SEXUALITY IN MARRIAGE: FREQUENCY

The increase in reported sexual activity over the past decade or so is reflected in the data on marital intercourse. Hunt makes the interesting observation that the smaller increase for females may mean that women are perceiving the frequency of their sexual intercourse more accurately today. If frequency of intercourse were tied more to the male’s desire than to the female’s, so that she had to meet his needs rather than her own, she might tend to overestimate the incidence of such events. By contrast, if we assume that wives today have more control over the frequency of intercourse, then their estimates should be closer to reality. If this hypothesis is valid, then the smaller increase in females’ reported frequency is related to subjective factors.

Though not directly comparable to the data from the Hunt study, the median frequency is calculated at 8.5 times per month, or about twice a week. This is nearly identical with the medians which Hunt obtained for the twenty-five to thirty-four and thirty-five to forty-four age groups. Since three out of four women in the Redbook sample were under thirty-five, the frequencies for the two groups appear to be very similar.

Obviously median frequencies are only one kind of indication of how often married people have intercourse. Individual variation, as one would expect, was considerable in all the studies. For example, even in Kinsey’s younger groups, a few individuals had marital coitus less often than once in two weeks, while in every age group, from the youngest to age forty, some persons were having marital coitus on an average of four times a day, seven days a week (Kinsey and others).

Neither Kinsey nor Hunt found a relationship between frequency of coitus in marriage and either education or occupational status. Religion, however, was related to frequency in both studies. Kinsey and others reported that less religious husbands had intercourse 20% to 30% more often than did religious mates; such an effect was not found for women, however, leading Kinsey and others to remark that the wife’s coital rate was more likely to be tied to her husband’s desires than to her level of devotion. Hunt found the opposite effect: churchgoing females reported a lower frequency of marital coitus than did churchgoing males or non-churchgoing males and females. Hunt thought that this, too, might reflect the greater influence that wives now have over marital sexual activity. The frequency of sex for married women now might reflect more closely their own wishes than their husbands’ desires.

Although intercourse with the spouse is the chief sexual outlet for married people, it falls far short of being their only outlet. Kinsey and others found an interesting relationship between social level and percent of the total outlet which the married male derived from intercourse with his spouse. For the lower group, marital intercourse accounted for 80% of the outlet during the early years of marriage, increasing to 90% by age fifty. College-educated males on the other hand derived 85% of their total outlet from their wives during the early years, but only 62% by age fifty-five. Kinsey thought that one explanation for this dramatic decline was an increasing dissatisfaction «with the relations which are had with restrained upper level wives».

Wives, likewise, derived only part of their sexual outlet from marital coitus. The maximum part of the sexual outlet derived from marital intercourse was 89%, reached between the ages of twenty-one and twenty-five, after which the percentage steadily dropped. By age sixty, only 72% of the total outlet of the married women was derived from marital coitus (Kinsey and others).

A recent study (Edwards and Booth) provides evidence that marital intercourse tends to be discontinuous for a sizeable segment of the population. Their stratified probability sample consisted of 144 men and 221 women who had been married between one and twenty years. As part of a two-hour interview, subjects were asked whether intercourse had ever stopped for any reason other than pregnancy, and if so, why and for how long. One-third of the respondents indicated that they had experienced such a cessation, the median length of which was eight weeks. Significant differences emerged between the men and women reporting such cessation: for the men, social background factors such as recent emigration from Europe, being non-Catholic, and lack of employment for the wife were important; for the women, avoidance of intercourse was related to factors in the marriage: perception of the husband as dominant, as not affectionate, or as threatening to leave home. The only common factor for the two sexes was perception of a lack of privacy. Self-reported causes, however, were the same for both men and women: surgery, illness, marital discord, and type of birth control used were some of them. The incidence of discontinuity in marital sex for this sample suggests that the phenomenon is by no means uncommon and enhances, as the authors point out, the sense of intercourse as a symbolic communication between spouses who are otherwise distant from each other’s true feelings.

