Great Sex, Naturally (3 page)

Although this book charts a general course you can follow, your personal journey to great sex is like no one else’s. As
Chapter 3
points out, not every woman’s sexuality neatly fits the “sexual response cycle” often used as the blueprint for sizing up sexual health. This book brings together all the brightest stars among natural sex-enhancement methods, but you’ll need to navigate your own itinerary through the galaxy of information it offers, find what works best for you, and select a unique niche in your constellation of choice. The number of ways to arrive at great sex may be, like the number of stars in the universe, in the
sex
tillions.

Your Great Sex Journey: Using This Book to Most Effectively Enhance Your Sexuality

To get the most out of this book, we recommend you read it as a whole. You might be tempted to skip ahead to specific sex-enhancing pearls, or zero in on natural solutions to particular sexual-health issues. But some of the most valuable advice in these pages will be applied more effectively if you absorb the book in its entirety and use it as a vehicle for a larger sexual awakening. Certain aphrodisiacs that you’ll discover, for instance, aren’t apt to work wonders if you haven’t utilized the many other libido-boosting tools you’ll find in different chapters. If you glean all of the secrets in this book, their cumulative effects can be far-reaching. You may realize many ways to enhance your sexual wellness that you weren’t aware of, some of which could be of great relevance to you now—or at a later time in your life.

This book is composed of two main parts, each with its own emphasis:

• In
  Part I
  , which consists of
  Chapters 1 through 4
  , you’ll explore a wide range of tools and techniques for enhancing your sexuality, examine the essential cornerstones you need to create a sturdy underpinning for your sexual health, and look at the important roles of your sex organs and hormones.
  
• In
  Part II
  —
  Chapters 5 through 8
  —you’ll discover an array of other means and “new dimensions” you can pursue to enhance not only your own sexuality, but your partner’s as well.
  

Let’s take a closer look at the chapter-by-chapter benefits you’ll find in these pages:

—We launch our journey in
Chapter 1
by exploring the powerful influence of your mind and spirit on your sexual health. We open with this topic because your mental and spiritual well-being is crucial for creating the foundation you need for a healthy libido, and may be the single most consequential factor in your ability to achieve great sex. Your mind, after all, gives you the power of choice—and your ability to make healthy choices, and act on them, will determine the extent of the benefits you gain from everything you discover in this book. Your mind can open any door, make any choice, and make anything possible.

Chapter 1
begins by looking at the intimate bond between your sexual health and your overall health, and the vital role your mental well-being plays; a healthy mind not only enables you to enjoy sex by freeing you from restrictive emotions and mental states, but can also positively promote your capacity for passion and pleasure in a plethora of ways. This chapter reveals connections between your brain chemistry, the feelings and states of mind you experience when you’re in love, and your sexuality and erotic desires. You’ll also explore ways of using the power of your mind to create and preserve a strong relationship and a healthy sex life, the physiological basis for your mind’s ability to transform your sexuality, links between your sexuality and self-esteem, and more.

—With the vast power of your mind in mind, we continue building on your sexual-health foundation in
Chapter 2
by exploring a way of life that allows you to fully manifest your sexuality. Without this lifestyle, great sex may be a remote possibility; with it, you can reach the heights of sexual satisfaction you’re meant to experience. This chapter gives you the solid foundation you need to nourish a dynamic libido with natural step-by-step methods—including wholesome lifestyle choices you can make every day, nutritional supplements, and tips from both ancient Chinese and contemporary Western natural medicine. You’ll explore connections between your sexuality and exercise, and you’ll gather insights to keep you jazzed about the potential of exercise to rejuvenate your health and sexual energy.

You may be surprised to discover that your ability to detoxify can also revitalize your sexuality. In
Chapter 2
, we’ll explore how you can use detoxification to cleanse your body of impurities that may be hampering your health and limiting your libido—including simple steps you can take to purge your immediate environment of hidden toxins. You’ll find a special 21-day dietary cleanse for stimulating your well-being and giving you a sexual-health makeover. When you free yourself from harmful foods, toxins, and other wellness inhibitors, you may feel sexier, healthier, and more alive than ever before.

