Sex Ed for Adults

Sex Ed for Adults This submission is part of a collaborative effort with SoloTouch member "Patrick," who is also submitting a piece of his own; a sort of narrative between members of "The Men's Club." For starters, sex, by its very nature, is chemical.  Hormonal.  All physically healthy individuals have the capacity for good - if not great - sex.  But then, there's the mental part of it, and you cannot simply divorce one from the other.  They work together.  And sometimes, they don't. As adolescents, most of us are very sexually driven.  Young boys - and many young girls - typically engage in frequent masturbation.  And it's more a matter of quantity than quality.  It's like tapping off excess steam pressure.  But as a society, we'd certainly be better off if we educated teens more in the benefits of masturbation.  We’re getting better at this but it wasn’t all that long ago when a Surgeon General of the U.S. was fired for advocating masturbation as healthy behavior!  One only has to look at the success of the Netherlands regarding teen pregnancy and abortion to see that education works and the U.S. has long way to go. We all know that, as we age, our bodies and hormonal levels change and decrease.  Many mature men no longer ejaculate with the same force or volume as they did when they were younger.  But in general, the desire and the pleasure is still there.  Here at SoloTouch alone, one can read about the pleasurable experiences of men in their 70s and 80s, and happily, a few self-satisfied women.  It's been my personal experience that mature women are often less inhibited regarding discussing sex (or asking for it), and I just chalk that up to experience.  Some of the mature women I know and have met were happy to talk about what they want and what they like, with both sex and masturbation.  My own wife - in her late 60s - is still very passionate about self-pleasure. A woman's sexual anatomy and chemistry is a bit more complicated than a man's. In addition to the shared effects of oxytocin and endorphins, they have to deal with menstruation and menopause.  It's fascinating - if not somewhat ironic - that while women can often experience more sexual issues than men, but they also have the capacity for multiple orgasms. So, often it comes down to a matter of interest and desire.  One can find plenty of men's stories where their wives no longer have any "interest in sex."  Some of that is chemical and related to age and some of it originates from the relationship itself.  And even if a man were the most gentle, most thoughtful, most "cuddling" of a lover, his wife might still eventually display a lack of interest in sex.  It happens.  The latest research in frequency of sex (2009 - National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior) in married relationships reveals that frequency - or rather the desire for sex - decreases with age.  By age 60, 56% of the female respondents ranked between "a few times a year to monthly" and "a few times a month." By age 70, that percentage was 43.  Only 6% of the women 60-69 reported having sex "2-3 a week." As mentioned above, my own personal experience is much different.  My wife always had a fairly strong sex drive.  She liked everything about sex and she enjoyed vigorous intercourse.   But age does take its toll on a body, and after decades of fantastic intercourse, her vaginal tissues gradually lost their ability to withstand the kind of thrusting she had always enjoyed.  Luckily, since she's always had a great relationship with her clitoris, neither of us had any negative issues with forsaking intercourse for more shared masturbation.  It was a very "smooth transition."    However, such is not the case with a lot of relationships.  As stated above, SoloTouch is rich with stories of men whose wives no longer desire sex.  So, what to do about it?   The answer is simple but also something that is for many "easier said than done."   Communication.  Communication is the very cornerstone of any good, happy, satisfying relationship, and as a "building block" you should start with it in the beginning.  To use a construction metaphor, it's pretty hard - if not impossible - to jack-up a relationship on blocks and re-build the foundation if, for years, there was a lack of communication.  But that's pretty much what needs to be done.   Lots of couples seek out counseling, and that can be very beneficial because it involves both people "opening-up" about their feelings, needs, desires, fantasies, etc.  And unfortunately, just as many couples refuse to avail themselves of counseling, like they avoid medical doctors.  The counselor - in addition to being formally trained in psychology - is just the intermediary in the scenario, like a labor union negotiator, trying to facilitate some agreement and common ground between the two parties. I'd be disingenuous if I didn't admit it takes a bit of "courage" to initiate a conversation about sex/masturbation.  And that's partly because for years, there simply wasn't any (or much) and so by bringing up the subject, you risk being considered "weird" or "perverted" or some other negative term.  But, like the Cowardly Lion in the Wizard of Oz, courage is exactly what is needed.  You've got to sit down and try to have a "comfortable" but rather deep, personal conversation about sex drive.  One person may have lost interest and the other is still very much interested.  How you initiate that conversation is as open to possibilities and scenarios as how you first met in the first place.  But the goal remains the same - to communicate the fact that you still have a strong interest in sexual pleasure. And in spite of the fact that masturbation is a perfectly healthy, perfectly normal form of sexual pleasure, it becomes a matter of “legitimizing” YOUR need and desire for pleasure after a partner has lost theirs. One of the most significant “landmark” books on masturbation is Betty Dodson’s “Sex for One” and I strongly recommend it to everyone who is passionate about personal pleasure; and especially to those who may find themselves in a position of having to “justify” their needs and desires.