KERALA CULTURE LOVE LESSON FROM A 67-YEAR-OLD MALAYALI MAN TO A 23-YEAR-OLD ENGINEERING POST-GRADUATE THIRUVANATHAPURAM WOMAN

Falling in love is not just possible, but easy too. Just close your eyes and believe!

Rose-tinted happily-ever-after images in fairytales and romantic fiction spoil us for the real thing. Pre-conceived notions and expectations ensure disappointment even with the best. So sharply focused are we on expectations that we sometimes fail to objectively evaluate or appreciate reality. So, if you have been brought up on the raging passions and sky-rocketing Big Os of Mills & Boon, or on stories of a Prince Charming who carries girls away on white steeds, your real life romance has fizzled out even before it got a chance to sizzle.

However, don’t lose heart. This is not to say that love cannot happen. It can and does but only to those of us who believe in it and make the effort to build it for ourselves. Note, not find love, but to build or create it for yourself. Most make the mistake of looking for that ‘one’ man, or that ‘one’ woman, who is perfect for them. There is no such thing as the perfect soulmate — there could be any number of them and so long as they fulfil your basic criteria, all is good. The critical part is recognising one of them who crosses your path and then to fall, or rise, in love. Research has shown that it takes between 90 seconds and four minutes to decide if you are attracted to a person. Fifty-five per cent of your decision is influenced by body language, 38 per cent through tone and style of speaking, and just seven per cent is dependent on what is said. Rest is all a matter of intent and application.

The one thing to remember is that most of the time you need to close your eyes to build your world of romance. Romance is certainly not going to happen with eyes wide open! Romantic love can happen only when you close your eyes to everything, including sometimes, the object of your affection! For, love and romance is more about convincing yourself than anything else. You can fall in love with someone and choose to remain in love for as long as you like. And so long as the object of your affection doesn’t do something unpalatable to break the illusion, nothing would go wrong till you decide to get bored or move on.

Start off with the belief that there can be no one person who is perfect in all respects. We all have good and bad facets, and one person’s evaluation of you could differ dramatically from another’s, depending on body chemistry and shared experiences. We all know people who are fond of us and others who aren’t. If we choose to focus on someone’s not-so-nice side we are bound to build up negative feelings against the person; however, if we choose to ignore the negative for the positive, we will appreciate the same person. The power of imagination is helpful for lovers. Use your imagination to believe you are totally in love with your beloved or spouse. Whip up the passion, feel it, let the rose-tinted glasses fall in place and then turn the love-laden gaze towards your partner. Even if it doesn’t always kick start your heart into overdrive, it will definitely keep the love going strong.

A friend and mother of two has this habit of looking adoringly at her husband, shooting indulgent smiles and stroking his cheek. Believe it or not, the man is in a state of constant adoration for his wife! I refuse to believe that in their decade-long marriage, they haven’t had problems, or haven’t seen the worst of each other. But they have chosen to focus on what they love and express it openly rather than trying to improve what they don’t like. And it works fabulously for them. Most marriages that last are those where the couple has chosen to reaffirm their love by building up spaces and activities where they can share togetherness. Leading researcher on love psychology, Ellen Berscheid, talks of how new lovers magnify each other’s virtues and explain away flaws. It doesn’t need rocket science to explain that continuing to do so would ensure lasting love; indeed, love needs to be blind! And to prove that falling in love is quite easy, New York-based psychologist Prof Arthur Arun asked subjects to find a complete stranger, share intimate details for half an hour and then stare deeply into each other’s eyes for four minutes. This resulted in most of his subjects feeling a deep attraction for each other. Reportedly, two of the couples even got married!

we just make different decisions in our sexuality.

 Here is a cute university student snapping a few photos of herself between her studies. Now if you are into geeky looking girls then this set is for you. And if you are into geeky Asian girls then you have just died and gone to geeky Asian chick heaven. Anyway, 

“The real sexual adventure begins when the children are older or have left home and women have the body confidence and experience to enjoy sex more than ever before,” the Daily Mailquoted Nicola Down, editor of Top Sante magazine, which carried out the research, as saying.

