Avoid these Common Condom Mistakes
For being such an inexpensive item, condoms pack a powerful punch. They protect its users against many sexually transmitted diseases as well as guarding against pregnancy. In the heat of the moment, however, many couples do not stop during foreplay and pull out the condom instructions from the box to ensure they are using the condoms properly. So, for those condom users who are not currently engaged in sexual activity, here is a brief rundown of some condom no-no’s for you to peruse.
• A very good friend of mine met her husband in college and she recalled the first time they were about to have sex. Being a responsible man, he pulled the condom he kept in his wallet out as they were about to leap from third base and slide into home. He opened up the condom wrapper and the package was empty. The condom had expired years earlier and had disintegrated into a powder. Lesson learned? Never use condoms that have expired (they may no longer exist, as in this case) as they become weaker with age and more prone to breakage.
• If you are planning a night of unbridled passion and plan to have sex at least four times, pack at least four condoms. Add to that number any other kind of sex you plan to have, including oral or anal. Never use the same condom multiple times. If, for instance, you are using a condom and have just engaged in oral sex and are planning on moving to vaginal sex, dispose of the used condom and start with a new condom before engaging in the vaginal sex. Along the same lines, if one single sex act is continuing beyond thirty minutes, it would be an excellent idea to put on a fresh condom to avoid the condom breaking.
• While double-bagging your groceries may be an excellent idea to avoid your groceries from spilling all over your back seat, you will want to avoid double-bagging your condoms. Use only one condom at a time. The extra friction caused by rubber rubbing against rubber is sure to result in breakage.
• Never expose your condoms to anything that could cause it to potentially tear, rip or break. Some things you will want to keep away from a condom include, but are not limited to, the following: hot cars on summer days, pointy fingernails, sharp teeth, scissors or box cutters, fresh stubble, chainsaws, etc, etc.
• Once the sexual act is complete and the man has ejaculated into the condom, never let the penis go flaccid inside or the condom is likely to leak or slip off exposing those same fluids you were trying to protect. Also, never pull out without holding firmly onto the condom at the base of the shaft. This will also prevent unnecessary leakage.
• As tempting as it may be to only wear the condom towards the end of the sexual activity right before ejaculation, resist the temptation. Never let genitalia touch before you are protected with a condom.
• When friction becomes a problem with condom use, turn to a water-based lubricant for aid. Never resort to using petroleum jelly, lotions or oils as these products can cause latex to weaken and break.
• Never put on a condom so tight that there is no space for the semen to accumulate after ejaculation. When rolling a condom on, be sure to leave an air-free space at the tip.
Reference: A condom is a device most commonly used during sexual intercourse. It is put on a man’s erect penis and physically blocks ejaculated semen from entering the body of a sexual partner. Condoms are used to prevent pregnancy and transmission of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs—such as gonorrhea, syphilis, and HIV). Because condoms are waterproof, elastic, and durable, they are also used in a variety of secondary applications. These range from creating waterproof microphones to protecting rifle barrels from clogging.
Most condoms are made from latex, but some are made from other materials. A female condom is also available. As a method of contraception, male condoms have the advantage of being inexpensive, easy to use, having few side-effects, and of offering protection against sexually transmitted diseases. With proper knowledge and application technique—and use at every act of intercourse—users of male condoms experience a 2% per-year pregnancy rate.
Condoms have been used for over 500 years. In the early twentieth century, with the invention of disposible latex condoms, they became one of the most popular methods of contraception. While widely accepted in modern times, condoms have generated some controversy. Improper disposal of condoms contributes to litter problems, and the Roman Catholic Church generally opposes condom use.
WASHINGTON - After exhaustively compiling a list of the 237 reasons why people have sex, researchers found that young men and women get intimate for mostly the same motivations. It’s more about lust in the body than a love connection in the heart.
College-aged men and women agree on their top reasons for having sex — they were attracted to the person, they wanted to experience physical pleasure and “it feels good,” according to a peer-reviewed study in the August edition of Archives of Sexual Behavior. Twenty of the top 25 reasons given for having sex were the same for men and women.
Expressing love and showing affection were in the top 10 for both men and women, but they did take a back seat to the clear No. 1: “I was attracted to the person.”
Researchers at the University of Texas spent five years and their own money to study the overlooked why behind sex while others were spending their time on the how.
“It’s refuted a lot of gender stereotypes … that men only want sex for the physical pleasure and women want love,” said University of Texas clinical psychology professor Cindy Meston, the study’s co-author. “That’s not what I came up with in my findings.”
Forget thinking that men are from Mars and women from Venus, “the more we look, the more we find similarity,” said Dr. Irwin Goldstein, director of sexual medicine at Alvarado Hospital in San Diego. Goldstein, who wasn’t part of Meston’s study, said the Texas research made a lot of sense and adds to growing evidence that the vaunted differences in the genders may only be among people with sexual problems.
Meston and colleague David Buss first questioned 444 men and women — ranging in age from 17 to 52 — to come up with a list of 237 distinct reasons people have sex. They ranged from “It’s fun” which men ranked fourth and women ranked eighth to “I wanted to give someone else a sexually transmitted disease” which ranked on the bottom by women.
Once they came up with that long list, Meston and Buss asked 1,549 college students taking psychology classes to rank the reasons on a one-to-five scale on how they applied to their experiences.
“None of the gender differences are all that great,” Meston said. “Men were more likely to be opportunistic towards having sex, so if sex were there and available they would jump on it, somewhat more so than women. Women were more likely to have sex because they felt they needed to please their partner.”
But this is among college students, when Meston conceded “hormones run rampant.” She predicted huge differences when older groups of people are studied.
Since her study came out Tuesday, people are coming up with new reasons to have sex.
“Originally, I thought that we exhaustively compiled the list, but now I found that there should be some added,” Meston said.
Why Humans Have Sex
Cindy M. Meston . David M. Buss
Abstract: Historically, the reasons people have sex have
been assumed to be few in number and simple in nature–to
reproduce, to experience pleasure, or to relieve sexual
tension. Several theoretical perspectives suggest that motives
for engaging in sexual intercourse may be larger in
number and psychologically complex in nature. Study 1
used a nomination procedure that identified 237 expressed
reasons for having sex, ranging from the mundane (e.g., ‘‘I
wanted to experience physical pleasure’’) to the spiritual
(e.g., ‘‘I wanted to get closer to God’’), from altruistic (e.g.,
‘‘I wanted the person to feel good about himself/herself’’)
to vengeful (e.g., ‘‘I wanted to get back at my partner for
having cheated on me’’). Study 2 asked participants
(N = 1,549) to evaluate the degree to which each of the 237
reasons had led them to have sexual intercourse. Factor
analyses yielded four large factors and 13 subfactors,
producing a hierarchical taxonomy. The Physical reasons
subfactors included Stress Reduction, Pleasure, Physical
Desirability, and Experience Seeking. The Goal Attainment
subfactors included Resources, Social Status, Revenge, and
Utilitarian. The Emotional subfactors included Love and
Commitment and Expression. The three Insecurity subfactors
included Self-Esteem Boost, Duty/Pressure, and Mate
Guarding. Significant gender differences supported several
previously advanced theories. Individual differences in
expressed reasons for having sex were coherently linked
with personality traits and with individual differences in
sexual strategies. Discussion focused on the complexity of
sexual motivation and directions for future research.
For the full text look here: http://tinyurl.com/ypzwvr
Pills becoming the new marijuana.
The prescription drugs allegedly found in Al Gore III’s possession Wednesday are favorites among young people, according to drug abuse experts, who say prescription drugs may soon overtake street drugs in popularity.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if right now at this point in time, there are more kids abusing prescription drugs than abusing marijuana,” said Joseph A. Califano Jr., chairman and president of CASA, the National Center on Alcohol and Substance Abuse at Columbia University. Gore was arrested on charges of possessing — in addition to marijuana — Vicodin, Xanax, Valium and Adderall.
According to a CASA report, between 1993 and 2005 the proportion of college students abusing Vicodin and other opiods went up 343 percent, about 240,000 individuals. The numbers increased 450 percent, or by 170,000 students, for tranquilizers such as Xanax and Valium, and 93 percent, or 225,000 students, for stimulants, including Adderall.
Prescription drug abuse is particularly common among upper middle class students, according to Lisa Jack, a clinical psychologist at Augsburg College in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
“It just goes to show that where you’re from doesn’t matter,” Jack said.
And young people don’t have to go far to get these drugs. “Prescription drugs are very easy for kids to get,” Califano said. “They can get them from the Internet. They can get them from their parents’ medicine cabinets. They can get them from their friends.”
He said often students get them from friends who were prescribed these drugs legitimately.
“Kids sell them to each other,” Jack said. “Drug trading happens all the time.”
Experts say it’s particularly a problem with Adderall, a drug prescribed legitimately to millions of young people with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder.
According to CASA, more than a third of children ages 11-18 in Wisconsin and Minnesota who’d been prescribed Adderall and other ADHD medications reported being approached to sell or trade their drugs.
And often they say yes, according to one Canadian study that found one out of four teens who’d been legitimately prescribed Ritalin gave or sold some of their drugs.
Another appeal to prescription drugs, besides the easy access, is that young people often perceive them as safer.
“They don’t have to go to the streets and deal with some guy they don’t know and get marijuana where they don’t know what’s in it,” Califano said. “Also, they see their parents using these drugs, so they seem safe.”
Jack said prescription drugs can be more challenging to treat than addiction to street drugs. “In traditional drug abuse, addicts can say, ‘I’ve been using meth or coke or pot,’ and an addiction specialist knows what to do,” she said. But with prescription drugs, “sometimes the kids don’t even know what they’ve been taking. They just pass the pills around.”
Part of the solution would be for drug makers to formulate their products so they’re harder to abuse, said Califano, adding that anti-drug campaigns also should focus more on prescription drug abuse.
Parents need to do their part as well, he said. “When I was a kid in Brooklyn, when parents had liquor, they locked up the liquor cabinet,” he said. “Maybe parents need to lock up the medicine cabinet.”
Scientists predict brave new world of brain pills
Can’t remember phone numbers, worried about an upcoming exam or desperately want to give up smoking? In future, the answer will be simple: just pop a pill.
The idea that an array of easily available and addiction-free drugs could be used to improve memory or increase intelligence is the stuff of science fiction dystopia - in Brave New World, Aldous Huxley created a whole planet under the spell of a pleasure drug called Soma.
But a new report by leading scientists in the fields of psychology and neuroscience argues that, very soon, there really will be a pill for every ill.
“It is possible that [advances] could usher in a new era of drug use without addiction,” said the report by Foresight, the government’s science-based thinktank.
“In a world that is increasingly non-stop and competitive, the individual’s use of such substances may move from the fringe to the norm.”
However, the report said the widespread adoption of new brain-enhancing drugs was not without risks and would raise “significant ethical, social and practical issues.”
Drugs that work on the brain are already common - many people can hardly begin their days without the mind-sharpening effects of caffeine or nicotine.
Launching the report yesterday, the government’s chief scientific adviser, Sir David King, said that brain-enhancing drugs developed to treat diseases such as Alzheimer’s were likely to find increased use among healthy people looking to improve their perception, memory, planning or judgment.
Ritalin, prescribed to children with attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, is sometimes used by healthy people to enhance their mental performance. Modafinil, a drug developed to treat narcolepsy, has been shown to reduce impulsiveness and help people focus on problems.
“It improves working memory - your ability to remember telephone numbers - it gives you an extra digit or two,” said Trevor Robbins, an experimental psychologist at Cambridge University and an author of the Foresight report.
“It also improves your planning when you’re doing complex, chess-like problems. It makes you more reflective about a problem: you take a bit longer but you get it right.”
Modafinil has already been used by the US military to keep soldiers awake and alert and some scientists are considering its usefulness in helping shift workers deal with erratic working hours. It has also been tested for cocaine users. “It produces some of the subjective effects of cocaine without the chronic dependence,” said Prof Robbins. Other drugs are being touted as “vaccinations” against substances such as nicotine, alcohol and cocaine. The treatment would work by causing the immune system to produce antibodies against the drug being abused - these antibodies would render the drug impotent when taken and prevent it from having any effect on the brain.
“How [the vaccinations are] used depends on clinical judgments,” said Prof Robbins. “Informed consent is important.”
But he cautioned against any plan to pre-vaccinate people against narcotics. “One would be very careful indeed about trying to sign one’s children up for such treatment,” he said. “That, to me, sounds reprehensible.”
In the long term, drugs that can delete painful memories could also be used routinely. “We are now looking 20-25 years ahead,” said Prof Robbins. “Very basic science is showing that it is possible to call up a memory, knock it on the head and produce selective amnesia.”
That has obvious uses for people suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, but there is also the tantalising possibility that it could be used to treat harmful addictions.
“Drug addiction can be understood very much as an aberrant learning process,” said Prof Robbins.
“Many of these drugs hijack the learning processes of the brain and produce aberrant habits, which dominate behaviour.
“Clearly the possibility exists that you can call up a drugrelated memory and produce amnesia for it, thus removing craving for that particular drug.”
As drug research improves, the harmful effects of today’s recreational drugs could even be engineered out.
“It may be that one could design out the harmful effects of existing drugs,” said Professor Gerry Stimson of Imperial College. “So, alcohol analogues, drugs which produce similar effects to alcohol without some of the side-effects.”
Society must decide how to use the new drugs, the scientists said.
For example, if drugs to improve exam performance become widespread, schoolchildren might find themselves being tested for drugs before exams, they suggested.
“It’s a new twist on drug-testing,” said Prof Stimson. “Is it a fair advantage or an unfair advantage?”
On the menu: range of treatments
· Ritalin (methylphenidate) is used by a small number of students in an attempt to improve exam results and by business people to improve performance in the boardroom
· D-amphetamine also improves memory but only for people of a certain genetic make-up
· Rimonabant is used as an antidote to the intoxicant effects of cannabis and a treatment for heroin relapse. But it is sometimes also used to enhance the high produced by these drugs by reducing their side-effects
· Naltrexone is already used to treat chronic alcoholism and narcotic abuse. It works by blocking the pleasure receptors that are normally activated in the brain when people use the drugs
· Propranolol, a beta-blocker, is used to treat high blood pressure, angina, and abnormal heart rhythms. It is also used sometimes by snooker players to calm their nerves
· Modafinil, a stimulant developed to treat narcolepsy, has been used by soldiers to improve memory and judgment. It is also used in treatment of cocaine addiction
