By Russell Salzman

It has been the bane of every man’s existence for the better part of recorded history, and has caused distress and heavy drinking for single people for nearly as long. It is the inevitable topic of a column devoted to sex and relationships, published in mid-February. Its name is Valentine’s Day, and you should all be very, very frightened.

Well, maybe not frightened, but at the very least vigilant and aware.

This is a holiday that is devoted to relationships and the love/like that is shared between two (or more, I’m not one to judge) individuals. At least that is its intention. What the holiday usually ends up doing is forcing men and women to spend ridiculous amounts of time and money on getting the perfect gift for their partners, and forcing all of us single people out there to reflect on the fact that we are, in fact, single. Whether by choice or by circumstance, no one likes to be reminded that they are alone on this holiday.

But my friends, please do not despair, for I have good news: if you find yourself grouped in with any of the aforementioned generalizations, you are viewing this holiday all wrong.

For those of you in a relationship or situation that warrants buying your partner a Valentine’s Day gift, think back to the golden rule for Christmas, birthdays and any other gift-giving occasion - it’s the thought that counts. Who cares if you spend that extra $40, $50, or even $100 on that giant bouquet of flowers that you put no time or effort into? Same goes with jewelry and pricey trinkets.

Romanticism draws from the creativity and effort that you are willing to use to put a smile on your partner’s face, and an extra-fast beat in their heart.

Cover her bed with hand-picked flowers, make your guy his favorite meal with his favorite brew or even just steal your partner away from a night of drinking Downtown so you can both cuddle on the couch and watch a bunch of your favorite movies; the best gifts are the ones that require more planning and thought than money. After all, anyone can swipe a credit card, but only your special someone can give you what your heart really desires.

And for you single people, please don’t think that I have forgotten about you. Although all your friends who are in relationships or are seeing someone will (hopefully) be spending the day/night with their partners, I guarantee you that there is still a significant number of single friends that you can surround yourself with so no one feels lonely when there is so much love in the air.

And believe me, love is in the air. Although you may enter the holiday single, that may not be how you leave it if you play your cards right. So go party or hang out with your friends, meet some new people and let the holiday work its magic. At the very least, you’ll have a fun night. At best, you’ll find yourself paying attention to a different section of this column next year - the part devoted to those in a relationship.

Use this coming week to plan an unforgettable Valentine’s Day for your special someone or to find yourself a new person to devote to your affection, and don’t let your relationship status hold you down.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Source: Pipe Dream

By: GateHouse News Service

Tip of the Week

Valentine’s Day is coming, and that means there might be romance in the air at your workplace. Here are five tips from business etiquette expert Barbara Pachter, author of the book “NewRules@Work: 79 Etiquette Tips, Tools, and Techniques to Get Ahead and Stay Ahead,” to help you and your significant other share a copier by day and a bedroom by night without hurting your professional image:

1. Do not broadcast your relationship on any social media sites. Keep the relationship private. Your co-workers do not need to know the intimate details of your romance. No posting information or photos about your latest love interest on Facebook or sending tweets about it. You never know who will see them.

2. No giant billboards in Times Square! If the relationship fails, be professional and adult about it. A recent billboard in New York publicly announced the affair between Charles Phillips, co-president of Oracle Corporation, and his mistress. Even if you have been jilted and the relationship ends badly, you cannot vent your negative feelings in public. This is the risk of office relationships. They sometimes don’t work out and then you have to continue to see or work with the person.

3. No physical contact in the office. No romantic displays. No secret kissing, caressing, hand holding or sex in the office. This also includes your behavior at office parties.

4. Don’t e-mail X-rated Valentine’s Day cards. E-mail is not private. Do not mail an unsigned Valentine’s Day card to a co-worker. Being a secret admirer is not a corporate concept.

5. Your boss shouldn’t be your valentine. Relationships are tricky enough without your boss or subordinate being your valentine. If you are dating your boss, have your reporting relationship changed.

Source: McPhersonSentinel.com

By Susan Seligson

Why should your sex life dry up when you reach middle age? Susan Seligson says hers just keeps on getting better

I came of age sexually at the start of the 1970s. These were the sexual salad days of a generation, in that rose-coloured window between the appearance of the pill and the onslaught of HIV.

