Les périls du butinage sexuel

« L'effet négatif du butinage sexuel est faible, mais il est bien réel. Il touche surtout les femmes. Celles qui ont des rencontres sexuelles sans relation amoureuse ont, six mois plus tard, plus de risque d'être déprimées ou anxieuses, d'avoir des problèmes d'estime de soi ou une grande consommation d'alcool [plus de 15 consommations par semaine] », dit Elisa Weitbrecht, doctorante à l'Université de Cincinnati.

- La Presse

Total recall: the people who never forget

An extremely rare condition may transform our understanding of memory.

If you ask Jill Price to remember any day of her life, she can come up with an answer in a heartbeat. What was she doing on 29 August 1980? “It was a Friday, I went to Palm Springs with my friends, twins, Nina and Michelle, and their family for Labour Day weekend,” she says. “And before we went to Palm Springs, we went to get them bikini waxes. They were screaming through the whole thing.” Price was 14 years and eight months old.

- The Guardian

The grim reality of the brothels of Pompeii

Like the anxious men who began excavations at Pompeii in the 18th century and discovered more about the ancient Italians than they had bargained for – such as phallic-shaped lamps – historians of sex are regularly confronted with case studies from the past that challenge their own ethics. Those who worked the streets of Pompeii and served clients in the brothels lived hard lives, yet many of the murals that survive depict the women as erotic and exotic.

Murals from brothels and buildings that served as brothels (such as inns, lunch counters, and taverns) show fair-skinned women, naked (except for the occasional breast band), with stylised hair, in a variety of sexual positions with young, tanned, athletic men. The figures sport on beds that are sometimes ornate and festooned with decorative quilts.

- The Conversation

«Black Mirror»: dans un futur de plus en plus proche

La quatrième saison de Black Mirror montre quelques signes d’essoufflement. En 2011, Black Mirror démarrait en lion à Channel 4. Créée par Charlie Brooker, journaliste et chroniqueur télé pour The Guardian, la série d’anthologie dystopique illustrait notre rapport, voire notre dépendance, à la technologie dans un futur pas si lointain.

Intitulé « L’hymne national », le premier épisode plongeait le spectateur en plein cauchemar. Afin d’empêcher l’assassinat d’un membre de la famille royale, le premier ministre était forcé d’avoir une relation sexuelle avec un porc en direct à la télévision et sur les réseaux sociaux.

- Le Devoir

Debunking Myths About Estrangement

It’s the classic image of the holidays: Parents, siblings and their children gather around the family table to feast and catch up on one another’s lives. But it doesn’t always work that way.

After years of discontent, some adults choose to stop talking to their parents or returning home for family gatherings, and parents may disapprove of a child so intensely that he or she is no longer welcome home.

- NY Times

La «Joy of Missing Out» en cadeau - Ou comment reprendre le contrôle du calendrier de sa vie

Le temps des Fêtes apporte son lot d’invitations de toutes sortes, alors qu’on a bien souvent envie de rester chez soi, blotti sous une couverture. Doit-on lutter contre les invitations qui nous incitent à faire un million d’activités — et si oui, comment ? Une semaine avant la prise de résolutions du Nouvel An, explorons le phénomène de la «Fear of Missing Out» («FOMO») et de sa cousine, la «Joy of Missing Out» («JOMO»)…

-Le Devoir

How books can sap the soul and poison readers with ideas

Reading novels is good for you. This is the current wisdom, at least. A 2013 study by the New School for Social Research in New York City attempted to prove that reading passages by Don DeLillo and Lydia Davis had an immediate impact on participants’ ability to identify the emotions of others. Another, at Emory University in Georgia, found that reading novels had the potential to cause heightened ‘connectivity’ in the brain. A third, at the University of Sussex, made the case for books being one of life’s most effective stress-relievers.

-Aeon

The Strange, Twisted Story Behind ''Voyeur'' on Netflix

And now, the story of two men working on the story of a man working on the story of a man who liked to watch people have sex.

Even when pitched in the simplest possible terms, there’s a lot going on in Netflix’s new documentary, Voyeur. Warring perspectives are everywhere, as two comparably unreliable narrators clash through layers upon layers of subjectivity. The trailer slims down the concept to its innermost layer and offers that as the whole: Master journalist Gay Talese made contact with a strange fellow named Gerald Foos, who had spent upwards of two decades spying on and pleasuring himself to the visitors of his motel in Aurora, Colorado. The actual film expands its scope to encompass Talese himself as he conducts the research for a book about Foos, both men figures of boundless fascination for co-directors Josh Koury and Myles Kane. As Talese burrowed into Foos’s unsavory psyche, Kane and Koury kept their eyes on the big picture.

