Know Your Shadow (Robert Augustus Masters) and Master the Neuroscience of Change (Kelly McGonigal)

I don't generally endorse products on any of my blogs, other than books in review, but this is a little different. One of the things I promote and try to embody in this blog is the receptiveness to change and personal growth that can open and make tender the masculine heart.

Each of the Sounds True offerings below are excellent tools for that kind of transformation. If you are a professional, CEUs are also available.

First, integral psychotherapist and teacher Robert Augustus Masters offers a course on Knowing Your Shadow, designed to help each of us "discover and cultivate intimacy with the endarkened aspects of yourself including core wounds and difficult emotions." I've been reading Masters' work for many years now and I can recommend his teachings without reservation - he offers essential tools for transforming ourselves into better men, better human beings.

The other recommendation is for Kelly McGonigal's The Neuroscience of Change, a course in personal transformation based in mindfulness and self-compassion. She explains how to "nourish the seeds of change and transformation by working with inner experiences as the key to making outward change through willingness, self-awareness, and surrender." This feels like a very useful melding of the work of Kristin Neff (mindfulness and self-compassion) and Dan Siegel (mindfulness and neuroplasticity).

If you would like to support this blog, and these courses feel useful to you, please order them through the links below, If you do so, I will make a little coin to buy more of these programs (and books) so that I can recommend for you the ones I feel are most relevant and useful to readers of this blog.

Knowing Your Shadow
Becoming Intimate with All That You Are 

Robert Augustus Masters

from Sounds True

Description

“Why are the people around me so difficult?” “Why do I keep getting in situations like this?” Our shadow side, teaches Robert Augustus Masters, contains the emotions and desires we've disowned, neglected, or hidden from ourselves. If not skillfully worked with, it can easily direct our lives on every level. With Knowing Your Shadow, this acclaimed psychotherapist and author shows us how to illuminate and wisely engage with the endarkened aspects of who we are. Join him to explore in depth the areas where shadow work can most benefit us, including:

• Discovering and cultivating intimacy with the endarkened aspects of yourself
• Identifying and healing your core wounds
• Working effectively with anger, fear, shame, guilt, and other difficult emotions
• Understanding how your shadow influences those around you, often beyond conscious awareness
• Guided practices, meditations, and exercises for developing more authenticity and wholeness in your personal and workplace relationships, your sexuality, and your spiritual path

Our moods and relationships often seem to have a life of their own. Knowing Your Shadow offers exceptional support for taking charge of your life at a deep level, providing expert guidance and instruction to discover and make wise use of what lies hidden or otherwise neglected within us.

Learn More About:

• Becoming intimate with your shadow
• Relating wisely to shame and guilt
• Ending your suffering by entering your pain
• Exploring the presence of your past
• Freeing yourself from your inner critic
• Working with fear, anger, and other darker emotions
• Bringing sex out of the shadows—how we eroticize our unmet needs
• The signs of spiritual bypassing
• Healthy spirituality
• Becoming intimate with all that you are

Music by Diane Bardwell

Knowing Your Shadow - Session Titles

Session 1: Becoming Intimate with Your Shadow
Session 2: Becoming Intimate with Your Reactivity and Pain
Session 3: Relating Wisely to Your Inner Critic, Shame, and Guilt
Session 4: Becoming Intimate with Your Darker Emotions
Session 5: Bringing Sex Out of the Shadows
Session 6: Spirituality's Shadow

6 CE credits available!
» Learn more
» Calculate how many home study hours are allowed per renewal period

Want to buy the CE credits only? If you already purchased this title, you can purchase the CE credits separately.

NOTE: CE credits are available for US customers only.

Course objectives:

• Discuss how to discover and cultivate intimacy with the endarkened aspects of yourself including core wounds and difficult emotions
• Explain how your shadow influences those around you, often beyond conscious awareness
• Define the signs of spiritual bypassing versus healthy spirituality
• Discuss how to free yourself from your inner critic
• Summarize how to become intimate with all that you are
• Utilize guided practices, meditations, and exercises for developing more authenticity and wholeness in your personal and workplace relationships, your sexuality, and your spiritual path

* * * * *

The Neuroscience of Change
A Compassion-Based Program for Personal Transformation 

Kelly McGonigal

from Sounds True

Description 

Personal Transformation Based on Mindfulness and Self-Compassion

What's your most important goal? Why does it matter so deeply? How will you overcome the obstacles? Answer these questions with sincerity, proceed with mindfulness and compassion, and you have just set in motion a revolutionary method for personal change that is supported by both the latest science and traditional wisdom. On The Neuroscience of Change, psychologist and award-winning Stanford lecturer Kelly McGonigal presents six sessions of breakthrough ideas, guided practices, and real-world exercises for making self-awareness and kindness the basis for meaningful transformation.

Practical Methods to Retrain Your Brain to Support Your Goals

Our understanding of the incredible power of the human brain is at an all-time high, with the emerging fields of neuroscience, evolutionary psychology, and psychophysiology opening new possibilities for greater health, happiness, and freedom from suffering. Drawing on her training as a research scientist and longtime practitioner of meditation and yoga, Dr. McGonigal reveals these startling findings—including the clinically supported methods for training the mind away from default states and negativity that no longer serve us and establishing behaviors and attitudes aligned with our highest values and aspirations.

