The latest from our Heart and Soul
A friend of mine was at an over-30 party a few months back. As midnight neared and the party went into overtime, a slow song came on. My friend made a beeline for her husband and danced slowly and seductively with him. They enjoyed the moment immensely, grateful to feel comfortable enough in front of their friends to express their affection.
While most people at the party did not even notice their going’s on, two people at the party did and proceeded to make a big stink about it the next day. My friend felt terrible and said it turned a really nice experience with her husband into one of guilt. She was disappointed that two stick-in-the-muds had to ruin a special moment.
On the flip side are people who openly grope each other in public. An extreme example would be from a few years back, when a couple on an airplane decided to have sex—not in the mile-high-club washroom but rather at their seat. When the flight attendant came to “break them up”, the flight attendant was told to mind her own business.
As much as I believe in viva la difference, if that couple had been sitting in front of me, I probably would have been uncomfortable (mesmerized, but still uncomfortable).
Simply mentioning the words, “Public displays of affection” (PDA) at a dinner party will bring out a barrage of opinions. Both for and against. There are many reasons why some feel comfortable seeing other people be affectionate in public while others do not.
So for those of you who play Trivial Pursuit, here’s the quick and dirty on why some people stare and others squirm when they see others openly affectionate.
Hot weather climates produce people who feel a lot more comfortable with touching. The colder the climate (like Canada), the more people become uncomfortable.
Being extroverted or introverted also plays a role. Generally speaking, people who are extroverted unconsciously touch—it is apart of their bonding with others. Introverts do not really feel comfortable with people getting in their space.
As well, there is a correlation between a person’s comfort level with PDA and which city they are from. Cities like Montreal and Vancouver have a more laid back nature and mottos like, “Live and let live”.
In cities like San Francisco, New Orleans or Sydney, Australia, neither public displays of affection nor public nudity is considered a big deal. I attended a street fair in San Francisco where nude people nonchalantly walked and shopped the fair. They were making a statement. I have never seen anything like that in my home town of Calgary.
Who’s Right?
No one is right in this situation. It is a matter of personal preference. The question then becomes how should the majority react to the minority?
A bell curve of attitudes will arise around people’s PDA comfort level. The majority of people sit in the middle of the bell-curve and are okay with most PDA. On either sides of the bell curve will be the extremists: on one end those people who are completely intolerant and, on the other end, those people who get turned on by “doing it” in public places.
As there is no rulebook for affectionate conduct, it means that every interaction is up for interpretation. Consequently, common sense must come into play. Common sense (at least in my world) would dictate that moderation is key, and anything in excess can become destructive.
This holds true for PDA. Hand-holding, sitting close, kissing and nuzzling are pretty innocent, fun and healthy actions. Zero touch can lead to a loss of spontaneity and warmth within the couple. Or, when the touch becomes hot and heavy groping, the first thing you need to ask is, “Would I do this in front of my mom?” If not, maybe you should find a private place.
It was my first semester at graduate school in San Francisco. The artsy-fartsy professor decided we needed to do a little de-stressing. He instructed the class to get into groups of three and do a two-people massaging one-person exercise. In the time it took for me to turn to the two people sitting closest and ask them to be in my group, I looked back at the front and there was my professor stark naked.
To say the least, I was shocked. 
However, not so shocked as when all my classmates followed suit and took off their clothes. Out of my embarrassment at being the only person left with clothes on, I managed to take off my shirt, but kept my bra on.
It was, to say the least, an extremely impactful moment. I spent many hours after navel gazing, trying to understand and find reason for why the average gal has such profound body issues.
With fresh eyes, I read magazine articles with titles like, “10 Tricks to Hide Your Bulges.” I watched Atkins and WeightWatchers commercials advocating losing weight before bikini season. I walked by cosmetic counters with miracle cures to eliminate unsightly cellulite. It became apparent that everyone and everything was screaming at every woman every minute of the day as to just how unattractive her body is to look at.
My Next Naked Moment
Three years later, I was back at school taking an advanced course in sex therapy. With seven-foot mirrors to our front and to our back, every individual in the class was to strip down naked and describe from head to toe what they liked and disliked about their body.
So there I was taking off my clothes in front of my class. As tears streamed down my face and my whole body shook, I realized society’s perfectionist values still had a stronghold on me. I kept thinking how ludicrous my emotional outbreak was because I did the exact same drill everyday in the gym locker room.