*75/187/5*

NO-ALLERGY DIET: CORN-FREE AND YEAST-FREE DIETS

Corn-free diet

Corn may be a gift from the Aztecs. But if you have corn allergy, it’s a nuisance. Perhaps it’s easy enough to avoid corn meal, corn-starch, corn flour, corn syrup and maybe even corn oil. But a glance at Table 5 shows how easily corn can creep into practically every meal, obvious or disguised, unless you plan your diet carefully. As with milk-free and wheat-free diets, you have to learn the tricks of the food trade when it comes to hidden sources of corn. Oil added to peanut butter, for instance, isn’t peanut oil at all, but corn oil.

Sometimes the corn problem is in the container. ‘You think you’re avoiding corn, but then you drink from a paper cup, and that may be coated with cornstarch,’ says Dr Failiers. ‘Or your milk carton may have cornstarch. I know people who get their milk in glass containers for that reason.’

The less processed and sugar laden your diet, the easier it will be to avoid corn in its many guises. In addition, follow these general rules.

1. Read labels carefully. Avoid any food listing not only corn, cornflour, corn oil and com syrup, but the sugars: glucose, dextrose, dextrin, dextrimaltose and fructose. Corn is also a major source of sugar. Any sugar not specifically marked ‘cane sugar’ or ‘beat sugar’ may contain corn.

2. Cough syrups, cough drops, lozenges, pills, tablets and suppositories often contain corn. ‘If your allergy pills contain cornstarch,’ Dr Failiers told us, ‘they may actually make you sicker.’ If you must take medication, ask your pharmacist for a corn-free product. Consult your doctor before changing or stopping any medication.

3. Vitamin and mineral supplements may also be corn based. See the Appendix for a list of corn-free nutritional supplements.

4. Arrowroot or tapioca may be substituted in recipes calling for cornflour as a thickener.

If you’re puzzled because you can eat corn on the cob but not commercial canned or frozen corn, you may be allergic to the sulphur dioxide used in corn processing rather than the corn itself.

Yeast-free diet

Yeasts are wondrous little one-celled plants that turn dough into bread and cider into vinegar. Like moulds, yeasts are a fungus – and just as apt to cause allergies in people sensitive to fungus. To avoid yeast (and mould) in your diet, you’ll need to steer clear of not only the obvious foods – mushrooms, bread and vinegar – but also certain cheeses, condiments, drugs and nutritional supplements. It’s a lot easier to eliminate a food ingredient of any kind if you avoid commercial packaged foods and stick to whole, unprocessed food.

*19/65/5*

NO-ALLERGY DIET: WHEAT-FREE DIET

Bread was so basic to the Roman diet that the word was synonymous with food. Most of us today still eat bread or a similar grain food at least two or three times a day. Cereal or toast for breakfast. A sandwich for lunch. Noodles, pasta or breaded fish or chicken for dinner. Plus crackers, biscuits and cakes. And a flaky-crusted pie or quiche now and then.

Wheat is by far the most popular grain in the West, where people put a premium on light, springy baked goods and pasta. However, gluten – the elastic protein in wheat that makes baked goods springy and light – is a prime cause of wheat allergy. Some people are sensitive not only to wheat but to grains low in gluten like barley, rye and oats. Symptoms commonly caused by wheat or gluten allergy are: eczema; abdominal problems like indigestion, cramps, colitis, bloating, gas and diarrhoea; and respiratory problems like asthma and hay fever. Wheat and gluten sensitivity is now being recognized as a possible cause of headaches, depression and even symptoms resembling neurosis and schizophrenia. (Coeliac disease, a food-related illness that responds to the elimination of grain from the diet, is not an allergy.)

Much of the problem can be solved by cooking foods yourself rather than buying prepared foods. To sidestep wheat or gluten completely, however, you have to know a few tricks. Commercial bread and baked goods labelled ‘wheat-free’ or ‘gluten-free’ don’t always hold to their word. Getting bread to rise without gluten is like trying to make a fluffy souffl? with too few egg whites. So some bakeries add just a little wheat anyway. Other bakers and food manufacturers may list wheat in a disguised form. Look out for products that list not only the obvious – flour, wheat flour, wheat starch, gluten flour or cracked wheat – but also monosodium glutamate, hydrolyzed vegetable protein or durum flour.

