| (no subject) |
[Jan. 21st, 2006|07:43 am] |
There is certainly no absolute standard of beauty. That precisely is what makes its pursuit so interesting.
--John Kenneth Galbraith |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 15th, 2005|04:23 pm] |
"Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason? For if it prosper, none dare call it treason."
-- John Harrington |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 9th, 2005|10:16 am] |
"You can't research a big idea. The only ideas that truly research well are mediocre, 'acceptable' ideas. In research, great ideas are always suspect."
-- George Lois |
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| (no subject) |
[Nov. 9th, 2005|10:03 am] |
sublimation:
1. (chemistry) a change directly from the solid to the gaseous state without becoming liquid
2. (psychology) modifying the natural expression of an impulse or instinct (especially a sexual one) to one that is socially acceptable |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 31st, 2005|10:37 am] |
“It's people often who are on the outside that are often the greatest of dreamers -- they're the ones who imagine themselves doing the greatest of things, and if you have that imaginiation it does spark that drive to go out and do something... other.”
- Alex Kapranos |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 20th, 2005|11:08 am] |
The Ideal
This is where I came from.
I passed this way.
This should not be shameful
Or hard to say.
A self is a self.
It is not a screen.
A person should respect
What he has been.
This is my past
Which I shall not discard.
This is the ideal.
This is hard.
- James Fenton |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 19th, 2005|10:49 am] |
"It is by logic we prove, but it is by intuition we discover"
- Henri Poincare |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 14th, 2005|12:57 pm] |
the truth is revealed! i knew it!
***
Dear Cecil:
Who gets the most pleasure out of sex--the man or the woman? According to Tiresias, a prophet in Greek mythology, the woman gets nine times more pleasure than the man. Please, say it ain't so! --Sean Sherman, Montreal, Quebec
Cecil replies:
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. You want to give up and join the monastery, Cecil will understand.
--CECIL ADAMS |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 7th, 2005|08:02 pm] |
There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.
-- Nietzsche on love |
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| (no subject) |
[Oct. 7th, 2005|08:54 am] |
if you don't find this fascinating, you're crazy.
***
What's the origin of the paisley design?
Dear Cecil:
What is the origin of the design known as "paisley"? Most patterns have some basis in nature, such as flower patterns, leaves, etc. A paisley looks like some sort of amoeba. What is a paisley supposed to be and how did it get that way? --Rob Marchant, Carrollton, Texas
Dear Rob:
You probably think paisley originated at the same time as the Beatles, Peter Max, and the Summer of Love. Not so. Paisley is actually an ornate pattern that was commonly used for 19th-century shawls manufactured in the town of Paisley, a textile center in Scotland. The Scots stole the idea from similarly patterned cashmere shawls made in Kashmir from goat fleece (cashmere-Kashmir, get it?), which began to be imported from India around 1800. The traditional explanation for the commalike paisley motif is that it's a pine cone, but if so it's the damnedest pine cone I ever saw. Textile historian Martin Hardingham has a better idea; he says it's "more directly identifiable with the cashew fruit and seed pod which has been a symbol of fertility for thousands of years." Ergo, sex is at the bottom of it. My mother always suspected as much.
--CECIL ADAMS |
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