Art Penis

This was first seen on the famous Nobscan web site. Which now unfortunately seems to have been hacked and neglected.
It used to feature a huge and bizarre range, of willie's artistically arranged on flat bed scanners.

Most people would settle for photocopying their arse at the office Christmas party. This is much more artistic and bizarre.

Condoms - One size fits all - a rant

For years I truly hated the damn things.
They really were uncomfortable and an incredible turn-off.
They were a necessary evil.
Whoops! I'm not being very politically correct here, am I? The official line is that they are wonderful in every way and anybody who has a problem, is obviously some sort of wimp.

The biggest (and smallest) problem is that one size does not fit all. So why on earth don't they make them in all shapes and sizes? It was only after years of cursing Durex, that I discovered that there were alternatives. So after trying a few, I discovered the Joy of the Trojan Ultra Pleasure.

I think I am right in saying, that to meet the British Standard, all UK condoms must be 52mm wide. Yes they do stretch, but so do bras, so why don't they make them all in size 36B. That's the average.

So all I had to do was import them from the States. And there were all sorts of others to try. Some were good and others less so, but it was fun and exciting to try.
Yes! Suddenly condoms were fun and sexy.

Rolled up comdom
Currently there is no reason for us to use condoms, but sometimes I see a new type and can't resist seeing how it feels. Damn it! They get better all the time.
And now I've just noticed that one company has actually started making condoms in 55 sizes. And it's the same company were I discovered the huge range, several years ago.

I wasn't going to put any commercial links on this site, but here's one, because they are doing important work: Condomania (the one in the USA)

A few words of advice:
Polyurethane Condoms : These are bigger than your average latex model. This is because the forces required to stretch them are enormous. If you are Mr. Average, then these condoms will probably suit you. If you are thin, they will fall off. If you are thick, you'll never get one on.

Natural Condoms : They're made from sheep innards. Which I could come to terms with, if they didn't smell of roast lamb. Maybe they should come with a mint sauce lubricant.

Plain ended condom on penisPlain Ended : Why don't they make more like that? I think it looks good. On condoms, the dangley bit isn't very esthetically pleasing, especially for oral sex.
(The rubber at the tip is loose, so there is room for the come.)

New Book Slams Caveman Myth

The notion that a man's sexual promiscuity and physical aggression can be traced to his stone-age ancestors is a myth, argues author Martha McCaughey in her new book that dissects what she calls caveman mystique. "For all these things that men are criticized for doing, evolution claims that they are just cavemen inside and that it's something their male ancestors did. We need to get rid of those justifications and get men to take responsibility for their behavior instead of relying on these cultural narratives," she said.

McCaughey's book, The Caveman Mystique: Pop-Darwinism and the Debates Over Sex, Violence, and Science, tackles the notion that we are modern-day people with cave-day brains. "I dispute a lot of that and caution my students and others not to unquestioningly accept what they read about evolution, and to recognize that these are speculative claims without hard scientific evidence."

McCaughey, from Appalachian State University, admits that it's a hard task, as popular writers put their own interpretation on these theories and readers often accept as scientific fact that the differences between men and women are solely rooted in evolutionary heritage. She also finds that her students — both male and female — think male aggression is rooted in evolution and therefore natural.

To truly understand men and their behavior, suggests McCaughey, it's important to understand the emotional, economic, political and sociological changes that have occurred over time, and to also recognize how magazines, commercials, television programs and other forms of popular media often contribute to a skewed understanding of men and male behavior. "Without a critical, historical view of how scientific stories have emerged to answer questions about men's sexual behaviors and feelings, evolution has become the paradigm through which many people understand men," she writes in the book.

She also dismisses the dogma that a man's reluctance to commit to a monogamous relationship is solely based on his ancient ancestors' desires for many partners as a way of ensuring the continuation of his genes. Instead, she theorizes that the nation's changing economy, wage stagnation and other factors contributed to a shift away from men marrying in their early 20s to marrying later in life.

"In the 1950s, men had jobs that allowed them to be successful breadwinners for their family," McCaughey says. "A man in his 20s today can't economically support a wife and children as the sole breadwinner the way many more men in the 1950s could. As a result, men are marrying later in life. This reluctance to commit to marriage is not because of the caveman brain or a man's promiscuity. It's tied to the economic and political changes that have occurred during the past decades."

"Evolutionary psychology paints a picture making us think all men are one way and all women another when there are considerable variations over time," she continues. "The caveman mystique crushes men's potential by defining them as moral and physical drifters." She adds that when men and women better understand the social origins of ideas and the effects those ideas have on society and individuals' feelings and behaviors, they will view masculinity differently and dismiss the caveman stereotype.

George Atkinson: Bikinis Trigger Gimme, Gimme, Gimme Response

Writing in the Journal of Consumer Research, researchers have observed that watching a sexy video or handling lingerie will cause men to seek immediate gratification - even when it involves non-sexy things such as money, soda or candy.

