Wine, Rorschachs, and naked rugby

Angie Dickinson

“Tumblr, as a user-directed medium, releases porn from those traditional visual cues. It allows the viewer to look at porn without feeling like she is, you know, looking at porn.”

“San Francisco … is the perfect home for an institution like the Center for Sex & Culture [CSC]. I spoke with another institution, its co-founder, Dr. Carol Queen.”

“Spermatorrhea (an excessive discharge of semen) was such a source of panic in the mid-19th century that there were even cases of suicide among those who had convinced themselves – or been led to believe – that they were suffering.“

Declining sperm counts? “According to their results, global sperm counts had dropped by 50% in the five decades before the report.“

Male infertility and the missing coat: “Sperm wears a protein coat that helps it sneak past the female immune system – or it should. Going coatless could be a major cause of male infertility.”

“In this video from the University of Surrey … the first research project Hegarty discusses is … on the categorization of homosexuality as a mental illness, including the inclusion of homosexuality in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association from 1952 to 1973. Hegarty’s interest is in how the rise and fall of the Rorschach test as a psychological instrument related to efforts to detect and diagnose homosexuality as a mental illness during this period. “

“Waxing . . . is the most common method for extensive depilation, and complications include burns, mechanical folliculitis, infectious folliculitis, other infections of skin and soft tissues, and contact dermatitis and/or vulvitis. Removal of hair causes skin microtrauma, with inoculation of pathogens and subsequent mechanical spread of infection.“

“The finding that regular moderate intake of red wine is associated with higher FSFI scores for both sexual desire, lubrication, and overall sexual function as compared to the teetotaller status is intriguing. While this finding needs to be interpreted with some caution … it nevertheless suggests a potential relationship between red wine consumption and better sexuality.”

Photo by Chema Madoz

pdf: “Right Orbitofrontal Tumor With Pedophilia Symptom and Constructional Apraxia Sign”

“It’s what women have been telling men for decades: stimulating the vagina is not the same as stimulating the clitoris. Now brain scan data has added weight to their argument.“

“For the peahen, choosing a mate who has a beautiful long tail increases the chance of her male offspring growing one, and so also be attractive. Of course, for her there is very good reason to be choosy. Males can and want to spray their sperm around willy‑nilly, but producing an egg and offspring levies a prohibitive tax upon her metabolism.”

“The monkeys live in groups of three to nine, in which multiple adult males mate with a single breeding female and then cooperate to raise her young. This mating system, called polyandry, occurs in less than 1 per cent of bird species, and is even rarer in mammals.”

“Spider sex is unusual in that males transfer their sperm to the female on small limbs called pedipalps. … Dr Aisenberg and Dr Barrantes observed the process 17 times in pairs of Leucauge argyra. On the 14 occasions a sexual plug was made, the female produced it without assistance from the male. On ten of these occasions the male’s pedipalps then seemed to get stuck while he was transferring the sperm … and he had great difficulty freeing himself. In two of those ten instances, he was eaten as a result.“

“Some male insects also give females what’s called a spermatophylax to increase their chances of mating. A spermatophylax, which can weigh up to 30 percent of a male’s body weight, is essentially like a really good snack attached to their sperm.”

“Pornography, Society, and the Law in Imperial Germany“: “The view of human sexuality that surfaces in a society’s pornographic subculture is often a reflection, however distorted or reversed, of officially sanctioned attitudes toward sex. Likewise, the extent to which a society seeks to control a popular phenomenon like pornography is an indication of the fears, both conscious and unconscious, harbored toward that object.”

Uschi Digard

New Zealand vs. Fiji in a game of naked rugby

Bert and Ernie are not gay (according to a press release).

Transhumanists discuss sexbots for women.

Sex in the stands at a Red Sox game, captured on film by an ESPN cameraman.

“Mistressdom, like celibacy, is a crucial lens through which to explore how women relate to men other than in marriage; mistressdom is, in fact, an institution parallel and complementary to marriage. Mistresses, it seems, are everywhere.”

A gallery pinup collection of Bettie Page

Balls, bad boys and blue-footed boobies

Fleshpot: cinema’s sexual myth makers & taboo breakers. “With contributions from experts and cult film personalities worldwide-including Kenneth Anger and George Kuchar-Fleshpot -covers the sex education film, the secret history of American gay cinema, radical Japanese sci-fi porn, the British hardcore underground, and many other steamy subjects.”

A 2008 legal account of why prostitution’s illegal but porn isn’t

Testicles: Balls in Cooking and Culture. “The book opens with a discussion of balls, of pairs, of virility and the general significance thereof; it then delves more deeply into the culinary use of testicles, in history and across cultures; there follows a recipe section that ranges the continents in search of good dishes, from lamb’s fry with mushrooms, to balls with citrus fruit, to the criadillas beloved of bullfighters, and Potatoes Léontine, stuffed with cocks’ stones.”

“They found that the most common precipitating factors of sleepsex are sleep deprivation, stress, alcohol or drug consumption, excessive fatigue, and physical overactivity in the evening. Being male and under the age of 35 is also a major factor.“

“A new study, published in the latest issue of the journal Emotion, finds that when humans see red, their reactions become both faster and more forceful. “Color affects us in many ways depending on the context,” explains Elliot, whose research also has documented how men and women are unconsciously attracted to the opposite sex when they wear red.” I linked to that earlier research last October.