I was 16 when I started college. Along with an Indian bedspread, a plug-in teapot and a copy of On the Road, the trappings of my new life included the pill, dispensed like candy at the local clinic. Abortions, too, were easily available. At the campus clinic, doctors and nurses treated nuisances such as crabs and genital warts without a trace of moral judgment.

And so we did it whenever, wherever, with whomever; the act’s justification rarely more compelling than a shared dance, or conking out after a party in a house in which the people happened to outnumber the beds.

With libidos fuelled by recreational drugs, beer or just youthful hormones in overdrive, we suffered few regrets and little guilt. Our limbs were supple, our skin was unmottled, our bellies were flat. Though my friends and I routinely poured our hearts out to each other on a range of matters, a constant refrain was, “So, how was the sex?”.

How was the sex? Not so good. I know this now, in middle age, because I and many of my peers are having the best sex of our lives. Really. In fact, people my age and older seem to fall into two distinct categories: those who crave sex, feel entitled to it and thrive on it, and those who couldn’t care less if they never did it again.

Above all, good sex requires confidence. And confidence comes with age. When I was 18, 19, 20, I was too shy to discuss my desires with boyfriends, never mind one-night stands. None of us wanted it to be slam-bam, but slam-bam it mostly was. We pored over the book Our Bodies, Ourselves and concurred that we should taste our own menstrual blood and contort ourselves in front of a mirror, speculum in hand, but we didn’t truly inhabit our bodies. Mostly, we obsessed about being fat, which, ironically, few of us actually were.

When it came to sex, I followed my partners’ lead. My sexual behaviour reflected my general cluelessness. I couldn’t count the times I would force a faux-satisfied murmur while some guy worked furiously on a spot miles away from any serious nerve endings. Now I have carnal GPS — turn there, stop here — and men are grateful and not at all shy about directing traffic themselves.

Good sex requires a well-honed sense of the ridiculous. This, too, comes from experiencing love, loss, parenthood and random infirmities since the summer of love. Though as youths we considered ourselves ground-breakingly ­hilarious, we steered clear of laughing at ourselves.

Then again, when we were young and lacked a sense of power and self-awareness, unfunny stuff happened and we let it happen. What grown woman doesn’t harbour icky memories of boys smashing our heads into their laps like cops stuffing suspects into the back of a police car? No 50-plus woman I know would put up with such nonsense. Among consenting, mature adults these antics are irrelevant.

As a widow who has dabbled in online dating, I have awakened to a world crowded with unattached, 50-plus men and women who aren’t merely looking for sex, but for great sex. I know single women my age who simply won’t abide bad sex. If their efforts to improve the situation aren’t successful, they move on, telling anyone who asks that the sex was lousy and, as such, unacceptable. So much for the stereo­type of the postmenopausal sexual retiree.

Women’s magazines are awash with prescriptions for reinvigorating, or reviving, marital sex in the waning years: light candles, wear seductive lingerie, unplug the phone, uncork the K-Y, pop the Viagra. That drug and its ilk may have fewer women tiptoeing around the delicate matter of erectile dysfunction. However, these recipes for romance don’t address a big problem: many women over 50 are ashamed of their naked bodies.

Yet it isn’t a regimen of Pilates or eating like an air fern that makes you feel sexy. Sex makes you feel sexy. Fewer mirrors, more laughter, I say. Of women who are self-conscious about their flab, I ask, have you seen a guy over 50 without a spare tyre, or at least an undisguisable paunch? I know a man who looks like he’s 12 months pregnant and he gets all the sex he wants. It’s because he adores women, he’s full of mischief and he has been around long enough to know that sex with a smart, confident, cellulite-covered woman in her sixties is much more fun than watching a bony Victoria’s Secret model mesmerised by her own reflection.

What a shame that marital sex can be so fraught, even burdensome, that many of us allow sex to recede until it withers and dies. Maybe because I’m unattached and count myself as one of those women who wants a man in her life but not in her house, these days I sometimes view sex as akin to a spa treatment.

