Written by newsUSA
San Diego, California - Today, many couples are experiencing what is known as the "sexless marriage," or a marriage in which a couple has sex only a few times each year. But what many of these couples fail to realize is that they are missing out on the benefits that sex provides, not only for reasons of emotional intimacy, but also for its physical benefits.
Sexless marriages are neither normal nor inevitable. Setting aside time for intimacy works for some couples, while others find help from all-natural sex aids, like Magic Power Coffee (magicpowercoffee.com) or Viagra. But if you are looking for additional motivation in the bedroom, simply recall the benefits a healthy sex life can provide that will keep you feeling youthful, longer:
- Weight control. Sex can burn 84 calories in 30 minutes, while also improving heart and muscle strength, flexibility and muscle tone. Having regular sex can be used as a tool for couples who are looking to shed pounds or maintain a healthy weight.
- Pain relief. Before popping another aspirin, think about hopping into bed. Sex naturally releases endorphins and corticosteroids, which can help relieve pain from migraines, menstrual cramps and chronic back problems.
- Better sleep. Making love can help insomniacs fall asleep, and it's certainly more fun than counting sheep or keeping you partner awake as you toss and turn. Getting enough sleep carries its own health benefits, including healthy weight and blood pressure.
- Stress relief. Sex lowers both blood pressure and overall stress. In a study reported in the journal Biological Psychology, individuals who had intercourse performed better in high-stress situations like public speaking and verbal arithmetic.
- Reduces prostate cancer risk. An Australian study, reported in the British Journal of Urology International, found that 20-something men who led healthy sex lives were less likely to develop prostate cancer later in life.
PEOPLE who skip breakfast tend to lose their virginity earlier, according to researchers in Japan.
In a study of 3000 people, those who did not regularly eat breakfast in their early teens said they lost their virginity at an average age of 17.5, versus an overall average age of 19 for all Japanese.
Those who had a morning meal when they were younger had their first sexual experience at 19.4 years.
The study, backed by Japan's health ministry, was aimed at finding ways to curb unwanted pregnancies. It concluded that a stable home life discouraged early sex.
"Those unhappy with their parents - such as for not preparing breakfast - may tend to find a way to release their frustration by having sex," said Kunio Kitamura, head of the Japan Family Planning Association who led the research.
"If children don't feel comfortable in their family environment, they tend to go out."
Young people who start having sex early tended to miss breakfast because they return home late, he said.
Japan has one of the world's lowest birthrates as more young people put off starting families, finding them a burden on their careers or lifestyles.
The survey also found that nearly 40 per cent of married couples had not had sex in more than a month.
Respondents said they were too tired because of work or found sex to be a pain, according to the study.
When Kansas State University sent researchers into nursing homes to find out how the topic of sex was being addressed, they initially found silence.
"Nobody was talking about it; it was a really hush-hush subject," said Gayle Doll, director of the university's Center on Aging. "I guess it's hard enough for people to think about their parents having sex, let alone their grandparents."
In response, the researchers have produced seminars and training aids to encourage nursing home caregivers to discuss and accommodate sexual desires.
The effort brings Kansas into a national discussion that advocates say will only grow as baby boomers age and take their beliefs about sexual freedom and civil rights into the nation's nursing homes.
One of the first Kansas seminars was held at Schowalter Villa in Hesston, where many staff first reacted with, "We're going to talk about WHAT?" said Lillian Claassen, vice president of health services at the villa.
Claassen said residents' sexuality had always been a difficult subject for nursing homes and the Kansas State training affirmed her earlier efforts to address the topic.
"It wasn't like we hadn't cared for these needs in the past, but it was liberating to some folks to have an open discussion with university researchers," Claassen said. "It empowered people to think about how they could help folks."
Doll said the training focuses on explaining what sexuality means for older adults, identifying barriers to fulfilling the sexual needs, finding strategies to help residents and how to discern appropriate from inappropriate sexual behaviors.
