How to Determine Your Sexuality

Since sexuality has such a broad definition and is influenced by so many factors—a partner; good health; myriad psychological, social, and employment factors; and one’s previous sexual activity—what can we say about sexuality and menopause? Surprisingly, there is a lot that you need to know.

Good health contributes to sex vitality because any major debilitat­ing disease can interfere with your feelings of sexuality and your interest in sexual activity. However, it is important to know that individuals with severe disabling diseases can and do remain sexual. Jane Fonda and Jon Voight demonstrate that poignantly in the Acad­emy Award-winning film Coming Home in which Voight plays a Viet­nam veteran paralyzed from the waist down.

Today, physicians encourage sexual activity even in persons with diseases that previously seemed to mandate avoidance of sexual inter­course. Take heart disease, for example. In previous years, heart patients were advised to give up sex, at least during their early recu­perative stages. Today, sexual activity is encouraged as part of their early rehabilitation. Other conditions such as arthritis, back pain, and respiratory diseases can make sexual activity difficult. Yet, physicians are eager to help their patients learn ways to participate in sexual activity that bring pleasure without bringing on painful symptoms or severe shortness of breath.

Sex and the cardiovascular system represent a two-way street; each influences the other. It is known that the act of having sexual inter­course is equivalent to undertaking active exercise. Some researchers have tried to give the range of calories expended during the sex act. Some exercise physiologists have even advised that active sexual inter­course, three times per week, eliminates the need for any other exer­cise program!