Understand sex Sex is important—you’d be surprised at all the unexpected health benefits regular sex offers. “Investigate and learn how sex is fundamental for our physical and mental health and serves much more than reproductive and gratification functions,” suggests William Kolbe, EdD, author of The Rejuvenating Power of Masturbation. “One way to do this is by exploring both solo and paired sexual activity to stimulate your major endocrine axis and nervous system, which manage all your major body functions.” The sex hormones are involved in maintaining muscle and bone mass, male and female characteristics, sex drive, as well as certain cognitive functions and memory, he adds. Understanding how your body…

You won’t need to do the deed in front of your therapist—or with your therapist You may have heard rumors that you’ll have to show, rather than tell, your problem in sex therapy. And if you’ve watched the series Masters of Sex, that’s definitely what happened there—along with sex surrogate therapy, in which the researchers or their staff engaged in sexual contact to help patients. But sex therapists say that they won’t be watching—or participating—in your sexual activities: They’ll just be helping you recover that loving feeling. “Professional therapy never includes sex, touching, or removal of clothing,” says Shannon Chavez, PsyD, CST, a licensed clinical psychologist and AASECT certified sex…

If you want to know how to get smarter, put down the crossword puzzle and simply slip between the sheets with your significant other. Research into the unexpected health benefits of sex continues and the latest findings, from the universities of Coventry and Oxford in the United Kingdom, reveal that older adults who had sex every week had improved brain function, scoring higher on tests of mental challenges including memory and verbal fluency. The study, published in The Journals of Gerontology, Series B: Psychological and Social Sciences, involved 73 people (28 men and 45 women) between the ages of 50 and 83. Each participant answered questions on how often, on…

They have separate interests “The happiest couples I’ve interviewed say they have a dynamic life together and an active life apart,” says Andrea Syrtash, relationship expert and author of Cheat on Your Husband (With Your Husband). “I think it adds a lot to the relationship when you can come back and share what you’ve done, what you’ve learned. It adds more excitement so you miss each other.” Most Americans are waiting a little later to get married and since many of us had active single lives before we married, we still want those outlets outside of our marriage, says Syrtash. Men and women are still prioritizing their relationships and time…

Sex is amazing. We are mammals and are meant to do the deed, dance the horizontal mamba, ruffle the sheets, and roll in the hay. It’s a perfectly natural and beautiful part of life. We do not often think about what kind of an effect sex has on our bodies. On the flip side, we rarely think about what happens to our bodies when we haven’t been sexually active in a while. Have a look at nine effects not having sex has on your body. When you’re done, go out and find your partner to avoid any permanent damage. You’ll thank us later. 9. It Plays Hell On Your Immune…

Every sexual act is a journey into yourself and your partner. It’s a continual exploration of sensations, eroticism, and love. Each relationship is a vessel that embodies both security and adventure in a commitment that offers life’s greatest luxuries: time. Marriage is not the end of romance. It’s the beginning! You get years to deepen your connection, experiment, and even to fail and start over. The chapters of eroticism in a relationship is a story with many chapters that both partners are writing together, continuously unfolding. There’s always a road we haven’t traveled, always something about our partners that still needs to be discovered. Modern relationships are the melting pot…

Can you guess? Yikes! A sexual dry spell. It happens to the best of us. I mean, I’ve been in a consistent relationship for YEARS, and we still go through dry spells, even though we sleep in the same bed every night. Whether you’re single and playing the field or you’ve been married for decades, sexual dry spells can happen to anyone. Sometimes, you don’t even realize until it’s too late that it’s been months since you’ve rolled around in the sheets with someone new. Want to know how to fix a dry spell? Why do couples have them and what can they do with all of that sexless time on their hands?  Superdrug conducted a…

How important is sex in middle age? It depends on who you talk to. During the past seven years while doing research for my book on middle age men, I’ve talked to dozens of guys about this topic. Generally, the answers given by married men were pretty consistent. It’s us, the guys, they said. It’s much lower on their wives’ priority lists, they said. “Definitely me,” said a buddy of mine. “I never turn it down.” Much to my surprise, when I talked to divorced or widowed men out on the middle age dating scene, I often got a different answer. It’s the women, they say. They said many middle…