I have been married for a few years and I increasingly feel a distance between me and my husband.   I grew up with divorced parents and really don’t want my marriage to end like that but I have no idea what to do to improve things.   I don’t want to lose him, but every time I try to talk to him about my feelings, he tells me things like I am overreacting and there is nothing wrong.   Do you have any ideas that I could use to strengthen my connection to my partner?

This is an important question and one that often doesn’t get asked until many couples reach a point of no return.  Statistically we have on of the highest fail rates at relationships in the world.   About half of first marriages fail in the U.S., as do two thirds of second marriages and three quarters of third marriages. We fail in large part because we enter into relationships with poor skills for maintaining them and highly unrealistic expectations.  The initial biological attraction that initiates most relationships is not a solid foundation to build a long term committed partnership.  Rather than learning about the significant qualities of the other, biological and sexual attraction can blind us to who we partner with.

Our idea of romantic courtship and our attachment to the fairy tale happy endings is unique to western culture.  Other cultures take a different view of  choosing and building a long term partnership with more than half of the marriages on this planet arranged by parents or matchmakers whose primary goals are family harmony and long term suitability.   Statistically these arranged partnerships fare better than the romance inspired relationships here.   Following are the four primary areas where arranged marriages fare better and some ideas about what to do to build these in your own relationship.

Commitment:  Most arranged marriages begin with a strong commitment to a shared concept of the relationship they are agreeing to.   Current western norms and the ease with which people can dissolve marriages start most marriages here at a disadvantage.  Our  one foot out the door tendency in our relationships creates a dynamic where people interpret each others behavior with more negativity, which cripples the exchanges between partners, often without them even being aware.   One way to combat the commitment issue is to practice trust exercises together.   Try falling backwards into each others arms and notice how it feels both to catch someone and be caught.   Talk about the experience and use it as a metaphor to catch each other in daily life.

Communication:   Developing the skills to listen and be heard are some of the most essential relationship skills we can master in our lifetime.   It is truly remarkable the number of topics that matter to us that we won’t discuss.  Some of this lack of communication comes from a lacking emotional intelligence.   This is an easy and effective way to start.   Learn what fear, sadness, joy and anger feels like in your body and use a simple I feel _______when you say, do____________.   Go back and forth and familiarize yourself with your own feelings  as a foundation for learning more about your partners.  Another fun game to try is for each partner to write down a feeling or thought they want to convey and then use any form of wordless communication to convey that feeling to your partner.   Take turns learning to read each other’s mind.

Accomodation  Relationships require that both people be willing to acknowledge and accommodate the other person’s needs.   People feel closer and have stronger bonds with partners who demonstrate kindness and thoughtfulness to them, even if only in small details.  Learning the art of compromise that does not create resentment but cultivates a real feeling of give and take is one of the foundations of a strong partnership.    A fun game to grow the awareness of your similarities and quirks is called monkey love, where one partner imitates the other partner for 5-10 minutes at a time.   Watching and mirroring their body movements links you across space and can surprise you about what you learn about how it feels to live in the other person’s body.

Vulnerability  Developing a vulnerable and open heart between partners is the fertilizer for intimate relationships.   Feeling safe to disclose your fears and secrets to the person you are most deeply connected to conveys trust and  should inspire them to want to do the same.   Frequently, a couple’s sexual problems are linked to one partner not being able to feel safe and  vulnerable with their partner.  A good warm up for both physical intimacy and just to increase feeling of connection is an exercise called soul gazing where you look into each other’s eyes for 1-2  minutes.   Another exercise to experiment with is stretching the physical and emotional boundaries by standing four feel apart and slowly moving in to each other.  At about 18” , personal space starts to metlt together.  Feel how much an inch can change how you feel about someone.

