Posted in the comments section by Aubrey (thanks!). NSFW language!
Sexual Behaviour
Are purity balls effective?
Back during the second week of class, I spent a bunch of time reviewing the research on the effectiveness of abstinence-only sex education and virginity pledges. Large meta-analyses show that neither delay first incidence of sex or reduce transmission of STIs. I also mentioned purity balls during that class, and have previously posted about them on the blog (here and here).
The following piece was recently published in the New York Times:
‘Purity Balls’ Get Attention, but Might Not Be All They Claim
In 1998, in Colorado Springs, Randy Wilson threw the first “purity ball,” a formal dinner and dance at which he and other fathers signed pledges to protect the virginity of their unmarried daughters. This October, Mr. Wilson will host his 13th purity ball (they have been almost annual). And from the first ball to now, the Wilson family has made an industry of purity.
A field director for the Family Research Council, a conservative Christian organization, Mr. Wilson has promoted purity balls across the United States, and his Web site says they have been held in 48 states. He and his wife, Lisa, have written a book, and they sell a “purity ball packet” for $90.
Three of their five daughters also wrote a book, “Pure Woman.” One of those daughters, Jordyn Wilson Peppin, runs the Purely Woman School of Grace, a weeklong program where “ladies” can learn a godly path to “etiquette, grace and hosting.”
The media have lustily promoted the Wilsons. The family has been featured on Anderson Cooper’s television show, in magazines like Glamour, in many newspapers, includingThe New York Times, and in at least two documentaries: one, a Swiss production called “Virgin Tales,” was released this summer.
But there is something fishy about all this media attention.
Despite all the coverage of the Wilson family and their balls’ dramatic imagery — the girls doing ballet, placing roses before a cross, ballroom-dancing with their dads — there is little hard evidence that purity balls have spread much beyond Colorado Springs. And even some alumnae of Mr. Wilson’s dances express skepticism that they had much effect.
In her 2010 book “The Purity Myth,” the feminist writer Jessica Valenti, founder of the blog feministing.com, reported that “more than 1,400 purity balls” were held in 2006. Her footnote refers to a 2007 article by Jocelyne Zablit, who gives as the source of that figure Leslee J. Unruh, the president of the National Abstinence Clearinghouse, in South Dakota. Reached by telephone this week, Ms. Unruh was rather more vague with her figures.
Go get the rest of the scoop here.
The science behind GGG.
From Dr. Debby Herbenick at Salon.com:
Five years ago, sex columnist Dan Savage suggested that, when it comes to sex, we should all aim to be GGG (“good, giving, and game … Think ‘good in bed,’ ‘giving equal time and equal pleasure’ and ‘game for anything – within reason’”). Long embraced by his readers, the GGG approach now has support from a new scientific study published in the Journal of Sex Research.
Of course, we’ve known for years that technique (for example, clitoral stimulation for women, incorporating certain sexual behaviors for either sex) matters to couples. And certainly inequitable pleasure is never a good thing, even though it persists (as I discussed in last week’s column, research shows that women are particularly prone to getting shafted in the orgasm department during hookup sex).
What this new study from researchers at the University of Arizona and Hanover College adds, at least from my perspective, is the additional layer of understanding of how being “game for anything – within reason” contributes to intimacy and satisfaction.
To be fair, the researchers didn’t actually examine the GGG phenomenon. They didn’t use the term “GGG,” nor did they use the phrase “game for anything” anywhere in their research paper. Rather, they studied what they call “sexual transformations” – sexual changes that people make for the sake of their partner or their relationship. But as a scientist myself, I’m going to go out on a limb and pronounce the term “sexual transformations” to be the nerdier first cousin to the slightly cooler third G in the trifecta: “being game for anything – within reason.”
[...]
So what did they find? Interestingly enough, participants’ own sexual transformations weren’t linked to their relationship satisfaction. In other words, being game yourself wasn’t the key to your own satisfaction. Rather, women and men reported higher levels of relationship satisfaction when their partners said they’d made more “sexual transformations” (when their partners had been game for more- or less-frequent sex, trying new sexual activities, etc). I’m going to guess that, at least in part, this may be because when one’s partner adapts to your needs, you’re likely to feel heard, special, rewarded, valued, or – at the very least — you get to do the things you want to do, sexually.
Feelings about sexual transformations mattered, too. Men and women who felt more positive about the sexual changes they made generally reported higher levels of relationship satisfaction. To me, this aspect of people’s feelings about their changes goes back to being game – after all, being “game” for switching up one’s sex life isn’t about begrudgingly going down on someone or role-playing with a bored look on one’s face. Being game is about being willing to give something a whirl, and happily so. It’s about bringing your A-game to bed, about not knowing how you’ll end up feeling about it but being willing to give it your best shot, with an open mind and heart.
