The New Naked: The Ultimate Sex Education for Grown-Ups (6 page)

Vaginal dryness can be caused by genetic factors and by hormones, especially during pregnancy, childbirth, and nursing. During perimenopause (the time just before menopause starts) and menopause, natural lubrication decreases as well. Dryness can also be caused by emotional stress, unresolved issues between you and your partner, certain medications (such as some antihistamines, antidepressants, and anti-anxiety drugs), and use of personal-care products such as bubble bath, scented soaps and lotions, and douching, all of which can disrupt the natural chemistry of the vagina.

Women think that they have to endure this extremely common situation, but there is no reason to suffer. If you’re not getting wet enough, take action! Luckily, a woman’s lubrication problem is almost always easy and inexpensive to remedy. Estrogen is one form, but it’s not preferred. Although estrogen can help ease vaginal dryness, lots of women don’t want to use hormone-based treatments because they are worried about the sometimes potent side effects of these treatments, especially after menopause. (The risk of these possible effects must, of course, be discussed with your gynecologist.)

The easiest solution to vaginal dryness is to use a high-quality lubricant, both for sex and to ease day-to-day dryness. Remember, though, that any type of personal lubricant can interfere with
sperm and make it a lot harder to get pregnant. If you are trying to get pregnant, you may want to use natural lubricants such as canola oil or egg whites. Here are some tips for resolving dryness:

• Look for water-based lubricants, like the well-known K-Y Jelly (or other brands like Astroglide). If the brand you bought doesn’t work well—some can dry out quickly or might not be slippery enough for you—try a different one.
  

• If your partner uses latex condoms, avoid all oil-based lubricants, as oil can wreak havoc on latex, weakening the condom and causing leaks or even breakage. Oil-based lubricants can also stain and be difficult to wash off. This means that petroleum jelly, mineral oil (such as baby oil), most hand lotions or body creams, and Marlon Brando’s favorite (butter) in the infamous
  Last Tango in Paris
  are off the list.
  

• Speaking of condoms, look for lubricated brands. They can help a lot, too. Don’t be shy about needing them. Incorporate their use into your sex play and foreplay with your partner. For example, you can sweetly tease your partner by opening the packet very slowly and continue with a teasing manner by even more slowly helping him to put it on properly.
  

Here are two other tips for communicating with your partner about this:

• Speak up if lubrication becomes an issue. It’s totally normal.
  

• Know what’s right for your needs. Keep a container of lube near the bed, and don’t be shy about using it. Most women
  say they want more lubrication rather than less. Needing this kind of product is completely normal and nothing to be ashamed about. After all, if more lubrication will help you orgasm, you’ll enjoy sex more and probably want to have it more, too. Better sex leads to more sex!
  

As you read earlier, premature ejaculation is often caused by chronic masturbation. In this section I’ll discuss a related problem: a man’s inability to ejaculate at all when he’s having sex with his partner because of masturbation.

Susanna and her boyfriend, Brendan, have been in a relationship for nearly two years. In that time, he has been able to ejaculate only three times. He has been able to have an erection and get close to ejaculating, but then it won’t happen unless he masturbates. Susanna is worried he may have a serious problem and has no idea what she can do to help.

“Susanna, I really hope you’re not blaming yourself for this, because this is not your issue,” I told her when she and Brendan showed up in my office. “Brendan is doing something that’s unbelievably common.”

I turned to Brendan. “I’ll bet you have no trouble having an orgasm when you masturbate, right?”

“Right,” he said.

“I’m glad,” I said, “because it means there’s no medical reason that might impede your ability to ejaculate, and you won’t need any testing or have to worry about something being really wrong. What you have is called ‘retarded ejaculation.’ You’ve gotten so good at masturbating that your body has forgotten how to derive pleasure directly from you having sex with your partner. You can only achieve orgasm by using your own hand.”

Brendan looked a little sheepish, so I quickly added, “I always say that masturbation isn’t a problem unless it’s hurting the relationship. In this case, though, that’s what’s going on. When men masturbate constantly, they develop what’s called ‘idiosyncratic
masturbation,’ where they’re only able to achieve orgasm when they touch themselves in a very specific way. So you both can have some fun and start experimenting.”

Susanna and Brendan looked at each other and smiled.

“First, Brendan needs to show you exactly how he masturbates to orgasm during foreplay,” I said to Susanna. “That will give you an idea of the kind of stimulation he’s used to. You may be able to mimic those rhythms or patterns during lovemaking, or by doing something similar with your hands to get him going.

“You can suggest that he tone down the masturbation and do it a lot less frequently. He can also change the way he masturbates and vary his technique. For example, if he always does it in the shower, stop using that location. If he only uses his right hand, try it with his left. If he doesn’t ejaculate for a few days, he will become much more sensitive to stimulation. This should, by itself, raise the probability that he’ll have an orgasm during lovemaking.

