Archive for August, 2008

Use it or lose it

Monday, August 18th, 2008

Yes, it’s true.

THE MATING GAME

By Regina Nuzzo

Special to The Times

Los Angeles Times – Health Section

August 18, 2008

Urology clinics have a saying: “Erections make erections.”

In other words, sex is not unlike sports. If you want to be a good tennis player, play lots of tennis; if you want to be a good lover, make lots of love.

This maxim springs more from anecdotal observations than from scientific studies: Men who have erection problems tend not to have much sex, urologists noticed. And those who don’t, have plenty. Then again, anyone with a passing knowledge of the birds and the bees might have guessed as much.

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Sexual dry spells: the good and bad

Monday, August 18th, 2008

What happens after a few weeks of abstinence? Two studies shed light on how a body changes after a sexual dry spell.

THE MATING GAME

By Regina Nuzzo

Special to The Times

Los Angeles Times – Health Section

August 18, 2008

http://www.flickr.com/photos/hamed/327939900/Before a big day: A study of 46 men and women in Scotland looked at whether sex affects the body’s blood-pressure response to a stressful event — in this case, a nerve-racking combo of public speaking and verbal arithmetic.

The results, published in 2006 in the journal Biological Psychology, showed that people who’d had no sexual activity (no intercourse of any kind, no masturbation) in the two weeks before the stressful day had the worst blood-pressure responses.

Those with the best reactions? Folks who’d had penile-vaginal intercourse only. (Those who’d had other types of sexual activity with another person still fared worse than those who’d had vaginal intercourse; masturbation was barely an improvement over no sexual activity.)

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