“A new study … shows that women find happy men much less sexually attractive than those who brood and look proud and powerful, or even moody and ashamed, helping explain the stereotype of the appealing “bad boy.” The study also finds, not surprisingly, that men are just the opposite, finding happy women more sexually attractive.”

“Women can more accurately identify a man’s sexual orientation when they are closest to their time of peak ovulation, say researchers.”

“It would make sense that genes that gave rise to asexual reproduction would win out in the evolutionary race. Clearly that hasn’t happened. The world is rife with sex. Animals do it. Plants do it. Even mushrooms do it. So evolutionary biologists have carried out a number of studies to get an answer to the question, “Why sex?”“

“Our ancestors separated from gorilla ancestors further back – some 13m years ago – but geneticists have found that the human pubic louse is related to the gorilla louse and the parasite only adapted to our ancestor’s pubic region 3m years ago. This was a surprising discovery.”

“Researchers have recently discovered that the sperm of blue-footed boobies declines with age. And … the blue feet of the boobies also fade with age, revealing that one reason why female boobies tend to mate with brighter-footed males is to ensure the robustness of the sperm and the health of their offspring.“

A 2009 review of The Courtesans: “I’ve recently finished reading a fascinating book, Joanna Richardson’s The Courtesans, a history of the twelve greatest women of pleasure in the Demi-Monde.“

“We found that parental smoking correlates with increased attraction to smoking in self-reported hetero- and homosexual males. Maternal smoking was associated with an increase in attraction to smoking both in hetero- and homosexual males, while paternal smoking was associated with an increase in attraction to smoking only in males who prefer male partners.”

“Pillow Talk satisfies the entertainment expectations of a more sophisticated audience than those of the famous Red Light nightclubs. It is a touch of class, celebrating the words of women, and … [making] the audience feel appreciated, empowered and adored. … All is set to the gorgeous backdrop of entertainment including … a special performance by US Puppet Master Greg Ruhe, and an appearance from the infamous Burlesque puppet queen-Mz. Lulu La Rue.”

A review of Sapphistries: A Global History of Love Between Women: “[Leila Rupp] explores the social aspects, and the social implications, of lesbianism in various cultures through the art and literary works, as well as though court records, legal texts, personal memoirs and anthropological documents.“

Wilhelm “Reich was a sexual evangelist who held that satisfactory orgasm made the difference between sickness and health. It was the panacea for all ills, he thought, including the fascism that forced him from Europe.”

The Times of India on the “Hottest Kamasutra sex positions”

Genital Massage & Tantric Sex: “The man has to focus all of his concentration on his genitals – as though … that is where his soul is located, and forgetting about the rest of his body. And when he feels he is on the point of ejaculation, he has to hold his breath, and contract his anal muscles in order to try and prevent it.”

“The Worship of Female Pleasure” via orgasmic meditation: “Before long, Daedone is hunched over and vigorously stroking the woman’s most sensitive “spot” — the “upper left quadrant” of the clitoris — with just her forefinger. The recipient moans wildly as though she is being taken over by a spirit.” And more: “The space also offers yoga classes, lunch hour discussions, happy hours and workshops like “Orgasm Is…Not Just for Younguns!…” and “Behind the Scenes of the 15 minute Orgasm …”"

A catch-all catch-up post

Gina Lolabrigida

“In the earliest records of human religion, castration was regarded as an act of devotion. Moreover, the ritual of circumcision is still followed by many modern religions. … CONCLUSION: The ritual of castration evolved into circumcision as a less-invasive and bloody procedure than castration.“

“Tally is short for Tallywacker, a British nickname for penis. It is also the nom de Internet of a 55-year-old, heterosexual, happily married attorney in Tennessee who is at the vanguard of the foreskin restoration movement. With evangelical zest, he shares his story, and a sequential series of photographs of his penis.“

“According to the original commitment–skepticism hypothesis, women err on the side of underestimating prospective mates’ commitment to avoid the high costs of pregnancy without support. … Confirming our predictions, … postmenopausal women did not show a bias toward underinferring men’s commitment intentions.“

“The current study demonstrates that exposure to a sexily dressed woman increases single men’s likelihood of noticing status products in a visual display.” (pdf)

“[We used] one of the most compelling visual cues of female sexual attractiveness (low waist-to-hip ratio) to test the influence of news anchor sexualization on audience evaluations of her as a professional and their memory for the news that she presents. Male participants saw the sexualized version of the anchor as less suited for war and political reporting. They also encoded less news information presented by the sexualized than her unsexualized version.“

Marisa Berenson

“Previous research had shown that a woman at the fertile stage of her menstrual cycle seems more attractive, and that same effect was observed here — but only when this woman was rated by a man who wasn’t already involved with someone else.“

“Resource control was associated with preferences for physical attractiveness over good financial prospects and greater maximum partner age tolerated. … The results implicate the role of constraints on female access to and control of resources in sex-differentiated mate preferences and highlight differences between resource control and wealth.“

“Although neuroticism was negatively associated with marital satisfaction on average, it was unrelated to marital satisfaction when couples had engaged in relatively frequent sex over the past 6 months.“

“So when news broke this week that the FDA had approved Viibryd, a so-called sexy-friendly antidepressant, it caused quite a stir. Far too often, people are forced to choose between their mental and sexual health — as though these were entirely separate categories.“

Damage to amygdala disinhibits two women: “For one to two hours after each seizure, she would engage in a wide variety of unusual sexual behaviors, such as masturbating in public and trying to seduce family members and neighbors.“

