CANDAULISM: A COUSIN TO VOYEURISM

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Candaulism refers to a group of three people where only two of them engage in sex and the other watches, sometimes from a closet. 

In early 20th century France, men would take their wives to brothels to watch special stage shows where a cast of prostitutes acted out a performance.  Females playing the roles of men wore “artificial phalli.”  Afterward men would persuade their wives to have sex with another male customer while they watched.  Those who didn’t have obliging mates would often resort to befriending a gentleman and offering to pay for a prostitute of his choosing, in exchange for being permitted to watch.

A voyeur is a person (usually male) who has recurring, intense sexual fantasies involving the act of observing an unsuspecting person who is naked, getting naked or engaging in sexual activities.

Condaulism and voyeurism are similar but not the same thing.  Condaulism always involves three people (in one role or another) and all three know what’s happening.  Voyeurism often, but not always, involves only one person and the victim is unaware they are being watched.

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ANXIETY AND SEX

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Our early developmental experiences, our approach to the world, relationship factors, life stressors, and other contributors can all lead to increases in anxiety.

Increases in anxiety can lead to low sex drive and difficulty with sexual performance and enjoyment for both men and women.  The following are some of the “Personality Traits” that researchers have found to create anxiety:

  • Perfectionist
    • Need for approval
    • Fear of making mistakes
  • Excessive need for approval
    • Feeling inadequate
    • Comparing oneself to others frequently
    • Ignoring own feelings
    • Resentment and frustration resulting from excessive need for approval
  • Tendency to ignore physical and psychological signs of stress
    • Push self too hard
    • Ignore body signs of stress (i.e. fatigue, muscle tension, etc.)
  • Excessive need to control
    • Everything must be predictable

 
If you have anxiety that negatively affects your life (including your sexuality) you may benefit from talking to your partner openly or seeking professional help.

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SURVIVING HOLIDAY PARTIES AND SOCIAL ANXIETY

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Many people find it difficult to socialize during the holiday season. 

If you suffer from anxiety or feel tongue-tied at holiday gatherings, here are some helpful tips:

• Smile and make eye contact.

• Be approachable and open to conversation.

• Join an ongoing conversation, ideally with a group that’s talking about a topic that interests you.

• Ask questions and be an active listener.

If you’re shy, talking to others can be challenging at first but will get easier if you keep working at it.  Accept your uncomfortable feelings and try some of the conversation tips (listed above).

Remember, office parties aren’t just for fun – they can serve a purpose, giving you the chance to network and to have an unhurried moment away from the office to chat with co-workers and your boss.

To deal with an office party:

• What’s the dress code? Ask the organizer or someone who attended last year’s event. If you’re not sure, wear business attire.

• Shake hands with your boss and other managers and wish them a happy holiday season. Make sure your manager sees you at the party and also remembers speaking to you. It could help in future promotion opportunities.

• Try to start new relationships and networks. Use the party as a starting point and follow-up with colleagues later.

• Before leaving, say “goodnight” and “thank you” to the party organizer, your boss and the most senior staff member in attendance.

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PENIS SHOCKING?

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Many new and unconventional methods have been tried to treat erectile dysfunction (difficulty with getting and/or keeping an erection).

Now some Israeli doctors have tried yet another technique: shocking the poor thing. Using something they call “low-intensity extracorporeal shock wave therapy,” a team from the Rambam Healthcare Campus in Haifa actually succeeded in giving penises a boost.

A year ago, a study using both tissue in culture dishes and actual human erectile dysfunction patients appeared to indicate that applying shockwaves to the tissue sparked the growth of new blood vessels. Erections are caused by blood rushing into the penile vessels. As men age, they can accumulate vasculature damage. Sometimes as a result of diabetes or cardiovascular disease, the penile blood vessels degrade. E.D. pills like Viagra boost blood flow into the penis to compensate.

Now the team selected patients, many with complicating diseases like diabetes, who did not, or were no longer, responding to the pills.

In each treatment session, men were given 300 shocks over a period of three minutes, on five points along the shaft of the penis. There were two sessions per week for three weeks, then three weeks off, and then another three-week treatment period. The shocks were tiny, and the men didn’t complain of any pain or discomfort.

The goal was to see if the therapy would make the pills any more effective.

Two months after the treatments concluded, erections — improved in 75 percent of the 29 men in the study. Eight men, nearly 30 percent, had erections in the normal range when they used an E.D. pill. Blood flow improved in all the men. That’s pretty impressive considering seven of the men were already using the injections and two of the men were considering a penile implant — a drastic last resort.

