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Doctors and Scientists Agree: Bras Are Bad for Breast Health 1

Doctors say that bras may be bad for breast health. Hey, it’s science!

Ditching a bra could make your breasts perkier, experts have claimed.

Women’s health specialists and plastic surgeons have suggested that the tight pressure from a bra can weaken tissues around the breasts over time, causing them to droop.

The uplifted look is also said to be due to the gradual strengthening of back muscles that happens when you’re unsupported, improving posture.

If only some scientist were courageous and dedicated enough to devote a lifetime to studying breasts. Oh wait!

A 15-year study conducted by Dr Jean-Denis Rouillon, a sports science expert from the University of Besançon, France, revealed that bras did more harm than good when it came to perkiness.

In the study, he examined changes in the breasts of hundreds of women over many years.

He concluded that women who didn’t wear bras had nipples that were seven milliliters higher than those who did.

Dr Rouillon said in a radio interview: ‘Medically, physiologically, anatomically—breasts gain no benefit from being denied gravity. On the contrary, they get saggier with a bra.’

What about personal testimony?

Dr Lucky Sekhon, a board-certified OB/GYN and reproductive endocrinologist, told Well+Good that people have long believed the opposite – that not wearing a bra causes drooping.

This, she says, is a common misconception.

Women who have gone long periods without wearing a bra often report that this leads their breasts to being firmer, rounder, and perkier over time.’

So there you have it — unless you hate health and science, you should stop wearing a bra.

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Male Sexual Health Episode on Huberman Podcast 2

If you’re a man or married to one you’ll probably benefit from this episode of Andrew Huberman’s podcast about Male Sexual Health. Huberman has Dr. Michael Eisenberg as a guest and they discuss the two primary dimensions of male sexual health: fertility and potency. The episode has lots of great… uh, tips… and ideas for what to discuss with your doctor and how to understand the meaning of various tests and procedures.

If you’re a husband, you have a responsibility to take care of your sexual health, both for your own benefit and for the benefit of your wife.. There are a few negative stereotypes that sometimes work against husbands:

  • Men shouldn’t go to the doctor unless it’s an emergency
  • Erectile dysfunction is shameful and shouldn’t be discussed
  • A decline in male sexual health is an inevitable consequence of aging
  • Fertility is primarily a female problem

It’s important for us husbands to overcome these stereotypes so that we can talk with our wives and doctors about our health and then take action to protect and improve our sexual health. The Bible is clear that a husband has a responsibility to satisfy his wife’s conjugal rights:

1 Corinthians 7:2-5

2 But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. 3 The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. 4 For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does. Likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. 5 Do not deprive one another, except perhaps by agreement for a limited time, that you may devote yourselves to prayer; but then come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.

Husbands: we’ve got a job to do, and we have to keep our tools primed and ready!

(Note: We wrote in 2014 that the term “conjugal rights” includes a lot more than only sex, so go read that post for a deeper understanding.)

Podcast Notes has a good summary of the male sexual health episode; here are their key takeaways:

  • Obesity is a risk factor for lowering testosterone and sperm quality
    • Fat aromatizes testosterone into estrogen
  • Testosterone and sperm quality are barometers of health in men
  • Taking exogenous testosterone without medical need can dramatically reduce endogenous testosterone and sperm count & quality
  • Semen quality doesn’t just relate to fertility – it’s an excellent marker for overall men’s health
    • Men with higher semen tend to live longer, go to the doctor less, and have lower rates of cancer
  • Less than 10% of erectile dysfunction is due to a hormonal issue (e.g., low testosterone); most are related to restricted blood flow and could be a foreshadowing of cardiovascular health
    • The first path of treatment (if all else is healthy, not obese, not smoking, etc.) is oral therapy like Viagra or Cialis
  • Don’t assume sperm is healthy just because you ejaculate – about 50% of men have low semen quality
  • To improve sperm quality: avoid heat (sauna, hot tub), don’t smoke, use alcohol in moderation (or avoid it altogether), avoid drugs (especially benzodiazepines and opioids), use marijuana minimally, stay active and at a healthy weight

If reading this post has made you discouraged, don’t be! We don’t have to be perfect, we just have to work towards the best possible version of ourselves. Each of us can take small steps towards improved sexual health, and over time we can maintain and increase our well-being.

