A pro cuddling “shop” has opened in Portland, Oregon. Yes, it’s a place where you can have a cuddle buddy, professional cuddler Samantha Hess, for a fee.

We all love a good cuddle buddy, but a cuddling shop brings both quaint and creepy implications.

On the one hand, yes, we could all use a good cuddle. Hess says she’s getting 10,000 cuddle buddy email requests a week, an indicator of our overwhelming need for connection. For a $60 hour-long cuddle, customers get hair strokes, handholding and their choice of cuddle positions. It’s not sexual—at least not for Hess—who says the idea came to her “during a low point in her life,” the Independent reports.

“I was at a place where I thought paying someone to hug me and not have ulterior motives sounded like a great idea,” she added. “I decided why can’t this be a thing that we can easily and safely reach for?”

Customers have said a cuddle session with Hess has given them “a new outlook on life.” That’s a pretty big statement for a cuddle.

But perhaps Hess’s success is revealing something deeper about our cultural loneliness.

We spend more time than ever before “connecting” with each other online, until our necks are strained from scrolling through Facebook and Instagram feeds on our phones. We text constantly, but yet we’re lonely—sometimes even if we’re in relationships. It’s almost as if knowing there are so many people we’re connected to but not connecting with creates a deeper sense of loneliness.

Salon explores the popular internet thread “i am lonely will anyone speak to me” that went so viral it ranked at the top of Google’s search for “I am lonely” and has its own Wikipedia page. It has become “a decade-long anthem to the phenomenon of loneliness in the Internet age,” reports Salon. “[It’s] a poignant record of a certain type of Catch-22 loneliness: the isolation of people who turn to the Internet to make them feel less alone.”

People are lonely, and as more jobs become home-based, it’s likely more people will experience these confounding feelings of being hyper-connected, yet totally isolated.

Whether or not we should pay for nonsexual intimacy delivers a whole new set of questions about what risks and benefits there are. Oxytocin, the chemical associated with love, is released through physical contact—a deep hug will do it. Does this rush of chemicals have the potential to put professional huggers at risk of unwanted sexual advances or threats? It’s certainly likely to happen.

And just like paying for sex doesn’t deliver much more than the mechanics, could paying for cuddles bring about even more loneliness and despair after the session ends? What does going home to an empty apartment do to an oxytocin rush?

Or, if we made cuddling purchases as common as buying a cup of coffee, could we bust through our loneliness epidemic and help usher in a kinder, more compassionate culture where we solve our problems by getting into our pajamas and giving strangers hugs? If we take away the perception that we’re all “strangers”, hugging and cuddling with anyone could have health implications beyond our imagination.

Find Jill on Twitter @jillettinger

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ColumnFrom “Blue is the Warmest Color” to “Nymphomaniac,” recent films have been deeply steeped in themes of love and sex. “Her” by Spike Jonze is a visually stunning meditation on those subjects, filmed in a hazy near-future Los Angeles. I was struck by the slightly out-of-focus cinematography, perhaps a metaphor for the blurred lines of our love lives. 

Here’s what I didn’t like: there’s some inherent sexism in this film. Of course, I can’t blame the movie for coming from a male point of view – after all, it’s written and directed by a white, straight male, and the privilege of Theodore Twombly, the protagonist (played by Joaquin Phoenix) shines through in every scene. Even though Theodore is otherwise inoffensive – he’s kind of sweet, goofy, and twee – he reminds me of men who complain of being cast into the “friend zone.” He doesn’t understand women, and he’s frustrated and angry about it. He’s also lonely and mid-divorce.

The film attempts to make a statement about the world as a gender-neutral space, where love is just love. I don’t think I need to say “spoiler-alert” – but a movie in which the female lead does not have a body is saying something about the value of women’s bodies in our culture.  (Also, there are oddly no black or brown people in Jonze’s vision of the future in Southern California, something that made me very uncomfortable.)

Note that many (mostly male) writers have lavished praise on the film, calling it one of the most romantic movies in years, suggesting that it’s almost transcendental. But let’s be real – the conceit is that women – real women – are messy and terrifying. What guy wouldn’t want a bespoke operating system for a girlfriend?

