I lost my hearing overnight. Here's how I coped with my new silence

Excerpted with permission from "Life After Deaf: My Misadventures in Hearing Loss and Recovery" by Noel Holston. Copyright November 5, 2019 by Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.
Our bedroom was chilly when I slid out of bed and stumbled into the bathroom to relieve myself. It was the beginning of my winter daybreak ritual: Get up. Relieve. Wash hands. Clomp downstairs. Turn up thermostat. Turn on coffee maker. Feed cats.
But as I stood over the toilet in the nightlight’s blue glow, I heard no splash. “Hmm,” I murmured to myself.
The hmm was inaudible, too. I stepped over to the sink and turned the handle. The water I saw rushing from the faucet was a silent stream. “Hmm,” I murmured again.
I surveyed my face in the medicine cabinet mirror. I watched my left hand as I reached up and rubbed my left ear. The sound it made was faint, distant, and dull as cotton. I rubbed my right ear with my right hand. Nothing. Nothing at all.
I shuffled back to bed and lay down next to my wife, eyes fixed on the ceiling. I woke Marty, not meaning to, with what I would have sworn was whispering. I was mouthing words — names, numbers, snippets of songs — hoping to find a tone, a pitch, that would register as sound. She told me later that her first sleepy thought when my mumbling woke her was that I had suffered a stroke.
“Honey, what’s wrong?” she asked. Her face loomed over me like a pale moon. I responded to her worried look, not her words.
“Your lips are moving,” I said, “but there’s no sound.”
“Nothing?” she said.

I shook my head.
She came around to my side of the bed and switched on the brass lamp on my nightstand. She motioned for me to sit up and then pushed a folded pillow behind me. Marty is medically knowledgeable. One of the many day jobs she’s worked in her life as a singer, songwriter, and musician is certified nurse’s attendant. She wanted to look me over and assess whether we needed to race to the nearest emergency room.
She plucked a tissue from the box on our bookcase headboard. “Blow your nose,” she said, miming the gesture.
I blew, careful not to push too hard, and then again, harder. She gave me a how-now look. I shook my head and shrugged my befuddlement.
She put her face up close to my left ear. I could faintly detect the word “sleep.” I lay back down on my side. She switched off the light and crawled back into bed with me.
Though she was spooned against my back, I was alone in my thoughts. I took stock. My left ear had faded over a period of half a dozen years, starting in the mid-1990s. I’d had a series of hearing aids. My good ear, the right, had been getting weaker, though gradually. I had composed a sort of prose poem a few days earlier. I extolled my ability to summon familiar music from memory. I had planned to perform it later in the week at Word of Mouth, a monthly poetry and spoken-word jam at a downtown bar in Athens, Georgia, where we live. It was a knack that I had presumed would come in handy in the event my hearing ever got really, really bad. But I had never expected a loss so sudden, so dramatic. I had been fending off a mild cold and was sniffling a bit, but surely that couldn’t be the instigation for what seemed close to a total collapse.
The night before, March 3, 2010, I had gone to bed able to hear all manner of everyday sounds and comprehend conversation easily with a little amplification. Yet here I was on the morning of March 4 so auditorily challenged I could only faintly detect the sound of my own voice in my head.
I lay there cuddled up to Marty trying to will myself unconscious, hoping I could indeed sleep it off. The prospect of a silent or near-silent existence didn’t scare me to death — I understood, intellectually at least, that there are millions of people who live and work and play without any hearing at all. I only felt a wave of sadness. I had never been good with quiet. I was raised in a household in which there was almost always a record player or a radio going, sometimes more than one. I had spent 60 years in a sonic marinade.