Malt is derived from barley or other grains and is a hidden source of gluten. Most dry breakfast cereals and baked goods contain malt in some form.

Start a wheat-free diet by eliminating just wheat. If you still experience symptoms, eliminate wheat plus barley, oats and rye.

*18/65/5*

NO-ALLERGY DIET: ABOUT CHEESE AND EGG-FREE DIET

The cheese stands alone

You may find you can tolerate every other milk product except cheese, not even lactose-free varieties. The trouble may stem from the mould-type fermentation that turns milk into cheese. Cottage cheese is mould-free. Dr Breneman told us that some cheese-sensitive people can tolerate farmer’s cheese and homemade cheese, which are often mould-free.

If moulds aren’t your problem, but cheese still makes you miserable, you may be sensitive to tyramine, a natural substance in cheese and other foods — notably chocolate, yoghurt, beer, red wine, gin, bourbon and vodka – that tends to trigger migraine headaches. If that’s the case, you may be able to eat only a tiny sliver of cheese, as long as you don’t eat any other tyramine-containing food or drink along with it.

Egg-free diet

We tend to forget that a lot of foods contain eggs. They show up in all kinds of goodies. Puddings, cakes, pancakes and waffles all contain eggs. And eggs are the stuff noodles, custards and mayonnaise are made of. Eggs show up in ice cream and marshmallows. Occasionally, eggs are even used to make root beer foam.

Like those allergic to milk, people allergic to eggs may be sensitive to only a part of the food: in this case, either the white or the yolk. (Whites are usually the problem.) The method of cooking also makes a difference. Some people can tolerate hard-boiled eggs, but not soft-boiled. Others can cook their eggs until they’re tough as golf balls and still be allergic. Very rarely, a person is so sensitive to eggs that he or she can’t tolerate chicken either. Another egg-related product – vaccines grown on egg cultures – should also be approached cautiously if you’re allergic to eggs. (Ask your doctor about a vaccine’s base if you are allergic to eggs.)

So what can you eat, if not eggs? Plenty. Practically all meats and vegetables. Potatoes. Rice. Fruit. Watch out for code words for eggs on food labels: vitellin, ovotellin, livetin, ovomucin and albumin.

A word about egg substitutes: so many of these products contain other highly allergic substances and additives – notably yellow food dye – that we can’t recommend them. You may end up trading one allergy for another.

*17/65/5*

FINDING NO-ALLERGY DIET: MILK ALLERGY OR LACTASE DEFICIENCY?

Still others cannot digest lactose, the main carbohydrate (or sugar) in milk. Normally, fingerlike projections along the intestinal wall, called villi, secrete lactase, an enzyme specifically designed to digest lactose. But lactose-intolerant people produce little or no lactase. So the milk passes through undigested, producing one heck of a belly-ache: abdominal discomfort, bloating, gas pains and often diarrhoea.

Lactase activity is generally highest at birth and slows down as we grow into adults. Many of the world’s peoples – including blacks, Mexicans, Indians, Asians and those of Mediterranean descent – lose lactase in childhood. Others, particularly whites from northern or western Europe and their descendants, lose lactase later. Also, a bout with the flu or another virus can shut down anyone’s lactase activity for several days. When the intestines are inflamed the tips of the villi are broken off and produce little or no lactase. That’s why a milk-loving child may spurn the drink – or get a tummyache from it – after a stomach virus.

Many lactase-deficient people find they can tolerate milk if they simply cut down on milk and milk products, or consume small amounts throughout the day. Others can drink milk that’s been treated with Lactobacillus acidophilus, special (and perfectly safe) bacteria that breaks down the lactose, doing the work their intestines can’t.

