sex drive

[i will edit this as your comments show me what you don't understand. please send people links or if you're going to print this wait a day or two okay? {so egotistical to assume you'll want to pass it on}]

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hah! got your attention didn't i?

read this please, and think about it for the people in your life because it may apply. BUT please remember that i am not a doctor and this is ANECDOTAL. don't know what anecdotal means? read this (number three is most applicable in this case.)

i have been noticing something in a LOT of my clients and it's starting to really disturb me. almost all of the women who have had children have either lost their sex drives or their urinary control or both.

this often manifests as neck strain causing massive headaches or upper back and shoulder/neck aches. in every case there is a distinct lack of pelvic floor control or strength or action to go along with this. [the neck strain is because your pelvic floor holds up your head, yes i'm willing to elaborate]

now look, even if you don't care about your sex drive the being able to stop your pee thing? big. very, very big. i do not want to wear a diaper when i'm eighty okay?

and boys? don't think you're exempt. i have more than one old man who complains that he can't get things to work anymore AND that the blue pill doesn't work. it doesn't work because they've disconnected from their pelvis and their pelvic floor and because there ain't any muscle tone to be found.

i'm getting really disturbed. i mean i have a pile of women who cannot make their urine stop midstream. now i don't think that that's actually a healthy thing to do as an exercise but as a diagnostic idea for checking it ain't bad. next time you're peeing see if you can stop it mid stream. no more than twice and not frequently, it's a test, you don't need to do it often okay?

what's funny is that you would think pelvic floor was the one thing we would all learn to work. it's basically the basket that contains our organs AND? well you can use those muscles for um internal massage purposes and it facilitates healthy breathing and bladder control. [yes, of course i mean internal massage in a dirty way.]

but no, we're so embarassed to use the word vagina that after a woman gives birth we don't teach her to put her body back together again down there! i mean who in the universe thinks it's a good plan to gain fifty pounds, pop out a ten pound soccer ball from an exit the size of the hole in a sprite can and start carrying said ten pound and growing soccer ball around without rebuilding those muscles?

EVERYONE that's who.

it's ridiculous. one lady has been incontinent for nine years and she isn't fucking forty yet.

another one hasn't wanted her husband since her third kid, her first kid, her second kid, her last kid... so many broken women. women who said 'oh yeah, i used to be a nympho' and now? nothing. it's enough to make you weep.

i ask them, these women, what their doctors and surgeons and caregivers told them to do after their birth and all of them mention an exercise or two that was casually mentioned once and never heard of again. because you know, in that haze of birthing induced hormones women are listening and retaining really well.

a fellow teacher went to a urologist at a respected hospital with a member of her family and while there collected some brochures that contained advice for incontinent women. instead of working their ACTUAL pelvic floors this brochure, which NEVER mentioned the word vagina even though it was about WOMEN who can't stop their pee, advised that they clench their 'try not to fart muscles.'

ask me how those muscles relate to the pee holding in ones. come on, ask me.

NOT AT FUCKING ALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

oh it's enough to make you weep with rage it's so stupid.

so. without further ado. some pelvic floor muscles for you. please ask if any of this doesn't make sense.

yes, you really do have to put your hand on your pubic bone.

lay on your back on the floor with your feet flat on the ground about a foot and a half from your hips and your knees bent. breathe at least ten breaths before you start to let your body settle. think a little about your breath and inhale with your nose, long and slow and feel it pooling into the bottom back of your lungs as your ribs expand out to the side like an accordion.

exhale with your mouth in a long slow sigh and feel your breastbone, that bone between your ribs that runs from your collarbone down to where your ribs meet in the middle at the bottom, melt like molasses toward your waistband where it crosses your spine.

ten times.

then put the soles of your feet together and let your legs fall open to the sides. if this hurts stop and do the next exercise instead.

place the heel of your hand on your hip bone and your fingers on your pubic bone. yes it's a bone, it's where your legs meet and it's actually two bones with thick crap in between. poke it, it's bone. good hands go there, not low on your tummy somewhere near your pubic bone.

that triangle you've formed with your hands should be relatively level. if it isn't think about your pelvis reaching genty into the distance (away from your head) but don't force your back down flat on the floor, there should be a little space.

inhale for nothing.
exhale squeeze the soles of your feet together.

if your pubic bone lifts into your fingers you're using your bum. no bum allowed.

inhale release.
exhale squeeze the soles of your feet together and then gently squeeze your knees like you're squeezing a giant exercise ball.

if your pubic bone lifts into your fingers you're using your bum. no bum allowed. all you can do is tell your bum not to help and keep trying. if it keeps insisting on helping work less hard.

inhale release.
exhale squeeze the soles of your feet together and then your knees and then the tops of your inner thighs.

did i mention no bum? cause i really really mean it.

inhale release.
exhale squeeze the soles of your feet together and then your knees and then the tops of your inner thighs and pull up on your pelvic floor.

keep doing that for at least fifteen repetitions.

here's some metaphors that help.

women think of an elevator at your entrance that you are drawing up inside you to behind your bellybutton.

men think of walking into a very very cold lake. yup that's it, genitals run screaming to the lungs.

alternately think of testicles and pulling them in.

you should feel a column of muscle running up behind your bellybutton. you can get it to work even higher but if you can hit your belly button you're doing pretty well.

tell your partner i said 'you're welcome' :)


okay for those of you that can't lie in that position or can't feel their pelvic floor in that exercise. get a kitchen chair. sit on it and splay your legs pretty wide. put your hands on your inner knees and press out against them, they resist against your hands and you should feel work in your inner thighs.

pitch forward at your hips, keep your back straight, and then pull up.

seriously just think of pulling up and you should feel some lovely work in your pelvic floor and lower abs. if that doesn't work then the metaphors in the above exercise apply equally well to this one.
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ahh, feels nice to get that off my chest.