QUESTION: I have a question about something that has been troubling me: I’ve been teaching my teenage son through books like Every Man’s Battle and Every Woman’s Battle that boys and men should generally avoid masturbation as it could cause impure fantasies and that it can bond their minds with a picture of a sexual act or image instead of with their wives (or future wives). I definitely believe that men need to refrain from solo masturbation and only experience sexual stimulation in the marriage bed with their spouses.

However, I am not totally sure if this caution applies to women and self-stimulation. I know that, just like men, they are not supposed to allow their minds to engage in illicit sexual fantasies. Jesus was very clear in the Scriptures that thoughts of fornication and sexual immorality are wrong for both men and women.

On the other hand,
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Question:

My husband is a recovering porn addict that has been able to stay away from the porn for about 2 years now.  For the last several years he has struggled with Peyronie’s disease (even going through a series of shot treatments) and erectile dysfunction.  He has now gone about 5 months without wanting anything to do with having sex.  I am really struggling with my need for intimacy and sex.  Is it okay to ask him to satisfy my needs either manually or orally, is it okay to masturbate, or should I just put my needs aside and be disciplined as if I were single?

Answer:

A woman has just as great a need for sexual fulfillment as does a man. There are literally thousands upon thousands of marriages in which the man no longer wants sex and the wife is craving it. It is one of the most common, yet least discussed, problems in marriages today.
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Question:

My wife of 35 years is always too tired or to sick to have sex with me, but I found out that she is masturbating every night, giving herself many orgasms every night, and has been doing so for years. I always make sure she has an orgasm every time we have sex (one way or the other). Why does she like sex with herself more than with me?

Answer:

The only way to know the answer to your question is for your wife to tell you the truth about the “why.” Because I cannot know that answer, all I can do is give you several possibilities. Though I do not want to offend you, be aware that some of the answers may not be to your liking.
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Question received through the Internet:

20 years into our marriage, I “came out” to my wife and told her of my homosexual past. She said she would stay with me as long as I remain faithful to her (I have been & intend to). We love each other, but now live more as roommates than husband/wife. I know she deserves more and am saddened to see her so unfulfilled. My question is whether the most loving thing would be to divorce and let her move on to find a man who can be the husband she needs and deserves? [Note: I would not seek involvement in a homosexual relationship as I believe acting on my homosexual desires to be unbiblical.]  Thanks for considering my question.

Answer:
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How many of you would sacrifice your sight for good sex? Apparently this man is willing. Granted, it’s only for a couple of minutes but the question still stands, what’s it worth to you to have good sex? What would you give up to have better sex and more fulfilling orgasms?

Well rather than lose your sight, what about just ordering my Love, Sex and Marriage kit? It’s a lot better than giving up your eye sight and trust me, you’ll want to see your spouse’s reaction to the improvement in sensation and fulfillment you’ll each receive by applying the principles and techniques I’ll teach you. Or maybe you’d rather trade your eyesight like this guy.

Q: I was at a birthday celebration dinner for a friend recently with a small group of married women. One of the women brought a “girl’s night out” game, a deck of cards with a variety of questions (many about sex). One of the cards had us each rank our sex lives. I have a healthy and happy sexual relationship, and my closest friends know it. Although I ranked myself a 9.0, one of the women ranked me a 10.5! Sadly, though, most of the women only ranked themselves a 5….My question is, how do you suggest I approach this issue with these women? They are all Christians, and I would love to have some material (a website, a book, etc.) that I can refer them to. I’m not sure how to get them interested, but I’m confident that they would respond positively if I could direct them to the right material(s).

A: Unfortunately, your score is the one that would be unusual while your friends’ scores would more likely represent the general population. My friend Barry McCarthy, PhD, is an outstanding sex expert, researcher, and writer. Recently he wrote me, “Emphasize the crucial importance of positive, realistic sexual expectations: The most important being that less than 50% of sexual encounters among happily married, sexually functional couples have outcomes that are mutually satisfying, and 5-15% of sexual encounters in marriage are dissatisfying or dysfunctional.” In short, sex ain’t always great…

However, there are ways to increase sexual pleasure and fulfillment as long as both partners have positive, realistic expectations. Kudos to you for wishing to help your friends with that. There are several books available that guide couples through processes to enhance their sex lives. Forgive the commercial, but some universities use my book Becoming One in this area. The book has three sections, becoming one emotionally, becoming one sexually, and becoming one spiritually. In my estimation, a married couple cannot work on just one of those areas, but must work on all three to make their relationship and sex lives better. I also recommend unreservedly any relationship and/or sex books by Les and Leslie Parrott. You can find them on Amazon as well as other book sites.

