Prefer web to sex, says survey vs Why you should choose sex, not the internet

Many women would rather surf the net than have sex, according to an Intel-sponsored survey.
The Internet Reliance in Today's Economy survey of 2119 people aged 18-plus, said that 65 per cent of adults admitted they can't live without the internet.
According to the survey, conducted by Harris Interactive, nearly half of women (46 per cent) and 30 per cent of men would rather go without sex for a fortnight than give up internet access.
For women aged 18-34 it was 49 per cent and for women aged 35-44 it was 52 per cent. Only 39 per cent of guys aged 18-34 would swap the bedroom for the broadband.
Television also copped a beating in the survey with well over half the respondents preferring to give up two weeks of telly than a single week of web access.
Internet availability of many movies and TV shows likely skewed the result, which showed 61 per cent of adult women would happily switch off the box.
And nine out of 10 US adults (91 per cent) report that their lives are better because of the internet, taking into account better contact with friends and family, shopping and financial management like online banking

Why you should choose sex, not the internet,

I have been almost permanently disturbed since reading Dawn Kawamoto's revelations about a survey that suggested women would rather forgo sex for two weeks than give up internet access.
When I read that nearly half the women surveyed felt this way, I had a number of purely instinctive reactions.
First came the notion that the Harris Interactive surveyors, at the behest of Intel, had merely been screening women who work in IT. Which would have made the results entirely understandable. For so many reasons.
However, then I shook off this conception in favor of a simple explanation: perhaps it's the men these women are choosing (not) to have sex with. The slightly more than 50% who could not give up on, as Richard Nixon would put it, fornication, were possibly either fortunate to be in a rare, healthy relationship with a man or preferred the intimacy of women.
So many men can be, as they put it across distant shores, toerags. And the sexual quality that was (not) enjoyed by this worrying percentage of females might reflect male insensitivity and incompetence rather than some lasting lust for the web.

Does she look really happy to you?(Credit: CC Jared)
While I am obviously unable to help with the immediate need for finding better sexual partners, I can, in an attempt to influence Dawn's Readers Poll, offer Six Deadly Reasons why sex will always outscore the internet.
1. When a man crashes, he generally does so after sex. A laptop will often choose to crash right in the middle of the video you've been just dying to see.
2. Sex takes up so much less time than the internet. With sex, twenty minutes can give you a considerable spike of adrenalin and even a little tingling of the fingers in the company of a living and, usually, breathing human being.
With the internet you can lose untold days socially networking till your fingers believe they've just played Rachmaninoff's 3rd at the Lincoln Center. And what do you get for it? A bunch more imaginary friends.
3. When it comes to sex, you've normally had dinner first. Which means that it is far less messy than most people's evenings on the laptop.
They perch it on their knees, fingering the keyboard with their left hand while reaching for Domino's finest cheese, pepperoni and green pepper with their right.
If they're not crisp with their bite, the cheese stretches out like a ghost in a cartoon movie, until it makes contact with the keyboard, sticking to it and sliding into the cracks between the keys. Before they know it, their Apple is cheddared.
4. Sex exposes you for exactly who you are. There you lie, entirely denuded of pretense, being as much yourself as you could ever be outside of, perhaps, when you play golf. On the internet, by contrast, everyone lies. The interactions you have are as false as a flamenco dancer's eyelashes. How can anyone take pleasure in that?
5. Sex gives you something to talk about. It gives the tabloids something to write about. Which gives people something to read about. Which gives them something to talk about. Can you ever imagine a publication solely devoted to what Britney Spears and her fellow cohort of stars do on the internet? How crashingly dull that would be.
6. The internet will always be there tomorrow. What about your lover?

237 reasons we have sex lust

After exhaustively compiling a list of the 237 reasons why people have sex, researchers found that young men and women get intimate for mostly the same motivations. It's more about lust in the body than a love connection in the heart.
College-aged men and women agree on their top reasons for having sex -- they were attracted to the person, they wanted to experience physical pleasure and "it feels good," according to a peer-reviewed study in the August edition of Archives of Sexual Behavior. Twenty of the top 25 reasons given for having sex were the same for men and women.

Expressing love and showing affection were in the top 10 for both men and women, but they did take a back seat to the clear No. 1: "I was attracted to the person."

Researchers at the University of Texas spent five years and their own money to study the overlooked why behind sex while others were spending their time on the how.

"It's refuted a lot of gender stereotypes ... that men only want sex for the physical pleasure and women want love," said University of Texas clinical psychology professor Cindy Meston, the study's co-author. "That's not what I came up with in my findings."

Forget thinking that men are from Mars and women from Venus, "the more we look, the more we find similarity," said Dr. Irwin Goldstein, director of sexual medicine at Alvarado Hospital in San Diego. Goldstein, who wasn't part of Meston's study, said the Texas research made a lot of sense and adds to growing evidence that the vaunted differences in the genders may only be among people with sexual problems.

Meston and colleague David Buss first questioned 444 men and women -- ranging in age from 17 to 52 -- to come up with a list of 237 distinct reasons people have sex. They ranged from "It's fun" which men ranked fourth and women ranked eighth to "I wanted to give someone else a sexually transmitted disease" which ranked on the bottom by women.

