Do You Feel Shame About Being Single? By John Amodeo, PhD

Do You Feel Shame About Being Single? By John Amodeo, PhD

(Link): Do You Feel Shame About Being Single? By John Amodeo, PhD

Excerpts:

If find yourself single, are you ok with that or distressed by it? Do you feel judged by others — or perhaps judge yourself for your current status?

Growing up in our society, it’s hard to avoid the message that being married is required for happiness. We may feel pressured to believe that if we’re not in a partnership, there’s something wrong with us — that it’s shameful to be single.

How Breaking Up Can Wreak Havoc on Whole-Brain Dynamics

How Breaking Up Can Wreak Havoc on Whole-Brain Dynamics

(Link): How Breaking Up Can Wreak Havoc on Whole-Brain Dynamics

Excerpts:

by C. Bergland, June 2020

Romantic breakups may disrupt spatiotemporal brain dynamics, a fMRI study finds.

Anyone who’s ever gone through a traumatic breakup knows that breaking up is hard on your psychological well-being and feels like it throws your brain into a tailspin.

Now, a new fMRI brain imaging study (Martinez et al., 2020) sheds light on different ways a romantic breakup may disrupt whole-brain dynamics. These findings were published online May 26 in the journalNeuroImage: Clinical.

No Surprise There: Bradford Wilcox Deems Married People Better Off During Pandemic Than Single Adults – Rebuttals

No Surprise There: Bradford Wilcox Deems Married People Better Off During Pandemic Than Single Adults – Rebuttals

I have made several blog posts in years past discussing some of Bradford Wilcox’s articles about marriage for various publications.

Wilcox works for, is somehow affiliated with, organizations such as the National Marriage Project and Institute For Family Studies. He is very much about promoting marriage, natalism, and the nuclear family.

In years past, he has promoted marriage and all the rest at the expense of singleness: he loves to advance marriage by stigmatizing singleness.

Wilcox (and guys like him, such as Southern Baptist Al Mohler) likes to try to “scare” single adults into getting married by publishing faulty and fear-mongering essays about how studies (which he sometimes misquotes or misunderstands) supposedly say that singles are more likely to suffer this or that calamity or problem than are married people.

Any time Wilcox comments on any issue, you can guarantee before you click on the headline that his editorial will say that married people have X better than singles have X.

It doesn’t matter if he’s talking about financial issues – like in the link that follows – or some other topic.

His pieces are all heavily agenda-driven: to make marriage look fabulous by slamming singleness, or by making singleness look “worse” than marriage, or by making singleness look unsafe, scary, or miserable.

‘Leftover’ Is A Term Used In Many Parts of Asia For Women Who Haven’t Married By Their Mid-20s

‘Leftover’ Is A Term Used In Many Parts of Asia For Women Who Haven’t Married By Their Mid-20s

Good gravy, Chinese culture sounds just as bad as American evangelical and American conservative Christian culture: shaming and pressuring single women into getting married, then blaming them if they’re still single by age 30, 35, or older.

People should not put so much pressure on singles to marry, and shame them for being single, that it creates anxiety in them (see below) or (Link): causes some of them to commit suicide or to (Link): mutilate their bodies or to (Link): kill other people because they are single and a virgin (see also, see also)

Here’s the article about Chinese people shaming singles for being single:

(Link): For single Chinese women, the Lunar New Year can heighten anxiety and the fear of facing their families

Excerpts:

‘Leftover’ Is A Term Used In Many Parts of Asia For Women Who Haven’t Married By Their Mid-20s

(from) The Lily News
February 3, 2019

Adapted from a story by Liu Yang, Wang Yuan and The Washington Post’s Anna Fifield.

BEIJING — For many single Chinese women, questions regarding their unwed status and the pressures they face to get married are so intense that they are searching for ways to avoid their family’s badgering.

Some are asking their bosses for extra work on the Lunar New Year — China’s biggest holiday — which falls on Feb. 5 this year. Others are inventing boyfriends. Still, the pressure mounts. Hospitals are reporting a spike in young people seeking treatment for anxiety.

Pat Robertson’s Too-Vague Response About Unanswered Prayer and Non-Helpful Advice About Anxiety

Pat Robertson’s Too-Vague Response About Unanswered Prayer and Non-Helpful Advice About Anxiety

The episode in question:
(Link): The 700 Club – January 8, 2019

(There is a video of the program embedded on that page hosted on CBN’s / 700 Club’s site. Also, thanks to commentator Stevo below, check (Link): this page on 700 Club’s site for the video)

The portions of that video I am addressing come during the part of the show where the lady co-host reads viewer questions to Pat Robertson, and Robertson replies to them.