“There are at least 11 different sex-related sleep disorders, collectively referred to as “sexsomnia” or “sleepsex,” that affect people who are otherwise psychologically healthy—causing them to unknowingly engage in various sexual activities during the night.“

Photo by Rudolf Koppitz

“Now, we know that females of many nonhuman primates and maybe even some nonprimates experience orgasm. But we still don’t know why.” (pdf)

Spermatologist Tim Birkhead recommends five books, inc. some on sperm competition

“7 fascinating new findings” in sex science

“We summarize in this review recent results showing that both the main and accessory olfactory systems are able to process partially overlapping sets of sexual chemosignals and that both systems support complimentary aspects in mate recognition and in the control of sexual behavior.“

“Olfactory systems in mate recognition and sexual behavior“

“Semen allergy suspected in rare post-orgasm illness“

“The mice showed the same scent preferences for male and female mice and vocalized for male and female mice equally. When the serotonin in these animals was replaced, they preferred female mice over male mice.“

“During contests between males, full eunuchs that had lost both pedipalps were better fighters than half eunuchs and intact males …. The scientists think that, once a male has lost his means of procreating, he protects his investment further by becoming a superwarrior.“

“It was From who told her it was her “scientific duty” to study homosexuals and promised her access to all the subjects she needed. Initially she demurred but eventually, with the encouragement of From and her colleague Bruno Klopfer, [Evelyn] Hooker began an investigation that would ultimately result in the removal of homosexuality as a form of psychopathology from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual III of the American Psychiatric Association.“

A review of New York Hustlers: Masculinity and Sex in Modern America

Dr. Petra on a lap-dancer study: “The problem with writings about lap dancing in the past have been either they’ve focused on entirely positive accounts, or been overtly negative and often hostile to/about dancers. … This research is different as it takes the experiences of dancers and discusses their lives in a way that doesn’t flinch from the problems they face when dancing, or the positive (and mundane) parts of their work.“

“Music for Wanking: Brian Eno discusses his porno collection with Chrissie Hynde, 1974“

“Drugs, drag queens, nude psychotherapy, tutorials on stripping, trepanation, women wreastling (sic), disco churches and a soundtrack by Piero Piccioni, a suspected murderer who himself would be a suitable subject for Naked England, is an irresistible mix that makes this flick a perfect candidate for restoration and a digital release.“

Flaccid in Flanders — Belgian senator calls for a sex strike until political deadlock is broken

American Nudie Classics — “Your Grandpa’s Porn”

Sacred prostitutes, sexy books and why sex is worth it

Charlotte Rampling

Another excellent treasure trove of Veruschka pics. An older Veruschka: “My eyes carry more than happiness.“

Western Sexual Mysticism: “The vast range of possibilities for hidden, erotic mysticism demand a closer look.”

Sex in the Dionysian mysteries, and sex in the Orphic mysteries

From a journal on endocrinology and metabolism, “Baubo: a Case of Ambiguous Genitalia in the Eleusinian Mysteries“

Sacred prostitution in Sir James Frazer’s Golden Bough

“Sacred prostitution and Aphrodite“

More about sacred prostitution, and still more

Michael Coogan on “God and Sex”

“Sex and the Renaissance Nun: Why Venetian Nunneries Were Once Hotbeds of Passion“

Dr. Debby Herbenick’s research interests range “from examining attitudes toward vibrator use to investigating the relationship between sexual lubricant and pleasure.”

The Veruschka segment from Blowup:

Rhesus Macaques “pay” for monkey porn (pdf)

“Sex differences in relative foot length and perceived attractiveness of female feet“

“While outbreaks of koro (a culture-specific syndrome involving belief that the genitals are shrinking and retreating into the body) are most common in China and other parts of south-east Asia, sporadic cases have also been reported in other countries such as Thailand, India, and even western nations such as Canada.“

Hooters opens in Japan

Two kinds of Persistent Genital Arousal Disorder

“This mind trick – called the Belladonna effect – is helping the team’s research into attractiveness. Large pupils is [sic] a known signal of physiological arousal, say the authors, so they predicted that making the pupils seem dilated would make a face appear more attractive.“

From almost five years ago, Susie Bright on Playboy‘s list of the 25 sexiest books. Adam Ross recommends James Salter’s A Sport and a Pastime.

Laura Miller against the Bad Sex in Fiction Award

Charlotte Rampling (1974)

“In this review, we summarize neural regulation of sexual function and neurological causes of sexual dysfunction in women.“

“Dr Abecassis performs a “hymenoplasty” as it’s called, at least two to three times a week. Re-connecting the tissue of the hymen takes about 30 minutes under local anaesthetic. … With Chinese manufacturers leading the way, there are now non-surgical options on the market as well. One website sells artificial hymens for just £20 (23 euros). The Chinese hymen is made of elastic and filled with fake blood.“

“When it comes to the age at which boys and girls first have sex, boys are far more influenced by what their peers are doing and by the number of available sex partners than are girls.“

“Several standard sex differences replicated across cultures, including women’s greater valuation of social status and men’s greater valuation of physical attractiveness.“

Hypothesis: “Sexual frequency would moderate the association between neuroticism and relationship satisfaction.“

Sex costs much time and energy. Is it worth it?

