Based on data obtained from nearly 100,000 respondents, here is the ultimate resource for anyone who wants to learn the relationship-tested ways couples can achieve satisfaction and contentment in areas such as communication, sex, affection, and financial cooperation.What constitutes “normal” behavior among happy couples?  What steps you should take if that “normal” is one you want to strive for?  To help answer those questions, wellness entrepreneur Chrisanna Northrup teamed with two of America’s top sociologists, Yale Ph.D.  Pepper Schwartz and Harvard Ph.D. James Witte, to design a unique interactive survey that would draw feedback from around the world.  What has resulted is the clearest picture yet of how well couples are communicating, romancing each other, satisfying each other in the bedroom, sharing financial responsibilities, and staying faithful – or not.  Since the Normal Bar survey methodology sorts for age and gender, racial and geographic differences and sexual preferences, the authors are able to reveal , for example, what happens to passion as we grow older, which gender wants what when it comes to sex, the factors that spur marital combat, how kids figure in, how being gay or bisexual turns out to be both different and the same, and –regardless of background -- the tiny habits that drive partners absolutely batty.The book is dense with revelations, from the unexpected popularity of certain sexual positions, to the average number of times happy – and unhappy -- couples kiss, to the prevalence of lying, to the surprising loyalty most men and women feel for their partner (even when in a deteriorating relationship), to the vivid and idiosyncratic ways individuals of different ages, genders and nationalities describe their “ideal romantic evening.”Much more than a peek behind the relationship curtain, The Normal Bar offers readers an array of prescriptive tools that will help them establish a “new normal.” Mindful of what keeps couples stuck in ruts, the book’s authors suggest practical and life-changing ways to break cycles of disappointment and frustration.

Pamela Haag has written the generational big book on modern marriage, a mesmerizing, sometimes salacious look at the semi-happy ambivalence lurking just below the surface of many marriages today. The spouses may rarely fight—they may maintain a sincere affection for each other—but one or both may harbor a melancholy sense that something important is missing. Remarkably, this side of the marriage story hasn't been told or analyzed—until now. Meticulously researched and injected with insightful firsthand accounts and welcome doses of humor, Marriage Confidential articulates for a generation that grew up believing they would have it all why they have ended up disenchanted. Haag introduces us to contemporary marriages where spouses act more like life partners than lovers; children occupy an uncontested position at the center of the marital relationship; and even the romantic staples of sexual fidelity and passion are assailed from all sides—so much so that spouses can end up having affairs online almost by accident. Blending tales from the front lines of matrimony with cultural history, surveys, and research covert-ops (such as joining an online affair-finding site and posting a personal ad in the New York Review of Books), Haag paints a detailed picture of the state of marriage today. And to show what's possible as well as what's melancholy in our post-romantic age, Haag seeks out marriages with a twist—rebels who are quietly brainstorming and evolving the scripts around career, money, social life, child rearing, and sex. Provocative but sympathetic, forward-thinking and bold, here, at last, is a manifesto for living large in marriage.

Pamela Haag has written the generational big book on modern marriage, a mesmerizing, sometimes salacious look at the semi-happy ambivalence lurking just below the surface of many marriages today. The spouses may rarely fight—they may maintain a sincere affection for each other—but one or both may harbor a melancholy sense that something important is missing. Remarkably, this side of the marriage story hasn't been told or analyzed—until now. Meticulously researched and injected with insightful firsthand accounts and welcome doses of humor, Marriage Confidential articulates for a generation that grew up believing they would have it all why they have ended up disenchanted. Haag introduces us to contemporary marriages where spouses act more like life partners than lovers; children occupy an uncontested position at the center of the marital relationship; and even the romantic staples of sexual fidelity and passion are assailed from all sides—so much so that spouses can end up having affairs online almost by accident. Blending tales from the front lines of matrimony with cultural history, surveys, and research covert-ops (such as joining an online affair-finding site and posting a personal ad in the New York Review of Books), Haag paints a detailed picture of the state of marriage today. And to show what's possible as well as what's melancholy in our post-romantic age, Haag seeks out marriages with a twist—rebels who are quietly brainstorming and evolving the scripts around career, money, social life, child rearing, and sex. Provocative but sympathetic, forward-thinking and bold, here, at last, is a manifesto for living large in marriage.

