Get her sex drive clocked

Learn the ebb and flow of her desire to drive her wild and get more sex

•  

Sex o’clock

In the testosterone-addled imagination of many a teenage male, all women are horny 24/7. Each secretly longing

for an impromptu tryst in the nearest alley/car/nightclub toilet. Reality is rather different. “All women are on a

different sexual body clock,” explains sex therapist Dr Tammy Nelson, author of Getting the Sex You Want. “Some

love it in the morning, while others can’t wait to jump out of bed and the last thing they want then is intimacy.”

Once you’ve got her clocked, try these techniques to have her begging for more – morning, noon and night.

First thing in the morning

Clocking on If she’s a morning person – and we don’t mean in the 10-laps-of-the-swimming-pool-before-breakfast

sense – try upping the erotic ante before she even opens her eyes. Spoon her so she wakes up feeling your arms

around her. Then, as she stirs, gently begin to play with her clitoris. “Slow and sensual wins all the way as her hormones will be quietly revving up,” says Dr Pam Spurr, author of Steamy Sex: The Sex Doctor's Answers For

Keeping It Hot. “Begin with some gentle caressing under the covers and then manoeuvre yourselves into the

spoons position or even doggy style”. So much for caffeine being the ideal way to perk up your morning.

Timeless tip Positions such as doggy style and spooning sex are perfect for the early hours as they allow you to

dodge that most bromidic of daily afflictions: morning breath.

During the day

Clocking on If she’s a sucker for some afternoon delight, plan a noon quickie. If you can deal with the potential

legal consequences, have a venue such as a nearby park in mind before sneaking out of your office and dropping

her a sexy text, letting her know exactly what you want to do to her. And don’t forget to tool up, says Nelson:

“Bring a vibrator or other sex toy and press the vibrator against her clitoral area as you enter her from behind.”

Push her gently but forcibly against a solid surface for some stand-up sex – and make sure you’re well hidden from prying eyes. Unless, you know, you’re both into that…

Timeless tip Give her a sensual post-coital kiss before heading quickly back to work. “You can guarantee she will

be thinking of you all afternoon,” says Nelson.

Just before bed

Clocking on Play on her traditionalist inklings by cranking up the romance. “Try lighting a candle when you get

into bed together, and turn off all other lights,” says Nelson. “Now’s the opportunity to really take your time with

oral sex.” Next, use the darkness to your full advantage by experimenting with more adventurous positions. “She

may be more open in the dark than she would be during the harsh light of day,” adds Nelson. And if you’re

running low on inspiration, MH has a fair few ideas.

Timeless tip “Make sure you are touching at least some of her body as she drifts off into sleep,” says Nelson.

“This will help her to solidify your sexual experience in a positive way, and will make her want to do it again the

next night.”

Words by Richard Masters

Sex-Education Versus Algebra? I have yet to apply my knowledge of Pi….

The Department for Education in

the UK has decided that sex-education should retain it’s non-statutory status, so schools can opt out of

teaching it if they choose.

As a result of this laissez faire attitude, one in four pupils currently don’t receive any sex-education at school

and 25% of those who do receive some are critical, both of the content and of way it is taught.

That’s hardly surprising when you consider that the curriculum for primary schools omits the names for external

genitalia, and the teaching of contraception is delayed until Key Stage 4 when pupils are 14-16.

Teaching sex education is, of course, primarily a parental responsibility, but all parents are not created equal

and schools play a vital role in educating children who’s parents are either not willing or not able to provide

them with the guidance that they need.

When it comes to sex-education, the brouhaha about biology means that chemistry, sexual chemistry that is,

gets entirely overlooked.

This is terribly naïve because, lets face it, young people don’t start having sex because they want to work out

‘what goes where’.

They do it because they are overwhelmed by the intoxicating effects of a sensation that is more pleasurable than

any class A drug.

When you fall in lust, nothing compares to the rush of ecstacy, the gut wrenching anticipation, the dizziness,

butterflies, diminished concentration, annihilation of appetite and obsessive daydreaming.

It’s the most exciting all absorbing experience that ever happens to any of us, and yet we understand so very

little about it.

Scientists have managed to map our genetic blueprint.

They understand the subtleties of hormones and the complexities of the emotional brain, but the thing that

makes two people click remains a mystery.

Dr Helen E. Fisher, research professor in the department of anthropology at Rutgers University believes that

sexual chemistry originates in the parts of the brain that make dopamine, the hormone that creates feelings of

elation, energy, craving, motivation and obsession.

Hormones, testosterone primarily, but also oestrogen, are thought to trigger feelings of lust while oxytocin and

vasopressin get the blame for bonding.

Other research suggests that we sniff each other out like animals because pheromones, scents secreted by the

sweat glands in the armpits and pubic hair can be picked up by the Vomeronasal organ, a small chemosensory structure in the human nose.

Still more research suggests that we are attracted to people who look like our parents – please God don’t let that

one be true – or who have opposing or complementary personality types to ours.

Sexual chemistry is a sensory UFO, but no one could argue that for the majority of teenagers, the science of

sexual attraction would make an infinitely more interesting afternoon discussion than an hour of irregular

French verbs.

Finding, keeping and evolving a decent relationship is probably the most significant thing most of us can ever

hope to achieve in a lifetime, yet the education system places more emphasis on algebra than life skills which

would prove so much more useful.

When I was sixteen I learned that Pi was a mathematical constant approximately equal to 3.14159.

I didn’t learn how to relate to the opposite sex, how to say what I meant and mean what I said, how to

differentiate between lust and something that might endure, how to avoid making the same mistakes over and

over again, and ultimately, how to survive the highs and lows of love and sex and still believe that there is such a

thing as a happy ending.

I have yet to apply my knowledge of Pi.

Suzi Godson 16.4.13

Woman WLTM tall, broad man. Big penis preferred

(Is that holding a bucket of sand too ?)

• 19:00 08 April 2013 by Bob Holmes
• New Scientist

A new UK study published this week finds that women who take birth control pills may prefer men with less

masculine faces than those who don't.

Researchers from the University of Stirling and the University of Glasgow found that women were attracted to

less masculine male faces after going on the pill, while their ratings of the attractiveness of female faces were

unchanged, reports LiveScience on March 27.

For couples who first met when the woman was on the pill, the men were found to be less likely to have

masculine faces than those who met when the woman was not taking the pill.

Prior studies have found that women prefer more masculine traits during the fertile phase of their menstrual

cycle.

Published in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology, the latest study compared 85 couples who reported using

the pill when they met to 85 couples who reported not using it when they met.

Researchers took snapshots of the men's faces and had volunteers judge the manliness of each.

In a separate experiment, researchers tested young women ages 18 to 24 who took oral contraceptives against

those who did not.

Women were shown composite digital images of faces of men and women, which could be manipulated to look

more or less feminine, by adjusting the cheekbones, jaw, and face width.

Women tinkered with the photos to create faces that they found more attractive.

Subjects were tested while not on the pill and again after taking the pill for three months

Men 'expect sex' after three dates...

surprising truths behind the modern dating game revealed

• Survey reveals fascinating insights into romance in the 21st century
• Women now spending less on grooming before a date than men
• Men expect sex on the third date, but women prefer to wait until the fifth
• Both sexes spending fortunes preparing for dates that could end in sex

By Daily Mail Reporter

 UPDATED: 12:03, 24 March 2013

Men now expect to sleep with a new partner on their third date -

but women typically won't consider it until the fifth,

according to an intriguing new study on dating in the 21st century.

On the first date men are most likely to pay for dinner and drinks,

with most couples tending to split the bill from the second date onwards.

But by the third date men expect sex and are willing to splash their cash to hurry the romance along.

Modern romance: A new survey has revealed some fascinating insights into love in the 21st century

One in five men described 'expecting' to sleep with their date if they spend over £100 on dinner.

And remarkably, it works, as seven per cent of women say they would feel 'obliged' to sleep with a man who had

been so generous.

Adults spend an average of £47 on a first date, with men happy to spend more than women, the study of 2,000

people by MSN.co.uk found.

In fact, half of men will happily spend more than £50, while just 17 per cent of women are so liberal with their

money.

Men are still most likely to pay for the first date, with couples splitting the bill from the second date onwards.

Both sexes are now spending small fortunes in a bid to prepare themselves for a date that could end in sex, the

study found

Just three per cent of women take care of the bill on the first date, compared with 69 per cent of men.

But over half of women, 55 per cent, prefer to go halves and 69 per cent no longer expect their partner to pay on

subsequent dates.

Both sexes are now spending small fortunes in a bid to prepare themselves for a date that could end in sex, the

study found.

Men typically spend £46.79 on grooming, while women spend £5 less at £41.79.

Women prepare for a first night of passion by waxing their legs (58 per cent), buying new lingerie (32 per cent),

and waxing their bikini line (17 per cent).

Men are most likely to buy new underwear (28 per cent), groom their pubic hair (27 per cent), and buy new bed

linen (15 per cent).

The money is being spent wisely, as men say their biggest turn-offs are a hairy upper lip, dirty sheets, and hairy

legs.

And women are turned off by dirty sheets, untidy nails, and an untidy bedroom.

Meanwhile both sexes are most turned-on by a partner who has a great personality and lots of self-confidence,

the study found.

Almost a quarter of Brits (23 per cent) invest in grooming in a bid to live up to society's pressures to look good in

the buff.

And more than half (55 per cent) say it pays off, as their newly preened body leaves them feeling more confident.

MEN'S TOP SEXUAL TURN-OFFS

1. Hairy upper lip

2. Dirty sheets

3. Hairy legs

4. Untidy nails

5. Body hair

6. Un-groomed pubic hair

7. Messy hair

8. Bad outfit

9. Ugly footwear

10. Lack of perfume

WOMEN'S TOP SEXUAL TURN-OFFS

1. Dirty sheets

2. Untidy nails

3. Untidy room

4. Unshaved face

5. Bad outfit

6. Ugly footwear

7. Lack of perfume

8. Hairy upper lip

9. Un-groomed pubic hair

10. Ugly underwear

MSN relationship expert Dr Pam Spurr said:

'This research dispels the myth that British singles are all jumping into bed on the first date.

'It's astounding to think that in 2013,

one fifth of men expect a woman to go 'all the way' if they've spared no expense on a date.

'Thankfully most women are not falling for that and refuse to sleep with a man simply because he's a big

spender.

'As a rule, no one should feel pressure to slip between the sheets until they're ready.

'Some people confide in me that they fear a date won't bother seeing them again if they don't have sex,

so it's refreshing to read most aren't bowing to this pressure.'

Waxing lyrical: Most men say that hairy legs are a major turn-off

'That shows harmony in the way men and women view what can be a nerve-racking part of dating.'

And she added: 'It is fascinating that men are now spending more on pre-date preparation than women.

'However, they do tell me that they really feel the pressure to impress.

'Even during a recession, the average British bloke spends nearly £50 simply getting ready for a 'hot date', with

women not too far behind.

'There is enormous competition out there, so psychologically this preparation makes a singleton feel ready to

put their best foot forward.'

HOW BRITISH WOMEN PREPARE FOR A FIRST NIGHT OF PASSION 

1. Leg wax (58 per cent)

2. New lingerie (32 per cent)

3. Bikini wax (17 per cent)

4. Brazilian / Hollywood wax (10 per cent)

5. Buy new bed linen (7 per cent)

6. Get 'vajazzled' (adorning pubic area with glitter - 2 per cent)

HOW BRITISH MEN PREPARE FOR A FIRST NIGHT OF PASSION 

1. Buy new underwear (28 per cent)

2. Groom pubic hair (27 per cent)

3. Buy new bed linen (15 per cent)

4. Back wax (4 per cent)

5. Facial (3 per cent)

6. Colombian wax (all pubic hair removed - 3 per cent)

MEN ARE MOST TURNED ON BY A WOMAN'S...

1. Personality

2. Self confidence

3. Lingerie

WOMEN ARE MOST TURNED ON BY A MAN'S...

1. Personality

2. Self confidence

3. Scent

See ya, latex: Reinventing the condom

23 January 2013 by Hannah Krakauer

Unchanged for 150 years, the humble rubber is about to get a serious makeover

IF I didn't already know what they were, I would have difficulty identifying the objects in front of me.

There are about 20, mounted on a rack of vertical wooden pegs and illuminated into ghostly shadows by a light box beneath.

They resemble elaborate sculptures in translucent resin.

One looks like a thin, hollow lemon juicer; others are like accordions or abstract spaceships.

Designers Danny Resnic and Ray Chavez joke that they used to keep these racks in the window since passers-

by had no chance of guessing what they were.

And it's true; they share only the most rudimentary qualities with what most people think of when they think of a condom.

Despite being available in various colours, flavours and textures, modern condoms all follow a basic design that

has been with us for more than 150 years: a rubber tube with one end sealed up.

But perhaps not for much longer.

The first reference to condoms in the medical literature was by Gabriele Falloppio, a 16th-century Italian

anatomist who is best known for describing the fallopian tube.

In a posthumously published article in 1564 he claimed to have invented a linen sheath that could prevent

syphilis, which he got 1100 men to try out.

Linen was eventually supplanted by various animal skins, intestines and bladders.

Casanova reportedly used, but did not like, them.

The invention of vulcanisation by Charles Goodyear in 1844 made rubber a viable condom material, though the

earliest rubbers were as thick as a bicycle inner tube with a seam up the side.

The advent of liquid latex in the 1930s allowed condoms to become thinner, stretchier and last longer on the shelf.

Since then, condoms have remained fundamentally unchanged.

But not because there is no room for improvement.

Condoms may be functional, but they have never really been sexy.

In the beginning, that was part of the point, since the health authorities naively thought condoms would

discourage people from having sex, thus halting the spread of disease.

A few radical alternatives have been attempted but none have risen to the challenge.

Female condoms made their debut in 1993 to overwhelmingly negative reviews.

Made of polyurethane and sporting a baggy and intrusive design, they frequently slipped out of place and made

an unfortunate crinkling sound during sex.

In 2006, German entrepreneur Jan Vinzenz Krause invented the spray-on latex condom, only to cast it aside

when none of his volunteers were willing to insert anything other than a finger into the latex-spraying machine.

The potentially troublesome 3 minute drying time was thus never properly road-tested.

The latex condom's cheapness and simplicity are evidently hard to beat.

But condoms may not remain so homogenous for long.

Researchers and designers are re-examining them from bottom to top, looking at their intended functions of

contraception and disease prevention and digging deep to see if those goals can't be accomplished in a rather more elegant fashion.

Latex condoms operate under the basic principle of transferred sensation: the latex is sufficiently thin for the

penis to feel contact.

This is why the few genuine condom innovations that have been made are in the realm of thinness.

But the obvious problem with making a material thinner is that it is more liable to break.

Resnic's experience in this area gave him a compelling motivation to improve on the design.

In 1994 he learned that he was HIV positive, the likely result of a split condom.

He was flabbergasted that it was possible for a product on which people rely so heavily to simply fail.

But when Resnic, founder of a Los Angeles design company called Strata, began to investigate he quickly ran into a barrier.

Condoms are made by dipping a mould into a vat of liquid latex which is allowed to dry before being rolled off.

That means the design options are limited. The production method also explains why they have to be scrolled on.

So he decided to start from scratch, first turning to a new material: silicone.

Stretchier and more flexible than latex, silicone also turns out to be better at blocking viruses and bacteria.

It can also be folded accordion-style, which means it can be slipped on rather than rolled.

Where silicone really shines is in the pleasure department. Resnic's "Origami" condoms are thicker and looser

than latex ones, but this actually becomes a design feature.

By adding textures and ridges, Resnic says he can make sex with condoms feel better for both partners than sex without.

The result is what he describes as a hybrid sex toy and contraceptive.

The prototypes on display represent a series of brainstorms and experimentations with silicone's mouldable potential.

The latest version even includes a backflow-prevention reservoir at the tip.

Instead of just including a teat at the end to catch semen - from which it can easily escape - Resnic has created a

separate chamber blocked by a one-way valve that he compares to a lobster trap: liquid can get in, but it cannot get out again.

The condoms are now ready to be put to the test.

Resnic and his business partner Chavez have received funding from the US National Institutes of Health to carry

out clinical trials of three types of condom: a male condom, a female condom and a specialised anal sex condom

which, if it passes, will be the first condom approved for anal sex by the US Food and Drug Administration.

The three separate trials, conducted by researchers at the California Family Health Council, RTI International and

the Fenway Institute in Boston, are in the very earliest stage.

Participants are given a couple of different prototypes and are asked to try them.

For safety reasons, there is no partner involved in this stage, so participants are instead asked to simulate sex

with their hand or a dildo.

The feedback thus far has been positive, at least according to testimony the company allowed me to see.

"Terrific," commented one tester.

"Would make anyone use a condom," said another.

Still others said they were "really enjoying the feeling".

The condoms still need to be tested by couples before larger-scale studies can start, and then there's the

commercialisation process.

But Resnic and Chavez are convinced that their emphasis on pleasure is going to make condoms more popular.

"The reason our focus is on pleasure is that's what's going to keep people using condoms," Resnic says.

"We're developing ones that people are going to like."

Invisible condoms

Elsewhere in the world there are other very good reasons for rethinking the condom.

In many parts of the developing world where HIV is prevalent, resistance to condoms among men is fierce.

For these people, silicone condoms may not gain much traction.

Instead, microbicide gels and creams have been seen as a discreet solution to the problem many women have getting their partners to use condoms.

The polymer gel sticks to mucous membranes in the vagina and acts as a temporary internal condom that

eventually dissolves, with the male partner none the wiser.

Because it is a physical barrier, the gel stops viruses from infecting host cells, and has even been shown to

interfere with the maturation process of HIV.

But in recent years enthusiasm for microbicides has waned, since chemicals that block HIV in the test tube often

fail when tested in the real world.

The Alliance for Microbicide Development, an alliance of pharma companies and not-for-profit labs, closed in 2009.

Not everyone has given up on them, though.

Rabeea Omar, an infectious disease researcher at Laval University in Quebec, Canada, has held fast to the belief

that the problem was not with the gel, but how it was applied.

So he asked women to apply the gel using a standard applicator with a single hole at the top - the same kind

used to apply yeast infection medications.

Then he gave them an MRI scan to see where the gel was actually going and found that it stuck only to the surface of the cervix without covering the rest of the vagina.

So Omar and his colleagues set out to design a better applicator.

Rather than having just one hole at the tip, theirs has many small holes all over the surface, spreading the gel

more evenly.

Results coming back from clinical trials conducted in Cameroon are extremely promising, he says.

When applied with his team's "Invisible Condom" applicator, MRI images show the gel is going and staying right

where it needs to be, forming a thin layer that lasts for six hours.

Getting the applicator onto the market will cost up to $40 million.

Aside from the money, the biggest challenge is the intimate nature of what is being tested.

The controlled environment of the lab and its MRI machines must be abandoned in favour of real-world situations.

Excusing himself for the indelicacy, Omar explains that "you cannot get into the bedroom to make sure couples use the product before sex."

Omar's voice is sincere when he describes his research, reminding me over and over of the injustice he and his

colleagues want to address.

"Men have always had control over the condom.

Women have no say," he says.

"Our goal is just to help women."

The sex-toy condom and the invisible one couldn't represent two more opposing visions of the future of safe sex.

But they have one important thing in common: their starting point was thinking outside the box.

Resnic is sure that the future will be even more diverse.

