Archive for March, 2009
How to handle a loss of sex drive
When Sleeping With A Frog is Preferable to A Man.
A million little changes, best managed with a strict regimen of denial. That’s my idea of aging and even menopause. Not that I recommend this approach, mind you. It leads to no end of trouble, including throwing out a perfectly good relationship because you’ve lost all sexual interest. You think he’s to blame when, in fact, loss of sex drive is a consequence of menopause. But of course you don’t know that because you’re not really in menopause now are you?
That is exactly what happened to me years ago. Sure, my deep commitment to denial didn’t help. But trust me, I was ignorant, too. I had no idea that for most postmenopausal women, hormone-related changes are the primary factors that interfere with sexual satisfaction.
In fact, I didn’t get confirmation of this until just the other day when I ready Jane Brody’s article, A Dip in the Sex Drive, Tied to Menopause, in the New York Times (March 31, 2009).
She writes about how, “Many postmenopausal women experience diminished or absent sexual desire, difficulty becoming aroused or achieving orgasm, or pain during intercourse caused by menopause-related vaginal changes.” Physical changes with menopause include less blood flow to genital organs, a decrease in vaginal lubrication and a decreased response to touch.
I know, I know. I’d much rather blame a guy too. But that would mean a lot of unnecessary breakups. In a survey of 580 menopausal women conducted by Siecus, the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, 45 percent reported a decrease in sexual desire after menopause, 37 percent reported no change and 10 percent reported an increase.
What is it about menopause that leads to no-mo’-mojo syndrome? Even though there’s been a lot of buzz about testosterone driving sex drive in women, Brody reports that for most women, the menopausal effects of low levels of estrogen are the primary deterrents to sexual pleasure. Drops in estrogen can bring on hot flashes along with drying and thinning of the vaginal walls and vulva (ouch). Also, decreased blood flow to the genital area means it can take much longer for a woman to feel aroused (and you thought orgasm was slow before?).
I could go on but I’ll close with some advice I wished I’d had. Accept that your body is changing. Then walk into your doc’s office and take charge of your mojo. Demand an overview of options for the changes you don’t like, such as a loss of sex drive. One day you will thank me because studies show that one of the best things you can do for your health and longevity is to keep on screwing.
(2 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5)
Loading ...Ask A Cougar: How to Meet A Younger Man
Ask A Cougar About Younger Men Older Women Relationships.
I’m not crazy about being called a “cougar.” By now, though, I’ve been called it so often, it has grown on me. Given all the questions I get about cougars and cubs, I figure I’m something of an expert now, too. So I’m starting this new series today to answer all those questions and any new ones—please send them along by leaving a comment or emailing me at, Pamela@seasonedsex.com.)
Technically, a cougar is an older woman with some disposable income who preys on a younger man and likes to be in firm control. I don’t have spare cash lying around to entertain the pool boy, say, but I’m definitely an older woman (47) who loves running the show. And I do have younger boyfriend, Michael, who’s 28. We’ve been together for almost two years.
So you may be wondering, how did we meet? First off, let me qualify my answer by saying that while sex is great, I didn’t come all this way in life to be taking my panties on and off and call it a day. I need a little more than that. Conversation, for starters.
The secret to meeting the kind of cub you can talk to gets down to this: Let it all hang out. Be your self. Think I’m crazy? Read on.
I had just moved into a new house and the bathrooms needed renovating. Mutual friends recommended Michael for the job. He came by one cold November night to give me a quote. With his apple rosy cheeks and a frank open face, he looked about 18 years old.
We sat down together and talked through the job, pricing vanities and lighting fixtures on eBay. I’m shocked to tell you that I felt this sexual vibe right away and I was a little disgusted with myself. He could be my son, but a boyfriend? Ridiculous. Still, there was some pull. He was sipping on the Chrysanthemum tea I had made, pretending to like it. I was trying hard to focus on what he was saying, but all I could think about was sneaking another look at his full red lips getting all hot from the tea. I imagined those lips billowing steam as they worked their way up between my thighs… (Oh geesh, sorry about that. I’m jumping ahead in my story.) For a second, I wondered if he was a little curious about me, too, but I kept things totally professional.
Michael started work on my house that weekend. He showed up with his crew at 7 A.M. and I’m embarrassed to say, I was in a deep coma-like sleep with my earplugs still in and my eye mask around my neck. He had to bang and bang on the door. So they got a late start and before he left that day, I made sure he had a key. Before long, I got used to having a bunch of young guys in my house. It was maybe even a little exciting.
