Cindy Gallop’s New book, "Make Love Not Porn" - Free for Today Only

Cindy Gallop dates younger men, mostly in their twenties - she has found that a disturbing number of these young men, who have grown up believing pornography is the norm of human sexuality, have no idea what women really desire in a sexual partner, let alone how to have emotionally intimate sex (i.e., making love). She launched MakeLoveNotPorn in a 2009 TED Talk, and it has expanded from there.

MakeLoveNotPorn is a Cindy Gallop production. I date younger men, usually in their 20s, and came up with the idea for MakeLoveNotPorn based on direct personal experience. I launched MakeLoveNotPorn at TED 2009: TED 2009: Make Love not Porn followed by an interview with me on the TEDBlog Here is a talk I gave recently at the L2 GenerationNext Forum that expands on how this is the single biggest impact that technology is having on human behavior today.

I would like to stress the following:

• MakeLoveNotPorn is not about judgement, or what is good vs what is bad. Sex is the area of human experience that embraces the widest possible range of tastes. Everyone should be free to make up their own mind about what they do and don't like.
• MakeLoveNotPorn is not anti-porn. I like porn and watch it regularly myself.
• MakeLoveNotPorn is simply intended to help inspire and stimulate open, healthy conversations about sex and pornography, in order to help inspire and stimulate more open, healthy and thoroughly enjoyable sexual relationships.

If you support what MakeLoveNotPorn is all about, if you want to understand in more detail why this is an issue, if you'd like to learn more about my sex life than you ever wanted to know :) or if you'd just like an interesting, entertaining read - please click here to buy my e-book 'MakeLoveNotPorn: Technology's Hardcore Impact on Human Behavior' for just $2.99 on Amazon, and please do rate and review it after you've read it. It also makes a great gift for anybody you think would enjoy or learn from it. Many thanks for your support!

I think she has a good idea - but the new feature announced below about uploading videos of normal people having sex will turn it into a porn site, exactly what she doesn't want. So many of the sex addicts I know totally dig "amateur" porn - it's probably the 2nd most watched genre after the seriously degrading stuff.

Anyway, as announced by the folks at TED, today you can get the ebook for free - see the links below

Cindy Gallop’s book, Make Love Not Porn, available for free today through the TED Books App

“I date younger men,” Cindy Gallop boldly proclaimed at TED2009. “When I have sex with younger men, I encounter very directly and personally the real ramifications of the creeping ubiquity of hardcore pornography in our culture. … There is an entire generation growing up that believes that what you see in hardcore pornography is the way that you have sex.”

When she spoke at TED2009, Gallop unveiled her website MakeLoveNotPorn.com, a forum for discussion on the topic of real sex. (Read a Q&A with Gallop on the TED Blog from shortly after the launch.) Now, Gallop has launched the next evolution of — MakeLoveNotPorn.tv, a YouTube for real, unperformed sex. Contributors pay $5 to post a video of themselves having sex, and get paid as users shell out $5 a piece to watch their videos. Currently, there are 13 videos on the site and, as The New York Times describes them, “Compared with the harsh lens of mainstream pornography, the videos come across as sweet, earnest, languid, playful and deeply human.” So far, more than 19,000 people have signed up for the site.

To celebrate the launch of MakeLoveNotPorn.tv, Gallop is offering her brilliant TED Book for free through the TED Books app all day today. Head to the iTunes store to download the app or, if you already have it on your iPhone or iPad, pick Gallop’s book off the app shelf to enjoy the free gift, packed with extra photos and videos.

David Brooks - Making Sense of Hanna Rosin?

Yesterday I posted an NPR piece about Hanna Rosin's new, expanded argument about the end of men in book-length study - The End of Men: And the Rise of Women - and now David Books of the New York Times offers a defense or an attempt to make sense of her ideas.

Unfortunately for Rosin, and for Brooks since he accepts her positions without questions, the economic recovery has occurred while and after she finished that book. According to a recent article in the Denver Post (Aug 5, 2012), men are doing much better than women in the recovery.

Men have snagged about three of every four of the 2.4 million net new jobs created since the summer of 2009, said John Challenger, chief executive of Challenger, Gray & Christmas, a global outplacement firm based in Chicago.

The trend is so pronounced that Challenger and others have nicknamed the recovery the "he-covery" or "mancovery."

Maybe it's not so bad for men after all on the job front, but the trend in education has been bad for years, and it's only getting worse.

Why Men Fail

By DAVID BROOKS
Published: September 10, 2012

You’re probably aware of the basic trends. The financial rewards to education have increased over the past few decades, but men failed to get the memo. 

David Brooks

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In elementary and high school, male academic performance is lagging. Boys earn three-quarters of the D’s and F’s. By college, men are clearly behind. Only 40 percent of bachelor’s degrees go to men, along with 40 percent of master’s degrees.

Thanks to their lower skills, men are dropping out of the labor force. In 1954, 96 percent of the American men between the ages of 25 and 54 worked. Today, that number is down to 80 percent. In Friday’s jobs report, male labor force participation reached an all-time low.

Millions of men are collecting disability. Even many of those who do have a job are doing poorly. According to Michael Greenstone of the Hamilton Project, annual earnings for median prime-age males have dropped by 28 percent over the past 40 years.

Men still dominate the tippy-top of the corporate ladder because many women take time off to raise children, but women lead or are gaining nearly everywhere else. Women in their 20s outearn men in their 20s. Twelve out of the 15 fastest-growing professions are dominated by women.

Over the years, many of us have embraced a certain theory to explain men’s economic decline. It is that the information-age economy rewards traits that, for neurological and cultural reasons, women are more likely to possess.