As the gaps between generations shift and blur, nobody is restricted by their age to do anything, anymore

There was a time when all stages of life were followed as they were meant to be. Sweet, carefree days of childhood led to anxiety-riddled, yet thrilling adolescence, onto adulthood with its attendant responsibilities and satisfactions. And then came old age, when full of your own brand of wisdom, you put up your feet and watched life play itself out, chuckling or chiding, as you wished. Not long back, my grandmother did just that. Ensconced in her strategically-placed diwan, she would direct household operations, greet children and grandchildren and entertain herself with family gossip. An occasional trip to the kitchen would be accompanied by an admonishment to the cook, to show she was still queen of her home and hearth. A weekly kirtan or an occasional trip to the cinema hall was the utmost she pushed herself.

Within a generation, one doesn’t see grandparents put up their feet and give up an active life voluntarily at any stage. Almost as busy as the rest, slowing down isn’t an option. They swim in the same pool, drink at the same bars, visit the same malls and destinations, and watch the same television programmes as their children and grandchildren. Heck, they don’t even look like grandparents anymore. Their dressing, styling, hair and make-up are not age-specific; they are also equally fit.

But then, neither do the children conform to our idea of childhood. They grow up too fast and have a mind of their own. The gap between generations has blurred to a degree that is baffling. ‘Do not treat me like a child; I know what I am doing,’ says mature-beyond-hisyears youngster, while grandpa feels insulted if he is categorised as an ‘old man’ or a ‘bauji’. Whatever happened to the clear-cut four stages of life laid down by Hinduism, or in the Western context, the seven stages Shakespeare defined?

Today, even as we live longer and healthier lives, Brahmacharya, Grihastha, Vanaprastha and Sanyasa Ashram lose meaning as boundaries shrink, swell, overlap and merge and people refuse to let age dictate their activities and lifestyle. Similarly, though we still go through all seven stages Shakespeare described poetically, we do it in our own good time — from “mewling infant” to “whining schoolboy” to “lover sighing like furnace” right through to “mere oblivion”.

Indeed, when a five-year-old gives birth to a child and an 11-year-old becomes a murderer, what is old enough now? When a 66-year-old woman gives birth to triplets and a 101-year-old man runs the London marathon, what is “too old” anymore? When precocious has taken a nosedive and ‘agile’ and ‘old’ are no longer oxymorons, one cannot but take note of the changed reality. As Additional Sessions Judge Kamini Lau said regarding age of consent for sex, exceptions and allowances need to be made “keeping in view the changing social attitudes and social sensibilities”.

Children no longer wish to be coochey-cooed and babble-talked; they demand you talk to them as equals. Seen the impactful Bournvita Li’l Champs ad? “Uncle aapko Hindi aati hai? Mujhe bhi aati hai!” Retirement is something you look forward to not as a period of relaxation, but as the time to begin a new life. Your faculties are at their peak and a good amount of quality years stretch out ahead. Possibilities and avenues are endless. Nuclear families ensure that one has plenty of time, and media exposure and a shrinking global village brings the world to your doorstep. Grandparents are people you can befriend and find newer meeting grounds with rather than distant-in-age relatives you respect from afar.

Life has no limitations or boundaries anymore.

“Our survey clearly shows that married women in their 40s have the best sex lives. So it’s sad that eight out of ten women think society and younger people in particular don’t have a positive image about older women when, in truth, they are the ones worldly enough to enjoy a wonderful sex life,” she added.
Dixie’s taking Bawdy Storytelling on a tour of the country this year, and Bawdy’s Dirty Minds Tour will be bringing true dirty storytelling to brand new cities in the very near future — they’ll be performing with local and San Francisco storytellers in San Diego on Saturday, February 25th and Portland on Sunday, March 11th. Bawdy Storytelling has been to Los Angeles with faces like Nina Hartley, Carol Queen, and Reid Mihalko, and has featured storytellers like Stephen Elliott, Jamye DeWolf, Joe Klocek, Just Morgan and many more locally. The point is to relate to at least one storyteller in each evening of stories, and you usually do. I’m a writer, and I do love hearing stories and comedy told live, so I love this uniquely San Francisco mix of performance and mixer. And if talking to new people intimidates you, you’ll find Bawdy is not only highly entertaining but it’s a great social event, too. Making new friends is never easier than over a shared laugh.

Whoever said that ‘life begins at 40′ was probably right, as far as women and sex are concerned.

A Brit survey has found that women in their 40shave a better time in bed than at any other stage of their life.

It also found that more than a quarter of married women admitted having had an affair, compared with an estimated 18 per cent of husbands.

In the survey of 2,000 women, it was found that those in their 40s are less self-conscious about their bodies and as a result are more confident between the sheets.

Up to 80 per cent said that they are now more adventurous with their partner than during their 20s, with 60 per cent saying they feel more assertive.

According to experts, this is the age when females hit their ”sexual confidence” peak – they know what they want in the bedroom and they are not afraid to ask.

On the other hand, a fifth of women under 30 say they often merely pretend to be satisfied in bed, compared with just seven per cent of 40-somethings.

Researchers also found that 68 per cent of women in their 40s are fully aware of which love-making technique gives them the most pleasure, and more than half say they are not too embarrassed to ask.

Up to 58 per cent say they have the best sex when they are married, often because they are more experienced.

They also tend to have fewer worries than during their 20s or 30s, either about work or children, so they can properly relax in the bedroom.

Well over 90 per cent of women insisted that fidelity was essential in a long-term relationship – which made the number admitting to affairs so surprising.

Only five per cent of the married women who admitted being unfaithful said it was when they had the best sex.

By comparison, 58 per cent said the best sex they had ever had was with their husband.

The survey also showed that the average woman over 40 has had five sexual partners in her life – compared with nine for the average 30-something.

This was one ‘love affair’ that did not have a happy ending.

After professing love over a year over mobile phone, a 23-year-old engineering post-graduatehad the shock of her life on seeing at their first meeting that her ‘sweetheart’ was a 67-year-old man.

The woman from Thiruvanathapuram had come the other day in search of the man she adored but broke down and fainted when she met him for the first time at the Kuthuparamaba police station, near here, police said.

Police said the woman had waited at the bus-stand for the man for long but he did not turn up. On seeing her roaming about, some local people informed police and she was brought to the station, police said.

On questioning her, police came to know about her quest and obtained the mobile phone number of the person she had been looking for eagerly.

They contacted the ‘lover’ and asked him to come to the police station immediately. When the “boyfriend” finally turned up, she was shocked to find a grey-haired man, police said.

The man, however, told police that he was speaking to her just for fun and had no other intention.

Police later contacted her parents and sent her back home.

One would have thought that nothing would be shocking about Indian politicians. From massive corruption, vile behaviour, treating women like chattel and a criminal bent of mind…these are the vices some of them suffer from. But a video footage of a TMC leader brandishing a gun at a hospital took the cake, showing the depths to which they have fallen. What’s probably left now is for some of these ‘goondas’ to actually pull the trigger.

Getting into politics now almost seems to be a license to do anything they want and get away with it. After all, with muscle power and state support, it’s so easy to beat people down. And sadly, West Bengal has now become a state rife with general lawlessness, quite like the badlands of North India.The malaise seems so deep-rooted and endemic that one would be hard pressed to find a politician who is honest and morally upright. The ones who are would be such sycophants that they would embarrass anyone with some iota of dignity.

One cannot but help compare our politicians and their spouses with the ones in the recent elections in the US. Obama, despite the recession and Hurricane Sandy, came out a winner, a juggernaut imbued with values and charisma which people across age and gender barriers could identify with. His inaugural speech was awe-inspiring and warm, touching the people who worked so hard to get him elected. His tears of joy and emotion when he addressed campaign workers in Chicago showed how human he was.  “It’s not that you guys actually remind me of myself — it’s the fact that you are so much better than I was,” the president said. “What Bobby Kennedy called the ripples of hope that come out when you throw a stone in a lake, that’s going to be you.” He then went on to say, “What you guys have done means that the work that I’m doing is important, and I’m really proud of that,” and the tears began to flow. Who wouldn’t want to work for someone so inspiring? No wonder he had so many women voting and cheering for him.

