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Transparent Feelings …Can Men Reveal Themselves More?

by zfortadminin LOVE

With so much research showing that young males suffer beneath the gravity of conventional masculinity, why isn’t there more help for them on campus?

Last semester, a student in the masculinity course I teach showed a video clip she had found online of a toddler getting what appeared to be his first vaccinations. Off camera, we hear his father’s voice. “I’ll hold your hand, O.K.?” Then, as his son becomes increasingly agitated: “Don’t cry!… Aw, big boy! High five, high five! Say you’re a man: ‘I’m a man!’ ” The video ends with the whimpering toddler screwing up his face in anger and pounding his chest. “I’m a man!” he barks through tears and gritted teeth.

The home video was right on point, illustrating the takeaway for the course: how boys are taught, sometimes with the best of intentions, to mutate their emotional suffering into anger. More immediately, it captured, in profound concision, the earliest stirrings of a male identity at war with itself.

This is no small thing. As students discover in this course, an Honors College seminar called “Real Men Smile: The Changing Face of Masculinity,” what boys seem to need is the very thing they fear. Yet when they are immunized against this deeper emotional honesty, the results have far-reaching, often devastating consequences.

Despite the emergence of the metrosexual and an increase in stay-at-home dads, tough-guy stereotypes die hard. As men continue to fall behind women in college, while outpacing them four to one in the suicide rate, some colleges are waking up to the fact that men may need to be taught to think beyond their own stereotypes.

In many ways, the young men who take my seminar — typically, 20 percent of the class — mirror national trends. Based on their grades and writing assignments, it’s clear that they spend less time on homework than female students do; and while every bit as intelligent, they earn lower grades with studied indifference. When I asked one of my male students why he didn’t openly fret about grades the way so many women do, he said: “Nothing’s worse for a guy than looking like a Try Hard.”

In a report based on the 2013 book “The Rise of Women: The Growing Gender Gap in Education and What It Means for American Schools,” the sociologists Thomas A. DiPrete and Claudia Buchmann observe: “Boys’ underperformance in school has more to do with society’s norms about masculinity than with anatomy, hormones or brain structure. In fact, boys involved in extracurricular cultural activities such as music, art, drama and foreign languages report higher levels of school engagement and get better grades than other boys. But these cultural activities are often denigrated as un-masculine by preadolescent and adolescent boys.”

Throughout elementary school and beyond, they write, girls consistently show “higher social and behavioral skills,” which translate into “higher rates of cognitive learning” and “higher levels of academic investment.”

It should come as no surprise that college enrollment rates for women have outstripped men’s. In 1994, according to a Pew Research Center analysis, 63 percent of females and 61 percent of males enrolled in college right after high school; by 2012, the percentage of young women had increased to 71, but the percentage of men remained unchanged.

By the time many young men do reach college, a deep-seated gender stereotype has taken root that feeds into the stories they have heard about themselves as learners. Better to earn your Man Card than to succeed like a girl, all in the name of constantly having to prove an identity to yourself and others.

The course “Real Men Smile,” which examines how the perceptions of masculinity have and haven’t changed since the 18th century, grew out of a provocative lecture by Michael Kimmel, the seminal researcher and author in the growing field of masculine studies.

Dr. Kimmel came to my campus, Towson University, in 2011 to discuss the “Bro Code” of collegiate male etiquette. In his talk, he deconstructed the survival kit of many middle-class, white male students: online pornography, binge drinking, a brotherhood in which respect is proportional to the disrespect heaped onto young women during hookups, and finally, the most ubiquitous affirmation of their tenuous power, video games.

As Dr. Kimmel masterfully deflected an outpouring of protests, the atmosphere grew palpably tense. A young man wearing fraternity letters stood up. “What you don’t get right is that girls are into hooking up as much as we are; they come on to us, too,” he said. Dr. Kimmel shook his head, which left the student clearly rattled.

His voice quavering, the young man stammered something unexpected from a frat brother, about how women can be as insensitive and hurtful as guys. He sounded like a victim himself. But afterward, when I asked him if he had reached out to any of his guy friends for advice or solace, he stared at me, incredulous, his irises two small blue islands amid a sea of sclera. “Nah, I’ve got this,” he said.

I wanted the course to explore this hallmark of the masculine psyche — the shame over feeling any sadness, despair or strong emotion other than anger, let alone expressing it and the resulting alienation. Many young men, just like this student, compose artful, convincing masks, but deep down they aren’t who they pretend to be.

Research shows what early childhood teachers have always known: that from infancy through age 4 or 5, boys are more emotive than girls. One study out of Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital in 1999 found that 6-month-old boys were more likely to show “facial expressions of anger, to fuss, to gesture to be picked up” and “tended to cry more than girls.”

“Boys were also more socially oriented than girls,” the report said — more likely to look at their mother and “display facial expressions of joy.”

This plays out in the work of Niobe Way, a professor of applied psychology at New York University. After 20-plus years of research, Dr. Way concludes that many boys, especially early and middle adolescents, develop deep, meaningful friendships, easily rivaling girls in their emotional honesty and intimacy.

But we socialize this vulnerability out of them. Once they reach ages 15 or 16, “they begin to sound like gender stereotypes,” she writes in “Deep Secrets: Boys’ Friendships and the Crisis of Connection.” “They start using phrases such as ‘no homo’ … and they tell us they don’t have time for their male friends, even though their desire for these relationships remains.”

As women surpass men on campus, the threat felt by thin-skinned males often reveals itself in the relationships where they feel most exposed. “Boys are not only more invested in ongoing romantic relationships but also have less confidence navigating them than do girls,” writes the sociologist Robin W. Simon in The Journal of Health and Social Behavior. That’s problematic, because “romantic partners are their primary sources of intimacy,” whereas young women confide in friends and family.

