There have been preconceived notions regarding men and women's attitude toward sex in the last few decades.
It has been taken for granted that men are more oriented towards sex while women are more commitment driven or men look for attractive mates and women go after social status.
However a new study, while defying all these notions has revealed that not all psychologists comply with these gender-essentialist statements.
Psychologist Terri Conley and colleagues of University of Michigan have asserted men think about sex every seven seconds is not true.
And while it's true that men think about sex more often than women do, they also think about other bodily needs, such as food and sleep, more than women do, Live Science reported.
For the study, psychologists asked research participants to record their thoughts throughout the day.
They found that men pondered sex 18 times a day to a woman's 10 times a day, but men also thought about food and sleep proportionately more than women. That suggests sex doesn't hold as vaunted a position for men as one might expect. More News of the World
RussiaToday (Courtesy of Derek Himes)You will NOT fire our winning coaches even if they molest boys in the locker room. They're winning football games!
Today (Nov. 9, 2011) police in riot gear -- bored from plotting against peaceful Occupy Movement demonstrators -- confronted hundreds of Penn State jocks and football fans who took to the streets after the ouster of child-molestation-ignoring coach Joe Paterno.
Accused child rapist Coach Sundusky, founder of Second Mile
Crowds toppled a television news van. The sports lovers flooded downtown State College after Paterno and university President Graham Spanier were fired amid a growing furor linked to their handling of homosexual child molestation and rape allegations against manly former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky.
Silent all these years Wisdom Quarterly (COMMENTARY) Is it any wonder Catholic priests, scout leaders, and coaches regularly sodomize children, get drunk, and watch porn? It seems our entire society is swept over by child molesting.
Macho football coaches molest boys in locker room showers, tough police assault detainees, hypermasculine soldiers homosexually rape fellow soldiers, officers condone gang rape and belittling victims, brutal prison inmates regularly engage in sex with men, fathers have gay sex with children. It just seems that for such a heterosexual Christian nation, we sure are hypocritical.
There is a taboo in most societies against molesting children. Only the taboo is not against the molestation itself. It is against talking about it, especially by victims. We w ill not stand for it!
We say there's nothing wrong with choosing to be gay -- while the dominant religions of our culture absolutely condemn it. Yet we secretly and shamefully exploit the vulnerable and take out homosexual impulses on them, which we must have inherited from being molested ourselves. And nearly no one stops the insidious circle of abuse.
One dare not speak its name! And when priests are caught (not rogue "soldiers for the lord" but average, commonplace clerics condoned by the Church in over 200 Christian sects and non-Christian institutions as well), we go deaf, dumb, and blind -- in effect condoning it ourselves, even when it is our kids, our fathers, our soldiers, our coaches.
Then we cry and say God will take care of it, so what is there for us to do if He's handling it? No problem here. That only happens in other countries like Afghanistan and Iran or anywhere are "enemies" are.
NOTE: What does this issue have to do with Buddhism? Lots. First of all, there is the issue of sexual misconduct (kamesu micchacara), which at its most fundamental level means having intercourse with those dependent on others for protection and support. Children, unable to consent, are in a sense being raped. We, being interdependent, are all being hurt. There is also the issue of causing harm to society beyond the victims and their loved ones. There is the issue of retaliating, which is said to be worse than attacking. Say, just for the sake of argument, that Sandusky was the victim of childhood sexual abuse and that this gave him a penchant to turn around and do the same thing. By doing, he becomes worse than his perpetrators. We all do. If we regard as wrong what was done to us, we certainly do not want to do that to someone and then bring it upon ourselves in the future again (by the strange and mind boggling operation of karma). There is the issue of hypocrisy, of sports and money being more important to a school than academics and science. This issue is a lot bigger than Penn State or football.
CC Liu, Pat Macpherson, Ashley Wells (Wisdom Quarterly) MICHAEL JACKSON DOCTOR FOUND GUILTY
First Herman "Koch" Cain, now this. Child music idol Justin Bieber is being accused of having gone "all the way" -- possibly against his will, certainly without his consent. (By law minors are not able to consent to sex).
Now someone is pregnant, and baby, baby, baby Bieber is willing to take a paternity test to prove it is not him, uh, his. One thing's sure: former-child star abusing Conrad Murray will not be conducting that test. No comment yet from girlfriend/beard Selena Gomez.
While these allegations would give little Bieber street credentials with Ludacris and the rap/hip-hop underworld, it would shock and scandalize soccer moms and church groups everywhere.
Was baby Justin, shown here with Ludicrous in possibly the world's most viewed video, statutorily raped by Mariah Laci Yeater (shown below)?
