El papel de las hormonas

The Sex Hormone Secrets
Testosterone and estrogen drive touchdowns and boost brainpower, but they work their magic with a selectivity that science is only beginning to understand. A primer on how these counterintuitive chemicals truly shape us.
By:Sherry Baker

Playing in front of a wildly cheering hometown crowd, the Canadian ice hockey team whizzed around the ice with more speed and sizzle than usual, scoring goal after goal and winning the game. And it wasn’t just that night, either. The high-energy performance of the all-star team, hailing from northern Ontario, always peaked during home games, suggesting a home-field advantage.

Hoping to learn their secret, psychologists Cameron Muir and Justin Carre of Brock University in Ontario studied the team over a season, measuring testosterone levels in saliva before and after each game. As they expected, the increase in status following a win always resulted in a rise. But the surprise came in measurements prior to the games: Whenever the competition was on home turf, testosterone increased ahead of time, suggesting the hormone provided impetus for defending one’s territory. “Just as a dog defends its yard, these players are encouraged to defend home ice,” Carre said.

The Brock scientists found that testosterone ebb and flow tracked emotional states: Self-confidence increased for home games, and, according to player reports, slid back down when players were away. The bottom line: Testosterone changes are directly related to personality, mood, and aggression—and not just in sports.

For men and women alike, sex hormones (including testosterone, produced by the testes, and estrogen, from the ovaries) are power players in myriad human abilities and behaviors. Language, cognition, libido, and health all fluctuate as hormone levels change. Yet the impact is nuanced and often counterintuitive. Testosterone revs aggression in status-hungry men, but has little effect in more laid-back souls. Estrogen has long been thought to keep memory sharp before menopause—but for women who start taking estrogen supplements years after going through menopause, the result may be memory problems instead. Finally, just as sex hormones influence behavior, changing situations often modulate the hormones. “The causal arrow between hormones and behavior points in both directions,” says University of Nevada anthropologist Peter Gray. The subject is complex and often confusing. But given the common manipulation of sex hormones through prescription drugs and supplements, unraveling their hidden forces has never been more critical.

Historia de la virginidad

March 29th, 2007
Untouched history
Josey Vogels

What do you do when you’ve got an extra vat of the rendered fat of virgins lying around? Well, if you were a Northern European thief in the 18th century who believed in folk magic, you’d use the fat to whip yourself up a candle and light it to make yourself invisible in order to rob a church.
That’s just one of many wacky Virgin Heritage Moments you can enjoy in Virgin: The Untouched History by author and historian Hanne Blank, who jokes that she wanted to call her book Everything You Know About Virgins Is Wrong.
“For example,” she tells me over the phone from her home in Baltimore, Maryland, “the whole idea that a doctor can tell whether or not a woman’s a virgin, or that the [integrity of the] hymen provides some iron-clad proof.”
In fact, says Blank, “hymens run the gamut” from thick and resilient to thin and fragile, making them easy to pop in myriad ways and therefore lousy indicators of whether or not a young woman has had intercourse.

Relaciones eróticas en la universidad

College Girls: Bluestockings, Sex Kittens, and Co-Eds, Then and Now
by Lynn Peril
The Age of Innocence
A Review by Caitlin Flanagan
When I was an undergraduate, in the early 1980s, I spent a semester of my junior year living in an all-women’s dorm. It was cleaner, quieter, and generally pleasanter than the coed dorms I had always favored. In the lobby, flanking the wide front door, were a sunken sitting room and a glassed-in office containing a defunct switchboard. The sitting room was filled with wrought-iron furniture and glass-topped tables, and was referred to as “the porch.” Both of these entities, the porch and the switchboard, were relics of the days when the university had observed parietals, the rules by which a college dormitory monitors the comings and goings of its students. Under the old system, there had been a curfew and nightly head count, and young men could not wander through the building; they were announced by the switchboard operator, and could be entertained only in certain venues — the porch, for example, or a bedroom (during posted hours), with the door left wide open.
Parietals, for the most part, have gone the way of the faculty-wife tea. Intended to regulate the sex lives of undergraduates, they belong to a time when colleges maintained a parental relationship with their students: monitoring their health, enforcing bedtimes, and ensuring that their passions did not control their behavior. The strictures were not imposed only on women; Harvard had instituted parietals by 1770, after a student — distinguished by the overweening ambition and ample pocket money of his kind — entertained not one but two prostitutes in his dorm room. But college women felt the brunt of them: Parietals in women’s dormitories were typically more restrictive, and they took far more effort to overthrow, because they had a different purpose when applied to women. Keeping whores out of Harvard residence halls had to do with the honor of Harvard, but keeping Betty Coed a virgin had to do with the honor of Betty Coed.

