Relationship: Gender Differences

Four recent studies, using wildly different data sets, radically different methodologies, and spanning countless cultures, provide further evidence regarding men's preferred waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) preference in women, namely, a WHR in the range of 0.68 to 0.72.

Crazy-ass long mad thing I suddenly found myself writing after I saw a posting by Jayson Gaddis of "Revolutionary Man" (What Is Your Constructive Feedback For MEN?). This is waaaaay too long for what Jayson Gaddis is looking for. I mostly just found myself writing more about myself than men and so, this is just my note. And please know that this is MY letter. I am not speaking for other women. I am also not directing this at any one man. And sometimes I am guilty of what I complain about. I know it and am honest about it. Why did I really have all this gushing out of me? I have no idea. Maybe just because I am a woman. And sometimes, I just shamelessly gush.

Theories about love's purpose range from the biologically practical to the biologically complicated. Anthropologists have said it helps ensure reproduction of the species; attachment theorists maintain it's a byproduct of our relationship with our childhood caregivers. And now researchers are exploring what happens physiologically as a romantic relationship progresses.

Researchers have long known that not only is sex fun (when done with the right person, of course), but that people who have frequent sex tend to live longer and have healthier hearts and lower rates of certain cancers. These studies also show that men with an active sex life have healthier sperm, and sexually active women have fewer menopause symptoms.

One of the greatest physical insecurities that men experience is whether their phallus measures up. In a 2006 Internet study using a very large sample of heterosexual participants (52,031), Lever, Frederick, and Peplau (2006) found that whereas the great majority of women (85%) were content with their partners' penis size, a much smaller percentage of men were satisfied with the size of their own penises (55%). Of note, only 0.2% of men wished to have a smaller penis!

Ms. McLaughlin did what a lot of middle-aged women here do when they are not ready to give up on sex. She visited the Pelvic and Sexual Health Institute, which treats about 200 women a week, mostly from the Philadelphia-New York City corridor, but some from as far away as Canada, South America and Britain. Half the patients seen by the staff of 20 are boomer women. A lot have husbands and boyfriends who’ve been given a recharge via Viagra or even a penile implant, and, as Ms. McLaughlin said, “We need something, too.”

Why in all of evolution would nature have designed a body part with such obviously enormous reproductive importance to hang off the body so defenseless and vulnerable? Although we tend to become accustomed to our body parts and it often fails to occur to us to even ask why they are the way they are, some of the biggest evolutionary mysteries are also the most mundane aspects of our lives. Thus, the first big question is why so many mammalian species evolved hanging scrotal testicles to begin with...

Men should marry a woman who is cleverer than they are and at least five years younger, if they want the relationship to stand the best chance of lasting, according to new research.

Conservatives in Egypt are in a lather over a new device that promises to simulate the bleeding a virgin bride experiences on her wedding night. Politicians are calling the device an assault on Islamic and Arab values. But some young women say it's the inevitable result of Egypt's double standard when it comes to premarital sex.