Can sex be a tool for deeper emotional healing?

Sex is at the beginning and end of who we are. Indeed, we are each the most profound products of the sexual act, and the more we learn about our fragile, erotic selves, the more obvious it is that this is the center around which our lives orbit, whether we are conscious of it or not. I often say “After we eat, drink and sleep, the next thing we are is sexual.” Peering through our cultural lens, we see this in the multi-billion dollar advertising industry, which continuously employs blatant over-sexualized messages to sell everything. At the same time, we have become a technology-driven culture that has all but divorced sexuality from intimacy while still insisting that sexual education has no place in our schools.

Sexual confusion and ignorance is amplified into terror as we look around the globe. Not uncommonly, young women are sold, bartered, raped, cut, silenced, covered from head to toe, and even murdered in the name of sexual ignorance, shame and fear. The tragedy of our collective human sexual pain is something we bear together as a race. None of us escapes unscathed by the trauma that is too often synonymous with our sexual souls.

Telling a true story about this mysterious part of ourselves may just be the open door to healing what I believe is most broken about living on earth. Rectifying our relationship to our core erotic identity and protecting it from shame can only happen from the inside out. Protecting ourselves without simultaneously nurturing ourselves just hardens us, making the wounded places impenetrable. This is an all too familiar result of naming but not healing our injuries. Nurturing and comforting ourselves sexually resembles a childlike curiosity. All of the wonder and amazement we had when we first discovered pleasurable sensations is still alive in us.

Reawakening to our capacity to feel happens when we stop paying attention with our thinking minds and focus instead on our sensory capacity. Besides the most obvious reasons to invite and cultivate a pleasure response of how good it feels, there are hundreds of medical studies that reinforce the multi-layered impact of a healthy sexual response to every other aspect of our wellbeing. Everything from reduced risk of disease to stronger immune response to higher self-esteem comes through our capacity to give and receive pleasure.

But even more compelling, is that as each one of us breaks the chains of sexual trauma, our intention and freedom shakes the archaic structures that have bound our humanity for way too long. Individual sexual healing is magnified in ways that are hard to explain, except to note that it so completely changes your relationship to life and that life itself changes.

So dare yourself, for the good of all of us, to begin your healing journey here- where your work carries the miraculous capacity to heal us all.

Wendy Strgar is the founder of GoodCleanLove – a website that sells organic and natural sexual intimacy products, and also a source of medical research for women and men’s sexual health. She is the author of “Love that Works: A Guide to Enduring Intimacy“.  Her blog  www.makinglovesustainable.com  was named as the best sex/relationship blog by Intent.com for 2011 and has been listed many times as one of the best 100 relationship blogs on the web.

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Column If you learned everything you know about “cougar women” from “The Graduate” or even “Sex and the City,” you’re still woefully ignorant about a very common dating scenario. There’s nothing predatory about older women dating younger men.

The Mrs. Robinson myth is alive and well, despite major cultural shifts in the last decade. Why are people still so freaked out about older women having sex with younger men?

We may gently “tsk tsk” when we see an older guy with a younger woman – but it’s certainly not viewed as a scandal, as we’ve seen it all a million times. We have a frame of reference for older man/younger woman pairings – evolutionary psychology even tells us that there’s a biological basis for it. (Note that I’ve roundly debunked Evo Psych in various Sexual Healing columns.) We know this guy — he’s just having a midlife crisis and he’s not a danger to anyone but himself (and maybe his mistress). But when women dabble in age-gap dating, they are ferocious animals stalking meat in the dark of night — they’re terrifying.

This is all, of course, just another form of the Madonna/Whore complex, with cougars as a stand-in for the whore. Except this whore is so sexually insatiable that she can’t help but hump everything in sight, and people like laughing at her as much as they feel sorry for her. (Too bad that she’s probably having the last laugh, because she’s having great sex.)

Over the past five or ten years, “cougar” dating sites have proliferated – most likely because of demand. But out there in TV land, the arbiter of our cultural standards, “Sex in the City” character Samantha Jones set up the 21st century cougar trope. Sam wasn’t exactly mocked for her taste in younger men, but she was presented as voracious and relentlessly sexual – something women just aren’t supposed to be in polite company. More recently, a television show called “Cougar Town” was a vehicle for former “Friends” star Courtney Cox.

But has our gut-level response to seeing older women and younger men together in real life shifted? I went straight to the source – women dating younger men, and the men who love (and sleep with) them.

Here are some comments from a few women over forty about sex in midlife generally, with a generous side helping of dating younger men:

“The sex is OFF THE CHAIN.”

“He likes his women like his cars, older, classier, more beautiful and dependable, strong, sturdy, true.” (From a 52-year-old woman dating a 34-year-old man.)

“They like us because we know our sh*t. We’re also probably not (as) desperate to get married as many 25-32 year olds are (as all their friends troop to the altar and start having babies) — we may have already BEEN married.”

“Forget Botox — orgasms are the ultimate youth elixir.”

Women over forty are mostly written out of the sexual narrative, similar to the way that women over forty in Hollywood are written out of every single screenplay. When older women want to have sex — and specifically, when they want to have it with younger men that can keep up with them — they are are compared to wild animals and framed as something less than human.

The fact that these women want to have sex, period, is what brings the judgment. How dare they still have libidos when they may no longer be perfect, perky, 24-year-old specimens of culturally-sanctioned beauty standards? We need to reexamine why the very idea of a woman who expresses her desires is so threatening. A woman over forty who wants sex isn’t a wildlife program on PBS — her dating life is not a reality show.

Television and movies may not have caught up to the actual women, the ones we call “cougars” — who are rediscovering their relationships with their own bodies, figuring out how to feel desirable again after having children, or perhaps finding their way back from divorce. Their lives are not over — in many ways they’re just beginning.

