On Masculinity and Evolutionary Biology

A while back I talked about masculinity and some of the issues I have with the term. This is because there's a specific societal stigma that is attached to the word, and I don't like a lot of the connotations it has. However, there are many things that are inarguably masculine, as they come from testosterone. I've been reading this book this week, and it focuses largely on the evolutionary reasons for attraction and sex. Evolutionary biology is one of the most interesting things in the world to me, as it helps explain why we do some of the things we do in concrete, rational terms. Some things this book talks about when it comes to attraction I knew from the anthropology class I took, but some were new to me. I thought I'd share some of them with you.

Pictured: what Wikipedia calls sharing, and I call deplorable stealing.

We all know that smell can play an important role in attraction, but you might be surprised to learn how much. A team of Brazilian researchers had men wear patches of cotton on their skin to absorb the sweat. Later they had women smell these patches without seeing the men to whom they belonged. Without exception, women liked the smell of the men with the most dissimilar genes to herself. The draw of dissimilar genes is twofold. Extremely similar genes (think inbreeding) can lead to birth defects and many other problems. On the other end, however, a child that comes from complementary genes will have a better immune system, and will help a child ward off infections.

In evolutionary biology, there are traits that are labeled either "honest" or "dishonest". An honest trait is one that a mate finds attractive and is a genuine representation of good genes and/or health. A dishonest trait is one that a mate finds attractive, but doesn't necessarily connote good health or genes. In mammals, symmetry is seen to be an honest trait. Humans like the look of symmetrical bodies much more than those with less symmetry. This is an honest trait because a person needs to be in good health in their formative years to end up being symmetrical, as well as having low levels of gene mutation. Are you ready for this? Women can smell symmetry, too. A series of studies had men wear a T-shirt for two nights in a row, then had women smell them - again, without seeing the men - later. They found the symmetrical men's scents to be the most desirable, and the asymmetrical men's to be repulsive.

I must be defective or something, though, because I still think this lady is hot.

This preference for symmetry is is also evident through women's preferences for deep voices. Women have a tendency to prefer deep voices over higher-pitched ones, and this is because body symmetry is more likely to produce deep voices.

Sort of a no-brainer (for most women - more on that in a minute) on this list is a masculine face. So what is it that creates a masculine face? This shouldn't be a big surprise, but it's the same thing that creates muscles mass: testosterone. Then why don't all men have masculine faces and washboard abs? Because during puberty, only healthy bodies can afford to create enough testosterone to create these features. So masculine facial features are another honest trait.

Pictured: the masculine face from which all other masculine faces were wrought.

In all of these cases, this preference is most predominant when a woman is ovulating. This is because when a woman is most likely to become pregnant, she is most attracted to men with good genes. During the rest of her cycle, she is more likely to exhibit a preference for men who will be good caretakers, and will stick around. These are rarely the same men. However, a British study from 2009 concluded that generations of women on the pill has made that interest decline. Because the pill keeps a woman from having days in which she is fertile, it eliminates the days she is most attracted to extremely masculine men. This study has certainly been contested, but it's food for thought, nonetheless.

Neat stuff, huh? I've got a lot of this book to go, so stay tuned for more fun facts.

Up next, though, why guys fuck their girlfriends harder when they haven't seen them in a while! (Seriously.)

Images via helicon7.com, artofmanliness.com

Oral Sex: A Modest Guide

I've thought about giving how-tos on here for a while now, but I've demurred time and time again. For some reason, I've always felt that it's presumptuous and possibly even conceited to write one. However, having never felt that way about reading how-tos on anything in the past, I've decided to get over this worry, and give a couple pointers on oral sex.

I will state this many more times, but the thing to stress above all else is that everyone is different, and there is nothing that is guaranteed to work with any one person. Above all, communication is key. Wanting feedback means you're a good, concerned lover, not a bad one. Oral sex, like every other aspect of sex, is something that you do not to someone, but with someone. Now, onto the good stuff. Ladies first.

A common worry that women have about getting head is that they won't smell or taste good. An easy way to combat that is to go down on her in the shower, or directly after a shower. However, in most cases, if a woman has decent hygiene, she has no reason to worry. But if she's worried, she's not going to be letting herself have as good of a time as she might otherwise. This is why it can be a really nice idea to let her know if you like the way she smells or tastes. Obviously if you don't actually like it, you don't need to lie about it. But a very large number of gals and guys do like the way most women smell and taste, and letting the woman know that you're enjoying yourself can help her relax and enjoy herself. This can extend itself to making it clear in other ways that you're having fun. You don't need to turn into a porn star overnight, but making a couple noises if you feel like it can be a welcome addition. Also, before or after you actually do it, just outright telling her that you enjoy it can help make her feel a lot more comfortable about it. Again, no reason to lie, but it's nice to hear if it's true.