Alla Nazimova

“Additionally, the mating dance is another cost of sex. Individuals expend time and energy seeking out mates, and may have to compete and display for the attention of all. Why bother?“

“Men, they’ve found, are less likely to continue a relationship with an unfaithful partner who’s had a heterosexual affair, as opposed to a homosexual affair. For women, it’s the other way around – they’re more troubled by their male partner going off with another man.“

“Some historians have proclaimed that America’s first gay president was really … the now-obscure James Buchanan. (He was the 15th president, serving from 1857 to 1861). Buchanan is the only bachelor to ever have held America’s top office, and his private life raised many eyebrows while he was alive.“

“In Search of Looks, Status, or Something Else? Partner Preferences Among Butch and Femme Lesbians and Heterosexual Men and Women“: “Previous research posited that butch lesbians are physiologically similar to heterosexual men, and by implication, femme lesbians physiologically resemble heterosexual women. The current study sought to compare partner preferences among butch and femme lesbians, as well as heterosexual women and men.”

Schéhérazade, Sir Henry Head and the Ladybirds

Cover for an LP by Scheherazade

I wish I knew what artist made this cool cover for a recording by a Japanese band called Scheherazade. I hit upon it while looking for images of the ballet Scheherazade, based on Rimsky-Korsakov’s music. The choreographer was Michel Fokine. The ballet’s first performance starred Ida Rubinstein and Vaslav Nijinsky.

Findings from the National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior (a 140-page pdf)

“There has been a transition for women in direction towards a stereotypically ‘male’ personality profile, but not at the expense of traditionally socially important female traits. Comparisons in psychological profile subscales showed an increase in dominance, exhibition, aggression and achievement.“

“Using … data from a high-fertility polygynous human population of Senegal, we first show that extraversion, a personality dimension predicting men’s mating behavior in this population, is associated with inter-individual differences in testosterone profiles, with men in the top quartile of extraversion distribution having 29% higher testosterone levels.“

“This study conducts an exploratory investigation of various post-coital behaviors that the authors propose may reflect the divergent adaptive reproductive strategies of each sex as understood from an evolutionary perspective.“

‘What the presence of attractive young women can do to men‘

The scientific case for masturbation — 4 theories about its adaptive function

The best cover for a Scheherazade LP or cd, c. 1963.

“A recent study suggests that daily masturbation and ejaculation can reduce the amount of accumulated DNA damage in sperm by 12%.  Therefore wasting sperm into a sock can actually improve the mobility of sperm and increase fertility.” Here’s the study

Some history of masturbation: “Freud famously concluded a 1912 symposium on masturbation for the Psychoanalytical Society in Vienna by saying, ‘I think the time has come to break off. For we are all agreed on one thing–that the subject of masturbation is quite inexhaustible.’“

Mind Hacks posted on erotic asphyxia. Here’s a review of the literature on autoerotic deaths between 1954 and 2004. Here’s a pdf of the first paper that I could find on this topic (in the British Medical Journal, 1960). After a gruesome description of the circumstances in which four men had died, the authors venture a Freudian hypothesis — somehow, the men wrapped themselves in plastic in order to simulate a return to the womb. (!) Then the authors make a more sensible claim: “A much less elegant and more superficial explanation is that these people were trying to achieve some undifferentiated thrill or excitement from partial suffocation or anoxia. This factor may have existed but it does not explain the transvestism, sexual arousal, or complete enclosure of the body. It is an interesting reflection that the sexual impulse in man is so protean in its manifestations that a technical advance resulting in a new packaging material can result in a new perverse manifestation.”

Here are some more recent (but equally sad) cases involving less typical autoerotic causes of death: “These modalities include ligature around the thorax or abdomen, plastic bags covering the face, electrical current, inhalation of a toxic gas or chemicals, or partial or total submersion, known as aquaerotic asphyxiation. This study highlights 11 cases of atypical autoerotic death, including asphyxia with a plastic bag, electrocution, and inhalation of butane and nitrous oxide (N2O).” Two more atypical cases: “We here report the case of a 34-year-old man who died due to asphyxia, secondary to body wrapping in the largest and most complex plastic bag ever involved in a published case of autoerotic death“; and “Unusual death of a 24-year-old man, involving propane inhalation and plastic bag suffocation, is described.“

Back to a less depressing topic: You get a sense of the erotic nature of Scheherazade from this review of a perfomance by Anna Kisselgoff in the NY Times (Jan. 18, 1981). Kisselgoff summarizes part of the narrative as follows: “The wives bribe the chief eunuch to release the slaves who spring out to make love to the women. The leader of the orgy is Zobeide’s ‘golden slave’ …. It is common to think of ‘Scheherazade,’ with its frank acknowledgement of sexual passions, as an early expression of Freud’s century. To most Anglo-Saxon audiences at the time, it was inconceivable that a powerful queen would bother with a black slave. Russians brought up on tales of Tartar harems and white princesses had no trouble with the idea.” Here’s Yvonne de Carlo as she appeared in a 1947 movie called Song of Scheherazade.

