For years, media headlines have been screaming that everyone is into oral sex. But it’s only recently that we’ve started to see the research results to back this claim. According to a newly published study out of the University of Alberta, oral sex has become quite the common activity for young Canadian women.

Every participant who reported having had sexual intercourse also reported having engaged in oral sex, though interviews with the lead researcher, Brea Malacad, do not clarify if this is oral action is giving, receiving, or both. The research, published in the European Journal of Contraception and Reproductive Health Care, further showed that about half of respondents see oral sex as less intimate than sexual intercourse, though 41 percent find the sex acts equally intimate. What surprised Malacad was the fact that most young women enjoyed oral sex, reporting having mostly positive emotions about the act, with over 30% feeling powerful when performing fellatio.

Whether you’re male or female, going down on a man or woman can invite some of the most intense sexual experiences. For many women, having someone perform cunnilingus on them is their only means or the most effective means to realizing orgasm. This is in large part because the clitoris receives ample attention and can be effectively stimulated quite easily. For many men, having a nice, hot, wet mouth on their genitals, lips tightening around their pride and joy, is an experience like no other. Then there’s the matter of “hero worship” both genders are rather fond of.

For those with disability or chronic illness, oral sex can be an excellent way of staying intimate while getting around a lot of issues that get in the way of other types of sex. If you’re low on energy, have issues with spasticity, lubrication, or erections, or find penetration or thrusting difficult and uncomfortable, oral sex is one way to provide intense pleasures.   

Considered by many to be the most intimate sexual act both physically and emotionally, partners get off on tasting, smelling, and seeing each other in the most up close and personal way. The receiver thrives off of being doted on, while the giver can take great joy in making sure that their lover feels absolutely amazing.

While the prevalence of sexual activity, in general, declines with age, a significant number of men and women still engage in oral sex, amongst other sexual behaviors, even into their eighties and nineties. A 2007 AARP Modern Maturity Sexuality Survey of 1,384 individuals 45 and older found that age itself has the greatest impact on the frequency of oral sex for men and women. Greater physical satisfaction with the relationship was also found to be associated with more frequent oral sex for women. Men and women in shorter relationships were also found to engage in more frequent oral sex than those in long-term relationships.

Such blows away negative stereotypes regarding sexual inactivity in getting older. It further shows that oral is officially a part of many lovers’ sexual repertoires, putting it back in the bedroom as a revered celebration of sexual pleasuring, as it was amongst some of Earth’s earliest people for centuries.  

Though we don’t like to admit it, humans are largely lonely creatures. Whether wasting time on Facebook, searching for a tryst - or more - on a dating website, or hiring an escort for an event or evening, humans are often looking to fill a void. They long to connect and spend time with others. Most recently, this has been seen in the popularity of website Rentafriend, which gets 100,000 unique views per month.

Modeled after wildly successful sites in Japan and other Asian locales, Rentafriend has about 2,000 members who pay $24.95/month or $69.95/year to login and check out other potential friends. ‘Tis a bit sad on so many levels, especially when you consider the ways people overlook the instant connections they make with other people every day.

Take daily “passive contacts,” e.g., nodding to a person at your bus stop every morning. Social psychological research has shown that the more passive contacts you have with an individual, the more likely you are to gravitate toward that person – the likelier you are to connect.

What social scientists call “mere exposure effects” further influence our attraction for others. The more familiar the person, even on a subconscious level, the greater the appeal that individual has for us. So if you’re interested in meeting someone seemingly special or want to make a friend, start by making sure that this person sees you more often, as this alone makes you more attractive and friendly to others.

Once in a person’s space, use touch to your advantage, while being appropriate. As you may recall from a first romantic dinner, we tend to touch and look at those whom we have an immediate liking for, as this communicates closeness and affection (if even the desire for such). Those who touch during a first encounter have reported feeling more affection, trust, relaxation, similarity, and informality. They also feel more immediacy and receptivity with the other in having had the exchange.

These factors lend themselves to feeling closer to and more attracted to the individual touching us. All of this increases the likelihood of making a connection, in part because we’re automatically drawn to the other in picking up that person’s liking for us. Perhaps if people paid more attention to those cues and the people that they’re subconsciously connecting with, they wouldn’t need services like those on Rentafriend.

 

It’s long been suspected that older gals do it better, but more often? Turns out, they’re not getting the credit they deserve, with all indicators being that – single or married, mother or childless – older women are as much about being sexually active as they were in their younger years, if not more. A new study out of the University of Texas at Austin reports that women are more willing to engage in “reproduction expediting” sexual activities, like one-night stands or more “adventurous” bedroom behavior, as their biological clock makes itself known.

The report, published in Personality and Individual Differences, involved more than 827 women, and found that those ages 27 – 45 have a heightened sex drive, which researchers have attributed to their decreasing fertility. Compared to women of high fertility (those ages 18 – 26) and menopausal women, women of low fertility were likelier to report:

• Thoughts about sexual activities and a more active sex life (having sexual intercourse more frequently than women of other age groups)
• Not only more frequent sexual phantasms, but more intense ones than younger gals
• A desire to have casual sex or a one-night stand

Researchers concluded that a psychological adaptation takes place with declining fertility, starting in a female’s late twenties. Women are more willing to engage in a variety of sexual activities, primary of which is sexual intercourse, in an effort to maximize their reproductive capabilities. They admit, however, that other factors could be at play for her increased sexual pursuits, including a woman’s increased comfort with her sexuality with age.

