Tag Archives: sex

November 2, 2017 · 5:50 am

How “Happy Death Day” (Surprisingly) Enriches Horror/Slasher Movies

When it comes to horror/slasher movies, it’s hard to break new ground these days. That’s because most still cling to the tried and true formula established by the likes of “Friday The 13th” and “Halloween.” That means there is usually going to be some crazed killer, some horny teenagers, and some sweet, yet sexy virgin who survives it all. You can practically set your watch to it, along with the standard jump scares.

It’s for that reason that slasher movies aren’t really as big a draw as they used to be. On top of that, they tend to be annoyingly sex negative and not in a subtle way either. If you’re a horny teenager in a slasher movie, then there’s a 99 percent chance you’ll be dead by the time the credits roll.

That’s why when a movie comes along to shake up that narrative, it’s worth noticing. That brings me to a recent horror movie that caught my intrigue and defied my expectations. It’s called “Happy Death Day” and, apart from the goofy title, it accomplishes something remarkable.

The first major accomplishment, for me personally, is that the trailer actually made me want to see the movie. In this era where every movie trailer follows a similar formula, we’ve all become fairly numb to their effects. We know what they’re trying to do and how they’re trying to do it. Unless you were already planning to see the movie, as is often the case with superhero movies, then a trailer probably won’t do much.

With “Happy Death Day,” the trailer struck a chord for me because it presented a different kind of slasher/horror movie. Moreover, it did so in a way where the concept was more appealing than the actual slashing/horror. Whereas most horror movies will try to build every promotional effort around that horror, “Happy Death Day” threw something else into the mix that proved enticing.

That concept may not seem radically new, on paper. “Happy Death Day” doesn’t radically reinvent the genre as much as it innovates with established concepts. It’s basically a combination of “Friday The 13th,” “Final Destination,” and “Groundhog Day.” It uses familiar themes like masked killers, time loops, and  exceedingly elaborate scenes. However, it’s the way in which they’re presented that makes the movie work.

It also helps that the presentation is done through a beautiful female protagonist named Teresa “Tree” Gelbman, who is played by a very emotive Jessica Rothe. Beyond being a pretty face, though, Tree embodies everything audiences love to hate about beautiful, sexually active women in horror movies.

She’s shallow, callous, self-centered, dismissive, and just plain mean. I won’t say she’s on the same level as Regina George from “Mean Girls,” but she’s in the same time zone. Essentially, she’s basically a female version of Phil Connors in “Groundhog Day” in the sense that she’s a fairly reprehensible person that we’re not supposed to like from the get-go.

When someone is nice to her, she just blows them off. When someone tries to wish her a happy birthday, she just rolls her eyes. On top of that, she’s openly promiscuous, hooking up with her friends’ boyfriends and having an affair with her married teacher. By every measure, this is a girl who should be at the top of Jason Voorhees’ kill list.

However, “Happy Death Day” actually digs a bit deeper than “Groundhog Day” in that, over the course of the movie, we learn why Tree is the way she is. She isn’t just bitchy for the sake of being bitchy. There’s a reason for it and as the movie goes on, it’s hard not to root for her as she struggles against her killer.

Speaking of her killer, that’s another part about “Happy Death Day” that stands out. Unlike Freddy Krueger or Jason Voorhees, there’s never a sense that this killer is someone to root for. In typical slasher movies, it’s easy to root for the killer because they have a certain personality or charisma to them. That’s not the case here. In a sense, the killer in this movie is less a person and more deadly obstacle for Tree to overcome.

I don’t want to reveal too much about the killer because that would be getting into spoiler territory. I enjoyed this movie enough to actually want people to go and see it or rent it. This movie definitely is worth seeing because it doesn’t play out entirely like a traditional slasher/horror movie. There are twists and turns that help it stand out.

That leads me to one of the most unique and intriguing elements of “Happy Death Day.” Unlike so many other slasher movies, this movie doesn’t implicitly penalize characters for being overly sexual. I won’t go so far as to say it’s sex positive, like the “Deadpool” movie. Essentially, it’s entirely sex neutral and for a horror movie, that’s still pretty remarkable.

What happens to Tree in “Happy Death Day” has nothing to do with the fact that she’s a beautiful young woman who enjoys having sex for the fun of it. If you take away the sex, but keep the rest of her personality traits intact, she’s still the same person. She would still be subject to the same horrors that unfold throughout the movie.

Her being trapped in an endless cycle of being killed and re-killed has little to do with her promiscuity and everything to do with what a rotten person she is. That’s the part of her that puts her in the crosshairs of a killer. Overcoming that rotten persona is every bit the struggle as the one that involves running from a psycho-killer.

Needless to say, it gets pretty chaotic and messy. Being a horror/slasher movie,  “Happy Death Day” has more than its share of gratuitous violence and bloodshed. That’s one horror element that this movie doesn’t try to subvert, but it doesn’t have to. It just makes it work in a whole new way.

Now, I enjoyed this movie thoroughly. I highly recommend others see it as well, either in theaters or on TV when it comes out. That’s not to say it’s flawless, though. There are some elements in “Happy Death Day” that left much to be desired.

For one, the movie is rated PG-13. While I understand the studio wanting to appeal to a wider audiences, I think that was a mistake for a horror/slasher movie. At times, the violence and nudity seem incredibly watered-down. Compared to a standard “Friday The 13th” sequel, it felt unbelievably tame.

On top of that, some of the supporting characters, namely the nice/generic love interest, Carter Davis, played by Israel Broussard, left a lot to be desired. Carter is likable and all, but he comes off as too flat. There’s never a sense that he and Tree should be together for any other reason beside the fact he’s nice. While it never feels outright forced, it lacks depth.

There’s also the somewhat tongue-in-cheek humor that the movie tries to squeeze in. It tries to be meta in that it acknowledges that elements of the story are similar to “Groundhog Day.” This effort falls somewhat flat and kind of takes away from the drama. I get why it’s there since the parallels are so obvious, but saying it out loud really undermines the mood.

Even with those shortcomings, “Happy Death Day” was still an incredibly enjoyable experience. I honestly can’t remember the last time I enjoyed seeing a horror/slasher movie in the theater. The concept, the story, and the characters involved all offered a unique appeal, one that dared to defy traditional horror formulas. For that, I give this movie two thumbs up and a special place on my list of horror movies.

 

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November 1, 2017 · 6:18 am

Scare Tactics, Sex Education, And The (Post-AIDS) Future

Let’s face it. We all have embarrassing memories about how we learned about sex. It might as well be a law of physics among youth. At some point, you’re going to learn about sex. Shortly after that, you’ll probably learn something you didn’t want to learn from a parent, teacher, or priest.

