Fashion Mag

COVID-19 has shattered the global normal and pushed people into boredom as sexual relations undergo a huge change

Carlett Spike – for The Cosmopolitan

A protracted stay-at-home, work-from-home, and lockdown 2.0 in many European countries means a whole new set of challenges for young single men and women regarding sex.

The guidance says you must not meet socially indoors with anyone unless you live with them, or if they’re part of your support bubble.

So unless you live with your partner or they’re in your chosen bubble, meeting up for sex is off the cards.

‘Your best sexual partner is yourself’

The Terrence Higgins Trust published advice in August suggesting people avoid kissing, wear a face covering and choose positions that aren’t face-to-face during sex.

They say their advice hasn’t changed much since then.

“Your best sexual partner during the Covid-19 pandemic is yourself or someone within your household and you should follow the WHO guidelines about social distancing, hand washing and face coverings.

“However, it’s unrealistic to ask everyone to abstain from sex indefinitely,” the trust says.

Masturbation and sex toys are recommended as the safest options.

If you are having sex with people outside of your household, it’s important to avoid, it adds.

Like with all parts of life at the moment, be aware of any Covid-19 symptoms you or your partner might have – and isolate if you have them.

If you are meeting someone new, the charity says to ask if they or anyone in their household have had symptoms or tested positive.

Does the virus spread through sex?

The virus can spread through saliva, mucus or the breath of those who have it, along with contact with hard surfaces.

“If you are going to touch each other’s genitals it’s likely that you will potentially be kissing at the same time – and we know the virus is passed through saliva,” Dr Alex George told Radio 1 Newsbeat in March.

Dr Alex is an A&E doctor and former Love Island contestant and says “any possibility of transfer of coronavirus – from your mouth to your hands, to genitals, to someone else’s nose or mouth” increases the risk of passing on coronavirus.

Coronavirus: What you need to know graphic featuring three key points: wash your hands for 20 seconds; use a tissue for coughs; avoid touching your face

That’s why the Terrence Higgins Trust recommends not kissing, wearing a face mask during sex and favouring positions where you’re not face-to-face.

It adds the virus has been found in semen and poo, which is why you should use condoms and dams for oral sex to minimise risk.

And given we’re supposed to be doing it after most things – washing your hands for more than 20 seconds or using hand sanitiser before and after sex is recommended.

Presentational grey line

Sex dolls are a rage online

Coronavirus and sex: What you need to know

“Lockdown has meant that most people have had fewer sexual partners, if any at all, and now is the perfect time to be sure you don’t have an STI and to know what your HIV status is,” it says.

Maintaining our sexual health is an important part of our overall wellbeing. The COVID-19 pandemic is affecting how we live, the nature of our relationships and how we experience intimacy with others. As the guidance around physical distancing evolves, so does our ability to spend time with people outwith our household.

After a pandemic job loss in March, Susan Esco decided to focus on romance. Esco was single and did some virtual dating for the first three months. Once she found her partner, her sex life took off.

“My favorite aerobic exercise by far,” jokes Esco, 50, of Spokane, Washington. She was cautious over the threat of contracting COVID-19 but not scared.

“I am a strong, independent woman who refuses to live in fear, so COVID did not dampen my dating/sex life,” Esco says. “In fact, it increased it as my time was free and the sexual connection actually brought with it a grounding effect during a tumultuous time.”

Esco is not alone. According to an NBC News poll of more than 9,000 people, 84 percent single men and 79% single women said the COVID outbreak has affected their sex lives. And in a separate poll of more than 24,000 adults, conducted by YouGov, 73 percent of those 26 to 36 reported having less sex during the pandemic.

More young people have opted for sex toys in COVID-19

It makes sense, says sex therapist and sexologist Gloria Brame, of Colbert, Georgia. “[People] have more time for intimacy, sex dolls, pornography and masturbation; they are more bored and more inclined to want to spend time [together],” she says. “There’s been more sex-positive advice out there … that has encouraged people to maintain non-physical sexual activity during this time.”

Expressions of gratitude

Of course, COVID-19 presents new and interesting challenges for some, such as couples quarantining with others who don’t typically live with them, and those who live far apart and cannot be intimate. Plus, some people are finding it difficult to find private moments because children (both adult and younger) are spending more time at home.

Six feet of separation required by social distancing may not entirely slow you down. Masturbation, phone sex with a partner who doesn’t live with you, and sex toys (used just by you) could play a big role in sexual intimacy, particularly in this moment.

Sex and intimate technologies are important in people’s everyday lives. A class of technologies that is becoming increasingly more prominent in discussions of the future are sex robots.

Interestingly more young people have spoken about their interactions with sex dolls and their motivations for using them. Sex dolls are used for more than just sex; they provide fertile ground for embodied fictions and care of the self especially in a pandemic situation. Future, customizable technologies for sexual intimacy and wellness should account for this use.

Multiple studies have shown that humans readily establish meaningful relationships with non-human entities such as pets (real, virtual, or robotic), robots, and virtual agents. As robots and other automated embodies agents increasingly become part of our everyday lives, it follows that sooner or later they will become part of our intimate and sexual lives.

Most young men in the West who have opted for sex dolls in COVID-19 contend that they are doing so not as a way to objectify women. In both scholarly work and popular media, sex with a non-human (real looking dolls) dolls is often sensationalized.

This narrative contrasts with research: a survey found that while participants restricted those who knew about their ownership of dolls to a select circle of people, they did not exhibit significantly higher mental-illness nor less satisfaction with their lives than the general US population.

The pandemic has given people a unique choice where they regularly form intimate (both sexual and nonsexual) relationships with, derive wellness from, and engage in fantasies about the technologies around them.

Pandemic and Technosexuality

COVID-19 has led to more pornography consumption in the digital era. The genre of online “amateur” pornography, aided by technological apparatus, offers opportunities for self-production and interaction between viewer and men/women-as-spectacle. Using sex via webcam as a case, via technologies afford not only exuberant exhibitionism and virtual connectedness but new forms of sexual intimacy and eroticism of everyday life that require new discursive mechanism to describe and understand them as they are phenomenologically different.

