Renek Gaszewski [Blog]

A simple brain scan can spot whether a woman is faking an orgasm or not, a major fertility conference has heard.
Researchers found that when a woman is faking, a part of the brain under conscious control lights up, while real orgasms occur subconsciously.
The University of Groningen scans also showed important differences between the male and female orgasm.
In women, turning off fear and anxiety is key, while men need to know they will be physically stimulated.
Professor Gert Holstege and colleagues asked 13 heterosexual couples aged 19-49 to take part in an experiment.
One half of the couple was asked to lie down, with their head inside a scanner, while their partner stimulated them manually to achieve orgasm.
To aid the mood, the room lighting was dimmed and all noise distractions shut out.
The couples then switched positions and the experiment was repeated.
Cold feet
One thing that they found was putting the couples off the task was literally cold feet.
When they gave the couples socks to wear, about 80% of the couples were able to achieve orgasm compared with 50% previously in this staged environment.
The women were also asked to fake an orgasm so that these scan results could be compared with those taken during genuine orgasms. There were obvious differences.
Professor Holstege said: “Women can imitate orgasm quite well.”
But with genuine orgasm, he said: “What we see is an extreme deactivation of large portions of the brain and especially the emotional parts involved with fear.
“If you look at the women who faked orgasm intentionally you see the motor cortex - the conscious part of the brain - is activated.
“This means the movements that we make in [real] orgasm are not conscious.
“And if you are fearful, it is very hard to have sex. It’s very hard to let go.”
He said this was useful for men to know.
“When you want to make love to a woman, you must give her the feeling of being protected.”
In comparison, the scan results suggested that for men knowing that they would be physically stimulated was important because areas of the brain involved in interpreting touch were highly activated during the experiment.

As I had my morning coffee, the “Dear Abby” column caught my eye. A reader wrote in with a dating dilemma and ended her letter with that often-heard stereotype that “Women use sex to get love, and men use love to get sex.” This is a great summation of the “Sex Trap”.
For singles who fall into the Sex Trap, having sex carries immense meaning and consequences.
Singles fall into the Sex Trap in one (or both) of two ways:
A. they believe sex is a necessary test of compatibility, (if the sex is good then the relationship will be good as well)
B. more commonly, all consciousness goes out the window, and one or both formerly level-headed singles consider themselves a committed couple as soon as they have sex.
So, rather than looking at whether this other person might be a match on levels other than physical attraction - such as long-term requirements, needs, and wants - they are blind-sided by the chemistry under the covers.
Chemicals and Chemistry
No doubt, it can be challenging to keep in touch with reality when all those hormones are running wild. Our body reacts to someone we are attracted to by producing hormones such as PEA or phenylethylamine (natural amphetamine), dopamine and norepinephrine (natural mood enhancers), and testosterone (increases sexual desire), which makes the opportunity to have sex with someone we are attracted to extremely hard to resist. Then, after orgasm, we produce oxytocin (which acts on the hypothalamus to produce emotions), which makes us feel very close to and bonded with our sex partner.
These chemical reactions are involuntary and strong, leading to powerful feelings of attraction, excitement, love, closeness, and well-being.
But when problems arise, those who fall into the Sex Trap often rationalize by thinking, “Well, we’ve got problems, but the sex is great!” They most likely wouldn’t admit it, but they prioritize physical intimacy and regard the rest as optional. Their main tool for making a partner choice is sexual attraction and physical compatibility.
A Guy Thing?
Barry North, a relationship coach who works primarily with gay men, says that many of his clients have fallen into the Sex Trap.
“For gay men especially in metropolitan areas, sex is readily available, and that in itself is a trap,” North says. “In addition, the culture, with its emphasis on physical appearance, encourages sexual activity. Many gay men want to find out from the beginning if a potential partner is going to be sexually compatible. Why waste your time if the sex isn’t going to be good?”
Nonetheless, North adds, “I suspect this is a ‘guy’ thing rather than a ‘gay’ thing.”
I do want to point out that chemistry is important. Yet, chemistry is a given that we can’t control in a relationship; it is either there or not there, and it must be there for the partnership to work. If not there, we can’t “make” chemistry happen, though sometimes it can grow over time.
Singles who pursue a relationship based upon sexual chemistry risk relationship failure when the hormone-induced intoxication wears off and reality hits.
For Conscious Dating: Combine Chemistry with Common Sense
To avoid the Sex Trap, you must balance your heart (and hormones) with your head. This means combining chemistry with common sense. While good sex is important for a sustainable relationship, you need to make your partner choices by paying full attention to your vision, values, goals and requirements - while feeling all those exciting sparks!

