Why Normal Could Ruin Your Sex Life

4 kinds of normal that don't work!

There's a new book out about love, sex, and relationships called The Normal Bar. It's likely to be a best seller because most of us tend to be curious about how we are doing in the bedroom. We wonder if we are normal. Do other people feel like they don't have time for sex?  Do other women get easily distracted during sex?  Do other people feel like they have to beg their partner for sex?"

Curiosity to know "what's normal?" is normal.  However, there are times when what is considered normal isn't useful and may even become a problem.  Here are four kinds of "normal" that may harm your sex life and what to do instead:

1. Avoid "should" normal. This is an expectation that you set for yourself and your partner that causes you to make statements that include the word should:

o Woman should wear lingerie.
o New partners should want sex everyday.
o We should have an orgasm at the same time.

"Should" statements tend to be based on ideas that are portrayed in our culture as sexy.  If you want to be sexy, "this" is what you do. In real time and real life, the sexy lingerie might be quite itchy. You might be exhausted ramping up your career with 60-hour work weeks, and the simultaneous orgasm doesn’t feel that great when you do finally achieve it.

"Should" ideas are often accepted without much scrutiny even if they don't work in real life.  If you and your partner are arguing and the word "should" appears, it likely is a clue of what is causing the difficulty in the first place. Do your "should" expectations really deliver what works for you and your partner?

Find your normal:
Leave no "should" un-scrutinized. What really isn't working? What doesn't feel good during sex?

2. Avoid a "default" normal that doesn't work for you. A common "default" normal in dating happens around the second date. The second date is often like a litmus test for sexual chemistry. Both people watch intently to see if they are mutually "feeling it"—sexually attracted to each other. A normal like this, ignores the fact that you can have sexual chemistry with a partner who isn't long-term partner material.  Rethink this normal to avoid "going no where" dating and lots of second date pressure.

We default to normal when we don't recognize or attend to what we really experience in our sex lives.  For example, do we feel rushed and pressured to climax for our partner, yet wonder why sex has lost its spark for us?

We also default to normal when we discount the impact of our every day lives. For example, does our partner travel and "once a week" sex isn't possible, yet there is constant tension between you of not having enough sex? Day to day our depression, health issues, pain, or grief, can knock us off of the "default" normal path.

Find your normal:
Ask "what works for me?"  For example, if I experience someone trying to have sex too quickly for me, I can take that as a sign that they are not right for me rather than asking "what's wrong with me?"

Ask "what works for us?" What are the "default" normal's that are present in your relationship that don't work? For example, it may be better to strive for less sex of a higher quality, than have more sex of a mediocre or poor quality.

3. Don't use "excuse" normal to blow off your partner's complaints. When a partner brings up something that bothers them about sex, it's really important not to respond with a "but everyone else does it this way" attitude.

Common blow off attitudes:

o "Guys all use porn and if they say they don't they are lying!"
o "Men have physical needs, and woman have emotional needs!"
o "It's normal for sex to go away after a baby comes."
o "Men are very visual."
o "Women take a long time to get warmed up."
o "I've never had complaints before."

When you use "but it's normal" to answer your partner's complaints it sends the message that your partner's feelings don't matter. When your partner raises a concern, complains, or gets angry about sex, it's time to look at options beyond normal. 

Find your normal:
Ask this question: "I hear that this part of our sex life isn't working for you, what can we do about it?"

4. Don't use "stereotype" normal to make a complaint or label your partner. Expressing your complaint using stereotypes can make it difficult to work through concerns you have about your partner.  That's because stereotypes are based on assumptions that may or may not be true.

o "It's not normal for a guy not to want sex every day, especially this early in the relationship!"
o " I can't believe you don't think about and want sex everyday!
o "It's like our roles are reversed and I'm the guy."
o "I know that if you aren't having sex with me, then you must be getting it somewhere else."

Find your normal:
Express your complaints by starting with your feelings about what you experience:

o "I am not enjoying this part of our sex life, let's find something that works for both of us."
o "I don't like it when we wait until we climb in bed and the lights are off to start sex."
o "I don't like it when you wake me up in the morning."
o "I don't like that you don't initiate sex."