For me, one particular memory stands out and it’s one I suspect most people my age share, as well. It happened in health class during middle school, just as puberty kicked in. It had nothing to do with male or female anatomy. I already knew about that, thanks to my parents. This particular lesson was more basic in that it had a simple message.

“If you get AIDS, you will die.”

It wasn’t as much a lesson as it was a warning. Everyone in that class had been learning about sex, at least as much as any public school was allowed to teach us. We were all at that age when we started thinking, wanting, and obsessing over it. Then, this distressing caveat gets thrown into the mix and suddenly, these overwhelming desires we can’t turn off take on a whole new context.

I’m not going to lie. That was pretty terrifying. The idea that doing something you were hardwired to do, and needed to do for the propagation of the species, could kill you was akin to being forced into a cage match with a chainsaw-wielding John Cena.

It’s one thing to avoid angry predators, sharp cliffs, and confined spaces with O.J. Simpson. It’s quite another to avoid the natural horniness that comes with being human. It gives the impression that sex is so dangerous and so risky that we might as wear hazmat suits while doing it.

Thankfully, I was mistrustful enough of my health teachers to learn more on my own. Even with lousy, dial-up internet, I was able to find out that a some of the dangerous claims my teachers had given me about sex, disease, and all those other lurid topics was not entirely accurate.

Granted, I understood why they used those kinds of tactics on young, hormonal pre-teens like me. Back then, AIDS was a death sentence. A diagnosis with AIDS was like a diagnosis of terminal cancer. When it started claiming the lives of celebrities like Rock Hudson and Eazy-E, even hormonal kids took note of the danger.

It was still a dick move, though, using those kinds of scare tactics on hormonal teenagers. I remember entire classes dedicated to teaching kids the horrors of AIDS and other nasty diseases that we could get if we didn’t have sex in the way the Catholic Church or the Saudi Arabian government approved. In case you’re wondering, yes, some schools still use these tactics.

Ignoring, for a moment, the outright cruelty of scaring kids like that, it’s worth noting that the situation with AIDS and other diseases is very different. Medical science has advanced. Innovations in antibiotics, anti-viral drugs and vaccines have improved treatment or even cured some of those terrible diseases that my teachers used to scare me with.

While AIDS still has no cure, it’s not a death sentence anymore. Just ask Magic Johnson. There’s even a pill called Truvada that, when taken daily, can prevent the spread if the HIV virus. While it’s still a huge problem in places like Sub-Saharan Africa, we’re at the point in modern medicine where it can be managed.

However, it’s not going to stop there. At some point, medical science will cure diseases like AIDS. We’re already closer than you think and I’m not just referring to recent advances in technology like CRISPR.

Just this past month, a research team at the Scripps Research Institute developed a method that effectively blocks the HIV virus from infecting new cells. They’re calling it a “functional cure” in that, while it doesn’t remove the virus from the body, it effectively stops it from spreading.

This news comes shortly after the National Institutes of Health announced that they had produced an anti-body that blocks 99 percent of all HIV strains. If the results are replicated, that means a functional vaccine is not that far off. Add tools like CRISPR to the mix and it’s entirely possible that there are children alive today that will never have to worry about diseases like AIDS.

Given the amount of suffering this disease has caused, that’s an undeniable good. However, it removes a major tactic from the arsenals of sex educators who don’t want teenagers experimenting with their genitals. Now, I can understand that worry to some extent. Teenagers do have a history of doing stupid things and not just with their genitals.

Even without that stupidity, how are teachers going to convince horny teenagers to keep their pants on when they can’t scare them with diseases like AIDS? How many parents are going to gasp in horror at the notion that their precious little angels might be able to have sex with minimal consequences?

I ask these questions only half-jokingly. I also ask them with the full understanding that I may have kids of my own at some point and I too might vomit uncontrollably at the thought of them having sex. Given our collective capacity for excuse banking, I don’t doubt that anxious parents and teachers will come up with some sort of scare tactic to discourage teenagers from having sex.

It’s just going to get a lot more challenging in a world where diseases like AIDS are no longer a factor. History is certainly not on the side of those clinging to such puritanical attitudes. As I’ve mentioned before, the advent of modern antibiotics played a major part in the sexual revolution of the 1960s. A cure for AIDS might incur the same.

If that weren’t challenging enough, advances in contraception are sure to compound that effort. Advances like Vasalgel for men and IUDs for women will make it so that even the fear of pregnancy won’t be much of a scare tactic. Unlike every other generation of teenager, those in the near future may never have to worry about the kinds of consequences that have plagued horny teenagers for centuries.

That naturally doesn’t sit well with the uptight regressive crowd that belabors personal responsibility and bemoans any level of sexual freedom that goes beyond what the Catholic Church sanctions. In years past, they could refer to diseases and unwanted pregnancy to justify those attitudes. Once those factors are removed, what will they have left?

Never mind the fact that teenagers are already having less sex now than previous generations. In the minds of parents, priests, and health teachers, it’s still too much. I could bemoan how much of that reflects our poor, unhealthy attitudes towards sex, but that’s not going to change minds or sell sexy novels.

A part of me genuinely worries that there will be some people who actively oppose treating diseases like AIDS. There’s already a precedent. There are people out there who oppose the widespread use of Gardasil, a vaccine meant to treat HPV, a common virus that is often transmitted during sex and known to cause cancer.

Think about that for a moment. There are people in this world who are willing to risk young people, including their own children, getting cancer rather than risk them having care-free sex. That shows the lengths certain people will go to in order to ensure sex still has serious consequences. It says something about these attitudes when they feel they need those consequences to get their message across.

In time, some of these regressive attitudes may fade. These days, most people aren’t going to be publicly scorned for not being a virgin on their wedding night. Some parts of the world still cling to those attitudes, but most people in the developed world don’t have to worry about the Spanish Inquisition bursting into their bedroom and arresting them for having sex just for fun.

Better education will help improve attitudes and addressing the orgasm gap will go a long way, as well. It’s hard to know for sure what a future health class will look like in a world without AIDS or major disease. That world isn’t here yet, but it’s fast approaching. Parents, priests, and puritans of all stripes need to prepare. However, we should worry about how far they’ll take those preparations.

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October 29, 2017 · 7:08 am

Sexy Sunday Thoughts: Halloween 2017 Edition

There are certain holidays that will always be underrated. Say what you will about Halloween, offensive costumes, or the unhealthy consequences of eating too much candy. It’s still a damn good holiday that children and adults, alike, can enjoy in their own unique way.

Honestly, my appreciation of Halloween didn’t really take hold until college when I learned that young, horny women don’t need many excuses to dress up in a slutty costume. That’s when I realized that Halloween isn’t just a kids holiday or a reason to watch slasher movies. There’s a fun, sexy spirit to it all and I say it’s worth celebrating.

