The Friday Sex Blog [Sexual Peaks]

¡Hola! Everybody…
It’s Friday! Yaaay! Enjoy your birthday party, Marisol!

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-=[ Sexual Peaks: Men and Women ]=-

Today’s post has to be a quickie (pun intended)!

I think that by now most of us have the heard the cliché that knowledge is power. Clichés are clichés because for the most part they are true. But I would like to add a qualifier to this particular cliché and add that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing. What I mean by that is that incomplete knowledge is dangerous because it leads to erroneous assumptions.

The folk wisdom that women reach their sexual peak after age thirty; men in their teens is one of those assumptions.

Mind you, after extensively researching this area -- the published literature, reading through piles of “experts,” Masters and Johnson, etc. -- I can’t say I have come to a definitive conclusion. However, that doesn't mean that we shouldn’t question this assumption. In fact, there are more reasons than not to be suspicious about this often-cited “fact.”

I started where everyone should start: I asked myself the question where did this claim have its origin. I was able to trace it to the famous Kinsey surveys of more than a half century ago. Kinsey came about to his conclusion by simply polling people on the frequency of various sexual behaviors. Based on the number of times the interviewees said they had masturbated or had intercourse or erotic dreams, Kinsey’s crew figured that women reached their peaks in their mid-to-late thirties -- long after men.

Sexual peak is not a clear-cut term, however. For example, the number of sexual experiences per year may be different from how much one enjoys them, and this may be different from how often one thinks about sex or how much enjoyment one brings to one’s partner. Who’s to say which one these is most relevant to the idea of a sexual peak period?

Even if we were to decide to limit this discussion to one of mere frequency, the problem with using the Kinsey-style method is that it’s unclear whether women are said to peak later in life for physiological, psychological, or social reasons. One possible reason, according to one study on human sexuality, is that giving birth may help women to become more sexually responsive because they develop more capillaries in the genital area. However, the same researcher notes that a crying baby in the next room may do far more to cool sexual desire than a few more blood vessels could do to stoke it. In fact, a good number of women report a loss of sexual desire immediately after giving birth.

One of the better-known researchers into sexual hormones and their effect on behavior is John Money (and with whom I disagree with in other areas). He insists that how we are raised to think about sex is more relevant than how much estrogen or testosterone we secrete. He observes that while we need a little amount of hormone to get the system going, additional hormone doesn’t do anything. If women enjoy sex more, or simply do it more, at forty than at twenty, this is probably more a reflection of the time required to break free from early social conditioning about sexual desire. According to Money, much of what we see as biological in women is intertwined with the concepts of how girls are educated or socially conditioned sexually.

Women are conditioned to think that if they’re horny that they’re sluts. Women peaking later may be a consequence of the time it takes to get over the more than twenty years of socialization before they can learn sex can be fun. An even better case against a biological reason for a later sexual peak is that from an evolutionary point of view it makes no sense for women to become interested in sex just as they’re nearing the end of their childbearing years.

If the issue is socialization, then the gap between men's and women’s sexual peak should narrow (become more alike) as the sexual double standards disappear. Sure enough, studies since the Kinsey report are consistently showing that “women are reaching high levels of sexual arousal at earlier ages.” There seems to be a leveling out between the sexes these days in terms of enjoyability and frequency of sex. On the other hand, women are less likely to report a physical motive (“I was horny”) until they are in their late thirties. What all this means is that there is a great need for a large national study, but politicians are naturally nervous about such a project and are resistant. In fact, there are very few studies on human sexuality taking pace these days (a recent sex study was published recently and I will post on that soon enough).

There is a more important question with the claim that women reach their sexual peak at thirty-five or whenever: a peak implies that something drops off after that year. The opposite seems to be true. Women tend to develop a greater ease and frequency of orgasm with more sexual experience. There is no evidence of a decline after the so-called peak.

Physiological changes in men are easier to predict than in women. Most forty year-olds ejaculate less than fifteen-year-olds, for example. However, the context in which the arousal takes place counts for a lot here. How can one speak meaningfully about levels of sexual excitement without knowing who is on the other side of the bed?

More importantly, the idea that men have passed their sexual peak before their 20s should raise the question whether a state of a perpetual erection means someone is at their sexual “peak” in any real sense. The middle-aged man may win the race in terms of the sexual satisfaction he gives and receives. In fact, a study of healthy middle-aged to elderly men indicated that while sexual arousal and activity were lower for older men, sexual enjoyment and satisfaction did not show a decline with increasing age. Furthermore, masturbation accounts for the majority of the huge surge early in life. That led Kinsey to talk about men reaching their sexual peak in late adolescence. Is that the measure of the kind of peak we’re really interested in?

This much is clear from my academic explorations and from personal experience: most men and women can enjoy sex at any time from puberty until death. Some researchers have found that some people don’t reach their peak until they’re in their late 80s! It would appear to me that there is no evidence suggesting that biology is dominant over social conditioning, psychological conditions, and individual situations. Which to me means there are no fixed sexual prime years or peak.

