Sex For Dummies (For Dummies: Psychology & Self Help)

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Untreated, it can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, chronic pelvic pain, ectopic pregnancy, and/or infertility in women and people with female reproductive tracts (11) People’s appetite for sex builds as time goes on, as I mentioned in the Enjoying a sensory experience section earlier in this chapter, but people have another need, and that is to form a bond with another person. It seems we are made to go by twos, the way the animals marched into Noah’s ark. The biological reason may be to bring up the children produced by sex, but we wouldn’t need love and romance if that were the only case. We also need companionship, someone to share our lives with, as well as to have sex. For love and the long haul This book is organized so you can go wherever you want to find complete information. Want to know about genital warts, for example? Head to Chap-ter 19. If you’re interested in oral sex, go to Chapter 13 for that. You can use the table of contents to find broad categories of information or the index to look up more specific things. If you have to ask what it is, then you’d better read Part I again before you jump ahead to all the juicy stuff related to traditional intercourse in Part II: ideas for foreplay; what to expect the first time you have intercourse; suggestions for moving beyond the missionary position; advice for making sure both of you have an orgasm; and ways to put some zing in your sex life. When you’re ready, spend as much time here as you’d like. Part III: Different Strokes Becoming aware of when mittelschmerz occurs is a good point of reference for anyone practicing natural family planning. I talk more about family planning in Chapter 5.

Sexual pleasure is not defined in one certain way. Many things can bring enjoyment and satisfaction. Orgasm is an intense sexual excitement. This is one way to achieve sexual pleasure. People with penises experience orgasm when the penis becomes hard and enlarged. This occurs when there is a desire to have sex and a release of hormones in the body. Ejaculation usually occurs during orgasm. People with vulvas experience orgasm when the clitoris (and sometimes the inner and outer labia) is stimulated and becomes swollen. We have special organs that are made to have sex; they fit together and have many nerve endings so as to make sex pleasurable. But sex is really a whole body experience, from your brain right down to your toes. And becoming a good sex partner means that you have to understand how to fit all those parts together. I explain the basics of the male parts in Chapter 2 and the female parts in Chapter 3. If you want to know how they fit together, turn to Chapter 8. O'Connell HE, Sanjeevan KV, Hutson JM. Anatomy of the clitoris. The Journal of urology. 2005 Oct 31;174(4):1189-95. bullet You send sexual messages with your body language, from the way you walk to the angle you hold your head.

Centres for disease control and prevention. Anal sex and HIV risk. 27 Oct 2016. Atlanta. Available from: https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/risk/analsex.html The great thing about phone sex is that it allows you to talk about what you like—but don’t forget the sex aspect of phone sex, Michels says. Touching yourself while you speak and listen is likely part of the equation. “Being able to touch one’s own body, and not worrying about whether or not the other person is going to judge them for it, is a huge plus,” Michels explains. In fact, the person on the other end of the line probably wants you to touch yourself. In addition, men have the refractory period, which is the time needed after orgasm before the man can respond to more sexual stimulation and have another erection and orgasm. In young men, this period can be as short as a few minutes; the length of the refractory period grows as a man ages. HotStuff If the egg is not fertilized, it passes through the uterus. About two weeks later, the uterus sheds its lining, the endometrium, in a process called menstruation. A new lining then begins to grow, ready to receive a fertilized egg the next month.

