The V-Word

by Elizabeth Spannuth

My step-dad has always been a bit loopy. When I was growing up he was moody and prone to episodes of what I now recognize as depression. Strangely, as he has aged, he has fallen out of that pattern. Sometimes it seems as though he is a completely different person, so much so that occasionally I find myself asking “who is this supportive and positive person?”

But old patterns...

by Tinamarie Bernard

When I read a recent blog by Nicole Daedone, founder of OneTaste.com, I had two immediate questions: Are that many women really putting on moan shows when they are having sex, and if so, why?

Here’s what Nicole had to say about faking orgasmic pleasure, which basically, “amounts to lying to your partner. It prioritizes thinking (I should be doing this, I wonder how he’s...

by Tina Tessina

1. You can repeat some of the things you did when you were first dating: go back to the first place you met, watch a DVD (complete with popcorn) of the first movie you saw together, go out for lunch at the little café near your old job, or wander through the park.

2. Try water. There’s something very soothing and seductive about water. Do a tour of fancy fountains where you live,...

Monday mornings often create this jarring emotional space in me. I am never fully prepared for the alarm and especially on weeks that are looming with large events, I wake with uncertainty and sadness. I don’t always know where my sorrow comes from, sometimes I have a clear and ready story about some injustice perpetrated or received. But more often lately it is just another color that lives in me...

Relationship Bootcamp: Week 3

“The most important thing in communication is hearing what isn’t being said.” –Anonymous

The strength and endurance training in any and all relationships starts and ends with the capacity for communication. I have often called our communication skills the currency of a relationship, because it is literally the air that lives between people that makes their...

Relationship Bootcamp: Week Two

“Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape.”  -Anonymous

Relationships require stretching. In fact there may be no more important place in life to practice and improve our flexibility than in our hearts. Getting over the belief that our own desires are the most important consideration at any given moment is a lifelong practice in...

“Sexual pleasure in woman is a kind of magic spell; it demands complete abandon.”   -Simone de Beauvoir

Driving my son and his friends in the car the other day from a basketball game I overheard the question that made me cringe decades ago, “ How far did you get?” said one to the other with an elbow to the ribs. I shouldn’t have let on that I was listening, but I felt obliged to tell them that...

by Anastasia Strgar

Okay, so I’ll just admit that recently I’ve started experimenting with fantasy when I make love. And I’ve discovered that I get amazing results. While I’m still pretty new at this and they haven’t really morphed out of setting me and my partner into different exotic scenarios, I find I feel sexier when I imagine us making love on a tropical beach or in a castle tower than...