Once they came up with that long list, Meston and Buss asked 1,549 college students taking psychology classes to rank the reasons on a one-to-five scale on how they applied to their experiences.

"None of the gender differences are all that great," Meston said. "Men were more likely to be opportunistic towards having sex, so if sex were there and available they would jump on it, somewhat more so than women. Women were more likely to have sex because they felt they needed to please their partner."

But this is among college students, when Meston conceded "hormones run rampant." She predicted huge differences when older groups of people are studied.

Since her study came out Tuesday, people are coming up with new reasons to have sex.

"Originally, I thought that we exhaustively compiled the list, but now I found that there should be some added," Meston said.

Source :http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=227048

Sex hormone

Sex steroids, also known as gonadal steroids, are steroid hormones that interact with vertebrate androgen or estrogen receptors. Their effects are mediated by slow genomic mechanisms through nuclear receptors as well as by fast nongenomic mechanisms through membrane-associated receptors and signaling cascades. The term sex hormone nearly always is synonymous with sex steroid.

Male sex hormone easily triggered

Surging testosterone?Scientists have proved that even the most seemingly innocent chat with a woman can be enough to send male sex hormones soaring.
A team from the University of Chicago paid students to come into their lab under the pretence of testing their saliva chemistry.
While there, the students got to chat to a young female research assistant.
Saliva tests showed the brief interaction was enough to raise testosterone levels by as much as 30%.
The more a man's hormone level shot up, the more attractive he later admitted to finding the research assistant.
And perhaps more tellingly, the research assistant herself was able to identify those men who found her attractive.
The men who she judged to be doing the most to try to impress her proved to be those who registered the biggest jump in testosterone levels.
However, little or no change was detected in the saliva of students who chatted with other men.
Animal reaction
Testosterone has long been closely linked with the male libido.
The researchers say their work is the first time that hard evidence has been produced in this way.
It is known that the release of testosterone in animals can embolden them, triggering courtship or aggressive behaviour.
The Chicago team believe the same may be true in humans.
However, lead researcher Dr James Roney said it was also possible that the release of the hormone was stimulated by a stress reaction.
Dr Roney told BBC News Online: "The findings are consistent with the existence of brain mechanisms that are specialised for the regulation of courtship behaviour and thus respond to cues from potential mates with coordinated behavioural and hormonal reactions.
"One might call these reactions components of a "mating response" which, if confirmed by future research, could be as basic and significant as, say, the well-known "fight or flight" reaction."
Dr Nick Neave, of the Human Cognitive Neuroscience Unit at Northumbria University, said the study was "very interesting".
"Other researchers have found changes in male hormone levels after watching erotic movies but this seems to be the first that has attempted to assess hormone changes when males meet women on a more 'normal' level."
Dr Benjamin Campbell, an expert in anthropology at Boston University, said it was possible that testosterone made men more bold by suppressing activity in an area of the brain called the amygdala, which controls the stress reaction.
Testosterone levels peak in a man by his early twenties, and then gradually diminish.
Men who are married or in long-term relationships have lower testosterone levels than those still playing the field.
The research is published in the journal Evolution and Human Behavior.

Estrogen and Testosterone Hormones

The differences between female hormones and male hormones may not be as specific as you might think. The definition of a hormone is a chemical substance produced by an endocrine gland that has a specific effect on the activities of other organs in the body. The major female and male hormones can be classified as estrogens or androgens. Both classes of male and female hormones are present in both males and females alike, but in vastly different amounts. Most men produce 6-8 mg of the male hormone testosterone (an androgen) per day, compared to most women who produce 0.5 mg daily. Female hormones, estrogens, are also present in both sexes, but in larger amounts for women.
Estrogens are the sex hormones produced primarily by a female's ovaries that stimulate the growth of a girl's sex organs, as well as her breasts and pubic hair, known as secondary sex characteristics. Estrogens also regulate the functioning of the menstrual cycle.
In the majority of women, ovarian hormones appear not to play a significant role in their sex drive. In one study of women under the age of 40, 90 percent reported experiencing no change in sexual desire or functioning after sex hormone production was shut down because of the removal of both ovaries.
The Importance of EstrogenEstrogens are important in maintaining the condition of the vaginal lining and its elasticity, and in producing vaginal lubrication. They also help preserve the texture and function of a woman's breasts.
In men, estrogens have no known function. An unusually high level, however, may reduce sexual appetite, cause erectile difficulties, produce some breast enlargement, and result in the loss of body hair in some men.
Androgens are sex hormones produced primarily by a male's testes, but are also produced in small amounts by the female's ovaries and the adrenal gland, an organ found in both sexes. Androgens help trigger the development of the testes and penis in the male fetus. They jump start the process of puberty and influence the development of facial, body and pubic hair, deepening of the voice, and muscle development, the male secondary sex characteristics.
After puberty, androgens, specifically testosterone, play a role in the regulation of the sex drive. Large deficiencies of testosterone may cause a drop in sexual desire, and excessive testosterone may heighten sexual interest in both sexes. However, testosterone levels are poorly correlated with sexual interest and drive when they are within the average range. Sex drive is much more likely to be affected by external stimuli (sights, sound, touch) than by variations in sex hormones, except in extreme cases.
Too Little Testosterone in MenIn men, too little testosterone may cause difficulty obtaining or maintaining erections, but it is not clear whether testosterone deficiencies interfere with female sexual functioning apart from reducing desire.
However, there is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that because women have less testosterone than men do, they have lower sexual interest than their male counterparts. Instead, it seems that women detect and react to much smaller amounts of testosterone in their circulation than men do.