The First Rule of Change: It's Already Happening

As the world's wisdom traditions teach and science is now verifying, our lives are in fact defined by constant change. Whether you're looking to change a behavior, improve your health or other circumstances, or simply for a way to bring hope and resilience into your life as it is, The Neuroscience of Change will help you trust yourself and unfold your true capacities for personal transformation.

Highlights

• Willingness, self-awareness, and surrender—how to nourish the seeds of change
• Focusing on the process, not the outcome
• How to overcome the “trigger-to-instinct” reaction
• The proven benefits of meditation—and how to start practicing yourself
• How to transform self-criticism into self-compassion
• Why your mind creates habits—and how to consciously create new ones
• Making values-driven commitments
• Visualization and the principle of “encoding prospective memories”
• The power of the vow
• “Deep activation” and the danger of rejecting what is
• Working with inner experiences as the key to making outward change
• Six hours of breakthrough science, practical wisdom, guided exercises, and mindfulness meditations for making positive change that lasts

6.5 CE credits available!

» Learn more
» Calculate how many home study hours are allowed per renewal period

Want to buy the CE credits only? If you already purchased this title, you can purchase the CE credits separately.

NOTE: CE credits are available for US customers only.

Course objectives:

• Discuss how to nourish the seeds of change and transformation by working with inner experiences as the key to making outward change through willingness, self-awareness, and surrender.
• Explain how to transform self-criticism into self-compassion
• Discuss the value of vows, "encoding prospective memories," making values-driven commitments and how to overcome the "trigger-to-instinct" in the process of transformation and change.
• Practice guided reflections based on breakthrough science, practical sensibility, and wisdom traditions, including exercises and mindfulness meditations that for making positive change that lasts.

David Brooks - The Heart Grows Smarter

Over the past several years, as conservative New York Times Op-Ed columnist David Brooks has read more and more in sociology, social psychology, and neuroscience, he has become more and more liberal on social issues. Granted, he still writes some bone-headed columns from time to time, likely to appease his conservative base, but he tends more toward progressive, compassionate views on social issues, as in the column below.

George Vaillant, a psychiatrist and Professor at Harvard Medical School, spent the last 30 years as Director of the Study of Adult Development (The Grant Study, which is what Brooks is referencing below) at the Harvard University Health Service. The study has prospectively charted the lives of 824 men and women for over 60 years. His book summarizing some of  the data from the study is Aging Well: Surprising Guideposts to a Happier Life from the Landmark Harvard Study of Adult Development (2003) - you can read more about the study in this 2009 article from the Atlantic Monthly.

The Heart Grows Smarter

By DAVID BROOKS

Published: November 5, 2012 

If you go back and read a bunch of biographies of people born 100 to 150 years ago, you notice a few things that were more common then than now.

First, many more families suffered the loss of a child, which had a devastating and historically underappreciated impact on their overall worldviews.

Second, and maybe related, many more children grew up in cold and emotionally distant homes, where fathers, in particular, barely knew their children and found it impossible to express their love for them.

It wasn’t only parents who were emotionally diffident; it was the people who studied them. In 1938, a group of researchers began an intensive study of 268 students at Harvard University. The plan was to track them through their entire lives, measuring, testing and interviewing them every few years to see how lives develop.

In the 1930s and 1940s, the researchers didn’t pay much attention to the men’s relationships. Instead, following the intellectual fashions of the day, they paid a lot of attention to the men’s physiognomy. Did they have a “masculine” body type? Did they show signs of vigorous genetic endowments?

But as this study — the Grant Study — progressed, the power of relationships became clear. The men who grew up in homes with warm parents were much more likely to become first lieutenants and majors in World War II. The men who grew up in cold, barren homes were much more likely to finish the war as privates.

Body type was useless as a predictor of how the men would fare in life. So was birth order or political affiliation. Even social class had a limited effect. But having a warm childhood was powerful. As George Vaillant, the study director, sums it up in “Triumphs of Experience,” his most recent summary of the research, “It was the capacity for intimate relationships that predicted flourishing in all aspects of these men’s lives.”

Of the 31 men in the study incapable of establishing intimate bonds, only four are still alive. Of those who were better at forming relationships, more than a third are living.

It’s not that the men who flourished had perfect childhoods. Rather, as Vaillant puts it, “What goes right is more important than what goes wrong.” The positive effect of one loving relative, mentor or friend can overwhelm the negative effects of the bad things that happen.

In case after case, the magic formula is capacity for intimacy combined with persistence, discipline, order and dependability. The men who could be affectionate about people and organized about things had very enjoyable lives.

But a childhood does not totally determine a life. The beauty of the Grant Study is that, as Vaillant emphasizes, it has followed its subjects for nine decades. The big finding is that you can teach an old dog new tricks. The men kept changing all the way through, even in their 80s and 90s.

One man in the study paid his way through Harvard by working as a psychiatric attendant. He slept from 6 p.m. to midnight. Worked the night shift at a hospital, then biked to class by 8 in the morning. After college, he tried his hand at theater. He did not succeed, and, at age 40, he saw himself as “mediocre and without imagination.” His middle years were professionally and maritally unhappy.

But, as he got older, he became less emotionally inhibited. In old age, he became a successful actor, playing roles like King Lear. He got married at 78. By 86, the only medicine he was taking was Viagra. He lived to 96.

