A friend of mine sent this to me today. It cracked me up! Tell me you all didn’t wonder about these when you were little!!

THE GOOD NAPKINS… ahhhhh… the joys of having Girls…

My mother taught me to read when I was four years old (her first mistake). One day, I was in the bathroom and noticed one of the cabinet doors was ajar.

I read the box in the cabinet. I then asked my mother why she was keeping ‘napkins’ in the bathroom. Didn’t they belong in the kitchen?

Not wanting to burden me with unnecessary facts, she told me that those were for ’special occasions’ (her second mistake).

Now fast forward a few months…. It’s Thanksgiving Day, and my folks are leaving to pick up my uncle and his wife for dinner. Mom had assignments for all of us while they were gone.

Mine was to set the table.

When they returned, my uncle came in first and immediately burst into laughter. Next came his wife who gasped, then began giggling. Next came my father, who roared with laughter.

Then came Mom, who almost died of embarrassment when she saw each place setting on the table with a ’special occasion’ Kotex napkin at each plate, with the fork carefully arranged on top. I had even tucked the little tail in so they didn’t hang off the edge!!

My mother asked me why I used these and, of course, my response sent the other adults into further fits of laughter.

‘But, Mom, you said they were for special occasions!!!’

Isn’t it easier to just tell the truth?! ????????

Pass this on to your girlfriends who need a good laugh. !

I was really surprised to see this cover from The Georgia Strait, a Vancouver weekly newspaper. It’s a paper that targets the young adult market.

The lead story, (at the upper right of the couple) appears to be somewhat sensationalist, with headlines screaming out to potential readers: “Got Sex?”

But, if you read on, the sub-head states:

“For a growing number of young adults, swinging (and we’re not talking about going to the park here.) and spankings appear to trump monogamy and the missionary position.”

I am always quite cynical about newspaper articles announcing new trends with little hard evidence (no pun intended). But there does seem to be an up-swing in recreational spanking among people seeking more exciting, less mainstream ways of expressing their sexuality. This is especially true in the 20-30 age group. While there is a segment of older people seeking new ways to add excitement to their sex lives, there’s still a large proportion of vanilla couples. Maybe they’ll catch on soon!

If you’ve noticed how many blogs are available that talk about our changing sexuality — including mine! It’s because keeping our sex lives interesting and exciting is an important way to keep our relationships interesting and exciting.

Have you got a hankering for a spanking or to be tied up and forced to do all sorts of kinky things? Tell your wife, husband or lover! If you don’t want to do that, you can tell us right here right now.

Oh come on, bare it all.

I received this email from a woman who visited my blog.

We’re in our early 40s, and we’ve been married for a bit over seven years. I am a mother of two and our sex life is practically an annual event. Being a working mum, I am sapped, emotionally and physically, at night. Bed means sleep! My husband’s approaches are often clumsy - just a back-tap when I hit the pillow with exhaustion! I feel guilty rejecting him so many time. I want intimacy, but I need more than five minutes of sex. Help!

So I replied:

Maintaining a satisfying sex-life is like keeping physically fit — you have to be motivated, make time for it and be ready to forgive yourself and your husband fo any lapses or failures in your effort.

It is tough to have a busy job, cooking healthy meals for your family, making sure the kids are up with their school work, playing with your kids, getting the laundry done, the lawn mowed, the garbage out and so many other things that it would take a week to list here.

You’re very much time-poor and probably can’t imagine when you could fit in a yoga class, or a trip to the gym. Stop beating yourself up. What you’re going through, most everyone goes through.

If you don’t “make” time for yourself, your poor diet, lack of exercise and poor sex life will make you feel more tired than you are now. You risk a change in your weight and not having time to keep up your appearance and that all deads to depression and low self esteem. You don’t want to stay on this road.

When you take time for yourself, you’ll feel sexier. You’ll have more energy and you’ll look and feel more alive. I don’t think you’ll have much to worry about in the sex department because you’ll want it more. The way you are now is the same as a sedentary person who contemplates running 10 miles on a treadmill. It ain’t gonna happen in one go.

Start slowly and build on each success. Start talking to your husband. You’re more likely to succeed if you are tackling things together. Repeatedly being turned down for sex has probably bruised his ego — a lot. You say he’s clumsy, but he probably doesn’t know how to approach you in a manner that will be successful. He’s trying to keep himself from feeling hurt. If he doesn’t try too hard then he can blame himself and make excuses. If he does have a breakthrough, it probably becomes a five-minute bang because he’s been waiting a long long time.

