Posts Tagged ‘women’
Monday, December 8th, 2008
Deep-seated cultural cues play a role in snagging a romantic partner at a party.
THE MATING GAME: HOLIDAY PARTY SPECIAL
By Regina Nuzzo
Special to the Times
Los Angeles Times – Health Section
December 8, 2008
Wondering what to wear at the holiday party to lure a new love for ‘09? That expensive, sequiny dress? A handsome new holly-green vest and some knock-’em-dead after-shave? Too bad fashion writers don’t read science journals. Instead of just lecturing on clothing, perfume and makeup, they could draw on research from human mating for their tips on boosting one’s attractiveness at holiday parties — ones that don’t involve buying a thing.
Details such as the color of the walls, who you stand next to, whether the crab cakes at the buffet run out early — strange to say — may change how others perceive us in small (yet potentially useful) ways. “People are differentially attractive under different circumstances,” says David M. Buss, an evolutionary psychologist at the University of Texas at Austin and author of “The Evolution of Desire.”
Tags: attraction, Health, LA Times, men, parties, psychology, Science, sex, The Mating Game, women
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Monday, November 17th, 2008
New studies on the mysterious sex lives of 57-to-85-year-old Americans.
THE MATING GAME
By Regina Nuzzo
Special to The Times
Los Angeles Times – Health Section
November 17, 2008
Far be it from us to pick nits with billionaire Warren Buffett in these bleak economic times, but perhaps he knows more about finance than he does about sex. “It’s nice to have a lot of money, but you know, you don’t want to keep it around forever,” Buffett, worth $62 billion at age 78, told Bloomberg News recently. “Otherwise it’s a little like saving sex for your old age.”
His compatriots might disagree.
Nearly 40% of Buffett’s peers — American men between 75 and 85 years old — are sexually active, new studies reveal. More than half of those have sex at least twice a month. A quarter do it every week. (Only 17% of women that age are sexually active, but they’re equally busy.) That might be more positive transactions than Wall Street is seeing these days.
Tags: age, Health, LA Times, men, orgasm, relationships, Science, sex, The Mating Game, women
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Wednesday, September 17th, 2008
How our brains keep us from straying
THE MATING GAME
By Regina Nuzzo
Special to The Times
Los Angeles Times – Health Section
September 15, 2008
In the pursuit of happily-ever-after, the odds seem to be stacked against us.
Men and women reap huge benefits when they stick around with a good partner — staying happier and healthier, living longer and passing along more genes.
But the sticking-around part is a challenge. We don’t get long-term relationship payoffs right away. And until then — between the once-upon-a-time and the happily-ever-after — plenty of temptations can beckon.
Not that it’s wrong to shop around before settling down. But there always will be enticing alternative mates — whether heart-grabbing or merely eye-catching. So researchers wonder: With so many attractive alternatives, how do humans manage to maintain relationships at all?
Tags: dating, Health, infidelity, LA Times, love, men, psychology, relationships, Science, sex, The Mating Game, women
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Monday, July 21st, 2008
Eager to connect with that elusive (some say mythical) ‘erotogenic zone’? Years after the hype began, finding it remains easier said than done. But that’s not stopping researchers from looking.
THE MATING GAME
By Regina Nuzzo
Special to The Times
July 21, 2008
Los Angeles Times – Health Section
When in 1950 Dr. Ernst Gräfenberg described finding a surprisingly sensitive spot inside the vagina near the urethra, he made the process seem so foolproof. A medical article detailed his effortless demonstrations of the existence of this “distinct erotogenic zone” — and the not-unexpected consequences of stimulating such a zone — in his own patients. Anyone with a vagina could surely do the same for herself.
Well, perhaps it was that easy for him. But outside his examining room, nothing about Gräfenberg’s spot has proven so simple.
Tags: g-spot, Health, LA Times, orgasm, Science, sex, The Mating Game, women
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Friday, June 13th, 2008
Finding common biological traits — things like hair growth patterns, penis size, family makeup — might one day shed light on the origins of sexual orientation.
THE MATING GAME
By Regina Nuzzo
Special to The Times
Los Angeles Times – Health Section
June 16, 2008
Last month, Sen. John McCain dropped by “Saturday Night Live,” drawing laughs from his promise, if elected president, to fight expensive federal projects — such as, he spoofed, a Department of Defense device to “jam gaydar.”
That was a joke. But some scientists are, in a way, working on gaydar, the supposed ability to discern whether a person is homosexual by reading subtle cues from their appearance. Just don’t refer to it that way. The preferred term is “sexual orientation correlates.”
Tags: gay, Health, LA Times, men, Science, sex, The Mating Game, women
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Sunday, February 10th, 2008
To unlock the secrets of the climax researchers are looking behind the scenes and into the nervous system, where the true magic happens.
By Regina Nuzzo
Special to The Times
Los Angeles Times — Health Section
February 11, 2008
AS they seek to document and demystify one of life's great thrills, scientists have run across some real head-scratchers.
How, for example, can they explain the fact that some men and women who are paralyzed and numb below the waist are able to have orgasms?
How to explain the "orgasmic auras" that can descend at the onset of epileptic seizures — sensations so pleasurable they prompt some patients to refuse antiseizure medication?
And how on Earth to explain the case of the amputee who felt his orgasms centered in that missing foot?
Tags: Health, imaging, LA Times, men, neuroscience, orgasm, Science, sex, women
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Sunday, February 10th, 2008
Dr. Stuart Meloy stumbled upon an alternative — and pleasurable — use for an electrode stimulation device that treats pain.
By Regina Nuzzo
Special to The Times
Los Angeles Times — Health Section
February 11, 2008
Dr. Stuart Meloy never set out to study orgasms. It was an accident.
He was in the operating room one day in 1998, implanting electrodes into a patient’s spine to treat her chronic leg pain. (The electrodes are connected to a device that fires impulses to the brain to block pain signals.) But when he turned on the power, “the patient suddenly let out something between a shriek and moan,” says Meloy, an anesthesiologist and pain specialist in North Carolina.
Asked what was wrong, she replied, “You’ll have to teach my husband how to do that.”
Tags: Health, LA Times, men, orgasm, Science, sex, technology, women
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Sunday, February 10th, 2008
‘C-V distance’ may be a factor in how easily a woman has an orgasm.
By Regina Nuzzo
Special to The Times
Los Angeles Times — Health Section
February 11, 2008
During intercourse, the female orgasm can be elusive. What frustrated woman hasn’t wondered: Am I simply, um, put together differently than other women?
Kim Wallen, professor of psychology and behavioral neuroendocrinology at Emory University, is busy doing the math to find out. And, yes, he says, simple physiology may have a lot to do with orgasm ease — specifically, how far a woman’s clitoris lies from her vagina.
That number might predict how easily a woman can experience orgasms from penile stimulation alone — without help from fingers, toys or tongue — during sexual intercourse.
Tags: Health, LA Times, orgasm, Science, sex, women
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