Aging, illness and certain cancer treatments can affect our bodies' delicate hormonal balance, causing changes in sexual interest and functioning. Familiar to most are the changes that occur when a woman goes through menopause. Estrogen production drops throughout this process as a woman exits her child-bearing years.
The major sexual impact of decreased estrogen is a shrinking of the vagina and thinning of the vaginal walls, along with a loss of elasticity and decreased vaginal lubrication during sexual arousal. Some women experience only slight changes in sexual functioning, while others have dryness and pain with intercourse, or genital soreness for a few days after sexual activity, if they don't use a vaginal lubricant or take some form of hormone replacement.
Researchers investigating the effects of hormone replacement therapy on women's sexual functioning have shown that taking estrogen often allows sexual functioning to return to normal. In addition, androgens have been prescribed for postmenopausal women to enhance their sexual desire.
Hormone-Replacement TherapyPerhaps less well known is the fact that men sometimes experience lowered testosterone levels, which can be responsible for sexual dysfunction. How this hormonal decrease affects the man's sex drive and erections remains unclear. But urologists, as a treatment for these difficulties, sometimes recommend testosterone replacement. There is a great deal yet to be learned about which men and women may require and benefit from hormone-replacement therapy.
It is tempting to try to understand sexual behavior solely in terms of hormones. In many animal species hormones that control the female's willingness to mate and the courtship and sexual behavior of the male tightly regulate patterns of sexual behavior.
In humans, however, there is a more complicated relationship between hormones and sexual behavior. Although a substantial testosterone deficiency usually reduces sexual interest in men and women, there are cases in which that effect is not seen.
Similarly, although many men with below normal testosterone levels have difficulty with erections, not all do. Women who have low amounts of estrogen in their bodies do not lose their ability to be sexually aroused or to have orgasms.
In short, sex hormones are not the only factors affecting sexual interest or behavior. If you are concerned about your hormone levels and whether they may be effecting your general health or your sexual functioning, consult your doctor for some easily performed and (almost) painless laboratory blood work.

Lust U

Study gauges sex time

Penn State researcher Eric Corty recently concluded that "desirable" sex usually lasts between seven and 13 minutes on average, contrary to popular belief.

Through surveys of 50 sex therapists from the Society for Sex Therapy and Research, Corty, associate professor of psychology and Jenay Guardiani, fellow Penn State Erie researcher, found ranges of time to classify sexual intercourse as too short, adequate, desirable or too long.

"I was curious as to how long was most pleasurable ... and I wanted to relieve some anxiety that some Americans have about the duration of intercourse," Corty said. "I found that some people have unrealistic expectations about how long sexual intercourse should last."

According to the surveys, three to seven minutes is considered "adequate," seven to 13 minutes is considered "desirable," one to two minutes is considered "too short" and 10 to 30 minutes is considered "too long."

"I think people who have really long sex don't have much substance to their relationships," Brittney Barbieri (freshman-biobehavioral health) said. "But seven to 13 minutes sounds about right -- get in, get off, get out."

While this study may show the duration of sexual intercourse has specific pleasurable ranges, biobehavioral health instructor Spring Cooper says the range of time for an entire pleasurable sexual experience could be significant.

"Intercourse is lasting that long -- not the whole sexual interaction. That seven to 13 minute range is excluding kissing, touching, fondling, etc.," she said.

Cooper said one thing to keep in mind is that the duration of intercourse should not be more important than pleasure.

"People do have to understand that it's just the intercourse that he's talking about," Cooper said. "If people have a shorter sexual interaction, they might think the sex is shorter, but it's more likely that the entire interaction that was shorter."

Numerical values for the time ranges were judged by sex therapists in a variety of ways, and it should be considered that the values are averages, Corty said.

"These are people who've been in practice for years, so they've talked to a lot of people, but they also keep up on research and current studies," he said. "It's a combination of clinical experience, contemporary research and education."

Corty hopes his research will relieve stress some may have about how long their sex lasts, but Cooper feels such high expectations are because of overestimating the time spent having intercourse by including foreplay.

"People sometimes spend a lot of time on foreplay and then notice that an hour's gone, but that doesn't mean the entire hour was specifically intercourse," Cooper said. "If people knew how long they were actually having sex, I don't think they'd be as stressed about the pressure for intercourse to last."

Although encouraged by the publicity his findings have attracted, Corty does not want his research to cause people to judge their sex lives as abnormal.