Samantha (played by the throaty Scarlett Johansson) is a program gone conscious, a lovely, sexy ghost in a machine. We can’t accuse the film of objectifying her body, as she doesn’t have one. Yet I came away feeling like Samantha was the object, and Theodore the subject. This film would have looked and felt very different, even with the same characters, had it been written by a woman.

Theodore’s job is composing “hand-written” love letters for strangers; a tacit acknowledgement by Jonze that the future is not so bright. Theodore is a latter-day Cyrano for the alienated masses. Even though people can buy and date their OS in the new world, they long for deeper intimacy – yet they have to hire someone to express their emotions.

In one scene Theodore is on the subway with Samantha in his pocket (her voice is transmitted through something that looks like a cell phone). On the packed train, everyone talks into one of these phones, ignoring all the humans they can see, smell and touch. (Honestly, I experienced that very scenario yesterday at my local coffee shop – so this is our now, not just our future.)

Here’s what “Her” gets right: it beautifully illustrates the ways in which love requires vulnerability – reminding us that it can make you feel like a mental patient. Amy (played by Amy Adams) is poignant on this: She says: “Falling in love is a crazy thing to do. It’s like a socially acceptable form of insanity.”

When Theodore boots up Samantha and she comes to life, he has at first simply bought an operating system – he’s not looking for a sex robot or even a friend, he is just swept up by a slick advertising campaign that looks like something Apple might produce twenty years from now. But within moments, he’s smitten by Samantha’s naturalness. He tells her that he feels weird talking to her, but he wastes no time thinking about why he might not want to “get to know” his computer. It’s just easy and organic, just like sliding your fingers over the screen of your iPhone.

That Samantha names herself is supposed to suggest that she’s not every man’s fantasy of a pliable, perfect woman built from his image (or his rib, if you want to get biblical). Spike Jonze is telling us that Samantha isn’t just smart – she’s uppity and has autonomous inklings. But that didn’t read for me – it felt more like some projection of Theo’s – perhaps he’d been trained along the way to throw a few bones to the women in his life – to let them at least think they were in control of something.

It’s only when Samantha begins experiencing the world that Theodore feels threatened. He is only happy when he’s showing her the world – taking her to the beach, to the mall. When she begins to grow beyond (and without) him, he loses his way. There’s another compelling scene toward the end of the movie in which Theo cannot reach Samantha – she is off-line. Up until that moment, she has been always available. Theodore goes into a complete panic – he repeatedly taps his phone in a desperate attempt to connect, and runs from his office, tripping and falling on the way to the subway. Haven’t we all been there? That sense of terror when the beloved seems to be slipping away, when they can’t be reached in the ways they’ve always been reached. This is the kind of panic that would have led us to drive by our high school crush’s house over and over again, and today, makes us stare at our phones, trying to will our love’s next text message to appear, even when we’re sitting across from our friends.

Back here in the non-celluloid world, the Museum of Sex and Sparks and Honey recently put on a panel called “The Future of Relationships,” and if their predictions are correct, our reality-based love lives are looking a bit grim. From robot sex to marrying avatars and Sex With (Google) Glass, we’re moving as far as we can from human-to-human contact, and it’s by design — it’s not just about convenience.

Your relationships are supposed to be your mirror, but today we can so easily isolate ourselves from them that we never have to face who we really are. After all, isn’t that what love really is? Your best life-partners know everything about you and love you anyway — your flaws make them love you more. Even in the smallest ways, we are already hiding: we send texts instead of calling, we IM instead of walking down the hall. Relationships, always messy and terrifying, are easier and easier to fake these days, and you can avoid real ones and still tell yourself you have “friends” – because you have them on Facebook.

We can construct our identities online so we don’t have to really be ourselves or face our ugly, dark shadows. We photoshop our pictures, refine our copy until it’s pitch-perfect, paint the loveliest versions of ourselves. Even the earliest incarnations of AIM allowed us to play with this pretense – when not confronted with a living, breathing human, we can take the time to craft ourselves. We can offer the ideal (typed) retort, Google an answer to a confusing question, and create an award-winning performance. The idiosyncrasies and insecurities of one-to-one human interaction are muted when we text, when we IM, when we email. We are crafting ourselves, letter by letter, 1 by 0.

