Tag: desire

When we consider the efforts that women have made over generations for equality, it humbles you.

Today while interviewing the president of Planned Parenthood of Southwestern Oregon, I learned that the early beginnings of the organization began with women sewing diaphragms that they procured in Italy and Japan into their petticoats. Many women were arrested when they were handing them out on the streets in New York.

People believe that sexual desire is something they are born with, and that it’s something anyone can just tap into whenever they want. There is a great myth that you’re supposed to want to have sex, and for those who don’t have it or don’t have it as much as they’re "supposed" to, it’s seen as a character flaw and something that shouldn’t be talked about with their spouse or anyone else for that matter. Men, especially, carry this moniker well in our culture as they are the ones who should always want sex and should be the initiators.

When you're struggling with feelings of body dysmorphia, it can be hard to think of your body as a source of sexual pleasure.

Your partner is probably still tempted to think of it that way. Even when your sexuality and your ability to express it is deeply important to you, feeling bad about your body or uncomfortable with how you see yourself in the mirror can make it harder to enjoy that sexual expression.

The number one sexual problem facing couples in this country is low (inhibited) desire or discrepancies in sexual desire between spouses. Although it would seem so, this has nothing to do with age, personality types or circumstances either spouse may be involved with.

According to the experts in the marriage and sex therapy field, inhibited sexual desire is the most disruptive sexual problem. It usually leads to a low-sex marriage where one spouse pushes for sex and the other tries to avoid it at all cost.

"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.

Women seeking fertility treatment, particularly young women, may experience a negative impact on their sex lives, although it will likely dissipate over time, according to a U.S. study.

“We weren’t surprised at all to find sexual distress in couples who are infertile,” said senior study author Dr. Tami S. Rowen of the University of California-San Francisco’s Irene Betty Moore Women’s Hospital. “Sex takes on a really different meaning for people trying to get pregnant.”

Infertility affects approximately 6.7 million women in the United States, Rowen and her colleagues write in the journal Sexual Medicine. Couples with infertility have significantly more anxiety, depression and stress, and that can have an ongoing effect on quality of life and the health of a marriage.

Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple. ~ Dr. Seuss

Sexual desire issues are an integral part of long-term relationships. In the 26 years of my own marriage, I have visited all sides of the desire fence. Whether it was wanting intimacy more than my spouse, not feeling wanted enough by my him or not wanting him or intimacy at all, each machination was painful and created ripples of injury throughout our entire marriage. The potential for rejection got to be so painful that not asking at all became the discomfort zone we lived in. At the time, I didn’t understand all the meaning I attributed to our desire issues; I only knew the shame and dwindling self-worth that felt suffocating each time we broached the topic.