—Once your “sex-enhancing lifestyle” ducks are all in a row, you’ll be primed for
Chapter 3
, which focuses on the centerpiece of your sexuality: your pelvis and sexual organs. For all the pivotal roles this area of your body can play—from sexual pleasure, menstruation, and procreation to supporting your bladder and other vital organs—it deserves extra attention. You’ll explore the wondrous, elegant anatomy of your pelvis and sexual organs, and what you most need to know to keep them in peak form. You’ll delve into your multidimensional capacity for sexual pleasure, what happens in your body during arousal and orgasm, and the variety of ways a woman can have an orgasm—including the “secret” type of orgasm many are unaware of.

In
Chapter 3
we’ll also explore your “sexual chi” and exercises to increase your pleasure potential and pelvic strength. You’ll discover many ways of enhancing your sexuality by overcoming common sexual-health challenges that may arise at some point in your lifetime, including notorious sex spoilers like vaginal dryness, painful menstrual cramps, vaginitis, incontinence, urinary tract infections, pelvic pain, and other conditions. You’ll explore a wide range of natural self-help solutions to these challenges—herbs, supplements, food-as-medicine wisdom, natural estrogen creams and hormones, vaginal suppositories, Chinese remedies, acupressure techniques, and other invaluable alternatives to conventional approaches. (At times in this book, “self-help” includes knowing what’s available when it comes to certain prescription items, what to ask your doctor for, and how to find the right practitioner in the first place. You’ll uncover information an M.D. isn’t likely to tell you, but which may be imperative for you to know about in order to find a practitioner who will prescribe what you need.)

—When you discover how much you can do to enhance your sexuality by understanding your hormones—the magical chemicals that shape your libido, health, and practically everything you do—it can make a vast difference in your life. In
Chapter 4
, you’ll explore your six most sex-influential hormones, and why keeping them in harmony nurtures your health; gives you energy and vitality; bolsters your zest for life; and helps you feel compassionate, grounded, sexy, stimulated, and empowered on a daily basis. In addition, you’ll discover how you can evaluate your hormones and determine if they’re healthy or out of balance.

In
Chapter 4
you’ll also find out how to enhance your sexuality by solving hormone-related imbalances you may encounter at various times in your life, such as diminished sex drive, PMS, heavy menstrual bleeding, adrenal and thyroid issues, infertility, and midlife changes. You’ll discover an abundance of natural methods you can use to re-create balance and build your libido—many of them simple measures that allow you to treat yourself effectively without drugs or synthetic hormones—including lifestyle and dietary techniques, bioidentical hormone replacement therapy, supplements, acupressure, herbal remedies, and other gems from natural medicine. You’ll also discover how you can improve your body’s flow of “Heavenly Water” (the term used by ancient Chinese health practitioners for a woman’s menstrual flow), and explore the delightful perspective Chinese medicine offers on hormonal changes you experience over the course of your life.

—In a health-care system dominated by pharmaceutical corporations intent on pushing drugs like Viagra, there’s little knowledge of your natural alternatives for sexual enhancement (and even less inclination to tell you about them).
Chapter 5
—the one you’re not supposed to flip ahead to, but probably will anyway—is chock-full of unique morsels of sex-enhancing information that can transform your libido in ways no drug can. You’ll discover how to get the most out of the world’s best natural aphrodisiacs, including legendary Chinese herbal formulas that recharge both your sexuality and your overall health. Many of these natural alternatives are, in a sense, your rightful inheritance, since they were passed down to us over the course of centuries. Their tradition lives on, or you wouldn’t be holding this book in your hands.