It’s invigorating, it gives me an all-over glow and it makes me feel attractive. It leaves me feeling peaceful and whole. At 50 and beyond, good sex reminds us how miraculous our flawed bodies can be. And it helps that you’re not gnarling the bed sheets with an Olympian poster boy. I suppose we should also be grateful that our near vision is failing to the point where the unsightly is invisible.

There’s another reason sex after 50 can and should be the best sex of our lives: our keen awareness of our mortality. Schopenhauer declared sex to be the “greatest affirmation of life”. Think of how sexually charged life ­becomes in a war zone. In advancing age, we are in a war zone of sorts.

A voracious, unbridled bout of sex is the best hedge against death, and it’s recession-proof. If we can still move, sex can make us feel better. Mysterious aches and pains evaporate. We sleep better. Postcoital food somehow tastes better, and we can eat it with the guiltlessness of an athlete.

Not long ago, I read an ­article about sex in old-people’s homes. The news was, not only does it exist, it is fairly common, and not only among committed couples. I find the notion ­inspiring. Nice to know that if we use it, we don’t lose it. And it sure beats ­doing the hokey cokey in the day room.

Source: timesonline

By: Kirk Honeycutt

(Pic)-Cast member Meryl Streep arrives for the world premiere of ‘It’s Complicated’ in New York December 9, 2009. REUTERS/Finbarr O’Reilly

LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) - “It’s Complicated” is a middle-aged sex comedy but with more rom-com urges than farcical ones.

It’s from writer-director Nancy Meyers, who has found a comfort zone in gentle, even warm comedies about older adults facing complications that re-direct their lives into pleasantly unexpected emotional channels. “Complicated” forges ahead with these themes. Because no one else in Hollywood seemingly makes movies for middle-aged moviegoers, especially women, Meyers inevitably scores box-office successes, and this one should forge ahead in that area, too. Universal releases the film Christmas Day.

What Meyers doesn’t do is take chances. She sticks to formula and predictability. In “Complicated,” this is as much a matter of casting as writing.

Meryl Streep, apparently not wasting any cooking lessons she had for “Julie & Julia,” plays a divorced owner/pastry chef of a successful Santa Barbara bakery/restaurant. She is only now coming to terms with her divorce from Alec Baldwin, who dumped her 10 years earlier for a much younger woman. Even so, shopping for plastic surgery and building an extension to her rustic house indicate a certain restlessness despite her apparent equanimity.

The graduation of one of their three grown children on the East Coast throws her together with her ex at a time when his wife (Lake Bell) isn’t around. Wine flows, sparks fly and — you would never guess, but then again, you probably will — the two launch an unplanned, drunken affair. Suddenly, Streep is the “other” woman.

But the casting foreshadows most of the dramatic turns. Baldwin has developed a second career in films and television by more or less spoofing his macho image. So his character, a comic exaggeration of male befuddlement with womankind, is never a credible life choice for the restaurateur. Then, too, Steve Martin has just walked in: He’s the architect who is going to change her life with that home extension, and you know, even though he’s more subdued than you might expect, that he isn’t in the story to discuss the importance of retaining walls.

In the movie comedy world dominated by Judd Apatow, Meyer’s idea of naughtiness is charmingly quaint. The older adults — hide this from the kids — smoke pot! Yes, they do. Streep drops her bathrobe to expose her over-50-year-old body just as Diane Keaton did in Meyers’ “Something’s Gotta Give.” (No, of course you don’t see anything.) The film’s really racy moment comes when Baldwin’s private parts are accidentally Skyped to an unwilling viewer.

The near-farcical maneuvers by the parents in and around their kids (Caitlin Fitzgerald, Zoe Kazan and Hunter Parrish) and one prospective son-in-law (John Krasinski) and the shocked/delighted reactions to the affair by her gal pals (Rita Wilson, Mary Kay Place, Alexandra Wentworth, Nora Dunn) get milked for all possible laughs they will yield.

What Meyers has going for her in all the films she has directed from her scripts is her ability to evoke a fantasy world where grown men can cry and realize their mistakes while grown women love them for that. Cynicism — real cynicism, not the catty, superficial kind espoused by this First Wives Club chorus — is banished, and true love still is a possibility.

To whatever degree the writer-director is rewriting her own life story, crucially she is doing so for countless middle-aged women, and probably more than a few guys who need to swallow all the pills Baldwin’s character does to get through the day.

