Sundance Channel

The slow but (hopefully) steady erosion of our gender stereotypes

Em and Lo — Fri, 13 Jan 2012 18:00:22 +0000

For our book club, we're reading the 2003 novel "We Need to Talk About Kevin" by Lionel Shriver.* I, Lo, knowing nothing about the book or its author, began reading and was amazed that a male author could create a female narrator that sounded so authentic and convincing, especially regarding childbirth and motherhood. That is, until halfway through the book when I happened to catch a glimpse of the author photo on the inside back flap: turns out Lionel is a woman.

Men-ups!

Em and Lo — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 17:05:58 +0000

We once did a photo shoot for The Sun, the super trashy but widely popular UK newspaper (you know, the one with the "Page 3 girl"). We were promoting the British edition of our book, The Big Bang. We were young and naive, the photographer was old and pushy, and as he gradually encouraged us to get into sillier and sillier poses, our publicist was there pressing us on. We felt like Coco in the original "Fame." Don't get us wrong: we were dressed. But at one point we reluctantly ended up on a bed with one of us holding the other's bare leg straight up in the air like a lightening rod. It was not what we'd consider sexy, feminine, or us. Fortunately, our inner horror must have radiated out of every pore, because they ultimately ran the article without the pics. (There was a God that day.)

How to close the orgasm gap

Em and Lo — Thu, 28 Jul 2011 17:00:28 +0000

It's not exactly rocket science to say that men orgasm more often than women when they have sex with each other. Now, if you had to guess, what do you think happens to this orgasm gap as a relationship progresses from casual hookup to repeated hookup to serious commitment? Yep, the orgasm gap closes. According to new research by Elizabeth Armstrong, a sociology professor at the University of Michigan, women orgasm about 80% as often as men do in close relationships -- but only 32% as often in first hookups. This research is based on feedback from 12,000 college students across the country. In other words, yes, the undergraduate female orgasm is a rare and special beast.

Can you tell the sex of an author from a paragraph, like VS Naipaul?

Em and Lo — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 17:00:35 +0000

In an interview at the Royal Geographic Society last week, during which Nobel laureate and jackass VS Naipaul idiotically suggested that women writers are 'sentimental' and 'unequal to me', he also claimed that 'I read a piece of writing and within a paragraph or two I know whether it is by a woman or not.'

Women have casual sex for — get this! — pleasure

Em and Lo — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 18:00:51 +0000

It may not be news to any of you ladies out there who’ve enjoyed the thrill of a no-strings-attached hook-up, but for those who buy into the evo-psych pop notion that women are only interested in high-status resource providers rather than hotties (i.e. the opposite of men’s supposed eternal motivations) there’s a study published in [...]

The flaws in the science of sex differences

Em and Lo — Thu, 18 Nov 2010 17:00:04 +0000

One of our biggest pet peeves is our society's automatic acceptance -- the giddy embrace, even -- of the theory that men are from Mars and women are from Venus, with nary a space shuttle between them. We've written before on the lazy scientists who are suckers for a sexy headline about the "innate" differences between men and women, while touting the seemingly lone, reasonable voice of neuroscientist Lise Eliot in her book "Pink Brain, Blue Brain: How Small Differences Grow into Troublesome Gaps — and What We Can Do About It." Fortunately, there are now a few other voices of reason voice that have jumped into the fray as of late: First, Barnard professor Rebecca Jordan-Young in her new book "Brain Storm: The Flaws in the Science of Sex Differences"; and then "Delusions of Gender: How Our Minds, Society and Neurosexism Create Difference" by academic psychologist Cordelia Fine. Slate has a great review of "Brain Storm" here, and below is Publisher's Weekly succinct starred review of it:

Getting by with a little help from a sportsgasm

Em and Lo — Fri, 09 Apr 2010 17:00:33 +0000

When Craig Venezia, the man behind the Faking a Sportsgasm blog, wrote to us suggesting that our sites had a lot in common, we were wary. On the one hand, we love that he makes fun of macho dudes who slobber and moan over balls and hard pucks. But on the other hand, we're against faking of any kind -- and it seems like Craig just wants to blend in with all the face-painted sports fans. Which would mean that slobbering macho dudes win. And on the other other hand, part of us thinks that Craig just might be pulling everyone's leg. But then Craig uploaded his Faking a Sportsgasm song to his blog, set to the tune of YMCA, with lyrics like "A discharge of your testosterone / You can do it when you’re all alone / But it’s more fun, when you’re with other guys / Then you can all do high fives." Okay, so (a) that is hilarious on so many levels, and choosing the YMCA tune was a stroke of genius. And (b) the recording actually sounds really good and surprisingly professional, which leads us to think that Craig is serious and not pulling our leg. We're still not down with the faking, but we're totally down with making fun of sports fans in song, and so we decided to ask Craig a few questions and let him explain his mission in his own words.

Study: housework increases sex no matter who mops

Em and Lo — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 20:00:39 +0000

photo from Porn for Women It’s long been a given in the sex advice biz that dudes who break out the vacuum cleaner every once in a while are more likely to get laid. We typically fight such Men-are-from-Mars-Women-are-from-Venus stereotypes, but we’ve heard too much anecdotal evidence to ignore this one. It’s not that watching [...]

10 good reasons why women have sex

Em and Lo — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 16:00:08 +0000

It seems like everyone right now is talking about that new book Why Women Have Sex, by Cindy Meston and David Buss. Apparently lots of women reported having sex to keep the peace, to stave off boredom, to relieve a headache, or to get their husbands to take out the trash (oh, yeah, and occasionally [...]

WTF: Potbellies on dudes are now officially hot

Em and Lo — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 16:00:50 +0000

photo by Vee Dub Oh, it’s so unfair! We women are held to ridiculous American Apparel size-0 standards (yes, mostly self-imposed, but the media practically makes us do it!), while men get to eat what they want, become chubby, and are still considered cute and even sexy (e.g. Seth Rogen, Zach Galifianakis, Tobey Maguire). To [...]

Erections still just a bit too hard

Em and Lo — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 16:00:40 +0000

photo via Filament magazine

The brand new Filament magazine in the U.K. calls bullshit on the so-called common knowledge that women don't like to look. The real problem, they figure, is that women have just never had anything decent to look at. According to their "Female Gaze" mission statement: "From research we’ve learnt that what most women find erotic does not at all match what is typically thought of as an erotic image of a man designed for women. For example, on average, women prefer: men who are not muscle-bound; men with more feminine face shapes; men with attractive faces; images that show the subject’s character and the environment he is in." Oh yeah, and sometimes women like to see erections, too. And there's the, er, rub.

Study: The car doesn’t maketh the man

Em and Lo — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 16:00:22 +0000

photo by Qole_Pejorian In news that will probably be surprising only to the male readers of this site, a recent study found that expensive cars don’t really impress the ladies. Researchers in Australia measured changes in the brain responses of women toward a range of men in different cars. Turns out a man having a [...]