Textos eróticos del siglo XVII

Reading erotic texts was a rampant social activity in the 17th century!
From our ANI Correspondent

Washington, Mar 24: Salacious gossip and erotic columns thought to be the material of 21st century tabloids were actually quite popular among the 17th century readers, according to a study by a student at University of Leeds.

According to her, three centuries earlier, reading erotic literature was an extensive social activity.

“I tried to get a grip on just how many were published, detail the various types of sexual behaviour portrayed and find out who was doing what - and to whom,” said Jenny Skipp’s three-year PhD study that examined, catalogued and categorised every known erotic text published in eighteenth-century Britain.

“Most people have heard of Fanny Hill, but there was a huge amount of erotic literature published in the 18th century,” Skipp added.

Despite the earlier work suggesting that these texts were only for solitary consumption - and behind closed doors, Skipps’ work showed that the erotic test were read everywhere from alehouses to coffee shops.

Derechos gays en Latinoamérica

Gay rights in Latin America

Out of the closet
Mar 8th 2007 | LIMA

And into politics

LATIN AMERICANS are surprisingly tolerant of homosexuality-within limits. Though they may face taunts and violence, men in particular can sometimes lead openly, even flamboyantly, gay lives as long as they conform to certain stereotypes (such as working as hairdressers). Those who prefer to be discreet usually benefit from Catholic society’s widespread “don’t ask, don’t tell” tolerance of private foibles. It is when they start challenging norms and agitating for legal rights that the trouble typically starts.
Now, this too is gradually changing. In January two lesbians became the first same-sex couple to register a “civil solidarity union” in Coahuila, the first Mexican state to legalise such partnerships. This month Mexico City will follow suit. Buenos Aires, Argentina’s capital, and the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul also allow same-sex unions.
Argentina and Costa Rica too are considering giving legal recognition to same-sex unions. Last month Colombia’s Constitutional Court granted gay couples who have lived together for more than two years the same inheritance rights as married heterosexuals. A bill to give them the same social-security rights is pending in Colombia’s Congress.
The beginnings of a shift are visible in more conservative countries as well. In 2004 Peru’s Constitutional Court struck down a law that banned members of the armed forces from having homosexual relations, whether on or off base, while the police’s human-rights manual instructs officers not to mistreat gays, lesbians or transvestites. A Peruvian activist, Jorge Bracamonte, ran for a seat in the Andean Parliament last year, not so much to win (he didn’t) but in order to campaign against homophobia. Even in Chile, where divorce has been legal only since 2004, a gay-rights group has begun lobbying politicians to legislate against discrimination.

El negocio de la infertilidad

INFERTILIDAD: EL GRAN NEGOCIO
Cuando no se puede, siempre nos quedará la ciencia

por Paco Rego fotografías de Álvaro Villarrubia

Casi 800.000 parejas españolas, una de cada seis, tienen dificultades para concebir hijos. Muchas de ellas recurren a alguno de los 172 centros especializados de nuestro país. Sólo en 2006 han nacido 12.000 bebés por diferentes métodos de reproducción asistida. Mientras esta especialidad médica se ha transformado en un negocio –tener un niño en un centro privado puede costar hasta 25.000 euros–, expertos consultados por Magazine ofrecen sus consejos para que no fracase el método natural. Entre ellos, no obsesionarse, practicar algún deporte y «hacerlo» durante la ovulación en días alternos.

Harold I. Lief

March 23, 2007

Harold I. Lief, Advocate of Sex Education, Dies at 89

By JEREMY PEARCE

Dr. Harold I. Lief, a leading sex therapist who was an early advocate of having medical schools put greater emphasis on sex education in training doctors, died on March 15 at his home in Bryn Mawr, Pa. He was 89.

The cause was congestive heart failure, his family said.

In 1960, Dr. Lief, a psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, started organizing the Center for the Study of Sex Education in Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was a professor of psychiatry. It became a base for his goal of making sex education and the treatment of sexual disorders more scientific. At the time, the university said, only three other medical schools had separate programs in sexology. He worked at the center for the next 20 years.

He was a critic of medical education who frequently commented publicly on human sexuality as well as the sometimes antagonistic interplay between psychiatry and the rest of medicine. In the early ’60s, he turned his attention to getting schools to adopt a more serious and scientific approach to teaching medical students about adult sexuality and development.

Eros es más

Eros es más
Juan Antonio González-Iglesias
Premio Loewe. Visor, 2007. 78 páginas, 8 euros

 

 

 Hay libros que son acontecimientos. En su mayoría, tienden a llevar impreso en la portada el nombre de Juan Antonio González-Iglesias. Existe un mundo poético que el lector adopta como patria, una historia del verso con sus hitos y sus fechas: La hermosura del héroe (1993), Esto es mi cuerpo (1997), Un ángulo me basta (2002). Es el cosmos en medio del caos. La mejor poesía española de su tiempo.

