Teenage fans of TV wrestling are more likely than their peers to be aggressive or to take chances with their health, a new US study suggests.
Researchers found that among 2,300 16 to 20-year-old Americans, those who watched professional wrestling were more likely to be violent, smoke or have unprotected sex - and the more they watched TV wrestling, the greater their odds of taking such risks. This study follows on from earlier research, which found that teenage girls who watched wrestling were more likely to get into fights or carry a weapon at a later point in adolescence.
The findings, reported in the Southern Medical Journal, do not prove that watching wrestling alters young people’s behaviour. But Dr. Mark Wolfson, one of the researchers, and an associate professor at Wake-Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, noted:
It may be the case that kids who have a personality that leads them to be aggressive also gravitate to watching wrestling on TV, [but it was] definitely possible that TV wrestling affected teenagers’ behaviour.
The researchers focused mainly on professional wrestling, in part, because of its pervasive themes - including extreme violence with no apparent consequences, and a tendency for the “bad guy” to win. The programs also frequently featured racist stereotypes and degradation of women, they added.
Of the teenagers in their survey, just over 22 percent of males said they had watched pro-wrestling in the past two weeks, as did 14 percent of females. These teens were more likely to report several health risks, even when other factors in their environment - such as family income and whether they lived with both parents, or not - were taken into account.
For each increase in the number of times teenagers watched pro wrestling, their odds of having hurt someone with a weapon increased 19 percent. The risk of having sex without birth control climbed 13 percent, and the odds of having fought with a girlfriend or boyfriend increased 16 percent.
While it’s not clear that watching TV wrestling directly contributed to these problems, the findings support the general idea that children’s exposure to media violence should be limited, according to the researchers.
Dr Wolfson recommended that parents try to limit the amount of time their children devote to TV, movies and computers, as well as monitor what they are watching whenever possible. When children do see media violence, he suggested, parents should try to discuss it with them “to clarify the family’s and the child’s values.”
Some researchers believe that children can become desensitised by violence in movies, TV and video games - particularly when those portrayals downplay the consequences of violence. It has been suggested that a steady dose of media violence may also influence young people’s perceptions, priming them to take other people’s words and actions as hostile and therefore to react aggressively.
Posted by Jonathan as Psychology, Sociology at 9:35 PM EST
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When I think of Japan, a number of unusual images come to mind: dubious whaling practises, a people obsessed with gadgetry and comics, who wear unusually cut clothes, and even surgical masks while in the streets, etc.
Similarly, self-proclaimed seduction experts, with their over-hyped claims, are an even more bizarre and often mind bogglingly wacky group of people; generating pseudo-scientific ideas about how to meet and shag women, and then attempting to sell their theories to more gullible, lonely members of the public. I suspect that these people and their notions are more use in helping people with too much spare cash fit their wallets into their pockets, rather than assisting anyone in enjoying a high quality sex life.
But, what if we could merge these two ideas together? The result would undoubtedly be a weirder, crazier outcome than most people could possibly imagine… And yet, that’s precisely what Wired magazine reports has happened in Tokyo, where apparently something called Nanpa (the act of picking up women) has become rather popular; with the opening of “at least half a dozen Nanpa schools“.
The founder, a gentleman by the name of Satoshi Fujita, a 48 year old balding Magician, has clearly learned a thing or two from the “Your life experiences are worth more than a postgraduate education” fake degree mills (favoured by charlatans such as John Gray), since he is asserting that he has invented a proprietary “science” based on “a decade of careful research.” This in turn has purportedly allowed him to become “Japan’s most sought-after dating coach for geeks.”
By Mr Fujita’s own claim (and with a charge of ¥30,000 each), he says that he teaches more than a hundred geeks per month; who predictably have very little interaction with women, except through online porn; and not enough intelligence to realise that having real life sex means meeting real life people first of all.
Perhaps, dear reader, you think I’m being harsh on the Director of “The Pickup School for Men Who Can’t Get Any” [it really does have that name], after all, it provides a (somewhat overpriced) service to socially inept people. So, let’s look at some of the students that were mentioned. After all, I would expect that Mr Fujita would spotlight the achievements of his star pupils, who in turn, will demonstrate the efficacy of his new “science”.
Firstly, we have the splendidly named Hachioji Robocop, a 27 year old Civil servant, who has been taking the course since 2004. Mr Robocop has had sex five times in the past three years, and it only took six months worth of lessons for him to lose his virginity.
