Stuff You Should Know – Sex

We thought it’d be fun to look at the age-old myths about sex — like the one saying men think about sex every seven seconds — and ask our experts to demystify them. We asked fertility specialist Dr. Bradford Kolb and behavioral scientist Dr. Gail Wyatt for the hot-and-heavy truth.

Myth #1
“You can avoid pregnancy by jumping up and down after sex.” FALSE: Once sperm gets inside you, says Kolb, it spreads and lubricates the entire area. “You can’t bounce it out of you. In fact, if your partner sees you bouncing around like that, it might just excite him more,” he says.

Myth #2
“Men think about sex every seven seconds.” FALSE: “Men do think about sex a lot, but so do women,” says Wyatt. “Most won’t admit it because it doesn’t seem ladylike.” But as for the frequency of male thoughts about sex? “That wouldn’t give you time to think about anything else. Whoever that man is, he needs to get a job and make some money.”

Myth #3
“A cold shower can douse libido.” TRUE: “If you are on trajectory to being aroused, you are getting warm, and your heart is pumping more,” says Wyatt. “When you take a cold shower you slow the process down. If you don’t want to be aroused, it’s the right thing to do!”

Myth #4
“You can’t get pregnant during that time of the month.” FALSE: If your menstrual cycle is normal, it’s highly unlikely you’ll get pregnant during your period. But sometimes your period is not your period — it’s intermenstrual spotting, and you may well be ovulating at the same time, says Dr. Kolb.

Myth #5
“If you have sexual thoughts about someone of the same gender, you’re bisexual.” FALSE: “[Being] aroused by thinking about somebody of your own sex does not necessarily mean that’s your sexual orientation,” says Wyatt. “That’s fantasy. That’s arousal. That’s what’s on TV. And those things can be separate from sexual orientation.”

Myth #6
“If your husband watches porn that means he’s not satisfied with you.” FALSE: “Your husband is trying to get aroused but maybe he wants to transfer that arousal to you,” says Wyatt. “Maybe it signals you need to work harder at arousing your partner. In any case, this begs a conversation with your partner!”

Myth #7
“Once you have a baby, your sex life is over.” TRUE AND FALSE: “There’s no question that having a vaginal birth will change you down there,” says Kolb. “But sex is much more than physical stimulation. It’s also about intimacy.” Wyatt suggests this solution: “The vagina is a muscle, so you’ve got to work it out. Do your Kegels, ladies! Thirty at every stoplight!”

Myth #8
“Masturbating too much can make you go blind.” FALSE: “And it doesn’t cause hair to grow on your palms either!” says Kolb. “The only way masturbating can cause vision problems if you are also staring at the computer watching porn all the time.”

Myth #9
“Celibacy can make you crazy!” (Kind of) TRUE: “Many people who are celibate in their twenties and thirties have turned off their sexual cues so they don’t know what stimulates them,” says Wyatt. “They may be so inhibited and shut down that they become depressed. Sex is a natural drive — like a need for water or air. Everyone needs to express themselves sexually.”

Myth #10
“You can’t catch an STD from oral sex.” FALSE: “Oral sex doesn’t protect you from the transmission of diseases,” says Kolb, who adds that he once had a lesbian client who caught gonorrhea from her female partner, who in turn had caught it when she engaged in oral sex with a man (yes, cheating!).
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Everyone’s received their fair share of truly terrible love advice, whether from Internet forums, or over-enthusiastic great-aunts. But we’d argue that the advice printed in your run-of-the-mill drugstore magazines is often the most egregious. These magazines are often gender-oriented; but the bad advice is bestowed equally upon men and women. Sometimes this advice perpetuates outdated stereotypes, sometimes it encourages crazy behavior and sometimes it does both. Ultimately, the sweeping generalizations do both men and women a disservice.Here’s our translation of what magazines are really telling you when they give advice about love and sex:

On Attraction
What Cosmo says to women: “The best thing to say to a guy you just met on the beach: ‘I bet you’re wondering how I avoid tan lines.’”
What we’re hearing:

What Men’s Health says to men: “Can’t take your eyes off her nearly-see-through dress? Don’t — she’s scantily clad for a reason.”
What we’re hearing:

On “getting lucky”:
What Cosmo says to women: “To separate yourself from the pack, you’ll need to pull a move so wild, he won’t be able to stop thinking about it the next day.”
What we’re hearing:

What Men’s Health says to men: “Talk her into bed… get lucky tonight by choosing your words carefully.”
What we’re hearing:

On the ups and downs of relationships:
What Cosmo says to women: “New research claims that male sexual impulses, i.e. owning a penis, could be the main reason why guys just can’t stop chasing tail. So, try to find a dude without one.”
What we’re hearing:

What Men’s Health says to men: “Manage her paranoia — stop the green-eyed monster rearing it’s ugly head.”
What we’re hearing:

On communication:
What Cosmo says to women: “It can’t be repeated enough: Guys have a low threshold for mindless chatter. If you’re rambling on about your friends, coworkers, or anything you read on a gossip site, he’s gonna feign interest, then fake an emergency doctor’s appointment.”
What we’re hearing:

What Men’s Health says to men: “Make sure she knows how beautiful she is and how sexually skilled she is, especially if she isn’t — sexually skilled, that is.”
What we read:

On “wild” sex:
What Cosmo says to women: “Press a fork (firmly, but don’t break the skin or anything) into different parts of his body — his butt cheeks, his pecs, his thighs.”
What we’re hearing:

What Men’s Health says to men: “Get naked! Pour peppermint schnapps in her belly button. Sip it.”
What we’re hearing:

It’s startling to really examine the love lessons that are lurking beneath the cheerful quips and shiny stock photos we see in popular magazines. Some of the advice is too ridiculous to take seriously (we sincerely hope nobody was inspired to bring a fork into the bedroom…). But many of these tips contain echoes of persistent, insidious gender stereotypes that limit what we expect from ourselves and of the opposite sex. And that, my friends, ain’t sexy.
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