[...]
The bottom line seems to be that there’s much to be gained when it comes to sex if one keeps an open mind, is willing to try new sexual things for a partner, and if a couple can express their affection with each other. The authors note, too, that even small changes may ultimately help to enhance a couple’s relationship.
Read the rest of the article here.
New exercise machine.
Skip to the beginning at 30 seconds.
The Kinsey Reporter.
Introduction of this new app has been making the rounds on the web over the last few days. The new app has garnered so much attention that the news release on the Indiana University website is inaccessible (link here, if you can manage to view the page). However, ScienceDaily published the original news release. Here are some snippets:
Indiana University has released Kinsey Reporter, a global mobile survey platform for collecting and reporting anonymous data about sexual and other intimate behaviors. The pilot project allows citizen observers around the world to use free applications now available for Apple and Android mobile platforms to not only report on sexual behavior and experiences, but also to share, explore and visualize the accumulated data.
"People are natural observers. It's part of being social, and using mobile apps is an excellent way to involve citizen scientists," said Julia Heiman, director of The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction. "We expect to get new insights into sexuality and relationships today. What do people notice, what are they involved in, and what can they relate to us about their lives and their communities?"
[...]
"This new platform will allow us to explore issues that have been challenging to study until now, such as the prevalence of unreported sexual violence in different parts of the world, or the correlation between various sexual practices like condom use, for example, and the cultural, political, religious or health contexts in particular geographical areas. These were some of our initial motivations for the project," he said. Users simply download the free app and begin contributing observed information on topics such as sexual activity, public displays of affection, flirting, unwanted experiences and birth control use. Even though no information identifying users submitting reports is collected or stored, the time and general location of the report is collected and input into the database. Users also have the option of selecting their own geographic preference for the report by choosing city/town, state/region or country.
Jezebel has published a short piece about the app, with some of their own commentary and an update on the status of the project:
New App Helps You Keep a Log of All the Nearby Boners
Kindly monitor the boners, please! For science!
A new mobile app from the Kinsey Institute encourages users to (anonymously) report and share sexual activities that they witness or participate in—aggregate data which will then be logged and analyzed by Kinsey researchers. The goal is to hopefully map geographical trends and cultural phenomena ranging from flirting to birth control, that might enlighten some dimmer corners of human sexuality. It's like sexting your professor! Kind of! If your professor was the entire internet.
In the project's first hours after launch, people from all over the United States and Europe had added tags about sexual activity, ranging from subjects as innocent as "man" and "woman" to more provocative phrases like "increased desire" and "infidelity."
The project doesn't collect identifying information from users, but does store the time and general location of the report. That means if you comment about "man flirting" in Portland, as one subject did, the project will be able to collect both that tag and the city, but won't display a name.
"This new platform will allow us to explore issues that have been challenging to study until now," said Filippo Menczer, director of the Center for Complex Networks and Systems Research, in a press release, "such as the prevalence of unreported sexual violence in different parts of the world, or the correlation between various sexual practices like condom use, for example, and the cultural, political, religious or health contexts in particular geographical areas. These were some of our initial motivations for the project."
I'm not sure how accurate a bunch of self-reported, crowd-sourced sex data will be (specifically, the sexual observations of adults affluent and idle enough to have both smartphones and time for this project), but it's a pretty amazing idea. At the very least—not even mentioning the implications for public health and sexual violence research—it just backs up the notion that sex is normal, sex is everywhere...
Film: Psychopathia Sexualis.
Passed along by Katie (thanks!), who stumbled upon this while studying. From the film homepage:
Employing a complex multi-narrative structure, Psychopathia Sexualis dramatizes case histories of turn-of-the-century sexual deviance, drawn from the pages of Richard von Krafft-Ebing's notorious medical text. Among the cases are a sexually repressed man who discovers an unhealthy appetite for blood; a homosexual man who submits himself to a doctor who promises to 'cure' his condition; and a masochist who hires a pair of corseted prostitutes to enact a most peculiar performance. In the final chapter, a woman who has spent her life suppressing her lesbian desires is hired to tutor a sexually curious young woman. These stories are bound together by the thread of an ambitious doctor who not only studies the patients, but uses them as pawns and playthings.
Sadly, it looks like the film was rubbish - reviewers completed panned it.
Here's the trailer, for interest's sake:
Want to go on a cruise?
Grandmas watch Kim Kardashian sex tape.
Film short: The Science of Blowjobs And Throbbing Hearts.
Via Violet Blue:
Pat Robertson says oral sex is ok.
This clip has been making the rounds. Pat Robertson is a very outspoken and powerful televangelist. He's made millions of dollars preaching to Christian evangelicals. In the past, Robertson has been extremely critical of homosexuality and his teachings about sex, in general, are very, very socially conservative. That's why this clip has caught so much attention.
