Reigniting Intimacy and Sexuality After You’re Ill
Helping Men and Women
Revive Intimacy after Cancer and Other Illnesses
by Rabbi Dr. Ed Weinsberg
Copyright © 2012 by Rabbi Ed Weinsberg, EdD, DD
Health Success Media
Sarasota, Florida
Smashwords Edition
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without the express permission of the author.
Introduction: When You Lose Your “Mojo”
Intimacy versus Sexuality—Two Keys to Self-Healing
Major Illnesses That Impact Sexuality & Intimacy
Five Obstacles to Intimacy and Sexuality after a Major Illness
Ten Strategies for Reigniting Intimacy & Sexuality after Major Illness
1. “Make Love,” Don’t Just “Have Sex”
2. Use the S-T-I-C-K Method for Whole-Body Sex
3. Discuss Intimacy and Sexuality with your Doctor
4. Determine if Hormone Treatments are Right for You
5. Redefine What it Means to be a Man or Woman
6. Communicate Effectively with your Spouse or Partner
8. Pursue Erotic Activities Together
9. Develop a Healthy Lifestyle
10. Keep the Faith to Regain Intimacy
Common Responses to a Partner’s Emotional & Sexual Withdrawal
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Questions? Just Write and Rabbi Ed Will Reply!
Introduction: When You Lose Your “Mojo”
“Mojo” is a slang term that means magic or charm. It refers to a person’s sex drive (libido), sex appeal, confidence, and sexual attraction. When you “lose your mojo,” it means you’ve lost your magnetic sexual energy and personal magnetism, and feel inadequate as a person. Losing your mojo, along with your self-esteem, occurs all too often due to the debilitating effects of prostate, breast and other cancers or illnesses as well as their treatment side-effects.
An accompanying sense of personal loss intensifies as many boomers and seniors age. I personally experienced this after my prostate cancer diagnosis and robotic surgery between January and April of 2007. The loss of sexual functioning, fostered by adverse treatment effects, deflated my male ego like a sharp rock on the road shreds a speeding car’s front tires.
The result for me was that I unwittingly withdrew from the person I love most, my wife of nearly 40 years. This brought our physical, emotional and spiritual intimacy to a screeching halt. Only nine-plus months later did I finally wake up and revise my self-destructive behavior that also was so hurtful to my partner in life. But before I could renew our special relationship, I first had to develop strategies for reigniting intimacy that I will share with you in this book.
Even when a person isn’t impacted by an illness of the kind you or I have experienced, the gradual loss of sexual verve during our forties, fifties and beyond, in many but not all cases, hits home more forcefully. At this developmental stage, men begin to lose about 1 percent of testosterone annually, and women’s natural estrogen recycling declines during and after menopause. Combined, these outcomes are sure-fire ways for reducing self-confidence in our masculinity or femininity, particularly since the incidence of cancer increases with age, along with the prospect of adverse treatment effects like sexual dysfunction.
All too often, physical and psychological trauma caused by cancer and other illness result in sexual dysfunctions, from a lower libido or sex drive, to the reduction of sexual functioning. The flow of blood that engorges male or female genitals can subside or disappear altogether for 30 to 80 percent of prostate cancer survivors and 25 to 60 percent of breast cancer survivors, depending on the stage of the illness and the adverse treatment side effects. While medications and medical devices can offset at least 70 percent of sexual dysfunctions, it’s vital to consider how emotional and spiritual means can help survivors reconnect with their spouses or partners.
This ebook addresses the question of how we can get our sexual mojo back and reignite our passion. This will benefit survivors by reinvigorating their sex lives while increasing their energy and happiness from day to day. In turn, regaining your sexual and general energy will have a positive impact on those whose lives intersect with yours.
The book’s main purpose is to help you reignite sexuality and intimacy after cancer and other serious illnesses. Aside from this, however, we’ll address a broad range of related concerns:
* The inevitability of pain
* How sexuality and intimacy are not identical terms, though both are keys to self-healing
* The nature and role of foreplay
* Major illnesses (cancer and others) that have an impact on sexuality and intimacy
We’ll also describe obstacles to intimacy and sexuality after an illness and offer ten strategies for reigniting intimacy and sexuality.
This ebook is a prelude to an even more in-depth, four-hour series of videos that will help you or someone you love revive intimacy and sexuality after an illness like cancer. That video, 10 Strategies for Reigniting Intimacy and Sex after a Major Illness, consists of ten individual video modules, 15 to 30 minutes each, that comprise The Intimacy Development System (I.D.S.).
IDS alludes to the Freudian theory that each of us possesses an id - a primal sexual drive that constantly seeks expression. We hope you’ll consider viewing the IDS video presentation as it can help transform your life by increasing the satisfaction you derive in your most personal relationships. The IDS video is available at http://bit.ly/IntimacyStrategies.
As an added feature of this program, after reading this book or after viewing the IDS video, if you and/or your partner have survived cancer or some other serious illness, you’re invited to contact Rabbi Ed at Rabbi-Ed@GreatSexAfterCancer.com for a 30-minute Discovery Consultation. He is offering the gift of his time on a first-come first-served limited basis for those of you who want a Reigniting Intimacy Break-Through Session.
The Inevitability of Pain
According to Rabbi Harold Kushner, author of When Bad Things Happen to Good People and other books, “Pain is part of being alive, and we need to learn that. Pain does not last forever, nor is it necessarily unbeatable. And we need to be taught that.”
As Rabbi Kushner implies pain is universal from birth through death. Every mother who bears a child knows this, as does every infant, although we trust that children tend to forget the earliest pain of childbirth itself.
Throughout our lives, we experience pain at various levels of intensity due to physical and emotional illnesses or difficult relationships. In turn this affects our quality of life in various domains, including sexuality and intimacy. The good news is that more often than not we can learn to release ourselves from the grip of pain, even though there are no guarantees.
Those of us who have suffered from a severe illness like cancer or from adverse treatment effects, and those who love us, can and must do our part in the healing process. After all, whether consciously or not, healing comes from within. We may feel it’s the doctor who can cure us, but his or her primary role is to give us the tools to heal ourselves. At best our doctors are medical guides, who help us do our part to heal as quickly and completely as possible.
Intimacy versus Sexuality—Two Keys to Self-Healing
Intimacy and sexuality are keys to self-healing. While many people interchange both words, there is a distinction between these two related concepts of human behavior. Intimacy is often used as a euphemism for sexuality or for sex in numerous articles and conversations, but they are not always the same.
By itself sexuality refers to the physical aspect of our being, which can be equated with sensuality. It refers not only to behavior involving one’s genitals, but to various parts of the body which elicit arousal, warmth, connection, and attraction.
Intimacy can include physical sexuality, but goes well beyond that. Intimacy refers to the capacity of two or more people to bond with each other either physically, emotionally or spiritually, or in all three ways. On the other hand, it is possible for kindred spirits to have no sexual connection at all.
For an extreme example consider how monks relate to each other in a monastery. It is possible for monks to share intellectual intimacy by studying and living together, which in turn can lead to camaraderie, partnership and a sense of kinship. Even though such intimacy excludes explicit sexuality, it leads to genuine bonding.
Intimacy in general, and sexual intimacy in particular, are keys to self-healing since both can bring us to a better place in our lives. The distinction between the two terms, then, is not a matter of semantics but comprises genuine differences we need to comprehend. Realizing this will help us implement one or both processes for our mutual pleasure, while providing healing after temporary or prolonged disruptions due to isolation, disinterest, or illness.
The Role of Foreplay
People think of sexuality as something that happens either when two people flirt on the street or interact in the bedroom.
The fact is that you can display sexual affection in all kinds of settings, even in the kitchen or laundry room! The simplest, most mundane act can convey love and caring for another person. This in turn will warm the heart of your significant other and reignite the sexual sparks between you. Any sign of affection for another person who is the subject of your desire can contribute to sexual intimacy. So it is that being affectionate from day to day in every way is the best kind of foreplay.
Foreplay itself is not incidental to having sex. Indeed foreplay is “core play,” when it becomes the major thrust of lovemaking (pun intended)! This means that intercourse is not necessarily the end point or climax of intimacy as so many believe. But we’ll elaborate on that later in this book.