They have already lost former Mouseketeers Britney Spears, Justin Timberlake, and Christina Aguilera and with Lindsay Lohan in and out of jail, anti-sex trafficking advocate Ashton Kutcher cheating on Demi, and Drew Barrymore having gotten away with more than all of them (allegedly).
What is our world coming to? Not since the Partridges or Bradys were dating (each other) or Donny and Marie and the Mommas and the Poppas seemed a bit too close have the tabloids had so much to wag about. Oh, Justin, say it ain't so!
How did sex, such a lovely thing, turn into slavery, abuse, and rape? It cannot help that so many societies are hypocritical about the subject. It is taboo to even mention. We are shame for any overt sign of lust or longing, for any lack or limitation. All that hypocrisy and shaming comes back.
There is a less savory side to trying to satisfy sensual cravings.
It comes in the form of organized sex abuse. Maybe we should rethink our attitudes, mores we contribute to by participating in mainstream media images and roles. The result of ignoring the issue is not a tragedy in Thailand (the Southeast Asian hub), Hollywood, New York, Paris, London, and Amsterdam. It is a tragedy everywhere.
It's one arena where whites are in as much jeopardy as everyone else, only we do not know it. "That's something that only happens over there," we say. Where? Where our dads go on business? It may be sexy. But imagine a world where ordinary sex were sexy.
The story is best told in pictures, but words are worth...
In England and Latin America?
In Capitalist Russia, the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics?
In human-rights-loving China, the People's Republic?
WARNING: Re-rated PG from R due to Minute 1:20. Avoid arousal by starting there. The message is simple: To find love, be yourself (Kaiquemr).
Spiritual Balance
The greatest art in spiritual life is finding balance. The entire teaching of the Buddha are summed up in his encouragement to find and travel the Middle Path, which is not about compromising but avoiding extremes of a false dichotomy that is wrong on both sides. To seek neither the extremes (in terms of view) of external existence nor annihilation, neither self mortification nor sensual indulgence, neither faith nor reason [but rather direct experience]. The balance between these is the path of awakening and freedom. The path of balance is to be with what is true in life and to love that, to be committed to the truth on every level. Modified from Christina Feldman and Jack Kornfield, Stories of the Spirit, Stories of the Heart (Tricycle Magazine).
Other than jhana mastery in this or a previous life, what could explain this mystery?
"Meditative absorptions" (jhanas) are one way to marvels and magical powers (that are dangerous due to hidden pitfalls). Buddhaghosa's Path of Purification describes the method. Once the absorptions are developed, the adept amy then choose to develop the five supernormal powers (abhinnas or siddhis) of Indian lore.
Divine Eye (dibba cakkhu) - clairvoyance or the ability to see earthly and celestial at a distance and unseen by the physical eyes. Cutupapatanana is knowing and seeing the passing away and reappearing of beings. Anagatainsanana is seeing the [probable] future. Yathakammupagatanana is knowledge and vision of beings cycling in accordance with their karma.
Divine Ear (dibba sotta) - clairaudience or the power to hear ordinary sounds at a distance as well as subtle (unearthly) sounds from beyond.
Recollection of Past Lives (pubenivasanusattuna) - reviewing one's own and others' rebirths.
Mind Reading (paracitta vijanana) - directly knowing one's heart/mind.
Psychic Powers (iddhividha, iddhis, or siddhis) - such as flying through the air, walking on water like earth, plunging into earth like water...
These abilities may be used skillfully but are much more likely to seduce one and lead to utter ruin. Even the Buddha, seeing danger in them, was reluctant to use them. Arhats, who do not necessarily have them, do not make public displays of them. It is possible to attain enlightenment without mastering these powers. Some say it is possible to awaken without the aid of the absorptions (jhanas) through the very difficult "dry insight" method, which it is said makes use of vipassana-jhanas (most likely access or neighborhood concentration).
WARNING: Not intended and probably not suitable for children (MisterSharp)
This short, informative piece pulled from the archives deals with the American and Iranian menace -- lesbianism. It offers insight into how this practice was/is viewed by some.
THE HAGUE, The Netherlands - Founder says group seeks reform regarding sex abuse complaints. S.N.A.P. (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests), a support group for victims of clergy sex abuse, filed a formal complaint with the International Criminal Court on Tuesday seeking an investigation of Pope Benedict XVI and three other Vatican officials on charges they committed "crimes against humanity."
