All About Women, Esquire April 2002
All About Women, Esquire April 2002
HER ADULTEROUS AFFAIRS, HER FANTASIES, HER AMBIVALENCE ABOUT SEX, HER LOVE OF SEX, HER THONGS, HER LABOR PAINS, HER SELF- LOVE, HER BUBBLE LETTERS, HER STILETTOS, HER LOVE OF PORN,
HER BATHS, HER FOOT MASSAGES. IT'S ALL HERE. EIGHT PAGES OF
SECRETS REVEALED, GO AHEAD, READ IT. YOU MIGHT LEARN SOMETHING.
Okay. What's in the handbag?
A (totally authorized) check of the purses of Esquire's female staffers revealed: a piece of pine bark, Tums, Australian chewing sticks, a seashell, Shout wipes, a yoga schedule, licorice-flavored rolling papers, PalmPilots, movie-ticket stubs, ajar of apple sauce, an article about new hotels in England, cell phones three fortune-cookie fortunes, lipstick, two rocks, a camping knife, arnica oil for sore muscles, a guitar pick fashioned from an old Sears credit card, flavored toothpicks, a train schedule, a lightbulb, and lots and lots of Advil.
Why do they live longer?
Five years longer, to be specific, lasting on average to seventy-nine. Why? Multiple reasons. A recent British study suggested that throughout their lives, women have stronger immune systems than men, thanks to a higher number of T-cells. Women also have more durable hearts-and the bum ticker, of course, is the number-one killer among middle-aged men, whose heart-related mortality rates soar after thirty-five, while women's heart problems don't usually crop up until after menopause. Men's testosterone causes increased levels of bad cholesterol in their blood and suppresses the good kind, whereas 1n women, estrogen has precisely the opposite effect.
Behaviorally, men have tended to engage in more risky behaviors-mountain climbing, say, and smoking, although female lung-cancer rates have increased in recent years while males' have declined. Evolutionarily, some argue that men were needed solely to impregnate women, after which their presence was basically useless, whereas women needed to stay around to see that their children made it to maturity. Then, too, women have slower metabolisms than men, which may mean that men's cells are placed under greater stress throughout life, or, put simply, that their life cycle completes itself sooner.
Why are there more of them?
For one thing, they live longer. And also because God is a supremely benevolent being.
What kind of sexual act do women like best-and don't tell me cuddling.
We first put this question to the esteemed Dr. Joyce Brothers. Her reply? "A man to take her into his arms and say, 'l love you and I love you forever' and to do It frequently." But seriously.
Carol Queen, author and sexologist at Good Vibrations, a sex-toy shop in San Francisco, says the two acts she hears about most frequently from women are good oral sex (receiving it, that is) and "a nice, rollicking fuck-ooh, can I say that In Esquire?" (She can.) What, then, is the best way to fuck in a rollicking manner? In 2001, our friends over at Cosmo asked their readers that very question. The results? Thirty-six percent favored woman on top facing you, 30 percent missionary, a shocking 24 percent preferred doggie style, and 3 percent preferred woman on top facing away from you. (They did not provide phone numbers for that 3 percent,) But probably the best way to find out is the most obvious: Pay attention to how she responds to your moves and repeat the ones that please her.
How are they different physically, besides the obvious?
They have less of the digestive enzyme that breaks down alcohol, which partly explains their inability to keep up with us at the bar. They have more taste receptors, but they digest food more slowly, making them more prone to constipation. They are less prone to cancers of the lung, bladder, and stomach but more susceptible to such chronic conditions as arthritis and osteoporosis. Also, they are two to three times more likely to develop multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, migraines, and depression. They have better hearing and sense of smell, are less likely to get hiccups or be colorblind, and, because they have less of the testosterone that contributes to baldness, are less likely to lose their hair. All that, and their memory functions better than ours does.
What are the most common sexual fantasies a woman has?
Surprisingly, the most common fantasy is the ol' Ed Asner-Harvey Korman sandwich. But you knew that Second on the popularity list, say experts, is what Is known as the pretty-maiden fantasy. "This is where the woman sees herself as the object of desire," says Wendy Maltz, sex therapist and coauthor of Private Thoughts: Exploring the Power of Women's Sexual Fantasies. "It's a more submissive fantasy role, where she's swept away by a handsome man, and he knows exactly what to do to turn her on and keep her going. Sometimes these are very romantic, and sometimes there are elements of force. But even when there are elements of force, there's not cruelty." Dennis Sugrue, professor at the University of Michigan Medical School and coauthor of Sex Matters for women, seconds the importance of making that clear. "It's not uncommon for a woman to have a fantasy about being overpowered. But if you mention that, there's gotta be some caveats there, because the last thing you want to do is give somebody permission to not take 'no' for 'no.' "On the other end of that spectrum is Maltz's second-most-popular fantasy theme: the wild woman. "That's the dancing-on-tabletops, I'm-gonna-pick-the-guy-I'm-gonna-sleep-with role, where I can have whichever one I choose; she says.
