Prospects and the American Female

I find it amusing that women feel they have such power in choice - to choose X or Y as their partner.  To choose Dave or Steve or Juan or Mark or ... It got me to thinking.

There are about 301 million Americans.
About 49% are male.

About 28% are under 20. 

Approximately 2.5% are gay
About 20% are over 55
About 1% are psychopaths
About 5% are sociopaths
About 2% are bipolar and not taking medications
About 3% are pedophiles
and between 45-50% are married or in relationships.  Probably take 47% just as average.

Of those left - approximately 28,141,000, there are other deductions

Everyone has something they are not interested in.
30% are extremely overweight.  I will assume they would get set aside, mostly.

Let's just reduce the number by that much.  That leaves approximately 20 million.


About 75% are white, 25% are not white.

Take 20 million and select the percentage, if you have a preference.

Then take height.  You want short or tall.  Male average height is 5' 10".  50% taller and 50% shorter.  You can figure the number.

Then 32% of males 18-34, still live at home.  I think that should be an indicator, but not a disqualifier, unless they are toward the top of that number and not saving money to buy their own home.

Also, about 23% of men over the age of 25 have never been married and have little desire (as stated in the polling/surveys done).

Men are also getting married at an older age:  The median age at first marriage is now 27 for women and 29 for men, up from 20 for women and 23 for men in 1960.

And what about those who don't want to get married (81% of young males). 

And why should they in a culture where men are bad, men are the problem, men can't do anything right.  Where television and media portray men as weak or mindless ... why get married.  So you are locked into abuse being told how to dress, eat, walk ...

And why get into a relationship when a guy can get everything he wants without that and women are more than accomodating.



Of the number remaining who may still be interested, what percent have too much baggage for you ... maybe a child or children especially with more than one other female, have been married 2-3 times, have no ability to commit to anything more than the next meal, have mother issues, cannot seem to finish anything they start, have been in two dozen relationships and believe they learned things every time (honestly, there is NOT that much to learn which raises questions about that guy - perhaps he forgot some of the early stuff by the time he got to the end, or he was enjoying himself too much), have never been in a relationship ever (probably hovers been 2-4% of all guys - and while some of these may look fine, they are severely handicapped) ...  Maybe you don't have an interest in getting with a guy who is bi either so knock off another 2%.

STDs: There were 1.5 million chlamydia cases in 2015 — the last year that numbers were available — a 6 percent increase from the year before, and about 400,000 infections of gonorrhea, or a 13 percent rise, according to a report by the federal CDC. 
But syphilis cases increased to levels unseen since the mid-1990s. There were nearly 24,000 cases of primary and secondary syphilis cases last year, a 19 percent hike compared with 2014.


Once you have sorted through all that ... 

Maybe disqualify the cheaters:  78 percent of the men .. interviewed had cheated on their current partner, only a handful said they cheated because they were near the end of their emotional relationships. And women may respond to similar pressures: According to a 1999 study in the Journal of Social and Personal Relationships, 68 percent of female undergraduates also cheat. (Whether they cheat for sexual or emotional reasons remains unclear.)

Once you disqualify the qualities you don't want (not that you can tell who will cheat on you) ... then

... assume 10% of the country lives in California, so take 10% of that number if you live in California and do the same for the rest of the country and ... you have a very very small chance  :(  of finding that perfect guy.

Then assume there are the guys who date women with a kid, because they are easy.  It isn't to demean anyone, but women with a child probably work a lot, take care of their child, and are generally tired.  A 20 year old female is trailed by a pack of dogs all eager.  The single mother is busy and tired and some guys find this an easier stable to work from, which further diminishes the prospects because these guys have near 0 percent interest in long term - they want 1-2 or 3 women for sex, and no real effort.  That guy has to be removed from the options list which leaves women with fewer prospects.  Also have to remember to remove the approximate 5% who are involved in non-monogamous relationships, unless you are in to that!

And then the dating sites ... ha.  Like they tell the truth.  I've had friends who write/say all the things necessary.  They can carry it off for 2-3 weeks, until they tire of the female, and move on.  By then the female is caught up and confused and then feeling used and angry.

And the final qualifier - maybe you want the guy who has some education.  About 45% of students in college today are male.  Not that being educated should disqualify anyone, but .... if the female has an education she more likely than not wants someone her equal, lest she .... not find intellectual stimulation in her guy.

And then, what about the guy who is really put together.  He has the education, career, home, money, car, looks ... and you have some baggage, maybe a few fries short of a happy meal??  Maybe you have some issues a guy who is mentally healthy won't stick around for ...

There are always better, but maybe better isn't better, and better won't make you happier.  If you have a guy who is ok ... don't mess it up by taking advantage of him (same for him), because at some point he will not put up with the rubbish and will move on and you have the odds stacked against you.



So maybe ... just in California there are X number of thousand guys who are reasonably decent - assuming none are just out for the one off.  There are about 15 million females (not all old enough to date or perhaps too old but still ...).  Our population is over 35 million.

What are the odds?  I suppose you could try a male from somewhere else ... good-luck with that.



Now, the guy -
We have no standards.
There are about 108,000,000 females over the age of 18 in the US.
Doesn't matter if they are mad, bi-polar, as intellectual as a brick ... many guys are not looking for more ... So many to choose from.


(ok, well, the psychopaths are not the best to get with)

Cucumbers too sexy! What about melons?

Muslim Cleric's Warning: Cucumbers Too Sexy for Women

Published December 08, 2011

 FoxNews.com

An Islamic cleric living in Europe reportedly has warned Muslim women not to get too close to bananas, cucumbers or other produce -- to avoid having “sexual thoughts.”

The unnamed cleric, whose directive was featured in an article in el-Senousa, a religious publication, purportedly said that if women wanted to eat these foods, a third party -- preferably a male related to them, such as their father or husband -- should cut the items into small pieces before serving, the Egyptian website Bikya Masr reported.

Carrots and zucchini also were added to the alleged cleric's list of forbidden foods for women.

News of the statement quickly spread online, leaving many liberal Muslims embarrassed and angry, evoking a flurry of mockery in online forums.

"Many of the commentators are Muslims themselves, who have expressed their anger against the cleric for making Islamic religious practices appear unreasonable," The International Business Times reported.

BikyaMasr.com said the cleric, identified only as a sheikh, was asked in the interview how to “control” women when they are shopping for groceries, and whether holding these items at the market would be bad, to which he replied that the matter was between them and God.

Questions also arose about the validity of the original published interview. An online search for the el-Senousa article, for instance, yields only results linking to the Bikya Masr report.

But the mere suggestion of a strict order for Muslim women handling food has been enough to send people to website forums and Twitter to air their indignation.

Danish/Lebanese journalist Helen Hajjij tweeted on Wednesday: “So if Muslim women should stay away from cucumbers and bananas, should men stay away from melons?”

islam

Condoms With Teeth Fight Rape In South Africa

By Kat Hannaford
Jun 22, 2010

Over 30,000 Rape-Axe condoms are being handed out free at South Africa's World Cup. While they won't stop rape, the condoms (worn by women) have jagged-teeth inside to tear penises up, and can only be removed by doctors.

Sounds grim, but then I imagine rape isn't any fun for the woman either. The inventor, Dr Sonnet Ehlers, was inspired to create the painful condom after she met a woman who'd been raped. The woman apparently told Ehlers "if only I had teeth down there," which encouraged her to look at ways to make men regret their actions.

Women fearful of being raped can insert the Rape-Axe condom inside themselves like a diaphragm or tampon. If her worst fears come true, and a man attempts to rape her, the Rape-Axe's inside hooks attach themselves to the penis and don't come off, instead getting even tighter and stopping the man from being able to urinate. The only way to remove it is by seeing a doctor—which will obviously help with prosecution.