My thoughts floated to music, which I love as much if not more than conversation. In recent weeks, I had been driving around with a boom box in the front seat of my old Mazda because, for some reason, its tone worked better with my weakened ears than the in-dash stereo. I had been playing a CD that had been a promotional gimme for an Elvis Presley retrospective that his ex-wife, Priscilla, had produced for television. For many years I had critiqued TV programming for a living. Friends and newspaper colleagues never got tired of predicting that my brain was going to turn to mush or that I would go blind. Maybe they were onto something.
The CD included rare alternative recordings of a few Elvis hits and some oddball studio outtakes. The last music I had heard on March 3 was Elvis and some of his pals goofing on an old Chuck Berry song, “Too Much Monkey Business,” a madcap, tongue-twisting litany of hassles, hoops, indignities, and idiocies the hero has had to duckwalk his way around and through.
I have since come to think of it as musical prophecy, but I didn’t realize that morning just how apt it would be, a theme song for my adventures in hearing impairment, for the comedy of errors to come. Monkey business indeed.
As I learned to live with my hearing loss, I hit upon a new coping strategy: sensorial diversity. I was a big fan of Marvel comics when I was a teenager, and none of Stan Lee’s imperfect superheroes intrigued me more than Daredevil, a blind crime fighter who had developed his other senses, not to mention his reflexes, to prodigious heights to compensate for his inability to see. As I came to realize that I might never regain anything approaching full hearing and that what I did regain might well be erratic and spotty, I started thinking about Daredevil and his triumph of will.
I was a little old for gymnastics and martial arts training. I wasn’t even playing basketball anymore because of fallen arches. Still, I stepped up my exercise regimen at the Y, betting that with patience, consistency, and a lack of vanity when it came to deciding how much weight to lift, I could get myself back into shape for more adventurous hiking, perhaps even running. It would be good to feel the air rushing past my face and arms again.
The goal wasn’t to develop super senses, but to indulge those that were not impaired. If new music sounded like ugly sonic mush, I could indeed stop and smell the roses. And the coffee. And the baking bread. I could crush a few leaves of rosemary or basil between my thumb and forefinger and inhale the fragrance, an olfactory wake-up call. I could get high on the aroma of garlic and onions slowly sautéed in olive oil. I could breathe the scent of Marty’s hair in the night.
If I yearned for freewheeling conversation, I could treat myself to a premium chocolate bar, order the orgasmic escargot at Athens’s one-and-only French bistro, or eat a Vietnamese or Greek dish I had never tried before. I could detour off the Interstate and onto a Georgia back road that would lead me to a roadside stand selling heirloom peaches, exquisitely flavorful beneath their thick, old-fashioned fuzz. I could have a slab of vine-ripened tomato with sea salt and a dash of mayo. I could make my mom’s gumbo.

If I couldn’t make a phone call, I could feel the shock and thrill of a sudden dive into a cool swimming pool. Like the B-52s sang, I could “dance in the garden in torn sheets in the rain.” I could invest in Egyptian cotton sheets with a sinfully high thread count. I could start treating massage as a necessity, not a luxury. I could take a tip from my wife, an apparel hedonist, and buy some clothes strictly for the feel of them.
If I felt deprived of aural stimulation, I could use my two reasonably good eyes to see more than I had been seeing. Just as our brains learn to screen out sounds that aren’t necessary, so it is with our vision.
What’s the Bible verse? There is none so blind as he who will not see? It’s true. We can become so narrowly or tightly focused that the wider world becomes a blur. One of the reasons nature documentaries can be so compelling is that the filmmakers focus for us.
They share their observational powers. They direct our eyes. But we are capable of doing this for ourselves, albeit not exotically. Our own backyards are teeming with natural wonder if we stop, get still, and really, truly look. There are remarkably intricate mushrooms and lichens near my house that I barely noticed before I adopted the Daredevil approach. There are little green lizards that flash pink throat pouches and shiny, black-and-blue skinks that are too gorgeous for such an inelegant name. And now that I have trained my eye to pay more attention, I not only see vastly more birds—cardinals, flickers, cedar waxwings, purple buntings—flitting around the trees off my back deck, but hawks on power lines or in dead trees along the highway and egrets fishing in roadside ditches and ponds. How many years did I look right past them? Now they are the music I drive to.
Scrutinizing and savoring art is a sensory experience, and so, I now understand, is writing, which for so many years was for me a means to an end. But so, too, are a near infinite number of things we do, from building a birdhouse to bricking a patio, from planting bulbs and seeds to inhaling the fragrance of simmering spaghetti sauce. It’s all in how you approach these “routine” experiences. Expanding their variety and making them fresh and meaningful to yourself, that’s the way you do it, that’s how you cope.
* * *
On a spring night in 2010, Noel Holston, a journalist, songwriter, and storyteller, went to bed with reasonably intact hearing. By dawn, it was gone, thus beginning a long process of hearing-restoration that included misdiagnoses, an obstinate health-insurance bureaucracy, failed cochlear-implant surgery, and a second surgery that finally worked. He negotiated the gauntlet with a wry sense of humor and the aid of his supportive wife, Marty. "Life After Deaf" details his experience with warmth, understanding, and candor.