Some cultural critics link such mounting emotional vulnerability to the erosion of male privilege and all that it entails. This perceived threat of diminishing power is exposing ugly, at times menacing fault lines in the male psyche. Experts point to sexual assaults on campus and even mass murders like those at a community college in Oregon and a movie theater in Colorado. These gunmen were believed to share two hypermasculine traits: feelings of profound isolation and a compulsion for viral notoriety.

With so much research showing that young men suffer beneath the gravity of conventional masculinity, men’s studies is gaining validation as a field of its own, not just a subset of women’s studies. Hobart and William Smith Colleges has offered a minor in men’s studies since the late ’90s. The Center for the Study of Men and Masculinities was established in 2013 at Stony Brook University, part of the State University of New York, and plans to offer its first master’s degree program in 2018. Last year, the center hosted the International Conference on Men and Masculinities, where topics included fatherhood, male friendships and balancing work and family life.

So why don’t campuses have more resource centers for men?

Some universities offer counseling services for men of color and gay men, and some sponsor clubs through which male members explore the crisis of sexual violence against women. Only a precious few — the University of Massachusetts and Simon Fraser University among them — offer ways for all men to explore their shared struggles. And these don’t exist without pushback. Talk of empowering men emotionally yields eye rolling at best, furious protest at worst — as when the Simon Fraser center was proposed, in 2012, and men and women alike challenged the need for a “safe space” for members of the dominant culture.

But wouldn’t encouraging men to embrace the full range of their humanity benefit women? Why do we continue to limit the emotional lives of males when it serves no one? This question is the rhetorical blueprint I pose to students before they begin what I call the “Real Man” experiment.

In this assignment, students engage strangers to explore, firsthand, the socialized norms of masculinity and to determine whether these norms encourage a healthy, sustainable identity.

The findings result in some compelling presentations. One student interviewed her male and female friends about their hookups and acted out an amalgam of their experiences through the eyes of a male and a female character; another explored the pall of silence and anxiety that hangs over campus men’s rooms; two students gleaned children’s gender perceptions in a toy store. One of the most revealing projects was a PowerPoint by a student who had videotaped himself and then a female friend pretending to cry in the crowded foyer of the university library, gauging the starkly different reactions of passers-by.

“Why do you think a few young women stopped to see if your female friend was O.K.,” I asked him, “but no one did the same thing for you?”

He crossed his arms, his laser pointer pushing against his bicep like a syringe, and paused. Even at this point in the semester, the students, some of whom had studied gender issues before, seemed blind to their own ingrained assumptions. So his response raised many eyebrows. “It’s like we’re scared,” he said, “that the natural order of things will completely collapse.”

Curated by Timothy
Original Article

Moving in With Your Significant Other: For Love or for Money?

by Julia Solomonin LOVE

Finances aside, how do you know when it’s the right time? Is there even a right time?

8.4 million people live in New York City. Out of those 8.4 million people, approximately 15 can actually afford to live here. It’s no news that the rent here is out of control. You’ll often hear about gentrification and the rising prices of rent throughout neighborhoods. I assume everyone else starts sobbing after they pay their rent just like I did last month. Yes, living here is expensive. Aside from rent, nearly everything else is somewhat unaffordable. There’s only a gazillion articles about how the cost of living can take a toll on your bank account. But what about your relationship?

Legitimate Reasons to Move In

There are many milestones within a relationship. Of course, there’s “the talk”, where you decide whether or not it’s exclusive. There’s exchanging “I love you’s” and last but not least, shacking up. Before moving to NYC, I always assumed moving in with your significant other meant that you were looking to take things to the next level, really cement the fact that you are ready to commit to someone or you just couldn’t fathom the idea of not sharing a bed every single night. Those may be some of the reasons couples decide to take that next step, but here’s another one to add to the list : SAVING CASH MONEY. I have seen couples move in together faster than the speed of light all in the name of lower rent! And love. But also lower rent. This city is so incredibly expensive that at the end of the day, if you’re spending the majority of your time with that special someone, it might not be worth coughing up the cash each month for your own place. It’s more out of convenience, not necessarily romance. That’s not to say it can’t be both, which is what I’m currently struggling with.

Anxiety and Decision Making

I’ve been with my boyfriend for a little over two and a half years. I’m extremely happy with him, but there have been a lot of issues I’ve had to come to terms with when it came to really getting serious with someone. I’m not a commitment phobe, but I have baggage like anyone else. There’s not one single part of me that doesn’t want to be with him, but there is a neurotic part of me that thinks the longer we date, the worse it will be if we do ever break up, and then I run into a state of panic trying to avoid a break up that neither of us were even contemplating in the first place! Being an anxious person is a full time job (one that doesn’t pay). So, thinking about moving in together isn’t just a casual decision for me. It brings on anxiety and then some. It’s also really exciting.

Decorating and Upgrading the Bedset

Allow me to fantasize for a moment. It’s fun to think about how we would decorate our room, how it would be extremely luxurious to upgrade to a queen size bed, how I would be spending two hundred dollars less on rent each month if he moved in. I won’t lie, I’ve been online window shopping the duvets on anthropologie.com for quite some time. With the money I would save on rent, my dreams of owning a complete bed set from Anthropologie could become a reality. These are the little things, obviously, but things nonetheless that I’ve thought about.

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Women Who Lead in Love Are Finding Out This

by zfortadminin LOVE

If you’re an “I’ll wait for him to approach me kind of girl,” perhaps you should reconsider your approach to love in 2016—especially if you frequent online dating sites.

According to Yahoo, a recent OkCupid study revealed that women who initiated conversations online were 2.5 times more likely to receive a response in comparison to men who make the first move. Also, female-initiated contact led to more conversations and more dates. Approximately 12 percent of the messages men initiated resulted in dates while 30 percent of initiatory messages from women led to dates. And if that doesn’t motivate you, perhaps this will: The men that the women contacted were considered “more” attractive. Women who simply selected from the pool of men who reached out to them first were more likely to find themselves conversing with “less” attractive men.

To arrive at their findings, researchers pulled information from a random sample of 70,000 users who logged in at least three times within the same month.