Yvonne de Carlo in Song of Scheherazade (1947)

“Based on the results of my study, there is a percentage of women (just over 30 percent) who feel powerful when performing fellatio. Apparently some women find it empowering and believe that it can wield a lot of power.“

Sir Henry Head’s self-experimentation: “We then discovered that the glans penis responded to cutaneous stimuli in that peculiar manner with which we were already familiar from our study of the first stage of recovery after nerve division. … When … [the tip] was dipped into water at 40° C, no sensation of heat was produced, but [Head] experienced an unusually disagreeable sensation of pain. … But, as soon as the water covered the corona without reaching the foreskin, both cold and pain disappeared, giving place to an exquisitely pleasant sensation of heat.“

“For women not using hormonal birth control, it would appear that some information regarding female fertility appears to be encoded in gait.“

“Women with higher estradiol levels in the peri-ovulatory and luteal phase of the menstrual cycle were correlated with higher senses of desirability and a lower relationship commitment in women.” But SciCurious has objections.

Yvonne de Carlo in her most famous role as Lily Munster

“In a study of 443 women, a pair of British researchers discovered that women were more likely to make impulsive purchases during the weeks between ovulation and menstruation, known as the luteal phase of the menstrual cycle.” Here’s the study

“Now let’s look a little deeper into the action of those neurotransmitters [dopamine and oxytocin] and how we can manipulate their action to extend the neurological orgasm for as long as possible.“

A device for accurate breast volume measurements

William Saletan on anal sex

Angus McLaren, an academic explorer of the history of sexuality

“A woman’s race/ethnicity and socioeconomic status impact whether health care providers recommend one of the most highly effective forms of contraception.“

On Carl Djerassi, inventor of the pill

Vogue‘s first celebrity models

Alexander Lee’s ‘Short History of Desire‘

A list of abortions in literature

More about the trial of Lady Chatterley’s Lover

“Depicting the harem as a home rather than as a sexual prison, books written by women from the progressive elite of late Ottoman society challenged the prevailing stereotype of harem women as ignorant, indolent odalisques whiling away their days awaiting their lord and master.“

Ida Rubinstein in Scheherazade (1910) .jpeg by M. Evans & Theatrex

Male bonobos need their mommies to help them hook up with female bonobos

“The male [chimpanzee] will pluck a leaf, or a set of leaves, and sit so the female can see him. He spreads his legs so the female sees the erection, and he tears the leaf bit by bit … dropping the pieces as he detaches them. Sometimes he’ll do half a dozen leaves until she notices. … [S]he sees the erection and puts two and two together, and if she’s interested, she’ll typically approach and present her back side, and then they’ll mate.“

“Exposure to a chemical found in food packaging and other plastics, BPA, can reduce the quality of men’s semen” More here

“A non-stick coating for a substance found in semen dramatically lowers the rate of infection of immune cells by HIV“

Female boa constrictors can reproduce without mating: “Large litters of all-female babies produced by the “super mom” boa constrictor show absolutely no male influence — no genetic fingerprint that a male was involved in the reproductive process.“

“But there is an interesting property of sea squirt pornography and local oceanography that may have consequences in the debates surrounding marine reserve design.“

‘The Ladybirds: the world’s first and only all-girl topless band‘; more here.

Ladies in red, scary mothers, more sex cannibals and cabaret

“When a lady wears red it prompts men to ask her more intimate questions and to sit closer to her.”

“A percentage-point increase in the male-to-female ratio of a man’s graduation class led to a percentage-point increase in his likelihood of dying before the age of 65.”

“Following all three election cycles, individuals located in states voting for the winning political party tended to search for pornography keywords relatively more often than individuals residing in states voting for the losing political party.”

A review of porn.com, an edited collection that examines porn as a driving force behind tech (esp. internet) innovations

“The Old Pornographers: Richard Nash and Mike Edison on Banned Books“

“Fifty of those women … were randomly chosen to receive a placebo instead of a drug treatment for low sexual arousal. … The findings … show that on average, one in three of the women who took a placebo showed an overall improvement.”

Bayer’s new vaginal atrophy drug

A skeptical challenge of the notion of a porn-addicted brain

A skeptical challenge directed at recent waist-to-hip ratio research

Twiggy

A neat post about Twiggy, the too-thin, not-very-curvaceous 1960′s super-model

“According to the researchers, reduced contraceptive use is most likely the result of a decade of abstinence-only sex education.”

Psychologists at Temple University find “no evidence that the initiation of sexual intercourse is hastened by exposure to sexy media.”

Lindsay Beyerstein rounds up some sex ed links and takes a recent study to show that “nearly half of teenagers are already having sex, and many others are doing their best to get in on the action. It’s hard to imagine a more perfect audience for comprehensive sex ed.”

Simon Baron-Cohen wrote of the autistic mind as an “extreme male brain,” and now Mark Brosnan et al ask, “Can an ‘Extreme Female Brain’ be characterised in terms of psychosis?”

These researchers went looking for male-female brain differences but found none in the ‘resting’ state, using fMRI

Canada tosses most of its laws restricting prostitution: “Judge Himel found that laws set up to protect prostitutes actually endanger their safety, forcing them to furtively engage in hasty transactions conducted in shady locations.”

“The well-known eastern Munich bordello told Bavarian daily tz on Thursday that taxi drivers are paid up to €120 for every ‘John’ they bring to their rivals during the annual autumn beer festival, when hundreds of thousands of visitors are in town for a good time.”

Matt Ridley on hard-wired sex differences: “In virtually every mammal and nearly all birds, males are more aggressive, females more nurturing. It is a distinction that goes right back to active sperm competing for stationary eggs. … Wombs are worth fighting over—and granting to favored applicants only.”

