Good Sex is Good for You!

"Life without love is like a coconut in which the milk is dried up." Henry David Thoreau
"Good sex....Improves our health and may even contribute to our longevity."
Scientific evidence is accumulating support what many of us have suspected all along: good sex not only adds great enjoyment to our lives, but it also actually improves our health and may even contribute to our longevity.
In a new book called Sexual Healing, Dr. Paul Pearsall, Director of Behavioral Medicine at Detroit's Beaumont Hospital, writes that the joys and pleasures of living life and loving may provide us with something called an "intimacy inoculation" that actually protects us from disease.
Dr. Pearsall, who cites numerous other researchers, concludes, "Growing numbers of physicians now recognize that the health of the human heart depends not only on such factors as genetics, diet, and exercise, but also --to a large extent-- on the social and emotional health of the individual."
Sexual healing is achieved primarily through the daily challenge of maintaining a close, intimate relationship which, when accomplished, leads to balance between our health and healing systems.
Can lack of sexual intimacy create a risk factor for certain diseases? Dr. Pearsall cites research and his own clinical experience ndicating that sexual dissatisfaction seems to be prevalent prior to a heart attack in a high percentage of persons. Conversely, sexual contentment appears related to less severe migraine headaches, fewer and less-severe symptoms of premenstrual syndrome for women, and a reduction in symptoms related to chronic arthritis for both genders.
Although the exact biological mechanisms are not yet identified, many researchers are investigating how our thoughts, feelings, brain, immune system and sexual/genital system interact, influence each other, and affect our health. There may be an actual biological drive toward closeness, intimacy, and being connected to other human beings.
When we experience intimate, mutually caring sexual intimacy, we may experience a measurable change in neurochemicals and hormones that pour through the body and help promote health and healing.
"Hormones that pour through the body help promote health and healing."
Does this mean that to live longer or be more healthy we just need to DO IT more often or better? Of course not! Sex is a much broader concept that genital connecting or having an orgasm. Psychologist and author Gina Ogden, Ph.D. notes in her book, "Women Who Love Sex", that sex has everything to do with openness, connection to and bonding with a partner, feelings about what is happening to us, and memories. For those who love it, sex permeates their lives and is not merely a specialized, time-intensive, physical activity that takes place under the covers--as quickly as possible.
As a result of interviewing many women, Dr. Ogden learned that sexual desire, or lust, was produced by much more than physical stimulation. For women, according to Dr.Ogden, it has more to do with feelings of connectedness in their relationships: "Heart to heart, soul to soul, even mind to mind."
"For women, it has to do with feelings of connectedness in their relationships."
When discussing sexual connecting, Dr. Ogden's interviewees spoke of a FLOWING CONTINUUM OF PLEASURE, ORGASM, AND ECSTASY, rather than a one-time experience. They also described peak sexual experiences as coming from stimulation all over their bodies--not just from their genitals--including fingers, toes, hips, lips, neck, and earlobes.
Obviously, arousal and satisfaction evolve not only from receiving sexual energy, but also from the joy of stimulating one's partner. Sex, then, is a commitment of give and take.
Finally, the women Dr. Ogden studied have their own concepts of safe sex, essential to experiencing sexual pleasure and ecstasy. This kind of safe sex does NOT relate to preventing STDs or pregnancy; it relates, instead, to emotional and spiritual safety. Such safety is CRUCIAL for sexual closeness. Most of the women insisted that warm, loving connections with themselves and with their partners were essential to and inseparable from the experience of sexual ecstasy.
When people feel deeply close while merely holding hands, they are having sex. When people display caring for each other through hugs, caresses, and kissing, they are also having sex. When connecting people in a crowded room wink at each other in their own secret way, they are communicating sex to each other; such non-contact sex can be excitedly arousing and emotionally fulfilling. And, of course, during sexual union when the sky seems to open so a lightning bolt can strike the couple--while fireworks ignite and the earth stops spinning-- this is sex, too.
But wait. Do men also need this almost spiritual connection to enjoy sex and achieve good health? Well, yes and no. Men need sex and men need emotional connection, but many men don't necessarily need to put the two together!
According to Dr. Bernie Zilbergelt, who wrote The New Male Sexuality, sex for women is intertwined with personal connection. For some men , sex is unto itself--an act to be engaged in with or without love, with or without commitment, with or without connection.
Presently, younger boys are being socialized in a more enlightened manner; consequently, male attitudes toward sexual union are changing. But,unfortunately, the socialization of many men born in or before the 60's provided very little information of value to the formation and maintenance of intimate relationships. These men were taught, as youths, that males showed love by doing, not by talking or "connecting" with girls.
"Fortunately, anyone can...restore closeness, intimacy, and sexual flow."
Older men were usually also socialized to be strong and self-reliant, which usually means one doesn't easily talk about or admit personal problems. Many such men do not acknowledge worries and fears to their partners; they simply try to handle everything on their own.
A consequence of such reticence is (1) lack of intimacy in the relationship, with the wife feeling "left out" of her husband's life; and (2) men often don't get what they need because they don't know how to ask for it, so they feel distanced and frustrated when they really want closeness and intimacy as much as their partner does.
Sex under these conditions creates distance in the relationship or creates sexual dysfunction which drives an even deeper wedge into the relationship. This is especially true if a man is married to a woman must be wanted by her husband to have her sexuality validated.
Consequently, sex routinely becomes mechanical, unfeeling, and unfulfilling. Fortunately, anyone can break this vicious cycle and restore closeness, intimacy, and sexual flow in the relationship.