Lactobacillus, incidentally, is the same bacteria that turns milk into yoghurt. In Mediterranean, Asian and African countries, where people are frequently lactase deficient, yoghurt is the most widely used milk product.

Some cheeses, such as Cheddar and Cheshire, are very low in lactose, while aged Gouda and Edam are lactose-free. Cottage cheese has 86 per cent less lactose than milk.

You can also try adding Lact-Aid powder, a lactose-digesting enzyme product, to milk. (All these products, incidentally, are available in most health food stores and many supermarkets.)

Until recently, milk allergy and lactose intolerance were regarded as totally separate problems. If you had both, it was considered a coincidence. Now, some doctors are convinced that, in many people, lactase deficiency actually develops as the result of an allergic reaction to either milk or some other food. That’s because food allergy usually causes intestinal inflammation, which mows down the villi and creates lactose intolerance. Doctors who advance this theory believe that 95 per cent of the people who experience stomach distress after drinking milk have lactose intolerance secondary to an allergy of some kind. Of course, you can be allergic to milk without developing lactose intolerance.

In any case, many people with food allergies – children and adults alike – will have to eliminate milk in all forms if they’re ever going to feel better. ‘If a child comes in with a stomach ache, leg aches and a stuffy or runny nose, and they’re also drinking a lot of milk, we take them off milk,’ Dr Stigler told us.

For parents who are concerned that growing children will miss out on much-needed calcium without milk in their diet, Dr Stigler has some reassuring words. ‘Many of us working in the field of allergy feel that allergic people don’t absorb a lot of the calcium in milk. If you’re sensitive to milk, the intestines reject it. So allergic kids aren’t necessarily using the calcium in milk anyway.’ Take away the milk, says Dr Stigler, and as with most people who give up a food to which they are allergic, a child will probably feel worse for the first couple of days.

‘But their symptoms will start to clear up after the first three or four days,’ Dr Stigler predicts. ‘In a week’s time, if milk was the cause of the stomach aches and the leg aches and the runny nose or whatever, it will all go away.’

Dr Stigler also told us that, when milk is eliminated, children may eat ravenously for three or four days, whereas before they were just picking at their food. ‘Take away the quart and a half or two quarts of milk a day – the average amount an allergic kid will drink – and they’ll then make up for milk calories with other food. They’ll eat extra of something else to make up the difference.’

Milk allergy, like simple lactose intolerance, may be dose related, Dr Stigler adds, especially when it causes digestive or respiratory upset. ‘It may take half a pint or more to cause the stomach ache. But if you have a child who has eczema – a skin rash often caused by milk allergy – very often as little as a teaspoon of milk will cause the reaction.’

Avoiding milk may sound easy at first, but you have to stay on your guard against hidden sources.

‘You think you’re staying away from milk. But if you eat a hot dog or spaghetti, they may contain milk,’ pointed out Constantine J. Falliers, an allergist and asthma specialist in Denver, Colorado.

So you’ll need to read labels carefully – advice that applies to any allergy elimination plan. Look for the code words ‘caseinate’, ‘lactose’ or ‘whey’ – all are milk additives. As we mentioned before, most ‘non-dairy’ creamers contain just such milk additives. (Non-dairy creamers also contain ingredients from other foods – corn, soya, animal and vegetable fats; flavour additives; and petroleum-based chemicals – which may trigger allergy on their own.)

You can confidently buy bread, margarine and other foods marked pareve or parve – those are made without a trace of milk to conform to kosher food laws. And if you’re anywhere in the neighborhood of an ethnic bakery, drop in and stock up. Kosher bread (challah) is free of milk, as are some French, Italian and Syrian breads.

If you’re allergic to penicillin, check to find out if your dairy supplier uses penicillin before you reintroduce milk to your diet.

To cook without milk, experiment by substituting water, soya milk or fruit juice in your family’s favourite recipes.

By the way, a small number of people with milk allergy are also allergic to soya, so switching to soya milk may not clear up their symptoms. Some people can tolerate goat’s milk as a substitute; others cannot. Only trial and error will tell.

*16/65/5*