Girls simultaneously shout "DUH!"

Orgasms: a real ‘turn-off’ for women

17:54 20 June 2005
NewScientist.com news service
Michael Le Page, Copenhagen

For women, it seems, sex is a big turn-off, reveals a brain scanning study. It shows that many areas of the brain switch off during the female orgasm - including those involved with emotion.

“At the moment of orgasm, women do not have any emotional feelings,” says Gert Holstege of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.

His team recruited 13 healthy heterosexual women and their partners. The women were asked to lie with their heads in a PET scanner while the team compared their brain activity in four states: simply resting, faking an orgasm, having their clitoris stimulated by their partner’s fingers, and clitoral stimulation to the point of orgasm.

The results of the study are striking. As the women were stimulated, activity rose in one sensory part of the brain, called the primary somatosensory cortex, but fell in the amygdala and hippocampus, areas involved in alertness and anxiety. During orgasm, activity fell in many more areas of the brain, including the prefrontal cortex, compared with the resting state, Holstege told a meeting of the European Society for Human Reproduction and Development in Copenhagen on Monday.

In one sense the findings appear to confirm what is already known, that women cannot enjoy sex unless they are relaxed and free from worries and distractions. "Fear and anxiety levels have to go down for orgasm. Everyone knows this but we can see it happening in the brain," he explains.

Extraordinary behaviour

From an evolutionary point of view, it could be that the brain switches off the emotions during sex because at such times the chance to produce offspring becomes more important than the survival risk to the individual. Holstege points to the extraordinary behaviour seen in some animals during the breeding season, such as March hares, when the urge to mate seems to override the usual fear of predators.

But Holstege cannot explain why there is such extreme deactivation in so many areas of the brain during orgasm. Only one small part of the brain, in the cerebellum, was more active during female orgasm. The cerebellum is normally associated with coordinating movement, though there is also some evidence that it helps regulate emotions. “We don’t know what activation of the cerebellum corresponds to,” Holstege admits.

His study also revealed clear differences when women were faking an orgasm. Part of the brain involved controlling conscious movement lit up, and there was none of the extreme deactivation.

Next the team hope to look at what happens to the brain in the minutes after orgasm, as well as in patients with sexual problems. The team has already done a similar study involving 11 men, which revealed far less deactivation during orgasm than in women. However, Holstege says the results are probably unreliable and need to be repeated. The problem is that PET scanners measure activity over two minutes - and in men it is all over in a few seconds.

About My Thesis Film...

I fucking PASSED, motherfuckers! Woot!

At some point I'll have it up on the internet for all to see. Unfortunately, it isn't this form of genius that was asked me by my friend Tom:

"so how did the film go? you didn't make a film about a film masters student showing her work to a hostile thesis advisor that happened to display negative personality traits just like your own did you? i guess that much fun should never be had at ones own expense."

No, but unfortunately, too, I'll have to make a number of tweaks and (slightly major) changes to make my thesis committee happy. I should be done with that in... oh... six more weeks or so.

What's She Building?

Everyday, people will write me to check in with the same question: "Hey, She... what have you been up to?"

Well, I'll tell ya. I've been working on audio design for my film and getting almost no sleep because of it.



I have just 11 hours left and I am in crunch mode, so what do I do? That's right. I stop to blog about... well... what I should really be doing instead of blogging.

I've also been severely congested for the last several weeks and think that I'm now getting very attached to Afrin Nasal spray. I love you Afrin. Breathing is the second best thing to having sex... the first best thing being sex, of course.

I'm not complaining about any of this, because I decided after my last whiny blog entry that I would try to look on the bright side more often. I may not have time to get to the grocery store, but that's okay as long as I have some kind of sustenance in the house.

So to end things on a positive note, let me add that I've basically been living off of Diet Coke and fried eggs for a while now, and the resulting 3-days of diarrhea has been fucking awesome! As a matter of fact, I'd go as far as to say that I'd happily recommend this weight loss technique to anyone else too busy or lazy to get their ass into the local gym. Feel the burn, people. Feel.The.Burn. Awesome, I tell ya!