The study authors stress that this was not a placebo-controlled trial of the technique and they plan more tests.

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MEN WHO PAY FOR SEX COMMIT MORE CRIMES

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Young and old Americans are sharply divided over whether certain issues are morally acceptable, according to a Gallup poll.

According to research conducted in the Boston area, men who pay for sex are more likely than non-buyers to commit a variety of offenses, including violent crimes against women.

The study was based on interviews with 202 men conducted by the group Prostitution Research and Education.  Buyers and non-buyers of commercial sex from the Boston area were paired by age, education and ethnicity to compare their perceptions of women. 

Men who paid for sex were more likely to report having committed felonies and misdemeanors, including crimes related to violence against women and those related to substance abuse, assault and weapons.

The most effective deterrent for buyers and non-buyers would be to be placed on a sex offender list. Jail time was also an effective deterrent.  Fewer sex buyers, 47 percent against 70 percent, reported that they were taught about respect for women in sex education classes.

Almost three in four of the sex buyers reported they learned about sex from pornography, whereas only 54 percent of the non-buyers did so.

The two groups also held significantly different attitudes regarding whether prostitution was consenting sex or exploitation. Men who bought sex were significantly less empathetic toward prostitutes.

Two thirds of both groups concluded most women prostitutes had been lured, tricked or trafficked into the work.

But sex buyers “seemed to justify their involvement in the sex industry by stating their belief … that women in prostitution were intrinsically different from non-prostituting women,” the study’s authors said.

Sex buyers often commented that they liked the power relationship intrinsic to prostitution.

The majority of both groups currently had a wife or girlfriend.

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WHAT IS A SEXUAL SYBIAN?

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A Sybian is the name given to a mechanical dildo device that is in a class of its own.

The Sybian device is housed in a half cylinder-shaped saddle that a person rides to orgasm – orgasm after orgasm, if they wish.  The Sybian differs from other dildoes in that it not only vibrates at different speeds and intensity but it rotates as well.  These movements are controlled by two regulator dials on a control box. 

Riders are given buttons to push in order to control the device and as a result some partners seemed to become fond of operating the control box for women.  Each woman responds differently to the Sybian because females orgasm at different frequencies.  Their partners quickly learn which ones are most intense for the woman they are with and gain immense pleasure in controlling how many orgasms she experiences and when.  But women don’t have all the fun – in addition, men have also found the Sybian device just as stimulating when they replace the dildo attachment with a butt plug.  Many manufacturers of the Sybian and similar enhancers provide different attachment options for both men and women. 

If you’re a couple looking to enhance your sexual repertoire, Sybians and similar devices can be purchased discreetly and securely online from various adult websites.

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BROMANCES HELP MEN KEEP SEX WITH WIFE ALIVE

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According to research from Cornell University and University of Chicago, there is a correlation between a man’s bromances and a healthy sexual relationship with his wife.

The research showed that when a guy’s female partner gets too chummy with his male buddies, he is more likely to suffer from symptoms of sexual dysfunction.  The study authors Benjamin Cornwell and Edward Laumann, say this occurs when a woman becomes closer with a man’s confidants than he is himself. About 25% of men in the study said they experienced this in at least one of their close confidant relationships. These men were 92% more likely than men who were closer to all their friends than their partners were to suffer from erectile dysfunction (ED).

Men rely on their close male friendships to fuel their sense of autonomy, privacy and independence, which are in turn contributors to their feelings of masculinity. When a woman steps in and usurps one of those close male bonds, she may threaten her partner’s manhood and his sense of male identity, thereby increasing the likelihood of sexual dysfunction.

The association between this finding and erectile dysfunction was strongest in men aged 57 to 64, the age at which many men go through big life changes – this is when people are retiring, leaving the work force, and reorganizing their life.

Even the healthiest men in the study who were capable of having robust sex lives suffered more problems in the bedroom when their partners got too close to their male friends. But the good news is, the issue appears to dissipate with age.

Among men in the 70s and 80s, researchers found no link between erectile dysfunction and a couple’s shared friendships.

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GENDER EQUALITY = MORE SEX?

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According to FSU professor Roy Baumeister, gender equality leads to more sex:

A new study about sexuality used global data, and found there’s more sex in countries with higher gender equality than in those with less. The study is part of a big-picture look at sexual behaviors worldwide using “sexual economics,” in which supply and demand are key elements. Roy Baumeister of Florida State University says he has a “notoriously unromantic theory.”