I do not remember at what point the question segment airs, whether it’s at the 30 minute mark or later. Unfortunately, they’ve not uploaded the same episode to their You Tube channel (not yet, perhaps they will tomorrow).

I have to rely on memory here because I’ve not re-watched the episode.

Questions were posed to Robertson about unanswered prayer and about anxiety.

And I don’t believe that Robertson did an adequate job of replying to any of the questions.

Why Are Young People Having So Little Sex? America is in a Sex Recession – by K. Jullian

Why Are Young People Having So Little Sex? America is in a Sex Recession –  by K. Jullian – via The Atlantic

(Link): Why Are Young People Having So Little Sex? America is in a Sex Recession – via The Atlantic

These should be boom times for sex.

The share of Americans who say sex between unmarried adults is “not wrong at all” is at an all-time high. New cases of HIV are at an all-time low. Most women can—at last—get birth control for free, and the morning-after pill without a prescription.

If hookups are your thing, Grindr and Tinder offer the prospect of casual sex within the hour. The phrase If something exists, there is porn of it used to be a clever internet meme; now it’s a truism.

BDSM plays at the local multiplex—but why bother going? Sex is portrayed, often graphically and sometimes gorgeously, on prime-time cable. Sexting is, statistically speaking, normal.

…But despite all this, American teenagers and young adults are having less sex.

To the relief of many parents, educators, and clergy members who care about the health and well-being of young people, (Link):teens are launching their sex lives later …

…Over the past few years, Jean M. Twenge, a psychology professor at San Diego State University, has published research exploring how and why Americans’ sex lives may be ebbing.

Why Doesn’t Your Husband Want to Have Sex? by E. Bernstein

Why Doesn’t Your Husband Want to Have Sex? by E. Bernstein

(Link): Why Doesn’t Your Husband Want to Have Sex?

Excerpts:

May 12, 2018

Despite the conventional wisdom, sometimes it’s the man who loses sexual desire

Contrary to conventional wisdom, sometimes it’s men who first lose sexual desire in a long-term relationship, a new study finds.

Men’s desire for sex can be as tricky as women’s, according to researchers at the University of Kentucky.

Men often lose interest when they feel insecure, when they worry they are losing autonomy in a relationship, or when physical changes cause embarrassment. Pressure to be the initiator compounds the stress.

What Dating With Anxiety Taught Me About Love by K. Bishop

(Link):  What Dating With Anxiety Taught Me About Love

Excerpts:

by K Bishop

A new match notification or getting asked out by that hot-but-definitely-a-fuckboy guy you’ve exchanged a stream of witty messages with is not a reward

…Dating in the Tinder-age is particularly triggering for anyone struggling with their mental health. When the next better thing is a mere right swipe away rejection is expected, to be blocked out by seeking more matches, more dates, more distractions from the niggling sense of being not quite good enough.

Speaking to my dating-app-active friends confirms that this issue isn’t just for the perpetually anxious.

Is Your Online Date Deadly? Here’s How To Spot The Red Flags from Infomania

Is Your Online Date Deadly? Here’s How To Spot The Red Flags -from InfoMania

(Link): Is Your Online Date Deadly? Here’s How To Spot The Red Flags

To see the entire list of tips, please use the link above and visit their site. This is only a partial list:

Excerpts:

by H. Redlitz

Did you know that. . .

• 10% of sex offenders use online dating sites
• 3% of online daters are psychopaths
• 51% of online daters are already in a relationship
• 10% of members on free dating websites are scammers
• Since 1995, 400 people have been murdered by someone they met online

Considering these stats, the grim reality is that if you date online, you’re likely to run into a few freaky fish before you find a good catch.

But for some women, meeting Mr. Wrong can be the last mistake they ever make. Nadine Aburas, Tori Ann Pennington, Julissa Brisman – these are just some of the women who have been murdered in recent years by men they met online. The list of women who have been raped or sexually assaulted by online dates is even longer.

Online dating is now a normal part of our social lives, but how do you protect yourself or a loved one from the dangers of meeting strangers online? Watch out for these red flags of online dating.

Read Between The Lines Of Their Dating Profile

… (Link): FBI profiler Mary Ellen O’Toole, who worked on notorious cases such as the Green River Killer and the hunt for the Unabomber, advises online daters to pay attention to the wording used in dating profiles.

Liberals Bully Porn Actress Online For Refusing to Film Sex Scenes With Homosexual Actors

Liberals Bully Porn Actress Online For Refusing to Film Sex Scenes With Homosexual Actors

(Links to follow.) Story as I understand it: a porn actress, Ames, who identified as bi-sexual, tweeted that she refused to film sex scenes with a male actor known to also film homosexual sex scenes with other male actors, because she had health safety concerns.

After she tweeted that, Liberal Social Justice Warriors piled on, some even sending her death threats about it. They really think a woman should have to have sex with someone, or a certain type or category of person, even if she does not want to.

The day after receiving all this online bullying, the actress committed suicide by hanging.

I thought liberals were supposed to be pro-woman, feminist, and supportive of a woman’s chose? No, some of them are not (the ones who are wholly sold out for supporting a Liberal Agenda vs. sincerely helping all women), as this story once again demonstrates.

Dating And Sex: Men Who Find Talking to Women Difficult May Soon Have a Hormone Treatment

Dating And Sex: Men Who Find Talking to Women Difficult May Soon Have a Hormone Treatment

This doesn’t sound like something women would like – the article says this drug or hormone or whatever it is –  causes males to be even more persistent towards females, and that it does so in part by lowering their anxiety or inhibitions.

Oh no. The world is already filled with over-confident, dweeby, too-persistent men who don’t take hints from women we are NOT interested in them romantically or sexually and want them to stop hitting on us or trying to flirt with us out in public, at school, or at jobs.

(Link): Dating And Sex: Men Who find Talking to Women Difficult May Soon Have a Hormone Treatment

Researchers have identified a hormone that can embolden men sexually and make them less anxious about pursuing women.

Secret Psychopath Test Could Keep Dating Apps Safe

Secret Psychopath Test Could Keep Dating Apps Safe

(Link): Secret Psychopath Test Could Keep Dating Apps Safe

BY DANA DOVEY ON 10/21/17 AT 7:28 AM

Excerpts:

He lives next door, is an excellent liar, and is only pretending to care how your parents are doing.

No, not your ex, but rather a real-life psychopath. Most don’t realize that psychopaths are rarely tucked away in high security prisons, but often live right down the street.

Thankfully, Dr. Pascal Wallisch has our back, and the psychologist is hoping to protect us, the 99 percent of the population that can physically feel empathy and regret, from those who can’t.

The term psychopath is used so often in media and everyday speech that the true meaning sometimes gets lost. Beyond the Hollywood glamor, psychopathy is a psychological diagnosis affecting a small but very prominent proportion of the global population.

Woman Says She is Lonely in Marriage to Husband Who Ignores Her in Favor of His Job, Watching TV, etc.

Woman Says She is Lonely in Marriage to Husband Who Ignores Her in Favor of His Job, Watching TV, etc.

A woman named San wrote to Christian program “The 700 Club” to say she’s in a marriage where her husband is ignoring her in favor of TV shows and his job and so forth. Pat Robertson’s son Gordon answered her letter.

Here is her letter to The 700 Club:

I have been very lonely in my marriage.

My husband’s priorities fall in this order: work, television, and then his phone. I have brought it to his attention so many times. I find myself only relying on God and Him being my true friend but I am still lonely.

Yes, I have God to turn to and I talk to God all day, every day, but it would be nice to have a husband in my life who I can truly share my life with. What should I do?

[signed] San

I didn’t completely agree with the host’s answer.

Dating, Marriage, Male Entitlement, and ‘My 600 LB Life’ TV Show

Dating, Marriage, Male Entitlement, and ‘My 600 LB Life’ TV Show

This is going to be one of those posts that meanders all over the place.

I’m not really sure where to start.

I’ve been watching a cable TV show called “My 600 LB Life” for over a year now. Aspects of content I see on this show remind me of some of the subjects I blog about on here.

I’m not sure exactly why I watch this show, but I find it riveting, and sometimes horrifying. It’s a reality program. Each show features a real-life person who is 600 or more pounds over-weight.

I do not watch the show to make fun of or laugh at the obese people.

I watch, I suppose, because I am interested in their life stories and what drove them to cope with life’s problems by over-eating to the point they become morbidly obese.

I also tune in to learn medical information about what happens to a body once it gets up to 600 pounds.

I learned from this show that not only does the body get a lot of fat on it (obviously), and the heart has a harder time pumping, but obese people can and do develop all sorts of secondary issues, such as painful bumps, scales, and swelling on their legs (which are referred to as, or the result of, things such as (Link): Cellulitis and (Link): Lymphedema).

The majority of the time, I feel empathy for the obese people on this show.

I am wishing them all the best and hoping they lose the weight and recover and get over whatever childhood horror and pain led them to over-eat (most cases of this show consist of someone who turned to food as comfort after they were neglected, molested, or abused in childhood).

There have been a few cases on this show, such as Steve Assanti, Chuck, and James K., where I have little to no empathy at all, because the person is whiny, ungrateful, abusive, rude, or incredibly self-absorbed.

The Biggest Threat To Middle-Aged Men: Loneliness (Study)

The Biggest Threat To Middle-Aged Men: Loneliness

(Link):   The biggest health threat facing middle-aged men is loneliness

(Link):   Middle-Aged Men Need More Friends

Men and friendship. By middle age, many have too little of it. And it’s a threat to men’s health.

(Link):   The biggest threat facing middle-age men isn’t smoking or obesity. It’s loneliness.

Excerpts:

As men grow older, they tend to let their friendships lapse. But there’s still time to do something about it.

…The editor told me there was all sorts of evidence out there about how men, as they age, let their close friendships lapse, and that that fact can cause all sorts of problems and have a terrible impact on their health.

…Vivek Murthy, the surgeon general of the United States, has said many times in recent years that the most prevalent health issue in the country is not cancer or heart disease or obesity. It is isolation.

I TURNED 40 IN MAY. I have a wife and two young boys.

..During the week, much of my waking life revolves around work. Or getting ready for work. Or driving to work. Or driving home from work. Or texting my wife to tell her I’m going to be late getting home from work.

Much of everything else revolves around my kids.

…I rarely see those people anywhere outside those environments, because when everything adds up, I have left almost no time for friends. I have structured myself into being a loser.

“YOU SHOULD USE THIS story suggestion as a call to do something about it.”

That’s Dr. Richard S. Schwartz, a Cambridge psychiatrist, and I had reached out to him because he and his wife, Dr. Jacqueline Olds, literally wrote the book on this topic, The Lonely American: Drifting Apart in the Twenty-First Century.

…“Since my wife and I have written about loneliness and social isolation, we see a fair number of people for whom this is a big problem,” Schwartz continues.

Frustrated Husband Chops Off His Genitals With A Knife After His Wife Hadn’t Had Sex With Him For A DECADE

Frustrated Husband Chops Off His Genitals With A Knife After His Wife Hadn’t Had Sex With Him For A DECADE

Am I the only one who’s heard of the concept of masturbation? If your wife isn’t doing it for you, you can do it for yourself, if you know what I mean.

The article says every time this guy asked for sex, it was when he was drunk, and understandably, his wife was not interested in “getting it on” when he was drunk.

I guess getting married did not guarantee this guy a steady diet of sex, which runs contrary to what Christians tell you – that if you reserve sex until marriage, the sex will be recurrent and great.

(Link): Frustrated husband chops off his genitals with a knife after his wife hadn’t had sex with him for a DECADE

• Ghasi Ram, 37, cut off his penis after his advances were rejected
• His wife, Manjhri Devi, said he was regularly drunk and never listened to her
• The couple have been married for 18 years and have a daughter and two sons
• It happened in Uttar Pradesh in northern India 

---

Related Posts:

(Link):  Lonely Life of Roberto Esquivel Cabrera, the Man with the World’s Longest Penis

(Link):  ‘Sex Starved Wife’ Cuts off Her Husband’s PENIS After He Refused to Make Love to Her for Ten Years 

(Link):  Guy So Depressed Over Being Single He Cut Off His Own Penis (article)

(Link):  Man undergoing minor surgery given vasectomy by mistake

(Link): Husband Forgets How to Have Sex After Botched Cancer Surgery‘

(Link): Spiritual leader allegedly manipulated 400 men into removing testicles to be ‘closer to God’

(Link): Woman arrested AGAIN for battering man who declined to have sex with her…

(Link):  Ohio Preacher Asked Men if they Performed Oral Sex on Spouses, Asked Males if they Had Large Penises, Asked to Look at their Penises, Asked One Actor if He Shaved His Pubic Hair, Encouraged Women Congregants to Get Abortions, Males to Get Vasectomies / Another Blow to “Be Equally Yoked” Christian Teachings

CDC Report: Virgin Teens Much Healthier Than Their Sexually Active Peers (2016 Report)

CDC Report: Virgin Teens Much Healthier Than Their Sexually Active Peers (2016 Report)

Oh no. Just look at the CDC being a bunch of slut shamers!

How dare the CDC point out there are any benefits to sexually abstaining – because this just ruins some of the liberal, left wing, secular feminist talking points and probably gets the Anti-Purity Culture Crusaders upset (note: I do agree there are some problems with Purity Culture teachings, but unlike most of those who rant against it, I don’t think the Bible teaches that God is a-ok with pre-marital sex.)

