What Are The Health Benefits of an Active Sex Life?

Sex is the best medicine. Sex is good for men and women. It helps you live longer, feel better, and enhances your relationship.

Solo sex and partner sex are both good for you, but partner sex is more fun for most people. Sharing is caring.

Partner Sex

Animals might find sex instinctive because their only reason is to reproduce. Partner sex is something people need to learn: It is a rare human who finds good sex instinctive and we all need to practice so we can learn what makes our partners happy.

Partner sex is best when both people reach a climax. If you are a man, that means ensuring you last longer. Studies show that men last on average for only six minutes of post-penetration thrusting. Women need more than thirteen! These figures are averages and individuals differ widely, but the averages do give the big picture.

Everyone’s Health Benefits

Image by Solie Jordan from Pixabay

Touching and being touched are essential to improve the emotional bond between the couple. Touching is where many men fail because they don’t appreciate how important it is to a woman. It’s up to women to educate their men regarding how and where they want to be touched.

Regular penile/vaginal intercourse (PVI) can help your memory. A recent study of couples between 50 and 90 years of age showed that couples who were sexually active had better memories. They were also less likely to feel lonely or depressed.

Any physical activity that boosts your heart and breathing rate counts as exercise. If you are not into running or swimming then even horizontal exercise will improve your heart health.

Self-esteem is an important component of mental well-being. Any shared activity that gives mutual pleasure boosts your self-image as an individual as well as improving your confidence in your partner.

Male Health Benefits

Men are often only concerned with their climax, which means the end of the sexual journey for both partners. A climax is important for male health, but orgasm alone does not give the emotional benefits that accrue from giving pleasure to the woman throughout the love-making.

Ejaculating more often helps reduce the risk of prostate cancer, a major killer of older men because it has often spread through the body before it is detected. If you are trying for a baby frequent intercourse is important for two reasons; to try to hit the woman’s ovulation time, and because the man’s sperm quality is better if he ejaculates more frequently, even if the volume of semen is less.

And, lastly, sex helps men to live longer, and we all want to live forever, right?

Female Health Benefits

Sex is about much more than penetration and thrusting. The intimate touching that precedes any sexual contact is more than a warm-up act; it is an integral part of intercourse. Only 25% of women reach a climax from penetration alone: Extensive intimate touching in the early stages of sex makes it more likely that the woman will achieve orgasm.

Women may be more interested in the sexual journey than men (Only 60% of women say that an orgasm from partner sex is important.) but arriving at the journey’s end is still important. Women still need to reach an orgasm to gain maximum health benefits from the sexual act.

Only 60% of women say that an orgasm from partner sex is important, but arriving at the journey’s end is still important.

Compounds in semen are absorbed by the vaginal walls and are responsible for lower levels of depression in women who have unprotected PVI sex when compared to women who use condoms or who abstain from PVI sex. The female hormones found in semen encourage ovulation which might be helpful for women approaching menopause.

The female orgasm releases natural pain-relieving hormones that can ease even chronic pain such as arthritis. It also improves blood flow to the sexual organs.

Regular sex increases estrogen

The sexual act has many benefits for women besides the obvious one of sexual pleasure. These include improvements in the pain caused by menstrual cramps as well as urinary incontinence. More frequent sex makes a woman more fertile and helps reduce vaginal dryness, endometriosis, and prolapse of the vagina or thinning of the vaginal walls in older women.

Solo Sex

What if you are single or in a non-sexual relationship? Solo sex is good, too. After all, most of us started by going solo.

Obviously, you release sexual tension by masturbating, but there are many other benefits.

Male Health Benefits

Male masturbation:

• Reduces the risk of prostate cancer the same as partnered sex does
• Improves heart health and much more fun than eating avocados and broccoli
• Helps to prevent floppy erections because you are promoting blood flow to your precious parts
• Makes you more healthy because it boosts your immune system
• Makes you happy
• Makes you sleepy (good if you are an insomniac)
• Makes you live longer
• Improves your skin

Female Health Benefits

Female masturbation:

• Improves blood flow to your rarely-used lady parts, essential for long-term health
• Helps you understand your body more and learn what you like
• Makes you happy
• Improves your pelvic floor muscles, reducing the likelihood of urinary incontinence
• Helps reduce period pains (and other pains, too), and that has to be a good thing
• Relieves stress
• Increases blood flow, and therefore oxygen flow to your brain
• Makes you sleepy
• You won’t get pregnant
• You will never catch an STD from yourself

The Short Version

Sex is good for you, especially penile/vaginal intercourse with a regular partner without a condom, where penetration is preceded by extensive intimate touching. If you are single, solo sex has most of the benefits of the partner option, but without any emotional engagement or risk of pregnancy.

Orgasms are good for everybody: They lift your mood, provide pain relief and help your relationship survive and thrive. Men and women who continue to be sexually active past their 50s are happier and live longer. Paying attention to your significant other brings its own reward. Sex is for everyone, not just young people whose hormone levels are through the roof.