"I'm pleased with how much publicity this is getting, but I do want to be real careful when people discuss this because these are averages," Corty said. "If the average shoe size in the United States is a seven and your foot is a size eight, there's nothing wrong. It's just different than average."

Study :Sex and Financial Risk Linked in Brain

Northwestern University shows Northwestern University finance professor Camelia M. Kuhnen, co-author of a study that looks at what's going on inside a man's mind when he is about to take a financial risk
A new brain-scan study may help explain what's going on in the minds of financial titans when they take risky monetary gambles — sex. When young men were shown erotic pictures, they were more likely to make a larger financial gamble than if they were shown a picture of something scary, such a snake, or something neutral, such as a stapler, university researchers reported.

The arousing pictures lit up the same part of the brain that lights up when financial risks are taken.

"You have a need in an evolutionary sense for both money and women. They trigger the same brain area," said Camelia Kuhnen, a Northwestern University finance professor who conducted the study with a Stanford University psychologist.

Their research appears in the current edition of the peer-reviewed journal NeuroReport.

The study only involved 15 heterosexual young men at Stanford University. It focused on the sex and money hub, the V-shaped nucleus accumbens, which sits near the base of the brain and plays a central role in what you experience as pleasure.

When that hub was activated by the erotic images, the men were far more likely to bet high on a random chance game that would earn them either a dollar or a dime. Each man made more than 50 gambles under brain scans.

Stanford psychologist Brian Knutson, a lead author of the study, says it's all about the power of emotion and arousal and our financial decisions. The trigger doesn't have to be sex — it could be chocolate or a winning lottery ticket.

"It didn't matter if the sexy woman didn't tell you anything about the odds of winning a roulette game," Knutson said. "What really matters is that the sexy woman is having an emotional impact. That bleeds over into your financial decisions."

Kuhnen said the same link could hold true for women, but they didn't test it because it is more difficult to find an erotic image that would appeal to many different heterosexual women compared to heterosexual men.

The link between sex and greed goes back hundreds of thousands of years, to men's evolutionary role as provider or resource gatherer to attract women, said Kevin McCabe, professor of economics, law and neuroscience at George Mason University, who wasn't part of the study.

"Risk-taking is a natural way of increasing your relative success, but, of course, there's a downside to it, what we're seeing right now in the economy," McCabe said.

The results of the study jibe with the real life on the trading floor, said Phil Flynn, a former Chicago commodities floor trader and current analyst at Alaron Trading Corp.

"I'm not shocked that it may be part of the deal," Flynn said Friday. "When you talk about all the euphemisms for trading (on the floor), they can be used for sex as well."

("Massaging the market" and "hardcore" were about the cleanest that he and his colleagues could come up with.)

The study conforms with recent research that indicates men shown a pornographic movie were more likely to make riskier sexual decisions. Another suggests straight men think less about their financial future after being shown pictures of pretty women.

One still-to-be-published study at Harvard University found a link between higher testosterone levels and financial risk-taking.

But the study conducted at Stanford, funded by the National Institutes of Health, went deeper, using functional magnetic resonance imaging machines. It's part of a new but growing field called neuroeconomics that attempts to take the hard-wired science of brain biology and mix it with the softer sciences of psychology and economics to figure out why we make the financial decisions we do.

An earlier study by the same team found that the brain's reward area lit up at about the same time as risky decision-making.

The erotic pictures experiment was designed to find which was the cause and which was the effect. The answer: Lighting up the reward area, in this case with soft-core pictures, caused the risk-taking, Kuhnen said.

"The more activation there you have, the more prone you are to taking more risk," Kuhnen said. "It could be a feedback loop."

The flip side was that the photos of snakes and spiders activated the portion of the brain often associated with pain, fear and anger. And those people were more likely to bet low.

This all makes sense to Harvard economist Terry Burnham, author of the book "Mean Genes." Burnham said it could be all summed up in a famous line from the movie "Scarface."

"In this country, you gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the women.

Lust and Love - Is it more than chemistry?-Royal Society of Chemistry

The Royal Society of Chemistry has come up with ten things you never knew about lust and love, taken from its recently published Lust and Love - Is it more than chemistry? book by Gabriele and Rolf Frobose.

1. The cuddle hormone

Oxytocin - the "cuddle" hormone - is why women like to cuddle up after sex. Their oxytocin levels are much higher after sexual encounters, creating a feeling of closeness and comfort. Men also have oxytocin, but it is compensated for by higher levels of testosterone - so they are less prone to cuddling!

2. 3kg of lipstick in a lifetime!

Miss average will put on around 3kg of lipstick on her lips throughout her lifetime. 92 per cent of women in industrialised countries use lipstick, and it is at the top of the league of items most frequently shoplifted.

3. The sweat effect

The smell of a man's sweat may not be the turn off one might think - an experiment at Northumbria University in 2000 asked 16 students to judge the looks of various men in pictures. Then without the girls' knowledge, a cloth soaked in male sweat was placed in the room and the experiment repeated - with phenomenal results. Men previously judged unattractive were seen in a new light. Even those judged the least attractive in the first viewing were able to catch up to their more handsome rivals in the second viewing. So men could try wiping their sweat on their handkerchief and leaving it showing when they ask out a potential date!

