Good Clean Reads

Lubrication is one of the simplest and most effective ways to make intimacy more enjoyable. And even though our bodies naturally produce lubrication, it isn’t always enough. Hormonal changes, stress, medication, or simply wanting a little more glide are all good reasons to reach for lube!

The times when words don’t work, when you can hardly remember why you keep showing up for your relationship are begging for the best sex you might ever have. It is not the easiest intimacy to initiate because you have to jump over a couple of big egos to get to a place where the wisdom of your body can lead and you have half a chance to find what it is you have been wanting to say or have heard.

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I have been on vacation for the last 3 weeks with my family in Europe. Sounds exotic, I know, but the reality is not so much exotic as it is a crash course in learning how to love. Life at home with four kids is an on the go experience with multiple personalities and conflicting needs- but I realize now, that our busy life style actually only allows us an hour or two per day to interact as a unit....

I have been traveling in parts of the world where I cannot even say “how do you say ….” I barely have the basics of hello and goodbye down. And yet as I move through the daily activities of life, shopping at a market, sitting on the coastline in a crowd of people, standing on line to shower or wait for the bathroom. the scenes I witness between parents and children, lovers – old and young are more...

“The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved – loved for ourselves, or rather in spite of ourselves.” -Victor Hugo

Here is a truism to hang your hat on. We are all imperfect human beings working at making lives together with more or less skill. We make messes of our situation routinely and we hurt each other unintentionally, well and maybe intentionally sometimes. Yet we all...

This is my fifteen-year-old son’s favorite expression of late. It applies to everything from the right snack selection to a teacher’s grading system. Sometimes it also applies to the meaning that I try to live: about being authentic with the people that mean the most to us.

Authentic communication requires vigilance and presence. Slipping into habitual behaviors that offer protection and cover is...

Avoiding emotional escalation with your partner is an excellent and often successful way to invite a loving passionate response. It is so easy to get caught up in each other’s bad moods that not doing it takes real effort and clarity. Habitual patterns of negative communication feed on each other. One person makes a sniping comment, volley and return with the other person’s pent up rage. Throw a...

We all love to be loved. We long to be touched and our basic human drives towards physical pleasure is almost as strong as our drive to alleviate hunger or thirst. It may even be stronger, as it has been demonstrated that babies who are provided basic needs but are not touched and handled do not survive. It is central to our functioning and yet often in direct conflict with the relationships that...

It is a great gift in life to act, to give, to learn, to love without needing any recognition. Tonight was the awards ceremony at the local high school where like in all the high schools across the country, the same 15 kids were recognized over and over for achievements in sports, academics and volunteering. When you aren’t one of the 15, you can’t help feeling at least a little invisible. My...

Working on a relationship when it hits rock bottom has little chance of success, a fact that is not surprising, but was recently proven in research studies. By the time that you have nothing left to say to your partner, reversing the negative spin in your relationship takes such significant effort that few people have the courage to try it.

Just like tending a garden, working at your relationship...