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Issue 2
In this column
Big
Knickers | Bankers
and stockbrokers are more in demand for dates | Modern day
matchmakers | Anti-flirting laws |
Padded bras |
Sex is good
for your health - official surveys confirm |
Big
Knickers
Women
are rushing out in droves to buy big knickers. The media claims they
were inspired by the film Bridget Jones. Of course they were,
but not because Bridget made them fashionable. They went
out to buy them because Hugh Grant said he rather liked them.
Women are associating the wearing of big knickers with heart-throb
Hugh. If Hugh likes them, they must be OK. We are
crazy aren't we!
Bankers
and stockbrokers are sexy?!
Dating agency 'Drawing down the Moon' surveyed 15,000 people to
discover which professions got the most dates. Male
bankers and stockbrokers rated highly whilst female recruitment
consultants and marketing execs were popular with the men. Apparently
there's a sex appeal about men who play around with millions of
dollars/pounds. Personally I think it might be because women
look [sometimes too much] for a man who can provide; and bankers and
stockbrokers earn lots of dosh! Women in marketing are thought to
have great presentation skills and be creative whilst recruitment
consultants are seen as good at developing relationships!
Modern
day matchmakers
My unmarried and very eccentric great aunt Gertrude was a leading
marriage broker in the Christian community in Teheran.
Families would go to Gertrude for an introduction and she was the
instigator of many a 'sucessful' marriage. Despite her own
unmarried status [the family were all sure she was a closet
lesbian], Gertrude seemed to have to knack of matching people
according to values and family background and creating long-lasting
matches. Today Gertrude has been replaced by agencies
using computers and internet dating sites.
At a
party recently I was talking to two couples who had recently found
love. Both of them had met their partners through an agency
specifically designed to match-make. Alan and Trudy met via
the personal ads and were married within two months whilst Jenny and
Paul met through a dating agency and a year later have purchased a
house together.
There
are also agencies that organise dinner parties where, they profess,
you have a chance of meeting someone in a more relaxed social
setting. Great if they have matched the people, but often they
don't. You may end up stuck next to someone who is so
completely not your type. You are rapidly going to resent paying out
all that money just to be bored rigid. So, what makes
for good matchmaking?
1.
The event should take place in a relaxed social situation like a
small gathering, party or dinner event
2.
Guests at each event should be pre-matched by the agency for values,
age groups and interests. After all what are you paying for?
3.
The organizers need to create situations whereby everyone gets a
chance to talk to everyone else, even if it means a pre-dinner speed
dating type game.
Speed dating, which originated in the States gives you 8 minutes to
chat to someone and then move on. At the end, you submit the names
of those you were attracted to and if there's a match you get put in
touch. There's nothing worse than being stuck at dinner next
to someone you can't talk to, even for just one course.
4.
There needs to be less emphasis placed on meeting that special
person and more focus on just meeting new friends.
Malaysia
brings in anti-flirting laws
While
we in the Western world are embracing flirting as a way of
creating closer relationships between men and women, the Malaysians
are doing just the opposite.
Malaysian
men and women may found themselves forced
to join separate bus queues to avoid unnecessary body contact. The
Kelantan government also wants bus companies to provide separate
seating areas on buses. Supermarkets already have specific counters
for men and women because Islamic teaching prohibits free mixing
between the sexes.
Spiritual
adviser Mentri Besar Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat says : "Using
the law will only be a last resort. The ruling is actually to
educate people so that men respect women, women respect men and
there is no unnecessary body contact." So, there's little
chance checking the goods before you buy in Malaysia.
Monthly
moan - bolstered boobs
La Senza, one of those UK underwear chains that specialize in sexy but not
too raunchy underwear, either think that most
women are flat chested or are driven by a belief that that
bolstering the boobs is the answer to every woman's desires. I'd say
about 70% of their bra stock is stuffed full of
foam. I'm not flat chested and the last thing I
want is to pad my attributes with a layer of squidge that is so stiff it
requires rock hard tits to push out the
bends. As if going pad-crazy weren't
enough, La Senza also sell those ghastly silicone
filled pads for brassieres.
Think
about this. You have worn these squidgy pads on a few dates.
Maybe you've even let him cop a feel. He thinks you are a well
rounded lass! Know things have progressed to doing
it. What's going to happen when you take off that bra and
pads? Is he going to be disappointed? Are you in effect lying
to him? And, if you are wearing these pads, what is it
that makes you so unhappy with your body when there are flat-chested
women out there who are proud to be so. My friend Pat
has no boobs and her husband loves it - he says it makes her seem
girlish!!
Update
August 8th : I've found the ultimate padded bra.
It's so soft and squidgy even I'd wear it and I don't need any more
than I've got. Unfortunately, they didn't have it in my
size. My disappointment was quelled when I saw the price
tag. £25. Twenty five quid [that's UK slang for pound!
bit like buck for dollar] for a bra. That's waaaaaaaaaaay too
much. It's made by Triumph and it's great.. but not at that
price.
Frequent
Sex May Help You Look Younger
By
Jennifer Thomas
HealthScout Reporter
SATURDAY, March 17 (HealthScout) -- Troubled by wrinkles around your
eyes? Worried that your skin is sagging, or those gray hairs are
making you look your age?
So have sex.
Making love three
times a week can make you look 10 years younger, claims a Scottish
researcher.
"It's good
for you to have good sex," says David Weeks, a clinical
neuropsychologist at the Royal Edinburgh Hospital, whose study on
the effects of sex on aging appears in his book, Secrets of the
Superyoung.
Over the last 10
years, Weeks and his colleagues interviewed 3,500 European and
American men and women on a variety of lifestyle topics.
Participants ranged in age from 20 to 104, but most were 45 to 55
years old.
The thing they had
in common: They looked young for their age. That's what a six-judge
panel decided after watching the interviewees through a one-way
mirror. The volunteer judges guessed the participants' ages from
seven to 12 years younger than their actual ages, Weeks says.
Interview topics
ranged from how they deal with stress within relationships, how they
get along with their parents and high and low points of their lives,
to prior sexual experiences, how often they had sex and whether they
enjoyed it.
A vigorous sex
life, Weeks says, was the second-most important determinant of how
young a person looked. Only physical activity proved more important
than sex in keeping aging at bay, he says.
Other major
influences on keeping a person young-looking included socializing
with people of all ages, being married to or in a relationship with
someone younger and, for women, taking hormone replacement therapy
during menopause, Weeks says.
So, how often
should you do it?
The young-looking
participants had sex an average of three times a week, Weeks says.
By comparison, a group of men and women in the same age bracket and
from similar neighborhoods reported having sex an average of twice a
week, he says.
More frequent sex
-- more than three times a week -- didn't seem to produce any added
benefits, Weeks says.
Casual sex
doesn't count
And casual sex
with different partners, or cheating, did not slow the aging
process, the researchers say. In fact, Weeks says, it may cause
premature aging from worry and stress.
"The sex
doesn't work without a good relationship," Weeks says. "It
works via a relationship that is very supportive and emphatic, in
which both people are physically and emotionally compatible."
Others agree that
sex can be good for your health.
"It's
extremely important to your health," says Dr. Barbara Bartlik,
a clinical professor of psychiatry at Weill Medical College of
Cornell University in New York City. "It promotes marital
harmony. The stresses and strains become more manageable when a
couple is having sex regularly."
And Carol Ellison,
a California psychologist and author of Generations of Women
Share: Intimate Secrets of Sexual Self-Acceptance, says previous
research has shown other physiological benefits to sex as well.
Sex can burn fat
and cause the brain to release endorphins, naturally occurring
chemicals that act as painkillers and reduce anxiety, she says. In
men, sex seems to stimulate the release of growth hormones and
testosterone, which strengthens bones and muscles. In both men and
women, research has shown, sex also seems to prompt the release of
substances that bolster the immune system.
And people who
have lots of sex, Ellison says, tend to eat better and exercise
more.
But three times a
week may not be optimal for everyone, she says. People who are
healthier and feel younger, for instance, may want more frequent
sex.
Plus, she adds,
sex means different things to different people.
To Weeks, sex and
orgasms are one and the same. In his study, the researchers assumed
that people who said they had sex three times a week also had
orgasms three times a week.
"Sex is the
most pleasurable activity people take part in, and because the
orgasm is the most pleasurable of that, it's hard to separate it
out," Weeks says. "It's hard to say if it accounts for 50
percent or 75 percent" of the beneficial effects.
Does sex =
orgasm?
But Ellison
believes good sex can take many forms.
"We're caught
up in this idea that sex equals orgasm," Ellison says.
"You don't have to put on a performance when you have sex. You
don't even have to have intercourse."
Preoccupation with
orgasm, especially among women, can make them feel like a failure in
bed when it doesn't happen, she says.
"The key is
not, 'How am I doing? Am I getting turned on fast enough? Is this
going to happen?' " she says. "The key is, 'Am I enjoying
what is happening at this moment?' "
How often those
moments occur seems to depend on where in the world you live.
Americans had the
most sex in 1999, according to a recent survey of 18,000 men and
women between 16 and 25 years of age conducted by SSL International,
the British manufacturer of Durex condoms.
The worldwide
average was 96 times a year, but Americans claimed to have had sex
132 times a year, followed by the Russians (122), French (121) and
Greeks (115). Young Japanese made love the least often (32 times a
year), the survey says.
Americans also
seem to be getting a head start on people from other countries,
reporting the earliest average age at which they started having sex.
Americans lost their virginity at an average age of 16.4 years,
followed by Brazilians at age 16.5 and the French at 16.8, the
survey says.
The French had the
most sexual partners, claiming an average of 16.7 each. Greeks were
second with 15 partners each, followed by Brazilians with 12.5 and
Americans with 11.8. Residents of India were the most faithful to
their partners, with 82 percent saying they had sex with just one
person.
But Bartlik says
it's best to take the survey with a grain of salt. Researching
sexual behavior is difficult, she says, because it's hard to get
truthful answers. Some people inflate their answers on purpose, and
for many questions it's difficult to give precise responses unless
you've kept a weekly chart of sexual activity, she says.
"Perception
is everything," Bartlik says. "Just look at the Woody
Allen movie [Annie Hall]. He says, 'We never have sex.' She
says, 'We're having sex all the time.' "
Copyright Healthscout. Taken directly
from Healthscout
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