Stress and Sex

Providing scientifically-accurate and sex-positive information to enhance sexual pleasure.

Laurie Mintz Ph.D.

A Linguistic Sexual Revolution: Naming the Clitoris

Let’s use language to shape our values around women’s orgasmic response. Let’s start naming the clitoris openly and proudly. Let’s use a nickname so frequently that it makes its way into online dictionaries. After all, calling the clitoris Tori, Doris, or Pepita is no stranger than calling the penis Tom, Dick, or Peter.

Seventy Percent: A Statistic to Enhance Your Sex Life

If more women and men knew this statistic, less women would be faking orgasm.

Using the Placebo Effect to Enhance Sexual Desire

Why take a drug, replete with side effects, when a placebo works as well? Instead, ask your doctor for an inert pill and believe it will increase your desire—because the research shows it will.

Hooking Up: Complexities and Double Standards

College students are hooking-up. Still, just what they are doing, and how they are reacting emotionally and sexually, is far from straightforward. What is clear, however, is that missing from the discourse is research on same-sex hookups and that in heterosexual hookups, the sexual double standards is alive and well.

A Touchy Subject: The Health Benefits of Masturbation

Masturbation is free and has more clear-cut health benefits than a multivitamin.

A Drug for Desire

This week, The New York Times Magazine ran an article about the testing of a drug to increase female sexual desire....I just wish the author had mentioned a simpler strategy or two. I wish he had mentioned methods that don’t alter brain chemicals.

Don’t Wait for Desire: Reverse the Equation

If you always wait until you're "in the mood" to have sex, you may never have sex again. Instead, put sex on your schedule and let the encounter create the desire.

Stop Spectatoring: Mindfulness to Enhance Sexual Pleasure

The next time you put out the “do not disturb” sign, make sure it is your own self you aren’t disturbing with distracting thoughts.

What to (S)expect When You’re Expecting

Dispelling the myths about sex during pregnancy and urging women to talk to their doctors for the facts

Female Orgasm: Time To Stop Shoulding on Ourselves

Psychologists—starting with Freud and continuing to this day—have categorized women’s orgasms and labeled one type superior. It’s time to stop such nonsense.

How Many Times a Week Is It Healthy to Have Sex?

“How many times a week is it healthy to have sex?” is a common question. My answer is that it depends how you define sex and healthy.

Turn the Pages to Turn up Desire

What does the research tell us about the ability of both erotic books and self-help books to increase sexual desire in the women who read them?

The Power of Appreciation

The more couples express appreciation for one another, the more successful their relationships.

Graham Crackers and the Mediterranean Diet: Sexual Functioning and Food

Graham and Kellogg preached sexual activity was bad for one’s health and that a good diet could help control this unhealthy evil. Recent science tells us that these men had the first part of their teachings completely backwards, yet were on the right track in terms of the second aspect.

Analyzing The Latest Study in the G-spot Debate

The search for the G-spot continues. Let's stop and ask some questions about who benefits from the debate, who is harmed, and what positive message women can take from the search.

What Science Tells Us About the Clitoris: It’s All Custom Under the Hood

While controversy exists, there is evidence that all orgasms are the result of direct or indirect stimulation of the clitoris.

It’s Funny But It Isn’t True: Debunking Myths About Aging and Sexuality

Folk wisdom and scientific research tells us that we often laugh at jokes because of the truth that they convey (i.e., "It's Funny Because It's True"). Still, the joke about aging and sex at the start of this blog may be funny, but it's not true.

Is Sex Always Pleasurable?

I hope the women in this class don't have to wait another 20 years until when someone asks, "Is sex pleasurable?" they scream YES! Let's work to stop sexual violence on college campuses and to educate women about their bodies so that these young women can be a chorus of affirmative voices.

Dont Just Make Resolutions: Make Time for Them

Reaching one's goals involves more than just making resolutions. It takes the action steps of prioritizing what is important, closely examining how you are currently spending time, and then finding ways to re-arrange your time to make room for priorities

Tis the Season

Tips to De-Stress During the Holiday Season

The “Right” Kind of Orgasm: Feeling All Right with Pleasure That Is Rightfully Ours

Our society's misguided beliefs about the correct form, of female orgasm—and the psychological impact that these beliefs have on women

Sexual Satisfaction: A Teachable Skill

Teaching your partner to satisfy you is similar to teaching a teenager to drive. Teaching both skills requires giving clear and direct verbal instructions, as well as providing demonstrations.

Beating the Odds: Reframing Anxiety as Excitement

The Menopausal Symptom Women Don’t Tell Friends About

Vaginal dryness and painful intercourse are as much a part of menopause as hot flashes and night sweats. Break the silence, and tell your friends about it. Also let them know that information and help is just a mouse click and phone call away.

The Unselfish Act of Self-Care

Although people, especially women, often think of self-care as selfish, just the opposite is true.

Sex Lessons Learned from Pain and Disability

Orgasm is a proven pain reducer

Life Lessons Learned from Being Temporarily Disabled

I've learned some important and surprising life lessons from being temporarily disabled.

Communication Is the Bedrock to Make Your Bed Rock!

Couples benefit from learning to talk about sex as they would any other topic. Consider the question "Do you want to have sex tonight?"

Trysts for Tired Women

Trysts are a little known but highly effective way for women to reclaim their sexual desire and re-energize their long-term relationships.  Gaining the benefit of Trysts requires giving up myths about spontaneous sex.

Masturbation: Not Just Monkey Business

When female monkeys masturbate, they touch their clitoris. Clearly, these lady monkeys know how to please themselves.  My goal with this blog is to help human women undertand and own masturbation as an an important, self-affirming sexual activity. Masturbation is no monkey busines.