One day, I think it was a Sunday, late afternoon, I was making a feta cheese sandwich and one the guys, Ritchie, was touching up the paint job in dining room, which opens to the kitchen. Michael was charging around like he’d forgotten to take Ritalin that day, whipping up dust and dirt wherever he walked. I chewed on my sandwich and watched his mouth as it barked orders at the other guys. I have to admit, I thought he was so sexy the way he drove his crew. I imagined him dominating me and driving his… (Geesh, there I go again. Last time, I promise.)
“Hey, Pam!” Ritchie yelled at me. I guess he could see I was a little distracted. “How old are you?”
Now you might be thinking that was a little cheeky of him but these guys had been virtually living with me for a month and well, they felt like family. I grinned goofily, my mouth full. “How old do you think I am?” I asked.
“I dunno,” he said. “You can never tell with girls. I’d say you’re about 35.” Michael walked into the dining room and crouched down pretending to be fascinated with an electrical socket.
“Add about a decade and you’re in the ballpark,” I said matter-of-factly. Michael looked up quickly. He blinked.
“Holy shit,” blurted Ritchie. “You’re a cougar! You might even be a silverback.”
I gave him a confused look. I had no idea what he was talking about.
“You know, like a M.I.L.F. without the kids,” he explained.
Just in case you’ve been living far from Planet Earth and haven’t heard the term, M.I.L.F., it stands for “Mothers I’d Like to f—.” You know, it’s the hot Mom that every schoolboy lusts after. I was kind of flattered.
“What makes you think I’m into younger guys?” I asked surprised.
“Are you serious?” said Ritchie shocked at why any older woman in her right mind would have sex with someone other than a guy in his twenties.
That’s when it happened. Michael looked at me and our eyes locked. It was romantic in primitive kind of way. Something about the look in his eyes made me a little nervous. There’s only one word for it. Hunger. I finished the rest of my sandwich and swallowed hard.
Neither of us made a move though. Not for a whole year, in fact. By the time I saw him again, it was the peak of Arizona summer and temperatures were routinely hitting the 120’s. I’d called him out of the blue because a client wanted a bid on a remodel job. We walked through the site and then sat in his truck discussing the job. The A/C was blasting and his phone seemed to ring every five seconds.
“You busy?” I said.
“Yup,” he answered. “You?” He wasn’t a big talker.
I spewed forth about this project and that idea, drawing pictures in the air because my ambitions were just too complicated to explain with mere words. Then, I held my arms up as though in surrender and positioned my wet armpits in front of the A/C vents.
“You’re doing jack,” he said yawning.
That ballsy little punk, I thought to myself. How dare he talk to me like that? I opened my mouth but nothing came out except some stuttering that sounded like, “whhhhaaaatttt?”
“Jack. Shit,” he said drawing each word out. “You’re doing jack shit.” He turned and looked at me. “Stop fanning your smelly armpits,” he teased.
I clasped my hands on my lap and looked out the window to hide my smile. I’ll give him credit. He wasn’t afraid to call me on my big shot posturing. I felt exposed, vulnerable, and kind of excited. He was seeing the real me and seemed to be getting a kick out of it. Suddenly, I wanted to screw him in the back cab of his truck.
I didn’t of course. But you can see how the combination of me thinking he’s not even on my eligibility radar freed me up to not care what he thought. I ended up being exactly me and I can safely say, he must have liked it because of what happened next.
(3 votes, average: 3.67 out of 5) Loading ...Bioidentical Hormones or Drugs for Menopause Symptoms?
Menopause Choices Got You Jumping Through Hoops?
A friend of mine was complaining recently about the trouble with taking post-menopausal bioidentical hormones, such as estrogen, progesterone, and testosterone. You have to apply them.
Turns out the nightly application of drops and creams in measured doses was driving her crazy. “Why,” she moaned, “Do I have go through all this?”
“Uh, because you feel better,” I reminded her for the umpteenth time. “And you’re probably more likely to avoid a range of diseases thanks to the many protective effects of estrogen.”
“Oh yeah,” she said. “I forgot.”
That’s menopause for you. Easy to forgot the symptoms when you don’t have them anymore. But what do you do if you’re still suffering through it?
Women have had two obvious choices when it comes to menopause relief: grin and bear it, or replace the estrogen you’ve lost through menopause, addressing a range symptoms in one just one hormone (the estrogen).