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Vibrators: A Cure For "Hysteria" 3

Were vibrators invented by 19th-century doctors to cure women of “hysteria”? It’s story so good we all want it to be true — but it probably isn’t. From Mara Hvistendahl writing in Scientific American:

For a sex toy, the vibrator’s roots seem amazingly antiseptic and clinical. Prescribed as a cure for the curious disease hysteria, the device for decades found clinical application as a supposed medical therapy.

Derived from the Greek word for “uterus,” hysteria occurred in women with pent-up sexual energy—or so healers and early physicians believed. Nuns, widows and spinsters were particularly susceptible, but by the Victorian era many married women had fallen prey as well. In the late 19th century a pair of prominent physicians estimated that three quarters of American women were at risk.

The prescription of clitoral orgasm as a treatment for hysteria dates to medical texts from the first century A.D. Hysterical women typically turned to doctors, who cured them with their hands by inducing a “paroxysm”—a term that hides what we now know as a sexual climax. But manual stimulation was time-consuming and (for the doctors at least) tedious. In The Technology of Orgasm: “Hysteria,” the Vibrator and Women’s Sexual Satisfaction, science historian Rachel P. Maines reports that physicians often passed the job off to midwives.

Thanks to the vibrator, doctors and midwives could give their hands a rest and patients could get the treatment they needed… in the comfort of their own homes.

Patients were happy, too. The number of health spas offering vibration therapy multiplied, and the service was so popular vibrator manufacturers warned doctors not to overdo it with the modern appliance: if they met relentless patient demand, even mechanical vibration could be tiring. By the turn of the century needlework catalogues advertised models for women who wanted to try the treatment at home, making the vibrator the fifth electric appliance to arrive in the home—after the sewing machine, the fan, the teakettle and the toaster.

Ok, it’s a great story, but Fern Riddell is here to ruin our fun.

So did the real Dr Granville invent an electronic device for massage? Yes. Was it anything to do with the female orgasm? No. He actually invented it to help stimulate male pain relief, just as massage is used today.

Victorian doctors knew exactly what the female orgasm was; in fact, it’s one of the reasons they thought masturbation was a bad idea. A few theorised that it might be beneficial to a woman for her period pain, but the majority of doctors saw the art of self-pleasure as highly dangerous to your health.

This attitude was not because they were on some sort of anti-pleasure, or anti-sex crusade, but because orgasms were actually important to the Victorians. Marriage guides discussing the sex act often claimed that a woman in a sexually satisfying relationship was more likely to become pregnant, as the wife’s orgasm was just as necessary to conception as her husband’s. A book called The Art to Begetting Handsome Children, published in 1860, contains a detailed passage on foreplay, and shows us that, for the Victorians, sex, pleasure and love were concepts that were universally tied together. In A Guide To Marriage, published in 1865 by the aptly named Albert Sidebottom, the advice to young couples exploring their relationship for the first time is that “All love between the sexes is based upon sexual passion”. This is something I’ve come across time and again in researching Victorian attitudes to sex: sexual pleasure, and especially female sexual pleasure, really mattered.

So if doctors were using vibrators to treat their female patients, everyone knew exactly what was going on. The idea that female orgasms were discovered by humanity a mere 200 years ago is absurd when you think about it — our ancestors were just as sexual as we are and knew how to have a good time. But the story is still fun, and might make for an enjoyable doctor-patient role-playing scenario!

Addendum: There is merit to the use of sexual intimacy to heal and recover from grief or stress, but that’s more psychological than medical. If any wives out there have experience treating their “hysteria” with “paroxysms” please let us know in the comments!

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"8 Reasons to Marry a Fit Person" -- Or Get Fit With Your Spouse 4

Maybe you look like Michelangelo’s David or maybe you “do the best with what you’ve got” — either way, the time and energy you invest into health and fitness can pay off in your marriage. Obviously there’s more to a good marriage than fitness, but fitness is the topic of this post. Consider 1 Corinthians 6:19-20,

Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies.

I (generally) like this list from T-Nation, so let’s consider their “8 Reasons to Marry a Fit Person” from the perspective of married people who want to be the best version of themselves for their spouse.

1 Fit Marriages Are Less Likely To Become Fat Divorces

Google one of those “Top 10 Causes of Divorce” lists. Money and infidelity issues are always at the top but look further down the list. What do you see? Weight gain.

When relationship columnist David Eddie scoured anonymous relationship-help forums, he found something surprising. Most of the people who were unhappy with their rapidly expanding spouses were women. Here’s an example:

“I love my husband, but he’s become a tubby hubby and refuses to do anything about it. Now I’m not attracted to him, and I’m thinking of leaving.”

Ouch. Well, check out “Do You Even Lift?” and “It’s Important To Stay Skinny For My Husband” for some tips. Don’t hold yourself to an unreasonable standard — just put in the work to be the best version of yourself that you can be.

2 Fit Men Make More Money

Women are often criticized for wanting to marry a man who either has money or has the kind of drive that would help him make money in the future. It’s an unfair criticism.

Husbands are usually the primary source of income, especially after kids come along. And since arguments over money (or the lack thereof) are the number two indicator of an impending divorce, not marrying a lazy guy is a perfectly acceptable and smart criterion for husband pickin’.

We hardly ever write about money, but here’s one post that touches on the topic: “Science and the Bible Agree: More Money Won’t Make You Happier”. If you don’t have enough money to meet your family’s basic needs, then money will make you happier. Beyond that, it doesn’t seem like money is nearly as important as we think it is. I don’t think I’d put in effort to get fit just to (possibly) earn more money.

3 Fit People Know How To Stay Fit

Most people gain some weight after marriage, even fit people. That’s not a marriage ender, of course, but when one spouse loses the weight and the other doesn’t, it can lead to problems.

Anyone can learn how to get and stay fit. Being fit is simple, but it’s not easy. Ecclesiastes 4:9-10 says, “Two are better than one because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up.” Like point #5 says below, we should be motivating each other to be our best.

4 Sex Is More Frequent and More Satisfying

The good news is that several studies show that fit people have more sex than unfit people. And married people have MORE sex than single people, despite all that right-swiping that singles do.

Fit people usually feel better about themselves and are more likely to get naked. All their parts work better, too. When you exercise regularly, all the healthy hormones (testosterone, dopamine) are ramped up while the trickier hormones (cortisol) are tamped down if you program wisely.

In one study titled “Sexual Desirability and Sexual Performance: Does Exercise and Fitness Really Matter?” the authors concluded:

“Exercise frequency and physical fitness enhance attractiveness and increase energy levels, both of which make people feel better about themselves. Those who exercise are more likely to experience a greater level of satisfaction and a positive perception of self. Moreover, those who feel better about themselves may perceive they are more sexually desirable and may perform better sexually. The majority of individuals who are regularly physically active are healthier, and perhaps healthier individuals may be more willing and able to have sex.”

We’ve written a lot about sexual frequency and sexual quality, and there’s no doubt that exercise is great for sex. Sleep is at least as important as exercise for fitness and sexual satisfaction.

5 A Fit Spouse is the World’s Best Motivator

You’ve heard the saying, “We are the average of the five people we spend the most time with.” Well, your spouse is your number one peer in that group of five. And if they’re serious about staying healthy and strong, that kind of peer pressure, even unspoken, is a very good thing.

A fit spouse keeps you on your toes. You may hit the gym a little more often, choose foods a little more wisely, or just be influenced by your spouse’s healthy behaviors.

Good habits and bad habits are both contagious. Hebrews 10:24 says, “Let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works” — and that doesn’t mean to nag or complain! Encourage and build up your spouse, and allow yourself to be encouraged by your spouse in return. Proverbs 27:17 says, “As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.”

6 Fit Spouses Live Longer

You’re in this for life, right? ‘Till death do you part? Wanting to grow old together on the porch and all that good stuff?

Well, all that’s kinda wrecked if your spouse gets heart disease in their 50’s or type 2 diabetes, well, any time. Choose a spouse that does their best to make it to that front porch swing with you.

Interestingly, it seems that a wife has a particularly strong influence on her husband’s life expectancy.

7 Fit People Are Usually Happier

Want a happy marriage? Marry a happy person. Sure beats being married to someone who’s perpetually bitter, angry, or sad.

Studies show that fit people are generally happier. Even if they struggle with depression or down times, they have the tools (exercise, good food, and good supplements) to alleviate or minimize it.