Another subject grew up feeling that he “didn’t know either parent very well.” At 19, he wrote, “I don’t find it easy to make friends.” At 39, he wrote, “I feel lonely, rootless and disoriented.” At 50, he had basically given up trying to socialize and was trapped in an unhappy marriage.

But, as he aged, he changed. He became the president of his nursing home. He had girlfriends after the death of his first wife and then remarried. He didn’t turn into a social butterfly, but life was better.

The men of the Grant Study frequently became more emotionally attuned as they aged, more adept at recognizing and expressing emotion. Part of the explanation is biological. People, especially men, become more aware of their emotions as they get older.

Part of this is probably historical. Over the past half-century or so, American culture has become more attuned to the power of relationships. Masculinity has changed, at least a bit.

The so-called Flynn Effect describes the rise in measured I.Q. scores over the decades. Perhaps we could invent something called the Grant Effect, on the improvement of mass emotional intelligence over the decades. This gradual change might be one of the greatest contributors to progress and well-being that we’ve experienced in our lifetimes.


A version of this op-ed appeared in print on November 6, 2012, on page A29 of the New York edition with the headline: The Heart Grows Smarter.

Journal of Men, Masculinities and Spirituality - Volume 2, Number 1: The Intimate Connection

A new issue of the Journal of Men, Masculinities, and Spirituality is available online.

Volume 2, Number 1: Table of Contents

The Intimate Connection

Editorial: 

Editor's Note (pp. 1-2)
Joseph Gelfer

Articles:
Sexually Explicit? Re-reading Revelation’s 144,000 Virgins as a Response to Roman Discourses (pp. 3-28)
Lynn Huber

Men, Buddhism and the Discontents of Western Modernity (pp. 29-46)
Chris Barker

Book Reviews:
Review of Dale B. Martin, Sex and the Single Savior: Gender and Sexuality in Biblical Interpretation (pp. 47-51)
Ken Stone

Review of Stefan Horlacher, Masculinities. Konzeptionen von Männlichkeit im Werk von Thomas Hardy und D. H. Lawrenc [Masculinities: Conceptions of Masculinity in the Works of Thomas Hardy and D. H. Lawrence] (pp. 52-53)
Silvia Mergenthal

Review of Stephen Arterburn and Fred Stoeker with Mike Yorkey, Every Man’s Battle: Every Man’s Guide to Winning the War on Sexual Temptation One Victory at a Timeand Every Young Man’s Battle: Strategies for Victory in the Real World of Sexual Temptation (pp. 54-55)
Mark J. Justad

Review of Marc Epprecht, Hungochani: The History of a Dissident Sexuality in Southern Africa (pp. 56-57)
Phillip A. Cantrell, II

Review of Charles H. Lippy, Do Real Men Pray? Images of the Christian Man and Male Spirituality in White Protestant America (pp. 58-59)
Bradford McCall

Download Vol. 2 No. 1 (784 KB PDF)
Kindle edition

Was President Obama's "Best-Looking Attorney General" Comment Sexist?

I pay very little attention to most political news, so I missed President Obama's "best-looking attorney general" comment (on Thursday, April 4) in reference to California Attorney General Kamala Harris. However, one of my female clients brought it up in her session, so I looked into it a little bit.

Interestingly, some conservatives (women) are defending Obama while others are suggesting he “crossed the line” (woman) and needs “gender-sensitivity training” (man).

“She’s brilliant and she’s dedicated, she’s tough, and she is exactly what you’d want in anybody who is administering the law, and making sure that everybody is getting a fair shake,” Obama said at a Democratic National Committee event in California Thursday, adding “She also happens to be, by far, the best looking attorney general.”

Obama had the chattering class buzzing not long after he made the remarks, with some arguing he “crossed the line” and needed “gender-sensitivity training.”

And he found defenders in an unlikely place: Fox News. On Friday’s Fox & Friends Gretchen Carlson said “She’s pretty! So what?” Later conservative radio host Monica Crowley defended the president as well. “What he said was sincere, it was honest, it was very sweet,” she said.

I can see why some people might be bothered by this comment, although I have no sense that Obama is sexist in any way. He praised her skills as a lawyer and public servant first and foremost, and then offered, as an aside, the comment on her attractiveness.

It seems clear that is was the wrong place and time to make such a comment, but it does not appear particularly harmful or in any way belittling of her skills and talents. It feels like political correctness to demand he attend gender-sensitivity training.

Writing at The Atlantic, Garance Franke-Ruta offers a different perspective - the gaffe in this comment is in mixing the worlds of power and the worlds of beauty, which tend to be mutually exclusive.

Why Obama's 'Best-Looking Attorney General' Comment Was a Gaffe

The system of beauty, the system of power, and Kamala Harris

GARANCE FRANKE-RUTA

APR 5 2013,

Eric Risberg/AP Images

President Obama's biggest gaffe yesterday when speaking of California Attorney General Kamala Harris was not in flirtatiously complimenting her as "the best-looking attorney general," but in introducing an observation from the system of beauty into a forum that was about the system of power.