“Females produce only a few, large gametes while males produce a greater number of small gametes. Because females invest more, and because their productivity is not usually limited by the availability of male gametes, females should be the choosy sex. … There are only a few examples of organisms that have reversed the usual relationship, and the [seahorses and pipefish] are one such group.”

“Jacobus Boomsma … has argued that strict monogamous behavior, such as an ant queen mating for life, spurred the evolution of cooperative breeding in some social insects. Monogamy helps fulfill Hamilton’s conditions, because all siblings are equally related to each other and to each parent. Promiscuity, on the other hand, leads to many half-siblings and lowers the relatedness of individuals in a group.”

“We hypothesized that men’s relationship satisfaction and investment would predict interest in their partner’s copulatory orgasm, and that sperm competition risk would moderate the association between relationship satisfaction and interest in partner’s copulatory orgasm.”

The 2011 German farm-girl calendar is out

“This study clarifies the adaptive significance of infertile sperm castes, which has remained elusive in Drosophila. … We suggest that spermicide and male countermeasures against it are more common than is appreciated and discuss how spermicide could drive the evolution of several key male traits, including sperm size and number.”

“By varying the adult sex ratio of populations of the Indian meal moth … we altered the frequency of male and female copulations, and thus the level of sperm competition experienced by males. As predicted by theory, males evolving under higher levels of sperm competition increased investment in sperm production and differed in their sperm allocation patterns across matings.”

“We assess this key assumption in seed beetles where genital spines in males physically injure females. We demonstrate that male spine length is positively correlated with harm to females during mating but also that males with longer spines are more successful in sperm competition.”

Otto Dix's painting of Anita Berber

On sexual cannibalism in black widows, red-back spiders, etc.: “Why not eat him; he’s not much use later anyway. Mating success is so variable among males, there’s no guarantee that living another day will pay off for him.  Most males fail to mate at all and some research suggests that males become functionally sterile after mating. So, why not?“

“Penis captivus describes an event that occurs in rare instances during heterosexual intercourse when the muscles in the vagina clamp down on the penis much more firmly than usual (a form of vaginismus), making it impossible for the penis to withdraw from the vagina.”

“Information from species in which females remain in their natal group … shows the importance of kin support, especially from mothers, on the reproductive success of their daughters. Therefore, one might expect a similar effect on sons in species in which males remain in their natal group like bonobos.”

Bare naked 1960′s psychotherapy: “Perhaps most notable was an exercise called “crotch eyeballing”, designed to dispel guilt about the body, in which participants were instructed to look at each others genitals and disclose the sexual experiences they felt most guilty about while lying naked in a circle with their legs in the air.”

Joey Heatherton

“Humans in the highest economic bracket leave more grandchildren through sons than through daughters. Therefore, adaptive variation in sex ratios is expected, and human mothers in the highest economic bracket do give birth to more sons, suggesting similar sex ratio manipulation as seen in other mammals.”

“Results showed (a) that greater maternal harshness at 54 months predicted earlier age of menarche [and] (b) that earlier age of menarche predicted greater sexual (but not other) risk taking“

Piper Laurie plays the mother of Carrie (Sissy Spacek) in the 1976 movie Carrie

“A talk with Museum of Sex curator Sarah Forbes“

The Museum of Eroticism in Paris — 7 floors of erotic art inside an old cabaret

The strippers of Shoreditch

A neat blog: Cabaret Berlin — “exploring the entertainment of the Weimar era”

Freud, penile trauma, and the art of porn

Gia Carangi

Gia Carangi, a causualty of the 80′s drug culture

A short history of sex art

A 1996 article by Jon Stratton on the history of the idea of sex dolls

Porn for the Blind — “You can help. Record a description now.”

Cell phones, sitting around a lot, and not watching the right kind of porn leads to inferior sperm quality

“For those who object to the rise of pornography studies as an academic subfield or balk at paying astronomical tuition so their kids can watch people boink on-screen for course credit, Linda Williams is the one to blame. Her landmark 1989 study Hard Core: Power, Pleasure, and the “Frenzy of the Visible” was the first book to take porn seriously as a film genre.“

Dave Monroe of St. Petersburg College (Florida) has edited an anthology called Porn — Philosophy for Everyone: How to Think With Kink

“The internet has changd the way porn writers depict sex. How one man nearly became a scribe of smut.“

Oodles of stats on internet porn, including the nations with the highest porn revenues

“As long as there is a stimulus-response cued reaction, your brain could care less if it was induced by a steamy night with a Russian supermodel, or by looking through the Victoria’s Secret catalog. Dopamine and oxytocin aren’t snobby that way.” (with a neat Helmut Newton pic)

“Ordering sex in cyberspace: a content analysis of escort websites“

In a study of tamarin monkeys, “Partners with a high level of oxytocin performed correspondingly more cuddling, grooming and sex, while those with low levels of oxytocin spent less time on these relationship-building activities.”

Infidelity punishment meted out by female salamanders

New and improved Oedipal theory, now with autosexuality: “You are sexually attracted to Your Parents, and Yourself“

Oedipal theory confirmed in rats back in the 80′s

The Freud Family (c. 1878), with Sigmund standing behind his mother, his back to his dad (who should be more worried by the guy with the sword)

Bering on Oediups 2.0, now with fetishes

‘“Simply put,” [James V. Kohl] concedes “pheromones don’t create desire, they merely enhance it. If you’re not desirable to start with, because your personality is disagreeable, you’re not going to get lucky by using pheromones.”’ I’d like to put that to the test.