Your normal is the best place to start on the path to feeling great about sex!

Judith Krantz, best-selling author of racy romance novels, dies at 91

Judith Krantz, poses in an undated file photo during an interview at her home in the Bel Air section of Los Angeles. Picture: AP

Washington - Judith Krantz, whose steamy, glitzy romance novels - about the obscene exploits of the obscenely wealthy - were devoured by millions of readers and transformed the former Good Housekeeping editor into a publishing and television sensation, died on June 22 at her home in Los Angeles. She was 91.

The death was confirmed by her publicist, John Tellem, who did not give a precise cause.

Krantz burst onto the literary scene in 1978 with "Scruples" - a racy Cinderella tale about the making of a Beverly Hills boutique owner - that sold about 5 million copies in its first two years in print.

Though she was paid a relatively small sum for the book - $50,000 - Krantz would later garner record-breaking advances, earning millions of dollars from her top-selling romances and the TV miniseries made from them. Her novels, 10 in all, sold more than 80 million copies, were translated into over 50 languages and became fixtures of bestseller lists for decades.

Critics rarely had kind words for Krantz's books, but she saw them as pure entertainment. "It's not Dostoevsky," she told The Washington Post in 1986. "It's not going to tax your mental capacities. It's not ahhrtt."

Krantz spun ornate, breathless tales with only-in-your-dreams endings. Her powerful heroines had showgirl names (Maxi Amberville, Kiki Kavanaugh, Jazz Kilkullen), fabulous wardrobes and beauty so astounding it defied the English language. "Her changeable eyes were an unnameable color that held in it the bewitchment of a thousand twilights," she wrote of one character in "Mistral's Daughter" (1982).

The books, like those of Jacqueline Susann and Jackie Collins, helped break taboos about women and sex - and about women writing about sex. They were mildly scandalous in a pre-"Fifty Shades of Grey" world. "They've done everything but tattoo a 'P' for Pornographer on my chest," Krantz told People magazine in 1978.

"Scruples" was rejected by Simon & Schuster, which said the novel - about a woman named Billy Ikehorn who transforms herself from an overweight frump into the svelte, stylish and wealthy proprietor of a Beverly Hills boutique called Scruples - suffered from an excess of characters and plot.

Crown swooped in and not only bought the novel for $50,000 but quickly snapped up an outline of Krantz's second novel, "Princess Daisy," for $400,000. Rights to the paperback edition of that book were sold for $3.2 million, then the highest price ever paid for a fiction reprint. "Daisy" hit No. 1 on the New York Times bestseller list a week before its publication date in 1980.

That same year, a TV miniseries based on "Scruples" came out, with Lindsay Wagner in the starring role. Produced by Krantz's husband, Steve Krantz, it was the second-highest-rated miniseries of 1980 (first was a show about Jim Jones in Guyana).

So began a fruitful family business: Krantz would publish a book roughly every two years, and a couple of years after that her husband would bring it to the small screen. Donald Trump even made a cameo in one production, "I'll Take Manhattan" (1987), which was set in Trump Tower.

Krantz was 50 when "Scruples" was published. "I was the world's latest bloomer!" she told The Boston Globe. The book, she said, was partly the result of empty-nest syndrome. Her sons had recently left for college, and she finally succumbed to the urgings of her husband that she try writing a novel.

For more than 20 years, Krantz had worked as an editor and writer at women's magazines. Her serious pieces, a profile, for example, about Golda Meir, were overshadowed by her more provocative ones, such as a much-discussed piece on "The Myth of the Multiple Orgasm" for Cosmopolitan (an article the sexually ecstatic characters in her novels seemed to have missed).

Krantz at first balked at the idea of writing a novel, saying she'd been reluctant to try fiction writing after receiving a B in creative writing as a student at Wellesley College. But because facing another anxiety - fear of piloting a small plane her husband had bought - was so liberating, Krantz said she became "overcome by a rage of ambition."

She sat down at her Smith Corona typewriter and completed "Scruples" in nine months.