What's that, you say? Irin Carmon does a great job in Salon in laying out the bounds of propriety for when it's appropriate to talk about a woman's looks as a general matter. But I've long felt we lack a solid theoretical underpinning for easily discussing these issues, and why precisely it is that admiring and complimenting women for the beauty they work so hard to maintain--and let's be clear, nobody looks like Harris at her age (48) without effort and without herself valuing beauty and fitness, which are achievements as much or more than naturally occurring properties--can sometimes be inappropriate.

It seems to me--and I touched on this a bit a 2009 Slate piece--that a simple distinction between the two worlds in which women today operate can help us think about this: They are the system of beauty, and the system of power.

The system of beauty is what preceded women's entry into the paid workforce in a bid to achieve economic equality and professional fulfillment. It operates everywhere in the world, according to regionally variable standards, but goes a little something like this: Women are a natural resource, a form of wealth that men can acquire. Beauty and, to a lesser extent, fertility, are the coinage in this system of value. In contemporary America, women can choose the extent to which they wish to engage with this system of power, but there's no question that it remains extant, and that in many ways the most economically successful women are those who use it best to their advantage--actresses, models, musicians, and the like. Beauty is a system of power, deeply rooted, preceding all others, richly rewarded. We pay homage to it, still, and young women as they face the world can make a choice to live a life--even a career--within it, just as they can choose to go to law or medical school or contend in any other way for standing and earning capacity in the world.

That is, they can enter the system of power. Power as the acquisition of status, capital, position, knowledge, property. And for a reason other than the exploitation of the resource of the physical self. The fight of feminism was the fight of women for entry into the system of power from the system of beauty. The fight in the workplace for women very often is to create a space for themselves within the system of power while continuing to operate within the system of beauty in their private lives. And the struggle of feminism has often been to acknowledge that the system of beauty is irrevocable and cannot be expunged by protest or discourse or time. To be an educated professional woman in contemporary America is to know that you operate--and often, must operate--within both systems. It's why beautiful and extremely capable women are often valued above their less glamorous or less fit peers--they are triumphs in two systems of value, double-threats.

Harris, like Michelle Obama, is a triumph in the system of beauty as well as the system of power. But President Obama's remark mistook the setting. Just as it's perfectly appropriate to tell a colleague she looks gorgeous when she's dressed to the nines for some black tie work event, it would be inappropriate to refer to her as "gorgeous over there" during a work meeting. Doing so takes her out of the system of power and puts her into the system of beauty in a setting in which power is the value that's brought her to the table. And that, dear readers, is a gaffe.

The Power of Friendship - Kevin Ware on Louisville Teammate Who 'Touched My Heart'

When Louisville player Kevin Ware went down last weekend with one of the worst sports injuries most of us will ever see, only one player, a teammate, was able to set aside his own fears and sadness and be the friend who helped Kevin through the trauma. This is that story, from USA Today.

Kevin Ware on Louisville teammate that 'touched my heart'

Adam Himmelsbach, USA TODAY Sports
April 4, 2013

(Photo: Brian Spurlock, USA TODAY Sports)

When Louisville forward Luke Hancock saw Kevin Ware lying near the sideline with a shattered right leg, he initially recoiled like his teammates. Some Cardinals were vomiting, others were crying and inconsolable.

But then Hancock thought back to last summer, when he suffered a gruesome shoulder injury in a pickup game. He remembered how others were aghast. He remembered how former Louisville guard Andre McGee was the only one to rush to his side, to rush him to the hospital. He remembered how much that had meant.

So as Ware lay there in the first half of the Cardinals' NCAA tournament victory over Duke on Sunday, scared and alone and stunned, Hancock ran to him. He held Ware's hand and told him they would get through this together. He told Ware he would say a prayer for him.

Ware didn't respond at first, because he was in shock. Hancock took a deep breath, closed his eyes, clenched Ware's hand and started the prayer.

"Lord, watch over us and let Kevin be OK during this tough time," he began. "The Lord does everything for a reason, and He will get us through this."

Hancock said he did all he could to keep from breaking down, to keep tears from falling onto his fallen teammate. He found out later that Ware also was trying not to cry, trying to stay strong for him.

Hancock gently patted Ware's chest several times, the two of them together in front of 34,657 fans in Lucas Oil Stadium and millions of horrified TV viewers.

"I wouldn't want to be alone in that situation, and I don't think he wanted to be alone," Hancock said, sitting in a small office at the team's training facility Wednesday as Ware held a news conference upstairs. "I just thought if I could talk to him and tell him he'll be all right, it might help."

Luke Hancock on Kevin Ware: "I just thought he needed someone by his side." 

It helped more than Hancock realized, more than he could imagine. Ware said that before Hancock arrived, he was scared. After Hancock touched him and calmed him, he knew he would be fine. 

Before long the other Cardinals were there and Ware was enveloped in a sea of support. His teammates clenched his forearms and held him tight. But that first moment was the most important moment. 

"Seeing Luke there," Ware said, "really just touched my heart." 

He said Hancock's presence allowed him to refocus and regain his strength. It allowed him to start thinking about the team — or, as he told me, "to go into Kevin mode." 

He began telling his teammates to win the game, to win it for him. He said it over and over, until he was taken away on a stretcher before heading to a hospital for surgery. 

You never know how you'll react to danger or disaster or trauma. You like to think you'll be strong and courageous, but sometimes it's just not that easy. 