So we’ve established what’s in it for the so-called “cougar women”, but what about the younger men in the equation? More and more young guys are firmly in the “I don’t want kids” camp, and hooking up with an older woman who’s already had kids or who is proudly childfree is one way to sidestep the breeding discussion.

As for why young guys are increasingly attracted to older women, my theory is that confidence is hella sexy, and when you get to be a woman “of a certain age” you have far fewer f*cks to give about what other people think about you. You carry yourself that way, instead of looking around to see who’s checking you out. You’ve worked hard at becoming the subject of your own life, rather than someone else’s object. When you’re in your twenties and thirties you’re ostensibly in your most physically desirable stage of life — but you’re often not feeling what people are seeing.

I also credit decades of feminism for the confidence older women grant themselves — sisterhood isn’t just powerful, it’s damn good for our sex lives. The cougar narrative assumes that women are financially well-off in their forties, and that’s somehow part of their allure — but I don’t buy it. I found few examples of Sugar Mamas, but I can show you a troop of sexy artists, writers, and other not-particularly wealthy, but extremely sexually open freelancers in their forties. The men they’re dating and/or sleeping with certainly aren’t in it for the money.

Women in their late thirties and beyond have (hopefully) had plenty of sex, multiple partners, and know what they want — and often that includes dating younger men. Younger women are often just figuring it out, and sometimes perform in bed rather than truly take pleasure in the experience. (See almost any episode of “Girls” from season one for evidence of the “Sex kinda sucks but I’m going to do it anyway because I really want this guy to like me” theme.)

Another theory that’s bandied about (and I’ve done some of this bandying) is that there is a perfect libido match between women in their late thirties/early forties and men in their mid-to-late twenties. Anecdotally lots of men and women I chatted with seem to agree — the assumption is that our sexual peaks line up perfectly. (Note: there’s no scientific proof of this, and some researchers entirely debunk the very idea of sexual peaks.)

My own experience is that the older I get, the more young men seem to be interested in me. I don’t think I’m giving out “cougar” vibes, whatever those are, but online and in real life, I get hit on more and more by men in their twenties (even as young as TWENTY, which sometimes freaks me out, and I write about sex for a living.) But I must admit — I kind of dig it.

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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ColumnThere is no shame in abortion. ABORTION. Say it with me. You don’t need to speak in hushed tones: your abortion stories, my abortion story – they’re the stories of our lives. And they’re as normal as normal can be.

According to Katha Pollitt, author of the wonderful and important new book, “PRO: Reclaiming Abortion Rights,” abortion is a social good. Pollitt, a longtime contributor to “The Nation” makes an excellent argument about why women need to stand up for reproductive rights not just by fighting in the streets and halls of congress – but in our everyday relationship to the abortions we’ve had or might have. We need to talk about our abortions with ease — and often.

Three in ten women will have had an abortion by the time they’re 45-years-old. That’s a lot of women – that’s you, or your mother, or your sister, or your friends. That’s  most of us.

Since Roe v. Wade was decided in 1973, the zealots of the anti-abortion movement have taken women and their bodies down a rabbit hole-like rightwing agenda built on so-called Christian values. The people leading this movement aren’t simply religious nuts; they’re deeply misogynistic in every possible way. Pollitt’s book shows that states where the status of women is lowest are also the ones where there are the most restrictions on abortion. Bottom line: the assault on abortion is an assault on women – on human rights. Full stop. These are the folks who don’t believe in birth control, that think women should not work, and are bound to perform their “wifely duties.” But we don’t often hear from them unless we attend their sermons or traffic their (truly scary) websites.

What we do hear about, almost every day, is the result of the work they’ve done over the last 40 years of careful public relations planning. They’ve patiently constructed a long-term agenda to chip away at reproductive rights. They employ radical ideas that most Americans disagree with, but they’ve been smart and strategic, and that’s why we should be scared – because right now —  they’re winning.

Here’s what not radical: talking about abortion without shame. But we’ve been worn down by decades of Operation Rescue talking points – and we sometimes end up inadvertently speaking their language. Even those of us who’ve had more than one abortion out of pure necessity – not being ready for a child, not wanting to have a child with a particular father, not wanting to be a single mother – sometimes speak of our abortions in terms of “good” and “bad.” “Good” abortions, in the parlance of those who believe abortion should remain “legal and rare” are those that are of medical necessity, rape or incest. “Bad” abortions are the ones we have because we chose to have sex, got pregnant and then decided that it wasn’t time to have a kid.

There are no good abortions and bad abortions. There are just abortions. Pollitt doesn’t want us to be defensive about our abortions simply because our opponents have managed to own the conversation. She wants us to reconvene the conversation on our own terms, as each of us share our abortion stories.

This isn’t to say that all abortions are free of emotion. Some friends have had abortions, and went on to have several children – and then had another abortion. Some people have one easy abortion, and then another problematic one, perhaps because of a complicated relationship problem. But the rhetoric of the anti-choicers – that all abortions are heavy, dark, difficult regret-laden errors in judgment, is patently false. They say it over and over again and this idea seeps into the culture so deeply that some women believe it to be true, and perhaps feel sadder about their abortions than they would have. If our movies and TV shows and our politicians tell us that abortion is sad, it’s no wonder some of us feel sadness when we have the procedure. That’s part of the strategy, of course.

My own abortions have not been terribly fraught, but that doesn’t mean I was flippant about them. I live in a blue state with a life of relative privilege – I didn’t have to worry about access for a moment, even though I encountered rosary-bead wearing, angry people with signs that said I was going to hell. Good luck with that, I thought — I’m Jewish so you’re really not scaring me. But those signs, and those people — culled from the same herd that don’t think there’s anything wrong with shooting doctors that provide abortions — those people are scary.

