This is the second reader questions I answered for Glow magazine. From January to March I am there official sex expert.

“Is there any contraceptive buying etiquette? It just seems unfair that birth control costs so much more than condoms!”

I haven’t heard of any birth control etiquette per se, however common sense can direct this situation.

If you’re single and have just started seeing your beau, it’s up to each individual to provide birth control. No splitting of cost.

Unless they’ve shown you a recent certificate of health, in the first stages of a relationship you should always be using condoms to protect against STIs—even if they’re a really nice person and you’re sure they don’t have anything…use a condom.

When the relationship becomes long term relationship, absolutely birth control costs need to be split. Bring up with him that the birth control pill is expensive and it’s half of his responsibility. That can go both ways—the female can help pay or have a stash of her own condoms.

Go to my website, Till Sex Do Us Part to read an excerpt from chapter one to get a preview.

Let me know what you think of the book. Leave your comments on one of my many blogs.

Click here to find out more.

I’m the featured Sex Expert for Canada’s Glow magazine for, at least, the next four months. Watch for me January through to March.

Here’s the first reader question Glow asked me to answer.

Glow Reader Question:“I dreamt that I cheated on my boyfriend with an ex and I feel awful! What does this mean?”

My Response:
It’s not just men having wet dreams—women have sex dreams too. Some dreams get so hot and heavy women can achieve orgasm…hopefully she remembers when she wakes up. Otherwise she’ll wake up feeling pleasant and won’t know why. Shame really.

This dream is probably your way of living out a fantasy—although you’ve probably never acknowledged this fantasy as you’re having a hard time reconciling it now.

The “having sex with someone else” fantasy (with your ex or whomever) is a fairly common fantasy—close your eyes and think of Brad Pitt when doing the nasty is a nice way to spend the evening. And hey why not? The idea of a secret liaison is a dangerous, living on the edge way to fill the gaps of an otherwise ordinary life. Nothing wrong with feeling extremely sexy and erotic.

So the best piece of advice I can give around guilt felt around any fantasy is: fantasy is not reality. Many people fantasize about crazy, wild sex that intellectually they understand will never happen (i.e. a threesome).

It doesn’t mean you cheated on your partner by fantasizing having sex with your ex. It simply means having sex with someone else is a turn on for you. If you actually went and had sex with your ex, that would make everything complicated. But it doesn’t sound like that is going to happen.

It’s better not to tell your boyfriend about your fantasy. Although I never condone lying, some things are better left unsaid. However, if the guilt is eating away at you, clear the air and tell your boyfriend.

To hear a great podcast on sexy holiday tips, go to my Best Sex Tips Ever website.

(1)Doing Kegels for two minutes a day will raise both his and her arousal, desire and make for bigger, better orgasms.

(2)The more sex you have, the more sex you want—this is especially true for women—as it raises testosterone levels.

(3)Affectionate touch is an easy way to stay connected as it raises your oxytocin levels, your bonding hormone.

(4)When life get’s too hectic give your partner a ten-second kiss or hug; it takes your focus away from the stress and helps you relax.

(5)Orgasms give a spike to oxytocin levels and that is why you feel so connected and bonded after sex.

Extremely happy to announce that my book, Till Sex Do Us Part: Make Your Married Sex Irresistible (Key Porter) will be released January 8, 2009.

In honour of this occasion, I’ve come up with a F-A-B-U-L-O-U-S promotion.

When you preorder my book before January 7, 2009 you’ll get $500 in really nice free product. Simply go to my book’s website, http://tillsexdouspart.com to find out more about the book and the promotion.

Thanks so much for your support.

What are some practical ways couples can deal with their struggles in the bedroom?

It’s tremendously difficult for the average couple to talk about a sexual dysfunction—whether it is an erectile problem or an inability to orgasm. Your best first step is to educate yourself on what is going on with your body; then educate your partner and together have a conversation about what you can do about your situation.