Critics, when they bothered to notice it at all, were typically dismissive of Krantz's work. "Sometimes reviewers lament that good trees have been felled to produce a book," Michael Dirda wrote in a Post review of her 1990 book "Dazzle." "In this case, I even feel bad about the ink and glue."

Some publishers also complained that the Krantz phenomenon was an affront to serious literature and undermined the industry. "I was staggered and think it reflects a certain lack of professionalism," David Snyder, then president of Simon & Schuster, said in 1980 of Ms. Krantz's mammoth advances.

Others wondered how someone her age could write in such graphic detail about intimacy. "It's always been, 'Gee, you look so small and helpless. You look like a lady. Where did all this sexual imagination come from?' " she told the Los Angeles Times. Krantz bit back: "I don't see what my height or my having two kids or my being married for 36 years has to do with it. It's there."

Little seemed to faze Krantz, whose work was publicized in lengthy author tours, on billboards, in TV commercials and at lavish promotional events that melded fiction and reality. A 1980 party for "Princess Daisy," held at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan, was an opulent charity ball that played the novel's Russian theme to the hilt. The party room was "transformed into a Russian Winter Palace by cold borscht and sour cream," The New York Times reported, and strewn with daisies; Krantz came dressed in a gown made by the costume maker from the prime-time soap "Dynasty."

In her novels, Krantz was fond of the rags-to-riches theme, but her personal narrative was one of riches-to-more-riches. Judith Tarcher was born in Manhattan on Jan. 9, 1928, and raised in an expansive apartment on Central Park West that featured paintings by Soutine and Renoir. Her father was an advertising executive, and her mother was a civil rights lawyer.

After graduating in 1944 from the exclusive Birch Wathen private school in New York and then from Wellesley in 1948, she set off for Paris before settling into an entry-level job with Good Housekeeping.

Soon afterward, Birch Wathen schoolmate Barbara Walters introduced her to Steve Krantz, a TV comedy writer and producer who later produced such films as the X-rated animated feature "Fritz the Cat" (1972) and "Cooley High" (1975), which inspired the ABC sitcom "What's Happening!!" The Krantzes married in 1954.

At Good Housekeeping, Krantz wrote a column called "Tips to the Teens" and later became accessories editor, a job that capitalized on her love of handbags, scarves and especially jewelry. (Krantz's novels often offered a voyeuristic look inside the world of high fashion.) She had stints at McCall's, Ladies' Home Journal and Cosmopolitan, where she became a contributing West Coast editor after settling in California in 1971.

Cosmo editor Helen Gurley Brown became a close friend and such a fierce defender of Krantz's novels that she once threatened to pull out the fingernails of certain book critics "one-by-one, then put a bullet through their heads."

A petite blonde of about 5-foot-2 - who for years had her hair done weekly at a Beverly Hills salon - Krantz immersed herself in high-end fashion trends. She confessed to The Washington Post that she had once spent $25,000 a year on clothes, not including fur coats and jewelry. Her label preferences ran toward Chanel or Adolfo, except when she was writing - an activity that called for sweatpants and layers of sweaters that she would shed as she warmed up.

She became a regular at luxury shops like Giorgio, the inspiration for the fictional store in "Scruples." Krantz rarely bought clothes off the rack, and the thought of entering a mall turned her sour. Clothes, she admitted, were vital to a woman's sense of self.

"I write about clothes as magical things that can change you," she told The New York Times. "I feel that women are comforted by having clothes and accessories. I have every scarf I've ever bought."

Steve Krantz died in 2007. Survivors include two sons, Nicholas Krantz and Tony Krantz, both of Los Angeles; and two grandchildren.

That she would be remembered as the "sex and shopping" novelist was a foregone conclusion, Krantz sighed in her 2000 memoir - archly titled "Sex and Shopping: Confessions of a Nice Jewish Girl." She even anticipated (wrongly, it turns out) that the label would "unquestionably be in the first line of my obituary."

She quipped that she was "resigned" to that view of her legacy and not troubled by it. "On balance," she wrote, "sex and shopping are both excellent things, activities people love to talk about - even do!"