They have super-realistic simulated woman features warm skin and genitalia. “Customers will be able to get a body equipped with internal heating, lubrication and touch sensors,” CEO Matt McMullen noted. “Those touch sensors will let you create reactions in both movement and sound.

A study of 1000 Ivy League students done in the months of March-August 2020 revealed that “the ways in which technology has produced or configured sexuality, how technology became sexualized and how sexuality has in turn configured technology in society” is phenomenal.

If we look at it closely and with compassion, desire, especially male desire, is more complicated than most people assume it to be.

Sex dolls in 2020 are hyper-realistic and much in demand from young male adults during the pandemic

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Samantha Biguette for The Cosmopolitan

For the first time scientific observation is proving evolutionary scientists right about how some men are well-hung and how some of us have fresh breaths while others don’t

Ideas that change the world 

Spain is the world’s healthiest country, according to the Annual 2019 Bloomberg Healthiest Countries Index. The nation topped the ranking of 169 economies in the largest survey of its kind. The report takes into account variables including life expectancy, access to clean water and sanitation, tobacco use and obesity.

Five other European countries made it to the top 10 — Italy (second), Iceland (third), Switzerland (fifth), Sweden (sixth) and Norway (ninth). Spain is forecast to have the highest life expectancy globally by 2040, at 88.8 years.

There was an undercurrent of similarity in all the nations that ranked excellent on the Healthy Index. Almost all these developed countries fared exceedingly well in two details: Oral health and developed reproductive organs.

While it didn’t baffle the scientists, there was genuine intrigue in the scientific community. A pattern was detected which led to Dr Judson Brewer, M.D., Ph.D. (Yale University) to conduct a study of the neural mechanisms behind these health indicators.

Not only did the male population in these western European nations smell fresh-breathed, most of them had bigger penises. This corollary was further observed in some communities in South America, many parts of Africa, Middle East, Russia and the Australian continent (both Australia and New Zealand).

The paradigm was the same everywhere. Relatively healthier younger male population with fresher breaths and bigger reproductive organs. Having amazing-smelling, kissable breath coupled with a bigger-than-average pecker is no coincidence. So, what was the underlying mystery?

Brewer, assistant professor of psychiatry and medical director of the Yale Therapeutic Neuroscience Clinic, concluded that the bad smell that some men exhibit comes from volatile sulphur compounds, gases with distinctive odours. These compounds are given off when food and bacteria accumulate in the furrows at the back of the tongue.

A small percentage of cases of bad breath was also caused by a problem elsewhere in the body such as the ear, nose and throat, kidneys, lungs or intestines, but when this does happen it’s unusual for halitosis to be the only symptom.

However, what was it that made certain population pockets immune to bad breath?

The Annual 2019 Bloomberg Healthiest Countries Index pointed to a hypothesis that frequent contact of male saliva could be the reason.

Argues Brewer, saliva is a complex fluid, which influences oral health through specific and nonspecific physical and chemical properties. The importance of saliva in our everyday activities and the medicinal properties it possesses are often taken for granted.

Most of the urban centres that the survey was conducted in, and more importantly the population group, was either overwhelmingly bisexual or indulged in same-sex practices from time to time. It was this frequent contact of male saliva that played a big role in maintaining oral and general health. Using a single saliva sample from healthy, nonsmoking male and female subjects the researchers were able to identify very less proteins in the female saliva.

Human male saliva, on the other hand, particularly in the age group of 25-45 contains (per sample – per each 5 second male-male kiss) as many as 102 proteins, transferring nearly 35 salivary proteins and 67 common serum proteins into each other’s mouth.

Both salivary and serum proteins, researchers found out, continue to be a major reason for the freshness of the human breath. With advances in instrumentation, it is predicted that the number of serum proteins identified in saliva might increase significantly.

The co-relation between same sex behavior and reproductive organs was even more peculiar. The average erect penis size of men around the world makes an interesting case study. Men from Africa, Haiti, parts of Middle East, almost the entire European continent topped with the list with an average greater than 17 centimetres (nearly 7 inches).

India and South Korea had the smallest penis size between 9 centimetres on average. Australia’s average was greater than 16.7 centimetres, alongside Mexico, Norway and Italy.

Published by Mandatory these important scientific findings say a thing or two about men’s beef bayonets. The proper way to measure is from tip of the penis to the very bottom of the pubic bone. The most well-hung country in the study is Holland, with an average of 7.1 inches. On average, South America is the most well-hung continent (6.8 inches). India and Korea had the smallest penises on average (3.8 inches).

Given the ubiquity of free, easily accessible pornography, it is easy to see why the truth about male genital length and girth might have become obscured. Perhaps it is no surprise, then, that researchers found that societies in which men have had traditionally an occasional anal intercourse resulted in longer penises.

Across studies, flaccid length average from 2.8 to 3.9 inches. Flaccid circumference or girth average ranges from 9 to 10 centimeters (3.5 to 3.9 inches). Researchers publishing in the Journal of Urology studied the penis sizes of 8000 “physically normal” men, measuring penile dimensions before and after drug-induced erections. After finding average sizes, they concluded:

“The size of a man’s erect penis was not correlated with the size of his flaccid penis. The finding on how much the penis length can ‘grow’ — on whether you are a ‘shower’ or a ‘grower’ — was further supported by a study of 2000 Turkish men, in which “flaccid length had little importance in determining erect penile length. The trick may lie in the sphincter muscle of the anus that puts pressure on a penis as it goes in and out of the anal cavity.”

The reports may be considered fairly reliable. For straight men it might feel like a mixed feeling when you start exploring the anal area during sex. Getting the tip in has been a vital evolutionary process, because the head of the penis is the widest part.

