Research Reveals Stereotype Threat for Boys

We have long known that girls raised to believe that boys are better than girls at math and science will tend not to do as well as the boys in those subjects. Now it seems that boys are also subject to the same "priming" by stereotypes and it impacts their success. Likewise, assuring boys and young men that boys and girls are academically equal generates better outcomes for boys, who have fallen way behind girls in most academic fields.

The Situationist blog (managed by The Project on Law and Mind Sciences at Harvard Law School) shared the press release from Eureka Alert on this research that was published in the journal, Child Development. At the bottom there is a whole collection of other posts from The Situationist related to this topic.

Stereotype Threat for Boys

Posted by The Situationist Staff on February 16, 2013

From Eureka Alert:

Negative stereotypes about boys may hinder their achievement, while assuring them that girls and boys are equally academic may help them achieve. From a very young age, children think boys are academically inferior to girls, and they believe adults think so, too. Even at these very young ages, boys’ performance on an academic task is affected by messages that suggest that girls will do better than they will.

Those are the conclusions of new research published in the journal Child Development and conducted at the University of Kent. The research sought to determine the causes of boys’ underachievement at school.

“People’s performance suffers when they think others may see them through the lens of negative expectations for specific racial, class, and other social stereotypes—such as those related to gender—and so expect them to do poorly,” explains Bonny L. Hartley, a PhD student at the University of Kent, who led the study. “This effect, known as stereotype threat, grants stereotypes a self-fulfilling power.”

In three studies of primarily White schoolchildren in Britain, Hartley and her colleague investigated the role of gender stereotypes. They found that from a very young age, children think boys are academically inferior to girls, and they believe that adults think so, too.

The first study looked at children’s stereotypes about boys’ and girls’ conduct, ability, and motivation. Researchers gave 238 children ages 4 to 10 a series of scenarios that showed a child with either good behavior or performance (such as “This child really wants to learn and do well at school”) or poor behavior or performance (such as “This child doesn’t do very well at school”), then asked the children to indicate to whom the story referred by pointing to a picture, in silhouette, of a boy or a girl. From an early age—girls from 4 and boys from 7—children matched girls to positive stories and boys to negative ones. This suggests that the children thought girls behaved better, performed better, and understood their work more than boys, despite the fact that boys are members of a nonstigmatized, high-status gender group that is substantially advantaged in society. Follow-up questions showed that children thought adults shared these stereotypes.

Researchers then did two experiments to determine whether stereotype threat hindered boys’ academic performance. In one, involving 162 children ages 7 and 8, telling children that boys did worse than girls at school caused boys’ performance in a test of reading, writing, and math to decline (compared to a control group that got no such information). In the other experiment, involving 184 children ages 6 to 9, telling children that boys and girls were expected to do equally well caused boys’ performance on a scholastic aptitude test to improve (compared to a control group). Girls’ performance wasn’t affected.

“In many countries, boys lag behind girls at school,” according to Hartley. “These studies suggest that negative academic stereotypes about boys are acquired in children’s earliest years of primary education and have self-fulfilling consequences. They also suggest that it is possible to improve boys’ performance, and so close the gender gap, by conveying egalitarian messages and refraining from such practices as dividing classes by gender.”

Related Situationist posts: 

• Sian Beilock and Allen McConnell on Stereotype Threat
• The Gendered Situation of Math, Humanities, and Romance
• Not Just Whistling Vivaldi
• Women’s Situational Bind,”
• The Nerdy, Gendered Situation of Computer Science
• Social Psychologists Discuss Stereotype Threat
• The Gendered Situation of Chess
• The Situation of Gender-Science Stereotypes
• The Situation of Gender and Science
• Stereotype Threat and Performance
• The Gendered Situation of Science & Math
• Gender-Imbalanced Situation of Math, Science, and Engineering
• Sex Differences in Math and Science
• You Shouldn’t Stereotype Stereotypes
• Women’s Situation in Economics
• Your Group is Bad at Math
• Belonging

Dan Mahle - One Conversation: A Call to Men

This was posted by Jamie Utt at his Change from Within blog. It's a guest post from a friend of his, Dan Mahle, a program coordinator, facilitator, and community builder living in Seattle, WA.

We all should be asking this one simple question, which is from the article below: “So what can we, as men, do to begin to transform this culture of violence against women?” And then we should take it a step further: "What can we do, as men, to begin to end this culture of violence?"

While I fully support this particular cause, I also recognize that patriarchy is not about men - it is about power over others. We all want to end violence against women, but we also want to end violence against men, against children, against any human being. Rather than power over, we can begin to create a culture of empowered with - we become empowered individually and collectively with each other.

I don't know exactly what a new interdependent culture would look like in practice, but I know that violence would become, over time, obsolete.