'My life from virgin to a slut'

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Do you need a volume control in bed?

So it is that the prostate gland (aka his P-spot), a highly sensitive organ akin to the woman's G-spot, is reached through the anus.

QUESTION:

I”m a pretty uninhibited sort of person and have always been quite voluble in the bedroom. This hasn’t fazed any of my previous boyfriends, and I’ve got to the grand age of 38 without it proving a problem. But my current partner, who is from a very repressed family, is always telling me to “Shh!” when we’re making love - and he’s so quiet in bed. He’s worried the neighbours will hear something, but I think that’s the last thing that should be on his mind at the height of passion. How can I get him to loosen up?

ANSWER:

Many people wish their beloved had a volume control. There are those, like your boyfriend, who are mortified by their partner’s deafening expressions of ecstasy, while others just long for some vocal sign of their sweetheart’s enthusiasm.

I’m not sure which is worse: the lover who wakes the entire street or the one who’s quiet as a mouse. But it seems to me that both examples are disobeying the basic rules of etiquette.

It’s clearly inconsiderate to inflict noisy lovemaking on anyone within earshot, but it’s also discourteous to give no murmurs of encourage-ment to a partner who’s striving for your pleasure.

It sounds as if you and your boyfriend have to find a balance between these two extremes. It’s not just a question of getting him to “loosen up”; you’re going to need to modify your behaviour, too.

Have you tried asking any of your exes if they ever thought you were a little too loud in bed? They may not have mentioned it (I think chaps tend to have more manners than we give them credit for), but they might have longed for a little restraint. At least then you’d know whether your boyfriend has got a reasonable case.

Your boyfriend may have a good point, too, when he worries about the neighbours. In 2009, Caroline Cartwright, from Sunderland, was served with an Asbo after her loud lovemaking was deemed a nuisance for her neighbours.

One resident told the magistrates’ court: “There was a lot of moaning and groaning and screaming, as if in pain.”

Don’t delude yourself that just because previous boyfriends haven’t been deterred by your raucous lovemaking others in the vicinity haven’t been offended.

I stayed in a hotel in Paris a couple of years ago and was kept awake all night by the sound of a neighbouring couple making ear-piercing love.

The woman sounded as if she was auditioning for Meg Ryan’s infamous scene in When Harry Met Sally when she fakes an orgasm in a packed restaurant - only this moaning went on ad infinitum.

Another friend talks dolefully of “the squealer”, who was her flatmate’s girlfriend for one sleep-deprived year.

Having said that, there’s nothing more disconcerting to an exuberant suitor than someone who makes love in hushed shame, like a fugitive. But you have to understand the reasons for such rectitude.

Some, like your partner, have a repressed background where all sexual behaviour was seen as shameful; they will need to be secure in a partner’s love before they can begin to allow themselves to express their feelings.

You don’t want to hector or intimidate your partner if he feels inhibited - it’s far better for you to tone down your own liveliness a little and encourage him to emote.

Did your partner attend boarding school or any similarly regimented institution? Many middle-aged men with that background were trained to keep rowdy emotions in check. I was amused by this passage in U.S. writer Tad Friend’s hilarious account of WASP (White Anglo-Saxon Protestant) culture, Cheerful Money: “I realise now that my family and their set equated sex with a loss of control and reputation . . . So sex, like sleep, ought to be practised quietly and in the dark.”

The remark could equally be applied to a generation of British stiff-upper-lip types. You can’t expect such a man simply to stop worrying about the neighbours.

Likewise, you need to bear in mind how mortifying it is to such a soul to be bullied into warbling in bed like a kettle on the boil.

So here’s the deal I think you should strike with your man. He has to stop his shushing in bed because that’s really disconcerting. No one wants their lover to behave like an over-zealous librarian. And it’s reasonable to ask that he expresses enough passion to let you know that he’s close to climax.

But you, in turn, need to modify your noise levels to accommodate his concerns. There’s a difference between carefree self-expression and exhibitionism.

