Sexy New Year's Resolutions

Have you made your New Year's Resolutions for 2018? I'm not talking about those tired (and usually abandoned) promises like go to the gym, stick to a budget, and stop junk food snacking. I'm talking about Sexy New Year's Resolutions -- changes and commitments that will give you a richer, more joyful sex life, especially at our age. And they're fun to put into action!

You may know that I write a monthly "Sex at Our Age" column for Senior Planet. Usually I answer a reader's question in this column, but occasionally I take a different path. This month, my Sexy New Year's Resolutions offer you 14 tips and lifestyle changes that will make a huge difference if you follow them fully. Here are some examples. (Read the others here.)

Redefine Sex. Change your definition of sex to whatever activities arouse you and bring you sexual pleasure, partnered or solo. Embracing a new definition of sex expands your possibilities for pleasure. Read this account of one reader’s experience.

Track the Tingle. For quicker, easier, and more satisfying arousal, figure out what time of day you feel most sexually responsive. When you feel the “tingle” – that quiver of erotic possibility – set aside time to indulge yourself sexually or schedule that time on your next free day.

Self-Pleasure Frequently. Solo sex is real sex, and it’s good for your general health, your sexual health and your sense of well-being. Give yourself sexual pleasure, whether you’re in a relationship or not. You’re celebrating your body’s ability to give you exquisite pleasure.

Just Do It. This is for you if you enjoy sex when you do it, but you rarely feel desire in advance. You’re experiencing “responsive desire”: your desire follows physiological arousal instead of preceding it. So just do it, and your desire will kick in.

Exercise Before Sex. Increasing your blood flow with physical activity isn't only good for the heart and muscles — it's also good for sexual function and pleasure. One of the best things we can do to speed up arousal and orgasm is regular exercise, especially before sex.

Sex Before Food. Eating before sex sends the blood flow to your digestive system instead of your genitals. Have sex first, then eat. Sexual arousal will be easier, orgasms will be more reliable, and you will relish that meal afterward.

Use Your Words. Learning to talk about sex is the key to getting what you want. A long-term partner is likely to continue doing what used to work, even if it doesn't work for you now, unless you redirect the action. A new partner wants to know how to please you. Speak up.

Have Sex More Often. Difficulty with arousal and orgasm is a good reason to have more sex, not less. The penis and the clitoris require blood flow for engorgement. The more you engage in stimulation – partnered or solo — the more easily the blood flows to the genitals.

Committing to a year of resolutions is daunting, I know. But did you know that it takes just three weeks to make or break a habit? So how about selecting two or three of these resolutions and committing three weeks to seeing how they work for you? Chances are you'll want to keep doing them. Let me know!


Have you checked out my senior sex webinars? Be sure to subscribe to my newsletter, where you'll get special discounts on my webinars and more.

Getting Your Mojo Back: Excerpt from The Ultimate Guide to Sex after 50

Getting Your Mojo Back

Excerpt from 

The Ultimate Guide to Sex after 50: 

How to Maintain - or Regain - a Spicy, Satisfying Sex Life 

by Joan Price  

I used to be eager for sex, easily aroused. My desire dipped after menopause and now barely exists. I can go weeks or more without desiring sex or thinking much about it. The funny thing is, if I get started, I like it, but it’s so hard to get in the mood. 

 The number one sex problem that I hear from women is the lack of desire for sex. They do still enjoy sex once they get started, they tell me, but they’re seldom in the mood ahead of time. It isn’t just a problem for women—many men also report decreased desire—but for women, it’s the primary complaint. The problem is that if we wait for the mood and don’t make sexual pleasure a priority, we’ll rarely have sex.

There are lots of reasons that you may be feeling decreased desire, but let’s cut to a solution that works first, and figure out the reasons afterward:

 Instead of waiting for the mood, start getting yourself sexually aroused—on your own, with a partner, or with a vibrator. Just do it. The physiological arousal will trigger the emotional desire.

That’s the opposite of the way it used to work! When we were younger, our hormone-induced sex drive bombarded our brain and body with desire—especially during our most fertile times. This was simple biology. A glance, a thought, a murmur, a fantasy, or a touch sparked the mood. Once in the mood, we opened ourselves to the pleasures of physiological arousal. We got turned on, our arousal built, and we crashed joyously into orgasm.

 But now, this all works the other way around. Instead of waiting forever for the mood to strike, we can induce the mood by letting ourselves get physiologically aroused as the first step. Arousal will lead to mood and desire, instead of vice versa. Here are your new mantras:

• Desire follows action. 
• Use it, don’t lose it. 
• Just do it. 

“You may have just saved my marriage,” a woman told me after I gave this suggestion at a presentation. Try it—you may feel the same!

 What to Do Instead of Waiting to Be in the Mood 

I can’t emphasize enough how important it is to approach our sexuality in this new way: Relax, start getting physically aroused, emotional arousal will happen, and voila, we’ll be in the mood. So the key is to commit to regular sexual pleasure, partnered or solo. How does this translate to real life? Here are some tips:

• Schedule sex dates with your partner and/or with yourself at least weekly, more is even better. 
• Exercise before sex for faster arousal and easier orgasms.
• Create rituals with your partner that signal sex would be welcome. 
• Allow plenty of arousal time -- no rushing, no goals except pleasure. 
• Make sexual arousal and orgasm a habit, whether you're partnered or on your own. 

