So, you’ve found a great guy: You have a great time with him, he gets along with your friends, and he makes you laugh hysterically with his charming personality. But do you feel like your relationship is missing a little something—some talent, perhaps? Read Did His Buddies Pick You? That can be a really frustrating position… Read More

  A fear of sexual failure combined with a lack of concern about sexual consequences makes both men and women more likely to cheat on their partners, a new study finds. While it may seem counterintuitive that someone with performance anxiety would seek out something extra on the side, insecure cheaters might look for risky situations… Read More

Arnold. Ashton. Anthony.  When it comes to the ABCs of infidelity, one thing is certain: It’s only a matter of days – maybe minutes – before another extramarital scandal rocks the headlines. With brand new stories of celebrity and political infidelity hitting the newsstands every week, one can’t help but wonder if happily-ever-after is a big,… Read More

Folk wisdom gives us mixed-messages when it comes to compatibility. We hear phrases like “birds of a feather flock together” telling us we need to be compatible with a partner in order to be successful. Then we hear contradictory phrases like “opposites attract” telling us we need not be similar to our partner, but rather different for… Read More

In the opening paragraph of Esther Perel’s book, Mating in Captivity, she writes: “The story of sex in committed modern couples often tells of a dwindling desire and includes a long list of sexual alibis, which claim to explain the inescapable death of eros.” It is this idea, that sexual desire dwindles when in a committed relationship, that Perel successfully… Read More

I’ve always been a proponent of avoiding goal-oriented sex, particularly when it comes to orgasm. When couples or individuals come to me asking questions that concern problems or dissatisfaction with orgasm, one of the first things I suggest is to shift focus from orgasm to the overall act of intimacy. Enjoy the moment, I say. When I… Read More

When it comes to sexual behavior, people frequently want to know what’s “normal”. There seems to be a natural tendency to want to compare one’s own sexual experience to the average sexual experience, perhaps in an attempt to gauge performance. Understanding what is happening physiologically during a given sexual experience may or may not enhance the… Read More

Long before I entered this field, sexual scientists have been debating whether there are different types of female orgasm. And the debate continues… Some have distinguished between vaginal orgasms, g-spot orgasms, uterine orgasms, and clitoral orgasms as all being somehow qualitatively different than one another. Others have argued that there are differences between vaginal and clitoral… Read More

As a sex researcher, when my colleagues and I discuss how others perceive our area of study, welaugh at the number of questions we get from people ranging from whether we are into group sex, swinging, and promiscuity, to whether we were sexually abused as kids. In fact, research has demonstrated that the general public assumes that personal… Read More

Valentine’s Day is traditionally a day for love. But what is Valentine’s Day to those who aren’t in love? As someone with quite a few single Valentine’s Days under my belt (one particularly memorable one spent watching Silence of the Lambs with a fellow single girlfriend), I’ve felt a range of emotions about the day of love…. Read More