Most of us believe sex is a private matter and should not be shared with the Joneses. Remember that we talk about people making “sweet music” together, not a terrible cacophony. - Daily Mail

4 sexy tips to make the most of your first cybersex experience

You’ll need to use your imagination, be creative and really concentrate on what you’re picturing in your head. Picture: Pixabay

Cybersex is a consensual interaction between two or more people, conducted on various online chat platforms (using technological smart devices), from typing to sharing erotic images, video and or sound clips. The purpose is to lead each other into mutual arousal leading to an orgasm.

Sounds a whole lot familiar when I put it to you that way right? That’s because you’ve been doing it for quite some time now.

How you can enjoy it?

So you’ll need to use your imagination, be creative and really concentrate on what you’re picturing in your head. Generally you can sext, you can send naughty videos, kinky images, send dirty voice notes, start your own camming show – you can even use emojis and stickers (if that’s your thing). You’re able to pretty much do anything for your sexual pleasures.

The exciting part (for me) is that if you’re single, you don’t have to limit yourself to just one person. You can have cybersex with as many people as you want; of course, you just have to be safe.

Can toys make it better?

OF COURSE!

Sex toys are an awesome addition your online relationship. One of my favourite Bluetooth enabled and app-controlled toys are We-Vibes. Even though you can’t touch or smell the other person, these technologically advanced toys will at least connect you via a chat where you chat, see or hear your partner. Interested? You can get yours right here.

What should you remember?

If you’re a beginner these are four simple things to take into consideration. When you know the person, it’s a little less awkward vs not knowing the person. In this instance let’s say you don’t know them:

• Take your time and do as much research as you want, you don’t have to rush into steamy chat sites. 
• Don’t forget that consent also exists online; at the end of the day you and the other person(s) have feelings and thoughts
• If you’re going to send photos and/or videos, leave your face out of it!
• Know what you’re getting yourself into (especially if you’re never going to meet in person)
• And if it was a truly bad experience, do not feel pressured into ever having cybersex with the person(s) again. The great thing about these online platforms is that you can report a person and block a person
• 

 Which chat rooms can I use?

Here are a few options to consider if you want to chat with strangers or find new dating partner(s). These apps let you allow to connect with strangers around the world as well as in your vicinity. 

• Antiland
• Omegle
• Anonymous Chat
• Chat for Strangers
• Kik

Yes, male chastity belts are now a thing

Male submission is an interesting topic - like many people, I find sexual psychology in all its variations fascinating. Picture: PxHere.com

When I was sent a link to this article on male chastity, I assumed I was going to read about some sort of religious movement. But the kind of male chastity Jeremy Wilson writes about in London magazine The Kernel is something different altogether. 

Kudos to Wilson for informing me to a particular fetish I'd never really known anything about before: Men who wear chastity belts.

The padlock-equipped chastity cages in the article are pretty amazing (men can choose between stainless steel, camouflage or a tasteful wood-grain pattern). 

Wilson devotes a lot of time to the particular mechanics of caged cocks, but the male chastity belts are just a tool for folks engaging in a larger pattern of kink, including orgasm denial and overall male sexual submission.

Male submission is an interesting topic - like many people, I find sexual psychology in all its variations fascinating. But the overall tone of the Kernel article is a little too incredulous for my taste. Here's the story's kicker:

Increasing numbers of men are submitting themselves to ritual humiliation and self-imposed denial of sex, saying they get a kick out of total submission to their wives.

To Wilson, "the men who embark on this extraordinary undertaking are evidently unhappy with their lot in life" (emphasis mine) despite the fact that none of the men quoted in his message-board-based expose actually says this. He knows they're unhappy, though, because ... well, he doesn't actually say. 

So for the record: I've known female Dommes and male submissives and - like people with any other sort of kink - they've been perfectly regular and relatively happy people. Consider this your friendly reminder that we shouldn't judge a person by their (consensual adult) bedroom behaviour. Most people have some sort of kinky turn-on or fantasy, as 50 Shades of Grey so ruefully demonstrated.

Now go read all about male chastity - because who doesn't like reading about other people's sex lives? - but keep that in mind, okay?