Keeping sex healthy
For many people, an important goal in life is building a meaningful and
lasting relationship with someone they love. For others, it's more a matter of
having lots of fun with different partners and steering clear of long-term
commitment.
When sex goes right, it can bring real health benefits, including reduced
pain, a reduction in the risk of cancer and heart disease, and improved
fertility. It even increases men's lifespan. Psychologically, sex helps to
reduce stress, and can produce a deep sense of fulfilment as well as a spring in
the step afterwards. For some couples it also expresses the spiritual and
emotional bonding that has grown between them.
No surprise then that, for most of us, sexual relationships are top of the
list when things go wrong in our lives.
There can be many reasons for anxiety in our underlying approach to sex. One
is that, unlike any other knowledge that we acquire – driving a car, say, or
learning to play golf – we're somehow supposed to know what to do intuitively,
and to be able to read our partner's mind, knowing instinctively what will
please him or her. Talking with your partner about what you like, and really
getting to know each other's non-verbal clues, is the way forward here.
It's particularly tough if you're a man, because you're born knowing all
about sex. You can cope, so you don’t ask for help. At least, that's the way our
culture has traditionally played it. But things are gradually changing. Brook, a
charity providing advice to young people under 25 (at
http://www.brook.org.uk/), reports
that nowadays 20 per cent of its clients are men. Often the trigger is that
they've started being sexually active, and are accompanying their partner for
advice on female contraception.
Sadly, as men grow older, so the chance of suffering some degree of erectile
dysfunction (ED) increases – by the age of 70, around 75 per cent of men will
have experienced difficulty in achieving or maintaining an erection. Naturally,
this can play havoc with even the closest of relationships. There are several
possible causes, among them stress and anxiety, low testosterone, the effect of
medications taken for other conditions, or the use of street drugs such as
heroin, cocaine or methadone.
See your GP once ED has become more than an occasional problem. Doctors can
treat it in a variety of ways – Viagra is not the only method. In some cases, it
can be an indicator of a potential heart problem which needs to be sorted out,
particularly if someone has high blood pressure, raised cholesterol levels, is
obese and depressed. But, advises Dr Graham Jackson, consultant cardiologist at
the Guy's and St Thomas' Hospitals in London, this risk can be reduced if men
over 40 watch their weight, and regularly have these measurements checked out.
The thing is we are surprisingly ignorant about how our bodies work. Many of
us think a woman's fertile cycle amounts to two or three days a month, for
example, not realising that in the right conditions sperm can live in her body
for up to seven days. One result could be an unplanned pregnancy. And according
to the fpa (the new name of the Family Planning Association), 50 per cent of
unplanned pregnancies are aborted, not something women willingly wish on
themselves.
In fact, the fpa receives 200,000 enquiries a year on assorted topics, such
as 'Can the IUD get lost inside me?' or 'How does the cap work?' Similarly to
the Brook Centre, 20 per cent of enquiries now come from men. And the enquiries
are not just from the young. Divorce or bereavement mean noticeable numbers of
50-plus people – the pill generation – are back on the dating scene, seeking
advice on how to use a condom.
Condoms are the only form of contraception that also offers protection
against sexually-transmitted infections (STIs) – although it is important to
note that infections can be passed on through any kind of sexual contact.
Genital herpes can be spread through oral sex, for example. And STIs are
definitely on the rise. In the last 10 years gonorrhoea has risen by over 20 per
cent, syphilis cases are 22 times higher, and chlamydia is up by 400 per cent,
particularly among young people aged 16 to 19. There are also 63,500 people with
HIV in the UK, though it is reckoned that some 20,000 of them have not yet been
diagnosed.
Where to go for help? You can ask your GP for a sexual health check and
advice about safer sex, or visit an NHS walk-in centre or local genito-urinary
medicine (GUM) clinic. GUM clinics can be tracked via
http://www.condomessentialwear.co.uk/. In England and Wales, you can go to the pharmacy
for chlamydia screening (this scheme does not yet cover Scotland or Northern
Ireland). Most STIs, including chlamydia, gonorrhoea, syphilis and urinary tract
infections can be treated with a single course of antibiotics.
Advice is also available via NHS Direct on 0845 4647 (24 hours), or
http://www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk/. In Scotland, phone NHS 24 on 08454 242 424. In Northern
Ireland, contact your local health board via the phone directory or
http://www.healthandcareni.co.uk/.
The Sexual Health Information Line is a freephone service on 0800 567 123 (7
a.m. to 11 p.m. every day), or
http://www.playingsafely.co.uk/.
Sexual Health Direct, run by the fpa, is on 0845 310 1334 (9 a.m. to 6 p.m.,
Monday to Friday), or
http://www.fpa.org.uk/. |