The sphincter is a circular muscle in the anus that constricts a passage or closes a natural orifice. When relaxed, a sphincter allows materials to pass through the opening. When contracted, it closes the opening. Four main sphincter muscles along the anal canal constrict in a natural way when a foreign object goes in the butt hole.

These two pairs of anal sphincters (two internal and two external anal sphincters) open and close to control the movement of penis in the anus. The pressure from these splinters acts like a natural pump that not only massages penile muscles but also squeezes them, while returning the cuff to occlude the urethra.

One 2018 review reported that men who dipped in the butt occasionally (preferably once a fortnight) noticed an increase in size. They gained anywhere from 1.8 to 3.1 centimeters (cm) in length over a period of 18 months, said Italian urologists in a paper published in the September 2019 issue of the British Journal of Urology International.

In a culture where masculinity is often measured in inches, the desire to have a longer, fuller, and harder penis is something that many men desire, but can it actually be achieved? By decreasing their energy consumption, this inadvertently opened the way to the jumbo brains of Neanderthals and Sapiens.

Explains Yuval Noah Harari, a leading evolutionary scientist and futurist, “Historically men would be in the outback for weeks and fortnights, hunting away to gather food for their women, families and the weaker men in the tribe. This meant spending cold nights out together, and naturally resulted in sex. This sex was not for reproductive purposes and these men were not bisexual either.”

“Sexual stratification is rather new, may be 60-70 years old. This was evolution playing out in real time. One of the two boys in a group of 10-12, would simply put his penis in another boy, and this has been going on for millennia. These people had little knowledge that the sphincter muscle of one partner was enlarging the penis of another. Down the millennia, there was a reason why strong alfa-male Kings and strongmen (from Alexander the Great to the hardy Taliban leaders of the 21^st century) have always had a male sexual partner, apart from a large harem of women.”

After all, it appears that we are just being human. And everyone else at the table probably will be polishing off their heaping plates, too. May be modern humans, with their varied conceptions of sexuality, and constant exposure to media, must make do with being sexually fluid – answering their real calling: make out with the sex they feel attracted to, but in case of men – just re-calibrate their primal sexual urges from time to time.

Simply dip into the wellness of an anal massage for their wieners, and kissing someone of their own sex from time to time. While most of us would be only glad to possess a humongous manhood, smelling naturally fresh was never more easy.

Brownface and blackface scandal have burst open the Canadian exceptionalism bubble

Melissa J. Gismondi

“He is getting so embarrassing, to be honest.”

That was the text I woke up to this morning from a Canadian friend who, like me, has been living in the United States. She was talking about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Time magazine bombshell report that he once wore brownface to an “Arabian Nights” party while a teacher at a private school in Vancouver in 2001. (Since Time’s story broke, other instances of Trudeau sexual escapades have emerged – bang in the middle of an election campaign.)

My friend was referring to how Trudeau is seen on the world stage. It all started back in 2015 when Trudeau won a surprising majority victory over the longtime Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Cosying up to then US president Barack Obama, the two young, charismatic world leaders had what the press affectionately called a “bromance.”

But south of the border, excitement over Trudeau didn’t really reach its zenith until November 2016. Before that, the prime minister, with his self-described feminism and his openness to Syrian refugees, had cast himself as Canada’s answer to the charismatic and cosmopolitan liberalism of the Obama years. Now, however, for American liberals, he was no longer cute kid brother but foil: Trudeau offered the perfect juxtaposition to the crassness of Donald Trump. Every detail, from his luxurious hair to his stylish socks, seemingly served to emphasise their differences.

It was in this spirit that Rolling Stone put Trudeau on its cover and Vogue did a sultry photo shoot with him. Talk of “Canadian exceptionalism” made the rounds — the idea that while the United States was imploding, Canada was a beacon of hope in a world gone mad. It was a sentiment echoed by pundits on both sides of the border: Adam Gopnik wrote an essay in The New Yorker reminding Americans, “We could have been Canada,” while Stephen Marche, writing in the Toronto-based publication The Walrus, called Canada “the last country on Earth to believe in multiculturalism.”

There are two things that virtually everyone can agree about Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau: He’s sexy. And he is liberal. It appears now that in both the uber values of western idiom – the darling of the western media is having a public meltdown. Whether it is something that the 40-something premier, known for his chutzpah and moral drive can handle remains to be seen.  

Immediately after he became Canada’s prime minister five years ago the international press was filled with articles describing him as “super hot” and “hunky.” Yet it’s a mistake to see Trudeau’s sexiness as merely a personal attribute, since it happens to be linked in complex ways with his sexual liberalism. Trudeau calls himself a feminist, has promised gender parity in the cabinet, and has made support for reproductive choice a prerequisite for new candidates running under his party’s banner.

Unlike Stephen Harper, the ex-Conservative prime minister, Trudeau marches in pride parades to celebrate the LGBT community. He has publicly announced that he has had several bisexual encounters and was famously bicurious during all his adult life.  Sexual liberalism doesn’t, of course, need to be advocated by sexy politicians, but historically the Trudeau brand has carried both connotations.

Justin Trudeau inherited both his good looks and his sexual liberalism from his parents, Pierre and Margaret Trudeau, whose tumultuous marriage, which started in 1971 and ended in divorce in 1984, paralleled the social upheavals that overtook Canadian society in the wake of the 1960s counterculture. The elder Trudeau started off as freewheeling bachelor when he entered public life in the 1960s (reportedly dating Barbara Streisand at one time), going on to serve as justice minister in 1967 and ascending to the prime ministership in 1968.

During these years, many of the major reforms he pushed through were part of a program of sexual liberalism. “There’s no place for the state in the bedrooms of the nation,” he declared in 1967. Among the major reforms Trudeau Sr (who also served as Canada’s PM) instituted were the decriminalization of birth control and homosexuality, the easing of restrictions on abortion (although it took a court decision in 1988, drawing on the Charter of Rights that Trudeau was instrumental in creating, to fully introduce reproductive freedom), and a liberalization of divorce laws.