He was ably supported by his competent and statuesque wife Michelle whose speech this year at the Democratic National Convention was aheartfelt tribute to the man she fell in love with and drew admiration. She said, “And he (Obama) believes that when you’ve worked hard, and done well, and walked through that doorway of opportunity, you do not slam it shut behind you. You reach back, and you give other folks the same chances that helped you succeed.” And then, “I have seen first hand that being president doesn’t change who you are, it reveals who you are.” She spoke about the hard times her multiple sclerosis-affected father had to undergo to give her brother and her a decent, honest life.

Now can you imagine the spouse of any Indian politician speaking like that or even coming to a public forum and supporting him? Some are confined to nondescript villages and eke out a meager existence for themselves even as their star husbands soak in all the limelight. While our politicians cannot be expected to be as articulate as our American counterparts, their lack of probity in life leaves a wide chasm between them and their American counterparts.

Did General Petraeus have to resign? He opened himself as head of the CIA to blackmail, which is a major security breach. So the argument goes. But surely once he admitted the affair, he presumably couldn’t be blackmailed any more. And yes I know there are many facts as yet unknown, like this mystery second woman who complained about email harassment. But for now, Petraeus seems to have resigned over marital infidelity. And if so, did he have to leave his position? Why, because he displayed personal weakness? But this was a public, as opposed to a private, position. And years of counseling unfaithful husbands and wives has taught me that private failings do not necessarily indicate public faithlessness. Those who say that a man who cheats on his wife will cheat on the country forget how many privately moral men have been publicly immoral, and vice versa. As an example, there was never a suggestion that Richard Nixon even looked at a woman that wasn’t his wife. Neither did Jimmy Carter, and he was the worst president in memory. Conversely, my issue with Bill Clinton’s presidency was not Monica Lewinsky, which does not interest me in the slightest, but rather his moral failure to stop the Rwandan Genocide, which is utterly unconnected with his marriage. Thomas Jefferson was one of the great public men of the past thousand years, but he was replete with private moral failings, as was FDR, JFK, and LBJ.

It is my own opinion that an American hero like David Petraeus who served his country with distinction and honor deserved better than to leave his post in humiliation and ignominy, even if his own immoral actions brought it upon himself.

A few weeks ago, at the height of my campaign for Congress, a fellow Republican candidate got into hot water locally for comments she made about Martin Luther King, whom she criticized a few years back as a womanizer. Two days later I gave a speech in which I explained that Christian morality demands perfection because Jesus is perfect. But Jewish morality is based on the idea of struggle, that people are human, have many failings, and their righteousness rests in the courage they show in wrestling with their nature to choose the good amid a predilection to do otherwise. Not one person in the Hebrew Bible is perfect. That and the Jewish emphasis of communal redemption over personal salvation — that what we do for others matters more than how personally virtuous we are — would have us acknowledge Martin Luther King as the greatest American of the 20th century despite his personal failings. No other American did more to restore this great nation to its founding ideals of the equality of all of G-d’s children than King.

Similarly, few men have done more to combat terrorism and save human life in our generation than Petraeus. As the author of America’s counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq and commander of the surge, he took a war being waged by terrorists that was claiming the lives of thousands of civilians, and humiliating the world’s foremost force for good in the world, the American military, and reversed the situation. As someone who proved that terrorism could be defeated when so many Americans had given up, he is owed a debt of gratitude by this and every other civilized nation.

Still, there are important lessons from the Petraeus tragedy.

The first is the admonition of the ancient Rabbis’ on the need for a certain alertness in even the everyday interactions between men and women, a notion that is scoffed at in modern society that wants to pretend men and women have melded into some sort of unisex gender. In an interview with Jon Stewart of The Daily Show this past January, Petraeus’ biographer and the woman he is alleged to have had the affair with, Paula Broadwell, said that the general had helped her in what she described as a mentoring relationship and that, given their shared passion for fitness, he took her running from time to time in Kabul.

“That was the foundation of our relationship. For him, I think it was a good distraction from the war.”

Now, take a soldier who is away from his wife for lengthy periods of time, put him around an adoring female fellow member of the military for long stretches, and you have a potential problem. The same seems to have allegedly been the case with Supreme Allied Commander Dwight Eisenhower and his British driver Kate Summersby during the Second World War. Men and women can, of course, be friends. But that presupposes they respect the natural attraction that adheres in most situations and safeguard against conditions that foster inappropriate intimacy. As the sage Hillel said, “Do not believe in yourself until the day you die.”

Then there is this: Having counseled many men who were unfaithful to their wives, I discovered that the principal reason men cheat is the desire to be desired, to feel special and extraordinary, to counter the effects of a broken ego and low self-esteem by feeling wanted, especially by an admiring woman. How would this apply in the case of someone like Petraeus who was so universally admired? I’m not sure, and it might not. But all the biography now appearing about the general says he has always been driven, always been highly ambitious, and more often than not, ambition is fueled by the need and desire to prove oneself. The New York Times reported that Petraeus wanted to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff but the Obama administration, afraid of a high profile rival, pushed him in the direction of the CIA posting, with the concomitant lower, more secretive profile that was out of the press limelight. The same New York Times says that the affair began in earnest after he had taken his new posting. Did he miss the public acclaim? Did he begin to feel somewhat overlooked amid the immense power of his lower-profile role? Again, this is all mere speculation.

But the lesson for the rest of us mere mortals is that if someone of such iron discipline as General Petraeus can err this big, we all need to be on our guard — men and women alike — to get ego boosts from those things which are wholesome, holy, and healthy, rather than what is harmful, however hot.

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, whom Newsweek and the Washington Post call “the most famous Rabbi in America,” is the international bestselling author of 29 books, and will shortly publish The Fed-up Man of Faith: Challenging G-d in the Face of Tragedy and Suffering.

It would be unfair to accuse Pinki Pramanik of rape, said genetic medicine expert Kaushik Mondol. (TOI Photo)

Medical experts on Tuesday questioned the police move to slap rape charges on Pinki Pramanik after the former Asian Games gold medallist was declared a male on the basis of a DNA test report.

Pinki’s medical report, they pointed out, says that the athlete suffers from Disorder of Sexual Development (DSD). A DSD patient, say experts, cannot be termed a male – despite an XY chromosome combination, as Pinki’s DNA report has confirmed-because such patients are incapable of performing a sexual act.

It would be unfair to accuse Pinki of rape, said genetic medicine expert Kaushik Mondol, a member of the medical panel investigating the case. “Even though the report says Pinki is chromosomally a male, it doesn’t conclude that Pinki is a man… it says the athlete suffers from DSD. DSD patients can’t be identified as men,” said Mondol, adding they were incapable of penetrative sex.

Gynaecologist Gautam Khastagir said, “Pinki probably has an underdeveloped phallus, an internal testis but doesn’t have a vagina or uterus. It makes Pinki a male pseudo-hermophrodite, not a man. Her aggression can be attributed to male hormones and her chromosome, but her sexual identity remains ambiguous.”

But the cops say Pinki had blood flow in certain tissues enabling her to have an erection. “It (report) says Pinki is not a female…it also indicates Pinki is capable of performing a male sexual act, even if partially… enough to make her capable of attempting rape. You need not penetrate a woman to rape her,” an investigating officer said. Pinki’s counsel said the report was just a medical opinion, not the final verdict.

Research shows women may be cheating now almost as much as men. What are the tolls of new temptations?

Some 60 years ago, Alfred Kinsey delivered a shock to mid century sexual sensibilities when he reported that at some point in their marriages, half of the men and a quarter of the women in the U.S. had an extramarital affair. No one puts much stock in Dr. Kinsey’s high numbers any more — his sampling methods suffered from a raging case of selection bias — but his results fit the long-standing assumption that men are much more likely to cheat than women.

Lately, however, researchers have been raising doubts about this view: They believe that the incidence of unfaithfulness among wives may be approaching that of husbands. The lasting costs of these betrayals will be familiar to the many Americans who have experienced divorce as spouses or children.