Yes, sometimes a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

SEX IS GOOD FOR YOU!

Love,

Eddie

The Friday Sex Blog [The Sex Wars]

¡Hola! Everybody…
I love New York City, the place of my birth and where I choose to call home. It is totally crazy, totally not like where you live, but who wants to live where you live? really LOL! I have lived here for most of my life and I can tell you I still haven't fully explored this City. With this in mind, please note that doors will be opened and welcome mats laid out all over the city this weekend (October 9 and 10) during Open House New York, highlighting many historic locations that are closed to the public for most of the year. Go to the Open House website for more information or pick up one of their guides (click here).

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-=[ Sex Wars ]=-

Confusion is a word we have invented for an order which is not understood.
-- Henry Miller, Tropic of Capricorn

The erotic impulse should be the basis for a joyous dance between the sexes, a filter through which we could better with each other, a vehicle through which can understand the masculine and feminine essence within each of us. It could and should be an opportunity to experience a little of that which we are not, an honoring of differences; a way of seeing the world through the other side of the gender looking glass.

Instead, our erotic experiences are more like a war -- a battle in the sexual marketplace. Heterosexually speaking, we’re often reduced to men trying to get sex from women and women resenting the male preoccupation with sex. What happens is a lot of anger: Men angry that women have sex and won’t give it to them and women angry that men try to take something from them through sex.

I look at the sexual landscape and it seems to me we’re all embroiled in an elaborate sexual power game, both blatant and on the DL. Sex pioneer Wilhelm Reich pointed out long ago that sex becomes a commodity, whose value is exaggerated by a created and artificial scarcity. As it happens with all commodities, the basic question becomes who gets what from whom and at what price. Sex, in this context, becomes a basis for the exchange of money, financial security, attention, personal favors, and most of all, the illusion of affection. This illusion becomes even more pronounced in the cyber arena. I know of some individuals who act out sexually solely via cyber space.

If that isn’t whoring, then I don’t know what is… Welcome to the Thunderdome. Instead of love and appreciation -- instead of an exquisite dance of love and mystery -- we too often experience the erotic as an field of manipulation. And we’re left feeling a profound emptiness from which springs the anger, resentment, confusion, and tears -- all of which we then blame on the erotic impulse, as if it were to blame.

A great deal of this sexual confusion and pain comes from the fundamentally different ways men and women are socially conditioned when it comes to sexuality. The erotic training of boys is so radically different from that of girls that we might as well have been raised in entirely different cultures. In fact, it would probably more helpful to think the sexual wars in just those terms. If we were to come together with a curiosity to learn about each other’s customs, we might be able to begin to perceive, without blame and judgment, our different perspectives on Eros (the sexual impulse). It would be like one person saying, “Among my people, sex is generally a prelude to intimacy, a way of making one emotionally vulnerable.” Another person could respond, "Really? Among my people it’s the opposite -- emotional intimacy is required before a person would feel safe enough to allow this vulnerability of being sexual.”

No need to make one right, the other wrong. No need to laugh at or resent our differences.

Almost from birth, adults relate to boys’ bodies differently than they do girls’. Boys are held less, fondled less, and allowed to cry longer before being answered with touch. Later, they learn not to be sensual because sensuality is framed as feminine, and there is a masculine identity to be forged in which rejecting the dominant figure of the mother plays a big part. Boys are taught that it is not cool to want to be held and comforted, not cool to want to be softly stroked. What is cool, even necessary, is to want sex. The entire urge for touch, comfort, care, gentleness, and intimacy is reduced into the single outlet of sex.

At the same time, girls are taught that sex is their enemy. Sex is a monster, a male beast, and it is the task of the female to tame the beast. Sex contains the danger of pregnancy, and also the danger of destroying one’s status among the society of “good girls.” Sex as pleasure is only permitted if it’s essentially an expression of love for a partner, but sex for its own sake -- lust, desire -- is unfeminine.

So here we are thrown together in this mess. The boys, and later men, try to get all of what they have condensed into sex from the girls and women, who have reduced sexual desire to a romantic detail. Ultimately, the men are left feeling rejected and angry; the women feel pressured, objectified, and angry.

We all bleed.

Sadly, the first casualty in this war is the pure nature of the erotic dance. Lost, along with all of its potential for magic, healing, pleasure, intimacy, and fulfillment.

We need to take back our erotic impulse and begin looking honestly at the different perspectives on eroticism. We need to explore how desire is aroused differently in men and women. We need to take stock of the consequences of teaching men to pursue sex at all costs, while at the same time teaching women to be afraid of sex. Perhaps we can begin by looking at the basic childhood experiences of boys and girls. For example, how does the fear of being subsumed by a dominant mother, versus the fear of being abandoned by an emotionally absent father, affect desire in men and women later life?