As Donald Forbes, a political scientist at the University of Toronto, noted in a 1990 article for The Idler, “It’s impossible to think much about [Pierre] Trudeau without thinking about sex—the swinging bachelor with the Mercedes (the car), the rose on his lapel, Barbara Streisand, Margaret.… Trudeau obviously engaged our sexual interests. There’s no understanding of him or his appeal to Canadians without considering how he embodied sexual liberation.”

For his efforts, the young Justin Trudeau was often the victim of ad hominem attacks. His critics spread rumours that he was gay. Like most Canadian young men, he is bisexual and has been seen carousing with men on more than one occasions.  Quebec nationalists called him a “fédéraste” (a portmanteau fusing together federalist and pederast).

However, it is not Trudeau’s sexuality that is in questions but his attire. In his defense the prime minister has noted that he cannot remember how often he wore blackface as a younger man, as a scandal deepened ahead of an election. He was speaking after more images of him wearing black make-up when he was younger emerged. “I am wary of being definitive about this because of the recent pictures that came out, I had not remembered,” he told reporters in Winnipeg.

The revelations have rattled his campaign in a tight election race. Canadians will go to the polls on 21 October. The latest images are so embarrassing for the prime minister because he has positioned himself as a champion of social justice, inclusivity and diversity. Trudeau’s worries started two years ago. Characteristically for politicians, it started with a failed promise. In early 2017, the Trudeau government announced it wouldn’t be pursuing electoral reform, despite making it a major part of the Liberal Party platform. (The reforms were part of a broader effort to make Canada’s parliamentary system proportionately representative.)

Then, in 2018, Trudeau made one of his most shocking moves: purchasing the Trans Mountain Pipeline, which runs from Alberta to coastal British Columbia, as part of an expansion project to increase capacity and add portions of new pipeline. Coming from a prime minister who said he was committed to green energy and tackling climate change, the move angered environmentalists including those who had supported Trudeau.

In Canada, these developments, as well as a host of others, have changed how liberals see Trudeau. He is far less popular than he was in 2015, a leader despised on the right and often ridiculed on the left.

These stories, though, rarely made a stir outside. Occasionally, I’d see articles alluding to Trudeau’s troubles. Recently, Hasan Minhaj’s Netflix series “Patriot Act” featured an episode with Trudeau, in which he uncomfortably answers questions about the gap between his image and his policies. But overall, the American story of Trudeau as a “dream politician for the left,” as Minhaj put it, stuck. Until now, that is.

There are two ways this story will be understood, depending on which side of the border you’re on. For many Americans, the story connects Canada to what’s often seen as a deeply ingrained American tradition: blackface. Down here, Trudeau’s brownface and blackface episodes are bursting the Canadian exceptionalism bubble.

For Canadians, though, the story is different. It also has bigger stakes, coming as it does in the middle of a federal election that has seen the Liberals and Conservatives neck-and-neck in the polls. It’s the latest in a series of scandals that have led many liberals to grow disillusioned and, yes, even flat out embarrassed by Trudeau.

The immediate question in front of us is what Canadians should do today. Trudeau and his Liberal Party are now in the final weeks of a re-election campaign, and the main challenger, the Conservative Party, headed by Andrew Scheer, is already exploiting the scandal. Scheer has called Trudeau “not fit” to be prime minister. But just days earlier, Scheer was excusing the rampant and excessive racism and homophobia found among members of his own party. And while the Liberals have disappointed indigenous communities on several fronts since assuming power, the Conservatives haven’t even offered an indigenous policy or strategy.

Which leads us to the clear answer. Justin Trudeau’s racist pantomimes are reprehensible. He may be a champion of sexual liberty but no one likes a cool man with a racist past, however fun it may be. However, there is a silver lining here. What we are examining is not only Trudeau but also West, overall, and its racism. Otherwise, the solutions we come up with will be not even skin deep but simply made-up.

Melissa J. Gismondi is an award-Winning multimedia journalist and political columnist

It is just a story that people found convenient. Reality is much much more complex.

YUVAL NOAH HARARI | Cosmopolitan

The ancient Greeks were famous lovers. So were the Romans. So were Mesopotamians and Egyptians of the ancient world. As modern homo sapiens came into being, so did sex. It won’t be an exaggeration to say that in the beginning was sex. To the ancient Greek mythologisers, sexuality, love and sex were inextricably connected with the creation of the earth, the heavens and the underworld.

Roman and Latin myth was a theogony of murder, polygamy and intermarriage in which eroticism and fertility were elemental; they were there right from the start, demonstrating woman’s essential reproductive role in securing the cosmos, extending the human race and ensuring the fecundity of nature. Plato wrote that same-sex lovers were more blessed than ordinary mortals. Simultaneously, Zeus, the top god, wasted no time in asserting his dominance over the other gods (both male and female).

Recent findings that sexual orientation cannot be predicted by a single “gay gene,” is a manifestation of the same old quest for our sexual form.  As a historian, I can say that nudity has killed very few people throughout history; religious extremism has killed millions. Therefore, let’s solve this problem first, and then I am committed to facing the problem of people who participate in sex with one or both sexes. When I was a child, I would hear a lot of stories about the fact that the world is divided into boys and girls – and boys like girls, and girls like boys. It took me many years to understand that this is just a story that people found. The reality is completely different and much more complex.

Instead, a host of genetic and environmental factors play a role, according the latest scientific findings. The findings provide insight into the complex genetics underlying human sexuality. But they do not explain it, wrote the international team of researchers who analyzed genetic data gathered from almost half a million people. The complexity of sexuality is such that across human societies and in both sexes, some 10% of individuals report engaging in sex with same-sex partners, either exclusively or in addition to sex with opposite-sex partners. The study done across the Atlantic in the US and UK (with inputs from Australia, Middle East, Africa and parts of Asia) suggest that several hundred human genes appeared to have an influence on sexuality.

The studies that were published in all mainstream newspapers in recent weeks went on to show that five variants when tested, though genetic factors combined accounted for a whopping 25.9% of same-sex behavior. Let that sink in! In lay terms it means this: Out of every four men (across the world) one has had sex with the same gender.