There are plenty of books or go on the internet (but please be careful on the internet as there is a lot of dubious misinformation). Research and bookmark what is happening to you.

Give your partner the information and ask them to read. Afterwards have a conversation about the diagnosis—keeping your conversation to the scientific and factual makes it much easier to discuss.

Very important: focus and talk about what you can do as couple instead of what you cannot do. If intercourse is no longer possible, it’s no use to focus on that. Instead focus on the sensual, erotic side of sex—which is the best part of sex.

What happens if couples ignore erectile problems, a low or no sex drive, or difficulty reaching orgasm?
Quite simply, it can devastate even the most solid of couples.

When people lose touch with their sexuality and sensuality, the quintessential intimacy between a couple is lost. A marriage can function without sex but it cannot function without intimacy and touch.

Erectile problems usually are a big red flag that something is not working on the man’s body. For example, if he has high blood pressure that is leading to a stroke, or the first signs of diabetes, he won’t be able to achieve a full erection for any degree of time. It is absolutely necessary he go to the doctor and get this checked out—even if he is mortified to talk about his lack of erection.

When women go through menopause she loses most of her estrogen. Intercourse can be uncomfortable to painful.

Skin thickens as we age and it becomes more difficult to achieve orgasm as easily.

How does ignoring these problems affect the other aspects of the relationship?
Women feel they are not sexy enough and that their partner is rejecting them. Men feel a big part of them has died and are silently distraught.

Do couples have unrealistic expectation about sex — and how do we deal with those expectations?

We live in a very sexualized society. In the last twenty five years we’ve come to value part of our self worth based on our sexuality and sexiness.

With women’s emancipation the ideal that sex was her wifely duty was tossed. She was given her orgasm and expected to enjoy sex with her sexual encounter—even though her burden was doubled with work and home life. It’s a sad paradox that there is so much expectation on how couples are expected to enjoy sex in order to keep up with the Jone’s.

So, yes, I do believe couples have WAY too many unrealistic expectations around sex. But then again, I’d be out of a job if they didn’t.

It’s important for couples to realize that sex is an ever evolving entity. Unfortunately, most couples force and keep a static, “we must have sex once a week in order to meet average couple standards”.

How long does good sex really last?
When a couple is first together, they have enough dopamine and the body’s own amphetamine-like hormones that they are sufficiently aroused in a nanosecond. So sex can last for three minutes and be mind blowing.

Generally though, after two years, it takes a woman a minimum fifteen minutes for her body to become sufficiently aroused. That is if she doesn’t have a million and one things going on in her head—her amygdale will disable her body from becoming fully aroused until she is able to check off everything on her to-do list. So for run of the mill, garden variety sex, at least twenty to thirty minutes. (The average couple’s sex lasts for ten to fifteen minutes meaning that the average gal is not sufficiently aroused when intercourse starts.)

HOWEVER, when a couple is in the zone and can’t wait to rip each other’s clothes off, great sex can be hard and fast up against the wall.

My answer to you is: generally a minimum 20 minutes but sometimes it will take longer or sometimes be a quickie. It’s really where a couple is their head and relationship.

Why do we think it has to take hours—and does this affect the amount of sex we have? Because every sex expert preaches, “foreplay, foreplay, foreplay.” People automatically think great sex needs to includes, baths, massages, candles, etc. And it certainly doesn’t hurt, but planning and executing takes a lot of time.

Therefore, the best foreplay is keeping intimacy alive outside the bedroom so you don’t have to go to all the work to get reconnected inside the bedroom.

This article first appeared in the Calgary Herald on August 29th, 2008.

For more information go to: http://sexualhealthaccess.org/images/pdf/itl_sept_2008.pdf

What’s really behind decline of teen sex
By LAURA WERSHLER
With a newly released StatsCan study on Canadian teen sexual behaviour and a new book out of the
U.S. raising the spectre of sex-addicted adolescents, parents must be left scratching their heads.
Let’s start with the StatsCan study. It suggests two encouraging trends: teens are delaying
intercourse and are more likely to use condoms than ever before. But keep in mind the sample was small (only 80 youth in Alberta, about 900 across the country) and the “new” stats were collected in 2005.