Each year in this country, 30 million men and their partners are robbed of an essential part of their lives when they are faced with sexual dysfunction due to diabetes, prostate cancer, an injury or psychological reasons. Many desperately want advice, but are too embarrassed to broach the subject with a doctor or even with each other. In their timely and medically recognized book, Making Love Again, Virginia and Keith Laken give hope to these individuals who, like themselves, want to feel normal again. Virginia tells the story of how she and her husband have dealt with his sexual dysfunction, brought on by a radical prostectomy at the age of forty-nine. She reveals the solutions that have brought them closer together, and offers further resources and support groups that can be found on both the Internet and through local and national organizations. Making Love Again proves that it is possible to break free of one's pre-conceived ideas about sex, and to overcome impotency by continuing to make love in whatever form lovemaking may take. With a foreward by Dr. David Barrett, CEO of the Lahey Clinic, readers will admire the medical community's acknowledgement of this book as an aid to couples seeking to regain physical intimacy.

Buy Discovering Your Couple Sexual Style by Barry W. McCarthy,Emily McCarthy and Read this Book on Kobo's Free Apps. Discover Kobo's Vast Collection of Ebooks Today - Over 3 Million Titles, Including 2 Million Free Ones!

The first and most important book in the Sexual Awareness series, Sexual Awareness is written for people who want to enhance intimacy and sexual satisfaction. This is a practical, confidence-building book that will show individuals and couples how to enhance their sexual pleasure, focusing on feelings and fulfillment. Included here are newly expanded chapters on self-exploration, special turn-ons, sexual expression, becoming orgasmic, and learning ejaculatory control. The most popular of the Sexual Awareness series, this book offers sound sexual counsel from one of the nation's most respected therapists. The McCarthys are knowledgeable, tolerant, and practical—qualities that give their efforts great authority.—Booklist

What single person hasn't suffered? Everyone, it seems, must be (or must want to be) in a couple. To exist outside of the couple is to assume an antisocial position that is ruthlessly discouraged because being in a couple is the way most people bind themselves to the social. Singles might just be the single most reviled sexual minorities today.   Single: Arguments for the Uncoupled offers a polemic account of this supremacy of the couple form, and how that supremacy blocks our understanding of the single. Michael Cobb reads the figurative language surrounding singleness as it traverses an eclectic set of literary, cultural, philosophical, psychoanalytical, and popular culture objects from Plato, Freud, Ralph Ellison, Herman Melville, Virginia Woolf, Barack Obama, Emily Dickinson, Morrissey, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Hannah Arendt to the Bible, Sex and the City, Bridget Jones' Diary, Beyoncé's “Single Ladies (Put a Ring On It),” and HBO's Big Love. Within these flights of fancy, poetry, fiction, strange moments in film and video, paintings made in the desert, bits of song, and memoirs of hiking in national parks, Cobb offers an inspired, eloquent rumination on the single, which is guaranteed to spark conversation and consideration. 

Winner of the 2009 Smart Marriages® Impact Award Think all sex should be earth shattering? The quality of most couple sex doesn’t measure up to the much distorted image of the perfect romantic love/passionate sex encounter portrayed in popular culture. In Discovering Your Couple Sexual Style: Sharing Desire, Pleasure, and Satisfaction, renowned marital and sex therapist Barry McCarthy and his wife Emily McCarthy urge couples to ignore what they see on TV, in books, or online, and discover their own unique sexual style. The McCarthys offer three guidelines for sexual satisfaction: develop positive, realistic sexual expectations; explore sensual and sexual options; and communicate sexual desires. With this foundation, couples can take a straightforward survey to determine which of four couple sexual styles best fits their relationship. An understanding of couple sexual styles can play a vibrant role in energizing a couple’s bond and contribute to a satisfying relationship that integrates intimacy and eroticism. Based on three years of research and treating more than 4,000 individuals and couples, Discovering Your Couple Sexual Style provides information, guidelines, exercises, and case studies that will help readers find their own sexual voice and develop a mutually satisfying sexual style.