Is it fun to have breasts?
Is it fun to have balls? Hard as this might be to imagine, most women don't spend any more time thinking about their breasts than you spend thinking about . . . well, never mind. The answer is no. Breasts are not that fun. Breasts are a terrific catch-22. If they're large enough to satisfy the tastes of breast-obsessed men, then they jiggle about uncomfortably any time they aren't pinned beneath a viselike sports bra. "Being large-breasted is definitely more of a burden than a blessing," one thirty-one-year-old New Yorker told us. "Bathing-suit and slinky-dress shopping is agonizing, any workout that involves jumping or running is ruled out, and the adolescent Joy in your cleavage is conversely proportional to your premenopausal grief in their sagging." On the other hand, if they're small enough to be comfortable, chances are some guy is looking at them right now and thinking, Is silicone really that dangerous?
Why can't women drive?
Perhaps the question you're actually asking is: Why won't women get their Cabriolets out of your way so that you might straighten the curves and flatten the hills-that is, why won't they drive faster? And the answer is, perhaps what you consider good driving is not considered necessary by someone who just wants to make her Tuesday-morning sales meeting in one piece. True, the number of women involved in fatal accidents increased 24 percent between 1985 and 1998, while male drivers in deadly wrecks declined 9 percent. But that's mainly because there are 55 percent more women on the roads than in 1977. The truth is, male drivers' fatal-crash rate per mile remains almost twice that of women's, a ratio basically unchanged in twenty-five years. Men also are more likely to drink and drive, speed, ignore their seat belts, and drive with suspended licenses.
WOMEN BY THE NUMBERS
ท The typical American woman will live to be 79.
ท She is 5' 3.7" tall.
ท She is 152 pounds.
ท The typical woman is 25.1 when she marries for the first time.
ท 1 in 4 women never marry.
ท 75 percent of all married women have had premarital sex.
ท 52 percent lose their virginity before age 18.
ท 13.4 percent of married women admit to having had an extramarital affair.
ท The average woman has 7.9 sex partners throughout her life.
ท The typical American woman earns $20,241 a year (compared with 533,614 for men).
ท 1.2 percent of all auto mechanics are women.
ท 96.4 percent of al dental assistants are women.
ท 97.5 percent of childcare workers
ท 0.7 percent of stoneworkers.
ท The average woman eats 70.1 pounds of beef per year.
ท 1 in 5 women smoke cigarettes.
ท The typical American woman thinks that cybersex is synonymous with infidelity.
ท The average American woman owns 7.6 pairs of jeans.
How is a female orgasm different from a male orgasm? For one, the female orgasm is less likely to be televised. T1y finding a porno that shows even a fake one amidst the male money shots. It's similarly elusive (if less so) in real life, generally requiring a longer period of stimulation to achieve. Physiologically, there are similarities, among them involuntary contractions of the muscles in the pelvic region about every eight tenths of a second, says Dennis Sugrue. Psychologically, too. A study in the seventies had experts read people's written descriptions of their orgasms and then asked them to guess which of the writers were male and which female. They couldn't. Of course, women do not ejaculate anything (if they do, it's because they have an abundance of lubricating fluid), and some report having multiple "kinds" of orgasms, depending on where they are stimulated. Sugrue also points out that women who have sex multiple times often report that each successive orgasm is more satisfying than the one before, while men generally consider the first the most intense.
Speaking of multiple-orgasms, why can't I get me some of that? In 1966, Masters and Johnson wrote that men require a cooling-off period after an orgasm-called a refractory period-during which ft's uncomfortable to be stimulated. But these days, there are sex therapists who argue that men actually can become multi-0rgasmic by learning to separate the idea of climax from ejaculation. (See the book fie Multi-Orgasmic Man, by Mantak Chia and Douglas Abrams Arava, you like.) The secret lies in holding back at liftoff. As to the issue of why women have it easier, you want to look at sexual response in a evolutionary perspective. The chances of successful reproduction might increase in a species in which males ejaculate quickly and decisively, whereas multiple orgasms give women all the more reason to partner up.
Why are women always cold?
Mainly because they're always wearing scanty, clothing to please patriarchal, phallocentric oppressors like you. Actually, there are a couple possible explanations. According to Andrew Young of the U. S. Army Research Institute of Environmental Medicine, although women have a higher percentage of body fat
Women on Men
Aisha Tyler, TV host: "Guys think that women want to be lied to-that they're saving our feelings. But women always like honesty, even if it's hideous. We'd rather have a guy with a peg leg and pockmarks and one eyeball who we know is on the level than some hottie who, when he gets home, we find out has got a prosthetic leg and contact lenses. We'll take the peg leg every time. 'Cause the peg-leg guy, you know where he s coming from. You can hear him coming around the corner and down the hall with that little stick tapping on the floor. You know what's going on with peg leg. He'll never sneak up on you."