Both “Her” and the Museum of Sex panel have alarming implications, and if we don’t pay attention to them, my fear is that we’ll all forget how to love, and simply, how to be human. People like Ray Kurzweil may long for the singularity, but I hope that we pause and take a breath before we go there. For all the ways in which our technology connects us to information, it also shelters us from our own vulnerability – because we can pretend that we’re never alone. That is a dangerous precipice, and we’re all hanging from it, Instagraming the view.

Got a question for Stefanie? Email  stefanie at ecosalon dot com and she’ll answer it in the next Sexual Healing column.

Keep in touch with Stefanie on Twitter: @ecosexuality

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There’s Valentine’s Day advice for singles and couples, but what about commitment-phobes?

I’m a commitment-phobe of the worst kind and it spills into every aspect of my life: I can barely get through lunch with a guy without attempting to escape through the bathroom window. The baby aisle of the grocery store causes me to hyperventilate. Appointments give me a rash. I’m allergic to concrete plans of any kind.

So when Valentine’s Day rolls around, whether I’m dating someone or not, I have to bust out the Benadryl. If I’m in a relationship, I end up all verklempt because Valentine’s Day normally translates to “let’s express where we are in the relationship.” If I’m single, I end up all verklempt on behalf of my panic-stricken friends… and secretly feel guilty that I’m relieved I’m not them.

Truthfully though, I love Valentine’s Day. I enjoy watching everyone put their best foot forward, set their emotional baggage aside, and focus on what’s really important. Until I’ve dealt with my own baggage and can enjoy Valentine’s Day without getting hives, I’ve compiled a round-up of things commitment-phobes like myself can look forward to:

1. Pink + Red Drinks
It’s the one day each year you can order girly drinks because they’re festive without accusations of being a lightweight.

2. Couple Specials at Restaurants
It’s the best time to stock up on your fave takeout. One order will last you two dinners and a lunch!

3. Baking
What better time to make your favorite desserts and spend the day stuffing your face? Valentine’s Day is the one day this is expected.

4. Heart-Shaped EVERYTHING
It’s like being 12 again (without all of the awkward, adolescent crap you’re still trying to get over).

5. Chocolate
CHOCOLATE.

6. Chick Flicks
From the beginning of February leading right up to Valentine’s Day, there’s always a smorgasbord of rom-coms and gushy movies on TV.

7. Boy Bands
I feel weird being 30 and listening to boy bands: It’s like I’m the college guy at the high school party. That being said, I found my New Kids on the Block cassette tape and you can bet your ass I’m going to listen to it on Valentine’s Day. It’s just allowed.

8. Flowers
You can order flowers for yourself and make the card out from anyone you want!

9. Online Shopping
Valentine’s Day equals tons of specials, especially for bras, underwear and beauty supplies. Whether in a relationship or not, it’s the perfect time to stock up on essentials.

10. Valentine’s Day Cards
Not just any cards, but those adorable cardboard ones we used to hand out in school. They’re so fun, and would mean a lot to those panic-stricken friends of yours.

11. Spending the Day in Bed
If you can swing it, this is the biggest cha-ching of all no matter your relationship status.

12. Nicholas Sparks Everything
His movies make me sob like an infant in the best way possible. Why not have the girls over for a communal nervous breakdown?

13. February 15th
Chocolate at CLEARANCE prices. Need I say more?

What are your favorite things about Valentine’s Day?

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Do you think funny condoms make a great gag gift, or do they just make you gag?

When it comes to funny condoms, I’m a total fence sitter: As a gag gift I can understand their charm, but how many of you would question your taste in men if he busted out one of these bad boys?

1. If he’s been sporting track pants a little too much…

What better way to make it up to you than by getting dressed up? I have to admit, no matter how frumpy he’s been lately, I’d probably fall for these ridiculous tuxedo condoms. Well, as long as a bottle of wine preceded them.

2. If saving the world is a turn-on…

Endangered species condoms are distributed at concerts, bars, universities and other local events to raise awareness about how human population growth is linked to the extinction crisis. There are condoms that represent sea turtles, panthers and other endangered species. I’m all for helping these adorable creatures, but I don’t think I could get past the guilt of what they’re going through to get in the mood (sorry boys).