The researchers found that the desire for immediate rewards increased in men who touched bras, looked at pictures of beautiful women, or watched video clips of young women in bikinis running through a park. "It seems that sexual appetite causes a greater urgency to consume anything rewarding," they suggest. "Thus, the activation of sexual desire appears to spill over into other brain systems involved in reward-seeking behaviors, even the cognitive desire for money."

The researchers believe that sexy stimuli bring men's minds to the present, as opposed to the future. "The study demonstrates that bikinis cause a shift in time preference: Men live in the here and now when they glance at pictures featuring women in lingerie. That is, men will choose the immediately available rewards and seek immediate gratification after sex cue exposure," they contend in their article.

Do all straight men respond the same? No, say the researchers, noting that some men are highly responsive to rewards while others are not so sensitive, and the more reward-sensitive men are the impatient ones. In fact, doing a task designed to inspire financial satisfaction reduced the bikini-inspired impatience, just as feeling full reduces food cravings. The researchers drolly suggest that men may want to be aware of bikinis' effects on their bank accounts and waistlines.

Twisting of head in relation to penis shaft

1. Erect
The twist of the shaft on erection is a common anomaly. Estimates suggest between 3 and 5% of men have some degree of twisting.

2. Flaccid
The twist illustrated below is associated with hypospadias, though such an anomaly may occur without hypospadias being present. In this penis, the raphe runs at an angle down the length of the penile shaft, representing the true midline of the shaft. The urethral meatus is apparently displaced to one side.

Bends in Shaft

Shaft of penis twists along its length on erection

Angle of erect penile shaft varies from downwards to upright when man is standing or sitting

Erection Leans or Bends Both Up or Down and to One Side

Erection with Penis Shaft Bending Down

Erection with Penis Shaft Bending Up

Erection with Straight Penis Shaft

Erection with penile shaft bending or leaning to left

Erection with penile shaft bending or leaning to right

Sex Positions and Techniques

For most people, sex is an essential part of a successful relationship. I think the best sex is achieved in a loving relationship, or at least where the partners feel affectionate towards each other. There's no doubt that when two people are emotionally open and trusting, sex can be a more complete experience, producing emotional fulfillment as well as physical pleasure - though most men would agree that the physical pleasure can be pretty good on its own!

In many relationships, sex can become slightly routine after a while. You might then want to experiment with new positions and techniques, because a slight change to your usual sexual routine can produce a new sense of excitement and greater arousal. For sexual tips and advice on the best positions, I recommend Sex Techniques And Positions.

There are some important differences between men and women when it comes to sex. Women take between ten and twenty times as long to get aroused as a man, but given sufficient foreplay, the vast majority will reach orgasm during sex. This means the kissing, stroking and cuddling that may seem very boring to a man do in fact have a valuable pay-off!

While men are very penis centered, women are much more whole body focused. Unlike a man, who might want his partner to start pleasuring him sexually by stroking or sucking his penis, a woman will usually want attention to her non-sexual areas before she can get aroused. The reason for this is that a woman may not know before sex starts whether or not she is going to have an orgasm - whereas most men know very well that an orgasm is the inevitable outcome of stimulating their penis. This difference can be frustrating, but it is important to women that men don't expect them to get instantly turned on and aroused. Several times in my life a woman in bed with me has admired the ability of my penis to get instantly hard and remain so.....in fact, I think women can be quite envious of this rapid responsiveness!

It's a fact that most men ejaculate rather quicker than they would like. As a couple you may want to plan sex around this fact. Since women often say that what they value about sex is the intimacy and closeness rather than the penetration by their partner's penis, one way of satisfying both members of the couple is for the man to give his partner oral sex until she comes, then to have a rest until they are ready for him to fuck her. This way, it will matter much less if he comes quickly, yet he gets the penile penetration which is so rewarding to him.

And make no mistake about it - sex is rewarding for men. The whole experience, both physical and emotional, is a fundamental part of feeling like a man. There's something about the moment of penetration, as your penis slips inside your partner, that reinforces our fundamental sense of maleness every time it happens. And sex in the man on top position, where you can enjoy the sense of holding your partner down and fucking her, whether gently and romantically or with hard and fast thrusts, can be the most fulfilling sex of all.

For pure animal lustfulness, sex in the rear entry position takes some beating. The sight of her buttocks parted to allow your penis entry to her vagina, followed by the sight of your penis pushing in and withdrawing from her body is about as exciting as sex gets.....although, since sex is such a personal thing, you may have a very different opinion!

The impetus to have sex is very strong, and the penis is a very sexy thing - responding so quickly to sexual stimuli, always ready to penetrate into warm wet places, that it is hardly surprising it has become a symbol of manhood and maleness. The problem with this is that it leads inevitably to a place where at some level we believe penis size is related to masculinity! Nothing could be further from the truth - masculinity is measured by values such as loyalty, honor, integrity, strength, courage, commitment, social responsibility, caring for children and building a safe and just society.

For more specific sex hints, see the Fifty Mistakes pages on this website.

