Stuck for interesting things to say? Try some of these excellent Conversation starters:

• Humans and dolphins are the only species that have sex for pleasure.
• In Santa Cruz, Bolivia, it is illegal for a man to have sex with a woman and her daughter at the same time.
• There are men in Guam whose full-time job is to travel the countryside and deflower young virgins, who pay them for the privilege of having sex for the first time… Reason: under Guam law, it is expressly forbidden for virgins to marry.
• In Maryland, it is illegal to sell condoms from vending machines with one exception: prophylactics may be dispensed from a vending machine only “in places where alcoholic beverages are sold for consumption on the premises.”
• In Hong Kong, a betrayed wife is legally allowed to kill her adulterous husband, but may only do so with her bare hands. The husband’s lover, on the other hand, may be killed in any manner desired.
• In Cali, Colombia, a woman may only have sex with her husband, and the first time this happens, her mother must be in the room to witness the act.
• In Bahrain, a male doctor may legally examine a woman’s genitals, but is prohibited from looking directly at them during the examination. He may only see their reflection in a mirror.
• Muslims are banned from looking at the genitals of a corpse. This also applies to undertakers; the sex organs of the deceased must be covered with a brick or piece of wood at all times.
• In Lebanon, men are legally allowed to have sex with animals, but the animals must be female. Having sexual relations with a male animal is punishable by death.
• The penalty for masturbation in Indonesia is decapitation.
• Topless saleswomen are legal in Liverpool – but only in tropical fish stores.
• Banging your head against a wall uses 150 calories an hour.
• A pig’s orgasm lasts for 30 minutes.
• The ant can lift 50 times its own weight, can pull 30 times its own weight and always falls over on its right side when intoxicated.
• An ostrich’s eye is bigger than its brain.

Posted by Jonathan as humour at 9:26 AM BST

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It’s long been claimed that men want more sex than women. And various studies have even claimed that men are more sexually permissive, masturbate more, and have higher rates of casual sex. A recent study even showed that men were more likely to report dreams about multiple sex partners.

However, a new study published in the journal ‘Sex Roles’ by Tom Tiegs, Paul Perrin and colleagues from the University of Florida, shows that once in a committed relationship, men and women both have similar attitudes toward sex. The study reveals that sexual stereotypes, in which men are sexually forward whilst women tend to resist are unfounded when romantic feelings come into play.

Paul Perrin said:

Men experience a lot of pressure in our society to have sex with a number of different partners; the opposite of what women experience as kind of the gatekeepers of sexuality.

Methodology
208 women and 131 men from an introductory psychology course at UF were surveyed. The students rated 160 statements on a scale ranging from “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree”, regarding their sexual behaviours and attitudes. The statements fell into four broad categories.

In category 1, “sex as personally and physically pleasurable,” statements included:

• I should have sex with as many people as possible.
• If I want to be close to someone, I should have sex.
• I should get drunk to enhance my sexual experience.
• I should have sex with my partner so he/she will not leave me.

In category 2, “sex as beneficial in creating positive feelings about oneself,” statements included:

• I feel attractive after sex.
• Sex makes my partner love me.
• I trust my partner more after sex.

In category 3, “sex as personally costly in terms of having negative emotional, psychological or physical consequences,” statements included:

• God will punish me for having sex.
• Having a one-night stand makes me feel cheap.
• Sex makes me feel guilty for violating my morals.
• I will get an STD by having sex.

In category 4, “sex as a violation of social injunctions,” statements included:

• I should be with my partner a long time before I have sex.
• I should not have sex because I’m too attached to someone I’m having sex with.
• I should not engage in premarital sex.

Conclusion
Women placed more emphasis on the emotional aspects of sex, whilst men focused more on the physical side of sex. Men were much more likely to find sex personally and physically pleasurable, while women were more likely to think sex violated social taboos.

The Scientists concluded:

Sexually restrictive gender roles too often become self-fulfilling prophecies because women know that they are expected to be less sexual than men, and men know that they are expected to be more sexual than women.

