Health news blog

As you get older, developing a chronic medical problem gets more likely. Some of these conditions can interfere with sexuality, particularly untreated diabetes in men. (Diabetes doesn’t seem to affect women’s sexual responses, except that women with diabetes are more likely to get recurrent vaginal thrush.) In men, blood vessel disease from any cause might first show itself in the small blood vessels of the penis.

Jim and his wife had never had any difficulties with sex. At fifty-three he started to notice it was taking longer to get an erection. When he couldn’t get it up at all he knew there was something wrong. T was worried sick. The problem deteriorated very quickly so that after about twelve months my penis was limp and totally useless. The funny thing was that I still felt very turned on, so I knew there must be something wrong with my plumbing. I had never had a problem before; in fact quite the opposite. When I was a youngster at times I wished it would just stay down for a while. At first I didn’t want to tell anyone about it. My wife encouraged me to go and see our family doctor. He checked me over and sent me for some tests. He also talked to me about giving up the smokes and getting my weight down a bit. The specialist said I might need to think about an implant but I thought I’d wait and see how things went. When my penis was still doing dead snake impressions after another couple of months I figured it was the only solution. The operation wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be and although the implant isn’t quite as good as the brochure made out, it does the job. Well my wife still has a smile on her face!’

That’s not to say that surgery is the only option for a man with erectile difficulties. Some men use injections of prostaglandin directly into the penis to chemically induce an erection and this suits some men quite well.

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Most of the factors that reduce libido, like conflict in the relationship, guilty feelings, inhibitions, anxiety or depression will also determine whether you are able to reach orgasm.

Atmosphere can have a big influence on whether you reach orgasm. The right lighting, music, comfortable furniture and a chance to enjoy each other’s company can make a big difference. The cramped back seat of a ‘72 Volkswagen Beetle is not exactly conducive to relaxing and taking your time.

If there is a lack of privacy or a real risk of intrusion, then it can be very difficult to make it happen. That is, unless you have a fantasy about being ’sprung’, or you’ve seen the restaurant scene in the movie When Harry Met Sally.

To overcome these, it can help to concentrate on what happens to you. Research has been able to show that women who have masturbated to orgasm have a better chance of being able to orgasm with a partner. Masturbation has now gained widespread acceptance as a form of therapy for women who have problems reaching orgasm. A vibrator is often a good way to get started with this.

For many women this is easier said than done. Apart from overcoming inhibitions about masturbation, simply finding enough time on your own when you are not going to be interrupted by the kids or the telephone is a real challenge.

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Despite the undeniable joy of it all, many women grieve for their former selves. Even when the decision to start a family is a deliberate one, there can be a profound sense of loss … loss of professional identity, loss of career opportunities, loss of freedom, loss of independent income. Yet still in our culture it is somehow unacceptable for a woman to admit this grief. She is supposed to accept without question that it is her career that must go on the backburner, that it is she who must make all the compromises, and she who should feel guilty if she doesn’t just take it on the chin. With the increasing trend for first-time mothers to be older, this scenario is becoming more and more common. It must ultimately have an effect on the sexual dynamics in the relationship. For Elaine it was a major issue. ‘I look back now and see how angry and depressed I was. All of my friends were still negotiating big corporate deals, meeting after work for drinks and zipping off for weekends away. It was like I’d been sent to another planet, our lives were so far apart. I resented Matt because he could still go off to work every day while I was stuck at home with a pile of washing, a screaming baby and cracked nipples. It seems strange now, but I know I pushed him away sexually because he seemed to have everything his own way.’

The loss of independent income for one partner can have major ramifications too. Less money must mean a change of lifestyle and this can be very stressful. Apart from having less disposable cash to go around, having to ask for money for new clothes or a haircut is humiliating for someone who has been accustomed to financial independence. I know of some women who put off pregnancy until they had saved enough of their own money to tide them over the year they were off work so that this didn’t happen. Added to this, therapists have long recognized that money dictates the balance of power in many relationships. One relationship counsellor said it was virtually impossible to work with some couples if one partner controls all the finances because if that partner doesn’t like what they’re hearing in therapy, they will refuse to continue paying for it. This is just one example of the way decision-making is dictated by financial control. This is what is meant by a power game. Now whether it’s intentional or not, that attitude can filter down through all levels of the relationship.

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All of these techniques depend on accurate timing. Injections need to be given at a certain time, blood tests and ultrasound scans need to be done at the right moment, so it is often a case of early morning dashes to the clinic or taking time off work. That takes either a very compassionate and supportive employer or a decision for the woman to leave her job so she can devote her time to the quest. This in itself is a very expensive and time-consuming exercise.

In the relatively short time that these techniques have been available, they have gone well beyond acceptance in the community. It’s as though it’s become an obligation for infertile couples to give it a go, like you really haven’t done your bit if you haven’t had a few cycles of IVF. Now let’s take a look at the figures. Depending on the clinic and the individual case, IVF has a take-home-baby rate of twenty to twenty-five percent. GIFT is slightly better at around thirty percent, so that means a lot of satisfied customers who beat the odds. What it also means is that three out of four couples will go through it all for nothing more than the satisfaction of knowing that they have tried the best that medical science can offer. But at what cost? Financial considerations aside, there is a huge personal toll.

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Longterm commitment usually means fidelity, constancy, compromise and predictability and let’s face it, that’s not going to appeal to everyone.

Some people prefer to avoid commitment altogether. Really serious cases of ‘commitment aversion’ prefer to call it ‘the C word’, chilling at its very mention. There are lots of reasons for this. Certainly, in some cases, it’s a matter of ‘I haven’t yet met the person I would want to spend the rest of my life with.’

There is an abiding myth in society that a person who is not interested in making a commitment must have something wrong with them. We need to acknowledge that there are some people who, for whatever reason, simply don’t need to have that one ’significant other’ in their lives, being quite happy on their own or preferring their needs to be met by several ’significant others’. Of course, it is possible to make a commitment to more than one person at a time and, if more than one of the relationships is sexual, working out the ground rules and abiding by them can get very tricky.

Somewhere in between the totally uncommitted and the lifelong monogamist is an intriguing group of ’serial monogamists’. These are people who believe in fidelity but have a string of monogamous but short-lived relationships. There is a certain addictive potential in the early phases of a relationship … the ‘in love with falling in love’ syndrome … and making a promise to another person that cuts out the possibility of ever falling in love again might be too great a compromise.

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