This is a comfort zone for such viewers even if the characters are no more real than the models in Vanity Fair ads. Streep is a vision of mature loveliness, a smart, sexy mom who always knows the right things to say to the kids and how to extricate herself from embarrassing situations. Far from the real world, she lives in a multimillion-dollar home, can — after a suitable number of comic mishaps — make sense of her life and even get Skype to work without having to consult younger family members.

Source: macondaily.com

Technological gains may render one person extinct in adultery: The blindsided dupe

By Monica Hesse
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Cheating scenario, 1989:

There were errant signs. Like the times you phoned the office and it rang and rang (”I was in the conference room,” he said), like the matchbooks from places with names like the Candlelight Inn, where you’d never been. There were always plausible explanations. Work lunches! Work trips! Work lipstick! You wondered if you were crazy. There was so much wondering. Months, maybe years of uncertainty.

Cheating scenario, 2009:

I found your text messages, Jerk boy. Pack your bags.

* * *

There are so many questions about Tiger Woods’s reported affairs. (A cocktail waitress? Really? Have you seen his wife? And who knew Swedes could get so angry?!) But perhaps what’s most vexing is related to the saucy missives waitress Jaimee Grubbs claims were sent to her by the professional golfer.

Specifically: What kind of nitwit celebrity would still leave an e-trail?

Did he not learn from Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), whose affair was apparently discovered because of a text message? Was he not convinced by the career annihilation of Kwame Kilpatrick after the revelation of naughty notes between the former Detroit mayor and his chief of staff? If only Woods had watched a recent episode of “Glee” — Quinn catches Puck sexting — he would have realized the technology that enables you can also destroy you.

This raises a question: In an age of iPhones, TMZ and standard-issue personal GPS devices, is technology killing the affair?

Here’s a potentially apocryphal anecdote, submitted via e-mail to game forum GoNintendo.com: The e-mailer, a soldier, came back from Iraq and settled down to play some Nintendo Wii. He found an unfamiliar avatar lurking in his console. It was the Mii created by his wife’s lover.

Schadenfreude-by-Google, as related in a column written by a London attorney: His client was apparently tooling around on the Google Maps Street View option and looked up a friend’s house. Parked outside was her husband’s Range Rover, identifiable by its custom rims. He was supposed to be on a business trip.

We’re not talking the end of cheating altogether. There will forever be opportunities for hook-ups in bars or incidents of ex-sex. The social scientists who research infidelity say that the Internet is good for adultery. Sites such as cheating portal AshleyMadison.com have made it easier than ever to find some sleazy person whose interests include long walks on the beach and home-wrecking.

And yet maybe technology is doing in the long-term dupe, the dangerous liaison where no one gets caught and no one pays.

Everyone pays these days, Tiger. Everyone pays.

“The first thing my partner and I said,” Mike Russell says. “We said, ‘Wait, he’s got all that money and he doesn’t have a bat phone?’ ” — the secret cell kept just for booty calls.

Russell is a private investigator in Alexandria. He uncovers cheating, or verifies what the wronged parties usually already know. “I just finished talking to a lady a few hours ago,” Russell says. “She sees 300 texts going to the same number on her husband’s phone, she knows what’s happening.”

Because the cheaters never have a bat phone. They never seem to realize how nakedly traceable their actions are. (It’s like sex tapes. Post-Paris Hilton, post-Eric Dane, post-Carrie Prejean, why do people still make sex tapes? Have they never heard of YouTube? Do they think they still have zones of privacy? Ha ha ha, that’s cute.)

But those who try to go bat phone, who try to be smart about their duplicity, still get tripped up in the end. Tasha Cunningham is the founder of DontDateHimGirl.com, a site on which women share their bad-relationship stories and talk about how they totally caught the cheating snakes disguised as boyfriends.

In one of Cunningham’s favorite stories from the site, a guy thought he was being crafty by creating a secret Facebook profile in addition to the one his significant other knew about. He used it to amass dozens of friends, most of them pretty women. Unfortunately, one of those friends turned out to also be a friend of his lady’s. “Or maybe it was a friend of a friend,” Cunningham says. “Often, it’s a friend of a friend,” but what’s the distinction, really? Do degrees of separation even exist anymore, when everyone is connected with everyone else?

“It’s amazing, the people we find are cheating because of their Facebook photos,” says Ed Hruneni, president of the Private Investigators Association of Virginia. “Or . . . we’ll go with Twitter stuff. The wife might be wondering, was he at work on Friday night?” and meanwhile there’s the phone number she’s noticed her husband calling all the time.

Hruneni can find a name to go with that phone number, and within minutes he has subscribed to a Twitter feed. It’ll say something like ” ‘I was with Bulldog on Friday night, and boy did we stay out late.’ There are no photos.” There’s no full name, but then we go back to the wife, and what was her husband’s nickname? Oh, it’s Bulldog? Hunh.

And what about “GPS trackers. We can stick them on cars, real time, and know where you are. . . . we can find passwords you deleted seven years ago,” and do everything legally, Hruneni says.

Let’s ring up Sandy Ain, one of the District’s most prominent divorce attorneys, and ask him how many of his adultery cases involve technology.

“It’s the majority,” Ain says.

And how many involve cheaters being caught by their own technology?

“It’s very often.”

Isn’t it so typical of the way we engage with technology? Always thinking of the benefits, of the way we could tappa-tappa notes to mistresses while sitting innocently next to the girlfriend — never thinking of the times when we’re in the shower and the girlfriend might glance at the BlackBerry.

UR busted.

Source: washingtonpost.com

by Courtney Kerrigan

Course defines the ‘hook-up,’ other new relationship terms

“It’s complicated” - that’s the typical and oh-so-familiar phrase that many couples use to describe their relationships, or lack thereof.

But while both men and women search for a solution to the confusing terminology, the psychology department is offering a class in the spring that may provide some answers.

Sex and Romance in the 21st Century centers on the study of different relationships that occur today, said Manfred Van Dulmen, assistant professor and creator of the class.

The class is offered Tuesdays and Thursdays from 10 to 11:15 a.m. in Bowman Hall and is worth three credit hours.

It not only focuses on marital and dating relationships, but also other experiences such as “hooking up” or “friends with benefits.”

“A number of courses at other universities teach around personal relationships and focus more on marital relationships,” Van Dulmen said. “What I wanted to do was have a course that expands beyond that and reflects the sort of broad array of experiences in relationships that people may have right now.”

Van Dulmen said he will discuss psychological theories and ideas that help students understand why people enter into certain relationships, both positive and negative.

“I think it will help students understand relationships that they may have or other people around them may have,” he said.

The class is open to anyone, as it’s not limited to psychology majors or upperclassmen.

He added that students interested in being psychologists or therapists in the future will benefit significantly from the class, as the coursework will help in dealing with relationships.

Students will also look at romantic experiences that may be linked to future romantic relationships, and how these experiences are rooted in past relationships with parents and friends.

“Until maybe 10 years ago, most people thought that adolescent romantic relationships were short lived - that people really saw it as something that happened in movies or novels, but not that it was a real thing with real implications,” Van Dulmen said.

The class stands as a lecture class, but Van Dulmen said there will be some guest speakers, video material from TV and movies and possible discussion with students, although the size of the class may reach 400 students.

“This is a topic I’m very excited about because I study this area,” Van Dulmen said. “I haven’t taught a course like this, and it’s one of the reasons I wanted to do this.”

Although Van Dulmen admits he has not taught undergraduate students in a few years, he has instructed graduate statistics courses in his six years at Kent State.

“We hope that this will be a course that will get some people excited about psychology or studying relationships.”

Source: kentnewsnet.com

by Gregory Boyce

Over the last week the world has been fairly saturated and tuned-in with golfing legend Tiger Woods’ admission to committing transgressions against his wife and family. Tiger Wood’s once stellar image that made him enormously rich in terms of commercial appeal, is now slightly tarnished. As most of the world rhetorically asks, “how could a man who appeared to have it all, act so foolishly and put at risk the people who meant the most to him, meaning his wife and kids”? we must remember that money, fame and power will corrupt a large percentage of individuals who are willing to trade their morals for a chance to fullfil their hidden fantasies. If you don’t believe me ask any Senator or member of Congress.