Ah, but now there’s a third option, thanks to the drug companies. If you don’t want to take estrogen and you don’t want to suffer either, your docs probably got a drug or twenty up her sleeve that can help. Yup, there’s a drug for pretty much every menopause symptom a woman can experience, including anxiety, moodiness, depression, insomnia, loss of libido, hot flashes, and vaginal dryness. There’s also a drug to treat most of the diseases we’re more likely to get as a consequence of estrogen loss (osteoporosis, dementia, cardiovascular disease such as high cholesterol and high blood pressure). Everyday, more are on their way.
The drug companies are promoting their multi-drug (polypharmacy) approach to managing menopause by demonizing estrogen. Despite the fact that the science is not on their side, they are arguing the risk of estrogen replacement is far too great as compared to its benefit. Better to take a pill for every problem, they say. Even if that means you’ve got a dozen or so problems and need a dozen or so pills.
That’s how to make money in the drug world. And that’s how to wind up with a tangle of drug-related side effects in a post-menopausal woman’s world.
So what will it be? Ignore the negative, unsubstantiated drug company propaganda based on how evil estrogen is, or make your own decisions based on the science – all of it? I mean, does any woman really care about self-empowerment anymore?
(1 votes, average: 5.00 out of 5) Loading ...Sexual Enlightenment Made Easy
FIRST SIGN UP'S FOR MY NEW SEXUAL ENLIGHTENMENT TOUR
What follows is an esoteric tidbit, which I’m disclosing before its due date. (I was sworn to secrecy until 2020 but I needed something to blog about now.)
The circumstances of its acquisition are Lara Croftish, admittedly. Mostly I say that because I was wearing a tight tank top on the day all this happened five years ago. Also, I was in Cairo, Egypt.
I had traveled there at summer’s peak, as that’s when the flights are cheap. A couple of days after arrival, I found myself a top a camel, my armpits watering the sand, and my dry eyes blinking at the Pyramids of Giza on the horizon.
My trusty guide, Ahmed, rode ahead of me, his white cotton top flapping crazily behind him. I had met Ahmed outside the Egyptian Museum where he sat in a plastic chair selling postcards to tourists. When I asked him if he could make arrangements for a Pyramid Adventure fit for a Pharaoh, he cringed and spat. “It’s always about the pharaohs with you people, isn’t it?”
Happily Egyptians are famous for their it-is-what-it-is attitude. The next thing you know, we were approaching our destination. That is when the thing I am about to tell you happened.
Maybe it was the heat. Maybe it was the smell of camel poop. But as we approached the pyramid entrance, I passed out.
When I came to, I was completely naked, splayed out on the warm sand. So was Ahmed. I propped myself up on my elbows and looked at him as he snored soundly.
Now normally I would be horrified to find myself in such a position, especially since I had no recollection of what had happened. Oddly enough, I was elated, joyful, and at one with Ahmed, the pyramids, the gawking tourists, and even the camel poop.
Sensing my gaze, Ahmed stirred and sat up. That’s when I learned of the secret thing, which is also the thing I couldn’t remember. The simple act of standing bum to bum, Ahmed explained in a whisper, with hips hinged at ninety degrees angles (it’s always about proper geometry with the Egyptians) and arms spread open like airplane wings gathers sufficient energy to generate what Ahmed called the “fuzzy force.” (He meant of course, fusion force.) At a critical level of “rubbing,” energies coalesce, transforming the kissing butts into the center of a unified field of inner consciousness. This, in turns, leads to automatic sexual enlightenment.
I know, I know. It sounds so whacky. I almost thought I had dreamt it after the hookah incident, which happened the next day. But Ahmed swears it’s true and made me promise secrecy.
Fast forward to the other day when my friend, Emma, sends me an article from the New York Times. It describes how Nicole Daedone, the 41-year-old founder of the One Taste Urban Retreat Center in the Bay Area, has launched “the slow-sex movement.”
The main practice eschews the basics, such as love, romance and flirtation, and focuses strictly on the woman. She lies naked from the waist down while a clothed man huddles over her, stroking her in a ritual known as orgasmic meditation — “OMing,” for short.
Ms. Daedone explains that they are experiencing “the orgasm that exists between them.” This, she believes, is important because women need to own their sexuality to be truly free.
Thank you, Ms. Daedone for the bolt of inspiration. I immediately called Ahmed and told him to fold up his plastic chair for good. We’re starting a sexual enlightenment touring business. It’s called, “The Buttheads. Take the Back Door In.”
(3 votes, average: 4.33 out of 5) Loading ...