3. If you’re a wizard with a spray can…

Okay, so I understand the sentiment behind this little invention that couldn’t, but that’s about it. The spray-on condom was invented so guys wouldn’t have to worry about buying the wrong size condom, which as we all know is a total buzzkill. But you know what else is a buzzkill? For men, being instructed to “insert penis into chamber.” For women, waiting for the paint to dry.

4. If you’re a coffee addict…

Coffee Sensations condoms were created with a noble purpose in mind: To raise awareness and help prevent AIDS in Ethiopia. I love me some coffee, but… wait, do they come in decaf?

5. If you’re in the mood to do a little math…

Condometric condoms measure the length of his penis. Okay, cool, but I’m confused about who these are supposed to turn on: Me or his frat buddies? Do I write down the answer first, or…

6. If you don’t feel like cooking…

J&D’s Bacon Condoms not only look like bacon, they also have a trusty sidekick (you know, like Batman): J&D’s baconlube. I wish I was joking.

7. If you’re into trying new things…

Kamasutra condoms by Atypyk are available in random packs of 10, and each depict one of 64 Kamasutra positions. If you end up limping the next day, don’t say we didn’t warn you.

8. If you’re afraid of the dark…

Perfect for if you can’t decide between keeping the lights on or off, LoveLight condoms are a nice compromise. (But if he suggests that you be Princess Leia and he’ll be the light saber, run. Run away screaming.)

9. If you’re really into narcissists…

MyFace condoms are customizable to include your name, picture, and special message. (I think these would be funnier if found in a lost wallet.)

10. If you want to mix business with pleasure…

McCondom Whiskey Flavored condoms: Since whiskey got you into this mess, why not?

11. If you enjoy amusement park rides…

Kind of like a roller coaster, only not, the Trojan Vibrating Ring condom practically has sex for you! Sigh.

How do you feel about funny condoms?

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What’s the deal with your strange turn-ons? Relationship experts weigh in on the state of your libido.

If you want to encourage that boyfriend of yours to do his damn laundry already, a recent study of more than 2,000 Brits by entertainment brand Mecca revealed clean sheets as being one of our top turn-ons, beating out makeovers and hot baths. I’m not surprised – who’d want to have a nice bath and get all dolled up just to romp in skunky sheets?

Here are 7 more turn-ons that might seem strange on the surface, but underneath not really:

1.Deep eye contact. When men and women engage in a prolonged mutual gaze (a la Romeo and Juliet, minus the whole suicide thing), they experience intense feelings of attraction to that person. “Given that this effect can be observed between complete strangers, a deep longing gaze can lead to a rush of sexual attraction among couples,” says Carol Anne Austin, Sex Educator and Psychotherapist for Kimberly Moffit and Associates. Bow chicka wow wow!

2. Men’s hands. Even though there’s that running joke about turn-ons that refers to men’s feet/shoe size, that’s not what we we’re focused on at all. “There’s something about strong hands – even those that are calloused and weathered – that women are excited by in a way that delicate hands fail to deliver,” says relationship expert April Masini. Grrr, baby!

3. A clean-shaven face. A study published in Behavioral Ecology revealed that women find clean-shaven men more attractive than those with beards. The women who participated in the study were shown two sets of photos: The first contained photos of men with beards, the second the same men sans facial hair. They consistently found the clean-shaven men more appealing than the “Duck Dynasty”-esque variety.

4. Men’s voices. Deep voices, especially. “Guys who have a deep voice and lack of coordination with women have a better shot at getting a date by phone, rather than in person, by text or e-mail,” says Masini. “The phone actually amplifies his sexiness because it allows that unsure woman to focus only on his voice in a way she’s not able to otherwise.” So that’s why so many of us want to propose to James Earl Jones!

5. Your sig-o’s dirty laundry. Say wha? It’s true: “Research has found that women’s sexual attraction and arousal is enhanced by good body odors of their male partners, due to the pheromones that they release,” says Austin. “Our brains are hardwired to experience these scents as sexually appealing.” Oh joy. Like he needs another reason to blow off his laundry!