Solutions can be as simple as providing "do not disturb" signs or making sure staffers don't barge into residents' rooms without knocking. Claassen said her nursing home provides a discreet room for residents and has staff work through possible scenarios they may encounter.
Sometimes, it's as simple as arranging a bed for someone who needs physical therapy in a way that also allows that patient to be with his or her companion, she said.
"My greatest interest is to promote dignity in a situation that can be very challenging," Claassen said. "We all need touch, kindness and companionship. We try to enable that in this setting, which can be very public but where there is still a need for privacy."
Sexuality doesn't always mean intercourse. Many lonely or depressed residents are simply looking for ways to relieve loneliness and depression, Doll said.
For example, she told of one resident who had asked for pornography but dropped the request when the staff started spending more time with him.
"The staff can help with the loneliness and need for connection that residents often have," Doll said. "Some sexual expressions that might be seen as inappropriate will go away when they simply get the attention they deserve."
When the need does include sexual activity, the issue becomes more difficult if one of the residents is suffering from dementia, advocates say. That can manifest itself in a resident making passes at a staff member.
Claassen said her staff is trained to respond politely and to understand that the impaired resident may be mistaking the staff member for a spouse or reacting as he or she has in the past, which is often more vivid than the present for those suffering from dementia.
If a resident with dementia becomes involved with another resident, the issue becomes determining if the sexual activity is consensual, said Robin Dessel, a national expert on dementia who is the director of memory care at Hebrew Home in Riverdale, N.Y.
Dessel said people with dementia, even those who can no longer speak, have wants and desires and the ability to express them. It takes a trained and educated staff to recognize if a sexual overture or relationship involves abuse or is borne of real need, she said.
Dessel said she has seen a growing awareness that the aging do not forfeit their rights as they become infirm, and that includes the right to express sexuality. She expects that trend to increase as baby boomers, with more liberal attitudes toward sex than their parents, continue to age.
"No matter what we see, even if someone needs total care or is incontinent, they still feel," Dessel said. "If there's a bonding with someone else, I think it's a time of celebration at that point that there's something left, something good and pleasurable for that person."
To meet that challenge, clinicians and providers need some standardized parameters to use to assess patients' consent, Dessel said.
The Kansas State researchers say federal guidelines should be developed to help nursing homes deal with sexuality in a positive way.
"Nursing homes are the second most regulated industry in the country, behind nuclear power plants," Doll said. "But none of those regulations address sexuality. So, consequently, no one knows how to handle it."
Hazlin Hassan
The Straits Times
The number of women with HIV infections in Malaysia has soared.
The rise has added urgency to calls for the government to make HIV screening compulsory for Muslims before they get married.
Deputy Prime Minister Najib Razak announced the move to make human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) screening mandatory after chairing a meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Aids yesterday.
'Next year, we will make it mandatory for all states to impose the HIV screening as part of the pre-marital course,' he told reporters.
Some states, including Kelantan, Negeri Sembilan, Sabah, Sarawak and Selangor, have already made it mandatory for Muslim couples to undergo HIV screening before they get married.
This latest move comes as fresh statistics reveal that the number of women infected with HIV is rising sharply.
The number of women infected through normal sexual intercourse rose from 5.02 per cent in 1997 to 16.3 per cent last year.
Back in 2006, the Malaysian health authorities had already detected a rise in the number of women infected with HIV/Aids.
According to the Malaysian Aids Council, the country's leading Aids non-governmental organisation, the majority of them were housewives.
It said that among women infected then, 1,628 were housewives while only 406 were sex workers.
As of June this year, the total number of housewives infected was 2,565, compared with 525 cases of infections among sex workers, according to Ministry of Health figures.
Many of these new infections were among married monogamous women, indicating that they acquired the virus from their husbands.
HIV infections among housewives were highest in Kedah, Terengganu and Kelantan, with each recording more than 200 cases, according to the New Straits Times.
