Brain injuries caused by strokes, tumors or head trauma can, on occasion, result in Unusual Changes in Sexuality, as discussed in an earlier blog post. A new case report by Bianchi-Demicheli et al. (2010) describes a unique paraphilia in a married 34 year old man. The authors called it Sleeping Beauty paraphilia:

This [man] felt sexually aroused from seeing sleeping women as well as from taking care of their hands and nails while they were asleep.

The patient came to the attention of the authors when he was brought to the emergency psychiatric unit after assaulting his wife with pepper spray while wearing a latex mask.

{ The Neurocritic | Continue reading }

photo { Helmut Newton }

It seems you’re more likely to die from a heart attack when having sex while having an affair, than during sex with your regular partner, although this seems largely to apply to men.

A case report in the Journal of Forensic and Legal Medicine reports on the death of a woman who had a heart attack during extra-marital sex, something unusual in women. This is not conclusive evidence for the link between heart attacks and affairs in itself, of course, but the article reviews some suggestive evidence about sex, risk of death, physical and psychological stress.

{ MindHacks | Continue reading }

I think the same is true of sex thoughts. People often say they spend a lot of time thinking about sex, but when you beep them they very rarely report it. It’s probably that our sex thoughts, though rare, are much more frequently remembered than other thoughts and so are dramatically overrepresented in retrospective memory.

{ Experimental Philosophy | Continue reading }

photo { Helmut Newton }

{ The patterns of links between buyers and sellers of sex in an online forum differs in important ways from other internet related networks, says a new study. This may have important implications for the spread of sexually transmitted diseases | Patterns of Captured in Social Network | full story }

update/related { A top journalist caught on tape with a pile of cocaine and a party girl named Moomoo, an opposition activist filmed handing over a bribe… Who’s behind the spate of mysterious coke-and-hooker entrapment attacks on Russian opposition figures? The Daily Beast | full story }

I’m writing to you to settle a dispute between my husband and me. We have been married for six years. We’re not terribly adventurous, but we’re not totally vanilla, either. However, there is one issue that is driving me insane: My husband constantly pesters me to have anal sex. We have tried it in the past, and it is NOT my bag. I don’t enjoy it AT ALL. But my husband will not stop pestering me. He thinks if we just keep trying, eventually I’ll come around to liking it. I’m pretty GGG [good giving and game] , Dan, but this is one thing where I draw the line. He thinks I’m being unreasonable; I think he is. Do I need to give in, or does he need to get off my back? Needing Expert Advice!

{ Village Voice | Continue reading }

The doors open and three women step on: a blonde, a brunette and one whose hair has been bleached and blown dry so many times it’s not a discernible color. All of the women could stand to have a good 3 inches cut off their hair. They wear slight variations on the Little Black Slut Dress. They wear too much makeup, a pair of shoes that doesn’t quite match the dress, towering heels.

The man in the corner rolls his eyes and thinks to himself, “And I’m the hooker.”

That’s right: I’m 47 years old, I’m a good 30 pounds overweight, and I make my living by taking care of men who come to Las Vegas hoping for some skin time with other men — for a fee. And in case you’re ready to dismiss me as someone clinging onto the last shreds of his faded beauty, you should know that I was well into my 40s before I started hooking.

{ Salon | Continue reading }

photo { Stephen Shore, Clovis, New Mexico June, 1972 }

What distinguishes women with unusually high numbers of sex partners?

We recruited two groups of women who differed in their number of lifetime sex partners in order to investigate several hypotheses related to female sociosexuality. Specifically, we explored whether women who engage in casual sex have low mate value, are especially likely to have come from stressful family environments, or are masculine in other respects besides their interest in casual sex.

Women with many partners were not lower than other women on direct or indirect indicators of mate value. Nor were they more likely to recall adverse family environments during childhood.

On several measures related to masculinity, women with many sex partners were elevated compared with other women.

{ Evolution and Human Behavior }

illustration { Stuart Patterson }

{ Leda and the Swan, copy after a lost painting by Michelangelo, c. 1530 }

{ François Boucher, Leda and the Swan, 1741-1742 | Read more }

{ François Boucher, Leda and the Swan, c. 1740 }

{ Leda and the Swan, Scindia museum, Gwalior }

{ Leda and the Swan by Norman Parkinson, 1980s }

Leda and the Swan is a motif from Greek mythology, in which Zeus came to Leda in the form of a swan.

The subject undoubtedly owed its sixteenth-century popularity to the paradox that it was considered more acceptable to depict a woman in the act of copulation with a swan than with a man.

Leonardo da Vinci began making studies in 1504 for a painting, apparently never executed, of Leda seated on the ground with her children. In 1508 he painted a different composition of the subject, with a nude standing Leda cuddling the Swan, with the two sets of infant twins, and their huge broken egg-shells.

After something of a hiatus in the 18th and early 19th centuries (apart from a very sensuous Boucher), Leda and the Swan became again a popular motif in the later 19th and 20th centuries, with many Symbolist and Expressionist treatments.