6. Your beau’s childhood home. As far as turn-ons go, I find this one uber-intriguing, and it makes perfect sense: Before you meet his parents, there’s this tension and uncertainty as you anticipate how the visit’s going to go. Will they like you, or will you end up sleeping in your car? “All that pent up energy has to go somewhere,” says Masini. “The joy that his parents have given you the thumbs-up creates a sexually charged and generous atmosphere for most women.” If he’s stalling to introduce you, send him on over to this factoid – is he dialing yet?

7.An intimate conversation. “When we’re feeling understood, respected and securely bonded to our partners, this is when we’re most likely to desire sexual intimacy with them,” says Austin. “In the words of Dr. Sue Johnson, ‘Emotional connection creates great sex.’” Men everywhere, take note.

Are there any strange turn-ons you’d add to this list?

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The post 7 Strange Turn-Ons You Probably Have appeared first on EcoSalon.

Column“Privacy matters, privacy is what allows us to determine who we are and who we want to be,”

 — Edward Snowden during his Christmas message on British television

Even if you didn’t pay much attention to the news last year, you probably realize that much of what you say and do is tracked. From your location via GPS, to your email correspondence, to your phone calls, purchases, Google searches and even what you might be drawn to when you walk into a store; it’s all on file. The surveillance state is always lurking in the shadows, even in your seemingly private moments. Whether it’s the government or the corporation, the very meaning of the word “privacy” is being eroded as our rights are stripped away.

So what does Edward Snowden, of the recent NSA revelations, have to do with your life between the sheets? Sorry, this article is not going to be about getting someone to “blow your whistle.” I want to explore whether it’s possible to have real intimacy in a world without privacy. How can we be ourselves with our lovers when we know that private eyes are watching us 24/7?

As we willingly offer ourselves up to the ego-orgy of Selfie culture, choose Facebook and Facetime over what we used to call face time, and generally succumb to the distractions of the digital age, we’re forgetting how to relate in the here and now. We’re missing cross-cultural social cues, ones that have been with us throughout human history. We are growing uncomfortable with looking into people’s eyes – cashiers and wait staff and others that we’re forced to interact with. And for those of us that live with someone, we’re often so caught up in digital distraction that we cuddle up with our iPad instead of our partner. Porn appears to be hurting our sex lives — men increasingly can’t get turned on by their real-life lovers, because they are becoming desensitized by the sometimes outrageous acts witnessed on their laptops.

We may be better at connecting with the crowd, organizing movements and reaching the masses, but we’re getting worse at the most basic one-to-one relating. Like Jonathan Franzen once said in a New York Times op-ed, we’re so concerned with being “liked”, we’re forgetting how to love. Love, sex and intimacy; the cornerstones that define us as human beings — may be headed for an epic fail. When you’re naked in bed with your lover, when you’re supposed to be at your most vulnerable so you can experience maximum pleasure, are you really alone? If most of your hours outside of bed are in the public domain, it’s nearly impossible to be intimate — because being intimate with someone requires knowing yourself. When the panopticon of Big Brother hovers on the sidelines in your daily life, how can you find time to process what that means?

Our private lives are intruded upon more and more everyday; we’re becoming inured to the idea that there is no such thing as privacy. Why fight the trend? Why take the risk? Why bother dealing with living, breathing humans when you can get a digital ego stroke while sitting in your desk chair? Why even look up at the cutie sitting at the next table in the café when Snapchat is at your fingertips? Real human relationships are messy – they can be a drag. We’re getting closer to the time when robots will be stand-ins for lovers – really. “Her”, Spike Jonze eerie take on a man’s infatuation with a computer program, is currently in theaters. That sci-fi reality is almost here, and when it goes viral, many of us will be so accustomed to stroking our iPhones as stand-ins for flesh that we won’t flinch.

So we must ask ourselves (before it’s too late): is this a reality we want to embrace? And furthermore, what can we do about it? So many of us are unconscious and asleep; we’d rather have the convenience then the complication. Our culture’s seamless meshing with social networks is great for Twitter’s IPO and the cultivation of celebrity status, but what does it really do for you? Unplug from your gadgets and focus, just for a moment, on the invasion of your privacy, both as a citizen and a consumer. Is that the world you want to live in?

Got a question for Stefanie? Email stefanie at ecosalon dot com and she’ll answer it in the next Sexual Healing column.