Among the male cases, the majority of them were drug users. They comprised some 59,000 of the total 83,527 HIV cases in the country.
Aids researchers said this likely indicates that men who were infected via contaminated needles were transmitting the disease to their partners.
Left untreated, HIV causes Aids, which can lead to death.
While the number of women infected is rising sharply, the overall HIV infection rate in Malaysia has dropped by nearly half over the past five years, Datuk Seri Najib pointed out yesterday.
This year, there were 3,452 new HIV cases, compared with 6,756 in 2003, thanks to a national programme to stem infections, he said.
The government's goal is to reduce the figure to 11 cases per 100,000 population by 2015 compared with 12.8 cases now, he added.
But the move to make HIV screenings mandatory was condemned yesterday by the Malaysian Aids Council, which called it 'alarming'.
Council president Adeeba Kamarulzaman said in a statement that it was crucial that each person who receives a positive HIV test result also receives counselling and treatment.
She warned that women, in particular, 'due to their lower status in society, are more likely than men to be vulnerable to discrimination, violence, abandonment and ostracism, if they are found to be infected with HIV'.
The statement also warned that a policy of mandatory screening 'may drive those infected with HIV underground and not achieve its purported goal of protecting public health'.
However, most ordinary Muslims who have yet to tie the knot have welcomed the move.
Anis Abdullah, who is single and in her 30s, said that the test is not a big deal to her.
'If I'm going to be sleeping with someone, I'd really like to know that he's safe and I wouldn't be offended if he asked me to take the test either.
'It's because of this day and age we're in. It's very easy to tell yourself 'no sex before marriage', but it's not always that easy,' she told The Straits Times.
Lavinia Rahman, 38, said: 'I wouldn't want to feel 'cheated' if I were to discover my significant other is HIV- positive after we are married, regardless of how he got it.'
Interesting facts
Men are like computers hard to figure out and never have enough memory Still Women likes man
Men are like coolers load them with beer and you can take them anywhere Still Women likes man
Men are like chocolate bars sweet, smooth and they usually head right for your hips Still Women likes man
Men are like coffee the best ones are rich, warm, and can keep you up all night Still Women likes man
Men are like horoscopes they always tell you what to do and are usually wrong Still Women likes man
Men are like cement after getting laid they take a long time to get hard Still Women likes man
Men are like laxatives they irritate the shit out of you Still Women likes man
Men are like parking spots the good ones are already taken and what's left is handicapped Still Women likes man
A man is like a snowstorm you never know when he's coming, how many inches you'll get, or how long he will last Still Women likes man
What should you give a man who has everything? A woman to show him how to work it Still Women likes man
How does a man show he's planning for the future? He buys two cases of beer instead of one. Still Women likes man
What makes men chase women they have no intention of marrying? The same urge that makes dogs chase cars they have no intention of driving. Still Women likes man
Why are husbands like lawn mowers? They're hard to get started, emit foul odours and don't work half the time. Still Women likes man
What's the difference between a new husband and a new dog? After a year the dog is still excited to see you. Still Women likes man
Why do men find it difficult to make eye contact? Breasts don't have eyes. Still Women likes man
What's the difference between men and government bonds? Bonds mature Still Women likes man
How many men does it take to change a roll of toilet paper? We don't know, it's never happened Still Women likes man
Why are men like tile floors? If you lay ' em properly the first time, you can walk over them for years. Still Women likes man
What do you call a man with half a brain? Gifted. Still Women likes man
AND FINALLY Why is it hard for women to find men who are sensitive, caring and good looking? Because these men already have boyfriends! Still Women likes man
Study finds virus can reach immune cells in just 4 hours
TUESDAY, Dec. 16 (HealthDay News) -- A new route of male-to-female transmission of HIV -- in which the virus can travel through healthy genital skin to reach immune cells in just four hours -- has been identified by U.S. researchers.
