5 ways to hold onto the magic as you ripen in love
For Hollywood, there are two stages of love: “time-stopping, earth-shattering, falling into” and “happily ever after.” In the real world, which can include things like diapers and boredom, those pesky 10 lbs you’ve been trying to lose forever, setbacks at work, and global pandemics, the space between the fireworks and the sunset is quite a bit messier.
As anthropologist and brain researcher Helen Fisher has documented during her 45 years scanning human brains in love, what we tend to call “romantic love” is the result of a particular type of measurable biological process, involving activation of several brain regions, a set of habits and patterns of thought and the release of a powerful cocktail of hormones. …
“Where is it written that power is the sole province of the worst?”
The whole universe is contained within Season 1 of Game of Thrones — power, intrigue, sex, dominance, submission, love affairs and family feuds. Young heroes, whom we know will soon meet their death or rule the world, vie for control over the seven kingdoms of Westeros.
Gender roles in the universe of Ice and Fire are at once fixed and also far more spacious than our own. Balancing on one leg while training as a swordswoman in Episode 3 of the season, Arya Stark simply informs her father, “I don’t want to be a Lady.” And, she does not. …
200,000 years of human history and we still don’t know what love is.
What is the mode of right effort we should put towards tending the flames of love, if we want them to warm us for a lifetime? What are the daily actions we can take to hold onto love when she graces us with her blessed presence?
Human beings are a little obsessed with love.
In 2018, researchers Christenson, Roberts and ter Bogt analyzed Top 40 music from 1960–2010 and found 67% of the songs related to love and relationships and an additional 29% related to lust or sex. …
Is viral in the eye of the beholder…? Not really…
The phrase “going viral” was first coined by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book The Selfish Gene, in a context unrelated to technology. There, drawing on Darwinian theory, he posited that ideas replicate in a manner similar to viruses.
It was not until the advent of the internet that we have been able to observe the true pace and scope of the dynamic. An idea goes viral when it is passed exponentially from one person to the next in a rapid fashion. …
Goddesses, Pop-Stars, Superheroes and Sluts
Just days after Trump’s first impeachment and before things spun out of control, Shakira and JLo rocked the Super Bowl with an unbelievable 2020 Halftime Show. Recalling it now, it feels like a flashback from another dimension, where powerful women ruled the world.
The set was fifteen minutes celebrating sexual, liberated women, with strong political undertones. Thirty female dancers in red flanked Shakira as she sang, accompanied by ten female violinists:
As the empires of the world unite.
we are alive
the stars make love to the universe
and you touch me.
Half of my mom friends wanted to show the performance to their daughters as an instructional video in liberated, brown female empowerment, while the other half reported turning it off midway through, not wanting to expose their girls to a performance they found lewd and inappropriate. …
In search of the time portal back to a better dimension
Here’s what I’m thinking: A world in which more than than 1,000 people are dying each day in both the US and the UK must be a bad episode of Twilight Zone, right?
That one where a total failure of leadership leads to the needless death of thousands?
Ya, that one was a nail-biter. Sheesh!
How did we end up here?
You might tell me that we jumped from a generally decent timeline to this nightmare one back when Hilary lost the US elections to the “Pussy-Grabber-in-Chief,” but I have another theory.
I’m thinking that the wormhole back to the place where the grass is indeed greener might be found in the dethroning of Daenerys Stormborn. …
Maybe the Proud Boys just need to get laid
Since their attempt to bring down American democracy, I’ve been thinking a lot about the Proud Boys.
I am a lover of men, especially alpha men. I know how empowered men feel when they are pressed skin to skin against me. Tickling the snake of their power, charming it so that it will come out to play, is my gift and my greatest pleasure.
I don’t just believe in men’s intrinsic goodness, I believe in their uniqueness. I believe this even when it flies in the face of the good feminist education I’ve received, which once taught that claiming essential differences between the sexes is misguided and now proclaims all gender to be a construct. …
What it took to coax my orgasm out of hiding
For the longest time, I could only orgasm on one-night stands. Not every one-night stand. But, if the chemistry and the architecture were right, the orgasm was incredible. He’d fill me, or pound me, or I’d ride him with abandon, I’d explode with pleasure.
I really didn’t know what to make of it at first.
Each experience was other-worldly in one way or another. I learned so much about myself and about the myriad forms of pleasure I could feel when I let myself go completely on those nights. …
The October 2020 upgrades included a shift in the way articles get selected for distribution
Full Disclosure: Every single time a non-Medium employee writes about Medium’s backend, they are offering analysis based on inference and the wisdom of their experience. No more. No less. That’s what I’m doing here.
Some Background
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