The New Naked: The Ultimate Sex Education for Grown-Ups (15 page)

This isn’t snoring, which can happen to anyone. Sleep apnea is a condition where you literally stop breathing when you’re sleeping, then wake up gasping for air. Not only can you asphyxiate yourself (in rare cases), but sleep apnea can also be responsible for higher instances of heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. And because it leaves sufferers exhausted from chronically interrupted
sleep, they won’t be thinking about sex or pleasuring their partners. They’ll just be desperate to conk out.

Why do so many men have sleep apnea? During sleep, air is drawn in through your mouth and passes by your uvula, a fleshy part of your throat near your tonsils. As men get older and often put on weight, the tissue around the uvula thickens, making it more difficult for a clear flow of air to get down to the lungs. Men with sleep apnea start snorting and making choking noises and their hearts race. They wake up with a startle, and then they go back to sleep and the cycle starts all over again.

This is unbelievably disruptive—not just to them, but to anyone sleeping in the bed with them. Your own sleep can be so disturbed, leaving you exhausted and worried about your partner’s breathing, that it can seriously harm your relationship. I know that when I don’t get enough sleep, I am crabby, cranky, and crummy to be around. Sleep deprivation leaves you on edge and ready to pick a fight when you don’t mean to.

While sleep apnea doesn’t go away on its own, men can help alleviate some of the symptoms by losing weight, if it needs to be lost, and no longer smoking and drinking, both of which can exacerbate the condition considerably

If your partner is chronically exhausted, and if you or he notices the signs of sleep apnea, he must see his doctor and discuss his options. Often, a night in a sleep lab can provide the data needed so treatment can be prescribed. Typically, a CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) machine is set up for him to use at night. This is a mask attached to a small box that increases air pressure in the throat so the airway stays open without collapse when he breathes in. It’s not exactly the sexiest thing you’ll want
him wearing, but what do looks matter when it might save his life and your sex life?

Another health issue that can have devastating effects on male libido is infertility.

Infertility is a devastating condition for any couple trying to get pregnant. It is, unfortunately, also incredibly common. More than 2.5 million American men are unable to father a child the regular way through sexual intercourse. Because the infertility issue is often assumed to lie with the woman when she is unable to conceive, many couples suffer needlessly for years without bothering to test the man’s fertility thoroughly (or perhaps at all). In reality, men and women are equal. Roughly 40 percent of infertility is caused by the woman and 40 percent is caused by the man. In the remaining 20 percent, either both partners contribute or the cause is unknown.

There are many reasons for male infertility, including:

• Problems with the number, shape, or motility (swimming ability) of sperm
  

• Ejaculation problems
  

• Congenital lack of sperm
  

• Congenital malformations of the reproductive tract
  

• Infections of the reproductive tract
  

• Sexually transmitted diseases
  

• Hormonal abnormalities
  

One extremely important point for child-bearing couples: If a man is taking testosterone supplements, this can reduce or eliminate his fertility. He’ll have to stop the supplements and boost his levels naturally by eating right, getting enough sleep, and exercising regularly.

The only way to deal with infertility is by seeing a specialist and going through a battery of tests. Don’t despair! There are many options to be explored and it is possible to father a child even with an extremely low sperm count.

Just as men are biologically programmed to want sex in order to perpetuate our species, women are also biologically programmed to look for a man who is fertile enough to get her pregnant so she can contribute to this species perpetuation in her own way. So how do you know if a man is good in bed? If he’s in good shape and he looks healthy. Why is that?

A man who is fit and trim is
much
more likely to be fertile than a man with a large belly. One of the biggest turnoffs to a woman, whether she realizes it or not, is a man with a large belly. She
might just think it doesn’t look attractive and would be difficult to navigate if not downright painful during sex, but the reality is that the larger a man’s waist, the lower his testosterone level, since you need normal testosterone levels to make sperm. So a man with a large gut is going to be less fertile and subliminally (as well as visibly) less attractive.

Another way to tell if a man is fertile can’t be seen when a guy is dressed, but once he’s naked, you can make a rough guess by the size of his testicles. There is as much variation in the family jewels as there is in penis size, but on average, a normal testis is about the size of a walnut in the shell, or about one-and-a-half to two inches in length. Too small (the size of cherries) usually means that he may have a low sex drive due to low testosterone.

Since 95 percent of a testicle is sperm-producing cells, and the remaining 5 percent produces testosterone cells, a small testicle makes a smaller amount of sperm and testosterone. Or, if he is taking testosterone replacements, his levels will soar into the stratosphere while his balls themselves will shrink into tiny nubs. (Not sexy in the slightest, right?) Too big means he might have a collection of fluid or a lot of veins that make him believe the testicle is large when it isn’t. (This must be treated by a urologist.) Too hard also means that he needs to see a urologist to rule out any maladies. Too walnut-y means just right!

Sure, sex is great. It’s wonderful. If done right with the right person, it makes you feel better than you’ve ever felt before. But sex is risky, no matter who you are.