In the time it takes to make your morning coffee, you can revamp your relationship—and your sex life!Endlessly searching for ways to reinvigorate your love life? You’d be surprised how much you can accomplish in just ten minutes a day. The truth is that it’s possible to be everything to everybody and still experience the sensual pleasures of your relationship. Here’s the guide you need to make it happen.Follow Dr. Darcy’s program for just ten minutes a day to:· Create a foundation of romantic connections and improve your sexual communication skills.· Use the power of maintenance sex to promote more frequent intimate encounters.· Strengthen the bonds you share for lifelong passion and closeness with your significant other.After a career of counseling countless couples, Dr. Darcy Luadzers has put her 20 years of experience as a sex therapist into a personal guide for couples ready to recapture the early excitement of their relationship. You know–the way things used to be.Take the time you need to bridge the sexual gap between different levels of desire, to develop daily habits you need to get back in sexual synch, and discover the four keys to intimacy. Discover the sexual and emotional potential that lies within your relationship. Put Dr. Darcy’s real-world advice into action and reward yourself and your partner with more fun, more passion, and more romance–starting today!

One of God's greatest gifts is the pleasure and privilege of sex within marriage. Dr. Kevin Leman knows even married people have lots of questions about sex, but sometimes they feel too embarrassed to ask or don't know where to turn for the best answers. For all those questions readers couldn't imagine asking their pastor or even their close friends, Dr. Leman is ready with open ears and expert advice. Often asked about sex and intimacy as he speaks and travels, he bets that some of those questions are the ones readers want answered too. With his trademark humor and wit, he offers frank answers to the burning questions all of us have about sex. Covering such topics as God's original intentions for sex, body image, attraction, expectations, sex drive, sex after children arrive, and much, much more, Turn Up the Heat is comprehensive in scope and just what the doctor ordered. Readers will not only get the answers they crave but plenty of the hearty chuckles they expect from Leman. Perfect for newlyweds or couples who have been married for years.

In the newest edition of this classic text, veteran authors Barry and Emily McCarthy explain how desire, pleasure, and satisfaction can enrich your relationship. As the premier book on the subject, Sexual Awareness focuses on factors that promote and subvert healthy couple sexuality. Reading this book and partaking in the psychosocial skill exercises it contains will help couples learn how to value sexuality as a positive and satisfying part of their lives. Couples at any stage of their relationship will learn how to enhance sexual awareness, communication, feelings, and function. The result will be enhanced desire and eroticism that will help couples understand themselves and each other better.

Each year in this country, 30 million men and their partners are robbed of an essential part of their lives when they are faced with sexual dysfunction due to diabetes, prostate cancer, an injury or psychological reasons. Many desperately want advice, but are too embarrassed to broach the subject with a doctor or even with each other. In their timely and medically recognized book, Making Love Again, Virginia and Keith Laken give hope to these individuals who, like themselves, want to feel normal again. Virginia tells the story of how she and her husband have dealt with his sexual dysfunction, brought on by a radical prostectomy at the age of forty-nine. She reveals the solutions that have brought them closer together, and offers further resources and support groups that can be found on both the Internet and through local and national organizations. Making Love Again proves that it is possible to break free of one's pre-conceived ideas about sex, and to overcome impotency by continuing to make love in whatever form lovemaking may take. With a foreward by Dr. David Barrett, CEO of the Lahey Clinic, readers will admire the medical community's acknowledgement of this book as an aid to couples seeking to regain physical intimacy.

