Are Midlife Sex Problems More Common Than You Think?

The most common sexual problem is low desire, according to a research study we recently published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine. Around 40 per cent of the women we asked, and 30 per cent of men, reported experiencing problems with low desire during the last six months.

Research shows we think young people have a lot more sex than they do in reality – and men have a particularly skewed view of the sex lives of young women.

When I tell people I’m studying women who like gay male porn I get some pretty mixed responses. Men tend to tilt their heads quizzically to one side. “Really?”

‘The world has always belonged to males,’ wrote Simone de Beauvoir in The Second Sex (1949), ‘and none of the reasons given for this have ever seemed sufficient.’

As the TV series Westworld wraps up its second season, the show continues to spark discussion about a potential future that involves lifelike sex robots.

The old cliché tells us the most desirable men are “tall, dark, and handsome” – and scientific research confirms that heterosexual women tend to prefer partners who are taller than them.

It was a well-kept secret among historians during the late 19th and early 20th centuries that the practice of magic was widespread in the ancient Mediterranean

A male African jacana bird mounts a female, but who takes the lead in caring for the young?. In many species, the males develop elaborated sexual traits to attract females and dissuade potential rival males through competition.

E L James’s Fifty Shades trilogy is a bona fide publishing, and now film, sensation. Whatever you think about the trilogy and its film adaptations...

Most people think just one sperm is needed to fertilize a woman’s egg and make a healthy pregnancy. However, biologists now believe sexual intercourse is not just a sperm delivery process, but also a kind of biological communication.

I celebrated my first Gay Pride Day in San Francisco on June 28, 2015. Two days earlier, the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage with the Obergefell v. Hodges decision.

A popular misconception is that most child sex offenders were once victims themselves. The theory is based on the erroneous assumption that they’ve become paedophiles – those preferentially sexually attracted to prepubescent children – because of their victimisation.

The world of internet pornography is a pervasive and wide reaching technology, growing at a breathtaking rate. It is a $13 billion-a-year industry in the US. Nine out of 10 boys in America are exposed to it before the age of 18, and men are 543% more likely to be users than women.

You are on holiday with your partner of several years. Your relationship is going pretty well, but you wonder if it could be better. It’s Valentine’s Day and you find a bottle on the beach. You rub it. A love genie appears. He (or she) will grant you three special Valentine wishes. Here are some of your choices:

Comprehensive, inclusive sexuality and relationships education (“sex ed”) teaches children and adolescents in age-appropriate ways that sexuality is a normal, healthy part of life.

After having their first baby, new parents report being only somewhat satisfied with their sex lives. The stress levels of moms—but not dads—may be a reason why.

In the United States, the teen pregnancy rate is higher than in any other western industrialized country, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). At the same time, a growing number of American teens and young adults have been diagnosed with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).

Incest sparks strong emotions – and today, in many cultures at least, they are largely negative. But has it always been thus? Or is the taboo peculiar to certain times and places?

It is perhaps one of the most controversial debates in sexual function: is there or isn’t there a G-spot? And if there is, how do we find it?

"Masculine traits in humans are not the same as, say, in peacocks where the beautiful tail attracts a mate," says David Puts. "For example, beards make men more dominant looking, scarier, and seemingly more dangerous, but most women prefer clean-shaven men."

The difficult thing is how to measure it, because people will probably over-estimate. If you’re a non-scientist, you might have once asked yourself, propped against the bedhead after disappointingly quick intercourse, how long does sex “normally” last?

For all that Miley Cyrus’s cropped hair and crotch-clutching and “I don’t relate to being boy or girl” have inspired articles about gender fluidity as the new “in” thing, it’s hard not to see Cyrus’s “trailblazing” as derivative of David Bowie – a true icon in so many ways, not least in his defiant smashing of gender norms.

American classrooms do not talk frankly about teenage love or emotional intimacy. Last month, Tom Porton, an award-winning, veteran Bronx high school teacher, handed in his resignation after colliding with the school’s principal.

When it comes to love, cheating and divorce, matters are never just of the heart. In a bid to understand the love lives of humans, scientists have turned to the romantic relations of birds since the family life of many birds is reminiscent of those exhibited by humans.