It is surprisingly not uncommon to not know why you are behaving the way you do when you make dating and sex decisions.  Sadly, this lack of clarity is not limited to our youth. Such is the inspiration for the new Dating Confidential website that is part of a research study at the University of British Columbia.  It was launched by nurse & PhD candidate Cindy Masaro to better understand the behaviors and choices made by women who are older than 25 and are single, dating or in new relationships. The majority of research studies available focus on teen and college-age youth.  This lack of viable data is particularly disconcerting because the incidence of STIs in women over 30 is rising fast.

Cindy, who works as an STI nurse, is hoping to use her survey  data to increase the understanding of the dating patterns and sexual decision making of women over 25, which will in turn translate into improved education and services.  To participate or learn more about the study, go to www.datingconfidential.ca.  Cindy is looking for participants all over the US and Canada, so consider taking the time to complete the online survey.

Sexual health, at once intensely private is really everyone’s issue. Until we are willing to pay attention to the gaps in what we know and the poor decision making that comes from it, we all share the same dark space.  Thanks for helping.  It will likely benefit us all.

The early medical research that resulted in the subsequent rise of Viagra in the 1990s was in part responsible for the impetus to identify and name this parallel female syndrome to male sexual dysfunction.  The original study, which collected data from thousands of women that self-reported the frequency of a group of common symptoms,  which are the hallmarks of female sexual dysfunction syndrome.  These included low/absent desire and libido, lack of lubrication and pain with sex.  It was in  fact this first study that generated the statistic that 43% of women had sexual dysfunction, which was later refuted by its authors. Yet, this study was the seed, which firmly planted the idea that female sexuality can and often is diseased.

The film, Orgasm Inc shows step-by-step how this multi-billion dollar industry of sexual dysfunction has been built over the last two decades. Inspired by the billions of dollars of income that Viagra and similar drugs have generated in the male sexual function arena, pharmaceutical companies have lobbied hard for the implementation of diagnostic codes, which pathologize  female sexuality.  Both male and female sexual dysfunction were split into four categories of disorders. These included sexual desire disorders, sexual arousal disorders, orgasmic disorders, and sexual pain disorders.

As large pharma companies race to find the billion dollar prize-winning pharmaceutical or surgical cure for female sexual dysfunction, millions of women have been won over to the disease mentality. What was not long ago perceived as a personal and private exploration of the erotic self,  has become for many women an expensive and often risky  slippery slope of experimental medical treatments that leave women often feeling hopeless and used.  From the Orgasmatron, a device that promises control over orgasm through the use of an electrical probe inserted directly into the spinal column to a popular new form of female genital plastic surgery, a practice which bears frightening resemblance to female genital mutilation in third world countries, women have become willing to try almost anything in the name of a “cure.”

Leonore Tiefer, a PhD sex therapist in New York was incensed by the medicalization of female sexuality issues and started an advocacy and lobbying group called the New View Campaign. Their argument is that normal sexual functioning cannot be reduced to the physiological treatment of individual body parts. Female sexual functioning  can only be understood and needs to be researched within the context of the relationship in which it occurs. Dismissing the critical social, political and economic conditions that define and often direct a woman’s capacity for intimacy under the umbrella term of “psychogenic causes” ignores the profound and perhaps deepest reality of  a woman’s sexuality. Female sexual health cannot be healed strictly within the biological functioning of her genitalia, rather it is a mosaic of her past and present social environments,  cultural norms, belief systems,  and sexual education, as well as her history with sexual violence.

Orgasm Inc, demonstrates that female sexual dysfunction, if indeed such a classification is justified at all, will not find a cure in a bottle. There is no quick fix for the socio economic inequalities, cultural norms and rampant violence against women which live at the root of the personal stories that reflect the functioning of female sexuality.  If healing lives anywhere, female sexuality thrives in the context of true intimacy with oneself and others.

This film is being screened  at the University of British Columbia, and will be followed by a panel discussion from sexual health and sexuality experts.  If you are not in Canada, look for a screening near you or buy the dvd.

Many of the symptoms that culminate in vaginal atrophy begin in peri-menopause. This is the time when many women experience pain with sex (dyspareunia) caused by thinning, shrinkage and inflammation of the vaginal walls due to a decline in estrogen levels as women age. The predominant treatment modality for this condition is hormone replacement therapy, as well as the use of vaginal moisturizers and lubricants. I know these symptoms intimately myself,  as it was my inspiration to start Good Clean Love.