I was 20 when I had my first abortion, and even though I had support from my then-boyfriend, from my friends — I was still too ashamed to talk about it in any public way. Even though I wasn’t sad or regretful, because the idea of a baby was remote and abstract, I understood that a nice Jewish girl like me had made a huge mistake. And sure, getting accidentally pregnant is a mistake of sorts — but I’d been drilled with the idea that I should be embarrassed, ashamed. And even though I was defiantly pro-choice — and cut my first political teeth as a teenager on the abortion front — I carried shame. Even though I made signs and marched on Washington for reproductive rights, my own experience was somehow walled off and separate.

This is precisely why Pollitt tells us that we need to unequivocally take back the conversation.

Let’s not confuse the issue by calling abortion anything that it isn’t: it’s a medical procedure to terminate a pregnancy. It’s not something that should cause a shame spiral. I don’t have numbers on this, but I’d argue that the vast majority of women have gone on to think of their abortions like dental procedures – something they’d rather not do, but must, in order to continue to live a healthy life.

Even recent indie films have treated abortion in hushed tones, and lead characters only became heroes by rejecting the option to terminate, or not even thinking about it in the first place. Since the 1990s, movies about pregnancy have been a far cry from the legal, safe abortion depicted in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.” “Knocked Up” and “Juno” gave us seemingly modern women who basically didn’t even consider the idea of abortion as a possibility. Finally, this year we were delivered the brilliant “Obvious Child,” a film that treats a woman’s abortion story as it should be treated.

Since 2010, 205 anti-abortion laws have been passed across the country. It’s time for those of us who are proudly pro-choice to stop chasing the conversation that the anti-choice zealots are leading. The situation is dire, especially with a brand new crop of anti-choicers in charge of both houses of Congress as of Tuesday.

Sixty-one percent of women that have abortions are already mothers. That’s why I love Pollitt’s “pro-choice, pro-mother ” mantra. Motherhood is fetishized in our culture, but it is not valued, certainly not by the people who would take away our legal right to abortion. Once a fetus is “protected,” they quickly move on to their next clump of cells, calling it a “life”. Helping women to actually raise the children that they’re forced to bear is not on their agenda.

When it comes to access to abortion, all politics is local. This week, in the bloodbath of the midterm elections, choice was protected in some small ways, but it was also dealt serious blows in races all over the country. Wendy Davis lost her race in Texas. A personhood referendum was defeated for the third time in Colorado, yet they elected a pro-personhood senator in the same state. North Dakota also defeated a personhood amendment. Yet in Tennessee, one of the last Southern states to retain some access to abortion, the news is very bad.

Let’s keep abortion safe, legal, and out in the open. I don’t care much about whether it’s rare – that’s not the issue. Tell your abortion stories without shame, and ask your sisters, mothers, cousins, and Facebook friends to tell theirs.

Here are some great organizations working hard to protect your reproductive rights. Send them money and volunteer for them.

The Abortion Care Network

Center for Reproductive Rights

Planned Parenthood

Emily’s List

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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ColumnSince the #30DayOrgasmChallenge launched in September, one thing has become eminently clear: the benefits of orgasm are impossible to ignore. I’ve been totally floored by the response.

Over the summer, after a lot of research, myriad in-person conversations and Gchats with friends and colleagues, I realized that there is a prevailing dissatisfaction with the state of the orgasm (at least for the mostly cis-gender, heterosexual women I’d been hearing from). So I had an idea: I would ask women to think about their orgasms in an entirely new way — and to follow up it up with action.

The #30DayOrgasmChallenge asked women to re-conceptualize their orgasms as a transformative, health-giving mind/body experience as essential as any other daily practice: like meditation, yoga, juicing… all the stuff that we manage to make time for because we know it’s good for us.

We tend to think of orgasms as a kind of gift — something we sometimes, when we’re lucky, get from an intimate experience. But what if this kind of pleasure were simply a part of your regular routine? Only 25 percent of heterosexual women are likely to have an orgasm from partnered sex, thanks to the orgasm gap. So taking it into our own hands, so to speak — is essential.

This challenge was made for women of all ages – those in their reproductive years and without kids, still reproductive young parents, peri and pre-menopausal – and post-menopause. And all relationship statuses – single, recently divorced, in long-term partnerships, newly dating. The #30DayOrgasmChallenge is a pleasure protocol for every woman.

Our desires fluctuate through the various stages of a relationship — from the “I must jump your bones immediately” phase to the “kinda bored” phase to the “OMG get off of me” phase. Some people call these latter phases “the itch” as in the two-year, five-year, or seven-year-itch. And being in any one of these stages can do a major number on your self-esteem – and with that, kill off what feels like the last of your desire. None of these stages, however, guarantee orgasms for women, which is why we must learn to expect and demand them. It’s essential for women to remember that the waning of your desire for a long-term partner is perfectly normal – and science backs it up. Women tend to get bored even earlier then men, despite the many myths we’ve been fed about our sexuality.

The #30DayOrgasmChallenge was (and still is, because you can start any time) an opportunity to revisit the frontier of your authentic desire nature — to remember who you’ve been and who you might be if you could be anyone you wanted to. Having an orgasm a day for 30 days can show you what your real relationship with pleasure is — exempt from the expectations of your partner, your culture, your body image issues, and other barriers to deeper self-knowledge about what you want and need.