A new study offers the first clear evidence that testosterone treatment for men 65 years and older can improve mood and sex drive.

Throughout the ages, many cultures have searched for potent aphrodisiacs to increase sexual desire. The term derives from Aphrodite, the Greek goddess of love, beauty, pleasure and procreation.

The “gaze” is a term that describes how viewers engage with visual media. Originating in film theory and criticism in the 1970s, the gaze refers to how we look at visual representations. These include advertisements, television programs and cinema.

The current sexual and reproductive prevention methods have significantly improved the health and well-being of women and their families. But this is not enough. Worldwide each year there are still 85 million unplanned pregnancies, 21.6 million unsafe abortions, and nearly 300 000 maternal deaths from complications related to pregnancy and birth.

Without the perennially interesting problem of the female orgasm, it sometimes seems that the oddly sex-segregated world of men’s and women’s magazines would run out of content.

Seattle Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson and his girlfriend, the singer Ciara, recently announced plans to remain sexually abstinent until marriage.

It’s not often you see people over-50 having sex on screen. It’s so rare, in fact, that the sex scenes in 45 Years, the recent film about the approaching anniversary of a retired couple, became one of the main talking points in its coverage.

People who are attracted to others of the same sex develop their orientation before they are born. This is not a choice. And scientific evidence shows their parents cannot be blamed.

A new exhibition at the British Museum promises to lift the lid on what beauty meant for the ancient Greeks. But while we gaze at the serene marble statues on display – straining male torsos and soft female flesh – are we seeing what the ancients saw?

It’s often thought that we are hardwired by eons of natural selection to be attracted to particular physical traits; that preference is thought to guide a search for healthy mates to help us produce healthy offspring. But the study by Yang and Leonard Lee of the National University of Singapore challenges the notion that our inborn ideas of physical attractiveness are immutable.

There is a reason why some people choose to dress or groom themselves in ways that are not provocative. Certain ways of dressing, as well as certain uses of things such as makeup, scents, and jewelry, often elicit exchanges of sexual energy. If we go through the day projecting our sexual energy onto others...

Stories of teens taking and sending a naked picture of themselves with their phones have been all over the news media in recent years. The outcome? Shocking, according to reports which have suggested that humiliation and sometimes even suicide can follow.

You exist as a sexual being. Once you accept it, the conflict that has been created down through the centuries dissolves. Once you accept it deeply, with no ideas in between, when sex is thought of as simply natural, you live it. Sex is transcended not by any effort on your part. If you make any effort, that will be repressive...

Many men admit that the physical act of sex helps them to open their hearts to connect with their partners. Whereas many women need heart connection first so they can be open to sex. Many couples, therefore, are truly stuck. He wants sex in order to feel love. She wants love in order to enjoy sex.

by Margo Anand. In launching yourself into this adventure, your first question is likely to be "Where do I begin?" Many of my clients, when they come to work with me, assume that the answer is, "by finding the right partner". They believe that...

Sexual energy is nourishment for the totality of ourselves — the body, the mind, and the spirit. Sexual imbalances can cloud the mind with distorted thoughts and skewed desires, but a balanced sexuality can be the source of creativity and a way of fulfilling our dreams. It is also the energy that can create spiritual fulfillment, as it is a force that unifies and creates wholeness out of opposites.

If you don't believe that there is sex after sixty, even seventy and eighty, just read the medical books. They will tell you that, yes, there is; perhaps a tiny bit less often, a smidgen less hot, but it will be there for both of you, all of us, forever, so to speak. Unfortunately, these books were written by people in their thirties and forties fantasizing about their own futures.

When most people think of the word "sex" they think of copulation, not Life. They think of what happens for a specific period of time with specific physical organs, (possibly including a little foreplay and afterplay), and they limit sex to that.

Maithuna is a ritual of transformation, and although it is expected to generate pleasure, the pleasure must not be of the ego -- when the man and woman embrace, they do so not as themselves, but as male and female deities. Maithuna may incorporate meditation, yogic postures, mantras, yantras

There are several ways to restore most of one's sexual performance including a high tone of physical conditioning and mental attitude. The power of the mind to influence the relative efficiency of one's sexual performance cannot go unnoticed.