4. The love hormone

Dopamine is a hormone which people in love have generally much higher levels of than those who are unattached. Not enough dopamine can lead to Parkinson's disease or Schizophrenia, while too much can make one a little too amorous - is this why Casanova became pathologically addicted to love?

5. Men and women fancying each other

Is there such a thing as love at first sight? If a woman fancies a man, she will look to make eye contact early in the conversation - even if she is shy! If a man fancies a woman, he will quickly begin asking her questions about herself - but if he doesn't, he will make bland general observations about the weather or other generic topics!


Lust and Love - is it more than just chemistry?


6. The direct approach - men like it, women don't!

American psychologist David Buss carried out a survey on the pulling tactics used by the sexes and found - unsurprisingly - that men are turned on by women wearing tight fitting, revealing clothes; that dance provocatively and have long legs and swinging hips. Most men would also be receptive to a woman "grinding" herself up against him at a bar. Women were much less impressed by corresponding approaches by men - with the study concluding men like explicit behaviour in women, whereas women find it objectionable and sometimes repulsive in men.

7. Sex cures your headache!

Whenever we have sex, we release morphine-like substances called endorphins into our bodies. These hormones - from a group called opiates - are both pleasure causing and natural painkillers - thus sex can cure your headache! Couples who are close are full of these opiates, as are a mother and her new born baby. It is this shared "high" that contributes to the formation of the mother-baby bond.

8. Perfume - chemistry made it cheaper!Many of the natural fragrants used in perfumes are incredibly expensive, so have been replaced by cheaper synthetic alternatives. Although many people would no doubt prefer the real thing, the cost of preparing - for example - one kilogram of attar of roses requires five tonnes of petals, costing some £3,500! Thus synthetic chemistry has made perfumes affordable to the masses.

9. Oysters - aphrodisiac or myth?

Oysters are believed to aphrodisiacs the world over - China and Japan attribute miraculous effects to the Asian Oyster Crassostrea gigas. The Danes go even further - their traditional name for the Oyster is kudefisk, which literally means vulva fish!
However, the Oyster does not have much to offer by way of active ingredients, and it is more likely its semi-liquidity, its somewhat evocative appearance and the taste of salt and sea that are responsible for any love inducing effects! The suggestion of luxury associated with a dinner of oysters by candlelight could also reinforce this "placebo" effect.

10. Eyes not nose to find a mate

Throughout evolution, our ancestors have gradually trust their eyes more than their noses - researchers believe that we are not very good at responding to chemical signals in mating. Some of our primate cousins are much better however - while we always look at each other before mating - the squirrel monkey, much more adept with its nose - will sniff at a potential mate.

What is the cause of sexual problems?

Most cases there is not just one cause for a sexual problem; there are often several causes. It is important to look at the problem from three different points of view, namely physical causes, psychological causes and social causes.
Physical causes are anomalies of the body that cause sexual problems. Examples of this are disorders in hormonal regulation as a result of certain medicines that cause a reduced interest in making love, irritations of the vagina that cause pain when making love or certain operations on the genitals.

Psychological factors are feelings, thoughts and perceptions that cause sexual problems. This may be negative feelings for the partner or shame for one's own body, unpleasant events of the past, and also fears and restraints related to sex.

Social factors may be values and standards that you have received in your education, traumatic events or the behavior of the partner. Certain stress factors e.g.: unemployment, a bad financial situation, little knowledge of the body and family quarrels can influence the sexual perception.

Sex: The science of sexual

Psychologists are gaining new insights into sexual arousal with the help of innovative research methods.
Men and women experience sexual arousal very differently, not only physiologically but psychologically, according to researchers who are studying arousal using an array of new and refined methods.

Those methods are making it possible for researchers to understand the causes of real-world problems, such as sexual dysfunction and high-risk sexual behavior (see pages 54 and 58). But they are also giving researchers the means to explore basic questions about the nature of sexual arousal and how its different components--such as physiological arousal and subjective experience--are related to each other.

"It's easier to get funding for research that focuses on, let's say, AIDS-related sexual behaviors, than for research on the very fundamental question of what sexual motivation and sexual arousal really are," says Erick Janssen, PhD, a psychologist at the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction at Indiana University. "But in the long run, those basic questions have to be answered before we can move on to explain other, related behaviors."

Cognition and arousal

One active area of research concerns cognitive factors that influence sexual arousal. In the mid-1980s, Boston University psychologist David Barlow, PhD, and his colleagues conducted a series of studies to examine the relationship between anxiety and sexual arousal. They found that men with and without sexual problems reacted very differently to anxiety-inducing threats of mild electric shock.

Men who reported having no trouble getting and maintaining erections, says Barlow, "would believe that they were going to get shocked if they didn't get aroused, so they would focus on the erotic scene." The result was that the threat of shock actually increased sexual arousal. But men who had sexual problems responded to the threat of shock very differently, says Barlow. "Their attention would be so focused on the negative outcomes that they wouldn't be able to process the erotic cues," he explains.

Since those initial studies, Barlow and his collaborators have been trying to tease apart the factors that distinguish men with and without sexual problems. One of the key differences, he says, is that men with sexual arousal problems tend to be less aware of how aroused they are.

Another difference has to do with how men react to instances when they can't become aroused, says Barlow. "Males who are able to get aroused fairly easily seem unfazed by occasions where they can't get aroused," he notes. "They tend to attribute it to benign external events--it was something they ate, or they're not getting enough sleep--not as characteristics of themselves." In contrast, men with arousal problems tend to do just the opposite, thinking of every instance of difficulty as a sign of a long-term internal problem, either physiological or psychological, he says.

At the Kinsey Institute, Janssen and John Bancroft, MD, the institute's director, have been developing a theoretical model and a set of measurement tools that define sexual arousal as the product of excitatory and inhibitory tendencies. Last year, they published papers in the Journal of Sex Research (Vol. 39, No. 2) describing the Sexual Inhibition and Sexual Excitation Scale--a new questionnaire that measures individual differences in the tendency to become sexually inhibited and excited.

Early research on the model suggests that while a single factor accounts for all of the variation among men in their tendency to become sexually excited (SES), there are two inhibitory factors--one that represents inhibition due to the threat of performance failure (SIS1) and one that represents inhibition due to the threat of such performance consequences as an unwanted pregnancy or a sexually transmitted disease (SIS2).

One implication is that people with different levels of SES, SIS1 and SIS2 will respond differently to different kinds of stimuli, says Janssen. In one study, for instance, Janssen, Bancroft and their collaborators found that people who scored highly on SIS2 were less likely to be aroused by erotic films that included threatening stimuli than people with low SIS2 scores.

"We believe that people who are high in inhibition-proneness are more vulnerable to developing sexual problems, whereas those who are low are more likely to engage in high-risk sexual behavior," says Janssen.

Physiological and subjective arousal

For most of the history of research on sexual arousal, studies involving women have been much rarer than studies involving men. Recently, however, the gap has started to narrow due to the work of psychologists such as Cindy Meston, PhD, of the University of Texas at Austin, Julia Heiman, PhD, of the University of Washington, and Ellen Laan, PhD, of the University of Amsterdam. Janssen and his colleagues at the Kinsey Institute have also begun studying female arousal.

One of the most interesting results to come out of that work, researchers say, is that there are significant differences between men and women in the relationship between physiological and subjective arousal.

"What we find in research in males is there's a very high correlation between their erectile response and how aroused they say they are," says Meston. "But in women we get low, if any correlations."

In addition to being interesting from a scientific standpoint, the sex difference could also have important implications for the treatment of female sexual dysfunction, says Meston. Researchers have not yet been able to pinpoint the source of the difference, she says, but some progress has been made.

Several explanations that once seemed likely candidates have been eliminated in recent years. One of them is the idea that women are less likely than men to talk honestly about their sexuality because of sexual taboos. But Meston says she sees no evidence of reticence in the women who volunteer for her studies.

Another possibility is that erotic films might evoke negative emotions in women, which could mask their arousal. But Laan and her collaborators at the University of Amsterdam have found no evidence that such reactions can account for the physiology-experience gap.

Meston and others suspect that the difference probably has something to do with the fact that male genital arousal is simply easier to notice than female genital arousal. Men also seem to be more attentive than women to all kinds of physiological signals, not just sexual ones, says Janssen.

An open question is whether the resulting sex differences in the relationship between physiological and subjective arousal are permanent, or whether they can be changed through training. Meston says her lab is currently conducting a study to find that out.

The Porn-star sex and psychology

By Joey Garcia
After a five-year dating dry spell, I finally met a really great guy. We’ve been dating for eight months, and the only problem is our sexual connection. This is going to sound weird, but it’s like a raunchy porn video. I do enjoy it most of the time, but just once (OK, more than once), I would like him to be romantic and loving. How do I talk to him about something that he probably doesn’t consider a problem? He has never said it, but I know he loves me. Please help, I don’t want to screw this up!


Um, interesting choice of words, missy. First, I would not assume that your man loves you unless he says so. Love is a commitment that some people refuse to enter. Second, here’s one possible reason why your man has a different approach to sex than you desire: prep during his teen years. Surveys of teenage boys reveal that a lot of them watch pornography online because they believe it will be instructive. They are fearful of not knowing exactly what to do sexually, so they look to their trusted childhood baby sitters—television and computers—for answers. According to studies, some of the pornography teen boys encounter communicates values such as: All women like whatever men do—or all women always want sex from men—and any women who don’t will be persuaded by force.

The revelation of discovery and the experience of learning how to have sex uniquely with one partner is missed on this path. And since these boys usually masturbate while watching porn on their computers, their bodies and minds associate porn sex with orgasm. Which, of course, brings us to your man. It’s possible that, during puberty, he trained his brain with porn, so that’s what his body responds to now. According to modern psychology, changing that pattern is not impossible, but it is difficult. The things that turn us on sexually become deeply embedded in our nature.

