Good sex is more complicated than just about any other human activity.
I find we slowly discover things about women that—lo and behold—should have been obvious. All we needed to do was get their input and LISTEN.
Also, there’s usually a good deal of similarities to men. It is harder to get aroused (hard or wet), takes longer, and even then it’s harder to have an orgasm.
But you can still have fun trying.
Some of the biggest secrets are revealed below:
Women need testosterone replacement just as much as they need estrogen replacement. Getting there is half the fun, so don’t ruin it by being focused only on the goal. And there’s no such thing as too much lube. Buy it in 16 ounce bottles not 1.7 ounce spritzers
I am 48, perimenopausal, and just like you I had no interest in sex. I got my labs checked and my testosterone level was very low. I started on testosterone a few months ago and it’s been a game changer for my sex drive. Do your research and see if it’s right for you but it’s helped tremendously in that department.
Turn him onto porn and then don't shame him about it...
I'm a male in a similar situation... It's my only release...
And if his failed performance came after you lost interest that could have something to do with it, also as men get older it doesn't always work properly either... I definitely cannot operate at the frequency I used to anymore... Sadly the desire is still there however, which can be quite frustrating...
I'm 65 (in November) and in a committed long-distance relationship which makes my solution a bit more do-able. When my libido started to flag when we got back together, I looked into HRT. In my case, I use a vaginal hormone cream that seems to work great for me. However, no one is supposed to use it long-term or constantly. It does take up to 2 months to be effective (about 6 weeks for me). So I don't use it when I'm on my own but start it up about 6 weeks before I go for a visit where I stay about a month, using the cream every night. Also to note, there is an inexpensive generic but I had a reaction to it so have to use the expensive brand-name.
I agree with pretty much all the other advice given as well. Talk to your doctor and find a way (or a therapist) so that you can be more comfortable talking with your partner about intimate details. Communication and a good sense of humor are essential! May you both experience joy in each other!
If I'm ever single again, I'll put two questions on my dating profile that would-be girlfriends will have to answer. There are only two possible answers to each, and they speak to my two obsessions in life, baseball and history. It's purely to weed out the romance scammers. I don't think Nigerian 25-year-old men will know these or even how to research them. Each question has two possible answers:
Question 1: There have been 23 Perfect Games pitched in baseball history, all by 23 different pitchers. But only ONE MAN has CAUGHT two perfect games. Name him.
Answer A: The guy who did it.
Answer B: Some version of "One man caught two perfectos? That's amazing! Was it the Yankees in 1998 and 1999? Tell me who it is, I'm dying to know."
Question 2: Two galactic, world-shattering events took place on August 4, 1914. One of them everyone remembers. The other one nobody remembers. Name them.
Answer A: The two events.
Answer B: Some version of "Hmm...I'm pretty sure I know one, but you're going to have to tell me the other. I bet it's going to be a shocker."
And I will say to the winner of this little test..."Come with me, my little parsnip, we are going to the ballgame/visiting the historical site or museum together today."
To Jonathan Cable, who said, before it was removed: , "Good luck with that. Your question No. 2 is a lie. That's probably why don't have a girlfriend," my answers are these:
1. I have a wife of 30 years.
2. Therefore, I do not need a girlfriend. Or a paramour. Or a mistress. Or a one-night stand. Or a fling. Or a "sex buddy." Or a "friend with benefits."
3. As for the two massive events on August 4, 1914, here they are:
A. Germany invades Belgium, turning a Balkan conflict into the First World War. That event killed 15 to 22 million dead. Pretty major, huh?
B. First ship transits the Panama Canal. Also a world-defining event.
Now you don't know the reason why nobody remembers when THAT happened.
Incredibly, despite being married for nearly 30 years, I regularly get romance scam e-mails on LinkedIn and Facebook, from women professing eternal love for me after 20 seconds of chat.
The first one (let's call her Mabel) started off asking me for help on her screenplay. She said Idris Elba was connected to it. Being an MFA writer who has taken screenwriting courses myself, I asked to see what she had and if Idris Elba was INDEED connected to it.
No, he wasn't.
Well, did this young lady have any screenplay pages written?
No, she hadn't. Just some sentences describing scenes.