Unlike men, who are generally much more invested in maintaining their sexual capacities for years, which speaks to the extensive funding and research on male sexual functioning, many women give up too easily on their sexuality. The significant hormonal drop that accompanies menopause takes with it not just internal vaginal moisture and elasticity, but also much of the drive and internal signals that women associate with feeling aroused.

Many doctors treat vaginal atrophy as though it is inevitable.  The belief  that the condition is progressive, chronic and incurable impacts the women being treated as much as the limited, mostly topical options presented.  It is true that the more that a woman ignores the issue and retreats from sex, the more that her vagina shrinks and closes up.  If the maxim “use it or lose it” applies anywhere, it is here. Although, it is also true that setting penetration as a goal in itself is both unrewarding and hard to comply with when burning, bleeding and sharp pains are the result.

What is critically absent from most discussions about female sexual functioning is that the arousal mechanism is triggered first in the limbic brain. Building and maintaining a relationship to your erotic self is the doorway to working with the changing genitalia.   Unfortunately most women do not have a strong sense of their erotic selves even at the height of their sexuality. Shame and guilt can and do cloud our willingness and capacity for pleasure. Fantasies, which are the fuel for our sexual identities and pleasure pathways are more often repressed than explored.

Opening the space for women to explore what it means to be sexual and to experience their unique arousal mechanism through a wide range of sensory experiences would be a helpful adjunct to current treatment modalities. Our olfactory system lives inside of our arousal mechanism.  Identifying the scents that arouse your imagination and using them in the context of sensuous touch are a great way to jumpstart the discovery of  your erotic self.  These practices, which originated in ancient societies, are worth revisiting as they provide important information to your limbic brain, which processes memory, emotion, sexuality, as well as scent.

I often explain to customers that scent is our primary gateway  to our sexuality. A literal storehouse of fantasy is often locked up inside and having the courage to attend to what lives in us, moving beyond our fears of being abnormal (which everyone has) is where our erotic relationships to ourselves and others begins. Even the best lubricant in the world cannot adequately do its job if you are not ready to be penetrated or if your only association with the act is of fear of pain.

Sexual pleasure and pain have an odd relationship to each other and one that is hard to articulate both because it is mysterious and lives in each of us uniquely. A few rules of thumb may help though. First, orgasmic readiness is the space of exploration where our fear mechanism turns off. We are being lead by something deeper and, in some ways, more base in us. This place where we are at least as much mammal as we are human is largely out of our mental control and  is also a pain release mechanism. Stated another way,  some of the most exquisite sexual pleasure available to us rides the line of pain, which is, in some ways, what makes sexual pleasure so compelling. Orgasm is in fact the transformative energy release that simultaneously liberates both pain and pleasure.

Without the experience of pleasure and the aspiration for the occasional visits of orgasmic transformation, sexual penetration would be experienced only as a form of trauma. Tragically, this is why most women don’t want to fight for their sex lives, because even before the vaginal atrophy began, their access to their erotic selves was limited and pleasure was not the sexual companion it deserved to be.

Yet the capacity to lean into your erotic self and experience transformative healing orgasms actually expands with age. The sexiest part of our body, our arousal mechanism in our limbic brain, does not atrophy.It is always looking for and maybe even longing for the opportunity to be experienced.

Recently I have been having crazy sexual fantasies while making love with my partner.  I don’t know if I should feel guilty or excited because when I just let them go, I get way more aroused and I can tell my partner is feeling it too.   I can’t get myself to tell my partner and I wonder if this is some form of cheating on him.   I am not always thinking of someone else, just other crazy scenarios.  Sometimes I am shocked by my own thoughts, like where did these come from?  What is your take on fantasies?  Do they hurt or help a relationship?