Okay, I'm done reporting in now.
More sound, less chatter.

Miss Me?

You may have been wondering, like quite a few others, why there haven't been many posts from your She-Creature pal here, and you've been doing a very supportive job of emailing and cajoling me with gentle praise and flattery. I thank all of you for your support.

I've been dealing with a lot of work and bureaucratic bullshit the last week or so, basically having to do with my graduate thesis project. It's so boring that I will not go into the details here, other than the fact that I have a useless thesis advisor who I am beginning to believe is actually just jealous of my creativity. I was told a while back by another student that he has this problem, then another student told me that too, and yet stupid me kept him on as my advisor. Little did I know that he would be subtly (and not so subtly) undermining me all the way through.

To make a long story short, I have come very close to a breaking point and truly understand why some grad students suddenly go postal. Not that I will, mind you, but that doesn't stop the fantasies from playing in my head. Like this one, for instance:



That's enough of that. Hopefully all the BS will pass and I'll have my MA soon. Then I will be able to more regularly concentrate on the more important things in life. Like blogging.

Also, I was without an internet connection for a few days last week. Yes, sad but true. Wanna know why? Because Earthlink is a total scam, that's why. I decided one night last week to change local phone companies from Talk America to BellSouth to save about $8 a month. It was simple, I did it online and of course you keep your same phone number with no disruption in service.

On the day that I got the email from BellSouth stating my account was active with them, my DSL rather abruptly stopped working. I called Earthlink support and after 2 hours on the phone with the tech guys, they finally discover that someone put in a disconnect order with them. So they patched me through to the accounts people, where some other person (the 4th one in that call) looks into it and says that I ordered the disconnect.

"Um, no I didn't. I just signed up here a few months ago. I have a 1-year contract."

"Yes, you do. I see that," she tells me.

I explain that all I did was change phone carriers and then that starts another confused line of questioning.

"You switched from BellSouth to Talk America? No wonder you don't have a connection. We don't work with Talk America at all," she tells me.

"NO, I switched TO BellSouth... TO THEM. When it was working 2 hours ago, I was still with Talk America."

"That's impossible. Let me put you on hold for half of your life," she should have explained.

When she came back, she tells me this garbage about "reprovisioning the line" every time you change companies, and they have to pay the different phone company a fee, so they pass that fee onto the DSL consumer. She then matter of factly stated, "That will be a $50 disconnect and early contract termination fee, and a $99 reprovisioning fee to get your account reinstated with BellSouth. I can get your account back up and running in 2 to 3 days."

My voice went up 3 octaves and 10 decibels as I shouted, "WHAT?!?!?!?!"

I argued with her for an hour, she finally waived the $50 early disconnect fee, since she agreed that I was not technically terminating my contract, but she refused to waive any of the "reprovisioning" fee.

When the account was finally running, I had to get the tech guys to reconfigure my modem on the phone again, then call my router company and have them help me reconfigure that too... but not before Earthlink tried to convince me that my "old" router (3 months old, mind you) would not work with this system and that I should buy their wireless router for just another $149. Fuck you, Earthlink. That guy had the nerve to ask me at the end of the second 2-hour call, "Have you found this call to be helpful to you?" I shouted, "Hell no, not when I just wanted to save $8."

Just now I saw a commercial for Earthlink on tv, all these diverse, meltingpot Americans saying that they're Earthlink and they live to help their customers or some shit. Funny, but everytime I called and no matter how many times I was transferred to someone else, every single person on the other end of the phone was from India, but I didn't see a single Indian face in that Earthlink commercial. That made for some great language barriers too as I got angrier and angrier, but then wondered if I was just getting angry at some poor schlep who was going to go back to a hut and kick the neighborhood holy cow.

I don't want any hate mail, people. Of course I know that isn't the case. Oddly enough, they all had names like "Joe" and "Bob" and "Susan" and "Laura" and "Mike." That just made the frustration levels even more Outer Limits for me. Anyway, poop on you, Earthlink... for your scams and for your outsourcing.