Make sexual pleasure a habit. Give yourself sexual pleasure frequently, and you'll find that you'll become aroused more easily and enjoy sex more! 

Learn more about 

The Ultimate Guide to Sex after 50.

Order here for an autographed copy, purchase from your local independent bookstore, or order from Amazon.

Female Desire Pill, interview with Ellen Barnard

2/27/15 update: I interviewed Ellen Barnard about the female desire pill on 2/2/14. I'm bringing this post to the top because of the attention that "Nothing Is Wrong With Your Sex Drive" (published today in the New York Times) is getting. 

I plan to write more about this myself, and there's a good section already in The Ultimate Guide to Sex After 50: How to Maintain – or Regain! – a Spicy, Satisfying Sex Life which I hope you'll want to read. -- Joan 

Desire in a pill? 

(originally published 2/2/14)

Researchers are working on drugs to treat low desire in women. Could a desire pill really work? Do we even want it? 

To learn more, I interviewed one of the top sex educators, Ellen Barnard, co-owner of A Woman’s Touch Sexuality Resource Center.

JP: What’s the state of current research into a female desire drug?

EB: A variety of drugs are being investigated in clinical trials, most in phase 2 trials. No drug has been approved for the treatment of low desire for women, also known as Hypoactive Sexual Desire Disorder (HSDD).  See this summary of the current state of the research.

JP: How are these drugs supposed to work?

EB: Some of these drugs work on brain chemicals; some are sex hormone-based (testosterone); others primarily work to increase physical arousal through an increase in blood to the clitoris. Most of the medications that are being investigated are designed to either overcome inhibition or lack of motivation, or flood the person with such strong physical sensations that she cannot ignore them easily. Or they manipulate the reward system of the brain in ways that increase the drive toward that sexual jackpot.

The question is whether a drug that pushes a woman into being more interested in sex is safe, healthy, or would even be effective over the long term. Many of the drugs being investigated have a variety of side effects, and some are quite undesirable. Testosterone can cause excess hair growth, acne, lowering of the voice, and a decrease in good cholesterol, for example. Other drugs show the potential for abuse, either by the woman herself or by a partner who hopes to have a more willing lover.

JP:  Why is sexual desire so complicated for women and seemingly so easy for men?

EB: It isn't, actually. Men have troubles with desire too, and their issues have many of the same origins as women's do. However, we live in a culture that reinforces men for a high interest in sex, and generally does not see a high interest in sex to be a positive thing in women, unless a woman is less interested in sex than her partner, and that lower interest causes tension between them or distress in her. But even with culture condoning high desire for men, approximately 20% experience low desire. For more info, here isa good overview. 

JP: How does female desire work?

EB: Desire is the cognitive recognition of sexual interest. So it's an idea, not a physiologic process, though it results in a combination of brain and body responses. Desire may be first recognized as a thought, or it may be a thought in response to a physical feeling. Many women believe that we should feel something first, that sex starts with a twinge in the vulva or elsewhere in the body, that she interprets as sexual interest and then allows to blossom into more sexual interest and then maybe into sexual activity. If physiologic signal is not as obvious because of aging, health, or stress, she may no longer get the signal, and so she does not notice the thought.

Women who have experienced sex as painful have a feedback loop that tells them that sex will hurt, and so they shut off any thought of sex to avoid the pain. If a woman is able to get rid of the pain, she will still have to convince her subconscious that sex is safe. Once she does that, her thoughts of sexual interest often become more frequent.

The same would be true of relationship health. For a woman in a healthy, rewarding relationship, the thought of sex is a safe thought and is likely to mean that she will experience pleasure if she acts on that thought, so she pursues sexual activity. Sex requires the feeling of safety. When there is tension, distrust, fear, anger, etc., the mind does not perceive sex as safe or pleasurable, so will not express desire.

When you think about how complicated desire is for women (and men as well), you can see that it's pretty complicated to consider a medication to address the root causes of most of these issues.

JP: What’s the bottom line?

EB: The bottom line is that drugs do best when there is a single, knowable cause for a symptom and the drug directly addresses that cause by reducing or removing it. Sexual desire is complicated, varies a lot from person to person, and has many moving parts. The idea that a drug could be developed to change desire is pretty far-fetched once you understand it that way, and one of our biggest fears is that you end up with a drug that has pretty wide effects and some nasty, unintended side effects.

We would prefer to address desire issues in ways that give individuals more control and more understanding of their mind and body connections so that they can do their own problem-solving and not be reliant on a pill or a doctor. Most people can increase their experience of desire through a combination of getting healthy, having a good body image, having a safe and trusting intimate relationship, getting enough sleep, lowering stress and distractions, reducing pain, and learning how to have pleasurable sexual experiences on a regular basis.

A Woman’s Touch Sexuality Resource Center