To succeed today, you have to be able to sit still and focus attention in school at an early age. You have to be emotionally sensitive and aware of context. You have to communicate smoothly. For genetic and cultural reasons, many men stink at these tasks.

But, in her fascinating new book, “The End of Men,” Hanna Rosin posits a different theory. It has to do with adaptability. Women, Rosin argues, are like immigrants who have moved to a new country. They see a new social context, and they flexibly adapt to new circumstances. Men are like immigrants who have physically moved to a new country but who have kept their minds in the old one. They speak the old language. They follow the old mores. Men are more likely to be rigid; women are more fluid.

This theory has less to do with innate traits and more to do with social position. When there’s big social change, the people who were on the top of the old order are bound to cling to the old ways. The people who were on the bottom are bound to experience a burst of energy. They’re going to explore their new surroundings more enthusiastically.

Rosin reports from working-class Alabama. The women she meets are flooding into new jobs and new opportunities — going back to college, pursuing new careers. The men are waiting around for the jobs that left and are never coming back. They are strangely immune to new options. In the Auburn-Opelika region, the median female income is 140 percent of the median male income.

Rosin also reports from college campuses where women are pioneering new social arrangements. The usual story is that men are exploiting the new campus hookup culture in order to get plenty of sex without romantic commitments. Rosin argues that, in fact, women support the hookup culture. It allows them to have sex and fun without any time-consuming distractions from their careers. Like new immigrants, women are desperate to rise, and they embrace social and sexual rules that give them the freedom to focus on their professional lives.

Rosin is not saying that women are winners in a global gender war or that they are doing super simply because men are doing worse. She’s just saying women are adapting to today’s economy more flexibly and resiliently than men. There’s a lot of evidence to support her case.

A study by the National Federation of Independent Business found that small businesses owned by women outperformed male-owned small businesses during the last recession. In finance, women who switch firms are more likely to see their performance improve, whereas men are more likely to see theirs decline. There’s even evidence that women are better able to adjust to divorce. Today, more women than men see their incomes rise by 25 percent after a marital breakup.

Forty years ago, men and women adhered to certain ideologies, what it meant to be a man or a woman. Young women today, Rosin argues, are more like clean slates, having abandoned both feminist and prefeminist preconceptions. Men still adhere to the masculinity rules, which limits their vision and their movement. 

If she’s right, then men will have to be less like Achilles, imposing their will on the world, and more like Odysseus, the crafty, many-sided sojourner. They’ll have to acknowledge that they are strangers in a strange land.

A version of this op-ed appeared in print on September 11, 2012, on page A23 of the New York edition with the headline: Why Men Fail.

Hanna Rosin's "End of Men" Is Now a Book

Back in 2010, Hanna Rosin became an instant media star with her controversial article in The Atlantic, The End of Men. In that article, she argued that equality may not be the end point of the gender realignment initiated by feminism. She suggested that modern, postindustrial society is simply better suited to women.

Needless to say, a lot of men took issue with this article, but the meme that men are doomed has persisted. This view is more than a little myopic in my opinion. History tends to be a dialectic. For thousands of years, male values and strengths dominated (physical strength, violence, and so on), and over the last 50 years or so, female values and strengths have been ascendent (empathy, interpersonal intelligence, communication). But the end result will not be the end of men, it will be gender fluidity where biological sex and gender identification are not tied to strengths and skills.

Now Rosin has expanded her argument into a book length study - The End of Men: And the Rise of Women - and there is sure to be a commensurate backlash.

NPR talked her about the book.

'End Of Men' Heralds New Era Of Female Dominance

by NPR Staff

Listen to the Story

Morning Edition

[4 min 56 sec]

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• Transcript

 

The End of Men: And the Rise of Women

by Hanna Rosin

Hardcover, 320 pages

September 10, 2012

 

Women have fought tirelessly to establish equal footing for themselves in relationships, politics and the workplace, and according to writer Hanna Rosin, they've finally arrived.

In her new book, The End of Men: And The Rise of Women, Rosin argues that the U.S. has entered an era of female dominance.

---

Interview Highlights

On how the rise of women is largely an economic story
"Women make up about half the workforce and the majority of college degrees — which these days is the prerequisite to success in this world. But ... I discovered that this had seeped into the fabric of our lives — our intimate relationships, our marriages, all the decisions we make in life — and that was the big surprise in reporting the book."

On shifts in the workforce that sparked shifts at home
"The latest job numbers show that men are at their lowest labor force participation rate since 1948. They also show that the manufacturing economy has lost almost 6 million jobs, and just about the same number of jobs were added in the health-care industry and the service economy which are largely dominated by women. You can see right there that that creates a different kind of economy.

Nina Subin/Riverhead Books

  Hanna Rosin is the co-founder of Slate's Double X blog. She is also a senior editor at The Atlantic.

"If our assumption is that the men are the breadwinners ... that men carry the family, when that dynamic shifts, you can see that relationships shift with it. So we have to redefine what we mean by 'head of the household' ... by 'manly virtues,' and what women do, and what men do, and how marriage works, and who raises the children. All these things start to change along with it."

On the disappearance of American manufacturing jobs
"It's sad ... it's a tragedy. I think we're in a transition moment where men have to rethink what they want to do and we as a society have to figure out what we want to do. ... A lot of men who were able to live a very respectable middle-class and even upper-middle-class existence doing essentially brawn jobs can no longer do that. So what do you do with that fact? You're not going to have every man become a nurse or have every man become a profession that we consider feminized because I think men are uncomfortable with that idea.

"... I think that the million-dollar question for economists is why women have heard the call of the changing economy. Why it is that they've been more flexible than men have been?"