Besides, why wouldn't you enjoy it? She'll look like this afterwards. Guaranteed.

Women, on the whole, are a lot slower to warm up when it comes to sex, and are a lot more patient about that process. Guys, you don't need to dive right in and go for the clit. In fact, you don't even need to dive in and go for the vagina. Hang out with other places, and slowly start narrowing your focus. You want her to be pretty damn excited about it before you even touch her vagina, much less her clitoris. For some women I know, you pretty much can't tease them for too long. This certainly isn't the case for everyone, but guys, err on the side of too much buildup. Probably way, way too much.

Another difference between men and women for sexual pleasure is that usually when a man gets really excited, or something feels great, or he's getting close, it means it'll be even better if you do it harder and faster. This is rarely the case for women. Most often, when a woman starts ramping up for an orgasm, you shouldn't ramp up physically to try to accomodate. You're already doing something that feels great to her; you don't need to change a thing. Similarly, you don't need to change techniques too often, as sometimes it can break the flow. Maybe it's just me, but whenever I'm doing pretty much anything with a girl, I sometimes feel like I'm being boring unless I change things up pretty regularly. Then I remember all of the times I've been in the opposite situation, and very rarely get bored with what the girl is doing. It took me a long time to realize that I can do one thing for a fairly long time if she's enjoying it, and I won't be boring for it. Maybe I get antsy more quickly than most people, though. If you feel like you already spend ten minutes at a time without switching anything up, don't take this advice as me telling you that you should try keeping it up for twenty (unless she asks you to).

The clitoris is analogous to the head of the penis. It has the scientific name of glans, just like the head. However, the clitoris has many, many more nerve endings (around 8,000, twice that of the male glans), and it's much, much smaller. With this in mind, do not treat the clitoris like you would the head of a penis. This more than most things depends on the woman. Some women are sensitive enough that they don't even like their clitoris to be touched directly until they are very aroused, if at all. Others you can be a little rougher with, but don't go crazy. If it's not too intense for the girl, you can try lifting back the clitoral hood* and licking the glans directly. This is something you may want to ask about before doing, or at the very least be very attentive to her response. It can be too intense for a lot of girls, or be just the thing to send another into an orgasm.

If you start to run out of ideas, get tired, or just want to keep things interesting, feel free to use your hands, too. Some women really appreciate the switchoff, or sometimes the combination. Trying to use your hands at the same time can be a little difficult, but it's worth experimenting with. Some girls just like having the fullness of having something in their vagina at the same time, while others like the sensation of both areas being pleased at the same time. It's not essential for most women, but it can be fun to try out. Also much easier logistically is bringing in a toy. Either you or the girl can manage the toy while you're doing your own thing with your mouth.

Women more than men tend to not focus as intently on the orgasm. This is something men could take a note from. You don't need to spend every second worrying about how you're going to get her to come. Everything you're doing down there feels good, and that can be enough. To that end, you don't need to worry about keeping up a certain momentum, or taking breaks, especially early on. Before my door gets beaten down, however, I'm not saying you shouldn't make a valiant attempt to give your lady friend an orgasm, or that all women are just fine with being aroused and stimulated without a climax. But as a general trend, it seems to be less of an absolute requirement.

Now it's time to talk about going down on guys. It's often said that going down on guys isn't too hard, because pretty much anything you do feels good. This is true, with a few exceptions. Things like Cosmo try to tell women that men like just a little bit of teeth in their blowjobs. This is because Cosmo hates men, and everything they stand for**. Admittedly, I can't always tell exactly what's going on once a girl has her lips wrapped around me, but I'm pretty sure teeth aren't a part of it. If there's a girl out there who wants to prove me wrong, I'm open to it. At the very least, start out lightly, and make sure you get some feedback from your partner.

One thing that really helps, especially if you're new to the practice, is to use your hands. This is, in my opinion, more crucial to do with men than it is to do with women. Jerking him off for a minute can give lips (or jaw, or neck...) a break, or you can do both at the same time - a surefire winner in my book. Keeping a hand at the base can also keep you from going down too far if your guy likes to push your head down or thrust into you. For anyone who's new to the practice, I would definitely recommend using your hands. If you feel like you're pretty accomplished and you don't use them, I'll trust you, but I have a hard time imagining a great blowjob without them.

If you use your hands, he'll look like this afterwards. Guaranteed.

I would now like to make a case for the balls. I realize they're silly looking, and it's hard to know what to do with them. Honestly, you don't have to do much. Just cup them occasionally, or move them around in your hands. Not every guy likes this, but I think most do, and it can add an extra dimension to the experience. Rubbing the perineum*** can also be quite nice. In fact, while we're getting physically closer to the topic, a lot of guys like a finger up their ass while they're getting a blowjob. This is something you'll definitely want to do with someone with whom you're pretty comfortable, and will want to ask first. This is also something you may not be comfortable doing at all, which is also just fine.