For the initial launch, different women had different goals: some wanted to get to know their own bodies better – solo sex is a really important and necessary tool for teaching your current or future lovers what you want. Some women wanted to experience more intense, longer, and/or deeper orgasms through a daily practice. Some wanted to address diagnosed sexual dysfunction. Some wanted to know if they could achieve vaginal orgasms in addition to clitoral ones. Some wanted to move past shame and guilt. Still others just wanted stress relief, better sleep, and heightened immunity. But all knew that the benefits of orgasm are many and varied, and they simply wanted more of the good stuff.

I’m happy to report that various participants have told me that they’re never going to take the benefits of orgasm for granted again. Many found it to be deeply liberating and consciousness-shifting. I loved the creative directions in which different women took the challenge – a number of people kept a daily journal and wrote about each of their orgasms. Like the famous Morning Pages that many swear by, these “Orgasm Pages” were a place for the women to deposit the images, emotions, and states of awareness they uncovered as they moved through their 30-day journey. A few were even willing to share, like Carolyn Jayne, an artist from Rhode Island. She did more than merely journal – she created visual journals – gorgeous water color paintings for each entry. (Her prints are available for purchase, contact her at cjayneart@yahoo.com). Here’s an excerpt from one — the image is called “Juno’s Pomegranate”.

Day 26 – seems Stefanie’s 30 day challenge has opened new portals of magic and mystery within. As my watercolor art unfolds in perfect timing with my body’s “unfolding”. Or rather that which was previously folded up and put away in a dusty linen closet of yore has been re-opened and rejuvenated.

SG from Seattle had this to say: “The commitment to self-pleasure on an ongoing basis yielded profound shifts within me. Not only did I feel an enriched reconnection with my body and heart, but I felt a more dynamic sense of power and liberation, jewels that came from more deeply rooting the knowledge of my ability to rely upon and treasure myself.” 

Did you take on the #30DayOrgasmChallenge? Will you take the benefits of orgasm to the next level? If so, please share your reactions with me. Let’s change the world for women — one orgasm at a time.

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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ColumnWe tend to ignore relationship dealbreakers even when the red lights are flashing and the warning sirens are screaming DON’T GO THERE! Why do we do this to ourselves?

My own list of relationship dealbreakers is long and complex. Have I ignored my top five no-no’s? Oh yes. We tend to rejigger our dealbreaker lists as we refine our “most wanted” lists – generally after breakups, when we’ve been burned yet again. It’s easy to get idealistic when you’re a single person creating a dream man (or woman) out of thin air, like a tall, dark and handsome golem for whom cuddling is a second job. (But those ideals tend to fall away in the harsh light of reality – or the alcohol-infused dark of the bar where you just met someone that seems worth taking home.)

Sexual attraction is one of the obvious reasons we ignore our relationship dealbreakers – and sure, it plays a role. But a recent study suggests that we sometimes end up dating people because we don’t want to hurt their feelings by rejecting them. This study doesn’t seem to be obviously broken down by gender, but I am guessing that more women than men have this tendency, given our “nice girl” socialization. I’m not quite sure that we can even replicate real-life scenarios in a lab, but the findings are interesting.

Our relationship dealbreakers are built, in part, on our parental complexes. We’re often attracted to both the best and worst qualities that our potential partners embody – because they remind us of our parents. This is how we first learned to love, after all – it makes sense that these markers would magnetize us to objects of desire. Doing conscious work on your parental complexes from a relatively young age is an integral part of getting what you want out of your relationships. More importantly, it may help you to avoid throwing your self-identified relationship dealbreakers out the window for the sake of companionship.

My number one relationship dealbreaker is smoking; this one applies not just to committed relationships, but to casual dating. I have an official “smokers need not apply” policy that I fiercely and protectively wield. I’ve accidentally broken it for one date, on occasion, but never more than that. Smokers are instantly kicked to the curb.

But that’s easy – smoking is just a habit, one that cannot easily be hidden from view (I have a strong sense of smell). What about when it comes to more subtle relationship dealbreakers, ones that are no less dangerous than secondhand smoke?

There was that time that I ignored the sirens going off in my head and let an ex move in with me – one who clearly had narcissistic personality disorder. This was one of those scenarios where I just knew in my heart that I could save him from himself. (Also, the sex was great.) But the joke was on me, and I lost a few years of my life to that massive mistake.

Let’s get really brave and honest about why we do this to ourselves. Are these some possible reasons you’ve made exceptions in your relationships?

1)   Loneliness

2)   Low self-esteem

3)   Muted self-awareness

4)   Peer pressure

5)   Desire to “settle”

Lists are great – I believe list-making can help you clarify your desires. But lists are not everything – you must also hone (and listen to) your intuition, if you’re truly going to avoid that next relationship that never should have been. You must move toward consciousness about what you really want and need. And there is never, ever any reason to settle. Please do exactly the opposite of what this woman says, all the time, if you want to be happy. And while you’re at it, ignore every trope from every rom-com you’ve ever seen.

We naturally crave intimacy, but we often confuse our desire to be close to someone with cultural expectations about the roles we’re supposed to play.

In a culture where motherhood is valued above all other contributions to society, it’s easy to get caught up in the idea that Mr. Right is whomever you hook up with at just around the time you begin to notice your eggs dwindling. The early and mid-thirties are prime time for women to settle – breaking all their previously agreed-to relationship dealbreakers. This is not to say that if you really want to have babies, you should ignore those urges. There are other ways to go about it — you don’t have to settle for Mr. Kinda Okay just because you’re ready for the next stage of your life.

Life is short – we don’t want to waste it on people that we don’t belong with. A fifty-percent divorce rate is a fairly good indication that people are consistently ignoring what’s most important to them.

