Health news blog

Some of you have no difficulty answering ‘very’. Others are more moderate in their acknowledgment. Some may be saying ‘not very’. Sensuality has a strong bearing on romance. The more sensual you are the more chance the relationship has to grow into a ‘fine romance’. ‘Sensual’ as defined by the Oxford Dictionary means ‘of or depending on the senses only and not the intellect or spirit’. You know the five senses well: sight, touch, sound, taste and smell. Add the sixth sense, intuition, as an important ingredient for relationships too.

A sensual person is not only aware of the senses, but uses them every day to build intimacy and communication. Sensuality is often heightened during the early days of the romance. It’s obvious in the preening you go through to look just right. Your body language supports it as well. You will tend to lean forward, make strong eye contact and have the repertoire of invitational signals when you flirt. You may run a hand through your hair, turn to be full frontal to the new love interest and smile frequently. These are all powerful visual clues for sensuality.

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When it comes to wearing perfume or aftershave, less is more. You don’t have to wear fragrance at all if that is your style. When you want to, do some research. A fragrance to complement you is worth seeking. Discover what works best on you. Is it oriental, floral, woody, fresh, classic or a mix of two of these? Spend some time at the fragrance counters of department stores and explain your personality and interests. A good fragrance consultant, by looking at your colouring and listening to your story will be able to suggest a few perfumes or aftershaves. Try a maximum of two on your wrists that day. Sniff them for the next few hours to decide how you feel about them and how they blend with your skin chemistry. If one of them doesn’t sing to you, go back another day and try two more. Keep going until you find a fragrance which makes you feel sensual. Many people have two favourites, one for day and a heavier one for evening. Or one for summer and one for winter.

When you apply your favourite, be discreet. That’s the secret. Let the fragrance be intimate with you. For women it’s best to put it on your skin under your clothes. Not on your neck and wrists, where its scent can overpower. Men using aftershave should just lightly, lightly, lightly, splash it on the face. The message for both men and women? Just because you can’t smell it yourself after ten minutes is no reason to reapply. Resist. Others know you have it on. Women often feel more sensual and responsive when they smell men’s fragrances. It must be subtle so it draws you in and leaves you wanting more.

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‘Courting’ is a word we don’t use much these days. Courting is the first step in the intricate process of intimate relationship building. It means ‘to pay court to,- make love to, to entice’ according to the Oxford Dictionary. To be courtly means ‘being polished and refined in manners’. So your courting style means the manners and refinements you use with a potential partner to favourably impress, romance and entice.

To fully understand your courting style when you are with a person who captivates you, sit down, a piece of note-paper and a pen handy and write the strategies, the enticements and the romantic behaviours you have used with former partners. You know in your heart the ones which work for you.

As a man, do you let women chase you, cook for you early in the relationship, take you out for dinner, phone you often or are you more the traditional Romeo who protects and courteously opens doors and knows he wants do the chasing?

As a woman, are you mysteriously unavailable and keep a man guessing or are you openly sensual, flirtatious and talkative about your needs and desires? There are hundreds of courting behaviours. Look closely at your own. You can separate them from normal behaviour by recognising the special things you do. There is no right or wrong courting behaviour. Our purpose in asking you to list yours, whether you are in a relationship or not, is to give you personal insight. Your flirting/courting behaviours will be the ones you resort to again and again in all relationships. They are your guidelines for getting on with partners and potential partners. You probably learned them long ago and think you have perfected them. In a long-term relationship, look with fresh eyes at the behaviours you used to seduce your partner some time back, and reinvent them.

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If choosing neutrals (greys, beiges, black, white or browns) is your preferred style, add the sparkle of colour in your accessories. For men this could be a tie or casual shirt. Add medium colour somewhere near your face especially if you are a play-it-safe person. Break away from the all-blue look, it merely characterises you as conservative and wanting a quiet and calm life.

For women, perhaps add a scarf, earrings or other jewellery or one eye-catching colour in a sweater or casual blouse. Certainly when women wear neutrals, wearing make-up adds the dimension of colour artistry.

For both men and women at this stage there are no preferred colours for getting on well with your new partner, except to say you need medium colours now. Be yourself and show. If you prefer black for whatever reason, know you will have to work very hard on the relationship to have closeness. Why not add some colour near your face so you are more approachable.

The purpose of wearing medium to deep colours at the developing stages of the relationship is to say at conscious and subconscious levels you are excited about being alive. You are not wishy-washy. You are not aloof. You have a colourful life and you are confidently intriguing. If your relationship is moving along happily you are probably feeling more confident within yourself anyway. Express it in your colour choices. There is no better time than now to be a little daring.

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Grooming makes all the difference to the first impression. Here are some tips for success:

* Go lightly with aftershave, very lightly. You don’t even have to wear it.

* Use a deodorant.

* Be very clean. No spots or stains on your tie or trousers, no blood on your collar from shaving, no grubby cuffs.

* Don’t wear a shirt which shows sweat stains under the arms. » Have clean well-cut nails.

* Have your hair under control, but don’t use too much gel or mousse. Your hair should look touchable.

* If you don’t go regularly to the hairdresser shave the back of the neck so it is clean .

* Shave the front of your neck low enough to stop hair tufts peeking over the shirt collar.

* Have clean shoes, well polished if leather.

* Tie your tie to the correct length (just over the belt buckle).

* Keep your shirt tucked in.

* Don’t adjust your genitals in public. This is gross behaviour.

Are women fussy? Yes. Do they notice details? You’d better believe it.

I he fit of a man’s clothes is very important to a woman. She notices every detail.

Women admire:

* The correct length of trousers, not too long and in particular, not too short.

* You, when you wear your belt on your waist line, not on your hips.

* You, when you wear a belt. Don’t think you can get away with not having one.

* The collar of your shirt fitting properly. It is not a good look to be pulling at your collar constantly. It is not a good look for you to have the top button of your shirt undone behind your tie.

* You, when your shirt fits your torso well. No straining, and no popped buttons please.

* The fact you know how to buy a jacket to fit your shoulders well.

* The fact you know how to buy trousers to fit your backside well.

Women are impressed with smooth-fitting cl0thes. Smooth does not mean tight. Even th0ugfi you have pockets, don’t put much in them. This includes coins and keys, handkerchiefs and bulky wallets. Why change the shape of one of your most interesting physical assets? Women always check out the shape of men’s backsides to see how well the trousers fit. Smooth is sensual.

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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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