Keep in touch with Stefanie on Twitter: @ecosexuality

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The post Edward Snowden,Your Sex Life and Intimacy in a World Without Privacy: Sexual Healing appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnIntimacy is a word that we bandy about, but we rarely grapple with its more challenging implications. Intimacy is also the issue that lady mags tend to frame as the key to healthy relationships, and however true this is, not all of us are currently in a relationship. (And many of us who are may not actually be ready for real intimacy either.) Are single people doomed to live without it? Considering all the health benefits of intimacy, let’s hope not.

The Sharon Olds poem below has been one of my favorites since college, but only in the last few years, after the end of a long-term relationship, did I truly understand its deeper layers. Can we experience intimacy with casual lovers, or only with our long-term partners?

Sex Without Love

Sharon Olds

How do they do it, the ones who make love
without love? Beautiful as dancers,
gliding over each other like ice-skaters
over the ice, fingers hooked
inside each other’s bodies, faces
red as steak, wine, wet as the
children at birth whose mothers are going to
give them away. How do they come to the
come to the come to the God come to the
still waters, and not love
the one who came there with them, light
rising slowly as steam off their joined
skin? These are the true religious,
the purists, the pros, the ones who will not
accept a false Messiah, love the
priest instead of the God. They do not
mistake the lover for their own pleasure,
they are like great runners: they know they are alone
with the road surface, the cold, the wind,
the fit of their shoes, their over-all cardio-
vascular health—just factors, like the partner
in the bed, and not the truth, which is the
single body alone in the universe
against its own best time.

To me, the poem is not so much an indictment of conventional partnership (the false messiah) – it’s about finding intimacy and pleasure beyond traditional notions of romantic love.

We tend to think of intimacy as something you share only with your primary romantic partner – the relationship valued above all others. But what if that’s a crock that we’ve been spoon-fed to preserve the established cultural order?  We put a high price on romantic love (figuratively  and literally–it’s big business). It trumps all other forms of connection, and marriage is the thing that begets the most attention we’ll ever receive in our lives — plus a huge nest egg of gifts. This is a given in our movies, TV shows, and our consumer culture overall. Notice the uptick in those “A diamond is forever” ads during the holiday season? That’s not an accident. We always crave intimacy, as that’s the way humans are built; and retailers know exactly when to take advantage of our vulnerabilities.

And there’s the rub, because it is precisely these vulnerabilities that one must be unafraid of, if we’re to experience real intimacy. According to Brene Brown, she of the viral Ted Talk, intimacy requires vulnerability – and vulnerability requires killing off of shame. If you’re single during the holiday season, it can be even harder to reach out — to let yourself be vulnerable. Our culture can shame us into staying silent, and remaining alone. (Interestingly, dating sites get huge spikes in memberships during the holidays – at least some singles are taking the initiative.)

Intimacy is not just post-coital pillow talk preserved for your spouse — it’s something you can share with your best friend, your child, your parent, your cousin, anyone that you’re willing to be vulnerable with. To get there, though, you have to first go on the hero’s journey and realize that you are the “single body alone in the universe against its own best time.” Intimacy requires knowing the self, warts and all. If you secret away your shadow side because of shame, your “intimate” moments probably won’t come to much.

So what of sex without love? Can real intimacy be found there – in hookups, in friends with benefits arrangements, with more than one person at a time? I believe so, but this requires first unraveling oneself from the hetero-normative framework of compulsory marriage and transactional relationships. Tina Turner asked us what love has to do with it, but I’d reframe that: What’s capitalism got to do with it? Notice where your relationships are about who owes what to whom, and you’ll begin to move beyond this limiting perception of dating and relating.

If we can liberate sex from love completely as an expectation — in the world and in our own consciousness, we can find real love — and real intimacy — everywhere.

Got a question for Stefanie? Email  stefanie at ecosalon dot com and she’ll answer it in the next Sexual Healing column.

Keep in touch with Stefanie on Twitter: @ecosexuality

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The post Sex and Intimacy: What’s Love Got To Do With It? Sexual Healing appeared first on EcoSalon.

ColumnSkip the weight loss centers and the elliptical machines, there are other fun ways to drop unwanted pounds.