On the finance and tech sectors remaining largely closed off to women, and the fact that women still make 78 cents to men's dollar
"It's only been 40 years that this has been happening. I think it would be crazy to expect that the entire world flips upside down right away. ... It's obvious to me that people are still in this transition moment [and] somewhat uncomfortable with female power. So one thing I do in the book is ... talk to women who work in Silicon Valley, who work on Wall Street, in places where this transition is not complete and see what their reality is like and how you move to the next level."

On when Wall Street will have female CEOs
"I actually think finance is going to be the last one to go. They're going to hold on the hardest. But I definitely imagine that for a lot of other industries [women will soon fill positions of leadership]. If you look at someone like Marissa Mayer who gets a CEO job at Yahoo when she is visibly pregnant and gets to say that she doesn't want to take all that much maternity leave — whatever we think about that — it's wonderful that that model exists and that women can be that person because they're figuring it out — we're figuring it out."

Read an excerpt of The End of Men

 

This Is How You Lose Her, by Junot Díaz (Short Stories)

It's nice to be able to recommend some good fiction occasionally - lots of books are written by men and about men, but not so often about what it means to be a man. Pulitzer Prize winner (2008), Junot Díaz has published a new collection, This Is How You Lose Her - this is one of those books, a collection of stories about being male.

The curse of machismo

Sept. 8th 2012 

This Is How You Lose Her. By Junot Díaz. Riverhead; 213 pages; $26.95. Faber and Faber; £12.99. 

STRAIGHTFORWARD writing about male lust is rare. Writing that reveals the price exacted by such lust is rarer still. Junot Díaz, a Dominican-born American writer best known for “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao”, which won the Pulitzer prize for fiction in 2008, is a master of this self-flagellating and surprisingly tender art.

His new collection, “This Is How You Lose Her”, offers a series of unflinching portraits of the power, if not the curse, of red-blooded Latino libido. The men cheat on their women; the women usually vanish, never to be seen again. Most of the tales are narrated by Yunior, the alter ego who forms the backbone of much of Mr Díaz’s fiction, circling around one relentless question. Is he, as one girlfriend asserts, “a typical Dominican man: a sucio [pervert], an asshole”?

These are stories about the difficulty of love: how hard it is to recognise or hold onto. In one, Yunior tries to save a relationship he has torpedoed yet again by cheating, on a beach vacation to his homeland. In another, he seeks solace from his brother’s death with an older woman, and wonders if she ruins him for girlfriends his own age. Some are bittersweet accounts of the fragile relationships between other recent immigrants. Many bear the names of the women Yunior both desires and is unable to retain. In the mere four pages of “Alma”, Mr Díaz details not just the steamy heat of teen sex, but the inexplicable way Yunior wrecks this idyll by charging wherever his penis leads.

The stories, like those of his debut collection, “Drown”, which came out in 1996, are quieter than the novel that turned Mr Díaz into a literary star. None quite matches the historical pyrotechnics and manic Spanglish that made the life of Oscar Wao so exhilarating. Yet in their exploration of this particular fuku [curse], they are engaging. In all his work, Mr Díaz manages a seamless blend of high diction and low, of poetry and vulgarity. Nilda, the girlfriend of Yunior’s brother Rafa, has “a chest you wouldn’t believe”, whereas Rafa has “the face bones of a saint”. Yunior is at once loutish and baffled; the effect is both funny and piercing. Rafa at one point has “his hand so far up [Nilda’s] skirt it looked like he was performing a surgical procedure.” Look no further for home truths on sex and heartbreak.

All-Pro NFL Linebacker Brendon Ayanbadejo Supports Same-Sex Marriage . . . .

. . . but Baltimore politician (Ayanbadejo plays for the Baltimore Ravens), Emmert C. Burns Jr., a democrat in the Maryland House of Delegates, sent a letter to the Baltimore Ravens asking them to silence their player's support for same-sex marriage (as reported by WBALTV, Yahoo! Sports and other sources). As reported by the Huffington Post:

In a letter dated August 29, 2012 and addressed to Ravens owner Steve Biscotti, Burns writes "I find it inconceivable that one of your players, Mr. Brendon Ayanbadejo, would publicly endorse Same-Sex marriage, specifically as a Ravens football player."

"Many of my constituents and your football supporters are appalled and aghast that a member of the Ravens Football Team would step into this controversial divide," wrote Burns, "and try to sway public opinion one way or another."

According to WBALTV, Burns became upset when he learned that Ayanbadejo had contributed a pair of Ravens tickets to a fundraiser for Marylanders for Marriage Equality. After expressing his dismay at Ayanbadejo's actions in his letter, Burns then asked the Ravens to silence the 36-year-old veteran.

"I am requesting that you take the necessary action, as a National Football League Owner, to inhibit such expressions from your employees and that he be ordered to cease and desist such injurious actions. I know of no other NFL player who has done what Mr. Ayanbadejo is doing."

CLICK HERE to see Burns' letter (H/T WBALTV)  

That's right, Mr. Burns (wow, that is somehow fitting), the NFL has been one of the most homophobic leagues in professional sports, so imagine how much strength and courage it takes for a player to support gay rights and same-sex marriage. By the way, dude, you are supposed to be a Democrat. What's up with that?

This is not a new stance for Brendon Ayanbadejo, he began speaking out in support of same-sex marriage in a 2009 article for Huffington Post (he also filmed a public service announcement for Marylanders for Marriage Equality in 2011) - Burns seems to have missed this much higher profile actions.

Maybe I am a man ahead of my time. However, looking at the former restrictions on human rights in our country starting with slavery, women not being able to vote, blacks being counted as two thirds of a human, segregation, no gays in the military (to list a few) all have gone by the wayside. But now here in 2009 same sex marriages are prohibited. I think we will look back in 10, 20, 30 years and be amazed that gays and lesbians did not have the same rights as every one else. How did this ever happen in the land of the free and the home of the brave? Are we really free?

