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reddness's Homepage http://search.zorpia.com/reddness Sun, 12 Oct 2008 16:36 EDT Sun, 12 Oct 2008 16:36 EDT Zorpia.com who get more pleasure http://search.zorpia.com/reddness/journal/1793673 I've got some good news and some bad news, Sean. But first one ground rule: we're going to confine this discussion to the physiological experience of orgasm. The more subjective aspects of sex, important though they may be, are too difficult for us scientists to quantify. Now for the good news: your basic run-of-the-mill male and female orgasms are pretty similar. Kinsey (1953) in particular took pains to emphasize that "the anatomic structures which are most essential to sexual response and orgasm are nearly identical in the human female and male," and that "orgasm in the female matches orgasm of the male in every physiologic detail except for the fact that it occurs without ejaculation." I would venture to say this jibes with most folks' everyday experience. OK, now the bad news (for men, I mean). Masters and Johnson (1966), while conceding that male and female orgasm were usually pretty comparable, noted two important differences. The first is well known: women can have multiple orgasms without having to rest in between, as men do. This occurs in 10 to 15 percent of women regardless of age. Young men can have multiple orgasms within ten minutes or so, but this ability drops off sharply after age 30. The second difference has been less publicized: women are capable of sustained orgasm, called status orgasmus. These orgasms may start with a 2-to-4-second "spastic contraction" and last 20 to 60 seconds all told--and if that isn't nine times the pleasure, it's definitely in the ballpark. Masters and Johnson published the chart for one woman who experienced a 43-second orgasm in which one can count at least 22 successive contractions. Depressed? Hey, it gets worse. Status orgasmus is usually the result of self-stimulation, but a woman can also experience it at the hands (or whatever) of a suitably skilled lover. Which means that not only can't you have the ultimate O, if she doesn't have one, it's your damn fault. Personal http://search.zorpia.com/reddness/journal/1793673 Mon, 14 Apr 2008 00:22 EDT I feel it http://search.zorpia.com/reddness/journal/1793668 What if sexuality were a sacred, celebrated part of our religion and culture? What if sexual love, nurturing, and women's life-giving powers were seen as the most important subjects of art and literature? What if children were taught these values along with their ABCs? Three hundred years ago there were hardly any democratic governments. And that seems strange to us. But today there are people who try to suppress open discussion of sexuality, just as the discussion of democracy was suppressed years ago. So the struggle to discuss sexuality, and to reclaim pleasure, is only the latest step in our struggle for a more equal world -- a world of partnership. And maybe three hundred years from now, it will seem just as strange that sexual pleasure, reproductive freedom, and freedom of sexual choice were not always seen as important political matters. Romance & Relationships http://search.zorpia.com/reddness/journal/1793668 Mon, 14 Apr 2008 00:02 EDT Pain Language http://search.zorpia.com/reddness/journal/1744081 Although the rainy season was coming on fast, Zainabu Sesay was in no shape to help her husband. Ditches had to be dug to protect their cassava and peanuts, and their mud hutâ€™s palm roof was sliding off. But Mrs. Sesay was sick. She had breast <a href="http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/cancer/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="In-depth reference and news articles about Cancer.">cancer</a> in a form that Western doctors rarely see anymore â€” the <a href="http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/tumor/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="In-depth reference and news articles about Tumors.">tumor</a> had burst through her skin, looking like a putrid head of cauliflower weeping small amounts of blood at its edges. â€œIt bone! It booonnnne lie de fi-yuh!â€ she said of the pain â€” it burns like fire â€” in Krio, the blended language spoken in this country where British colonizers resettled freed slaves. No one had directly told her yet, but there was no hope â€” the cancer was also in her lymph glands and ribs. Like millions of others in the worldâ€™s poorest countries, she is destined to die in pain. She cannot get the drug she needs â€” one that is cheap, effective, perfectly legal for medical uses under treaties signed by virtually every country, made in large quantities, and has been around since Hippocrates praised its source, the opium poppy. She cannot get morphine. That is not merely because of her poverty, or that of Sierra Leone. Narcotics incite fear: doctors fear addicting patients, and law enforcement officials fear drug crime. Often, the government elite who can afford medicine for themselves are