One of God's greatest gifts is the pleasure and privilege of sex within marriage. Dr. Kevin Leman knows even married people have lots of questions about sex, but sometimes they feel too embarrassed to ask or don't know where to turn for the best answers. For all those questions readers couldn't imagine asking their pastor or even their close friends, Dr. Leman is ready with open ears and expert advice. Often asked about sex and intimacy as he speaks and travels, he bets that some of those questions are the ones readers want answered too. With his trademark humor and wit, he offers frank answers to the burning questions all of us have about sex. Covering such topics as God's original intentions for sex, body image, attraction, expectations, sex drive, sex after children arrive, and much, much more, Turn Up the Heat is comprehensive in scope and just what the doctor ordered. Readers will not only get the answers they crave but plenty of the hearty chuckles they expect from Leman. Perfect for newlyweds or couples who have been married for years.

The Complete Guide To Sexual Positions is a wonderfully informative and erotic book for lovers who are seeking more satisfying romance and greater sexual pleasure. Author Jessica Stewart's text is written in with frankness and delicious humor that demonstrates a great knowledge and subtle appreciation about how to fully enjoy sexual pleasuring. Included in this 128 page, all-color guide to lovemaking is detailed information about Dressing and Undressing, Seduction, the Orchestration of Foreplay and Loveplay, how to strengthen The Orgasm (PC) Muscle, how to become an expert at Oral and Anal Sex and how a man can arouse his lover to experience the incredible G-Spot Orgasm(TM). Over 150 Sexual Positions in 17 categories are demonstrated in beautifully photographed images that show lovers how to achieve greater variety, deeper penetration and more stimulation of the clitoris. Discover the plateau effect of building pleasure to achieve more powerful orgasms. Plus, easy-to-learn techniques for maintaining stronger erections and controlling ejaculation to enjoy extended orgasms. Also included are detailed sex anatomy diagrams, so you know exactly how to locate those special arousal points, and a comprehensive glossary of lovemaking terms that will teach lovers how to communicate with more success about their sexual desires and fantasies. This book features an erotic encyclopedia of fun and accessible information about sexuality that will enhance your pleasure whether you've just met, are newly wed or have been successfully together for years and want to keep your relationship romantic and sexual exciting.

In the time it takes to make your morning coffee, you can revamp your relationship—and your sex life!Endlessly searching for ways to reinvigorate your love life? You’d be surprised how much you can accomplish in just ten minutes a day. The truth is that it’s possible to be everything to everybody and still experience the sensual pleasures of your relationship. Here’s the guide you need to make it happen.Follow Dr. Darcy’s program for just ten minutes a day to:· Create a foundation of romantic connections and improve your sexual communication skills.· Use the power of maintenance sex to promote more frequent intimate encounters.· Strengthen the bonds you share for lifelong passion and closeness with your significant other.After a career of counseling countless couples, Dr. Darcy Luadzers has put her 20 years of experience as a sex therapist into a personal guide for couples ready to recapture the early excitement of their relationship. You know–the way things used to be.Take the time you need to bridge the sexual gap between different levels of desire, to develop daily habits you need to get back in sexual synch, and discover the four keys to intimacy. Discover the sexual and emotional potential that lies within your relationship. Put Dr. Darcy’s real-world advice into action and reward yourself and your partner with more fun, more passion, and more romance–starting today!

A classic work on human sexuality, The Multi-Orgasmic Couple —along with The Multi-Orgasmic Man and The Multi-Orgasmic Woman, the other volumes in the ground-breaking trilogy—is the first popular, accessible book designed to help sexual partners achieve new levels of sensual pleasure and intimacy. Co-written by Mantak Chia, the foremost expert in the field of Taoist sexuality, and Rachel Carlton Abrams, M.D., a family practice physician specializing in holistic health and sexuality, The Multi-Orgasmic Couple combines ancient Eastern wisdom with Western knowledge to provide the sexual secrets that every couple needs to know.