“When women are proactive there’s a big win,” Jimena Almendares, OkCupid Chief Product Officer, told ABC News. “This is data that is showing that if they actually speak up, they have so much to gain.”

Of course, putting yourself out there is a lot easier said than done, but writer and relationship expert Demetria Lucas D’Oyley says that making the first move can be as simple as paying him a compliment.

“If you see someone you find attractive, you say ‘Hi,’ you ask him a question or you pay him a compliment,” D’Oyley shared during a “Good Morning America” segment earlier this month. “It can be as beautiful as, ‘I like your tie,’ ‘I like your hair.’”

Don’t get it twisted, though, your role as the aggressor should cease once you have his attention. At that point, you should chill out and allow him to do the pursuing.

“Making the first move doesn’t mean making all of the moves,” Demetria warned. “It means making sure that you’re friendly, you’re approachable; he knows you’re interested and less likely to reject him.”

Do you make an effort to approach guys you like? Why or why not?

Curated by Erbe
Original Article

The Birds and the Bees …Has Adult Content Become the Tutor?

by zfortadminin Sex

THE other day, I got an email from a 21-year-old college senior about sex — or perhaps more correctly, about how ill equipped she was to talk about sex.

The abstinence-only curriculum in her middle and high schools had taught her little more than “don’t,” and she’d told me that although her otherwise liberal parents would have been willing to answer any questions, it was pretty clear the topic made them even more uncomfortable than it made her.

So she had turned to pornography. “There’s a lot of problems with porn,” she wrote. “But it is kind of nice to be able to use it to gain some knowledge of sex.”

I wish I could say her sentiments were unusual, but I heard them repeatedly during the three years I spent interviewing young women in high school and college for a book on girls and sex. In fact, according to a survey of college students in Britain, 60 percent consult pornography, at least in part, as though it were an instruction manual, even as nearly three-quarters say that they know it is as realistic as pro wrestling. (Its depictions of women, meanwhile, are about as accurate as those of the “The Real Housewives” franchise.)

The statistics on sexual assault may have forced a national dialogue on consent, but honest conversations between adults and teenagers about what happens after yes — discussions about ethics, respect, decision making, sensuality, reciprocity, relationship building, the ability to assert desires and set limits — remain rare. And while we are more often telling children that both parties must agree unequivocally to a sexual encounter, we still tend to avoid the biggest taboo of all: women’s capacity for and entitlement to sexual pleasure.

It starts, whether intentionally or not, with parents. When my daughter was a baby, I remember reading somewhere that while labeling infants’ body parts (“here’s your nose,” “here are your toes”), parents often include a boy’s genitals but not a girl’s. Leaving something unnamed, of course, makes it quite literally unspeakable.

Nor does that silence change much as girls get older. President Obama is trying — finally — in his 2017 budget to remove all federal funding for abstinence education (research has shown repeatedly that the nearly $2 billion spent on it over the past quarter-century may as well have been set on fire). Yet according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, fewer than half of high schools and only a fifth of middle schools teach all 16 components the agency recommends as essential to sex education. Only 23 states mandate sex ed at all; 13 require it to be medically accurate.

Even the most comprehensive classes generally stick with a woman’s internal parts: uteruses, fallopian tubes, ovaries. Those classic diagrams of a woman’s reproductive system, the ones shaped like the head of a steer, blur into a gray Y between the legs, as if the vulva and the labia, let alone the clitoris, don’t exist. And whereas males’ puberty is often characterized in terms of erections, ejaculation and the emergence of a near-unstoppable sex drive, females’ is defined by periods. And the possibility of unwanted pregnancy. When do we explain the miraculous nuances of their anatomy? When do we address exploration, self-knowledge?

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Using Sex to Cope with Emotions

by zfortadminin Sex

My experience with hypersexuality involved meeting men on Craigslist expressly for the purpose of having sex.

I love sex. Maybe more than the average person. But having had an episode of bipolar hypersexuality — defined clinically as extremely frequent or suddenly increased sexual urges or sexual activity — I’m always careful when starting a new sexual relationship. I know that I can have a healthy sex life even with this struggle in my past, but it takes some careful attention to my situation and to my feelings.

My experience with hypersexuality involved meeting men on Craigslist expressly for the purpose of having sex. Other than work, finding the next sexual partner was my primary focus during that time. As is common with this condition, I couldn’t find the pleasure that I sought with these encounters, which made me seek out even more men. The driving force behind hypersexuality is actually bipolar mania, so without proper treatment or a change in my condition, my sexual behavior was not likely to change.

After having gone through this period of intense sexuality, I sometimes view my sexual appetite as a symptom. I’ve been careful to ask myself whether I’m really feeling someone’s vibe or if I’m about to have sex because I’m driven by other feelings. That helps me make sure that I’m well emotionally, my bipolar is under control, and that I’m about to be intimate with someone for the right reasons.

Recently, I was reminded of a period when I was driven by hypersexuality in a relationship. There is a man in my life, Steven, that I see every few years. It’s one of those situations where we just can’t get out of each other’s systems — you know what I mean. The last time he called me, I was a mess. I’d recently gotten out of the hospital and was still reeling from a breakup earlier that year. Of course, I agreed to see him and we got together a few times. But what I really wanted to do was see Steven more frequently. I couldn’t stop thinking about him, calling him, imagining how wonderful it would be if we just had more sex. When I didn’t get what I wanted from him, I went to dating sites — I’ll never go back to Craigslist — but couldn’t meet anyone. That’s when I knew that I was in trouble.

Fortunately, I confessed my behavior to my therapist while getting an adjustment in medication to keep the mania at bay. I learned that, yes, hypersexuality can be a symptom of my disease, but that it can also be a symptom of unregulated emotions. My experience with Steven was probably a little of both, since I’d been a bit lonely since my breakup and I saw sex as something that I could use to replace any other negative feelings I had. I know now that it’s not healthy for me to use physical intimacy as a substitute for my emotions.