Yale psychiatrist Bandy Lee: Impeachment hearings must include analysis of Trump's mental health

The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on Wednesday to hear from a panel of legal scholars who provided a constitutional analysis of the ongoing impeachment inquiry into President Trump. A group of psychiatry professors from around the country are calling on the committee to also impanel experts in psychology to analyze the president's mental health and consider his state of mind as part of the ongoing investigation.
Bandy X. Lee, a professor of psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine and president of the World Mental Health Organization, has spoken out about the president's mental health for years. She is the editor of "The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President" and convened a conference on Trump's mental health at Yale in 2017.
Lee, along with Dr. John Zinner and Dr. Jerrold Post of George Washington University and more than 400 signatories, is leading a petition to the Judiciary Committee urging lawmakers to consider the views of mental health experts as they examine the possible criminality behind the Ukraine scandal.
The petition calls for the committee to enter a statement from the mental health professionals into the official record.

"Failing to monitor or to understand the psychological aspects, or discounting them, could lead to catastrophic outcomes," the statement warns. "For these reasons, we implore Congress to take these danger signs seriously and to constrain his destructive impulses.  We and many others are available to give important relevant recommendations as well as to educate the public so that we can maximize our collective safety."
Lee told Salon that there's a tendency to see such warnings as hyperbolic "before things happen — and after things happen, people just assume that things have already happened and so they know how dangerous the president is.
"Each time he has a way of stepping up," she continued. "We need to be prepared ahead of time, not just think we know afterwards," even if that means talking about touchy issues of a public figure's mental health "honestly, rather than what might be considered palatable."
Lee spoke to Salon about the petition, the impeachment inquiry's impact on Trump's state of mind, her view on the president's enablers, the criticism she has received for speaking out publicly about the president's mental health, and whether all presidential candidates should undergo a psychiatric evaluation.
The conversation has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
You're leading a petition to the House Judiciary Committee in the impeachment inquiry. What do you hope this will accomplish?
We've been warning against the president's psychological dangers for quite some time. And we are currently seeing them accelerate with the impeachment proceedings, as well as multiple pressures that are also obvious to the public. Loss of court cases and the impeachment inquiry continually bring up facts that do not favor him. So we would like to propose to the Judiciary Committee that it consider mental health parallel to its investigation of criminality.
You said you want Congress to take mental health into consideration. What does that look like? How do you want Congress to handle your input?
Initially, we were proposing to testify. But given the volatility of the president and his worsening condition, that should also be obvious for the public to see, in terms of his increased tweets, his greater attacks, his doubling down on unreality. These are all very concerning signs and more alarming to psychological professionals because of what they imply.
So initially, we were proposing to testify for the committee, but now we are suggesting private consultation, because we see concerning signs accelerate ... [and we] are afraid that a public testimony would provoke the president further.