This is a great question that almost everyone thinks about at some point.  In a recent research study on Sex in America, the majority of men and women have fantasies while having sex, some studies putting the number between 40- 90% for both men and women.  The Kinsey research concurred with this data and showed even higher percentages during masturbation.  In fact, using sexual fantasy as the fuel for early eroticism is for most of us our first sexual act.  Boys start having sexual fantasies as early as 11-13, for girls, fantasy  usually begins later in their teens and early 20s.  What’s more, there is mounting research, which suggests that the ability and freedom to entertain fantasies actually enhances both sexual arousal and desire.  Telling stories is integral to being human, and sexual fantasies can be both healthy and inspiring during sex.

Given that sexuality is one of the most mysterious ways that we relate to our partners, it isn’t all that surprising that our range of sexual fantasies is as rich and diverse as we are. Many people feel concern about whether their fantasy behavior is normal and worry about what it means.  Understanding the sexual arousal that may come from fantasies about being sexually overpowered or raped does not mean that you actually want to have the experience.   Even the very common fantasy of having multiple sex partners doesn’t necessarily mean that you are interested in playing it out. It is not uncommon to struggle with the edge between enjoying their fantasies and feeling guilty or wrong about having them.  The issue for many couples can be as straightforward as establishing boundaries that are respectful for both partners.

Like so much of sexuality, the idea and practice of fantasy has come out of the closet culturally.  Internet fantasy chat rooms, elaborate sexual avatars, and free exchanges of pornography have all contributed to our awareness and capacity for fantasy.  Some couples choose to take their fantasies to the next level and “act out” shared fantasy to enhance their pleasure.

There are plenty of accounts of people who allow their fantasy life to go too far.  Whether this leads to obsessive thoughts about another or an inability to focus on your life or your partner, this is where fantasy crosses the line and can become a danger to your relationship.  Learning to distinguish between fantasy and reality can be a challenging obstacle for some. In the same way that dreams are altered when we try to describe them upon waking, carrying our fantasies into our daily lives can be disruptive and destructive.

Whether it is just in sharing our own fantasies or in agreeing to act them out, it is important to be both conscious and communicative about your comfort level and your boundaries.  Being able to speak openly about the role of fantasy in lovemaking and agree on what should and shouldn’t be shared provides a respectful space for fantasy to exist between you.

Conversely,  fantasies can also heal long held sexual blocks. Some sex therapists have encouraged patients to use  fantasy to help overcome sexual problems. Within a therapeutic context,  people have been able to use fantasy to  confront the fearful stages of intimacy and lovemaking and reduce or eliminate their fears.  Sexual fantasies can provide an opportunity to deepen the intimacy with your partner, to learn more about yourself, or to be clued into underlying emotional issues.

I am confused.  A lot of my peers say that you should stay single in your twenties but yet they are all preoccupied with finding “the one .  How can you tell if the love relationship you are in is the one that is meant for you?   Are there signs to look for?   What should I keep in mind as I move through different relationships?   It seems like things have changed so much but also still are the same in many ways – what do you think has changed for the better or worse since you were in your twenties? 

You have good reason to be confused.  Love relationships for young people are more challenging than ever, in part because so many young people have witnessed the dissolution of  intimate relationships in their family at a rate which has far outpaced the majority of preceding generations. .  Watching older generations go through painful separations and experiencing instability during important developmental phases while growing up can make you doubt the viability and meaning  of committed relationships.

Consequently, many young people are reinventing how they connect and interact both romantically and sexually.  It has become relatively rare to be dating on college campuses now that hook ups and friends with benefits arrangements occupy and offer socially acceptable mechanisms to avoid emotional commitments in relationships.   This combination of forces makes it hard to even get to know potential partners well enough to consider a long term relationship.   Also reversing the order of emotional and sexual intimacy which has become more routine makes the getting to know you phase more challenging and in many cases non-existent.

Yet, the preoccupation of finding “the one” remains in tact because it is one of the most deeply entrenched fairytales we grow up with and in fact, a central part of our human code to pair and reproduce.   Our deepest longing in life is to be witnessed and loved as we are.   It is easy to become jaded about these deep internal drives which have probably never been less supported culturally than they are now.