This is not to say that mistakes aren’t necessary – it’s the only way you learn. Through your twenties and early thirties, why not date terribly, terribly wrong? That’s how you figure out what you really want. You wade your way through the dating pool, take home lots of people, have some great (and probably awful) sex, and assess the landscape of your own desires. But when (and if) you want a life partner, you have to get down to the brass tacks.

I’m a major advocate for women to put sex before love, at least for a certain period of their life. I believe that all too often, we prioritize relationships and companionship and ignore our primal desires, because we’re taught that they’re not a primary for us. Dudes get the opposite message – they are taught that they have two brains, and that their genital brain can and should lead their way through life. That’s why women so often end up with long-term partners that they’re not attracted to — and suffer years (or a whole lifetime) of crappy or non-existent sex.

So come to your next relationship with your list at the ready. Know that you can and will continue to refine that list as you experience new people. Go into therapy to identify your parental complexes. And never, ever settle — because even though there’s no such thing as a perfect partner — you first objective is to be the ideal partner for yourself.

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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ColumnLately, it seems like there are too many stories of women being battered, harassed, trolled, stalked and threatened, both online and off. It’s enough to make us feel like there is no such thing as safe space, especially when it comes to expressing and enjoying healthy sexuality.

No matter what your actual exposure to such threats are, these stories have a way of invading our psychic space and making us all feel vulnerable (even as they may make us also feel angry). This can happen even if your life is a veritable advertisement for the idea of “safe space” – maybe you have a great relationship, plenty of stability, and a well-lighted entrance to your front door.

For the purposes of this column, I’m assuming that you’re not currently involved in a domestic violence situation, being stalked, or otherwise facing any of the traumatic situations outlined here.

From Ray Rice beating his fiancee in an elevator and avoiding consequences for months, to the hoax in response to Emma Watson’s speech at the UN, to feminists harassed and stalked by aggressive trolls online, to the Columbia student who is carrying a mattress around campus as a symbol of her sexual assault, to a teen girl’s brutal rape shared on Snapchat, to nude celebrity photo leaks — there is a long and growing list of awful threats to women’s bodies. In the same way that the media’s relentless focus on terrorism can make your heart rate go up when you descend into the subway, awareness of the dangers women face can subtly affect your otherwise healthy sexuality.

The lesson many have absorbed from the recent celebrity photo scandal is that women shouldn’t share naked photos even with their intimate partners — it’s straight-up slut-shaming. Of course, anyone with a brain knows that no woman is responsible for the hacker that stole her photos from the cloud, nor is she responsible for the ex who sold her photos to a magazine. This is the equivalent of telling women not to drink at frat parties, or not to wear tight clothes lest they invite unwanted attention. Rape culture insists that women are responsible for avoiding lecherous glances — not that men are responsible for their actions. This is the “boys will be boys” approach to creating safe space, and it’s utter BS.

Is there any part of you that buys into that? If yes, don’t be ashamed — it’s the basic narrative of Western culture, part and parcel of patriarchy — if you’ve never thought it to be true you’re a rare out-of-the-box radical. I didn’t get it until my twenties, when a few awesome women’s studies classes helped me begin to peel the Madonna-Whore complex off my skin, and kick it out of my bedroom.

Creating a collective safe space for women to embrace healthy sexuality is a work in progress, and there’s much to do before we can rest. But you can take control of the project of creating safe space in your own bedroom right now. I can’t promise to make you feel safe if you have to walk down a darkened street late at night, but I can suggest ways to feel safe and empowered in your body and in relationship to your sexuality. The reason the collective project is so complicated and long in coming is that male gaze is embedded into almost everything we are and everything we do. We’ve got to tease it apart, separate from it, and figure out who we are and what we want – not just that we want to be wanted.

So take a few moments to think about how much you’re affected by the pervasiveness of rape culture and toxic masculinity. Say you have a male partner who is a feminist and great in bed to boot — let’s just assume you’re that lucky. Despite his all around awesomeness, you’re partly reacting to his touch based on what you’ve learned about what it means to be a woman in this world.

Work on claiming your authentic desire by stripping away the layers of cultural dross about what you’re supposed to look and feel like. Of course, all sexuality is a dance between nature and nurture, and our early sexual experiences are imprinted on our brains, entwined with our hormones and sexual response cycle. But it doesn’t have to be rote — you can own the process whenever you’re ready to. It can be better,  safer, healthier and hotter — all at the same time.

This is all very subtle and not necessarily easy to wrap your brain around. Some readers are doing the #30DayOrgasmChallenge to better understand their sexuality and connect to their intimate partners at an ever deeper level. They’re challenging their ability to access ever deeper wells of pleasure. I believe that getting down to the brass tacks of your barest, deepest longings must first be done solo. This is perhaps the safest space of all.

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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ColumnHere are 9 sex tips for giving you and your partner an organic sex-lift.

Sex is natural, sex is good, but not everybody is doing nearly enough of what they should. We’re busy, we’re stressed out, and we’re tired, but that’s precisely why we should be having more sex. Being intimate cuts heart attack risk, burns calories, increases endorphins and boosts immunity. But in a technology-addled world where we’re often more intimate with our iPhones than our active or would-be lovers, sometimes you need a few tips. It’s time to slow down and put some eco into your sex. Here’s a guide to getting it on au naturel.

1. Fall in Love With Your Own Body

Eco-Sex starts with your own body. Practice being Cleopatra from the moment you wake in the morning until your lover arrives to pick you up (or just comes home from work). If you haven’t already begun excising toxic chemicals from your beauty routine, let better sex be your clarion call. Cleansing and moisturizing with EWG-approved products or DIY organic essential oil blends will make you look and feel beautiful. Falling in love with your own body is step number one for a healthy sex life: give your temple the respect it deserves.