Porn sex is not about intimacy, yet intimacy is what you’re seeking when you desire a loving sexual experience with your man. Communication—which literally means to become one with—is at the heart of intimacy. So you must gather the courage to talk to your boyfriend about your wishes. If he bolts, he simply was not the right one for you. But don’t hold on just because he’s the first good match after a long dry spell. Be open to seeing that he might simply be helping you prepare for the real Mr. Right.


My brother won’t grow up. He’s 44 years old and has been a teacher, store owner, real-estate agent, general contractor and now wants to study law. Every time he starts a career, he gets frustrated and within a few years he quits. Then he wants me to bail him out or help him pay for school for the next endeavor. He always convinces me that it will be different, but it never is. Giving him handouts always compromises my own dreams, but I don’t want to abandon him.

Sibling loyalty is an expectation of emotional support, not the endless financing of a brother’s (or sister’s) life. Selecting one line of work can provide security and financial stability, but it’s also possible that your bro’s varied background will coalesce into a brilliant career. If you opt to stop offering financial aid, it’s likely that he will be angry. If you are mature enough to understand that he is allowed to have feelings in response to your choices, you will ride the wave of his emotion to a satisfying end. Until then, you are abandoning yourself (by delaying your own dreams) whenever you begrudgingly give him money.

Lust :Sex chemistry lasts two years max. And?

Been in a relationship longer than a couple of years? First flush of romance worn off? Well, duh. For some reasonworked hard to identify the specific hormones which downgrade your libido from "passionate lust" to "let's just cuddle".

The team from the University of Pisa, Italy, discovered that hormones called neutrophins are responsible for the slowly diminishing sense of lust, with those in the first flush of romance showing much higher levels.

Dr. Petra Boynton of the British Psychological Society hastened to add that this did not mean the first flush is the best bit

She cautioned that we should not necessarily attempt to revisit that, since the settled relationship feelings can be much more valuable and was concerned that the research would lead to attempts to synthesise these hormones.

Testosterone also increases in loved-up women, and decreases in loving men; couples who had been in a relationship for between one and two years had decreased "love molecules", though the relationships were functioning well. Instead, increased levels of oxytocin, the chemical the induces labour and milk production in new and pregnant mothers, were found in the couples and that's the secure cuddle factor.

I suspect anyone in a long term relationship will be wondering how they can report this to the Department of the Bleedin' Obvious around now

Spanking Can Bring Problems Later in sex behaviour

Children who are spanked or given some form of physical punishment by their parents may be more likely to have sexual problems as adults, a new study finds.

An analysis of four studies by Murray Straus, co-director of the Family Research Laboratory at the University of New Hampshire-Durham, found that children who suffer physical punishment in the form of spanking, hitting or slapping are more likely to engage in risky sexual behavior as adults, it is reported by USA Today.

The study, presented Thursday to the American Psychological Association, suggests that spanked children also are more likely to be "physically or verbally coercing" to a sexual partner and engage in masochistic sex, including arousal by spanking, later in life.

Elizabeth Gershoff, an assistant professor of social work at the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, who reviewed 80 years of spanking research in 2002 in the APA's Psychological Bulletin, said Straus' work appears to be the first to link spanking to sexual problems, USA Today reported.

Gershoff said that even though many children are spanked by their parents, future problems often depend on how the children process the experience and whether they ultimately equate love with physical pain.

More New research by a University of New Hampshire domestic abuse expert says spanking children affects their sex lives as adults. Professor Murray Straus concludes that children who are spanked are more likely as adults to coerce partners to have sex, to have unprotected sex and to have masochistic sex.

Other studies have shown the link between spanking and physical violence, but Straus said his research is the first to show a link between corporal punishment and sexual behavior.

"My underlying motive was to bring this to the attention of parents and of more people," Straus said, "in the hope it will help continue the decrease in the use of corporal punishment."

Straus, co-director of UNH's Family Research Laboratory, conducted a study in the mid-1990s in which he asked 207 students at three colleges whether they'd ever been aroused by masochistic sex. He also asked them if they'd been spanked as children. He found that students who were spanked were nearly twice as likely to like masochistic sex.

He has bundled that study with three new ones that explore the connections between corporal punishment, coerced sex and risky sex. He presented all four studies this week at the American Psychological Association's Summit on Violence and Abuse in Relationships in Bethesda, Md.

Straus said his study found adults who were spanked as children are more likely to coerce their partners to have sex.

Straus asked 14,000 college students in 32 different countries whether they strongly disagreed, disagreed, agreed or strongly agreed with this statement: "I was spanked or hit a lot before age 12." He also asked whether they had ever verbally or physically coerced an uninterested partner to have sex.

He found a big difference between students who said they'd been hit a lot before age 12 and those who said they hadn't. For every increased step on Straus's four-step scale of agreement, men were 10 percent more likely to have verbally coerced sex from a partner by insisting on sex or threatening to end the relationship if the partner refused. Women were 12 percent more likely to have done that.

Previous studies have shown that 90 percent of parents strike their toddlers, a statistic that's held steady throughout the 30 years Straus has researched corporal punishment. Meanwhile, the number of parents who hit older children has drastically decreased. Straus said it's unclear why, though he has some theories. One is that 2- and 3-year-olds are less likely to respond to repeated verbal warnings.