Among the most reliable studies on this issue is the General Social Survey, sponsored by the National Science Foundation, which has been asking Americans the same questions since 1972. In the 2010 survey, 19 percent of men said that they had been unfaithful at some point during their marriages, down from 21 percent in 1991. Women who reported having an affair increased from 11 percent in 1991 to 14 percent in 2010.

A 2011 study conducted by Indiana University, the Kinsey Institute and the University of Guelph found much less of a divide: 23 percent for men and 19 percent for women. Such numbers suggest the disappearance of the infidelity gender gap, but some caution is in order.

An enduring problem for researchers — even those who sample with meticulous care — is that any such survey is asking for confessions from people who are presumably lying to their spouses. Researchers generally believe that actual infidelity numbers are higher than the results indicate.

It should also be emphasized that cheating in the U.S. isn’t epidemic or inevitable, for either sex. Surveys consistently find that by far the majority of respondents value monogamy and think that infidelity is harmful. And if you believe the General Social Survey’s finding that 14 percent of women are cheating, keep in mind that 86 percent aren’t.

Still, even though survey accuracy is difficult to achieve and experts are by no means unanimous, it would appear that women are, indeed, catching up. In my own work as a psychologist and in my social circle, I see more women not only having affairs but actively seeking them out. Their reasons are familiar: validation of their attractiveness, emotional connection, appreciation, ego — not to mention the thrill of a shiny new relationship, unburdened by the long slog through the realities of coupledom.

Researchers also point to other factors that might be leading women to stray more. One is what might be called “infidelity overload.” Scan the plots on any given week in television, and there seems to be more extramarital sex than marital sex. (Few spouses stay put inMad Men.) With women portrayed as eager participants and aggressive instigators, there may be a feeling that infidelity has become more acceptable.

And then there is the opportunity factor — more travel, more late nights on the job and more interaction with men mean that the chances and temptations to stray have multiplied for the new generation of working women.

A 2011 study at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, published in the journal Psychological Science, argues that infidelity is also a function of greater economic and social power, which creates confidence and personal leverage for both genders. Women can now use their power in ways to which men have long been accustomed.

A broader cultural shift may also be at work. According to a Match.com study conducted earlier this year by the biological anthropologist Helen Fisher, women are becoming less traditional about relationships. Men, interestingly, may be going the other direction. In the survey, 77 percent of women in a committed relationship said they needed personal space, as opposed to 58 percent of men. While 35 percent of women wanted regular nights out with friends, only 23 percent of men said the same.

Social networks are another factor, if only by expanding the pool of possible partners. Emotional friendships that turn physical are the traditional point of entry for female affairs. It is now easy for those friendships to take root online. Some argue that social networks are merely an expediter and that cheaters will always find a way. Still, if you’ve never quite gotten over your prom date, today the chances are much better that you can find him.

Do women account for more of today’s affairs? Probably. But in a society that has been preaching, legislating and celebrating gender equality for decades, equality in marital misdeeds might be expected too.

Dr. Drexler is an assistant professor of psychology in psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College and author, most recently, of “Our Fathers, Ourselves: Daughters, Fathers and the Changing American Family.”

Okay, we have a little sex scandal brewing in Malaysia. This interesting episode is starring two Malaysians by the name of Vivian and Alvin who are apparently exposing their sex life on their tumblr blog. And interesting enough is the fact that they appear to be using their real names and are linking to their real Facebook pages. At first I thought someone was leaking the nude photos of this couple and impersonating them to maximize any embarrassment. But more and more it seems these two are happily sharing their sex life and it is not some other person who is behind the leaked photos and videos. Another thought was that Alvin was sharing Vivian’s naked photos and sex videos without her permission because of a falling out but this does not appear to be the case. Both Vivian and Alvin  are fully exposed on the blog and in the vids and pics without any attempt by Alvin to conceal his face. So this is a true sex blogging couple freely documenting their sexual encounters for pubic view of anyone willing to log on to the blog. Hopefully the added attention from being posted on the Gutter Uncensored won’t scare them away from their blogging. Here is the intro on their sex blog:Alvin and Vivian here. We love posting our sex life on the web for everyone to enjoy,read morehttp://clubdesexymind.blogspot.com/2012/11/alvin-and-vivian-first-sex-video-rape.html