2. Entertain Aphrodisiacs

Nibble on vegan and organic aphrodisiacs. Skip the heavy, artery-clogging, erection-killing steak and champagne dinner. Try a vegan and/or raw meal laced with aphrodisiacs like asparagus, ginger, avocado, and artichoke (to turn on women) and cinnamon, mango, squash, pumpkin and cayenne (to turn on the guys). Ginger and basil do double-duty, seducing both sexes.

3. Light it Up

Let there be candlelight. Particularly if you’re in a long-term relationship where it seems as if you and your partner are having a threesome with the television. It’s nice to ditch the grid, at least for an evening. Turn off all the electric lights and create a sensual, subtle, skin-flattering glow. Conventional candles are often made from toxic paraffin, so go for ethically sourced, eco-friendly, fair-trade varieties when possible. Cheekily-named (“Morning Wood” and “One Night Stand”) candles from A Scent of Scandal are vegan with cotton wicks. Essoya Candles use non-GMO soy and stimulating essential oil blends. Or try doing a craft night with your lover: make candles together before you make love.

4. Slip Into Something Natural

Wear sustainable skivvies. When sex gets too routine, the old cliché about lingerie really does work – especially when your panties are made from the good stuff. Forget the mass-produced Victoria’s Secret or even the Agent Provocateur – slip on underwear made from natural textiles like organic cotton and bamboo, and let the fireworks begin. Enamore, Araks, and Urban Fox make gorgeous, simple and sexy bras, panties, and teddies that both you and your lover will fancy.

5. Stay Ethical Right Down to…

Make your safe sex sustainable sex. The amazing folks behind Sir Richard’s Condom Company have created the first ethical condom. Vegan (certified by PETA), and sourced from sustainable latex, Sir Richard’s donates a condom to a developing country for every one you buy. Consider them the Tom’s Shoes of the sex industry. Luckily your pleasure is just as important to them as ethics are: the ultra-thin variety are seriously thin condoms that feel barely there. They’re also stylishly packaged and available at Whole Foods.

6. Oil Up Your Libido

Rub on some DIY massage oil. Coconut oil, the magical elixir that can be used in your hair, as a makeup remover, as a vegetable sauté, or in your smoothie is also a wonderful massage oil. Include a few drops of lavender and ylang-ylang essential oil (for stress-reduction) or neroli oil to stimulate libido.

7. Make Things Slippery

Make your lube organic. The conventional lube you find in the corner drugstore likely includes endocrine-disrupting parabens. Even some of the “natural” brands still have glycerin, which isn’t necessarily a toxic ingredient in other products, but not something you want near your nether regions. Glycerin strips the vagina of moisture, making it raw and more susceptible to yeast infections and even STI’s. Experiment with organic brands like Sliquid Organics or the UK-based Yes. Note: only use water-based lube with latex condoms – oil will degrade latex, rendering it useless. Keep your coconut oil away from your condoms.

8. Create An Adult Toy Box

Try sustainable sex toys. Yes, they require power. But that doesn’t mean they’re less than natural. The pleasure-pioneers at JimmyJane have created a line of sustainable, medical-grade, rechargeable silicone sex toys that last practically forever, unlike the throwaway, pthlalate-laced, plastic dildos of yore. These toys are gorgeous pieces of high-end design that belong on top of your night table instead of hidden in the drawer.

9. Take It Out of the Bedroom

Do it in the woods. You can, and you should change sexual venues. Find a safe, secluded spot in the wilderness and surrender to the wind and the leaves and the trees.

Stefanie Iris Weiss is the author of Eco-Sex: Go Green Between the Sheets and Make Your Love Life Sustainable (Ten Speed Press/Crown Publishing, 2010) and eight other books. Stefanie keeps her carbon footprint small in New York City, where she writes about sustainability, sexuality, reproductive rights, dating and relationships, politics, fashion, beauty, and more for many publications. Learn more about her at ecosex.net, follow her eco-sex exploits on Twitter or join her on Facebook.

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ColumnCold and flu season is almost upon us, but I’m not going to tell you to load up on echinacea or get a flu shot. I’d like to suggest a novel way to boost your immune system – have lots and LOTS of sex.

It’s early fall. You’ve heard that something is going around, and you feel a tickle in your throat. Your first instinct might be to tell your partner to slowly back away, lest you spread those nasty germs. But your instincts, at least in this case, are probably wrong: sex can boost your immune system, helping you ward off those pesky, snotty invaders.

A study from 2004 showed that people who have sex once or twice a week have higher levels of immunoglobulin A, or lgA – one of the most important defenses your body has against invading organisms.

Human touch lowers cortisol, so you don’t even have to go all the way – just a bit of cuddling, stroking and kissing can do the trick — even getting a massage can help. Skin-to-skin touching is the trigger for cortisol support, something we require in the delicate dance of hormonal balance. But getting your orgasm on brings the suite of benefits to a higher level, as you’ll soon see.

Women have it better than dudes when it comes to the immunity game, because we naturally produce estrogen, linked to an enzyme called Caspase-12, which blocks the inflammatory process. (Men do have estrogen, just in much smaller amounts.) And guess what, girls? Having regular sex increases your estrogen, and not the bad kind as we see in estrogen-dominance. The sweet side benefit of all this is that estrogen is good for your skin and your mood. That post-coital glow is really a thing – estrogen helps your body produce collagen. So skip the botox and go for a nice boink instead.

Oxytocin, the chemical released at orgasm, is a pain reliever and stress-reducer. So do your best to make sure that you get the orgasm you deserve when you have sex. Ask for it if it doesn’t seem to be forthcoming – you deserve it. If partnered sex isn’t in the cards for you as often as you’d like, solo sex offers many of the protective immune benefits that you want during cold and flu season – so don’t assume you’re out of luck – you can boost your immune system with self-pleasure, too.