As psychologists specializing in treating sex addiction, our jobs require us to work closely with people whose lives have fallen apart. Not all couples choose to rebuild, and that is always a very personal decision. This book is for those who do, and then often find themselves wondering, How can we have a healthy sex life after sex addiction? We have answered this question by developing Sexual Reintegration Therapy(SRT). If you have a vision for a better relationship, SRT gives you the plan. Even if you cannot see clearly how your wounded relationship can be healed, SRT will offer you that hope. SRT consists of a progressive series of clearly defined experiences (that we have been using successfully with our clients for years) that will help you address core intimacy issues that need upgrading. The lack of a structured program to promote healthy sexuality after sexual addiction has been a major source of frustration for many couples. It is also why so many of our professional colleagues, including Dr. Patrick Carnes, have been urging us to publish this book. A man who was nearing the end of the SRT program with his wife summed up his experience this way: This program has been more helpful to us than anything else we've tried. We knew what we wanted- we just needed a plan that could get us there.

Featured Playboy writer Katie Moran presents a wry, witty book that is part narrative, part how-to, and part where-to that will inspire readers to explore and enjoy their sexuality.

Although most books about sexual desire blame one partner or the other for too low or too high a desire level, this book helps readers understand that it is a couple's dynamic that is most often the cause of unsatisfying relationship libido. Use this book to reestablish sexy reciprocity and restore sexual desire without resorting to hormone supplements or bedroom techniques designed only to arouse momentary sexual interest.By convincingly removing one partner (usually the woman) from the sexual dysfunction, this book guides you and your partner to an awareness of how both of you contribute to a lack of passion in your sex life. Using easy and fun-to-implement exercises, couples then learn to differentiate desire from arousal, highlight the short-circuits of their sexual excitement, understand the potent aphrodisiac of reciprocal male and female power, master communication skills that turn up the heat, and continuously tap into, maintain, and deepen your interest in your sex life and the lust you can still feel for each other.

A classic work on human sexuality, The Multi-Orgasmic Couple —along with The Multi-Orgasmic Man and The Multi-Orgasmic Woman, the other volumes in the ground-breaking trilogy—is the first popular, accessible book designed to help sexual partners achieve new levels of sensual pleasure and intimacy. Co-written by Mantak Chia, the foremost expert in the field of Taoist sexuality, and Rachel Carlton Abrams, M.D., a family practice physician specializing in holistic health and sexuality, The Multi-Orgasmic Couple combines ancient Eastern wisdom with Western knowledge to provide the sexual secrets that every couple needs to know.

Sexual Addiction: One Couple's Journey will guide you to an understanding of what sexual addiction is and give you crucial insight into what it takes to recover from it. Gary and Sharon Worrell reveal their very personal story of sexual addiction and their own complex journey on the road to true, lasting recovery. Written in a He said/She said format, the reader will see sexual addiction from both sides of recovery. Rarely does a single book portray the perspectives of both the addict and the partner and all that each has experienced in the throes and the aftermath of addiction. Sexual Addiction--One Couple's Journey has been named the 2012 winner of the USA News Book Awards in the Health-Addiction-Recovery category.

Based on the help she has provided for the thirty to forty couples a week she has seen in her twenty years of clinical practice as a sexual therapist, Dr. Sandra R. Scantling has written a new erotic guide to restoring the vital connections that bring couples together and make it possible for them to enjoy extraordinary sex. This is not a sex manual; it is a book about achieving true intimacy--both in and out of the bedroomGreat sex is not dependent on being able to achieve contortionist positions or finding that elusive G-Spot; it is based, rather, on couples' becoming aware of those ineffable forces that originally brought them together--forces that may have been based on differences rather than similarities in style and personality, forces that now may be pulling these same people apart. Having achieved an understanding of these forces, they will be better able to communicate, achieve intimacy, and enjoy extraordinary sex. The first step toward understanding is self-awareness, and Dr. Scantling has devised a simple but accurate paradigm of the four basic personality types: Energizers, Stabilizers, Workers, and Pleasure-seekers. Through storytelling, anecdotes, and an easy-to-complete quiz, readers will learn to identify their own personalities and sexual styles--as well as those of their partners--and so to understand why they each behave as they do and--above all--how they can each modify their styles to achieve Extraordinary Sex Now.This is an inspirational, must-have guide for any couple seeking to rekindle their passion. Dr. Scantling proves that lovemaking need never grow dull--that it can be an ongoing, joyous event, now and for the rest of our lives.