My abs are tight. My legs are toned. But what about my lady parts?!

We thought we’d help and every Thursday our friend Dr. Lissa Rankin will be answering your questions. The ones you couldn’t ask your doctor in person. Just leave your questions in the comments, or send em over to us. (We’ll keep it all anonymous for you.) Dr. Lissa will answer anything – really, anything – about sex and other lady things. Don’t be shy; she’s waiting for ya!

Q: Everyone is always talking about Kegel exercises. Do those things really help? And do we really need to do them? I’ve had a boyfriend for 3 years (and we’ve been having regular sex for the entire time), so is it possible that I’m not as “toned” down there as I could be? Is that something I need to worry about?

A: Do the rest of you know what a Kegel exercise is?  It’s an exercise to strengthen the pelvic floor. To do Kegel exercises, contract and release the muscles surrounding the vaginal opening. If you’re not sure what I mean, run to the restroom, pee, and try to stop your urine mid-stream. Those are the muscles we’re talking about here.

How can Kegels help you? Let’s break it down into three ways- sexual enhancement, prevention, and treatment.  Because these muscles tone the vagina, they can be used to enhance intercourse. By contracting these muscles, you may offer additional pleasure for you and your lover, especially if you’ve had a few babies and things have become a bit loosely goosey down there.

What about prevention? As we age, our tissue gets weaker and our risk of pelvic prolapse and urinary incontinence increases.  What’s pelvic prolapse? Well, believe it or not, your uterus, bladder, vagina, and rectum can all sort of fall out. I’ve seen uteruses hanging between people’s legs and herniations of the bladder and rectum into the vagina. This looseness in the vagina can lead to incontinence, pelvic pressure, difficulty with urinating and having bowel movements, and a whole host of other unpleasant symptoms. Kegel exercises help prevent pelvic prolapse and incontinence.  By toning these muscles, you help keep things tucked up inside, where they belong.

Kegels help to treat these same conditions. If you’re suffering from pelvic prolapse or incontinence, doing Kegel exercises may be so effective that you can avoid painful surgeries. Although it may not be effective enough, we always start by recommending Kegels. They’re cheap, safe, and easy to do at home. Reminds me of a time I walked into labor and delivery and the nurses were all sitting around a table silently. I couldn’t figure out what they were doing. Were they having a séance? Meditating? Finally, one of them, seeing my confused gaze, said, “We’re doing Kegels!” So yes, you can do them anywhere.

Do you need to do them? Not necessarily. If you’re young, healthy, and have a happy sex life, there’s no need to add yet another thing to your busy To Do list.  But it can’t hurt. If you think of it- sitting in class, in traffic or out to dinner – why not contract and relax those muscles a few times? Use it or lose it, they say. And trust me, these are definitely muscles you don’t want to lose.

–Dr. Lissa Rankin’s book, What’s Up Down There? Questions You’d Only Ask Your Gynecologist If She Was Your Best Friend, will be published by St. Martin’s Press in Fall 2010. She invites you to join her Pink online community (www.owningpink.com/forum) or read more of her writing at Owning Pink (www.owningpink.com).

Supposedly, those with low Emotional Intelligence (EI) suffer from female orgasmic disorder more than emotionally “in tune” ladies. The evidence? A study in which a thousand sets of twins were emotionally and sexually monitored (asked how often they achieved orgasm during sex) showed a link between EI range and frequency of orgasm.

Researchers say this is promising news, and suggest that those of us who can’t achieve the big O during intercourse should begin therapy in order to correct our emotional ineptitude. Because, it’s obviously our emotional issues—not our guy’s sexual skills—that are keeping us from getting off.

Now, I’m not saying that there aren’t some females out there who could use a little help in the orgasm department, but I am saying that an orgasm is a two-way street and no amount of intelligence, or emotional stability, can make up for a lack of male bedroom talent. Maybe there is nothing emotionally wrong with those ladies being studied and they simply suffer from bad taste in sexual partners. Perhaps instead of getting into therapy, then, these women should find a guy who doesn’t finish in 3 humps or require a road map to find the clitoris.

That said, it does seem intuitive that intelligence, or at least confidence, could make a big difference for your sex drive. But isn’t that kind of—um—obvious?

HighJoy.com and Sinulator.com made it happen. These sites not only offer sex toys to peak your pleasure principle, they now make it possible to connect these toys to your computer so that with the touch of a button, you can control your partner’s sex toy o’choice and send them into pleasure heaven. And vice versa.

Sinulator.com offers a package of all the software necessary as well as the ever popular “rabbit” vibrator for a mere $139.95. Simply install the software, name your toy, and you are on your way!

HighJoy.com offers similar packages.

As if this isn’t awesome enough, the remote can not only connect to your computer, it can hook to your palm pilot.

This is a godsend for long-distance relationships…and really horny people.