Mother's Day morning was spent in a groggy hungover blur of wrangling the kids and my mom at 9:00 to "beat the crowds" at the local Golden Corral buffet.



The sign just screams "quality."


It was already packed, even at our ungodly early arrival time. YES, I said UNgodly, you damn early-riser, churchy types. We wound around in a snaking line of wonderful smells, like "old person," "too much perfume," "poopy diaper," and "not enough deodorant." And I think that was all coming from the one person in front of me.

The length of this line made me giddy for a moment thinking that perhaps Space Mountain or Splash Mountain was at the end, rather than the hastily prepared breakfast foods that still eerily smelled like lingering "old person," "too much perfume," "poopy diaper," and "not enough deodorant."

After filling to the brim with our fair share of grease-laden samples while crammed like sardines into the corner next to a window with broken mini-blinds and the morning sun blazing in on us, I now know what it feels like to live in a convection oven.

While some of the gang was helping themselves to ice cream and pastries, I noticed that my 9-year-old had barely touched his stack of bacon. He'd plowed through several sausage types and apparently just stopped and pushed it away... quite unlike him. Suddenly, he starts clutching his stomach and moans, "Oh, ow, ew, I'm gonna puke." I spout off "I've got him! We'll be at the car. Meet us when you're done."

I nervously ushered him out of the bustling maze of tables and old people to get just outside the doors for my son to make an urping, coughing, gagging"noise and hurl himself straight toward the awaiting line of newcomers. I shouted "OH NO YOU DON'T!" and grabbed his hand to run him to the vehicle, which was luckily around the back corner of the restaurant. I wasn't as worried about him puking on the queue as much as I was worried that his vomit would set of a chain-reaction in me, with my combination hangover and angry stomach lining.

We got to the back of the building and he leaned against a maple tree while he continued to moan and sputter and gag for another 15 or 20 minutes until my mother finally came out. Luckily nothing came out of either he nor I, though his antics made at least 2 couples change their minds about eating there. I saw them get out of their cars, look at him in horror and return to their cars with a "let's try somewhere else." After that, he and I had a heaping helping of TUMS for our dessert and we were both fine.

Then I took the kids to Target so my daughter could pick out 53 different Barbies that she wants for her birthday on the 25th. I didn't buy any, because we were really just killing time before the next running of HITCHHIKERS GUIDE TO THE GALAXY. I had already seen it opening night last week and immediately disliked it, but the kids' dorkiness doesn't fall far from the tree, so they insisted that I take them anyway. They seemed to like it at least. Thankfully there were no odd movie-going experiences to report. It all was pretty smooth this time.

I think I've run out of things to type, so I'll end here.

Goodnight, you princes of Maine... you kings of New England.

I don't know why I typed that.

Sexy Friday Night

What does a hott, sexxxy, sinnnnngle laydee like me do with a whole weekend to play?

Well, first she straps one on and then she begins to make noise and gyrate all over the house... doing it in every room, in fact... for FOUR HOURS STRAIGHT! I'm an animal, I tell ya!

And now you want photos, don't you, you dirty birdies? Okay, I'm not one to disappoint.

Here's my strap-on... ain't she a beaute?

And I really know how to push her buttons. Hottttt!

This pic just makes me ache...

...thinking about how her straps dig into my shoulders.

That's right, I dusted off the old accordion and totally went to town. We polka'd, we rock'd, we even samba'd a bit, I think.

Well, it sounded like a samba.

Taxation

I started doing my taxes at 11:30 PM.

I just finished at 3:30 AM, 4 hours later.

And to think, there once was a time when I loved doing this.

My other accomplishment today: I slept for 15 hours. Not straight... I slept from 9 PM to 1 AM on Friday night on the couch, then stayed up until 5 AM watching cartoons on TBS; then I slept for another 11 hours in my bed and woke up sometime after 4 PM Saturday afternoon.

I had good reason, I'd stayed up the whole night before shooting 3 reels of footage (3 - 40 min DVcam tapes, roughly 13 small 8MM reels on each) and fighting with 2 ornery projectors and losing several feet of footage to burning and other damage... funny how most of my filmmaking involves use of a screwdriver and tweezers to remove the broken celluloid from inside the projector housing.

So the 15 hours of sleep, when thought of in relation to my total lack of sleep the night before, actually equal a more normal amount of sleep that I almost never get: 7.5 hours per night. I just slammed it all together for a marathon, that's all. But now I feel completely disassociated from the rest of living civilization... more like a living zombie. And now that I've done my taxes, I feel disenfranchised as well. I'm also flat broke, but the state seems to think that I owe them $421. Ugh.

To end on a positive note, at least I'm regular.

My Dog Has Diarrhea

(...and Other Shitty Tales)

Today sucked. It just plain sucked.

Why? I'll TELL you WHY?!

1. Being woken up at 6:00 AM by hot dog breath after passing out on the couch at 4:30 AM and blearily walking to the back door to let the pack out, only to discover that we've all... all 6 of us, have trod through turds.

2. Still bleary-eyed at 6:01 AM and having to clean dog shit out of the pads of 5 sets of dog feet, as well as wiping off my own.

3. Getting in the shower and discovering that all shampoo bottles are empty and there are no more bars of soap in the house. "That's okay, I'll just pretend I'm French today."

4. Coasting in to the gas station on fumes and having to fill up the mammoth tank of my ridiculous minivan at the price of $2.49 per gallon. Total bill: $44.96

5. Driving downtown to a university "campus" that charges $5.00 or more in every nearby lot, even though my entire visit to said "campus" was 42 minutes long.

6. Coming home and deciding that since the afternoon is still young, I shall catch a flick at the local multiplex to destress. Getting popcorn and a frozen Coke and settling into a seat that is one row ahead of my favorite spot, because a pair of loud-talking (probably Doctor Who fanatic) freaks are already in my spot.

7. Having a hard time relaxing through film, because nerdboy behind me in my favorite seat keeps making sound effects every time someone gets punched or decapitated in this flick. (It was Sin City, so his number of "oohahs" and "zeeeeings" were countless).

8. Finally relaxing after the sound effects subside... 2/3rds of the way into the film.

9. Tensing up again after discovering that the sound effects were only being momentarily displaced by a whole different set of more subtle sounds: the nerd couple were making out. (Let me pause a moment and paint a picture for you using cinematic references: imagine "Doc" in Back to the Future making out with the mother from What's Eating Gilbert Grape? and then you will understand why I cannot get that image out of my head, even though I caught it out of the corner of my eye.)

10. Almost becoming completely unhinged upon realizing that there was some "heavy petting" going on based on the sounds and ...ahem... the smells. Yes, smells.

11. Lasting for a total of 11 minutes and ending with what sounded like a long, sucking wheeze, the sounds (and smells) subsided, only to be replaced by the gut punching sound effects again.

12. Racing out of the theater, not staying to watch the credits as film freaks like myself love to do, and getting to my vehicle in time to quell the nausea by "huffing" the hanging car freshener. (It's berry, in case you're wondering.)

13. Returning home after being away for 5 hours to let excited doggies out once again only to have them all stop short before traversing the 8 square feet covered in doggie doody between us and the back door. (Guess they didn't enjoy having their feet washed this morning by a grumpy, myopic bitch.)

14. Herding them around the mess in the mere square inches of un-shat-upon flooring and spend the next hour cleaning up. (By this time, I'd figured out who the sicko was.)

15. Locking up sick fido, letting others have free range.

16. Spending the next 7 hours cleaning up liquid mess from the cage and feet of the sicko.

17. Realizing that the whole house smells like ass... which is only slightly less repulsive than what wafted my way in the theater earlier today.

18. Being too terrified to go to sleep now even though it's 2:00 AM, for fear that the image of those *shudder* two will permeate my dreams in some fucked up way... like suddenly I find myself sandwiched in a menage a trois with them.

I could go on, I'm sure, but I think I grossed everyone out enough for one day.