Fruit flies need love too.
From the New York Times:
By DIANE ACKERMAN
According to Mom wisdom, it’s a cozy meal, in a penumbra of pleasure that mingles the fragrant food with the cook. If men are anything like common fruit flies — and who’s to say they’re not at times; heaven knows women are — Mom was right.
Anyway, that’s the romantic ploy of female fruit flies, for whom a dinner date is the ultimate rush. And rush it literally is, since they live only about 25 days and can’t afford to be shy. Still, the males need to be in the right mood, and the females are surprisingly picky and manipulative, given their short careers. Did I mention that some fruit flies have come-hither eyes? I don’t mean the dozens of mosaic facets, so evocative of hippie sunglasses, but the zingy psychedelic eye colors lab folk like to breed into them, the better to study mutant genes.
[...]
During fruit fly courtship, the male, lured by a full larder, extends one mandolin-like wing and serenades the female, then engages in a style of oral sexual foreplay many humans enjoy. Then he mounts her and copulates for 20 minutes or so. Here’s the sly part. The last male she has sex with will sire most of her many offspring, and she chooses the father only after lots of romps in the orchard or lab, based on his flair for courtship.
As with most animals, from squirrels to spiders, the males pursue but the females choose, and even the lowly fruit fly can be choosy.
Why the dinner date? Because Live Fast and Die is their mantra, and they need a handy food supply if their large new brood is to survive.
Read the entire article here.
Santorum, signed.
Robin Williams on Viagra and oral sex.
An oldie, but a goodie, passed along by Anna (thanks!). As she notes, "best ending to a standup...ever." NSFW language!
Sexual relationships road map.
Click to make larger:
Where do you fit?
More wisdom from Jenna Marbles.
The queen of satire, with more of her signature genius. NSFW language!
Documentary: I Love You And You And You - End of Monogamy
From the BBC:
A growing number of people are choosing a new way of life. They have rejected monogamy and turned their backs on conventional relationships. They believe their lifestyle is the future. They believe in polyamory.
Polyamory is the philosophy and practice of loving more than one. It means you no longer have to make do with one partner. You can have two or three, and so on without fear of jealousy or reprisal, and so can your partner.
With divorce rates almost up to one in two and 60% of couples having affairs, this fascinating film follows two ‘polyamorous’ families to see whether this growing subculture really could be a justifiable alternative to monogamy…?
Santorum art.
Rick Santorum is one of the frontrunners in the Republican primaries currently underway in the US. He's about as far right on social issues as one can be. He's anti-gay, anti-birth control, anti-abortion, and anti-just-about-everything-else. A few years ago, he drew the ire of Dan Savage when he compared homosexuality to bestiality and a bunch of other things. In return, Dan Savage held a competition to find a sex act which could be labelled with the name Santorum. Try searching Santorum and you'll find out what sex act won, or alternatively, click here to go to the Spreading Santorum webpage.
Pegging, at Christian Nymphos.
Organized religion gets a bit of a tough rap when it comes to sex positivity. I'm guilty of perpetuating this idea in class. Every once in a while, however, something comes along that flies in the face of religious sexual conservatism. Take, for example, Christian Nymphos, a website dedicated to sexual fulfilment within the confines of rules laid out in the bible. One post is related specifically to a behaviour described in class this week - pegging. The authour addresses pegging from a biblical point of view, and then takes down some common arguments:
I’ve heard the following arguments:
“Well it’s just not natural!” Well that toupee that your uncle wears isn’t natural either. And neither is your sister’s blonde hair that she got out of a box.
“Women weren’t meant to function like that!” Well, the mouth is meant to function as something we use to eat with. It chews our food up and aids in the digestion process. Yet many of us use that same mouth for oral sex, even though one could argue that the mouth wasn’t “meant” to function as a receptacle for a penis.
“That is like a complete role reversal and I can’t imagine God being pleased with that!” I would caution any of you who assume to know what God is thinking. Just because you aren’t comfortable with a particular act, does not mean that it’s inherently wrong or sinful.
“Any man who would want that would have to have some hidden homosexual tendencies!”This is just pure rubbish, and again just one big false assumption. I happen to love my own smell and taste, so much so that I would probably give myself oral sex if I were limber enough to do so. However, the thoughts of being with another woman and tasting her are repulsive and nauseating to me. Just because I am comfortable with my own body and within my own sexuality doesn’t mean that I have lesbian tendencies.
To read to the rest of the article, click here. The comments at the end are particularly interesting, and blow away some of the common stereotypes about Christians and sex.
Follow-up to Anderson Cooper: The Virgin Daughters.
The effects of drugs on male sexual function.
Thanks Jeanne for passing this along. The real deal on drugs and male sexual functioning (click to make larger):