A youth forensic psych unit in British Columbia discontinues its use of penile plethysmography, the ‘peter meter’

Are there different types of female orgasm? They’ve been debating this for eons. How hard can it be to figure out?

Sex disappears from the British novel

But not from the lives of British(-Norwegian) novelists — ‘How “drop dead gorgeous” Roald Dahl slept with countless women while working as a spy’

‘Not only were females who were having sex without condoms less depressed, but depressive symptoms and suicide attempts among females who used condoms were proportional to the consistency of condom use. … These data are consistent with the possibility that semen may antagonize depressive symptoms.’

Sex reduces anxiety-like behavior in rats

Sex makes you smarter — it promotes neuronal growth

‘The injury is defined as the traumatic rupture of the corpus cavernosum secondary to a blunt trauma of the erect penis. The condition is underreported. The commonest causes were coital injuries and penile manipulation. The diagnosis was usually fairly straightforward because of the stereotypical clinical presentation. Associated injuries included urethral rupture.’

‘Evaluation and management of gunshot wounds to the penis may potentially be complex. Retrograde urethrogram should be performed in all cases except the most insignificant and superficial wounds. We describe our technique of penile exploration and artificial erection, noting excellent results in patients for whom follow-up is available.’

Mostly about critters

Veruschka as some sort of bird

The best batch of Veruschka pics I’ve ever seen

From Blogfish, the top 5 underwater sex acts. On a related note, last year’s sex week in Deep Sea News.

This year’s sex week at the Loom (fungi, water striders, as well as electrically sensitive fish)

An older post highlighting weird sex acts in the animal kingdom, and another one.

A kiss before dying (or something near enough): with its dying gasp, a squid got an erection that was 67 cm long, “almost the same length as the whole body of the animal,” ejaculated, and expired.

“And while it may seem odd to pose nude in front of Spock, Nimoy explains that each sitter interacted with him as an artist—effectively splitting Nimoy’s identity as an actor from the person behind the camera.” Here are Nimoy’s nude photos.

In search of … the G-spot, using ultrasound during coitus

“The victim was a 60-year-old man who was possibly attempting to sexually approach the animal from behind when he was struck by it, sustaining fatal blunt injuries …. Fatal trauma associated with bovines is rare on the whole, and when it does occur it is usually caused by kicking.“

The reproductive system of the black swamp snake, Part 6: “The anterior testicular ducts of the North American natricine snake Seminatrix pygaea are described using light and electron microscopy.”

Mating preferences of the male praying mantis, the ‘poster boy of risky sex‘

“Here we use a newly developed molecular technique to directly quantify mixed sperm stores in multiple mating females of the black field cricket, Teleogryllus commodus. In this species, female postcopulatory choice is easily observed and manipulated as females delay the removal of the spermatophore in favour of preferred males.“

Gender bending among Alberta long dase minnows

“As for the male lemurs, they started spending less time with females after they’d been dosed [with a contraceptive]. ‘It could be they’re showing less interest because the females are not showing immediately fertility. Or maybe the females just smelled weird,’ Drea said.“

From 1913, the strange case of the growing bone within a human penis

Buster Keaton

The sheepdog that just couldn’t finish the job, not even with an ‘estrous teaser bitch’

It turns out that the prairie vole, once reputed to be monogamous, “will sleep with anyone.”

“One of the biggest misconceptions about furries [people who wear full-body fur suits] is that they are all just a bunch of people who get together in mascot costumes and have sex. I’m not saying some people don’t do that ….“

“I have mixed feelings on highlighting bonobo sex life. Yes, it’s incredibly creative, and has more than once left my jaw hanging on the ground.” A review of Vanessa Woods’ Bonobo Handshake

On Philip Carr-Gomm’s new book, A Brief History of Nakedness

“This article reviews research findings documenting the nature of nonverbal courtship behavior compiled through both observation and self-report methods.“

July roundup

Elliott Gould, Natalie Wood, Robert Kulp, & Dyan Cannon in Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice

A new book, Sex at Dawn, argues that  monogamy goes against our nature. The book is favorably reviewed here. However,  while agreeing with several of the authors’ main claims, Jessa Crispin didn’t like this book. Hopefully, the book’s main idea will, if it catches on, reduce the impulse for mate guarding.

In male rats, sex promotes neurogenesis and reduces anxiety. More discussion here.

Men are attracted to women with smaller feet

A review of Sexual Coercion in Primates. The reviewer says that it’s only in the human and other primate species that females are “regularly abused by males,” but apparently male dolphins can be very abusive, too.

“A summary of numerous lesion studies indicates that different areas of the brain, including forebrain and midbrain structures, work together to produce the complex repertoire of female sexual behavior. In addition, by investigating the effects of commonly addictive drugs, we are beginning to elucidate the role of dopaminergic neurotransmission in female sexual motivation.“

“Salmon & Symons (2001) examined slash (the depiction of a romantic or sexual relationship between typically heterosexual male television protagonists, such as Kirk and Spock from Star Trek) as an erotic genre, placing it in the context of romance and female sexual psychology. The topic is revisited here with attention also being paid to slash between two female television characters.“

“A group of neurons, identified in the lumbar spinal cord, has been proposed to constitute a spinal ejaculation generator. … Moreover, the fact that dopaminergic pathways are involved in sexual behavior and that [dopamine] (DA) release in some brain regions is an important facilitator of male sexual behavior reinforces the crucial implication of DA.“

Lieutenant Uhura (from Sensen's Retro_Dome at Live Journal)

“Men and women viewed lower pitched voices in the opposite sex as being better at acquiring resources (e.g. hunting and gathering). While men preferred higher pitched women’s voices as marriage partners, women … who were currently breastfeeding had stronger preferences for higher pitched male voices whereas women not currently breastfeeding preferred lower pitched voices.“

“The voice analysis provided just as much information about a [male] speaker’s strength as photographs.”

