Sex on the Net IV

The Sex on the Net series continues with some educational, psychological and health issues related to sex. Sexual activity is a normal human exercise that often gets relegated to the darker side of our existence. It is spoken of in whispers and many get an incomplete or erroneous picture of the experience. What is taboo? Is this normal? Am I normal? Why is this happening to me? Where can I get help? are some of the questions that we all may have had at one point or another.

Case in point is this first story about women's breasts:

A World of Breasts

Seventy-five percent of women say they are unhappy with their breasts, according to a JANE survey. That might be because we don't often get to see what natural breasts look like, and are instead bombarded with false images of "perfection" that leave us feeling bad about ourselves.

Jane magazine found 23 women—of all shapes and sizes—to pose topless and show the world that we're all perfect. Some of the comments from the participants include:

Lucy, 24 - "They force me to have good posture and they make underwear look good."

Bonifacia, 21 - "They're small and cute, and they achieve magical cleavage."

Agent N., 27 - "When I'm on stage performing burlesque, audiences are entranced."

Joanna, 25 - "I don't have to wear a bra. I've even turned down a free boob job."

You can see these breasts and many more by clicking here. Breast truly do come in all shapes and sizes.

The Academy of Sex and Relationships

Visiting London, England anytime soon? If so try to visit Amora - The Academy of Sex and Relationships. This academy is dedicated to looking at love in a new light.

"We consciously differentiate ourselves from a museum: we are about sex today and tomorrow, not in the past," Amora's founder and chairman Johan Rizki told AFP. "The Amsterdam sex museum is sleazy; New York's is rather boring," added the Frenchman, New Yorker and Harvard Business School graduate.

Three years in the making, Amora uses visuals, interactive displays and sound to explore and explain relationships and sexual behaviour.

There are touch screens, hands-on exhibits -- including dildos, model vaginas, and fake breasts and testicles to show how to check for potentially dangerous lumps -- as well as video screens, hand-held audio guides, life-size models, computer animations and wall displays to educate and excite once inside.

Visitors discover seven zones blending knowledge with entertainment, covering aspects of sexual relationships including the chemistry of dating, erogenous zones, fantasies, techniques and sexual health.

"My idea was to create somewhere for talking about sex, but in a very fun, interesting, up-to-date way," said Rizki. "No-one before has ever brought love into a physical space where it is accessible to people. We have sex therapists where people can go and ask questions and there are workshops and academics host debates."

"We talk about love in an entertaining way," Rizki said. "There are no taboos. We don't take a stand, but we ask you, is it for you?" There are plans to open an Amora in Paris, Germany and the United States.

Secrets of the Sexes.

BBC Science, in collaboration with researchers in the United Kingdom and North America, designed their research project on psychological sex differences in conjunction with their TV documentary, Secrets of the Sexes. The project culminated in the creation of the BBC Internet Survey, which was posted on the BBC Science and Nature website. Here are some of the results from this study.

• Men rank good looks and facial attractiveness more important than women do

• Women rank honesty, humor, kindness, and dependability more important than men do.

• Participants who describe themselves as bisexual also to describe themselves as ambidextrous.

• For women, high sex drive is associated with increased sexual attraction to both women and men.

• For men high sex drive is associated with increased attraction to one sex or the other, but not both.

Sex Relieves Stress

Got some public speaking to do? Have sex beforehand. But make sure it's penetrative sex. Stuart Brody, a psychologist at the University of Paisley, UK, compared the impact of different sexual activities on blood pressure when a person later experiences acute stress. For a fortnight, 24 women and 22 men kept diaries of how often they engaged in penile-vaginal intercourse (PVI), masturbation or partnered sexual activity excluding intercourse. After, the volunteers underwent a stress test involving public speaking and mental arithmetic out loud.

Volunteers who'd had PVI but none of the other kinds of sex were least stressed, and their blood pressure returned to normal faster than those who'd only masturbated or had non-coital sex. Those who abstained had the highest blood-pressure response to stress.

"The effects are not attributable simply to the short-term relief afforded by orgasm, but rather, endure for at least a week," says Brody. He speculates that release of the "pair-bonding" hormone oxytocin between partners might account for the calming effect.

I guess the lesson here is there is nothing like sex to relieve stress.

Comments

[Wasim Mohammed]

I completely agree with you. There's no doubt that sex is the way to a stress free life.

More sex, less stress !