In his presentation at an American Psychological Association meeting, “Sexual Economics: A Research-Based Theory of Sexual Interactions, or Why the Man Buys Dinner,” Baumeister, a psychologist, explained how he thinks applying economic principles helps understand people’s sexual decision-making, especially when they’re just beginning a relationship.

“Women’s sexuality has a kind of value that men’s sexuality does not. Men will basically exchange other resources with women to have sex, but the reverse doesn’t work. Women … can trade sex for attention, for grades, for a promotion, for money, as in prostitution or sex with a celebrity.”

Mr. Baumeister theorizes that men want sex more than women do (on average) and that sex in a relationship begins when women decide it’s time. Supply and demand rule, so whichever sex is more scarce has more power.  

“If women don’t have many opportunities to make money on their own, they need the value of sex to be as high as possible,” Baumeister says. “When women don’t have other opportunities, sex is the main thing she has to offer.”  Because a woman’s sexuality has a value to men, a man who wanted sex typically had to give her something of value, such as a marriage proposal.

“In countries where women are at a big disadvantage, they restrain sex, so the price is high and men make a lifetime commitment to support them to get sex,” Baumeister says. “Men will do whatever is required for sex.”

Although I find Mr. Baumeister’s theory interesting, making sex sound like it’s simply something women exchange for a promotion, a higher grade in class, or money debases the sexual connection and disregards the emotional impact.

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SEX TOYS AND AIRPORT SECURITY

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Will a vibrator, sex toy or other X-rated object make it through the airport security checkpoint?

The TSA’s website has a detailed list of items prohibited in a carry-on bag.

TSA spokesperson Nico Melendez said, “Our list, while as complete as possible, leaves discretion in the hands of our trained work force to identify items that could constitute a threat to passengers and aviation security.”    

So what can you bring on the flight?

A “same as” approach may help.

Look on the TSA list. Where it says ‘fluids,’ think ‘lubricants.’ Where it says ‘electronic devices,’ think ‘massagers.’

According to a recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle, while vibrators, whips, chains and manacles are OK in carry-on luggage, some X-rated objects, such as anatomically correct cylinders “a foot or so in length,” should be packed in checked luggage because they fall in the TSA category that prohibits putting items like clubs and brass knuckles in carry-on bags.

So should you put it (them) in your checked luggage or in your carry-on?

Depends on how comfortable you are with the possibility that a TSA guy might go rooting through your carry-on.

Sex toy or not, if you’re worried that any item in your carry-on might create an uncomfortable situation at the security checkpoint, you always have the right to request a private screening.

If you do find yourself pulled aside for questioning, you have every right to travel with personal products. You do not need to explain how anything works or answer any questions. If somebody laughs or makes fun, report them.

We have a right to expect that employees who go through our personal things treat everybody with respect no matter.

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WHAT YOU DIDN’T KNOW ABOUT YOUR PENIS

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The following are some facts that you may not have considered:

  • The average male orgasm lasts 6 seconds. Female orgasms last 23 seconds.
  • Circumcised foreskin can be reconstructed. This is what is done: Movable skin on the shaft of the penis is pulled toward the tip and set in place with tape. Later, doctors apply plastic rings, caps, and weights. The stretching can take years to complete.
  • Only one out of 400 men is flexible enough to give himself oral pleasure, but most men have tried.
  • An enlarged prostate gland can cause both erectile dysfunction and premature ejaculation. If you have an unexplained case of either, please see your doctor.
  • Smoking can shorten your penis by as much as a centimeter. Erections need good blood-flow, and smoking calcifies blood vessels which restrict the flow.
  • Doctors can now grow skin for burn victims using the foreskins of circumcised infants. One foreskin can produce 23,000 square meters.
  • Some penises expand and lengthen when they become erect (79% of men).  Others appear big most of the time, but don’t get much bigger after achieving erection (21% of men).
  • Spanish researchers showed women photos of guys who had good, average, and below average sperm—and told them to pick the handsomest men. The women chose the best sperm producers most often.
  • No brain is necessary for ejaculation. That order comes from the spinal cord.
  • The most common cause of penile rupture: vigorous masturbation.
  • German researchers say the average intercourse lasts 2 minutes, 50 seconds, yet women perceive it as lasting 5 minutes, 30 seconds.

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