"The era of there only being one rolled male condom is over," he says. Instead, we will have a variety of devices

that address the needs of everybody - male, female, straight, gay, wealthy, impoverished.

It has only been in the past 50 years that people have gotten comfortable enough talking about sex to openly

discuss condoms, he says.

Hopefully it will not be as long before the rubber receives its long-awaited makeover.

Hannah Krakauer is a writer based in Seattle

Four ways to boost your health with sex

Use these tips for a spot of sexual healing 

 1. On the head
Have a thumping headache?

Leave the pills to the wimps and have sex instead.

Studies show that intense feelings of passionate love have the same effect on your brain’s pain receptors as paracetamol.
Source: State University of New York

2. Help yourself
This may well be the easiest prescription you’ll ever receive: masturbating at least five times a week can reduce

your risk of prostate cancer by over a third, as the ejaculation blocks out carcinogens from the prostate gland.
Source: The Cancer Council, Victoria, Australia

3. Keep it regular

A little fornication releases testosterone, which strengthens bones and muscles, while the chemicals released boost your immune system.

Three times a week will provide age-defying benefits. Finding a partner is up to you.
Source: Royal Edinburgh Hospital

4. Be smart
Feeling a little slow off the mark?

Head between the sheets to boost your IQ.

The stimulation brought on by sex isn’t just for pleasure, it kick starts your brain into gear, too.

That’s our story, anyway, and we’re sticking to it.
Source: Hamburg Medical Research Institute

The science of women and sex: Is Stephen Fry right after all?

Evolutionary theory says yes – but that's not the whole story.

By Steve Connor Tuesday 02 November 2010

Can science shed some light on Stephen Fry's comments about female sexuality?

Do women really find sex disgusting and only partake of the gruesome act in order to get their man to "commit", as

he suggested in an interview with Attitude magazine?

The deep frying of Fry for his ill-chosen words, which he insists were made in jest and taken out of context, is

perhaps unjustified.

The science suggests that he may have a point, but only if the long view of human sexuality is taken into account –

in other words, the reason why sex has evolved in the first place.

Biologically, sex is a way of mixing the genes between two individuals in order to produce a genetic variety in the

offspring that would not exist with asexual reproduction, such as cloning.

Many animals and plants engage in sexual reproduction because it confers an advantage, and the fact that sex has

been practised for many hundreds of millions of years by a vast plethora of lifeforms attests to its biological importance.

But explaining the reasons for sexual reproduction does not explain why we have just two sexes, and why males

and females are so different to one another.

To understand that we need to understand the two competing and mutually exclusive "strategies" employed by each sex in order to reproduce.

Females produce egg cells, which are relatively large structures representing a sizeable investment in the future

compared to sperm cells. This investment gets magnified substantially in female mammals, including humans, who

get pregnant, lactate and are involved in years of strenuous childcare.

For a female mammal, therefore, reproduction is not something to be undertaken lightly.

Choosing the right mate, especially in a monogamous species involving shared childcare, is therefore crucial.

Females of many species, including humans, should therefore be "choosy" – that may mean looking for

commitment from a male if shared offspring-rearing is important in that species.

Males have taken an opposing strategy. They invest very little in each sperm cell, which is no more than a package

of tightly wrapped DNA attached to a propeller. Instead of quality, males have gone for quantity, because their

strategy is to inseminate as many females as possible.

This explains why one man can inseminate many hundreds of women in a lifetime, but a woman could only bear

children from no more than a dozen or so men.

The problem for the male, however, is that even in an utterly promiscuous society where females are available to

everyone, there is a high risk of not finding a female who hasn't already been inseminated, because each male can

inseminate so many.

This leads to intense competition between males for mates and the rise of elaborate ways for them to beat their

fellow sperm-producers to the precious female eggs.

At its most complex, this results in males trying to exclude their females from other males by force – leading to

social organisations based on harems that are defended by the size of your antlers (or your wallet).

Although some human societies are polygamous, most are based on some variation of monogamy, either serial or lifetime.

But monogamy does not preclude promiscuity, as exemplified by married footballers.

As a species, human males fall somewhere between gorillas and chimpanzees in terms of their propensity to promiscuity.

We can say this from looking at the relative size of a man's testicles compared to those of the gorilla (slightly

promiscuous, small testes) and chimps (highly promiscuous, very large testes).

So what has this got to do with whether women enjoy sex as much as men?

The answer is that it provides the long evolutionary backdrop to human sexual behaviour, which may explain

differences between the two sexes.

That there is a difference between the sexes is self-evident.

It manifests itself in terms of physical and psychological distinctions that are, in general, fairly easy to categorise as

either "male" or "female", although there are always going to be some individuals who fall between the two

statistical "norms".

Charles Darwin took a keen interest in why such differences between the sexes have evolved and came up with

the idea of sexual selection, which is a special type of natural selection, the driving force of evolution.

In essence, sexual selection explained how the peacock got his tail. Sexual selection says it was because the

peacock is the victim of female choice – choosy peahens are attracted to the males with the longest, most elaborate tails.

Without getting into the details of the evolutionary reasons for sexual selection, many of the physical distinctions

between men and women, such as beards and breasts, are also thought to have resulted from sexual selection.

It is a reminder, if one is needed, that we are at heart sexual animals who evolved over many thousands of millennia.

Evolutionary theory, however, can only go so far in explaining human sexuality, which is after all controlled by that

most mysterious of human features, consciousness.

It is often said that the human brain is the sexiest organ, and

there is abundant evidence to suggest that is especially true for women.

Men's sexuality appears to be less cerebral, and more deep-rooted in the far more ancient "reptilian" part of the brain.

One other mystery of human sexuality is the female orgasm, which serves no obvious biological function.

Humans may be one of the few species where females actually enjoy sex physically as much as males when it

comes to orgasmic pleasure.

So although biology can go a long way to explaining sexuality in humans, it cannot explain everything – including

why some people are attracted to the same sex.

Men who date women with slim waists

are less likely to have performance issues in the bedroom

•

 Researchers found the slimmer a woman's waist, the better a man's sexual function and satisfaction
• 

It may be that we are programmed to see partners with abdominal fat as at higher risk of disease

• Or, more likely, 'slimmer women are more attractive'

By Anna Hodgekiss

UPDATED: 12:33, 15 January 2013

A waspish waist has been the desire of women the world over for decades.

Now, new research has unveiled the reason why men too prefer women with a slender middle.

Scottish researchers have found that the slimmer a woman's waist, the more satisfied her partner and the less

likely he is to suffer from erectile dysfunction.

They say previous research has indicated that men generally rate slimmer women as more sexually attractive.

This may be because in evolutionary terms, we are programmed to associate people who are overweight with an

increased risk of health problems.
 
To assess the link between women's waist size and her perceived sexual attractiveness to her partner - and their

general sexual satisfaction - they rated a man's sexual function using a questionnaire called the International Index

of Erectile Function.

They also recorded how often the study participants - 700 Czech men aged 35-65 years - had intercourse.

Men who suffered the least performance issues were younger, had younger partners and their partner had a

slimmer waist.

They were also more sexually satisfied.

Lead researcher Stuart Brody, professor of psychology at the University of West Scotland, said it was 'noteworthy'

that a woman with a slim waist was regarded as more attractive in all measures of sexual function independent of both partners' age 

He said there were two main possible reasons for the 'waist effect'.

One was that women's abdominal body fat decreased their own desire on a hormonal level - perhaps hampering libido.

Another reason was that the man simply found slimmer women more attractive.

He said: 'The most compelling explanation was that slimmer women are, on average, more sexually attractive to

men (resulting in more frequent sex, stronger erections, and greater satisfaction).

He said: 'This is not surprising, given evolutionary selection pressures, because accumulation of excess body fat,

especially abdominally, is associated with elevated risk of metabolic,

cardiovascular, and neoplastic disorders (Singh, 2002).

'The elevated risk of such disorders could result in poorer fitness and hence less desirability as a mating partner.'

With regards to waist measurement being used as the definite measurement, the researchers pointed out that

waist circumference is often a better measurement of health than Body Mass Index (BMI) - particularly the risk of

heart disease in women.

The good news for women? Men have an incentive to not have a muffin top, either.

The researchers noted the larger a man's waist size, the lower his sexual satisfaction.

Promiscuity is good, so long as it is done on the woman’s terms.

 by Dalrock

I’ve touched on this basic issue before, but it strikes me as important enough to create a separate post on it. 

One of the more bizarre beliefs of our time is that there is some moral value to the statement:

No sex before monogamy!

I see this everywhere, including from Christians. 

What this statement is really saying is that promiscuity is good so long as it is happening on the woman’s own terms. 

This is similar to the argument by the Christian women that the wife in Fireproof wasn’t being whorish because

she planned on divorcing her husband and marrying the other man she was after before having sex with him.

There is no moral basis for serial monogamy, otherwise known as monogamy without a lifetime commitment. 

All there is are male and female preferred forms of promiscuity.

Men’s preferred form of promiscuity is to have a soft harem (which he is invested in but not committed to) along

with one-off sex with women he isn’t invested in. 

We call men who act on this preferred form of promiscuity players, cads, pickup artists, etc.

Women’s preferred form of promiscuity is to have sex with the highest status man she can (at the time), while

also securing investment and commitment from him (but without offering commitment herself). 

The confusion occurs because the woman is being selective about who she has sex with and at any given point

in time the woman appears to be in something resembling a marriage. 

Even more confusing, many women go through the motions of having a wedding but leave out the actual lifetime commitment. 

However, seeing these women as anything but promiscuous is a foolish mistake. 

When you look at the big picture it becomes painfully clear that what they are doing is nothing like marriage. 

We used to have terms for women like this, but conservative women are now uncomfortable with them. 

Whatever term you use, it is essential not to mistake these women as being any more moral than players or

pickup artists. 

They are acting on animal instinct just like the players are. 

The only difference is their instincts are different and therefore their expression of promiscuity is as well.

Government under pressure to review prostitution laws in England and Wales

Politicians and women's groups back 'Nordic model', under which it is illegal to buy sex

British students engage in sex to pay for tuition fees

 

The costs of tuition fees in Britain

have brought about new sponsorship deals that include money for sex.

 

Fri Nov 30, 2012 7:15PM GMT

 

The UK government’s role in raising the costs of university tuition fees has brought about new sponsorship

deals, where students are offered funds to cover their studies in exchange for having sex with strangers.

A new investigation revealed that students in Britain are being offered up to £15000 a year to cover their

university studies in exchange for having sex with a stranger, the Independent reported.

The website SponsorAScholar.co.uk claims to have arranged for 1,400 women aged between 17 and 24 to be

funded through their studies by wealthy businessmen seeking “discreet adventures”.

A secret reporter for the Independent newspaper, who posed as a student, was met by a male “assessor” from

the website, asking her to undertake a “practical assessment”.

The website’s representative said that the assessment was required for “quality control”.

But the requirement for young potential students to submit to a “practical assessment” raises fears that young

women students may have been exploited, according to the report.

The organized constructed site appears to be taking advantage of Britain’s sex laws, which allow escort agencies

to function legitimately by offering introductions between prostitution and clients.

Many young women in Britain facing financial hardship brought on by the coalition government’s decision to

increase the cost of studying, have been urged not to be tempted into the scholar sponsoring website

Porn stars and the naked truth

Women in the industry are healthy rather than exploited, claims new study

Roger Dobson

Sunday 25 November 2012

Female porn stars are psychologically as healthy or healthier than other women, according to a new study, which challenges widely held views about women in the adult entertainment business.

Adult entertainers were found to have higher self-esteem, a better quality of life and body image, and to be more positive, with greater levels of spirituality.

They also had higher levels of sexual satisfaction and, perhaps unsurprisingly, many more partners than other women.

The American researchers, who report their findings in the Journal of Sex Research, said they found no evidence to support the "damaged goods hypothesis" that actresses involved in the porn industry come from desperate backgrounds and are less psychologically healthy compared with typical women.

"Some descriptions of actresses in pornography have included attributes such as drug addiction, homelessness, poverty, desperation and being victims of sexual abuse," they said.

"Some have made extreme assertions, such as claiming that all women in pornography were sexually abused as children.

Stereotypes of those involved in adult entertainment have been used to support or condemn the industry and to justify political views on pornography, although the actual characteristics of actresses are unknown because no study on this group of women has been conducted."

The psychologists compared data taken from 177 adult entertainment actresses with a sample of women matched for age, marital status and other factors.

The actresses, all of whom had been paid to work on at least one X-rated movie, ranged in age from 18 to 50, with an average career in the industry of 3.5 years.

More than one-third were either married or in a serious relationship, and 44 per cent were single.

One of the main claims by commentators on the industry has been that actresses have frequently experienced sexual abuse in childhood, but the results show no statistically significant difference between the two groups of women.

The study also shows that the actresses sleep better and have more energy.

Almost 70 per cent gave enjoyment of sex full marks, compared with 33 per cent of the other women; and they had first had sex at a lower age: 15 rather than 17. On the negative side, industry workers had a history of more drug and alcohol use, and problems possibly linked to sensation-seeking personalities. The study was undertaken by researchers at Shippensburg University, Texas Woman's University and the Adult Industry Medical Healthcare Foundation.

Cynthia Graham, senior lecturer in health psychology at Southampton University, said: "This study really challenges views about women who engage in sex work and the porn industry. Although the study had limitations, it is one of very few that has included matched controls."

The feminist commentator Dawn Foster criticised the study: "It is dangerous to generalise about a huge industry: women who are successful and in control of their careers in one pocket don't speak for women in the less scrutinised parts. The study's main objective seems to be to prove that not all women in porn are exploited: no one has argued that. But glossing over the exploitative aspects helps no one."

How to clock her signals

A woman’s timekeeping can be much more telling than her words.

Learn to read the hidden signs to ensure you’re in perfect sync

·                      

Men’s Health

Her email reply takes...

24 hours “The majority of people check their emails at least once a day,” says online communications expert Dr Yoram Kalman.

So not hearing back within a day is a cause for concern, but it certainly doesn’t mean it’s curtains.

3 days

A recent survey by Harris Interactive found that 50 emails a day is the limit before people become overloaded.

“A slow response is a bad sign only if she doesn’t offer an explanation,” says professor of communications at Univeristy of Texas, Dawna Ballard.

Your timely fix

“Because there are so many platforms for conversation, it’s impossible to keep a constant watch on all of them,” says Kalman. Identify her preferred method – email, Facebook, text, phone or Twitter – then shift at least 75% of your weight of communication exclusively there.

How late is she for the first date?

5-10 minutes “Women are typically up to 10 minutes late for first dates,” says communications analyst at York University, Dr Peter Bull.

Be pleased if she sticks to this.

But be warned: if she’s early, she could be “task-oriented” and view dates as if they were business meetings.

25-25 minutes If she’s more than 25 minutes late without a good excuse, watch out.

“She might offer a genuine apology, but if she gives no advance notice or brushes it off, you should invest your time elsewhere,” says Bull.

Your timely fix

By putting her at ease upon arrival, you’ll create momentum. “Bring a book about a hobby you love,” says counselling psychologist Dr Soren Stauffer-Kruse.

“Reading makes you look relaxed and sparks conversation.”

She holds your gaze for...

5-10 seconds Eye contact provides a valuable feedback tool.

“If she holds your gaze while you are speaking, this shows real interest,” says Bull.

“However, maintaining eye contact while she is speaking simply shows that she feels secure in herself.”

Don’t confuse the two.

>10 seconds Believe it or not, too much eye contact is a bad thing.

“Uncomfortably long looks are associated with confrontation,” says Bull.

If her eyes significantly exceed the natural 5-10 seconds period, she’s likely to be showing disdain or disapproval, even if this is unconscious on her part.

Your timely fix Choose quiet date locations.

“Pubs and bars with TVs or jukeboxes present a challenge for early dates because distractions are rife,” says Ballard.

Pick a quiet corner and sit facing the bar.

She’ll naturally take the seat opposite, with less in her eye line to distract her.

The goodbye takes...

3-5 minutes Lingering for more than 3 minutes after the two of you leave the venue, shows she’s seriously interested.

“If she sees potential she’ll use this time to establish more of a bond,” says Ballard.

<60 seconds A swift exit is a warning.

“In particular, using work as an excuse for a quick getaway is an extremely bad sign,” says Bull.

She’s either playing hard to get... or impossible to get.

Your timely fix “Wait before arranging another date,” says Stauffer-Kruse.

Not knowing what’s going to happen next will raise her levels of anticipation and allow her to reflect on the last date.

Your golden window is two days.

Her text message...

Reply <1 hour “A quick response shows she’s open to an exchange of messages,” says Kalman.

But don’t worry if she leaves it a couple hours.

“She’ll always reply within two to three hours if she’s genuinely interested.”

3 late replies “Don’t judge her behaviour following one late or non-existent reply,” says Ballard.

“But if she fails to reply to your texts within three hours on three consecutive occasions, she’s moved on.”

Your timely fix

A Cornell University study found that positive energy peaks after 4pm, so slip into her mind with a late afternoon text, when she’ll be at her most receptive

Sorry boys, size DOES matter:

Scientific journal confirms men's worst bedroom fear

By Damien Gayle and Toni Jones
12 November 2012 | UPDATED:

Radical says - Penis size may matter to psychologists, some men and some women but -

Vaginal size matter more to most sexually active men!

What do the psychologists say about that ?

 

New research shows that size does matter if women want to have vaginal orgasms

If you are a man who has been cursed with a less than generous handout in the pants department you might want to look away now.

New research by the Journal of Sexual Medicine has shown that contrary to popular (wishful?) thinking penis size does matter when it comes to pleasing a woman in bed.

The good news is that it only matters for some women and some types of orgasms.

The research, printed online in September, has found that women who have frequent vaginal orgasms are more likely than other women to say they climax more easily with men with larger penises.

Stuart Brody, a psychologist at the University of the West of Scotland who conducted the research asked a sample of 323 women about previous sexual encounters.

They were asked about their recent sexual behaviors as well as how important penile-vaginal intercourse and other sex acts were to them.

They were also asked whether penis length influenced their ability to orgasm with vaginal stimulation.

Defining 'average' as the length of a £20 note, which is 5.8 inches (14.9 cm), the researchers asked women if they were more likely to orgasm vaginally with a longer-than-average or shorter-than-average penis.

Supporting the hypothesis that size matters, Brody and his colleagues found the women who reported the highest number of vaginal orgasms in the past month were most likely to say that longer was better.

Brody told Live Science: 'This might be due at least in part to greater ability of a longer penis to stimulate the entire length of the vagina, and the cervix.
 

He added: 'Male anxiety about penis size may not reflect internalized, culturally arbitrary masculine stereotypes, but an accurate appreciation that size matters to many women — just as men feel legitimate anxiety when they enter the mating market about their intelligence, personality traits, sense of humor, social status, height, wealth, and other traits known to be favored by women across cultures.'
 
Climax: Clitoral stimulation is not necessary for women to reach a peak experience while making love

These findings come eight months after the same journal reported sensational new evidence that vaginal and clitoral orgasms are, in fact, completely separate phenomena and activate different areas of the brain.

A series of essays published in April this year showed that contrary to popular belief - and many previous scientific findings - there was more than one way to satisfy a woman in bed and that the clitoris was not the only key to a woman's sexual satisfaction.

The research showed that not only can women climax through sexual intercourse alone, but the resulting orgasm is wildly different to those reached by clitoral stimulation.