I'd like to offer a few words of encouragement for both genders. I realize I'm mentioning a whole lot of things here, but don't stress out. Remember that most everything you'll be doing down there feels good, so it's pretty tough to screw up completely. Sex should be fun for everyone involved, so relax and let yourself enjoy making someone you care about (or is hot, or happened to ask if you wanted to run into the bathroom with them) feel good. Also, hopefully the person you're doing this with likes you, and isn't going to be judging you on it. They'll be appreciative and supportive, and not overly-critical. Especially for women going down on men, there is definitely a power dynamic in play that, if you're not close with the person, can be uncomfortable. But if you ease into it, remember that you're making your partner feel great, and remember how hot you look while you do it****, you should hopefully be able to get over it. Remember that oral sex isn't supposed to be a chore or a task, or really even a favor. It should be a more like a present. A sexy present.

See what good oral sex leads to? No, not polos and golf. Focus on the happiness.

On that note, I'd like to talk to the receivers of oral sex, too. If you're getting head, you should be, well, appreciative, supportive and not overly-critical. Someone is doing a fairly selfless act for you, and it's the least you can do to thank them, and ideally reciprocate. During, though, giving feedback is even more important than for intercourse. At least the other person can do what feels good to them during intercourse. Oral is all about the receiver, so make sure they know what you like. This doesn't have to be with words. A few noises or even heavier breathing when they do something you like can do the trick. And guys, don't push your partner's head down onto you unless you've asked if you can. Girls, push your partner's head down onto you as much as you want. Well, at least if your partner is me.

*Not sure what that is? You can check out this extremely NSFW diagram here.

**Actually, Cosmo seems to hate women a lot more. This is probably the subject for another post (or probably another blog), but safe to say I don't think any woman who has a basic level of self-respect should be caught dead reading that magazine.

***While I try not to keep this blog too clinical sounding, I've never found an even remotely sexy word for the perineum. If someone finds one that isn't "taint", "chode", or the particularly egregious "grundle" that they'd like to introduce me to, I'm all ears.

****This is not a guess that you look hot while you do it, this is fact. Maybe not to other people if they were watching, but if you are going down on someone, you will look hot to that person. Luckily, all my readers are hot anyway, so they don't have anything to worry about.

Images via friedmanarchives.com, sheknows.com, mbn.com

On Casual Sex, and Zach's Casual Sex Habits

I recently read an article about how casual sex is bad for relationships and individuals alike, and that it's on the rise. Shortly thereafter, I read another piece about how it's not really on the rise, nor is it particularly bad for people. So which is it? Well, I'll let you decide.

Hillary, a regular reader, weighs her options.

Nah, not really. I'll tell you. It's the second one.

How do I know? Well, not to resort to ad hominem attacks, but one is a site that claims to have "all you need to know about everything that matters", and has such breaking front page articles as "Most Compulsive Twitterers of 2009". The other is scientific research that has recently been published. The latter also isn't redolent of a "those crazy kids" rant that I see pretty regularly making the rounds, exclaiming that everyone is doing more drugs, having more sex, cussing more, and probably eating more babies than any generation previous. As it turns out in nearly every case, no one generation ends up being that different from the last.

I also know from personal experience. That's right kids. I know this may surprise you, but I have had sex with someone with whom I wasn't romantically involved. But actually, in full disclosure, it did mess with me for a little while. In fact, I had some sort of weird hangups about sex for a pretty long time. Get comfy, kids: it's story time.

It's now time for the other type of fireside chat.

When I was in the eighth grade, I dated a girl for 9 months. (9 months and one day, actually, as it seemed cruel to dump her on our monthiversary. Seriously.) Towards the end of this 9 months and the many months after that we continued to hook up, I routinely received oral sex from her, but we hadn't gone any further*. We had talked about having sex , decided we were both okay with it in theory. She went and got condoms, and ater a lot of debating, I eventually decided that I was ready, and that I was going to have sex with her. We were broken up at the time, as I broke up with her for being completely emotionally dependent on me, and I could no longer handle the pressure. Why I decided that sex would not compound this problem, I'm not sure. Emotionally, I still think I could have handled it, but she certainly couldn't have, at least not given our situation. Shortly after this decision, she and I got a little alone time at her mom's place, but after much ramping up and me being nervous as hell, her mom came home before we did, and it never happened. Shortly thereafter, we stopped talking altogether for a while, and so we never had sex.

Though I got into other situations in which I could have had sex after that, for whatever reason I had always known that my first time had to be meaningful. I don't know when I decided this, or what my reasoning was, but it was always there, crystal clear in my head. My best friend at the time had the exact same view as me: the first time has to be with a girl that you really care about, but after that you can have as much sex as you want, with whomever you want. Presumably within reason, but neither of us had even gotten that first step.

Throughout high school, I dated a few girls, but never came particularly close to sleeping with any of them. The only girls I would have even really had a shot sleeping with were girls that I didn't have any great interest in long-term, which, at the time, meant I didn't have any interest in fucking them, either. Eventually, I did end up staying with a girl for long enough, and caring about her enough, to have sex with her. If you haven't already heard that story, I told it here. Around a year after that, I was head over heels for another girlfriend, and had sex with her, too. It wasn't until a few months after she and I broke up that I had sex** with a girl with whom I wasn't attached, nor particularly interested in. She was a friend of a friend, and she was very straightforwardly a booty call (as I was for her). The night it happened, I told her up front that I wasn't going to have sex with her. She asked why not, and I think I did a pretty half-assed job of explaining it, but gave her the basic idea: I'm not in love with you, and I've never slept with someone I'm not in love with. However, hormones, self-destructive tendencies and wheedling got the better of me, and eventually we had sex. The next day, I felt terrible. My aforementioned best friend was unavailable for a few days, and all my other friends with whom I'd have liked to talk about it knew her, and I wasn't sure if I wanted to tell anyone about it yet. So I basically spent a couple days stressing over this, and not knowing what to do. The weirdest part is that at no point could I explain why I felt bad. I remember thinking, okay, I guess now I'm the type of guy who just fucks girls he doesn't care about. Firstly, given my history, I was obviously not this type of guy. Secondly, I knew guys like this, and I didn't think they were doing anything wrong. So what was it?

After a few days, I eventually just chalked it up to Stupid Shit I Learned At Catholic School. As much as I balked at all of the stupid abstinence-only bullshit they crammed down our throats, I managed to retain just a little bit of the moralistic view of casual sex. It took some fairly serious searching to realize that I wasn't doing anything that I disagreed with for anyone else, and, when I really thought about, I didn't disagree with for myself either. Since then, I've had sexual encounters of the casual and the committed kind, and I've felt fine about all of them.

Throughout his issues, Tiger still finds time to be excited about my breakthrough.

The point I'm trying to make is not that you need to go out and have sex with strangers. My point is that you shouldn't let anyone tell you not to. The cultural stigma (especially for women) is strong, but you shouldn't let it stop you. If it sounds like fun, you're up front about your intentions with the other party(ies), and you're safe, then go for it. It looks like it's not going to hurt you if you're in it for the right reasons***. Science says so.

*This was the case with girls for a long while after that. I managed to go 5 years from the first time I received oral sex to the first time I gave it. This was not my desire, as in nearly every case I offered to reciprocate and was turned down. Women are weird.

**I am referring to penis-in-vagina sex, as I have not counted oral sex, mutual masturbation, or many other things which to many people constitute sex. My fixation on PIV sex in particular is another odd part of my adolescent views on sex, though less odd than some things. I plan on talking about what exactly constitutes sex very soon.

***This could be a number of things, eg. I felt like it, He was hot, I wanted to try out this new toy, I found out we were both into elbow play****, etc. It is expressly not things like I wanted to get back at my friend, I wanted to give him an STD, etc.

****It's not a real thing, don't worry. I only know about a FEW sexy activities that you don't.

Images via donkeydish.net, softpicks.net, and static.squidoo.com

Chagrin

As Google finally came out with its browser for mac this week, I was going through all of my bookmarks to see what I actually wanted to keep on my shiny new browser. I was ecstatic to find a site I hadn't been to in a long time called Chagrin. Chagrin is nothing more than a collection of sexy photos that's constantly being added to, but whoever checks submissions to this site is a genius. I lose hours to this site. Hours. See for yourself. (NSFW)

Actors Are Heroes Too

As it turns out, occasionally actors are as cool as the people they play on screen. Take, for example, Mariska Hartigay from Law and Order: SVU. Not only does she try and put rapists behind bars on TV, she does it in real life, too. Pretty neat.

Porn: It's AOK!

It turns out all guys watch porn, even those in relationships. But it's okay, because they're all feminists, and they all hate the violent porn that's, you know, really popular and sells really well. Sound confusing? Maybe that's because this Montreal researcher decided to publish his findings after talking to twenty people. Twenty Canadian people.

The Menstrual Cycle

It is my firm belief that men need to get over their hangups about periods. They're not weird. Over half the world gets them pretty frequently at some point in their life, in fact. So why do guys have to get grossed out every time it comes up? For that matter, why do guys think that the period means there's a week you can't have sex? All it means is there's a week that your girl can't get pregnant! Hardly something to complain about. I recognize I'm a bit of an anomaly as far as these things are concerned (In middle school I carried Midol in my backpack because my female friends would complain about cramps to me), but I think guys really need to step it up. In the interest of making this a more friendly concept, I give you the menstrual cycle, brought to you by I Heart Guts.