After the World Cup, Ehlers will be selling the Rape-Axe condoms for $2 each. [Rape-Axe via Jezebel]











rape

Saudi Cleric Claims Allowing Ladies To Drive Will Lead To End of Virgins

By Erin Gloria Ryan
Dec 2, 2011

A Saudi Arabian cleric has warned his fellow countrymen against lifting the country's ban on allowing women to drive, asserting that letting ladies take the wheel will lead to a complete extinction of virgins within 10 years. Because everyone knows that ladies will only use their newfound freedom to cars to drive directly to a dick.
Bikya Masr reports that clerics from the Majlis al-Ifta al-Aala council, the highest religious council in the Kingdom of Saud, have rejected the idea of women driving on the grounds that it will endanger the morality of the entire country. A statement issued by the council states that lady drivers would lead to an upsurge in prostitution, pornography, homosexuality, and divorce in addition to the imminent decline in collective hymen integrity. In other words, all ladyroads in Saudi Arabia lead to genitals, or pictures of genitals. That's just the way it is.
The council was responding to a recent push from some Saudi activists to lift the ban, which opponents say endangers women who may need to drive themselves or an ailing family member to the hospital, or themselves to a job. The push to allow women to drive was emboldened by a widely ridiculed fatwa issued in 2010 that suggested women feed their breast milk to adult men who are not family members in order to promote bonding.
Saudi women are already required to wear long, loose fitting garments and cover their hair. Due to an unfortunate husband hand stabbing incident last month, they may soon have to cover their eyes, lest they tempt the men with their eyefucking.
Continuing to uphold the ban on women driving is based on well-founded logic, considering that in places where women are allowed to drive— every single other country in the world, for example— there are no virgins. Even the babies are whores.







Saudsi

Spiky Penis?

Who would have thought.



From:  FOCUS MAGAZINE

Issue 229, June 2011
Section:  ROUND UP
Genetics



Spiky Penis mystery solved



Researchers at Stanford University in California think they’ve identified how humans lost the spikes our ancestors had on their penises. It’s thought the loss of a particular bit of DNA that controls a hormone gene is likely to be behind the change. It was believed the spines were used to remove the sperm of competitors who had mated with a female. It’s thought that the loss would have reflected a more monogamous reproductive strategy.














sex

Divorce - Say it three times and you won't be at home

e-Divorces are a quarter of all marriage annulments in Dubai


Experts differ on legitimacy of divorce by e-mail or SMS



Staff Published
Sunday, July 03, 2011

Dubai recorded 555 divorce cases among its Muslim population in 2010 and 150 of them were done by e-mail of mobile phone text messages.

While some experts consider a divorce through such means is legal, others believe it is not legitimate or final under Islamic law on the grounds spouses could fake such a divorce for some reasons.

Under Islamic law, a Muslim man can divorce his wife by just saying “your are divorced” three times but a woman cannot do the same.

“Dubai had 555 divorce cases in 2010, including 150 divorces through electronic means such as mobile phone texts,” the Arabic language daily 'Emarat Al Youm' said, citing figures by the Dubai family consultative council.

It quoted Mohammed Abdul Rahman, head of the personal affairs division at Dubai’s courts, as saying e-divorces are legal but must be proved at court.

“The wife files a divorce case at court after she receives the divorce message while the court has to verify this by asking the husband,” he said.

But the paper quoted Dubai-based lawyer Rashid Tahluk as saying divorces by e-mail or mobile phone text should not be considered as final.

“Marriage is usually carried out by an Islamic contract and Maazoun (authorised person) and this means divorce should be carried out in the same way….I believe a divorce by e-mail or mobile text is doubtful and not a real divorce.”

Tahluk said a husband could deny that he had sent a mobile phone text divorcing his wife, adding that the court must not base its judgment on forensic results.

“The police laboratory can not prove that the husband himself pressed the button and sent a divorce text to his wife…it could his wife or a second or a third wife who sends a divorce text…e-mails also can be easily hacked and penetrated.”

The paper quoted another lawyer as saying he believes an e-divorce is enough for a husband to divorce his wife.

“In case a husband sends a message to his wife saying ‘you are divorced’ then these are clear and straight words that the man has divorced his wife…in such a case, the divorce is done and the court should support it.”














Islamic

Abortion v Females: Abortion Wins

The War Against Girls




Wall Street Journal
Johnathan Last
June 18, 2011
Book Review



Since the late 1970s, 163 million female babies have been aborted by parents seeking sons


Mara Hvistendahl is worried about girls. Not in any political, moral or cultural sense but as an existential matter. She is right to be. In China, India and numerous other countries (both developing and developed), there are many more men than women, the result of systematic campaigns against baby girls. In "Unnatural Selection," Ms. Hvistendahl reports on this gender imbalance: what it is, how it came to be and what it means for the future.

In nature, 105 boys are born for every 100 girls. This ratio is biologically ironclad. Between 104 and 106 is the normal range, and that's as far as the natural window goes. Any other number is the result of unnatural events.

Yet today in India there are 112 boys born for every 100 girls. In China, the number is 121—though plenty of Chinese towns are over the 150 mark. China's and India's populations are mammoth enough that their outlying sex ratios have skewed the global average to a biologically impossible 107. But the imbalance is not only in Asia. Azerbaijan stands at 115, Georgia at 118 and Armenia at 120.

What is causing the skewed ratio: abortion. If the male number in the sex ratio is above 106, it means that couples are having abortions when they find out the mother is carrying a girl. By Ms. Hvistendahl's counting, there have been so many sex-selective abortions in the past three decades that 163 million girls, who by biological averages should have been born, are missing from the world. Moral horror aside, this is likely to be of very large consequence.

.In the mid-1970s, amniocentesis, which reveals the sex of a baby in utero, became available in developing countries. Originally meant to test for fetal abnormalities, by the 1980s it was known as the "sex test" in India and other places where parents put a premium on sons. When amnio was replaced by the cheaper and less invasive ultrasound, it meant that most couples who wanted a baby boy could know ahead of time if they were going to have one and, if they were not, do something about it. "Better 500 rupees now than 5,000 later," reads one ad put out by an Indian clinic, a reference to the price of a sex test versus the cost of a dowry.

But oddly enough, Ms. Hvistendahl notes, it is usually a country's rich, not its poor, who lead the way in choosing against girls. "Sex selection typically starts with the urban, well-educated stratum of society," she writes. "Elites are the first to gain access to a new technology, whether MRI scanners, smart phones—or ultrasound machines." The behavior of elites then filters down until it becomes part of the broader culture. Even more unexpectedly, the decision to abort baby girls is usually made by women—either by the mother or, sometimes, the mother-in-law.

If you peer hard enough at the data, you can actually see parents demanding boys. Take South Korea. In 1989, the sex ratio for first births there was 104 boys for every 100 girls—perfectly normal. But couples who had a girl became increasingly desperate to acquire a boy. For second births, the male number climbed to 113; for third, to 185. Among fourth-born children, it was a mind-boggling 209. Even more alarming is that people maintain their cultural assumptions even in the diaspora; research shows a similar birth-preference pattern among couples of Chinese, Indian and Korean descent right here in America.

.Ms. Hvistendahl argues that such imbalances are portents of Very Bad Things to come. "Historically, societies in which men substantially outnumber women are not nice places to live," she writes. "Often they are unstable. Sometimes they are violent." As examples she notes that high sex ratios were at play as far back as the fourth century B.C. in Athens—a particularly bloody time in Greek history—and during China's Taiping Rebellion in the mid-19th century. (Both eras featured widespread female infanticide.) She also notes that the dearth of women along the frontier in the American West probably had a lot to do with its being wild. In 1870, for instance, the sex ratio west of the Mississippi was 125 to 100. In California it was 166 to 100. In Nevada it was 320. In western Kansas, it was 768.

There is indeed compelling evidence of a link between sex ratios and violence. High sex ratios mean that a society is going to have "surplus men"—that is, men with no hope of marrying because there are not enough women. Such men accumulate in the lower classes, where risks of violence are already elevated. And unmarried men with limited incomes tend to make trouble. In Chinese provinces where the sex ratio has spiked, a crime wave has followed. Today in India, the best predictor of violence and crime for any given area is not income but sex ratio.

A high level of male births has other, far-reaching, effects. It becomes harder to secure a bride, and men can find themselves buying or bidding for them. This, Ms. Hvistendahl notes, contributes to China's astronomical household savings rate; parents know they must save up in order to secure brides for their sons. (An ironic reflection of the Indian ad campaigns suggesting parents save money by aborting girls.) This savings rate, in turn, drives the Chinese demand for U.S. Treasury bills.