Interestingly enough, none of the women in this class could get completely naked: we only stripped down to our bras and panties. And none of us could say a lot of things we liked about our bodies. The men, on the other hand, were pretty nonchalant about being naked and were happy to talk about their less-than-perfect figures as absolutely divine. The difference in the men’s and women’s naked attitudes made me furious.
In that moment, something in me snapped and my mind made a fundamental shift. For many days after the exercise, I stomped around San Francisco absolutely f-u-r-i-o-u-s.
Angry at all the wasted years of my life spent feeling inadequate about my body. Angry at how much of my sexuality was stifled because I could not accept my imperfections as unique. Angry that I could not let people get close because my body insecurities pushed them away.
After the naked-perfectionist anger came the naked-reality calm. I would be lying if I said I always feel 100% great about my body, because I do not. However, when I look in the mirror, I no longer home in on all my imperfections.
In accepting my body, my sexuality is able to ooze out of every pore.
Your Turn to Be Naked
So although it may seem a little too weird and artsy-fartsy, why don’t you try doing the same exercise. Look in a full length mirror—that hasn’t been fogged by the shower—and go from the top of your head to the bottom of your feet and do body inventory.
And really appreciate the way your body looks…because in twenty years it’s only going to get worse.
There’s no two ways about it, getting back into having sex after a miscarriage is a completely crap time in a couple’s relationship.
If you are healthy and you’ve had a ‘normal’ miscarriage, you can resume sexual relations within four to six weeks after a gynecological check-up.
That’s all good and fine until the four to six weeks pass and it is now time to climb into bed with your partner to have sex. This is the moment things can go two ways: your heartbreaking experience can bring you closer or it can start to subtly pull you two apart.
The communication becomes challenging because miscarriage is fraught with so much emotion there is an understandable propensity to ignore, deny and pretend like it doesn’t exist. It’s the big white elephant of your relationship: omnipresent but no one will discuss that it’s there.
And it certainly doesn’t help that men and women see the pregnancy through a different set of eyes. The woman has had a front-row seat from day one while her partner has been sitting in the wings watching the drama of her morning sickness, excitement and extreme tiredness unfold. After a misscarriage, neither appreciates the other’s perspective.
Kristen Swanson, RN and PhD, surveyed and then did a study around 185 couples who went through a miscarriage. She found that first-time dads did not consider the baby ‘real’ until he held it in his arms for the first time.
Of the respondents, 23% felt their relationship was back to normal one year after their miscarriage and only 6% said their sexual relationship was closer. Over one-third of respondents felt distant from their partner interpersonally and sexually — and were actively avoiding pregnancy.
During this time, the more a woman feels distant from her partner the more she may repress her anger, frustration, confusion and depression. Sex can become a minefield because each sexual encounter is a brutal reminder of her loss. Non-communication means that she spins deeper into a negative emotional spiral, making the sex more difficult to have with her partner over time.
When I suggest to women they need to talk to their partner about how both are feeling, their feedback usually is, “Although he is trying to understand, he just doesn’t get it. He thinks I’m being overly emotional. So I go to my girlfriends for support.”
It’s always healthy and a great idea to seek outside support. However, although it might be difficult to get him to open up emotionally, by not talking about his feelings, he will be even more alienated. There’s the rub. Even though both experienced this loss together, they are pushing each other away. There can be no intimacy with this dynamic.
Swanson encourages couples to start with naming what they have lost, and then discussing how they feel about their loss. The partner who is listening needs to close their mouth, open their ears and appreciate what the other person has been going through. Once you’ve climbed this hurdle, discuss if you want to have a ceremony of sorts to mark the loss—to grieve it properly, to make it real and then put it to rest.
Only by communicating, grieving and then making motions to move forward can your relationship not hang in post-miscarriage limbo.
Now, when you two climb into bed after four to six weeks, it’s not going to be the awkward experience. Instead, let it be the glue which brings you even closer to your partner than before your miscarriage, easing you into pregnancy once again.
You have it within you to be ‘that sexy person’ who can walk into any room and stop everyone in their tracks. You are that person who unabashedly oozes sexuality. Are you rolling your eyes?
You see, how to be sexy is easy. It’s the getting over yourself that’s the hard part. Unfortunately for many women, spending time ‘selfishly’ on self is a four-letter word.
So if you’ve taken your sexy-mojo and put it on a dark dusty shelf in the back of your clothes closet, here are five ideas on how you can be sexy. Notice none of them have to do with the way you dress, apply make up or whether you have this season’s shoes.