While male and female perspectives on erotic desire and sexual union differ greatly, we can still share a deep appreciation for the depth and wonder of human sexuality that transcends the imposed social limits of gender.

Love,

Eddie

PS: Sex is good for you.

The TGIF Sex Blog [Sex Wars]

¡Hola! Everybody…
Today is the Ex from Boston’s birthday. I believe she turns 28 today… I have something sweet for her I will be busy with work for most of the day. Have a great weekend.

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Sex Wars

“Confusion is a word we have invented for an order which is not understood.”
-- Henry Miller, Tropic of Capricorn

“We’re all whores.”
-- Edward-Yemíl Rosario

The sexual urge should be the basis for a joyous dance between the sexes, a filter through which we could better each other as men and women, a vehicle through which can understand the masculine and feminine essence within each of us. It could and should be an opportunity to experience a little of that which we are not, an honoring of one another’s differences, a way of seeing the world through the other side of the gender looking glass.

Instead, what we often experience in our erotic connection is more like a war – a battle of the sexual marketplace. Heterosexually speaking, we’re often reduced to men trying to get sex from women and women resenting the male preoccupation with sex. What happens is a lot of anger: Men angry that women have sex and won’t give it to them and women angry that men try to take something from them through sex.

I look at the sexual landscape and it seems to me we’re all embroiled in an elaborate sexual power game, both blatant and on the DL. Sex pioneer Wilhelm Reich pointed out long ago that sex becomes a commodity, whose value is exaggerated by a created and artificial scarcity. As it happens with all commodities, the basic question becomes who gets what from whom and at what price. Sex, in this context, becomes a basis for the exchange of money, financial security, attention, personal favors, and most of all, the illusion of affection. This illusion becomes even more pronounced in the cyber arena. I know of some women who act out sexually solely via cyber space.

If that isn’t whoring, then I don’t know what is…

Welcome to the Thunderdome. Instead of love and appreciation -- instead of an exquisite dance of love and mystery – we too often experience the erotic as an arena of manipulation. And we’re left feeling a profound emptiness from which springs the anger, resentment, confusion, and tears – all of which we then blame on the erotic impulse, as if it were to blame!

A great deal of this sexual confusion and pain comes from the fundamentally different ways men and women are socially conditioned when it comes to sexuality. The erotic training of boys is radically different from that of girls that we might as well have been raised in entirely different cultures. In fact, it would probably more helpful to think the sexual wars in just those terms. If we were to come together with a curiosity to learn about each other’s customs, we might be able to begin to perceive, without blame and judgment, our different perspectives on eros (the sexual impulse). It would be like one person saying, “Among my people, sex is generally a prelude to intimacy, a way of making one emotionally vulnerable.” Another person could respond, "Really? Among my people it’s the opposite – emotional intimacy is required before a person would feel safe enough to allow this vulnerability of being sexual.”

No need to make one right, the other wrong. No need to laugh at or resent our differences.

Almost from birth, adults relate to boys’ bodies differently than they do girls’. Boys are held less, fondled less, and allowed to cry longer before being answered with touch. Later, they learn not to be sensual because sensuality is defined as feminine, and there is a masculine identity to be forged in which rejecting the dominant figure of the mother plays a big part. Boys are taught that it is not cool to want to be held and comforted, not cool to want to be softly stroked. What is cool, even necessary, is to want sex. The entire urge for touch, comfort, care, gentleness, and intimacy is reduced into the single outlet of sex.

At the same time, girls are taught that sex is their enemy. Sex is a monster, a male beast, and it is the task of the female to tame the beast. Sex contains the danger of pregnancy, and also the danger of destroying one’s status among the society of “good girls.” Sex as pleasure is only permitted if it’s essentially an expression of love for a partner, but sex for its own sake – lust, desire – is unfeminine.

So her we are thrown together in this mess. The boys, and later men, try to get all of what they have condensed into sex from the girls and women, who have reduced sexual desire to a romantic detail. Ultimately, the men are left feeling rejected and angry; the women feel pressured, objectified, and angry.

We all bleed.

Sadly, the first casualty in this war is the erotic dance. Lost, along with all of its potential for magic, healing, pleasure, intimacy, and fulfillment.

We need to take back our erotic impulse and begin looking honestly at the different perspectives on eroticism. We need to explore how desire is aroused differently in men and women. We need to take stock of the consequences of teaching men to pursue sex at all costs, while at the same time teaching women to be afraid of sex. Perhaps we can begin by looking at the basic childhood experiences of boys and girls. For example, how does the fear of being subsumed by a dominant mother, versus the fear of being abandoned by an emotionally absent father, affect desire in men and women later life?

While male and female perspectives ion erotic desire and sexual union differ greatly, we can still share a deep appreciation for the depth and wonder of human sexuality that transcends the imposed social limits of gender.

Love,

Eddie

PS: Sex is good for you.