How have you observed the president's behavior changing as the impeachment probe has ramped up?
When the impeachment inquiry was first announced, most people breathed a sigh of relief. But we were very concerned that psychologically he would worsen. So we put out an urgent letter to Congress, signed by 250 mental health professionals, asking for constraining measures at the same time as proceeding with impeachment. Within three days of our letter, he withdrew troops from northern Syria, allowed the massacre of our allies and handed over dominance to our enemies. This was the kind of thing we were afraid of.
It happened and we see signs of another such incident, if not worse, happening, from the daily observable psychological signs. In terms of obvious behavior, his pardoning the war criminals who were already convicted or being charged by the military and enlisting them onto his campaign. His attack of Marie Yovanovitch during her testimony, when she was expressing that she felt intimidated and threatened by the president. He basically demonstrated how he intimidated and threatened people during the testimony itself.
And most recently, when the former FBI lawyer Lisa Page responded to his taunting of her during the rally by giving an interview, the president again put out a tweet, pretty much condemning her and again ridiculing her and attacking her. These are precisely the reasons why we warned since the beginning that the president was dangerous. And now we are learning that the signs are increasing in intensity and frequency, which indicates to us that the dangers are also accelerating. We should respond to these signs in advance of things happening. Prevention is, of course, much less costly than trying to recuperate and patch up after things have happened.
What does it tell you as a psychiatrist when you see Republicans like Devin Nunes and Jim Jordan defend what President Trump does, and spin it as a positive and a good thing?
I have also spoken about shared psychosis. Psychosis is a severe condition of mental impairment when you lose touch with reality, and shared psychosis happens when a highly compromised person is exposed to other people who would be otherwise healthy. But because of the close contact, healthy people take on the symptoms of the person who is compromised. Because of the president's position and his direct access to a large proportion of the population, either via Twitter or his direct rallies, there is a phenomenon of shared psychosis going on at large scale, at national scale.
How do you think that this impeachment battle affects the psychology of the public?
The impeachment process is proceeding based on rational, legal, and political considerations, but all of the domains presume psychological health. In other words, the mental capacity to consider facts, to think rationally and logically based on reality. But these capacities are precisely what are being lost with the spread of shared psychosis.

You and a lot of psychologists, psychiatrists or therapists who have opined publicly on Trump's mental health have received a lot of criticism. How do you respond to that criticism? Why should Congress and the public take what you're saying seriously?
Psychological factors require psychological expertise, especially in the pathological realm, which most people will be unfamiliar with and underestimate, or presume to be within the wide range of human normality.
So it is incumbent on psychological professionals — I would even say an obligation — to speak up when there are signs of abnormalities, especially because mental pathology has one of its symptoms as the inability to see that one has a twisted psychology. It is incumbent on those who are familiar with these signs and are able to observe from the outside to say so.
Also, the American Psychiatric Association allowed for the spread of this misconception that we cannot speak about anything unless we have examined the president. But we're not speaking about the president's personal mental health. We're speaking about the effects of his mental pathology and behavior on the public. So we are responding to our public health responsibility, not speaking as the president's personal physician.
You've mentioned a proposal to analyze future presidential and vice-presidential candidates. Is that something you'd like to see going forward?
I think it's reasonable, given our recent experience and given the history that those with pathological personality disorders disproportionately attain positions of power and wreak havoc on societies. It is far easier to prevent than to try to intervene after things have happened. And a simple fitness-for-duty test would allow for the screening of many destructive personalities. I would advise that not just for our own country, but for the countries around the world. It would do them a lot of good.
Is there anything you'd like to add for our readers?

Women Enjoying Orgasm Boom, Evidently

From The Daily Record MORE women are having orgasms during sex these days, according to a survey. Twice as many 20 to 30-year-olds said they were getting satisfaction, compared with less than a third in 1994. And a third said they fantasised while in the throes of passion about making love to someone else. Johnny Depp was the favourite, followed by George Clooney and Brad Pitt. Only two per cent admitted faking it, while 65 per cent said they would tell their partners if they were left unfulfilled. A poll of 1669 women for Marie Claire magazine also revealed seven in 10 women went out with a condom in their handbags just in case they ended up in bed. But more than half said they wouldn't have sex on their first date, preferring to wait until at least the second or third encounter. According to the report, women aged 20 to 30 have 10.5 notches on their bedposts these days,

compared with five in 2000. Tango’s Take Well if Marie Claire says that orgasms are on the boom then, golly, they must be. If Marie Claire says that some prudes are waiting until the second OR third date to go all the way, then it must be the case. If Marie Claire says the average women between 20 and 30 is 2.1 times as (ahem) slutty as they were 7 years ago, then we believe it. But if Marie Claire is telling us that only 2% of women are faking it, then we take umbrage with Marie Claire. Great umbrage. We mean , come on! These 1,669 women must be exceptionally honest (and forward) and may (or may) not represent women in their twenties. Read More Of The Original Article…

Want A Better Sex Life? Speak Up!