Other startling findings cited by the essays in the series include:

Women are not only be able to orgasm from both vaginal and clitoral stimulation, but from stimulation at a range of erogenous zones, with some able to even 'think' themselves to a peak;

The sensitive G-spot - once thought of as a semi-mythical orgasm hot spot - could have a role in pain relief during labour by more than doubling a woman's pain threshold;

The ability to reach climax through vaginal stimulation could be linked to both physical and mental health, with healthy women more likely to orgasm without clitoral stimulation.

French gynaecologist Odile Buisson in her essay argued the case for the classic understanding of the female orgasm as dependent on clitoral stimulation.

According to this view, the front wall of the vagina is closely linked with the internal parts of the clitoris, meaning that stimulating the vagina without activating the clitoris ought to be impossible.

So, she concludes, so-called 'vaginal' orgasms could in reality be clitoral orgasms by another name.
 
Playtime: Previous findings show what many couples have long known - that women are able to climax from a range of erogenous zones

The Journal of Sexual Medicine essays also included a provocative claim that that vaginal-only orgasms are less likely in women with poor physical and mental health.

One study found that women who have vaginal orgasms have a lower resting heart rate than others who did not experience them.

Other research found that women who can reach a sexual peak without clitoral stimulation are less likely to use specific maladaptive psychological coping mechanisms.

Given the psychological link between different kinds of orgasms, Stuart Brody, a psychologist at the University of West Scotland who conducted the research, slammed as 'malpractice' the common advice to women that orgasms originate only with the clitoris.

Emmanuele Jannini, a professor of endocrinology at the University of Aquila in Italy, called on women to take heed of the findings, but warned against fetishising them.

She said: 'A woman should have an understanding — who is she, how is her body composed, what is the possibility of her body, but she should not be looking for something like a race, like a game, like a duty.

'Looking for the G-spot orgasm or the vaginal orgasm as a need, as a duty, is the best way to lose the happiness of sex.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2231751/Sorry-boys-size-DOES-matter-Scientific-journal-confirms-mens-worst-bedroom-fear.html#ixzz2C2lsEJrx

Asia's Competition for Brides       

Written by Our Correspondent

Asia Sentinel   

Thursday, 01 November 2012  
 

It's economics rather than love, study says

 

Radical says - Surprise Surprise ? Not al All

 

All across Asia, bridegrooms are increasingly importing their brides from overseas, a trend identified by Soohyung Lee, an associate professor at the University of Maryland and a visiting professor at Harvard Business School in the US.

It is a trend that appears to owe more to the classic rules of international trade, supply and demand and competitive advantage than it does to romance or love, according to the study, titled The Competition for Brides in East Asia.

The study, for the Seoul-based Samsung Economic Research Institute, is password-protected.

As Dr Lee’s research shows, arranged marriages have been skyrocketing in South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore and Hong Kong.

This trade in foreign brides ranges from 5 percent of marriages in Japan to more than 30 percent in Singapore and Hong Kong.

Although Asians across many countries have sought to determine the sex of unborn children and aborted the girls in favor of getting sons and heirs, the decision to go outside the grooms’ home countries may be more due to differences in educational levels than scarcity.

Are well-educated women turning down bridegrooms?

“As the gender gap in terms of college attendance is closing fast, the sex ratio among those without tertiary education is rapidly increasing,” Dr Lee writes.

“I argue that the increase in the sex ratio among people without tertiary education (rather than the general population) is the deciding factor in determining demand for foreign brides.

The reduction in the gender gap for educational attainment has had important implications in the Korean marriage market for two reasons.

First, she says, women with a university education are much less likely to get married compared to those without tertiary education.

Second, even if they do marry, they are less likely to marry a man without a university education.

“Accordingly, Korean men without tertiary education are likely to be attractive only to Korean women without tertiary education, whose number has diminished over time.

Accordingly, some of these ‘squeezed’ men in the marriage market have turned to international marriages.”

China, a country that suffers a striking shortage of brides in its own right because of the lack of girl babies, is nonetheless the largest exporter of brides to South Korea (50 percent of foreign marriages), Taiwan (70 percent), Japan (37 percent), Hong Kong (39 percent) and Singapore (30 to 40 percent).

Ultrasound and other methods of determining the sex of unborn children have led to the abortion of millions of Chinese girls or, more gruesomely, the occasional murder of girl babies after they are born.

The country now produces an estimated 118 boy babies for every 100 girls, one of the most badly skewed ratios in the world, creating other issues including the kidnapping of girls from neighboring countries including Cambodia, Vietnam and Burma for forced marriages in China itself.

South Korean marriages between native grooms and foreign brides have shot up from fewer than 1 percent of all newlyweds in 1991 to 8 percent in 2007. In Hong Kong,

Dr Lee writes, while fewer than 2 percent of grooms married mainland Chinese brides in 1991, that figure had grown rapidly in the previous decade, reaching a startling 39 percent in 2005.

In Singapore, international marriages accounted for 30 to 40 percent of total marriages between 1999 and 2009.

In Japan, the share for Japanese grooms marrying a foreign bride was about 2 percent in 1992 and reached 5 percent in 2006.

In Taiwan, marriages involving non-Taiwanese brides, including women from mainland China, accounted for 22 percent of marriages in 2004.

“International marriages, particularly those involving foreign brides, are an important factor in the East Asian marriage markets,” Dr Lee said.

“The number of marriages between native grooms and foreign brides in all countries has increased over time and these marriages now constitute a significant fraction of newlyweds in all five countries.

Arranged marriages between Koreans and non-Koreans were nearly unknown until recently, for instance.

This kind of marriage has many important socio-economic implications for Korean society.

Since most of the brides are not ethnic Koreans, and are generally less educated than Korean women, the constant inflow of a large number of foreign brides has changed the demographic composition of Korean society in ethnicity, gender composition, and labor supply.”

The high prevalence of international marriages and their social and cultural implications has driven government agencies to pay close scrutiny to the new phenomenon, introducing numerous policies to help foreign brides assimilate into Korean society.

After China, the others are Vietnam, the Philippines, and Thailand The relative income gap between Korea and the bride-exporting countries is an important factor, Dr Lee writes.

“This means that other things being equal, if China, the major bride exporter, catches up economically with Korea, a smaller number of Chinese women will be willing to marry Korean men (as well as men in other developed East Asian countries). Moreover, since Korea and other Asian countries import brides from the same source, Korea will face severe competition for foreign brides from these countries.”

The marriage markets of Korea, Japan, and Taiwan, and the markets of the major bride exporter, China are closely linked.

For example, if one of the major bride exporters reduces its export of brides, then all three countries will need to make adjustments to their sources for women.

Consequently, they will compete against one another for potential foreign brides.

Chinese men are now saving more money to make themselves more marriageable according to a study cited by Dr Lee, an indication that China is very likely to become an importer rather than an exporter of brides in the future, reducing the supply of foreign brides to South Korea and to other developed East Asian countries.

The bride trade rather sadly resembles the trade in other scarce items.

As Dr Lee points out, the current prominence of Vietnamese brides in South Korea is negatively correlated with that of Taiwan, with the share of Vietnamese brides among foreign brides in Korea increasing between 2004 and 2006 and dropping in 2007.

“This pattern coincides with that in Taiwan, where the fraction of Vietnamese brides among foreign brides decreased from 2004 to 2006 but recovered in 2007.

This is because in 2004, the Taiwanese government introduced a policy of enforcing visa interviews with foreign brides in Chinese, decreasing the import of Vietnamese brides into Taiwan.

Due to the policy change, Vietnamese marriage brokers found it more difficult to send Vietnamese women to Taiwan, thus building closer relationships with Korean marriage brokers and sending more women to Korea.

That illustrates the interconnectedness of the marriage markets in East Asia, and the role of the international marriage markets in determining the supply of foreign brides.

Dr Lee used the difference in per-capita GDP between a host and source country as a proxy for the economic gain that a bride may receive from marrying a man in Korea, depending on the logarithm of trade volume to proxy for the extent to which the two countries are tied.

If the two countries already have close ties in terms of economic activities, then the cost of establishing a business to generate marriages between the two countries may be smaller than otherwise.

The poorer a country is, compared to Korea, the more the country is likely to become a major bride-exporting country.

All things being equal, if a country has close economic or geographic ties to Korea, its likelihood of becoming a major bride-exporting country increases.

As China grows faster, it will supply a smaller number of women to Korea.

Moreover, if China starts to import brides and its importing process becomes like that of Korea, China will import brides from less developed Asian countries that have close economic ties with China such as Cambodia and Vietnam.

Thus, China will become a competitor for bridal imports against South Korea and other developed East Asian countries as it has become a competitor for a wide range of other goods from timber to coal to nickel to gold.

 

Does sex have to be 'sacred' to be meaningful?

The headmaster of Wellington College has criticised young people's attitudes to sex, calling it a 'sacred act'.

Do you agree?

• guardian.co.uk,
• Monday 29 October 2012 11.31 GMT

Revealed: the songs you should play during sex:

The true sound of seduction?

'Boudoir king' Marvin Gaye tops poll of sexy music

Listen to the top 10 tracks to get ‘in the mood’ below

Adam Sherwin  Tuesday 23 October 2012 

 The orchestrated pleadings of Marvin Gaye and the crescendo of Ravel’s Balero are the true sounds of seduction, a new study has confirmed.

But there is no place for Bohemian Rhapsody in the bedroom, a music psychology expert has warned.

Soul legend Gaye’s reputation as the “boudoir king” is justified by the mood-enhancing combination of earthy vocals and lush, circular melodies, argues Dr Daniel Müllensiefen, music psychologist at Goldsmiths, University of London.

Dr Müllensiefen analysed the results of a Spotify survey of 2,000 music fans, which identified the songs most likely to form the playlist for an amorous encounter. Marvin Gaye’s Sexual Healing and Let’s Get It On were the songs most likely to help a couple get “in the mood”.

Ravel’s Bolero proved  one of the most popular accompaniments to the act itself along with the entire soundtrack to 80s film Dirty Dancing, a sign that women are more likely to control the soundtrack in the bedroom.

“The tracks that get us in the mood all possess the same qualities including a greater dynamic range, more use of the high chest voice, more raspiness in the voice and less use of vocal vibrato,” said Dr Müllensiefen, co-director of the Masters programme in Music, Mind and Brain at Goldsmiths.

“These specific attributes are strongly evident in the Marvin Gaye tracks, Sexual Healing and Let’s Get It On.”

The Gaye songs are “smooth and have no distracting orchestration.

They possess a circular and emotional quality which goes really well with the voice which conveys passion and emotion. It’s very well suited to the bedroom.”

The subterranean moans of Barry White, “the walrus of love”, also featured strongly as did Donna Summer’s combination of throbbing disco beats and orgasmic vocals, I Feel Love.

Dr Müllensiefen admitted he was initially surprised by Bolero’s popularity as a musical aphrodisiac.

“But it makes sense,” he said. “It has the perfect structure – it’s 17 minutes long, the right length for a sex episode and it builds in dynamics constantly to a huge crescendo. Rhythmically it is repetitive and features two melodies which spiral over and over.”

Bolero’s popularity as seduction soundtrack can be traced to its appearance in the 1980 film 10, as the backdrop to a scene in which Bo Derek makes love to Dudley Moore.

The entire soundtrack to Dirty Dancing topped the songs apparently most played during sex.

The film’s storyline provides a romantic fantasy for many women and the collection of 50s hits culminates with the ideal post-coital outcome, (I’ve Had) The Time of My Life.

Men are more likely to defer to their partners when choosing a soundtrack. 

“Much depends on taste,” said Dr Müllensiefen. “ If a woman doesn’t like rock music then it’s best to avoid anything with loud guitars.”

Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody topped the list of songs least likely to become a bedroom soundtrack.

“Anything that is distracting or demands attention, or has elements of the unexpected is not so good for romance,” said the psychology lecturer.

“Bohemian Rhapsody has too many different parts and breaks.

It breaks the concentration.

These unexpected turning points do create strong emotional feelings however which can be positive in other contexts. ”

Hits and misses: The survey results

Top five songs to play during sex…

1. Dirty Dancing Anything from the soundtrack

2. Marvin Gaye Sexual Healing

3. Ravel Boléro

4. Berlin Take My Breath Away

5. Barry White Anything from his collection

…and the bottom five

1. Queen Bohemian Rhapsody

2. Kings of Leon Sex on Fire

3. Robbie Williams Angels

4. Meat Loaf Bat Out of Hell

5. Bon Jovi Livin’ on a Prayer

Source:  Spotify study interviewed 2000 people aged between 18 and 91 years old, with an almost equal gender split.

Wham Bam Thank You, Noi

 

Stickman

Where once the appeal of naughty nightlife in Bangkok was attractive service providers, decent service standards and low prices, today it's often a case of insert, pump, squirt. 

Many foreign guys playing in Bangkok are paying way too much.

What is the current situation in Bangkok?

Whoring in Bangkok is lovemaking with a beautiful, young, sensual woman whose every wish is to please you in a tender, passionate and unhurried manner. 

Maybe it was, once upon a time, but it sure isn't today.

And the truth is finally coming out on some of the hardcore naughty boy forums with even the hardcore guys admitting to having bad experience after bad experience for which they feel they have paid over the odds. 

No-one likes to admit that something they were so looking forward to, or paid so much for, could ultimately be disappointing. 

But that is exactly what is happening. 

These days commercial sexual liaisons on Sukhumvit and Silom are often a rushed, emotionless experience.

On Sukhumvit and Silom, many foreign guys are essentially paying 4,000 baht to get laid. 

A few drinks runs 450 - 500 baht and a couple of lady drinks is 300 baht. 

 A barfine is 600+ baht. 

Girls are keen to use short-time rooms - there's a time limit meaning they can do the business quickly and get back to the bar to hook their next customer. 

The lady will invariably want - and get - 2,000 baht. 

 In round numbers, guys are parting with 4,000 baht for their so-called fun.

Sit outside any short-time hotel near Nana or Cowboy and it's amazing how fast customers exit. 

 Few are inside more than an hour. 

 The average time from entering to exiting is about 45 minutes. 

Do the maths. 

Both he and she have a shower before and after the main event. 

That's 4 showers. 

Then there's the undressing and the dressing. 

Foreplay? 

What's that? 

 Post-coital chit chat? 

No chance! 

She flirts, you squirt and her work is done!

The intimacy and passion have gone. 

 There is no tenderness. 

 With many bargirls clocking up more short-times in a week than most people have sexual partners in a lifetime, how can you expect anything other than a mechanical experience?

What are the specific issues?

The decline in service standards and the increase in prices is basic economics. 

Demand exceeds supply. 

It's complicated by the fact that girls make plenty from other sources.

Salaries paid by bars have increased as they compete to recruit attractive girls. 

Where once most gogo dancers received a salary of less than 10,000 baht, some bars are forced to pay much more to compete.

It used to be that a girl would nurse a lady drink and be happy to sit with a customer as long as he stayed in the bar. 

Today they hustle for drinks and girls getting 10 or more drinks a night is hardly unusual - not bad at 50 baht per drink commission. 

With drinks commission and salary alone, some girls can collect 20,000 baht from the bar at the end of the month even before she has thought about dropping her knickers. 

And let's not forget the sad sods who believe that sending money to support a girl keeps her exclusive to him. 

With salary, drinks commission and remittances from abroad, the girls have no need to drop their knickers.

The girls have never really cared for their customers but managed to convince many otherwise, feigning interest because they were desperately in need of money. 

 With multiple sources of income today - each of which may be equal to or greater than what a university graduate earns - there's no need for the girls to try hard or to even pretend they like guys.

What are the alternatives?

Thai-style venues offer all in service for around 2,000 baht. 

The Thai sector of the industry has prettier girls, lower prices and guaranteed service standards although it's probably just as mechanical and lacks the spontaneity of the farang bar areas which is part of the excitement.

Things do seem to be different, read: better in Pattaya but the word is that the most popular and most attractive girls in big name Walking Street bars ask similar money with 2,000 - 3,000 baht quoted more and more.

Some hardcore naughty boys have moved on to neighbouring countries.  Phnom Penh prices are low but the industry is small and the girls not so attractive, in my eyes at least. 

Vietnam has pretty girls but few venues set up for foreigners. 

 Many naughty boys report that Angeles City in the Philippines is in a class of its own for fair prices and decent service.

Amazingly it is Hong Kong that hits the sweet spot for genuinely attractive women who offer decent service at fair prices.  $HKD 350 (about 1,400 baht) gets 45 minutes with a genuinely attractive lady. 

Think working girls in small rooms in buildings all over town, admittedly cramped but all quite civilized.

In Hong Kong there are pretty ladies from Northern Thailand who are nothing like the Isaan princesses so common in Bangkok and Pattaya. 

 Not that there aren't wonderful girls from Isaan, but the polite demeanour of the Thai girls working abroad is worlds apart from what you find here. 

No cursing, no excessive drinking, no brazen disrespect and generally no nonsense. 

 What is it about the farang bar areas of Bangkok that has caused things to end up where they are today?

Still in Hong Kong, at the bottom end, Thai working girls are available for as little as $HKD 250 (1,000 baht) for 30 minutes operating out of crusty buildings, mostly on the eastern side of Hong Kong Island. 

Think tattoos and yaba heads; transplants from Sukhumvit and Walking Street - but cheaper than the farang bar areas of Bangkok.

Parts of the West offer a much cheaper option than what you get in Thailand, crazy given part of the idea of going to the Far East is for lower prices. 

The New Zealand Herald, for example, that country's biggest newspaper is full of personal ads like the one below from Asian students (Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Vietnamese etc.) working from a flat offering a quick session for $NZ 40 - 60 all in (1,000 - 1,500 baht).

Final thoughts

Japanese visitors to Bangkok's naughty nightlife areas have long been mocked by Westerners with the overused cliché, the rule of 4s meaning 4 inches, 4 minutes, 4,000 baht. 

But the joke is on Westerners now with many parting with 4,000 baht for a hurried, mechanical experience. 

Of course some guys pay less, some find genuinely pretty girls and some might even get excellent service. 

 But how many are so lucky?

The farang bar areas of Bangkok today have become very commercial and what once was something a little bit special is now a carbon copy of prostitution the world over - quick, mechanical and expensive.
Is wham, bam, thank you, Noi, worth 4,000 baht?

Are you good in bed?

Take our quiz and make sure she comes back for more

 

1 What's your weekly exercise regime?

2-3 high-intensity, 45-minute sessions a week  (+3)
4-5 sessions lasting more than 2 hours  (-1)
I train solely ‘on the job’ (-2)

Contrary to intuition, donning a pair of less-than-fetching running shorts increases your sex appeal.

According to research at Colorado State University, moderate 30-minute runs three times a week for a month will get you panting in more ways than one.

Of the study’s 3,000 participants, 75% reported a higher sex drive, 72% were “more sexually responsive” and over 60% reported they could go for another lap around the bedroom within 10 minutes.

But don’t overdo it.

More than five hours a week can lead to "overtraining" where your testosterone levels, along with your mojo, drop by up to a third.

Equally, never assume that sex is enough of a workout in itself.

An 11st (70kg) man burns just 62 calories through 10 minutes of carnal cardio, says research at Carolina University.

That means you’ll have to do three repeat performances just to justify a pint of Foster’s.

You up to that big guy?