Cy Twombly executed an abstract version of Leda and the Swan in 1962.

{ Wikipedia | Continue reading | Bonus: Doggie style by Fred Inaudi }

{ The Female Orgasm, by the Numbers | Koldcast.tv | via Fast Company | more }

related { A lover’s guide to older women. Stephen Vizinczey’s erotic classic is reprinted. }

My boyfriend and I have been together for nine months. We are gay. We live in a college town. We both found jobs here after we graduated, so we stayed.

Since his sophomore year, my boyfriend has had an “arrangement” with an older man, a professor at the university. Did I say older? I meant old. We are in our mid-20s; this man is in his late 60s. The old man comes to my boyfriend’s apartment once a week and cleans it. Does his laundry. Washes his dishes. He actually pays my boyfriend for the privilege. (…)

He’s particularly pervy about how he cleans my boyfriend’s bathroom. Dan, the old perv cleans my boyfriend’s toilet bowl with his own toothbrush, which he then uses to brush his teeth the rest of the week!

There is no sex. (Presumably, the old perv goes home and beats off after cleaning my boyfriend’s apartment.) None of this would matter if my boyfriend and I weren’t talking about moving in together. I want this “arrangement” to stop. I don’t feel comfortable using a toilet that a man old enough to be my grandfather cleaned with his toothbrush.

{ Village Voice | Continue reading }

{ Dolphin clit stimulator | Vibrator a doppio effetto }

related:

{ 1 | 2. Spam email. | Related: Most men ‘unhappy with penis ops’ }

unrelated:

{ 1 | 2 }

{ My New Pink Button | Thanks Chris! }

The patient was a 15-year-old girl employed in a local bar. She was admitted to hospital after a knife fight involving her, a former lover and a new boyfriend. Who stabbed whom was not quite clear but all three participants in the small war were admitted with knife injuries. (…)

Precisely 278 days later the patient was admitted again to hospital with acute, intermittent abdominal pain. Abdominal examination revealed a term pregnancy with a cephalic fetal presentation. The uterus was contracting regularly and the fetal heart was heard. Inspection of the vulva showed no vagina, only a shallow skin dimple was present below the external urethral meatus and between the labia minora. An emergency lower segment caesarean section was performed under spinal anaesthesia and a live male infant weighing 2800 g was born…

The patient was well aware of the fact that she had no vagina and she had started oral experiments after disappointing attempts at conventional intercourse. Just before she was stabbed in the abdomen she had practised fellatio with her new boyfriend and was caught in the act by her former lover. The fight with knives ensued. She had never had a period and there was no trace of lochia after the caesarean section. She had been worried about the increase in her abdominal size but could not believe she was pregnant

{ Discover | Continue reading | ABC }

artwork { The Designers Republic }

Swinging has taken on a key role among contemporary sexual customs, consequently constituting the subject matter of various contributions in the fields of psychology, sociology and other social sciences. However, in spite of the constant increase in the number of couples involved and in the economic relevance of this phenomenon, to the best of my knowledge no article on the topic has yet appeared in economics journals. The aim of this paper is to cast light on swinging, both empirically and theoretically.

On the empirical side, the paper describes what swinger is, discusses the economic relevance of the phenomenon and singles out the main characteristics of swingers’ behavior. To this end, the Italian situation has been considered as a type of case study. On the theoretical side, the paper proposes some preliminary assessments of the causes and consequences of swinger couples’ behavior. In this respect, some contributions on two-sided markets, hedonic adaptation approaches and equilibrium matching models have proved particularly useful.

{ Fabio D’Orlando, Swinger Economics, 2009 | via Perfect Substitute | with link to PDF }

polaroid { Dash Snow }

{ Mac McAndrews, Nevada Rose | more }

Bad Sex in Fiction Awards 2009

Let’s have sex, they think simultaneously, couples having strange mind-reading powers after months and months of trying to figure each other out. (…)

She holds him tight and squeezes her body to his, sending delightful sailing boats tacking to and fro across the ocean of his back. With her fingertips she sends foam-flecked waves scurrying over his skin. (…)

Their tongues met and he felt himself dissolve, like wax melting in the heat. She stepped back slightly and removed his clothes, one by one, and then led him to the thick fur rug in front of the fire. She moaned softly as he entered her.

{ Literary Review | Continue reading | BBC | Read more }

A 1956 memo to Playboy photographers listed Hefner’s criteria for the centerfolds. The model must be in a natural setting engaged in some activity “like reading, writing, mixing a drink.” She should have a “healthy, intelligent, American look—a young lady that looks like she might be a very efficient secretary or an undergrad at Vassar.” Many centerfolds feature the implied presence of a man: a flash of trouser leg in the corner, a pipe left on a table. These props transform the pinups into seduction scenarios. Their premise is simple: by identifying with the absent man, a viewer can enter the scene. 

{ n+1 | Continue reading }

related { Playboy outsourcing most magazine operations }

{ Market Street Cinema, strip club in San Francisco | Andy Wright/SF Weekly }