On single-sex school, bikinis and decision-making

Research says single-sex schools help children thrive.

It says boys, particularly, have trouble paying attention in class, and often ignore instructions and generate sloppy work. Among the reasons, the article concludes, are more female teachers (than male teachers), superior female student counterparts (girls read faster and control their emotions better), and unfit educational structure.

An alum of both types of schools myself, I fairly agree with the argument, but am not sure about the details - perhaps because the article refers to U.S. education. (Shoot! There was also literally no girl in most of my Mechanical Engineering classes.)

To me, the boys of single-sex schools can practically say "there is one less thing to worry or think about". Thus they can more freely express their feelings and actions.

Most of which are usually deemed unmannered.

What are other potential advantages? Well, they can benefit through better decision makings.

What?

Well, there's this research that scientifically demonstrated that bikinis make man stupid, that sexy images rob male brain of ability to make wise decisions. The paper is formally titled "Bikinis Instigate Generalized Impatience in Intertemporal Choice".

How will this benefit the students? While there shouldn't be any bikinis at school, I'd say that you never know what's in young men's mind... or what they can imagine. For single-sex school students, at least this imagination part is eliminated or 'constrained'.

The experiments must be like torture to the 358 young men subjects.

Read this: "In one test, the men looked at images of women in bikinis or lingerie and at images of landscapes. In another, some men were given T-shirts to handle and assess while others were given bras. Another batch of men was assigned to watch a commercial featuring men running over landscapes while other guys watched a video of “hundreds of young women, dressed in bikinis running across hills, fields and beaches.” (No word on whether they used “Baywatch” slo-mo)."

How valid is this research? If concentrating itself is difficult, let alone making decisions, then the research must be quite valid.

Take an example from my friend, at his previous company.

One of his best technicians was fixing a pump when a female employee with sizeable yet well-proportioned boobs (that's how he explained to me) passed by. Without realizing it, the technician let his fingers cut (but did not require amputation) in the pump. Recordable accident.

In manufacturing environment (in any environment, in fact) it's a big deal. But you know what the technician said?

"It's OK. It's worth it."

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Men go to sleep because women don’t turn into a pizza

After sex, that is.

Men go to sleep because women don’t turn into a pizza. That's what Dave Zinczenko told Arianna Huffington - which she blogs in "Less Sex, More Fat: Why You Need to Get Some Sleep". She argues against workaholism and sleep loss: less productivity, less job satisfaction, less sex, and more inches around the waist. She ends the post by saying "So do yourself a favor and go to sleep right after sex. Or before sex. Or instead of sex. Just not during sex."

(I, too, question what enough sleep is, support midday nap, want to know the best time to go up, and try to find out how to sleep more to lose weight.)

Anyway, I'm not going to share my sex life. But it's worth it to check out what Melinda Wenner has got to explain, about why guys get sleepy after sex -- as apparently perceived by many ladies.

Towards the end, there's an interesting survey result, that 48% of English men fall asleep during sex...??

Why do guys get sleepy after sex?

(published on Scienceline and She Blinded Me With Science!)
by Melinda Wenner

For many women, the correlation between sex and snoring is one of those annoying facts of life: no matter when passionate encounters occur, men always seem to fall asleep immediately afterwards. Dave Zinczenko, the author of Men, Love and Sex: The Complete User Guide For Women, explained the phenomenon to Huffington Post writer Arianna Huffington this way: “Men go to sleep because women don’t turn into a pizza.”

I doubt I am ever going to become a pizza, and I’ll never have the foresight to order one beforehand. So in lieu of a cure, a better explanation will have to do. Although women sometimes feel sleepy after sex, the phenomenon does seem more pronounced in men. What is it, then, that spirals them into the land of nod?

First, the obvious reasons for sex’s somnolent sway: the act frequently takes place at night, in a bed, and is, after all, physically exhausting (often more so for the man than the woman, although this certainly varies). So when sex is over, it’s natural for a guy to feel sleepy.

Secondly, research using positron emission tomography (PET) scans has shown that in order for a person to reach orgasm, a primary requirement is to let go of “all fear and anxiety.” Doing so also tends to be relaxing and might explain the tendency to snooze.

Then there is the biochemistry of the orgasm itself. Research shows that during ejaculation, men release a cocktail of brain chemicals, including norepinephrine, serotonin, oxytocin, vasopressin, nitric oxide (NO), and the hormone prolactin. The release of prolactin is linked to the feeling of sexual satisfaction, and it also mediates the “recovery time” that men are well aware of—the time a guy must wait before “giving it another go.” Studies have also shown that men deficient in prolactin have faster recovery times.

Prolactin levels are naturally higher during sleep, and animals injected with the chemical become tired immediately. This suggests a strong link between prolactin and sleep, so it’s likely that the hormone’s release during orgasm causes men to feel sleepy.

(Side note: prolactin also explains why men are sleepier after intercourse than after masturbation. For unknown reasons, intercourse orgasms release four times more prolactin than masturbatory orgasms, according to a recent study.)

Oxytocin and vasopressin, two other chemicals released during orgasm, are also associated with sleep. Their release frequently accompanies that of melatonin, the primary hormone that regulates our body clocks. Oxytocin is also thought to reduce stress levels, which again could lead to relaxation and sleepiness.

What about the evolutionary reasons for post-sex sleepiness? This is trickier to explain. Evolutionarily speaking, a man’s primary goal is to produce as many offspring as possible, and sleeping doesn’t exactly help in his quest. But perhaps since he cannot immediately run off with another woman anyway—damn that recovery time!—re-energizing himself via sleep may be the best use of his time.

And although there is conflicting information as to whether women feel sleepy after sex, a woman often falls asleep with the man anyway (or uses it for some key cuddling time), which is good news for him: it means she is not off finding another mate. When the man wakes up and she’s still there, he just might be ready to go again.

It’s also possible that sleepiness is just a “side effect” associated with a more evolutionarily important reason for the release of oxytocin and vasopressin. In addition to being associated with sleep, both chemicals are also intimately involved in what is called “pair bonding,” the social attachment human mates commonly share. The release of these brain chemicals during orgasm heightens feelings of bonding and trust between sexual partners, which may partially explain the link between sex and emotional attachment. This bond is favorable should the couple have a baby, as cooperative child rearing maximizes the young one’s chances for survival.

The bottom line is this: there are many potential biochemical and evolutionary reasons for post-sex sleepiness, some direct and some indirect—but no one has yet pinpointed the exact causes. One thing, however, is certain: we females better get used to it, because it doesn’t look likely to change anytime soon.

I will leave frustrated American women with one final thought: if you are upset at the ubiquity of the post-sex snoring phenomenon, remember that things could be a lot worse. A recent survey of 10,000 English men revealed that 48 percent actually fall asleep during sex.

Talk about coitus interruptus!

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On love

Bumped into this while browsing Yahoo! Most Emailed Photos:

A couple kiss. A new study published in Evolution and Biology reports that people who are in love with their partners are less attracted to other people.

Two things came into mind.

One, it's good to see that people keep challenging the status quo or public predominant beliefs. I am pretty sure that most people would have thought this as 'fact' even before the study was conducted. But these guys go out and challenge (or prove) it. Seriously, I mean it, and I appreciate it.

Two, it proves that my friend, back in high school, was wrong - that love does, indeed, exist in real life. His theory was that love exists only in songs and movies (he was single and, probably, desperate at that time).

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Another workers survey

There was then the not unhappy Indonesian employees. And now, another survey on workers' attitudes to work and work life-balance, it's the Dutch being the least whining.

While Luxembourg had the highest disgruntled employees, the French now have topped a list of the world's most whining workers.

The Work Whinging findings are based on a number of factors, including percentage of workers unhappy with pay, actual income relative to cost of living, percentage of workers who feel work impinges on private life, and average weekly working hours.

There's no information whether Indonesian or Malaysian workers were surveyed out of these 23 countries.

China, Thailand and Japan were the only three Asian countries mentioned in the press release. Japanese being the lowest morale workers, while Thai workers are the second in term of employee morale, along with Irish workers.

I argued that the Indonesians being the least unhappy in the previous study could be an indication of inferiority complex. Now that it is the Dutch, I am thinking that it has something to do with the long colonization period. Cultural transfer, or something like that. Possible, eh?

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