1. Everyone's a Wanker

2. Recession Bites

3. Paul Krugman: On the Edge of the Abyss

4. Sarah Palin: The Politics of Spunk

5. Sneering Pundits Were Losers in VP Debate

6. VP Debate: Palin Forceful & Folksy

A new study suggests masturbation could be good

for mental and physical health. Do the experts pull

it off or are they just yanking our chain? [Source]

Masturbation is still one of those taboo subjects that many people don’t understand or simply don’t want to talk about.

Researchers at the University of Kansas, however, have made it their business to discover how different people perceive this often-misunderstood facet of human sexuality.

Charlene Muehlenhard, professor of psychology, has been researching opinions about masturbation since 2004. The research is supposed to help get a “better idea of people’s attitudes” toward masturbation, Muehlenhard said.

“[In the] first study we were really interested in learning more about the topic, the meanings of masturbation,” Muehlenhard said.

This round of research is different because studies usually only give the percentage of men and women who say they masturbate, not the individual’s attitude toward it, Muehlenhard said.

For the studies groups of male and female college students completed a questionnaire, which the researchers created based on a pilot study with open-ended questions to judge their feelings about masturbation.

Chantal Young, a Washington, D.C. graduate student, wrote her thesis “The Meanings of Masturbation” while working on the research with Muehlenhard.

Young said she wanted to study masturbation because no standards exist to measure people’s attitudes in research and because attitudes about masturbation can have important effects in clinical settings. Its role as both a societal and academic taboo also interested her, she said.

“Masturbation is useful as a clinical tool and has been used to treat orgasmic disorders, premature ejaculation, delayed ejaculation, erectile difficulty and general sexual issues,” Young said.

Young said the results of the study revealed extreme variations in people’s opinions on masturbation. The opinions were categorized into four groups: enthusiastic, high-guilt, ambivalent and lukewarm.

“Some [people] feel extremely positively about masturbation and believe that it is essential to sexual, emotional and physical health,” Young said.

“Others feel extremely negatively and find it to be disgusting, immoral or against their system of values. And many people seem to have conflicting attitudes toward masturbation — for example maybe they enjoy doing it but feel guilty afterward. This reflects ambivalence.”

The study pinpoints the top reasons why people choose to masturbate and common emotions associated with it. The study found the top five reasons for masturbating to be pleasure, self-exploration and improvement, mood improvement, relaxation and stress relief, and avoidance of partner sex.

The top five reasons for not masturbating were immorality, no desire or interest, preference for partner, fear of negative social evaluation and sex negativity. Common emotional responses included satisfaction, guilt, anger, anxiety and indifference.

Numbers associated with Young’s study suggest that masturbation remains a popular activity [how surprising!].

Young said the research showed that 97 percent of men and 63 percent of women masturbate.

Young said women who don’t masturbate at all had the most negative attitudes of all participants in the study, and women in general felt more anxious about masturbation than men.

Natalie Stroupe, a Frankfort, Ky. graduate student, wrote her thesis about women’s sexual issues, including masturbation. She has also been involved with Muehlenhard’s research.

Statistics show the difference between the attitudes of men and women toward masturbation, Stroupe said. In the study 59 percent of men said they masturbated once a week to once a day, and 29 percent of women said they masturbated once every few months to every few weeks. Twenty-nine percent of women said they never masturbated.

Although some people view masturbation negatively, many experts agree masturbation could be beneficial. Stroupe said masturbation could be “beneficial for sexual, mental and even general health.”

“The claim that masturbation is harmful is not backed by scientific evidence,” Stroupe said.

“It seems that the only potential ill effects of masturbation come from negative emotions associated with engaging in it, such as guilt, shame and spiritual conflict resulting from the persistent cultural stigma that surrounds this behavior.”

Recession Bites

COMING AMID Wall Street's spectacular financial meltdown, the late summer spike in unemployment around the country--reaching near 20-year highs in some places--was relegated to back-page news.

In August, there was a net loss of 33,000 private-sector jobs nationwide--and expectations for September employment numbers, due out today, certainly weren't more optimistic.

The August job loss was led by a decline of 78,000 manufacturing jobs--despite an increase in U.S. manufacturing exports caused by the decline of the dollar relative to other currencies. National unemployment rose to 6.1 percent in August--compared to 4.7 percent a year ago--and several states and cities reported 15- to 20-year highs in jobless rates.

Even if the proposed $700 billion bailout for Wall Street banks goes through, unemployment will continue to rise. As Barron's put it, "Bank capital will likely remain scarce.

Businesses will find it tougher to get financing at the same time that demand for their wares fades, and consumers are coming under the twin pressures of rising unemployment and falling wages, just as their net worths are declining and their ability to borrow is being crimped."

In other words, even if financial markets are stabilized, the "real economy" is already choking and gasping for air. Workers--already hard hit by lower wages, housing depreciation and foreclosures, and rising food and fuel costs--simply can't make ends meet. In these circumstances, losing a job can be disastrous for workers and their families.

Many more workers will soon join the rolls of the unemployed. Big companies--with 500 or more workers--are leading the way in slashing jobs. Employment in services has barely kept even, owing to the fading results of last spring's economic stimulus package. The only sector of the economy with consistent employment growth has been health care.

Paul Krugman: On the Edge of the Abyss

The financial and economic news since the middle of last month has been really, really bad. And what’s truly scary is that we’re entering a period of severe crisis with weak, confused leadership.

The wave of bad news began on Sept. 14. Henry Paulson, the Treasury secretary, thought he could get away with letting Lehman Brothers, the investment bank, fail; he was wrong.