I’ve praised the sex appeal of Halloween in the past. I intend to keep praising it every year, for as long as beautiful women take advantage of the opportunity to dress sexy and enjoy the fun. Society gives us precious few opportunities to enjoy our sexy side in a way that won’t get us arrested or shamed. Let’s use them while we can.

Halloween is just a few days away so work up an appetite for both candy and sex appeal. Hopefully, this week’s edition of my Sexy Sunday Thoughts can get you in the Halloween spirit.

“Nobody can truly call themselves a genius until they’ve convinced their lover that giving oral sex has health benefits.”

“Those who oppose contraception for subverting the natural breeding process must REALLY hate World of Warcraft for doing the same thing.”

“Are men who lie about the size of their dicks any more dishonest than women who wear push-up bras?”

“Learning about sex from a celibate priest is like learning about computers from the Amish.”

“Talk is cheap, but the value of dirty talk during sex is exceedingly under-valued.”

“A gigolo who doesn’t have sex with clients is basically a butler.”

“Most people hate micromanaging, but tend to make exceptions when it comes to orgasms.”

I hope this inspires everyone to get out there, put on the sexiest costume you can legally wear, and celebrate Halloween in your own special way. Dine on buckets of candy. Drink bottles of pumpkin-flavored alcohol. Take advantage of the fact that for one night, we can get away with dressing in ridiculously sexy outfits and ask strangers for candy. In terms of holidays, you really can’t lose.

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October 28, 2017 · 8:36 am

The Unspoken Gender Disparity (Of Sex Toys)

I talk a lot about our current attitudes towards sex and the various problems it causes in our society. There are a lot of ways those attitudes manifest and my sexy novels can only do so much to expose them. Many of those attitudes have a clear and frustrating gender bias, which always inspires heated debates.

To reveal the breadth of this disparity, here’s a quick little test you can take. It doesn’t matter if you’re a man, woman, or something in between. It’ll reveal a little something about yourself and the way this disparity affects us. It goes like this.

A young woman walks up to you. She seems healthy, happy, and sane. She then tells you, “I own a vibrating dildo that has the look, feel, and texture of a real penis and I use it regularly to pleasure myself.” How do you react?

Shortly after, a young man walks up to you. He seems just as healthy, happy, and sane. He then tells you, “I own a sex doll that has the look, feel, and texture of a real vagina and I use it regularly to pleasure myself.” How do you react?

If we’re being honest with ourselves, and I know that’s not always easy or possible, we’ll react very differently to the man than we do the woman. Fundamentally, they’re both saying the same thing. They use a sex toy as a means of satisfying their basic desires when they don’t have a partner.

However, we don’t see either person the same way. The idea of a woman using a sex toy conjures all sorts of lurid mental images about a woman alone, surrounded by candles, touching herself in all sorts of wonderfully erotic ways. That imagery is the basis of a good chunk of the porn out there.

The idea of a man doing something similar conjures a very different kind of imagery. We don’t see that scene as erotic. Most likely, we’ll picture an ugly, lonely man in his basement, humping an imitation of a vagina because he’s too pathetic to experience the real thing.

Unlike the woman, there’s nothing sexy about it. At most, it just reminds us of that iconic scene in “American Pie” that had Jason Biggs going to down on a pie. On top of making everyone inherently suspicious of warm pies, it acts as a testament to how hilarious/pathetic men can be in their pursuit of sex.

It’s a double standard in the highest order, a concept I’ve explored before. It’s just one of those double standards that gets lost in arguments about a woman’s body image or the basics of sexual harassment. You could even argue that it’s an extension of the war on horny men. It’s hard enough being that horny. Any effort to satiate it is going to be met with added scrutiny.

In the middle of this huge double standard is a fundamental engineering challenge that mankind has yet to solve. Specifically, it involves sex toys. While these wondrous tools of pleasure have made incredible advances in recent years, there are still certain deficiencies that further the disparity for men and women.

Go into any place that sells sex toys and chances are you’ll be bombarded by every phallic-shaped accessory that it’s possible to imagine. If you want something that looks like an erect penis, you have an abundance of riches.

You can choose a penis made of glass, plastics, or a hyper-realistic synthetic. You can get one that vibrates. You can get one that has a clitoral stimulator. They even come in every imaginable size, shape, and color. Given the simple, basic structure of an erect penis, it’s fairly easy to replicate with our amazing tool-making skills. That’s a major reason why dildos are among the oldest, most successful sex toys of all time.

Contrast this with the options for toys resembling female genitalia. Sure, you’ll see the occasional blow-up doll, hand-held pussy, or molding based on a famous porn star, but chances are it won’t look or feel very real. These things are basically rubber and plastic. They’re incapable of mimicking the intricacies of actual vaginas.

While this is a testament to wonder that is a real vagina, it leaves the straight men who seek them at a frustrating disadvantage. It’s bad enough their natural, fully-functioning penises can never compete with a dildo that is always hard and vibrates to stimulate the deepest recesses of female anatomy. They don’t have something similar that delivers an equally intense experience.

At the moment, the closest approximation men can enjoying a real, artificial vagina comes from extremely advanced sex dolls like those made by Real Dolls. However, those super-real synthetics are extremely expensive, especially when compared to the average dildo.

It’s possible to get a quality vibrator these days for around fifty bucks and no shame. Even the cheapest accessory offered by Real Dolls will run you over four hundred dollars. On top of that, a man who admits he owns one is going to be subject to a fair amount of scrutiny and ridicule. Bud Bundy from “Married With Children” is proof enough of that.

That kind of disparity is bound to cause problems and not just through egregious double standards. As technology advances and sex dolls become more advanced, as well as full-fledged sex robots, the realism gap will narrow. It may have taken way too long, but there will come a day where a sex toy will give a man a sexual experience that’s indistinguishable from that of a woman.

However, this has already inspired controversy. There are some out there who would decry the use of such realistic sex toys because it literally objectifies the female body into something men can purchase. That’s something the radical, sex-negative crowd has been bemoaning for decades.

Ironically, these same individuals are relatively silent when it comes to the continued sale of realistic dildos. I imagine if someone came along and argued that if sex toys that mimic the female body should be banned, then all those penis-shaped accessories should be banned too in the name of gender equality. I imagine that would not go over well, even among radical feminists.

For now, though, the disparity remains. A woman has access to every kind of penis-shaped satisfaction she could hope for at a price most anyone can afford. An average man with an average income is out of luck and any effort he makes to satisfy his desires will be subject to added scrutiny. If he tries too hard, he’ll be labored a creep.

It’s not fair. It’s a complete affront to anyone who claims to be in favor of gender equality. If we’re going to endure the current disparity between male and female sex toys, we should at least offer a measure of understanding and sympathy.

Both genders have desires. Both genders want to share those desires. Let’s work together in that effort. I intend to do my part with my sexy novels. Those busy/horny scientists in sex toy labs like Real Dolls will surely do theirs. Collectively, in the name of all things sexy, we must be willing to do ours.

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October 26, 2017 · 6:50 am

Al Bundy Syndrome: The Face Of Learned Helplessness

Some concepts are so vague that it’s hard to put a human face on it. I suspect that’s part of why many people suck at math. You can’t personalize it, humanize it, or imagine it on a pair of breasts. Even things that directly affect people, like learned helplessness, are hard to grasp.

That’s why if you find a way to put a human face on a serious issue, you jump at the chance. It doesn’t just make it easier. It makes them memorable in an unexpected way. I consider the concept of learned helplessness a serious issue that affects our personal lives, our professional lives, and our sex lives. It goes beyond the world of an aspiring erotica/romance writer. It’s way bigger than we’re comfortable admitting.

That’s why, in the interest of putting a human face on a serious issue, I’d like to present the greatest personification of learned helplessness in the history of media. Some of us grew up with him. Some of us were appalled by him. He’s a myth, a legend, and an icon in his own tragic right.

His name is Al Bundy, the hapless husband and father of the Bundy family from the Fox classic, “Married With Children.” To those who have watched every episode and love the show as much as I do, you already understand why Al is the perfect embodiment of learned helplessness.

For those who aren’t familiar with “Married With Children” or why it was such a groundbreaking show, I feel sorry for you. For most people under the age of 20, they have no idea how much this show shook our collective understanding of modern television.

Say what you will about the trash currently on TV now, but before “Married With Children,” it was much worse. By worse, I mean they were boring. Most sitcoms were bland, generic, feel-good stories that tried to paint the world in an overly-rosy picture. Every one of them basically tried to capture the spirit of “Father Knows Best” or “Leave It To Beaver.”

“Married With Children” saw that and decided to do the exact opposite, so much so that when it was in development, the title of the show was called “Not The Cosbys.” It was a show where all the conflicts weren’t solved at the end. It was a show where the world wasn’t idealized, perfect, or fair. In other words, it was more in line with the real world.

In that world, Al Bundy gets dealt a worse hand than most. At one point, he was a high school football star with a promising future. Then, he got hit with a streak of bad luck that effectively crushed his spirits.

He got injured and lost his football scholarship. He got involved with Peggy Bundy, a woman I’ve cited before as a character that men should rightly dread. He eventually has two kids that don’t respect him and works a dead-end, low-paying job as a shoe salesman.

While other sitcoms glorify the innate dignity of working class men like Ralph Cramden, Archie Bunker, and even Homer Simpson, there’s nothing glorious about Al Bundy’s life. There’s nothing noble about his poverty. He doesn’t even try to come off as sympathetic. His life doesn’t raise the bar or embody an ideal. If anything, it reminds ordinary people just how bad things can get.

Whereas other TV sitcoms try to uplift an audience by showing how loving, functional families solve their problems in a simple, 30-minute show, “Married With Children” sent a different message. It presented the audience with a level of dysfunction so extreme, so exaggerated that even if you’re home life was a mess, you could take comfort in the fact that you were not the Bundy family.

What makes that message so powerful is also what makes Al Bundy such a perfect example of learned helplessness. Fittingly enough, the actor who played him, Ed O’Neill, actually drew inspiration from someone in his own family.

In a sense, Al Bundy was built around the idea that he was just resigned to his fate. He realized how much his life sucked, that his family didn’t respect him, and that his best days were behind him. Dealing with all that in addition to working a dead-end job effectively destroyed his spirit, so much so that he stopped trying to better his situation.

That perfectly reflects some of the early experiments done about learned helplessness, namely those involving a poor dog that just stopped trying to avoid painful shocks. Al Bundy is basically that dog after it has been shocked so many times that it just doesn’t bother anymore. It accepts that it will suffer and doesn’t try to avoid it.

In a sense, it becomes a mentality akin to a psychological illness. In the spirit of caveman logic and excuse banking, I’ll give it a name. From here on out, let’s call it “Al Bundy Syndrome.” That’s a much more memorable name than the overly-technical term, learned helplessness. With Al Bundy Syndrome, the condition has a name and a face that Ed O’Neill made iconic.

Given that we already have weird diseases like restless leg syndrome and walking corpse syndrome, which I swear is a thing, I don’t see why we can’t create a syndrome out a fictional character. In fact, it wouldn’t even be the first time.

I’m not a doctor, nor do I claim to be an expert in anything that doesn’t involve telling sexy stories, but it’s for that reason that I feel it’s so important to put an actual face on an issue that’s hard to understand. Psychology is tricky, complicated, and messy. Al Bundy is simple, crude, and crass. One is innately funnier than the other.

In that sense, it’s easier to see the signs and symptoms of learned helplessness, so long as you frame it in Al Bundy syndrome. Watch any old episode of “Married With Children” and the symptoms reveal themselves. They include feelings like:

  • Being hopelessly numb to the misery around you, like Al Bundy
  • Making little to no effort to improve your situation, like Al Bundy
  • Assuming the worst in every situation, like Al Bundy
  • Having an extremely cynical outlook, like Al Bundy
  • Not caring about whether the world likes or respects you, like Al Bundy
  • Having no shame or filter about what you say, like Al Bundy

The list goes on, but there are too many to list and watching old episodes of “Married With Children” is probably far more informative than any list, not to mention funnier. It’s a show that probably couldn’t get made today, due to how politically incorrect it was, even for its time. That makes its impact all the more vital.

I doubt that Ed O’Neill or the producers of “Married With Children” intended Al Bundy to be the poster boy for learned helplessness, but sometimes the connections are there and all we have to do is make them. So, moving forward, if you want to know what learned helplessness is and how to avoid it, just remember this face. It may save your life, your marriage, and your soul.

For that, I thank you Ed O’Neill.

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October 25, 2017 · 6:18 am

How Learned Helplessness Dooms Your Sex Life (Among Other Things)

When I was growing up, I considered myself lucky to be surrounded by so many loving people. I like to think my fondness of romance, as well as my desire to become an erotica/romance writer, is a direct result of seeing so much love among friends, family, and all those close to me.

It wasn’t all smiles, chocolate, and gratuitous tongue-kissing. Every now and then, I encountered certain couples that stood in stark contrast to the love I saw so much of throughout my life. They weren’t abusive or hateful. In a sense, they were their own tragedy, albeit not of the Shakespearean variety.

Picture a couple that’s about as passionate as a sick cat. There’s no fire in their romance. If there was, it burned out years ago and neither one of them cares enough to spark it again. They don’t necessarily hate each other. At best, they tolerate one another on a day-to-day basis, resigned to the fact that this is their life.

What I just described is not the kind of relationship that ends up on Jerry Springer or leads to protracted divorce hearings. They’re rarely that dramatic. If anything, they’re the antithesis to drama. That’s why those involved are so miserable. In a relationship like that, a clogged toilet counts as an adventure.

These kinds of relationships are not as easy to notice, but they do happen. You might even know a few, but I’d bet a stack of old Playboys that there are more than you think. Instead of love, passion, and heart, these relationships are fueled misery, laziness, and failure. At some point, those involved just stop trying to escape it.

In a world where people get worked up over dipping sauces and dress colors, it seems outrageous that anyone could be that callous and numb. It’s even more outrageous to think that a relationship could be built around it. However, there are powerful, unsexy forces at work and they’re not to be taken lightly.

This brings me to the concept of learned helplessness. If you’ve every taken a psychology course, you know what it is and you probably have an idea as to how it acts as kryptonite to love, romance, and passion. For those of you who don’t know, it’s a fairly easy concept. According to Wikipedia, the phenomenon is defined as follows:

[A] behavior typical of a human or an animal and occurs where the subject endures repeatedly painful or otherwise aversive stimuli which it is unable to escape or avoid. After such experience, the organism often fails to learn or accept “escape” or “avoidance” in new situations where such behavior would likely be effective. In other words, the organism learned that it is helpless in situations where there is a presence of aversive stimuli, has accepted that it has lost control, and thus gives up trying.

In terms of common behavioral traits, it’s somewhat bland. That doesn’t make it any less powerful, though. There is real, distressing science behind it, starting with experiments conducted in the 1960s. If you’re a dog lover, though, these experiments should be particularly disturbing.

If you’re also a fan of meaningful love, then you should be even more disturbed because it’s not hard to see how something like learned helplessness can creep into a relationship. For those trying to tell powerful, sexy stories, it’s important to know the signs.

The challenge, however, is that learned helplessness is one of those things that doesn’t happen all at once. Whether it’s those cruel experiments on dogs that I mentioned or continuous torture by the CIA, one painful experience is rarely enough. While love can manifest in a single moment, as is the case with “love at first sight,” learned helplessness takes a longer, more tedious road.

Sometimes it starts with boredom, a powerful feeling that I’ve discussed before. Sometimes it starts with frustration. Maybe a couple tries a few times to spice things up, but it doesn’t work. Maybe they try to shake up their routine, but that doesn’t work either. The key ingredient here is failure and frustrations, two experiences that tend to accumulate rapidly.

The couple involved may never get angry, resentful, or bitter to one another. Learned helplessness rarely inspires abuse or outright hatred. However, that’s part of what makes it so debilitating. When a relationship becomes abusive, one part of the relationship has a much stronger incentive to either escape or fight back. It’s hard to be lazy or apathetic when you feel like your well-being is at risk.

With learned helplessness, laziness and apathy are weaponized. That’s because without that incentive, neither side has the energy or desire to shake up the situation. Ending a relationship always requires some amount of upheaval, work, or effort. Someone under the influence of learned helplessness sees that as more trouble than it’s worth.

Beyond just rendering a relationship stale, the effects on your sex life can be just as debilitating. Once a couple gets to a point in their relationship where they’re just resigned to the fact that this is their normal, sex becomes less a treat and more a chore. Even if the orgasms still feel good, they’re barely distinguishable from masturbation.

That, by far, is the clearest sign that learned helplessness has consumed a relationship. As soon as sex becomes a chore, then it’s safe to say that two people have crossed the point of no return. They are beyond the point of rekindling whatever flame they once had. They just accept their misery and dispassion.

In defense of those poor souls, they don’t always have the luxury of ending that relationship and starting fresh. Sometimes, it’s because of their age. Sometimes, they’re in an environment where they don’t have anywhere else to go and few resources to work with. Then, there are times when the inconvenience just doesn’t justify the cost. It’s just easier to stay miserable than deal with the stress of rebuilding.

There’s little question that misery, depression, and boredom are bad for your love life, your sex drive, and everything in between. Learned helplessness is just the catalyst. Instead of blowing up in your face, love just whithers slowly like a piece of rotting fruit, getting emptier and deader with each passing day.

In some cases, it’s difficult to avoid. Some people just find themselves in relationships where they lose control and accept their misfortune. They’re content to just accept the misery and make the best of it, however fruitless it might be.

In others, you can take steps to avoid that kind of misery. Think back to those awful experiments involving dogs. After a while, the dog just stops trying to avoid the pain. The key to avoiding that kind of misery is to keep making an effort. Don’t stop trying. Do what you can to avoid mistakes. Moreover, do what you can to improve your situation, however possible.

That might mean pushing yourself when you don’t want to. It’s like exercising, which sometimes requires extra motivation. Within a relationship, it’s even more difficult because both you and your lover have to share in that motivation. You have to want to maintain that passion, even as you get older, have less energy, and feel less sexy.

In my experience, the most successful couples I know never truly stop dating each other. Even when they’ve been married for decades, they still carry themselves as a couple that’s still dating. They still go to interesting places, try new things, and explore new activities. Some aren’t always sexy, but they have the potential to be.

Every couple is different, but nobody benefits from learned helplessness. Whether you’re a dog, a dumb-ass, or a hopeless romantic, falling into that pit of apathy will never inspire your passion or increase your sex appeal. It’ll drain it, bit by bit.

Nobody deserves that. I certainly want to avoid that if and when I ever find a steady lover. I’m not a relationship expert or a therapist, nor should anybody assume I’m one, but I hope to help in whatever way I can. Whether it’s making people aware of learned helplessness or writing sexy novels, I intend to do my part.

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October 23, 2017 · 6:31 am

The War On Horny Women (And Why We Keep Fighting It)

People have been waging wars since the dawn of civilization. These never-ending struggles have people clash over ideas, concepts, and identities that cannot and will not be resolved. Some of these conflicts have literally reshaped society and the world we live in. They are a fundamental, and at times inescapable, part of civilization.

Then, there are the subtle, less obvious wars that we never win, but insist on fighting. These wars rarely have epic battles or iconic names like Waterloo, D-Day, or Super Bowl XLII. On some level, we know these wars can’t be won. We know we inflict a lot of collateral damage by fighting them. We’ve just been doing it for so long that we don’t know how not to fight it.

The war, in this case, involves horny women. Yes, that’s a war too. I know I dedicated an entire post to documenting the war on horny men. Even though I am a man with functioning genitals and a healthy sex drive, I don’t deny that women experience plenty of horniness, as well. I also don’t deny that those same women have endured a war that has spanned generations, cultures, and rap battles.

Despite not being a woman, I think it’s important to touch on that struggle, especially since recent scandals and trends in our sexual culture have taken the war to uncharted territory for both genders. For women, in particular, the conflict is far different from the one they’re used to fighting.

Anyone who has studied history, or just listened to Pat Robertson for more than five minutes, understands that civilization hasn’t exactly been kind to the female libido. For a good chunk of human history, a horny woman had exceedingly limited options.

If they weren’t having sex with their husband, who they probably didn’t even choose, then they weren’t having much sex. For the most part, a man could get away with having a few mistresses or seeing a prostitute every now and then. If a woman dared stray from her wifely duties, though, the punishments were severe.

Even today, a woman sleeping around on her husband is dangerous in some parts of the world. Even when it doesn’t get you killed, it can ruin your life in many other ways that men rarely deal with. It’s not fair. It’s certainly not in line with notions of gender equality. That’s the problem with wars, though. Things like logic, justice, and compassion are the first to go.

Why is this war even being fought in the first place, though? Moreover, why are women dealing with a different war than men? Well, there are many answers to that question and most of them will piss off most feminists, egalitarians, or people who just value any semblance of fairness.

I’ve touched on it before, to some extent, but the foundation for the war on horny women has its roots in a mix of biology and economics. Humans are a sexually dimorphic species in that each gender bears distinct traits that set them apart, beyond the presence or absence of certain organs. However, the trait that most distinguishes women is their ability to have children.

It’s a beautiful, but critical skill that any species needs to survive. A great deal of energy goes into giving incentives for humans to make babies and some of those incentives are pretty damn powerful. However, because of the biology involved, there are circumstances that set a horny woman apart from a horny man.

In terms of raw numbers, horny women are at a evolutionary disadvantage. No matter how horny they are or how much sex they have, they can only bear one or a few children at the same time over the course of nine months. Men, on the other hand, can impregnate dozens of women and sire a much larger volume of offspring.

From an evolutionary perspective, it’s like one person has a butter knife and the other has a machine gun. One tool is just inherently better at doing more damage. Now, if men and women are living in some hippie commune where nobody cares about which kid belongs to who and nobody has to deal with messy child custody hearings, then a horny woman doesn’t have much issues.

Unfortunately, hippie communes are few, far between, and prone to poor hygiene and clogged toilets. Much of our civilization was built on complex, hierarchical societies that required men to work the fields, women to care for children, and a certain assurance that the kids you had were yours.

Before the days of Maury Povich, though, the only way to be sure of that was to be sure that a woman was faithful from her wedding night onward. Since people rarely trust the horniness of their spouses or the men who may seduce them, this led to traditions and taboos that demanded modesty and subjugation for women.

It didn’t matter how horny or sexually unsatisfied they were. From the perspective of society, it was more important that these women remained “untainted” so that men could be sure their kids were legitimate and there were no nasty diseases, a common problem that plagued ancient societies to no end. It wasn’t as much a war of misogyny as it was a war of practicality.

Even after we learned to treat disease, control conception, and test for paternity, the idea of a horny woman is still taboo. There are some that even claim that promiscuous women bring down entire civilizations. These are not claims that anyone should take seriously, but they do reflect the ongoing struggles of this war.

The idea of a woman being horny, sexual, and feeling no shame about it just seems wrong to many people. They see that and they see an affront to how they believe society should work. Never mind the fact that society is always changing and technology promises to accelerate that change. We, men and women alike, are still stuck in this war-like mentality when it comes to horny women.

It often manifests in subtle ways. Watch any slasher movie, sitcom, or poorly-scripted reality show and you’ll see a similar theme. The horny, promiscuous women are the villains. They are an evil, corruptive force that undermines all that is good and noble. Why else would Regina George be so easy to despise?

Beyond the media, female horniness is often presented as something that has to be contained and hidden. Unlike men, who are expected to fight the wars and work the fields, the standards for women are different. A “good woman” is someone who doesn’t sleep around, flash her tits, or show off her thong to an entire basketball team. A “good woman” stays home, has babies, and dresses in a way that doesn’t attract horny men.

That’s why modesty is conveyed as such a virtue for women, but not so much for men. That’s also why exceedingly repressive societies segregate women from men. The possibility that someone might get horny and might act on that horniness is seen as a bomb going off in house full of puppies. It’s just that terrifying.

However, despite this centuries-old war, ripe with traditions and taboos, women still get horny. Women still want to have sex and not just to make babies, but to enjoy the toe-curling pleasure that comes along with it. No amount of modesty, shame, or scorn can stop it. That says a lot about the strength of horny women. As an aspiring erotica/romance writer, I can’t help but admire that.

As much an optimist I am, at heart, I don’t see the war ending anytime soon. Like the war against horny men, certain taboos and insecurities still linger. Some are cracking, though. Just recently, Mayim Bialik from “The Big Bang Theory,” generated a lot of criticism for daring to claim that women should dress more modestly in order to avoid harassment, as though horny men aren’t that determined.

Naturally, albeit unfairly, she got accused of blaming the victim for the misdeeds of horny men. The idea that horny women are somehow responsible for crimes committed against them is rightfully absurd, but the notion that horny women need to contain themselves while some men can still push the boundaries is beyond absurd.

As I said at the beginning, the basis of the war on horny women is neither fair nor logical. Compared to the war on horny men, though, it’s just unfair and illogical in a very different way. There reasons and justifications for the war are changing and will likely continue to change, especially as certain medical advancements emerge.

Whatever the change, though, the war will continue to rage. Horny women will still be considered this taboo force of chaos that could potentially undermine the whole of society. This may be a taboo that’s impossible to break, but that may not matter much in the long run.

No matter how the war is fought, whether by religious dogma or excessive shaming, it won’t turn off that fundamental drive to make love or to enjoy good orgasm. In the long run, the horny women will win, if only because the horny men will want to hang out with them more. I’m not one to take sides in a war, but if my sexy novels can act as battle cries, I’m happy to do my part.

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October 22, 2017 · 8:59 am

Sexy Sunday Thoughts: Raking Leaves Edition

I tend to have mixed feelings about fall. On one hand, I love sexy Halloween costumes and pumpkin spice lattes. On the other, I hate having to dress in layers and not being able lounge around naked. Until I can sell enough sexy novels to retire in a tropical climate, my feelings will likely remain mixed.

One other thing that adds to that mixed sentiment is the prospect of raking leaves. I happen to live in a part of the country that has beautiful fall foliage, but requires a lot of messy yard maintenance. In fact, I’m convinced that part of the reason anyone has kids in this part of the country is to help them do dishes and rake leaves.

I remember many exhausting weekends in my youth, toiling in my yard and raking bags upon bags of leaves. There was just no end to it. Other than scrubbing the bathroom floor with a toothbrush, I can’t think of a more frustrating chore.

So to those who despise raking leaves as much as I do, I dedicate this week’s edition of my Sexy Sunday Thoughts to those who share in the soreness. Every chore is agonizing, to some extent. Some are just more agonizing than others. It’s those laborious moments when we need some sexy sentiments the most.

“Every great hero often begins their pursuit of greatness with an elaborate effort to get laid.”

“No relationship can hope to survive when two people cannot agree on the settings for the thermostat.”

“The prevalence of both circumcision and the human race is proof that even unwilling mutilation is not enough to stop legions of horny men.”

“The best hope any man has at getting a blowjob from a millennial woman is to make their semen taste like a latte.”

“Casual sex is like a Hot Pocket. Making love is like caviar. Angry make-up sex is like leftover pizza. All are delicious in their own special way.”

“Thanks to the invention of smartphones, there are probably more images of genitalia circulating today than there has ever been at any point in human history.”

“Wit and charm are just coy descriptions of a man who avoids saying things that immediately kill a woman’s sex drive.”

I hope these sexy sentiments make your back less sore when clearing your yard. Maybe one day I’ll make enough money from my sexy novels to pay people and/or robots to rake my leaves for me. Until that day comes, I’ll just use it as an excuse to work up a good sweat, feel extra sexy, and channel that into my next novel. In the end, everyone wins.

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October 21, 2017 · 8:38 am

The War On Horny Men (And Why It’s Doomed To Fail)

I won’t deny it. Men do stupid things when they’re horny. That’s just a cold, hard fact. I realize I’m inviting any number of dick jokes by saying that, but it’s still worth saying. It’s partly because of that fact that there’s a market for the erotica/romance novels I write in the first place so I have more appreciation for it than most.

Unfortunately, we live in a world where facts are about as relevant as a giraffe’s shoe size. It doesn’t matter how true or vindicated something is, be it a scientific theory or a documented observation. Unless it makes people feel a certain way or allows them to push some sort of agenda, it either doesn’t matter or gets twisted to suit a purpose.

When it comes to horny men, though, evolution and global warming got nothing on them. It’s not so much that they exist that’s the problem. It’s that they are now the face of all that is wrong and evil in the world.

Look at any controversy or social issue in recent years, from Hollywood scandals to trends in feminism, and chances are a horny man is involved and that man isn’t the good guy in that narrative. I’ve seen it become more magnified in recent years, but in a sense, there has always been a war over horny men. It takes many forms and has gone to disturbing extremes, but it rarely succeeds in the long run.

In the past, you could argue that battling horny men was a frustrating, but necessary endeavor to some extent. Up until the 20th century, the status of women in society and concerns over the spread of debilitating diseases gave society a valid reason for wanting to temper men’s desire to bone everything in sight. A society full of diseases and children without fathers is not a stable society.

On top of that, organized religion had often tried to play a part in that war. In general, they espouse traditions that value modesty and restraint. Naturally, some try to take it too far. Some have gone so far as to create a special circle of Hell to endlessly punish those who give in to readily to their horniness.

There are time when it’s worth questioning the motivations of organized religion in this war, though. As I’ve pointed out before, religion has an incentive to want people to bone only for procreation.

For one, they want all that pent up energy reserved for helping out at the church/temple/mosque/synagog. Second, they know that children of adherents tend to adopt their parents’ religion so they want them making as many babies as possible. More children means more adherents. More adherents means more money. Even when deities are involved, it often comes back to money.

However, as the influence of religion has faded and the status of women has improved, the war on horny men has taken a very different form. In some respects, it has been escalating lately. It’s not just a matter of horny men cheating on their wives with their secretary anymore. Horny men have basically become the de-facto enemy that are determined to hold women, minorities, and society back.

It’s horny men who become sleazy Hollywood producers that try to get sex out of ambitious young women. It’s horny men who demand that the women in comic books, video games, and movies be beautiful, thereby contributing to the objectification and degradation of women.

I won’t get into the issues I have with the concept of objectification, but it’s becoming increasingly taboo for a horny man to like and appreciate sexual imagery. It has become especially taboo to voice that appreciation, so much so that some countries are looking to criminalize men who cat-call women. That’s right. It one day might be a crime to say how sexy you find a beautiful woman.

For an aspiring erotica/romance writer, it’s a distressing trend. I get some of the logic behind it. Men still commit the majority of the sexual assaults in this world. That’s another cold, hard fact that can’t be denied.

It’s also a fact that sexual assault, as a whole, is on the decline. That’s a good thing, but thanks to the rise of mass media, terrible stories about sexual assault are easier to come by. It’s even easier to sensationalize, sometimes to the detriment of the truth. Whatever the statistics say, though, there’s still a horny man with poor impulse control at the center of it all.

At the moment, it’s not illegal to be a horny man or express some of that horiness. We don’t live in the days of John Harvey Kellogg and most horny men have access to abundant free porn, giving them an outlet for their horiness. However, even with all that free porn and a lack of uptight religious figures demanding that men not pleasure themselves, horny men are still subject to shame and ridicule.

If you like your female superheroes wearing chain mail bikinis, then congratulations! You’re a sexist, misogynistic pig.

If you like admiring beautiful women and go to strip clubs to exercise that admiration, then congratulations! You’re a sexist, misogynistic pig.

If you like having sex with beautiful women and seek to do so with every resource available to you, then congratulations! You’re still a sexist, misogynistic pig.

Are you seeing a trend, here? Whether it takes the form of porn or involves casual flirting, there seems to be no way around it. Any effort a man makes to get with a beautiful woman, sexually or otherwise, is somehow vilified. Just the act of wanting to sleep with a beautiful woman can now be construed as sexist, misogynistic, or whatever the hopelessly outraged can scream at the top of their lungs.

A man just looking for sex or some kind of sexual outlet garners no sympathy. Even a man looking for love is somehow prone to ridicule, as evidenced by the prominence of the beta male in shows like “The Big Bang Theory.” A man can’t ask for sex because he’ll get accused of being a creep or worse. He can’t even admit he wants sex because that somehow means he sees women as glorified sex objects.

There seems to be no way around it. No matter what a man does, he’s practically doomed himself and his reputation for daring to admit that he’s that horny. If he just masturbates to satisfy his desires, he’s a loser. If he eagerly pursues sex, then he’s a creep. If he just tries to repress it all, then he’s a dork who can’t get laid. Unless he’s a rock star with a foot-long dick, the average horny man has no hope.

This is an issue and it affects both genders because both genders are wired to seek love, sex, and everything in between. Nature, itself, gives us plenty of reasons, considering the various health benefits of orgasms. All those pursuits are effectively undermined if one side is overtly shamed for wanting something so basic and beautiful.