indifferent to the sufferings of the poor. The <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/w/world_health_organization/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More articles about World Health Organization">World Health Organization</a> estimates that 4.8 million people a year with moderate to severe cancer pain receive no appropriate treatment. Nor do another 1.4 million with late-stage <a href="http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/aids/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="In-depth reference and news articles about AIDS/H.I.V..">AIDS</a>. For other causes of lingering pain â€” burns, car accidents, gunshots, diabetic nerve damage, sickle-cell disease and so on â€” it issues no estimates but believes that millions go untreated. Figures gathered by the International Narcotics Control Board, a <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/united_nations/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More articles about the United Nations.">United Nations</a> agency, make it clear: citizens of rich nations suffer less. Six countries â€” the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Britain and Australia â€” consume 79 percent of the worldâ€™s morphine, according to a 2005 estimate. The poor and middle-income countries where 80 percent of the worldâ€™s people live consumed only about 6 percent. Some countries imported virtually none. â€œEven if the president gets cancer pain, he will get no analgesia,â€ said Willem Scholten, a World Health Organization official who studies the issue. In 2004, consumption of morphine per person in the United States was about 17,000 times that in Sierra Leone. At pain conferences, doctors from Africa describe patients whose pain is so bad that they have chosen other remedies: hanging themselves or throwing themselves in front of trucks. Westerners tend to assume that most people in tropical countries die of <a href="http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/malaria/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="In-depth reference and news articles about Malaria.">malaria</a>, AIDS, worm diseases and unpronounceable ills. But as vaccines, <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/antibiotics/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="Recent and archival health news about antibiotics.">antibiotics</a> and AIDS drugs become more common, more and more are surviving past <a href="http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/disease/measles/overview.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="In-depth reference and news articles about Measles.">measles</a>, infections, birth complications and other sources of a quick death. They grow old enough to die slowly of cancer. About half the six million cancer deaths in the world last year were in poor countries, and most diagnoses were made late, when death was inevitable. But first, there was agony. About 80 percent of all cancer victims suffer severe pain, the W.H.O. estimates, as do half of those dying of AIDS. Morphineâ€™s raw ingredient â€” opium â€” is not in short supply. Poppies are grown for heroin, of course, in Afghanistan and elsewhere. But vast fields for morphine and codeine are also grown in India, Turkey, France, Australia and other countries. Nor is it expensive, even by the standards of developing nations. One hospice in <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/international/countriesandterritories/uganda/index.html?inline=nyt-geo" title="More news and information about Uganda.">Uganda</a>, for example, mixes its own liquid morphine so cheaply that a three-week supply costs less than a loaf of bread. Nonetheless, it is still routinely denied in many poor countries. â€œItâ€™s the intense fear of addiction, which is often misunderstood,â€ said David E. Joranson, director of the Pain Policy Study Group at the <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/university_of_wisconsin/index.html?inline=nyt-org" title="More articles about University of Wisconsin">University of Wisconsin</a>â€™s medical school, who has worked to change drugs laws around the world. â€œPain relief hasnâ€™t been given as much attention as the war on drugs has.â€Doctors in developing countries, he explained, often have beliefs about narcotics that prevailed in Western <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/medical_schools/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier" title="Recent and archival health news about medical schools.">medical schools</a> decades ago â€” that they are inevitably addictive, carry high risks of killing patients and must be used sparingly, even if patients suffer. Pain experts argue that it is cruel to deny them to the dying and that patients who recover from pain can usually be weaned off. Withdrawal symptoms are inevitable, they say â€” as they are if a diabetic stops insulin. But the benefits outweigh the risks. Personal http://search.zorpia.com/reddness/journal/1744081 Sun, 04 Nov 2007 09:35 EDT