Patriarchy vs Love: Time for Men to RISE

This week’s post comes from a dear friend.

Dan Mahle at the 1 Billion Rising event in Seattle, WA

Dan Mahle is a program coordinator, facilitator, and community builder living in Seattle, WA. He received his B.A. in Peace and Global Studies from Earlham College in 2008. He has been involved in a variety of non-profit organizations since then, including several youth programs that he helped to launch. His personal mission is to support people in uniting across lines of difference to identify common values & goals, build culture & community resilience, and share powerful stories through creative expression. When he’s not working, he can be found running, hiking, writing music, and eating tasty bowls of cereal late at night.

——————
One Conversation: A Call to Men

I had an incredible conversation with a complete stranger today. He was an older guy who happened to stop by the 1 Billion Rising local event that took place in downtown Seattle. As I was walking toward the small crowd of mostly women who were holding signs and dancing, he stopped me with a loud, “Hey, what is this ‘1 Billion Rising’ thing?”

When I told him that it was a global movement to end violence against women, launched by Vagina Monologues playwright, Eve Ensler, his voice softened and his eyes darted away.

He started telling me about how violence had affected so many of the women in his life. He began tearing up as he shared that most of the women he loves have been victims of sexual assault and/or abuse. He recalled spending 15 years with his ex-wife who, despite endless medications, could not overcome the depression she felt ever since the day she was sexually assaulted. I could see the hurt and sadness in his face as he told me that he couldn’t find any way to help her. His mother, he said, had also been a survivor.

Suddenly staring firmly at me, he said, “Women shouldn’t be treated this way. They are the life-givers; we owe everything to them.” He was visibly shaken.

I looked back at him and asked, “So what can we, as men, do to begin to transform this culture of violence against women?”

We talked about how important it would be for more men to have honest conversations about patriarchy and its countless negative impacts on us and on the women in our lives. Both of us acknowledged, though, that these kinds of safe spaces for male emotional expression are few and far between.

I gave him a hug and he said, “I love you, man.” We had met just 5 minutes before, but the moment of solidarity and healing that we shared in that short space was profound.

It got me thinking: Why don’t we, as men, seek out more spaces for truthful sharing about our feelings and our experiences with patriarchy? Why don’t we talk about violence against women, about sexism, and about rape culture? The ‘1 Billion Rising’ movement is based on a single, chilling statistic: One in three women on the planet will be raped or beaten in her lifetime.

That’s 1 billion women worldwide. How can we say that we love the women in our lives, even as we are perpetuating (consciously or unconsciously) a culture of violence against them?” Every day that we are silent, the cycle of violence continues.

The Cost of Patriarchy

This is where shame often comes in. I’ve known it by many names: frustration, defensiveness, anger, aggression, rage, a need for control, etc. But it all comes back to shame. It all comes back to some deep-seated feeling of unworthiness that keeps us from meeting our most fundamental human need: the need to feel loved.

While women in our society are taught that their worth depends on their physical beauty, men are taught that our worth depends upon our performance, our control, our accomplishments. At some point, like so many women, many of us realize that we will never be able to fulfil the expectations placed on us. But instead of questioning the patriarchal culture that has burdened us with these perverse and insatiable demands, we come to believe that who we are is not good enough.

In an effort to avoid feelings of vulnerability, we methodically replace emotional expression with emotional numbness. And so, in our disconnection from self and others, we unlearn what it means to truly love.

As bell hooks puts it in her book, The Will To Change: Men, Masculinity, and Love, “The reality is that men are hurting and that the whole culture responds to them by saying, ‘Please do not tell us what you feel.’”

When we forget what it means to love, we often desperately search for cheap replacements: we work long hours at work in an attempt to receive praise and recognition; we watch porn or buy prostitutes in a distorted attempt to feel loved and sexually fulfilled; we buy an endless number of things in an attempt to fill the painful void of loneliness within. Until we, as men, face our fear of vulnerability and begin telling each other what we feel, nothing will change.


Right now, there is a powerful, growing movement of women who are rising up all around the world to demand an end to violence. This movement is a struggle for equality, but it is also a call back to love. It is an invitation to all people to transform the dominant culture from a culture of violence to a culture of love, starting from within our own hearts. We owe it to all women to stand beside them as they say “enough is enough!” We owe it to ourselves to finally invite love, in all of its fullness, back into our lives.

Learn more about 1 Billion Rising here.

Lance Armstrong Admits Drug Use, Plans Return To Cycling As Flamboyant, Fan-Hating Villain

With his 'golden boy' image tarnished, Lance Armstrong has returned to cycling as radical bad boy 'Killstrong.'

Bookforum Omnivore - Wrestling with Gender

From Friday's Bookforum Omnivore blog, here is a collection of links to recent articles on the thorny issues of gender, feminism, and the where men fit into the equation.

Wrestling with gender

FEB 15 2013 

2:00PM

• Laramie D. Taylor (UC-Davis): Male Partner Selectivity, Romantic Confidence, and Media Depictions of Partner Scarcity. 
• Sarudzayi M. Matambanadzo (Tulane): Embodying Vulnerability: A Feminist Theory of the Person. 
• Deborah L. Brake (Pittsburgh): Wrestling with Gender: Constructing Masculinity by Refusing to Wrestle Women. 
• The myth of women’s ascendance: Philip N. Cohen reviews Liza Mundy’s The Richer Sex and Hanna Rosin’s The End of Men. 
• Dafne Muntanyola-Saura reviews Neurofeminism: Issues at the Intersection of Feminist Theory and Cognitive Science. 
• Stephanie Fairyington on the lonely existence of Mel Feit, men's-rights advocate. 
• Lakshmi Sarah interviews Carmen G. Gonzalez, editor of Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia. 
• How to help feminism: Jagdish Bhagwati on how men should do more — and women too.

Soccer Player Robbie Rogers Reveals He Is Gay . . . and Walks Away from the Sport at 25

I'm glad Robbie Rogers felt safe enough to come out and live his own life, but I am saddened that he felt the need to walk away from the sport that was his "escape, my purpose, my identity." Maybe one day he return to soccer, after all he is only 25 years old.

On the bright side, some of his fellow players applauded his courage and wished him well:

"Brave men like you will make it so that one day there's no need for an announcement. That day can't arrive soon enough," tweeted Eddie Pope, a U.S. veteran of three World Cups and an executive with the MLS players' union. 

"Much love and respect for you," tweeted U.S. teammate Herculez Gomez, a sentiment echoed byD.C. United's Chris Pontius, the Galaxy's Omar Gonzalez and women's national team star Abby Wambach.

I hope Rogers is not the last to live his life openly - and I hope the next man to do so will not feel the need to leave his sport.

Soccer player Robbie Rogers reveals he is gay

Robbie Rogers, 25, a Mater Dei High graduate who has played in MLS and for U.S. national team, says in blog post that he is gay and is 'stepping away' from soccer.

Mater Dei High graduate and professional soccer player Robbie Rogers announced he's gay and will be stepping away from the sport. (Drew Hallowell / Getty Images / August 10, 2011)

By Kevin Baxter | Los Angeles Times
February 15, 2013

Robbie Rogers said he had to choose between being a soccer player or being himself.

He ultimately choose to be himself, stepping away from his sport Friday in a powerful blog post in which he revealed he is gay.

"I always thought I could hide this secret," wrote Rogers, 25, a former Mater Dei High standout who played five seasons in Major League Soccer and had 18 appearances with the U.S. national team.

"Football was my escape, my purpose, my identity. Football hid my secret, gave me more joy than I could ever have imagined."

But, he concluded, "I realized I could only truly enjoy my life once I was honest. . . . My secret is gone, I am a free man, I can move on and live my life as my creator intended."

Rogers did not use the word "retirement" in his seven-paragraph announcement, instead saying, "Now is my time to step away. It's time to discover myself away from football."

Rogers' career has been in free-fall since he left MLS'Columbus Crew in 2011, the year he earned his last cap with the national team.

Troubled by nagging injuries, he was most recently playing for Stevenage of League One, the third tier of English soccer. And in his blog Rogers suggested his decline on the field was influenced by the emotional toll of trying to hide his homosexuality — although in Columbus, at least, that was said to be something of an open secret.

"You hear from athletes all the time that performance suffers from living in the closet," said journalist Cyd Zeigler, co-founder of the gay sports website Outsports.com. "I'd love to see him try again. It might be a mistake for him to stop now.

"There's a great chance that he will . . . have a clear head and be able to focus on the sport in a way he hasn't been able to in his adult life."

No active athlete in a major professional U.S. team sport has come out as gay. But Rogers was being lauded for his courage on social media Friday.

"Brave men like you will make it so that one day there's no need for an announcement. That day can't arrive soon enough," tweeted Eddie Pope, a U.S. veteran of three World Cups and an executive with the MLS players' union.

"Much love and respect for you," tweeted U.S. teammate Herculez Gomez, a sentiment echoed byD.C. United's Chris Pontius, the Galaxy's Omar Gonzalez and women's national team star Abby Wambach.

kevin.baxter@latimes.com

10 Fascinating Facts About Men, Sex and Testosterone (Alternet)

Ah, testosterone, that much maligned hormone that makes men manly and makes women want men. In the 1960s and 1970s, feminists blamed testosterone for all of the world's ills - rape, murder, wars, and various other forms of violence. Like this:

For all our squinting at the two sexes to blur them into duplicates, few hearts race when passing gaggles of giggling schoolgirls. But any woman who passes a clump of testosterone-drunk punks without picking up the pace, without avoiding the eye contact that might connote challenge or invitation, without sighing inwardly with relief by the following block, is a zoological fool. A boy is a dangerous animal. –Lionel Shriver, We Need to Talk About Kevin

"Testosterone-drunk," how witty. How misguided, as well.

This article from Alternet looks at to facts (and clears up some falsehoods) about testosterone.

10 Fascinating Facts About Men, Sex and Testosterone

There's far more to male sexuality than meets the eye.

AlterNet / By Liz Langley

 

February 12, 2013

Our culture has endowed women with some exotic qualities -- mystery, hidden depths, secret knowledge; all very alluring. But also very explainable. For a long time, women had little voice, so of course we were a mystery. Mute the TV and you won’t understand what the show is all about.

Men, by contrast, are alleged to be much more direct; even their primary sexual characteristics are obvious, hanging out there like an awning, compared to the secret gardens of women. In fact, the male stereotype was so set in my mind that the first time a straight man said to me, “It doesn’t always have to be about sex,” I looked at him like a puzzled dog. Men, I thought, were supposed to be relatively simple creatures, driven by sex, food and sleep (and sometimes Star Wars).

In reality, men are every bit as complicated as women and thoroughly fascinating in their sexual mechanics, hormonal fluctuations and brain functions. Here are 10 fun facts about male sexuality that make men a little easier to understand.

1. "I’m not gay but my boyfriend Testosteronius is."

Male sexuality was a different ballgame in ancient Roman times than it is now. One’s sexuality was defined not by preference for one sex or another, but as being “active” or “passive.” Active meant you were the penetrator and passive meant you were the penetrated. Sex was more about social status than anything.

N.S. Gill on About.com, reports that men of “good standing” were active, and they “initiated acts of penetrating sex. Whether you did this with a female or a male, slave or free, wife or prostitute, made little difference -- as long as you were not on the receiving end, so to speak.” (Only freeborn youths were out of bounds.) It’s actually quite complicated, but, writes Markus Milligan in Archeology News, “From a societal perspective, to be 'passive' or 'submissive,' threatened the very fabric of masculinity, with feminine traits, submission and passive mannerisms being an act of the lower class and slaves.”

So in ancient Rome if you were on top you were a top. We’ll call you Testosteronius.

2. Making a man out of you.

Let’s keep talking about testosterone, or T, because there’s no discussing male sexuality without it, the “quienes mas macho” of hormones, the thing that literally makes men men. All embryos develop the makings of both male and female sex organs: testosterone, under certain conditions, stimulates the growth of the male organs. It waves its magic wand and voila! You get a magic wand.

And once it’s made you a boy it doesn’t just leave you hanging; it accessorizes you as a male, making your voice deeper, your body hairier and muscle mass bigger. You also get that most useful and attention-getting of ornaments, the testes, which in turn, produce testosterone, though it’s regulated in the brain by the hypothalamus and the pituitary gland, a little love triangle known as the HPG axis (hypothalamus, pituitary, gonad).

So that’s some of the technology of testosterone, which you probably think of as being at the helm of the male sex drive and manly traits. Interestingly, less than 100 years ago no one thought about it at all. Harvard Medical School associate clinical professor Abraham Morgentaler writes in Testosterone for Life (source of the HPF info) that, “For several thousand years, farmers have found that castrating domesticated animals made them infertile and more docile as well as greatly reducing their sexual activity. They did not know, however, that they were reducing a specific substance, because testosterone was not identified until the 1930s.”

By 1935, shortly after the T molecule was discovered, it was synthesized and in use as a medication (it still is: see #4).

3. T for two.

If you want to hear/read an amazing story about the power of this hormone, check out the Testosterone episode of This American Life in 2002, when producer Alex Blumberg interviewed Griffin Hansbury who transitioned from female to male five years before the story was produced. Hansbury’s first injection of testosterone was huge, giving him twice the amount that usually circulates in the system of high-T men. The changes were fast and included a raging libido (“It was like being in a pornographic movie house in my mind”) and…seriously…a sudden interest in science. From the transcript, Hanbury says:

“….I cannot say it was the testosterone. All I can say is that this interest happened after T. There's BT and AT, and this was definitely After T. And I became interested in science. I found myself understanding physics in a way I never had before.”

Blumberg’s response to Hanbury’s first admission to a new love of science?

“You’re just setting us back a hundred years, sir.”

4. Man-o-pause.

Sometimes testosterone goes on the decline, usually in middle-aged men. When it does, they experience something very similar to menopause, only it’s less obvious because men never stop getting their periods (well, you know what I mean).