You can't fault the other players for their initial reaction to such a macabre moment. But you can praise Hancock, and you should. 

"I think it just galvanized everybody," Louisville athletic director Tom Jurich said. "It was the very first thing I noticed. To see Luke right there was just incredible." 

On Tuesday afternoon, Hancock arrived at the team training facility wanting to know when Ware would return home. Told that he already was in the locker room, Hancock rushed in. 

"You could see on my face and on his face that we were just so happy to see each other," Hancock said. "He gave me a hug and said he was so thankful I was there for him. I told him I knew he'd do the same for me. That's my friend."

From io9, this is an excellent summary of the current knowledge on gendered differences in sex drive - with the caveat that this article and the researchers mentioned are working within the traditional binary limitations on what appears as male and female genders. There are a lot of links to original research.

Do men really have higher sex drives than women?

ROBERT T. GONZALEZ 

1/21/13 11:27am

There is possibly no greater source of debate than the age-old question of whether men want sex more than women. But embedded in that debate are a host of other questions. What is a "sex drive" anyway? What is a good scientific way to compare men and women's sexual desires? What happens when women want it more than men? Does sexual desire in gay and lesbian couples mirror that of men and women in straight relationships?

Let's explore, starting with the largest sex study ever conducted.

One big sex survey

In 2005, the BBC conducted a massive cross-cultural internet survey (over 200,000 participants across 53 countries) that looked at, among other things, self-reported sex drive and sociosexuality (basically how prudish people are in their sexual attitudes and behavior). Height, a physical trait with a pretty unambiguously gender-based difference, was also measured.

Men across all cultures reported higher sex drives and less restricted sexual attitudes than women, but women were consistently more variable than men in their sex drives. Another important, if not entirely surprising pattern, suggests that these differences are not entirely biological, and are due in some part to social and cultural ideologies.

Gender equality and economic development tended to predict, across nations, sex differences in sociosexuality, but not sex differences in sex drive or height. Parameters for sociosexuality tended to vary across nations more than parameters for sex drive and height did.

No surprise there. Women compelled to wear burkas will probably relate to sex and sexuality differently than more sartorially liberated western counterparts. Women who've grown up getting told by creepy old men to squeeze an aspirin between their knees are liable to self-report more conservative behaviors and attitudes about sex.

These variations also play into what psychologist Richard Lippa calls "a hybrid model," wherein "both biological and social… influences contribute to sex differences." It's the old nature vs. nurture debate, and it's part of why sex, sexuality, sex drive — and the studies that investigate them — are so damn complicated. It's also why questions about sexual appetite require more than one study to fully explore.

The BBC survey was just one study. A big study, sure, but the fact of the matter is that there's no one way to measure the strength of someone's sex drive. As Case Western psychologists Roy Baumeister, Kathleen Catanese and Kathleen Vohs point out in this fantastic review of research on gender differences in sexual desire:

On an a priori basis, one would expect the difference in motivation to be reflected in desired frequency of sex, desired variety of sex acts and partners, frequency of fantasy, frequency of masturbation, number of partners, frequency of thinking about sex, willingness to make sacrifices in other spheres to obtain sex, and the like.

Good luck finding a single study that covers all those factors. (Hint: there isn't one.) As a general rule, there is no single survey, no particular sample population (even one with 200,000+ participants) that is perfect. What you really need is a lot of studies. Baumeister and crew combed through over 150 of them for their review. Let's look at some of what they found.

Men want it more, succumb to it more, and pay more money for it

Most studies suggest that lustful tendencies — including spontaneous sexual thoughts,uncontrolled or unwanted thoughts and spontaneous physical arousal — are a lot more common in men than in women.

The same goes for studies that focus on the desired frequency of sex. Men tend to want sex more than women, whether it's at the beginning of a relationship or after 20 years of marriage.

What about gays and lesbians? Research on sexual desire in same-sex relationships is particularly interesting, and, again, suggests that men desire sex more frequently than women, regardless of either gender's sexual orientation. Baumeister's summary warrants a lengthy citation:

One large investigation that included a sizeable sample of same-gender relationships was the study by Blumstein and Schwartz. They found that gay men had higher frequencies of sex than lesbians at all stages of relationships. Within the first 2 years of a relationship, for example, two thirds of the gay men but only one third of the lesbians were in the maximum category of having sex three or more times per week (the highest frequency category). After 10 years together, 11% of the gay men but only 1% of the lesbians were still in that category of highly frequent sex. 

At the other extreme, after 10 years nearly half the lesbians, but only a third of the gay men, were having sex less than once a month. Even that difference may be a substantial underestimate of the discrepancy in sexual activity: Blumstein and Schwartz reported that the gay men who had largely ceased having sex after 10 years together were often having sex with other partners, whereas the lesbians who had ceased having sex together had generally not compensated for this deficit by finding other sexual outlets. A lack of sexual desire and activity in women is reflected in the phrase "lesbian bed death," (e.g., Iasenza, 2000) which has been coined to describe the low levels of sexual activity among lesbians in long-term relationships.

This pattern of greater male sex drive, manifested in a variety of forms, turns up in study after study after study. A representative sampling:

• Several studies show that men desire significantly more sex partners than women. (One survey found that, uninhibited by factors like disease or laws, college age females would ideally like to have 2.7 sex partners over the entire rest of their lives. College age males, on the other hand, desired an average of 64 lifetime sex partners.)
• Men masturbate more. A meta-analysis of 26 studies on gender differences in sexual behavior found that "masturbation was the largest difference of all the variables they examined, with men nearly a full standard deviation higher than women."
• Several studies to date indicate that women have an easier time than men going without sexual gratification. For a particularly interesting (if unsettling, given the long and sordid history of sexual abuse in the Catholic church) look at the ability and willingness to forego sex, see this investigation on clerical celibacy among Catholic men and women.

Men also spend way more money on porn, are less likely to report a pathological lack of sexual desire, and tend to rate their genitals — and the genitals of their partners — as more inherently lovable and attractive than women.

A Biological Basis?

The role of social and cultural pressures on these experimental findings cannot be ignored, but studies are beginning to turn up more and more compelling evidence of a biological basis for differing sex drives, as well.

Take testosterone, for example. Men's blood testosterone levels are, on average, seven or eight times higher than women's. Recent studies have shown that women administered high doses of testosterone reported an increase in sexual activity, reports of pleasure and orgasm, sexual arousal and sexual desires relative to women administered a placebo. Studies on female-to-male and male-to-female transexuals lend these findings additional credence. Writes Baumeister:

A study of 35 female-to-male transsexuals and 15 male-to-female transsexuals also supports the impact of androgens on sex drive. In a longitudinal design that tested patients before and 3 months postoperatively, Van Goozen, Cohen-Kettenis, Gooren, Frijda, & Van de Poll (1995) found a decrease in sexual interest and arousability among the male-to-female transsexuals, who were administered anti-androgens and estrogens. In contrast, the female-to-male transsexuals, who were administered testosterone, reported heightened sexual interest and arousability. These data highlight the importance of testosterone in producing meaningful changes in sexual arousal and interest, even over a relatively short time. 

Sex Drive ≠ Sexual Capacity ≠ Sexual Enjoyment ≠ Sexuality, etc.

All of this brings us to some glaring, massively important points. Greater sex drive does not translate to greater capacity for sex, or greater enjoyment of sex. (The latter is a pretty tough thing to nail down, but the fact that women are physically capable of engaging in more sex, and of having more orgasms, would suggest that women's capacity for sex is greater than men's). Nor does it suggest a greater inherent male sexuality. And the idea that greater sexual desire is always a good or desirable thing is so ass-backwards it barely warrants mentioning in the first place.

Perhaps the most important point in any discussion about sex and sexual desire is that differences in sexual appetite — especially in studies like the ones cited by Baumeister and his colleagues — reflect tendencies across large populations. Things can play out very, very differently on an individual level. The relationship between a person and his or her sexual partner/partners — male, female or transgendered — will vary enormously.

The fact is: women wind up wanting sex more than their male partners ALL THE TIME, and the expectation of higher male desire can have a devastating impact on a relationship. As Hugo Schwyzer explains in this great piece for Jezebel, a lack of balance in a sexual desire between two people of any gender can be problematic, but it's often especially difficult when the situation arises between a woman and her less-horny male partner:

As therapists have pointed out again and again for years, most of us come into relationships with a "He who cares less, wins" model. The lower-desire partner has the power to grant or deny - and that often leaves the higher-desire partner feeling powerless and rejected, and the lower-desire partner feeling guilty. 

And while that's true when the man is the one with the higher desire, at least in that instance both he and his low-desire female partner are aware that they are following a culturally appropriate script. Because men are "supposed" to want "it" more, men are also "supposed" to be accustomed to rejection: "it's not me", a man can tell himself, "it's just that women naturally aren't as sexual as men." When our own experience lines up with the myths, we may be frustrated or resentful - but at least we are reassured that we're "normal." Higher-desire women don't get that reassurance. Neither, for that matter, do their male partners.

For more level-headed discussion on the study and theorizing of sexuality and sexual desire, check out the exhaustive review by Buameister, Catanese and Vohs. It's pleasantly clear, balanced, and surprisingly readable stuff:

Is There a Gender Difference in Strength of Sex Drive? Theoretical Views, Conceptual Distinctions, and a Review of Relevant Evidence

Images via Shutterstock

The 8 Most Ridiculous Products Marketed For Men (The Village Voice)

From The Village Voice, this is a funny (although disturbing) collection of products marketed at men, as though we are dumb as rocks and would actually ENJOY a fart-scented candle (seriously, see below). Enjoy the banality.

The 8 Most Ridiculous Products Marketed For Men

By Nick Greene 

Wed., Apr. 3 2013

 

Did you know there was once a time when products were just products? Of course, now products are powerful things that decide your gender for you. Why else would companies spend so much of their time making "Men's" versions of even their most basic items? For the chance to sell twice as many of them by praying on the insecurities of men raised in a culture that trumpets superficially masculine constructs as shields against perceived weaknesses which are themselves the products of discriminatory gender-bias?

Oh, that's probably it.

To demonstrate this remarkably stupid aspect of our adorable society, we've found the 8 most ridiculous products marketed for men.


 

The Man Hanger

Why buy a $25 rebar clothes hanger? Because where else would you hang your "I'm a Secure, Confident Man" T-shirt?

The best part is, when you are done hanging clothes, you can straighten the hanger with your bare hands and pour concrete over it to construct a monument to your manhood. Make it really big so people know how manly you are--you did buy The Man Hanger, after all.


 

Dr. Pepper Ten

It's entirely possible that Dr. Pepper Ten's oft-mocked slogan, "It's Not for Women," was forced upon them by the FDA. Are we to assume that one sip of this sugary sludge will make women's ovaries explode from their abdomens like erumpent comets of sinew?

Let's just say we've never seen it explicitly rebutted by Dr. Pepper or the FDA.

Axe Shower Gel 

Axe has been the champion of pointless product gendering for years. Their deodorants and body washes have names like "Cool Metal," "Sports Blast," and "Anarchy."

The best part? They all smell like watermelon. Even "Anarchy."




Axe Shower Tool

As if manly soap wasn't enough, Axe sells a masculine loofah. What separates this from a normal loofah? Rubber casing that looks like a tire and the fact that it's called a "Shower Detailer Tool."

If you haven't figured it out yet, Axe thinks you're stupid.




Man Candles

Click on the above link, the one that says "man candles." Go ahead, we'll wait.

Fantastic, now Amazon thinks you're the kind of consumer who is interested in buying BBQ- and fart-scented candles. Enjoy their recommendations for "poop-shaped bath soap" and "Maybe You Touched Your Genitals Hand Sanitizer."

You know, "man" stuff.



HOME Cleaning Products for Men

You're a man and you have a dilemma: Your house is dirty. You could A) Let your filthy house fester until it becomes a breeding ground for maggots and roaches that will eventually chew the skin off your face as you sleep on a pile of garbage, or B) Go to the store and purchase cleaning supplies.

For years, option A was the only way to go for us Y-Chromosome warriors. That was until these cleaning products for men were made. Now we have faces, complete with beards and strong jaws.

Thanks, cleaning supplies.




Brogurt

This is the first sentence of the first paragraph of Powerful Yogurt's "Who We Are" section from their website:

From the time of the Greeks, abs have represented dedication, strength, power, and success.

Yes, abs -- that's what the Greeks are known for. Democracy too, but that's for pussies. Buy our Greek yogurt made with protein you're just going to shit out anyway.




Lip Balm for Men 

True story: I once saw a man use Chapstick. His son--a handsome boy--watched as his dad applied the balm. As he spread it on his lips, his son's face turned cold and gray.

"Dad?" he cried, "What are you doing?"

"There won't be any more catch in the backyard, son," the father said, his voice high and shrill, "I decided to use Chapstick and now I am no longer a strong male role model. Also, I sold the riding mower."

True story.

[@nickgreene]

Brian Mustanski, Ph.D. - What Is Sexual Orientation (and Bisexuality and Sexual Fluidity)?

This comes from Brian Mustanski, Ph.D., at The Sexual Continuum on the Psychology Today blog site. He asked Meredith Chivers, Assistant Professor at Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada. She runs the Sexuality and Gender Laboratory (SageLab), and is "dedicated to understanding gender differences and similarities in sexuality, including sexual psychophysiology, sexual orientation, and sexual functioning."

In addition to the video embedded in the post, I have added a couple of additional videos from her on the topics of sexual fluidity and bisexuality.

What is sexual orientation?

by Brian Mustanski, Ph.D. in The Sexual Continuum
Published on March 30, 2013

We asked Dr. Meredith Chivers, "What is sexual orientation?"

It may seem obvious what it means to be gay (attracted to the same sex) or heterosexual (attracted to the opposite sex), but what does sexual orientation mean?

We asked that question to Dr. Meredith Chivers at a Special IMPACT interview series at a SpeakOUT event at Center on Halsted, Chicago, IL.

Dr. Meredith Chivers says that everybody has a sexual orientation and sexual drive that we don’t consciously think about. Who we are attracted to is an automatic process.

Dr. Chivers has appeared on numerous TV shows, published extensively on topics of sexuality, and even shared sex column advice for Savage Love. She is an Assistant Professor at Queen’s University in Ontario, Canada. Her Sexuality and Gender Laboratory, SageLab, is dedicated to understanding gender differences and similarities in sexuality, including sexual psychophysiology, sexual orientation, and sexual functioning. Here's what she had to say:

(Note if the video below doesn't load you can view it here: http://www.impactprogram.org/youth/dr-meredith-chivers-what-is-sexual-orientation/).

~ Dr. Mustanski is the Director of the IMPACT LGBT Health and Development Program at Northwestern University. You can follow the Sexual Continuum blog by becoming a fan on Facebook. He periodically live tweets from research conferences on sexuality and you can follow him @sexualcontinuum.

* * * * *

Bonus videos:

What Is Sexual Fluidity?



What Is Bisexuality?

A Smorgasbord of Sexualities in One Handy Diagram

This is a cool diagram explaining the multitude of sexualities expressed and experienced in Thailand. With 11 sexualities and 3 sub-sexualities to choose from, some younger people express confusion around their sexual identity. So the article, from Coconuts Bangkok, offers a few "support" groups for those who are confused (although one of the lesbian groups - Association of Toms and Dees Who Hate Men - are pretty militant in hating men who they feel harass and abuse them).

Thailand’s Smorgasbord of Sexualities in One Handy Diagram

By Coconuts Bangkok on 08.02.2013

A cartoon diagram explaining sexuality in Thailand has been making the rounds on Thai-language message boards and social media. For those of you who can’t read Thai script, we’ve created an English-language version.

The diagram features 11 sexualities and 3 sub-sexualities. Most of the categories are straightforward, but some of the terms are certainly new to us. For instance, an “adam” is a man who likes tomboys. A cherry is a woman who likes gay men.

The rest of the male categories are straight, bisexual, ladyboy/transvestite, and gay. Gay men are further divided into the subcategories of sexually dominant “kings” (or rooks) and sexually submissive “queens” (or rubs).

For females, the categories are straight, tom, dee (sometimes spelled dy), bisexual, lesbian, and cherry. The closest word in English to “tom” would be tomboy, though in Thai it implies a sexual preference for women. A “dee” is a female who exclusively likes toms.

Originally appearing on the forum Dek-D, the diagram provoked some humorous comments. A brief survey of the comments suggests that the diagram raises more questions than it answers.

“I am confused with my sexuality,” wrote user Jutjutjut.

“Which group do I belong to?” asked Jamiko.

“Kids of the next generation might be profoundly confused given the large number of sexualities,” wrote user 555.

Thankfully, plenty of only groups exist to clarify and support the smorgasbord of sexualities in Thailand.

The mission of Boy’s Love is to “support Thai boys to love on another.”

Similarly, the mission of the Lesbian Association (Men Not Welcome) [editor’s note: actual name] is to support Thai girls to love one another.

The Tom, Dee, Lesbian and Bi Association of Thailand denies following the “trend of Tom and Dee” and “seriously and sincerely” want to be in relationships with females.

The Association of Toms and Dees Who Hate Men takes a more militant stance due to frequent animosity between men and toms.

Adams also have their own Facebook group, The Boys Love Tomboys.

Debunking Stereotypes - What Men Want When It Comes to Sex and Relationships

The stereotype of young men, college-age men, is that all they want is sex, sex, and some sex. In this view, they are not interested in a relationship - having a girlfriend - or even sleeping with the same woman more than a couple of times.

Annemarie van Oosten, writing for United Academics magazine, summarized a 2009 study of college age men and their thoughts about "hooking up". Here are some of the findings:

Epstein and colleagues found that non-relational, no-strings-attached sex was rare among college men, as was the phenomenon of ‘friends with benefits’. When men hook up, it is often with someone they have emotional connections with or used to be in a relationship with, or they hook up with the same person consistently, relating hooking up to dating. Some men engaged in hookups but struggled to remain detached, or they used the term hookup to describe sexual encounters at the beginning or ending stages of dating. When men call their sexual encounters hookups, it is often to save face when rejected, and when the sexual encounters did not turn into a relationship. Some men even regretted hookups (Epstein et al., 2009).

This is not the stereotype of the sex-crazed college guy (which is not to say that those guys don't exist, but they are more likely to be found in fraternities, where the group pressure toward that type of behavior is intense).

What Men Want when It Comes to Sex and Relationships

Posted on March 29, 2013 by Annemarie van Oosten

In my previous blogs I have mainly discussed casual sex and the hookup culture from a female perspective. But how do men feel about hooking up? It’s easy to rely on stereotypes: “Men are only out to have casual sex, they do not want commitment. They are only in relationships because girls want to.” But how true is this stereotype?

Marina Epstein, Jerel Calzo, Andrew Smiler, and Monique Ward (2009) interviewed 19 college-age men about how they defined and enacted sexual scripts of ‘‘hooking up’’ and ‘‘friends with benefits.” Their study is inspired by previous research that has shown that only a minority of men actually enjoy hooking up, and that the goal of having sex with ‘no strings attached’ is often difficult for men to achieve. Some men set out to have sex without emotional commitment, but end up experiencing emotional vulnerability and a desire for a romantic connection. Men may thus seek and enjoy close emotional ties with their sexual partners as much as women.

In their study, Epstein and colleagues found that non-relational, no-strings-attached sex was rare among college men, as was the phenomenon of ‘friends with benefits’. When men hook up, it is often with someone they have emotional connections with or used to be in a relationship with, or they hook up with the same person consistently, relating hooking up to dating. Some men engaged in hookups but struggled to remain detached, or they used the term hookup to describe sexual encounters at the beginning or ending stages of dating. When men call their sexual encounters hookups, it is often to save face when rejected, and when the sexual encounters did not turn into a relationship. Some men even regretted hookups (Epstein et al., 2009).

Thus, for men, hookups are not always simply casual. It seems that just as women have to negotiate between societal standards of sexual behavior and their own needs and desires, men too have to negotiate the pressure to conform to traditional masculine norms with their need to form meaningful romantic relationships (Epstein et al., 2009). Of course, not all men are the same, and there is a lot of variation in what men expect from sexual encounters. However, it could be that this variation within men is bigger than the variation between men and women. Overall, men and women may not differ much in what they want when it comes to sex and relationships.

Full Citation:
Epstein, M., Calzo, J., Smiler, A., & Ward, L. (2009). “Anything From Making Out to Having Sex”: Men’s Negotiations of Hooking Up and Friends With Benefits Scripts. Journal of Sex Research, 46 (5), 414-424. DOI: 10.1080/00224490902775801