Women around the world are being told they can now have an orgasm at the touch of a button.
The makers of “Slightest Touch” say their device can give women longer, better and more intense orgasms.
They claim their device can trigger an orgasm without touching a woman’s genital area.
According to the manufacturers, Slightest Touch works by stimulating the body’s sexual nerve pathway.
‘Turned on’
Women start by drinking an electrolyte sports drink 20 minutes before using the device.
They then apply two white electrode pads inside their ankles.
These pads are connected to the Slightest Touch device, which is about the size of a personal stereo.
With the flick of a switch, women can literally get turned on.
The device stimulates the nerves sending gentle pulses up the woman’s leg for between 10 and 30 minutes leaving women on the verge of climax.
“The Slightest Touch does not provide an orgasm,” said Cherisse Davidson, the company’s director of customer support.
“It gently stimulates the sexual nerve pathways taking the woman to a pre-orgasmic plateau where she dangles on the edge of orgasm for as long as she wants.
“From there, gentle stimulation can then effect the orgasm.
But Ms Davidson, who first tested the device three years ago, insists it is effective.
“It can be of great benefit to many women,” she told BBC News Online.
“I’ve been using mine for three years and I just love it.”
She said the product can help women who simply want to improve their sex lives and those who have problems achieving orgasm.
However, the Slightest Touch, which sells for $139.95, is not suitable for everyone.
It is not recommended for women taking anti-depressants, those who are pregnant or those with some underlying medical conditions such as heart problems.
The product which was launched in the United States six months ago is now starting to getting attention in Europe.
Ms Davidson said the company had now sold almost 4,000 devices - some to customers in Britain.
However, the UK’s FPA, formerly the Family Planning Association, urged women to get professional advice before spending their hard earned cash.
“If women feel they have problems with either sex or relationships, it’s better to go and get professional advice about the possible causes, before spending a lot of money on a particular product,” said a spokeswoman.

More about the idea of sex than the act of it, The Girlfriend Experience suits Steven Soderbergh’s career-long detachment regarding all things sensual.
The writer/director whose indie star first rose with sex, lies and videotape, in which people got off by talking about carnal pursuits, takes a similar low-budget and no-touch approach 20 years later.
He’s curious about sex, and big on authenticity, which is why he hired real-life porn star Sasha Grey for the role of Chelsea, a New York prostitute who commands top dollar for providing exactly what the “experience” part of the title implies: the illusion of emotional attachment along with sexual gratification.
And illusion is very much what the game is about, as Chelsea tells a curious interlocutor: “Sometimes clients think they want the real you, but at the end of the day… if they wanted you to be yourself, they wouldn’t be paying you.”
There’s no sex and very little nudity in the film, which will disappoint anyone who doesn’t know the director’s Spartan aesthetic, where art always triumphs over orgasms. This is the same man who made Che Guevara seem more like a jungle poet than a revolutionary icon in last year’s passion-deprived Che.
Chelsea, who goes by Christine during her off-duty hours, spends most of her time talking to wealthy clients, many of whom are in a state of shock from the economic meltdown. The Girlfriend Experience was shot in October just as the stock market nosedived, and it already seems dated, along with its references to the 2008 U.S. presidential election.
Made on the cheap in 16 days from a script by Ocean’s Thirteen scribes David Levien and Brian Koppelman, with Soderbergh doing his own shaky-cam lensing, the film doesn’t have much going for it apart from Grey’s strikingly serene performance.
She’s in the eye of a personal hurricane, as she finds herself foolishly falling for one of her clients (Peter Zizzo), while her personal-trainer boyfriend Chris (Chris Santos) suddenly proves to be less liberated than he had let on.
Chelsea also has business issues to deal with.
Her reputation and marketability may take a hit from the scuzzball operator of a porn website (real-life film reviewer Glenn Kenny) unless she offers some freebie services to essentially buy a good review.
Grey makes for a fascinating Soderbergh surrogate, balancing curiosity and drive with the desire for emotional detachment. On the basis of her work here, she may have a career outside of adult films, which she says she wants.
Soderbergh’s own path is less distinct. The Girlfriend Experience links prostitution with the amorality of capitalism, an idea his hero Jean-Luc Godard worked to better effect 47 years ago with Vivre sa vie (My Life to Live), an avowed influence.
But Soderbergh doesn’t seem all that interested in pursuing it.
The movie ends so abruptly (it runs a scant 77 minutes), it’s a toss-up as to whether Soderbergh was trying to make an auteur statement or simply lost his mojo.