You may wish to refer your friends to the Christian Nymphos web site. (Yes, I’m serious. The site exists and is written by Christian women to help each other have better sex lives with their husbands. Tell ‘em Joe sent you.)

Also, help your friends think about these matters:

• Women who are fatigued have difficulty getting aroused.
• Anyone overweight, man or woman, will have associated sexual problems.
• When working on better sex lives, most people need to start with the other dimensions of their relationship.
• Toys can help. So can variety.
• There are ways to overcome sexual inhibitions while still adhering to one’s beliefs and values. (I have a “sexual experimentation scale” that I’m testing with couples right now. Email me at ask@JoeBeam.com if you would like to be part of my testing of this profile.)

The four areas that sex therapists often work with are Desire, Arousal, Orgasm, Satisfaction.

• If a person has limited or no desire but can become physiologically, emotionally, and psychologically aroused so that s/he can enjoy sex and be orgasmic, then she will do well to have sex regularly without waiting for desire to be strong.
• If arousal or orgasm rarely or never occurs, then explore whether the situation is situational (this person, this place, this time, etc.) or global (she would still have these problems even if she were married to a hunk and life was absolutely wonderful).
• If satisfaction relies on impossible expectations or fantasies, sex will never be what she wants it to be.

Better yet, ask them to join me at http://www.marriagehelper.com/marriage_forums in the section about sex and we’ll interact about any and all questions, thoughts, problems, etc. I’m happy to discuss these matters directly and help in any way that I can.

Q: I am newly married and my husband and I both waited until marriage to have sex. We are slowly getting use to each other’s likes and dislikes and enjoying getting to discover new things with one another.  But recently my husband got upset because I do not feel like fooling around or having sex with him when I am on my menstrual period. He feels like we will be missing out on 12 weeks out of the year…to put it in his words. How do I explain to him the way I feel during my cycle or what do I do to make him understand it is not that I do not want him but that I don’t feel like doing anything?

Also I read your answer to the other virgin couple and what you say is really true. We should be talking about sex as Christians. Especially to couples getting married so that they can be better prepared. I know I still do not feel equipped to deal with it all.

A: An old axiom says, “For the first two years of your marriage, put a penny in a jar next to your bed every time you make love. After your second anniversary, take a penny out of the jar every time you make love. You’ll never empty that jar.” That’s overstating it a bit, obviously, but the truth in that axiom is that after being married for a while, the newness of exploring each other’s bodies and trying new things wears off and lovemaking becomes more about intimacy than excitement. (At least, that’s the way it’s supposed to work. If you wonder why, ask and I’ll answer in another column.)

A young husband worrying about missing twelve weeks a year actually is a good thing. It means that he wants you with his whole being and does not like the idea of not being able to have that passion every week of the year. The difficulty you have is that because he is a man, he doesn’t understand the physical effects of menses. No man can. I surely don’t. So to help him understand you’ll have to put it into his language. Help him picture having both emotional and physical discomfort at the same time, with an extra helping of moodiness mixed in. Maybe ask him how much he’d want to “fool around” during a week in which he drank a healthy chug of ipecac to wash down a dose of Ex-Lax every day. Yeah, gross, I know. Made me queasy just to write it. The idea is that he has no frame of reference to understand how you feel during your period and you will only be able to get him to grasp it when you tie it to something he can understand.

Now let me give the other side of this. I’m not trying to convince you to have sexual activity during your menstrual period, but there are actual medical benefits from it if you do. Women who orgasm during their menstrual period (whether the orgasm is from intercourse, masturbation, etc.) tend to have fewer and less intense cramps. They also decrease their likelihood of endometriosis. (Check out these and other interesting medical facts about orgasm in the book The Science of Orgasm. Not a bedside reader, but a truly scientific book that definitely isn’t porn.)