2 How do you set the scene for sex?

A steamy X-rated flick (+2)
Bob Dylan Bootleg Series Vol 8 ( -1)
Something tender and juicy (+1)

A night in with a DVD just got interesting.

Copenhagen University researchers found that women who watch X-rated films show higher levels of pleasure-related endorphins lasting for up to two hours.

 If your lady is unconvinced by visuals, try something aural, though this isn’t the moment for sensitive Bob Dylan rarities.

 If the music is unfamiliar it could slow seduction, according to research from the State University of New York, as you’ll both be distracted by it.

Instead, go for some familiar up-tempo tunes and you’ll be having more sex, sooner.

Classic indie music (like The Stone Roses) can actually speed up her arousal levels, according to study author George Stefano.

And set the ball rolling with a sirloin supper.

“The protein in the meat will naturally boost levels of dopamine and norepinephrine, two chemicals in the brain that heighten sensitivity for both of you during sex,” says Dr Sarah Brewer, author of Increase Your Sex Drive (Thorsons).

Steak dinner, darling?

3 What's your foreplay strategy?

Stroke her arms and legs (+2)
Lots of kissing (+1)
Who needs foreplay? (-1)

They might not be the first port of call on your curves cruise but her arms are the path to satisfaction.

The journal Nature Neuroscience reports her body’s prime pleasure nerves are in greatest abundance under her forearms and the backs of her legs.

Two minutes of gentle touching at 2-4cm per second and she’ll melt.

And don’t forget about first base when you’re scrambling for fourth.

Lyon University biochemists discovered that male saliva has four times the testosterone content of women’s, making Gallic lip service nature’s own aphrodisiac.

4 What's your preferred position?

You on top (-1)
Her on top (+2)
Both, and much more (+3)

While any sex is good from your point of view, lighting her fuse requires careful consideration of how to lay the dynamite.

 “The vagina, urethra and clitoris all need to be stimulated for maximum chances of orgasm,” says neuroscientist Gert Holstege, at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

“The key is a combination of external and internal stimulation, best achieved by changing sexual positions.” Start with ‘the spider’.

Face each other with her astride you.

Pull her in close then both lie back with your knees raised.

 “Compared to the missionary, it allows a deeper, more intense stimulation, with less friction so you last longer,” says sex counselor Mary Clegg. Then swap to the reverse cowgirl, she says, her riding you but facing away.

 “It creates extra G spot stimulation as she can tilt her pelvis for more or less contact, while you can gently stroke the nerve hot-spot between her buttocks just above her bum.”

5 How long do you last following penetration?

Over 13 minutes (–1)
3-13 minutes (+3)
Under 3 minutes (-1)

No three words deflate a man’s ego faster than ‘Is that it?’

The Sexual Dysfunction Alliance reports premature ejaculation comes top of your list of bedroom anxieties. It’s little wonder.

 Lasting less than three minutes reduces her chances of orgasm by over 80%, according to a study in the Journal of Sexual Medicine.

Buy yourself confidence with a desensitising Delay Condom (£1.49 for three, jonnycondom.com), found to boost your staying power by up to 70% in University of Arizona tests.

 Just don’t indulge in Old Traffodian-style “extra time”.

Anything over 13 minutes can cause ‘distressing discomfort’ for your partner, a study in the Journal of Sexual Medicine found. Researchers concluded that optimal intercourse lasted 3-13 minutes – with your lady pillow-biting at the 7.3-minute mark.

6 What's your post-coital stategy?

Carry on kissing and cuddling (+2)
Offer her a massage (+2)
Ask what you could do better (-1)

Rolling over after sex is like bad-mouthing a chef – you’re never going to get seconds. Instead, seal your next helping with a kiss.

Research at Albany University in New York found women are 80% more likely to initiate post-romp kissing.

“Men who make an effort with kissing have been shown to be over 30% more likely to have sex again,” says study author Gordon Gallup.

Before your hands are required down below again, move to her back.

A study in Biological Psychiatry shows massage after sex maintains the flow of the feel-good hormone oxytocin so she’ll orgasm easier the second (and third, and fourth…) time round.

Just don’t spoil the vibe by making her orgasm the only topic of conversation.

A study in the Journal of Sexual Medicine found that stress about sexual performance decreases her arousal.

“If you’re not sure if she came or not, don’t ask,” says Dr Barbara Keesling, lecturer on human sexuality at California State University.

“Ask her what’s on her mind instead”.

Your score

+15 TO +6
She loves you. But that’s no reason to be complacent.

Use the tips in this quiz to ensure you’re always on top (and underneath).

-1 TO +5
Ticket to ride. Get promoted to the sex Premier League with a desensitising condom.

-8 TO -1
Help! Improve your performance by going running three times a week

MH investigates: Digital sex

There are dozens of websites that promise to find you real sex with real women – at broadband speeds.

MH went online to find out just how fast the loose world of internet sex really is

“I’m just going to slip into something more comfortable,” she said, as she thrust a pink toothbrush into my hand and ushered me towards the bathroom.

It’s been more than three years since I’ve been on a proper date but two days since I’ve signed up for an internet dating site. Eleven messages later and I’m in the flat of a girl who I’ve only known for three-and-a-half hours.

Everyone has a friend who’s got a story to tell about an online liaison.

In the UK alone, 17% of recently married couples met online and 69% of first dates came from online encounters.

Around 15m people are registered to dating sites and some of those sites make no bones about the fact they serve solely as a conduit for people to meet for sex. In the 2012 iDate industry awards, many of the winning sites were hook-up services. And they’re being used more than ever before.

As most men now work an average 20% more hours a week than seven years ago many simply don't have time for the old routine of catching eyes, buying drinks, offering dinner, then maybe, just maybe, getting a girl back. I am one of those men.

According to Marie Claire, women over 26 wait an average of three to four dates – or three weeks – to sleep with a man. Using the same 21-day period, I’m going to enlist the internet to speed up the process.

 I want to know how this £2bn industry has moved the goalposts and whether it is easier for a man like me to score.

But as I upload my first picture, it feels as though I’m giving a terabyte of myself away.

This is digital sex and I’m from an analogue world; I'm worried I’ll get nothing back.

Sprinting to first base

I shouldn’t have worried.

I met the owner of the pink toothbrush on badoo.com.

With more than 150m members, it’s been tagged as “the world’s most successful hook-up service” and is the biggest paid-for social networking site on the planet.

Within 30 minutes of signing up, I receive a message from Kelly, 35, north London.

We arrange to meet in a bar that night.

It sets off at a frenetic pace.

We talk fast and drink faster.

Within only a couple of hours, Kelly opens up to me more than many of my ex-girlfriends.

She tells me all about how her family moved around to avoid the tax man.

She also explains that she's using dating sites to find someone normal.

We’ve missed the last train and it’s time to go home. Without any hesitation she invites me back to hers.

This is out of the blue.

There’s been no physical contact, no discernible come-ons and not even a great deal of eye contact. I wonder whether I’ve missed the signs or whether Badoo has changed them. It must have. I courteously accept.

Back to the pink toothbrush.

I brush for longer than would ever be necessary and purposefully exit the bathroom.

What I’m confronted with isn’t the corset-cum-basque I was expecting.

An ill-fitting pair of baggy zebra-print flannelette pyjama bottoms is teamed with the hoody of a heavily set ex-boyfriend.

She has, indeed, slipped into something more comfortable.

I’ve never slept with anyone in a full tracksuit before.

We start chatting, then kissing awkwardly.

Fumbling with layers of hoody and bra strap, I make a juvenile attempt to take things further.

As soon as I make finger-tip contact with bra clasp, I get only a short, sharp slap to the wrist.

It doesn’t so much spoil the moment as stop it right there.

I spend the rest of the night burying my unwanted erection into the mattress.

In the morning we chat merrily over coffee and get the bus into work together without the embarrassment of a one-night stand behind us – it’s like we’re old friends catching up.

At no point did she suggest that anything would ever happen between us, and Badoo itself doesn’t imply sex at any point, either.

 I wrongly thought that everyone would be there for the same reason I was. On reflection, I need to be far clearer on my profile that quick-and-easy sex is what I’m about.

Cut to the chase
I vow to indulge in no further ambiguity when it comes to my intentions.

That night I see an advert for benaughty.com, which features a couple who met online and turn up on the date wearing nothing but underwear.

It finishes with the slogan: “dating that lets you cut to the chase.”

To make darn sure what the website means by ‘cutting straight to the chase’, I ask Sean Wood, BeNaughty’s communications director, exactly what it implies: “We’re a dating site that avoids the clichés of romance, flowers, meals and candles. It’s a more casual environment, like a pub or bar. There’s no expectation of marriage or a relationship,” he says.

It sounds too good to be true. And, indeed, it is.

In the week that I'm a paid-up member, my profile receives zero communication from genuine girls.

After being online for a day, I’ve received over 50 offers of live camera shows from ladies of the night and no shortage of pornbot correspondence trying to direct me to other sites asking for credit card details.

This gets me wondering.

If it is so brazenly a hub to direct you to adult sites, why bother marketing itself as a dating site?

I go to Mark Brooks of Courtland Brooks, a newswire service for online dating for an answer.

“The online adult industry is on its arse," says Brooks.

"The YouPorns and free sites of this world have put a lot of pornographers out of business and the big players left are now looking to exploit dating site clients and lure them to their websites that way.”

BeNaughty is also working with the concept of GPS location-led dating, as pioneered by Grindr, an app for the gay community that tells you the whereabouts of potential partners in the vicinity.

It sounds great, but it appears that it just doesn’t translate to the heterosexual market.

“I’ve been on here for three months and still haven’t been able to track any girls down when I’ve been on a night out,” says one male 29-year-old BeNaughty member I speak to.

After chatting to zero genuine girls in a week, it’s time to pack up my profile and move on. And this time I'm going to try a higher calibre of website.

Beauty and the beast
They don’t come much more exclusive than beautifulpeople.com, a site that’s been pilloried in the press for its policy of only allowing attractive men and women to become paid-up members.

Inductees go through a 48-hour selection process where they are vetted by other members around the world.

Of the site’s 750,000 members, 58% are female, making the ratio more man-friendly than other sites.

However, the British man needs to be of a particularly good sort to get in.

Of the 20 countries in which BeautifulPeople is active, the UK is last in the acceptance league table, with just 9% passing their portrait audition.

One in seven people from around the world make it through.

Norwegian women top the check-in polls, with a 75% acceptance rate. I like all of those odds.

Once you’ve passed the selection process, the experience is just like you’d expect in the VIP room of a chic nightclub. You can spot the wannabe WAGs a mile off.

As with the few occasions I have found myself on the other side of the red rope in the real world, I feel markedly uncomfortable.

I struggle to find the confidence to strike up conversation.

Most of the girls I do speak to don't reply and of the ones that do, there is no mention of meeting – for sex or otherwise.

I’m no further on than when I left Kelly on the bus a week ago.

I decide to split my resources and, indeed, my dignity.

I sign up to illicitencounters.com – a site that pairs up married men and women for extra-marital affairs.

To assuage my guilt, I wanted to know how the site justifies its own ethics.

“Plenty of married people want to meet someone else and not leave their current relationship,” says the site’s chief spokesperson, Rosie Freeman-Jones.

“Single people might eventually want something more.

Our users tend to be after one thing.” I don’t mention my lack of spouse.

From the off, I’m bombarded with genuine communication.

One woman seems particularly keen: Mandy, 35, from Maidstone.

She sends me at least four emails when I give her private access to my photo and wants to meet up tomorrow.

I agree. I start to pack my bag with gusto (toothbrush, spare shirt, boxers, condoms, Viagra) and realise that I’m pretty turned on by the whole idea.

 I’m about to meet an experienced older lady in a hotel for sex. Every schoolboy’s dream.

As I close the lid to the bag, I see an email flash up from BeautifulPeople.

One of the girls who hadn’t replied is suggesting meeting up tomorrow, too.

I re-open my bag and add an additional pair of pants.

Getting down and dirty
I’m in the hotel bar, waiting for someone’s wife.

I think back to her profile to make sure I recognise her: glasses, cheerful-looking face, freckles, 5’6” and into bondage. A woman turns up at the bar of the door looking lost.

It can’t be the suburban mum I’m expecting.

She’s wearing army-issue boots, hot pants, pink hair and five piercings in her face.

It’s definitely her. I recognise the tattoo on her shoulder.

What I didn’t realise was it was a sleeve extending all the way down her arm.

She walks over.

My balls retract.

All I can manage is a Churchillian nod.

Not a self-assured, dignified bow of our wartime PM, rather the demented wobble of the bulldog on the car insurance adverts.

She’s certainly not my type.

As I go to the bar to order the drinks, I surreptitiously locate the emergency Viagra and bang it back with no time to spare. As we make our way upstairs she tells me that she’s hungry, which is a bit of a relief.

Room service will at least stave off the inevitable for 20 minutes or so.

Her burger arrives and she tucks in. I’ve never seen anything quite like it.

The onion chutney on top of the cheese goes first, sucked off like the dregs of a milkshake disappearing up a straw with a noise to match.

The three piercings in her lip show no sign of foiling the burger’s demolition. I'm worrying that her other carnal instincts are just as destructive.

After the last chip is lovingly coated with mayonnaise, then ketchup, then mustard and devoured, she puts the tray on the floor and lunges in my direction.

 I’ve never kissed anyone with a tongue piercing, let alone someone with more metal in their face than a war veteran – and it doesn’t taste good.

All I’ve got in my mouth is rust, tinged with battery acid, followed by the kick of the onion chutney.

This wasn’t how I dreamt it as a 16-year-old.

Then the Viagra drops. It doesn't take her long to notice.

My belt comes off with the speed and skill of a matador and within a minute she's giving me a shrapnel-aided blowjob.

This evolves quickly into sex.

 Dirty, filthy sex that should really remain the preserve of Amsterdam’s less-salubrious DVD vendors.

The immediate aftermath is telling. I feel remorse.

Regret for the unsavoury acts I’ve just committed, guilt for the fact it was with someone’s wife and shame that, at 27 years old, I've resorted to meeting strangers for sex.

Mandy feels none of these emotions. As we walk back through the hotel she tells me that this is just something she does for escapism. That being said, I have achieved my objective.

The sex is there if you want it, it just depends how far south you are prepared to go on your moral compass to get it.

With the shower turned up to a temperature Lucifer himself would flinch at, I scour, scrub and scrape away any evidence that the previous hour ever happened.

In 30 minutes I've got woman number two arriving into the same platform from which I collected Mandy earlier.

Blowing hot and cold
Lauren, 32, from Bedford actually looks like the person in her profile picture.

She has a gorgeous smile, seems really comfortable in herself and from the word go we hit it off. It's as conventional a date as any I’ve been on.

Chat gives way to a bit of flirting, and she speaks openly about the reasons she finds herself using online dating sites.

“I’ve been hurt a couple of times and now I just want to have a bit of fun.

Not just sex fun, but just to meet some nice guys.”

The signals are there this time: hair touching, open body language and coy physical contact.

When I mention that there's a room available upstairs (yes, I have requested a change of sheets), she is more than keen to join me.

Parting company with Lauren comes with its own batch of issues and self-questioning.

I like her and, if the previous night is anything to go by, she likes me.

But as we leave in the morning, we can barely say a word to one another.

She can hardly look me in the eye and I'm in no hurry to gaze longingly.

She declines my offer of coffee and makes off towards her platform with not so much as a backwards glance. It's weird to feel so distant from someone I’d been so comfortable with 10 hours earlier.

Even though I’d got on better with her than both Kelly and Mandy, come morning I know even less about her than I did before I first clicked on her profile.

The measure of success

In my three-week window I managed to meet three girls.

That’s three more than I would have met had I stuck to the analogue approach, but I'm more sure than ever that the intangible chemistry of attraction simply cannot be converted into binary code.

No matter how advanced the algorithms, they can't replicate that first awkward silence or the recurring smell of the same perfume the following day.

Nor the glance you share, the one when neither of you know what it means.

The one that still sets your heart racing.

I’ve certainly achieved my goal of finding quick and easy sex with real women online.

Coming to the table with zero knowledge about how the sites work or how best to use them, I still met three girls, without actually trying too hard. I wasn’t prepared for it to be quite so exciting, either.

 Logging on in the morning to find you’ve been messaged by a number of girls who are keen to get out there and meet you boosts both ego and sex drive on a daily basis.

The fact that you’ve no real idea what they’re going to look like – two of my three looked nothing like their profiles – actually adds to that.

 Kind of like a lucky dip at a school fête, just with a bigger range of prizes.

The only part of the experience that perplexes me is date three, Lauren.

We had a great time but she clammed up in the morning.

I keep asking myself if it was something I did, said, or if it was just something out of my control.

As I deactivate my accounts, I falter and leave BeautifulPeople active.

It strikes me that I do actually want to see Lauren again. I'm not sure if I'm confused or intrigued.

That it's probably a bit of both means that some of the way it feels to find sex online isn't all that different from the analogue method.

Digital dating is addictive.

Perhaps I'm in denial that I’ve caught a virus.

Quarter of UK women had underage sex, report finds

About 27% of women between 16 and 24 had intercourse

before they reached age of consent, according annual health survey

Sarah Boseley, Health editor

The Guardian, Thursday 15 December 2011 20.00 GMT 

Shadow health minister Diane Abbott said the rising numbers of girls having underage sex was alarming.

More than a quarter of young women today say that they first had sex when they were below the age of 16, a greater proportion than in any previous generation asked about underage sex in an official annual health survey.

Around 27% of women aged between 16 and 24 said they had sex before they reached 16, according to the Health Survey for England.

Fewer men in the same age bracket – 22% – said they were under 16 when they first had sex.

The findings of the latest survey, for 2010, suggest that sexual behaviour has changed over the generations, according to the NHS Information Centre, which publishes the annual report, with the proportion of women having sex early growing over time – a trend that is not matched in men.

The median age at which both men and women became sexually active was 17.

A substantial proportion of young people aged 16 to 24 had not yet had sex – 26% of young women and 32% of men.

One in five 16-to-24-year-olds reported having had 10 or more sexual partners – with substantially more men (27%) than women (13%) reporting 10 or more.

Men reported a mean of 9.3 sexual partners, while women reported a mean of 4.7.

 But 17% of women and 24% of men said they had had only one.

Women were more likely to have been diagnosed by a doctor with a sexually transmitted infection – 12% of women aged 16 to 69 said they had contracted an infection, compared with 9% of men of the same age. Equal proportions of men and women – 2% – had been diagnosed more than once.

Young people are more likely than those who are older to have been tested for the STI chlamydia (27% of men and 44% of women aged 16 to 24, compared with 6% of men and 12% of women aged 45 to 54).

Rebecca Findlay, spokesperson for the sexual health charity FPA, said: "This tends to reflect other research on the issue, but we must remember that most young people under 16 aren't sexually active.

"Society has changed dramatically in the last 50 years and the nature of relationships has too. Education and information safeguard the sexual health needs of young people and help them resist having sex before they're ready, which is why, given this data from the NHS Information Centre, there's an overwhelming need for statutory sex and relationships education in schools."

The shadow health minister Diane Abbott said the rising numbers of girls having underage sex was alarming. "It is not a cost-free phenomenon. It poses public health policy challenges and social challenges," she said.

"The underlying cause must be the 'pornification' of the culture and the increasing sexualisation of pre-adolescent girls. Too many young girls are absorbing from the popular culture around them that they only have value as sex objects. Inevitably, they act this notion out.

"The government needs to respond to spiralling underage sex, not with pointless schemes to teach abstinence, but with better PSHE [personal, social, health and economic] teaching in schools for both girls and boys."

She said she was also concerned that the government's reforms would mean local government taking responsibility for sexual health. "In economically straitened times, this could mean cuts in the services offered and even worse underage sex figures in the future," she said.

The report also found that obesity among adults is at the highest level since 1993. Some 26% of men and women were obese in 2010 and, overall, 68% of men and 58% of women were overweight or obese.

The prevalence of obesity has increased from 13% in 1993 to 26% in 2010 among men, and from 16% to 26% among women.

Overall, 16% of men and 17% of women have also been diagnosed with asthma.

The “Age of consent” varies from 12 to 20 so what is all the fuss about ?

It should be about the UK Law and not so much about Megan and partner!

 

 Girls in the UK are maturing earlier and losing their viginity at a much younger age.

The Megan issue should be about preventing an early pregnancy.

So the question is how responsible has Megan been ?

And is the UK Law sound ?

 

 

 The Radical 

 

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

While the phrase age of consent rarely appears in legal statutes,[1] when used in relation to sexual activity, the age of consent is the minimum age at which a person is considered to be legally competent to consent to sexual acts.

 It should not be confused with the age of majority, age of criminal responsibility, the marriageable age, the voting age, the drinking age, driving age, or other purposes.

Laws vary widely, and while most jurisdictions set the age of consent in the range 14 to 18, ages of consent as low as 12 and as high as 20 exist.

 

The age of consent varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.[1]

The relevant age may also vary by the type of sexual act, the gender of the actors, or other restrictions such as abuse of a position of trust.

Some jurisdictions may also make allowances for minors engaged in sexual acts with each other, rather than a single age.

Charges resulting from a breach of these laws may range from a misdemeanor such as corruption of a minor, to what is popularly called statutory rape (which is considered equivalent to rape, both in severity and sentencing).

There are many "gray areas" in this area of law, some regarding unspecific and untried legislation, others brought about by debates regarding changing societal attitudes, and others due to conflicts between federal and state laws.

These factors all make age of consent an often confusing subject, and a topic of highly charged debates.[1] While there is a lower limit on consent, there is no upper limit.

History and social attitudes

Traditionally, across the globe, the age of consent for a sexual union was a matter for the family to decide, or a tribal custom. In most cases, this coincided with signs of puberty, menstruation for a woman and pubic hair for a man.[2]

In Ancient Rome, it was very common for girls to marry and have children shortly after the onset of puberty.[citation needed]

The first recorded age-of-consent law dates back 800 years: In 1275, in England, as part of the rape law, a statute, Westminster 1, made it a misdemeanor to "ravish" a "maiden within age," whether with or without her consent.

The phrase "within age" was interpreted by jurist Sir Edward Coke as meaning the age of marriage, which at the time was 12 years of age.[3]

 

In the 12th century Gratian, the influential founder of Canon law in medieval Europe, accepted age of puberty for marriage to be between 12 and 14 but acknowledged consent to be meaningful if the children were older than 7.

There were authorities that said that consent could take place earlier.

Marriage would then be valid as long as neither of the two parties annulled the marital agreement before reaching puberty, or if they had already consummated the marriage.

 It should be noted that Judges honored marriages based on mutual consent at ages younger than 7, in spite of what Gratian had said; there are recorded marriages of 2 and 3 year olds.[2]

The American colonies followed the English tradition, and the law was more of a guide.

 For example, Mary Hathaway (Virginia, 1689) was only 9 when she was married to William Williams. Sir Edward Coke (England, 17th century) "made it clear that the marriage of girls under 12 was normal, and the age at which a girl who was a wife was eligible for a dower from her husband's estate was 9 even though her husband be only four years old."[2]

Reliable data for when people would actually marry is very difficult to find. In England for example, the only reliable data on age at marriage in the early modern period comes from records involving only those who left property after their death.

Not only were the records relatively rare, but not all bothered to record the participants' ages, and it seemed that the more complete the records are, the more likely they are to reveal young marriages.

Additionally, 20th and 21st centuries' historians have sometimes shown reluctance to accept data regarding young ages of marriage, and would instead explain the data away as a misreading by a later copier of the records.[2]

 

A small number of Italian and German states introduced an age of consent in the 16th century, setting it at 12 years. Towards the end of the 18th century, other European countries also began to enact age of consent laws.

The first French Constitution established an age of consent of 11 years in 1791, which was raised to 13 in 1863. Portugal, Spain, Denmark and the Swiss cantons, initially set the age of consent at 10–12 years and then raised it to between 13 and 16 years in the second half of the 19th century.[3]

Historically, the English common law set the age of consent to range from 10 to 12.[4]

In the United States, by the 1880s, most states set the age of consent at 10–12, and in one state, Delaware, the age of consent was only 7.

A New York Times article states that it was still aged 7 in Delaware in 1895.[5]

Female reformers and advocates of social purity initiated a campaign in 1885 to petition legislators to raise the legal age of consent to at least 16, with the ultimate goal to raise the age to 18.

The campaign was successful, with almost all states raising the age of consent to 16–18 by 1920.[6][7]

Social (and the resulting legal) attitudes toward the appropriate age of consent have drifted upwards in modern times.

For example, while ages from 10 to 13 were typically acceptable in Western countries during the mid-19th century,[1] the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century were marked by changing attitudes towards sexuality and childhood resulting in raising the ages of consent to ages generally ranging from 16 to 18.[3]

Sexual relations with a person under the age of consent is a criminal offense in most countries.

Many different terms exist for the charges laid and can include child sexual abuse, statutory rape, illegal carnal knowledge, and corruption of a minor.[1]

 

The enforcement practices of age-of-consent laws vary depending on the social sensibilities of the particular culture (see above).

Often, enforcement is not exercised to the letter of the law, with legal action being taken only when a sufficiently socially-unacceptable age gap exists between the two individuals, or if the perpetrator is in a position of power over the minor (e.g., a teacher, minister, or doctor).

The sex of each participant can also influence perceptions of an individual's guilt and therefore enforcement.[1]
"Age"
The concept of what actually makes up an age of consent differs between jurisdictions.

Common examples include:

Fixed age of consent

In most jurisdictions, the age of consent is actually a specified fixed age, such as in all of the United Kingdom, where it is 16.[8]

Onset of puberty as the age of consent

In some jurisdictions, there is no fixed age of consent.

Instead, sex is allowed with people who are pubescent or post pubescent.

Such jurisdictions include Yemen, but only in marriage, and the states of Nayarit and Querétaro (in Mexico) and Bolivia.

This was also the case of the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic (RSFSR) and other Soviet republics during the Soviet era.[9]

Marriageable age

Not all countries have an age of consent, but a number of those jurisdictions (including Kuwait[10]) make all sexual intercourse outside of marriage illegal.

Defenses and exceptions

The age of consent is a legal barrier to the minor ability to consent and therefore obtaining consent is not in general a defense to having sexual relations with a person under the prescribed age.

Common examples:

Reasonably believing that the victim is over the age of consent

In some jurisdictions, (such as England and Wales[8]), it is a defense if the accused can show that he or she reasonably believed the victim was over the age of consent.

However, where such a defense is provided, it normally applies only when the victim is close to the age of consent or the accused can show due diligence in determining the age of the victim (e.g., a 15-year-old who used a fake identification document claiming she was 18 or older).[11]

Marriage

In some jurisdictions, including Brunei[12] it is an exception to age of consent laws if the accused can show that he or she is legally married to the other person.

Close-in-age exemptions

Some jurisdictions have laws explicitly allowing minors under the age of consent to engage in sexual acts with partners who are close to their age by enacting legal close in age exemptions: for instance in Canada the age of consent is 16, but there are two close-in-age exemptions: minors 14–15 may have sex with a partner who is less than five years older, and minors aged 12–13 may have sex with a partner who is less than two years older.[13]

These different defenses can change dramatically from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, even between neighboring states of the same union with the same age of consent.

Other countries state that the sexual conduct with the minor is not to be punished if the partners are of a similar age and development: for instance the age of consent in Finland is 16, but the law states that the act will not be punished if "there is no great difference in the ages or the mental and physical maturity of the persons involved".[14]

Homosexual and heterosexual age discrepancies

Some jurisdictions, such as The Bahamas, Bermuda, Chile, Greece, Paraguay and Suriname –have a higher age of consent for homosexual intercourse.

In the United Kingdom for example the age of consent was originally 21 for homosexual behavior, while it was 16 for heterosexual behavior.[15]

 However, such discrepancies are increasingly being challenged.

In both Canada and the Australian state of Queensland, the age of consent for anal sex is officially higher at 18 years, compared with 16 years for vaginal and oral sex.[16][17]

In the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Ontario and Quebec, this discrepancy has been declared unconstitutional by courts.[18][19]

Gender-age differentials

In some jurisdictions (such as Indonesia[20]), there are different ages of consent for heterosexual sexual activity that are based on the gender of each person.

In countries where there are gender-age differentials, the age of consent may be higher for girls—for example in Papua New Guinea, where the age of consent for heterosexual sex is 16 for girls and 14 for boys,[21] or they may be higher for males, such as in Indonesia, where males must be 19 years old and females must be 16 years old.[20]

There are also numerous jurisdictions—such as Kuwait[10] and Palestine[22]—in which marriage laws govern the gender-age differential.

In these jurisdictions, it is illegal to have sexual intercourse outside of marriage so the de facto age of consent is the marriageable age.

 In Kuwait, this means that boys must be at least 17 and girls at least 15 years old.
Maximum age of adult

A less frequent criterion is that sexual intercourse between an minor and an adult is legal under the condition that the latter does not exceed a certain age.

Thus the age of consent in Delaware is 18, but it is allowed for teenagers aged 16 and 17 to engage in sexual intercourse as long as the older partner is younger than 30.[23]

Position of authority/trust

In most jurisdictions where the age of consent is below 18 (such as England and Wales[24]), in cases where a person aged 18 or older is in a position of trust over a person under 18 the age of consent usually rises to 18, or higher.

 Examples of such positions of trust include relationships between teachers and students.

For example, in England and Wales the age of consent is 16, but if the person is a student of the older person it becomes 18.

Extraterritoriality
See also: PROTECT Act of 2003

Increasingly the age of consent laws of a state are applied not only to acts committed in the state's own territory, but also to those committed by the state's citizens or inhabitants while they are on foreign soil.[1]

An example is the United States, which has passed a Federal age of consent law banning sexual activity by US citizens with foreigners or with other US citizens who are from another one of the States, if any of the partners is under 18.

This applies in cases where any of the partners travels into or out of the United States, or from one State into another one, for the purpose of a sexual encounter.[25]

The United States also applies this law in cases where the age of consent is lower than the age of both partners in both the states or countries involved.

Other concerns
Marriage

The age at which a person can be legally married can also differ from the age of consent.

In jurisdictions where the marriageable age is lower than the age of consent, those laws usually override the age of consent laws in the case of a married couple where one or both partners are below the age of consent.

Further still, some jurisdictions prohibit any sex outside of marriage, which can take place at any age, as in the case of Yemen.
Pornography
Variations also exist in some countries between the age of consent and the age at which an individual can appear in pornographic images and films. In many jurisdictions, the minimum age for legal participation and even viewing of such productions is 18.

Films and images showing individuals under the age of 18 in applicable jurisdictions can be classified as child pornography, even though the legal age of consent in those same jurisdictions is lower than 18.

For example in the United States under federal law it is a crime to film minors below 18 in sexual acts, even in states where the age of sexual consent is below 18.[25]

In those states of the USA where the age of consent is below 18, charges such as child porn are used as alternatives.

For example Ross Frame, an Indiana police officer, had sex with a girl over 16 but under 18 in Indiana, where the age of consent is 16, but was prosecuted because he produced porn videos containing her. [26]
In many countries there are specific laws against child prostitution.

Initiatives to change the age of consent

Age-of-consent reform refers to the efforts of some individuals or groups, for different reasons, to alter or abolish age-of-consent laws.

These efforts advocate five main positions:

• Introductions of close-in-age exceptions.

• A change in the way that age-of-consent laws are examined in court.

• Either increases in the ages of consent or more severe penalties or both.

• Either decreases in the ages of consent or less severe penalties or both.

• Abolition of the age-of-consent laws either permanently or as a temporary, practical expedient.

There are no specific age of consent laws in the Antarctic.

In the unlikely event of an adult engaging in sexual activity with a minor, under the Antarctic Treaty, scientists and support staff stationed there may be subject to the laws of the country of which they are nationals.

 Other visitors to the continent may need to follow the laws of the country in which their expedition is organized, or the country from which it departs.

Sex Study...

It has been determined that the most used sexual position for married couples is the doggie position.

The husband sits up and begs.

The wife rolls over and plays dead!

Four ways to boost your health with sex

Use these tips for a spot of sexual healing 

 1. On the head

Have a thumping headache?
Leave the pills to the wimps and have sex instead.
Studies show that intense feelings of passionate love have the same effect on your brain’s pain receptors as paracetamol.
Source: State University of New York

2. Help yourself

This may well be the easiest prescription you’ll ever receive: masturbating at least five times a week can reduce your risk of prostate cancer by over a third, as the ejaculation blocks out carcinogens from the prostate gland.
Source: The Cancer Council, Victoria, Australia

3. Keep it regular

A little fornication releases testosterone, which strengthens bones and muscles, while the chemicals released boost your immune system.
Three times a week will provide age-defying benefits.
Finding a partner is up to you.
Source: Royal Edinburgh Hospital

4. Be smart

Feeling a little slow off the mark?
Head between the sheets to boost your IQ.
The stimulation brought on by sex isn’t just for pleasure, it kick starts your brain into gear, too.
That’s our story, anyway, and we’re sticking to it.
Source: Hamburg Medical Research Institute

Lustability ?

 

During the months of research which have gone into devising our sexual compatibility test,

we’ve uncovered some pretty extraordinary facts.

We reckon they’re too cool to keep to ourselves.

 

1. A woman is more likely to want to commit adultery during ovulation than at any other time in her cycle.

2. Telling a convincing lie to someone is much more difficult when you find them sexually attractive.

3. Minute quantities of over 30 different substances have been identified in human semen.
These include nitrogen, fructose, lactic acid, ascorbic acid, inositol, cholesterol, glutathione, creatine, pyruvic acid, citric acid, sorbitol, urea, uric acid and Vitamin B12, along with various salts and enzymes.

4. Chocolate contains phenylethylamine, the same feel-good chemical responsible for the ecstatic high people experience through sexual attraction and love.

5. Women who have given birth have darker labia minora than women who haven’t.

6. The majority of women experience a peak in libido just before their period.

7. -321°F is the temperature at which sperm banks store donor semen. At this temperature, semen can be stored indefinitely.

8. The point at which the average man reaches his sexual peak is between the ages of 17 and 18.

9. The earth could be re-populated to its current level using the number of sperm that could fit into an aspirin capsule.

10. A chicken egg could accommodate the number of female ova necessary to repopulate the earth to its present numbers.

11. During sexual intercourse, in addition to the genitals and breasts, the inner nose also swells.

12. White women are the most likely to engage in anal sex, particularly if they also have a college degree.

13. During erection, a smaller flaccid penis tends to have a greater percentage increase than a larger flaccid penis.

14. A teaspoon of semen contains approximately 5 calories.

15. Sex burns off an average of about 100 calories per session.

16. On average, from two to five million sperm are released each time a man ejaculates.

17. During any given period, women who read romance novels have a tendency to have twice as many lovers as those who don’t.

18. Almost a third of all women over 80 years of age still have sex with their spouse or boyfriend.

19. For both men and women, the heart rate averages 140 beats per minute at the point of orgasm.

20. The average woman will have sex more than 3,000 times over the course of her reproductive years.

21. Most men under 40 years of age can achieve an erection in less than 10 seconds.

22. Heterosexual anal sex is something 43% of women have experienced.

23. Women consider penis size the ninth most important feature for a man, while men rate it much more highly, in third place.

24. When a man ejaculates, the initial spurt travels at 28 miles per hour – faster than the world record for the 100m sprint, which currently stands at 22.9 miles per hour.

25. In one hour, the average sperm can swim seven inches.

26. With nothing in its path, a penis can shoot semen anywhere from 12 to 24 inches.

27. The longest erect penis on record was 13 inches. The smallest was 1cm.

28. There are 20 male masochists for every female masochist.

29. The average adult testicle contains enough sperm to measure a quarter of a mile laid out end to end.

30. For 75% of men, ejaculation occurs within 3 minutes of penetration.

31. During an average man’s lifetime, he will ejaculate approximately 17 litres of semen, which amounts to about half a trillion sperm.

32. The testes increase in size by 50% when a man is sexually aroused.

33. Australians are the most receptive to the idea of having a threesome – 28% of them claim to have tried it.

34. 1 in 50 people claim to have had sex in an aeroplane.

35. 15% of adults have had sexual intercourse at work.

36. 41% of men would like to have sex more frequently. Only 29% of women share this urge.

37. Greek couples have sex an average of 138 times a year – placing them at the top of the world sex league. Japanese couples have sex just 45 times a year, which puts them in last place.

38. 5% of adults have sex once a day. 20% have sex 3 - 4 times per week.

39. Every time they engage in oral sex with their partner, 30% of women swallow.

40. When sexually aroused, 60% of men get erect nipples.

41. Half of single women have sex by the third date.

42. 80% of men living in the USA have been circumcised.

43. Women over 40 years of age are more likely to masturbate than any other group.

44. There’s a direct link between how often a man has sex and his life expectancy.

45. According to experts, sex is about 10 times more effective as a tranquilliser than Valium.

46. Sex can relieve a headache – it releases the tension, which restricts blood vessels in the brain.

47. 44% of women find it impossible to enjoy sex with a man who is not their intellectual equal. Just 31% of men share this problem.

48. There are about 1,000 recognised euphemisms for ‘vagina’ in the English language.

49. At any given time, 25% of people are daydreaming about sex.

50. Over half of American adults have used the phone, email or text message to have sex.

51. According to studies, the larger a man’s testicles, the more likely he is to stray.

52. 75% of Japanese women own a vibrator. The average worldwide is 47%.

53. It takes two tablespoons of blood to get the average man’s penis erect.

54. During their lifetime, the average driver will have sex in their car six times.

55. Americans spend twice as much money on pornography as they do on biscuits.

56. The clitoris contains twice as many nerve fibres as the penis – a toe-curling 8,000.

57. One in five women living with their boyfriend has more than one sexual partner.

58. Besides humans, bonobos (a type of chimp) and dolphins are the only animals that have sex for pleasure.

59. It tends to be easier for women to orgasm during ovulation than at any other time in their cycle.

60. The size of the vagina decreases by 30% as orgasm becomes imminent.

61. While giving birth, some women have been known to experience orgasm.

62. Inside the female body, sperm cells can survive for up to nine days.

63. For up to 70% of women, simultaneous direct stimulation of the clitoris during intercourse is essential for them to reach orgasm.

64. Over 30% of men suffer from premature ejaculation. 10% of men are affected by erectile dysfunction.

65. It’s possible to relieve depression through masturbation.

66. The longer a man’s ring finger is compared to his index finger, the more testosterone he has.

67. The average aroused vagina is 4 inches long – shorter than the average erect penis, which measures in at 6 inches.

68. The average woman can reach orgasm in about 4 minutes through masturbation, while through intercourse, it can take 10 – 20 minutes.

69. Sneezes, along with orgasms, are the only physiological responses that cannot be voluntarily stopped once they have started.

70. Straight men tend to have smaller penises than gay men.

71. 85% of women are very satisfied with their partner’s penis size.

72. Evidence exists indicating that penis size may be linked to index finger length.

73. In rare cases, menstrual cramps have been known to bring about orgasm.

74. The amount of wet dreams a man is likely to have increases in line with the number of years spent in formal education.

75. Compared to anywhere else, adults are more likely to tell a lie in bed.

76. The majority of women prefer to have sex in the dark.

77. Men find women with enlarged pupils more sexually attractive.

78. When having sex, black women are 50% more likely to reach orgasm than white women.

79. 60% of non-smoking women have had no sexual partners in the past year, while 70% of women who smoke have had more than four lovers over the same timescale.

80. Women who are prone to migraines tend to have a higher sex drive than those who are not.

81. Thirty four per cent of men have told lies in order to have sex. Ten per cent of women have done the same.

82. More than 50% of all cheating wives choose married men as their lovers.

83. About 1% of women can achieve orgasm solely through breast stimulation.

84. Within the week, 22% of women tell at least five friends about their first sexual experience with a partner.

85. 70% of men and women admit to having fantasised about someone else while having sex.

86. Two thirds of runners admit to having thought about sex while running.

87. 68% of men and 59% of women had a sexual liaison with someone in their past, which they have not told their current partner about.

88. An overwhelming majority of sexual partners have only skimpy knowledge of what truly turns each other on

“Let me be clear, as a politician and as a woman.

Rape occurs when a woman has not consented to sex.”

Kate Hudson

 

 

Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent
The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent, such as a person who is unconscious or incapacitated.

Consent ?

Is merely being asleep “incapacitated”?
Not unless the person is incapable of valid consent.
In normal circumstances sleep is interrupted when a sexual advance is made.
What are normal circumstances in a sexual relationship ?
When both parties are naked and in bed together.
That, to most people, is implied consent.

The Radical

What George Galloway said in defence of Man

 including the Julian Assange affair

 

"Some people believe that when you go to bed with somebody, take off your clothes, and have sex with them and then fall asleep, you're already in the sex game with them.

"It might be really bad manners not to have tapped her on the shoulder and said, 'do you mind if I do it again?'

"It might be really sordid and bad sexual etiquette, but whatever else it is, it is not rape, or you bankrupt the term rape of all meaning."

 

Radical Comment -

"Making love", through sexual intercourse. 

This statement depends on whether the woman believes she is in a relationship ?

Society today would presume that a woman who gets into bed with a man, fully undressed, has a sexual relationship with that man,has not broken that sexual relationship until she leaves the bed and gets dressed.

It cannot be considered rape if the woman remains in the bed after having sex and does not object to a further sexual advance, that is unless she was tied to the bed and unable to leave.

Going further, it might be presumed that following sexual intercourse, the woman sleeps as a result of that sexual act and even in sleep is at the height of sexual stimulation, primed for further welcome sexual advances.

Man has achieved his aim,"to make love"

Women, notoriously change their minds, and if they want to challenge a sexual advance they are perfectly capable of saying "No"

Do ladies grasp the biological urge men have toward sex?

I get the impression that some ladies think

that a guys sex drive is a simple on/off switch

that can simply be controlled.

To some extend that is a trueism

Its true men also have the spectrum of emotion that women have but its a lot less powerful aspect of our lives.

The reverse is true for sex drive-

men's is simply higher than ladies (although there are women with high sex drives- i've met some of them).

Do you ladies understand that so much of it is "forced" into us by our sex organs (balls) and its not just a simple matter of knocking it off...

Men produce THOUSANDS of sperm per minute as opposed to ladies releasing ONE egg a month..

The biological urge to procreate and "spread the seed" can be almost as uncontrollable as expecting a woman not to cry...its biology..its hormones...its what makes us what we are.

Women's English:

Yes = No

No = Yes

Maybe = No

I'm sorry = You'll be sorry

We need = I want

It's your decision = The correct decision should be obvious by now

Do what you want = You'll pay for this later

We need to talk = I need to complain

Sure go ahead = I don't want you to I'm not upset = Of course I'm upset, you moron!

You're so manly = You need a shave and you sweat a lot

Be romantic, turn out the lights = I have flabby thighs

This kitchen is so inconvenient = I want a new house

I want new curtains = and carpeting, and furniture, and wallpaper

I heard a noise = I noticed you were almost asleep

Do you love me? = I'm going to ask for something expensive

How much do you love me? = I did something today you're going to hate

I'll be ready in a minute = Kick off your shoes and find a good game on
TV

You have to learn to communicate = Just agree with me

Are you listening to me!? = [Too late, you're dead]

Men's English:

I'm hungry = I'm hungry

I'm sleepy = I'm sleepy

I'm tired = I'm tired

Do you want to go to a movie? = I'd eventually like to have sex with you

Can I take you out to dinner? = I'd eventually like to have sex with you

Can I call you sometime? = I'd eventually like to have sex with you

May I have this dance? = I'd eventually like to have sex with you

Nice dress! = Nice cleavage!

You look tense, let me give you a massage = I want to fondle you

What's wrong? = What stupid self inflicted psychological trauma is it now?

What's wrong? = I guess sex tonight is out of the question

I'm bored = Do you want to have sex?

I love you = Let's have sex now!

Love you, too = Okay, I said it, Now can we have sex

Yes, I like the way you cut your hair = I liked it better before

Let's talk = I'll impress you by showing you I am a deep guy then maybe sex?

Will you marry me? = I want to make it illegal for you to have sex without me

- Unknown

Girl Model

by David Morgan
Sat 14th Jul 2012

What many would see as paedophilia appears to be an acceptable “taste” in Japan, for want of a better word. The obsession with young girls is one that is deeply ingrained in the nation’s culture especially where the modelling industry is concerned.

The rule seems to be as young as possible, according to the scenario described in the BBC4 film, Girl Model, shown on 27th June as part of the Storyville series.

The film examines how Russian girls as young as 13 years old are shipped off to Japan to find work as models in the country’s fashion industry, where the special preference is for girls who are young looking as well as young.

One 15 year old is described as too old, “because she looks 25 already”, one talent scout says.

The girls are invariably from poor families and are recruited by perfectly legal international agencies with the cooperation of the families to work in the glamour modelling industry in Japan which sets a very high premium on youth.

Blonde, slightly built Nadya, whose fate is the main focus of the documentary, says that it was her mother’s idea to take her to an agency.

The brutal reality seems to be that parents are selling their daughters before they have even had the chance to grow up and get an education; the girls face moral pressure to work in Japan because they believe that they can get rich quick and then be able to support their families.

The male owner of the agency describes his work in introducing young girls into the modelling industry as a religious vocation; he claims that is offering them undreamed of opportunities to change their lives.

“Before anyone else gets to them, we will have the girls,” is his sinister comment.

Referring to one aspiring candidate, a female talent scout remarks, ”She looks pre-pubescent, and that’s ideal for Japan.”

She admits that the business of modelling is based on nothing substantial: “the business is obsessed with youth, you cannot be young enough, youth is beauty and it is innocence that is wanted in Japan”.

The film follows Nadya‘s attempt to break into modelling and begins with her family who are already planning to build a new house on the future proceeds of her earnings even before she even leaves.

When she arrives in Tokyo, Nadya is provided with a tiny box flat and the first thing she is instructed to do is to take off her shoes.

In a stark contrast, the talent scout, an ex-model herself, lives in a huge house and admits that she doesn’t feel too attached to the girls whom she recruits to what is a tough business which she herself deeply hates.

But she seems content that she has made a lot of money out of her work and has been able to buy her house, which is what matters most to her.

She describes a casting session with 200 girls, “out of which we picked 30 great girls”. It is not stated how many of these 30 actually made it big in modelling.

Apart from Nadya, the film follows the experience of another girl Madlen who is first shown in a very distressed state describing how she was not met at Tokyo airport due to some mishap and how she had to find her own way around what to her was an alien city.

She spent an hour and a half looking for an exit in the huge subway system and says that she was lost for a total of four hours, speaking into a phone to her family.

For these girls, Japan is a grotesque place.

It is a place that always wants something new.

In a revealing Freudian slip, the talent scout, who is a woman in her late 20s, says that the agency owner is successful because he really loves young models, before she looks away from the camera.

For some reason she seems embarrassed by this revelation.

This is the same guy who described his work as a religious vocation.

Describing the attributes of Nadya at a casting session with a potential customer an agent says; ”She is new and she has good proportions; she is made well.”

Thus, she is seen as noting but a commodity that might sell well in this niche market.

Another experienced model of 23, accompanying the young girls, tries to justify the use of such young models insisting that there is no one to blame for the girls coming into the industry at such a young age.

But by using such girls, she admits, it means they don’t want a girl who is shaped like a woman.

Crying into the phone, Nadya is later shown telling her mother that she wants to return home, but her mother seems to see this as impossible and retorts that she doesn’t understand, “you have two contracts lined up, don’t you?”

Nadya describes how she has been through several casting sessions and doesn’t want to go through the ordeal any further, but is heard unsympathetically by the one person who should be most sympathetic to her plight: her own mother.

Nadya is left in the city with no money to even buy food as she was expecting to be hired more quickly.

But it is the scout who betrays the real cruelty and callousness of the whole industry; she hated modelling in Japan herself, but has no scruples about bringing more girls into it.

This is a ruthless and deeply depressing story that exposes the terrible fate of girls in Russia today who are not given a chance to grow up, to obtain an education and learn to make the important choices for themselves.

They are thrust into a world where modelling is a socially and culturally accepted cover for what amounts to paedophilia.

It is not glamour; it is ruthless exploitation and it has many victims who are left psychologically scarred and worse.

This world is indeed a very ugly place.

Four ways to boost your health with sex

Use these tips for a spot of sexual healing
 
 1. On the head

Have a thumping headache?

Leave the pills to the wimps and have sex instead.

Studies show that intense feelings of passionate love have the same effect on your brain’s pain receptors as paracetamol.
Source: State University of New York

2. Help yourself

This may well be the easiest prescription you’ll ever receive: masturbating at least five times a week can reduce your risk of prostate cancer by over a third, as the ejaculation blocks out carcinogens from the prostate gland.
Source: The Cancer Council, Victoria, Australia

3. Keep it regular

A little fornication releases testosterone, which strengthens bones and muscles, while the chemicals released boost your immune system.

Three times a week will provide age-defying benefits.

Finding a partner is up to you.
Source: Royal Edinburgh Hospital

4. Be smart

Feeling a little slow off the mark?

Head between the sheets to boost your IQ.

The stimulation brought on by sex isn’t just for pleasure, it kick starts your brain into gear, too.

That’s our story, anyway, and we’re sticking to it.
Source: Hamburg Medical Research Institute

The joy of sexting

 

About to text someone a raunchy message?

 Save time by consulting this handy dictionary of sexting acronyms for adults

o Eva Wiseman
o The Observer, Sunday 8 July 2012 
 
Getting fruity: sexting for grown-ups.

My favourite thing about sexting (the concept, not the act, how gauche) is not the glorious fizz of tension in the air when you see youths grinning at their phones, or even the terrific horror stories about missent messages, a hundred lost penises floating unmanned above Rhyl.

It's the codes. The acronyms, the emoticons, the secret ciphers used by teenagers to point to obscenities.

An American newspaper recently decoded them for their older readers, and I learned  a lot. PiR means "parent in room". GYPO: "get your pants off". GNOC: "get naked on camera".

That sort of thing. IWSN: "I want sex now".

But why, I thought, should those adolescent sacks of lust have all the fun?

 Grown-ups in long-term relationships have sex, too.

Admittedly it's probably a bit slower.

A bit less IWSN, and they're often the PiR.

It's sometimes slightly "TV on in the background so you don't miss the X Factor results".

Quite "50 Shades of Grayson Perry on 4OD".

But that's no reason to lose the codes.

 For reference, here's a grown-up sexting dictionary.

You're welcome.
-->Ov8n
Come home, I'm ovulating
2muchF
too much effort compared with YouPorn
sv11f&b
shaved whole legs, front and back
O
Ocado!
IIYX
imagine I'm your ex-wife
2fr
you've gone too far
BBC4
are you too knackered for sex tonight?
BBC4HD
do me in my sleep
RBS
screw me like a banker
GoT
let's play Game of Thrones
NiB
Newsnight in bed?
TC300
300 thread count sheets just washed
Calpol
I've drugged the kids
FTF
feeling too fat
CSO
"Community Support Officer" (naked under my Hi-Vis vest) PPU
prostate playing up
NWIP
next week I promise
EEE
everyone else enjoys it
TYSOS
take your Spanx off slowly
K
doing my kegels
DASR
dress as Susanna Reid
OSWDABS
or shall we do a box set?
:-X
mute the baby monitor
TBITBV
that bit in the Beyoncé video
BTTS
but the therapist said
RMLSFV
ride me like a street food van
XIRFNF
sexual favours in return for night feed
NCT3
threesome with the NCT mum?
MRP
MasterChef role play
WMB
waxed my back
QBR
quickie by the recycling bins
<3(*)/(*)
love you when you don't leave your bike in the hall
LGFB
let's go full Boden
TMUP
tie me up with a pashmina
IWSN
I want to spoon now
:-0
is it organic?
NMT
no moisturising mitts tonight
SA
spank me with an Amis

Sleeping around My moment of truth happened at university

'Until the age of 19, I had never had an orgasm, but I had done some Oscar-worthy faking'

By Catherine Townsend
Friday 26 September 2008
 
Even during my hedonistic teenage years, somewhere in the back of my mind I had a "checklist" for my life.

I'd envisioned meeting the man of my dreams at around the age of 29, and marrying by 30ish.

I did meet the man of my dreams at the age of 29, but I guess we took a wrong turn somewhere, and our relationship ran into a ditch.

 But if there is any truth in the saying "life is what happens when you make other plans", I think that the same logic would also apply to love.

Sexually, I was an early bloomer and a pretty wild teenager.

 I had an S&M relationship with my 24-year-old French teacher and held naked make-out parties in my swimming pool on weekends.

But, although I was adventurous and curious, I was much more concerned with having all the right moves when it came to pleasuring the boys than pleasing myself. Because of this, until the age of 19, I'd never had an orgasm (although I did some Oscar-worthy faking).

My moment of truth happened at university, when I went to see a sex educator speak candidly about self-love and show a video of women touching themselves.

The next day, I went to the chemist and bought a Hitachi Magic Wand vibrator (saying it was for "neck pain"), locked myself in my bathroom and came out 45 minutes later a new woman.

Once I realised that I had to take responsibility for my own pleasure, sex and relationships in my twenties were all about experimentation.

There were the one, two, and three night stands, the lesbian flings, the scuba diving instructor who gave me my first orgasm through oral sex, the sex parties, and the man who taught me that men could have multiple orgasms too all discovered through random, amazing encounters.

While worrying about protecting myself from pregnancy and STDs, as I approached my mid-twenties I realised that I was also protecting my emotions perhaps a bit too well.

So I let someone in, and experienced my first real heartbreak.

But even then, I got over it quickly, since relationships then were mostly about self-discovery and sharing experiences with my friends, with the men in supporting roles.

 

I'm glad that I did things this way round, before I had children or a husband.

Now that I've just hit my thirties, I'm ready to confine my wild bedroom antics to one (very lucky) man, and am convinced that my sexual exploration will make me a much better partner, both in and out of the bedroom. I'm more stable, confident, and happier than ever.

But dating is harder, because there is more on the line. I'm still undecided about children, but the reality of the biological clock means that I feel I have less time to waste on the wrong person, just in case I do decide to have kids.

Maybe this is because women put too much pressure on themselves to have it all.

Despite the fact Cameron Diaz, 36, and Jennifer Aniston, 39, are gorgeous, rich and have amazing careers, they are the subject of constant headlines asking why they haven't already found "the One".

 

Meanwhile, everyone wants to know who will be lucky enough to finally land 47-year-old George Clooney, instead of questioning the wisdom of going out with a guy whose most intense emotional connection to date seems to have been formed with a pot-bellied pig.

But I think we could all learn something from George.

He doesn't care about convention, and is blazing his own trail.

I'm hoping to do the same, live my life and eventually find someone who can give me a mix of great conversation and swinging-from-the-chandeliers sex that will be as fantastic at 60 as it is at 30.

How to keep her from straying

Mens Health

If your partner has a wandering eye, here’s how to spot it – and stop her from cheating

Affair play

First, the bad news: your partner is hardwired for infidelity.

Now the really bad news: it's happening more than ever before.

In a recent nationwide survey, 34% of British wives and girlfriends admitted to sleeping with other men behind their partners' backs.

But all is not lost.

Studies show there are five specific types of female philanderer.

Here's how to spot her natural cheating 'type', so you can neutralise that hardwired impulse now.

The alpha female

Four out of five women seeking an affair on the internet fall into the ABC1 economic bracket.

"This is the sort of woman who goes to the gym early in the morning so she can hold down her perfect job and body," says psychologist Susan Quilliam.

Beware when... She misses out on a promotion.

"When her power balance shifts, she will take drastic measures to get control back," warns Quilliam.

"She may look for new physical interests to provide

The attention seeker

A study by the University of Texas found that sexually attractive women have higher than normal levels of oestrogen, and a stronger inclination to cheat as a result.

 "She's a natural-born breeder," says Holmes.

"Identify her by her swarm of male friends," says Quilliam.

Beware when... Her male friends start coupling off or lose interest in her.

"Without male interaction, these women subconsciously feel

 
The thrill hunter

Her proclivity to cheat could depend on her ability to produce dopamine: the chemical that makes us feel excited.

Some women are genetically predisposed to seek risk.

 "She's the type who starts arguments just for the thrill of it," says Quilliam.

Beware when... Your relationship becomes less stimulating.

"If Friday nights revolve around the TV and local pub, she'll look to someone new to get the dopamine-racing rewards you used to

 
The pleasure predator

"These women have elevated testosterone levels – evident from their high sex drives and an interest in sport," says Holmes.

Don't celebrate just yet when she turns on Match of the Day.

Beware when... You've been together for a long time.

"Once your sex-life becomes less exploratory, incompatibilities in your bedroom preferences can arise," says Quilliam.

According to Canadian research, women who feel sexually incompatible with their partners

The damsel in distress

"Most women prefer to be monogamous and only cheat when the intimacy disappears from their relationship.

Spot these women by their 'helpless' approach to dating.

Does she call you when her boiler breaks or computer crashes?

These women bring you into problem scenarios to see if you'll come to their rescue," Holmes says.
Beware when... You're stuck in a rut. "Following the same routine

Hardcore, hard-wired:

How the prevalence of porn is changing our everyday lives

It's everywhere – from pop videos to fashion magazines to the theatrical stage.

But is the creeping ubiquity of pornography in our popular culture changing the way we behave towards each other?

Lena Corner Sunday 27 May 2012 

Independent

The UK sex-toy industry is now worth £250m a year
 
So, Sarah Ruhl's play 'In The Next Room', commonly knows as 'The Vibrator Play', has finally arrived on these shores for its UK premiere.

