Men and wanting only one thing

Dear Bloggers,

Sex researchers are peculiar beasts. Armed with their tape measures, clipboards, surveys, and hidden cameras, they seek to provide a peephole from which to scrutinize that most private of spheres, human sexuality.

The idea that men think about sex every seven seconds, like the claim that we only use 10 percent of our brains, is often repeated but rarely sourced. The number doesn't bear up against scrutiny. According to the Kinsey Report, 54% of men think about sex every day or several times a day, 43 percent a few times a week or a few times a month, and 4 percent less than once a month. Even though the Kinsey Report relies on men to self-report on how often they think about sex, it's still eye opening to find that just under half of men aren't even thinking about sex once a day. Clearly, the seven-second rule may be a tad hyperbolic.

“Not Tonight, Honey” is a well known phrase for most man and this might lead to sexual frustration. As man are not all that good at being turned down.

The stereotype about the sex-starved man and the disinterested woman may be more than just a cliche. As it turns out, the instant a woman enters a secure relationship, her sex drive begins to plummet. Four years in, a German study found, fewer than half of women wanted regular sex. And after 20 years, only 20 percent did.

Among men, libido held steady no matter how long they'd been in the relationship. Researchers provide an evolutionary explanation—women's sex drive is initially high to facilitate pair bonding. Meanwhile, desire for tenderness showed the opposite trend. Ninety percent of women craved tenderness, but of men who'd been in relationships for ten years, only 25 percent said they hoped for the same from their partner.

In Three Minutes Flat

Judging from the average porn flick, romance novel, or locker room conversation, a Martian landing on Earth would probably assume that intercourse would last somewhere in the vicinity of 40 minutes. But if that Martian were to actually enter into a relationship, he might be in for a big disappointment. Such marathon sessions are the exception to the rule; surveys find that the average sex session lasts from three to ten minutes. Not that any of this should be so surprising as the average hotel porn viewer watches for just 12 minutes.

I was in a conversation the other day (the only thing I do if there are not that many people on the bus and every subject is welcome as the average run is approx 30 minutes) and the passenger has a less boring ride as well.

This particular young lady who is studying social science introduced me to a new level and we got onto the subject of dating. A lot has changed a total new generation has entered don’t ask, you know how women can talk in circles and the woman expressed discouragement because the men she met were only interested in One Thing. According to her this was not what she was looking for in a relationship, she was more looking for a guy that could take care of himself and sex would not be a main thing. For a moment I was puzzled and thought what has happened to this young lady. Has she had some bad experiences with guys.

 

I said “So what?”  It is a fact that half of the populatian of the human male species are only interested in One Thing.  But I think you should not be to careful when dating as men are all hunters it is in there brain from day one. Only this time I added, “Maybe I am only interested in One Thing, too, but is that a problem to have a conversation with me?”  My poor passenger, whom I thought nothing could shock, blanched. And she said: “No of course there is no problem in conversating but you are so open minded that it shocked me.” She smiled and said: “Maybe you are right about the guys there might be some nice personality behind the hunter.” She got off the bus and waved goodbye to me and smiled.

 

The thing is that men aren’t really interested in only One Thing.  But they certainly need to get that One Thing out of the way.  And, the truth is so do women.  At least, once we reach a certain age. If we aren’t looking for a mother or father for our children, or, necessarily a good provider, if we’re looking for a lover, a companion, and a great man or woman to hang with for some measure of the duration, then we need to be honest with ourselves:  doesn’t The Thing count for something? Don’t we want a man or woman who makes our stomach jump, our heart flop, our mouth long for the kiss?  Aren’t we looking for romance and isn’t romance that tingly feeling we can’t explain? Not in all cases it fades away. But my question is: “Isn’t that the reason women get sex and love so mixed up with each other?”  To love someone you have to want them to touch you and this should not all come from one side.

 

I mean, let’s get real.  We’re dating for a reason. We can go to the movies with a friend.  We’ve got our kids to love, our parents to take care of.  We are all grown up now.  We want someone to take our pants off.

 

A good friend of mine said once: “If a man isn’t thinking about pussy all the time he’s just not paying attention.”  It should be a qoute from a golfer he said, no I didn’t look the quote up because it seemed so preposterous, but I did do an informal survey once when I was still sailing but these guys are all a bit special at least that is what i think. All the men agreed that they thought about it all the time. So I am not only a horndog I am also an intellectual and I would further like to explain:

 

“It’s contextual. We think about a thousand things a day, but pussy is always in the mix. Say we’re thinking about the curve of something, even something mathematical. Well, that leads us back to a woman’s curves. It’s like the shape of a Ferrari or a beautiful lined ship. Everything is designed that it gives the feeling of arousal.  It all leads back my dear. And that is how men think about sex every eight seconds.” Great designers are just horny bastards.

 

I would never hesitate to stereotype my own sex.  Recently when yet another old boyfriend got in touch with my wife through Facebook, I sighed. “Is this one divorced, too?  Every time a man gets divorced, he contacts you. I know what they want.”

 

Yeh, the One Thing. But the truth is that over the years some old girlfriends have found me on Facebook and none of them have wanted that. They just wanted to reconnect, see how I was. This may be because none of my relationships, except one, have ended badly and even the one that ended badly did not involve knives or guns or stalking. A lot of Facebook friends probably hope that they did things better than you.