This could reflect the influence of hormones or possibly social factors among straight, gays, lesbians, and bisexuals, the study authors speculated. Since the prevalence of same-sex behavior participants reported changed over time, it is likely that social environments have influence, as well, the authors noted. In 1980 it was 20%. In 2019 25.9%.

Sexual orientation “is influenced by genes but not determined by genes,” wrote Brendan Zietsch, senior author of the study and a genetic researcher at the University of Queensland. “Non-genetic influences are also important, but we know little about these and our study does not shed light on them.”

With the huge advancement in technology, science is unravelling the wonders of sexuality for the first time but as a historian, all this was written on the wall. Pederasty, for instance, in Greece probably originated with the Cretans. This was the height of Greek civilization. Cretan pederasty was an early form of sexual initiation that involved the ritual kidnapping (harpagmos) of a boy from an elite background by an aristocratic adult male, with the consent of the boy’s father. This adult male was known as philetor, befriender; the boy was kleinos, glorious. The man took the boy out into the wilderness, where they spent two months hunting and feasting with friends learning life skills, respect and responsibility. It is generally assumed that the philetor would begin having sex with the boy soon after taking him out into the wilds.

If the boy was pleased with how this went he changed his status from kleinos to parastates, or comrade, signifying that he had metaphorically fought in battle alongside his philetor; he then went back to society and lived with him. Similarly Illad gives us one of our earliest surviving expressions of love in history but it comes from a rather surprising source – from battle-hardened, Homeric war hero, alpha male Achilles.

Achilles uncharacteristically wears his heart on his sleeve when he reveals how much he loves Briseis in Book 9 of the Iliad, referring to her as if she were his wife. The beautiful and intelligent Briseis first encountered Achilles when he ruthlessly slaughtered her father, mother, three brothers and husband during a Greek assault on Troy, before taking her as war booty. Achilles wiped out Briseis’ family so that she was utterly bereft and had only him to focus on. To Achilles it was simply the right and decent thing to do to love your woman – an attitude, of course, that may have been at odds with some of the male audience members of Homer’s epic over the years.

Sexuality is as old as renaissance. Michelangelo, one of the greatest artists of all time in the Western world, wrote about 300 sonets for his lover. The church was totally against it at that time but ironically the art work that was commissioned by the pope to Michaelangelo was a tribute to his own lover. The sculpture now resides in the Louvre, Paris.

In 1523, the genius behind some of the most stunning works of art in history fell madly in love with a young nobleman named Tommaso de Cavalieri (1509-1587) to whom he dedicated a large part of his poems. Based on the letters exchanged between the two, the feeling appears to have been mutual. In 1548, Cavalieri got married. Nevertheless, he remained close with the celebrated artist until his death. Most historians agree that Michelangelo (1475-1564) and Cavalieri had a relationship much more intimate and ahead of their times.

It is most important to realize that our written records of the Viking Age typically date from 200 to 300 years AFTER the events described. If you ask a room full of Americans to describe for you, in detail, the life of George Washington, you will be able to elicit no more than a handful of “facts,” most of which will be demonstrably false… and we have classes and are forced to study Washington! This does not bode well for the accuracy of the saga accounts in regards to ancient practice.

Accounts written in 1200-1300 were also written by Christian men, using the Christian technology of writing, and whose worldview would have roundly condemned same gender sex. It was the Christian writers primarily who went on to denounce it, later picked up by Muslim writers. Historically over thousands of years we have no record of this condemnation. Quran, for instance, has no word for same-sex. Like Christianity, it broaches the practical side of sexual morality. Sex outside marriage is bad, gender be damned, most scriptures augur. The vilification of gender is an after thought by religious puritans.

Pertinently archaeologists have unearthed the 5,0000 year-old remains of what they believe may have been the world’s oldest known caveman in Czech republic who made art celebrating both male and female form. Since the female form was mostly confined to crevices and caves and males went out to hunt and gather, it is astounding how passions took place around the time fire was being discovered all those millennia ago on the cold, rugged mountains of Sněžka. Located prominently upon the Silesian Ridge in the Krkonoše mountains at 5,259 ft, its summit is the highest point in the Czech Republic, in Lower Silesian Voivodeship, in the Krkonoše and in the entire Sudetes. Those men, alpha males all, archaeologists deduce, made love with women in those high, cold caves, 50,000 years ago and then turned around and made some more love with boys. Then went on to decorate the caves with this finest celebration of human love. Unlimited, untrammeled, unhindered. That is how sexuality evolved. What we reduce it to now is simply cultural biases, laden with bad social conditioning.  

That first, true, real cave love. Try explaining that to a half-literate rabbi or mullah.

Latest research and scientific study on the odours given out by male and female genitals and armpits have unlocked a whole new world of mysterious scents that play a key role in human sexuality

Edward Gunter

The scent of a man’s pubic area, scrotum, armpits and a woman’s vagina is primarily controlled by colonies of healthy bacteria that populate these regions. The word bacteria shouldn’t freak you out. We deal with healthy bacteria all the time. They form part of our diet, for instance, probiotics — which are usually beneficial bacteria — provide all sorts of powerful benefits for your body and brain. Taken in an optimal way, they may improve digestive health, reduce depression and promote heart health. Some evidence suggests they may even give you better-looking skin.

Such bacteria can be found in human private parts also. Dr. Richard Bremer, lead physician at the Oak Ridge Hospital, Tennessee, who won the 2018  Michelson Prize, given away to  young investigators who apply disruptive research concepts and inventive processes to advance human research for major global diseases, has just finished a detailed study of human scents and their impact on human sexuality over the years.

