The Promise of Passion: Embracing New Beginnings
“No journey carries one far unless, as it extends into the world
around us, it goes an equal distance into the world within.”
—LILLIAN SMITH, THE JOURNEY
Imagine this: You’re 20 years older than you are now, and head over heels in love with the man of your dreams. You have the energy to exercise every day, take long walks, and entertain or go out every weekend. Your sexual vitality is so high that you often enjoy making love three or four times a week. You feel perpetually optimistic, deeply happy, and radiantly healthy. Isn’t this how you want to be 20 years from now—and at every other time in your life?
Are You Ready for a Sexual Power Surge?
If you’re looking for a way to recharge your sexual energy and at the same time transform your overall health at any age, then this is the book you’ve been waiting for. The first work of its kind devoted to optimizing women’s sexual health with the techniques of natural medicine, it covers a wealth of ancient secrets and modern methods for increasing your libido, including specific tips, advice, and practical information that has never been made widely available. The information in these pages empowers you to make changes in your life that will benefit you every day.
This book also directly addresses your concerns if you long for more intimacy in your life, but feel you just don’t have the energy to rekindle the flame of passion. If this is your experience, you’re not alone: an estimated 40 million American women struggle with diminished libido. According to some sources, statistics show that up to 63 percent of women experience some degree of sexual dysfunction during their lives, and low sexual desire is their most frequent concern.
You may experience low libido at any time in your life; it happens to women in their 20s and 30s, as well as those in midlife and their senior years. Perhaps you wake up one morning and realize that sex has become just another word. You know you’re missing something, because you vividly recall the rich connotation those three letters used to hold for you—how they once conveyed a sense of energy, mystery, and excitement, and seemed to conduct an almost palpable electrical charge. You may wonder what happened, and how such an alluring word could ever have lost its luster. Are you often more interested in watching television than making love? Did you somehow sublimate all your desire into accomplishments, friends, or family? Are you allotted only a limited supply of sexual energy to spend in your lifetime—a certain karmic quota—and can it be that you’ve already exhausted yours?
For many who practice conventional medicine, the answer is yes: your libido wanes, they may tell you, as your hormones change over the course of your life. This book invites you to not only question that answer, but disprove it in a hundred ways. It offers a refreshing perspective: you were designed by nature to be a sensual, vibrant, energetic woman for your entire life. Your sexuality changes through time, but that doesn’t mean loss; a waning libido can be a symptom of underlying imbalances—and opportunities for greater balance and sexual health. The truth is that at any age you can take charge of your sexuality and restore your libido, and sex can once again convey a sense of mystery, power, and passion in your life. As much as ever before, you can experience how it feels for your sexual energy to flourish, and know what it means to treasure pleasure.
Women’s sexual-health needs clearly aren’t being adequately met by conventional medicine. You see images of female sexuality projected everywhere in the media and advertising, yet if you need reliable advice on how to naturally cultivate sexual health, you may have nowhere to turn. At times in your life, your hormonal shifts result in physical and emotional changes that can dramatically affect your sexuality, but many physicians may overlook key sexual-health issues, or don’t know exactly what to tell women who need help in certain areas. Some women may be misdiagnosed as having anhedonia—the inability to experience pleasure—when in fact their pleasure potential is alive and well, and begging for the right treatment in order to be released. Our medical establishment perpetuates the notion that women should take conventional hormones, at some point in their lives, for many issues, and especially for reduced libido. But many women have legitimate concerns about hormones’ side effects, which include increased risk of heart disease and breast cancer.
One of the central ideas of this book—that your capacity for sexual pleasure and your overall health are profoundly connected—isn’t new. Many have alluded to it down through the ages. The idea appears in ancient Chinese medicine, which holds that sex is essential for health, and in some Western writings: in the 1900s, the controversial psychologist Wilhelm Reich was considered a pioneer by many for his work exploring the relationship between sexuality and health—although 21st-century women may find some of his ideas eccentric or difficult to grasp. Today, we have the advantage of a large body of accumulated scientific research to support the thesis that sexual pleasure and health are inextricably linked.
As we did research for this book, it was surprising to find how much of its material hasn’t yet been clearly elucidated or extensively published. This is, after all, the topic of sex; you tend to assume that it’s all been said before. Yet many priceless pearls of information—including even some specific aphrodisiacs—haven’t been made accessible in a reader-friendly way. (It seems hardly possible, for example, that everyone doesn’t already know all about such natural wonders as cordyceps, epimedium, catuaba, muira puama, and damiana, to name a few.) This book puts at your fingertips everything you need to naturally enhance your sexuality and take control of your sexual health in ways that will forever change your life. You can use it as your personal guide to what really works—the most effective tools and techniques on the subject, some handed down from one generation to the next for millennia, and others discovered in modern times.
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 sextillions.
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:
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.
The terms natural health and natural medicine, as used in this book, are based on the principles of naturopathic medicine, which holds the answers to the sexual-health issues of many women. Founded in the 19th century, naturopathic medicine is widely considered America’s original and most highly developed tradition of natural health care, and the best example of integrative or holistic medicine. With its focus on creating health rather than merely eliminating disease, and on using methods to stimulate the healing power of nature—your body’s innate capacity for maintaining and restoring health—naturopathic medicine strives to avoid drugs with potentially harmful side effects.
Naturopathic medicine sees symptoms as red flags that your body, in its wisdom, gives you to indicate that something needs to change—its way of trying to reestablish a natural balance—rather than indications that you need pharmaceutical medication. If you experience headaches, for example, it isn’t because you suffer from an aspirin deficiency. While drugs often suppress symptoms without addressing their underlying causes, the goal of naturopathic medicine is to treat the deeper causes and bring your body back into balance. The most natural, least toxic methods are always used first, and pharmaceutical medicines, surgery, and other invasive techniques may be recommended only as last resorts. There’s a time and place for drugs, and they can be lifesaving, but statistically they’re also among the leading causes of death in the United States. Natural treatments, on the other hand, are clearly much safer; statistics reveal, for example, that the number of annual deaths in the U.S. caused by vitamins and antioxidants (which can also be lifesaving, in less obvious ways) is virtually zero.
