Tag: arousal

"Sometimes the most urgent and vital thing you can possibly do is take a complete rest.” ~ Ashleigh Brilliant

I have always been restless and prone to being busy. I love my work and have for so long confused who I am with what I do that most days I find myself doing it from dawn until late into the night. Consequently, it has taken me years to learn the true value of rest. In this way, I am also a perfect product of a culture that encourages rushing, celebrates the frenzy of the chase and equates resting with laziness. It has taken me decades to understand that rest is not the opposite of effort, rather it is the source, the nourishment, the energetic food for all that we aspire to accomplish.

The arousal response is your body’s natural mechanism for accessing pleasure. Although often confused with the genital swelling that accompanies our arousal response, the ignition for our arousal lives in the sexiest organ of our body: Our Brain.

Specifically, in the limbic area of the brain, which also processes memory and emotion and is conveniently co-located with our olfactory bulb, which explains why our sense of smell invigorates our emotional process, our access to memories, as well as our feeling of being turned on. Truly, your orgasmic potential begins with your ability to cultivate your arousal mechanism. Interesting studies have demonstrated that working with your physical arousal response can actually instigate sexual desire, rather than the reverse of waiting for desire to jumpstart arousal. This is heartening news because tapping into and enlarging our capacity for arousal is no different than developing any other physical response. Here are four helpful tips to get acquainted with and befriend your arousal mechanism.

Sex and relationship expert, Dr. Trina Read, is ready to answer your questions.

How long should intercourse last?

There’s a belief that in order for a guy to be super studly, he needs to last all through the night. Definitely there are some guys and gals who would be on board.

Generally though, although the closeness of intercourse feels nice it’s probably not getting most women off. Why? Her clitoris isn’t located inside of her vagina. So simply having penis-vagina intercourse all night long will become boring quick.

I love dining out at restaurants. There's something about the scents, colors and textures of a carefully prepared plate, which whets my appetite—and, of course, there's the company that just seals the night. I like to think of sex like this; as an entirely diverse sensory experience, which, if handled well, can literally and figuratively whet our appetites for more.

In spite of the potential sizzle that sex represents, all of us who've been married for some time, have experienced hum-drum sex. We've been in the doldrums at one time or another and may have virtually yawned our way through a sexual encounter or two.

Your arousal response is your body’s natural mechanism for accessing pleasure. Although often confused with the genital swelling that accompanies being turned on, the source and ignition for becoming aroused lives in the sexiest organ of your body—your brain. More specifically in the limbic area of the brain, which is also responsible for generating our emotions and developing memory. Conveniently the limbic brain is co-located with our olfactory bulb, which explains why our sense of smell both heightens our emotional experience and connects us to our memories so powerfully.

In our third and final installment we are going to discuss the simple changes to your sexual routine that can help after prostate surgery. These techniques can be used with or without the use of medications for erectile dysfunction.

One of the most important things to remember is that after prostate surgery, your husband’s subsequent sexual difficulties can originate from physical or psychological issues, or a combination of the two. Many males feel less of a man after surgery and there is a period where he may wonder if his pride and joy (his penis) is ever going to perform again.

"I hate having to 'wind myself up' to do it," said a Flibanserin participant, "It makes me feel broken."

Last night was a beautiful warm summer evening, the nearly full moon peeking in and out from behind the clouds and I found myself in the midst of a sing-along with thousands of other fans paying our last tribute to the iconic American satirist, Garrison Keillor. He was leading the crowd at intermission through a long medley of old songs, songs that are in all of us from childhood, but rarely strung together. Part church, part old Americana, but fully present and belonging in a way that we hadn’t felt since summer camp. I always notice and savor the moments that pull me deeply into life, where the distance between us breaks down and we are not outside, looking in, watching some entertainment, but creating connection together.