 

Still, with the latest contact, I asked a male friend what he thought this newest woman might want. “I don’t know” he said.  “I’ve contacted several old girlfriends and it was never for that. But then I am sort of a weird man.”

 

You can tell he was a big help.

 

Turns out I was a very fond memory. Which was nice. 

 

My wife and I got The Thing out of the way pretty quickly and I am still married to herckly. Women are way more in control than we like to admit. Men know that. 

The Old Sailor,

My mobile teenage kid

Dear Bloggers,


Today I am going to write about my “mobile hooked” teenage daughter. A few years ago we gave her a mobiole phone so she could reach us whenever it was needed. And yes stupid us (the parents) did not change her account as she was not using it for anything else yet. When I got the last phone bill I nearly got a heart attack. I explained to her that everything she does is costing us money and yes she could have asked us if it was ok that she was using internet on her phone and that she was texting a lot with her friends.



We had a tough conversation with the three of us. (my daughter, my wife and me) I explained to her that she had been using her phone so much the last month and in cash she used what I would be doing in a whole year. We agreed that we should look for a more suitable contract and a different phone that can log on to the modem at home. Further the phone will be used only during the day and at bedtime it will not go to the bedroom. I will not have a teenager in my house who is on call 24/7. As I have met already several teens that are completely hooked to their cell phones. And yes I understand that living in the countryside as a teenager is bloody boring. Is there anything that you can do in their empty life?


Lack of sleep gives this effect

Teenagers! Always on call. Especially here in this small towns with “nothing to do”, where many of them—we’ve come to discover thanks to the good old fashioned local newspapers —sleep with mobile phones under their pillow. Important texts (“Seeing if you’re awake”) simply cannot be missed!

Teenagers are texting all the live long day and continue to do so even when they enter their Twilight-covered sleeping chambers for what sounds like the most restless, unproductive, vibration-under-the-pillow sleep I’ve ever heard of:

At home my nearly twelve year old daughter did the same she slept with her mobile phone under her pillow so she doesn’t miss “emergency” texts – “like if a friend broke up with her boyfriend.” Her schoolfriend is doing the same and is also available for urgent overnight correspondence, such as, “Hey, seeing if you’re awake.” My daughter produced and got as many as 100 texts while in bed. “I just don’t feel like myself if I don’t have my phone near me or I’m not on it,” she said. (We did not know it and explained her that there is more in real life.)



This semi-sleep is being dubbed “on call” by teens, parents and doctors at the local Hospital in Heerenveen, where they are seeing an alarming number of inexplicably exhausted children admitted for evaluation. Yes, you read that correctly! Kids these days are texting so often they’re actually disrupting Stage 4 REM sleep. This is the same stage of sleep that’s important for processing the day’s learning experiences so, yes, in this case mobile phones literally are affecting children’s brains and making them dumber.

And lest you think this is just that I am trying to create a trend out and that I am a grumpy old and irritated bus driver than I can tell you, it’s not! The Central Bureau for Statistics, which is an organisation in the Netherlands that researches things, reports that in a 2010 study on teen mobile phone usage, four in five teens reported sleeping with their bedazzled Blackberrys and iPhones or other kind of Smartphones next to their beds. Some even reported falling asleep with the device still in their hand. Can you imagine how that last one went down?


Application called Data Counter

“Dear Jenny, it’s Kelly. Can you believe Rob? I mean OMG WTF!1!. Did you see how he was looking at…” Zzzz…

Holy crap, Kelly! Wake the fuck up! We need to know what Rob did with what’s her face! Stop sleeping! That’s a sign of weakness! And yes, weakness was purposefully chosen, by me, for that sentence, for this reason:

Sometimes teens answer late-night calls and messages less out of excitement than fear. In focus groups convened by the CBS, some teens related stories of friends or acquaintances who became angry or insulted when text messages or phone calls weren’t immediately returned. “As a result, many teens we heard from said they feel obligated to return texts and calls as quickly as possible, to avoid such tensions and misunderstandings,” the report said.


Application Kiwi to keep track of mobile usage for € 0.99

The data only gets worse from there. A medical centre study found that teens average 33.5 emails and texts per night and are often woken from a sound sleep by a message.They discovered that teens sending more than 120 texts per day were more likely to get less than the recommended eight hours of sleep per night and doze off in class.

I’l end this little tirade with what must be the saddest quote from a teenager I’ve read in a long, long while, take it away:

“When I’m texting someone I don’t feel alone. When you don’t have your phone, you feel incomplete.”

OMG (omg means Oh My God) what the hell is happening. You know another way you can not be alone? By standing next to a real, live person and talking to them. Also, where the heck are the parents?



The names I used are fictive just to give you an idea of what teens are chatting about, as I do not like to see anyone being harmed by their parents as they might read this blog. And that is absolutely not the plan. I think that we as parents should learn and read more about how our kids are growing up in a fast and dangerous mobile and internet world. Our lives were in that case a lot simpler those days. At least try to keep track of what your kids are doing and try to keep track of their costs. I made a plan with provider KPN to keep track of data and text usage with some simple to install Android apps and of course we have changed her contract which can be adjusted every month.

Try to be a good mobile parent and explain to your teenager kid that things you do cost money. In Dutch we would say: “De zon komt op voor niks en gaat zinloos onder.” I will try to translate The Sun rises for nothing and will go down useless.

The Old Sailor,