A new study says that communication is the most effective path to a sizzling hot sex life.
A lot of us women feel that if we speak up and voice our needs, about sex or otherwise, that means there's something "wrong" with the relationship. A lot of us women need to grow some balls, or rather ovaries because balls are the flimsiest things ever.
Next time you're in bed with your guy, don't hold back on being honest about your needs and desires. Even if you're going to blush, break out in hives and sweat from anxiety over the topic, suck it up because you have to start somewhere and the sooner you get cracking on it, the sooner your sex life will become the hottest, most sensual thing you can possible imagine.
Although this shouldn't be breaking news to anyone, an expert on health communication at Cleveland State University of Ohio has confirmed that yes, your sex life is far superior if you have an open dialogue about it instead of "keep calm and fake your orgasms," which seems the be the M.O. for too many ladies out there.


Researcher Elizabeth Babin wrangled up over 200 people, 88 from undergraduate classes and 119 from online sites, to discuss the topic at length and see exactly how communication related to positive sexual experiences. She discovered that the apprehension to  talk about sex stirred anxious emotions in some, and that led to the inability to have positive sexual experiences with their partners. Why weren't people talking about sex? Mostly, it came down to the inability to convey what they liked or didn't like, both verbally and non-verbally.
How to fix this? With education and therapy. People need to realize that there's nothing wrong with self-expression, both in and out of the bedroom. In being self-aware enough to voice your needs, you're not only headed toward a better you, but for better relationships with everyone in your life — even that nagging co-worker you might loathe.

As Babin told LiveScience, sexual communication "is a skill and we're not all well-trained in that skill." And we all know that the only way to acquire a skill and harness it to effectively influence your life is practice, practice, practice. You practiced piano when you were little. You practice for your job interviews in front of the mirror. So shouldn't you practice communication, so both you and your partner can experience the explosive orgasms you both deserve?
I will answer this for you: Yes.

The Truth About Acting Out Your Fantasies

Acting out sexual fantasies can be more complicated than one would think.
I am a closet exhibitionist. Very few people know this about me because I'm a bookish introvert who has seldom been the life of a phone call, let alone a party. However, the vast majority of my masturbation fantasies involve me having sex with one or several partners, while one or several other people look on. Planes, trains, automobiles, construction sites, fishing boat—any public venue works in my dirty mind's eye.
My partner knows this about me, and while he's squeamish about public sex in the "real world," he did agree to take me to a sex club where we could get it on in a room full of other couples doing the same. Neither of us was a stranger to the idea of sexual adventure, but this particular kink was new to us both, so it was a shared initiation. Inside An NYC Sex Club


I loved the club environment: open eroticism all around me, combined with the surprisingly warm, safe feeling of being in a walled garden of sexual delights. The freedom to be sexual in a public place was liberating and titillating, and I immediately found myself wanting to join in. The sex we had was really no different from the sex we have at home, only the venue and context were different.
But as we got busy, I discovered something surprising: for me, partnered sex and masturbation alike are ultimately inward journeys. I struggled to stay present, to savor the novelty of our surroundings, but ultimately I succumbed to the undertow of my imagination. In order to plumb my initial arousal and reach orgasm, I needed to go deep inside myself, and when I came, it was with my eyes closed—and I was far away somewhere, fantasizing about being watched by an entirely different group of people.
According to Amy Alkon, who writes a syndicated newspaper column as The Advice Goddess, this sense of deflation is entirely to be expected.
"The funny thing about fantasy is that it's not always what it's cracked up to be. When people think about having a threesome, they don't picture someone sitting on the edge of the bed reading Newsweek, wondering when their turn comes," she says. Alkon sees a definite trend among her readers, who are more and more comfortable expressing, and acting out, their sexual fantasies, than they were just a few years ago. Threesomes: A User's Guide