Now for the rest of us mortal men and women who are not financially in a position to have gold diggers find us attractive, we still have to ask, “why do 75 percent of married men cheat on their wives”?  And why are a growing number of wives cheating on their husbands? I’ve done a little research and this article discusses how infidelity can creep into a married couple’s life and take root. Cheating is not always about having the money to entice a person to sleep with you, it’s about lust and fullfiling fantasies, it’s a complicated issue but definitely worth a look at should you currently be “walking the line” of infidelity.

Statistics state that seventy-five percent of all married men in the United States are unfaithful to their wives. Of the men who cheat, statistics state that two-thirds of their wives are unaware of the affairs that their husbands are having. I guess that in today’s society, a good man really is hard to find.

Guess what America? Men aren’t alone when it comes to infidelity. Wives are also cheating on their husbands more than ever. Let’s take a look at some of the common causes of cheating, and let’s see how they can be avoided:

LACK OF SEXUAL INTIMACY WITHIN THE MARRIAGE

Per marriage counselors, if you and your spouse have stopped being intimate with each other, or if you have drastically decreased the frequency of your intimacy, then your personal relationship is going to suffer.

Sex is an integral part of a marriage. It is a way to share something with each other that is personal and loving, and the connection that you share during sex creates a deeper connection between the two of you that extends to all areas of your life.

Although it can be difficult for many couples to find the time in their busy schedules, juggling work and family and household chores, it is important to make intimacy a priority, even if that means scheduling time for it. If you are too tired at the end of the day to have sex, get up for an early lovemaking session, or slip away for some private time together on a Saturday afternoon.

Maintain excitement between the two of you by integrating foreplay into your everyday lives. Call your husband at work, and tell him how eager you are to be with him tonight. Leave a naughty note in your wife’s car before she leaves for work. Wear lingerie sometimes, rather than just flopping into bed in your sweatpants and t-shirt. Light candles burn incense. Hold hands. Keep the romance alive! When you have been with someone for many years, sometimes you forget that it is the little things that make the biggest difference.

LACK OF EMOTIONAL INTIMACY WITHIN THE MARRIAGE

Married couples develop a silent form of communication between one another, but you can’t eliminate verbal communication from a relationship altogether. Couples who co-exist as if they were roommates are at risk for losing the friendship side of their relationship.

Talk to your spouse about your day; make it a dinner-time ritual. After dinner, don’t park in front of the television. Find the joy of just sitting together; sharing your thoughts and innermost feelings. Unless you have consistent communication, you will grow further apart, and turn into strangers. You will long for an emotionally intimate relationship, and that is why many married people stray from their mate.

SEXUAL ADDICTION

Sexual addiction is one of the worst afflictions that a married person can possess. Someone with a sexual addiction craves different sexual partners and lots of sex, and it can be as hard an addiction to conquer as drinking or drug use. Sexual addiction can be hard to understand and very hard to forgive because when someone cheats on you, it feels like the ultimate betrayal.

If you or your spouse has a sexual addiction, then you should seek professional help. If you have a partner with sexual addiction who refuses treatment, then you should leave the relationship to avoid the inevitable devastation you would encounter with a sexual addict for a spouse.

MID-LIFE CRISIS AFFAIRS

The severity of a mid-life crisis varies from person to person. Many struggle to come to grips with their own mortality, and they want to make sure that they get the most out of their life experience. Some men buy a fast sports car, some women rush out for plastic surgery, and some men and women stray from their relationships, often looking for a younger sexual partner to add some spice to their life.

If you notice that your partner is struggling to come to terms with aging, then you have to be a comfort to them.

Remind them how much you love them, and be willing to be adventurous together. Instead of dreading aging, embrace and enjoy it together. You might consider traveling together, or getting involved in a new hobby, such as bicycling. If you or your spouse is having a severely hard time with growing older, then seek professional counseling that will help with that phobia.

LIFESTYLE CHANGES

Major shifts in lifestyle can add stress to a marriage. It could be a new job that requires very long hours and has a very stressful set of responsibilities. It could be moving to a new home in a new city or town. It could be the birth of a child, or the death of a family member, or it could be an unforeseen financial disaster.