Talk about how you both feel and really try to see things from his point of view. If you need help around the house so you can have some “me” time, he’ll get rewarded. You need help and he needs to feel loved. Sex makes him feel loved.

He needs to learn how to touch you in an affectionate, intimate way that doesn’t lead to instant sex. Spend time having fun together. You need to create a space where a sexual spark can kindle. Decide that you are going to have sex more often. It doesn’t have to be late at night or in the bedroom - be a little more spontaneous, and adventurous. Forget the past and move on. Remember that 1/2 of the problem is yours because you never required him to help you out more.

I think you have a great chance to save what appears to be a great relationship. Don’t forget that life is a journey with no destination. It’s all about what you do today and how you feel today.

This is a post by our guest blogger, Vicky.

Probably the single most uncomfortable topic when you are first starting to date someone is that of sex. Neither one of you knows how the other feels about it - how soon is too soon, how many partners this person has had in the past, what their preferences are when it comes to sex, and so on. It’s no wonder that many people are scared to broach the topic in conversation.

Fortunately, as long as you adopt the good attitude and bring it up in a good way, you can overcome much of this awkwardness and get to the information you want to know.

Timing

The first very important point to keep in mind is the time you try and bring up the topic of sex. Don’t bring it up while there is a lot of other stuff going on around you, as this is likely to just distract your partner and make them less receptive to having the conversation.

Additionally, if you are wanting to know something like partner count or anything related to past sexual partners, do not, under any circumstances, bring this up while you are kissing or doing anything else physical. It will kill the mood in record time.

Tone of Voice

The next important thing will be your tone of voice when you approach the subject. If you all of a sudden turn very serious or show a great deal of self-doubt with your words, this is not going to send the best of signals to your partner.

You want them to know that you are comfortable discussing the topic so they themselves will become more comfortable also. The tone in your voice can really show a lot of what you are feeling so be very careful with this.

You want to come across as sincere, but also keep a casual tone so they don’t feel as though they are being grilled for answers.

Get A Lead-In

The next way to help improve the receptiveness of your partner to this discussion is to find a lead-in topic. This would be something that is not directly about sex but could be related to it. This way, after you have discussed this lead-in topic, then you can gently approach the topic of sex and with any luck, the conversation will flow in naturally.

For example, if you want to discuss with a new partner what their thoughts are on having sex before marriage, you could bring up the topic of someone you know (you don’t actually have to know such a person) who has gotten pregnant without being married.

Gauging your partner’s reaction to this could give you some indication itself on what their views are on sex before marriage, and then you could lead right into the question if it’s not clear enough.

Obviously there is a clear difference between getting pregnant and having sex before marriage, as it’s very well possible to avoid pregnancy as long as protection is used, however, it still gets you going towards the direction of sex and will put the thoughts of the topic forefront on the mind making the transition easier.

Make Sure You’re Into The Relationship

The final point to keep in mind is that it is important that you are relatively into the relationship before bringing up sex. While it likely is something that you want to discuss relatively early on, if you are just at the stage that you two have started dating or worse, if you aren’t even classified as officially dating yet, it may not be the right time to bring up the topic.

While some individuals are okay with casual sex, most, particularly women, prefer to only be sleeping with those they are in a relationship with.

Factoring this in will help you ensure that you’re on the right timeline for bringing up the conversation and aren’t stepping out of bounds to begin with.

So, next time you want to talk to a partner about sex, try and relax. It is something that is slightly uncomfortable to bring up most of the time, however, if you plan out how you will approach it beforehand, your chances of having a successful conversation about it increase.

About Guest Blogger Vicky — She is a dating/relationship and women’s lifestyle expert. Read more dating tips, advice, and tidbits here

BillyWarhol over at Billion Dollar Baloney has awarded me with the Spreader of Love award from iamlove.blogspot.com. I think he made a good choice, don’t you? I mean who wants to spread love more than me? Right… ok so you think others deserve this as well? I’ll do my best to pass it on then.

This blog has been awarded The Spreader of Love Award created by http://iamlove.blogspot.com, The Love Blog, for an outstanding demonstration of blogging love. Nominate as many as few as you want to!

I’d like to award the Spreader of Love Award to:

Josey at Sillygolucky.com
Waliz at walizdiary.blogspot.com/
Gale at maleadvicecolumn.com/
Auria at auriacortes.com/

Continue spreading the love!