After long dismissing the search for a human pheromone as folly, Bremer’s research has forced scientists to take a fresh look at how human body odor influences sexual attraction. The magic scent is not some romantic elixir but the aromatic effluence of our immune system. The only trouble is we don’t give it half a chance. How do we humans announce, and excite, sexual availability? Many animals do it with their own biochemical bouquets known as pheromones. “Why do bulls and horses turn up their nostrils when excited by love?” Charles Darwin pondered deep in one of his seminal works. Natural selection designed animals to produce two, and only two, types of odors—defensive ones, like the skunk’s, and scents for territorial marking and mate attracting, like that exuded by the male musk deer and bottled by perfumers everywhere. The evaluative sniffing that mammals engage in during courtship were clues that scent is the chemical equivalent of the peacock’s plumage or the nightingale’s song—finery with which to attract mates.

There is evolutionary biology at play too. Early men, and women, lived in groups of 8-10, as evidenced by human remains found in multiple places around the globe (Israel, Laos, Austria, Peru, Tanzania, Upper Kazakhstan and parts of South India). An improvement in the dating of fossils suggests that the Neanderthals, a heavily muscled, thick-boned human species adapted to living in ice age Europe, perished about 44,000 years ago. In a majority of the places, the bone structure and mating rituals of our ancestors suggested that men identified their sexual partners in the dark of the night often through intimate smells. The Jebel Irhoud Skulls found in Morocco in 1960 (dating back to 30,000 years) pointed at several groups of alpha men, attracted by the smell of other women, and also younger men, possibly mating with both sexes. Most archeologists are agreed that such sexual encounters were frequent.

Scent And Sentiment

Curiously, remembering a smell is usually difficult—yet when exposed to certain scents, many people—of whom Marcel Proust is the paragon—may suddenly recall a distant childhood memory in emotionally rich detail. Some aromas even affect us physiologically. Laboratory researchers exploring human olfaction have found that: A faint trace of lemon significantly increases people’s perception of their own health. Lavender incense contributes to a pleasant mood—but it lowers volunteers’ mathematical abilities. A whiff of eucalyptus increases people’s respiratory rate. Oud oil, distilled from agarwood, reduces blood pressure. Such findings have led to the rapid development of an aromatherapy industry. Aromatherapists point to scientific findings that smell can dramatically affect our moods as evidence that therapy with aromatic oils can help buyers manage their emotional lives.

Mood is demonstrably affected by scent. For several decades scientists have studied the way people are attracted to other people’s special brand of human smell. It sounds weird, but every so often, a chemically compatible match comes along and…you get all caught up in a phenomenon we’re calling body-odor attraction. It may often be the scent of the opposite sex and in many cases the scent of the same sex. And, no, you are not alone. Actually, anyone who denies this is the outlier here. That’s the power of smell. Modern study demonstrates that the populations of vaginal bacteria attracts men because of the evolutionary trait. Most men would want to smell a vagina and even kiss it (which may not be an unhealthy thing to do – unless the woman is unclean). Similarly the presence of good genital bacteria in men’s scrotum is a turn on for the opposite sex, or the same sex. Someone licking at the scrotum, for example, may be an primal act of imbibing a healthy dose of bacteria. The woke joke in modern scientific community is that if someone you invited home for dinner and drinks suddenly asks you for healthy food, well you know what to pull out. Your wiener is a health bar of a different kind.

Taste, too?

Sex specialists are often asked about the taste of a patient’s vagina. Taste is a combination of many factors, including scent, flavor, temperature and even touch. In the right situation and with the right partner the taste of a vagina is typically pleasing. There is an urban myth that eating pineapple can change vaginal taste. This is not biologically possible. While pineapple does have aromatic compounds that give it that pineapple smell, even if these compounds survived digestion and metabolism, your urine and sweat would be smelling sweet and tropical long before your vagina did.

What could be a source of what might be our very own pheromone? Humans possess three major types of skin glands—sebaceous glands, eccrine (or sweat) glands, and apocrine glands. Sebaceous glands are most common on the face and forehead but occur around all of the body’s openings, including eyelids, ears, nostrils, lips, and nipples.

The sweat glands exude water and salt and are non-odorous in healthy people. That leaves the third potential source of a human pheromone—the apocrine gland. Apocrine glands hold special promise as the source of smells that might affect interpersonal interactions. They do not serve any temperature-managing functions in people, as they do in other animals.

Men’s apocrine glands are larger than women’s, and they secrete most actively during times of nervousness or excitement. Hair provides surface area from which apocrine smells can diffuse. (Is it any coincidence that hair at the arm pit and the genitals sprouts at puberty, when apocrine glands start producing food for our skin bacteria?)

Most promising of all, apocrine glands exude odorous steroids known to illicit sexual behavior in other mammals. Androsterone—a steroid related to the one that nearly doomed the hapless musk deer—is one such substance. Men secrete more androsterone than women do, and this is the reason most men smell hotter than females. This is not to suggest that women smell less attractive (right use of cosmetics and perfume does the trick) but the magic lies in androsterone.

Androsterone helps act as a prosthetic tickle to parts of your brain, namely the hypothalamus and pituitary gland that kick up your levels of 1-testosterone. This action places it in the pro-hormone category, which in theory makes it a win-win because you’re unlikely to suffer the negative side effects of increased oestrogen that you’re likely to have accrued from your mother’s womb. It is highly possible that if men are blindfolded, as Swedish researchers experimented in an MRI scan (2005) of 200 university students, and their arms tied behind their back, and placed equidistant (at a distance of 6 cm) from a naked male (age 27-44) and naked female (same age bracket), men tended to like the natural smell of other boys.

Using brain imaging, Swedish researchers found new evidence that men can in fact send and receive subconscious odor signals. And, they, it seems, respond to the smells differently. “This is the chief reason Neanderthal skeletal remains of males have always been found side by side, strongly suggesting that they co-slept (apart from mating with their female counterparts), primarily turned on by the smell of their own sex (in an age of no deodorants, cosmetics and perfumes). There is a strong reason to conclude that since religion (which was a much later construct) played no role at all in their private and public lives, Neanderthals enjoyed the smells, no matter the origin of the flower (vulva or scrotum). Modern man basically is genetically wired like that plus or minus, of course, the societal constructs,” notes Dr. Richard Bremer.