Steven called me a few weeks ago and we did get together. These days I’m healthier and clearer about the role of sex in my life, and I decided to be with Steven because of my feelings for him and not as a surrogate for anything — or anyone — else. As a result, we can have a fulfilling, honest and healthy sexual relationship and I don’t have to worry about triggering an episode of hypersexuality or other unhealthy behavior. So far its going well for me, which I believe is working out well for Steven too. If you know what I mean.

Curated by Erbe
Original Article

How This Couple Fell in LOVE through Sign Language

by zfortadminin LOVE

She watched the deaf-blind students talking with each other, signing into each others’ hands, feeling the words.

Tania and Jose Amaya are both a little shy, but ask them how they met and they’ll light up. She’ll blush. He’ll grin.

She was a computer teacher at the Braille Institute in East Hollywood, soft-spoken and sweet. He was a volunteer, deaf and legally blind, unable to speak. She was enrolled in deaf studies at Cal State Northridge. He’d help with her sign language homework.

They’d speak in a language for the deaf-blind, called tactile sign language. She’d sign, and he’d hold his hands over hers, reading the movements of her fingers. They’d make each other smile.

By the time they learned to communicate, something else happened: They fell in love. Next month, they’ll celebrate five years of marriage.

Asked recently what attracted them to each other, Tania signed the question to Jose, and they chuckled.

“How do you explain love?” she asked.

It’s the kind of thing that happens often at the Braille Institute. People — many of them sad and scared after starting to lose their vision — find community. They find friends. They find mentors. And, sometimes, they find love.

The institute recently lauded those relationships in a social media campaign called #loveatbraille, with couples and friends cheesing for the camera beside cutout hearts to “celebrate finding hope and love in our community.”

“It’s about redefining hope. People come here thinking they’re useless to other people and that they’ve lost their independence,” said Anita Wright, executive director of the institute’s Los Angeles center. “As students come here, they start to understand that there’s more to life than just the eyes, and that the eyes are to look through but the vision is through the heart.”

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Make Mine a Make Out

by Virginia Jonesin Sex

Look, almost everyone likes sex.  Presidents and college students and married people all like it  and think it’s great.  But whatever happened to just making out?

In the beginning, there was kissing.  Lots and lots of sweet, hot, open-mouthed kissing.  And it was good.  We’d walk around in a daze after hours of it.  And then we moved to second base.  And lo, it was also pretty good.  Bras were stuffed under couches, not to be seen again until moving day.  Slowly, a bunch of kids who knew next to nothing about baseball moved towards a home run- and many of us never looked back.

Look, almost everyone likes sex.  Presidents and college students and married people all like it  and think it’s great.  But whatever happened to just making out?  You know, getting hot and heavy, kissing until your mouth is all tingly and puffy, feeling hands inching ever closer towards the edge of your bra- it’s fun and super hot!

Kissing Feels Great:

Kissing reduces cortisol, a stress chemical in the body.  Fifteen minutes of kissing measurably reduces levels of cortisol in academic laboratory make-out tests.  Kissing and making out releases all kinds of feel-good chemicals and hormones, including oxytocin, the love drug.  That makes making out a natural painkiller, and it also bonds you to a new person or an established partner.  Men like kissing because it’s a way to introduce more testosterone into women’s systems, which makes sex even sexier.  Women like kissing men because it’s a way to assess their appropriateness as a biological mate.   We’re usually looking for people whose genetic makeup is dissimilar to one’s own, which makes for stronger offspring.  Kissing and pheromones transfer a lot of that information about another person- unfortunately, kissing can’t help determine whether one still uses a skateboard as their main mode of transportation.

Kissing is Intense:

Kissing is done with one’s eyes closed, not just because it’s a social norm, but because kissing provides so much great information and stimulation it’s better to cut down on visual stimuli- also, because while you’re kissing, your partner probably looks like they have one big eye in the middle of their forehead.

It’s Low Risk:

For single people, kissing and making out packs a lot of the same heart-stopping thrills as sex, but without the downsides of one-time hookups- there’s virtually no STD or pregnancy scares, and it’s not as embarrassing to run into someone you made out with once at the Trader Joe’s.  If you’ve just started seeing someone, think about making out a time or two before you start having sex- you’ll be more comfortable with each other and probably have even more fun building intimacy and looking forward to the main course.

It Makes Sex Hotter:

For couples, making out makes sex hotter- building anticipation and just having fun with each other.  Try making rules- set a ten minute timer that’s only for kissing, then another timer that’s only for touching each other, and so on- by the time you get to sex you’ll be completely bonkers and have a wonderful time!

It’s Portable:

Making out can be done with your clothes on, or mostly on, so you can do it in a car or in a gazebo, in a movie theater or methadone clinic, or lots of places it wouldn’t be that great to have sex.  It’s not polite to do in a Denny’s, but many have.

In closing, the next time you’re with someone you’re into, consider making more out of making out!

Sexual Fetishes… Here Are the Top 10

by zfortadminin Sex

The definition of a sexual fetish is the need for an object, body part or material to achieve an elevated state of sexual arousal.

Technically, some of the list might fall under kinks or preferences and not the specific category of fetish, but it seems these days it’s all gray area. Suffice to say, the list covers some of the most popular of them. Also, for many people, these are things that enhance their sexual experiences but aren’t necessarily required to achieve arousal. A true fetishist must always have their individual kink present to reach a state of sexual satisfaction.

Realistically anything can be turned into a fetish; it just depends on a person’s desires and preferences. What starts a fetish? It’s a complicated issue to dissect, but according to Barnaby Barratt, Ph.D., a sexy therapist and President of the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists, “experts theorize that an experience with masturbation as a young child – often one that has long been forgotten – could develop into a fetish for an object or scene that serves as a reminder.”