Men gave much higher ratings for sexually risky behaviours, such as “I should have sex with as many people as possible,” and women were more likely to agree with statements about waiting longer, and not engaging in premarital sex.

However, in the context of an intimate relationship, the researchers found that women dumped societies imposed gender roles, and became more open to sexual pleasure. And both genders testified that sex was important as a way to bring couples closer, to help maintain healthy relationships and increase one’s self confidence.

Paul Perrin summed up:

People in romantic relationships give more importance to their own feelings and their partners’ than they do to social expectations about sexual behaviour”

Posted by Jonathan as Psychology, Sociology at 1:00 PM BST

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Scientists have finally made a breakthrough, tackling an important issue close to the hearts of many people: “Why do women wear red shoes?”

Dr Elaine Webster, a Sociologist from Otago University, New Zealand has spent the past six months asking why women wear red shoes. And, she has concluded that young women wear them for excitement, and out of a desire to be noticed; whilst most men associate red shoes with sex and sin.

Dr Webster, whose long term interest is “dress and identity” conducted the research after being impressed with the way that women spoke about their red shoes. She said:

Women always say ‘my red shoes make me feel great, I love my red shoes’. They never say ‘I love my brown shoes’.

Many of the women interviewed made a connection between their red shoes and Red Shoes, the film of Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale, or Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz.

Dr Webster believes footwear, more than any other items of clothing, has a special quality in our lives. And red shoes are a way to lift you out of a drab and ordinary existence. She stated:

Women and some men wear red shoes because they’re really wanting a richer and more exciting life than the one they are living.

Now that the issue of red shoes has been investigated, I hope that the next matter to be scrutinised will be clear heels.

Posted by Jonathan as Psychology, Sociology at 10:08 PM BST

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Bill Gates may no longer be the world’s richest man, but according to China’s Self magazine; he’s the second most popular choice for the sperm that Chinese women want for their babies.

1,000 women, aged from 25 to 35 took the magazine’s poll in 15 different cities, and were asked whose sperm they’d most like.

45 year old Hong Kong entertainer Andy Lau topped the poll, beating younger and more obvious choices such as David Beckham and Brad Pitt. However, Mr Lau might decide not to donate them anything!

Here’s the full top ten, most of which I had to look up, to find out who they are:

1. Andy Lau
2. Bill Gates
3. Takeshi Kaneshiro
4. Liu Xiang
5. David Beckham
6. Li Ka-shing
7. Tony Leung
8. Louis Koo
9. Lee-hom Wang
10. Brad Pitt

Posted by Jonathan as Biology, Sociology at 1:45 AM BST

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People seem to be obsessed by pheromones; even though they don’t influence our behaviour much, they still dream of some magic bullet that would offer them a lot of sex. In other mammals and many insects, this might be the case. Moth pheromones guide males towards the females, even on the darkest of nights.

Pheromone recognition systems appear very specific, and they are thought to be important in the evolution of mating barriers and in the emergence of new species. When conspecific males and females recognize each other by their common highly specific ‘language’, mutants employing slightly different signals are likely to have lower fitness. They most probably die without breeding, or, in some rare cases, they may find and mate with a mutant partner, generating a new line that would eventually turn into a new species. These new individuals would inherit the mutant communication system and could spread it, forming a new species.

The European corn borer (Ostrinia nubilalis) is a moth species with two types of females and two corresponding types of males: one type emits the “E” pheromone and the other, the “Z” pheromone. Hybrids between the two types are perfectly viable, but the two types very rarely cross in nature and apparently this confirms the pheromones’ theory of difference. However, a team from the Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique, from the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and from the University of Toulouse revealed that while pheromones are probably employed for meeting, they are of no use for mating per se.

When the team made crosses and backcrosses between the moth’s two pheromone types, they obtained individuals having the same pheromone type but genetically different from the ‘pure’ races, and also individuals with a very similar genetic background to ‘pure’ races, but employing different pheromones.