Perhaps they could’ve been more definitive as to their results had they asked the women for their thoughts on the matter beyond simply assessing if they desired a child. Ask almost any woman in her thirties, and there is something about this decade in her life when her maternal instinct kicks into high gear, as 33-year-old pop star Shakira recently told Rolling Stones: “Lately my body feels like it is just asking to reproduce, to have a huge belly and carry babies.” Surprising, disarming, and pleasure-evoking, it’s an energy – a primal stirring – to which many women can relate. Perhaps, too, can her mate(s) – but that’s a whole other study.

It’s down to the last climactic moment. On Saturday, the Netherlands and Spain will play for the 2010 World Cup title, inspiring orgasmic reactions on and off the field alike. While the sex to be had by fans is admirable in celebrating their team’s victory (e.g., there’s a bumper year of births in England the better their team does, which, alas, won’t be so in 2011), football is the love fest. It’s the substitute for sex, capturing hearts, minds, and desires like nothing else worldwide.

Arousing and adrenaline-pumping, it’s the goal scoring in particular that invites an orgasmic experience that can never be had with a lover. The euphoric sensations and feelings players get from scoring a goal – from achieving that lifelong dream - are ones that can never be had in any other way, and shared no more passionately than with one’s teammates.

Best yet, peak performance is with the whole world watching, cheering you on, letting you ride - and ride – this most magnificent climax as your teammates smother you with hugs, kisses, and what, in many ways, looks like simulated sex. For a lot of people, footballers and fans alike, it’s all better than sex.  

The World Cup final match is like no other; it’s more important than any other. Unlike most people’s sex lives, the thrills witnessed here are forever captured in history books. They’re recounted throughout the ages. The fact that both Spain and the Netherlands have never held a World Cup title makes losing their virginity, I mean, celebrating either’s victory all the more “sexciting.”

So who do you predict giving you your kicks this weekend?

There are so many things that make up our sexuality. If I think back over my life, I know that my family's disapproval of certain things, the message that I got from the church, comments from my friends, things I saw on soap operas and movies, and the measly sex ed I got in sixth grade all combined to shape my early idea of what sex was, and what I thought it should and shouldn't be. Luckily, I was a bit of a bookworm, and so I checked out every book I could get my hands on that talked about sex and pregnancy (an alternative route to talking about sexuality). That certainly helped to add to the ideas already formed in my head about sex and sexuality. Even though I think that I was fairly open-minded about sex, loved to talk about it with my friends, and had good first experiences, those things did not prevent me from having some difficulties with sexuality later in life.

Now that I am an MD, psychiatrist, and sex therapist, I can look back to recognize that I had periods of time where my sexuality and sexual desire were affected by such varied things as anger, stress, fatigue, anxiety, self-image, and side-effects from different medications and/or products. Had I not become a psychiatrist, I might not have recognized the different ways these factors were negatively affecting my life and may have not sought to resolve them as I have. Now I don't usually talk about myself personally, but I felt that it was through personal experience and knowledge that I was best suited to comment on how the treatment of women's (and men's) sexual functioning, or dysfunction, is evolving at the hands the medical and the pharmaceutical industry.

Let's get one thing straight. The pharmaceutical industry is interested in making money. By extension, if the medical community can use pharmaceuticals to enhance their patient visits, and therefore income, they will prescribe them. How many medical professionals are hired, and paid very handsomely, each year by the pharmaceutical companies to push their products?

Obviously, advances in medical science have certainly improved our quality of life and life expectancy overall. And this is a welcome advantage of medicine and medications in general. But it seems that, as our society moves more in the direction of instant gratification and desire for quick-fixes, the less people want to take responsibility for their own lives, and the less effort they are willing to put into their lives to make positive, healthy changes. This is a score for the pharmaceutical companies because people continue to be in a condition to ask for, or require, medications. The cycle continues and the more medications they sell.

Now after the great financial success of Viagra, the pharmaceutical and medical industries have been on a campaign to define female sexual dysfunction as a disease or medical condition. In effect, they are discarding all of the personal, interpersonal, emotional, and environmental factors that can negatively impact a woman's sexuality, and instead focusing on the physical symptoms that result in order to label it as "an illness." This is a gross oversimplification and denial of what may really be happening to a woman to cause such a response.

By accepting the disease definition of sexual difficulties, a person is less likely to examine what areas of their life or lifestyle are contributing to their sexual dysfunction, and then work on these. It's easier to just take a pill. After all, your doctor told you that was the thing to do. Funny how nobody talks about the positive response from the placebo effect, which accounts for roughly 30% of response to medications (yes, a sugar pill). That demonstrates that your psychology can trump your biology, but it doesn't sell very many medications.

I love medical science and the practice of medicine, and I do prescribe medications. But I chose to be a sex therapist in order to have a holistic approach to my patients. I have seen the power of the mind to both make us sick and heal us. And when it comes to human sexuality, our mind is the major determining factor in our arousal, our sexual response, and our sexual satisfaction. Recognizing that anxiety and anger account for upwards of 80% of the patients who present with sexual complaints, I am worried about the medicalization of sexual dysfunction. Some have called it disease mongering on the part of the medical and pharmaceutical industry.

I believe that the flip side of that is the denial of responsibility by the patient, because this would suggest some effort and change required of them. Oftentimes, the healthiest thing to do is recognize what is harming you in life and move to change this for the better. Those professionals that have worked in sex therapy with patients understand the role that all of these factors play. They also have first hand experience at helping patients overcome these difficulties, many times without the need for medications and their side effects. I encourage everyone to put medicine in perspective and seek true balance and health, not just a band-aid approach to the complexity of our sexuality.

When it comes to sexual dysfunction, medications can be very efficacious and necessary at times. But this should never overshadow a comprehensive exploration and treatment of all the elements contributing to a person's complaints. Sexual dysfunction is not a disease.


By Madeleine M. Castellanos, MD