Is having a fetish harmful? Most experts agree that as long as you aren’t placing yourself or anyone else in danger, or breaking the law, that it’s harmless to indulge in a fetish to achieve release. On the other hand, if a true fetishist needs his or her obsession every single time they have sex to achieve an orgasm, it may not be very practical. Depending on what the fetish is, it may be a real obstacle to developing any real intimacy with another person. Society places a stigma on most fetishes although as a whole we’ve become more accepting of individual preferences. Most people are embarrassed about their fetish and don’t necessarily discuss it outside of a specific circle that may be dedicated to it such as a club or group they belong to. What’s most popular these days on the sexual fetish menu?  Let’s take a look.

10. Adult Babies

Adult babies are those individuals that enjoy being a baby again. They may enjoy regressing partially or completely, participating in the act of wearing diapers, being fed by an adult, sucking on a baby bottle or pacifier, dressing up in baby clothes, crawling instead of walking and speaking in “baby” talk. Individuals interested in infantilism most likely enjoy the nurturing aspect. They may be seeking attention or have too many responsibilities in their daily lives, which they wish to escape from.

9. Swinging and Group Sex

Swinging refers to the act of a committed, usually married couple indulging in sex with another couple or individual with the full consent of both partners. The idea of swinging or experimentation with group sex is usually driven by the male in the relationship, research showing over 75 percent of the time. This particular preference presents many challenges to a relationship including possible feelings of jealousy, low self-esteem, and issues with trust. Some couples, however, report that the act of swinging or indulging in group sex does the opposite for them, increasing the women’s confidence and allowing husbands to see their wives in a new light, strengthening their commitment to one another. It all depends on the couple and their reasons for participating.

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Single and 10 Truths for Loving It

by zfortadminin LOVE

“Uncertainty is the only certainty there is, and knowing how to live with insecurity is the only security.” ~John Allen Paulos

Over the past ten years, I always had a man by my side. I was always in a relationship.

I was in a relationship for eight years before my ex and I got engaged, then broke it off because of the distance—my ex’s reason. Not long after that I got into a two-year relationship with a man who loved, yet cheated on me. It was a messy break up.

So after ten years in relationships, I found myself alone.

I’m 31 and single!

Recently some questions have bounced around in mind: What happened to me during those years? What did I get, gain, achieve in these two relationships? Why am I now alone? What will I do? How do I do things by myself?

Now what? Where to start?

I started to panic, to hyperventilate—until I found this quote:

“Single is not a status. It is a word that describes a person who is strong enough to live and enjoy life without depending on others.”

Yes I am scared. I was so used to sharing everything. I was so used to having someone around.

But the reality is I am my own person, and if I can’t enjoy being single, how can I enjoy being with someone else?

So I started reading about being single, and interviewing other happy single people. Surely I wasn’t the only 31-year-old person who felt uncertain about her new singleness. I needed to find proven ways to be happy as a single adult woman.

In my research, I learned some important truths about being single:

1. Being single gives you time to be by yourself, with yourself.

Finally some me time. This is the time to reconnect with myself, a time where I can talk to myself, debating all the questions and answers that are bouncing in my head. 

This is the time of reflection. This is the time of acceptance and letting go, which brings me to the second point…

2. If you don’t let go of the past, you will never appreciate the present.

Yes I have fond memories of my exes, but that was in the past. I know I will always cherish those memories, but I need to stop clinging to them to live for today and plan for tomorrow.

Buddha said every day you are born again—that means new experiences and adventures for today!

3. It’s only after you have lost everything that you are free to find out what you were missing.

During those ten years, I lost love, a pregnancy, and my health. I truly believed I had lost everything. I can’t even start telling you how many tears I shed during those difficult times.

Now that I’m single, I have an opportunity to do all the things I put off while I was putting all my energy into my relationships. I have to believe that I will eventually have the things I lost, but for now I’m taking this time to enjoy myself and complete myself.

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Sensuality Science —The Body’s Best Touch Points Proven

by zfortadminin Sex

Most men admit to remaining curious as to what turns a woman on and what specific body parts require the most attention.

It is not until several rounds of trial-and-error that men will begin to become aware of what turns their partner on in between the sheets. They then stick to the usual repertoire in the boudoir. Now, Canadian scientists have found a way to eliminate the process altogether by identifying the most erogenous female body parts, based on touch, pressure, and vibration. The recent study is published in the Journal of Sexual Medicine.

To investigate, the team of Canadian researchers at the University of Montreal recruited 30 women between the ages of 18 and 35. Using light touch, pressure, and vibration, they studied each woman’s clitoris, labia minora, vaginal and anal margins, the lateral breast, areola, and nipple. They were then compared to neutral areas on the body, such as the neck, forearm, and abdomen.

The women were asked to lay under a bed sheet while they stimulated various outer parts of the female body with scientific instruments. The researchers asked the participants to rank their sensitivity to light touch, pressure, and vibration stimulated by the instruments in each area. Stimulation was applied for 1.5 seconds. Then, the researchers waited for five seconds before they asked the women if they felt it.

The unsurprising findings confirmed our common knowledge and the scientists’ knowledge about the erogenous zones in the female anatomy. When it came to light touch, the neck, forearm, and vaginal margin were ranked the most sensitive area, and the areola was reported the least sensitive. The clitoris and nipple were the most sensitive when it came to pleasure, whereas the lateral breast and abdomen were the least. Lastly, the clitoris and nipple were found to be the most sensitive to vibration. The clitoris, expectedly, was the most sensitive to vibration compared to all the body parts.

Overall, the female genitals were found to be more sensitive to pressure and vibration compared to touch, which the scientists found “interesting” since people enjoy sex and sex toys, according to Time magazine. The Canadian scientists hope their findings will lead to more satisfying sexual experiences for women since their most erogenous zones are now scientifically proven. They also suggest this can provide useful information for doctors who perform breast augmentation and gender reassignment surgery.

Feet were once thought to have a sensual connection to the genitals due to the concentration of nerve endings in the sole and digits of the foot. However, in a 2013 study, neuroscientists have found it to be the least appealing part of the male and female anatomy when it comes to studying the link between sex and the brain.