XIX Premio Internacional de Poesía Fundación Loewe, Eros es más viene a añadir solidez, coherencia y complejidad a ese universo único. Que quien aquí entre, abandone todo prejuicio: este territorio se rige por leyes propias. La primera de las cuales permite la libre circulación de lectores a través de una simultaneidad perfecta de planos espaciotemporales. Ni Robbie Williams plagia a san Agustín, ni el de Hipona es profeta de Robbie Williams, sino que ambos –jóvenes, humanos– coinciden –por el hecho mismo de serlo– en su súplica o desafío a Dios: “Hazme puro, Señor, / pero no todavía” (“Vltimus Romanorum”).

Creador sin vocación elitista, el poeta se somete a la misma providencia que gobierna a sus criaturas. Ningún poema trata específicamente de su autor, pero todos ellos remiten a él, sea su tema la aurea mediocritas (“Málaga”) o los ecos homéricos de un mutis televisivo (“¿Destinados al olvido?”). La poesía es crisol: sujeto y objeto se funden bien en total ausencia del poeta (“40”), bien por medio de su plena integración en la tardoantigüedad latina o en la España del siglo XXI, qué más da (“El reinado de Adriano”).

Praxíteles

MONOGRÁFICA DEDICADA AL ESCULTOR GRIEGO EN EL LOUVRE

Praxíteles o la poesía del mármol

• Primera gran exposición en Francia dedicada al arte estatuario griego y romano
• El escultor ateniense fue el autor del primer desnudo femenino íntegro

LBERTO SÁNCHEZ (elmundo.es)

MADRID.- Fue el primer escultor griego en representar un desnudo femenino a tamaño natural con su ‘Afrodita de Cnido’. Praxíteles, que permanece como uno de los artistas más reconocidos de la Antigüedad, será el protagonista de una gran exposición en el gran museo del Louvre. Pocos son los datos fiables sobre su biografía, excepto que nació en Atenas en el siglo IV a.C. procedente de una familia de tradición escultórica. A partir de ahí la historia se funde y se confunde con la leyenda. Los más de 2.300 años transcurridos tienen la culpa de las sombras que envuelven la figura y la obra del genio griego, unas sombras que tratarán de ser esclarecidas con esta ambiciosa muestra.

Hombres y VPH

Masculine side of HPV

Human papillomavirus is common in men too. Studies are underway to determine if a male vaccine is needed.

By Shari Roan
Times Staff Writer

March 19, 2007

With human papillomavirus, girls and women have been getting all the attention.

Parents across the nation have rushed to have their daughters vaccinated against the virus. States are wrestling with whether to require that adolescents get the vaccine. And recent research found that many more girls and women are infected with human papillomavirus than was previously thought — more than one-quarter of females ages 14 to 59.

Now the attention is turning to boys and men.

As many as 60% of men ages 18 to 70 are infected with HPV, according to data not yet published, raising the question of whether the new vaccine will be effective in reducing diseases linked to the virus unless men, not just women, are immunized.

Several studies are underway to better understand the virus in males and whether the new HPV vaccine, Gardasil, also will work for them. As researchers already know and as the new data confirms, HPV is not just a women’s issue.

Porno en el móvil (II)

El sexo se ‘moviliza’

Los contenidos para adultos llegan al móvil de la mano de la nueva generación de telefonía

RAMÓN MUÑOZ  -  Madrid

EL PAÍS  -  Sociedad - 19-03-2007

“Nadie va a comprar un móvil capaz de ver vídeos para bajarse un trailer de Walt Dinsey. Pero sí lo comprará para ver un video erótico tranquilamente”. La frase es de Harvey Kaplan, presidente de Xobile, la mayor empresa de contenidos para adultos de móvil. La pronunció hace dos años en una entrevista a The New York Times y ha sido profética. Xobile.com suma 20.000 nuevos suscriptores mensuales.

Y no está sola. Las compañías clásicas de contenidos eróticos como Private o Playboy se han volcado en adaptar sus contenidos a las especificaciones y usos del móvil, que forman una parte cada vez más importante de sus ingresos. Y al tirón del negocio ha comenzado a aparecer una industria cinematográfica, con directores y actores especializados. Y las películas eróticas para móviles, antes meras traslaciones de las películas de cine, comienzan a independizarse y a tener su propio formato.