Good and strong relationships grow over time.  They are in fact a critical and primary mechanism of human development.  Most of us are not well trained in the basic skills of relating  which include: developing a positive thinking mechanism about self and relationship,  learning to listen and express clearly and defining what each partner needs to feel secure.   All of these elements work to enable people to understand and explore their erotic selves with another.   All relationships start out weak in one or more of these areas.

A bad sign is when one or both partners is not interested in working at the relationship in these ways.  For instance,  someone who uses sarcasm as a way  to shut you down more often than not, might not be a good bet if s/he is not willing to listen to how that behavior is hurtful or embarrassing.  You usually know, if you listen to yourself what isn’t working for you in a relationship.  Being able to listen, trust yourself  and ask for what you need or don’t need is the mechanism of learning to love someone.   This process can be messy, but conflict of these kinds are essential to holding onto yourself while loving someone else.

Many people regardless of age confuse the biologically driven experience of falling in love with the deep heart growing work of learning to love someone over time.   The latter doesn’t have the passionate fire of the beginning, which doesn’t mean that you can’t have incredibly powerful intimacy here, but it comes as a product of all the other work you put into your relationship instead of just being driven by the urge to mate.

Learning to love someone else or be loved by someone else can never take the place of developing the skills of loving yourself.  No one can love you enough if you are empty of yourself.  Two halves do not make a whole when it comes to love.  Functional and healthy relating is a product of two whole people who are willing to invest their time and energy into building a positive container for them both.

Thinking about a relationship in terms of being a container that is spacious enough to allow you to be yourself, even if it is a dramatically changing one in your twenties and that of your partner is something that can become “the one” through your effort.   I am not convinced that there is one right person out there for everyone… rather I think that finding someone who values your unique perspective and honors your needs is a rare and special gem that deserves the effort and sacrafice that long term relationships require.    When you find this, no matter how old you are, consider yourself blessed and on a course for a love filled life.

I don’t know why I get so turned on by the things I do, which are so weird I am not even going to say what they are.  I have this same fantasies over and over again.  In fact, I can’ t even get turned on at all when I block my mind from thinking of this fantasy.  Then I just feel nothing.   I am so embarrassed I would never tell my partner about it.   What should I do?

Thanks for asking this important question. First thing to know is that everyone has sexual fantasies. Even people who have no consciousness about their sexuality and are completely cut off from their fantasies do in fact have them.  Most of us are mystified by our sexuality and your situation is not as unusual as it seems to you.  In our culture it is the norm for people to be uncomfortable with the strong sexual fantasies that drive their arousal and desire. This is why the first question people ask a sex therapist is “Am I normal?”  Many people are so overwhelmed, ashamed or afraid of their erotic selves that they repress their fantasy life entirely.

This repression represents a tragic loss of who we are. Understanding our sexual fantasies in relationship to our whole life experience provides a window into the deepest levels of healing in our psyche.  Our sexuality and our sexual fantasies have been wrongly considered as our most base and primitive instinct.  On the contrary, our human sexuality is actually an expression of our most complex human needs and healing drive towards experiencing pleasure. As children we all suffer with some form of emotional wounding  and unresolved conflicts. As we mature into our sexuality, throughout our adolescence and teen years, our subconscious brain eroticizes our pain  into fantasies that allow us to convert our painful past into a pleasurable experience.  This is a revolutionary perspective, which demonstrates the potential healing that our sexual fantasies hold for all of us.

In a recent interview with psychotherapist Stanley Siegel who wrote the book on this topic, called Your Brain on Sex, I was amazed at how much sense this thinking  has brought to the question of sexual fantasy.  Siegel, who has been in psychotherapy practice  for over 35 years said, “almost every issue he  has worked through with his patients had a sexual root.”  Over the many years of his practice, he came to understand the transformative and deeply healing nature of working with our sexual fantasies as a window into our deepest pain.  He developed a process that he calls Intelligent Lust, which consists of developing an emotional intelligence and language about your childhood traumas, as well as being able to identify your strongest sexual fantasies. When his patients were able to connect the dots between those two strong emotional experiences, both were healed.