Dr. Leonard Coldwell spells out the dangers of chemotherapy and the benefits of alternative cancer treatments. Chemotherapy is "assault with a deadly weapon," Coldwell contends because "nobody dies of cancer anymore; they die from the side effects of the so-called 'treatment.'" A UK study shows that 27% of patients undergoing chemotherapy die within the first 30 days. Flax seed oil [which is poisonous] has been proven to fight breast cancer better than chemotherapy [which is super toxic]. Coldwell advocates diet: Cancer cannot survive in an "alkaline, oxygen-rich environment." Drink a gallon of water with a teaspoon of sea salt or pink Himalayan salt every day, and switch to a raw food diet.
Make love, not war. If there is "war in the" air around 9/11 commemorations and prison planet survivalism, where is the love?
"Love" can mean so many things. Sex is one of them, usually the euphemistic meaning. But there is a better Greek word, agape. Oddly, English is not lacking. English-speakers are. Buddhism speaks of metta, "loving-kindness," as one of the most important qualities to develop.
If there is light in the soul, There will be beauty in the person. If there is beauty in the person, There will be harmony in the house. If there is harmony in the house, There will be order in the nation. If there is order in the nation, There will be peace in the world. -Chinese proverb
Lust, sensual craving, thirst, greed are all less than profitable expressions of this impulse in the Sense Sphere (kama-loka). Mara Devaputra is either Cupid or Lucifer in this sense, an evil or a messenger of light... maybe both.
Can Buddhists talk about sex -- one of the worst things one can do in this society which is all about war, defense, security, and resistance? Yes, Buddhists can do anything. With greedy intentions, we make our way and our world. With loving intentions, it is immediately a different world.
The world we see outside changes instantly from changes inside. Whether the world is ever a way or ever changes, who can know? It is about what we notice, what we bring forward as evidence (or what is shoved in our face by mainstream media), what we talk about/focus on.
Love and kisses for everyone, enemies, soldiers, elderly, corporate capitalists, tea baggers, meditators... We can curse the darkness or light a candle. And what we choose is important.
Our beliefs become our thoughts. Our thoughts become our words. Our words become our actions. Our actions become our habits. Our habits become our values. Our values become our destiny. - Gandhi
Wisdom Quarterly (SEX AND RELATIONSHIPS COMMITTEE)
In just one hour of trying not to think about sex, Binky discovered how kinky he really is ("Life in Hell" by Matt Groening).
It probably does not happen to anyone else. But when we meditate, our minds tend to drift toward sex. Why the mind likes to relive (past) or imagine (future) pleasant sensation, we cannot fathom.
The eye is not trapped by forms... and the body is not trapped by tactile sensations. If it were enlightened beings would not be free, or freedom would be as easy as sitting alone in the dark.
The mind is like a monkey trapped five times over. Imagine a silly monkey (or rabbit) who has wandered far from its familiar realm. It sees honey and grasps it.
The honey is not only sweet, it's gluey. It can't let go. It grabs the honey with the other hand to get its first hand loose. That hand gets caught, too. It uses a foot, then another foot, and finally its mouth -- and is caught five times over, stuck, in a ridiculous quandary.
The mind obsessed with sex is like that. Its senses fall into bondage. But the honey is sweet! Yes, and the glue is gluey. If we do not rise above, we stay trapped right where we are.
Where are we? CBS News reports that there are ten top cities for furtive honey searches. Mindfully meditating never hurt a monkey. All of its distress came from letting its mind wander far from the present moment. Even the Nazis couldn't keep the monkeys safe.
VAMPIRE MONKEY: This Chinese sucking species lives solely off other animals’ blood, one of the only primates to do so. It creates complex nests similar to the weaver bird's. It uses handmade tools like humans and is possibly the "missing link" in the evolution of modern humans (Yoon84).
A new book reveals that the French resistance and Allied bombers weren’t the only threats that Hitler’s Nazi soldiers faced in Paris during World War II. Turns out syphilis -- spread from dalliances with French prostitutes -- presented a more clandestine danger. To combat Nazi soldiers’ temptations from the Parisian joie de vivre, Hitler gave the okay to manufacture blow up sex dolls [invented by Nazis?] as a more hygienic alternative, reports The Herald Sun. More
There are as many reasons to quit giving up the goods as there are people to stop giving them up. And hey, you can’t really blame them -- hurricanes, earthquakes, tropical storms. Nature is doing some serious blocking.
The immigration question is a hot button issue. One bad solution was to build a giant Berlin wall near the Mexican border. But American girls can climb over in 15 seconds.
(NPR, July 30, 2011) In 1999, Kathryn Bolkovac had run into hard times. A police officer in Lincoln, Nebraska, who had recently lost custody of her daughters in a divorce settlement, she was looking for a new job that would give her the means to live near them.