The former should have mated with the pure-race individuals emitting the same pheromones, but they didn’t. The latter should have a biased mating success with pure-race individuals, but this did not occur. It appeared that genetic similarity counted more rather than pheromone type. Thus, pheromones seem to be not as important in speciation as previously thought, at least in moths, because other recognition systems interfere as strong mating barriers.

Posted by Jonathan as Biochemistry, Biology at 1:04 AM BST

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An intriguing article from Pravda claims that some wealthy men are ready and willing to pay thousands of dollars for sex with misshapen women.

In New York, one of the world fashion centres, skinny models affected with anorexia leap from the catwalk straight into nabobs’ beds. Anorexic models are becoming increasingly popular with men who roll in money.

There are dozens of brothels dealing in former models that lost their jobs after losing too much weight. A night with an anorexic prostitute can cost up to $2,000. However, a customer may as well end up in jail should he literally bang to death an emaciated prostitute.

Sex with scary prostitutes is becoming a popular pastime for Japanese men. There are a number of brothels staffed with inmates whose faces and heads were badly marred by burns, bruises or congenital malformations like hydrocephalus (accumulation of serous fluid in the cranium, often leading to great enlargement of the head). “I’ve learned to see my disadvantages as advantages,” reads one of the messages posted by the 22-year-old Mimiko on a web forum frequented by local prostitutes. Mimiko was born with cleft palate or a fissure at the roof of the mouth due to failure of the two sides to fuse in embryonic development. “In the past, I couldn’t even imagine having any sort of full-blown sex life. Nowadays men wait in line to get my favours. More importantly, I’ve already saved up enough money to pay for surgery!” Mimiko writes in her message.

Males offer their own reasons to explain a penchant for such a quirky kind of sensual pleasure.

“I’m just fed up with those shapely ladies. They have sex with you as if they’re doing some kind of job. On the contrary, girls who have been out of luck in terms of sex can attend each customer in the best way possible, they never fake it, they make love with total candour and passion,” said Andrei. A diversity of cultural and ethnical characteristics adds colour to the Russian market of weird sex. For instance, some women from southern republics of the former Soviet Union are in demand. Their sex appeal has nothing to do their attractive curves or impulsive temperament. Those women look somewhat hairy; they have excess bodily hair – a condition caused by increased levels of male sex hormones in the female body.

At times nature plays an ugly trick on women. As a result, hair starts to grow on their faces, breasts and backs. Some women can be totally devastated by this twist of nature; others use it to their advantage. A user known by the nickname Fatima obviously belongs to the latter category. Her revelations posted on the Internet sex forum read as follows: “Customers treat me like a soft furry toy which is made for touching and stroking. My services are available at $300-500 a night.” No wonder Fatima likens herself to a furry toy – she has a beard, and plenty of soft fluffy hair covering her body from top to toe. Her abnormal hairiness is caused by a rare congenital disorder. She used to live in Georgia, where sex was completely out of the question for her. But Fatima moved to Moscow, and things changed dramatically.

Candidate of Medical Science Alexander Poliyev, a sexologist, comments on the topic:

“Morbidophilia or sexual attraction to people with physical deformities is a sexual deviation which is not as rare as it may seem. As a rule, the condition affects adult males who dream of taking some steps to boost their self-reliance. They crave for emotional appreciation of their individuality. In many cases, they are quite successful in their walks of life; they are also well-read and physically attractive. On the other hand, they tend to be reclusive and experience communicative problems.

Even a woman who looks strikingly beautiful won’t arouse such a man sexually. I remember one of my patients who had a weakness for women whose legs were impaired in one way or another. The man looked handsome, and he was gainfully employed too. At one point he was romantically involved with a girl who had a malformed foot. Then he began dating a woman who walked with a bad limp. He ended up marrying an amputee.

This kind of deviation is quite innocuous. Moreover, a woman who was previously denied by every man in town could experience the joys of sex thanks to a morbidophiliac. Such men are normally passionate lovers; they would do their utmost trying to satisfy their sexual partners. Besides, they frequently marry their partners and remain faithful to them.”