It has come from Broadway via Peru, Sydney and Nantucket, picking up three Tony nominations and polarising opinion along the way.

It will be interesting to see what the genteel patrons of the Theatre Royal in Bath, where it opened a few weeks ago, make of what is essentially a play about the marvels of a good vibrator.

The opening of Ruhl's play followed hot on the heels of the screening of Channel Four's More Sex Please, We're British, a prime-time, behind-the-scenes documentary at sex-toy firm Lovehoney (featuring, as The Sun so elegantly put it, Britain's worst job – sniffing returned sex toys to see if they have been used).

And now we hear that chart high-flyer Grimes, aka Claire Boucher, current darling of the indie-electronica scene, has just launched a range of "pussy rings" – essentially large plastic replications of female genitalia – to be worn loud and proud on any digit you choose.

But, of course, all this is nothing new.

Explicit imagery has been seeping into the mainstream for years and this just happens to be a random sample of things that are going on this month.

We've only just stopped talking about Tulisa's sex tape, Rihanna's X-rated crotch-slapping on Saturday Night Live (YouTube it) and the success of EL James's erotic Fifty Shades... trilogy.

Still, it seems the pace of the pornification of our pop culture has just stepped up a notch.

"Pornography manifests itself in movies, TV, music videos, fashion – it's absolutely everywhere," says advertising consultant Cindy Gallop.

 "Nobody quite knows how all this is going to play out because it's never happened in the history of humankind before. There is a complete lack of open, healthy dialogue around porn in our society.

It's everywhere, yet nobody ever talks about it."

Gallop's frustration with what she sees as our refusal to address the "creeping ubiquity of hardcore pornography in pop culture" drove her to create a website called Make Love Not Porn.

It's a site that is born out of personal experience because Gallop, who is a 52-year-old former executive at the advertising agency Bartle Bogle Hegarty, has spent the past decade casually and recreationally dating lots of different men in their twenties.

As such, she is particularly well placed to witness first-hand the impact this pornography binge is having on our youth.

"I am, if you like, my own research material," she says.

"This is an issue that would never have crossed my mind if I hadn't encountered it very directly through having sex with these men.

 I realised the ubiquity of online porn and its ease of access is having a huge impact on our sex lives."

What Gallop started to notice is that the men she was having sex with were learning everything they did by watching porn: "Almost all mainstream porn is made by men for men," she says.

"The entire raison d'être of these sex scenes is to get the man off. So, as a result, an entire generation of guys and girls are growing up believing that is the be-all-and-end-all of sex.

 Pornography does not teach women to expect their own pleasure, or ask for their own pleasure, and it certainly doesn't show them how to achieve their own pleasure."

Jessica Coen, editor-in-chief of women's sex and fashion website Jezebel, agrees: "It has become increasingly common for young men to request things during sex that they have learnt from hardcore porn – this wasn't happening before porn became so widely available.

We have to teach young men how to temper their expectations, how to treat women properly and that there is a big gap between pornography and reality."

It used to be that the line between what constitutes porn and what doesn't was clearly defined.

Porn existed in the sticky pages of Razzle magazine.

But now it's more blurred. In our post-internet culture, we live in a world where porn stars make the crossover into the mainstream and fledgling actresses further their careers by getting their tits out in FHM.

Witness, for example, the career of Sasha Grey: once the proud recipient of "best three-way sex scene" at the Adult Movie Awards, she has now acted in a Steven Soderbergh film and appeared in the hit TV series Entourage.

There has long been a blurring of boundaries in the fashion industry, too, and it seems, porn stars are the current must-have accessory.

 Iconic fashion designer Marc Jacobs recently showed off his Brazilian porn actor boyfriend Harry Louis on the beach in Rio; Calvin Klein had one, too – 22-year old Nick Gruber – although it's been a bit off and on, especially since Gruber was arrested recently for possession of cocaine.

As we all know, sex sells – it's estimated that the UK sex-toy market is now worth £250m a year – so it's not surprising that American Apparel, the supplier of block-colour cotton clothing to an unashamedly youthful market, regularly uses porn actors in its ad campaigns.

But it is because of these blurred boundaries that confusion arises and American Apparel founder, Dov Charney, has also found himself on the receiving end of several lawsuits for sexual harassment.

One of fashion's most in-demand photographers, Terry Richardson, meanwhile, has mixed things up on set to such an extent that he has been accused of inappropriate behaviour.

 "He takes girls who are young, manipulates them to take their clothes off and takes pictures they will be ashamed of," Danish model Rie Rasmussen told the New York Post.

Yet that hasn't lessened his impact. "I think the Terry Richardson-style shoot – that kind of seedy back-alley thing that he does – is everywhere right now," says Coen.

"The images are very suggestive and the models get younger and younger and the female form gets taller and lankier and further away from what you would associate with traditional womanhood.

But is that because of the porn industry or the fashion industry?

 I don't know. It's a can of worms."

These days, a glance at any rack of fashion magazines shows that a whole new genre seems to have sprung up which sits somewhere between i-D, Vogue and the top shelf.

There's Lovecat, which takes the "sexy pin-up" approach and features hot new models often in various states of undress. There's Tissue, a new launch, featuring umpteen fanny shots and a naked girl locked in a cage.

"Are we feminism gone wrong?" asks the introduction.

 "We hope not. It's just that to us, sex is always on, sex is it."

There's also Treats! magazine, a coffee-table tome which retails at $20, now on its third issue.

It was created by the US-based, Cheshire-born photographer Steve Shaw and is due to launch over here in the next month or so.

 It's been called porn chic, high-end erotica and compared to Playboy at the height of its game in the 1970s.

"The best way to describe it is as the magazine version of the Pirelli calendar," says Shaw. "It's a bit like a Helmut Newton photo – not sexually arousing, just visually pleasing. I think people have been subjected to FHM, Maxim and other lads' mags for far too long.

Having to look at some girl in a horribly naff bikini with her boobs sticking out is not where it's at.

That's been done. People want something different now."

If you had been reading the Daily Mail recently you could be forgiven for thinking that all this sexual imagery has swept over us and turned us all into hardcore-porn addicts.

At the end of April the paper devoted no fewer than three front-page stories to the subject and launched a campaign for automatic blocks on online porn.

And now TalkTalk, one of Britain's biggest internet providers, has just announced it will be offering its four million subscribers a blanket opt-out for pornography sites.

"Utterly pointless," says Gallop. "They are simply looking in the wrong place for the solution.

 It is absolutely not about banning porn.

It simply can't be done." Indeed, a 2010 White Paper called The History of Modern Pornography concluded by saying, "Censorship and opposition to pornography have had little effect in stemming the tide: the biological chemistry of sexual desire has outlived all censorship attempts and will continue to do so."

But there is an important issue we need to address here.

With online porn being so ubiquitous, we are just one or two clicks away from it; increasingly, this means that our children's introduction to graphic imagery comes before they have even reached their teens.

"A study done a few years ago by an internet service provider showed the average age at which kids first view hardcore porn online was 11," says Gallop.

"That age is now deemed to have dropped to eight.

This isn't because eight-year-olds go looking for it, it's because someone shows them on a phone in the playground, or when they go round to a friend's house."

And Gallop has seen first-hand what too much porn can do.

 "When you are watching, say, five or six hours a day or night and you are masturbating ferociously all the way through you can become sensitised to the way you handle yourself," she says.

 "I've encountered this myself. I dated one guy who had begun watching porn at the age of 12 and had lost his virginity at the age of 18.

So for six or so years he'd been watching vast amounts of porn.

He's now 23 and there is nothing that any real-life woman can do for him.

It's a syndrome called idiosyncratic masturbatory syndrome."

But, she points out, such cases are few and far between and the main problem is that we may be producing a generation whose sex education is composed solely of viewing pornography.

In a country where sex education is lacking to say the least, this could be a big problem.

Justin Hancock is the creator of Bish UK, a sex-education programme for teens which is realistic about their exposure to porn and teaches a more critical understanding of it.

"What we need to do is provide kids with a sex education so when they do come across porn they are educated enough to be able to see it in context and see it's not real," he says.

 "But young people are more nuanced and intelligent about the internet and porn than we give them credit for. They are not just passive consumers of the stuff."

Recently there has been a shift towards a somewhat less hysterical view on all this (the Daily Mail excepted).

Next month Gallop is planning to launch Make Love Not Porn TV, an online video channel that which will take a realistic approach to our appetite for erotica.

Dr Brooke Magnanti, aka Belle de Jour, has a book just out called The Sex Myth, which questions this so-called epidemic of sex addiction and the sexualisation of our youth.

And the 29-year-old Australian writer Rachel Hills has spent the past three years travelling to three continents, interviewing more than 150 young people to see how realistic our current views of sex and porn actually are.

"I started the book [a study of generation Y, sex and identity] because I became frustrated by media portrayals of contemporary sexual cultures," says Hills.

"It seemed that there was this kind of compulsory sexual activity imposed on us – that we've all got to be interested in it, we've all got to be doing it and we've all got to be skilled at it.

Well, as a younger person, it certainly didn't apply to my life, or my friends' lives, and once I started doing my interviews I realised it didn't apply to many of their lives either."

"Just as there was a fear of TV, a fear of video nasties, and a fear of computer games, now we have a fear of the internet and the pornography it offers," concludes Hancock.

 "The main problem with the porn debate is the media wanting to present it in very binary terms, about porn being either harmful or not – and that's created a bit of a moral panic.

But we shouldn't jump to conclusions. It's way more complicated than that."

For more makelovenotporn.com; bishuk.com. 'In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play)' is at Theatre Royal Bath, until 9 June, theatreroyal.org.uk

Sex on the brain:

What turns women on, mapped out

11:55 05 August 2011 by Linda Geddes
New Scientist

It's what women have been telling men for decades: stimulating the vagina is not the same as stimulating the clitoris. Now brain scan data has added weight to their argument.

The precise locations that correspond to the vagina, cervix and female nipples on the brain's sensory cortex have been mapped for the first time, proving that vaginal stimulation activates different brain regions to stimulation of the clitoris.

The study also found a direct link between the nipples and the genitals, which may explain why some women can orgasm through nipple stimulation alone.

The discoveries could ultimately help women who have suffered nerve damage in childbirth or disease.

The sensory cortex is a strip of brain tissue positioned roughly under where the band between a pair of headphones sits.

 Across it, neurons linked to different body parts exchange information about the sensory information feeding into them.

This is often depicted as the "sensory homunculus", a distorted image of a man stretched across the brain, with his genitals lying next to his feet (click here).

The size of the body's parts show how much of the brain is dedicated to processing the sensory information from each body part.

The diagram was first published in 1951 after experiments conducted during brain surgery performed while the patients were conscious: the surgeon electrically stimulated different regions of the patients' brains and the patients reported the parts of their bodies in which they felt sensation as a result.

But all the subjects were men. Until recently, the position of female genitalia on the homunculus had only been guessed at.

This changed last year when a team led by Lars Michels at University Children's Hospital in Zurich, Switzerland, used functional magnetic resonance imaging to confirm that the position of the clitoris on the homunculus was in approximately the same position as the penis in men.

Barry Komisaruk at Rutgers University in Newark, New Jersey, and his colleagues have now used the same method to map the position of the clitoris, vagina and cervix on the sensory cortex as women stimulated themselves.

There, there and there
"This is hard proof that there is a big difference between stimulating those different regions," says Stuart Brody of the University of the West of Scotland in Paisley, UK, one of the researchers in the study.

Some have argued that women who derive pleasure from vaginal stimulation do so because their clitoris is being indirectly stimulated, but the current findings contradict this.

 "They support the reports of women that they experience orgasm from various forms of stimulation," says Beverly Whipple, also of Rutgers University, who was not involved in the current study.

It's the nipples, stupid

Komisaruk also checked what happened when women's nipples were stimulated, and was surprised to find that in addition to the chest area of the cortex lighting up, the genital area was also activated.

"When I tell my male neuroscientist colleagues about this, they say: 'Wow, that's an exception to the classical homunculus,'" he says.

 "But when I tell the women they say: 'Well, yeah?'"

It may help explain why a lot of women claim that nipple stimulation is erotic, he adds.

The next step is to map what other areas of the brain light up in response to clitoral and vaginal stimulation. Komisaruk would also like to see what happens when the area that supposedly contains the G-spot is stimulated, as women in the current study just stimulated the front wall of the vagina generally.

The findings could also help women who have suffered nerve damage in childbirth or because of diseases like diabetes.

Michels has preliminary evidence that stimulating the clitoral nerve can improve symptoms of urinary incontinence, but says a proper understanding of how the nerve maps to the brain is needed to translate this into effective treatment.

Meanwhile, Komisaruk says that nipple stimulation could enhance genital sensation in women with nerve damage. "It could be a supplement for experiencing orgasm," he says.

Journal reference: Journal of Sexual Medicine, DOI: 10.1111/j.1743-6109.2011.02388.x

The cohabitation survival guide

To carve out space for yourself without creating a void in your relationship, abide by these rules. Moving in doesn't mean you're under lock and key

»
There’s nothing like four brick walls to really put the squeeze on a happy relationship.

More British couples are moving in together than ever before, with the Office for National Statistics reporting that 4.5 million unmarried people now live under the same roof as their partners.

But that fear of domestic cabin fever needn’t hold you back from the key-cutters.

Research from the Journal of Marriage and Family shows that cohabiting couples have more sex than couples who live apart. And there is even evidence to suggest that a romantic lock-in can lead to stress-free living: the British Journal of Psychiatry reports that the longer you live together the less likely you are to suffer from mental health problems.

To help you and your partner achieve equilibrium at home, MH has consulted the scientists of personal space.

There are forgotten lessons on live-in love from the days when we shared a cave and a fire rather than a split-level two-bed and his-and-hers DVD collections.

Prison governors also know a thing or two about accommodating people who are have no choice but to live at very close quarters. And yet more pointers come from the field of environmental psychology, which shows that the type of place you choose to live in can have a significant effect on your behaviour and relationships.

The importance of being furnished

“Men like to be able to see wide-open spaces, while women like things to be cosier and have areas for interaction,” says environmental psychologist Dak Kopec.
“This makes sense from an evolutionary point of view; in the past, men surveyed the land, while women stayed at home.”

She wants to feel looked after and will look after you in return. Aim for a mix of in and out: keep space between your bed and the window but with visual access to the windows and doors, Kopec says.

“In the living room have one armchair with a ‘cosy’ field of vision – facing a fire or coffee table for her – while your chair faces the door.”

 This defines territory where you can be alone when you feel like it.

So she won’t try, or even want, to colonise your space.

Just as important as how your space is arranged is how it’s filled.

Don’t underestimate stuff. “Often, we don’t realise when we put a photo on the fridge or all our books in one corner, we’re crafting the space to fit ourselves,” says behavioural psychologist Sam Gosling.

He studied how the contents of our living space affect the contents of our head for his bestselling book, Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You.

He argues that objects act as ‘identity claims’ that connect us to our living space.

When you’re living together, some of these should speak about you as a couple, such as photos and holiday mementoes – but more important are the ones that define you as individuals.

“No matter how small your place, it’s crucial to have contents that are just yours, even if it’s just a desk or a corner of the living room that you control,” Gosling says.

Clear a cupboard for your collection of single malts or pick out some prints.

This maintains a spirit of independence – an important addition to any home, since research in the journal Personal Relationships found that married and cohabiting couples who were too dependent on one another reported significantly lower sexual satisfaction

The cohabitation survival guide

To carve out space for yourself without creating a void in your relationship, abide by these rules.

Moving in doesn't mean you're under lock and key

Turn down the heat

Next, do something about the temperature.

“Conflict is most likely to arise in situations which are hot, crowded and polluted,” says criminologist and former prison governor Professor David Wilson. “Just look at Big Brother: you can see they deliberately manipulated each of these factors to create tension between men and women.”

Likewise, indoor temperature and the smoking ban have been used to help control people in crowded pubs.

Set your thermostat so it’s never higher than 21°C in the living room and 18°C in the bedroom; these were found to be optimum for homely contentment by the West Midlands Public Health Observatory.

Then, buy two or three houseplants for each room in your house. A NASA study found this reduces dust and household chemicals by 20%, making your home healthier and calmer.

Spider plants, chrysanthemums and bamboo palms were all identified as good examples, so get yourself (and your partner) down to Ikea today – and be thankful that at least you won’t have to do flatpack self-assembly on a yukka.

Reduce the choredom

Next up is the biggest battleground on the home front: which jobs need doing and who’s MIA for the big push?

Actually, there are fewer chores than you think. “When couples estimate the percentage of housework each does, their guesses total more than 120%,” says Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project.

Whether it’s the bins or chucking out her old magazines, the key thing is this: don’t talk about it. “Using signals instead of words is much less confrontational,” says Rubin. “If you want her to pay a bill, leave it somewhere obvious, so she can deal with it in her own time, rather than giving an order.”

Rubin found couples tend to adopt each other’s behaviour – meaning she’ll nag less when you leave shaving cream foaming on the bathroom windowsill.

Accept the natural order

Modifying your physical space and behaviour will depressurise your living quarters, but there’s still one thing left to tackle: the nagging fear that living together brings an abrupt end to sex and excitement. “It’s true that by getting the keys cut, you’re publicly counting yourself out of one particular system and into another,” says evolutionary psychologist Helen Fisher.

“But cohabitation is a totally natural state. Anthropologists call it a ‘trial marriage’, a modern way of doing the same old thing.”

To prevent staleness creeping in, maintain a cycle of anticipation, pleasure and nostalgia. For example, on payday, plan at least two exciting events for the coming month.

It might be a day at the races, or dinner with friends – both are proven to trigger mood-enhancing dopamine and adrenaline. Then, a few days later, email her a photo of you both at the event. It’s another of Gosling’s ‘identity claims’, that trigger pleasurable emotions, so when she gets home that night, she’s up for it all over again.

A woman after your own hearth

Like you, women fear moving in may dull the passion. Cosmo’s Fiona Cowood has five tips to keep it alive.

1: Egyptian cotton For the bed, not your shirts. We’re going to wake up next to each other every morning. It’s impossible for things to get tired under sheets that feel this good.
2: Get out of the house Go to the pool, the pub, the ponies... but go without us. We need to get out of each other’s hair at least twice a week.
3: Routine buster Cabin fever will quickly set in if we get into such a predictable routine that you know Sunday afternoon = Tesco, Wednesday night = curry, Saturday 5 morning = sex. If you’re short on new, inspiring things to do, try theloveofit.co.uk, which has everything from winter swimming to cardboard-tube fighting.
4: The little things We don’t want much: a towel on the radiator when we’re in the bath, a Wispa when you go in to pay for the petrol. Little things, big results.
5: Hey, WAY This free iPhone app uses GPS, so we both know exactly where you are at all times. Blimey, calm down, we're kidding.

Is the whole world looking at porn?

Biggest site gets over FOUR BILLION hits a month

30% of all web traffic is porn, according to a report

By Ted Thornhill

PUBLISHED: 10:36, 9 April 2012 | UPDATED: 11:19, 9 April 2012

‘The internet is for porn,’ is the title of a song on hit musical Avenue Q.

And it turns out the lyricists had touched on a home truth, because researchers have discovered that a staggering 30 per cent of all internet traffic is pornography.

The biggest porn site on the web - Xvideos - receives 4.4billion page views and 350million unique visits per month, according to a report on the ExtremeTech website.

