Less stress, a stronger heart, lower blood pressure, better resistance and night’s sleep, calorie-burning; a good sex life has many health benefits.
Less well researched is how bad it is for our health not to have a sex life. One of the few and scientifically proven health disadvantages only affects men. According to research from Harvard University, in which 32,000 participants were followed for eight years, men who ejaculate at least 21 times a month are less likely to develop prostate cancer than men who ejaculate four to seven times a month.
It is not yet clear what exactly the connection is between sex and the development of prostate cancer, according to sexologist Jelto Drenth. “The idea exists that someone who has ejaculated all his life relieves his prostate. If you never ejaculate, this could cause a kind of engorgement in the area and that could be a cause of benign prostate enlargement in elderly men. This is a fairly harmless condition that can easily be remedied with medication.”
In any case, a link between little sex and health complaints is difficult to prove, says Marieke Dewitte, sexologist and clinical psychologist at Maastricht University. “It’s a bit of a chicken and egg story, because does living without sex cause the complaints, or could it also be that someone already has complaints and therefore has less sex?”
According to Dewitte, the lack of knowledge about complaints related to sexuality in women also has another cause. For a long time, science was not interested in female sexuality. “For a long time, sex has been looked at from a biological point of view: as a means of reproduction. The woman’s pleasure was not seen as relevant.”
Because men dominated science for a long time, the male gaze also prevailed in research into sex. “In the time of psychologist Sigmund Freud, women with sexual desire were seen as nymphomaniacs; there was something very wrong with that. Researchers are now catching up, but there is a huge backlog in knowledge about female sexuality.” For example, the internal part of the clitoris was only discovered in 1998.
A complicating factor is that sex has not only a physical but also a mental influence on our well-being. “In relationships where partners feel more connected through sex with each other, this can have a positive effect on health.” People with a serious illness can also benefit from it. “They still have a feeling of belonging when they have sex and that can contribute to healing. Ultimately, the point is not that sleeping together is healthy, but that you enjoy the act.”
Even though sex is healthy, the desire for it may be less or absent in some periods of our lives. According to Drenth, this does not necessarily have to do with age. “I know a man, a 77-year-old widower, who has a new girlfriend with whom he does it three times a day. That is probably more often on average than someone of 30 with a busy job and a family.”
So the shorter the relationship, the more often we do it? Drenth: “If the government were to take measures to get people to have more sex, say ‘the Gross National Sexual Product’ had to increase, then we would not be allowed to work more than 30 hours a week and not stay with the same partner for more than five years .”
Dewitte emphasizes that it is not important for a healthy sex life how often or how little you do it. There are happy relationships without sex and it won’t kill an asexual person either. “It’s about agreeing on what happens between the sheets. Communication about what you really want and like or don’t like is important to achieve a satisfying, healthy relationship.”
It is sad that if you do not have a sex partner, the health benefits are missed. That is relative, says Drenth: “Solo sex is also sex. From a purely physical point of view, it is not healthier with two people than on your own. For a lot of people it is more fun to do it together, but on your own and with a little imagination, people can sometimes enjoy it even more intensely than with a permanent partner.”
Sex can be an important addition to people’s bond, says sexologist and clinical psychologist Dewitte: “And therefore for the happiness of life with your partner. We know from research that men live longer with a partner than without a lover.”
Sometimes sex doesn’t happen because the meaning is missing. According to sexologist Marieke Dewitte, this can have ‘a lot of reasons’: “Illness, medication such as antidepressants and excessive alcohol or drug use can influence sexual desire.” Hormones also have an influence. “If you are in love, you produce all kinds of hormones and that makes your sexual system active faster and you therefore have sex faster and more often.”
If you start living together, desire may decrease. “What you wanted is then constantly available. If there is no shortage, you cannot desire it.” Routine can also creep in. After a while you know which buttons to press to satisfy each other, and that can cause less desire. “If you do it less often, you will produce less testosterone and your sex life can, as it were, fall asleep.”
Does it not matter to you and your partner that you have less or no sex? “Then that’s okay too. We live in a sex-oriented society, but there is nothing wrong with you if you don’t feel like having sex for a while,” says Dewitte.
If you want to breathe new life into your sex life, provide new stimuli. Think of a day at the sauna together, using sex toys, watching a porn film, dancing together or treating yourself by taking time to masturbate. Dewitte: “Think of it as going to the gym; Sometimes you have to make sense and then you feel better about it afterwards.”
This article was previously on AD.nl.
AD – Chantal van WeesGetty Images23 September 2023, 12:00
Also read
2023-09-23 10:00:07
#unhealthy #dont #sex #sexologists #explain
