing the diversity of human sexual experience.
In 1948, it was revolutionary for biologist Alfred Kinsey to describe sexual orientation as a continuum (from exclusively homoerotic to exclusively heteroerotic), challenging the prevailing binary model.
Gradually, society recognized consensual non-monogamy, BDSM, fantasy role-playing, paraphilias, and a broad range of sexual expression. Now Americans openly discussion gender non-binaries and an increasing number of sexual orientations. So who’s being left out…
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…
If you ask most people what they want from sex, they’ll say some combination of pleasure and closeness. And yet people’s decisions around sex are clearly about other things. The way men and women select partners; choose to initiate or decline sex; relate to their preferences or fantasies; obsess on how they look, sound, or smell; and remain present or check out during sex—all of these decisions make it clear that for many people, their sexual agendas go way beyond pleasure or closeness. In fact, pleasure and closeness may be quite far from what people are really going after in…