Orgasm is an analgesic but not an anesthetic. That means having an orgasm actually reduces pain  without decreasing sensation (amazing, huh?). Therefore, you may want to try having an orgasm with your husband, even if it is not by traditional intercourse if that is too uncomfortable, to see if there is a compromise the two of you can make so that both can be happy.

Either way, find a way to have intimacy, even if that isn’t sex as usual. There can always be holding, caressing, and expressions of love. If you find that orgasm during menses isn’t for you, you may find that leading him to orgasm in some fashion will be an incredible action on your part that will lead to reciprocal action on his part in other parts of your life together.

I’m putting together an eBook in which real people tell others their secrets to sexual ecstasy. You can get a free copy of this eBook (when it is ready) if you would like to know what other married couples are doing that lead to great sex! (Details below.)

I ask people to share their thoughts in five areas:

1. The experience. Give as many details as needed for someone else to replicate. No detail is too small or unimportant.

2. Why this experience causes such great orgasms. (How you feel about it and why.)

3. A desire that I believe will lead to a great orgasm but haven’t tried yet. Give enough detail that someone else could do what you have in mind.

4. Turn-offs that I have experienced that prevented satisfying orgasms. Give enough detail that someone else would understand why this is a turn off and would know how to avoid it.

If you wish to share your methods/secrets/experiences to benefit others, you may do so at http://www.lovesexmarriage.net/sex_study.htm. Everyone who does so and provides a valid email address will receive a free copy of the eBook when it is ready, even if we don’t use the information that person provides.

Either way, watch this blog for the eBook information when we publish.

Q: I am a 62 year old and recently married. What a surprise when I learned that over 60% of men over 60 have ED problems. Not having had sex in over 10 years, I was SHOCKED. Is this true for over 60% of all males or was my doctor pulling my chain?

A: Erectile Dysfunction (inability to have an erection strong enough or lasting long enough) is a fact of life for men, especially as they age. However, don’t think God was unfair to us and kinder to the fairer sex. I personally wouldn’t trade our problems with theirs as they go through menopause and afterward.

If a man lives long enough, he will at some point have difficulty with E.D. That problem may be short-lived (situational) and in most men can be helped considerably either with pharmaceuticals or with a vacuum device that deploys an O-ring. Interestingly, not being able to have an erection doesn’t mean that he can’t have an orgasm. If you think about it, an erection efficiently transports sperm from the man into the woman’s body so that they can fertilize an egg. It is not essential to achieving orgasm for the male, though it can and does aid orgasm by creating a larger area to be stimulated than when the man is flaccid. Also, an erection can be pleasurable to the wife as the erect penis stimulates the nerve endings inside the vagina, and, aid her orgasm through that process as well as possibly creating more friction for the clitoris. (It is common for a couple not to have enough clitoral stimulation via penile penetration to cause the wife to orgasm.)

Therefore, if a couple is inventive and not hung up on traditional intercourse — and the man’s ego isn’t diminished by ED – a man’s lack of an erection does not necessarily preclude his or her orgasm. She can still stimulate him and he can still stimulate her to orgasm through inventive and fun sexual activity. Unfortunately, this doesn’t always happen but if both he and she forgot about erection and concentrated on pleasing each other in other ways, it often could.

Now to the specifics of your question. In 2003 Arizona Central reported on a study of erections. That article states ”Less than 2 percent of the men reporting problems said those problems had occurred before the age of 40, while 4 percent had problems between the ages of 40 and 49. After 50, however, problems increased substantially, with 26 percent of men reporting difficulty between 50 and 59, 40 percent noting it between 60 and 69, and 61 percent of men over 70 saying it was a problem.” Because one study doesn’t always reach the same conclusion as another study, your doc may be right from the perspective of which study he read. The one thing that is true regardless of which study one cites is that as men age there will be more episodes of erectile dysfunction. (See the article here.)

However, as already pointed out, that doesn’t mean there has to be a decrease in sexual activity and enjoyment. Also, the Arizona Central article went on to say that when men exercise and take care of their bodies, they significantly decrease ED problems. Watching TV a lot, smoking, drinking, and being overweight are factors that increase the chance of ED problems. So if you want to avoid ED, quit drinking, smoking, and overeating; get off the sofa, stretch, and then take a good walk every day until you are back to your vigorous self.