So men, stop the toe sucking and licking, and use what scientists have confirmed. They have better equipped you to please your woman.

Curated by Erbe
Original Article

Impermanent Relationship Commitment… Just Right for This Couple

by zfortadminin LOVE, Sex

I wanted kinship, drama, and obsession with someone eccentric in my twenties; equality, worldliness, and stability with someone calm in my thirties; intimacy, attention, and adventure with someone exotic in my forties.

A few years ago, my husband, Rob, and I converted our traditional marriage to a polyamorous one. It’s been remarkably smooth. We’re very happy with our choice. And yet eventually we’ll probably divorce. Does this mean that polyamory failed us? Not at all.

Like many of our generation, Rob and I are children of divorce, and so when we got married a dozen years ago, we designed a quasi-Buddhist ceremony that made room for the concept of anicca, or impermanence. We wrote our own vows and left out the “until death do we part” and “forsaking all others” stuff: Instead, we spoke about the inevitability of change and pledged to support one another as we continued to evolve.

We meant it, but we had no idea what that might look like. We didn’t anticipate that our evolution could involve the desire for sex and relationships with other people.

But that’s what happened. In our previous relationships and with one another, we’d both been serial monogamists, but after we finished having babies, we looked around and realized that although many things about our marriage were stellar—close friendship, mutual support and admiration, compatible co-parenting—we weren’t ideal for one another sexually. We never really had been. Our libidos don’t match; I’m more “sex motivated” of the two of us. Our relationship had thrived despite a lack of romantic chemistry.

This is not an unusual revelation, of course, and in most marriages, it results in screaming matches, or swallowed resentment, or affairs conducted amidst lies and betrayals. But Rob and I didn’t see our “problem” that way—we didn’t even really see it as a problem. We saw it as a reality, and an opportunity for positive change. We became poly.

I look at it like this: Humans go through multiple phases over the course of a lifetime. It makes sense that our relationship needs shift, too. I wanted kinship, drama, and obsession with someone eccentric in my twenties; equality, worldliness, and stability with someone calm in my thirties; intimacy, attention, and adventure with someone exotic in my forties. Each phase has required partners with different personalities, interests, and energies. As I see it, it’s unfair to expect one person to evolve over many decades on a precisely parallel path to my own. Which is why I also believe that we should stop thinking about the end of a marriage as a crisis and start thinking about it as a reality.

Maybe longevity isn’t the best indicator of a relationship’s success. Why not measure marriages by the level of satisfaction reported, or the self-actualization achievable, or how much the people respect one another even after it’s over, rather than as an endurance test? In Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender and the Edge of Normal,the cultural critic Jack Halberstam calls our culture’s infatuation with long-term monogamy “the romance of permanence.” In a 2012 interview, Halberstam suggested that rather than have weddings to celebrate the beginning of a union, we instead throw parties to honor milestones like getting through a difficult job loss or health crisis together, or to reward surviving the sleepless years of early parenting, or to cheer an amicable and fruitful separation.

HAVING SPENT THE LAST FEW YEARS LIVING POLY WILL ACTUALLY MAKE DISSOLVING THE HUSBAND-AND-WIFE PHASE OF OUR RELATIONSHIP A LOT GENTLER THAN IF WE HADN’T TAKEN THAT LEFT TURN AT SEXYTOWN.

Poly people tend to view divorce in a less binary way than mainstream culture does. Dr. Elisabeth Sheff, a sociologist who studies polyamory, has written about how, in contrast to a dominant worldview in which a “successful” relationship is one which is “the two people involved remain together at all costs,” polyamorists have a broader and more flexible take on the demise of relationships. “Poly people,” she writes, “ultimately define their relationships as both voluntary and utilitarian, in that they are designed to meet participants’ needs.” We understand that the relationship might have to change when needs change. One of the people Sheff interviewed called this “moving apart without blame.” Maybe Gwyneth Paltrow, with her “conscious uncoupling,” was onto something after all.

In this regard, monogamous couples could stand to learn a thing or two from those of us forging an alternative path. For Rob and me, our guess is that having spent the last few years living poly will actually make dissolving the husband-and-wife phase of our relationship a lot gentler than if we hadn’t taken that left turn at Sexytown.

For the last few years, most days at my house look like this: my partner Mike, who lives with us, helps me with dinner while Rob tends to the kids. We all eat together, and then Mike and I put the kids to bed while Rob texts a woman he’s met on OKCupid. Once the kids are down, the three of us sit on the couch for a movie and a cup of tea. Sometimes Rob stays home with the kids while Mike and I go out dancing. Sometimes Mike and I stay home while Rob travels for work or goes on a date. Sometimes Rob and I go out to a play while Mike stays home. Sometimes Mike and I take the kids camping and Rob spends the weekend combing bookstores. Sometimes Mike and Rob watch football together while I volunteer. Sometimes we all take a family vacation together.

IT HELPS THAT BOTH THESE MEN ARE TIDY CANCERS WHO SHARE A LOVE FOR PROGRESSIVE POLITICS AND SPORTS BLOGS; THEY ARE ALSO GUYS WHO HAVE ALWAYS ENJOYED LIVING WITH MALE FRIENDS.

Our arrangement wouldn’t work for everyone. It helps that, when Rob and I first became poly, our kids were very young, young enough so that this has pretty much always been their normal. It also helps that Mike didn’t have kids of his own, but is great with ours: my kids say they have two dads. And it helps that both these men are tidy Cancers who share a love for progressive politics and sports blogs; they are also guys who have always enjoyed living with male friends. And they’re wonderful, generous, thoughtful people who like each other, who love me, and who value the extra help and freedom that comes with having a third adult around: there’s a symbiosis they have together. We might argue about stuff like what to feed the kids for lunch or who threw out the last of the conditioner, but I honestly can’t remember a fight that stemmed purely from the fact of our poly arrangement.