Whoever said make me a fragrance that smells like love was in all possibility right.

Normalization around butt fuck is shifting modern conversation around consent but what does evolution and science have to say about anal sex

Kathy Kimberley | Cosmopolitan

What a journey our attitudes towards anal sex have taken over the last few years. From Drake and the butt-loving conundrum spawned by Hollywood biggies, to scientific celebrations of anal penetration, to pegging on Broad City, to twerking, to Kim Kardashian’s epic shiny rump on the cover of Time Magazine in September 2018, it’s no question that all things ass-related have taken on a mainstream edge.

Pop-culture acolytes proclaimed 2018 the “Year of the Booty,” which heralded a deluge of think pieces in important publications about the portrayal of butt sex in popular imagination. Primetime hit shows like The Mindy Project and This Bold America have further explored the erotic potential of the anus. It’s now ascended to a cushy place in pop culture where it’s become normal in the US and much of Western Europe to talk about and engage in the act of anal sex. And it goes with both sexes: males as well as females.

Latest data from nationally representative survey carried out by Prof Christina Hulbe, Dean and Head of School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, indicates that just over one-third of adult women aged 25-44 report having anal sex with a man at least once before, and about one-fifth of women in this age group report having done so during the past year. As for young men aged 25-44, almost one in every five indulged in anal sex with either a female or a male. These numbers have increased significantly over the past few decades.

If you look at national survey data from the 1980s, you will notice that about one-fifth of women reported never having anal sex, and fewer than one-tenth of men reported it. But for the generation born after 1980, morality started undergoing a huge metamorphosis. While rural and those from less educated and more conservative households reported fewer numbers opting for anal sex, those exposed to wider cultural trends, urban and from educated families observed such sexual behavior more often, the study found.

There seems to be a common perception that previously young women and men didn’t receive anal sex. For example, consider this conclusion from a 1979 study of women’s sexual attitudes: “anal sex is a sexual activity that women and men may engage sometime in but seldom enjoy”. There are a lot of things wrong with that sentence! For one thing, generalizing consensual love-making, regardless of gender, is highly problematic because it’s both voluntary and evolutionary, scientists now believe. The typical conservative view of receptive anal sex: That ‘nature’ dictates you must not do so, has since been rubbished by a plethora of scientific and philosophical study over the issue.

Evolutionary tale

Flicking through anthropological texts yields a pathetic number of references to heterosexual anal sex. The Ancient Greeks weren’t the only peoples to have had a mania for portraying sex acts in clay – mankind’s oldest historical document. Between 100AD and 800AD in Northern Peru, the Moche culture production of pottery exploded. Archaeologists have unearthed 10,000 pots. The vessels baffled scholars who tried to tackle their subject matter. Here’s why: there’s plenty of anal sex between men and women, and men and men. Explanations range from showing a form of birth control to the pots making sense of new political power structures. In this instance, contraception isn’t necessarily the driving factor behind entering through the rear. As we’ve seen before, a correlation between vaginal sex and pregnancy isn’t always made by participants.

A pot (circa 2000 BC) depicting a male couple engaged in anal sex has been the focus of particular archeological study. A younger male (his genitlia inside his partner’s bum) is shown atop a slightly older male in this particular artifact, now at Louvre, Paris. Archeologists from Sorbonne, the largest institution in France dedicated to the study of civilizations, arts, humanities and social sciences, found it in 2010 in modern day Sambia, Eastern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea, in the southwestern Pacific.

Explains Prof Eric Fouache, Research Faculty at Department of Archelogy at Sorbonne, “Semen was viewed as an important life force and this pot might suggest that early humans believed that receiving spunk via the anal route meant power. The sperm would be channeled through the woman’s or man’s butt to her or his gut. The second reason – that occasional anal sex by straight men (with other men or women) might be an internalized mechanism to show their status in political power structures – is also plausible”. Prof Yuval Noah Harari, a historian, philosopher and best-selling author of ‘Sapiens’ and ‘Homo Deus’, explains that the ancient human society was to some degree much more equal. This may have led to the evaluation that the anal sex pots are trying to communicate the notion that “relationship have an evolutionary basis in agreements and pacts. Often those pacts meant love but also power. What the pots explain is one partner tunneling this power to the other.”

Science of the rear

The entire anal region is interconnected by genito-spinal nerves which can trigger a quick orgasm. One of them, the pelvic nerve, transmits signals from the rectum in both sexes. Anecdotal evidence shows that both men and women have reported orgasms from anal sex. Presumably the best orgasms would come from when all the nerves can be simultaneously excited – which would explain why the entire length of a boy’s penis inside the anal tunnel has its virtues. Anuses, by their very built, are delicate. The skin is very thin and unlike vaginas, buttholes are not capable of producing their own lubrication. Butt hair, often in case of boys, may act as a source of friction (easily overcome by lube, lotion or spit as the case may be) but helps in loosening up the prostate, the bean like structure attached to the penis.

Anal sex requires a bit of extra preparation, but other than that, it could just be another sex act. Getting the tip in hurts. This is because the head of the penis is the widest part. Once you’re past that and up to the shaft, it’ll feel a little better. Sex specialists note that since the opening of the anus contains tons of nerve endings in both genders, it allows stimulation of the prostate. Prof Dr. Stefan Schumacher, Consultant Urologist, Head of the Department of Urology & Endo-urology, Charité Universitätsmedizin Hospital Berlin, who lead a team of specialists to study the incidence of anal sex in Berlin (2017) concludes in the Nature magazine, “Regular penetration of butt is likely to result in strong prostate stimulation, leading to less instances of erectile dysfunction, better urine flow, fewer cases of disorders like prostatitis or prostate cancer.”

