As You Like It

Sex Fantasies in the Time of Porn

Paul Joannides, Psy.D. — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 20:29:41 +0000

A number of sex educators--myself included--have been concerned about the impact of mainstream porn on younger teens. There are two reasons: this is first time kids this young have had ready access to mainstream porn, and it's the first time mainstream porn has shown so many outrageous sex acts that few couples actually do or want to do.

So I would think by now that we would start to see some of this being reflected in the private sex fantasies of today's younger adults who have grown up with porn on the Internet. But that's not what I'm seeing as I am looking over the latest batch of sex survey answers from my website that were submitted by people ages 18 - 24.

Their reported sex fantasies are very much as I would have expected in the days before Internet porn. There was not a single fantasy of double penetration, ass-to-mouth, women peeing, or anything of the like which are the hallmark of today's mainstream porn.

As for anal sex fantasies, there's nothing new there, either. There were the usual number of males with fantasies of watching a woman from behind as she is undressing. But I would have expected more anal sex fantasies, given that mainstream porn has pretty much declared the female rectum to be the new vagina.

This isn't to say that I'm still not concerned about middle-school kids watching extreme sex acts on their smart phones and laptops that few prostitutes would agree to perform. But maybe our sex fantasies are wired to a more "old school" part of our consciounesses. Perhaps watching porn has little impact on the sexual fantasies we have.

I would greatly value your thoughts about this.

Everything You Never Wanted To Know about Semen Allergies

Paul Joannides, Psy.D. — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 20:47:12 +0000

On ABC's "The View," they recently discussed a situation where a couple who wanted to become pregnant had hit a dead end due to a semen or "sperm allergy." For those of you who would like to know what a semen allergy is and how it is diagnosed and treated, here goes...

A semen allergy is caused by an allergic reaction to a particular protein in semen. The onset can vary. A woman could have been just fine with a partner's semen for a couple of years, and then suddenly start having an allergic reaction to it for no good reason. On the other hand, a semen allergy can be there from the start. Symptoms include burning and itching.

While a semen allergy isn't totally rare, it's not particularly common. One way to decide if the reaction you are having is to semen or to something like chronic vaginitis is to use a condom during intercourse. (It's best to use a polyurethane condom or perhaps one of the new Lifestyles Skyn condoms, given how your symptoms might also be from a latex allergy.) If the symptoms appear only after intercourse without a condom, it's time to consider a semen allergy.

Aside from a complete gynecologic exam, you will need to get intradermal testing to see if you have an allergy to semen. This is where a small amount of semen is injected under the skin.

Fortunately, there is a desensitization treatment for semen allergy that is safe and effective. You need to do it under the supervision of an allergist or immunologist. It is called a "graded challenge" where diluted solutions of semen are placed in your vagina every twenty minutes until you are able to tolerate undiluted semen. The downside is that the couple has to have intercourse at least once every 48 hours to maintain the desensitization!

Another fascinating thing about semen allergy is you don't get a bad reaction to the semen of just one guy. If you did, switching partners would be a treatment option, although not always a desired or practical one. If you get a semen allergy, it's to a protein in semen that all men have.

Also, once you develop a semen allergy, it's not just in your vagina. The burning and itching can occur any place where semen touches your skin, including in your mouth or up your bum. As is the case with food allergies, a semen allergy might go as fast as it came.

If you are concerned that you or a partner might have a semen allergy, be sure to check with your healthcare provider for proper diagnosis and treatment.

When Bats Have Sex

Paul Joannides, Psy.D. — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 22:07:34 +0000

I honestly did not believe I would live long enough to see an article on fellatio in bats, but a newly published study has me seriously rethinking my costume for next Halloween.

The study, published in PLOS is titled Fellatio by Fruit Bats Prolongs Copulation Time and has concluded the following:

"Female short-nosed fruit bats lick their mate's penis regularly during copulation, and that each second of licking results in approximately 6 extra seconds of copulation... Our observations are the first to show regular fellatio in adult animals other than humans."

Plenty of animals will sniff a partner's genitals before and after copulation, but these collaborators from the Guangdong Entomological Institute in China and the School of Biological Sciences in Bristol, United Kingdom have gone where no researchers have apparently gone before in demonstrating actual oral sex.

However, if you watch the video of bat sex, you might notice that the authors of this study have taken a substantial bit of license with what a reasonable person might assume fellatio would include. I'd call it more an occasional lick than satisfying oral sex, although kudos are in the order to the female bat who manages to "fellate" her male partner during the act of coitus proper while hanging from the roof.

To see the video, click here and scroll down to the Supporting Information section of the study, and click on the Video S1 link. DO NOT WATCH THIS VIDEO AT WORK! (Also keep in mind the first rule of watching porn--human or otherwise: be sure to turn the volume off.)

Readers who are PETA members will be relieved to know that all research was conducted according to protocols approved by the Guangdong Entomological Institute Administrative Panel on Laboratory Animal Care. However, the authors did not file the customary 18 U.S.C. 2257 Record Keeping Requirements Compliance Statement indicating that all participants are of legal age. Nor did the authors include a statement about possible conflicts of interest.

As for bat-human comparisons, the authors did say that the bat penis contains erectile tissue (corpus cavernosa and corpus spongiosum) which is similar to that found in primates and humans.

Modern Psychiatry--Who's Your Daddy?

Paul Joannides, Psy.D. — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 04:15:36 +0000

I was just listening to a Medscape.com video which was a discussion of a study on sudden death in pediatric patients and stimulant use (as in drugs prescribed for ADHD). There was a link for the presenter's disclosures, and I was truly shocked after I clicked on it. Impartiality in modern psychiatry is apparently on life support.

If you wonder about the symbiosis between the drug companies and psychiatry, take a look:

The physician doing the presentation is the director of child and adolescent psychiatry at University Hospital's Case Medical Center and a professor of psychiatry and pediatrics at Case Western Reserve University. He has disclosed the following relevant financial relationships:

Received grants for clinical research from: Abbott Laboratories; Addrenex Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP; Bristol-Myers Squibb Company; Forest Laboratories, Inc.; GlaxoSmithKline; Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research & Development, L.L.C.; Eli Lilly and Company; Neuropharm Group plc; Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd.; Pfizer Inc.; Shire; Supernus Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; Wyeth Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Served as an advisor or consultant for: Abbott Laboratories; Addrenex Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP; Biovail Corporation; Bristol-Myers Squibb Company; Forest Laboratories, Inc.; GlaxoSmithKline; Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research & Development, L.L.C.; Eli Lilly and Company; Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation; Organon Pharmaceuticals USA Inc.; Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., Pfizer Inc.; sanofi-aventis; Sepracor Inc.; Shire; Solvay Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; Supernus Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; Validus Pharmaceuticals, Inc.; Wyeth Pharmaceuticals Inc.

Served on the speaker's bureau for: Bristol-Myers Squibb Company; Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceutical Research & Development, L.L.C.; Shire

This guy might be a prince among men and a great shrink, but how do you claim impartiality when the money trail looks like this?

Here's the link to the presentation, but I think you may need to be registered with Medscape.com to gain access.

Burger King's Seven-Incher vs. Calvin Klein's Threesome

Paul Joannides, Psy.D. — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 21:29:33 +0000

Burger King in the Singapore area has just started to run its new oral sex ad. A quick compare-and-contrast of the Burger King ad with the latest Calvin Klein billboard is the stuff that academics dream of.

Are we talking two polar extremes of how sex can be used to sell things, or what?

The Burger King ad is in your face, the Calvin Klein billboard is in your crotch. Wonderful testaments to the wide brushstroke that sex can have in our lives.

Each ad is targeting a respective orifice or body part, which makes sense given the products being sold. The wicked beauty is in how the two products are at such odds with each other: too many visits to Burger King and good luck getting into your Calvins.

As for approaches, Burger King invokes the universal seven inches metaphor and pretty much sky-writes the word fellatio across the face of their ad, while Calvin doesn't use any words at all.

Burger King then ups the ante with copy that reads "Fill your desire for something long, juicy and flame-grilled with the new BK Super Seven Incher. Yearn for more after you taste the mind-blowing burger that comes with a single beef patty, topped with American cheese, crispy onions and the A1 Thick & Hearty Steak Sauce."

As for BK's target audience, that's a good question. I don't know too many women who relish the thought of seven inches of something that wide going down their throats, so maybe the target audience is hungry guys who can only wish. (I discussed the Calvin billboard's target audience in my last posting.)

Much to parents' relief, the Burger King ad can be read by children with the most stress-inducing questions being, "Can we go inside and eat it there, Mommy, can we go inside?" as opposed to doing the drive-thru. The Calvin ad, however, puts parents on thin ice when little Marley asks, "How come that guy's got his pants open," or "I wanna so kiss Jacob AND Ethan just like that girl on the billboard!"

Also, is the new Burger King seven-incher ad a poke at Subway, who has been trying to hawk its six-incher since time began? This assumes that women believe bigger is better when it comes to penis size. The average (penis, not sandwich) is somewhere between 5.5 and 6.5 inches long, unless you're looking at a Calvin Klein underwear ad with models like Brandon Stoughton, in which case you'd probably need a yard stick.

I welcome PT Blog readers to add your own take on the two ads.

Thanks to Media Bistro's Ad Agency Spy for the new BK ad alert.

Calvin Nails Its Market

Paul Joannides, Psy.D. — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 02:52:33 +0000

Okay, so I'm a little slow. I just saw a copy of the new Calvin Klein Jeans billboard at Houston and Lafayette Streets in the city that never sleeps. It seems that some people are getting worked up about Calvin's little cuddle party, and I'm not talking sexually.

When I first saw the ad, I thought "Lucky Girl." Then I looked a little closer and wondered where they got the eighth grader.

I'm also of the old school when it comes to the guys. I'm not sure that waxing from your shoulders to your scrotum is good for a man, or his character anyway. (One of my colleagues, Stephanie, tells me they use Veet and not wax. Veet, schmeet, men weren't meant to have naked nipples and be without fiber below the belt.)

This ad appears to be of a guy who's having a masturbation fantasy. But if straight guys are going to have a threesome fantasy, it's usually going to be of two women and a man, not two men and a woman.

And that's when it hit me. The audience for this ad appears to be straight women and gay men. If so, Calvin's ad agency deserves a star on the streets of Chelsea. Straight guys probably don't buy Calvin products anywhere near the rate that women and gay guys do and this ad totally nails it, for the intended male audience anyway.

Take a closer look at the Calvin ad--two pretty boys and one seriously skinny girl. This is not going to put a tent in the pants of your average straight guy. I asked one of my other colleagues about his take on the ad, and he said "I think the billboard is HOT! And I am a gay man so they did it right. I like seeing a straight guy be a little heteroflexible and they KNOW that gay men love that."

Now, for the Paul rant: Look at that pathetic thigh on the woman in the Cavin Jeans' ad. Where did they cast her from, an anorexic unit of some hospital? I'm fine with the concept that a girl can get two guys, but I don't like the "skinny" message that's being foisted on the women of New York. Wickedly skinny, this girl is.

And why the Dolce & Gabbana Is it rape? vibe (see below)? But I wear Wrangler jeans and I'm probably not in the demographic that this ad is intended for.

Leaky Bladder during Intercourse

Paul Joannides, Psy.D. — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 15:02:15 +0000

When I was recently reviewing the literature on sex during pregnancy, it surprised me to learn that one of the biggest impediments to having sex for pregnant women is incontinence. The problem can last for up to six months after pregnancy.

So I was already sensitive to the matter when this month's Journal of Sexual Medicine arrived and there was an article titled "Female Urinary Incontinence During Intercourse: A Review on an Understudied Problem for Women's Sexuality" J Sex Med 2009;6:40-48.

According to the authors, coital urinary incontinence is usually divided into two categories: that which occurs during penetration and that which occurs during orgasm. It's been shown that women who experience the first type of urinary leakage--incontinence at penetration--often have urodynamic stress incontinence, while women with incontinence during orgasm often experience detrusor overactivity.

Urodynamic stress incontinence is when your urinary sphincter doesn't stay closed when you'd normally expect it to. It is often associated with weak or otherwise compromised pelvic muscles.

Detrusor overactivity is when the muscle that surrounds the bladder contracts while the bladder isn't full enough to justify a trip to the loo. The detrusor is a muscle that’s part of the bladder wall. It usually stays relaxed except when the bladder fills up and you need to pee. The detrusor then contracts and helps squeeze out the liquid that’s in the bladder.

A common treatment for urodynamic stress incontinence includes pelvic floor exercises. Unfortunately, people often assume this means to simply squeeze your pelvic muscles in a misguided attempt at doing Kegel Exercises.

To learn more about pelvic floor exercises, I recommend that you read a Medscape article** on the subject and that you read everything you can on Talli Rosenbaum's website. (I am far from alone in considering Talli to be one of world's top experts in pelvic floor rehabilitation.)

As for treatment of detrusor overactivity, this article on bladder retraining might be of help.

And please, before formulating any kind of treatment strategy for urinary leakage or any other physical concern, I highly recommend you discuss it first with your healthcare provider. I am not a physician, and even if I were, I would tell you that nothing you will read on the Internet takes the place of a face-to-face or face-to-crotch meeting with a licensed healthcare provider.

**I apologize if Medscape requires you to register to see this article. I believe you can register for free. If you need, the full citation is "Pelvic Floor Exercises Reduce Female Urinary Incontinence" by Laurie Barclay, MD and Désirée Lie, MD, MSEd., October 31, 2008.

Paul's Sex Term of the Day--SRPE or Sleep-Related Painful Erections

Paul Joannides, Psy.D. — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 07:45:13 +0000

These are erections that occur during sleep but are so painful that they wake the man up. This problem has not been well-studied and may occur more often than is reported. The pain is frequently too severe to simply "shake off" and can result in a serious loss of sleep.

SRPEs seem to occur during REM sleep, just like non-painful sleeping erections. However the pain itself might be the result of either spasms or ischemia. Oral baclofen currently appears to be the experimental treatment of choice, but that may change when more is learned about SRPEs.

If you are experiencing sleep-related painful erections, a consultation with a urologist is in order.

As for regular non-painful sleep erections, the idea that they are the same as daytime erections that just happen while you are sleeping is being questioned by researchers. It's possible that different neurological pathways are involved. One shouldn't assume a man who wakes with an erection is necessarily horny.

Thoughts about Porn and Young Adults

Paul Joannides, Psy.D. — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 19:52:11 +0000

As I grow closer to receiving the dreaded senior discounts, I never realized that the path to geezerhood was such a slippery slope--even for those of us in fields like psychology and sex therapy. I can finally appreciate that while change is inevitable, staying relevant is not.

Nowhere do I find greater evidence of this than in the glut of sex-on-the-Internet threads on the sex-therapist listserves that I belong to. We seem to be in the midst of a sex and porn-addiction panic unlike anything since the 1870s when the anti-obscenity crusaders were given near dictatorial powers to help stem the flood of pornography that was thought to be ruining American minds.

Unfortunately, I see virtually nothing on the my listserves about the hours young adults spend playing online role-playing games like World of Warcraft, or music video games like Guitar Hero, or the need of the young to be constantly connected electronically. The main fear of my colleagues is when porn is on computers and smartphone displays.

Context is easy to ignore when giant crotches fill the screen.

As for young adults in college, I think we are failing to see that Internet porn might not be the same for them as it was for those of us who grew up coveting the Penthouse centerfold. We view it as a threat to relatedness when relatedness appears to be a beast of a different color for members of the younger generations.

I'm talking about young adults who can be having a conversation with you while texting three different friends and firing up their iPods. Being present is very different for them than it is for the psychoanalyst me, who spent years trying to create what I hoped would be the perfect listening environment.

I don't for a moment question that obsessions and compulsions can overtake and destroy people's lives no matter what their ages. But viewing sex on the Internet with generational blinders on is limiting our abilibity to help. It puts us on the precipice of sounding like the geezers of old who declared Elvis and rock music to be agents of the devil.

One of the reasons why we are so focused on porn and sex on the Internet as threats to emotional relatedness is because we fail to view porn as being on the same spectrum as World of Warcraft, Guitar Hero, texting, and the relentless tethering to the Internet. We aren't able to see the vaginas from the trees, or should that be the trees from the vaginas.

Relatedness is being defined differently by a generation that has given itself the option to have hooking-up sex as well as to enter into more traditional relationships. Members of the wired generations who are experiencing loneliness or alienation in spite of their constant connectedness need our help. But telling them to leave their devices at the door won't work, and stigmatizing porn on the Internet as the vortex of emotional dysfunction badly misses the bigger picture. Rather than throwing our tired addiction paradigms at them, we need to step back, observe and learn.

Mind you, I am no fan of mainstream porn and the shrink in me becomes unhinged when I think about pre-teens and younger teens watching it. I don't believe they have the developmental maturity to put porn antics like ass-to-mouth scenes, double-penetration and rough sex into context. They are particularly vulnerable because most of their parents have abdicated when it comes to talking to them about sex in an actual relationship. But I think we need to look at it differently when the people we are so worried about have reached college age and at least have one leg planted into adulthood.

Sex in a Sleeping Bag vs. Sex in Outer Space

Paul Joannides, Psy.D. — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 23:00:10 +0000

While most Psychology Today readers have slept in sleeping bags, the chances are good that not many of you have had sex in a sleeping bag--as long as we define "sex" as intercourse only.

And while astronauts have spent thousands of hours in space, NASA still claims to know nothing about things as simple as the impact of extended weightlessness on the male sexual docking device--as if male and female astronauts living in the space station haven't felt the desire to masturbate or fool around.

So let's look at sex in two very different frontiers with very different technologies, considering there's a bit more engineering that goes into a space shuttle or space station as opposed to a sleeping bag.

As for sex in a sleeping bag, an area of concern is the wet spot. That's why some campers pack condoms next to their dehydrated cheesy bacon spuds. Unfortunately, the condom is likely to taste better than the dehydrated meals a lot of people pack in. You also might consider including a few pet peepads or disposable hospital pads to wedge between your back-packing booty and sleeping bag proper.

There are competing schools of thought about sex in one bag versus zipping two bags together. The one-bag solution forces a more immediate can't-back-away-from-you-if-I-tried scenario, while two-bags-as-one might appeal more to campers who have already gotten the fantasy of mummy sex out of their systems.

While curious bears are not an issue in outer space, they are in some wilderness areas. I don't know if it's the sounds of the couple or the smells of the lovemaking that attract the bears, or maybe it's the scent on the peepads. Whatever the case, the only excuse for not carrying out stained pads and spent condoms is if a bear eats you.

As for intercourse in space, how many thrusts would it take before the woman went floating one way through the space capsule with her lover floating in the opposite direction? NASA engineers could place special handles throughout the space station to make space sex (Sput-nookie?) possible.

There's also the question of how to masturbate in outer space. While perhaps not as big a deal for female astronauts, what happens if a guy loses himself in the moment and a weightless wad of splooge goes flying through the space station? Does he throw a sock at it?

Some of you might be thinking this is all far fetched, just like people during the last Great Depression thought that going to the moon was far fetched. As for myself, I think that anyone who appreciates how splooge in space floats up rather than trickles down may have a better grasp on our nation's economy than the economists who have been guiding it.

Whether your sex is in the woods or out of this world, it can be both fun and thought-provoking to think about the challenges of doing it in environments that are not as familiar as our bedrooms.

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The illustation of the aliens is by Daerick Gross from Paul's book on sex Guide To Getting It On. If you'd like the new edition of this 992-page sex tome for only $15.95 including free shipping and the signature bookmark and door hanger that college students have already named "the wanger hanger," go to www.IWantTheGuide.com and be sure to enter PsychToday in the "affiliations" box that's at the bottom of the order page. The price will automatically be adjusted.