Schlong Story Short

Thanks to recent medical issues, my husband of 10 years can no longer get an erection, and our sex life has dried up. Sitting side by side on the couch watching the Food Network is, no doubt, a marvelous way to spend an evening; it's just that we thought those kinds of evenings were a bit further down the road for us. No offense, but writing you this has been the most romantic thing we've done as a couple in quite some time. Help!

--Prematurely Old

So, his penis refuses to stand up anymore: "Is that a piece of lasagna in your pocket...?" As devastating as this may seem, it's no reason to have a funeral for your entire sex life. (If your stove broke, would you stop eating?) Chances are, your retirement from sex has less to do with recent penile developments than believing that the only "real" sex is the hot dog into the Lincoln Tunnel variety. Sex therapist Dr. Marty Klein points out in Sexual Intelligence that many people make the mistake of defining what sex is by how their bodies work at 18 or 25, and then, ridiculously, cling to that vision into their 30s, 40s, and beyond, when they have far different bodies. Because physical intimacy is pretty essential for maintaining emotional intimacy, thinking this way can be relationship-wrecking. Turn off the TV and start making out and doing the kajillion sex things that don't require perfectly functioning hydraulics. Watching Paula Deen re-enact "Last Tango in Paris" with a pork chop has its merits, but exploring Klein's advice -- that "there isn't any part of your body that can't be erotically charged" -- should prove far sexier and a lot less likely to give you diabetes.