In
Chapter 5
you’ll also find a wealth of other kinds of aphrodisiacs and libido-enhancers in the form of herbs, flower essences, essential oils, and more. We’ll explore the hidden sensual potential of your own body’s natural “secret scents,” and look at the fascinating possibilities, and erotically charged signals, literally hanging in the air every time you’re in the presence of another person. We’ll also explore nutritional aphrodisiacs—including sex-stimulating supplements and foods with potential aphrodisiac effects—and name notorious libido-limiting dietary items that you’ll want to avoid.

—In
Chapter 6
we broaden our view to include a variety of other natural pleasure-promoting tools and techniques—from modern to ancient, Western to Eastern, and practical to mystical—that may not be considered aphrodisiacs in the traditional sense, but have aphrodisiac-like qualities. You’ll explore a wide selection of moistening and stimulating sensual lubricants, compare products, and find tips on what to look for and what to avoid. You’ll also discover the eroticizing effects of acupressure techniques, pelvic self-massage, tantric practices for focusing and expanding your sexual energy, and vaginal strengtheners and releasers, including exercises taught to women centuries ago in China for heightening sexual ecstasy.

With its exploration of both modern and time-honored sensual enhancers,
Chapter 6
includes sexual secrets that were readily available to your forebears but are typically off the radar of present-day conventional doctors, who are trained primarily in the use of drugs. Some of the natural sex-enhancers mentioned—particularly those you’ll find later in the chapter—can be thought of, like the traditional aphrodisiacs in
Chapter 5
, as your natural heritage, carefully preserved, handed down over many generations, and bequeathed to you. By using them to enhance your sexuality, you become the heir to some very long traditions, and a living legacy of their effectiveness and staying power.

—We take a different tack in
Chapter 7
, which explores your sexual health in a relationship, and the multitude of ways your partner’s sexuality can affect you. In an intimate relationship, your two libidos share a common interface—the realm where your two sexual energies meet and become conjoined—and your sexual health, to a degree, becomes mutual. Enhancing
his
sexuality can benefit yours, and conditions that compromise his sexual health can take a toll on your own. The more you know about supporting his sexual well-being and the specific sexual-health issues he may face during his life, the more you can strengthen your relationship and support your own sexuality.

With this in mind, in
Chapter 7
you’ll dive into a diversity of important male sexual-health issues. We’ll explore natural libido-enhancement methods for your partner, including herbal aphrodisiacs, nutritional supplements, and foods, as well as common conditions that can present challenges for his sexuality. You’ll discover natural solutions for erectile dysfunction, and look at the role of drugs like Viagra, their side effects, and how they can affect relationship dynamics. We’ll explore low testosterone in detail—its potential effects on your relationship, testing methods, and natural solutions (including bioidentical testosterone treatment) that can benefit you both immeasurably. You’ll also gain insights into andropause (male menopause); your partner’s hormonal transitions; prostate-gland issues; and a common cause of diminished sexual sensitivity in men, including how it can affect a woman during sex, and what can be done about it.

—In
Chapter 8
, as we near our journey’s completion, we’ll look back at the previous chapters from a different perspective, and explore ways you can apply what you discover in this book to create lasting changes in your life and make great sex your destiny. Along with an overview of the book’s key themes, this chapter includes your “call to action”—a rallying cry of the essential steps you can take to enhance your sexual energy and vitality with natural tools and techniques.
Chapter 8
also reaffirms your power to keep making choices that generate your sexual health and well-being, and the Afterword that follows offers closing reflections on the bright future in store for your sexuality.

What Is Natural Medicine, and How Can It Help You Have Great Sex?

Since this book is about how you can achieve great sex
naturally
, it reveals many connections between your sexual health and what’s natural. The ancient link between nature and sex is embedded in the English language; the words
nature
,
gender
, and
genital
all derive from the same Indo-European root. What do we mean by
natural?
In this book, the word is often used in reference to lifestyle choices you can make, and generally means “in accordance with your body’s inherent ability to continually re-create your health.” As you’ll discover, countless decisions you make every day can enhance your natural capacity for great health—and great sex.