Interestingly girls account for the changes. The number of young women (15 to 19) reporting ever
having had intercourse fell from 51 per cent in 1996/97 to 43 per cent in 2005. Young men stayed steady at 43 per cent. Although the female rate of condom use increased from 65 per cent to 70 per cent in 2005, the male rates remain unchanged at the higher rate of 80 per cent.

An August 27 Calgary Herald editorial (Don’t Just Do It) infers from the report that postponing
intercourse is attributable to teaching abstinence in schools. How did the editorial board draw this
conclusion?

Mounting evidence demonstrates that improved access to comprehensive sexual health education is
to be commended for contributing to such positive trends.

Another misguided notion in the editorial is “teens want and need the adults in their lives to set
boundaries, to establish rules and guidelines for behaviour”. How? By pushing abstinence.

The abstinence message comes across loud and clear in the new book, Hooked: New Science on
How Casual Sex is Affecting Our Children which was featured in the Herald on Aug. 25. A quick
Google search reveals authors Dr. Joe McIlhaney and Dr. Freda Bush are ardent abstinence-untilmarriage advocates.

Their premise is that teen sex is bad for the brain because bonding hormones released during sex
can become addictive. Yet Bush says that when two people are in a committed relationship, that
addictive hormone is a good thing, ensuring a strong union.

This begs the question: Why do they believe that teens aren’t capable of, or shouldn’t have,
committed sexual relationships?

The authors of Hooked are not alone in this belief.

The tendency to discourage teens from having sexual relationships is at the core of the research of
American sociologist Amy Schalet. In a widely read paper entitled Must We Fear Adolescent Sexuality?
Schalet compared the experience of adolescent sexuality in the U.S. and Netherlands based on indepth
interviews with teens and parents from both countries.

It is well-documented that sexual health outcomes for teens in the Netherlands are among the best in
the world (low rates of teen pregnancy and sexually transmitted infections) while those in the U.S. are
the worst among developed countries. The biggest difference between the two cultures is that the U.S. dramatizes adolescent sexuality while the Netherlands normalizes it. American parents fear the “battle between the sexes” and perceive teen relationships as dangerous and therefore to be discouraged. Dutch parents expect their young people to gather sexual experience in the context of relationships and accept sexuality as a normal part of adolescence.

If teen sex is damaging our kids’ brains, or hearts, perhaps the actual culprit is people like the
authors of Hooked.

Couldn’t their dramatic campaign against teen sexual relationships lead to the very danger they
warn against — casual sex?

Their wellmeaning tips (eg. write down your commitment to abstain from sex, limit the amount of
physical contact) on how parents can help their children say “no” are about as practical as the Herald
editorial’s assertion that what teens want and need are rules to guide their sexual behaviour.
What teens want and need is clearly stated in Beyond the Big Talk, a study published in March
2008 in the journal Pediatrics.

This study on parent-adolescent communication about sexual topics found that parents who take a
rule oriented, domineering approach to talking about sex risk hindering open, productive discussion and
can expect more contempt, dishonesty and disengagement from their teens.

The encouraging message for parents is this: Teens want open, supportive parents who engage in respectful, give-and-take conversations that foster ongoing communication about sexual issues.
Parents who talk early and often with their kids about sexuality have significant potential to reduce
risky sexual behaviour and promote healthy sexual development.

Maybe the good news StatsCan report is evidence that more Canadian parents consider open
discussion about sexuality a normal part of family life.

LAURA WERSHLER IS THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF SEXUAL HEALTH ACCESS
ALBERTA. SHAA IS WORKING ON A PROJECT TO ENCOURAGE PARENTS TO TALK EARLY
AND OFTEN ABOUT SEXUAL ISSUES WITH THEIR CHILDREN.