Not surprisingly many of us share both sexual fantasy themes as well as common emotional injuries. Some of the most common emotional injuries like guilt, shame and insecurity can actually be eroticized into very different sexual fantasies, which might include everything from getting paid to have sex or make porn to fantasies of random sexual acts or forced, submissive sex. How the brain makes pleasure out of our painful past is a unique and mysterious process, yet learning the tools to understand the links between them are universally healing.

Here is an example that makes this easy to understand:  A woman grows up in a extremely religious family in which sin and pleasure are understood to be the same. Years later she wants to have forced sex dressed up as a nun and her husband as a priest. It is easy to understand how her subconscious would eroticize those painful limits into their opposite. As this couple plays out her fantasy with her having made the conscious connection to her past, the emotional trauma has less and less hold on her. It also simultaneously grows the commitment and intimacy between the couple.   Most couples don’t realize how much they give up of themselves and their intimacy by suppressing their sexuality with their partners.

Having the courage to explore our erotic selves is the space within us where passion is born and evolves. Without it,  our sexuality lives dormant, repressed, and inevitably will rear its power in ways that can inflict pain instead of pleasure. I urge you to read this book or listen to the interview.

Every time I get into an argument with my partner it gets ugly.   It has gotten so that I don’t want to bring up anything that might start a disagreement because I don’t want to risk the abuse and old baggage that gets dragged through the mud again.  It’s almost like nothing is ever forgotten, just saved up for the next argument. It is making me avoid conversation at all, and it seems that the more avoid it, the wider the wall between us.  Is this what the end of a relationship looks like?

Learning how to have fair fights is a critical skill for a thriving relationship.  Many couples swing between the two extremes you have described here- either hurtful, negative exchanges with no boundaries or silence. Both extremes do great harm to a relationship and can precipitate the premature ending of a relationship. Intimate relationships are not supposed to be free from conflict;  done right, conflicts help move both partners closer to more workable living arrangements and each other.

Approaching conflict in this way: as a means of broadening your working relationship and  learning the triggers for your partner is the foundation of learning how to have a fair fight with the person you love. The issues in arguing often come long before the partnership. Many people never learn how to fight fair in their original families and they bring all the bad behaviors and injuries from the past with them. Whether you learned to scream the loudest or run away from the first sign of conflict, agreeing to develop new skills for airing grievances is one of the healthiest choices you can make in staying together.

The most important thing to keep in mind is that arguments that leave one or both parties feeling belittled, afraid or disrespected continue to do damage to the relationship long after the argument is over. A great deal of research supports the idea that maintaining mutual respect during an argument by not allowing name calling or other hurtful mechanisms into the fight goes a long way in moving towards resolution. Both partners need to agree to give up the intent to hurt the other; meanness, sarcasm and belittling turn an adult argument into a schoolyard brawl.

An equally powerful boundary to establish is to keep arguments in the present tense. Digging up old hurts only confuses what is currently happening and worse still, makes the  idea of forgiveness impossible. The weight of carrying all the wrongs and misunderstandings forward is too heavy for even the strongest of relationships.

Rethink the idea of not going to bed angry. Sometimes the best thing we can do for ourselves and our relationship is to give it time and space. Taking a break from the intensity of the interaction, even a few minutes, can open you up to seeing or hearing your partner differently.

Own up to your part of the fight. Melody Brooke, a licensed marriage and family therapist, says two things derail intense fights: admitting what you did to get your partner ticked off, and expressing empathy toward your partner. Brooke, author of The Blame Game, says this can be difficult but typically is extremely successful. “Letting down our defenses in the heat of battle, seems counterintuitive, but is actually very effective with couples.”

