To gear up for O's 10th anniversary in May, we're doing a series of reader makeovers, tackling everything from dowdy "mom style" to acres of clutter. This month: A single mother wants to overhaul her love life. Sex therapist Laura Berman, PhD, gets intimate and offers a surprising Rx.
Name: Ava Owens
Age: 41
Occupation: Consultant

Two years ago, after an eight-year hiatus, Ava Owens reentered the dating arena. Let's just say that things have not gone well. Three disastrous sexual relationships with wildly inappropriate men—"I actually slept with the cable guy"—led her to realize that she had a serious problem. In fact, the 41-year-old single mother living in what she calls "a hotbed of male ambivalence" (Ashland, Oregon) recently decided that it would be easier just to be celibate.

Ebullient, smart, and funny, Ava, a former slam poet who has a master's degree in psychology, never lacked for male attention. "I was incredibly sexually active throughout my teens and my early 20s," she says. But after the birth of her son 11 years ago and the exit of his father four months later, her love life ground to a halt. Her son's Asperger's diagnosis gave her other issues to focus on. So did her work, overseeing quality management for mental health halfway houses.

In 2008, however, Ava made two big changes: She started her own consulting business and decided to date again—but this time without settling for bad relationships. And that's when she discovered that "if sex is involved, I bond immediately, even if the guy is a complete and utter moron."

Laura Berman, PhD, was intrigued by Ava's dilemma. Founder of the Berman Center in Chicago, a clinic serving women who want to improve their sex lives, Berman is assistant clinical professor of psychiatry and ob-gyn at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University and host of Better in Bed with Dr. Laura Berman on Oprah Radio on Sirius/XM. She agreed to do an hour-long phone session with Ava.

The History
Ava describes her typical relationship pattern as "Oh my God, you're so handsome and I'm so into you," followed by sex, followed by "Okay, you're it, I'm in love." Followed by (on the new man's part), "Whoa. Whoa, whoa. Where's this coming from?" as he backs rapidly away.

Berman explains that sex, especially if it includes an orgasm, washes the female brain in oxytocin, the neurochemical that's associated with human attachment (it's also released during breastfeeding). For a woman, this chemical reaction creates an emotional connection, regardless of how she consciously and intellectually feels about the man she just slept with.

"Are you pretty orgasmic, or not so much?" Berman asks.

"I do not reach orgasm vaginally. I never have," Ava says. "And so if he's just going at it, I'm thinking, "Are you having a good time? Because I'm not." But if it's somebody who is talented enough to bring me to orgasm, then yes."

"How old were you," Berman asks, "when you had sex for the first time?"

"I was actually date-raped at the age of 13," Ava answers. "That's how I lost my virginity." Her devastation was compounded, she says, by the response of the rapist, her friends, and even her parents, who sent conflicting messages of either "That didn't happen—you're making it up" or "If it did, you brought it on yourself because you dress provocatively."

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