Well, here's a .pdf file of a tremendous screenplay attached, go and read Syd Fields' "Screenwriting," take a screenwriting class, and start learning the hard way.
Then Mabel started professing massive love for me from her Wisconsin home, and started begging me to stand in as her boyfriend/husband, so that she could claim her inheritance from her late father, which we would share 50/50. She had worked out everything. Yup, and so had every Nigerian "prince" who ever sent me an e-mail. BLOCKED!
Next came Deirdre, a Chinese-American girl in San Francisco. She claimed eternal love for me and wanted to go driving around America in an RV...and for me to invest in cryptocurrency. BLOCKED!
Next was Odette, another Chinese-American girl. This time in Los Angeles. She wanted me to invest in spot gold. BLOCKED!
Finally came Wendy. She sent naughty pictures of herself and professed eternal love for me. Mother was American, father was Ghanaian. Her family funds from his mining operation had been hacked, so she was broke. She asked if I could e-mail her -- to a friend's account -- $100 for "groceries and tampons." Not a check or money order, mind you. Paypal.
I told her that she should go to the local version of Newark's Shani Baraka Women's Resource Center, which has free food, tampons, shelter, housing and job referrals, domestic violence support, medical treatment, drug and alcohol rehab, daycare for kids, and even art therapy. She got annoyed.
So I told "her" what she was...not a smokin' hot young mixed-race woman in Alabama, but a 25-year-old Nigerian man sitting at a computer in a cubicle in an office in Lagos, chain-smoking Players and Marlboro cigarettes, bilking "mugus" out of their money off of a list provided by his boss. After bringing in the money through various untraceable means, the boss walks off with 90 percent and the guy at the computer goes home with 10 percent. Sort of like hookers in New York.
I read about this on "romance scam" web pages on the Internet. Why Lagos? It's the fifth-worst city in the world to live in, with ghastly poverty. A man with $150 US can live like a millionaire here. The guys who take this money use it to buy American-designed mansions, English Rolls-Royces, Japanese electronics, German motorcycles, French furniture, Italian clothes, Filipina hookers, and Colombian cocaine.
Then they go to a Lagos karaoke nightclub, and sing the nation's No. 1 hit, "I Go Chop Your Dollars."
So I blocked "Wendy" on WhatsApp, but forgot to do so on Facebook. She contacted me there, weeping at how I had blocked her, saying that I didn't care about her and her problems.
My answer was cold: "You're right...in the immortal words of Clark Gable as Rhett Butler, 'Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.'" Then I blocked her.
I read that one guy forked over $30,000 to a "woman" he never actually met.
There are a lot of ways you can tell that the e-mail is a romance scam. Jumping from 0 to 60 with promises of eternal love; begging for money; stock responses to questions; overheated sexuality; vagueness about their own lives.
My husband and I are experiencing this as well. We’re lucky that we’re open about these issues and remember to a) take our time, b) not expect every moment of intimacy lead to intercourse and c) just laugh and have a good time. Also a little mood enhancer like gummies helps.
It’s not as frequent or that BAM feeling in your naughty bits as it once was but actually liking each other’s company helps a lot. With Covid and a work accident that caused enough damage for him to be out of work for almost 3 years (and counting), we spend all day with each other (I work from home) and that has deepened our relationship tremendously. Lucky for us.
Sexy lady who is awesome: 1) take your time. Milady and I are officially Olds. It can take a fair bit of warmup to get her motor running. Which is FINE!! because among the things I like most is letting my fingers explore. 2) Use lots of lube. See above. Too much friction during the warmup is bad. Sometimes it's like Chutes and Ladders - oops, to much friction there, you go back 8 squares. Lube. 3) The clitoris is way more than you think. It's big, it's got like 4 lobes in addition to the main shaft. And, the main shaft is exactly that - it's the same tissue that turns into a penis for men. It's got a shaft and a head. Here's a joke for other Olds - "Stroke the penis!" That's what Dr Ruth used to say, innit? But stroke the mini-penis, the clitoris. Or, y'know, whatever your particular clitoris may prefer. But expand your thinking, it's not just a button that pops up like a turkey timer then you focus on it. It's a whole system.
