Tag: Women's issues

The broken libido link

4 Comments

So which would you rather live without? Cake or sex?

A friend sent me this Hallmark ShoeBoxcard. (Visit a Hallmark store today.)

Women’s missing libido is legendary. Consider the accepted “fact:: men think about sex every seven seconds; women think about sex seven times a year. There’s the classic bit from Woody Allen’s Annie Hall. Annie and Woody’s character, Alvy, each tell the therapist that they have sex 2-3 times per week. Alvy labels this “hardly ever, never.” Annie says that it’s “all the time.” Books lament today’s sexless marriages.

The problem lies in expectations –and unquestioning acceptance– that a woman’s libido goes missing in action for years. Sex drive drops as work demands pile up. Children come along, constantly tugging, clinging, and creating mommy “touch fatigue.” Sometimes, women believe “mothers don’t do those things.” Fluctuating hormones take a toll, with breastfeeding, perimenopause, and menopause. Not to mention when women are constantly running on empty and even simple self-renewal like sleep, exercise, or fun stays on the bottom of the list for weeks on end.

Women can reclaim this most basic need by tuning into the benefits. Feelings of closeness to your partner rise with levels of the hormone oxytocin, which jumps to five times normal levels. Oxytocin increases drowsiness, easing sleep. Research has shown that orgasm releases endorphins, like a runner’s high, relieving pain of cramps and headaches. Endorphins boost mood and ease PMS irritability, too. Finally, the neurotransmitter dopamine rises, enhancing lust and the relaxation response. This explains why libido is enhanced by an active sex life. “Use it or lose it” is not a myth.

Acknowledging the benefits encourages us to put satisfying sex back on the list ,for ourselves, not just to assuage our fears of a wandering partner. But how to rebuild the missing link?

Cynthia Kling in A Bitch in the House nails it: “eventually the pure animal rutting feeling stops rising out of your depths, and that’s when you need … your brain to take over and bring it back.” Plan to ignite that sleepy part of your brain by simply allowing yourself to think about sex.

Read a sexy novel. Watch artfully crafted sex scenes in a movie –no porn required. Sex scenes are often labeled “gratuitous sex,” designed to lure young movie-goers. Who says we can’t enjoy them –if we allow ourselves to embrace this basic human response.

Then make time for sex, by handing over household/childcare chores, a carrot on a stick, to that hopefully willing partner. Young moms, in particular, can delegate bedtime rituals to dad for at least one night. Take the free time to relax in the tub, daydream, delve into erotica. Brent Bost, MD, author of The Hurried Woman, affirms it: the best aphrodisiac in the world is a man with a vacuum cleaner.

The Tiger Affair

5 Comments

The Tiger Woods affairs and his confessed sense of entitlement have revved up an ugly old myth: “if I’m not satisfying my man, he’ll look elsewhere.” Low level, anxiety-provoking brain chatter for many women goes likes this: “Keep the sex lively, or at least frequent, or he’ll stray. He’s only a man. Men have needs. My man’s needs are my job.”

The pressure of this expectation can be as tight around the loins as too tight control top pantyhose. (I love the line from “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.” The mother of the bride shrieks to her sister, heading to the store to buy pantyhose. “But not queen size. They make me look fat!”) The expectation that a good woman satisfies her man leads right into blaming the woman if her man has an affair.

When couples show up in the therapist’s office after he has committed a Tiger, inevitably he is penitent about straying and she is equally penitent about neglecting him. Nearly 100% of the time, in her head the “shoulds” and “if onlys” abound. “I should have enjoyed sex more.” “If only I was less tired.” This puts men into the category of one more person women need to take care of –and/or police. Not equal partners in a relationship, both committed to preserving that imperfect union.

This blaming stance is an outdated view. Personal responsibility comes first. If either party is dissatisfied with how needs are met — or not –in the relationship, it is that individual’s job to address the problem in the relationship. Problem= no sex? Not enough sex? Not the right kind of sex? Talk about it together. No emotional connection? Feeling neglected, secondary to kids or other life demands? Solve it within the context of the relationship.

In Tiger’s apology last week, he rightly claimed total responsibility for his behavior. When cheating occurs, physical or emotional, it is the sole responsibility of the cheater. Not the wounded party. Women need not blame themselves if the problem was never offered up as something to solve. No blame game. (See caveat #2.)

Differentiate sins of omission from sins of commission. He strayed because he made a bad decision about how to solve his unhappiness or his horniness–NOT because she was too busy, too tired, or too angry for sex. The cheater made a choice and wasn’t “driven to it.” A couple may need to solve underlying issues, but responsibility for the transgression still falls with the cheater.

Caveat #1: The above assumes an unfaithful “he,” because women frequently fall into blaming themselves if their significant other strays. I don’t know how commonly men blame themselves if she cheats. Women are unfaithful in lesser percentages than men.