Our minds are bodies were created together. Sometimes we Christians have a tendency to view our bodies as evil or corrupted, and our minds as good or spiritual. This is wrong. God created both, and he will redeem both in the resurrection. We feel good when our minds are aligned with God’s will — through prayer, study, and fellowship — and we can find similar satisfaction when we align our bodies. Just like Bible study prepares the mind to serve, physical exercise prepares the body.

8 Shared Passion = Marriage Longevity

Australian researchers wanted to find out the key to long marriages. After studying thousands of happily married geriatrics, they concluded that it all comes down to shared experiences.

Going to the gym, being active outdoors, and preparing healthy meals that you eat together are all shared experiences. And since fresh sweat does have some mild aphrodisiacal properties, the couple who plays together often gets frisky together.

The shared experience of exercise is a huge benefit to me and Sexy Corte. We both love to run, and running together is one of our best times. If you’re struggling to exercise, find an activity that you can do with your spouse and you’ll get a double-benefit from the time invested!

If you want to improve your marriage and your sex life, you should consider improving your fitness together. What’s your experience? Leave us a comment below.

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Should I Tan My Balls? 5

Apparently ball-tanning is a thing now?

We’ve written about testicular hygiene and shaving, but the idea of tanning my balls is new to me. What’s the supposed benefit of ball-tanning?

One hypothesis is that red light helps mitochondria produce more ATP, and that this helps the Leydig cells in the testicles to produce more testosterone. Another hypothesis centers around vitamin D, which some studies have shown is low in men who also have low testosterone.

But there are problems with these ideas. To name one obvious one: vitamin D isn’t produced specifically in scrotal skin. You can increase yours by sunning any body part you choose, or simply by eating more food that contains vitamin D, such as fatty fish.

And when it comes to the effects of red light on mitochondria, this may be true—in skin cells. The testicles are internal organs, and light doesn’t penetrate skin by more than a few millimeters tops. There are light therapy treatments that work on the skin, but there’s not really a plausible way for your testes to increase their production of testosterone just because there’s light shining on the skin of the scrotum.

There probably isn’t medical benefit to sunning your balls, but it probably isn’t harmful either (as long as you avoid burns, of course) and might feel good.

The rest of the morning, my crotch felt warm. Alive. So I did it again. Glancing out my office window to make sure the lawnmower guy wasn’t tooling around in the grass, I pulled down my drawers and bathed myself in the heavenly, warm, tingly glow, this time for eight minutes.

That night, my wife and I made love. Admittedly, I felt – well – a unique heavenly, warm, tingly glow in my crotch. Nice.

Two days later, I waited until the evening, then wandered downstairs. I rubbed my hands together, took a deep breath, and flipped my JOOVV on. I called my mom to see how her day was going mom (she had no clue what was going on below the phone). Ten minutes. I read a blog post. Fifteen minutes. My crotch grew more and more warm, but in a pleasant, day-at-the-beach sort of way. I finished an email. Twenty minutes. Mission complete.

That night was date night, and I was a rock star.

So ball-tanning is probably no more silly than most other forms of home medicine! What do you think? How do you pamper your balls?

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Testosterone Affects Women Too 6

Everyone knows that testosterone has a significant effect on men, but many people don’t realize that T levels affect women also. Most women have probably never had their testosterone measured during a routine blood test.

As the primary male sex hormone, it plays a leading role in the sexual development of guys. But folks often overlook the role it plays in female sexuality. Yes, women have testosterone, too, though much less of it — and it exerts a far different pull, new research suggests.

“It was quite surprising that the link with masturbation was stronger among women than men,” said study leader Wendy Macdowall of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, in the United Kingdom. “And that among women we saw no link with aspects of partnered sex.”

[Women] with high testosterone were more likely to have had a same-sex relationship at some point. They also masturbated more often — and more recently.

High T was also linked to more solo sex for guys. But the masturbation connection was notably stronger among women, the study found.

Do high T levels cause a woman to masturbate, or vice versa? Unknown. The researchers suggest that masturbation is a “truer” measure measure of sexual desire than sex with a partner, because it’s less likely to be initiated by someone else. This suggests that higher T levels can increase a woman’s libido.

The Mayo Clinic says that the evidence in favor of testosterone supplementation for women for the purpose of increasing libido is limited, so it’s not clear if there’s any clear way to act on the research findings above. For women, it might be worth getting your testosterone checked when you have your next routine blood test.