I am in a fifty-plus year marriage. I have been faithful, and I continue to love her more than myself. We are beginning to discuss what happens next. She stayed at home to tend to our daughter's needs, including parent-teacher meetings, while I worked at jobs I came to hate, as the possibility of layoff was lessened as I took those really shitty jobs. I never missed work, EVER. Although work schedule permitting, I also did not miss any class shows, plays, songfests, etc. The net effect of that decision is she gets WAY less than 1000 ameros per month for SS. Under the SS rules, she may collect 3/4 of my SS benefit in lieu of hers. Sadly, her new benefit is still less than 1000 Ameros. She might qualify, as the widow of a Viet-Vet, for a small benefit to bring her up to poverty level. I dunno. I am worried and scared.
Do you have any other retirement funds like a 401k or IRA? Do you have a life insurance policy (if not get one immediately). Do you expect to live a long time? Do you have any major assets like a home she can sell? Hopefully the answers are all yes! And you can continue to save for as long as you’re working. If you can delay withdrawing on your SS by a few years, you get more each month. She could perhaps get a part time job. Yes, she can definitely get a death benefit as a widow of a vet-check that out asap! You can save her a lot in expenses by having a will and a trust that she is the beneficiary of, which keeps your assets out of probate after you pass.
We have essentially NO assets. We drive a 20-plus-year old Ford Explorer (completely maintained). I update our technology when we need or more likely WHEN we can afford it. We rent our apartment since 1978. We have Internet and barebones cable. Unreconstrructed hippies, fer sure!
I’d also welcome a Personals. I’ve been trying to meet on that app for smiling people — Grindr — and everyone is either ridiculously young -I’m pushing 60 with a bulldozer— or breathtakingly ugly. Gawd knows, I’m no work of art myself. But at a bar, I could at least rely on personality and conversation. Now the only gay bar within 20 miles is closed, and I don’t have a car. Losing hope.
I, for one, would very much welcome a Wonkette Personals. I regularly wear my rapidly deteriorating Wonkette t-shirt up here in Vancouver in the faint hope it will catch the eye of my manic pixie political nerd dream girl and we’ll fall madly in love over dick jokes and making fun of Nazis.
I could definitely get behind a Wonkette Personals, too. I'm tired of trying to date guys only to find out they lean right. No, thank you. Though now that I've moved to Portland, maybe I'll have better luck.
I've tried assorted popular dating apps like Hinge, Bumble and Tinder but Feeld is WAY better. Everyone is just leagues nicer. Maybe its because everyone is super honest about what they're into and why they're there. I'm not on any apps now, but Feeld is the only one still on my phone.
Should I ask a personally-focused medical question to you lovely fuckers who I don’t know? I suppose it can’t hurt…I trust you all. The discussion about “perimenopause” and “menopause” causing changes in sex drive caught my attention. I wonder if anyone knows if that also applies to someone who had a hysterectomy early in life? I.e. no periods for literally decades.
It depends on what you had removed. Uterus and cervix only? Or were your ovaries also removed? If just your uterus, then of course you wouldn't have periods anymore, but your hormone levels wouldn't be impacted. If your ovaries were removed, that's kind of like going through menopause all at once.
If you haven't had periods for decades because of the hysterectomy but are now getting older and have noticed a change in your sex drive, it certainly could be related to a drop in estrogen that is normally associated with menopause even if the technical definition doesn't apply to you.
(source: got that pesky uterus removed myself at 39)
Thanks Aileen…the Mrs had uterus removed in her 20s and ovaries in her 30s…now in her 40s. She’s concerned about her libido, so whenever I see an opening to a conversational gambit about such I see what is out there.
Good sex is more complicated than just about any other human activity.
I find we slowly discover things about women that—lo and behold—should have been obvious. All we needed to do was get their input and LISTEN.
Also, there’s usually a good deal of similarities to men. It is harder to get aroused (hard or wet), takes longer, and even then it’s harder to have an orgasm.
But you can still have fun trying.
Some of the biggest secrets are revealed below:
Women need testosterone replacement just as much as they need estrogen replacement. Getting there is half the fun, so don’t ruin it by being focused only on the goal. And there’s no such thing as too much lube. Buy it in 16 ounce bottles not 1.7 ounce spritzers
I KNEW this topic would be spicy!
I am 48, perimenopausal, and just like you I had no interest in sex. I got my labs checked and my testosterone level was very low. I started on testosterone a few months ago and it’s been a game changer for my sex drive. Do your research and see if it’s right for you but it’s helped tremendously in that department.
Sexy Lady who is awesome!
Turn him onto porn and then don't shame him about it...
I'm a male in a similar situation... It's my only release...
And if his failed performance came after you lost interest that could have something to do with it, also as men get older it doesn't always work properly either... I definitely cannot operate at the frequency I used to anymore... Sadly the desire is still there however, which can be quite frustrating...
I'm 65 (in November) and in a committed long-distance relationship which makes my solution a bit more do-able. When my libido started to flag when we got back together, I looked into HRT. In my case, I use a vaginal hormone cream that seems to work great for me. However, no one is supposed to use it long-term or constantly. It does take up to 2 months to be effective (about 6 weeks for me). So I don't use it when I'm on my own but start it up about 6 weeks before I go for a visit where I stay about a month, using the cream every night. Also to note, there is an inexpensive generic but I had a reaction to it so have to use the expensive brand-name.
I agree with pretty much all the other advice given as well. Talk to your doctor and find a way (or a therapist) so that you can be more comfortable talking with your partner about intimate details. Communication and a good sense of humor are essential! May you both experience joy in each other!
Well, if you’re ever visiting Canada’s far superior Vancouver. Any friend of this here mommy blog is a friend of mine…
If I'm ever single again, I'll put two questions on my dating profile that would-be girlfriends will have to answer. There are only two possible answers to each, and they speak to my two obsessions in life, baseball and history. It's purely to weed out the romance scammers. I don't think Nigerian 25-year-old men will know these or even how to research them. Each question has two possible answers:
Question 1: There have been 23 Perfect Games pitched in baseball history, all by 23 different pitchers. But only ONE MAN has CAUGHT two perfect games. Name him.
Answer A: The guy who did it.
Answer B: Some version of "One man caught two perfectos? That's amazing! Was it the Yankees in 1998 and 1999? Tell me who it is, I'm dying to know."
Question 2: Two galactic, world-shattering events took place on August 4, 1914. One of them everyone remembers. The other one nobody remembers. Name them.
Answer A: The two events.
Answer B: Some version of "Hmm...I'm pretty sure I know one, but you're going to have to tell me the other. I bet it's going to be a shocker."
And I will say to the winner of this little test..."Come with me, my little parsnip, we are going to the ballgame/visiting the historical site or museum together today."
To Jonathan Cable, who said, before it was removed: , "Good luck with that. Your question No. 2 is a lie. That's probably why don't have a girlfriend," my answers are these:
1. I have a wife of 30 years.
2. Therefore, I do not need a girlfriend. Or a paramour. Or a mistress. Or a one-night stand. Or a fling. Or a "sex buddy." Or a "friend with benefits."
3. As for the two massive events on August 4, 1914, here they are:
A. Germany invades Belgium, turning a Balkan conflict into the First World War. That event killed 15 to 22 million dead. Pretty major, huh?
B. First ship transits the Panama Canal. Also a world-defining event.
Now you don't know the reason why nobody remembers when THAT happened.
Incredibly, despite being married for nearly 30 years, I regularly get romance scam e-mails on LinkedIn and Facebook, from women professing eternal love for me after 20 seconds of chat.
The first one (let's call her Mabel) started off asking me for help on her screenplay. She said Idris Elba was connected to it. Being an MFA writer who has taken screenwriting courses myself, I asked to see what she had and if Idris Elba was INDEED connected to it.
No, he wasn't.
Well, did this young lady have any screenplay pages written?
No, she hadn't. Just some sentences describing scenes.
Well, here's a .pdf file of a tremendous screenplay attached, go and read Syd Fields' "Screenwriting," take a screenwriting class, and start learning the hard way.
Then Mabel started professing massive love for me from her Wisconsin home, and started begging me to stand in as her boyfriend/husband, so that she could claim her inheritance from her late father, which we would share 50/50. She had worked out everything. Yup, and so had every Nigerian "prince" who ever sent me an e-mail. BLOCKED!
Next came Deirdre, a Chinese-American girl in San Francisco. She claimed eternal love for me and wanted to go driving around America in an RV...and for me to invest in cryptocurrency. BLOCKED!
Next was Odette, another Chinese-American girl. This time in Los Angeles. She wanted me to invest in spot gold. BLOCKED!
Finally came Wendy. She sent naughty pictures of herself and professed eternal love for me. Mother was American, father was Ghanaian. Her family funds from his mining operation had been hacked, so she was broke. She asked if I could e-mail her -- to a friend's account -- $100 for "groceries and tampons." Not a check or money order, mind you. Paypal.
I told her that she should go to the local version of Newark's Shani Baraka Women's Resource Center, which has free food, tampons, shelter, housing and job referrals, domestic violence support, medical treatment, drug and alcohol rehab, daycare for kids, and even art therapy. She got annoyed.
So I told "her" what she was...not a smokin' hot young mixed-race woman in Alabama, but a 25-year-old Nigerian man sitting at a computer in a cubicle in an office in Lagos, chain-smoking Players and Marlboro cigarettes, bilking "mugus" out of their money off of a list provided by his boss. After bringing in the money through various untraceable means, the boss walks off with 90 percent and the guy at the computer goes home with 10 percent. Sort of like hookers in New York.
I read about this on "romance scam" web pages on the Internet. Why Lagos? It's the fifth-worst city in the world to live in, with ghastly poverty. A man with $150 US can live like a millionaire here. The guys who take this money use it to buy American-designed mansions, English Rolls-Royces, Japanese electronics, German motorcycles, French furniture, Italian clothes, Filipina hookers, and Colombian cocaine.
Then they go to a Lagos karaoke nightclub, and sing the nation's No. 1 hit, "I Go Chop Your Dollars."
Here's an article on that:
https://www.vice.com/en/article/mgg79a/i-go-chop-your-dollar-the-nigerian-music-video-about-email-scams
So I blocked "Wendy" on WhatsApp, but forgot to do so on Facebook. She contacted me there, weeping at how I had blocked her, saying that I didn't care about her and her problems.
My answer was cold: "You're right...in the immortal words of Clark Gable as Rhett Butler, 'Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn.'" Then I blocked her.
People actually get divorced as a result of these scams.
Happens all the time.
I read that one guy forked over $30,000 to a "woman" he never actually met.
There are a lot of ways you can tell that the e-mail is a romance scam. Jumping from 0 to 60 with promises of eternal love; begging for money; stock responses to questions; overheated sexuality; vagueness about their own lives.
My husband and I are experiencing this as well. We’re lucky that we’re open about these issues and remember to a) take our time, b) not expect every moment of intimacy lead to intercourse and c) just laugh and have a good time. Also a little mood enhancer like gummies helps.
It’s not as frequent or that BAM feeling in your naughty bits as it once was but actually liking each other’s company helps a lot. With Covid and a work accident that caused enough damage for him to be out of work for almost 3 years (and counting), we spend all day with each other (I work from home) and that has deepened our relationship tremendously. Lucky for us.
You said intercourse.
Sexy lady who is awesome: 1) take your time. Milady and I are officially Olds. It can take a fair bit of warmup to get her motor running. Which is FINE!! because among the things I like most is letting my fingers explore. 2) Use lots of lube. See above. Too much friction during the warmup is bad. Sometimes it's like Chutes and Ladders - oops, to much friction there, you go back 8 squares. Lube. 3) The clitoris is way more than you think. It's big, it's got like 4 lobes in addition to the main shaft. And, the main shaft is exactly that - it's the same tissue that turns into a penis for men. It's got a shaft and a head. Here's a joke for other Olds - "Stroke the penis!" That's what Dr Ruth used to say, innit? But stroke the mini-penis, the clitoris. Or, y'know, whatever your particular clitoris may prefer. But expand your thinking, it's not just a button that pops up like a turkey timer then you focus on it. It's a whole system.
I am in a fifty-plus year marriage. I have been faithful, and I continue to love her more than myself. We are beginning to discuss what happens next. She stayed at home to tend to our daughter's needs, including parent-teacher meetings, while I worked at jobs I came to hate, as the possibility of layoff was lessened as I took those really shitty jobs. I never missed work, EVER. Although work schedule permitting, I also did not miss any class shows, plays, songfests, etc. The net effect of that decision is she gets WAY less than 1000 ameros per month for SS. Under the SS rules, she may collect 3/4 of my SS benefit in lieu of hers. Sadly, her new benefit is still less than 1000 Ameros. She might qualify, as the widow of a Viet-Vet, for a small benefit to bring her up to poverty level. I dunno. I am worried and scared.
Do you have any other retirement funds like a 401k or IRA? Do you have a life insurance policy (if not get one immediately). Do you expect to live a long time? Do you have any major assets like a home she can sell? Hopefully the answers are all yes! And you can continue to save for as long as you’re working. If you can delay withdrawing on your SS by a few years, you get more each month. She could perhaps get a part time job. Yes, she can definitely get a death benefit as a widow of a vet-check that out asap! You can save her a lot in expenses by having a will and a trust that she is the beneficiary of, which keeps your assets out of probate after you pass.
We have essentially NO assets. We drive a 20-plus-year old Ford Explorer (completely maintained). I update our technology when we need or more likely WHEN we can afford it. We rent our apartment since 1978. We have Internet and barebones cable. Unreconstrructed hippies, fer sure!
I’d also welcome a Personals. I’ve been trying to meet on that app for smiling people — Grindr — and everyone is either ridiculously young -I’m pushing 60 with a bulldozer— or breathtakingly ugly. Gawd knows, I’m no work of art myself. But at a bar, I could at least rely on personality and conversation. Now the only gay bar within 20 miles is closed, and I don’t have a car. Losing hope.
"Pushing 60 with a bulldozer", LOL
Well, that explains the Caterpillar tracks across my midriff, lol lol
My bulldozer done run over 60 and done to it whatever it is that bulldozers do to dirt. Push it I suppose, never paid much attention.
I, for one, would very much welcome a Wonkette Personals. I regularly wear my rapidly deteriorating Wonkette t-shirt up here in Vancouver in the faint hope it will catch the eye of my manic pixie political nerd dream girl and we’ll fall madly in love over dick jokes and making fun of Nazis.
I could definitely get behind a Wonkette Personals, too. I'm tired of trying to date guys only to find out they lean right. No, thank you. Though now that I've moved to Portland, maybe I'll have better luck.
I've tried assorted popular dating apps like Hinge, Bumble and Tinder but Feeld is WAY better. Everyone is just leagues nicer. Maybe its because everyone is super honest about what they're into and why they're there. I'm not on any apps now, but Feeld is the only one still on my phone.
Should I ask a personally-focused medical question to you lovely fuckers who I don’t know? I suppose it can’t hurt…I trust you all. The discussion about “perimenopause” and “menopause” causing changes in sex drive caught my attention. I wonder if anyone knows if that also applies to someone who had a hysterectomy early in life? I.e. no periods for literally decades.
Whatever age you have a hysterectomy puts you in menopause so all that stuff could happen to you.
It depends on what you had removed. Uterus and cervix only? Or were your ovaries also removed? If just your uterus, then of course you wouldn't have periods anymore, but your hormone levels wouldn't be impacted. If your ovaries were removed, that's kind of like going through menopause all at once.
If you haven't had periods for decades because of the hysterectomy but are now getting older and have noticed a change in your sex drive, it certainly could be related to a drop in estrogen that is normally associated with menopause even if the technical definition doesn't apply to you.
(source: got that pesky uterus removed myself at 39)
Thanks Aileen…the Mrs had uterus removed in her 20s and ovaries in her 30s…now in her 40s. She’s concerned about her libido, so whenever I see an opening to a conversational gambit about such I see what is out there.
Did you also have your ovaries removed? I’m not a doctor but I think that would make a difference.
Thanks Shan - not me but the Mrs., and while I wouldn’t normally air someone else’s laundry she is curious herself.
short answer: yes! Many younger hysterectomy patients choose HRT to get their hormones in a place that works for them.