When Bolkovac heard she could earn good money in a short period of time by becoming part of the U.N. International Police Force in Bosnia -- run by a private British agency called DynCorp -- she decided to sign on.
She found herself in the middle of an alarming human trafficking web. Mobsters were transporting teenage girls to bars and brothels for sex, and beyond turning a blind eye, the security firm and U.N. personnel seemed to be caught up in the trafficking themselves. She tried to sound the alarm, and she was fired.
Bolkovac, whose story has been adapted into a new movie called The Whistleblower (opening in some theaters on August 5) tells NPR's Scott Simon that her suspicion was first raised during a training session in Ft. Worth, Texas, before she ever left for Bosnia. "One of the men who had done previous missions in Bosnia came bounding into the pool with a beer stating where he could find really nice 12- to 15-year-olds once we got to Bosnia," Bolkovac says. More
Some experts speculate that pornography is making men more interested in perversity and less interested in their own partners.
It is hard to ignore how many highly visible men in recent years (indeed, months) have behaved in sexually self-destructive ways. Some powerful men have long been sexually voracious; unlike today, though, they were far more discreet and generally used much better judgment in order to cover their tracks.
Of course, the heightened technological ability nowadays to expose private behavior is part of the reason for this change.... What is driving this weirdly disinhibited decision-making? Could the widespread availability and consumption of pornography in recent years actually be rewiring the male brain, affecting men's judgment about sex, and causing them to have more difficulty controlling their impulses?
There is an increasing body of scientific evidence to support this idea. Six years ago, I wrote an essay called "The Porn Myth," which pointed out that therapists and sexual counselors were anecdotally connecting the rise in pornography consumption among young men with an increase in impotence and premature ejaculation...
The hypothesis among the experts was that pornography was progressively desensitizing these men sexually. Indeed, hardcore pornography's effectiveness in achieving rapid desensitization in subjects has led to its frequent use in training doctors and military teams to deal with very shocking or sensitive situations.
[The military "trains" teams using "hardcore porn"? Might that have something to do with the outrageous rates of rape and sexual assault against fellow soldiers, both male and female, in today's military?] More
Binge-drinking: Why hangovers and bad decisions don't stop us (CBS) Ever swear off drinking while battling a nasty hangover? You're certainly not alone. Many drinkers experience regrets over one-night stands, shouting matches, and other drunken antics. So why do people continue to drink? Psychologists may finally have found the answer. Simply put... More
Allegations against Sogyal Rinpoche highlight the dangers of [Mahayana] Buddhist injunctions against gossip [that in any way criticizes the Sangha, which in Mahayana Buddhism means the entire "community" of practitioners, in front of outsiders] and insistence on loyalty.
Lama sex abuse claims call Buddhist taboos into question
Mary Finnigan (guardian.co.uk) An exiled Tibetan Buddhist nun prostrates around the main temple and the residence of Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama (Ashwini Bhatia/AP).
In November 1994 an American woman known as Janice Doe filed a $10m lawsuit against the Tibetan lama Sogyal Rinpoche, charging him with sexual, mental, and physical abuse. The case was dealt with out of court and Janice Doe signed a non-disclosure agreement in return for a cash settlement.
Sogyal Rinpoche with Joan Halifax and Richard Gere in Switzerland, 1985
Sogyal denies allegations of abuse, but fresh evidence against him was recently aired in an investigative documentary called In the Name of Enlightenment, broadcast on Vision TV in Canada.
A beautiful young woman identified as Mimi described an abusive sexual relationship. She was the first person claiming direct experience of Sogyal's exploitative attentions to go public since the 1994 lawsuit.
Sogyal (surname Lakar -- rinpoche is a title that means "precious one") is the frontman for a Tibetan Buddhist organization called Rigpa, which has a worldwide reach with 130 centers in 41 countries. He has a bestselling book, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, to his name and he starred alongside Keanu Reeves [Chris Issak, Bridget Fonda] in the movie Little Buddha.
Sogyal is a formidably successful guru -- probably the best known Tibetan after the Dalai Lama. His trajectory into Buddhist superstardom suffered only a temporary setback following the Janice Doe lawsuit -- despite the fact that lurid rumors about his sex life circulate on the Internet with increasing volume and persistence.
The allegations raise a wider question: Why are victims of sexual exploitation by charismatic religious leaders reluctant to denounce their abusers? In the Canadian documentary, Mimi highlights the "Stockholm syndrome"... More
A Tibetan Buddhist master beloved by millions uses his position and authority to take advantage of young women. For over three decades, complaints are dismissed as merely the grumblings of the uninitiated. A guru focused on his own pleasure turns the Path to enlightenment into a road of sexual servitude. Written and directed by Debi Goodwin.
