Tag: sex and other stuff series

This post is part of the Sex! And other stuff. series. Click here for more information.

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The hook-up culture: fact or fiction? In Sunday’s Perspective section of the Tampa Bay Times, a couple columns competed for reader allegiance: one called “Empty college sex” by Donna Freitas, who writes about the damage done by the hook-up culture and another called “Hooking up isn’t hot or bothering” by Amanda Hess, who posits college kids “aren’t hooking up that much.” If I have to pick a side, I pick Freitas’s. And here’s my favorite quote from what she wrote: Today, sexual experimentation might be getting to know someone before having sex, holding out for dates, and courtship focused on romance rather than sex. From where I sit, meeting a student confident enough to say she’s not hooking up and is proud about that is as experimental as it gets.

And if you missed it last week, what does a clinical sexologist and sex therapist say about saving sex for marriage? “It is difficult in this day and age, with the pressures and the feeling that everyone’s doing it. You are holding yourself to a higher standard and that is to be commended.” For more of my interview with sex therapist Dr. Dae Sheridan, click here.

And THIS (perhaps the best premarital advice you’ll get all day): 

Before you marry a person you should first make them use a computer with slow Internet to see who they really are.
— Peter Klesken (@PeterKlesken) April 6, 2013

This post is part of the Sex! And other stuff. series. Click here for more information.

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Good sex takes time: Fellow blogger Stephanie at Captive the Heart recently wrote a post about sex that everybody should read (particularly if you plan to save sex for marriage, and to practice natural family planning). “Just like it takes time to build emotional, spiritual, and physical intimacy at the beginning of your relationship,” she wrote, “it also takes time, we discovered, to adjust to sexual intimacy. It makes so much sense to me in hindsight. Magazines and the culture can make it seem like if you’re attracted to each other, then–bam!–your sex life will instantly be blissfully simple and complication-free. We’ve learned that it’s so important, though, to talk honestly as you learn one another in a new way.” Click here to read the whole post.

Are you having an emotional affair? In a recent post on Rhett Smith’s blog, he – a licensed marriage and family therapist and author – lists signs you’re having an emotional affair. He also quotes an article about emotional infidelity, which – according to the post – might spark the start of sexual infidelity. Click here to read the post.

Happily married thanks to sex with strangers: Read an article this weekend about a woman who – after receiving implicit permission from her husband of a couple of decades – sought sex with strangers via a dating site for married people. It took her two years, she said, to work up the courage to act on her intention to arrange for affairs. The encounters, while not wholly anonymous, are devoid of emotion, she said. She feels guilty but good, because sex outside marriage is preferable in her eyes to ending a sexless marriage (better, too, than exploring other options, it seems). “I know what you must be thinking,” she said. “How could I? But for me having extra-marital ‘arrangements’, as I prefer to call them, are the secret to making sure my marriage survives and thrives. I might sound cold and selfish, but to me it’s no different from getting my hair and nails done. It’s just about taking care of your needs.” …a telling perspective, because is getting your hair or nails done really a need?