Details of the other trainee’s successes are sketchy, but there’s Jay, a 39 year old Executive at an electronics manufacturer, who was publicly accused of stalking his assistant. Jay also spent ¥2,000,000 to get the Yakuza to go after a girl, before deciding that it wasn’t his best idea. Jay has studied under Satoshi Fujita for three years, too.
Most impressive however is T-Univ Grad, a 22 year old recent hire at a big corporation. Mr Grad has recovered from an early belief that smiling women were conspiring against him, and can now sleep with a woman in just two hours and twenty minutes, by using a magic trick that “makes women horny”. Unfortunately, we aren’t told how long it takes to reach this level of proficiency, or if T-Univ Grad uses a stopwatch.
Analysing the report in more detail, the secrets of their successes seem to depend more on proficiency with Thaumaturgy, rather than any new branch of “science”; since we are told “Women like laughter, compliments and magic tricks” (although I suspect that the students might not be being taught the difference between someone laughing with you, and someone laughing at you.)
So, the “science” part would seem to consist merely of ‘reading signals’ and ‘timing’, which, unless I’m very much mistaken, are both topics that have previously been studied quite adequately by Psychologists and Horologists; on the other hand, a deck of “Psychoanalytic” cards, flaming wallets, talking ferrets and animated algae balls are also listed as props.
Maybe my lack of understanding of Japanese culture is showing here, but I can’t help wondering what these gentlemen do when faced with a beautiful woman, and a lack of magical tricks. Personally, I wouldn’t want to carry a talking ferret about with me throughout my day-to-day life, since I’m certain it’d draw unwarranted comparisons with the antics of footballer, Paul Gascoigne.
Finally, Fujitasan has also had a book published, “Zura Ga Kanojo Ni Bareta Toki” (The Time My Girlfriend Discovered I Was Wearing a Wig), in which he describes how he learned what it feels like to be a women who has just gotten breast implants.
Posted by Jonathan as Miscellaneous at 10:35 AM EST
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The G-spot is named after Ernst Gräfenberg, a German gynaecologist who in 1950 proposed that stimulating a sensitive point on the front vaginal wall could provoke particularly intense orgasms in some women, with waves of pleasure spreading out across the whole body. Gräfenberg reported that these orgasms differed from normal orgasms caused by clitoral stimulation. And, in more recent times, finding the G-spot has since become a staple of many sex guides.
Scientists have debated the G-spots existence, and so far there has been scant evidence of its existence as doctors have been unable to pin down its exact location. Many women have even found it impossible to find; leading them to doubt either their own sexual skills, their partners sexual skills, or to wonder whether the whole idea of a vaginal pleasure point is just an urban legend. The main problem here seems to be that no-one has found any solid physiological evidence to support its existence, whereas the clitoris, for example, is fairly easy to locate, at least for most people.
Now, new research carried out by Dr Emmanuele Jannini at the University of L’Aquila, Italy, and published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine, claims to have found the first anatomical evidence for the existence of the G-spot. His research could also explain why so many women have searched for their pleasure spot in vain, since Dr Jannini suggests that not all women have one. What’s more, the Doctor claims that it may be possible to develop a simple test which could tell you if it’s time to give up the hunt, or if your partner just needs to try harder.
In 2002, Dr Jannini’s team found biochemical markers related to heightened sexual function in tissue between the vagina and urethra (the patch where the G-spot is said to be located). They included PDES, an enzyme that processes nitric oxide, which is a chemical that boosts blood flow and triggers male erections.
However, the team was unable to link the presence of these markers to the ability to experience orgasms triggered by stimulation of the front vaginal wall, without any simultaneous stimulation of the clitoris.
So Jannini’s team took a different approach, and used vaginal ultrasound to scan the entire urethrovaginal space (the area of tissue in the space between the vagina and urethra (thought to house the G-spot)). The team scanned nine women who reported that they experienced vaginal orgasms and eleven who said they didn’t.
The results were that tissue in the urethrovaginal space was thicker in the first group of women. This means, says Jannini, that “women without any visible evidence of a G-spot cannot have a vaginal orgasm“. But, if women do not have one “they can still have a normal orgasm through stimulation of the clitoris,” he continued, “One clear finding is that each woman is different. This is one reason why women are so interesting.”
New Scientist magazine pointed out that other researchers welcomed the findings, but said it was unclear whether Dr Jannini’s team had identified a distinct G-spot structure or an internal part of the clitoris.
The urethrovaginal space is rich in blood vessels, glands, muscle fibres, nerves and (in a few women) a remnant of the embryological prostate called the Skene’s glands. Some researchers have suggested that the Skene’s glands are involved in triggering vaginal orgasms and thus enable a small number of women to ejaculate.
Tim Spector of St Thomas’ Hospital in London said:
The authors found a thicker vaginal wall near the urethra and hypothesise this may be related to the presence of the controversial G-spot. However, many other explanations are possible - such as the actual size of the clitoris, which, although not measured in this study - appears highly variable.
Other scientists challenge the notion that the G-spot is missing in women who don’t experience vaginal orgasms:
Beverly Whipple of Rutger’s University School of Nursing in Newark, New Jersey, whose team named the G-spot, back in 1981 said:
It is an intriguing study, but it doesn’t necessarily mean that women who don’t experience orgasm don’t have any tissue there, [...] the next step is to ask women to stimulate themselves and then repeat the ultrasounds, as the area is believed to swell in response to physical pressure. This might reveal that all women have G-spots.
Another possibility is that the women who experienced vaginal orgasms had learned to do so through practice, which has altered their anatomy, much like exercising a muscle makes it grow, says Leonore Tiefer, a psychiatrist at New York University School of Medicine. “The research would be much stronger if women without vaginal orgasm were taught how to have this experience and then repeated measurements were taken of the urethral-vaginal area,” she said. “Of course this would involve teaching their partners a great deal.” She would also have liked to see more extensive questioning of the women to fully understand their sexual practices.
Jannini accepts that there are limitations to his study. In particular, the small number of women he studied didn’t allow him to say what proportion of all women have a G-spot - although it would seem that a large number do not.
This tentative conclusion is supported by previous questionnaire-based studies such as The Hite Report, which found that 70 percent of women do not have orgasms through intercourse, but are able to experience orgasm easily by direct clitoral stimulation.
Jannini is now planning larger studies to confirm his findings, and measure how many women have a G-spot - if that is indeed what he has been measuring.
Posted by Jonathan as Biochemistry, Biology at 10:32 AM EST
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The often interesting and usually informative WebMD site reproduced an article from “Redbook” Magazine (Originally published Nov. 15, 2007) which cites a study from the journal Personal Relationships, claiming that for women, being less passive in bed is associated with increased sexual satisfaction and a better ability to reach orgasm.
The article offers these three tips for bashful babes:
1. Change the context
Some women are nervous to ask for what they want during sex because they feel it sounds too demanding. Try broaching the subject in a different setting where you can express your desires in a more relaxed way. Cuddle up to him while watching a sexy scene on TV and whisper, “I hope we’ll try that tonight.” He’ll be receptive to your feedback, no matter when you offer it.
2. Act the part
You’re unlikely to suddenly transform into a tigress - but you can pretend to be one. Even if it scares you, just do it! Make the movements to get on top, pin him against the wall, whatever you’d like to do. By simply going through the motions, taking charge will start to feel normal, and you’ll be more confident for real.
3. Use a crutch
Get help in the form of a sex manual, a book of erotica, or an online sex shop. Flipping through a book or browsing a website together can work as an icebreaker. The images and the ideas you encounter will make it easy to point out what appeals to you without having to form the words for yourself. Plus, checking out hot-and-heavy material makes for great foreplay.
Posted by Jonathan as Psychology, Sociology at 9:45 PM EST
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Humans flock like sheep and birds, subconsciously following a minority of people who seem to know where they are going, according to new research.
The study, led by Prof Jens Krause with PhD student John Dyer of Leeds University and colleagues at the Universities of Oxford and Wales Bangor, conducted a series of experiments in which volunteers were asked to walk randomly around a large hall without talking to each other, but keeping within arms length of other individuals. Within the group, a select few individuals received more detailed information about where to walk.
The research entitled “Consensus decision making in human crowds,” and published in the journal Animal Behaviour, showed that it takes a minority of just 5 percent of what were termed “informed individuals” to influence the direction of a crowd of a minimum of 200 people. The remaining herd of 95 percent followed, forming a self-organising, snake-like structure, without realising it.
Professor Krause said:
There are strong parallels with animal grouping behaviour
We’ve all been in situations where we get swept along by the crowd but what’s interesting about this research is that our participants ended up making a consensus decision despite the fact that they weren’t allowed to talk or gesture to one another. In most cases the participants didn’t realise they were being led by others.
Other experiments in the study used groups of different sizes, with different ratios of ‘informed individuals’. Here, the research findings showed that as the number of people in a crowd increased, the number of informed individuals decreased. In large crowds of 200 or more, five percent of the group was enough to influence the direction in which it travels.
The research also looked at different scenarios for the location of the ‘informed individuals’ to determine if where they were located had a bearing on the time it took for the crowd to follow.
Jens Krause continued:
We initially started looking at consensus decision making in humans because we were interested in animal migration, particularly birds, where it can be difficult to identify the leaders of a flock, but it just goes to show that there are strong parallels between animal grouping behaviour and human crowds.
More striking was that the study found that even when people were shown a faster route, they still preferred to stick with the old one, and continued to tell others to take the long road too.
Posted by Jonathan as Anthropology, Biology at 8:50 PM EST
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A study involving 361 males has found that spending several hours a day on a cell phone can lower the quality of a man’s sperm, according to preliminary research.
Researchers at the Cleveland Clinic (an infertility clinic) found a correlation between the patients’ cell phone use and their sperm quality. Men who used their cell phone a lot had lower sperm counts, and a greater percentage of abnormal sperm.
In general, the researchers found, sperm count and sperm quality tended to decline as daily cell phone hours increased. Men who reported that they used their phones for more than four hours each day had the lowest average sperm count and the fewest normal, viable sperm.
Lead researcher Dr. Ashok Agarwal said:
Our results show a strong association of cell phone use with decreased semen quality. However, they do not prove a cause-and-effect relationship.
The findings, published in the journal Fertility and Sterility, add to questions about the potential health risks of cell phones and other wireless devices. Other studies had linked long-term cell phone use to a higher risk of brain tumours, although several other studies found no such connection.
Dr. Agarwal said:
We infer from our results that heavy cell phone use [...] is associated with a lower semen quality, but whether cell phones somehow directly affect men’s fertility is not clear.
Agarwal added that he and his colleagues have two other studies underway, aiming to shed light on the issue. In the first, they are exposing semen samples to electromagnetic radiation from cell phones to see what, if any, effects occur.
The second study is a follow-up to the current study, in which they will assess a larger group of men. Agarwal said that this study is more rigorously designed and will take into consideration other factors, such as lifestyle, habits and occupational exposures that could potentially affect sperm quality.
Posted by Jonathan as Biochemistry, Biology at 2:28 PM EST
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Despite Valentine’s Day being just around the corner, it seems that fresh flowers are completely out of fashion.
Saudi Arabia’s Religious police have banned the sale of all red items, roses especially, as of last Sunday up until after February 14th. Apparently because the celebration of Valentine’s Day promotes sin and encourages relationships out of wedlock.
Meanwhile, environmentalists are complaining about the chemicals that are used in the commercial flower growing industry, as well as the carbon footprint of flowers that are usually flown in from overseas countries such as Kenya, at this time of year.
The news from Saudi Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, sounds like a joke, and makes no sense at all to my mind. While the green lobby would seem at first glance to have a point, although it actually turns out that Kenyan flowers aren’t especially environmentally unfriendly.
In spite of clocking up more than 4,000 air miles in the process of being imported to the UK, the total carbon emissions from flowers from Kenya, including air freight, are only 17 percent of those for comparable flowers originating in the Netherlands, according to research carried out by the natural resources department at Cranfield University.
The report, which studied a Kenyan farm that supplies a large UK supermarket with its roses, analysed energy consumption and CO2 emissions for growing, packing, cooling and transporting the roses to the UK, as well as factoring in fertilisers, pesticides, vehicles and materials used.
These figures were then compared with data from a grower in the Netherlands, where artificial heating and lighting was used to grow the roses, instead of sunshine.
The results were that 6,000 kg of CO2 was released per batch of Kenyan roses, compared to 35,000 kg for production of Dutch roses.
Yields of roses grown in Kenya were also about twice those grown in the Netherlands; most likely due to the excellent weather, all year round sunshine, and some help from the development of boxes that can be packed efficiently into aircraft, as well as un-powered gravity-fed irrigation systems.
More importantly however, the fresh flower, fruit and vegetables industry makes up 65% of all exports from Kenya to the European Union, according to figures from the Fresh Produce Exporters Association (FPEA) of Kenya.
This year however, flowers will need to bring in even more money for Kenya, since civil unrest has kept all the tourists away. So, if you want to help the developing nations, Kenya especially, then you should buy as many red roses as you can afford this Valentines Day.
Posted by Jonathan as Miscellaneous at 11:16 PM EST
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Whisky and seduction don’t usually go together, but reading through the morning paper, my attention was caught by a whisky based organisation calling itself “The Monkey Shoulder Appreciation Society“, which advertised an evening talk entitled “The Art of Seduction“, to be given by a fellow called Guy Browning.
A quick search of the internet reveals that Guy Browning is described as a quick-witted author of the Guardian newspaper’s weekly ‘How To’ column, which seems to be quite popular amongst Guardian readers. He is also the author of a number of books on both and business and humour, as well as being a regular broadcaster on BBC Radio 4.
Now, obviously this was all a publicity stunt, to promote a new brand of whisky, but with a talented speaker, the event seemed like it would be an interesting and probably quite fun talk, with a bonus of some whisky swilling thrown in, so I applied for tickets.
Unfortunately, even thought the talk was only advertised on the morning of the day it was to occur; it seems that through a combination of bad management, poor planning and lack of foresight, the organisers had completely underestimated demand for the event. I contacted Rob Curteis, who had replied to me (perhaps he’s the monkey’s uncle?), pointing out that I had planned to write about his event, but it seems that he doesn’t have the manners to respond to his email.
Perhaps Mr Curteis had forgotten that Valentines Day is only a few days away, and with the popularity of events such as the Barbican’s exhibition of erotic art “Seduced: Art and Sex from Antiquity to Now”, a talk about seduction would undoubtedly be extremely popular.
As to the whisky, I should point out that I’m not an expert, and I haven’t tried Monkey Shoulder; but I’m dubious about any whisky that the manufacturer recommends you mix with Coke. However, I did look through some of the whisky aficionado sites, and it seems that connoisseurs have said it’s too sweet, and isn’t particularly nice.
So, I’m guessing that when it came to drinks, I didn’t miss very much.
Posted by Jonathan as Reviews at 2:11 AM EST
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Something I noticed in the latest issue of New Scientist (9th Feb, page 19) was an article by Daniel Nettle about personality traits.
The big 5 are:
- Neuroticism (Amygdala + Serotonin)
- Openness (Mental association mechanisms?)
- Conscientiousness (Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex)
- Agreeableness / Empathy (Theory of mind mechanisms?)
- Extroversion (Mid brain Dopamine reward system)
What the author writes about extroverts makes for the most interesting reading:
I studied 545 British adults with a range of extroversion scores. High scorers had more sexual partners, and we know that they also do better in economic and career terms on average. But those in my sample were also more likely to be hospitalised as a result of an accident or illness, and their family lives were less stable. Since they were more likely to divorce, the men often ended up not living with their children. It is tempting to think of extroversion as an unalloyed blessing, but it is not.
Your personality will entail risks, and some alternative pathways might be closed to you. There will also be situations for which your personality is too risk-prone.
Agreeableness is a negative predictor of success in the worlds of executives and artists, where people need to put themselves first and focus on what they want.
His last word is:
To some extent we can alter who we are, but we might be better off recognising that for almost any personality profile, there is an optimal environment. So if your personality causes you grief, why not try changing the niche you occupy in this complex ecosystem that is modern life?
These words must sound hollow to the neurotic! Yes… whoopee, I’ll prosper the best in a dangerous environment… so um, how long before I can get my hands on a Sudanese visa, in order to immigrate to Darfur?!
Posted by Oliver as Philosophy, Psychology at 8:00 AM EST
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If I had a bunch of Lab rats and loads of spare time I know what sort of experiments I’d set up! It seems the animal behaviour researchers at McMaster University in Ontario Canada share my perversions interests. Bennett Galef’s research team has been studying sexual attraction amongst rats.
Bored researchers placed two male rats behind mesh screens at either end of a tank, only one of which had recently copulated with a female.
A number of different female rats were then placed, separately, in the middle of the tank. Galef’s team found that these females typically moved over and lingered longer near the stud.
With blinding insight Galef notes:
It’s highly likely that the female rats are attracted by the smell of the sexually active male, rather than repelled by the stench of desperation from the sex-starved one. It’s unlikely that males would evolve a signal that makes them unattractive to females!
What really made me astonished was that turning over two pages revealed a full single page advertisement for Ontario, paid for by the Government of Ontario. Is this a coincidence?
Under a headline “One natural resource in Ontario is mined more than any other” sits a multicoloured image of a brain… I’m sceptical ;)
Posted by Oliver as Anthropology, Biology at 8:00 AM EST
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