It’s called andropause, and the symptoms -- lowered sex drive, fatigue, lack of interest in work and hobbies, mood swings, loss of muscle mass, hot flashes -- are often mistaken for run-of-the-mill aging.

Damon Raskin, an internist who sub-specializes in men’s health issues and is the supervising doctor for Ageless Men’s Health.com said in a phone interview that the natural decrease in testosterone affects some men more than others. And even younger men can experience sudden drops in testosterone, sometimes for unknown reasons, or because of genetics, diabetes or opiate abuse.

“As men age it is normal for testosterone to fall and some men are more sensitive to the fall than others. Sometimes men can have low testosterone and have no symptoms,” he says. A simple blood test from their primary care doctor can let men know if they have low T and if so they can get testosterone replacement therapy, usually a gel, patch or a injection.

Some of the symptoms of low T can also be confused with depression. Raskin says, “When I see a new patient who comes in thinking they may be depressed one of the blood tests that I do is a testosterone test. I check the thyroid, see if they’re anemic and check their testosterone.”

Bottom line: you can find your mojo. The answer to where it went might lie in a simple blood test.

5. A little squeeze goes a long way.

Before you get to middle age you should know something: Kegels are not just for women anymore.

Kegel is an exercise that strengthens the muscles of the pelvic floor so you can sail gracefully into your later years with fewer worries about incontinence and your internal organs slipping around like luggage on a turbulent flight. They’re done by squeezing internal pelvic muscles and can be done on the sly, anywhere. Women will often joke while they’re sitting at their desk or standing at a bar that they’re doing their Kegels “right now!”

But men should be doing Kegels too, because in addition to those health benefits they can also lead to stronger orgasms, prevent prostate trouble, problems with erectile dysfunction and premature ejaculation. Dr. Chaves at AskMen.com provides some additional exercises men can do to work the Kegels, my favorite being “For more advanced muscle building, you can place a light towel over your erect penis and squeeze to 'lift' the towel.”

When you can throw it out the window give me a call. Or at least put it on YouTube.

6. See ya!

Sure, I’d like to see that towel trick. Who wouldn’t? But it’s one of those great bromides that men are actually the more visual sex and two studies have indeed shown marked differences in the visual processes of men and women.

A 2012 study from the Center for Behavioral Science by Emory University researchers found that women are better at discriminating between colors while men are better at perceiving “fine detail and rapidly moving stimuli,” than women. A 2004 study, also by Emory University researchers, found that when men and women looked at erotic photos both sexes reported the same levels of arousal but set off “a frenzy of activity, particularly in the amygdala of the men.” (The amygdala is the part of the brain's limbic system that is associated with emotion and anticipation.)

So we already knew that men and women see things differently in the figurative sense. Now we have some evidence that it’s true in the literal sense.

7. Sighs matter.

If men do, indeed, have a better eye for visual detail maybe that explains why they seem to fret over penis size despite stories like the one in Men’s Health that reported in one of their own surveys that only 7% of “sexually satisfied” women said size was “critical” to their desires.

But men will worry, no matter how much women tell them they shouldn’t. Even famous men worry. The wonderfully named Jay Dixit writes about the size matter in Psychology Today, reporting that he-man Ernest Hemingway once tried to reassure F. Scott Fitzgerald, telling him, "There's nothing wrong with you. You look at yourself from above and you look foreshortened," and "It is basically not a question of the size in repose. It is the size that it becomes. It is also a question of angle."

Perhaps, The Medium-Sized Gatsby just wasn’t a title F. Scott was comfortable with.

8. Size really doesn't matter, but it's interesting.

I hesitated to include this next item, but it’s so weird and funny I have to tell you: there are now two apps for your phone that measure penis size.

The Predicktor, an Android app developed by a Toronto physician and the team at The Doctor Says, seems the more lighthearted of the two; read the story and video on the National Post website. You enter certain numbers, like the size of his “feet, his height, ring size, whether it’s a porn star (etc, etc.)” which leads one to wonder how to ask a guy all these things without him just saying “It’s six inches, okay? Is that okay with you?” It’s got all kinds of genital fun facts and is meant to reassure men that they’re probably more normal than they think. And if it doesn’t The Doctor Says also has an app where you can test your anxiety.

Then PC Magazine reports on “Condom Size,” an app for the iPhone which is meant to accurately measure you and see what size condom you ought to be wearing. The app invites the user to hold “his hard member against inches or CM on sides of the screen,” where there’s a yellow tape measure. (There is also probably the chance of you accidentally taking a picture and sending it to your boss because that’s exactly the kind of thing that would happen to you.) The user is also asked to take a piece of string, wrap it around to get an accurate measurement and hold that up to the “digital ruler."

So, this is an app for people who can’t work a tape measure. If you can’t work a tape measure how can you afford an iPhone?

Glamour says “The app will give him his results, including a recommended condom brand but also…his world ranking according to penis girth and length!” A score of 100 percent isn’t a perfect score, it’s average. Anything over or under is, well, over or under.

9. The boy can’t help it, but neither can the girl.

So there are a couple of stereotypes we’ve dealt with here, like men’s visual nature being different and men worrying about penis size. A couple of items in this list from LiveScience, 10 Things Every Woman Should Know About a Man’s Brain, break those stereotypes, including their emotionality and vulnerability to loneliness. When it comes to cheating and one-night stands, the next study has no gender bias to offer. Another LiveScience story reports that in a 2010 Binghamton University study 181 young adults were asked about their sexual history and then DNA tested. Those with a variation of the dopamine gene DRD4 were more likely to report one-night stands and infidelity (dopamine is a neurotransmitter associated with pleasure and reward).

Researcher Justin Garcia said this doesn’t necessarily let the horn dogs off the hook because some people without the variant screwed around too, and some with the variant didn’t, just that “a much higher proportion of those with this genetic type are likely to engage in these behaviors.

Soooo, a dolphin might bite you and a shark might not bite you, but it’s more likely that a shark will bite you. Got it. Keep an eye out for sharks.

10. Come and get it and come...and get it.

Finally, all that sex has got to make you a little hungry so we’ll leave you with some more advice from AskMen.com, this one a list of the 10 Foods That Increase Your Sperm Count (just FYI: a new study from Harvard says a little less TV and a little more exercise will help, too). Of course, there are oysters which “contain a potent amino acid that increases testosterone in males and progesterone in females,” but the story also offers some surprises like garlic, which is full of allicin which increase blood flow to the nether regions, and bananas which are not only shaped appropriately, but full of vitamin B for stamina and bromelain which increases male libido.

But the most important one this week is dark chocolate, which “contains L-Arginine HCL, a powerful amino acid that has been clinically proven to double sperm and semen volume.”

~ Liz Langley is a freelance writer in Orlando, FL.

Bring Back the Sexy to a Loving Relationship Turned Platonic

This article from the Good Men Project brings up an important point about long-term relationships, especially those founded on mutual respect and genuine affection - sometimes we end up as excellent friends but the sexual spark has been misplaced. I've seen this happen in friends' relationships . . . and I've seen it in my own relationships.

There are also guys who are very sensitive to seeing, appreciating, and loving the whole package of our partner or spouse, and we may feel guilty if or when we objectify the beloved and fantasize about his or her body, the curve of a hip, the soft skin of the inner thigh. So we try not to objectify him or her, but then we wonder why the spark is gone.

Yet it can be important, as the SHE response below indicates, to honor both the whole, wonderful person and also to still allow ourselves to fantasize about our beloved just as we did when the relationship was new and the sex was passionate and exciting.

Then add in some of the HE response from below, with new places to have sex, or adding romantic elements such as candles, sharing a bath, or even sex toys. Be creative, be passionate, and be loving.

And never forget that this is your best friend, your partner, the person you love and respect.

My Wife Is My Best Friend . . . Now, How Do I Make Her My Lover?

FEBRUARY 13, 2013 by SHE SAID HE SAID

Eli and Josie help a man turn his friendship-based marriage into one of passion and desire.

Dear Sexes: How do you cross the bridge from your wife as your best friend to your wife as lover? If you have been with this person all day as your partner in life and the daily work of living, how do you suddenly switch?

She Said: If we could solve this, we could save probably 50% of the marriages that end! Our society teaches us to value novelty and drama over commitment and peace. Without the drama, I think a lot of us think there isn’t enough excitement to constitute “love”…

In truth, a deeper and more intimate love can come from peace, and that peace often comes from having your partner as your best friend. But sometimes, when that transition happens, that buddy-ness can be sort of a boner killer.

I think a solution to this is a little objectification. Yes, objectification! By that, I mean, you love your wife as a whole, her humanity and her soul as well as her body. And sometimes you probably have deep lust for all that humanity and intellect. But sometimes you just want a body. Now, I am making this suggestion for you because of the love and friendship you have for your wife, thinking that maybe you need to nurture some fantasies just about her body. I wouldn’t make this recommendation to a newly united couple or a couple that is struggling with profound problems.

Try to think just about your favorite part of her body. If that’s her pretty fingers, think about them wrapping around your penis or clasping your hands during sex. If it’s her mouth, think about the way it changes when she’s having an orgasm. Focus on those things and let the rest of her slip away from your mind for a moment.

I probably don’t have to tell you this, but just to be clear, this doesn’t mean that you leave behind compassion, communication, respect and love. It just means that you allow a fantasy that is purely sexual to develop… and you nudge it along by being mindful and conscious of your fantasies, and by guiding them a little bit.

He Said: Your wife can be your friend AND your lover!

Having said that, your best chance at having a successful friendship AND romance with your wife may be to compartmentalize each entity completely (at least, for now, so you easily hit “the switch”).

Your wife and you should (re)experiment with your sexy sides. Invest in some candles (for her) and perhaps some lingerie (something you can both enjoy). Romance her! Maybe that means cooking her dinner, or giving her a full body massage with sensual oils. Or even something as simple as a date-night out—just the two of you.

And lastly, work hard at the romance, but remember—you don’t always have to make love, when you make love. Sometimes you’ve just got to have great sex. Don’t be afraid to try something different. Find a new place to get it on—a kitchen counter, the backseat of a car, a hotel, etc…). And vary the way in which you have sex. It’s fine if you have to schedule your sessions, but it’s just as good (perhaps even better) if you have some unscheduled bump and grinding. And never underestimate the power of a steamy quickie! Good luck, play hard, get busy!

Do you have a question for Eli and Josie? Ask it here!


~ Originally appeared at She Said He Said

F**k Valentine's Day

It's that special time of year again, when Hallmark, diamond sellers, rose growers, and chocolate makers see nothing but dollar signs at the prospect of millions of men trying to show the person they love that they care enough to buy the very best. Men are groomed from a very young age (as are women) to see Valentine's Day as a "better show up" holiday.

F**k that.

VD is a made up holiday designed to sell stuff, mostly to men. And we buy into the scheme. Why? Social pressure, media pressure, and all kinds of other not at all subtle messages that tell us, "This is what god guys do. And you want to be a good guy, right?"

Bullshit.

What good guys actually do is show the person they love that they are special and appreciated all year, not on one made-up holiday. It doesn't mean buying stuff either. It can be as simple as kissing your beloved on the back of the neck while the coffee is brewing. Or just stopping in the middle of cooking dinner or walking across the room just to give a long hug.

My guess is that small acts like this, done all year long, will beat the hell out of the commercialism and materialism we call VD.

If you need some more reasons why VD sucks, check out this post from the Good Men Project.


10 Reasons Why Valentine’s Day Sucks: An Emily Hartridge Original Video

Some people really love Valentine’s Day. This video is not for you. 

And don’t forget our standard disclaimer copy: Emily’s videos are for entertainment only. Do not try this at home.

Randy Astaiza - A Man With 12 Percent Body Fat Is The Best Mate, Evolutionarily

Strangely, this article came from Business Insider Magazine - not where one usually goes for evolutionary psychology research. Be that as it may, the researchers found that body fat was linked to attractiveness, high testosterone levels, and a stronger immune system.

A Man With 12 Percent Body Fat Is The Best Mate, Evolutionarily
Randy Astaiza | Nov. 27, 2012

When a guy catches your eye, what draws your attention?

Some people may say nice eyes get them going, while others say a manly, chiseled jaw or big strong arms. Evolutionarily, though, a man's body fat, not masculine features, is a better indicator of how attractive of a mate he would be, a new study suggests.

With any luck, these traits of an "optimal" mate would be genetically encoded and would be passed on to the man's offspring — so a female wants to choose a man with good genes and a healthy immune system. We just need to know how to figure out if a potential mate has these traits.

Masculine looking males were believed to be a good indicator of good mate choice because their looks were thought to indicate better genes and a stronger immune system, one that could take on the negative effects of high testosterone levels (which make men more prone to infection).

A new study, published today Nov 27 in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, switches that on its head. The researchers found that a man's waist size is more important than how masculine his face is, when it comes to attractiveness and good immune systems.

Twenty-nine women in the fertile stage of their menstrual cycle (meaning they were more receptive to sexual cues, and more responsive to masculinity) rated pictures of 69 young white males of all body sizes by their attractiveness, masculinity, and body fat.

They then took these rating and compared them to how well the men's immune system responded to a Hepatitis B vaccine. They also tested circulating testosterone levels in the participants.

The results showed that a man's masculinity rating didn't mean he was more attractive, and also didn't mean that his immune system worked better. How masculine a man was also wasn't an indicator of how much testosterone he had either.

On the other hand, body fat was linked to attractiveness, high testosterone levels, and a stronger immune system. Too much fat was bad too, though: Body fat attractiveness had a bell-shaped curve. The most attractive men had 12 percent body fat.

When he was above normal body fat — obese or overweight — the immune system was negatively impacted.

From their data, the researchers made a composite image of the bottom eight men with the cruddiest immune systems on the left, and the eight men with the best on the right. Which do you think is more attractive?

Proceedings of the Royal Society

Linda Hatch, PhD - Good Porn, Bad Porn

I am sure that there can be good porn, or at the very least that porn can be educational as well as titillating, but among the several sex addicts I have seen as a coach or therapist, porn is more addictive than most chemicals, and it's free. And if you have ever seen much porn, it's hard to believe any of it can be good.

My greater concern, however, is for the young men who are growing up watching online porn and learning porn-style sex as "normal sex." Porn-style sex is all about the orgasm, especially the man's, but none of it is about emotional intimacy and caring.

It's hard enough to learn about healthy, intimate sexuality as a young man, throwing porn into the mix is a recipe for disaster. Not only will these young men be ignorant of how female sexuality actually works, but they will have been conditioned to quick and easy pay-off of masturbating to porn, which might make the whole process of seduction, foreplay, and mutually pleasurable sexual sharing seem like too much work (I have heard this from sex addicts).

This article was posted in November of 2012 at the Psych Central blog, The Impact of Sex Addiction by Dr. Linda Hatch.

Good Porn, Bad Porn

By Linda Hatch, PhD

Is there good porn?

Take a look at this statement from an article called The Impact of Internet Pornography on Adolescents: A Review of the Research. 

“Increased access to the Internet by adolescents has created unprecedented opportunities for sexual education, learning and growth.”

(Owens, E. W., Behun, R. J., Manning, J.D. and Reid, R.C. (2012). Journal of Sexual Addiction and Compulsiviy, 19, 99-122)

Writers and researchers seem to feel obligated to acknowledge the potential benefits of pornography when in fact their own research as well as the vast majority of everyone else’s shows no such thing.

The above authors go on to document the damaging effects of internet pornography on adolescents.  For example that youth who view porn develop unrealistic sexual values and beliefs, and that viewing violent porn is related to higher levels of sexually aggressive behavior. Also that viewing porn leads to body image problems with girls and performance fears in boys and so on.

Certainly research on the negative effects of porn is important. But there is always an opposing view out there that porn serves the useful functions of freeing men and women, reducing shame around sex, aiding couples, and educating the young.

The reporting of scientific evidence often seems to be an attempt to escape the good vs. bad debate about porn so as to avoid being seen as moralistic. Just the facts. And indeed that is what science does.

But proving that porn can be a harmful, addictive drug fails to address a larger issue that I think is given less attention.


The two sides of the porn debate

The conservative/religious anti-porn movement is pitted against pro-porn ideology. Supporters of porn can range from freedom of speech advocates to those who argue that porn is liberating and any opposition to porn is a moralistic attempt to impose rigid, outdated norms on everyone.

The pro-porn folks (or at least the porn industry) appear to be winning.  The amount of porn consumed is increasing and the imagery is becoming more extreme in terms of erotic depictions of dominance/submission, degradation and violence against women.

Although women are starting to watch internet porn in increasing numbers, the majority of viewers are men (about 70%) and porn videos are typically depictions of male dominance.

The porn narrative

Professor Robert Jensen of the Austin School of Journalism says that porn typically tells a story.  That story, he says, is that “all women are there for the sexual pleasure of men.”

Further, Jensen argues that porn conveys the message that there are no “good” girls, that all women are “whores,” and that women like pain.  And he believes that part of the porn ideology is that when women play out these roles they will “become fully realized as sexual beings.”

Other writers have tabulated the frequency of the various sex acts  in porn depicting a couple, the relative frequency of receiving oral sex, of male vs. female orgasm etc. and has found that it favors men.

Professor Jensen maintains that this pattern in the stories and the increasing extremity of porn, particularly so-called “gonzo” porn infiltrates the mainstream of visual media. This is referred to as the “pornifying of pop culture.”

The human values question

When the two sides face off in the porn debate it often comes down to values.  So the scientists can prove that porn has any number of bad effects like addiction, erectile dysfunction, and divorce, but that will not convince someone whose sexuality has become fused with sexual objectification.  They will feel attacked at a deep level.

The larger question that I feel is neglected is not whether your porn viewing is consistent with my values, but whether your porn viewing is consistent with your own values.

As Professor Jensen points out, porn as a whole is built around ideas like gender inequality and the comodification of a class of people (women).  Subordinating and dominating any segment of humanity is inconsistent with most people’s value systems.

Along with the scientific data we need to remind ourselves as clinicians and researchers to bring the discussion back around to the values that we and our clients share, like the capacity for empathy and a sense of our common humanity.

~ Linda Hatch is a psychologist and certified sex addiction therapist specializing in the treatment of sex addicts and the partners and families of sex addicts. Linda also blogs on her own website at Sexaddictionscounseling.com