Tantric practices address us on the physical, intellectual, and spiritual levels. There are aspects of Tantra that speak to qualities found on each of these levels. In our study of the tantric texts, we have found that extrapolation from Tantra's healing aspects can be useful as a therapy for what we might refer to as psychosexual wounds.

Tantra is well regarded within the yoga tradition as the fastest path to enlightenment. Eastern legend holds that an average human soul takes 100,000 lifetimes to achieve enlightenment, but that with tantra, any person truly committed to this path can gain enlightenment in as little as one lifetime. I soon discovered why this is true.

While this article was written with teenagers in mind, the suggestions and information it contains are valid for adults as well. Bill of Rights: * Your body is yours to respect and protect. * You have the right to say "no" to anything that is not safe for you...

Times are changing, and for the most part, the word 'crone' is now accurately being used as a synonym for a woman who not only embodies postmenopausal wisdom, but shares it with the world. It is the time when the wisdom and healing of a woman's menopausal journey quickens in her heart, and her desire to share all that she has learned drives her back to the outer world.

My first post-marital relationship was a sexual turning point. Blake was an exciting man. At the time we met, I'd been off alcohol for three years, so we were both completely drug free. We started mainlining sex. I intended to explore sex passionately and in depth without the interference of church or state.

In order to be able to make an informed decision on whether or not Viagra is the way you want to treat your erectile dysfunction, you need to have a full understanding of what Viagra -- officially known as sildenafil -- is, and of how it works. It may surprise you to learn that the medication wasn't even originally intended to treat erectile dysfunction.

When a woman and man join, while the five senses are engaging in intense sensations, the minds of the two people are merging with all of their desires, aversions and thoughts. More important and more binding, the souls of the individuals are uniting, bringing together all of their hopes, dreams, sorrows; past, present and future.

When basic pleasures are denied, such as your healthy sexuality, emotional expression, and sensual curiosity, you may find yourself choosing substitute 'pleasures' such as drugs, drinking, video games, television, and overeating. You may also resort to negative behaviors...

Western sexology says that you are a physical body and orgasm is an operational definition that can be measured.

What and who we find attractive is highly fluid -- we are all friends with at least one person whom we did not like when we first met them. In the same way that first impressions about people can be completely wrong, our feelings of attraction are sometimes unreliable.

Though many of us desire meaningful, intimate connection with a lover, most of the sexual images we are exposed to condition us to be aroused to sex without love. For each of us, our concept of sexual love has been shaped over many years by the sexual images permitted and promoted in our culture.

Everything that is sexually stimulating is part of foreplay and effectively harmonizes the physical and subtle natures of the couple. Love-play should always be undertaken with an earnest desire for the other's absolute fulfillment rather than for selfish gratification. Foreplay should be mutual to create total harmonization of mood and bodily elements.

Your soul has no gender. Each soul has varying percentages of male (focused) and female (creative) energy, but everyone has both male and female energies, and each soul can relate energetically to any other. The soul in this sense is bisexual -- it can take either side in a creative act. This flexibility is the natural state of the universe.

Good health and a healthy prostate depend on a regular, happy sex life. There is no magic number that guarantees good health, but simply having sex is not enough. Ideally, sex is more than a physical act  it is a loving union with your partner.

No one alive knows what "natural" sex is for Humans. We have been too "civilized" (domesticated). We think that our own sexual preferences and habits are enlightened...

'Does this mean I'm really a lesbian?' the woman whispered in a cracked voice. She looked around nervously, afraid that someone would hear, or worse yet, confirm the ominous truth that lay naked in her question. She had just revealed her deepest fear and curiosity to 200 people...

Women's capacity for orgasm seems almost limitless. Why is it then that many women are frustrated rather than satisfied? Why is it that for so many loving couples, the female orgasm remains an elusive dream; one in which she's perhaps become resigned to sex that's..