Now, instead of perusing the list and quickly dismissing it, take a good hard look in the mirror. What else can you add into your life that would take your sexy up a notch?
- Sexy people are fun to be around. They laugh a lot and have tons of positive energy.
- Sexy is your attitude, independence and confidence. Sexy is completely accepting yourself, warts and all. Confidence is derived from being fully self-expressed and not worrying about society’s narrow definition of what is acceptable behavior.
- Sexy is (believe it or not) good posture. Even if you don’t feel confident, fake it ‘til you make it. Shoulders back, stick out the girls and walk with a bit of a strut.
- Sexy is not necessarily having the perfect body. It is being comfortable with what you’ve been given and putting it out there for everyone to see. Yet over 80% of women have issues with their body. Women tend to stand in front of the mirror and zoom in on all their wobbly bits—that is, if they even have the energy to look at their ‘deformed’ body (honestly, it kills me how much women hate their body). Guess what? Reminding yourself a minimum 365 times a year that your body is ugly isn’t going to help you feel good about yourself.
- Sexy is not taking yourself so seriously. Sexy is not trying too hard to impress. Super high-strung, wound-like-a-top people are not sexy because they spend the majority of their day being uptight.
Remember to take time out of your busy day to acknowledge, appreciate and love that sexy part of you. Forever be outrageous and allow your sexy-mojo to run free.
Everyone wants to know how to have bigger, better orgasm.
Well, here’s the easy answer. Kegel exercises. Yes, Kegels. 
They are the best two minutes a day you could ever spend on the road to better sex and female orgasm.
Kegels after childbirth are a great way to tone and strengthen the vagina. As well, some postmenopausal women find Kegels help them to maintain lubrication because of the daily increase in blood flow to that area.
You see, in order to maintain tone and strength and to feel at its best, every muscle group needs to be exercised. If not exercised, the muscle group will become slack and eventually atrophy. Therefore, a lack of sensation around a woman’s vaginal opening is usually caused by an out-of-shape pubococcygeal (PC) muscle.
In case you’ve never done a Kegel exercise, here are the basics. To find where your PC muscle are located:
- Sit over a toilet and with your legs apart start a flow of urine
- Half way through stop the flow
- Concentrate on what muscle you used to stop the flow—that is your PC muscle.
It is important to do this trial exercise because it’s easy to mistake your stomach, buttocks or thigh muscle for your PC muscle.
Once your PC is located, there are three simple Kegel exercises you can do.
The Squeeze and Release
Contract your PC muscle for three seconds, then let them rest for three seconds. If holding for three seconds is too much at first, then start with one or two seconds instead. Do this Kegel exercise ten times per day.
The Flutter
This Kegel exercise is about squeezing and releasing the PC muscle as quickly as possible. Rapidly squeeze and release ten times, then take a short rest. Doing this to upbeat music helps keep you on track. Do three sets of ten per day.
The Advanced Kegel
Once you get good at Kegels, it’s time to take it up a notch. Pull up the entire pelvic area as though trying to suck up water into the genitals. Then push out or bear down as if trying to push the imaginary water out. ThisKegel exercise will use a number of stomach muscle as well as the PC muscle. Do this ten times per day.
It’s pretty normal at first for your PC muscle to tire out easily. However, if you find some soreness in your thigh, stomach or buttocks muscle you need to go back to the start and properly locate your PC muscle once again.
Make Kegels Your Daily Habit
The hardest part will be you keeping up your daily Kegel exercise routine. As such, do your Kegels in unison with other daily habits. I recommend making it a part of your morning routine.
Do your Kegel exercises while in the shower, brushing your teeth, on the commute to work, waiting at stop lights, or while exercising and listening to your favorite music. Perhaps at work you can liven up that boring meeting, make answering the telephone more fun, or have your own little party while waiting in a take-out line for lunch. There are tons of opportunities.
The wonderful thing about Kegels is you can do them anywhere without anyone having the slightest idea of what you are up to. Just make sure to wear a big smile on your face to confuse the heck out of whoever may be watching you. It will be your own little naughty secret.
Kegels are a fast, easy, convenient way for men and women to enjoy their orgasms so much more. It’s your two-minutes-a-day regime to better sex.
Editor's note: You can view Dr. Trina's video on How to do Kegel exercises within our video section too.
