Thursday January 26, 2012
Construction metaphors figure prominently in iconic images of erections. Tall objects built on a flat plane, penetrating the sky, standing firm and tall, immoveable and awe inspiring in their stand-out-ness, their pokey-tude.
But real erections aren't constructed from raw materials, they aren't built so much as they are evoked. And the analogy with construction falls apart completely when you consider that no one has complete control over their erections, and erections can disappear as easily as they arise.
A roller coaster car might be a more apt metaphor. One of the few things we can say with absolute certainty about erections is that they go up and the come down. If you have a penis in your life - your own or someone else's - the temptation to obsess over the meaning of a lost erection can be powerful. And while I love an unconscious motivation as much as anyone, in the case of penises going soft I think it's actually better to focus on what might be going on first before you begin to ruminate on the what-it-all-means part of it. After all, even Freud said sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. And sometimes a lost erection is just that.
If you're looking for some help sleuthing your own personal mystery of the missing erection, here are some tips on where to start your search.
Read More - Penis Goes Soft: Reasons Why An Erection May Go Away
Tuesday January 24, 2012
In the past, if you had a stroke, a heart attack, or a more minor event that led to a diagnosis of cardiovascular disease and you asked your doctor about your options for having sex, the response wouldn't be very encouraging. Something along the lines of it being better safe than sorry, so why not wait. How long you had to wait, and exactly what you had to wait to do was never clear. But there wasn't much research to guide doctors, and in a society where sex is seen more as a perk and privilege of youth, the prudent advice was to be grateful you're alive, and not push it.
Over the past few decades that advice has changing, thanks in large part to two different but connected research agendas. On the one hand we now have a reasonable amount of data suggesting that sexual activity represents a minor risk to people with stable cardiovascular disease. On the other we have research that points to the many physical, emotional, and psychological benefits of regularly engaging in sexual activity. So doctors not only have some concrete answers about risk, but they also have very good reasons to encourage people to resume sexual activity.
Last week the American Heart Association released a scientific statement (available for free download here) which summarizes the most recent research and advises physicians on the importance of talking with patients about sexuality and supporting their overall health by supporting their sexual health. Here are a few highlights from the statement, and some of the things I most appreciated them including:
Risk of Pain, Heart Attack, and Death Is Very Low
Using a term that is sure to appear on some hipster Valentine's Day cards this year, the authors point out that experiencing coital angina (in other words pain caused by a heart problem during coitus) happens in about 5% of all reported cases of angina. In other words, if you're going to feel pain it's more likely that you'll notice it first while exercises, shoveling snow, or doing any number of other activities before you'll feel it during sex.
Looking at reports of heart attacks, less than 1% were caused by sexual activity. For people who have heart disease and are having regular sex the risk goes down even further.
Sudden death during sex is incredibly rare. Reviewing three studies of autopsy reports where the death was related to a cardiovascular event, around 1% of the deaths were reported to have occurred during intercourse. For whatever it's worth in 75% of those cases, the reported intercourse was of the "extramarital" kind (whatever that means), and was with a younger partner, immediately following "excessive food and alcohol consumption". This is taken from medical reports of course, so there are probably major details being left out. Nonetheless, take out the drinking and the Oysters Rockefeller, and better yet, be honest with your partner about your sexual desires, and your chances of dying should bo way down.
Narrow Focus of Previous Research
It was nice to see the authors highlight how most of the research we have is based on heterosexual men engaging in penile-vaginal intercourse. These men aren't the only ones who get heart disease, and there's more to sex than intercourse.
Counseling Is Needed
The statement advocates for physicians to begin counseling their patients on the general low risk of sexual activity, as well as specific information they need regarding birth control, pregnancy, the use of erectile dysfunction drugs, and more. The authors highlight depression and anxiety as two common experiences that are related to cardiovascular disease which can on the one hand make engaging in sexual activity more challenging, and on the other are experiences that can be to some extent alleviated by pleasurable sexual activity.
More About Sex and Heart Health From About.com:
Friday January 20, 2012
A new film, The Surrogate, has it's first screening on Monday at the Sundance Film Festival. According to the description of the film in the festival program, it's based on the writings of Mark O'Brien. O'Brien was a journalist and poet who wrote frankly and vividly about his life, most of which was spent inside an iron lung. One of his most shared pieces of journalism was an article he wrote about seeing a sexual surrogate. That article used to be available for free online but unfortunately it seems to have disappeared. Apparently this film is about the relationship between Mark and the surrogate he hired, Cheryl Cohen Greene.
Given Hollywood's track record when it comes to representing disability on film it's hard to imagine a film could do justice to O'Brien, whose words could cut through so much bullshit while at times elevating potty talk to an art form (see for example his poem Letter to an Orange County Social Worker published in Mouth Magazine).
That the director, Ben Lewin, identifies himself as disabled, and in fact acquired his disability as a result of polio, may lead one to think the representations will be more complicated. Watching an interview with the director where he refers to O'Brien's "little journey to manhood" isn't a great sign, but it's not fair to pre-judge. It could be a tremendous dramatic feature, and having had friends who have worked as sexual surrogates, and plenty more who do other kinds of sex work**, there is no doubt that the relationships are complicated and rich.
If you're interested in seeing an actual representation of Mark's life and work before you see the fake one, I can't recommend enough the Academy Award winning documentary that Jessica Yu made with and about Mark, Breathing Lessons. And by some act of grace, the film is available for viewing online, for free!
SnagFilms.com - Watch Breathing Lessons
**I want to point out that most sexual surrogates would take exception to me connecting their work to sex work. Officially surrogates almost always distinguish what they do from sex work, and this is their right. I tend to see the distinctions as having varying degrees of legitimacy, and I see far more similarities than differences. But that is only one perspective.
Wednesday January 18, 2012
It may be hard to imagine sex without moving, but sometimes it's the moving that makes it hard to imagine ever having sex.
This week instead of answering one sex question in particular I took inspiration from about a half dozen questions I've received over the past year all about whether or not it's "normal" for your sex life to slow down after you move in with a partner.
Of course "normal" is code, and in this case I think it's code for a few things: predictable, okay, understandable, something to worry about.
I tried to write a response using as little code as possible, and to offer some post-moving sex tips for those who are unhappy with the situation, whether it's okay or not.
Read more: Sex After You Move In Together
Related: Sex Tips for the Rest of Us