And to beat the "marriage squeeze" caused by skewed sex ratios, men in wealthier imbalanced countries poach women from poorer ones. Ms. Hvistendahl reports from Vietnam, where the mail-order-bride business is booming thanks to the demand for women in China. Prostitution booms, too—and not the sex-positive kind that Western feminists are so fond of.

The economist Gary Becker has noted that when women become scarce, their value increases, and he sees this as a positive development. But as Ms. Hvistendahl demonstrates, "this assessment is true only in the crudest sense." A 17-year-old girl in a developing country is in no position to capture her own value. Instead, a young woman may well become chattel, providing income either for their families or for pimps. As Columbia economics professor Lena Edlund observes: "The greatest danger associated with prenatal sex determination is the propagation of a female underclass," that a small but still significant group of the world's women will end up being stolen or sold from their homes and forced into prostitution or marriage.

All of this may sound dry, but Ms. Hvistendahl is a first-rate reporter and has filled "Unnatural Selection" with gripping details. She has interviewed demographers and doctors from Paris to Mumbai. She spends a devastating chapter talking with Paul Ehrlich, the man who mainstreamed overpopulation hysteria in 1968 with "The Population Bomb"—and who still seems to think that getting rid of girls is a capital idea (in part because it will keep families from having more and more children until they get a boy). In another chapter she speaks with Geert Jan Olsder, an obscure Dutch mathematician who, by an accident of history, contributed to the formation of China's "One Child" policy when he met a Chinese scientist in 1975. Later she visits the Nanjing headquarters of the "Patriot Club," an organization of Chinese surplus men who plot war games and play at mock combat.

Ms. Hvistendahl also dredges up plenty of unpleasant documents from Western actors like the Ford Foundation, the United Nations and Planned Parenthood, showing how they pushed sex-selective abortion as a means of controlling population growth. In 1976, for instance, the medical director of the International Planned Parenthood Federation, Malcom Potts, wrote that, when it came to developing nations, abortion was even better than birth control: "Early abortion is safe, effective, cheap and potentially the easiest method to administer."

The following year another Planned Parenthood official celebrated China's coercive methods of family planning, noting that "persuasion and motivation [are] very effective in a society in which social sanctions can be applied against those who fail to cooperate in the construction of the socialist state." As early as 1969, the Population Council's Sheldon Segal was publicly proclaiming the benefits of sex-selective abortion as a means of combating the "population bomb" in the East. Overall Ms. Hvistendahl paints a detailed picture of Western Malthusians pushing a set of terrible policy prescriptions in an effort to road-test solutions to a problem that never actually manifested itself.

There is so much to recommend in "Unnatural Selection" that it's sad to report that Ms. Hvistendahl often displays an unbecoming political provincialism. She begins the book with an approving quote about gender equality from Mao Zedong and carries right along from there. Her desire to fault the West is so ingrained that she criticizes the British Empire's efforts to stamp out the practice of killing newborn girls in India because "they did so paternalistically, as tyrannical fathers." She says that the reason surplus men in the American West didn't take Native American women as brides was that "their particular Anglo-Saxon breed of racism precluded intermixing." (Through most of human history distinct racial and ethnic groups have only reluctantly intermarried; that she attributes this reluctance to a specific breed of "racism" says less about the American past than about her own biases.) When she writes that a certain idea dates "all the way back to the West's predominant creation myth," she means the Bible.

Ms. Hvistendahl is particularly worried that the "right wing" or the "Christian right"—as she labels those whose politics differ from her own—will use sex-selective abortion as part of a wider war on abortion itself. She believes that something must be done about the purposeful aborting of female babies or it could lead to "feminists' worst nightmare: a ban on all abortions."

It is telling that Ms. Hvistendahl identifies a ban on abortion—and not the killing of tens of millions of unborn girls—as the "worst nightmare" of feminism. Even though 163 million girls have been denied life solely because of their gender, she can't help seeing the problem through the lens of an American political issue. Yet, while she is not willing to say that something has gone terribly wrong with the pro-abortion movement, she does recognize that two ideas are coming into conflict: "After decades of fighting for a woman's right to choose the outcome of her own pregnancy, it is difficult to turn around and point out that women are abusing that right."

Late in "Unnatural Selection," Ms. Hvistendahl makes some suggestions as to how such "abuse" might be curbed without infringing on a woman's right to have an abortion. In attempting to serve these two diametrically opposed ideas, she proposes banning the common practice of revealing the sex of a baby to parents during ultrasound testing. And not just ban it, but have rigorous government enforcement, which would include nationwide sting operations designed to send doctors and ultrasound techs and nurses who reveal the sex of babies to jail. Beyond the police surveillance of obstetrics facilities, doctors would be required to "investigate women carrying female fetuses more thoroughly" when they request abortions, in order to ensure that their motives are not illegal.

Such a regime borders on the absurd. It is neither feasible nor tolerable—nor efficacious: Sex determination has been against the law in both China and India for years, to no effect. I suspect that Ms. Hvistendahl's counter-argument would be that China and India do not enforce their laws rigorously enough.

Despite the author's intentions, "Unnatural Selection" might be one of the most consequential books ever written in the campaign against abortion. It is aimed, like a heat-seeking missile, against the entire intellectual framework of "choice." For if "choice" is the moral imperative guiding abortion, then there is no way to take a stand against "gendercide." Aborting a baby because she is a girl is no different from aborting a baby because she has Down syndrome or because the mother's "mental health" requires it. Choice is choice. One Indian abortionist tells Ms. Hvistendahl: "I have patients who come and say 'I want to abort because if this baby is born it will be a Gemini, but I want a Libra.' "

This is where choice leads. This is where choice has already led. Ms. Hvistendahl may wish the matter otherwise, but there are only two alternatives: Restrict abortion or accept the slaughter of millions of baby girls and the calamities that are likely to come with it.



 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
abortion

Frisky

Early humans were likely to have been more competitive and promiscuous than we are today.

That's the conclusion of a study that looked at the fossilised finger bones of extinct apes and hominins - extinct members of the human lineage.

The study showed they were exposed to higher levels of androgen hormones in the womb.



Focus magazine, January 2011, p. 22


Exactly what that means I am unsure, but I believe the scientists.

Breaking Up is Hard to Do: Except on Spring Break and Christmas

According to Facebook, the most common times for relationships to end are during the spring break and at Christmas.

Focus Magazine, January 2011.

According to a couple findings of a study on Facebook by Data visualiser David McCandless in a search of over 10,000 status updates - the most common times when the updates were changed from relationship to single was during spring break and at Christmas.


1) Spring Break
2) Christmas: 2 weeks before winter holidays through 26th of December.
3) April Fools Day
4) Valentines Day














relationship

India: Not All Cultures are Worth Keeping

Curse of the Gujjar marriage

Oct 21, 2010, 12.01am IST
The Times of India


DHARWAD: In the marriage mandis of North Karnataka and Uttara Kannada, agents rule the roost, striking bargains with parents and selling innocence for hard cash. Here, women are a commodity and their price is fixed, depending on age and beauty.



It is called a Gujjar marriage, and is the first link to the booming trafficking racket in Gujarat, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. The victims are impoverished lower caste women, for who the marriage becomes the path to a brothel in Mumbai or North India.



Police say they are aware of this problem, but are unable to act because they receive no complaints and no complainants have come forward so far. Only human rights and NGO activists alert people to the issue.



Widely known as `Gujjar marriages' (also `Gurjara maduve' -- the word Gujjar here is not intended to refer to any community, but a practice, tradition and style of marriage) across North Karnataka and Uttara Kannada districts, impoverished girls, deserted women, widows and single women from lower castes are sold under the guise of marriage.



SHEETAL RETURNS HOME



Sheethal (name changed), 31, has just returned from Mumbai to her home in Bedasgaun in Mundgod in Karwar district. Belonging to a scheduled caste, she was sold to a 40-year-old man in Maharashtra in June 2009, she returned home two weeks ago after her husband deserted her.



Isabella S Xavier, founder member of Sadhana, women and children welfare society and District Human Rights Centre, Dharwad, said: " Gujjar marriage is just a `one-night' ceremony. The men, who hail from Gujarat or Rajasthan or UP, pay a certain amount to the girl's parents and get married overnight. The men bear all the expenses, including buying jewels for the bride. The next day, they take the girl away."