It's long been believed that the normal lining of the vaginal tract was an effective barrier to HIV during sexual intercourse, because the large HIV virus couldn't penetrate the tissue. But the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine researchers found that HIV can penetrate normal, healthy genital tissue to a depth where it can get to immune cells and infect them.
The researchers labeled HIV viruses with photo-activated fluorescent tags and were able to track the viruses as they penetrated the outermost lining of the female genital tract (the squamous epithelium) in female human tissue obtained through hysterectomy and in animal models.
The findings were expected to be presented Dec. 16 at the American Society for Cell Biology annual meeting, in San Francisco.
"This is an unexpected and important result. We have a new understanding of how HIV can invade the female genital tract," principal investigator Thomas Hope, a professor of cell and molecular biology, said in a university news release.
"Until now, science has really had no idea about the details of how sexual transmission of HIV actually works. The mechanism was all very murky," Hope said.
These findings, if confirmed in future studies, could help in the development of new microbicides and vaccines to protect women against HIV.
"We urgently need new prevention strategies or therapeutics to block the entry of HIV through a woman's genital skin," said Hope. While condoms are 100 percent effective in blocking HIV, "people don't always use them for cultural and other reasons."
Women account for 26 percent of all new HIV cases in the United States, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Based on its most recent analysis of 2005 data, the CDC estimated that there were 56,300 new HIV infections that year, and 31 percent were due to high-risk heterosexual contact. More than half of the new cases of HIV infection worldwide are in women.
More information
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has more aboutwomen and HIV.
Dec 21st, 2008 is "Global Orgasm Day" during the two hour period of the winter solstice transition. Timing varies based on your timezone, so check out the time here.
The day is designed to effect positive change in the energy field of the Earth through input of the largest possible instantaneous surge of human biological, mental and spiritual energy.
To find out more, check out Global Orgasm.
1. A successful man is one who makes more money than his wife can spend. A successful woman is one who can find such a man.
2. Men wake up as good-looking as when they went to bed. Women somehow deteriorate during the night....
3. A man will pay $2 for a $1 item he wants. A woman will pay $1 for a $2 item that she doesn't want.
4. A woman marries a man expecting he will change, but he doesn't. A man marries a woman expecting that she won't change, and she does.
5. There are two times when a man doesn't understand a woman- before and after marriage.
6. A woman worries about the future until she gets a husband. A man never worries about the future until he gets a wife.
7. To be happy with a man, you must understand him a lot and love him a little. To be happy with a woman, you must love her a lot and not try to understand her at all.
8. Any married man should forget his mistakes. There's no use in two people remembering the same thing!
9. A woman has the last word in any argument. Anything a man says after that is the beginning of a new argument.
10. Women look at a wedding as the beginning of romance, while men look at a wedding as the ending of romance.
By Philip D. Harvey
Sunday, May 12, 2002; Page B07
The abstinence-only sex education programs in our public schools call for "abstinence until marriage." The federal government spent $115 million on this message last year, and the Bush administration is proposing significant increases for the current year. Sexual abstinence until marriage is now official government policy.
The average age of marriage in the United States today is 27 for men and 26 for women. The abstinence-only program therefore asks our young people to renounce sexual activity throughout much of the early part of adult life.
Age 26 or 27 is an average. There are millions of Americans who do not marry until age 30, 35 or later. I myself did not marry until age 40. Had anyone suggested to me that I should remain sexually abstinent until that time, I would have found the idea preposterous.
Those who insist that sex education in our high schools be confined to exhortations to abstain from sexual activity might say they don't really mean abstinence until age 27 or age 30. What they really mean is abstinence during the younger years.
The problem with this approach is that it is dishonest. If those who assert that sex must be postponed until marriage really mean that sex should be postponed only until age 19 or 20 or 21, they should say so, and their message would be taken more seriously. They do not because their convictions dictate that sex outside marriage -- at any age -- is wrong and, if wrong, cannot be recognized. They may understand that it is unrealistic to expect abstinence until age 27, but they cannot permit themselves to alter their message to take that into account.