I’m not saying horny men don’t do stupid things. They most certainly do. I’m also not saying horny men don’t do heinous things too. They do that too and it’s become major news. People should be mindful of crimes like sexual assault and issues like consent. The problem is that the outrage over scandals and sex in the mass media is overshadowing the basic desire behind it.

Men, and humans in general, are sexual creatures. No matter how much people try to temper sex in society, whether by forcing women to cover their faces or designing video game characters to be less sexy, it’s impossible to subvert basic biology.

That’s the ultimate tragedy of the war on horny men. It can’t succeed in making men less horny. It can only ever succeed in making men feel guilty about feeling something that they’re hard-wired by biology and evolution to want, pursue, and enjoy. Guilt can keep us from stealing a cookie as a kid, but it can be downright debilitating if heaped on someone to excess.

All that guilt can make people angry, depressed, desperate, hopeless, and irrational. For a man that is already irrationally horny, that can be dangerous and frustrating. That kind of mentality is not going to help in efforts to curb sexual violence. If anything, it’s going to make those efforts even harder.

For now, I don’t see the war on horny men abating, nor do I see one side claiming victory over the other. I’ll just say that the hostilities are doing a lot more harm than good. They’re hindering those seeking love, sex, and all the good stuff that comes with it. As an aspiring erotica/romance writer, that’s a dangerous trend.

To those who still insist on fighting this war, claiming horny men are the bane of all societies in all times, I have one simple message for you. For several centuries, the Catholic Church wielded immense power throughout Europe. If even they couldn’t stop horny men, despite being armed with the Spanish Inquisition, then what chance do you have?

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October 20, 2017 · 6:42 am

A Helpful (And Sexy) Romance Tip (From Joe Rogan)

I’ve said it before, but it’s worth belaboring. Do not take advice from celebrities. I know they’re so rich, powerful, and rarely have to pay women to show them their tits. Some could spit in a glass and sell it for fifty bucks if they wanted. With all that clout, it’s tempting to think that they have some sort of secret knowledge.

More often than not, a celebrity is the byproduct of knowing the right people, having the right amount of talent, and being willing to work so hard that it makes functional relationships damn near impossible. There’s also an element of dumb luck to it all. Just look at how Justin Bieber got discovered and prepare to run head-first into the nearest brick wall.

Celebrities live in a world that might as well be an alien planet. Their understanding of how things work is so skewed, so distorted, and so flawed they can’t really relate to ordinary people anymore. Does anyone really believe that someone with the eccentricities of Tom Cruise can ever grasp a sense of normal again?

That said, every now and then, one celebrity will come out with a bit of advice that is worth taking seriously. Stranger things have happened, even on game shows. That’s why it’s worth making note of whenever it happens.

Recently, in wake of the Harvey Weinstein scandal, a brilliant bit of advice came out of these disturbing revelations. It came courtesy of Joe Rogan, a comedian and color commentator whose insights I’ve found to be refreshingly honest. Being a huge fan of his podcast, which I totally recommend, I was very interested in learning his take on the scandal.

However, it was his unusual advice on love and relationships that stole the show for me. It actually had less to do with discussions of the scandal and more to do with topics involving how men behave around women. As someone who has had more than his share of awkward moments around women, it’s something I can appreciate.

His advice isn’t very complicated. It doesn’t even require any special skills or coaching. It’s something every man can do and something they already know how to do. The key is doing it in the right situation, within a certain context. Since I know a lot of men will likely need this advice at some point in their lives, I’ll offer it as freely and openly as Mr Rogan did. With all that said, here it is.

Before you go on a date with a woman, masturbate ahead of time. 

It’s crude. It’s crass. It’s even kind of dispassionate, when you think about. However, from a psychological and biological standpoint, it makes perfect sense for men hoping to form strong, meaningful relationships with women.

There’s no way around it. From a purely hormonal standpoint, men are hornier than women. That’s just how testosterone works. It effects how man pursue sex, love, and everything in between. It also affects other aspects of their behavior, for better and for worse.

Now, apply this to the lens of caveman logic and it makes even more sense. If we work within the context that our brains are primarily wired for survival and reproduction, then it’s unreasonable to assume that our thoughts and feelings will be optimized for determining whether the romance we’re pursuing is right for us.

From our brain’s perspective, when we go out with a pretty girl, we’re basically taking the scenic route to getting that sweet sexual release that we’re wired to seek. Everything else, including the romance, is secondary or tertiary, at best. That creates a major problem, though.

If our brains are more concerned about that release than it is about determining whether we’ve found a suitable lover, then we’re prone to making bad, misinformed decisions. Our pursuit of that release, and the role it serves in the reproduction part of cavemen logic, effectively obscures our more intimate pursuits.

As Rogan himself describes, that incredible desire made him tolerate a beautiful woman who he knew, on some levels, wasn’t right for him. However, he was just so driven by that crude desire of his caveman brain that he avoided the hard truth. He effectively employed a form of excuse banking. I can only imagine the kinds of justifications he came up with, being so driven to fulfill that primary need.

That’s why masturbating beforehand made perfect sense. It effectively froze his excuse bank and uncluttered his mind so that all that wiring in his brain that emphasized reproductive efforts, namely sex, were tempered. Orgasms effect a lot of bodily functions, as I’ve noted before. That includes, to a large extent, the brain.

By giving himself that orgasm ahead of him, Rogan did himself and his love life a huge favor. It allowed him to deal with the woman in a more logical, unfiltered sort of way. It probably saved him a lot of heartache and frustration in the long run.

Even if his experience is purely anecdotal, the science is sound. That’s why it counts as good, legitimate advice for other, non-celebrity men to follow. I encourage those reading this blog with significant others to try it.

The next time you go out on a date with a significant other, get that orgasm ahead of time and see how it affects your approach to the date. It may make for some unusual situations, but that might be a good thing. No matter how unusual they end up being, I’d love to hear the results so please share them in the comments.

Now, I know I singled men out for this advice and there’s a reason for that. While both genders tend to agree on the joys of orgasms, there are some variations in the biology. Since I’m not a woman, I don’t know whether this sort of advice would work the same way.

That’s not to say women shouldn’t try it too before their next date. I honestly don’t see how having an extra orgasm before a date or meeting with a prospective lover can be a negative. If women can provide some insight on this in the comments as well, I think it’s definitely worth discussing.

However, when it comes to men trying to make sense of their love lives and the complications that their incessant desire may bring, I think Mr. Rogan’s advice is sound. It may very well be the best, and sexiest, advice you ever get from a celebrity. For that, I thank Mr. Rogan for his contributions towards improving the romantic lives of his fans.

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