-Vulture

Your 50s Will Probably Be the Most Unhappy Time of Your Life

Everybody’s life is filled with ups and downs, but new research suggests everyone’s life follows a particular pattern when it comes to our general contentedness. Around mid-life, we all seem to be pretty bummed.

-Lifehacker

8 Reasons Why You Should Rethink Your Stance on Cheating

In decades of relationship counseling, psychotherapist, relationship expert, and author Esther Perel has seen quite the gamut of experiences on cheating and infidelity. So much so that she could — and did! – fill a whole book with them. Perel's latest work of non-fiction, cheekily titled "The State of Affairs: Rethinking Infidelity" is basically a convincing crash course in rethinking the strict American standards on monogamy and shame around cheating.

Though she's Belgian (not French), Perel recently sat down to answer questions about her book and her views on how cheating should be reframed at New York City's French Institute Alliance Francaise. Here are eight key reasons why we should all relax our views on infidelity a little bit, from probably the foremost scholar on cheating that the world has to offer.

-Cosmopolitan

The Wild Weird World of Vintage Surreal Swinger Ads!

The story- I bought a knee high stack of Swinger Ad magazines from the 70s (because that’s what I do) and enjoyed the next few months leisurely leafing through them marveling at the personals. It’s endlessly amusing to look at the selected photo of a clean cut average Joe and then below read the description of what he wants to do with a likeminded gal who has a chimp, a tub of jello, nipple clamps and lederhosen. Or, a photo of someone else’s ad where it’s damn well obvious they’re in the mood for that.

-mitchoconnell.blogspot

An archaeological dig in Israel provides clues to how feasting became an important ritual

This holiday season millions of families will come together to celebrate their respective festivals and engage in myriad rituals. These may include exchanging gifts, singing songs, giving thanks, and most importantly, preparing and consuming the holiday feast.

Archaeological evidence shows that such communally shared meals have long been vital components of human rituals. My colleague Leore Grosman and I discovered the earliest evidence of a ritual feast at a 12,000-year-old archaeological site in northern Israel and learned how feasts came to be integral components of modern-day ritual practice.

-The Conversation

How forced marriage saved a US defector in North Korea

Every night before going to bed, US defector Charles Jenkins turned to Hitomi Soga, the woman North Korea had forced him to marry, and kissed her three times.

"Oyasumi" he said, using her native Japanese. "Goodnight", she replied in English, the language of his North Carolina childhood.

"We did this so we would never forget who we really were, and where we came from," Jenkins wrote in his memoir.

Theirs is a dark, strange, compelling tale - and finally, a love story.

-BBC

What science says about why we get déjà vu

It’s one of the oddest sensations. That feeling where you are in a new situation, or a completely new environment, but you get an intense feeling of familiarity. For no apparent reason, you feel like you’re reliving a past experience. It’s called déjà vu, which is French for “already seen,” and it happens to an estimated 70% of the population.

-Business Insider

The Surprising Effects of Loneliness on Health

The potentially harmful effects of loneliness and social isolation on health and longevity, especially among older adults, are well established. For example, in 2013 I reported on research finding that loneliness can impair health by raising levels of stress hormones and inflammation, which in turn can increase the risk of heart disease, arthritis, Type 2 diabetes, dementia and even suicide attempts.

-NY Times

10 Teachers Who Ran Away With Their Students

We usually think of teachers as people who have the best interests of their students in mind. Sure, there are teachers who pick on certain kids or give ridiculous amounts of homework, but we really don’t associate them with criminal behaviour. Nevertheless, some teachers become overly attached to their pupils and form inappropriate relationships with them. When the teachers get caught, they take the student and run. Together, they travel to different cities, states, and even countries. Fortunately, they are usually caught quickly.

-Listverse

The chilling reason everyone's sharing that 'New Yorker' story about dating

Have you ever finished a story and thought to yourself: "I just read my life on a page"? That's how many women are responding to a New Yorker short story about a young woman's shitty dating experience. If you haven't yet read Cat Person by Kristen Roupenian, then stop what you're doing right now and get to it. Oh, and while you're at it, you should avert your eyes this very minute: spoilers abound. 

-Mashable

«Le trip à trois» – Ce que femme veut

Comme bien des couples, Estelle (Mélissa Désormeaux-Poulin) et Simon (Martin Matte) se sont perdus de vue depuis qu’ils sont parents. Pis encore, Estelle se sent invisible aux yeux de ses collègues, surtout depuis l’arrivée d’une flamboyante consoeur (Karine Gonthier-Hyndman). Heureusement, elle peut compter sur le soutien de sa soeur croqueuse d’hommes (Bénédicte Décary) et de ses copines, l’une mère indigne (Anne-Élisabeth Bossé), l’autre éternelle célibataire (Geneviève Schmidt). Lui viendra au cours d’une soirée arrosée une folle idée : et si elle s’offrait un trip à trois ?

-Le Devoir