No mention of sex would be complete without a mention of safe sex. But rather than safe sex, think of safer sex - use the word safer because all sex can have consequences, from emotional consequences to diseases and pregnancy. If you decide to be sexually active, you owe it to yourself to learn about what behaviors are risky, and how much risk you want to take. Here is a safe sex link I recommend.

Will Science Make Men An Endangered Species?

When I was in Grade 9 or 10, I was given an assignment to write a story that followed from a given opening.

"The last man on Earth sat alone in his room. Suddenly, there was a knock at the door..."

Most of the class came up with stories about aliens or the supernatural. A couple of girls, already feeling pithy and tragic, wrote purple prose about psychosis and insanity. But as far as I know, I was the only one who took a feminist slant. In my scenario, the person knocking at the door was a woman. Women had taken over the planet and had executed all the men. What followed was a dialogue between the two characters as the man walked the last mile to the gallows. The man pleading his case and the woman explaining that a) men weren't necessary anymore because there was lots of frozen sperm; and b) they were responsible for wars, dead baby jokes and other sordid stuff so who wants them anyway. It ended with the man yelling something like; "But what about love?" just before the rope snapped taut. It was a cool story, but I didn't get a high mark. I seem to remember my teacher being disturbed by the unprecedented slaughter implicit in the story. But I still occasionally wonder about a world of only women. Is it possible? Are men necessary?

In 1915, Charlotte Gilman wrote a novella based on a similar idea. In Herland, a trio of intrepid explorers seek a tribe of women who only give birth to girls. The genetic rationale for this was glossed over (in 1915 anything was still possible), but essentially, the women conceived by means of parthenogenesis (without fertilization - virgin births, as it were). The explorers expected to find a horde of primitive squabbling women that they could turn into their own personal harem, but were shocked to discover a peaceful, egalitarian utopia. Everything bad in the world - from jealousy to competition - flowed from the existence of men and without them co-operation and harmony were the default condition. But ultimately, the presence of the men set loose the forces of darkness and the explorers were banished from this idyllic realm.

Utopias don't exist, of course, and attempts to realize them usually end up being dystopias (think Mao's China, Pol Pot's Kampuchea, or any number of hippie communes) for the obvious reason that humans aren't nice enough to live in them. But Gilmans Herland does raise an interesting question. Would a world without men be a better world? While there are no examples of completely maleless societies, history has concocted a few situations where men and women have lived predominantly separate lives. In ancient Sparta, the men and boys lived together in war camps, while the women and girls lived in the village. Far from being exemplars of peace, love and understanding though, the Spartan women were, if anything, more warmongering than the men. It was the men that fought, of course, but any man that didn't fight bravely enough could expect to be excoriated and shunned by the women.

The essential point is this though: they got by. Rather well, too. While the women may have needed men to procreate and to fight and protect them (from other men); they didn't really need them for anything else. This notion was underscored during the two world wars when women largely held up the home front. Additionally, evidence has shown that girls who are schooled without the distraction of boys do better academically and socially. They are more co-operative, less hierarchical, happier and more confident than those schooled in a co-ed setting. Hmmm.

Biologically speaking, males are parasites. Sure, we may bring home the bacon and do the heavy lifting, and the dishes and diapers and the laundry (don't forget the laundry!). But at a very basic level we exist solely to insert our genes into the next generation and everything else we do, from building bombs to burping babies, is indirectly in service of this one essential purpose. And while there is an obvious symbiosis between the male and female of any species, it is the egg producing female which is ultimately responsible for incubating and nourishing her brood. In asexually reproducing species there are no males, every member is a mother. In a way, males are a genetic afterthought, useful only for shuffling the genetic deck between generations. And while this can be very helpful in producing sufficient variability to ward off evolving viruses and parasites, there are many, many species that can get by with moms alone.

Can it be done? Is a wholly female society possible? Well, yes and no. Any group of determined women can buy an island, set up a commune and shoot any man that sails into port. With a couple of vials of frozen sperm they could last generations. But could they last indefinitely? Until very recently the answer would have been no. Human females, by themselves, are not naturally capable of parthenogenesis. That's because women produce haploid gametes. That is, their eggs have 23 chromosomes, half the number necessary to produce viable offspring. The other half must come from someone else, and that's where we guys come in, with all our attendant baggage.

But thanks to the miracle of modern science that extra compliment of 23 chromosomes may no longer have to come by way of a man. In April 2004, researchers lead by Tomohiro Kono, at the Tokyo University of Agriculture, succeeded in combining the nucleus of one mouse egg with that of another. The offspring, (female, of course - females don't carry the Y chromosome) was named Kayuga (pictured), after a Japanese fairy tale in which a princess is found in a bamboo stalk (don't laugh, it's more imaginative than Dolly!). Kayuga survived to adulthood and has now given birth to conventionally fathered offspring of her own.

Now, before you get all depressed, remember that mice are not men and there are many things we can do with mice - including curing diseases - which we can't replicate in humans. And given the squeamishness that ethicists feel about playing Doctor Frankenstein with humans, it's not likely that we'll be producing human Kayugas anytime soon. But theoretically it is possible, and if history is any guide, whatever is possible in theory eventually becomes a reality.

Even if it does though, men are not likely to become obsolete. Women and men may have different reproductive agendas but we've moved through evolution in lock-step. We've grown to depend on each other. Women may well end up taking over the world but they will never get rid of all the men, even if they'd be better off without us. For all they bitch about us, women still need us - in their lives, in their beds and hey... somebody's got to take out the trash.

The Penis Preference

Heaven loves ya,
The clouds part for ya,
Nothing stands in your way,
When you're a boy
David Bowie – Boys Keep Swinging

It's better to be a boy. Admit it, it's true. You've always had a feeling, not necessarily of superiority, but perhaps of being favored in some way. This sense of entitlement, sometimes subtle, often overt, is endemic to all cultures across all time periods. Despite the fact that we all agree (in western culture anyway) that gender favoritism is unfair, efforts to counter this imbalance have been patchy at best, and have largely been led by the popular media. On television and in movies, children's books etc., women and girls are now favored. It's rare now to find a female character who is less kick-ass than a man. And to some extent this has been successful. Women dominate the music scene. Girls outperform boys in school and outnumber them in university. Teenage girls are more aggressive. Their testosterone levels are rising. But note that what is happening with Buffy, Lara Croft and other icons of grrrl power isn't the celebration of the feminine so much as the celebration of the masculine in the guise of the feminine. After all these years of male diminishment and female ascendance, it's still better to be a boy.

A moment's thought reveals the reality of this. Even in our western culture, where political correctness has become something of a secular religion, parents still voice a preference for boys. "It's a boy!" is still a more triumphant proclamation than; "It's a girl!" And while it's okay to be a boyish-girl (parents speak with sneaking pride about their tomboy daughters), it's definitely not okay to be a girlish-boy (sissy). Males in urban cultures diminish their rivals by calling them bitches. Female empowerment may be the dominant cultural force of our time, but as any five year-old in the playground can tell you, the greatest insult for a boy is to be called a girl.

Why does society have a preference for boys? What parent in their right mind would prefer something made of snakes, snails and puppy dogs tails to something made of sugar and spice and everything nice? Boys are not easy to raise. They're aggressive, destructive little things; and when they grow up they can be downright murderous. Males are responsible for 80 percent of crimes, 90 percent of murders and pretty much every war throughout history. Men are less forgiving, more judgmental, more right-wing, more prone to mob violence. They're more vulnerable to schizophrenia, genetic diseases and baldness. They die younger. Their body odor is ranker. Their claims to superior logic are belied by their impulsive behavior and their tendency to think with their dicks. Men are just as emotional as women but in all the wrong ways. Women may get weepy at the slightest thing but it's men that go postal. Men will kill out of anger, jealousy, revenge, sport... you name it. And if there's a cause out there, then they'll kill for that too. Does anybody think America would be at war in Iraq if Laura Bush ran the country?

So, given that girls are better behaved, more caring, more giving, more even tempered, more likely to be exemplars of everything we recognize as worthy and good; why, oh why, do we favor boys? Well, let's start with the obvious. Half of society is made up of men and men like men. They want to have sex with women and they're willing to live with them but they generally prefer the company of men. And it's not hard to see why. Guys get other guys. Guys understand why it's fun to get drunk and piss off the edge of a rooftop. They speak the same language. They know the rules. A guy is never going to get pissy because some other guy forgot to call him. And there's nothing a guy likes more than to see his guyness reflected back at him. When a man looks at his infant son he can envision their whole relationship; from playing catch to drinking beer on the porch. The father-son relationship is profound, almost sacred. It's completely different with a daughter. Women, generally, are a mystery to men. Men don't truly understand their wives, their connection to their sisters is often limited to tearing off their dolls' heads and God's knows what's going on with the whole mother thing. Daughters, to men, are an unknown quantity. They have no memory of a father-daughter relationship to draw from. And any fantasy about her future life comes to an abrupt, unfathomable end when he imagines her of dating age. In poll after poll from around the world, men strongly (up to 95 percent in China) prefer sons.

Women, on the other hand, do not strongly prefer daughters; and like men, women also like men. They may not appreciate their testosterone driven excesses, but they're attracted to their forthrightness, their boldness, their humor and their sense of honor and duty. They marvel at the ease with which men negotiate their position in the hierarchy. Girls may make better human beings overall, but boys just seem... more appealing. But here's the central question: Does this essential masculine appeal drive the preference for boys or is it simply a reflection of it?

Feminist theory is fairly blunt about this. The preferential treatment of boys and the desire for boys is a social construct. We live in a patriarchal society which places greater value on boys and as long as men have power it's better to have sons. The construct is self-reinforcing and is very difficult to change. If women were to become the dominant gender then the situation would presumably be reversed and girls would be accorded greater value than boys. The theory is speculative of course. There's almost no way to prove or refute it because almost all societies are patriarchal and they're patriarchal because men being physically stronger and more aggressive, naturally gravitate to leadership.

But now that physical prowess is no longer a leadership determinant, is it possible that at some point we may see a shift in gender value towards girls? Given the recent inversion of academic performance (girls now excel in all subjects while boys' sphere of excellence has been reduced to Gameboy, Pokemon and lipping-off at the teacher), and with the increasing importance of education in the global economy, it is quite possible that women will begin out-earning their less educated brothers within a generation. Whether this translates into a genuine shift in gender power and whether this shift has any real effect on gender value remains to be seen.

There are signs that this may already be happening, however. While the preference for sons is very strong worldwide, it is diminishing, especially in the western nations where women have made the greatest gains towards gender equality. If one were to draw a line on the gender preference graph from 1950 to today, one would see the line fall, slowly at first, but quite steeply in the last couple of decades. If one were to follow the angle of this line into the future one could conclude that at some point, girls will be preferred to boys. In one country, that line has already crossed the threshold. In Japan, girls are wanted more than boys. So far, Japan is the lone exception to the gender bias expressed everywhere else and the jury's out on whether Japan is a cultural anomaly or the vanguard of a sea-change in gender value. Fifty years ago the Japanese expressed the same strongly pro-boy bias that was typical in other Asian countries, but over the last thirty years as the Japanese became richer and better educated, that stated preference has fallen. Men still prefer sons (41 percent to 28 percent - the rest being neutral) but women strongly (64 percent to 16 percent) prefer girls. This runs counter to the stats of most other countries and may underscore the Japanese exception. In Japan, sons may carry on the family name but they no longer bring home all the bacon. Japanese women make almost as much money and they're much more likely to care for aging parents. Additionally, mother-daughter relationships are "trendy" in Japan and this has likely been reflected in the current mother-daughter preference. But it's also probable that the shift towards daughters is a product of the increasing valuation of women that comes with gender equality.

So, will we be gender neutral in a couple of decades? Might we actually drift to a preference for females? It's possible but I doubt it. Even if women end up earning more than men. Even if femininity triumphs masculinity and The Gilmore Girls ends up representing a higher standard of female potential than Buffy the Vampire Slayer; boys will still be boys. Boys will never want to be like girls. Whatever value society places on them, they will place a higher value on themselves, individually and as a gender. As David Bowie said so succinctly; "Boys keep swinging, Boys always work it out." And goddamnit, there's just something appealing about that.

When A Penis Becomes A Handicap

Men are stronger than women. We're bigger, tougher and have more muscle mass. We're decisive and we lead naturally (usually while facing into the wind with a chiseled chin). So it may come as a surprise to learn that by practically every measure, save for physical prowess, men are, by some margin, the weaker sex. Perhaps I'm being a little disingenuous using the term "weaker." I use it because it's ironic. It confounds our expectations. For centuries women have been referred to as the weaker sex, but in a wider sense, the term is better applied to men. Let's start with the basics. Males lack a duplicate set of X chromosomes. As such they fall prey to any recessive disorder carried on the X chromosome including color blindness, hemophilia, muscular dystrophy, Rett's syndrome and a couple of dozen others that you've never heard of. For reasons unknown, men are also more susceptible to birth defects, mental retardation and autism. And those are just the diseases latent when we're in the womb. After we're born it gets worse.

We're more susceptible to alcoholism, obesity, heart disease, cancer and diabetes. We're more likely to suffer from a host of mental disorders including schizophrenia and manic-depression. While it's still men that scale the commanding heights of social success, it's also men that plumb its depths. Of those living on the streets, men outnumber women by a factor of 5. Although both men and women are buffeted by circumstances both inside and outside their control, men seem to have less resilience. Men are more likely to succumb to disease and stress and widowers are far more likely to die shortly after their spouse than widows.

In his excellent book Y: The Descent of Man, Steve Jones describes an ill-fated expedition of Mormons that got caught in an early winter in the Rockies. Ultimately, forty men died through starvation and exhaustion while only four women suffered such a fate. We men like to think we're as tough as steel but push us too far and we're as fragile as glass.

On average, women live eight years longer than men. While some of this discrepancy can be accounted for in the myriad failings listed above, most men don't have genetic defects, nor are most alcoholics or mentally ill. Most of us survive our reckless teenage years. What then explains this longevity gap? There's a thought that the defining male hormone, testosterone, may itself be to blame. Studies have shown that testosterone weakens our immune systems and accordingly leaves us susceptible to infectious disease and cancer.

But even given all the above, it doesn't change the fact that we guys still dominate affairs on this planet, right? That might be true now, but not for much longer, and this is a tough idea for men to get used to. For all our genuflection to the idea of gender equality, men accept dominion over women pretty much as a birthright. And for all of history (and likely most of pre-history), man's natural endowments of physical strength, coupled with the inclination to use it aggressively have allowed him to dominate the female gender.

But for some time now, at least in the developed world, physical strength has not been a primary determinant of power. We have laws that protect the weak. Violence is now the prerogative of the state, not the individual. Within the state we are all equal, at least in theory. That notion will never trickle down into the trenches of grade school, but it has seeped into all levels of adult society. Instead of warrior princes, it's spindly geeks who rule the world. As a natural corollary to the forces of economic and technical change, masculinity is being progressively devalued. Tasks requiring strength and endurance are being done by machines or shunted to the third world. Wage labor is less physical and increasingly mental and in many ways better served by the innate skills of women.

Whether the sexes are born intellectually equal depends on what your frame of reference is. What is clear is that we are not born the same. Evolutionary logic requires this. We have different reproductive agendas, different natural roles and different skills required to carry them out. Men are more visual, we're better able to manipulate objects in a three-dimensional space. And for what it's worth, we seem to be better at making judgments dispassionately. While there will always be jobs that require these skills, the labor market is increasingly weighted towards the service sector, where jobs require tact, communication and attention to detail; skills that women have in abundance.

Right now we're at a tipping point, and ground-zero is the classroom, where girls are consistently outperforming boys. They score higher in scholastic achievement and are already over-represented in colleges and universities. And the trend shows no sign of abating. This is a complete reversal from a generation ago and no one knows why it's happening. Theories range from the effect of brainless video games to a global male sulk to male-oriented scholarly pursuits like blowing dope, chasing ass and mooning passing traffic. But young men have always put such activities ahead of study, so perhaps one can conclude that while boys haven't changed all that much, girls have. It could well be that girls are simply better suited to the world of academia. At every stage, save for perhaps those unfortunate years between 12 and 15, girls are clearly the more sensible gender. Guys are more impulsive, restless and less able to sit still and pay attention. It's not our fault; it's mandated by our genes. It's testosterone that turns us into Dennis the Menace while the Margarets of this world study and get good grades.

Like it or not, it's those who get the grades that will, in the future, make the grade. There is direct relationship between the level of one's education and the level of one's future income. Men may still out-earn women statistically, but for those under the age of thirty those differences are largely non-existent. In another decade it will be women that are bringing home the larger share of the bacon. And this financial clout will inevitably translate into political clout. And what will happen then? Feminism arose to address the perceived inequalities between men and women. Can we expect a similar movement representing the interests of men to arise when the tables have been turned? Perhaps, but I doubt it. Feminism succeeded through solidarity. And that sense of solidarity was achieved because women perceived themselves to be the weaker sex. Men will never view themselves as such, even when all the evidence screams to the contrary. If it's not in our nature to stop and ask for directions when we're clearly lost, we're not likely to summon the collective will to whine about our fate. Men are from Mars and women are from Venus. And for the first time since we split from the Bonobo (our closest relative), Venus is ascendant.

Paul Aitken: A Penis Doesn't Always Make A Man

Penis Picture and Article. Back in the 70s, when I was on the verge of adolescence, I remember watching an episode of Hawaii Five-0 in which a man who had confessed to a series of rapes was revealed to be impotent. When Jack Lord's hard-boiled Detective Steve McGarrett asked the man why he would take the fall for such a heinous crime, the man admitted that he didn't want people to know that he "wasn't a man anymore." McGarrett shook his head in dismay and said. "You have no idea what it is to be a man... You haven't a clue!" We never did learn what constituted the essential masculine to Steve (presumably getting ones dick hard enough to penetrate a woman's vagina wasn't it), but the question tugged at my prepubescent existential doubt and still does to this day. What is it that makes us men?

According to my dad, a man was any male who was over the age of 21. In certain tribal societies it's any male who's undergone the tribal initiation ritual or been tested in combat. I personally felt that I was a man when I grew taller than my mom at age 14, but later, was led to understand that my status as a real man was in limbo unless I could down ten beers in one sitting. Given the subjectivity inherent in the definition, perhaps we should rephrase the question. What is it that makes us male?

The answer to this is both simpler and more complex than we might assume at first glance. It turns out that it's damnably hard to isolate the sin qua non of masculinity. Sure, generally speaking, if it stands to pee, then it's a guy, but talented women have been known to piss upright like John Wayne, so that's not definitive. Having a dick and balls is another strong indicator, but even that's not absolute. We've all seen pictures of chicks-with-dicks and it's estimated that one out of every 3,000 - 4,000 children sport both ovaries AND testes. Now, I know you brainiacs out there are musing impatiently; "Oh please. It's sooo obvious. It's in the genes, man. If it's got a Y chromosome it's a he." Some of you who've taken a couple of biology courses and are feeling your oats might sniff aloofly that it all comes down to a component of the Y chromosome called the SRY (sex determining region of the Y chromosome) gene. If the SRY gene is present you get a guy, if not, you get a girl. End of story, right? Well, not quite.

In the vast majority of cases the if-you've-got-a-Y-you're-a-guy rule holds. Even children with one or more extra X chromosomes (XXY and XXXY) are to all intents and purposes male. In rare cases, during meiotic recombination between the X and Y gene, the SRY gene can be translocated onto the X chromosome. When this happens the child will genetically be a girl (XX), but thanks to the presence of the SRY gene on the second X, will develop into a male complete with one dick, two balls and a multitude of Jessica Alba posters on the walls. He may never even know his genetic status until he and his wife try to figure out why she can't get pregnant. XX males are always sterile.

No one knows precisely how the SRY functions but it appears to be a switch that turns on sometime during the fourth week of gestation, shunting the fetus away from a default female destination to a male version. Specifically, the proteins that the SRY produces bind to other sections of DNA, distorting their shape. This alters the expression of other genes which are themselves associated with other genes that are associated with other genes that are... associated with testes formation. Got it? As I mentioned before, nobody knows, but it's clear that sexuality is a manifestation built on processes that are themselves built on other processes. How many layers are in this scaffolding we can, at this point, only guess at.

The complexity of the process is hinted at by two well documented exceptions to the rule: XY females and XX (sans SRY) males. XY females are genetically male but are in every outward respect female. With XY females, fetal testes begin to grow during gestation and start to secrete testosterone. But thanks to a genetic mutation, or combination of mutations (some of which are thought to be located on the X chromosome - androgen insensitivity can be passed down by way of the mother), the surface receptors on critical cells don't recognize this testosterone or it's metabolite, dihydratestosterone (DHT). The fetus accordingly fails to undergo the secondary stages of male fetal sexual development (which seem to be driven almost entirely by hormones). Depending on the type of mutation involved, androgen insensitivity can result in the whole spectrum of gender mash-ups, from males to hermaphrodites to smokin' hot babes. It was rumored for a while that Jamie Le Curtis was an XY female. While this rumor seems to have been scotched, the basis for it is grounded in real science.

With XX (sans SRY gene) males, the picture gets even murkier. Somehow, in the absence of the sex-shifting gene, testes are formed, testosterone is produced; and when the baby pops out, his room gets painted blue. How this can happen is anybody's guess. Some scientists have speculated that perhaps the default sex is NOT female after all. In this scenario, the SRY gene acts to "repress an inhibitor of male testicular development." In case you didn't notice, that is the molecular equivalent of a double negative. Instead of being a guy because you're not a female, you're a guy because you're not not a male. Whatever is happening, it's clear that these XX (sans SRY) males have a mutation that affects a process that runs deeper than what the SRY gene affects. If your head is reeling with all of this, try thinking in terms of a computer metaphor. Sexual determination (and all development) is a sub-routine built on top of other sub-routines. At the very base of all this lies a machine language that is almost indecipherable. What has happened with these various mutations is that they've uncovered a backdoor code, a genetic atavism from a much earlier period when sexuality was determined by extra genetic or autosomal (any chromosome other than the X and Y) factors. In reptiles, sexuality is determined by temperature at a critical stage in embryo development. Warm egg - boy reptile; cool egg - girl reptile. In birds, sexuality is determined by an entirely different set of genes on different chromosomes. And in the case of birds, it is the males who have the double set.

So what makes a man? Well in the absence of a definitive test we're back to the subjective. A man is what we agree a man is, and if we can't agree, hey, it's anybody's guess. As Steve McGarrett might say; "We have no idea what it is to be a man... We haven't a clue!

Paul Aitken: Testosterone The Key To Embryo Sex Selection?

Penis Picture and Article. When I was a snotty adolescent punk, I got into a debate with my father about, of all things, the wisdom of nature. "Nature isn't wise, Dad, it doesn't have a brain!" My father took a more holistic view and cited the fact that more boys than girls were born following the two world wars - presumably to replenish the decimated male gender - as an example of nature's wisdom.

I hadn't heard that before so I did what any know-it-all adolescent does in such situations: I denied it completely. "Impossible," I snorted. "First of all, how would nature 'know' that a great chunk of the male gender had been killed off? And how would nature 'respond'? Wave a magic wand and presto! More male babies?" A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing and I had recently learned about X chromosomes and Y chromosomes and the fact that any one sperm had one or the other and therefore the gender of any baby, fetus or blastocyst was a strictly 50-50 proposition. I even remember my biology teacher talking about the irony of Henry VIII executing his wives because they couldn't give him male children when in fact the gender of his progeny was determined entirely by his sperm!

I can't remember how the debate ended and I can't say my opinion has changed. I still don't believe nature possesses "wisdom." But nature has certainly turned out to be far more complex and mysterious than I had imagined in my adolescent certitude. For one thing I've since learned that the ratio of male to females born is NOT a 50-50 proposition at all. There are in fact around 105 human males born to every 100 females. This is not a statistical anomaly. It cuts across all ethnic groups. But it's not a global constant either. Amongst Africans and Amerindians the figure is 102:100, suggesting a genetic mechanism is at work. It's possible, even probable, that this is an evolutionary adaptation to counter the gender imbalance that arises in late adolescence. In every culture young men are prone to dying young and stupidly. In primitive tribes the cull rate is over 25 percent. I also learned that my father was correct. During and after both world wars there was a spike in the birth of male babies. This is an astounding fact and one I still have trouble digesting. How did nature "know" there was a war? How was she able to respond in the way she did? What exactly determines the gender of a baby?

The answer has been the same since we discovered chromosomes. XX = girl. XY = boy. End of story. Gender is genetic. Hormones may play a role in how gender manifests itself - bathe an XX fetus in the wrong hormones at a critical stage in development and she'll be a chick with a dick - but genetically she'll still be a girl. The female ovum only carries an X chromosome. That means gender is determined by the sperm. Given that there are an equal number of X and Y sperm produced, one would expect there to be an equal number of male and female births. This obviously isn't the case, so somewhere between the balls and the baby; something is giving the Y gene a leg up. But what?

Let's start with the sperm themselves. Could Y sperm have a natural advantage? Could they be, ahem, superior to X sperm? Well... yes, as a matter of fact. It comes down to basic physics. The Y gene is considerably smaller and lighter than the X gene. Given that speed is a product of force and mass; all things being equal Y should be faster and this is a race after all. The "Y is lighter" theory has been suggested to account for the fact that more boys than girls are conceived in the early stages of ovulation when the sperm must pass through a thick mucus plug at the entrance to the uterus. Once ovulation begins, the mucus plug develops watery channels and progress is much more a matter of chance, but before then it's a long hard slog and small advantages come into play. But is the weight advantage enough to account for the 105:102 ratio?

Early ovulation conception is fairly rare and while the difference in mass between Y and X is real, it is also negligible. The nucleus is a tiny fraction of the weight of the sperm and the weight of one chromosome is a tiny fraction of that. And what about that post war spike and other statistical quirks? Not only are more boys conceived in the early stages of ovulation, they're also favored in late ovulation. The length of the follicular period also appears to be a factor as does birth order (more boys born first) birth interval (short intervals favor boys) the age of the mother (older women give birth to more girls) and as we've already seen, ethnicity. Chromosomal mass differential may be a factor in the sex ratio, but it's not the only one and probably not the main one.

But one factor seems dominant and in fact may be able to account for most, if not all, the aforementioned statistical curiosities: hormones. In the period before and after conception, the sperm and the ovum are bathed in a number of different hormones the proportions of which vary according to the stage of ovulation, the status of fertilization and the state of mind of the mother. The latter may seem a stretch until one remembers that many personality traits are hormonally driven (think PMS). Dominance, driven by serum testosterone, (the amount of testosterone present in the blood - yes, women produce testosterone too!) seems to be an important determinant in the sex ratio. Mothers who score in the top quintile on dominance have on average five times more boys than those who score in the bottom quintile. This surprising statistic underpins what's become known as the Maternal-Dominance Hypothesis (MDH). Big-time MDH fan, Dr. Valerie Grant, contends that the tendency for dominant women to have male babies is an evolutionary adaptation. Not only are dominant women better suited to raising male children; high status women tend to raise high status sons. And because male status is attractive to women (how else do you explain Billy Joel and Christie Brinkley), these sons are more likely to be genetically successful than daughters, whose ability to reproduce is ultimately limited by the relatively small number of eggs they were born with.

While the molecular mechanism by which higher serum testosterone favors an XY conception is still unknown, there is speculation that testosterone affects the manner in which sperm passes through the clot of cells that surround the ovum (the zona pellucida). As I explained in "Mr. Sperm Goes to War", passage into the zona pellucida (ZP) is determined by a matching of surface proteins between the acrosome (head) of the sperm and the outer layer of the ZP. Recent studies have shown that while gene transcription is rare during sperm differentiation, some Y genes are expressed in the formation of the acrosome. This suggests a mechanism by which the ovum can recognize, and possibly favor, a Y sperm.

The high serum testosterone theory goes a long way to explaining why more first-borns are male. Young women have higher levels of serum testosterone and these levels are most pronounced in the first few months of a sexual relationship when sex is frequent and conception likely to occur. It also explains the preponderance of male babies born during and shortly after the two major wars. Serum testosterone levels in women are not constant. Like other hormones, testosterone is subject to flux depending on a woman's psychological state. Women working in traditionally masculine occupations such as law have been shown to have higher levels of serum testosterone. And no, this isn't just because high testosterone women are attracted to such occupations. Studies have shown that the type of work women do changes their testosterone level. So it stands to reason that when women were responsible for holding up the homefront during the war (they worked in factories, played professional baseball), they could very well have experienced elevated testosterone levels.

If the testosterone theory is correct it has enormous implications. For one, it could provide a means by which couples could influence, or even choose, the gender of their children. This may be good or bad depending on your ethical point of view, but there's no denying the value to parents desperate for one sex or the other. In a double irony it turns out that Henry VIII's choice of wives may have had some bearing on his inability to sire a male heir after all. If only Anne Boleyn had worn a testosterone patch history might have been very different.