The “more I get, the more I want” principle applies here as well. Estrogen boosts your sex drive – and having sex makes you produce more estrogen. You see how this delightful hormonal merry go round works, do you not? This is in part why we tend to be hornier in the days leading up to ovulation, when our estrogen is surging. Women’s sex drive flattens after ovulation, when progesterone is the major hormonal player. Progesterone makes you sleepy and PMS-y, horny, not so much.

However, if we focus on having lots of sex (or masturbating) throughout the cycle, at minimum once or twice a week, we can boost our immune system by encouraging healthy estrogen levels. There will be peaks and valleys, but having more sex (or solo sex) even when you’re at your peak estrogen level will help you to avoid that libido-plummet that can begin to feel inevitable after ovulation. This is in part why I created the #30DayOrgasmChallenge — to encourage people to have orgasms as early and often as possible.

Sex also improves sleep, and healthy sleep is basically the key to everything that is good and holy – including a strong immune system. A recent study showed that the oxytocin release paired with the cortisol-lowering effects of sex leave your body in a super relaxed state – the perfect conditions for a beautiful night’s rest.

Another sleep-inducing hormone called prolactin floods the brain at orgasm. The whole thing about women being chatty after sex vs. men rolling over and wanting to sleep is probably a bit of cultural programming – sex primes both genders for sleep. The real truth here is that men are probably having more orgasms than women are, and so the women are left wanting while the men’s brains turn off. You can shift this, again, but making sure you get the orgasm you deserve.

This is one-hundred percent anecdotal, but when I caught the abysmal flu that was going around in the winter of 2013, against my better judgment, I had sex. And I swear to the gods of congestion – I was instantly better. Sex did what all my obsessive ginger/garlic eating, green juice drinking, and neti-pot slinging could not. Just sayin’. And last winter I didn’t get sick once – guess why?

This isn’t to say that having loads of sex means you can slack off on the basic rules of cold and flu season, especially hygiene. If this recent study doesn’t freak you out about the important of hand-washing, I don’t know what will.

Will you boost your immune system by adding sex to your anti-cold and flu arsenal this season? Let me know by tweeting at me @ecosexuality.

Here’s to good health (and equal amounts of pleasure).

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

Keep in touch with Stefanie on Twitter: @ecosexuality

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ColumnPut away your ice buckets, darlings, because it’s time to take on a much more pleasurable challenge, one that may help you achieve better orgasms – and perhaps create a better world.

How are your orgasms, anyway? Are you having enough of them? Are you having any at all? Are they as good as they used to be? Whether single or partnered or poly, we women tend not to prioritize pleasure. Orgasm is more like the sweet icing on the cake that you hope to taste now and again, but how often do we even take a slice of cake to begin with? I want you to have your cake and eat too. And then have seconds and thirds and fourths and fifths. (Maybe the whole cake.)

I remind myself on the regular that pleasure is not a gift from the universe that’s bestowed from on high; it’s something we must offer to ourselves — something we must demand. Even if we have to use an excuse to take pleasure, or put it on our calendar like a dentist appointment, it should not be back-burnered. I’ve written about it before: orgasm is as important as brushing your teeth and taking off your makeup before bed. It’s as important as your yoga class and your kale salad. It’s both prevention and cure rolled into one. And if yours are meh, there is much you can do to have better orgasms.

Here is an abbreviated list of the health benefits of orgasm, none of which have anything to do with how good they feel:

• Reduces migraine pain

• Improves immunity (cures the common cold)

• Oxytocin = dopamine = better mood

• Regulates menstrual cycle, reduces cramps

Sometimes we don’t give ourselves pleasure because we tell ourselves we’re too tired and we can’t be bothered. The pursuit of better orgasms, or the pursuit of orgasms, period, can be a huge problem for partnered people. Solo sex is fraught when you have a partner who is supposed to be your pleasure-provider. Some people who are relatively comfortable with partnered sex retain Catholic guilt (no matter their religion) about masturbation in any form.

The list of excuses is long: I can’t reach for my orgasm because my husband/boyfriend/girlfriend is going to be jealous or angry or just annoyed. Or I had one yesterday. Or I had one last week. Or I’m too busy. Or the kids need me. Or work needs me. Or I’ll just take care of it tomorrow. Or I don’t feel attractive enough: I’m not even attracted to myself.

There are endless reasons we subconsciously “forget” to seek orgasms. Ask yourself: Is sexual shame the reason you conveniently “forget” to include pleasure in your life every day?

Some women want orgasms, or think they want them, but then try and can’t have them. Some used to have them but don’t anymore — boredom or frustration with a partner is a common cause. Anorgasmia is sadly extremely common for women. Sexual dysfunction can be physiological, but most often it’s psychological. Sometimes a woman presents as depressed, with low libido, and is given an anti-depressant as a cure – which then depletes her libido even more. Many women just throw in the towel at this stage, assuming sexual pleasure must be given up: better orgasms just aren’t in the cards. A lot of women give up at menopause, assuming that what our culture says about women of a certain age is true (hint: it’s definitely not true).

Here is what I’m proposing: that we take our orgasms, and thus our lives, to the next level with what I’m calling the #30DayOrgasmChallenge. In the spirit of recent challenges — ice bucket, cinnamon, Mentos, and Diet Coke included, some for good causes and some just absurd, I offer you the one challenge that cannot hurt you — it can only make you feel sublime. (Unless you have some kind of unfortunate sex toy fail.) You don’t have to make a video of your challenge (unless that’s how you roll).