I wonder if those who seriously advocate abstinence until marriage would prefer to see the marriage age come down. It is in those cultures where marriage takes place at particularly early ages that abstinence until marriage is realistic. The average age of marriage in Bangladesh, for example, is 18. Under such circumstances abstinence until marriage is at least feasible.
But in modern industrialized societies, where women have educational opportunities and more than half attend college, marriage in the teenage years will likely become increasingly rare. If we agree, as I think most Americans do, that equal educational and occupational opportunities for women are a good thing, that our society is enhanced and enriched by these developments, then I think we must accept the fact that marriage in the middle or late twenties is the modern societal norm. If that is so, the expectation of sexual abstinence until marriage is utterly unrealistic.
I would argue also that such an expectation, when translated into a policy (such as federally funded sex education calling for such a restriction), is wrong. It is wrong to expect young people to be sexually abstinent until they are more than half way through their twenties. Sexual relations are an important component of human happiness, and there is no moral purpose served by abstaining from sex if two people are mature and responsible. Why should they be deprived of sex?
It is worth noting too that many of the reasons young Americans do not marry at age 17 or 18 or 19 are reasons compatible with much of America's traditional cultural agenda. Our youth are less inclined than they were some decades ago to marry hastily, perhaps to the wrong person. Instead, most young Americans wish to be sure that they have found the appropriate mate so that they may create an honorable and viable union. It is difficult to argue with such motivation. Even the practice of cohabitation prior to marriage, now very common in the United States, may be both a sensible and a moral practice, which makes the resulting marriage more likely to be happy and to endure.
In today's United States, a policy of abstinence until marriage is anachronistic. Abstinence until adulthood and then responsible, protected sex is the message we should convey.
Philip D. Harvey is a writer and businessman.
It seems that girls do get on top of their partners when it comes to sex, for a study has found that young women have more bed sharers than men.
Researchers have carried out the study and found that young women are more promiscuous than men and the average 21- year-old is notching up for nine sexual partners as compared to seven in case of males.
In fact, they have based their findings on a survey of 2,000 people. The poll revealed that young women are twice as likely to cheat and more than 70 per cent have had a one-night stand, 'The Daily Telegraph' reported.
In fact, according to the survey, one in four young women has slept with more than ten people, compared with one in five men who had done the same.
What's more interesting is that the survey found that few young women today hold to traditional views on sexual morality -- just one per cent of young women said they would want to get married before having sex, with the majority losing their virginity at the age of 16.
More than half said they were not in love with their first partner, and only one in three believe it is important to be in love with someone before going to bed with them.
In addition, 60 per cent said they would be prepared to do a "kiss-and-tell", and would sell their account of a one-night-stand with a famous person for 20,000 pounds, the researchers found.
Four out of ten confessed they would marry for money or sleep with their boss if it meant they would get promoted, while a quarter would have an affair with a married man.
The survey also found that young women are taking "huge risks" with their health, with 38 per cent not using a condom with a new partner and 16 per cent having contracted a sexually transmitted disease.
And, the average young woman has sex three times a week but would prefer to do it five times.
"Our results show that after decades of lying back and thinking of England, today's twenty-something women are taking control of their sex lives and getting what they want in bed," Lisa Smosarski, the Editor of 'More', which commissioned the survey, was quoted as saying.
By Paul Sims
Being bold and brazen in the bedroom won Carrie Bradshaw and her friends a legion of female fans.
But viewers who think the 'anything goes' sexual antics in Sex And The City is fiction should perhaps think again.
Life, it would appear, is more than a match for art.
Young women are becoming more promiscuous, with more sexual partners than men, researchers have found.
Life imitating art?: The sexual antics of Sex And The City aren't fiction after all
By the age of 21 they have had sex with an average of nine lovers - two more than their male partner.
And a quarter have slept with more than ten partners in the five years since losing their virginity - compared with a fifth of young men.