The prostate surrounds your urethra. It is a bean-shaped, walnut-sized gland located between your urinary bladder and the penis. The urethra runs through the center of the prostate, from the bladder to the penis. Swelling and inflammation in the prostate increases, typically after 50. In some cases prostate may begin to interfere with or even cut off your flow of urine even by 40. Someone with an active sex life, who rims both vagina and anus regularly, may stand to benefit. A penis tip penetrating an anal tunnel is akin to a prostate massage. It automatically eliminates some of that swelling that may take place in future as you cross 30 and hit the median age. “I won’t call it a guarantee for boys who enter both from the front and rear but there are definitive benefits of anal sex. Regular anal sex with one or both genders reduces chances of prostate inflammation and cancer besides improved urine flow”, says Sarah Tomchesson, a sex educator and head of business relations at Pleasure Chest in Los Angeles.

However not all agree on going anal. Cautions Rita Cannis, senior psychologist of Ontario school board, with an extensive training and experience in assessment of sexual mores in high school and college students. “You must be careful in terms of limiting your anal sex partners. Anal can be done well spontaneously, in the heat of the sexual moment but care must be taken to ensure that you are well greased.” There is a reason the term ‘anus is the new pussy’ trended a few years ago on social media. We know the reason why!

So, unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past few years, you’re sure to have noticed one fashion trend for men that almost every man in the country has hopped on board with: beards!

Modern beards, preferred by the metrosexual man, are considered the epitome and culmination (or should be) of what defines a man. Growing a beard, regardless of sexual preference in 2019, is a way of setting yourself apart from the rest of the male populous. Beards today are symbolic of Male dominance, Sexual virility, and overall prestige

Yes, from hipster beards to designer stubble, it seems that if you walk down a busy high street, you’ll probably see a lot more men with some form of facial hair than you will men who are completely clean shaven.

So, how did this all happen? Well, there of course always have been men who have worn their beard with pride whether it is viewed as trendy or not, but we’re talking about the cultural trend for facial hair.

It is also important to note that the current trend for beards and facial hair is really nothing new. All fashion trends are cyclical in nature, and as time goes by trends come and go time and again.

The last time beards saw a cultural boom in popularity was probably in the 1960s and early 1970s, thanks to the influence of the Beatles growing beards and later the rise of hippie counterculture.

Of course, if you go right back to the beginning of human civilization, beards were much more functional, if not crucial to our survival, as they helped us keep warm when the weather turned cold, in the dark days before central heating or scarves had been invented.

Like all great mysteries in life, nobody knows exactly why and when the current trend for facial hair began, but everyone has their own theories. Whilst most can agree that facial hair started becoming more and more common from about 2010 onwards, some attribute this to the influence of Hollywood celebrities who ditched the razor like George Clooney or Brad Pitt, others site “the rise of the hipsters” and their penchant for ironically oversized or over sculpted beards.

Whatever the root, beards soon became a trendy then, like most upward trends, it’s influence steadily grew as more and more men grew beards, until the facial hair boom was tipped to have reached “peak saturation” in 2016.

When most trends reach a level of peak saturation, it’s just a short time later that they take a steep dive back into obscurity, as beards did in the 1970s the last time they were so trendy.

However, the popularity of beards didn’t waver, and as 2019 begins forward there are no signs yet that anything has changed.

Investigating the research, the work of Neave and Shields (2008) on the effects of facial hair on women’s perceptions of men’s attractiveness, masculinity, and dominance is key. Researchers asked female participants to rate various male faces of average attractiveness. The faces were digitally altered to show different degrees of facial hair—clean-shaven, light stubble, heavy stubble, short beard, or full beard. For each alteration, women were asked to rate the face’s masculinity, aggression, dominance, attractiveness, and social maturity. Participants were also asked to indicate their own desire for the male as a short- and long-term partner.

The results indicated that the women found men with light stubble most attractive; these men were preferred as both short- and long-term partners. However, the women perceived male faces with six day old beards as the most masculine, aggressive, and socially mature; the women also thought these men looked older which made them psychologically appealing and dominant.

Research by Dixson and Brooks (2013) used similar procedures and recorded judgments by both men and women on the faces of men with varying degrees of facial hair. As in the first study, women found stubble on men most attractive, (In this study, the stubble was heavier.) Nevertheless, women rated men with full beards as highest for perceived parenting ability and healthiness. Overall, as facial hair increased, women’s ratings of masculinity increased, too—particularly for women who reported being at the fertile phase of their menstrual cycle. Men had similar judgments of facial hair, except that they found full beards as appealing as heavy stubble. Men also noted a greater perception of masculinity as facial hair increased.

Overall, these ratings suggest that an intermediate level of facial stubble is more attractive for a sex partner, while a fuller beard is perceived as indicative of someone with good fathering ability and more investment in offspring.

Given the results, whether a man should grow a beard will depend on his own relationship goals (and perhaps those of his preferred partner). Guys looking to get noticed and be more sexually appealing may benefit from some masculine stubble on their cheeks (especially when combined with being nicely dressed and otherwise well groomed). Add some sexy eye contact, flirtatious touching, and the right conversation topics, and a man may reignite the passion of his long-term partner—or attract the interest of somebody new.article continues after advertisement

A beard can also help a man build rapport with a partner, demonstrate a positive personality, and stand out from the crowd. (Just remember to trim it down a bit.) There are similar notions around men’s pubic hair. Both young females and males get more turned on by the sight of a penis with a little stubble around it.

There is a contingent of women who do not care for men’s facial hair at all, so for men committed to smooth cheeks, there’s certainly someone out there for you, too. But fundamentally, as with other mating cues, women’s preferences in men are often linked to the type of relationship and genderdynamic they want. By changing his facial hair, a guy may be more likely to attract the type of relationship partner he seeks.

2019 has been designated the year of heavy stubble. One of the most popular facial hairstyles of all time. It doesn‘t require much maintenance at all and can be as long as the person wearing it wishes. This hairstyle is great for its manly, rugged look. A lot of polls show that women prefer this beard style to the others, especially if it‘s a long, 10-day stubble. So if you wish to look trendy and seduce female friends with a manly appearance, go for this look.

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Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton