I’m going to a cousin’s wedding reception, after she and her new husband eloped in Bali a few months ago. In the pictures, not just the ones in the white dress, but the following shots of her in Australia touching crocodiles, or hiking in Thailand I noted that she had never looked better. It caused me to wonder, was it just the holiday- relaxing- lots of time to boff- or is honeymoon sex really the best there is? When I asked a few female friends and patients, many of them mentioned holiday/honeymoon time as a time when they could stop thinking about life, and just be in the moment. But any of them also spoke of high school, when they would neck and pet for hours, but never comsumated the deal.  You know, everything else but intercourse. For many of these women, that was supremely hot.  But not for me.  High school sex for many guys, was quick, awkward, I-don’t-know-what-I’m-doing, and it only got better with time. What I’ve realized is that men think sex is mind blowing, when their own performance is steller. They remember the times when they had a bit too much to drink, and lasted way, way longer than normal. They also mention to me the spontaneous, out of the ordinary sex as the best they remember. Was it the change room, the hotel rooftop, or airline bathroom that you remember as the hottest sex?  Or was it, in retrospect that honeymoon I spent camping in eastern Ontario where I came home full of bug bites and tent burn….

One of my favorite, most cited sex studies in the last few years was one done by Dr. Alan Hirsch from Chicago, who found that our limbic (primative brain linked with sex) gets turned on by certain smells. For men, their testosterone levels go up a whopping 40% when exposed to the smell of cooking cinnamon, lavender, oranges, donuts, and pumpkin pies. After reading that, I started to change the perfume I was wearing from the Lauren I wore for years to The Body Shop oils in orange, and cinnamon. It was about that time when the amount of male attention I received increased significantly. It may have been the new cologne, or it may have been that I also lost some weight at that time, and – if I do say so myself- was looking rather rightous.

If you’re looking for some positive male attention, it may be something to try.  Alternatively, men should smell like baby powder- or some other cuddly, nurturing scent. Women are more likely to want to boff if they (even unconsciously) start thinking about babies. Oh, the smell and taste of chocolate also seems to work for women.

Why not try it?  Maybe the neighborhood dogs will start following you home since you smell like food, or maybe it will be the two legged dogs that suddenly take an interest.

I don’t know about you, but this girl’s gotta have it. I’ve been blogging for awhile, Hell, I practically preach from the hilltops about how, and why sex is good for you. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, I think it’s as important as doing exercise for your body’s overall health.

If you’re not getting it, or no longer feel the urge, I as your sex therapist (you are welcome to introduce me as your sex therapist at cocktail parties), do something about it.  Have the heart to heart with your spouse, go on date nights, plan a bootie call, get a viagra prescription, slip some zinc supplements into your husband’s coffee, sign up Clay the poolboy, but don’t turn your back on your sexula health.  I think it’s worth working on.  And since CNN and Good Morning America will have all those weight loss experts on, I’m goint to be your own little sex cheerleader.  Write me, and I’ll help. Promise. End sermon.

Enjoy your New Year.  Have a romp or two, tell your partner your sex therapist told you to.

So by now you may have discovered my secret obsession for schmaltzy chick lit. Chocolate and very light reading (I haven’t sunk as low as the bodice rippers, but they too have their appeal). Anyway, I’m in the book store yesterday and start flipping through a few books with a similar theme.  "So, he’s not that into you, Humble Howard’s book about men are snakes, and  Clare Naylor’s book Dog Training, "A good man is hard to train" cheeky, funny novel kept popping up between books on happily ever after, and getting the love you deserve. The idea that men are pigs, dogs, snakes (you name the species) when it comes to treating women well in relation to casual sex seems to come up over and over. Guy can do some bovine behaviour, and often can seemingly have a one track mind.  But can they be trained out of it?

I don’t know if I buy that. I think men are opportunistic, but then so are many women. You want to understand men, know that they are indeed ruled by their glands and have never, ever, been too busy to call a woman they were interested in.  The men I talk to describe their daily desires as accomplishing the big deal, (either in business or on the golf course), throwing down their woman and screwing her, eating, throwing down their woman and screwing her, fantasizing about having sex with other women, multiple women, sleeping, then repeat. I think men have hopes, dreams desires and aren’t that shallow, but they spend their days with the horniness buzzing around their heads to the point of distraction. Face it, men, like women are altogether entirely human.

I’m exploring the concept of training them (a la puppy 101) and I’ll keep you posted after I get through the stack of boy training books I bought yesterday. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe it does work….

So my tribute to Halloween this year was by taking a Midori workshop on role playing. Midori, a Japanese American from San Francisco, is one of the world’s leading sex presenters in the area of kinky and fetishes. She put on a fabulous workshop on dressing up and playing naughty/good girl, and naughty/good boy in a variety of ways.  Loads of props (and I didn’t lift any, despite the temptation), I got to play out both my cheerleader and doctor play in dialogue with another sex educator. It was fun, although there was more emphasis on the education rather than the heat.  But if my husband ever gets back rom hunting season I may play game warden and bad hunter/poacher with him. 

As a group we came up with a list of role playing scenarios. I wrote down and bunch here and will be brainstorming on any I may have missed. Knock yourself out trying to play them all, but given all the old Halloween costumes are on sale right now, you can get a great costume box at a fraction of the price.

I’m a big fan of Garth Turner’s blog about being a Canadian Member of Parliament. Strong writing is great anytime, and he’s a very cool, and articulate member of the House(well worth reading). Now kicked out of the Conservative caucus for telling his truth he’s  now independent MP, and something that I had read about in his blog happened to cross my desk as well.

I had received the booklet from a safe sex group in Toronto written by street kids telling other street kids the straight (or bi) skinny on street sex safety.  Graphic, but very clear, and I loved it.  Then I read Garth’s post on October 2, discussing how he had received outraged comments about this book from a constituent because the booklet had been misused as propoganda by a television evangelist.   read it for yourself

When I started on air in 1993 as a sex therapist, I had my share of complaints, and criticisms from individuals for talking openly about sex.  I hosted a group from a religious group for tea at the station and we discussed my very Christian background and about how half my family were missionaries, and my study of Theology.  I am still an elder in my church and attend weekly. I went on to discuss how you can be Christian and still tolerant, open, sexy, blatent, safe, kind, and downright graphic about sex – at least in my opinion. I think God would want people to be more safe, and every study since the dawn of time says that sex education prevents unwanted pregnancies, (just like drivers education prevents accidents) and STI’s,  and talking about sex in a language the audience understands still works. Thanks Garth for pointing out that there are still people using misinformation and both other people’s bodies and their fear of sex to move forward their own agenda.

This month’s Oprah magazine that I was reading at the spa today (when the going gets tough, the tough go to the spa-that’s my motto), anyway, while I was getting a pedicure, I read the article about The sexiest real men in the US. They had an articulate discussion of what women find sexy (kind of my own, small, informal, focus group).  I read aloud the magazine article and asked the women sitting around in various stages of pampering what they found sexy. The group of very attractive stylists,  all claimed to like confident and strong men.  The older eclectic group of patrons said they preferred sensitive, smart guys with great butts.

In my experience doing the dating events, I found that women want smart, funny, safe, kind, slightly self depreciating, charming (boyish or otherwise), great hygeine, charisma, self awareness, smells nice, knows about foreplay, likes sex but isn’t obsessed by it (porn addicts need not apply), focused and attentive, did I mention foreplay?  And finally interested and genuinely like women.

If you are a guy trying to market to women, funny and attentive will win over cocky and washboard abs – for thinking women anyway. 

As for me, I find brains, charm  and humour exceeding sexy – and as a sex therapist I like my men randy. Hmmm, kind of like Bill…or Anderson Cooper.

I was reading this summer chick lit book at the cottage while my kids ran aound bugging each other.  It was called The Accidental Virgin by Valerie Frankel pink romance novel given to my by my almost sister in law.  Cute story, made me laugh in a few places, and she gets one of the guys in the end.

Anyway, the premise is this woman has been almost a year without sex. If she goes the full year, you become this born-again virgin.  The book is her story to get laid and thwart this title. You can tell it’s fiction because all an attractive woman has to do to get laid is make eye contact to any guy at a bar, but that’s a blog for another day.

"the new trand is to stop having sex with men. Go a full year without sex, and you become a (theoretical) virgin again. Your sins are washed away clean.  Three hundred and sixty-five days of unswept ashes, and it will be like you didn’t screw the entire football team in high school.  You’re as fresh and innocent as a week-old kitten. "Sex is a distraction and a nuisance.  Without it I can get my work done, and have energy left over to knit mohair sweaters…"

What do you think?  It doesn’t recreate your hymen so are you a new virgin after a year? I know there are lots of women who can’t be bothered to have sex, but I don’t think its for the goal of recreating something in the past (in my case, the long past).  I love the story of losing my virginity, and God knows I couldn’t give up sex for a year.  Anyway, I thought it was an interesting idea.  Let me know what you think….

So do women after 50 have no interest in sex, and if they do, do they require vats of lube?

If you ask men sitting around a table over 45, many of them would be teasing and joking about how they never get sex anymore, and that they all have to beg for it.  Apparently, this is just a veiled way of covering up the fact that many of them, aren’t getting it nearly as much as they would like. Consistently, men tell me that women don’t appreciate that they need sex, and think about it at least 6 times a day….(on average according to the Sex in America study)

Women as they hit menopause, seem to be giving up sex for lent or much, much longer. Menopause never improves women’s libido, and given the stress, and chaos of modern living, the cortisol or stress hormone levels in women’s bodies biologically turn down the heat to almost non-exisitant for many women. Hey, if you stress animals enough, the first thing that goes is their ability to go into heat. Think of looming deadlines, the pile of laundry, kids and aging parents, and you have a receipe for no sex.  And the longer you go without it, the less likely you are to kickstart it. You need interest, arousal, lubrication, decent technique, timing and an orgasm to really enjoy sex.  If one of those things are off for women, she’s starting to do her laundry list in her head while her partner is huffing and puffing on top of her.

I’m going to offer up some suggestions for fixing the drought in upcoming blogs.  in the meanwhile, know that many guys are going to explode from lack of sex, and masturbation simply isn’t cutting it. 

So my guest tonight was this cool MD, originally from Winnipeg, now living in California who had some great suggestions on staying sexual until our 90′s or they take us away feet first.  His name was Dr. Abraham Kryger His book on hormone’s and a woman’s guide to men’s healthHe said a few very interesting things that I hadn’t heard express in just that way before.

1. He says that men low testosterone have a greater chance of getting prostate cancer.  He’s been using the low dose testosterone creams for years, with great success.  He says that men should have a testosterone check at 50 to give them a baseline of what their normal testosterone should be for them (between 300 and 1200).

2. He said that new information out is that prostate problem may be a vitamin  deficiency, and adding that vitamin to your diet is effective treatment for men with high or elevated PSA (prostate specific androgens).

3. Men are getting chemically castrated by the toxins in the meat and animal fat.

4. The two biggest causes of impotence are a) smoking  b) alcohol.

5. Men’s sprem counts have decreased by 45% over the last decade in the US, the UK, adn France, mainly due to these increased toxins.  While girls puberty has decreases, boys have actually increased.  Scary stuff.

I’ll post the MP3 of the interview for your listening pleasure.