Your DNA's in the post

Fancy being told you have a higher-than-average chance of getting prostate cancer but are at low risk of glaucoma? Now for about £500 you can have your genetic make-up analysed. Rob Liddle swabbed his cheek and sent off for a scan.
An e-mail pops into my basket to say the results of my genetic scan are ready. I have a few minutes free - shall I take a peep now or wait until I can devote the time to digest the results properly?
Curiosity gets the better of me and I log on to the Decodeme website to view my password-protected "gene profile".
This is quite exciting - could what I find out in the next few minutes alter the course of my life? I'm curious by nature, but that doesn't extend to wanting to know when the Grim Reaper is going to come a-knocking.
Up pops a list of grisly conditions - most of which are familiar to me, indeed some of them lurk in my family history.
And it's the ones that have touched my life that I am drawn to first. I click on Heart Attack, bypass the warm-up "introduction" to the condition, and head straight for my own "risk summary".
I'm told: "According to the selected literature, the relative genetic risk calculated from your genotype for males of European ancestry is 0.90.
"This corresponds to a 44.2% lifetime risk of developing heart attack, which is 10% less than for males of European ancestry in general."
Fated to be fat?
So far so good, I suppose, but that's still a high risk and I'm not celebrating with a full English breakfast yet.
I scan the list of 25 traits again and settle on Crohn's disease. Here I'm told the research indicates that I have a lifetime risk 1.42 times the average. Not so good. But for Diabetes, types 1 and 2, better news.
Next I plump for Obesity - surely a banker. These genes make me look fat, right? No, a lower-than-average risk. I can't use that as an excuse for my fuller figure.
A number of personal genomics firms, including Iceland-based Decodeme and 23andme and Navigenics, in the US, are now directly selling tests to the public that assess genetic risks of suffering from certain conditions.
Some also provide information about your ancestral origins.
After receiving a sample taken from the inside of your cheek, Decodeme analyses up to one million DNA markers, annotates them and puts them in the context of disease risk, providing you with a personal profile.
'Do more exercise'
One reason the tests have proved controversial is that they can measure only the genes that studies have linked to certain conditions - not the many that have yet to be discovered.
Decodeme says it is continually adding the results of new research to its database, improving the accuracy of the existing risk summaries and extending the list of traits for which you can assess yourself.
But there are other risk factors that could easily override these genetic indications, such as family history and lifestyle. My genetic risk of getting type 2 diabetes is rated as below average, but being overweight probably counts for more.
Steve Jones, author and professor of genetics at University College, London, believes that, in most cases, individual genes cannot say much about a person's risk. For him, potential customers would be better off following the advice of the health lobby.
"It is a new form of diagnosis - before any symptoms manifest themselves - but really what everybody should do is smoke less, eat less and do more exercise," he says.
The Decodeme website has a section on risk factors and prevention for each of the conditions featured, which I later peruse.
From this I learn that the prevalence for Crohn's is highest during the second and third decades of life - but that it can crop up in the over-70s. I'm 42, so may have dodged that bullet.
And if I still have questions, I can message Decodeme's team, who may then refer me to a genetic counsellor.
But for some critics, discovering your risk of developing a serious condition from a web page rather than a doctor presents a serious problem - even if the scans are unlikely to throw up any catastrophic results.
The authorities in some states in the US have recently warned testing companies that they should not continue to solicit business from residents unless the process is being sanctioned by a licensed physician.
'Reduced autonomy'
Daniel Sokol, a lecturer in medical ethics at the University of London, says the absence of the direct doctor-patient relationship does create a problem.
"The results could allow people to make changes for the better to their lifestyle," says Dr Sokol.
"However, if they misinterpret them - the scans could do more harm than good and could actually reduce people's autonomy if they interpret the results incorrectly or exaggerate their implications."
But Kari Stefansson, chief executive of Decodeme, says it should be a matter of personal choice how people treat their own data.
"The people who feel that they want to go over the results with a doctor should go to a doctor," he says.
"When I got mine, I went into the office and closed the door. I wanted to be alone.
"It should be your decision - we are not ramming it down anyone's throat. How you use it depends on who you are, but you are entitled to make the choice of getting the information or not getting it.
"But you can get so much out of it - it could be extremely beneficial to know that you are at a higher risk."
Dr Stefansson admits that the cost of the test at $985 probably puts it out of reach for most people, but he predicts a future in which accessing such personal genetic information will be commonplace - with the tests possibly costing a 10th of what they do now in five years' time.
We go through my results together. I appear to have a slightly increased chance of suffering macular degeneration (an eye problem), coeliac disease and Crohn's, but there is nothing in my risk summary that indicates that I need to take further medical advice immediately.
"I'm afraid to tell you that you are just an average guy," jokes Dr Stefansson.
Perhaps this news is the hardest of all to take.