How do herbs help with sex? The term "aphrodisiac" probably comes to mind right away. An aphrodisiac is anything that provokes sexual interest or desire. And it's true -- many herbs can enhance sexual desire. But when it comes to sex, herbs can do more than that.

Your sexual health and attitude are determined by multiple influences -- your parents, friends, teachers and your environment and culture -- but the most important influence is you. Most of the time we do not question the way we behave. Our actions reflect habits of thought and established beliefs about ourselves and others.

by Arthur Lytle, Ph.D. >Sexual intercourse can be a very creative act. On a temporary basis, some satisfaction can be had with almost any other human sexual partner, but only temporarily. There is always that constant urge and desire to seek that greater fulfillment . . . the ultimate.>

by Rhonda Levand. Everything that happened to us in our infancy, every touch received, every reaction we felt to our sexuality, is remembered in our subconscious minds. We have stored these memories of our first touch, bonding with our mothers and fathers, feeding, toilet training, holding, and nurturing, to be triggered...

by Stuart Sovatsky, Ph.D. Tantric practices are indications of a certain direction for intimacy and growth. They are not just instructions to be enacted or another set of erotic conventions to be performed and perfected.

by Diana De Luca. It is important to take time out of the ordinary, everyday routine to create a nurturing, sensual space. As we open our hearts and honor our sexuality, we are nourished and healed on a deep level. Give yourself permission to...

by Diana Daffner. I would like you to touch me as if you were going away tomorrow, far far away, and you wanted to remember the feel of my body, the texture of my skin, the hills and valleys that make up the landscape of who I am. I would like you to touch me as if you were blind, knowing that you love me...

by Patricia Diane Cota-Robles. Sexuality is a beautiful expression of love. It is an intimate, sacred communion between two people. When experienced with an open heart, it can transcend the limitation of physical reality and allow one to soar into the octaves of ecstasy, wonder and awe; it can...

by Joyce & Barry Vissell. Most people have a difficult time with their sexual lives. However, those traveling the spiritual path can develop unique problems in handling sexual energy. Some of us assume we no longer have sexual desire -- that we've outgrown it. Some of us feel hopelessly trapped..

There are powerful landmarks that profoundly influence women's lives. They function as psychological gateways to the change in consciousness required by each new stage. Emotions women feel, the psychological meaning they attach to the events, and transformational experiences of each stage are outgrowths of the physical timing inherent in the female body.

by anonymous. How can we normalize sexuality, taking it from scared to sacred? We undertake an individual journey into our Soul, the heroic journey referred to by mythologist, Joseph Campbell. This journey leads us to explore the fearful places where our shadow dwells, the places that we have denied for most of our lives.

Sex, the most fearful and fascinating, the most guilt ridden and ecstatic of arts, is a subject we do not discuss easily. Most of us have spent many years avoiding sex talk due to our shame, guilt, and fear programming. In order to share Sacred Sexuality, you must have the courage to communicate your innermost feelings, letting your partner know what you like and dislike.

by Rhonda Levand.

Our parents had a more profound influence on us than anyone else. What they communicated to us verbally, by their actions, or what they didn't tell us about sex, affects our sexuality. Since we probably lived between sixteen and twenty years with our parents, and what they did...

by Charles & Caroline Muir. We believe that as much care, thoughtfulness, and attention should be paid to a relationship as to a career, a family, or a cause. Unfortunately, this is not a popular concept. More popular, but less realistic, is the theory that love, having visited itself upon us, is here to stay; that a relationship, once established, will operate on automatic, will be self-sustaining...

by David & Ellen Ramsdale. When something is recycled, it is returned to its source. The wheel, or cycle, is turned back to the beginning of its circular path. There is some evidence that in human beings the sexual energy cycle has two stages. The first stage begins in the brain, at the pituitary and pineal glands, and ends in the sex glands. The second stage...

A sensual ceremony is a special gift. It is a physical sharing warmth and caring, an expression of tenderness. Giving this gift of pleasure, we invite another to be guided into the inner garden. Here are a few ideas to help you raise the level of sensuousness in your sex life. 

by Morton & Barbara Kelsey.

