Book Cover
Hi community, I hope if you're impacted by the storms today that you are keeping warm and dry. Well while dealing with the current lack of job opportunities, working on my graduate degree and trying to open the first non- profit extended care treatment center for women with substance use disorders (SUD's) and trauma disorders in my area - I decided to write a book. It's a self-help guide for couple's looking to improve their sexual relationship. The book is titled: "Better Sex! A Couple's Guide - Improving the Sexual Relationship" ISBN: 9781301722365 , by Marina Asbury, the publisher is Smashwords, Inc., the book is available in the Non-fiction Health & Wellbeing section for purchase at www.smashwords.com for 9.99, and a sample copy can be downloaded. It will also be available through Amazon and B&N, Apple and Samsung other retailers in a few days. However I get most of the proceeds if is purchased directly from Smashwords.
Most couples can improve their intimate sexual relationship primarily in two ways: better communication about sex and learning how to incorporate an understanding of the human sexual response cycle. The book addresses these issues. I also created the cover art. I would appreciate this community's help in spreading the word and helping me to publicize and sell this book. The proceeds will help me to continue my graduate studies and will help me to continue to be available to spend a majority of my time bringing the mission of the treatment center www.asburyhouse.org to reality, thank you, thank you, thank in advance! Over the fold I have included the Introduction portion of the book.
Introduction to Better Sex! A Couples Guide: Improving the Sexual Relationship by Marina Asbury Copyrighted Material 2013
This book makes two assumptions one that you are in a romantic sexual relationship with another consenting adult and two that you would like to experience better sex in that relationship. It is important to note the term better sex which is equivalent to intimate, playful, adventurous, novel and fulfilling sex but not perfect sex.
Learning to co-create better sex will offer you the opportunity to enhance the quality of your life and enrich your love/sex relationship, but striving for perfect sex will cause a great deal of frustration and can actually be detrimental to a healthy and loving relationship. For example pursuing the perfect sexual experience places too much emphasis on sexual performance and will lead to less satisfaction and quality in your sexual encounters (McCarthy & Metz, 2008). For those readers who are not currently in a romantic sexual relationship; consider having read this book as a great selling point and as a mutual self-help guide when you do enter into one. Of further note, as with all self-help guides, this book is not intended to replace professional sex therapy or medical advice where needed.
The idea for this book took root during my graduate studies. I found that there was significant research and information related to human sexuality that might be of benefit to couples looking to experience better sex in their relationship but that was not available to them through a self-help guide format. So I decided to write this little book. It by no means represents all the information available but sufficient information for our purposes. In fact I encourage you to explore beyond the confines of these pages if interest so moves you.
Some of the reference resources I have provided at the end of the book may be good starting points in the pursuit of added information. It is my hope that this book will serve as a beginning educational guide toward a better understanding of human sexuality; with a goal of helping to promote more meaningful and fulfilling sexual discussion and encounters in romantic partner relationships.
You can read this book on your own while amazing and astounding your partner with your newly learned sexual knowledge or you can read it with your partner in order to facilitate greater communication and openness between the two of you about sex. I suggest reading it with your partner so that you can both bask in the afterglow of improving your sex lives together. It is a journey meant to be shared. It is meant to be of assistance to all couples interested in improving theirs sexual lives and their sexual relationship.
If you want to create better sex it is important to learn to talk one on one with your partner about sex. In fact there are three very important rules to achieving better sex in a relationship; communication, communication and communication! Okay so really one big rule, but you get the idea. I know it isn't an easy rule because most people don’t like to talk about sex. In fact it is absolutely amazing what we are willing to talk about as long as it has nothing to do with us as sexual beings. We will talk about the weather, sports, farting and even about our most favorite sexy celebrity but we won’t talk about sex, we may talk a little about it during sex, in the locker room at coffee klatches but for the most part never as an awareness raising exercise with our romantic sexual partner.
If sexual communication is constrained it can cause dysfunction in the quality of a couple's sexual relationship (Sewell, 2005). Learning to communicate about sex, sexual needs and sexual desires is an important and key factor in facilitating greater sexual awareness and sexual satisfaction in romantic relationships. By committing to exploring the power of sexual communication and then actually doing it you will improve your sexual life, the intimacy of your sexual relationship and ultimately the overall quality of your couple relationship.
This book will also help to increase your understanding of some of the actual dynamics behind human sexuality that inform attitudes, emotions and behaviors around sex and it will discuss some of the fundamentals that go into our psychological and biological makeup as sexual beings, so a little science is involved but not much, I promise.
An added and important learning opportunity will the introduction to a model in the human sexuality literature known as the human sexual response cycle; it is considered the foundational standard for understanding human sexual functioning and was developed by sex researchers Masters & Johnson (1966). The old adage is true knowledge is indeed power, in this case sexual power.
In addition this book will facilitate an increase in self-awareness related to your world view about human sexuality and how that perspective may have developed in addition to how it may either positively or negatively influence your attitude towards sexuality and your sexual behavior. There will also be a discussion of some common myths and sexual problems associated with human sexuality. Many myths surrounding human sexuality are influenced by cultural stereotypes related to very narrow gender expectations and misconceptions around the aging process. For example, yes women like sex as much as men, yes men can be real men and not have to be sexually on all the time, and yes we desire and enjoy sex as we age.
And finally there will be a discussion related to the qualities that are common in a healthy couple relationship. A primary goal of this book is to help individuals and/or couples to come (no pun intended) to a better understanding of human sexuality in order to enhance the quality of the sexual relationship and hopefully to add a little enrichment to their lives in the process. This book can be read as a whole or as individual chapters. Now let’s talk sex.
1:47 PM PT: Just added the book cover that I designed.