"I used to get a lot of letters from lonely guys in the middle of nowhere who were wondering if they were perverts for liking women's feet," she says. "Now with the internet, I get fewer of those, because it's easy enough for them to find other people who are into the same thing, and gain some reassurance that they aren't alone." Alkon thinks that if anything, the trendiness of acting out elaborate fantasy scenarios has created unreasonable expectations.
"This I'll-be-the-pirate-you-be-the-slave girl thing, the stuff that's so routinized and put on, people do because they're determined to make their sex lives more interesting—it becomes another requirement, and it's not fun. If you're looking to keep your sex life interesting, it's the spontaneous stuff that works."
Acting out sexual fantasies can be more complicated than one would think.
So in the end, was living out my most deeply held sexual fantasy a disappointment? Not at all. It was just different. While I thoroughly enjoyed my adventure, it in no way replaced the role of fantasy in my personal sexual chemistry. Nor did the enjoyment come from the same places that I expected it to: I didn't feel any frisson or thrill along with the act of exposure, for instance. And the feeling of others' eyes on my body wasn't as powerful as in my mind's eye.
Sexual fantasies, I've learned, aren't the same as sexual desires. A desire is something we want to realize, a yen for a person or a specific act. A fantasy is self-contained, a personal myth that can perform powerful voodoo in our interior landscape, but that doesn't always keep that power when exposed to the light of day. To complicate matters, sometimes our fantasies and desires overlap, but not always. Why We Fantasize And What's Normal


My friend Alex recalls his first attempt at enacting a spanking fantasy many years ago, with a partner named Lisa, whose fanny had been the object of much onanistic speculation on his part. When Alex finally fessed up to his desire, Lisa gamely agreed to bend over and give it a try, but the results were underwhelming.
"In reality it was just kind of awkward," Alex told me. "Not embarrassing, just uninspired and oddly unarousing. I think because it was my fantasy, not hers, so she wasn't really feeling it."
Interestingly, this bucket of cold water didn't stop Alex from continuing to fantasize about spanking Lisa in the privacy of his wanking chamber. Years later, Alex has had several partners who enjoyed a playful spank as much as he did, but to this day he occasionally still fantasizes about spanking Lisa. Spanking For Beginners
The trick is not to take fantasies too seriously, or to confuse them with reality. It's important not to fall into thinking that a person's sexual fantasies represent what they "really want." The fear of being misunderstood in this way is the main reason we withhold our sexual fantasies. As a self-sufficient, powerful professional woman, I don't want anyone to think that what I "really want" is to be dominated by a big, strong man. So I don't tend to advertise that occasionally, my dirty little mind does go all lumberjack on me.
So much of sex involves the exchange of trust and of power, and many of us are shy to express fantasies that we see as violent or untoward. But when I fantasize about being overpowered by someone bigger and stronger than me, it's not because I am a weak woman who "really" wants to be dominated by a man—in my fantasy, I am the strong man as often as I am the weak woman. In Jungian terms, the struggle taking place is an archetype, and the combatants my animus and anima. In reality, the partners I choose do not tend to be domineering types, further indicating that my domination fantasy is just that—a fantasy.

THE MULTI-ORGASMIC MAN

MOST MEN ARE ABSOLUTELY FASCINATED WHEN THEY LEARN HOW TO SUBSTITUTE ORGASMS FOR EJACULATION.

In spite of my continuing efforts, male sexuality still remains incorrectly focused on the inevitably disappointing and shortsighted goal of ejaculation (getting off). Yet, over three thousand years ago, the Chinese Taoists recognized that men were capable of something much greater than a conventional genital release. They understood the power of the deeper, richer and more pleasurable orgasmic process of lovemaking. Yes, by learning a few simple sexual techniques men can avoid ejaculating in favor of full-body, multiple orgasms, just like the most passionate women.
Until now, far too many men have made the erroneous assumption that ejaculation and orgasm are one and the same. This is unfortunate, but understandable since from our earliest sexual explorations, men have observed over and over that ejaculation and orgasm always happen together. What we haven’t been told is that ejaculation and orgasm are two distinct physical processes and that it is very useful to learn how to separate one from the other. Without this knowledge, and without a clear technique, most men are unable to feel the difference between the dynamic crescendo of orgasm and the disappointing crash of ejaculation.