I have been married  for over 10 years,  but my wife and I have an increasingly hard time communicating about sex.  She seems fine about it, but I am not.  I always thought we would grow sexually over time, but  our sex life just seems to get smaller. She has so many dislikes, like receiving oral, she says it will never happen.  I just don’t understand why.  Could you help me/us. I’m new to this getting help thing. You’re my first attempt.

Thanks for taking the courage to reach out and find ways to open up the dialogue and experience in your sex life.   Many couples suffer from the problem of leftovers in their sex lives- which is the few behaviors that are left over from all of the avoidance and fears that often grow instead of lessen the longer we are with our partners.

Equally common is the diminishing conversational ability that we have about our erotic selves. Many people can’t even use words like masturbate in front of their partners, let alone share in the act together.  If we don’t embrace and work to love our fears about our sexual selves, they end up putting us in a small cage where physical intimacy shrinks to try to stay within the lines of our fears.

To be fair, these fears and inability to even know our erotic selves are trained into us early. Looking back in history, this negative sexual training was brutal with the most outrageous of “medical” equipment used to keep boys from any erection at all.  Many religious institutions still relate physical pleasure and sin. Our culture is practically schizophrenic in it’s approach to sexuality with the youngest of girls sexualized in media of all kinds and yet a total inability within many families to acknowledge the emerging sexuality of our own children.

Asking questions is the first best response. Giving yourself permission to want to know about your sexual self and cultivating a real curiosity about what is pleasurable for your partner is a healthy ground to build on. Of course you cannot force anyone to respond but inviting them into a conversation and be willing to listen to their fears and internal judgments is often the first step to thawing out a space that can be frozen in time.

The sexual health space is full of amazing voices that offer a range of therapeutic ideas and practices. My favorite include Tammy Nelson,  David Schnarch, Ian Kerner and Debby Herbenick. All of their titles are available online.   Sometimes adding some other expert voices in your exploration can dispel the biggest fear that most people carry around that their desires aren’t normal. Becoming willing to explore our erotic selves is a leap we make when we feel safe in our relationships and in ourselves.

There might be other parts of your relationship like sarcastic communication habits or unwillingness to show up for each other that is inhibiting your sex life. Remember that an expanding intimate life is usually a reflection of what is working in your relationship. Hope this helps…

I just started dating a new man and although I know that there aren’t really any hard and fast rules about how long you should wait to have sex,  I don’t know if you can tell me any kind of signs to look for that tells me that it’s too soon or for that matter too long to wait?  What kinds of precautions should you take before you open up your relationship to physical intimacy?

This is an interesting question to receive in the midst of the hook-up culture that seems to dominate male-female relationships of late. Although social norms have all but erased the protocols that lead to physical intimacy, there certainly are signs of readiness in relationships that are worth considering, especially if you are interested in building a lasting relationship.

I often describe a relationship as a container for all the experiences that happen between you and your partner, so you want to make sure that the container is strong enough to hold the mystery, passion and sometimes pain that accompanies physical intimacy.

Making love for the first time, even when both partners are steeped in biological drive, is not always the makings of pure pleasure. Sometimes, different sexual needs and styles have to be worked out, even at the beginning, which is easier when you have spent time building the container of the relationship.

One of the single most important signs that a relationship is ready to move to the next level of intimacy is that both partners have a feeling of comfort and openness in discussing sexual issues. If you can’t talk about it or ask questions, then there is a good chance that the weight of any issues that come up might be enough to break the fragile beginnings of the relationship.

Getting to know someone well enough to do justice to naked connection only makes sense if you want to benefit from the power of intimacy to cement the foundation of connection that deep physical intimacy offers a relationship. It is hard to imagine how you could wait too long  to share the most intimate of acts, although I have heard of a woman married for several years that had not yet consummated her marriage.

Early phases of relationships have so much electricity and biological energy that they benefit from waiting because just like holding out for an orgasm, cultivating attraction and sexual energy in your relationship enhances communication and the fun of getting to know each other.

Learning about your partner’s sexual health history whether through testing or discussion is a necessary evil, but insanity to not practice.