Pankaja K Kalmath, executive director and founder trustee of KIDS (Karnataka Integrated Development) Dharwad added: "In Gujjar marriages, only the bride's parents are present and none of the bride's relatives are invited. After that, no one is aware as to what happens to them."



Recalling her traumatic experience, Sheethal said: "I was cheated by a man in my village when I was 27 years old. I was three months pregnant. He promised to marry me only if I aborted the child. My family members took money from him and got my child aborted. He refused to marry me and absconded."



Promising to get her married off, her mother took her to Maharashtra. "In June 2009, my mother and an agent from Malagi village in Mundgod took me to Maharashtra. I don't know the name of the place, but I do remember that it was beyond Mumbai. I was married off without any expenses. My in-laws managed everything and gave a lot of jewels, which they claimed to be gold. Later, I was taken to a house where their mannerisms were taught for a month. There was a girl from Karnataka who taught me how to behave and work. My husband owns a provision store in Nasik," she said.



She added that the jewels she was given were all fake gold. "They lied to me saying the jewels were gold and silver," she said. However, she refused to reveal the name of her husband.



INJECTIONS AND ILL-HEALTH



Sheethal recounted that her husband used to give her a lot of tablets and injections. "They made me feel giddy and my health deteriorated slowly. I was unable to recover because of which my husband left me in his friend's house in another village. He said he would take me home after I recover. But he never returned. Even after making several calls, he refused to take me back, stating that I was very weak. I couldn't stay in his friend's house. Later, I went to Mumbai," she said.



Unaware that she was sold to him, she said: "I have seen many girls from my village who were married off like me. Their families were paid huge amounts, with which they bought lorries, and a few also built houses. I wanted to know how much my mother was paid. I kept asking her but she refused to tell me."



Deserted by her husband, she took shelter in Mumbai. "In Mumbai, there are many girls from my village who are deserted by their husbands. With their help, I started working in a shop. I make woollen hair bands and stay in the shop owner's house. He takes good care of me. I do all the household work and then work outside. I get Rs 2,000 per month. But my health condition worsened and my owner sent me home for a month," she said.



Her return to the village has only alerted the agents around. "One agent from a neighbouring village is constantly pestering me to get married. He said he would arrange another wedding if I give my consent. My family members want me to move out of the house as fast as possible fearing societal pressure. But I am not ready for another marriage," she said.



However, she believes that some day her husband will take her home. "I will once again try to call my husband and convince him to take me home. Otherwise, I have to find a job," she rues.



There are also women who refuse to go back to their husbands. Chandrakala (name changed) came to her village in Kyasankere in Mundgod for delivery. "She refused to go back home fearing physical harassment. She was married off four years ago at the age of 16 to a person in Pune. We don't know how much her parents were paid. But when she came for delivery, she complained that she was harassed every day. It has been one-and-half years since she came to the village," Renuka F Bhovi of Kyasankere village said.



Why are they termed `Gujjar marriages'?



Explaining the genesis of the name, Pankaja said many men come from Gujarat. "People started calling it `Gujjar marriages'. Though women are sold to men from Maharashtra and Rajasthan, this practice is known as Gujjar marriage," she said.















 
 
 
 
india

Marriage

Perhaps Judge Walker and or the WSJ writer of the previous article should peruse these random marriage facts -



63 Interesting Facts About . . .


Marriage

1.The term “marriage” derives from the Latin word mas meaning “male” or “masculine.” The earliest known use of the word in English dates from the thirteenth century.a

2.Due to jobs, kids, TV, the Internet, hobbies, and home and family responsibilities, the average married couple spends just four minutes a day alone together.g

3.The Talmud is very strict about banning extramarital sex—but also enforcing marital sex. The Talmud even lays out a timetable for how often husbands should “rejoice” their wives. For men of independent means, every day; for laborers, twice a week; for ass-drivers, once a week; for camel-drivers, once in 30 days; and for sailors, once in six months.e

4.Over 75% of people who marry partners from an affair eventually divorce.h

5.The Oneida colony established in New York in 1848 advocated “complex” or group marriage in which every woman was married to every man. They also practiced “scientific breeding” where parents where matched by a committee according to physical and mental health.e

6.Traditionally, bridesmaids would be dressed in similar bride-like gowns to confuse rival suitors, evil spirits, and robbers.b

7.Marrying younger than age 25 dramatically raises the divorce risk. Also, the divorce risk is higher when the woman is much older than the man, though the reverse isn’t as a strong factor.l

On average, married couples have sex 58 times per year

8.The average married couple has sex 58 times per year, or slightly more than once a week.g

9.At Italian weddings, it is not unusual for both the bride and groom to break a glass. The number of shards will be equal to the number of happy years the couple will have.b

10.The word “wife” is likely from the Proto-Indo-European root weip (“to turn, twist, wrap”) or ghwibh, which has a root meaning “shame” or “pudenda.”o

11.The word “husband” is from the Old Norse husbondi or “master of the house” (literally, hus “house” + bondi “householder, dweller”).i

12.Some scholars trace the word “bride” to the Proto-Indo-European root bru, “to cook, brew, make broth.”b

13.The term “groom” is from the Old English guma, meaning “man.”f

14.In three states—Arkansas, Utah, and Oklahoma—women tend to marry younger, at an average age of 24. Men’s average age is 26. In the northeastern states of New York, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts, men and women wait about four years longer to marry. The U.S. average age for women is 25.6 and for men, 27.7.n

15.A person’s level of education influences the age at which they marry. Couples tend to marry later in states with higher numbers of college-educated adults, while the opposite is true for states with lower education levels.n

16.Nevada, Maine, and Oklahoma have the highest percentage of divorced adults. Arkansas and Oklahoma have the highest rates of people who have been married at least three times.n

17.The probability of a first marriage ending in a divorce within 5 years is 20%, but the probability of a premarital cohabitation breaking up within 5 years is 49%. After 10 years, the probability of a first marriage ending is 33%, compared with 62% for cohabitations.g

18.Hammurabi’s Code (ca. 1790 B.C.), an ancient Babylonian law code, contains some of the oldest known and recorded marriage laws. These early laws defined marriage as a contract that paradoxically served to protect women and restrict them. According to the Code, a man could divorce his wife if she could not bear children or of she was a “gadabout” who humiliated her husband in public and neglected her house. Additionally, she could be “pitched” in a river if she committed adultery.g

19.Washington, D.C., has the lowest marriage rate in the nation.c

20.Approximately $6 billion in revenue is lost by American businesses as a result of decreased worker productivity linked to marriage hardship. Employees in a happy marriage, in contrast, tend to increase a company’s bottom line.g

The Great Recession has been one of the greatest strains on marriage in decades

21.CNN reports that the current economy is the biggest stress on married couples in the past 60 years.j

22.A New Woman’s Day and AOL Living poll found that 72% of women surveyed have considered leaving their husbands at some point.g

23.Married couples tend to have fatter waistlines, which can lead to a decrease in sexual attraction and general health. Additionally, a spouse’s chances of becoming obese increase by 37% if his or her partner is obese.g

24.A 2008 study found that marital satisfaction improves once children leave home. However, if marital problems existed before, an empty nest often reveals those otherwise masked issues.g

25.People whose marriage has broken down at the time they are diagnosed with cancer do not live as long as cancer patients who are widowed, have strong marriages, or who have never been married.k

26.In ancient Greece, Solon (638-538 B.C.) once contemplated making marriage compulsory, and in Athens under Pericles (495-429 B.C.), bachelors were excluded from certain public positions. In Sparta, single and childless men were treated with scorn. In ancient Rome, Augustus (63 B.C.-A.D. 14) passed drastic laws compelling people to marry and penalized those who remained single.m

27.A marriage ceremony typically ends with a kiss because in ancient Rome, a kiss was a legal bond that sealed contracts, and marriage was seen as a contract.b

28.Adults who are childhood cancer survivors are 20-25% less likely to marry compared with their siblings and the general American population.k

29.Stress associated with divorce affects the body’s immune system and its ability to fend off the disease. The health benefits of remarriage are reduced the second and third times around.g

30.Throughout most of history, marriage was not necessarily based on mutual love, but an institution devoted to acquiring in-laws and property and to provide the family additional labor forces (by having children).e

31.A white New Orleans man in the late nineteenth century transfused himself with blood from a black woman he loved so he could overcome anti-discrimination laws by claiming he was black and marry her.n

32.One nineteenth-century New York legislator insisted that letting married women own their own property attacked both God and Nature.