Ayanbadejo should be applauded, not condemned (you can follow him on Twitter, where he had some thoughts for Burns). It is men like him who paved the way for changing attitudes about LGBT rights in the NFL, which includes the San Francisco 49ers being the first NFL team to create a public service video for Dan Savage's "It Gets Better" program, a program intended to "inspire and comfort" LGBT adolescents and offer hope for the future.

It's important that NFL players get involved in these efforts. At the high school level, where life is gets most difficult for LGBT youth, it is often the jocks (read: football players) who tease, bully, and beat up the LGBT students.

As noted by Huffington Post, Minnesota Vikings punter Chris Kluwe also is a supporter of Minnesotans For Equality and also speaks out (on his Twitter feed and on his "Out Of Bounds" blog) with exactly the type of equal rights message that Mr. Burns finds so detestable and believes is limited to Ayanbadejo.

Mr. Burns aside, this whole thing represents progress - and when things change, we get to see some people's true colors. Burns might want to consider changing political parties.

It seems that when fathers sleep near (or with) their infant and toddler children, they become biologically attuned to the children. The downside of this is that the testosterone levels of the father plummet - although this may be an evolutionary adaptation to keep the father engaged with the children and limit their desire to move on to the next female.

Full Citation:
Lee T. Gettler, James J. McKenna, Thomas W. McDade, Sonny S. Agustin, Christopher W. Kuzawa. (2012). Does Co-sleeping Contribute to Lower Testosterone Levels in Fathers? Evidence from the Philippines. PLoS ONE; 7 (9): e41559 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0041559

Fathers Biologically Attuned to Their Children When Sleeping Nearby

ScienceDaily (Sep. 7, 2012) — Mothers aren't the only ones who are biologically adapted to respond to children. New research from the University of Notre Dame shows that dads who sleep near their children experience a drop in testosterone. Previous research from humans and other species suggests this decrease might make men more responsive to their children's needs and help them focus on the demands of parenthood.

In a recent study, Notre Dame Anthropologist Lee Gettler shows that close sleep proximity between fathers and their children (on the same sleeping surface) results in lower testosterone compared to fathers who sleep alone.

The study will appear in the September 5 issue of the journal PLoS ONE.

Gettler sampled 362 fathers, all of whom were between 25-26 years old, and divided them according to their reported nighttime sleeping location: solitary sleepers, those who slept in the same room as their children, and those fathers who slept on the same surface as their children.

Fathers' testosterone levels were measured from saliva samples collected upon waking and again just prior to sleep. Though the waking hormone levels of the three groups showed no significant differences, fathers who slept on the same surface as their children showed the lowest evening testosterone.

"Human fathers' physiology has the capacity to respond to children," Gettler says. "Our prior research has shown that when men become fathers, their testosterone decreases, sometimes dramatically, and that those who spend the most time in hands-on care -- playing with their children, feeding them or reading to them -- had lower testosterone. These new results complement the original research by taking it one step further, showing that nighttime closeness or proximity between fathers and their kids has effects on men's biology, and it appears to be independent of what they are doing during the day."

Substantial research has been conducted on the sleep and breastfeeding physiology of mother-baby co-sleeping, but this is the first study to examine how father-child sleep proximity may affect men's physiology, and it is the first to explore the implications of co-sleeping for either mothers' or fathers' hormones.

In other species, testosterone is known to enhance male mating effort through its influence on muscle mass and behaviors related to competing with other males and attracting female attention. The hormone is thought to operate similarly in humans, and higher testosterone has been linked to behaviors that might conflict with effective fathering, such as risk taking and sensation seeking. Prior research found that men with lower testosterone reported greater sympathy or need to respond to infant cries relative to men with higher testosterone.

"There are so many intriguing possibilities here for future research: Why do fathers have lower testosterone when they sleep very close to their children? Does it reflect human fathers' roles in our evolutionary past? How much do fathers vary in their nighttime care when their kids are close by? How does co-sleeping change fathers' sleep architecture when we know that co-sleeping increases mothers' arousals and mothers sync to their infants' sleep patterns," says Gettler.

"Testosterone is a hormone that frequently is a part of public discourse, but the false idea that 'manliness' is exclusively driven by testosterone often dominates the conversation. There is growing evidence that men's physiology can respond to involved parenthood -- something that was long thought to be limited to women. This suggests to us that active fatherhood has a deep history in the human species and our ancestors. For some people, the social idea that taking care of your kids is a key component of masculinity and manliness may not be new, but we see increasing biological evidence suggesting that males have long embraced this role."

Wil Fleming - Brutal Complexes for Strength and Endurance

If you want to be strong, build endurance, and drop some body-fat, barbell complexes are a great and - as the title suggests - brutal way to do so. Maintaining our physical strength and health is an essential part of our physical health, emotional health, and overall well-being, as countless studies continue to show.

In addition to the three different complexes Fleming offers, that will leave you wiped out on the floor in a pool of your own sweat, he provides a list of usable exercises and how to combine them to meet your own needs.

Brutal Complexes

by Wil Fleming – 9/05/2012

 

Much has been written about an old but brutal friend of mine. A friend to whom I was first introduced the day I walked into my first real weight room – a dark and dusty pit stacked with chalk-dusted bumper plates and Eleiko bars; a sanctuary for incredibly strong people to clean, snatch, squat, and otherwise dominate massive weights.

This old friend has a name: the complex.

A complex is a series of exercises done in succession, wherein all reps of a prescribed exercise are completed before moving onto the next without ever putting the implement down, which in most cases is a barbell.

This isn't to be confused with the complex superset, where a strength lift is followed by an explosive lift for the same pattern, such as a front squat and a jump squat.

Recently, complexes have been gaining mainstream popularity due to their efficiency. They're being touted as the quickest, most effective way to get a workout. Heck, you don't even have to have much weight on hand to do them!

And all of the above are true. You can get a complete workout in 15 minutes just by doing 3 sets of a given complex. Get in and get out, leaving plenty of time for Home Depot and maybe even Bed Bath and Beyond. No wonder complexes are so popular!

However, that kind of complex isn't the one I remember. No, the complexes that haunt my memories were formidable beasts that we had to endure every training session. Our complexes were designed to finish us off and send us stumbling out the door, lungs still burning long after the training session was finished.

The complexes in this article are like the ones I recall. They'll challenge you. They may even leave you lying on the ground in a sweaty heap and looking forward to rolling out of the weight room, if only so you can get back up on your feet.

• Each of the complexes outlined below are to be done with a barbell, and are designed to improve your Olympic lifting skill, strength, and power.
• I suggest completing 5-8 reps per movement, and doing 3-4 sets of each complex. If your form turns to crap, then reduce the weight or the number of reps that you're doing each set.
• As a metabolic conditioning tool, complexes can also be used to finish off a training session. Each of these complexes is perfect for the athlete seeking strength, but needs a little more conditioning to lean up or improve endurance. Just up the reps and reduce the rest, and do 2-3 rounds of a given complex at the end of a workout.
• If you're focusing on technique as part of your complex, use a work to rest ratio of 1:1 or greater. You want these to 'suck' because they're difficult and metabolically challenging, not because you get injured doing them.

The Rules of Complexes

I designed the three complexes below. You can design your own, but you need to follow the rules of the game:

1. Start with the hardest stuff.

Start with the most technical movement first. Typically, this means an Olympic lift. If you don't include an O lift, then pick something else that's taxing to the entire body.

2. Make it flow.

This isn't a hard and fast rule, but work your way up and down the chain, and don't make any wasted movements. For instance, if you started with a push press, don't do a deadlift next and then go back to a front squat – your hands will hate you and you'll waste considerable energy moving the bar up and down.

3. Choose from several categories.

There aren't many things that you can't put in a complex, but you have to love your 'pullers' as much as your precious 'pushers.' So don't design a complex that consists of push presses, lunges, behind the neck presses, and squats. The backside of the body needs attention too.

Try selecting from different categories of movements based on what you're doing in training to make the best total body complex you can.

Categories	Barbell Moves
Explosive/Olympic lifting	Snatch, power clean, hang snatch, power snatch, clean pull, squat clean, squat snatch, split jerks, squat jumps, split clean, split snatch
Lower Body Push	Back squat, front squat, forward lunge, reverse lunge
Lower Body Pull	Deadlift, sumo deadlift, Romanian deadlift, single-leg Romanian deadlift, good morning
Upper Body Push	Press, push press, behind the neck press, split stance press
Upper Body Pull	Bent over row (sorry, not a lot of options while you're on your feet)
Miscellaneous	Bar rollouts, push ups, Turkish get-ups

4. Make it mean something.

Training should always have a goal. Although the following complexes are brutal, each has a specific goal – some are for technical improvement in the Olympic lifts while others are for conditioning at the end of a training session. So pick a goal and get after it.

If you're training for strength, complexes should have several strength-based moves for low reps – 3-5 sets of 3-6 reps per movement. Rest times between sets of complexes should be large (twice the time it took to finish the complex).

If you're training to get leaner and need to address your anaerobic metabolism, simply use more reps. The rest to work ratio on these should be close to 1:1 or even less.

If you're trying to improve your Olympic lifts, then use a specific complex each day to target your weak points. Do 2 sets of no more than 5 reps for your O-lift, and 5-8 reps for everything else.

The Clean Complex V 2.0

Movements: Power clean, split jerk (each leg), front squat, reverse lunge.

This complex is extremely technical in the early portion and a good opportunity to focus on a portion of your clean technique.

• If you suck pulling from the floor, concentrate on keeping the bar tight as you move to your knees.
• If you're shaky in the jerk, focus on sticking each jerk in great position.

The idea is to focus on the technical aspects early in the complex before your legs get fried. It's hard to improve a skill when you're doubled over in pain or puking in your sneakers.

Here's the complex in action:

The Snatch Complex V 2.0

Movements: Snatch pull from below knee, power snatch from above knee, overhead squats, good morning, bent over row.

I avoid making most people I coach pull from the floor in the snatch. It's a position that requires a ton of mobility, and if you happen to be tall, forget about it.

This complex is no different – rather than pulling from the floor, you should pull from the hang, and work on developing your transitions around the knee and at the top of the second pull.

Transitions in Olympic lifting are areas in which the movement seriously changes.

There are three distinct transitions in the lifts:

1. From the floor.
2. Around the knee and into the second pull.
3. At the top of the second pull.

This complex addresses the second and third transition of the lifts. To work on the first transition, all you'd need to do is take the bar to the floor for some snatches at the beginning of the complex. See the video below.

The Beast Complex

Movements: Clean grip muscle snatch, push press, back squats, step-up, Romanian deadlift, barbell rollouts.

Remember how I called the end of the clean complex a grind? Consider this a diamond tipped, industrial strength, super grinder. Your goal for this complex is to simply get through it.

This complex is perfectly suited for athletes that are seeking strength above all else, as there are no technique-heavy Olympic lifts, unlike the previous two complexes.

As a special challenge, I like to do this complex in an ascending/descending ladder format: do 1 rep of each on the first set, 2 reps of each on the second, and so on until you reach 5 reps. Then start again at 5 reps and work your way down to 1.

You'll hit 30 total reps of each movement and finish your workout soaked in sweat and awesomeness.

Wrapping it Up

Fair warning, if you're of the "Get in shape in 15 minutes or less!" ilk, these complexes are not for you. Then again, you probably wouldn't be reading T Nation if you did hail from that shallow end of the gene pool.

But if you're a hard-working SOB and your aim is to challenge your body and mind to become a better athlete, a better lifter, and a stronger person, then start here. Attack these complexes, get your ass handed to you, and then get back up and attack again.

Suffer, persevere, and conquer – and once you've mastered these, use the framework to create your own complex that will precisely target the areas that you need to improve.

Good luck!

Kevin Charles Redmon - The Rise and Fall of Sexual Promiscuity

According to this article in Pacific Standard, sexual promiscuity is on the decline - and has been for a very long time (don't tell that to the men and women who wait longer than ever to get married and have children, thus experiencing a greater number of sexual partners than previous generations).

The basic premise of a new research study (discussed in this article) is that at some point in our evolutionary history, males who were not alpha figured out that the only way to secure a mate to pass along those pesky selfish genes was to offer something the alphas did not - security. So females, in essence, traded the greater benefits of multiple male partners (better gene diversity, greater chance of fertilization, decreased infanticide, and more male providers) for the security of one male who provides food (for sexual access) and helps care for/protect the offspring.

This is the first model of this type that includes females as agents in the equation - in the past they have been relegated to passive roles. That, in itself, makes it a more viable model than others. 

The other interesting aspect is that this is still somewhat true today. Alpha males are "playas" and are not likely to settle with or be faithful to one female (obviously, this is a generalization). Non-alpha males, however, i.e. "nice guys," are more able to provide security and more likely to be faithful. And again, this is a generalization that has a lot to do with the developmental stage of the males in question. Those with less egocentric tendencies will likely be better mate material. It also depends on women to choose nice guys, and we know there are plenty of women who are only attracted to "bad boys," which is probably also a factor of ego development.

Anyway . . . this is interesting stuff (even if it only conjecture). Original abstract is at the bottom.

The Rise and Fall of Sexual Promiscuity

Sleeping around once had its benefits, but turns out women may have given up better fertility for better security.

August 2, 2012 • By Kevin Charles Redmon 

Long before Match.com and The Bachelor—even before yentas and oracles—there was the primal jungle, and finding a mate was messy business. Violence and hierarchy ruled the day. Alpha males got the girls; lesser competitors did not. Evolutionary biologists have long tried to trace the human path from combat to courtship: When did we crude animals trade polygamy and paternal absenteeism for “I do” and BabyBjörn?

A new study from Sergey Gavrilets, professor of ecology, biology, and mathematics at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, reviews the current evidence and offers an intriguing hypothesis. The transition from “promiscuity to pair-bonding,” Gavrilets writes in the journal PNAS, occurred only when lesser male hominids, realizing their physical inferiority, adopted a “provider” role in partnerships, and female hominids, in turn, began to show fidelity to these partners. (Others have postulated that the rise of agriculture helped smooth the way for the transition.) The role of female choice is not often considered in evolutionary biology, but if Gavrilets’ models are correct, it may be integral to explaining our past.

Scientists have also long debated the origins of pair-bonding, not because its advantages are in dispute, but because, according to evolutionary logic, it ought never to have happened.

Many species are indeed better off, Gavrilets explains, when their males live cooperatively in societies, helping raise families, rather than warring over mates and leaving their offspring fatherless. But males face a “social dilemma” when it comes to spreading their genes: if they choose to spend their energy providing for—rather than fighting for—mates, other males may cheat and “free ride” on their largesse. (So-called “free rider” problems show up not just in biology, but in every corner of economics, psychology, and environmental policy.) Of all the theories that explain why cooperation (i.e. pair-bonding) replaced competition (i.e. promiscuity) among our ancestors, Gavrilets argues, none account for this social dilemma.

The study highlights several current theories of pair-bonding: instead of fighting, male hominids began to devote effort to caring for offspring, protecting their mate, or provisioning food for sex. But Gavrilets builds mathematical models to show how each of these hypotheticals leads to a “sub-optimal” outcome—how “investing more in offspring means that there is more paternity for other males to steal.” Run the model, and instead of choosing cooperation, the males will choose to fight. It’s not the outcome any one male desires, but the free-rider problem effectively “traps” the whole group in a benighted state.

Gavrilets proposes a modification to existing theory. What if we assume that males began to provide for one—and only one—female, and females, likewise, began to depend on a sole mate for food and help with childcare? First, not all men are created equal; there are few Ryan Goslings and many Kevin Redmons. The weaker among us quickly learned the futility of direct competition, and turned to “alternative reproductive strategies” to spread our genes. (I may not be a dreamboat, baby, but I’ll bring you coffee in bed.) Second, females make choices. Whereas previous models ascribe females a passive role, Gavrilets asserts that “because they receive direct benefits from provisioning males, females should be choosy, and they may become, to some extent, faithful” to their providers.

Promiscuity is a funny thing in nature. Despite what your mother and youth pastor spent so many years telling you, sleeping around has real (genetic) benefits. Polyandry—in which females take more than one mate—allows for better gene diversity, boots the likelihood of fertilization, decreases infanticide, and means more male providers. Gavrilets acknowledges that in switching from promiscuity to monogamy, females actually risked lower fertility. The tradeoff was security.

When he runs the model again, with these two assumptions in place, the outcome is different: instead of a spiral into violent competition, male provisioning and female faithfulness “co-evolve in a self-reinforcing manner.” Males escape the “social dilemma” and pair-bonding replaces promiscuity.

Critically, Gavrilets notes, this process begins with the weakest males—those who have the worst chances of beating out Ryan Gosling for a mate—because they stand to gain the most from an alternative strategy like provisioning. Slowly, the strategy works its way up the dominance hierarchy, as females begin to reward the weaker males with their fidelity. Out of this sexual revolution comes self-domestication. A new kind of society is born, one in which, “except for a very small proportion of the top-ranked individuals, males invest exclusively in provisioning for females, who have evolved very high fidelity to their mates.”

A few million years hence, here we are—imperfect creatures, a long way from the jungle, somewhat closer to commitment.

About Kevin Charles Redmon
Kevin Charles Redmon is a Middlebury Fellow in Environmental Journalism. He writes for The Washington Post, Minnesota Monthly, and the Minneapolis Star Tribune, as well as at TheAtlantic.com, The Millions, and The Rumpus.

Full Citation:

Gavrilets, S. (2012, Jun 19). Human origins and the transition from promiscuity to pair-bonding. PNAS, 109(25): 9923-8. Epub 2012 May 29. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1200717109

Abstract for the original article:

Human origins and the transition from promiscuity to pair-bonding

Sergey Gavrilets

Abstract

A crucial step in recent theories of human origins is the emergence of strong pair-bonding between males and females accompanied by a dramatic reduction in the male-to-male conflict over mating and an increased investment in offspring. How such a transition from promiscuity to pair-bonding could be achieved is puzzling. Many species would, indeed, be much better off evolutionarily if the effort spent on male competition over mating was redirected to increasing female fertility or survivorship of offspring. Males, however, are locked in a “social dilemma,” where shifting one’s effort from “appropriation” to “production” would give an advantage to free-riding competitors and therefore, should not happen. Here, I first consider simple models for four prominent scenarios of the human transition to pair-bonding: communal care, mate guarding, food for mating, and mate provisioning. I show that the transition is not feasible under biologically relevant conditions in any of these models. Then, I show that the transition can happen if one accounts for male heterogeneity, assortative pair formation, and evolution of female choice and faithfulness. This process is started when low-ranked males begin using an alternative strategy of female provisioning. At the end, except for the top-ranked individuals, males invest exclusively in provisioning females who have evolved very high fidelity to their mates. My results point to the crucial importance of female choice and emphasize the need for incorporating between-individual variation in theoretical and empirical studies of social dilemmas and behaviors.

Andy Roddick's Emotional U.S. Open Farewell

I have always liked Andy Roddick, even when he was acting like a child on the court. He had a lot of talent and he played with heart, until (over the last couple of years) his heart was clearly no longer in it. Early in this year's U.S. Open he announced he was retiring at the end of his run in the Open - that end was today. His farewell speech, below, was moving.

During his career, he won the 2003 U.S. Open, and played in four other Grand Slam finals (Wimbledon in 2004, 2005, and 2009, and the U.S. Open in 2006), losing to Roger Federer every time (who also replaced him as World #1 in 2004). Roddick finished 2003 at #1 - the first American to do so since Andre Agassi in 1999. He was - at 21 yrs old - the youngest American to be ranked #1 since computer rankings began in 1973.

In 2004, he recorded the fastest serve ever at 155 mph - a record that stood until 2011. Also in 2004, he set the record for the fastest serve in a Grand Slam tournament (U.S. Open) at 152 m.p.h.

He was without question the best American male player of his generation. In fact, he was often the only male face of American tennis. Unfortunately for him, his career coincided with those of Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal, and Novak Djokovic - Federer and Nadal are two of the greatest players ever, and Djokovic had a 15 month stretch (mostly in 2011) that is nearly unrivaled. 

He is not one of the all-time greats, but he was among the five best in his generation.

Rather the interview Roddick at the end of his match, ESPN's Tom Rinaldi just handed him the microphone and let him speak. Good choice - he was graceful and emotional. He was a man who was ready to stop playing and just be a husband and eventually (one would assume) a father.

Andy Roddick's emotional U.S. Open farewell (VIDEO)

By Chris Chase, USA TODAY

Before you read the definitive take on Andy Roddick's retirement by USA Today's Doug Robson, watch the emotional speech Roddick delivered to an adoring crowd at Arthur Ashe Stadium following the final loss of his career, a four-set defeat to Juan Martin Del Potro.

ESPN's Tom Rinaldi handed Roddick the microphone rather than conducting an interview and the 2003 U.S. Open champion responded by delivering a heartfelt, appreciative talk that left him near tears. His wife, model Brooklyn Decker, and trainer were seen crying from the player's box.


Roddick almost didn't make it through the match without breaking down. When Del Potro had a match point in the eighth game of the fourth set, Roddick looked choked up while the crowd stood and tried to will him to another game.

He responded like he would have in his prime: uncorking a big serve down the middle and holding, one last time on his sport's biggest stage.

Men Don't "Give" Women Orgasms, But We Can Help . . .

This is a very cool article from Michael Castleman, M.A. at his All About Sex blog at Psychology Today. Too many men - myself included - have been raised (by popular culture and lack of relationship education) to believe that sex or making love is all about our technique - if we do it right, she'll moan with pleasure. If she doesn't, well, we're horrible lovers and failures as men.

When my father gave me "the talk," he was straight up with the mechanics, answered my questions (which were all the wrong questions), and probably felt that he had done a good job. He left out one important part, however - the other person and what s/he feels.

Here are ten things I wish he had taught me then:

1. A LOT of women (3/4) cannot have an orgasm from vaginal intercourse alone - she needs direct manual (or oral) stimulation. It's sexy when she takes matters into her own hands, and if you learn how she likes to be touched, she'll love when you do it.
2. Every woman is different - getting to know her body and rhythms, likes and dislikes, is wonderful. Let it take some time, enjoy the journey. Oh, and there is much more to her body than mouth, breasts, and vagina.
3. She knows her body better than you ever will - be a good student and learn, and she will likely do the same for you.
4. Technique is far less important than being emotionally present and open. 
5. It's not about her orgasm or your orgasm, it's about the connection. Really. It's too easy to get caught up in the goal and then we miss the journey.
6. Sex is not about what you do with your penis, it's a whole body-mind-soul experience. If it isn't, you need to go back to #4 on this list.
7. There are as many ways to make love as there are days in your life - and I'm not talking about positions. I'm talking about energies - the mixture of your energy and her energy is different every time if you are present to the emotions. Let that chemistry enchant you.
8. Sometimes, it is about the orgasm, and it's good to just fuck.
9. Humans making love is both beautiful and absurd - it's okay to laugh at the occasional absurdity.
10. Aside from point #1 , everything on this list applies to same sex relationships, as well.

Unfortunately, I don't think my father knew these things. Some of these things I did not learn until my current relationship - and there is still more to learn.

Anyway . . . here is the article from Michael Castleman - he makes a couple of the same points I do.

6 Ways to Help Her Have Orgasms

Men don't "give" them. Men create the context in which women can have them.

Published on September 2, 2012 by Michael Castleman, M.A. in All About Sex

Many men believe that one goal of lovemaking is to “give” women earth-shattering orgasms. But orgasm is something no one “gives.” Orgasms are like laughter. Comedians might be funny, but they don’t “make” us laugh. We release laughter from deep within ourselves when conditions feel right. Rather than “giving” women orgasms, men should focus on what allows women to have them. These suggestions increase her likelihood of happy endings:

(1) Don’t expect her to have orgasms during intercourse. On TV and in movies and pornography, women always seem to have orgasms during intercourse. That’s much more fantasy than reality. In real sex, only about one-quarter of women are consistently orgasmic during intercourse. The old in-and-out can be great fun, but it brings only a minority of women to orgasm. Three-quarters of women need direct stimulation of the clitoris.

The clitoris is the little nub of tissue that sits outside the vagina and a few inches above it beneath the upper junction of the vaginal lips. Even vigorous prolonged intercourse seldom provides enough clitoral stimulation for orgasm. Most women really need clitoral caresses from a hand, tongue, or vibrator. Unless she specifically requests intense touch, caress her clitoris very gently. It contains as many touch-sensitive nerves as the head of the penis, but they’re packed into an organ only about one-tenth the size. As a result, even gentle caresses may feel too intense for many women. Discuss this. If she doesn’t enjoy direct clitoral touch, caress around her clitoris.

(2) Touch her all over, not just those places. From the scalp to the soles of the feet, every square inch of the body is a sensual playground, but too many men focus on just a few corners and forget the rest. Touch her everywhere. All over. Every square inch. Think of sex as whole-body massage that eventually includes the genitals. Whole-body massage produces deep relaxation, which helps women (and men) have orgasms. Massage her gently from head to toe. Try massage lotion (available at bath and body shops). Some non-genital spots that can feel surprisingly erotic include: the scalp, ears, face, neck, feet, and the backs of the knees.

(3) Slow down. Extended sensual warm-up time helps women have orgasms. Compared with men, most women need considerably more time to warm up to genital play. Forget the wham bam you see in porn. When making love, do everything at half speed. Sex therapists recommend at least 30 minutes of kissing, cuddling, and whole-body sensual caressing before reaching between her legs.

(4) Use a lubricant. Wetter is better. In just seconds, lubricant makes women’s (and men’s) genitals more erotically sensitive, so it helps women have orgasms. In addition, for women experiencing post-menopausal vaginal dryness, sex may feel uncomfortable without a lubricant.

The most widely used lube is saliva. It’s wet, free, and always available, but saliva dries quickly and it’s not very slippery. Vegetable oil is another possibility, but it can be messy and stain linens. Try commercial lubricants. They’re safe, inexpensive, and slippery. If they dry out, they can be refreshed with a few drops of water, or just apply a bit more. But don’t squirt lubricants directly on women’s genitals. That can feel cold and jarring. Squeeze some into your hand, rub it with your fingers to warm it, then touch her. Lubricants are available at pharmacies, near the condoms.

(5) Break out of routines. Ever notice how sex feels more arousing in hotels? That’s because hotel sex is non-routine. Biochemically, the brain chemical (neurotransmitter) dopamine governs libido. As dopamine rises, so does arousal and likelihood of orgasm. What raises dopamine? Novelty. So try something different—anything. Make love in a new location, in a different way, at a different time, or with a different ambiance, for example, candle light, music, and sex toys. Beforehand, try bathing or showering together, or treat yourselves to professional massages.

(6) Take a vibrator to bed. Even if you do all of the above, some women still have trouble with orgasm, and need the intense stimulation only vibrators can provide. Today, one-third of American women own vibrators, but few couples include them in partner sex. Some men fear being “replaced.” Nonsense. Power tools don’t replace carpenters. They just get the job done more efficiently. Vibrators can’t kiss and cuddle, or make women laugh, or love them. They do just one thing, and some women need that one thing to have orgasms. Hold her close as you invite her to use the vibrator.

Just remember, you don’t “give” her orgasms. In a loving relationship, the man’s job is to create an erotic context that’s comfortable, relaxed, and sufficiently arousing enough so the woman can let herself go enough to climax.