Think of the #30DayOrgasmChallenge like a month-long telethon. You should share your milestones, if you’re so inclined. Tweet it, post on Facebook, and/or record your progress on your Tumblr. Raise money like you would for a 5k run for charity — and donate it to Lady Parts Justice or Planned Parenthood. But more important, just do it: have one orgasm a day for the next 30 days. Start whenever you feel the call, but some options are (if you’re menstruating) on the first day of your cycle or right after your period. If you’re past your reproductive years you might want to begin on the next new or full moon.

You can link to this article and post something like this: I’m taking the #30DayOrgasmChallenge to raise money for for women’s health and reproductive justice. Donate to an excellent cause, cheer me on, and I’ll update you on my daily progress!

Break out your toys, your fingers, your partner’s fingers (and other parts), your trusty bathroom faucet. Promise yourself that once a day, every single day for the next thirty days, you will make an effort to have an orgasm. Whether your current orgasms are awesomely toe-curling, boring and reliable as reruns of “Friends”, or barely there, getting into this daily practice will, if nothing else, bring you into intimate contact with what makes your pleasure tick and click. Like a yoga or meditation practice, the #30DayOrgasmChallenge deepens as it goes. Speaking of meditation, another option for your orgasms is orgasmic meditation. (Read about it here and here.)

Women are very often told that a sexual dysfunction is their fate. A very normal erosion of attraction to a long-term partner doesn’t have to end your sex life, however. That thing they told you about attraction lasting forever, as long as you have good companionship — that was a load of bunk. Science is showing us in a variety of ways how women are more libidinous than men, but not just that — that we actually require sexual variety more than men. We’ve been taught the reverse. There is a lot of unlearning to do before we can fully claim our pleasure without negotiation, handwringing, and shame.

Yet more reasons to take the #30DayOrgasmChallenge, and tell your friends to take it too. There’s no official start date, but when you begin, tweet me @ecosexuality with the hashtag #30DayOrgasmChallenge or #PleasurePractice. I’m going to do a follow up and share your stories in early October. Let’s change the world, one orgasm at a time.

Keep in touch with Stefanie on Twitter: @ecosexuality

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ColumnWhy do women cheat? A recent study has found – prepare to be SHOCKED – that they cheat because they’re horny.

The fact that we needed a study to uncover this deep, dark mystery is the real problem here – not the fact that women are sometimes compelled to cheat. We live in a world that still – in 2014, for god sake’s – is shaken when women admit that they need sexual release.

Why do women cheat? For the same reasons men do. Yet the Internet, upon discovering this study, was shocked to find that women are not sitting around all day, waiting for our prince to deliver us from our idle housewife lives, untie our corsets so that he can have his way with us. But we won’t enjoy it!!!! No, not unless he wants us to appear as if we do, because it turns him on. (And feminism never existed, either.)

It’s fun to laugh at the Internet’s penchant for getting its panties in a twist over things that we should all know by now, yet these antiquated notions about women’s sexuality persist and persist and persist.

The study in question, even though it hints at an obvious truth, is problematic in the ways these studies of sexuality tend to be. It employs a small sample size and was led by a scientist who works for AshleyMadison.com – a website that caters to people in relationships looking for extramarital affairs. Oh, and the participants were actual women using this “cheating site” – those already looking for a fling. (As an aside, next time you date online, unless you’re cool with having your personal life, emails to potential lovers, and other information mined for studies, I suggest you carefully read the terms of service before you click “accept.”)

I’m bothered that we’re even searching for an answer to the question “why do women cheat?” — have we asked this question about men? No, we just assume, as we’re socialized to do, that they are led by their penises and cheat because they want sex. The thing about this study that seemed to surprise those analyzing the data was that women didn’t want to leave their marriages – they just wanted some damn good sex. They wanted to preserve their partnerships for whatever reason – for companionship, children, financial reasons – but they did want sex elsewhere.

Our culture is not quite at grips with the fact that women’s sexuality is just as, if not more, primed for novelty than men’s. The women in this study were between 35 and 45. Because we’re so habituated to the myth of “til’ death do us part” when we sign up for marriage, it can come as a shock when after three, five, or seven years of monogamy – it’s no longer enough.

We’re taught that if we have love, we’ll never desire another man or woman’s body – and more than that, that sex isn’t as important as companionship, financial reliability, good parenting – all the other aspects of marriage. Sex is like icing – if we meet someone who’s offering us a cake made of all the proper ingredients of partnership, we can forego the sweetness we truly desire.

Number one, I say put the icing first when you’re dating. Because if you end up marrying someone who doesn’t make your toes tingle, you’ll miss it later on. That’s the first step – recognizing and honoring our authentic desires and sexual needs, straight from the start, and not settling for someone who’s merely meeting our practical needs. We have other needs, and they must not be kept in the shadows.

Two, when and if you do put a ring on it, know at the outset that even if you’re over-the-moon hot for your betrothed, you may not always be. Don’t be afraid to have that talk. You may not always be, and hey – he might not always be either.

If you’re at the stage where your partner is still getting most of marriage right, but you’re just not sexually attracted to him anymore, first – forgive yourself. You are normal – you are the many, not the few. Those of us who can stay attracted to a long-term partner for many years are rare creatures indeed. If you’re that woman, god bless you, and rock on. But if you’re most women, you may need someone else at some point – and you shouldn’t go through a major shame spiral if you feel it.

Women are socialized to believe that our sexuality is not our own — we learn to navigate other people’s desires before we recognize ours as real. Instead of waiting, and wanting to be wanted, women need to embrace our sexual needs earlier in life — not halfway into our marriages.

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

Keep in touch with Stefanie on Twitter: @ecosexuality

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