“Brendan, if you’re comfortable with this approach, and you’re both relaxed enough to try different things, I think you’ll soon find that your sex life will improve tremendously.”

Happily, Brendan called about a month later to tell me that he was having so much fun in bed with Susanna that he’d kicked his masturbation habit. I’d given them a lot of ideas about switching things up, and they tried all of them.

So if this is a problem for your partner, show him this section and use it to start a conversation. Or drop my suggestions into a conversation with your partner. You can say something like, “I’d love to have a ‘naughty’ weekend with you, so if you keep your hands off for a few days before then, I promise you the sexual experience of a lifetime.” What man wouldn’t want to go for that?

Leonardo da Vinci was brilliant at a lot of things. He was certainly brilliant at understanding the male penis when he said: “Many times the man wishes it to practice and it does not wish it; many times it wishes it and the man forbids it.”

Women can fake an orgasm with varying degrees of effectiveness (not that I’m advocating you
should
fake, of course!), but a penis is either visibly and physically hard and erect…or it isn’t. At one time or another, all men will lose their erection just when they want it most. In this section, I’m not talking about premature ejaculation or lack of ejaculation due to chronic masturbation, but for other reasons: overuse of alcohol or drugs, too much stress, tension, exhaustion, distraction, depression, new partner worries (Will she like me?), an extended time since the last ejaculation, and even boredom. Many prescription medications can interfere with erections as well.

Physiologically, an erection arises (sorry, bad pun!) from a combination of male anatomy, hydraulics, chemistry, and nerve impulses. (Doesn’t sound very sexy when you think about it that way, does it?) When it works, and works well, sex can be one of the best feelings in the world for him.

Unfortunately, what starts out as a purely physical phenomenon can do a real number on the male psyche when erections fail, setting up men for a vicious cycle of anxiety about getting erect and subsequent failure. And that cycle can do a real number on your ability to have a satisfying sex life. What began as a problem that can happen to any man at any time can quickly morph into a complicated psychological reaction called “performance anxiety.”

Whenever a man has anxiety, his hormones send out signals to
clamp down his blood vessels, including those feeding the penis. If he’s afraid he won’t be able to get it up and keep it up, he will create a self-fulfilling prophecy in which he physically can’t, leaving him worried about sex (and having less sex), as well as feeling ashamed, angry, and abandoned.

Fortunately, many cases of performance anxiety can be alleviated by simply talking openly about the problem with your partner and helping him relax. Some men find that distraction or relaxation techniques can also help them keep their erection or delay ejaculation. Some men also need to abstain from smoking, recreational drugs, and drinking, as those can interfere with the ability to have and sustain an erection.

Make it clear to your partner that you know how normal it is to lose an erection once in a while, and that it’s not about his masculinity or your attractiveness. It can happen to any man at any time, for all the reasons you just read about. Almost all of these men have
no idea
how common this problem is. If they did, I don’t think it would upset them so much. The more you both can normalize it, and the less you both take it seriously, the quicker his erections—and sexual satisfaction for both of you—will come back.

Erectile dysfunction brings to mind the stereotype of an older man who’s too pooped to pop, but many younger men (under forty) also have serious erection problems. Not all men are sexually confident studs who can go all night and then some. Lots of them worry about being in bed with a woman of short acquaintance, for example, or one they really like and want to impress. Erectile dysfunction not only can be a source of embarrassment for one or both partners, but also can lead to future anxiety that makes the problem worse.

Sometimes men feel emasculated or frustrated by their partners but don’t know how to express this without hurting the woman they love. This was Connor’s problem. He was thirty-two and engaged to a kindergarten teacher named Emily. They were happily planning the wedding and looking forward to their life together,
but he confessed to me that Emily tended to treat him like one of her students in bed. She used babyish talk, bossed him around, and expected an immediate response to whatever she demanded. This led to a rather lackluster sexual response from him.

“It’s nearly impossible to enjoy sex when you don’t feel empowered during the experience,” I told Connor. “Emily is treating you like a child in the bedroom, and most men wouldn’t react to well to this.”

I walked him through the need to communicate with his fiancée and how to do that. After our appointment, he was finally able to talk about what was going on in the bedroom, and Emily listened. Eventually sex became much more enjoyable and adult for him—and for Emily.

Connor’s kind of performance anxiety was easily treatable without medication. The good news for young men with other kinds of performance anxiety is that Viagra and other similar drugs work phenomenally well in short stints. And younger men don’t have to worry about becoming dependent on these drugs because once they get going and realize they
can
get going and keep going, they don’t need meds anymore. Their performance anxiety is gone.