Renunciates have always faced the lure of desires, aversions, and delusions making the ordinary (non-accomplished), uninstructed Sangha ripe for abuses.
How would Buddhism be any better a tradition if it concealed serious rule violations by its monastics? Most stories that come to our attention are not actually alleged to have been acts committed by "monastics" who follow many precepts. They are usually the deeds of "novices," who are probationers in training to keep ten precepts.
For fully ordained monks and nuns, four acts are considered "defeat offenses" entailing immediate expulsion and loss of ordination from the Buddhist Monastic Order.
This is true for all Buddhist schools, even if lesser rules have been altered over the centuries. The historical Buddha set up a celibate monastic tradition with many disciplinary guidelines dealing crucial requisites and minor etiquette. Why?
The Buddha explained that it was ultimately for the good of humans and devas, so that the teachings would remain in the world as long as possible. More specifically, the rules are in place to increase confidence in the Sangha so that people will become receptive to hearing the Dharma and practicing for the benefit of one and all. It is also for the peace and progress of sincere monastics and the training of those able to be trained.
By following the Five Precepts, lay Buddhists do not face the same restrictions as those who follow hundreds of guidelines. Nor do they risk losing their status for lapses. If Buddhists conceal the disqualifying offenses of monastics -- an act as unskillful as making false allegations -- the Dharma is lost. There are only four monastic acts that cannot be remedied:
murder
sexual penetration of any kind
stealing
falsely claiming spiritual attainments
DEFEAT: (Sanskrit, pārājika-dharma), a group of four offenses that are the most serious in the Buddhist monastic code of discipline (Prātimokṣa). The penalty for any of the four is lifelong expulsion from the monastic order (Sangha). The four are (1) sexual intercourse; (2) serious theft; (3) murder; (4) falsely claiming to have attained supernatural powers [or the stages of enlightenment]. A monastic who commits a "defeat" (the traditional etymology of pārājika) offense is compared to "a person whose head is cut off, or a withered leaf dropped from the tree, or a stone slab split in two, or a palm tree cut from the top [which is incapable of regrowing]." Such a person has been defeated and cannot be readmitted to the Order (encyclopedia.com).
Nikki Lee: "I’ve had sex with 5,000 men in nine years (but never the same man twice)," boasts the 25-year-old beauty therapist and model.
Is it a compliment or a slap in the face to "victims" of promiscuity?
[Some may hail it as the triumph of feminism and gender equality, but others sadly recognize the telltale signs of childhood trauma.] A 25-year-old beauty therapist has claimed to have slept with 5,000 men in just nine years -- or 3,285 days.
Nikki Lee also boasts about having a "personal best" of four men in one night and she claims she has never had sex with the same conquest twice. In an admission that will shock most people, the blonde Essex girl has told how she has had casual sex in nightclubs, alleyways, parks, cinemas, and teen discos since losing her virginity at 16.
"Obsessed" with conquests, objectification, one night stands
Miss Lee, who also works as a model, admits to going on regular sex holidays, where she sleeps with men in clubs, on beaches, and even on balconies. She averages having sex with two men every day and has kept the details of each of them in a little red notebook -- all with scores.
By the time she was 21, Miss Lee claims to have had sex with 2,289 men. Although the admission, made to a weekly real-life magazine, cannot be verified, has been called "emotionally very dangerous" by a relationship expert. More>>
Promiscuity can spread all out of control like an addictive drug to the brain, and we build tolerance. But What the Bleep do We Know?
What are we coming to when these are our top artists and celebrities? Ke$ha, Lady Gaga/Beyonce ("Telephone"), Rihanna ("S&M"), Britney Spears, Paris Hilton (night vision technology), Kim Kardashian, gender-bending and celebrity lesbian roles and displays (Sandra Bullock, Annette Bening, Marlee Matlin of "The L Word" fame, child star Miley Cyrus, Vanessa Hudgens, the cast of "Sex and the City," Christina Aguilera, Lindsay Ronson-Lohan, Katy Perry... What would parents do without Rebecca Black, Justin Bieber, prodigy Jason Kertson, and the Jonas Brothers?
Unhappy pair, happy pair (Chogyam Trungpa Rinpoche and admirer ("Crazy Wisdom," movingpicturesnetwork.com)
There have been preconceived notions regarding men and women's attitude toward sex in the last few decades.
Psychologist Terri Conley and colleagues of University of Michigan have asserted men think about sex every seven seconds is not true.
