Most of learn most of what we need to know to be successful adults from the adults in our life: parents, teachers, relatives. We learn how to read, add and subtract, drive a car, be a friend, be on time, be a good worker. Everything, that is, except how to have a successful intimate relationship.

Read more of my thoughts on this challenge in my article, Sex Is Learned Behavior, on The Blog at David Yarian PhD.

An important element in finding a better sex life is learning how to talk with your partner about sex.  Most adults know how to talk about all kinds of things with their significant other – from plans for the weekend, to what kind of car to buy – but when the topic is sex, it all seems to go out the window. Read more

Marty Klein is one of my favorite authors. He’s a sex therapist in Palo Alto who consistently publishes thought-provoking books, filled with fresh ideas and revolutionary concepts about sexuality and healthy sexual relationships.

His new book – just released — is Sexual Intelligence: What We Really Want From Sex, And How to Get It, published by Harper Collins. Read more

It surprises me, though it probably shouldn’t, how sex is often portrayed in popular movies. What gets me is how quickly it occurs. Two people are having an intense conversation and suddenly Read more

Many people experience performance anxiety, and it can lie at the root of a number of sexual problems including erectile dysfunction, premature ejaculation, delayed ejaculation, difficulty reaching orgasm in women and general lack of arousal.

Performance anxiety means, simply, that you’re worried about your ability to perform an important task. Sexually this may mean that a man may be afraid that he won’t get an erection, or that he may lose his erection; or a woman may fear that she won’t become aroused or have an orgasm. Read more

I’ve recently created a new online resource for adults wishing to learn more about sexuality and how to create more erotic enjoyment in their lives. It’s called Joy of Making Love and it’s filled with reviews of terrific books, video and music that celebrate the joy of making love and the pleasures of erotic connection. Read more

Sometimes in my conversations with clients I refer to something I call the Continuum of Sexual Experience. This is a graphical representation of the range of possible experiences in a sexual relationship. Read more

Welcome to my blog! Here I will post occasional “notes” – musings on the rich complexity of human sexuality, the diversity of human sexual behavior, and the interface between sexuality and culture.

I’m a practicing sex therapist, and I count it a privilege to sit with individuals and couples who are exploring their sexual lives and seeking to effect change. Many of us in Western culture have sexual wounding, whether from abuse, neglect, or simple ignorance. Our culture has few good models on offer to show the way towards healthy, high-functioning sexuality. I sometimes say that our culture is both sexually repressed – and at the same time sexually obsessed. We’re continuing to shortchange our children by sending them into adolescence with limited understanding of their changing bodies and how to best relate to themselves and others as sexual beings. While the kids are trying to figure it out, they are being bombarded with sexual imagery and content from advertising, movies, television, music, porn, romance novels… it comes from everywhere. Read more