Xvideos: The world's biggest porn site receives billions of hits a month

THE BIGGEST PORN SITES

XVideos - 4.4billion page views per month

PornHub - 2.5billion page views

YouPorn - 2.1billion page views

Tube8 -  970million page views

LiveJasmin - 710million page views

The only sites that surpass this in size are the likes of Google and Facebook.

The report uncovered the viewing figures for Xvideos from Google’s DoubleClick Ad Planner, which uses cookies to gather information about users.

It then used these figures - and actual data from the third biggest porn site, YouPorn - to extrapolate how much data is being transferred out of the site’s servers.

And it’s a huge amount.

It based the first calculation on the average length of time spent on Xvideos, which is 15minutes, and assumed a low resolution video was being streamed.

 From this it estimated that around 29 petabytes of pornography is being transferred a month, or 50 gigabytes per second.

However, it upped this estimate to 35 to 40PB per month after learning that YouPorn hosts over 100TB of porn, gets 100million page views and transfers 950 terabytes per day.

Fast-flowing streaming: ExtremeTech estimates that Xvideos puts out up to 40petabytes of porn a month (file picture)

That’s the equivalent of 10 dual-layer DVDs per second.

At peak times, it speculates that Xvideos is streaming 1,000 gigabytes per second (or one terabyte), which, the report points out, is one fifteenth of the total amount of connectivity between London and New York.

The ExtremeTech investigation surmised that YouPorn accounts for two per cent of internet traffic, with 30 per cent of all web traffic being pornography related.

Earlier this year thousands of YouPorn users had their personal passwords and emails leaked online by hackers.

In total, 6433 users of the YouPorn chat site were exposed after a third-party service provider failed to secure data, its owner claimed.

Email address and password combinations were put on the website Pastebin, although some appeared to be bogus or inactive.

A spokesman said at the time that the site was run by an outside company on separate servers and that there was no breach at YouPorn itself.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2127201/Porn-site-Xvideos-worlds-biggest-4bn-hits-month-30-web-traffic-porn.html#ixzz1rZe4vjML

Strauss-Kahn investigated for 'pimping' 
 
Former IMF chief released on bail after preliminary charges of "aggravated pimping", allegations he has denied.
Last Modified: 27 Mar 2012 16:18 
 
Former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn has been put under formal investigation by a French court over his alleged role in a prostitution ring.

Richard Malka, a lawyer for Strauss-Kahn, said he has been handed preliminary charges charged of "aggravated pimping as part of an organised gang" after investigating judges questioned him for several hours on Monday. 

Under French law, preliminary charges mean authorities have reason to believe a crime was committed but allow more time for investigation.

The move is an escalation of the case against the Socialist ex-finance minister but falls short of a formal charge.

Strauss-Kahn has denied the allegations against him, arguing that he was unaware women he met at parties organised by business associates in Lille, Paris and Washington were prostitutes.

Richard Malka said Strauss-Kahn denies wrongdoing and it is wrong to prosecute him for "simple libertine activity".

'Judicial control'

Prosecutors said that the 62-year-old one-time presidential favourite had been released on $135,000 bail following Monday's charges for an offence that could carry as many as 20 years in prison if convicted.

"Dominique Strauss-Kahn was placed under judicial control and was forbidden from contacting defendants, civil plaintiffs, witnesses and the press regarding the procedures," prosecutors said in a statement.

Strauss-Kahn's name came up as police were investigating a pimping operation that saw sex workers from brothels over the Belgian border being brought to France for orgies in high-class hotels in Lille and Paris.

Hiring sex workers is not illegal in France, but prosecutors are seeking proof that Strauss-Kahn was aware the parties were arranged by an organised pimping ring and paid for by other guests misusing company funds.

Several Lille-based businessmen and police officers have been accused of taking part in the ring.

US civil case

Strauss-Kahn quit the IMF after a New York hotel maid said he sexually assaulted her in May. The charges were later dropped.

However, his lawyers will also be in court on Wednesday in New York for the first hearing in a civil case brought against him by Nafissatou Diallo, the hotel maid.

Judge Douglas McKeon will be asked to rule on a motion by Strauss-Kahn's lawyers urging him to dismiss the case on the grounds that, at the time of the alleged attack in May last year, their client had diplomatic immunity.

McKeon has said he will give a written judgment on whether the case can go forward within a few weeks.

If he accepts the motion, Strauss-Kahn's US legal woes may be over. If not, Diallo's case for damages will go forward.

These two cases are the most serious threats facing Strauss-Kahn after the dismissal of two earlier criminal investigations that were brought against him in the United States and in France after his fall from grace.

First, criminal charges relating to 32-year-old Diallo's complaint that Strauss-Kahn attacked her in his suite in a New York Sofitel hotel on 15 May were dropped after prosecutors came to doubt the reliability of her testimony.

French elections

After that case fell apart, Strauss-Kahn returned to France, only to face an accusation from 32-year-old author Tristane Banon that he had tried to rape her in 2002.

French investigating magistrates questioned Strauss-Kahn and his accuser and concluded that, while there was prima facie evidence of a sexual assault, the alleged attack had occurred too long ago to be prosecuted.

Strauss-Kahn admits having a "sexual encounter" with Diallo during the nine minutes she spent in his suite, and told French police that he had tried to kiss Banon, but strenuously denies he used violence in either case.

Until the scandals erupted, Strauss-Kahn was considered the favourite to become the Socialist Party's presidential candidate and the front-runner to defeat incumbent President Nicolas Sarkozy in next month's election
 

Underage sex? Parents, just say no

Mothers and fathers need to take a firm hand when children

under the legal age want to have sex.
 
Mother knows best:

while children will always want to do what adults do,

the role of a parent is to provide discipline and censure 

7:30AM GMT 13 Feb 2012

'The best way for girls to avoid pregnancy is by taking an aspirin,” said the school nurse.

We all stared at her in confusion until she continued, laughing, “and holding it very tightly between their knees.” I went to a co-ed convent school.

Despite this and the Vatican’s standing on contraception, we were taught about condoms, the Pill and, most importantly, the legal, moral and psychological issues surrounding sexual relationships.

How things have changed.

Now it transpires that school nurses are prescribing a lot more than just an aspirin – they’re giving out contraceptive implants.

It emerged last week that in some areas, such as Southampton, schoolgirls are being fitted with the device in an attempt to drive down rates of pregnancy.

A 13-year-old who has received the implant spoke out to explain her decision.

She is reported to have said that she had the implant because she “felt like having sex”.

Something about the nonchalance of that phrase chilled me.

I feel like doing lots of things, but I can’t because the law says I can’t.

I’d quite like to throttle the person who makes announcements saying that there is a good service despite the train being delayed.

I feel fairly murderous when people drop litter, and when I have to phone a call centre.

There are times when we are late and we’d like to drive faster but the speed limit prevents us from doing so – and when we break the speed limit and are punished, it is roundly considered fair.

We all have urges and desires that are incompatible with the law and so have to restrain ourselves.

Should 13 year-old girls be given contraceptive implants at school without parents knowledge?

Yes. It's the most efficient way to reduce teen pregnancies

No. Parents should be consulted first

No. They should be taught to abstain from sex at such a young age

Yes. It would be an intrusion on their privacy to consult their parents

This poor girl is only a child, so I think we should be cautious before heaping any opprobrium on her personally.

We all did and said daft things when we were 13.

But surely this is the point.

She is a minor, viewed legally as not yet of an age to make appropriate decisions about sexual relationships.

So the girl might feel like having sex, but tough, she’s not allowed to.

 It’s the law.

A 13-year-old might not appreciate that, which, surely, is where the parents come in.

Given free reign, children would do all sorts of things they shouldn’t.

The role of a parent is to provide discipline and censure. So where is the parent in all this?

The young girl’s mother has insisted she is “proud” of her daughter but is demanding an apology from the NHS for not offering a follow-up appointment. “I believe they have neglected my daughter,” she has said.

Yes, perhaps there has been some neglect here, but I’m not sure that it’s on the part of the NHS.

Whatever the rights or wrongs here, I wonder why the mother isn’t more worried that her child is considering doing something for which she is too young.

I do have great sympathy with the NHS in Southampton – and indeed in many of these towns where teenage pregnancy is so endemic.

They are stuck in an impossible situation.

Either they sit back and watch young girls begin sexual relationships and risk throwing away their futures, or they intervene and risk a public outcry about giving contraception to underage girls.

A midwife friend worked in Southampton and was horrified by the rate of underage girls – children – who’d got pregnant and thought nothing of it.

For them, it was normal and, most tellingly, none of their parents seemed to care.

Something needs to be done, and perhaps offering covert contraception to schoolgirls is the only way around the epidemic of sexual amorality.

But I’m not convinced that the implant is even a very appropriate choice of contraception, given that it doesn’t offer any protection against sexually transmitted diseases.

I like to consider myself liberal when it comes to sex, and a libertarian with regard to the degree of choice the state affords people to make about their lives.

But as a doctor, I have worked with youngsters and can confirm what most parents will already know – that they really have no clue about the real world and, most dangerously, don’t realise their ignorance.

They will always try to push against authority, take risks and strive to do what adults do.

That’s why parents need to be there to tell them “No”.

When this is absent, what hope is there for the children?

You simply can’t put a price on the hospital chaplain

An impassioned debate took place at the Church of England General Synod last week in the face of an ongoing campaign to exclude religious influence in the NHS.

Secularist campaigners have demanded that the taxpayer should no longer fund chaplains in hospitals as the NHS is making cuts to services.

The National Secular Society has published a report arguing that they cost the NHS

£27 million a year and yet provide no clinical benefit.

I think this entirely depends on how one defines clinical benefit, and is rather a naive assessment of what happens in hospitals.

Certainly, chaplains don’t heal patients.

But surely medicine is so much more than simply curing disease. Its aim is to alleviate suffering, which can take many forms. I have called on the hospital chaplain to provide comfort and support for patients countless times.

For those with terminal diagnoses, who have experienced severe trauma or who feel scared and alone, they provide an invaluable service.

At one hospital where I worked, the local priest, Father Bruce, was a regular fixture on the psychiatric ward.

He would spend hours with patients, talking to them and advocating for them.

I remember a patient telling me that Father Bruce was the only friend he’d ever had.

Even though I am an atheist, there are many times when I’ve thanked God for chaplains.

Katie is a model example for medicine and charity

Katie Piper, the 29-year-old model who suffered horrific facial burns after her ex-boyfriend arranged for someone to throw acid in her face, has had her sight restored after undergoing stem-cell surgery.

She has made a programme about the treatment, which was aired on Channel 4 last week.

Katie is an inspiration.

 Not only is she evidence of the amazing capabilities of modern medicine, having had hundreds of operations for the damage that was done, but, through her campaigning and charity work, she is also a wonderful role model for the way people can respond to adversity

Seven ways sex is good for your health

 

A Valentine's day guide

 

Fri 11 Feb, 2011 12:00 am GMT

© Yuri Arcurs - Fotolia.com

Don’t worry about the calories in those Valentine's Day chocolates – a proper celebration in the bedroom can help keep you in shape.

In fact, sex can benefit your health in many ways.

Here are seven reasons to give and get a little love – not just this special day, but any time.

Good for the heart

 

Sex is good for your heart. Like any physical exertion, sex is a form of cardio-exercise, which gets your heart pumping faster and helps it stay in shape.

What's more, studies have shown that men who have sex two or more times per week cut their risk of a fatal heart attack by half.

Helps you lose weight 

Like any form of exercise, sex helps you lose weight. Having sex for 30 minutes can burn off 85 calories.

To put that in perspective: 15 minutes on the treadmill could burn up to 200 calories; 42 of these half-hour sessions, then, could shave a pound off your weight.

Boosts your immune system

 

While it's possible to contract a wide range of diseases, both from sex and from simple contact with others, safe sex between healthy partners can make you better equipped to fight illness.

Those who have sex once or twice a week have been shown to have higher levels of immunoglobulin A or IgA, an antibody which helps protect you from respiratory diseases like the cold and flu.

Don’t go overboard, though – in studies, those who had sex three or more times a week had the lowest levels of antibodies.

Reduces the risk of prostate cancer

 

For younger men, sex reduces the risk of prostate cancer.

Researchers have found that men in their 20s who had five or more ejaculations per week were one third less likely to develop the cancer in later life.

Although they found no such correlation for older men, you could try to prove them wrong.

Relieves stress

There's a medical explanation for the mood boost sex gives you.

The brain releases endorphins during and after sex, and these neurotransmitters create a feeling of euphoria while masking the negative effects of stress.

Researchers have also found that sex lowers your blood pressure, which is good for your health and allows you to better keep your cool in stressful situations.

It relieves pain

Endorphins and lower blood pressure also mean that sex relieves pain.

Endorphins are released during sex because of the heightened levels of the hormone oxytocin in your body.

This has been known to alleviate arthritic and menstrual pain, among other things.

Lower blood pressure can also help relieve migraines.

It helps you sleep

In addition to relieving stress and pain, the oxytocin generated during sex helps you sleep better.

 Sex relaxes you, promoting deeper, more restful sleep.

What more do you need?

All men watch porn, scientists find

 

Scientists at the University of Montreal launched a search for men

who had never looked at pornography - but couldn't find any.

Around 90 per cent of consumption was on the internet, while 10 per cent of material came from video stores 

1:22PM GMT 02 Dec 2009

Researchers were conducting a study comparing the views of men in their 20s who had never been exposed to pornography with regular users.

But their project stumbled at the first hurdle when they failed to find a single man who had not been seen it.

“We started our research seeking men in their 20s who had never consumed pornography,” said Professor Simon Louis Lajeunesse. “We couldn't find any.”

Although hampered in its original aim, the study did examined the habits of those young men who used pornography – which would appear to be all of them.

Prof Lajeunesse interviewed 20 heterosexual male university students who consumed pornography, and found on average, they first watched pornography when they were 10 years old.

Around 90 per cent of consumption was on the internet, while 10 per cent of material came from video stores.

Single men watched pornography for an average of 40 minutes, three times a week, while those in relationships watched it 1.7 times a week for around 20 minutes.

The study found that men watched pornography that matched their own image of sexuality, and quickly discarded material they found offensive or distasteful.

Prof Lajeunesse said pornography did not have a negative effect on men's sexuality.

“Not one subject had a pathological sexuality,” he said. “In fact, all of their sexual practices were quite conventional.

“Pornography hasn't changed their perception of women or their relationship, which they all want to be as harmonious and fulfilling as possible,” he added.

Revealed: the secret to an enduring sex life - cups of tea

 

Making love with a long-term partner is less about sex toys and snatched passion and more

about sharing time, intimate moments –
and cups of tea, says the marital therapist Andrew G Marshall.

He explains how couples can keep the spark alive

Celia Dodd

Tuesday 24 January 2012 
 

 
Cup that cheers:

stopping in the middle for tea and a chat means sex isn't just a race to the end,

Marshall says

Sex life a bit lacking?

 Take heart: the answer lies not in scary-sounding toys or tantric techniques, but a nice cup of tea.

That's the comforting view of leading marital therapist Andrew G Marshall. He explains how it works:

"If you stop in the middle of love-making to have tea and talk to each other, it shows how desire comes and goes – that sex isn't just a race to the end.

 It allows you time to be intimate with each other.

Sex which used to last 15 minutes suddenly lasts an hour and a half.

Sex doesn't have to involve going out of your comfort zone – although challenging yourself is good."

Marshall is on a mission to reclaim monogamous sex for couples who are puzzling out how to feel sexy with the partner who shares the frankly unsexy business of domestic life and bringing up children.

As a marital therapist with practices in London and Sussex, Marshall has enjoyed a rare insight into the love lives of ordinary people over the past 25 years.

His latest book is, How to Make Love Like a Prairie Vole: Six Steps to Passionate, Plentiful and Monogamous Sex (Bloomsbury, £12.99), published both as a book and an app.

In his view, too many couples resign themselves to little or no sex after the first few years and pretend they don't mind while secretly yearning for better sex – or resorting to an affair.

"Too often people leave a relationship at just the point when sex has the potential to get much better," Marshall says.

"One myth I particularly want to challenge is that after the first few years it's downhill all the way and once you get past 40 that's about it – you've got one last chance and you'd better grab it quickly.

That encourages all sorts of stupid affairs.
"However, if couples make love rarely it leaves the relationship pretty vulnerable, because we don't lose our need for sex.

 It's a wonderful way of feeding a relationship.

 It's not just about orgasms: what's particularly restorative is that afterglow, where you hold each other and feel cared for.

But if you don't feed your relationship it dies, or someone else comes along and feeds your partner.

I don't think people get divorced because they have a bad sex life, but I certainly think it's a contributing factor."

Marshall encourages couples to reinvent their sex lives every few years. It's not about spicing things up superficially with new techniques and toys but about building confidence and openness.

If couples can pull this off – in the face of undeniable pressures like kids and careers – sex gets better and better.

Yet the very glue that binds long-term relationships can hamper progress, because individuals are naturally wary of suggesting changes for fear of rocking the emotional boat and as time goes on there's so much more at stake.

And while it's all very well for sexperts to bang on about the importance of communication, most couples haven't got a clue where to begin.

Too often sex has become the elephant in the room; a subject far too scary to bring up because it feels like criticism. So much easier to bite your tongue and put up with things the way they are.

Marshall's advice is to avoid bringing up problems, which will make your partner feel defensive. Instead start by talking about what you like about your sex life and remembering what was wonderful in the past.

That should to break the ice for further discussions about how to bring more good stuff into the relationship now.

Marshall is also keen to bust the myths about sex which hold couples back: that it has to be spontaneous and that both partners have to be equally turned on at the same time.

"That puts people under extreme pressure," he says.

"What's needed is a bit of give and take and accepting that sometimes one person is in the spotlight, sometimes the other.

If you wait until you both feel in the mood you'd probably only have sex once a year, on holiday.

That's not to say you can't have spontaneous sex, just that you can't rely on it.

The rest of the time you need to plan."

And he urges couples to treat sex as a priority, rather than the last thing on the minds of two exhausted individuals.

Parents, whether their children are teenagers or toddlers, should take note: "If anything is causing problems in our sex lives, it's the sense that we have to be super-parents who are available to our children 24/7," he says.

"I can't tell you how difficult it is to persuade couples to put a lock on their bedroom door, although they wouldn't dream of barging into their kids' bedrooms!

If your kids hear you making love, Hurrah!

It says you are sexual creatures and I think that's incredibly reassuring because it gives children the message that their parents love each other – and that is a wonderful bedrock for them to have."
 
SEXUAL HEALING
* Take the pressure off by having a break from sex for a few weeks. Focus on touching instead.
*

 Develop habits that give you a head start, such as going to bed at the same time as your partner and keeping distractions such as computers and phones away from the bedroom.
*

Simple communication also helps: if you're going to bed, then make a point of telling your partner, so they know you haven't just gone for a bath or whatever.

*If you've got children, put a lock on your bedroom door.
If you're worred about being overheard, play music.
 Don't wait to be in the mood.
Sex doesn't always have to be spontaneous.
Plan sex.

* Communicate.
Bringing up the subject of sex can easily be taken as a criticism.
Don't focus on problems but talk about what's good about your sex life and what you enjoyed in the past.

Sex on the brain: What turns women on, mapped out

11:55 05 August 2011 by Linda Geddes

New Scientist

Online sex advertising crackdown could endanger women

30 November 2011 by Wendy Zukerman

New Scientist