6 Tricks to Sex After a Divorce

By Julie Bogart, Sirens Magazine

As hard to believe as it may seem amid splitting up CD collections and hiring lawyers, there is (sex) life after divorce. And when you’re ready to take your friend’s, your mother’s, or your therapist’s advice and “get back out there,” there is much to discover—about yourself, your body, and, well, the act itself.

“While it may be a sad time in a woman’s life, the post-divorce period can also be a time of new sexual discoveries,” says sex psychologist Dennis Lin. And these sexual experiences “can be absolutely fabulous—and very different from what you were used to, especially as your marriage deteriorated,” according to Dale Koppel, author of “The Intelligent Woman’s Guide to Online Dating.”

Sex as you know it could be forever altered—and for the better. Like with any uncharted territory, there will, of course, be a few surprises along the way. And though these surprises are part of the fun, it can’t hurt to have some idea of what you’re getting yourself into once you put yourself back on the market:

You Might Feel Like a Teenager—Again

Dating again—and having sex with someone new—can be “scary and exciting all together,” says Cathie Helfand, a psychotherapist and family life educator.

“Emotionally, I tell everyone to expect to feel about 15 years old,” says Susan Pease Gadoua, therapist and author of “Contemplating Divorce: A Step-by-Step Guide to Deciding Whether to Stay or Go.” “Having sex with someone new after being married for a long time will likely feel strange and awkward and can be much more emotional than one might think.”

Women shouldn’t push themselves into anything they don’t feel comfortable doing, she says. Even though you may feel like one, you’re not a teenager, and  “you need to take charge of how quickly the sex part of a relationship goes.”

First-Time Jitters Come Standard

Unfortunately, those pesky “first-time” nerves are part of the return-to-adolescence package. However, as an adult, you can find more effective ways to overcome them than you did when you were a kid. “It’s virtually impossible to get over that ‘first-time’ nervousness, so don’t even try,” says Koppel. “Instead, tell the man how nervous you are. He’ll most likely admit to being nervous, too.”

Whatever you do, don’t feel guilty about having sex with a new partner, says Lin. “You’re divorced; it’s not cheating.” Also, “remember that different people have sex differently. Be observant of your new partner’s likes and dislikes, and communicate your likes and dislikes to him. Enjoy the new experience and have fun.”

It Pays to Be Prepared

Yet another way to get over the proverbial first-time hump is to simply be prepared. “Start buying sexy lingerie—and condoms,” advises Koppel. Gadoua recommends visiting a local sex/lingerie shop or checking out Good Vibrations to learn more about the hows and whys of safe sex.    Continue reading…

There’s More to Sex Than a Cum Shot to the Face: What Men Should Unlearn from Hardcore Porn

By Vanessa Richmond, AlterNet

There are no more male porn virgins. A Canadian study released this week sought to compare the views of 20-something men who watch porn with those who don’t. They couldn’t find a single one who hadn’t seen any. “Guys who do not watch pornography do not exist,” concluded the lead researcher, Professor Simon Louis Lajeunesse of the University of Montreal’s School of Social Work.

Guys who watch a lot of pornography, however, are easy to find. Of the 20-something heterosexual men they interviewed, most had sought out pornography for the first time at age 10. The single men among them, on average, watch porn three times a week for 40 minutes, and those in relationships, 1.7 times a week for around 20 minutes. In no small part that’s because porn so easy to find: 90 percent of consumption is on the Internet, while only 10 percent is from the video store.

But no matter: the authors of the study concluded that the sex lives of their young subjects were “pretty conventional, almost identical to their parents,” that “pornography has been demonized and that its effects are negligible.” And that pornography is not a “neurotoxin” that damages the brain as some anti-pornography “crusaders” claim: “As for the persistent perception that pornography breeds crime against women: aggressive men don’t need porn as an incentive to be violent.”

I can accept that pornography doesn’t make its audience violent, and that most people’s sex lives are still pretty conventional. But when I asked my friends about their experiences, they couldn’t disagree more that porn’s effects are negligible. Few of my friends are anti-porn. None think pornography makes men violent. But all say porn has changed their male partners’ approach to sex. Like the authors of the recent glut of articles on the topic, my friends mention everything from new pubic hair preferences to new special requests. One friend said she’s dreading her boyfriend’s upcoming birthday because he views it as his “anything he wants” night. While she doesn’t mind dressing up, she’s dreading the “porn requests” (she didn’t specify what those are, so we can only imagine).

In a recent piece on Salon, Mary Elizabeth Williams realized porn had changed her sex life when her partner asked, for the 18th time, without noticing that she wasn’t answering, “You like that, baby?” And then it hit her: “I wasn’t just having bad sex. I was having bad porn sex.”

Williams and others are experiencing firsthand the effect porn has had not just on grown men who grew up without it and are now watching it, but on the young generation that grew up watching it. And the effect on that generation — Generation Y — is even more significant, especially given the dearth of real sex ed. According to an article in Details, “The awkward truth…is that 90 percent of 8- to-16-year-olds have viewed pornography online. Considering the standard climax to even the most vanilla hard-core scene today, that means there is an entire generation of young people who think sex ends with a money shot to the face.”   Continue reading…