It is a curious quirk of human nature
that most of us prefer using our right-hand, while a minority of around
10 % prefer using their left - a ratio that has remained relatively
stable throughout human history. Experts remain unsure how handedness
emerges in a developing child, and they struggle to explain the
persistence of the ratio of right to left-handers. Against this
backdrop, a number of cultural myths have grown up around the
differences between left and right-handers. Here I give you a low down
on myths and facts about handedness. Before we start, let me debunk an
immediate misnomer. There really is no such thing as strict left- or
right-handedness. Most people can do something with their
weaker hand. A more important distinction might be the strength of
preference we have for one hand, be it left or right (researchers use
the term "mixed-handedness" for a lack of preference). With that
clarified, here are my three myths and facts about left-handers and
handedness:
1. Myth: Left-handers are more introverted, intelligent and creative.
There are anecdotal accounts of artists and musicians tending to be left-handed, an observation given wings by the overly simplistic notion that the right-hemisphere (which controls the left hand) is the seat of creativity.
Advocates point to Leonardo de Vinci, a leftie, Paul McCartney, another
leftie, and many more. But as psychologist Chris McManus explains in
his award-winning book Right Hand Left Hand, "although there are
recurrent claims of increased creativity in left-handers, there is very
little to support the idea in the scientific literature." Regarding
lefties having an introverted personality, a paper published just this year
surveyed 662 New Zealand undergrads about their handedness and
personality. "Left- and right-handers did not differ on any personality
factor," the researchers reported. However, there was a tendency for
people with a weaker preference for either hand (i.e. the mixed-handed)
to be more introverted.What about IQ? One massive study found no link with handedness; another (pdf) found a slight IQ advantage for right-handers (put both studies together and any intelligence/handedness link is neglible).
2. Fact: Left-handers are less likely to be left-hemisphere dominant for language.
In
the vast majority of the population, language function is nearly always
localised to the left hemisphere. This is why a stroke or other brain
injury suffered to the left side of the brain tends to lead to language
problems. Among right-handers, left-sided dominance for language
approaches upwards of 95 per cent prevalence. However, among left-handed
people this drops to 70 per cent, with the others either having
language localised to the right hemisphere, or spread evenly across both
hemispheres.
3. Myth: Left-handed people die earlier and suffer more immune diseases
The early death myth originates with a 1988 Nature paper by Diane Halpern and Stanley Coren: "Do right-handers live longer?"
The psychologists analysed death records for baseball players and found
that those who were left-handed had died younger. But as Chris McManus
explains, this is a statistical artefact borne by the fact that
left-handedness increased through the 20th century, meaning that
left-handers, on average, were born later in that century. As an
analogy, McManus points to Harry Potter fans, who tend to be younger
than non-fans. "Ask the relatives of a group of recently deceased people
whether their loved one had read Harry Potter and inevitably one will
find a younger age at death in Harry Potter enthusiasts," he writes,
"but that is only because HP readers are younger overall." If this
statistical argument makes your head spin, let me offer you a 1994 study
of cricketers, which concluded: "Left handedness is not, in general, associated with an increase in mortality."
A related myth, propagated by Geschwind, is that left-handers are more
vulnerable to immune disorders. McManus and Phil Bryden analysed data
from 89 studies involving over 21,000 patients and an even greater
number of controls: "Left-handers showed no systematic tendency to
suffer from disorders of the immune system," McManus writes.
4. Fact: We get more mixed-handed as we get older
For a 2007 study Tobias
Kalisch and his colleagues recruited 60 participants who were all
strongly right-handed and tested them on a range of fiddly manual tasks,
including: line tracing, aiming, and tapping. Whereas the younger
participants (average age 25 years) performed far better with their
right hand on all tests, the middle-aged (average age 50) right-handers
performed just as well with either hand on the aiming task. And two
older groups (average age 70 & 80 years) performed just as well with
either hand on all tasks bar one. Unfortunately, the main reason for
the older participants' greater ambidexterity was the fact they'd lost
their superior performance with their right-hand.
5. Myth: Left-handers are persecuted
Reviewing a recent book on left-handers (Rik Smits' The Puzzle of Left Handedness), a Guardian critic observed: "Sadly, prejudice
against left-handedness is deep-rooted and universal." Is it? There's
no doubt that left-handers have had a rough time in the past. Many were
forced to use their right hand, and across many cultures there's a deep
bias towards right being good and left bad. Consider expressions like
"right-hand man", "two left feet" and the fact that Muslims use their
right hand for eating and their left hand for ablutions. However, in
Western cultures at least, the persecution of lefties appears to be
over. Look at the fact that 5 out of the last 7 US presidents have been
left-handed. If life is so tough for lefties, you'd hardly expect them
to reach the most powerful position in the world so frequently. Okay,
that's largely conjecture, but what about the 2013 study
I mentioned earlier, which also involved over a 100 New Zealand
students rating the personality of a typical left or right hander. Their
belief was that left-handers tend to be more introverted and open to
experience. As the authors wrote, this "artistic" stereotype "can hardly
be considered negative." They added: "We found no evidence that
left-handers are a stigmatised minority in our young Western
population."
6. Fact: Lefties have an advantage in many sports:
Left-handers
are disadvantaged in some sports because of the safety rules - for
example, in polo, the mallet must be held on the right-hand side of the
horse. However, in sports where opponents compete against each other
directly, face to face, such as boxing or tennis, the left-hander has a
distinct advantage. Stated simply, they are more used to facing
right-handed opponents (which the majority of their rivals will be) than
right-handers are used to facing left-handers. Indeed, one evolutionary
account for why left-handedness has survived is that it confers a
fighting advantage - the so-called "fighting hypothesis". There are many studies in the literature that explore the left-hander's advantage in sports like boxing and fencing.
--I hope you enjoyed this round-up. If you're interested to learn more, I highly recommend Chris McManus's book Right Hand, Left Hand, The Origins of Asymmetry in Brains, Bodies, Atoms and Cultures and also check out the new paper I cited by Grimshaw and Wilson: A sinister plot? Facts, beliefs, and stereotypes about the left-handed personality.
Sunday, March 24, 2013
Five Sex Tips for Men About Women
When you think about a Thanksgiving feast, you probably think about snitching crisp turkey skin right off the bird straight out the oven, creamy mashed potatoes dripping with gravy, luscious spicy pumpkin pie mounded with whipped cream, and eating so much you have to loosen the belt.
Chances are your wife has already started to plan that delicious menu. She likes to eat, too. But she’s also thinking about her guest list — how to keep Aunt Suzie from dominating poor nephew Allen. She’s wondering about which single woman she can invite to the growing table that might make a match for her single brother. Pottery Barn catalogs are being pored over as she plans her own table settings. This year’s centerpiece will be the piece de resistance. Candles have already made the shopping list so everything will be perfect.
My point is while you may be thinking about eating, your wife is thinking about the whole ritual of the day, the romance of the gathering—connection, beauty, and light. You’ve heard it a million times: be romantic. It's tired advice. Tired but true. But you don’t know why anyone would bother with the trimmings when there’s a feast ahead; doesn’t matter to you if it’s on china or a paper plate.
Women like to feel deeply connected before they turn on sexually. The setting, the build-up, the relationship all work together to make the moment work for her. These things do matter to her.
Women complain to me in therapy that their husbands never call when they’re at work. Right, I tell them as I defend you. That’s because he’s thinking of work. Men compartmentalize to the task at hand. Women think more like the web—everything links to everything. It works against us when the task at hand is sex and we can’t let go of the cares of the day. Compartmentalizing works for you when it comes to sex because you can focus and enjoy, but it works against you when it comes to providing some forethought to the moment.
Flowers sitting on the counter provide relational constancy for a woman. Object constancy is a developmental milestone. When you hide the ball behind your back and your baby remembers and tries to find it; he has achieved object constancy. He remembers the ball when it disappears. Relational constancy means we feel secure even if our partner is absent or preoccupied. Gifts and flowers are like transitional objects standing in for your presence. You go to work, travel, get busy, and she remembers you still love her. “He does think of me when he’s away from me.” You get points when you’re not even there. Romance proves forethought.
Romance is like exercise. If you jog in the morning it doesn’t mean you won’t have a heart attack that night. Romance doesn’t mean: I brought you flowers, so I should get sex tonight. Exercise creates a healthy body. Romance creates a healthy romantic backdrop for a woman’s responsiveness. It’s a tactical, practical thing you can do that adds to her feelings of connection.
2. Personalize the ask.
Make it about her, not about being horny. Forget the bump and cup. If she likes to be touched first, start generic. As far as verbal suggestions, “Do you want to have sex?” leaves women cold. “Mmmm,” they think, “do I want to have sex…uh, no.” It’s the wrong question. If fact, initiation shouldn’t be a question, it should be a statement of what you want.
Her hormonal funding of testosterone, a hormone in both men and women that governs physiological craving for sex, can be as low as 100th of yours. Think about weightlifting with and without steroids. You can do everything that your buddy does curl for curl, but if he’s on steroids his rate of build is going to be much higher. A man’s normal testosterone levels are 300-1,000 ng/dL serum blood. Parents of teenage girls are afraid of the 1,000 level, and at 300, a guy often seeks a sex therapist for low desire. At 300, he won’t have morning erections, he struggles even with Viagra, will think about sex about once a week, and if he has a fight with his wife he won’t want it. A woman’s testosterone level is about 70 ng/dL when she is 18 and half that when she is 40 if she’s lucky. Her experience in her body is markedly different that your experience. While we may process testosterone differently and there are also measurements that are even more sensitive, this is the primary reason you crave sex and she doesn’t. She likes it, she needs it but she only knows that once she’s having it. Testosterone also governs her rate of arousal.
You can help by not lording it over her in the morning debrief. Don’t say, “Wow, I knew you’d really like x if I could ever talk you into it.” Instead, be reassuring. Say, “That was fantastic last night.” Leave the details until the next time she’s halfway up the mountain. For some reason, some women experience shame when their vulnerable experimentation if recounted. You’d be wise to get her to talk about it only when she’s aroused.
Women are often socialized to be the brakes, not the engine, of sexual desire.1 My female clients often tell me about their spouses' ideas. Many of your ideas include acts, positions, or fantasies about things they would be willing to try. Unfortunately, they are afraid that one thing might lead to another—meaning one deviation from the norm might lead to deviancy.
Reassure her of your own boundaries so that she will relax. If you want to tell her your fantasies but know that they will always remain in fantasy only (i.e., they are things you would never do)—say so. If you know you have fantasies that she would never consent to, prove you know her and say that. Tell her you respectfully submit the ideas for exploration in fantasy only. The exception to my above advice: don’t push against known sensibilities or moral views at a time when she’s aroused. She will stop trusting to let down her guard and become aroused with you. Those discussions should take place outside the bedroom.
5. Know 20 different touch techniques.
The difference between a professional massage and a husband’s in-front-of-the-TV-back-rub are pretty stark. The masseuse works each side of the back with perfect symmetry. Every muscle is kneaded. Touches are measured and planned to deepen relaxation. There is enough repetition for the recipient to rest and enough change to keep it interesting.
Similarly, a man needs to know and be able to stimulate a woman’s genitals with knowledge and intention. He should know each part with lights on and with a reach in the dark. Because the woman’s genitals change during arousal, he should know the particulars for those changes: color, engorgement, erectile tissue, lubrication. A good lover has at least 20 different touches to use. The two primary variants are pressure and friction and a combination of the two.
Because 19 of them may not work on a particular night given her menstrual cycle, level or tiredness or alertness, bloating or not—your wife should guide you with lots of feedback about what works and doesn’t. Ask her to give you a number on a scale of one to five rather than “that feels good.” You may find that one touch that took her to the moon one night never works again. Not your fault. You may find that she only wants the same ole' touch over and over. Not your fault. You may find that you are almost out of options. Not your fault. She is the only one who can know what feels good at any given moment. Know only two or three touches or rush the process? Then, the lack of progress might be your fault.
Gentle encouragement to tell you her preferences will help. Don’t think you know what works. You can’t know. You shouldn’t feel criticized if she redirects you. If you have many touches in your repertoire, the odds increase that you can please her even when she is having a tough night relaxing. Do research different touches orally and manually in sex books. Do research live on her with a night set aside for learning. Tell her you want nothing in return that night—only to learn how to please her. Porn is an unrealistic teacher of technique often emphasizing intercourse. As I’ve said in many previous blogs: most women don’t climax from intercourse. Only 15 to 20 percent do; but 100 percent of ambulatory disease-free women can climax from adequate clitoral stimulation (read: at least 20 minutes once aroused) Please do see fellow PT bloggers Michael Castleman’s excellent book Great Sex or Paul Joannides' Guide to Getting It On!
How to Lose a Woman…Forever
Raymond Bechard summarizes Travis McGee’s views on women into 22 rules to losing the love of your life forever.
If you’ve never read any of John D. MacDonald’s “Travis McGee” novels, you should immediately go get yourself all 21 volumes beginning with The Deep Blue Good-by (1964) to The Lonely Silver Rain (1984). Once you start you won’t stop. And though you’ll be able to finish them all by summer’s end, don’t. Savor them.Only a woman of pride, complexity and emotional tension is genuinely worth the act of love, and there are only two ways to get yourself one of them. Either you lie, and stain the relationship with your own sense of guile, or you accept the involvement, the emotional responsibility, the permanence she must by nature crave. I love you can be said only two ways.Travis McGee, The Deep Blue Good-By, 1964
What makes these books so special? You’ll learn all about what it took to be a man when MacDonald started writing the books during the “Man Men” era, and how to be one 50 years later. You’ll look at life—and being a man—differently.
Who is Travis McGee? He’s a self-described “Salvage Consultant,” a kind of private detective who finds things for people, important things. Then he keeps half the value as his fee. He lives on a houseboat in Fort Lauderdale. He is a bad-ass philosopher and critic of modern day life. His observations on being a man, a human and an inhabitant of planet earth are timeless.
Along the way Travis offers insights into women that will bring your thinking to a sudden, jolting halt, turn it, and send it on its merry way in an entirely new direction. Basically, everything you’ve read about the ladies in Men’s magazines for the last half-century is a repeat of something Travis McGee already said. While all of it is valuable in some way (and should be taken with a 21st century grain of salt) the most valuable piece of advice he has remains the same. It goes something like this: Treat a woman so that she knows you believe she is the most important and interesting person you have ever met and will ever meet.
McGee’s advise on women is often harsh—to both men and women. His cynicism will cut you and leave you stinging. He’s not the kind of man to gently nudge you awake. He’s more of a slap in the face guy. Having read all 21 books multiple times, I’ve summarized Travis McGee’s view on women. In the McGee tradition of constant sarcasm and criticism, this compilation is a list of rules to break if you would like to lose a woman forever.
1. Don’t protect her.
She’s a big girl. There’s no reason to help her feel safe in the way she needs to feel safe. There are no guarantees in life so it’s not rational to expect security in relationships. (And nothing is more rational than love.) Her emotional security is paramount to her. This means she wants to rely on you to always be there for her and can count on you to be her best friend. Allow her to feel alone and abandoned, and you will experience both.2. Don’t respect her.
Simple. Treat her like crap. If she doesn’t take it, she’ll leave and you’ll be miserable. If she does, she’ll stay and you’ll both be miserable. Treating her like the extraordinary woman she is will only increase her expectations, attitude, and hope, and courage, and affection, and love …3. Don’t listen to her.
Every time she talks either tune her out or try to solve her problems. Do not, under any circumstances come to the realization that her feelings are the problem she needs to communicate to you. She doesn’t want you to DO anything. (After all, if she wanted your help she would ask for it. Seriously, she will.) And if you wanted her to feel closer to you than anyone else in the world you would not listen to her problems, but to her feelings. That takes paying sharp attention to her and learning how to really listen beyond her words. You would have to look at her as a person of near limitless emotional capacity. And all of that would only show her how much you truly value her. Who has that kind of time?4. Look at her like an object.
All your life you’ve been sizing women up, judging them, taking in their physical being the same way you do with cars, boats or maybe fishing gear. Women are their words, their silence, their movement, the expressions, their work, their art, their friends, their children, their emotions, their thoughts, their hearts and their minds. They are more complex than anything else in the world. If you’re lucky, you might be smart enough to take on the challenge of understanding one someday.5. Take her for granted.
Let her know she’s nothing special. Devalue everything she does, especially the things she does for you. If you want to make her miserable, sad, hopeless, or just lose her self-esteem make sure she knows she really doesn’t mean that much to you. You can’t be bothered with the fact that she’ll be looking for some kind of positive affirmation from you every day. And giving it to her is not something you can do once a month or week, on holidays or special occasions. She knows you appreciate her when you work at it all the time, especially those times when you don’t have to.6. Don’t let her know she is important.
This one’s easy. If her father let her know that she is important as a person and you don’t show her the same thing, she won’t even consider a real relationship with you (because she knows you’re wrong.) However, if he didn’t teach her these things (making him was a heartless jerk) then you have to go along with him. Otherwise, if you try to prove her father wrong and treat her with the love and respect she deserves, she will fight you. She may never unbelieve her father’s lie. But if you do choose to take on the job, commit to it like a man.7. Don’t let her know she is interesting.
Don’t show any interest in her life, her passions, her story, her friends, work, hobbies, troubles, etc. Showing her she bores you is the best way to prove to her that she will never be her best with you.8. Cheat.
No joking around on this one. Don’t cheat. Have the courage to say no or the decency to end the relationship. Stop and think of the damage you are doing to her for the rest of her life. However, if you want to permanently kill a good section her heart then go ahead. Tell yourself whatever you want. She will never recover, especially if she stays with you.9. Don’t commit.
She’ll feel fine if you can’t commit to anything, large or small. Can’t make little plans because of work or your family or your friends or your other interests? No problem. She’ll make plans without you. Can’t make big plans like spending the rest of your life with her? She’ll make those plans without you as well.10. Don’t kiss her.
If you don’t want her, don’t touch her. And especially don’t kiss her. However, if you want to be a man, shut up and take five completely uninterrupted minutes every day to hold her and kiss her.11. Don’t cherish and adore her.
Don’t pay any attention to the needs she’s had since she was a child. Yes she is all grown up, but there is a part of the little girl she once was still living inside her. She needs your help in telling the little girl that everything is going to be okay because she is truly loved. Yeah, she can certainly handle that on her own, or with somebody else.12. Don’t provide for her.
Screw Travis McGee. It’s the 21st Century and women should be able to carry their own weight. Sorry, but if you can’t provide for her financially she will never be able to completely rely on you. She needs to count on you no matter what happens. Unpredictability is her worst enemy and the world is becoming more unpredictable ever day. You must be her safe harbor, her one place to go when it all goes to hell.13. Don’t compliment her.
If you want her to find proof that she is attractive from someone else, don’t show her how attracted you are to her. If you want her to know how much you adore her, tell her how your attraction to her makes you feel. “Seeing your eyes make me feel like I’m really home,” is better than, “You have nice eyes.” But don’t do that. You’d have to examine all the great feelings she gives you. And who needs that much self awareness?14. Ignore Adventure.
Needing security must mean she wants routine and dullness, right? Do you realize how much a woman wants adventure? Not the adventure of being with you or the ups and downs of your relationship, but the adventures—large and small—you embark on together. She wants to be safe/secure enough in you so that you are the only one she will dare travel with on the adventures she desires so deeply.15. Don’t surprise her.
Going to the trouble to be spontaneous or romantic without her knowing proves to her that she is precious to you. She needs to see you going to a lot of trouble for her to truly know she is loved and safe. That’s a lot of work.16. Don’t romance her.
Your first date was a long time ago. No need to act like that idiot anymore. It’s probably best to just settle into a routine and ignore her need for unique expressions of your love for her. On the other hand, if you bring her out on a “first date” once in a while, or go out of your way for her romantically, you will reset the emotional freshness of her heart and your relationship.17. Don’t be a hero.
She may not want you to solve all her problems, but she definitely wants a champion. Who the hell even knows what that means? It’s a fine line to walk. And it’s only attempted by the truest of men with the utmost courage and conviction.18. Don’t take her anywhere.
She is feeling things emotionally that you will never even come close to. Imagine all emotions—good and bad—are rocks. Someone hands two identical rocks to you and to your woman. To you it feels like a rock. To her it’s a boulder. The weight of all that, all day, every day, gets to be a burden. Weather you take her to dinner, a spa, on vacation, or just sit and watch her try on dresses, you will be her hero for taking her out from under her own personal pile of boulders.19. Don’t change your habits.
Let pride be your guide. Never improve. You’ve gone far too long becoming just as perfect as you are. Why switch up your game now? Remember, compromise and consideration has no place in relationships … unless you want them to work. Anyway, who has strength enough to be flexible?20. Hate apologizing.
If you wanted to make this work, you would love apologizing. Point out your mistakes and apologize for them until she tells you to stop. But, that will only make her trust you and rely on your decency and trustworthiness as a man.21. Don’t learn what emotional intimacy is.
Forget that emotional intimacy is the utterly close connection that will exist only when you are truly committed to and trust one another. It means you are both devoted to the well being and individual growth of the other, that you fully trust her and her you. It means knowing with absolute certainty that you are perfectly safe with each other. So, you would have to take the time to find a woman with whom you can build trust and be yourself. Worst of all it would mean not just accepting her for who she is, but celebrating who she is.22. Don’t man up and deal with it.
You have issues. Everybody does. But you’re strong enough to handle them and not let them affect your life or your relationships. Certainly, you don’t need to deal with your past, your humiliations, shame, failures, addictions, etc. Getting help and staying strong only means you’re weak.If none of these rules make sense then you need to meet my friend, Travis McGee. He is waiting for you on his boat, The Busted Flush, docked at slip F-18 at the Bahia Mar Marina in Fort Lauderdale.
Five Important Things Women Don’t Know About Men
It’s true, men are complicated and confusing. Noah Brand clears up five common misconceptions.
The title is, to be fair, an overgeneralization. These things are not universally true of all men, and there definitely are women out there who know and understand some or all of them. By and large, though, these are five areas where communication between the two most popular genders tends to break down on grounds of incomprehension. Women, this might help explain a few things.
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1. We are starved for compliments.There’s an old rule men learn about flirting with women: if a woman’s pretty, don’t expect to impress her by telling her so. People have been telling her that every single day since puberty, and it no longer even registers as anything other than background noise.
On the other hand, most men have never been told they’re pretty. Or attractive at all. We’re supposed to derive value from our success and careers, not our looks, and there is an overwhelming cultural narrative that we are the wanter, not the wanted, the pursuer, not the pursued, the desiring, not the desirable.
Tell a man (other than Ryan Gosling) that he’s pretty, and you will have his undivided attention. You may well be the first person ever to say that to him. Do not assume that an attractive man knows he’s attractive. The opposite is probably the case.
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2. We are not more shallow than women are.Sure, some guys only go for women who look like magazine advertisements. Some women do the same thing with guys. But when most women get together with their trusted friends and talk about men, there’s a rich diversity of attraction that gets talked about. They’ll talk about a guy’s sexy voice, or the way he holds them in his sleep, or the look on his face when he’s passionate about something, or the lines of his hands. When they do talk about the face and the body, it’s not all sharp cheekbones and ripped abs, there’s all kinds of types that different women find attractive for their own reasons.
And yet there’s a stereotype that men don’t do the exact same thing. Believe me, we do. When actual grown-up men get together and talk girls, there’s an awful lot of “I love the way she tells the truth, just straight-out with no bullshit.” and “It’s the freckles. I cannot resist her freckles.” and “When she giggles a certain way I just want to jump her right there.”
Oh, we do dig the physical aspects, too, very much so, but again, it’s not about the women in magazines and commercials. Grown men can tell the difference between an airbrushed plastic image designed by a marketing department, and a real live woman. We have a very wide range of tastes and types in terms of what we find sexy in a woman, and anyone who tells you different is probably trying to sell you something.
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3. There’s a reason for that emotional repression.I’m often surprised by how little most women know about the experience of being a teenage boy. It really shouldn’t be surprising; there’s almost no realistic depictions in media of teenagers of any gender. I mean, when was the last time you saw a teenage girl on TV or in a movie acting like teenage girls act in real life?
Short version: testosterone is a hell of a drug. Those who’ve taken it as adults as part of a gender transition tend to report intense cravings for physical catharsis, flashes of inexplicable rage, and similar effects. And that’s taking it on purpose, knowing that it’s a drug, with an adult level of brain development and emotional maturity. Now imagine that happening to you without warning when you’re thirteen and have no idea what’s going on.
Almost every adult man walking around spent at least part of his adolescence dealing with sourceless, purposeless anger and a desire for violent catharsis. It’s like having a little devil on your shoulder constantly making the same unhelpful suggestion.
“I don’t know how I’m going to deal with this test Friday, I can’t cope.”And so on. We spend years learning that our immediate emotional responses to things are absolutely not to be trusted. The first response to an emotional impulse must be to ignore it and repress it, just for safety. The men who didn’t learn that reflex? They’re the ones with criminal records for assault.
“Have you considered… VIOLENCE?”
“Shut up, shoulder devil, nobody asked you. Hmmm, what do I want for lunch…”
“Have you considered… VIOLENCE?”
“Shoulder devil that is NOT EVEN A FOOD.”
Once we mature out of adolescence, the hormones calm down and we’re fine, but at that point the cultural conditioning has been drilled in beyond repair, a million repetitions of “man up” and “crying is for girls” and on and on and on. What was a safety precaution in high school becomes a socially mandated norm, and that’s why, over the course of my life, I’ve shed more tears over the “Marseillaise” scene in Casablanca than I have over my mother’s death. (Though to be fair, I’ve seen Casablanca probably twenty times, and my mother’s only died once.)
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4. We are sick of being success objects.This is one of those things most men don’t even have the vocabulary to talk about. It’s a nameless pain, an unspoken discontent that eats away at far too many men. Just as women too often feel defined solely by their looks and their dress size, so too are men taught that our worth as human beings comes from our career, our bank balance, our success.
All those gold-digger jokes, all those lines about “So what if he’s short—he can stand on his wallet”… we know on a deep level that they’re not jokes. Those lines about how the job of a husband and father is keeping the bills paid—we understand those. We know that our attractiveness, our worth, our contribution to our families is all about how much money we can make. And it’s exhausting.
Some guys get resentful, thinking that even their loved ones just see them as a walking wallet. Some guys get tired, feeling like no matter what they make, it’ll never be good enough. Some guys spend their whole lives ashamed, having had it beaten into them that they’re only worth what they’ve got in the bank, and taking poverty or financial reversals as a deep personal failure. It eats away at us daily in a thousand little microaggressions, all the ways we’re made to feel Not Good Enough, when what they mean is Not Rich Enough.
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5. Yes, we actually do need to adjust ourselves like that.This one’s less of a major emotional issue, but seriously, enough with the jokes about how weird and gross it is. The equipment shifts around, it changes shape and size, it chafes, and it is very very sensitive. When it gets uncomfortable, it gets very uncomfortable indeed, so cut us a little slack, could you?
The Differences Between Hook-Up Sex, Marital Sex, and Making Love
Did that title get your attention? No, this isn't a "bait and switch!" It really is about the differences between "Hook-Up Sex,"
"Marital Sex," and "Making Love." I've found that confusion about
those differences play out in many of the conflicts people experience in
their sexual-romantic relationships, no matter what their ages or kinds
of relationships.
First, some clarification about what I mean by each term. "Hook-Up Sex" refers to just plain f***ing; that is, a purely physical encounter. "Marital Sex" is the kind of sex life that most committed couples tend to have -- married or not, straight or gay. And "Making Love" is a different kind of experience that transcends both of the other two kinds.
That is, the three kinds of sexual relationships occur on different planes, different levels of integration between your physical, animal being, and your relational and spiritual beings. The kind of sexual life you have - and its conflicts - are embedded in the overall relationship you learn and how you "practice" it with your partner. I've described some of these connections in my previous posts on our adolescent model of love, the soul mate, and the positive power of "indifference." Most relationships limit the capacity for "Making Love."
Hook-Up Sex
"You know how there's good sex, great sex, and then really great sex? That's what it was like with her!" With gleaming eyes, Ken was telling me about his latest sexual encounter. He was a 44 year-old trust fund guy who lived with his mother and had never married. He entered therapy because he wanted to learn why he hadn't been able to form a lasting relationship.
In Hook-Up Sex you and your partner use each other's bodies for your own pleasure. It can be extremely intense and arousing, especially when you feel lust towards a new partner. There's a place for this kind of sex, but it's also the most primitive, least evolved form of sex. It reflects the purely animal part of being human -- our physiological needs and impulses. We share those with other animal species. From a human standpoint, though, it's mostly void of relationship beyond the physical connection; a form of playing through using each other's bodies.
Aside from Ken's deeper emotional issues that he'd never faced or dealt with, another barrier to his forming a relationship was that he had turned sex into a technique-dominated sport. He saw himself as a great lover and, in fact, had become very proficient in Tantric sexual practices. Handsome and charming, he was able to find women eager to participate. Tantric and related practices are, in fact, part of "Making Love," but they can also be misused. Ken's mastery of them had become an end in itself, and they were entirely divorced from human connection, beyond pure sex.
He was like a character in Nobel laureate Doris Lessing's novel, The Four-Gated City, a man who had become a master of Tantric sex, but had devolved as a human being. He had no soul-to-soul connection with any of the women he drew into his serial sexual relationships.
Marital Sex
"Dr. LaBier," she said, "I read that women require an average of 14 minutes of sexual stimulation to reach orgasm. Maybe that's the problem - that Tom's just not a good lover."
Julie and her husband had descended into what I call a "functional relationship." They didn't have sex much anymore, and when they did it was pretty uninspired. They remained committed to each other, though, and wanted to improve their sex life. Their sex life was an example of what most long-term couples experience, as research and surveys have documented.
"Marital Sex" reflects a higher plane than "Hook-Up" sex because it includes some degree of emotional connection and intimacy. At least it does at the beginning of the relationship. But what tends to happen is what this couple experienced: Their sex life became entangled with the conflicts and disagreements that had accumulated over the years. They brought all of that into the bedroom with them.
For example, Julie didn't talk very openly with Tom about what she wanted, sexually. She carried the residue of shame about revealing her sexual desires, shame that originated in her relationship with her mother. She was dealing with that in therapy, but that shame had joined with a still-existing view in our culture that a woman who expresses herself sexually must be a slut/whore. Moreover, Julie and Tom had descended into the low-level, adversarial power-struggle so typical of the functional relationship. So, learning new sex techniques or acquiring new sexual knowledge wasn't going to elevate their sexual relationship beyond Marital Sex.
Sometimes Marital Sex includes a Hook-Up sexual experience - perhaps when on a vacation, or aided by ingesting substances, legal or illegal. And it shares with Hook-Up sex what sex therapist Joseph Kramer calls "balloon sex:" Building up tension, followed by release, mostly focused on the genitals. Nevertheless, Marital Sex is further along the continuum because it includes some degree of emotional, relational connection, in addition to sex. Couples who have Marital Sex like something about each other as people. Or at least they did at one time, when they first got together.
That relational connection is both good and bad. The good part is that your relationship is more humanly evolved, and contains the possibility of evolving towards Making Love. The bad part is that all the feelings, conflicts, non-mutual behavior, hiding out and manipulation characteristic of the adolescent model of love can seep into your sex life like a growing virus. For example, withholding sex as punishment, or using it as leverage for manipulating your partner in some way. Or projecting and reenacting all sorts of unresolved family, parental, and sibling issues in your relationship. Michael Vincent Miller described much of this in Intimate Terrorism, about the sex lives of modern couples bound by struggles for possession and power over the other. All of that usually leads to diminished sexual connection over time.
In short, couples that have Marital Sex play out in the bedroom everything unspoken and unresolved from outside the bedroom. Julie may have learned how long it takes to reach an orgasm, but she didn't know much about what she and Tom need to do along the way to build a heightened, fulfilling and energized sexual relationship.
Making Love
For most people, their "normal" development into adult relationships cripples their capacity for moving beyond Marital Sex. But integrating what I call Radical Transparency and Words-Into-Actions with specific sexual practices can heighten energy, connection and excitement between partners on all levels of their relationship. Doing that is the path to the most evolved, integrated mind-body-spirit relationship: Making Love.
You might think of this as "spiritual sex," but I think that term is too easily equated - mistakenly -- with only ecstatic physical experience. And some recent research indicates that seeking just the experience of transcendent, physical sex can also increase the likelihood of unprotected sex. Instead, envision two partners whose sex life is interwoven with heightened mind, body, and spiritual connection.
First, some clarification about what I mean by each term. "Hook-Up Sex" refers to just plain f***ing; that is, a purely physical encounter. "Marital Sex" is the kind of sex life that most committed couples tend to have -- married or not, straight or gay. And "Making Love" is a different kind of experience that transcends both of the other two kinds.
That is, the three kinds of sexual relationships occur on different planes, different levels of integration between your physical, animal being, and your relational and spiritual beings. The kind of sexual life you have - and its conflicts - are embedded in the overall relationship you learn and how you "practice" it with your partner. I've described some of these connections in my previous posts on our adolescent model of love, the soul mate, and the positive power of "indifference." Most relationships limit the capacity for "Making Love."
Hook-Up Sex
"You know how there's good sex, great sex, and then really great sex? That's what it was like with her!" With gleaming eyes, Ken was telling me about his latest sexual encounter. He was a 44 year-old trust fund guy who lived with his mother and had never married. He entered therapy because he wanted to learn why he hadn't been able to form a lasting relationship.
In Hook-Up Sex you and your partner use each other's bodies for your own pleasure. It can be extremely intense and arousing, especially when you feel lust towards a new partner. There's a place for this kind of sex, but it's also the most primitive, least evolved form of sex. It reflects the purely animal part of being human -- our physiological needs and impulses. We share those with other animal species. From a human standpoint, though, it's mostly void of relationship beyond the physical connection; a form of playing through using each other's bodies.
Aside from Ken's deeper emotional issues that he'd never faced or dealt with, another barrier to his forming a relationship was that he had turned sex into a technique-dominated sport. He saw himself as a great lover and, in fact, had become very proficient in Tantric sexual practices. Handsome and charming, he was able to find women eager to participate. Tantric and related practices are, in fact, part of "Making Love," but they can also be misused. Ken's mastery of them had become an end in itself, and they were entirely divorced from human connection, beyond pure sex.
He was like a character in Nobel laureate Doris Lessing's novel, The Four-Gated City, a man who had become a master of Tantric sex, but had devolved as a human being. He had no soul-to-soul connection with any of the women he drew into his serial sexual relationships.
Marital Sex
"Dr. LaBier," she said, "I read that women require an average of 14 minutes of sexual stimulation to reach orgasm. Maybe that's the problem - that Tom's just not a good lover."
Julie and her husband had descended into what I call a "functional relationship." They didn't have sex much anymore, and when they did it was pretty uninspired. They remained committed to each other, though, and wanted to improve their sex life. Their sex life was an example of what most long-term couples experience, as research and surveys have documented.
"Marital Sex" reflects a higher plane than "Hook-Up" sex because it includes some degree of emotional connection and intimacy. At least it does at the beginning of the relationship. But what tends to happen is what this couple experienced: Their sex life became entangled with the conflicts and disagreements that had accumulated over the years. They brought all of that into the bedroom with them.
For example, Julie didn't talk very openly with Tom about what she wanted, sexually. She carried the residue of shame about revealing her sexual desires, shame that originated in her relationship with her mother. She was dealing with that in therapy, but that shame had joined with a still-existing view in our culture that a woman who expresses herself sexually must be a slut/whore. Moreover, Julie and Tom had descended into the low-level, adversarial power-struggle so typical of the functional relationship. So, learning new sex techniques or acquiring new sexual knowledge wasn't going to elevate their sexual relationship beyond Marital Sex.
Sometimes Marital Sex includes a Hook-Up sexual experience - perhaps when on a vacation, or aided by ingesting substances, legal or illegal. And it shares with Hook-Up sex what sex therapist Joseph Kramer calls "balloon sex:" Building up tension, followed by release, mostly focused on the genitals. Nevertheless, Marital Sex is further along the continuum because it includes some degree of emotional, relational connection, in addition to sex. Couples who have Marital Sex like something about each other as people. Or at least they did at one time, when they first got together.
That relational connection is both good and bad. The good part is that your relationship is more humanly evolved, and contains the possibility of evolving towards Making Love. The bad part is that all the feelings, conflicts, non-mutual behavior, hiding out and manipulation characteristic of the adolescent model of love can seep into your sex life like a growing virus. For example, withholding sex as punishment, or using it as leverage for manipulating your partner in some way. Or projecting and reenacting all sorts of unresolved family, parental, and sibling issues in your relationship. Michael Vincent Miller described much of this in Intimate Terrorism, about the sex lives of modern couples bound by struggles for possession and power over the other. All of that usually leads to diminished sexual connection over time.
In short, couples that have Marital Sex play out in the bedroom everything unspoken and unresolved from outside the bedroom. Julie may have learned how long it takes to reach an orgasm, but she didn't know much about what she and Tom need to do along the way to build a heightened, fulfilling and energized sexual relationship.
Making Love
For most people, their "normal" development into adult relationships cripples their capacity for moving beyond Marital Sex. But integrating what I call Radical Transparency and Words-Into-Actions with specific sexual practices can heighten energy, connection and excitement between partners on all levels of their relationship. Doing that is the path to the most evolved, integrated mind-body-spirit relationship: Making Love.
You might think of this as "spiritual sex," but I think that term is too easily equated - mistakenly -- with only ecstatic physical experience. And some recent research indicates that seeking just the experience of transcendent, physical sex can also increase the likelihood of unprotected sex. Instead, envision two partners whose sex life is interwoven with heightened mind, body, and spiritual connection.
How to Lose a Guy…Forever
Raymond Bechard discusses the trend of current relationships and the top 15 reasons why they just won’t work out.
I was talking to a guy installing carpet in
a friend’s home the other day. For some reason, he asked my advice on
whether or not he should have a surprise birthday party for his
girlfriend. “She’s hitting the big 4-0, so I don’t know if she wants to
celebrate it or ignore it,” he said. That made sense, some people would
rather not draw attention to birthdays ending in zeros. So I asked him a
simple question, “Is she a positive person? You know, does she usually
look on the bright side of things?”
His face immediately lit up as he reached
for his phone. “Take a look at her face and you’ll know.” He held up the
phone with the beaming photo of his girlfriend, who looked no more than
27, tops. As he showed me her picture, he said the five best words I
have ever heard to describe a relationship that is working – at least
from a man’s perspective, “She makes every day better.”
It doesn’t get any simpler than that. I’ve heard men talk about
relationships and girlfriends, what they like and don’t like, what they
want and don’t want, what drives them nuts, and even what hurts them.
But, I’ve never heard it put better than those five words.“She makes every day better.” In all honesty, that is what every man wants. If he is fortunate enough to find a lady who understands that concept and loves him enough to stand by him – as he does with her – to make every day better, then he should move heaven and earth to spend the rest of his life with her and prove himself worthy.
It’s too bad though. That kind of love doesn’t seem to be in vogue these days. Today, relationships seem to have evolved into some kind of adversarial competition where every action or inaction is tallied in an unending scorecard leading to the eventual defeat – or death – of the relationship itself. It’s no longer fashionable to look at romantic relationships as something precious, a beautiful organism that must be cherished if it is to thrive – or even survive – long term.
It’s futile to fight this powerful trend. So ladies, in order to stay current here are some guaranteed tips for losing a guy forever. By the way, these can be used by men as well, but that’s another article for another day.
#1 – Don’t learn what emotional intimacy is.
Forget what psychologist Malini Shah says, “Emotional intimacy is a feeling of close personal association and belonging. It’s a familiar connect formed through shared knowledge of each other and experience.” That would mean taking the time to find a man with whom you can build trust and be yourself. Worst of all it would mean not just accepting him for who he is, but celebrating who he is.
#2 – Don’t respect him.
Even if he deserves your respect, do not, under any circumstances show him the kind of respect you want and need. Don’t value him. Don’t listen. Don’t consider his priorities or concerns. Make sure he feels your life would be much better if he weren’t in it. On the other hand, if he truly doesn’t deserve your respect, leave him. Leave him now. And if he doesn’t respect you then he doesn’t deserve yours. Again, leave.
#3 – Don’t like him.
Sure, you love him, but do you like him? Never forget he’s probably closer to you than anyone else in his life so it’s your responsibility to make sure he doesn’t get out of line. If you want to make sure he’s unhappy and dwindling away inside, show him you don’t like him.
#4 – Complain about him.
Believe it or not (and lots of men will get mad at me for revealing this to you) most of us look to the women in our lives, or the woman closest to us, to determine how we feel about ourselves. Make sure he knows you are keeping score against him by openly expecting him to screw up. Tell all your friends what a loser he is and never, ever genuinely praise him.
#5 – Judge him.
If you want him to stop being open and honest, or if you just want him to start hiding things from you, make sure you judge him negatively every chance you get. If you can’t find anything negative that is even remotely valid, just make something up. Do anything to keep him on the defensive. Remember, every day brings new opportunities to find new faults in him.
#6 – Don’t trust him.
He’s a guy – don’t trust him – no matter how trustworthy, honest, reliable or loyal he actually proves himself to be. Of course, if he truly can’t or shouldn’t be trusted, leave the jerk. No excuses. You will never have emotional intimacy if there is no chance of mutual trust.
#7 – Blame him.
If you’re divorced, blame him. If your last boyfriend treated you badly, blame him. If you’re children aren’t behaving, blame him. Take all your anger, frustration, fears and insecurities and place them squarely on the doorstep of his life. Whatever negative feelings or experiences you are having, he should be punished for it.
#8 – Stay angry.
He’s a guy. He must have done something wrong. Even if you don’t know what it is, it still pisses you off. You don’t need to know exactly when or what he did whatever it is, he definitely did it. Save time and get angry now. Then, stay angry . . . because there’s no end to the ways he’s messed up with . . . something.
#9 – Don’t be reliable.
Make sure he knows that you are not there for him no matter how badly he may need you. That way he will know never to rely on you for anything. If you are the one person he wants to call when something really bad, or really good, happens don’t be available or interested.
#10 – Don’t get help.
You’ve been through a lot, a lot of pain, a lot that isn’t fair, a lot of horrible stuff that has wounded you. Sometimes you feel broken. Whatever you do, don’t try to effectively heal your wounds in any way. Don’t go to therapy. Don’t apply what you’ve learned in self-help books. Don’t explore faith our spirituality. Don’t ever look back at the injustices done to you or the wrong choices you’ve made and deal with them. Do whatever you can to simply mask the pain or push it down.
#11 – Don’t take responsibility.
Never apologize. Never ever admit that something you have done may have hurt him. Just live as though you are incapable of hurting him, no matter how badly you do. Don’t forget, this relationship is about you and healing your pain. His is irrelevant.
#12 – Don’t take him seriously.
You are the only one who has a right to emotions, troubles, challenges, and heartache. If he exhibits any of these it just means he is weak. You don’t have time to deal with your problems and his. He’s there for you, after all. Not the other way around.
#13 – Don’t support him.
Leave him alone, isolated, and adrift. He’s a man and should be able to handle whatever comes his way by himself. You don’t have time for a man who needs your help. If he needs support, an ally, an advocate, or you as a true friend – maybe even his best friend – then he’s not worth it.
#14 – Don’t forgive him.
Okay, he will eventually screw up for real. We all do. When he does make a mistake use it to validate all the terrible things you’ve been thinking and saying about him. Forgiving him will only teach him that he can just get away with it again. Instead, identify him by his mistakes. And being constantly told what a terrible man he is will certainly make him a better one.
#15 – Don’t learn anything.
After the relationship ends – and if you follow these guidelines, it will – don’t take away anything from it. Simply lay the blame openly on him and move forward into your next relationship by doing exactly the same thing.
However, if you are not someone who follows the latest trends then just do the opposite of all this. Find a man who wants to make your every day better and do the same for him
5 sexiest out-of-bed moves to try
Romantically speaking, when it comes to heating things up, most
people think of heading straight to the bedroom. While this makes sense
for certain activities, that doesn’t mean you two should be acting
chaste as monks outside the boudoir. With a little creativity, seduction
and sensuality can happen at any point in your day, whether you’re
strolling hand-in-hand down the street or kicking back in front of the
TV together. Don’t believe me? See how these couples below managed to
turn up the temperature without removing one article of clothing (or at
least not until it was more appropriate to do so).Partial public displays of affection
Pretty much all couples have engaged in some public displays of affection — but what’s even hotter are PDAs that are slightly hidden. Just ask Jess, 29, from Brooklyn, NY: “I had this one boyfriend who would squeeze my thigh under the table whenever we were out to dinner with my friends or relatives,” she says. “It always turned me on — in fact, sometimes I’d have to kick him pretty hard to get him to stop.” What makes semi-PDAs so arousing? Perhaps because it’s a secret only you two are aware of— and a test for your sweetie to maintain his or her composure.
Hand-holding gets hot
Lots of couples hold each other’s hands... but is it a turn-on? Probably not the way most people do it, but that can easily change. The next time you two are at a movie or watching TV with your digits entwined, up the intensity by treating your partner’s mitts to a mini-massage. Brian, 27 from Miami, FL, is one such lucky guy. “Sometimes my girlfriend will massage my hand — palms, fingers and all,” he says. “It feels so good because that part of the body does the most work but is usually neglected. You never realize how sensitive your hands can be until someone actually takes the time to give them a little massage.”
Walk this way
We kid you not, even the way you walk together can be a sensual experience. Laura, 31, from New York, NY, explains how she and her fiancé keep things hot while they’re hoofing it: “When we walk somewhere, occasionally we enhance our experience for a few minutes by ‘hug-walking,’” she says. “Imagine a three-legged race where every body part moves in unison with your partner. Usually, he walks behind me with his arms around me and his face next to mine, over my shoulder with occasional neck kisses. It’s super-cozy, and it feels like we’re the same person!”
Feeling as if you lack enough coordination for that move? Then try this simple, yet sexy, stroll-enhancer from Gretchen, 26, from Memphis, TN. “While I’m walking down the street with my boyfriend, rather than putting my arm around his waist, I like to put my hand in his back pocket,” she says. “Not only is it simply easier to hang on, but I get to squeeze his butt whenever I feel like it! It’s almost like making a sexy move in secret.”
Music-free dance moves
In the mood for a little romance that’ll lead who knows where? Try grabbing your honey for a three-second slow dance; you don’t even need music, and you don’t need to be at a dance club. Jody, 27, of Las Vegas, NV, finds it to be the ultimate turn-on: “Sometimes my boyfriend Dan will raise his arms toward me — kind of out of the blue — and we’ll just embrace and dance slowly for a minute or two. I love it.”
Take a breath together
Sometimes when it comes to seduction, less is more — and that’s exactly why the subtle sensation of your breath against your sweetie’s skin will feel sublime. Adam, 31, from Raleigh, NC, explains how to do it: “I come up behind my girlfriend when she’s doing something mundane like working on the computer or doing housework, and put my arms around her and just breathe on her neck for several seconds. Breath is warm and moist and can be very arousing. It’s sort of like I’m teasing her because I’m about to kiss her, but I’m just breathing instead.”
Sari Locker is a sex educator, TV personality, and author of the bestseller, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Amazing Sex. She has an M.S. in Sexuality Education and was the host of Late Date with Sari on Lifetime Television. Her website is www.sarilocker.com.
Confessions: 7 reasons why women cheat
You’ve probably heard that men cheat for physical reasons, women for
emotional reasons. Sure, there’s some truth to that, but when we asked
real women around the country to share why they strayed from their
boyfriends, we learned they had a whole host of explanations — from bad
kissing to sheer revenge. Read on for the truth about why women have
given in to temptation. Reason #1: There’s no passion
“I had been with John for about three years — he was a really nice guy, and I enjoyed being with him, but there wasn’t a ton of passion. Most everyone we knew had gotten engaged, and though John would have proposed in a second, whenever he brought it up, I’d change the subject. I took a trip to Australia for work and while I was gone, I got together with a coworker to whom I’d always been insanely attracted. I had a fantastic trip, probably because for the first time in a long time I experienced that excitement I’d been missing. I broke up with John soon after I returned home and began dating the guy from the trip. Even though I’m not super-proud of my actions, things ended up for the best: after dating for a few years, the guy from the trip and I got married and we’re incredibly happy together.”
– Giselle, 30, Montvale, NJ
Reason #2: To delay a breakup
“Right before I was going to break up with my ex, Sean, he found out that he had to put his beloved dog to sleep. He was so broken up about it that I didn’t have the heart to end things, so I waited a month or so until he was in better shape. When things seemed to be better and I was ready, he lost his job, so I felt like I was back to square one! By that time I had met someone else that I really wanted to start seeing, so I went ahead and did it. I eventually ended things, never telling Sean about my extracurricular dating. I think I rationalized that I was trying to spare his feelings.”
– Stacy, 30, Lexington, KY
Reason #3: Because absence doesn’t make the heart grow fonder
“My boyfriend Greg and I decided to do the long-distance thing after I was accepted to a graduate program 200 miles from where we lived. The first few months were fine, but I soon found myself becoming extremely attracted to my lab partner, Henry. What began as innocent flirting eventually wound up with us getting physical. After the program was over, I returned home to Greg. Being with him was really difficult, but I didn’t break up with him initially because I was still attracted to him, too. I visited Henry a few times and realized that he was really more of a fling, probably done out of boredom, and that Greg was the one for me. I eventually stopped communicating with Henry. I never told Greg about what happened, which occasionally makes me feel guilty, but I chalk my cheating up to being young and silly. He and I are still together, four years after my program ended.”
– Tamara, 33, Portland, OR
Reason #4: To avoid being left out in the cold
“I began dating Eric shortly after I had been dumped by Dave, my boyfriend of two years. I was devastated and Eric was definitely a rebound thing. After Eric and I had dated for five months, Dave came back and wanted to give things another shot. I still really missed him, so I began seeing him, but never ended things with Eric. I think I sort of kept Eric around for insurance purposes, just in case things didn’t end up well with Dave. Dave and I didn’t make it on round two, and after Eric discovered through mutual friends that I had been seeing him again, he ended things with me. I definitely learned my lesson about dating two guys at the same time, not to mention trying to rekindle a relationship that’s just plain over.”
– Jen, 28, Oak Park, IL
Reason #5: To make a break from a bad relationship
“When I was younger, I dated a guy named Ethan who was really critical of me. He constantly made little snide comments about my weight, how stupid I was and how clumsy I was. For whatever odd reason, I was into him, despite the fact that all of my friends and family hated him. One weekend when he was away, I met Will at a party and we completely hit it off. He was the complete opposite of Ethan — kind, sweet and generous, yet completely cool and fun, too. We hung out all weekend and it was like a light bulb went off in my head: This is how mature, relationship-worthy guys act. I kissed Will the night before he left and broke up with Ethan soon after. Will and I dated for three years and now we’re married.”
– Allison, 30, New York, NY
Reason #6: To find that missing piece
“I’m from Florida, so I adore going to the beach and boating, but my former boyfriend, Chris, a total city boy, hated it. We always argued about where we’d take trips, and he always won. About eight months into our relationship, I took a trip to Key West with my friends and we chartered a boat for the day. The captain of the boat was this totally hot, complete ‘beach guy for life’ type, and I spent the whole day flirting with him. We met him out that night and spent time alone together. I never told Chris about it after I got home and I never felt guilty; I think part of me felt like that’s what Chris got for being so stubborn! Chris and I didn’t make it, and after we broke up, I made sure any future boyfriends loved the beach!”
– Lizzie, 32, Chicago, IL
Reason #7: To give him a taste of his own medicine
“My last boyfriend was a total player before we got together. I thought I could change him but I was wrong. I always heard rumors that he was seeing other girls while we were dating, but he always denied it. One night, I got a call from a girl he had been secretly dating, and she detailed their three-month-long relationship to me and told me about another girl she had discovered he was seeing as well. I was so mad that I went out with my friends that night, dressed to kill, and spent time with the most attractive guy; I felt like it was the least he deserved! I loved seeing the look on his face when I told him about what I did and that I knew about the other girls. And then I dumped him!”
– Ashante, 25, College Park, GA
The Truth About Sex During Marriage
Yes, sometimes sex stops after marriage, but studies show that marriage often means that you’re going to have more sex and a higher quality of life. Who knew?
Guess what? Married couples do have sex. No–it’s not perfect. Sometimes sex stops after marriage or you’re one of the millions of Americans in sexless marriages. But overall–marriage often means you’re going to have more sex and an overall higher quality of life (including more money) than being single. The myth that every marriage is sexless is completely false and continues to dissuade couples against marriage. Which is totally OK. It’s the relationship that counts. But we mustn’t forget that married couples are just like those in long-term relationships. Couples shouldn’t be persuaded that long term relationships equal boredom! Amazing sexual relationships are possible. Taking apart the myths surrounding the sex of married couples, GetLusty’s Lynn Olejniczak reports on the truths of sex during marriage.
♦◊♦
Stop me if you heard this one: The most common sexual position among
married couples is doggy-style. The husband begs while the wife rolls
over and plays dead. Ah, jokes about bad sex during marriage.If you haven’t heard that one, there are hundreds of jokes just like it out there. The theme is the same; once you’re married your sex life goes into automatic pilot. Add kids and it comes to a screeching halt. Comics, sitcoms, books, movies have all followed this misconception. Yes! I said misconception. But it is a hard stereotype to fight, like a Polish joke.
Hell, I’m Polish and even I know the jokes don’t work with a Swede or an Australian. I’ve also been married and I know I enjoyed an active sex life for as long as the marriage lasted. But truth is stranger than fiction, and married people are getting it on.
Quite often, better than their single friends. Take the obvious into consideration, proximity. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out if one happens to share a home (and a bed) with someone they are attracted to then sex will probably take place. More often than not, people are married to each other for a reason which includes sexual attraction. Therefore, sex will, and does happen more often for married folk.
According to the well respected Kinsey Institute, stats from men and women show the same optimism for married/coupled sex. Check out the data for partnered and marriage men versus single men reporting about vaginal intercourse. Married and partnered people experience sex 2-3 times weekly. Singles? They’re between between 10 and 40% less likely to have sex 2-3 times weekly. Numbers don’t lie.
Most married people with kids will tell you that though sexual time with their partner may post a challenge, they still rise to the occasion (no pun intended, well, maybe). Stealing a quickie while the twins are at soccer practice or doing it in the basement while searching for the Christmas decorations is not far-fetched. Maybe the all-night-swinging-from-the-ceiling-candles-rubber-sheet-honey-and-blindfold sex no longer fits into the schedule but sex is happening. Furthermore, more oral sex is happening among hitched couples. Shock! Horror!
I can tell you from personal experience that if I wanted my ex-husband to finish the laundry for me, run an errand I didn’t have time for, or have dinner with friends of mine he hated, the easiest was to get my desired result was to offer up a blowjob. I happen to know a married couple with kids who play Scrabble a few times a week. Winner is awarded their sexual favor of choice. You see, it isn’t as though married sex isn’t happening; it is just that it is happening differently.
Think back to the mating date of being ‘single’ but ‘dating’. Now, remember it for what it really was. Deciding a person was “worthy,” being disappointed when you thought they were but they really weren’t, threatening celibacy if you have “one more date like that again.” Then, you were attracted to someone who wasn’t into you. You chased someone and wasted your time over someone who wasn’t into you. You then settled for someone just because you didn’t want to be single over the holidays. OK, it wasn’t always that bad. But we are all guilty of one or six of those situations.
Sex in marriage requires effort. But so does a successful marriage. That’s why married people put that effort in – including reading GetLusty for Couples’ great advice. Being married to the same person for years means you know everything about them. Good and annoying. The last venue of thrill has to be the bedroom, closet, car or laundry room. When you sign on to marriage you know that. When you add kids you realize something else; you have to be creative to get your two-year-old to eat their peas. But you also have to be creative in getting your dessert too
Leveling Up: The Most Attractive Aspect of a Man
Dr. NerdLove discusses the number one quality women find attractive in a man, and offers tips for how to increase that factor in your life.
Men spend a lot of time worrying about being more attractive to women. Men tend to feel as though they’re at a disadvantage when it comes to dating and consistently look for the magic bullet that will maximize their efforts. Because of the pervasive belief that sperm is cheap and eggs are expensive – the idea that women grant sexual access only to those who offer the best “value” – they tend to focus on the most obvious aspects of what supposedly makes men attractive: looks and material wealth, with “status” following third.The problem is that they’re working on the wrong areas and a misunderstanding of just what makes somebody appealing to women. Yeah, good looks can help – nobody denies that being gorgeous doesn’t have an impact on one’s life – but not only is it not the only thing that counts… more often than not it’s not even in the top 5 of what makes a man attractive.
More than looks, more than money, more than whatever nebulous definition you want to give to “value” or “status”, the most attractive aspect of a man, that x-factor that nets him attention, attraction and dates is…
…fun.
Wait, WHAT?
Over the years as I was trying to make my transition from “dateless loser” to “ladies man”, I got to know a wide variety of folks who were good with women. Some were blessed with every advantage – classic good looks, money and charm – while others had to work for their success. And yet there were a few people in my social circle who could – to put it charitably – punch well outside of their apparent weight class. They were not classically handsome – in fact, many of them were fat and balding. They weren’t “high-status males” with impressive jobs or flashy cars and fancy clothes. They didn’t have useful contacts for the social climbers or the money for those supposedly hypergamous women looking for the next level. They were strictly average dudes… who still managed to date sexy, intelligent, ambitious women.Their secret was very simple: they were fun to hang around with. If you talked to them, then you were going to enjoy yourself. They knew how to make people feel good. They were genuine interesting people with stories to share and a genuine interest in getting to know the people they talked to. They made friends wherever they went. The bouncers, the bartenders, the waitstaff… they all loved these guys within minutes of meeting them. Everybody knew who they were. Everybody wanted to hang out with them.
Small wonder that they were so consistently successful.
The fact that they were fun to be with was all it took to flip those attraction switches. Being fun, being able to help someone enjoy themselves transcended looks and status. It gave them a notable, long-term advantage over the guys who were all surface and flash, the ones who only had a handful of tricks and routines to rely on and the ones who got by on social pressure and status games.
It took me a while to appreciate just what they had but once I understood, it was like a new world opened up to me. I began to see just how integral being fun was to a successful dating life… and I started to understand how to integrate it into my approach towards women.
“What Do You See In That Guy?” “He Makes Me Laugh”.
It’s a very simple premise: we instinctively like people who make us feel good. The better they make us feel, the more we like them.It’s known as the Reward Theory of Attraction—we are attracted to people whose presence or behavior makes us feel appreciated and liked. When the feeling of pleasure at a person’s involvement in our lives outweighs the costs (someone who’s fun to hang around with but who causes problems through his behavior, for example) then we tend to be drawn towards that relationship over others. The brain increases dopamine and norepinephirine, which regulates the brain’s pleasure and reward centers. We associate the pleasure with the person and thus want to spend more time in their presence.
This is part of why a sense of humor ranks so highly in every poll about what makes men attractive. Laughter produces endorphins that go straight to the pleasure centers of your brain and relieves physical tension and stress in the muscles making you feel more relaxed. Making you feel good triggers the instincts that tell us that these are people we should like and enforce that feeling with a shot of dopamine.
Many geeks and outcasts learned in high-school that being funny as a means of self-defense; making people laugh helped keep you from getting your ass kicked. Who knew that one day you could turn it around and use those same skills as a part of a way of getting dates?
However, as much as making people feel good makes them like us, there’s more to it.
Someone who is fun tends to be more confident in themselves – after all, it’s hard to be fun when you’re too worried about looking silly or acting childish. Fun people are also positive; excessively negative people suck the energy out of the room and kill the mood while positive people help generate energy. Fun people make others feel comfortable and have a better grasp on how to read people’s signs and moods and can adjust themselves as needed. This makes the difference between someone who’s fun and someone who’s just a clown: fun people can find the line and know when things are appropriate or not while a clown tends to blunder on regardless of mood or intent. Fun people are interesting – they tend to have diverse interests that they enjoy and have stories to share.
Fun as Dating Strategy
This isn’t to say that it’s just a matter of telling a few jokes until you manage to laugh them into bed.Being fun is a holistic part of dating and attraction—it influences everything about what makes someone attractive.
Once I understood the appeal of fun, I began to recognize how it formed the underpinnings of everything I’d learned up to that point—and how much I had seen it in action over the years. My friend Miles—he who attracts women the way cheese attracts mice—was successful not just because he looked like the bastard son of Hugh Grant and Rob Lowe but because he knew how to be fun. He was naturally outgoing and positive and instinctively understood how to make people feel good, how to feel special. He was a genuinely nice guy who liked to tease and play around with everyone—especially the girls he was attracted to – and they would respond with great enthusiasm.
Take bantering and antagonistic flirting, for example. I enjoy bantering as a means of flirting because it meshes with my personality and it’s a method of screening for the type of women I am most attracted to. I get a charge from sharp women who enjoy that sort of witty duel-by-wordplay. When done properly, it’s a game of verbal sparring back and forth, matching wits and humor with gentle ribbing and sexually charged teasing… and it’s insanely fun for everyone involved.
…yeah, kind of like that.
Even building sexual tension involves understanding fun. Proper, deliberate sexual tension is like a roller-coaster ride: the deliberate slow build-up of anticipation at the very beginning cresting at the absolute height of almost unbearable frustration and the sudden thrill of the release at juuuuust the right moment. Even little tricks like the “almost-kiss” are built on the idea of fun; it’s unselfconsciously, deliberately cheesy… and yet when delivered properly, it’s silliness is a significant part of it’s appeal. You’re playing a naughty game like a pair of horny teenagers, seeing just how far you can push things before one or both of you simply can’t stand it any longer.
The more that you can bring a sense of fun into your dating life, the more success you will have.
Fun As Social Proof
Much is made about the concept of social proof: the idea that the behavior of others is a model for how one should act. In a social context, a person with social proof—say, a crowd of people around him has been vetted by others; people are responding positively to him, therefore he is someone others should want to get to know and pay attention to. It generates something known as the halo effect—where positive aspects of a person influence others into assuming more positive aspects about them. People like this person, therefor he must be cool.Pick-up artists often try to manipulate social proof as a way of establishing to others that they’re cool or desirable. This is often managed by trying to be surrounded by attractive women; the effect is to say “These beautiful people find me compelling; clearly they know something you don’t, so you should find me compelling.”
And yet being fun is a simpler and more organic way of generating social proof—without having to rely on status games or trickery. To be fun is to bring legitimate value to an interaction rather than trying to leverage social contracts and often coercive tactics.
Think of it in terms of a party. There’s always those people who are seen as being the life of the party, who tend to have many people hanging around them. These are often (but not always) the most fun people. When people see others hanging around and wanting your attention, others – like that cute brunette you’ve had your eyes on—will naturally gravitate towards you. The fact that others view you as someone to spend time with will help invoke that halo effect that will make you shine even more in other’s eyes.
Even if you’re on the introverted side of the personality spectrum, you can make fun-as-social-proof work for you; it’s a matter of establishing a reputation as much as it is about being seen in the “proper” light. Introverts often work best in one-on-one situations and so can take advantage of the situation by having interesting, intense conversations. Being fun isn’t just about being the entertainer, it’s about how you make others feel.
How To Be Fun
The most obvious way of being fun is to be funny; after all, the appeal of a man with a sense of humor is nearly universal. However, not everybody is going to be a laugh riot, nor is it the only way to be fun.So what are some other ways of bringing more fun into your dating life?
Pick Offbeat Dates
Everybody’s done dinner and a movie; you want to stand out by taking your date somewhere different. If you can’t be funny yourself, you can always borrow somebody else’s sense of humor for the night and take her to a comedy club or improv performance. If you’re dating a foodie, try signing up for a couple’s cooking class or a wine tasting. You want something different than what she’s used to—novelty helps produce dopamine in the brain, after all.Explore Your Passions
It can’t be said enough: a person who explores and pursues their passions in life and can communicate them to others are people who are interesting. So many people live day-to-day humdrum lives of boring routines; having passion makes you stand out. It’s an attractive trait, one that women adore because people who are passionate have drive and intensity. They have taken charge of their lives and their enthusiasm carries others along… and that is incredibly fun.Embrace Your Competitive Side
There’s nothing quite like a little rivalry to liven things up. The playful smack-talk, the tension when scores are tied, the thrill of victory… these get your hearts pumping, the juices flowing and the senses come alive. Few things are quite as fun – or arousing – as a friendly competition. Bowling, laser tag, mini-golf, go-kart racing, pool… as long as there’s a contest for winner and loser, you’re likely to have fun.Master The Art of Conversation
The old adage is true: interested is interesting. We love nothing more than a chance to talk about ourselves to an audience that really gets us and wants to know more. All too often we don’t encounter people who actually want to converse so much as people who are waiting for their turn to talk. Being a master conversationalist and utilizing active listening can lead to long, deep and in-depth discussions about life, the universe and everything… and make you both feel as though you’ve known each other for years instead of hours.Collect Stories
Just as few people have passion in their lives, few people are interested in finding new experiences. Sometimes it’s worth going out and doing things just because you know there will be a story involved at the end. Take some chances and try things you’ve never done before… and build that bond between the two of you by experiencing them together. Whether it’s exploring your city without a map or a plan and just letting whim guide you, signing up for a beginner’s line-dancing session, going geocaching or even an impromptu picnic out under a blanket of shooting stars, you should make a point of finding exciting new opportunities for escapades and exploits. Sharing these new and awesome adventures will be more fun than you could ever imagine… and bring you closer together than you ever dreamed.
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