 
For many men, all they need to know to get started is that it is possible to separate orgasm from ejaculation, and that it can be accomplished fairly readily with sex muscle control. Once a man gets control of his sex muscles, he can withhold his ejaculation and increase the staying power of his erection indefinitely (barring any physical problems). As he exercises and strengthens these internal sex muscles, he will find that he can experience his orgasm(s) gradually, a little at a time, without ever ejaculating. If he does decide to ejaculate, the pleasure is even more intense. However, experience tells me that once a man learns to substitute orgasm(s) for ejaculation, the habitual male sexual routine of ejaculating with every orgasm will be seen for what it is ---- shear lunacy.
Most men are fascinated when they learn how to do this, and will begin practicing as soon as they’ve got the information. The only possible drawback can be too much enthusiasm too soon leading to some sore muscles, for a day or so. So, for the first week, it would be best if he exercises just five minutes twice a day. Sex muscle exercises need not be elaborate. They can be very simple and effective. The three main exercises are described on pages 196-197 in my book. You can order it from my website

Your Walk Can Reveal How Many Orgasms You've Had (Says Science)

A free and confident stride means you have an awesome sex life, research says.
The fashion-inclined always tell you that life is one big runway. But whether or not the world is your catwalk, the way you strut your stuff on a daily basis can say a lot more than what you're wearing.
According to a recent study, a woman's walk reveals how many orgasms she has had. An energetic and free walk means a woman has been sexually fulfilled plenty of times; a stiff walk means she shows sexual restraint.
The study, which was conducted in Belgium and published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, involved a group of women who completed a questionnaire about their sexual behavior. The participants were then viewed from a distance while walking in public.
The researchers who analyzed the walks had no previous knowledge of the women's sexual and orgasmic history. They found that women who had fluid, energetic walks (free of "flaccid and locked" muscles) had more orgasms.


Unsurprisingly, the study also found that women who had reached sexual climax more often also had more confidence, and high self-esteem very easily translates to a sassy strut.
But an energetic walk can come from more than thinking about your last hot between-the-sheets session. Some women walk with a longer, more confident stride when wearing heels. Getting a big promotion (other than the race to an orgasm, that is) and other esteem-boosting factors can also lead into that "free" walk te researchers describe. So I think we shouldn't put too much weight into these findings — at least, not until they're proven more conclusive.

We do predict a fun people-watching game coming out of this, however. So grab a girlfriend, hit the mall and analyze female struts. See how many orgasms you can count!

Want A Hotter Sex Life? The #1 Thing To Know About Female Orgasms

Awaken his sexual interest in you.
Admit it. As a woman, there's nothing more frustrating than trying to get it on with your man, only for him to resort to watching porn just to get in the mood. Not only is it a total blow to your ego (making your building orgasm disappear), it also makes you feel intimidated, humiliated, and scared for your sex life and overall relationship.
Having to constantly beat down the questions "If he really was as satisfied with our sex life as he says he is, why does he watch porn so often?" and "What does he get out of watching it?" can get super annoying after awhile.
Let's be honest. Does he really need to watch sexy films of other women just to get in the mood?
We get it. It's hard to not be a little jealous when he relies on porn more often than not. But that doesn't mean that he's not interested in you. In fact, according to  Dr. John Gray, author of Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus, that couldn't be further from the truth!


He gets to the bottom of why guys watch porn even if they're happy with the intimacy in their relationship.
What he found will surprise you.
When one of our readers mentioned that her boyfriend seems to enjoy porn more than he enjoys sex with her, Dr. Gray hits the nail on the mark by saying that this has nothing to do with her and is more so related to how frequent her orgasm is.
Think about it for a second. If your man notices just how into foreplay you are, he'll do anything to keep the momentum going, even if this means calling in some resources (cough cough). Seeing you excited completely turns him on, especially knowing the fact that he's the reason for it.
So instead of letting those doubts play on heavy rotation in your mind, do something about it! There are ways for you to enjoy the pay off—together. You may have to remind him that the female orgasm is the key to having the best sex of your life.


Trust us, he'll thank you for it.