Rob’s turning 50 soon, and he recently said that he’s thinking about the possibility of considering a shift within the next few years. We’ve been together for nearly two decades, and I know that his shifting need is not a reflection on me or an indication that I’ve fallen down on the job as his wife, any more than my relationship with Mike is an indication that Rob is somehow deficient as a husband. So we’re having an ongoing conversation about whether this might mean that he’d move out, and if such a move is an economically wise for us, and where the best place to move might be, and if separate households might necessitate a legal proceeding like divorce. Nothing feels dire, and no one feels hurt or rejected.

Practicing polyamory has helped us refrain from seeing this as a failure: failure to be everything to one another, failure to be people we’re not. Like many of the folks Dr. Sheff has reported on in her studies, we’re able to see a shift in the parameters of our relationship as an inevitable change rather than a reason for guilt or anger or blame. We love each other and we want each other to be happy, and part of being happy means getting our needs met. We want to support—not stand in the way of—one another getting our needs met, even if those needs involve reconfiguring our partnership. We know we can still be close and loving, no matter our relationship status.

Curated by Erbe
Original Article

How Your Relationship Life Evolves from the Very First One

by zfortadminin RELATIONSHIPS

Your first relationship has a huge effect on the relationship that come afterward.

Having your first relationship is such a steep learning curve — you’re learning how to be a good partner, you may be having sex for the first time, you’re dealing with your first relationships fights, and, inevitably, your first breakup. But even after the breakup, it’s not over. Your first relationship has a huge effect on the relationship that come afterward. Exactly how much varies from relationship to relationship — and how long you have between them.

If you’re like me and tend to wait a long time between relationships, then there’s a better chance that — while you’ll still have some old habits and hangups — baggage may be less present and inform your relationship less. My first boyfriend liked Dungeons and Dragons way more than he liked me, and I’m totally over it. (Totally. Tote. A. Ly.)

It also depends how good or bad your first relationship was. If you had a horrible or traumatic relationship, those cuts may feel even deeper and fresher as you go into your next one, so your first relationship is going to carry over with you more. If your first relationship was more a case of just trying to be a grownup, no training wheels, and it sort of fizzled out, it probably own’t have the same hold on you. But it’s always there, to some degree or another.

Here’s how your first relationship shapes all the ones after:

1. It Can Help Form Your “Type”

Whether your first love is a brunette bombshell, a red head, short or tall— it sticks with you. Even if you don’t mean to do it, or actively seek it out, there’s a good chance that you’ll start to seek out similar types. Maybe that type is nerdy brunettes… maybe, possibly.

2. Or Who You Avoid

… or, if it was a seriously bad relationship, there’s a chance that you’ll end up hating brunettes or blondes and avoiding them for no good reason. Relationships can leave a bad taste in your mouth, bad enough to avoid anything that looks remotely similar.

3. Your Learn Good And Bad Habits

The first time you’re in a relationship is really formative — you learn how relationships work. Or at least you think you do. The good and the bad habits you form during your first relationship are hard to shake. If you learn how to listen and be supportive, that’s great, but if every tiny disagreement turns into a massive fight, so you just stop communicating, then you learn that habit too, and it can be really damaging for future relationships. You have to be sure to take the positive into your future relationships, but be willing to let go of bad habits.

Pages: 1 2

Self Love …You Can Achieve it More Rapidly Than You Think

by zfortadminin LOVE

In a world where self-hatred is a multibillion-dollar industry, loving yourself is a revolutionary act.

Choosing to disconnect from the messaging that tells us we can never be too thin, white, or wealthy can completely change our lives.

Best of all, by making the decision to live as your fully embodied, entirely realized, unapologetic self, you embolden others to do the same. You let other people know that it’s safe for them to be who they really are. You don’t even know how massive a change this can be. By living as your whole self, you can literally tear the fabric of reality and create a new paradigm for yourself and the people around you.

 

“Stop acting so small. You are the universe in ecstatic motion.” —Rumi

 

How do we move this theory out of the intellectual and into the practical? It’s easier than we think. You don’t need to move to Bali and meditate on the meaning of life every day! You can learn to love yourself in the suburbs in Australia, on the gritty streets of New York City, or on a farm in Belgium. Here are a few suggestions to get you started:

1. Stop running away from your feelings.

Many of us use sugar, alcohol, drugs, television, or compulsive shopping to suppress any unpleasant emotions that we experience. It works for a little while — there’s no denying that the high from sipping hot chocolate or purchasing a new pair of kicks can be thrilling.

But eventually, this temporary ecstasy fades, and we’re left alone with our feelings again. After all, whatever we resist persists. Those uncomfortable feelings will keep cropping up until we finally take a deep breath and deal with ’em.

Next time you start to experience the tingling of an unpleasant feeling, pause before indulging in your vice of choice (whether it’s eating a piece of candy, browsing through a gossip magazine, or shopping online).

It only takes a second to disrupt those old habits that don’t serve us. Instead, allow your feelings to wash over you. Rather than denying and repressing how you feel, say “yes” in your mind. Surrender to the emotion. This simple act can be massively powerful: when you no longer hide from your feelings and instead greet them at the door, they are much less frightening.

Now play detective with your feelings. Use your intuition and memory to dig out the root cause of your discomfort. Here’s a hint: most discomfort or pain is a result of fear. What are you really afraid of? Once you know the answer to that, you can look at the situations in your past that echoed this experience.

For example, perhaps you feel jealous when your lover talks to other women. What is the root of your jealousy? It might be a fear that you’re not good enough or that your lover is going to reject you. If this is your fear, it’s likely that you’ve experienced rejection or the feeling of not being good enough in your past.

Knowledge is power. Once you know the root of your feelings, you can deal with them. I love tapping for dismantling old, limiting beliefs and taking the sting out of a story. You could also try journaling, talk therapy, hypnosis, or simply having a frank conversation with your partner about why you feel the way you do.