Posted by Jonathan as Miscellaneous at 10:57 PM BST

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Many of us, men and women, have a highly ‘romanticized’ view of adult sexual love. This view includes such beliefs as:

• Love cannot be defined or explained ‘rationally’.
• Love is ’spiritual’ and differentiates us from animals.
• Love will make you happy.
• ‘True love’ is forever.
• If a woman really loves you she would give up her job for you.
• If you really love her you would not think about other women.
• If you really love her you would ‘make a commitment’.
• If you really love each other you would not ‘cheat’ on each other.
• The purpose of love is marriage.
• Marriage is a ‘sacred institution’.
• Marriage is the primary goal of adult sexual relationships.
• Once you are married you should be ‘partners’.
• Men and women have the same goals in a relationship.
• Somewhere ‘out there’, you have a ‘soul-mate’.
• You and your soul-mate are destined to meet.
• Blah, blah, blah, and other equally silly stuff…

All of these notions promote an idealized romanticized version of love and sexually-related behaviour that is very ‘nice’, and may even help to sell Hollywood ‘feel good’ movies, but they don’t help to understand and explain adult behaviour in a way that makes sense or helps you function in the real world.

In fact, these are ‘dinosaur’ notions, handed down culturally from one generation to the next. The strange thing is how tenaciously some of us cling to such notions in complete contradiction with known science, logic, and observable reality. Mostly such notions are so distanced from reality that they get in the way of clear thinking. It’s not at all surprising that we don’t understand women. Our common observations of real-life behaviours are not consistent with such logically flawed preconceptions.

In stark contrast to the romanticized view, read the following and decide if it seems to make more sense…

The Definition of Romantic Love:

Romantic (or sexual) love is an attachment between sexually mature adults that results from a symphony of chemical neurotransmitters emitted by the bodies, which have evolved specifically to help two adults stay attached long enough to support each other and rear the offspring resulting from sex!

There may be many kinds of ‘love’, but romantic love is a bond between sexually mature; and mating adults. This ‘love’ bond has a specific purpose; to create enough ‘togetherness‘ between the mating adults so that they will remain together to successfully rear their children. Throughout most of human evolution, such a bond between the parents long enough to maximize the survivability of the offspring, was a strong advantage. Without such a bond to keep both parents together, the children would not have good chances for survival, so parents without such bonding did not pass on their genes. In most animal species, sexually mature adults develop similar bonds (if they need them to support child rearing) for exactly the same reasons.

The particular character of ‘romantic‘ love, it’s ‘quality’, is most affected, (logically enough given its primary purpose) by the presence, absence (or perceived quality) of a) Sex, and b) Children. Check this against your own experience. Without good sex, or children, romantic love loses its strength and can quickly dissipate. Unrequited love can rapidly become hostility.
Actually ‘romantic‘ love is not selfless and can make you miserable! It is really a desire for exclusive mating and/or childrearing partnership and is basically selfish, and self-serving. If you doubt this try to remember how you feel when your ‘love interest’ wavers or even looks like wavering from the exclusive arrangement. If you cannot ‘possess’ her/him it quickly turns to something far less romantic. The presence of children, however, can produce strong bonds with even incompatible couples, keeping them together, happily or otherwise, for years.

The love ‘bond’ is created by chemicals in the body and the perception of, or mental reaction to, those chemicals by the individuals mating. The ‘romantic model‘ of love provides no mechanism for explaining the observed fact that love obviously fluctuates and changes over time. The fact that we know body chemistry fluctuates so much over time, makes this model particularly consistent with observed reality.

Actually according to biologists the releases of these neurotransmitters of love typically have a limited duration up to 3-7 years at best (check this against your experience). Not coincidentally, this range is consistent with the amount of time it might have taken (for most of human history); to have and rear one to three children to an age of ‘decreased vulnerability’.

Coincidence? No, logic!

Posted by Scott as Psychology, Sociobiology at 8:00 PM BST

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