(Link): CDC Report: Virgin Teens Much Healthier Than Their Sexually Active Peers

BY BRANDON SHOWALTER , CP REPORTER

Dec 6, 2016 | 9:06 AM

A new Centers for Disease Control study examines teenage health behaviors in connection to their self-reported sexual activity and shows those who remain abstinent are much healthier on many fronts than their sexually active peers.

The (Link): report [which is a PDF document NOT an HTML one], titled “Sexual Identity, Sexual Contacts, and Health-Related Behaviors Among Students in Grades 9-12, United States and Selected Sites,” showcased the results from a 2015 survey that monitored several categories of health-related behaviors like tobacco usage, drug and alcohol use, sexual habits, unhealthy dietary behaviors, and behaviors that contribute to unintentional injuries and violence.

The report concludes “that students who had no sexual contact have a much lower prevalance of most health-risk behaviors compared with students” who had sexual contact…..

With regard to smoking, teenage virgins are 3,300 percent less likely to smoke daily than their peers who are sexually involved with someone of the opposite sex, Stanton computed from the report’s data.

Teen virgins are 9,500 percent less likely to smoke daily than their peers who are sexually involved with someone of the same sex or in a bisexual relationship, he added.

Conservative Christians Anxious Over Declining Clout (news article)

Conservative Christians Anxious Over Declining Clout

I first saw this article Tweeted out by Janet Mefferd, who happens to be a conservative Christian. I happen to like her and respect her, although I don’t always see eye to eye with her on every single topic.

She Tweeted a link to this article (hosted on a Fox news site) and didn’t care for it, because she feels that the author is trying to make conservative Christians look like nuts, loons, or alarmists.

I differ with her a little bit here. I think the main point of the article is right on the money.

I was a conservative Christian since youth, I’m in my 40s now. I’m only very barely holding on to the Christian faith anymore (I am strongly questioning it lately), and I am now more moderate than a hard-right winger as I used to be (not that I was ever a total wing nut, though).

Anyway, my point is, I grew up in this culture.

And yes, conservative Christians do in fact become scared, unsettled, or angry when they see culture shifting away from Judeo-Christian values and beliefs to a more secular stance. The article is quite correct in that.

I have seen conservative Christians on various news shows, Christian shows, and social media screaming, worrying, complaining, or crying about how the nation is going after Christians now, how they are upset that the nation is turning its back on God, how church membership is declining, yada yada yada.

Jezebel Site and xoJane Site: Pot Meet Kettle – On Supporting All Women’s Voices

Jezebel Site and xoJane Site: Pot Meet Kettle – On Supporting All Women’s Voices

I saw this paragraph or so in (Link): an article on Jezebel’s site (by S. Edwards; title: “xoJane Publishes Terrible Article By a Woman Who’s Glad Her Friend Died, Then Deletes Her Byline“):

• It’s a well-known fact that outrageous confessionals—the kind that populate xoJane’s section, It Happened to Me — garner traffic. Outrage, disgust and anger are the stuff of going viral (a phrase that conjures up disease as much as anything else). Yet xoJane seems to consistently cross an unspoken line, confusing any woman’s opinion as one inherently worth publishing, no matter the opinion, or its costs.

Ingrid Lyne, 40 Year Old, Murdered and Decapitated by Man She Met on Dating Site

Ingrid Lyne, 40 Year Old, Murdered and Decapitated by Man She Met on Dating Site

The original Twitter headline for this in one Tweet (chosen by Daily Beast), described the woman in question as a “Young Mom.” Please (link): click here to see why I find that rather annoying.

Anyway, I glanced at this report earlier today. It looks as though this divorced mother, who was about 40 years old, met some guy via a dating site, they went out, and he killed her and decapitated her.

I’m pretty sure one story I saw about this said that this woman met the guy using a dating site. I’ll see if I can find other news stories which mention how they met.

(Link):  Mom was dismembered in own home after online date
by AP

April 13, 2016

SEATTLE — A woman who authorities say was slain and dismembered in her suburban home and whose remains were then placed in a Seattle recycling bin was a beloved mother of three as well as a sister and friend, her family says.

…Charlton [the murderer] has a criminal history spanning six states and his parents had sought a restraining order against him in 2006, saying he had taken the movie “Hannibal” — about a serial killer — from a shelf and told his mother she should watch it and “beware.”

Charlton, 37, was arrested Monday after police said remains believed to be Lyne’s were found over the weekend in a homeowner’s recycling bin. A head, arm with a hand, lower leg and foot were recovered, court documents state.

Lyne, 40, was reported missing from her Renton home on Saturday morning after her ex-husband arrived with their children and she wasn’t home.