Caveat #2: Exceptions exist. Sometimes, la Scarlett and Rhett, she banishes him from the bedroom, declaring “I don’t care about sex — or you — just leave me alone.” With this action, it’s arguable that Scarlett has relinquished the right to complain about Belle Watling.

What about women and sex? Why does sex end up last on the list? Tune into the next blog for an exploration.

The panty conversation is growing. (creeping?)

2 Comments

Looks like I’m not the only one talking about panties as a women’s issue. Check out Linda Lowen’s About.com entry this week, with her link to SkunkPost.com. Love it, Linda!

Celebrate Wednesday and go buy yourself a new pair of panties–comfortable and sexy if that appeals to you. I’m preferring SteinMart for good deals these days. The amount spent is anotherdie-hard, drummed-into-me-at- an-early-age standards. Paying $15 for something that weighs less than an ounce and will be enjoyed by few stretches my envelope a bit. I feel even more empowered by discovering a sexy, lacy, COTTON thong for $3! As Dirty Harry would say, “go ahead, make my day.”

V-Day to Empower Women

4 Comments
It’s the dreaded Valentine’s Day week, with the perennial torment: “will he be my Valentine?” Anxiety revs up in kindergarten: “am I good enough/pretty enough/popular enough?” And never abates completely, even as grade school fades into sepia. As we’re pounded by Valentine’s Day marketing, the brain chatter goes on: Who will be my valentine? What will he do? What should I do? Chocolates? Flowers that die by Weds.? Sexy lingerie? Am I loved? Is our relationship all it can be?
Expectations waft over us like the heady scent of roses inundating the grocery store. Holidays as a rule ramp up our expectations–leading to dashed hopes. Especially Valentine’s Day, with promises of perfect romantic love. This holiday is a hot trigger for “all or nothing” thinking. Either the holiday is celebrated in The Right Way —or all is lost and you’re left heartbroken and empty.
A perfect time for straight thinking, to stop the irrational brain chatter about relationship status or restaurant choices. I love the mantra my younger sister adopted in high school: “a woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.” Or, if you’re in a relationship: “I’ll look for the intention behind the gift” rather than putting a Hallmark card, Lifetime TV template on it. It’s a good time to challenge the myth that “if he loved me, he’d know.” Who says? If some aspect of celebrating the holiday, roses for example, is essential, speaking up beats harboring resentment that he missed the class on “Reading Women’s Minds.”
Or skip it entirely–rise above the overly-perfumed and caloric aspects of the day–and celebrate V-Day instead. V-Day was started in 1998 by Eve Ensler, playwright of the award-winning Vagina Monologues, as an international campaign to raise awareness about and funds for battling violence against women and girls. V-Day is synonymous with empowering women.
I honored Valentine’s Day by empowering a few future women yesterday. Five young girls, 8 to 13 years old, were playing in Dallas’ record setting snowfall. I was walking to the post office, just to enjoy the fairyland created by the surprising snow. One older girl, pencil thin legs in tight jeans, was chasing her friend, clumps of snow in bare hands. She was squealing about her red, frozen fingers as much as the novelty of the snow. I stopped and handed her my mittens. She politely refused at first, but succumbed as I insisted. Slipping on the gloves, she ran off gleefully toward her friend, laughing “I’ll really get you now!” The three younger girls were patting small handfuls of snow into a slightly forlorn pile. I asked if they were building a snowman, and they nodded gravely. “Do you want me to show you how to make it easier?” I asked, knowing this is not a skill possessed by most Texas children. More grave nods. I demonstrated how to roll the awkward lump across the deep snow, quickly picking up layers to make a respectable base for their snow person. Smiles lit up their faces. They thanked me in their sweet little girl falsettos. They were lifting a second huge ball of snow onto the snow person, making it taller then they were, by the time I rounded the corner.
Make a choice to empower yourself–or another woman in your life this week. Or check out five ways to empower women by celebrating V-Day.

Big girl panties?

6 Comments

Maybe it’s strictly generational, but granny panties have always outnumbered thongs in my lingerie drawer. Trying to loosen up my midlife world view and eliminate unsightly panty lines, I’ve been underwear shopping lately. And was delighted to find sexy, lacy thongs with a hint of practicality (i.e. cool, comfortable, breathable cotton). With the brand name Jezebel?

Does wearing lacy lingerie make you an evil woman? Why do all the sexy panties have names like Jezebel, Temptress, Flirt, Invisible Bliss? May as well call them Tart, Harlot, Scarlett, or “O.” Definitely another automatic association leftover from my growing up years. “Good girls” wear sturdy, serviceable cotton Lollipop panties — in white or pastels (how exciting!) “Bad girls” wear the pretty, lacey panties. And have all the fun. When I was a teen, I had one shockingly bright green low-rise bikini pair with a black zipper (gasp). This is the exact purchase that my younger sisters recently admitted had marked me as a glamorous older sister. And firmly fixed a frown on my mom’s face when I came home from the mall, panties in hand.

It’s not just names. Another assumption is lurks within: wearing lacy lingerie is for him, not for you. Certainly all that lace and trim and thong between the cheeks is less comfortable than soft cotton, right? So why suffer the indignities and itching, except to entice or excite him? As an empowered woman, I wasn’t about to buy into that.

Reminds me of a T-shirt my older daughter had when she was 13, distributed by Candie’s, maker of sexy shoes and clothing. In large, legible letters it said “Be sexy.” And in the fine print: “it doesn’t mean you have to have sex.” Some mothers scorned me for allowing her to wear it, as if it were an advertisement. Women can claim their sexuality, even enjoy it. Without turning into bad girls. Objecting to that slogan seemed like buying into the sexist view that if you are dressed to kill, you deserve to be raped.

Black and white thinking is the culprit again: chaste lingerie equals pure of heart/mind/body. Black, lacy, and low cut is the stamp of a bad girl. Is this really a fact? Do clothes really define the woman, so that I can’t enjoy a fun bustier under a power suit? Time to challenge those expectations. Even the little girls get fun princess panties, Barbie panties, Dora panties — or as my younger daughter had, Pink Power Ranger panties.

One of my friends likes to say, “put on your big girl panties and deal with it.” In this case, the grown-up panties of choice are lacy, cheekiest (in the parlance of Victoria’s Secret, referring to amount of cheek exposure), and surprisingly more comfortable than constant adjustments of creeping leg elastic. My new power panties can allow me to please no one but myself, a rare opportunity in my good girl life. That’s dealing with it.

As on everything else: NO absolute thinking. I did find one exception to the naughty names: Victoria’s Secret has one thong called “Angel.” Or maybe go commando, following the decree of Jill Connor Browne, author of The Sweet Potato Queens book series: “Never wear panties to a party.” Do what works for you.

I don’t want to brag, but . . .

4 Comments

“I shouldn’t brag, but . . .” Fill in the blank: “I just paid off my car/student loan/house.” Or maybe “My child made it into the gifted program/the select soccer team/Harvard.” Hardly a day goes by without this example of how women are conditioned to minimize their successes, to hide their skills, to quash their good news. This is so deeply ingrained in us. Who says? Why shouldn’t we take pride in our accomplishments?

Examination of this question is personal of late, as I think about the need to announce blog launched, books published, radio show to debut — at least if I want followers. Humility was drummed into me at an early age, growing up as a preacher’s kid. Even as I sit in solid mid-life (if you’re counting years, nearly two thirds into my life, statistically) it is hard for me, as for the women I listen to throughout my life, to even announce my achievements, let alone with pride. Women I know have written admirable books, started social movements, reigned as national experts in their fields, created art that inspires, raised remarkable young adults. And the norm is to hem and haw and softly mutter about what we’ve done, lacing the speech with apologies and detractions. The equivalent of “oh, this old thing?” when someone compliments your brand-new dress. Those admonishments in our heads to be nice and not brag never seem to quiet entirely.

And why is this? We want to be nice girls. Nice girls don’t brag. Good girls don’t toot their own horns. This modesty is not for modesty’s sake, however. Nice girls are programmed to be cautious and concerned about the feelings of others. Isn’t that what it’s about? We don’t brag (or even proclaim deserved pride) in our accomplishments because we don’t want others to feel badly. We don’t want others to feel that they come up short. So we downplay our triumphs and miss an opportunity to boost ourselves up.

I’m not saying we should model ourselves after those who constantly broadcast their own victories, however shallow or magnificent, and are seemingly incapable of any topic beyond their own gold stars. As I often remind clients when talking about this life-changing switch to self-affirmation, I’m not that powerful a therapist that I can turn a self-effacing person into a narcissist. Nor is that the goal. Just calling for a little balance, swing the pendulum ever so slightly towards positive feelings about self and away from minimization of life’s prizes. Good friends and loving families want to celebrate with us. They realize that we’re not proclaiming ourselves “better than.” We’re trying on some well-earned self-praise and want to share the joy, not shouting nyah, nyah.

Let’s trust that others will share our pride. Let’s affirm that we deserve to feel good about our hard work. Let’s remember that there’s plenty of happiness to go around and our wins don’t jinx our sister’s chances. Let’s inspire with our strengths, moving other women toward their own dreams, rather than viewing life as a competition. Let’s embrace each other’s bragging, rejoicing not just in the lauded event but in the boost to esteem that healthy bragging brings.

Oh, and by the way, please spread the word about my blog. If you like my message, pass it on to your friends. And look forward with me to the launch of my radio show, “The Sanity Hour,” beginning February 22 at 7 p.m. CT on HerInsight radio network. I’ll need guests, if you want to share my fifteen minutes of fame. Link coming soon!

Mother knows best.

2 Comments

No matter our age or time since we left home, mother knows best rings in our heads. One 20-something woman I know hates her job. She’s slaved away for two years, but neither the job nor her feelings have budged. She endures miserable hours of overwork at tearfully boring tasks. She’d like to explore other options. Dare she mention the idea? Her mom launches into a broken record lament: “life is hard–jobs can suck.” This mantra causes instant shut down of her dreams. Her brain chatter says “Mom is right. This is the world of work.” This translates into “I don’t deserve the best” or “I don’t have power to change my life.”

Certainly this mother means well–mothers do. She doesn’t want her daughter to take risks or lose career ground. In this mother’s generation, workers signed on with some behemoth company at 22 and retired with a gold watch at 65. This is what she thinks is best.

When I married, my mother told me “never go to bed angry.” I vigorously pursued this marital advice, until we embodied a favorite Phyllis Diller joke: “Never go to bed angry. Stay up and fight!” Too many wee hours were lost hurling vicious barbs in the pursuit of marital harmony.

Attending an anger management training seminar ended this mother knows best tyranny. The facilitator explained: when we’re angry, blood flow in the reasoning part of our brains decreases, to foster survival mode in the brain sections that control the fight or flight response. She asserted “there’s no blood in your fore-brain — close your mouth!” Saved piles of sleep and hurt feelings.

This clash of generations is one problem with mother knows best. Advice fails the test of time because knowledge of human behavior advances, as I learned in the anger management workshop. And standards and expectations evolve. When my 20 year old daughter walked in, flaunting a very short skirt and too revealing blouse, I sucked in a deep breath — me, who grew up in the dawn of miniskirts! “When I was your age,” I cautiously queried, “clothes like that would’ve labeled me a slut. What’s different now?” Jokingly jockeying her garments around, she illustrated how much more skin she could reveal. Her response satisfied my 1960s sensibilities.

The second hitch with mother knows best dictums is that they’re riddled with absolute thinking. Judgments issued by maternal mouths seem to translate into Absolute Truth, just because it’s dear old mom talking. One size fits all, do or die, laced with always and never. Nothing is that cast in stone.

Mothers are fallible beings, just like daughters. We have no magic answers or absolute truths. A mother’s wealth of experience cannot be dismissed lightly. But remember that what issues from a mother’s mouth is colored by life circumstances, cultural standards, and personalities. The next time you stall because your mother’s voice ramps up in your head, inhale deeply and ask “who says?” Think. Trust that you can try on advice, select and reject, and ultimately become the best expert on you.

Queen of Multitasking?

3 Comments

Fold a basket of clothes, wipe a small child’s drippy nose, text your sister, with phone tucked into your shoulder so you can listen to a key conference call or your BFF’s tale of woe? Pay the bills as you watch your favorite show, chatting on Facebook with your college roomie? We women are expert multitaskers, priding ourselves on the dozens of balls we keep in the air, hours on end.  Most women I know (myself included) are heavily invested in this as the secret to our success: parallel tracks to accomplishment perfected through hours of practice. We know we can juggle more than the guys. One look at the toy-strewn family room and sticky kitchen counters after dad is left with two kids all day suggests his ability to multitask. And we certainly don’t want to enter that camp. No more multitasking would equal imminent “to do” list catastrophe, dropped balls ping-ponging all around us.

Recent research by psychologists at Stanford University is bursting this bubble of pride about the value of our multitasking skills. These researchers compared high tech jugglers, college students who email, text, research online, and IM while studying. The researchers looked at three tasks: filtering out irrelevant information, organizing data in memory, and switching between tasks. The psychologists were certain the heavy multitaskers would excel at some, if not all, of these skills.

They were dead wrong. The multitaskers failed abysmally at screening out information they didn’t need, their memories were overloaded, and the speed at switching gears was tortoise-esque compared to the students doing only one or two tasks at a time. The researchers concluded that heavy multitasking resulted in lesser accomplishment, in quality and quantity, over time.

Our brains are more like computers than we want to admit. If I’m running several internet windows, downloading photos from my camera to send to my mom while I edit a PDF document of the next book, not only does my brain drag, but my hard drive does too. Shut down a few programs and my computer resumes a speed that makes me sigh and harrumph less.

Why stress ourselves to instant, simultaneous accomplishment, when the juggling hinders the outcome? This is an excellent place to cut ourselves some slack and expect less. Let’s give singular attention to one task at a time. Or if we must stretch it–two. The facts are clear: increased efficiency will be the reward. By doing less, we just might accomplish more — quality and quantity. And we can take pride in that, rather than burning out our brains with information (or task) overload.

And I’m betting we’ll still get more done than those guys distracted by football.