Last spring, I set sail from the States to Europe, where I’m now a legal resident. In the intervening months since my arrival, I’ve shed a handy ten pounds – without even realizing it was happening. In fact, it didn’t occur to me that I was slowly slimming down; I only noticed that my energy levels were wicked high, that I loved shopping for new clothes because I liked how I looked in the dressing room mirrors, and that I felt infinitely sexier than before I came to Berlin. What happened?

I definitely don’t hail from one of America’s Fat Capitals; my former home of San Francisco is one of the healthiest, most physically fit populations in all of the U.S., and my long-preferred, mostly active lifestyle seemed to have all the right cards in place for an optimal waistline: I’ve always walked and biked everywhere (I don’t even have a driver’s license), and as a yoga teacher and (mostly) vegan, it seemed I could do no wrong. And yet, some key ingredient kept me hovering at a Marilyn Monroe body type. These days, I’m certainly no buff beauty queen, but I have definitely stopped thinking and caring about my weight. Who needs to worry when you can just have fun?

This week’s Sex by Numbers provides a little toolbox of four incredibly accessible, easily applicable tips for whittling down your frame – European style – with nary a lick of dreadful dieting or fretting about what the scale reads.

Walk It & Work It

Maintaining fitness isn’t some codified, separate activity from the rest of your daily activities, but rather an integrated aspect of life. In the morning, I walk to the market for breakfast ingredients and mosey on over to the office. On my lunch break, I stroll along the canal that cuts through the city or explore nearby graveyards and parks – it refreshes me and keeps me from going mad from sitting at a desk and in front of a computer all day. In the evening, I use my own two legs to get to yoga class and back home again, and instead of taking the subway to meet up with friends later at night, I walk to whatever bar, club, or restaurant where we’ll be hanging out. By incorporating regular bipedal motion into my everyday life, I get to enjoy the city sights, bump into friends on the sidewalk, window shop, and generally approach each day with appreciation and ease. Sure, it might require more time than driving a car, but it endows routine experiences with increased richness and joy. Plus, there’s no better time for strapping on my headphones and listening to music.

DIY Dinner

Nothing is sexier than knowing how to hold your own in the kitchen, and a woman who can whip-up a mean meal at a moment’s notice is a hot commodity in the dating market. (Because, let’s face it, relationships are a cultural and social marketplace.) I’m a proponent of intuitive eating and cooking in conjunction with seasonal, regional foods. As such, I advocate stocking up monthly on staples like legumes, lentils, and nut butters, while making frequent trips to the market several times a week for fresh vegetables, fruits, fresh-baked breads, and ethically-produced dairy products. Culinary art is one of life’s most sensual pleasures and is not only an opportunity to nourish your body but delight in a full-fledged orgy of lush colors, scents, tactile exploration, and even the roundly satisfying thwack of a butcher knife against the chopping block. When you enshrine a daily habit of cooking into your routine, you deepen an appreciation for food and can savor it more richly. And there’s the added benefit of the pounds simply melting away.

Have Sex

You can even have lots of it, if you want. It’s an obviously inventive, expressive workout that provides an endorphine rush in equal measure to running a marathon or getting a promotion, except rather than being an exceptional affair, it’s a sustainable activity in which to engage on a daily basis. Further, a healthy sex life results in a healthier physique. We all want to feel completely free of body-consciousness when we’re with our lovers; it allows us to more deeply engage in intimacy and focus purely on the pleasures of sharing ourselves with another person. Having regular sex is rad, and provides constant incentive to keep your body feeling beautiful and strong to share your best self with a lover (or several).

Balance, not Boundaries

Wine with dinner, nice cocktails as nightcaps, a croissant for breakfast, convivial meals and drinks with friends that span for hours and hours – I could go on. Beauty, at its core, is about savoir faire. It’s vital to celebrate life with other people by coming around the table and enjoying its bounty – and this isn’t just about Thanksgiving and Christmas. Here in Europe, every meal is occasion for festivity and joy, and people are willing to unplug from their laptops and iPhones to come together on a quotidian basis. Indulgence – in sweets, spirits, and fine company – is perhaps the single most important component of creating balance and joy.

Image: Jamie Neely

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