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Foreplay With Your Feet, Here’s How

by zfortadminin Sex

Kisses on the neck, a shoulder rubdown, a nibble on the nips—it’s all great foreplay, but hardly unpredictable.

Want to mix things up? Get your feet in the game. Your toes and soles are jam-packed with nerve-endings, making your tootsies one of the most sensitive parts of your body. Not a foot person? These six tricks might just win you over.

1. Tie ‘Em Up

If you haven’t tried bondage, make this your first foray. Using a scarf or necktie, loosely tie your partner’s feet to the bedposts or legs of a chair, says Jessica O’Reilly, Ph.D., Astroglide’s resident sex and relationships expert. He’ll feel vulnerable and get to zone in on whatever naughty, pleasurable thing you do to him next. Just make sure to switch turns.

2. Give a Rub Down

“There’s something sexy about playing the role of submissive and serving your lover, as long as it goes both ways,” says O’Reilly. Try washing your partner’s feet, then place a pillow on your lap and give him a massage. Use your fingers to squeeze and knead all over, or hold the ankle steady with one hand while rotating the foot clockwise and counterclockwise with the other.

3. Play Footsie

It may sound elementary, but rubbing your toes along your partner’s calves, feet, or inner thighs under the table is the perfect primer for sexy shenanigans, says O’Reilly. Slip your shoes off and don’t make eye contact at first—then, once you’ve built up enough anticipation, send over that mischievous ‘let’s get out of here’ glance.

4. Get Warm

Cold feet could literally be cock-blocking your pleasure: “Research suggests women are more likely to orgasm when their feet are warm, so have him rub them down with oil before you get frisky,” says O’Reilly. Giving the thermostat a boost before getting it on could help, too—and no judgment if your juices flow better with socks on.

5. Slip on Heels

Some dudes will notice a pedicure—most won’t. What they do see? Sexy, strappy heels and thigh-high stockings. Strut your stuff before having him unbuckle your shoes or roll down your tights in slo-mo.

6. Hit the Hot Spots

Glide your toes gently over your partner’s sensitive zones (think: hips,penis, small of the back, or breasts if he’s doing it to you.) “No technique is universally loved or loathed, but a number of my clients rave about partners who gently brush their feet up against the penis—it’s simultaneously pleasurable, taboo, and threatening,” says O’Reilly.

Curated by Erbe
Original Article

In and Out of the Same Relationship? Here Are the Most Important Take Aways!

by zfortadminin DATING ADVICE, RELATIONSHIPS

According to research, the majority of people have been in an on-again/off-again relationship at some point in their life.

The 2009 study published in Personal Relationships found that 60 percent of people have, at least at some point in their life, been with someone, broke up with them, then ended up with them again — and maybe again and again and again. It’s a pattern that can be difficult to wiggle out of once it becomes a habit, even if it’s quite clear that you’re completely wrong for each other.

The problem with these relationships is that they’re not just potentially unhealthy, but they can be toxic as hell. Although things may seem fine when you’re back together, all that constant breaking up and the roller coaster of it all, takes a toll, emotionally, psychologically, and even physically. There’s also the fact that, at least according to research, these types of relationships eventually end up coming to an end and not on a very pretty note either.

But while that’s the case, not all is lost. There are some things you can learn from on-again/off-again relationships, even if you don’t realize it until after the fact. Here are nine lessons these relationships have to teach us.

1. People Rarely Change

While it might not be something you want to hear, human beings are, in general, creatures of habit. It’s not that we don’t want to change or better ourselves by cleaning up some of our messy behavior, but we’re just not that great at it. It’s not a personality flaw, as much as it’s human being flaw.

2. You Don’t Know How To Feel Secure

When you’re in a relationship that is on-again/off-again, it’s hard to feel confident with not just what you have with your partner, but in how you feel about yourself. There’s a lot of second-guessing going on and it stems from the fact that your romantic relationship always feels like it’s hanging in balance and you could lose it at any given moment.

3. You Realize It’s Hard To Move On

If every time you break up with your partner, you end up with them weeks or months later, how are you supposed to move on to either someone new or give yourself time to heal? You can’t. You become to addicted to the pattern and too dependent on that person, assuming that the cycle will go on forever.

4. The Drama Isn’t It Worth

So. Not. Worth. It. Think about it: Do you really want to spend the rest of your life going through a breakup with the same person every few months for the rest of your life? You’ll look like you’re 80 when you’re only 40, because of the stress it takes on your life.

5. Old Problems Eventually Come Up

When you’re in an on-again/off-again relationship, you realize that not only do people never (or at least rarely) change, but since that’s the case, the problems that plague your relationship are likely to come up every single time you get back together. Why? Because you two haven’t changed enough to prevent them from popping up again.

6. It Really Confuses The Senses

You’re together. You’re apart. You’re crying because you’ve broken up and are sure you’ll never love again. Then you’re back together. And you’re happy. And you’re skipping through the streets. Then you break up again and you’re crying on the floor. But wait — did they just text? OK; so maybe you’ll be skipping in the streets by tomorrow again. Do you feel confused? Well, you should.

7. There’s Probably A Very Good Reason You Keep Breaking Up

The reasons why people break up runs the gamut. Sometimes love dies, sometimes you realize you’re growing in opposite directions, or maybe one of you cheated, or one of you wants to join the Peace Corps. No matter the reason for the split, you broke up for a reason, so there’s really no point and going through it all again.

8. The Makeup Sex Isn’t Worth It In The Long Run

Yes, makeup sex is great! But there’s only so many times you can break up, have makeup sex, only to break up again, for more makeup sex. It sounds good in theory, but more than anything, it’s exhausting.

9. You Don’t Have Time For This Bullsh*t

You really don’t! If someone can be with you, then be without you, then be with you again… and so on and on, that’s not what you need or deserve. You want someone who can commit and is in it to win it; not someone who thinks you’re their personal yo-yo.

Curated by Erbe
Original Article