In the 21st century, this process of misinformation and confusion can’t continue. In the past, we had rules in place to guide us so that, even if we didn’t understand human sexuality all that well, as long as we followed the rules and got married before having sex, we couldn’t stray too far. However, one-night stands have a way of becoming two nights. Separating our arousal from the rest of our emotions isn’t always easy. Some people these days engage in sex with people who are just friends, sharing benefits. If that happens once, then perhaps that’s as far as it will go. But if two friends are having sex with some regularity, the odds are pretty good that at least one of them will want to be more than just friends. Flying soloA fertilized egg continues down the fallopian tube on a journey that takes about three days. During the first 30 hours, the chromosomes of the egg and the sperm merge, and the cells begin to divide. This new entity is called an embryo. When the embryo finishes its journey and enters the uterus (see Figure 1-2), it gets nourishment from uterine secretions, and the cells inside it continue to divide, causing the embryo to grow. Approximately six days after fertilization, the egg hatches, emerging from its hard shell and then burrowing its way into the uterine wall, or endometrium. ClinicalInfo Communication is also critical. What feels good to you might not feel good to someone else. Talk with your partner about what you do and do not like. It can be fun to experiment to find the most enjoyable touches. Increased communication may also increase intimacy. Masturbation is another way that may help you understand the best techniques for experiencing sexual pleasure. How to have safer sex The process of making a baby has not changed since Adam and Eve discovered sex: A sperm from the man must meet an egg inside of the woman (test-tube babies notwithstanding). When the sperm and the egg unite, the egg becomes fertilized.

Humans have been having sex since time immemorial, and not much changed as the centuries slid by. Then in the 1960s, the Pill came out, and the sexual revolution was said to begin. But the past 25 years, which coincidentally is the period when I first became well known, have seen the most major advancements. Many more women who couldn’t have orgasms are now orgasmic. Many older people, particularly men, can have sex into their 90s. People are talking to each other about their sexual needs, and as a result, they’re more satisfied with their sex lives. And although we’ve made progress, more needs to be done. Rowley J, Vander Hoorn S, Korenromp E, Low N, Unemo M, Abu-Raddad LJ, et al. Global and regional estimates of the prevalence and incidence of four curable sexually transmitted infections in 2016. WHO Bulletin. 2019 Jun. Available from: https://www.who.int/bulletin/online_first/BLT.18.228486.pdf Diseases transmitted through microorganisms from feces ( Giardia, Shigella, Salmonella, Campylobacter, and E. coli) (21) If the act of intercourse goes on too long, or if the man is tired or weak for some other reason, the missionary position can be uncomfortable. A woman’s private parts don’t come with a set of instructions, so every woman needs to write her own to make sure her lover knows what she likes. Here are a few important points to keep in mind:This phase is usually generated by one or a combination of several physical, visual, or psychological stimuli, which can be caused either by oneself or a partner. Foreplay (which I cover in Chapter 7) usually gets these responses started. So the mechanics of sex makes babies, but the main reason that people engage in sex is for the sensory experience, the wide range of physical and emotional pleasures that a person can derive from sexual activity. You may think that these pleasures would be enough to draw people into having sex, but in fact this sensory experience has two sides, like the proverbial itch that needs to be scratched. If you don’t have sex for a period of time, and that period can be a matter of hours for some young adults to weeks for an older person, a little voice inside you tells you that the time for sex has arrived. You become aroused, or horny in the vernacular, meaning that as more and more time goes by, your desire for sex increases. Now, you can satisfy those desires without having sex with another person, called masturbation, which I cover in Chapter 14, but the preferable method of scratching this itch is to have sex with another person. The embryo releases a hormone called hCG. When the hCG reaches the mother’s bloodstream, it signals that she is pregnant and causes the ovaries to continue producing the hormones estrogen and progesterone, which are necessary to maintain the pregnancy.

Little finger-like appendages on the end of the fallopian tube called fimbria lead the egg into the tube, through which it makes its way into the uterus. If, during this trip, the egg encounters some sperm swimming along, then the first sperm to reach the egg and penetrate the hard outer shell, called the zona pellucida, will enter the egg and begin the life-creating process called fertilization.

How did they study the sexual response cycle? They observed more than 10,000 sexual acts in their laboratories. Because even the most serious voyeur would probably have had enough after about the first 1,000, you can appreciate that they were really very dedicated scientists. The key to female masturbation is clitoral stimulation, but the ways women achieve clitoral stimulation vary. Certainly many use their hands, but many women prefer, or need, to use something other than their hands.