The plight of investors trapped by Lehman’s collapse — as an article in The Times put it, Lehman became “the Roach Motel of Wall Street:

They checked in, but they can’t check out” — created panic in the financial markets, which has only grown worse as the days go by.

Indicators of financial stress have soared to the equivalent of a 107-degree fever, and large parts of the financial system have simply shut down.

There’s growing evidence that the financial crunch is spreading to Main Street, with small businesses having trouble raising money and seeing their credit lines cut.

And leading indicators for both employment and industrial production have turned sharply worse, suggesting that even before Lehman’s fall, the economy, which has been sagging since last year, was falling off a cliff.

How bad is it? Normally sober people are sounding apocalyptic. On Thursday, the bond trader and blogger John Jansen declared that current conditions are “the financial equivalent of the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution,” while Joel Prakken of Macroeconomic Advisers says that the economy seems to be on “the edge of the abyss.”

And the people who should be steering us away from that abyss are out to lunch.

Sarah Palin: The Politics of Spunk

Folksy Palin Photo: She winked. She wrinkled her nose. She gave a "shout-out" to a third-grade class.

Never before have American voters met a national politician quite like Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, who in her debate debut Thursday night mixed colloquialisms and the manner of a PTA mom while talking about such deadly serious topics as nuclear weapons.

"Ah, say it ain't so, Joe," Palin scolded her debating opponent, Sen. Joe Biden, after he claimed the Republican ticket would merely continue the policies of President Bush.

"Now, doggone it, let's look ahead and tell Americans what we have to plan to do for them in the future."

If Palin's goal was to show that she could credibly share the stage with a seasoned politician -- and turn the page after two bruising weeks of unsteady media interviews -- then she succeeded beyond even many Republicans' expectations.

She committed no major mistakes, and delivered a livelier and more rhetorically compelling performance than Biden, 21 years her elder, who appeared most comfortable playing the role of grizzled Senate committee chairman.

Where Palin talked of parents nervously discussing the economy at their kids' soccer games, Biden invoked obscure legislative amendments while talking about lessons learned from a late Senate majority leader.

But while Republicans will surely declare victory in the debate (and breathe deep sighs of relief), major questions remain for the GOP ticket.

At a moment when the country is racked by terrifying economic forces, the question facing Palin and her running mate, Republican presidential nominee John McCain, is whether her unusual presence will help the GOP gain enough public confidence to win next month's election.

The woman who has cast herself as a Washington outsider and middle-class PTA mom -- she claimed a commitment to "Joe Six Pack, hockey moms across the nation" -- also sought to attack Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama on a variety of national security points, calling his views on meeting with foreign dictators, for example, "beyond naive."

Sneering Pundits Were Losers in VP Debate

The vice presidential debate scheduled for last night didn't happen -- at least not as envisioned by media observers with their characteristic mix of glee and dread.

Republican candidate Sarah Palin spoke in clear, concise sentences that mostly made sense, and if she didn't answer all the questions posed to her, at least she didn't tell the moderator that she'd "have to get back to ya."

Neither did Democrat Joe Biden ramble or froth, mention the fictional televised speeches of FDR or accidentally call the governor of Alaska "Lil' Lady."

If you think this is a hyperbolic description of expectations, then you didn't catch David Gergen and his colleagues at CNN claiming that what Palin had to prove was her basic competence, including a grasp of the English language.

Meanwhile, over at MSNBC, Newsweek's Howard Fineman announced that Biden's job was to get out there, answer the questions and get off the stage "without making news."

And in what was perhaps the most shocking aspect of the entire event, virtually every anchor or pundit agreed that Biden had to tread carefully so as not to seem too aggressive.

If the bar had been placed any lower for this debate, they would have had to bury it.

So how surprising was it, really, that neither candidate devolved into a Jerry Springer screaming fit or fell into a state of catatonia? In fact, both were in rare form, giving what may have been their best respective campaign performances yet.

Palin came in with a clear advantage, of course. When all you have to do is prove you can address issues in a coherent way, it's fairly easy to exceed expectations.

She set her tone instantly by asking the senator at the handshake if it was OK to call him Joe. He said, "Yes, of course," and from then on it was "Joe" and "Gov. Palin."

Indeed, with her "bless his/her hearts" and knowing laughs, Palin may have invented an entirely new rhetorical style: random folksiness.

Each bit of lighthearted "Sarahness" was followed by a Serious Face as she got down to the issues. Or at least the issues she was comfortable with.

The most pointed difference between Biden's performance and Palin's is that he answered pretty much each question that was asked before returning to the topic of his choice (usually how John McCain mirrors the Bush administration).

Palin pronounced early on that she wasn't necessarily going to answer questions but would instead address the American people directly.

VP Debate: Palin Forceful & Folksy

For a single night at least, Sarah Palin was back, the homespun hockey mom voters once fell for hard.

She delivered a forceful but folksy debate performance designed to exorcise the memory of her recent disastrous TV outings - as someone who could bring soccer-sidelines common sense to a confused capital, the same appealing delivery that sent her approval ratings soaring just five weeks ago.

But just because it worked once for Palin doesn't mean it will work again.

And a lot has changed since her debut acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention - most notably a financial crisis that has made voters feel like they're not ready to take a chance with a relative novice like Palin.

More than that, her strong showing last night probably didn't answer the one question voters tuned in to see - whether she's truly up to the job of president.

Her answers often were crisp and entertaining, peppered with occasional zingers and slogans that boosted John McCain and cut down Barack Obama. But she offered few specifics as to how she would do the job beyond saying she would hew to McCain's policies.

If McCain's campaign needed a game-changer to shake up a race that increasingly seems to be moving Obama's way, they probably did not get it with Palin's performance - as sharp and appealing as it was.