33.Just two years after marriage, an estimated 20% of couples make love fewer than 10 times in a year.g

34.One in three American marriages is “low sex” or “no sex.”g

35.The number of marriage therapists in the United States has increased 50-fold between 1970 and 1990.g

36.In the United States, over 50% of first marriages end in divorce, 67% of second marriages end in divorce, and nearly 74% of third marriages end in divorce.g

37.Marriage does more to promote life satisfaction than money, sex, or even children, say Wake Forest University psychologists.g

38.Compared to singles, married people accumulate about four times more savings and assets. Those who divorced had assets 77% lower than singles.g

39.Married elderly people are more likely to maintain daily health-promoting habits, such as exercising, not smoking, eating breakfast, and having regular medical check-ups.g

40.More than friendship, laughter, forgiveness, compatiblility, and sex, spouses name trust as the element crucial for a happy marriage.g

41.Eighty-one percent of happily married couples said their partner’s friends and family rarely interfered with the relationship, compared to just 38% of unhappy couples.g

42.Eighty-five percent of couples have had premarital sex.g

Nearly 60 percent of couples have had an affair, with most affairs occurring within the 25-39 age bracket

43.Nearly 60% of married adults have had at least one affair.g

44.The cost of an average wedding is $20,000. The cost of an average divorce is $20,000.g

45.Words form only 7% of our communication with anyone, including spouses. Tone of voice accounts for 38% and body language is responsible for 55% of the messages spouses receive from each other.g

46.Women who report a fair division of housework were happier in their marriages than women who thought their husbands didn’t do their fair share. Wives also spent more quality time with their husbands when they thought the housework was divided fairly.d

47.A 15-year-long study found that a person’s happiness level before marriage was the best predictor of happiness after marriage. In other words, marriage won’t automatically make one happy.d

48.Researchers found a huge decline in happiness four years into a marriage with another decline in years seven to eight. In fact, half of all divorces occur in the first seven years of marriage, which gives rise to the popular term “the seven-year itch.”d

49.More than two in five Catholics marry outside their church, twice as many as in the 1960s. There are at least one million Jewish-Christian marriages in the U.S. Two in five Muslims in America have chosen non-Muslim spouses.d

50.Married people are twice as likely to go to church as unmarried people.g

51.Half of emotional affairs become sexual affairs.g

52.While couples with children are less likely to divorce than childless couples, the arrival of a new baby is more likely to bring more stress and emotional distance than new happiness. Nearly 90% of couples experienced decrease in martial satisfaction after the birth of their first child.g

53.Over 40% of married couples in the U.S. include at least one spouse who has been married before. As many as 60% of divorced women and men will marry again, many within just five years.g

Birth order is an important factor in determining the success of a marriage

54.Birth order can influence whether a marriage succeeds or fails. The most successful marriages are those where the oldest sister of brothers marries the youngest brother of sisters. Two firstborns, however, tend to be more aggressive and can create higher levels of tension. The highest divorce rates are when an only child marries another only child.j

55.The number of men and women age 65 and older cohabiting outside of marriage nearly doubled between 1990 and 2000.g

56.Because Virginia law required an ex-slave to leave the state once freed, one freed woman petitioned the legislature in 1815 to become a slave again so she could stay married to her still-enslaved husband.e

57.For many centuries, the Catholic Church argued that contraception was a sin and made the wife no better “than a harlot.” Up until 1930, many Protestant churches agreed.e

58.One seventeenth-century Massachusetts husband was put in stocks alongside his adulterous wife and her lover because the community reasoned she wouldn’t have strayed if her husband had been fulfilling is marital obligations.e

59.Research points to certain characteristics that are most often linked to infidelity, such as being raised in a family where having affairs is considered normal, having a personality that values excitement and risk taking over marital stability, having coworkers and friends who believe affairs are acceptable, and feeling emotionally distant from one’s spouse.l

60.No sex in a marriage has a much more powerful negative impact on a marriage than good sex has a positive impact.d

61.Modern Western marriage traditions have long been shaped by Roman, Hebrew, and Germanic cultures as well as by doctrines and traditions of the Medieval Christian church, the Protestant Reformation, and the Industrial Revolution.a

62.Levirate marriage, where a man is obligated to marry his brother’s widow if she had no sons to care for her, is sometimes required in the Bible (as in Deuteronomy) and sometimes prohibited (as in Leviticus).e

63.The first recorded mention of same-sex marriage occurs in Ancient Rome and seems to have occurred without too much debate until Christianity became the official religion. In 1989, Denmark was the first post-Christianity nation to legally recognize same-sex marriage.a

-- Posted November 18, 2009


References

a Boswell, John. 1995. Same-Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe. New York, NY: Random House.

b Bride’s Book of Etiquette. 2002. New York, NY: Perigee Books.

c Connolly, Katie. “Why So Few D.C. Residents Are Married.” Newsweek.com. October 20, 2009. Accessed: October 28, 2009.

d Gottman, John M. and Julie Schwartz Gottman. 2006. 10 Lessons to Transform Your Marriage. New York, NY: Three Rivers Press.

e Graff, E.J. 1999. What Is Marriage For: The Strange Social History of Our Most Intimate Institution. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

f “Groom.” Online Etymological Dictionary. Accessed: October 27, 2009.

g Harrar, Sari and Rita DeMaria. 2007. The 7 Stages of Marriage: Laughter, Intimacy, and Passion. Pleasantville, NY: Reader’s Digest Books.

h Hein, Holly. Sexual Detours: Infidelity and Intimacy at the Crossroads. 2000. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press.

i “Husband.” Online Etymological Dictionary. Accessed: October 27, 2009.

j Mannes, George. “Is the Economy Ruining Your Marriage?” CNN.com. August 21, 2009. Accessed: October 27, 2009.

k Moore, Matthew. “Divorce Damages Your Health—and Getting Remarried Barely Helps.” Telegraph.co.uk. July 27, 2009. Accessed: October 28, 2009.

l Neal, Rome. “Signs of Divorce Ahead?: New Study Tries to Predict Which Marriages Will Last.” CBSNEWS.com. August 7, 2002. Accessed: October 29, 2009.

m Squire, Susan. 2008. I Don’t: A Contrarian History of Marriage. New York, NY: Bloomsbury Press.

n “Where You Live May Affect When You Get Married.” CNN.com. October 20, 2009. Accessed: October 28, 2009.

o “Wife.” Online Etymological Dictionary. Accessed: October 27, 2009.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
marriage

Sex and Rock n Roll: Gag me

I have decided that I like some things Camille Paglia has to say:


Madonna’s dance-track acolyte, Lady Gaga, with her compulsive overkill, is a high-concept fabrication without an ounce of genuine eroticism.


 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
sex

The Fantasy of the 50% Divorce Rate

Opinion: Al and Tipper and the 'Good Divorce' Myth



AOL News (June 15) -- The separation of Al and Tipper Gore after 40 years as husband and wife produced a flood of commentary concerning what's purportedly impossible, and possible, in modern marriage.

According to rapidly calcifying conventional wisdom, the Gore breakup shows it's impossible to uphold the old ideal of "til death do us part," while their dignity and discretion demonstrate the real possibility of a "good divorce."

Actually, both conclusions contradict reality.

Statistics show that loving, lifetime marriage isn't just possible, it's prevalent. And common sense and sad experience expose the notion of the good divorce as a destructive myth, since the end of every marriage brings pain, problems and damage to society.

Concerning assumptions that marriages all go stale or sour over time, The New York Times recently reported a major study by neuroscientists at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who monitored brain function in long-term couples to check survivability of romantic love. To their surprise, a full 40 percent of these veteran partners showed intensely romantic neural reactions to each other, resembling the excitement of newly formed relationships. The other 60 percent displayed less spark and heat, but most of them still expressed satisfaction with their spouses, reflecting frequent surveys showing 75 percent of couples registering high contentment levels.

Why, then, do 50 percent of all marriages end in divorce?