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Use Breast-Play to Bond With Your Spouse via Oxytocin 7

Communication is always a great place to start, but here’s a biological trick you can use to jump-start intimacy and bonding with your spouse: play with the wife’s breasts. Breast-play releases the hormone oxytocin which stimulates bonding and feelings of intimacy.

Larry Young, a professor of psychiatry at Emory University and co-author of The “Chemistry Between Us” (2019), believes that men’s love of breasts is simply that human evolution has co-opted an ancient neural circuit which was originally designed to strengthen the bond between mother and infant.

Oxytocin is nature’s “love drug,” and nipple stimulation, be it from an infant during breast feeding, or from a man during coitus, floods a woman’s brain. This helps the woman focus on the task at hand. Quite simply, when men bit, nibble, suck, or caress women’s nipples, he helps her body release oxytocin in the woman’s brain producing a bonding experience.

According to Young, attraction to breasts “is a brain organization effect that occurs in straight males when they go through puberty…Evolution has selected for this brain organization in men that makes them attracted to the breasts in a sexual context, because the outcome is that it activates the female bonding circuit, making women feel more bonded with him. It’s a behavior that males have evolved in order to stimulate the female’s maternal bonding circuitry.”

What’s more, nipple stimulation for women apparently triggers the same areas of the brain as genital stimulation.

For many women, nipples are erogenous zones. A new study may explain why: The sensation from the nipples travels to the same part of the brain as sensations from the vagina, clitoris and cervix.

The study, published online July 28 in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, is the first to map the female genitals onto the sensory portion of the brain. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), researchers noted which brain areas become active when women touch various parts of their bodies. The genital-sensing brain areas in women roughly correspond to the same areas in men, but the nipple finding was a surprise, said study researcher Barry Komisaruk, a psychologist at Rutgers University.

“My speculation is that this could be the basis for many women saying that nipple stimulation is erotogenic, because it stimulates the same area as the genitals,” Komisaruk told LiveScience.

So if you’re feeling distant or disconnected from your spouse, along with communication invest some quality time in breast-play. The oxytocin released will help you bond together and strengthen your relationship and intimacy.

(See also: How to play with breasts.)

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Best Christian Sex Links of the Week 8

Here are some fun sex links to kick off summer!

A Wife Who Enjoys Giving Oral Sex? YES! — See also: Q&A: How Do I Get My Wife to Swallow and Enjoy It?, Three More Female Perspectives on Giving Oral Sex, How To Make Semen Taste Better

Eyes Open Orgasm — We’ve written about the intimacy of eye contact during sex, along with holding hands.

3 Fun Ways to Spice Up Your Love Life Using the Bible — Basically three fun date ideas.

Make Your Marriage More Fun — We’ve got a few fun ideas for you, too!

75 Ideas for Spicing Up Your Sex Life — That’s a lot of ideas.

3 Things That Make Sex Great — They all boil down to enthusiasm.

You Need a Sex Date and You Need a Period Sex Plan.

Do You NEED More Sexual Variety? — Perhaps surprisingly, the post indicates that wives want more novelty and report more boredom with routine sex than husbands do.

Sexy Metalwork — We’re not really into piercings, but the Bible doesn’t condemn them. See also: Secret Engravings Gift Idea.

Creative Sex in Marriage — Make your default answer “yes”.

18 Things I’d Tell 16-Year-Old Me About Sex and Relationships — If you have kids, these will make for a great conversation with your spouse.

The Perks and Pitfalls of Sex Research — A really excellent post! We’ll add: The most important sex research for your marriage is the research you do with your own spouse. Be an intentional student of your spouse and you’ll learn a lot.

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Four Techniques for Female Pleasure: Angling, Rocking, Shallowing, and Pairing 9

OMGYes has released a Pleasure Report that describes four penetration techniques that are reported to be the most pleasurable for most women.

“We asked thousands of women what they do to experience more pleasure from penetrative sex and found there are four techniques that work for most women,” says sexual and reproductive health scientist, Christiana von Hippel.

Dubbed Angling, Rocking, Shallowing, and Pairing, they stand out from suggestions provided by other scientific studies that tend to scaffold pleasure around specific sexual acts, or the involvement of specific objects or body parts.

Sounds super-scientific! I bet these techniques are going to blow our minds.

For example, 87.5 percent of the respondents claimed Angling did it for them – rotating or elevating the pelvis just right to find a position where the toy, penis, or digits touch just right.

So… find the most pleasurable angle for penetration. Genius.

Around three quarters of those surveyed advocated Rocking, an action defined by movements that help the base of the penis or toy rub consistently against the clitoris during penetration.

Stimulate the clitoris. Wow, thanks science!

About 84 percent of those in the study enjoy a penetrative touch towards the outside of the vagina, dubbed Shallowing.

Ok, Shallowing might be a little less obvious that the first two ideas. We wrote about this technique here: When It Goes In — Shallow Penetration. Most of the nerve endings in the vagina are near the entrance, so it can feel pretty great for the husband to slide the head of his penis in and out at a shallow depth — and it might help the husband delay his own orgasm longer if the full shaft of his penis isn’t being stimulated.

Lastly, there’s also Pairing activity: Just under 70 percent of survey participants claimed they thoroughly enjoyed having their clitoris stimulated with a toy or finger while being penetrated.

Pairing might seem obvious, but it actually took me and Sexy Corte about a year to figure it out after we got married. Now, our go-to position when she wants an orgasm is for her to sit on top of me while I hold an egg vibrator wedged between us against her clitoris. She is practicing to orgasm in other positions, but this is the easiest for her by far.

Research like this can be valuable for guiding sexual exploration in your marriage, but in the end each couple will need to discover what feels good to them. Play around and try new things! You never know what you might like until you try it.

Were there any sexual techniques that took you a while to discover? Leave us a comment and help out the rest of us!

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Improve Sex By Focusing on the Peak and the End 10

This post will share ideas about how to use the happy-ending effect and the peak-end rule to improve your sexual encounters. Sex doesn’t always go perfectly, and that’s ok! Sometimes we build up grand visions in our minds about how amazing an experience is going to be, and then the kids won’t go to sleep, the smoke detector won’t stop beeping for a new battery, or you get a cramp in your leg at just the wrong time. By understanding these two psychological concepts you can help yourself and your spouse have great experiences even when things don’t go perfectly.

First, let’s look at what these two effects are. The happy-ending effect probably isn’t too mysterious! The article below presents the effect in a negative light, but you can apply it in your marriage to improve your experiences.

“When you’re deciding where to go for dinner, for example, you think about where you’ve had a good meal in the past,” lead study author Martin Vestergaard said in a news release.

“But your memory of whether that meal was good isn’t always reliable — our brain values the final few moments of the experience more highly than the rest of it. If we can’t control our in-built attraction to happy endings, then we can’t trust our choices to serve our best interests,” said Vestergaard, a neuroscientist at the University of Cambridge in Britain.

For the study, researchers had participants select between two streams of coins falling into a bucket in quick succession. Larger coins were higher in value.

One stream was greater in value but ended with a succession of smaller coins, while the other less-valuable stream ended with a run of bigger coins. Participants consistently — and incorrectly — selected the stream that ended with larger coins.

From the study we learn that people tend to over-value the end of an experience in comparison to the rest — “all’s well that ends well”.

The peak-end rule is similar to the happy-ending effect, but includes the idea that the peak of the experience matters as much as the end.

The peak–end rule is a psychological heuristic in which people judge an experience largely based on how they felt at its peak (i.e., its most intense point) and at its end, rather than based on the total sum or average of every moment of the experience. The effect occurs regardless of whether the experience is pleasant or unpleasant. According to the heuristic, other information aside from that of the peak and end of the experience is not lost, but it is not used. This includes net pleasantness or unpleasantness and how long the experience lasted.

The big idea of the peak-end rule is that an experience isn’t only evaluated by how it ends, but also by its peak or climax. Even if an experience is largely unpleasant, awkward, or disappointing, if the peak and the end are strong then the overall experience will be viewed positively.

So how can we use this knowledge to improve sex with our spouse? By focusing our energy on the peak and end of the experience and learning to let go of our worries and frustrations about the rest. Beginnings can sometimes be especially difficult:

  • If one spouse is sexually responsive, sometimes it will take longer for him or her to “warm up” and become aroused.
  • If you’re trying a new position or activity it might take you a few minutes to figure out how to make it work.
  • If you just put the kids to bed they might come knocking at your door.
  • Your vibrator might need to be cleaned or might need new batteries.

Don’t let these speed bumps discourage you! No matter how difficult the beginning is it won’t have much effect on your retrospective enjoyment of the overall experience. Let’s dig a little more deeply into how we can make the peak and end of sex the best it can be.

This probably goes without saying, but the peak of a sexual encounter is likely to be the wife’s orgasm; if the wife chooses not to have an orgasm, or the activity is focused on the husband (e.g., blow job) then his orgasm will be the peak of the experience.

The most important thing to remember is: Do Whatever It Takes to Give Your Wife as Many Orgasms as She wants. If the wife wants an orgasm, she should get one! If your wife wants an orgasm and doesn’t get one, the peak of your sexual encounter will not be good. If you have to give up on your “great idea”, change positions, take more time than you expected, or whatever, just do it. Don’t prioritize a sexual script over the wife’s orgasm — even if you succeed in executing your plans perfectly, it will all be for nothing if the wife doesn’t get the orgasm she wants.

The husband’s orgasm is also an important part of the peak! Typically the husband’s orgasm is easier to accomplish, so the focus doesn’t need to be so much on making sure it happens, but more-so on timing his orgasm with the wife’s and giving the husband the visual and sensory experience he’s after.

The timing of the husband’s orgasm relative to the wife’s orgasm is an important decision to make.

  • Before the wife: It’s generally not good for the husband to climax before the wife (if she’s planning to have an orgasm). There may be situations where you plan to do this, but make sure you talk about it first.
  • With the wife: When the husband and wife climax at the same time you can create a very high peak for your experience.
  • After the wife: When the husband climaxes shortly after the wife, while she’s still highly aroused and coming down from her own orgasm, you can draw out the peak over a longer period of time.

Usually I climax a short time after Sexy Corte. Timing our orgasms to happen at the same time can be difficult and distracting; sometimes it happens, but usually I aim to climax a bit after her.

Men are visual creatures, and the quality of our orgasms is often connected with the visual and sensory elements that go into it — that’s why my orgasms are usually stronger after Sexy Corte has one! After the wife climaxes — or if she’s creating an experience focused on her husband’s pleasure — let the husband arrange your positions or activities to create the sensory experience he wants.

  • Visual: The husband may want a better view of the action or may want to see the wife from a different angle that isn’t conducive to her orgasm.
  • Wife’s responsiveness: The wife’s moans of pleasure and body responses are an important part of elongating the peak experience. Even if the wife didn’t have an orgasm, her signs of pleasure and arousal are an important part of her husband’s experience.
  • Ejaculation: Let the husband ejaculate where he wants to! Vagina, face, body, mouth, swallowing, butt. Semen is mystical and the husband’s peak will be higher if he can put it where he wants it.

Ok, that’s a lot about the peak — how can we make the end of a sexual encounter the best it can be?

  • Touch and cuddle. Whether it was a quickie or marathon, make sure to include some touching and cuddling afterwards, even if it’s only for a few seconds. If the experience was particularly difficult or emotional for one spouse make sure to spend extra time afterwards with comfort cuddling.
  • Focus on the positive. Ignore anything that went wrong and focus on what went right and what you enjoyed. Be thankful and grateful for the spouse God gave you. Be in awe of your spouse’s sexuality that you get to share. You might need to acknowledge some difficulty, but move past it quickly to praise the peak. “The kids sure were persistent, but wow it felt great when we….”
  • Words of affirmation. Tell your spouse what you enjoyed, what felt great. Don’t give advice or ideas for improvement right now — save them for later. “It felt great when…”, “You looked so hot when…”. It’s good to be specific and explicit!
  • Bring it up again later. The end of the experience can be elongated just like the peak can. “Last night sure was fun, especially when you….”

I encourage you to check out this story from one of our readers that is a perfect example of creating a great ending despite difficulties and frustrations during the sexual encounter. Part 1: “I felt too exposed and vulnerable”; Part 2: Perfect Example of Trying Again.

By focusing on your peaks and endings you can learn to ignore any momentary frustrations and create great sexual experiences. Please leave us a comment and let us know what you think. How do you make your peaks and endings the best they can be?

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