Cougar sex: ‘Ticking Biological Clock Increases Women’s Libido‘. (But here’s a good critique of the study.)

Anne Bancroft & Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate

So might coffee: “Although caffeine did not disrupt preference for a sexual partner, caffeine selectively increased visits to the male [rat] when physical contact was possible. Collectively, these results suggest that the effects of caffeine on female mating behavior may reflect an increase in both sexual motivation and locomotor activity.“

Romantic love fosters creativity while sexual desire promotes analytic thought

Some theories about why we have orgasms

The representation of male genitals in prehistoric art

Total pubic hair removal in women is associated with “cunnilingus in the past month and more positive genital self-image and sexual function.”

“In one field investigation of women’s nonverbal courtship signals at singles bars, a university snack bar, library and Women‟s Center, Moore catalogued ‘flirting behavior’ and identified ‘parade’ as a distinct form of walking” (pdf)

“To see whether estrus was really ‘lost’ during human evolution … we examined ovulatory cycle effects on tip earnings by professional lap dancers. … Normally cycling participants earned about US$335 per 5-h shift during estrus, US$260 per shift during the luteal phase, and US$185 per shift during menstruation.“

“The classification system suggested by the author attempts to put all different shades of necrophilia under 10 classes.“

Homosexual necrophilia in the mallard duck

If only the duck had hands, but then “compulsive masturbation can cause isolation, anxiety, relationship problems, and even difficulty with concentration and memory“

Baker & Bellis hypothesize that “because there is a ‘shelf-life’ for sperm cells – they remain viable for only 5-7 days after production – and because adult human males manufacture a whopping 3 million sperm per day, masturbation is an evolved strategy for shedding old sperm while making room for new, fitter sperm.”

Have the feds gone soft on porn? Obscenity charges against Stagliano dismissed. Complete coverage from Reason.com

‘Bone bunnies’: Eizo’s X-ray pin-up calendar for radiologists

The beautiful game

Strategy, dolls and other primates

Nusch Eluard

Nusch Éluard (aka Maria Benz) More photos of her here

About those lovely Taschen books

From AlterNet: Why women pay for sex, the best movies about sex work, and the quasi-respectability of BDSM.

The ‘Godfather of masochism’ (and source of that label): “Herr Leopold von Sacher-Masoch gives his word of honor to Frau [Fanny] Pistor [aka Baroness Bogdanoff] to become her slave and …” (More links about Sacher-Masoch are in this earlier post.)

Kink as a reproductive strategy: “Kinky quails fertilize more eggs.“

“Sexsomnia — sexual acts while asleep — may be more common that thought“

Oral sex as reproductive strategy: “Does oral sex confer an evolutionary advantage? Evidence from bats.” (Speaking of bats, here’s the Batman XXX trailer.)

Deception as a reproductive strategy: “How male antelopes lie to get more sex: with false alarm calls“

Amy Marsh on “‘objectophiles,’ people who experience emotional, romantic, affectionate and/or sexual relationships with objects”

Sex Doll image from TokyoTimes.org

History of the sex doll , inc. a blurb about the WWII German sex doll, Borghild, who (despite rumors) has not been proven to be an inspiration for Barbie, although another German doll was, and that German doll has her own prurient past

‘The Portrayal of Women’s External Genitalia and Physique Across Time and the Current Barbie Doll Ideals‘

Koro: “the panic anxiety state in which affected males believe that the penis is shrinking and/or retracting, and perhaps disappearing” (ht)

“Male physical competition, not attraction, was central in winning mates among human ancestors, according to a Penn State anthropologist.“

Who should really be suffering from koro: “The average erect gorilla penis is 3cm (1.25 inches) long.” There’s a conflict in this linked story with the Penn State anthropologist’s theory, since the claim is made that human male’s have larger penises due to the selective pressures exerted by female preference. But I guess there can be more than one male reproductive strategy. Sadly, whichever strategy males deploy, it’ll shorten their lives.

We’re totally built for sex: According to that previous link about gorillas, human males have bigger penises than any other primates. Also, human females have bigger breasts and rounder tushes than any other primate.

A clitoris study: “The female clitoris and the male penis are really quite similar in anatomy”. From the comments there, I found a link to this intriguing story about Princess Marie Bonaparte and her studies of the vulva (with a focus on the distance between the clitoris and the vagina).

Sex tourism and … rational choice theory.

British women’s breasts are getting bigger.

Susannah Breslin on the White House’s stance on obscenity, a letter from Max Hardcore’s wife, and The tragic story of Stephen Hill

“The dark side of male pregnancy …. Male pipefish selectively abort embryos from less attractive females.” I wonder how they gauged the attractiveness of female pipefish?

The Erotic Awards 2010: “Writers included Ernesto the Naked Poet – the pen name of a Basque cognitive scientist who describes his insecurities about his penis and then recites his work, naked.”

“Claire Finch was tried for running a brothel in a sleepy village in Bedfordshire.“