Young women are also twice as likely to be unfaithful, with 50 per cent admitting they have cheated on a partner - half at least twice.
Yet if their man was caught being unfaithful, 99 per cent of the 2,000 women surveyed said they would show him the door.
The sex survey, for More magazine, also found women crave more sex but still believe men enjoy it more than they do.
The survey follows a U.S. study earlier this year that found teenage girls who watch a lot of TV shows with a high sexual content, such as Friends and Sex And The City, are twice as likely to become pregnant.
The researchers for that study concluded: 'One problem is that these and similar programmes glamorise sex while hardly mentioning its downsides, such as pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases.'
Lisa Smosarski, editor of More, suggested that there will be no turning back for today's sexually confident young women. 'Our results show that after decades of lying back and thinking of England, today's twenty-something women are taking control of their sex lives and getting what they want in bed. And why not?
'Women today have increasingly busy and stressful lives juggling study, jobs, friends, family, career and their relationships,' she said.
'Sex is a great and free way to relax, unwind and have fun in today's fairly stressful society.'
The survey found more than half of the women were not in love with the person to whom they lost their virginity.
And only 32 per cent believed love to be an important factor before having sex. Seven out of ten confessed to having had a one-night stand and a fifth had enjoyed more than five.
Only 1 per cent said they would wait until marriage to have sex.
One in four said they would marry for money whilst 39 per cent would sleep with their boss for a promotion. And 27 per cent would have an affair with a married man, while 14 per cent would sleep with their best friend's partner.
The study was carried out to launch More's safe sex campaign, which starts this week.
It found that almost a fifth of the young women surveyed had contracted a sexually transmitted disease while 21 per cent had been persuaded by a man not to use a condom when they wanted to.
Miss Smosarski said: 'Whilst women aren't embarrassed to take the lead in the bedroom, it seems they're not so forthright when it comes to contraception.'
Forget foreplay, it's what comes after sex that matters most to women, a survey has found.
A survey of more than 5600 women in Japan shows almost half (49 per cent) want a longer continuation of intimate interactions with their partner after sex.
This compares to 44 per cent who said they wanted longer foreplay and the 38 per cent of women who said they wanted longer actual intercourse.
The survey also quizzed the women on how open they were with their partner about sex, and 38.8 per cent said they had never discussed their favourite sex practises with their partner.
"Women consider longer foreplay and after play to be more important," the study, published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine, concludes.
"Suggesting women would benefit by being more forthright in expressing their sexual desires to their partners."
More than 30 per cent of the women also rated their partners performance in bed as either "very selfish" (6.9 per cent), or "selfish" (25.5 per cent).
The survey results were released at the European and International Societies for Sexual Medicine, which is underway in Brussels.
Women who lop their hair short are no longer interested in bedroom action, say researchers, who claim that deliberately reducing ones attractiveness can sometimes be a way of repelling mens interest.
London, Dec 6 : Women who lop their hair short are no longer interested in bedroom action, say researchers, who claim that 'deliberately reducing one's attractiveness' can sometimes be a way of repelling men's interest.
Initially, the claim was made by sex therapist and former comedian Pamela Stephenson, 59, who said that ladies who cut their hair are deliberately making themselves less sexy to blokes.
However, now the theory has got scientific backing after experts claimed that the links between long hair and sex go back to caveman times, reports the Daily Star.
Dr Pam Spurr, a relationships expert, said: "The woman who no longer wants sex uses a haircut to show she's reclaiming power in the bedroom.
"For women, hair is a reflection of the person, of her moods and her self-esteem."
Relationship psychologist Anjula Mutanda added: "Cave paintings celebrated long-haired women - the longer the hair the more fertile and, therefore, desirable she was."
But body language and behaviour expert Judy James disagrees, saying: "The only thing it symbolises these days is the shutting off of childhood. In terms of sex, I would argue it has the opposite effect."