The naturopathic approach considers every aspect of your health, including physical, nutritional, environmental, mental, emotional, and spiritual factors. The emphasis is on lifestyle and prevention—keeping your body strong, and your immunity in good condition through diet, exercise, detoxification, stress management, natural hormones, mental and emotional support, nontoxic alternatives to environmental chemicals, and much more. Naturopathic medicine is all about your choices and your role as a free agent, capable of shaping your own health destiny. You have the power to make wise choices that supply every cell in your body with what it needs to function optimally, and you also have the power to remove obstacles to your well-being. This book provides you with many naturopathic treasures you can use to make choices everywhere in your life that will revitalize both your health and your libido. (To learn more about naturopathic medicine, and how to find a doctor trained in natural medicine, see Appendix B.)
Some of the natural health secrets you’ll find in this book are drawn from other healing traditions, most notably Chinese medicine. Like naturopathic medicine, this uses natural, nontoxic means; places great emphasis on diet; and considers every feature of your body, mind, and spirit, including environmental factors and behavior patterns. For millennia, Chinese medicine has also emphasized prevention; one of its most revered texts, The Medical Rules of the Yellow Emperor, from the 3rd century B.C., compares waiting until you have a health problem and then treating it to waiting until you’re thirsty and then digging a well.
Chinese medicine is based on the concept of chi, or life force, which courses through your body, brings you vitality and well-being, causes growth and transformation, and protects you from foreign invaders like toxins and bacteria. If you keep your chi abundant, you’ll be vigorous and healthy; but if your chi becomes deficient or “stuck,” you’ll be vulnerable to pain and illness. Your chi comes, in part, from the food you eat and air you breathe; you can influence it with your diet, herbs, exercise, and other lifestyle choices. And since chi runs through your body in channels known as meridians, you can affect its flow by pressing on acupressure points along your meridians. In this book, you’ll discover many ways you can strengthen your chi and enhance your sexual energy with lifestyle choices and acupressure.
Also important in Chinese medicine are the forms of chi known as yin and yang—opposing forces found throughout nature that shape one another and interact continually. Yin is often represented by feminine sexual energy, darkness, the earth, inwardness, and cold; and yang by masculine sexual energy, light, the sky, outwardness, and heat. Wholeness is achieved whenever yin and yang are joined harmoniously; you’re healthy, and your sexual energy can function optimally, when you balance the two in your body, mind, and spirit. In the pages ahead, you’ll discover numerous ways of balancing your yin and yang energy to enhance your sexuality.
The traditional symbol of yin and yang.
Great Love, Naturally
Anyone can go through the act of sex and appear, on the surface, to have “great sex.” But great sex involves something greater than great sex. It’s about your longing for love and your desire to be whole. You live in the world of your individual mind and body, yet you yearn for the loving connection to another. Sex is your most primal form of reaching out, touching, joining, receiving, giving, sharing, and expressing love. It’s at the root of your existence; central to who you are; and integral to your innermost desires, passions, and attractions. The expression of love through sex can give you a sense of being “one,” not only with another human but with the universe—transporting you to a state of blissful interconnectedness that, perhaps for just a few fleeting moments, seems eternal.
That’s why this book, although it’s about sex, is also about much more than sex. One of the great secrets about sexual energy is that it’s not just for between the sheets. Your sexuality isn’t only a matter of genital pleasure, intercourse, and orgasm; research shows that sex activates many of your other physical, cognitive, and emotional capacities. Your sexual energy affects your entire life, touching every dimension of your being. This is reflected in Chinese medicine, which sees your sexual energy as indistinguishable from the vital force that brings potent healing effects to all parts of your body. Your sexuality lies at the core of your life energy, in the wellspring of your creativity and spirit.
This is the greater meaning of “great sex,” and what this book is all about. You can use the information gathered in these pages not only to recharge your libido and electrify your sexuality, but also as a way of tapping into the power of your sexual energy to light up your life on all levels. By enhancing your sexual well-being—an essential component of your happiness—you can transform your world. This is why, if you incorporate what you discover in this book into your life, you may find that your partner, friends, or co-workers notice quantum leaps in the amount of energy, confidence, and joie de vivre that you exude.
When we refer to sex as “making love,” we imply that it literally creates love. The phrase illuminates our intuitive awareness that sex can manifest the strongest possible state of emotional bonding and unity; we know that real eroticism engenders intense compassion and empathy. Sex and love are inseparable, it seems, even linguistically; the words libido and love share a common ancestor.
By expanding your capacity for sexual union through the natural means described in this book, you can liberate the formidable influence of love in your life more fully. Love repairs relationships, changes cultures, moves mountains, and makes the world go ’round, but sex without it does none of these. To paraphrase the famous saying: without love, it is nothing.
Just as sex makes love, love makes sex better; it is your most powerful aphrodisiac. Intriguing research on sexual pleasure and the brain’s emotional center suggests that orgasms may be more euphoric when people are in love.
This is a multifaceted book; sex, like love, is a many-splendored thing. But while the chapters ahead give you a wide assortment of tools you can use to achieve great sex—and many involve physical methods for enhancing your libido—it’s important to remember that great sex can be a natural consequence of great intimacy. Paradoxically, you may find that the greatest sex derives not from focusing on whether you have the greatest sex, but from focusing on whether you have the greatest love.