The simple answer is, they don't. The 50 percent divorce rate is a pernicious myth that's never been true and grossly misstates the current situation. The divorce rate (measured as number of divorces per population) peaked in 1981 and has gone down dramatically ever since.

Rates of marital failure remain notoriously hard to gauge since no one knows which current marriages will last and which will fail. But the Census Bureau still provides the most authoritative information, listing in the latest available data (2004) the percentage of American adults who've ever married (72 percent) and the percentage ever divorced (22 percent). This means that 70 percent of those who ever married remain with their first spouse, or stayed in that first marriage until the spouse died.

While loving, lasting marriages are, in fact, common, "good divorces" are not. There's an elusive ideal of the amiable, painless dissolution of a dysfunctional relationship that every separating couple says they want but very few actually achieve.

Al and Tipper, for example, may display no public signs of strife, but their broken relationship is already connected to real-world damage: Shortly after they announced their separation, their daughter, Karenna Gore Schiff, announced her own breakup from her husband of 13 years. Failed marriages produce children themselves more likely to divorce, and though causation may be arguable, correlation is not.

My own family exemplifies that reality: My late parents split after 28 years of marriage, and three of their four sons (including me) have also experienced marital breakup.

In my case, I worked closely with my ex-wife to make our divorce as painless as possible. We had no children, and our assets were modest enough to avoid big fights over money. Still, our separation brought discomfort and sadness to everyone we knew, and we failed in our determination to maintain a long-term "friendship."

I've been married to my wife, Diane (the mother of our three children), for 25 years now, and I've had no contact at all with my ex (who's also remarried) for at least 15 years --- other than the wistful exchange of condolence notes at the death of our respective fathers.

Not every divorce must become a nightmare, but they all bring some sense of failure and they all cost money. Aside from legal bills, there's the added expense of setting up two separate households to replace one, plus unavoidable awkwardness at holidays, birthdays or other family occasions.

No one has written better about the "ruinous ripples" of divorce than my wife, Dr. Diane Medved, in her 1990 best seller, "The Case Against Divorce." Those closest to the couple feel the impact most -- particularly children and parents, who often see the abrupt end of relationships they once valued. The negativity spreads from there, affecting friends (perplexed by conflicted loyalties), communities (divorces can devastate a church, for instance) and society at large, with costs in lost savings, stability and even health.

The problem with platitudes about the good divorce is that they inevitably encourage marital breakup, just as the myth that most marriages are bound to fail discourages wedlock.

If we kept the situation in honest perspective, high-profile separations like Al and Tipper's shouldn't reassure potentially divorcing couples, or in any way alarm the American majority who strive to sustain their long-term marriages.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
divorce

Sweden: Silly Billy - Women can get married anyway they want.

Royal altar walk stirs controversy


By Cajsa Wikstrom
Saturday, June 19, 2010

Al Jazerra



After eight years of media scrutiny and gossip, the Swedish Crown Princess finally got her prince.

Victoria's decision to marry Daniel Westling, her former fitness trainer, was controversial in itself.

The future queen fell in love with a commoner from a small town, and rumour has it that her father, King Carl Gustaf XVI, initially opposed the marriage because Westling was not "good enough".

But as the engagement was announced and preparations for the June 19 wedding finally went ahead, it was the planned layout of the wedding ceremony that caused a media storm.

Victoria asked to be escorted to the altar by her father, contradicting the Swedish tradition of couples entering the church together.

In the country that prides itself as being one of the absolute front runners in the field of gender equality, the move was interpreted as much more than a ceremonial act.

'Altargate'

Critics referred to the Anglo-Saxon practise as "sexist" and a "backlash for feminism", and the row, dubbed Altargate, started.

"The old Swedish tradition, when couple goes in together, has an important meaning," Annika Borg, an outspoken priest of the Swedish Church, wrote in the daily Dagens Nyheter.

"The woman [has the legal right] to make her own decisions and stands beside her future husband of her own free will.

"Bride handover builds on an attitude towards women which takes us several centuries back. As a role model the Crown Princess should consider this."

Helle Klein, columnist

"Bride handover has its roots in a completely different mindset. It's about a woman's [right of self-determination] being left over from her father to the man."

The Royal Court defended Victoria's decision, saying the royal ceremony should not be seen as an ordinary wedding.

"It's the wish of the Crown Princess," Nina Eldh, a spokeswoman, told reporters.

"It's not a father who gives away the daughter to another man. It is the King of Sweden leading the heir to the nation's throne to the altar – and to the man who has been accepted."

Nine bishops wrote a letter to the bridal couple, asking them to change their mind.

Helle Klein, an editorial writer for the tabloid Aftonbladet, urged the Archbishop to intervene.

"Bride handover builds on an attitude towards women which takes us several centuries back. As a role model the Crown Princess should consider this," she wrote.

"Archbishop Anders Wejryd must prevent that the Hollywood idea about the wedding becomes the expression of the Swedish Church. Say no, for the sake of the women, the church and the Swedish culture!"

'New phenomenon'

Wejryd said he had adviced the couple to walk down the aisle together, but said it was up to the couple to decide what they wanted to do.

"Being given away is a new phenomenon which occasionally occurs in the Church of Sweden. I usually advise against it, as our marriage ceremony is so clear on the subject of the spouse's equality," he said in a statement.

When Victoria's parents, King Carl Gustaf and Queen Silvia, married in 1976 they followed Swedish tradition and walked together.

As some bloggers pointed out, the situation would have been very different had it not been for the decision taken three years after Victoria was born - to make the Act of Succession gender-neutral.

In 1980, Sweden became the first country to allow the throne to be passed to the first-born child, whether male or female.

This meant that her younger brother, Carl Philip, was snubbed of his Crown Prince title just seven months after he was born.

As the debate dragged on in media and on blogs, the King told the tabloid Aftonbladet that it was an "unnecessarily long debate".

But a week before the wedding, the Royal Court finally announced a compromise, citing the design of the church as the decisive factor. Victoria and her groom would meet halfway to the altar.

And in front of about 1,000 guests, including royalties from around the world, the current head of state led his daughter to the steps to the altar where she met Westling on Saturday.

The couple then proceeded together up the stairs and to the altar, where they both said "yes".



















sweden

What Constitutes Beauty: Naomi and Christian ??

World's most beautiful couple: and the figures to prove it


By Roger Dobson
The Independent
Sunday, 11 March 2007


It is the holy grail of the fashion and beauty industries: a scientific blueprint for the most beautiful women, and men, in the world.

Researchers have thrown away the old vital statistics and, instead, focused on how the dimensions of different parts of the body relate to height and body mass index (BMI) to give the perfect physique. Perhaps surprisingly, two of the most important measurements are the girth of the thigh and the slimness of the calf.

The researchers, from the University of Gdansk in Poland, studied the vital statistics of 24 finalists in a national beauty competition, together with those of 115 other women. They said that while weight, height and hip ratio were normally used to assess female attractiveness, these might not throw up crucial differences between the super-attractive and others.

For men, scientists said height, BMI, waist-to-hip and waist-to-chest ratios were key measures.

Super-attractive women had a thigh-to-height ratio some 12 per cent lower than other women, giving them a more slender look. Skinfold tests on the calf showed 15mm of fat compared with 18mm in other women.

The study also showed that the average super-attractive height was 5ft 9in, with the waist 76 per cent of the size of the chest, and 70 per cent of the size of the hips. Models built like Naomi Campbell came closest to the ideal.

"Attractiveness of a woman's body is one of the most important factors in mate selection, and the question what are the physical cues for the assessment of attractiveness is fundamental to evolutionary psychology," said Leszek Pokrywka, who led the study.



Perfect woman: Naomi Campbell

The vital statistics:

Body mass index 20.85
Bust girth to height 49.3%
Waist-chest ratio 1.4
Leg-to-body ratio 1.4
Calf girth to height 19.5%
Height 175cm
Thigh girth to height 29.7

What it all means:

"Super beautiful" women have waists a third smaller than their hips and three-quarters their bust measurement. They have longer legs, and slimmer thighs and calves than the average woman.


Perfect man: Christian Bale

The vital statistics:
Body mass index 26.5
Waist-chest ratio 0.6
Leg-to-body ratio 1
Height 188cm

What it all means:

The physically ideal man is more than 6ft tall, with legs the same length as his upper body. The leg-to-body ratio of 1 makes him appear more muscular, which is why the ideal BMI for men is higher than for women.












beauty

Male Extinction

Good-bye males.  Brave New World, women only.





The infertility timebomb: Are men facing rapid extinction?


By Tamara Sturtz
Last updated at 8:19 AM on 10th May 2010
Daily Mail.co.uk


One in five men could suffer from fertility problems. And scientists have warned that it's just going to get worse...

There's a crisis brewing, but it has nothing to do with the economic deficit or the current political uncertainty. Scientists are warning that rising levels of male infertility have become so perilous that it is a serious 'public health issue'. And some go even further.

Professor Niels Skakkebaek, of the University of Copenhagen, describes the issue 'as important as global warming'. Last week, one science writer even suggested, in starkly terrifying terms, that if scientists from Mars were to study the male reproductive system, they would possibly conclude that man was destined for rapid extinction.

And if it continues, this trend could indicate men are on a path to becoming completely infertile within a few generations.

Reports claim that as many as one in five healthy young men between the ages of 18 and 25 produce abnormal sperm counts.


Only 5 to 15 per cent of their sperm is good enough to be classed as 'normal' under World Health organisation rules - proving that infertility is not just a female problem. Indeed, among those experiencing difficulty with conception, a male fertility problem is considered important in about 40 per cent of couples.

But women trying to get pregnant are facing another astonishing claim: that the core problems of male fertility - while they may be exacerbated by environmental issues - start in the womb.

'Sperm counts are declining and there is mounting evidence that the problem starts even before birth,' says Dr Gillian Lockwood, medical director of Midland Fertility Services.

She cites growing evidence that although the process of sperm production - known as spermatogenesis - starts in adolescence, the crucial preparations are made in the few months before and after birth.

Factors such as women eating a lot of beef during pregnancy - which means they have consumed a diet rich in polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) that are potentially damaging chemicals - to the issue of obesity during pregnancy and a woman's exposure to smoke, pesticides, traffic fumes, plastics and even soya beans are all thought to have a bearing on a male foetus's future fertility.


Experts talk of a 'window' of testicular development that begins in the growing foetus and ends in the first six months of life. Problems in this period mean that the baby boy may never be able to produce babies of his own.

It's a theory that Karl Tonks, a clinical skills trainer, is particularly interested in. Karl, 47, and his teaching assistant wife Lorraine, 41, consider themselves among the lucky ones: they have two healthy children, despite Karl's low sperm count. Their twins Ben and Kira, now 12, were born as a result of arduous and expensive IVF.
 
Like many men, Karl was given no particular reason for his low sperm count. The news that it would be impossible for him to have a child came as a shock.


'We'd been trying for a baby since we got married. I had no idea there was a problem, and there was never a reason given. It was just one of those things.'

Was it, though? Karl admits that he always wondered if the fact that his mother took Thalidomide while pregnant with him could have had any influence on his infertility.

'My mother took Thalidomide for morning sickness. When the scandal broke in 1962, GPs offered free abortions, but my mother was too far gone by two weeks.'

Unlike the majority of Thalidomide babies, Karl was born seemingly healthy. But he has suffered from asthma since birth.

'Since the infertility was diagnosed, I started questioning whether there were underlying problems caused by the drug. My younger brother doesn't have any fertility problems. Nobody has done research into "normal" Thalidomide babies.'

Lorraine and Karl illustrate perfectly the toll that difficulties in conceiving can take on a marriage. Karl confesses that, so distraught were they - 'eight years of thinking of nothing else' is how he puts it - that at one stage he suggested they should divorce. But Lorraine says: 'I just couldn't even think of it.'

After a series of failed intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) attempts, where Karl's sperm was placed in Lorraine's uterus, the couple moved on to IVF.

The treatment involved intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), a procedure where a single sperm is injected into the egg. Even though a single healthy sperm could not be found, Karl was able to have testicular sperm extraction (TESE), which involves passing a needle into the testis to remove a piece of tissue, from which developing sperm were taken.

Incredibly, that resulted in eight fertilised embryos. In April 1998 their twins, Ben and Kira, were born. Their father drove down the street shouting: 'I'm a dad!'

Like Lorraine and Karl, Ed Farmer, 41, an IT specialist, and his wife, Rebecca, also 41, are still left guessing as to the causes of Ed's infertility.

'We were told that Ed had practically zero per cent sperm,' says Rebecca.

But after seven years of tests and treatment, they are no closer to knowing why.

'It was a terrible shock and desperately disappointing to be facing the possibility of IVF,' explains Ed.

Their fertility consultant recommended ICSI. Both Ed and Rebecca were 33, and their hopes were high, especially after several healthy sperm were retrieved using TESE.

'We believed our consultant when he said: "Let's make you a baby",' says Ed.

But treatment failed and they were told to consider using donor sperm. However, they went through two more cycles of treatment.

'We wanted to give it everything we could,' explains Ed. By this time, they were both 35.

'We had to make some major decisions', says Rebecca. It was putting a huge strain on their relationship, and they had withdrawn from their friends and family.

'We felt it was us against the world,' says Rebecca. 'We were so fed up of everyone around us having babies and not understanding what we were going through. Comments such as "At least you have a lovely husband and a nice house" weren't helpful. We even considered moving abroad.'

Rebecca threw herself into researching multiple IVF and ICSI failure on the internet, and concluded that not all clinics are the same.


Ed says: 'It was important for me to see an andrologist, somebody who specialises in male infertility. But they are not readily available in the UK.'

'We looked at it very rationally and were prepared to spend £15,000,' says Rebecca.

Research had been carried out in the U.S. in hormonal therapy for men with fertility problems. After remortgaging their home, Ed and Rebecca went to New York.

'I had the first proper examination throughout all our treatment,' says Ed.

He was put on Clomid, the hormone that women are given when they don't ovulate regularly, followed by ICSI. Although this created only one embryo, it resulted in the birth of their beautiful daughter, Ruby, now three.

Ed and Rebecca wanted a sibling for Ruby. After another cycle of treatment in New York, their twins, Tom and Rose, were born two days before Rebecca's 40th birthday.

Ed and Rebecca are very proud parents and thrilled that they defied the odds. But they are also angry.

' So many men are denied the opportunity to become biological fathers through an apparent lack of investigation into male infertility,' says Rebecca.

'We have met couples who have gone through many failed cycles of treatment at great financial and emotional cost, who have gone on to have "miracle babies" abroad, after being dismissed by UK clinics. It is so sad that the country that invented IVF should have failed to progress much beyond the expensive and impersonal production line of treatment that is currently on offer.'

Meanwhile, Lorraine and Karl Tonks are following the latest research with interest. It suggests that if their son Ben is to have fertility problems of his own, it may be too late to do anything about it. This concerns Karl.

'I worry that I may have passed my infertility on to my son. He has asthma, but as there are no adult ICSI children yet, we probably won't know for another few years.

'I will encourage him to get his fertility checked when he is old enough.'

Lorraine, however, points out that there are drawbacks to knowing too much, too soon.

'On the one hand, if we'd known earlier that there was no chance of us getting pregnant naturally, then we'd have saved a lot of time and heartache, seeking help sooner. On the other hand, can I honestly say that we would have ended up married had I known Karl couldn't have children? Who knows? It's very tricky.'

It will get even trickier as more efforts are made to unravel the mystery of male sperm production, a mystery to which 'Mother', whether she likes it or not, seems to hold the key.






















genetics

UK: Murder or Manslaughter. All depends, but you get 5 years for manslaughter

Kill a person in the US, manslaughter or not and you get a little more than 5 years!




A-level teen jailed for killing

By STAFF REPORTER
26 Feb 2010



A SIXTH-FORMER who fatally stabbed her boyfriend in the heart hours after collecting her A-level results was jailed for five years today for his manslaughter.

Pretty Katherine McGrath, 19, plunged a steak knife into the heart of Alyn Thomas, 22, during an argument after a night out drinking with friends.

McGrath, of Brackla, Bridgend, South Wales, was cleared of murder following a trial earlier this month but found guilty of manslaughter.

Sentencing her at Cardiff Crown Court to five years in a young offenders' institution, Mr Justice Griffith Williams said: "Only you know what actually happened in the kitchen of your home but of this I am sure: the jury did not hear the whole truth."

The judge added: "Clearly you and Alyn Thomas rowed. Whatever the trigger or the cause of that row, my view is that he was not the only one to act aggressively.

"I accept that you did not intend to kill or cause him really serious injury and I am prepared to accept that you were provoked in the non-legal sense."

Overreaction

He told McGrath that arming herself with a knife was an overreaction and said: "You took the life of a young man.

"You deprived his parents, his family and his friends of their part in his life and of the chance to share in his future."

Mr Thomas, of Cymmer, near Neath, died in hospital after being stabbed in the kitchen of McGrath's detached family home in the early hours of August 21 last year.

In an impact statement read out in court, Stephen Thomas, the victim's father, said: "It is a parent's worst fear - receiving a phone call in the early hours of the morning saying that your child has been admitted to hospital, but then to be told that your child has been stabbed, it turns into a living nightmare.

"I shall never forget walking into the relative room at Bridgend Hospital and having Lynne (Mr Thomas's mother) greeting me by screaming 'He's dead' and then breaking down in floods of tears."

He said the loss of their son had devastated his family and added: "I could not imagine the pain I had to experience when I was having to choose flowers and hymns for a funeral service and having to choose clothes to dress Alyn in his coffin rather than having the honour of taking him shopping for a suit for his wedding."

During the trial the jury heard McGrath's 999 call in which she told the operator: "He's my boyfriend and he, like, came and attacked me and I didn't know what to do."

She also told the operator he pushed her to the floor and spat at her and tried to hit her.

John Charles Rees QC, defending, said McGrath produced the knife to scare off Mr Thomas when he became aggressive and she had not meant to hurt him.

At the sentencing today he said it was "self-defence gone too far".














laws

Family and Marriage

Married parents 'ten times more likely to stay together'



By Sarah Harris
19th February 2010
The Daily Mail



Married parents are ten times more likely to stay together than cohabiting couples with children, according to research.


The study also showed cohabiting has become a less stable form of relationship compared with 18 years ago, with couples more likely to separate.

Figures show that in 1992, 70 per cent of couples who had children after they were married stayed together until their child's 16th birthday.

This increased to 75 per cent in 2006, showing that marriage has become a more stable family background for youngsters.

However, only 36 per cent of cohabiting parents stayed together until their son or daughter reached 16 in 1992. By 2006, just 7 per cent of couples who were unmarried when their child was born were still cohabiting by their 16th birthday.

This figure excludes those couples who were just living together when their child was born and later got married.

Around three in five couples who stop cohabiting decide to marry. Of these just 17 per cent are still together by the time their child is 16, the report says.

The study, Cohabitation in the 21st Century, from Christian thinktank the Jubilee Centre also shows that the cost of family breakdown is £41.7billion - equivalent to £1,350 for every taxpayer each year.

It claims these costs will rise 'significantly' over the next 25 years. Its analysis was based on almost 30,000 family cases drawn from a nationwide survey.

It shows that fewer than one in 19 of all couples who live together (5.3 per cent) have been together for ten years or more.

The study also suggests cohabitation does not serve as a trial marriage or reduce the odds of divorce.

Never-married couples who live together before tying the knot are 60 per cent more likely to divorce than those who do not. Dr John Hayward, director of the Jubilee

Centre, said: 'All the evidence suggests that families headed by married, biological parents who have not previously lived together provide the best environment for both the individuals involved and their children.

'This has huge personal, social, economic and political consequences for us all.'

Fellow researcher Dr Guy Brandon added: 'The cost of family breakdown to society, whether parents have cohabited or married, is enormous.

'Besides the emotional cost, which inevitably has an impact on mental health and economic productivity, the direct costs are estimated at £41.7billion each year - the equivalent of £1,350 per taxpayer per year.

'Given the projected rise in cohabiting couples in England and Wales from 2.25million to 3.7million in the next 20 years, and the clear link between cohabitation and family breakdown, it is fair to expect these costs to rise significantly in coming years.'

In July 2007, the Law Commission published a report highlighting the financial implications for couples who cohabit and then separate.

It suggested rights on separation or death for couples without children who have lived together for at least two years.

The Government has yet to publish its final response to the report.

However, the Lords introduced the Cohabitation Bill in December 2008. It was designed to ensure basic legal rights for cohabiting couples in the event of separation or death.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
marriage

The French: Marriage and Arguments

What absolute brilliance.  They are remarkable, these Frenchmen.  I cannot think of anything more enlightening.  They are light years ahead of the US, and rightly so.






France to introduce new law banning 'psychological violence' in marriages


By Peter Allen
05th January 2010
The Daily Mail


France will become the first country in the world to ban 'psychological violence' within marriage later this year.

The new law, which would also apply to co-habiting couples, would see people getting criminal records for insulting their loved ones during domestic arguments.

Electronic tagging would be used on repeat offenders, according to the country's prime minister, Francois Fillon, who announced the law.

Partners who resort to 'psychological violence' during arguments could end up with a criminal record under a new French law. (Posed by models)

If it proves successful, it could be introduced in other European countries including Britain.

But critics dismissed the measure as a 'gimmick' which would be impossible to implement.

The law is particularly aimed at protecting women who currently suffer the worst attacks of this kind, ranging from off-hand comments about their appearance to threats of physical violence.

French Prime Minister Francois Fillon said electronic tagging would be used on repeat offenders

Mr Fillon said: 'It's an important step forward as the creation of this offence will allow us to deal with the most insidious situations - situations that leave no visible scars, but which leave victims torn up inside.'

He added that his government would also be experimenting with electronic surveillance measures to 'monitor the effectiveness of restraining orders against a violent spouse'.

Psychologist Anne Giraud said: 'Squabbling couples will allege all kinds of things about each other, but they won't necessarily be true.

'The police are likely to be called out more and more when this law comes into force this year, but often it will be a case of one person's word against the other.

'Psychological violence is a very serious matter, but punishing it through the courts is a very different matter altogether.'

Critics have also said the government should not be intervening in private domestic arguments in which no one got hurt.

Sociologist Pierre Bonnet said: 'The next step will be to make rudeness a criminal offence. The police and courts will be over-stretched trying to deal with the numerous cases.'

A TV advertising campaign was used last year to try and highlight domestic violence in France. It showed a husband who regularly insults his wife, leaving her mentally traumatised.

In 2008, 157 French women were killed by their husband or partner, with hundreds more suffering domestic physical violence.

A spokesman for Mr Fillon said the new law was supported by the government, and was likely to come into effect within six months.








laws

Men: To Live Longer, Stare at Women

Stare at boobs for longer life: Study


by Neharika Sabharwal - December 6, 2009

Frankfurt, Germany, December 6 -- A rather bizarre study carried out by German researchers suggests that staring at women's breasts is good for men's health and increases their life expectancy.

According to Dr. Karen Weatherby, a gerontologist and author of the study, gawking at women’s breasts is a healthy practice, almost at par with an intense exercise regime, that prolongs the lifespan of a man by five years.

She added, "Just 10 minutes of staring at the charms of a well-endowed female, is roughly equivalent to a 30-minute aerobics work-out."

A five-year research on 500 men

Researchers at three hospitals in Frankfurt, Germany did an in-depth analysis of 200 healthy males over a period of five years. Half the volunteers were instructed to ogle at the breasts of women daily, while the rest were told to refrain from doing so.

At the close of the study, the researchers noted that the men who stared at the breasts of females on a regular basis exhibited lower blood pressure, slower resting pulse rates and lesser episodes of coronary artery disease.

Sexual desire linked to better blood circulation

The researchers declared that sexual desire gives rise to better blood circulation that signifies an overall improved health.

Weatherby explained the concept stating, "Sexual excitement gets the heart pumping and improves blood circulation. There's no question: Gazing at breasts makes men healthy.

"Our study indicates that engaging in this activity a few minutes daily cuts the risk of stroke and heart attack in half. We believe that by doing so consistently, the average man can extend his life four to five years."

In addition, she also recommended that men over 40 should gaze at larger breasts daily for 10 minutes.

The German research is believed to be published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

 
 
 
 
 
 
breasts