VIH y relaciones heterosexuales

 

La primera causa de infección por VIH en Europa es la relación heterosexual

La UE presenta el primer informe que recoge datos de 17 países, salvo España e Italia

EMILIO DE BENITO  -  Madrid

EL PAÍS  -  Sociedad - 19-03-2007

 

El VIH se expande en Europa empujado, sobre todo, por las relaciones heterosexuales sin protección. Es uno de los datos dados a conocer por primera vez por el Centro Europeo para el Control de Enfermedades (ECDC), vinculado a la Unión Europea y fundado hace un año. En 2005, último año con datos, el ECDC registró 20.000 nuevas infecciones por VIH, aunque la cifra real será mayor, según advierte la directora del organismo, Zsuzsanna Jakab. La UE destaca también que sólo quedan dos países que carecen de un registro de transmisiones: España e Italia. La tendencia a la heterosexualización de la epidemia comenzó en 1999, de acuerdo con los datos de nuevos infectados de los 17 países que tenían entonces registro, que el ECDC ha conseguido recopilar ahora por primera vez. Ése fue el primer año en el que los casos de transmisión heterosexual superaron a los de hombres que tienen sexo con hombres (unos 3.000 en ambos casos). Actualmente, los cálculos son que en Europa viven alrededor de 1,1 millones de personas con VIH, y cada año se infectan unas 32.000, es decir, uno de cada tres nuevos casos no queda registrado. El país que más nuevos casos registra es Portugal (251 por millón de habitantes), seguido de Rusia (247) y Ucrania (243). En España, extrapolando las estimaciones del Plan Nacional contra el Sida, salen unos 70 nuevos casos por millón.

Día del padre

Prostitución subvencionada para jubilados

SUBSIDIZED SEX FOR PENSIONERS

German Brothel Offers 50-Percent Discount to Senior Citizens

“Life begins at 66,” reads an advertisement aimed at old people in Germany. But it’s not promoting orthopedic shoes — it’s for a brothel which is offering a 50-percent discount to senior citizens.

If you have to get old, Germany isn’t a bad place to do so. As well as generous state pensions, German senior citizens enjoy a host of benefits during their twilight years. Now, in addition to discounted rail travel, cut-price cinema tickets and cheap museum entry, Germany’s old folk have a new perk to take advantage of: a 50- percent discount at Germany’s largest brothel.

Aborto

EL MURCIÉLAGO

Tengo un murciélago en el vientre.

Ha nacido de tu agua retenida, como las salamandras.

Duerme entre las paredes rojas de mi interior,

y noto cómo va engordando cada día.

Se despierta por las noches,

cuando se me oscurecen los pensamientos.

Y vuela y gira y chilla.

.

Puedo mover los brazos,

puedo mover las piernas,

pero no puedo controlar los músculos de mi vientre.

Mi cerebro no es capaz de desalojar al murciélago.

.

En una habitación blanca

me han vaciado las entrañas con un aspirador.

Ahora soy una estatua de bronce en el parque,

vacía por completo y quieta.

Estoy más tranquila

y lloro.

Kirmen Uribe, Mientras tanto dame la mano, Visor, 2004.

Literatura erótica femenina en Indonesia

Beneath the burqas

The world’s largest Muslim country is ground zero for a fledgling literary movement whose topic is sex and whose practitioners are women.

 

By Paul Watson, Times Staff Writer

 

Bandung, Indonesia — TEACHING high school chemistry, she was the picture of propriety, not an inch of flesh exposed except her hands and a cheerful face framed by a tightly pinned head scarf. Her students were separated according to the Islamic school’s strict rules: boys on one side of the class, girls on the other. Lessons stuck to dry theory, like rote explanations of the periodic table and how atoms and molecules bond.

But during the school break for the holy month of Ramadan, Dinar Rahayu was free to indulge her fantasies. At a desktop computer, in the middle-class home where she lived with her parents, she wrote a novel whose two main characters think they are incarnations of the god Apollo and a Valkyrie, a Nordic deity. Theirs is a world where women dominate men with abusive sex.

It is an explicit story from the start, conjuring scenes of strippers, child rape and sadomasochism. In one of the opening chapter’s tamer passages, the skillful strokes of a transsexual named Dinar persuade her lover Jonggi to put down his can of soda and the TV’s remote control.

“I like to be with him,” Dinar says of Jonggi. “I do everything to make him happy. And I bet he’s happy. I’m sure of it. In fact, he lets my hand slide inside his underpants toward that bulge.”

Rahayu, 36, is one of a small but bold group of female writers exploring the transgressive edges of sexuality in Indonesia, home of the world’s largest Muslim population. The country got a global reputation for prudishness last year when Playboy’s debut on the newsstands sparked protests and prosecution. But far edgier work by the country’s most provocative female authors is printed without fuss by mainstream publishers, including some of the biggest names in Indonesia’s book industry, and widely available in bookstores. Instead of banning or burning the books, government and religious leaders have largely ignored the erotic works, even as some of the best-written race up the bestsellers list.