When our lives drastically change, we have to make adjustments in our marriages to accommodate the changes. Communicate with your spouse; share your concerns with each other. Try to change and deal with change together so that your relationship is actually strengthened by stresses in the long run. If you start leading entirely separate lives, then you are more likely to enter into an affair.

As always Louisianans, the Examiner.Com is interested in what you think.  (1) Has Tiger Woods learned his lesson? (2) Do you believe that 75% of married men cheat or have cheated on their wives? And (3) do you believe that married women are more likely to cheat for affection than for money? Inquiring minds want to know.

Source: Examiner.com

Matt Mosher, Life Editor

Sex is arguably the most physically satisfying part of any relationship. But with sex comes great responsibility.

It is also important to understand what type of relationship the couple is part of, be it a one night stand, friends with benefits or a genuine attempt at a working relationship.

“A healthy relationship is, at its core, where two people are authentically themselves with one another, giving and receiving respect for who they are,” said Jane Fischer, Director of SBI health education.

Fischer said the amount of sex in a relationship depends on the comfort of both people involved and that neither partner should be pressured, forced, or coerced into doing anything with which they feel uncomfortable.

“People have needs, but sometimes those needs are different,” Fischer said. “If two people care about each other at the core - without sex… open, honest conversation can happen… the key is honest, respectful communication - expressing needs, wishes, fears, etc. If one partner is having more or less sex than they would like, they need to express that [and] the other partner needs to truly hear the other, and base their decisions on their own comfort, as well as the comfort of their partner.”

Mary Jo Fay, the author of Please Dear, Not Tonight, a new book about sex in relationships said in an article on webmd.com that couples should sometimes try to plan ahead for sex. Adding, “when sex is on the calendar, it increases your anticipation.”

Fay says that mixing things up a bit can increase your sexual enjoyment as well. Partners can try “doing it” in a kitchen, a classroom or even try it while standing up.

“Sex brings us closer together, releases hormones that help our bodies both physically and mentally, and keeps the chemistry of a healthy couple healthy,” Fay said in the article.

For partners feeling uncomfortable talking about the dirty deeds, SBI offices have trained student and professional staff who meet one-on-one with students, or meet with them as a couple, to talk about how to communicate respectfully, honestly, and how to listen to one another, according to Fischer.

“If a couple has had sex once, it doesn’t mean that either partner should feel compelled to have sex again,” Fischer said. “This needs to be spelled out at the beginning, and throughout the relationship - a sort of ‘checking in.’ One person may think, ‘Since I haven’t said I want this to be an exclusive, romantic relationship, then he/she knows its not.’ The other, at the same time may think, ‘I haven’t said that I want this to be a casual, no-strings-attached relationship, so he/she knows its not.’”

She added that having sex too early can have different meanings and depends on what each partner expects and needs to get out of the relationship, and what they expect and need to put in to the relationship.

SBI also offers workshops on healthy relationships, Fischer said. They’re interactive, they can be fun, and they allow people to ask frank questions, and hear real responses. Anyone who would like to learn more can contact SBI at healthed@buffalo.edu or call 829-2584.

“Sex should not be the core of the relationship - respect is,” Fischer said.

Source: The Spectrum, The Independent Student Newspaper Of The University At Buffalo

September 22, 2009

Join Jessica Walker, Author of the “Safer in the City” column for SaferDates.com, tonight as she interviews Yvonne Rice. Yvonne is a former Dating Agency Director and expert in the research of all aspects of the single lifestyle. She is a huge supporter of online dating and has researched 4,500+ online singles and over 6,000 online dating sites globally. As a result of this research, she is also the Author of two books dedicated to being single and dating online, “Love Sex Lies and the Internet Mouse ‘Trap’” and “Finding ‘The One’ - A Powerful Step-by-Step Guide to Making Online Dating Work for You”, available through SaferDates.com.

The radio show starts promptly at 7:00pm EDT and listeners can call in at 718-766-4680 to talk to Yvonne. Just click on the link below and enjoy the show.

Safer Dates discusses Love Sex Lies and the Internet Mouse “Trap”

A Safer Dates Melody by Eric Rosati

Sex for the newly single can be terribly intimidating. This is especially true if you’ve been in a long-term relationship for years — continue reading