 What is the source of our fear of talking about sexuality and sexual conduct? Why is the subject so delicate and forbidding for adults that they are uncomfortable discussing it with children? We believe the heresy of gnosticism that has permeated many of the sexual attitudes of the Christian Church is responsible for a great deal of the sexual negativity and unwholesomeness of our culture.

The pendulum has been swinging from the days of save yourself for marriage, to the pill, free love, open marriage, STD's (sexually transmitted diseases) and safe sex. And the pendulum is still in motion. We talk about the sexual revolution. There have been and will be many sexual revolutions until we...

by Gerald Fishkin. Individual and family problems often go hand in hand. The stressed-out family member is likely to act out his or her tensions in the family setting, putting additional pressure on others in the family. Many parents, for example, react to their stressful situation by becoming more...

by Miss Desmond Clark.

Do you know how to tie your shoe? I hope so. Now, do you remember who taught you how? Whether it was your Mom or Dad is unimportant... but do you remember? We all have memories that we can recall but I have noticed that many of us do not remember the little obscure incidents that helped form our personality and our behavior. Can you remember who said you were not good enough... and you accepted that?

by Dr Jenny McCloskey. Your sexual health and attitude are determined by multiple influences -- your parents, friends, teachers and your environment and culture -- but the most important influence is you. Most of the time we do not question the way we behave. Our actions reflect habits of thought and established beliefs about ourselves and others.

In modern Western societies the messages about sex are extremely contradictory and confusing. We have no traditional rites of passage nor meaningful ceremonies to initiate young people into informed adult sexuality. I hoped that my work might establish standards that could help people of all ages have less confusion about sex and intimate relationships.

Sexual energy is instrumental to the Ageless Body. It is by virtue of the hormones and their master glands connected to sexual function that the body stays in a perpetual state of "juicy" youth.

Many beings are yearning for relationships and most of those that are in relationships on earth are quite unsatisfied. It is a reflection of the imbalance of the earth. Now the time has come for the balance of power to shift. It has already begun, and it shall continue until the balance of power...

by Sherry Lehman, M.A. Foreplay is a 24 hour a day affair for most women, in that it is everything that happens between partners during the day. For a woman, foreplay begins when the couple awakens in the morning. From that moment on, everything her partner says and everything her partner does affects how she will feel sexually...

These seven Tantric keys can open us up to our essential selves and unleash in us that abundant, joyous energy -- Every Day Ecstasy -- that allows us to be all that we can be as human beings with our partners and our children and in our work, our community, and the world.

Thousands of years ago, people had achieved a high degree of awareness and an all chemical formula for converting what we know as sex energy-called by many names, such as Vital Force, Elan Vital, Soul, Chi, etc.-into a state of divinity. Their spiritual philosophy held sexuality as a divine rite...

To be a Taoist is to experience life as a harmonious flow of life energy. In the traditional Taoist terms, this flow in humans is from breath to sex essence to spirit. It flows both visibly and invisibly, in a never-ending cycle. Regardless of your attitude toward life...

It doesn't have to be as obvious as a clutch back from the brink of nirvana to show you that you're afraid to surrender to sex. Perhaps just as you're getting really turned on, you suddenly flash on something you ...

Women and sex have been the two targets of the Christian Church for centuries. In early times, especially in Hellenic Greece, women had certain rights: divorce, contraception, ownership of property. By contrast the Church, right down through the ages, has persistently railed against woman, calling her evil, debased, and the originator of sin.

I feel that now is the time to take a completely different look at Homosexuality! With modern science suspecting the causes of same-sex orientation to be genetic, it is time to dispel the myths of choice. When people are born a certain way through no choice of their own -- such as race, or looks, or handicaps -- should they be penalized by society? Is that fair?... I think not.

Millions will be looking for the "love of their lives" until they die. They will look, and never realize that real love might already have found them. Being loved means owning up to the responsibility of being loved, which is -- in the long run -- more difficult than asking for (or looking for) love.

 Many men feel that their lives are ones of unrealized intentions. They wanted deeper friendships, but could never work them out, either. They wanted to be more open with their families, but could not even imagine how to do this. The only thing they could imagine were the brutal consequences of being open...