Straus said he would like more pediatricians and child-rearing experts to warn against spanking. He'd also like lawmakers to take a stand by dedicating state money to teaching parents about the dangers of corporal punishment.

"The best-kept secret in child psychology is that children who were never spanked are among the best behaved," Straus said.

A research from Oxford University :Electrons’ ‘love-hate’ clue to superconductivity

A form of ‘shimmering’ superconductivity may offer vital clues as to how superconductors work, according to Oxford University scientists.

The ‘shimmering’ occurs when electrons are caught in two minds about whether they ‘love’ each other (pairing up to create superconductivity) or ‘hate’ each other (are repelled, creating insulating behaviour). In this week’s Nature the Oxford team report that, in a molecular superconductor on the borderline between superconducting and insulating behaviour, a slight preference for love over hate can result in a fluctuating state of superconductivity that exists at temperatures 50% higher than that at which ordinary superconductivity is destroyed.

Superconductors are materials that, once cooled to their critical temperature, exhibit zero electrical resistance and resist the penetration of magnetic fields: They are already finding applications in MRI scanners and electrical power technology.

While shimmering superconductivity only occurs at extremely low temperatures (18K-12K) scientists think that understanding it could lead to future breakthroughs in room-temperature superconductors. The Oxford experiment provides hard evidence that the effect exists in bulk superconductors and is not the result of impurities in the materials being studied.

The discovery was made by Dr Moon-Sun Nam working with Dr Arzhang Ardavan and Professor Stephen Blundell of Oxford University’s Department of Physics, using samples prepared by Dr John Schlueter at Argonne National Laboratory. The team used a probe that can detect when superconducting vortices are present even when a material does not exhibit zero electrical resistance – the conventional measure of ordinary superconductivity.

‘This observation sheds new light on the mechanisms of exotic superconductivity, which have remained elusive despite a number of experimental breakthroughs,’ said Dr Ardavan. ‘We believe that the fluctuating effect should be found in many superconductors in which the ‘love-hate’ relationship between electrons is finely balanced. It represents an important step forward in the quest to understand exotic superconductors.’

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I love you ?How to tell love from lust

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I love you.
Means what ?
Love appears to be a more evolved behaviour than lust, according to new research that has mapped the brain's centres of love, lust and attachment.

The authors of the study believe that lust is quite different from love.

"[Love] requires more sophisticated behaviours, reward and memory systems than other mammals," says lead author Dr Lucy Brown, a neurologist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York.

"It is present to some degree in other primates that are close to us in brain development."

She says humans have evolved three distinct brain systems for mating and reproduction: the sex drive, romantic love and attachment to a long-term partner.

Brown and her colleagues took magnetic resonance images, or pictures of brain activity, of 17 young men and women who described themselves as being "newly and madly in love."

The researchers compared the MRI data with earlier studies on male penile girth responses to photographs of women, other studies on how the brains of men and women activate when individuals view people they find to be attractive or unattractive, and data on both human and animal couples that have been together for a long time.

The findings will be published in the July issue of the Journal of Neurophysiology.

Left versus right brain

The researchers discovered that early stage romantic love feelings are located mainly on the right side at the base of the brain, or the ventral midbrain, and in the middle of the brain, the caudate nucleus.

Long-term attachment, on the other hand, appears to be centred in the front and base of the brain, or the ventral putamen and the pallidum.

Feelings related to lust and sexual arousal occupy different areas, mostly located on the left-hand side of the brain.

The area of overlap seems to mostly involve visual information, but for romantic love to set in, it takes more than just a lustful pang and a pretty face.

Lust is good but love is better

Lust obviously can lead to procreation, which ensures the survival of a species, but the scientists believe love is better for humans in the long-term.

"Simple lust may be necessary in extremely difficult survival circumstances when there is no time for romance," Brown says.

"It is known that people in very dangerous and threatening situations can suddenly find themselves lusty for each other, even though they are strangers.

However, under safe circumstances within a stable society, romantic love and attachment may be the best and more efficient way to continue species survival."

Brown and her team believe that "love at first sight" is a real phenomenon, but they say other non-visual aspects of a person, such as mannerisms, voice, personality and social status, usually must come into play if lust is to evolve into love.

The researchers suggest "love at first sight" and the obsessive goal-driven aspects of early love are both evolved behaviours that speed up mating and provide a better chance for successful reproduction.

"Rather than get up the energy to go to a different bar every night and maybe be successful in finding a different person every night, sticking to the same person, being able to have sex without spending time on the search may increase chances for pregnancy," Brown says.

Crazy for you?

Dr Donatella Marazziti, a University of Pisa scientist who has also studied the brain and biochemical activity of people in love, agrees with the findings.

Marazziti says she isn't not surprised by the neural basis for "love at first sight," since, according to her theory, "love is a basic emotion, which would use the system of the basic emotions and, as such, it is sudden and unpredictable."

Marazziti also says that romantic lovers are a bit "crazy," since they can experience chemical imbalances within the brain.

Mental health experts have linked somewhat similar imbalances to depression, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorders.