Pic by Helmut Newton
You might know a lot about sex, but you don’t know everything. Below are 20 of my favorite weird truths that I found on the internet about sex that are guaranteed to either turn you on, gross you out, or at least give you a serious sexual reality check.
1. Harvard University now offers a class called “What What in the Butt: Anal Sex 101.” No, that’s not a lie–the workshop is offered in conjunction with the Ivy League university’s Sex Week, and is intended to help students practice healthy and pleasurable anal sex. How cool is that?? You can read more about it here.
2. Guys, your worst fear is a reality: the penis gradually shrinks with age.
3.There is more to the clitoris than the eye can see. The clitoris is actually close to four inches in length, however three fourths of it is inside body. And the clitoris actually grows throughout a woman’s life. After menopause it can grow 2.5 times larger than it was during the teenage years. (We win!)
4. Masturbation is healthy for you! For example, it’s good for stress management, it’s good for your pelvic muscles, it releases endorphins, it lowers the risk of type-2 diabetes and of prostate cancer, it prevents cervical infections in women, and it helps you fall asleep! Why not add a healthy dose of masturbation to your daily kale salad?!
5. Oh, also, masturbating is one of the most effective natural ways to cure period cramps. (Cheaper than Advil.)
6. Eating semen can make you less depressed! Or, at least it’s packed full of natural mood-enhancers, like prolactin, oxytocin, serotonin and estrone, which are natural antidepressants.
7. The word “vagina” comes from the Latin root meaning “sheath for a sword.” (As a half lesbian, I am OFFENDED by this!)
8. Scary (but also kind of funny): Seventy-five percent of Malawians believe that homosexuality is a “Western invention.”
9. Roughly half of Americans lose their virginity by the age of 17, but 10% stay virgins after the age of 24.
10. Depressing: The American Psychiatric Association listed homosexuality as a mental illness until 1973.
11. 46% of Israel’s Arab citizens say they would be bothered by having a gay couple as their neighbors.
12. 9 Viagra tablets are sold every second. (I wonder if this affects the sale of lube?)
13. A quick kiss burns about 2-3 calories, whereas more passionate kiss burns 5 or more calories, depending on the duration and intensity. So basically if you’re not using tongue kissing is not dietetically worth you time.
14. Unsettling: Over the course of two weeks, a single human male produces enough sperm to impregnate every fertile woman on the planet.
15. 75% of Japanese women own a vibrator, but the average worldwide is only 47%.
16. Duh: Most women get hornier than usual right before their period.
17. Weird: A woman is more likely to consider committing adultery during ovulation than at any other time in her menstrual cycle.
18. 1 in 10 European babies is conceived in an IKEA bed.
19. Some women cum during childbirth.
20. Ending on a sad note: Earlier this month, UK porn was heavily censored–specifically BDSM porn, noooo! The Audiovisual Media Services Regulations introduced a series of seemingly arbitrary moral restrictions on the pornography produced and sold in the UK. Some of the sex acts now banned from British porn are: spanking, caning, aggressive whipping, penetration by any object “associated with violence”, physical or verbal abuse (regardless if it’s consensual), urolagnia (known as “water sports”), role-playing as non-adults, physical restrain, humiliation, female ejaculation, strangulation, facesitting. Read more about this idiotic and moralistic censorship here.