7 Things You Don't Know About Solo Sex

Think you know everything about, ahem, dialing "O" on the pink telephone? Check out this surprising info...

It does your body good...
Paddling the pink canoe (or whatever you want to call it) not only feels ah-mazing, but it also has a ton of research-proven health benefits. That's because it releases feel-good endorphins, which do everything from ease stress to relieve menstrual cramps. One recent study published in Sleep Medicine even found that masturbation can treat restless leg syndrome (a neurological disorder that causes your legs to jerk around in bed). Uh, we'd love to see the doctor's prescription form for that.

...but not if you do it this way.
A University of Michigan study found that women who masturbate with saliva (i.e., wetting your fingers before you give yourself a hand) have a higher risk of developing frequent yeast infections. Researchers think it's because the saliva may disrupt the balance of bacteria down there. If you want to lube up before you get on with your horny self, choose the bottled kind instead.

We're still keeping it on the DL.
Apparently we can't let go and allow our self-love flag to fly. According to research from Penn State University, women talk more about sex than men do...except when it comes to masturbation. Men are more likely to trade info among themselves on how they do it and what they think about (or watch). We're not saying you need to start updating your Facebook status every time you give yourself an O, but occasionally discussing it with a few close gf's can help you figure out new ways to experience even hotter pleasure.

Lady monkeys need self-loving too.
Scientists have observed a wide variety of animals masturbating in the wild, including deer, monkeys, walruses, and squirrels. In fact, female apes and monkeys have been known to use sticks for, ahem, added pleasure down there.

That old wive's tale about masturbation causing acne? It's kinda true.
That's because when you climax, your body experiences a spike in the hormone testosterone, which can cause zits. The increase in testosterone is (very) small, though, so it's unlikely that you'll have a breakout.

It's possible to think your way to a party for one.
Researchers at Rutgers University have documented women who can climax without touching themselves. In a study, these women "thought" their way to climax while inside an MRI machine; scans revealed that their brains lit up during orgasm in the exact same spots as did women who peaked the old-fashioned way.

And, uh, exercise your way there too.
Some women can hit the high note just by doing crunches that include a leg raise — it causes the pelvic muscles to tighten and release, which can unleash a wave of blissful contractions down there.

3 Tips to Ensure a Hot Date Night with Your Husband

Half the battle of having a hot date night is actually having a date night at all. Here's how to make it happen.

1. Snag a sitter — fast. Mom's busy, your standby teenage neighbor has a new boyfriend — now what? Go to sittercity.com or seekingsitters.com. Both sites post reviews from other parents and list babysitters who have CPR training. Or call your local YMCA to ask about nighttime programs for school-age children.>

2. Have "dessert" first. If you tend to conk out after dinner, have sex before your date, suggests Scott Haltzman, M.D., author of The Secrets of Happily Married Women. Ask the sitter to arrive early so you can "get ready." "It'll relieve the will-we-do-it tension," he says. "And men feel more connected and talkative after sex." Women too!

3. Cure we-can't-afford-it syndrome. Skip the pricey dinner and do coffee and dessert instead, suggests Lindsey Rietzsch, author of How to Date Your Spouse. More ways to find good, cheap fun: Check out groupon.com or livingsocial.com for deals on restaurants, couples massages, even dance classes.
 

How to Have a 15-Minute Female Orgasm

Step 1:
First, get undressed and lie on your back using a pillow for neck support. Your legs should be bent and spread, feet together in butterfly position. If this makes your hips uncomfortable on one or both sides, just put pillows underneath the knees.


Your guy should sit to your right side on top of at least two pillows and straddle his bent left leg perpendicularly across her torso, foot flat on the opposite side. (It almost looks as if he's on top in reverse cowgirl position, except his weight will be to the side of your torso.)

Step 2:
Have him separate your labia and retract the clitoral hood upward with the heel of the palm. Then he'll anchor the clitoris with the right thumb by holding the hood back. He should put his left hand under your butt, two fingers under each cheek, with the thumb resting on (not in) the base of the entrance to the vagina.

Step 3:
The guy should imagine he's looking directly at the clitoris from between her legs, with the top of the clitoris as 12 o’clock on a clock face. He'll then find 1 p.m.—ideally a small indentation or pocket between the hood and clitoris—with his right hand’s index finger, and begin stroking using the lightest touch possible and only 1/16" or so of movement. The tip of the finger is better than the pad, so make sure he cuts his nails beforehand.

Step 4:
Once he finds it, you probably won’t be able to take more than a very light touch. So ask him to stroke like a metronome at a constant speed for periods of two to three minutes, changing speed between periods. Have him keep this up for 15 minutes. You'll most likely start to feel intense pleasure. If the orgasm contractions are a bit too much, breathe deeply and push out slightly as if you were going to pee. (Don't worry, as long as you emptied your bladder beforehand, you won't actually pee.) This will help you extend the plateau and minimize fatigue.

Step 5:
Once the 15 minutes have elapsed, he should do something called “grounding”, which just means applying strong pressure down on the pubic bone and up toward your head, using overlapping hands. (It sort of looks like he's doing chest compressions, only on your nether regions.) Usually the strongest possible pressure the most pleasurable for ending a session.

We know, it sounds too simple to bring on a 15-minute climax. But the author himself tested it out and spoke with a number of sexperts to perfect the process. Give it a try then report back in the comments section.

7 Things You Didn't Know About Porn

As skin flicks grow increasingly ubiquitous, thanks to the ease of steamy streaming on the internet, X-rated entertainment has also become a hot research topic. Check out the shocking facts these studies uncovered.

1. Women get turned on by monkey sex
Think guys are aroused by just about anything? It's actually the other way around. Researchers from Northwestern University showed men and women videos of nude actors exercising, masturbating, or having sex. They found that men have pretty clear "targets" — straight dudes got hot looking at ladies, while gay dudes were turned on by men. It's fuzzier for chicks, though. Even if they didn't report feeling in the mood, straight women experienced physical arousal after viewing pretty much any kind of sexual stimuli — guy-on-guy porn, girl-on-girl action, and even bonobo monkeys getting frisky.
2. Utah is the perviest state
A Harvard study found that Utah had the most online porn subscriptions per every 1,000 broadband users. (The state with the lowest rate of porn subscriptions? Montana.)
3. The body part that men focus on when watching porn is the woman's — wait for it — face
You read that right: eyes and lips win out over boobs and a badonkadonk, according to an eye-tracking study from the Kinsey Institute at the University of Indiana. The researchers speculated that guys look at women's faces to gauge how turned on they are.
4. The pill affects whether you go for the money shot
More from the Kinsey Institute study: Women not on hormonal birth control (like The Pill) zoned in on people's genitals when shown a pornographic pic. But women taking The Pill were more interested in contextual elements such as the background, or what the actors are wearing. Researchers hypothesize it's because Pill-free women have a higher sex drive.
5. All — literally all — men watch it
A researcher from the University of Montreal wanted to study whether pornography has an impact on guys' sex lives. There was just one teensy problem though: To form a control group, he searched for men in their twenties who'd never consumed porn...and he couldn't find a single one.
6. Most guys get into it before puberty
The majority check out porn for the first time at age 10, according to the same University of Montreal study.
7. Presidential elections put people in the mood
Talk about dirty politics. After President Bush won the election in 2004, red states saw a jump in porn-related Internet searches. And after President Obama won in 2008, blue states went on a porn-search frenzy. Researchers from Villanova and Rutgers University believe it's because being on the winning team creates a surge of testosterone, which spikes sex drive.

Is Experimentation More Common Than Most Think?

Conventional wisdom has it that women are more likely to experiment with their sexuality, and with other women in particular, during their undergraduate years. College campuses are seen as sexual Petri dishes, where female co-eds mix a little lesbianism into their behavior to see if there's a chemical reaction.

"That phenomenon gave rise to the term LUG (lesbian until graduation)," writes Tamar Lewin in a recent New York Times piece.

But a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention indicates that higher education isn't a pre-req for young ladies who want to have a same-sex experience. In fact, less than 10 percent of college-educated women said they'd had a sexual encounter with another chick — compared to 15 percent of those with no high school diploma and approximately 12.5 percent of those who'd finished high school but not college.

In other words, the less education a woman has, the more likely she is to have had an erotic experience with someone of the same sex.

What does the discrepancy between that reality and the common perception (that college campuses encourage sexual exploration) mean?

Lewin writes that Amber Hollibaugh, interim executive director of Queers for Economic Justice, a New York-based advocacy group, says: "The results of the federal survey underscored how poor, minority, and working-class lesbians had been overshadowed by the mainstream cultural image of lesbians as white professionals."

Interesting point. (Lewin interviews some people with other ideas as well.)

But here's my take: Experimentation is just a lot more common all over the country than most people think. It's not something that's just happening on college campuses, where "liberal" behavior is encouraged.

What do you all think?