Any time you take your clothes off with another person, it’s risky behavior. Even if it’s the person you married and have been having sex with for twenty years. So I’m going to tackle the tough stuff that comes along with risks—pornography, affairs, and sexual addiction.

You know by now that some of the best things in life come to those who take risks—going far from home to college, perhaps, or accepting a job in a start-up company; falling in love or raising children—but those are the good kind of risks. The kind that you’re willing to take because you’ve thought them through, and you’re willing to accept the consequences of whatever might happen, good or bad.

Sex, on the other hand, isn’t about thinking it through. It’s about living in the moment. And while that can be a mind-blowing, amazing moment, it can also become a very dangerous moment very quickly.

That’s because once you start having sex, you are focused on only one thing.
Having sex
. Your normal, rational, smart, and responsible brain function stops. Your inhibitions disappear. All the precautions you’d normally take—like the condoms in the drawer next to your bed so you can be assured of safe sex—are forgotten. Can’t get to those condoms in time? Oh, don’t worry; you don’t need them. Not when it feels so good and so right and you…just…can’t…stop! Why, it’s
impossible
to stop.

Nothing will happen, right?

Sure it won’t. Repercussions only happen to other people, right? Until they happen to
you
.

That’s why about 50 percent of all pregnancies in this country are unintentional. Talk about life changing. Talk about scary.

And they aren’t the only thing that’s scary or risky. There are STDs. There are betrayals. There are ruined marriages and devastated children. There are lost jobs and ruined reputations when employees get caught downloading or watching porn at work. And there are public humiliations when cheating or sexting is exposed.

That said, sex doesn’t
have
to be as risky as it is when you throw all caution to the wind with yourselves on the bed. Once you know that your brain is going to check out when you need it the most, you can train it to outwit your libido and still have lots of great sex. You can prepare.

All you have to do is think of sex as a sport, like tennis or football, and think of yourself as an athlete in training.

After all, how do professional athletes train? They put in countless hours of practice, not just to make their muscles strong but to create what’s called “muscle memory.” When your muscle memory is honed, you know it’s there. You can call on it without
thinking. That’s why even the world’s best ballet dancers go to class every day. They’re repeating the basic steps they’ve done literally millions of times already, but they’re perpetuating good habits. Once they do that, they can perform flawlessly and safely without even thinking about it.

Ditto with playing tennis or football once you’re on the court or playing field. What happens during the game might not be exactly what you did in practice, but you’ll still be primed to plan for contingencies and backup plans, should everything go south. The game will always move too fast for you to be able to stop and analyze every moment, but your reflexes will have been primed.

In other words, if you’ve prepared enough, your muscle memory takes over and you play safely and to the best of your abilities.

The whole point of all this preparation is not just to play a killer game, but to be able to anticipate any potential winning or losing situations before they happen—so you can score the way you want to. So
you
can be in control.

Same with sex. The more you prepare, the lower your risk. For example:

• If you practice smart sex habits, you will always have the condoms on hand, so you won’t have to fumble for them or not bother using them in the heat of the moment.
  

• If you’re not in a committed relationship, you’ll have already said, “You need to put this on” so many times that you’ll have no problem saying it again or your partner will automatically reach for them. Your mantra is “No glove, no love,” and you stick to it!
  

• You’ll take your birth control pills without fail or be vigilant
  about other effective forms of birth control so you won’t have to worry about getting pregnant.
  

• You’ll research the pros and cons of anal sex and insist on proper precautions before you allow it to happen.
  

• You’ll get the HPV vaccine to lower your risk of catching the virus.
  

• You’ll make it clear that no means no if your partner wants to experiment with some form of sexual behavior you’re not comfortable with.
  

Then you’ll let your muscle memory take over, and you’ll have a fantastic, orgasmic time in bed because you won’t have to worry about the risks, and you can just concentrate on the pleasure of the moment that you deserve!

Speaking of pleasure, and there is, of course, much to be had in bed, one of the biggest pleasure-killers available is streaming 24/7 into bedrooms across America and the rest of the world. You already know I’m talking about—pornography.

The porn industry seems to be making a shocking amount of money. Never before has so much sexually explicit imagery been so easily and inexpensively available. What transformed porn from something difficult to see (slinking into Times Square back when it was seedy, or ordering “blue” movies to surreptitiously screen on the home projector in the basement) to practically mainstream was home video.

As soon as the format was invented and VCRs became popular,
so did porn—even more so when videos were supplanted by easier-to-use DVDs. And then there was the proliferation of cable channels, which often hosted late-night raunch, and the appearance of pay-per-view porn selections in hotel rooms. Now, of course, more free pornography is out there streaming 24/7 on the Internet than any man could watch in a lifetime.

I sometimes think that the ground-zero moment for the obesity epidemic was the invention of the microwave oven. It made “cooking” ultra-easy and eating far too easy. A whole new category of junk food was created, and all you had to do was hit a button and wait a minute or two before you could eat it. In the same way, the ground-zero moment for porn, in my opinion, came with the Internet. It also provided ultra-easy access to something that is fine as an occasional treat but hell for your health (in this case, sexual) on a daily basis.