Who decided to make Blair’s maid, Dorota, the only overweight one on “Gossip Girl”? And why did J.K. Rowling pen Harry Potter’s uncle and cousin, Vernon and Dudley Dursley, as portly? What dictates why some characters in fiction are chubsters while others are anorexic? One professor/doctoral student at George Washington University is actually pursuing a PhD in fat studies. Not gender studies or nutritional studies—no, Julia McCrossin is investigating why authors choose to make characters fat. The university will be rewarding her for her work with the first degree in fat studies, and I’m not sure whether to be repulsed or really excited.

“Gossip Girl” obviously has the right idea—a new study from the University of Michigan shows that chitchatting might be good for your health. In the study, which ran in this month’s Hormones and Behavior journal, 160 women paired up and completed a computerized card game. Afterwards, half of the groups were instructed to discuss 16 questions like “Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?” while the rest of the groups proofread a botany article. The participants who talked experienced a rise in their levels of progesterone, a hormone that signals bonding and closeness, while participants in the control group actually experienced a decline in progesterone. And more progesterone means reduced stress and anxiety, and ultimately better health. So moral of the study: water cooler talk can be good for your health! Still, that’s no reason you should tell everyone in your office that you slept with the hot guy in accounting. [Daily Mail]

Need another reason to look forward to the holiday season? New research says the Christmas through New Years period produces an increase in the number of people who have sex. This can be attributed to the lengthy time off and the rise in party hoppers combined with boozing it up in abundance.

Now you have no more excuses not to hit up your booty call when you go to your parents house this week. Gas is cheap. You could stand to lose a few pounds anyway. And everyone else is having sex. This revelation gives you license to sleep with anyone you’ve ever wanted! Next time you see that really cute coworker you’ve always wanted to have your way with, but you’ve been to shy to approach, be bold and tell him you want to sleep with him because everyone else is having sex and you think it’s about time you two did. Or the cute little young barista at Starbucks you’ve been eying everyday as he makes your coffee, slip away with him for a quickie. You have permission to sleep with the men you normally wouldn’t because he’s not your type. The “too short, has no job, and balding” men are all welcome to apply for a night with you.

And when you wake up in the morning, feeling a bit shameful about your actions, you have scientific evidence proving that what you did really isn’t so demoralizing after all. In fact, what you did is normal…everyone else is having sex. Why shouldn’t you? Ho! Ho! Ho!

Since your biggest erogenous zone is your brain, scientists are busy working on a vibrator for your mind!  More specifically, Oxford University’s department of psychiatry is developing a small chip that would massage the pleasure center behind your eyes, the orbitofrontal cortex. Originally and successfully created to treat the symptoms of Parkinson’s, researchers believe they can use the chip to increase sexual sensations, without all the messy love and aerobic BS normally required for sex. While I’ve been waiting for a sex pill, like the one in “Barbarella” (see above), this chip seems to cause the desired affect permanently.  Schwinnng for life! Although, in my enthusiasm, I am getting a little ahead of the research…

Psychiatrists are a British hospital have come to the conclusion that for some people, sexual thoughts leading to fits of sneezing, while other people may be prone to sneezing after orgasm. So that explains why I couldn’t stop the incessant tickling in my nose while watching “Murder By Numbers” on TV today. [Newser.com]

We poke a lot of fun at silly studies on The Frisky, but occasionally one comes along that’s actually interesting and insightful. Researchers at Harvard University have discovered that our experience of pain depends on whether we think someone caused the pain intentionally. Participants in the study were given electrical shocks and asked to rate the level of pain they experienced. When those participants believed the electrical shock was delivered intentionally rather than on accident, they rated that shock as more painful. This made me think about whether the same thing would apply to emotional pain and not just physical pain. Does it feel worse when someone hurts your feelings on purpose rather than on accident? Think about heartbreak—does it feel worse when the heartbreak happens as a result of someone doing something hurtful, like cheating? [Science Daily]

According to a new study, men are fast becoming the weaker sex. In recent years, some 100,000 chemicals have entered the atmosphere and are wreaking havoc upon masculinity. Apparently, “gender bender” chemicals are messing with hormones, resulting in a “feminisation of the males.” In male animals, symptoms include testicular dysfunction, smaller penises, and reproductive challenges, and some species are experiencing an uptick in hermaphrodites, among them polar bears born with male and female genitalia. These evolutionary “red flags” don’t bode well for humans: “If we are seeing problems in wildlife, we can be concerned that something similar is happening to a proportion of human males.” Some polluted countries are experiencing a surge in female births over male births, male children of women exposed to certain chemicals are exhibiting feminization, and in Rotterdam “boys whose mothers had been exposed to PCBs grew up wanting to play with dolls and tea sets rather than with traditionally male toys.” With sperm counts dropping “precipitously” around the world, women may transform from the fairer sex to the stronger one. [The Independent]

Not long ago, I met a guy that reminded me of that sexy NPR storyteller Ira Glass. Instantly, I fell in nerd-love with this doppelganger. After dating for a while, though, we realized we had only one thing in common: sex. So we decided to be friends with benefits. According to a Michigan State University study, sixty-percent of college co-eds have been involved in an FWB relationship, and plenty of my thirty-something girlfriends were doing it to stay satisfied, so I figured I’d give the laid back, no-romantic-attachments approach to getting laid a whirl. A year later, faux-Ira and I still hang out and hump. After our most recent rendezvous last weekend, I began to wonder what I’m doing. What are the real benefits to friends with benefits? Sure, now I have an in-case-of-sexual-emergency-hit-Glass-lookalike. At the same time, I’ve started to realize my situation is causing me to question the meaning of friendship, challenging my chances at romances, and wobbling my emotional stability.

According to a new study, HPV is moving on up…to mouths!  That’s right, just when you thought Gardasil and Cervarix solved all your problems, now you have to worry about what else you’ve been opening wide.  Since the ‘70s. throat cancer cases have doubled, and the research shows HPV is to blame, with 39% of all occurrences caused by the human papilloma virus. Before you go cutting your man off from his favorite foreplay, listen to this: men are 35% more likely than women to develop oral cancer from HPV. Sheesh, making a new man go downtown may be riskier than you both think!  Still, there’s more bad news—as of yet, there is no way to test male genitalia for HPV or anyone’s throat to see if they’re a carrier.  So, it’s a roll of the dice and doctors fear you may even be able to contract the virus from kissing. There goes all the fun! Since this throat cancer link is a new revelation, the cervical cancer vaccines haven’t been tested or proven to prevent it. So, deep throat, you might want to use a condom for oral sex or just give that random stranger a handy and call it a night! [ABC News]

Groundbreaking researchers, at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, have found that premature ejaculation is all thanks to DNA. Previously thought of as a psychological problem or the result of effective lingerie, these doctors discovered it simply has to do with the gene that controls serotonin. The good is that it’s nobody’s fault that the sexy party is over before it really began. The bad news is that a third of men have this gene. So, what is a girl to do?  Here are our Sexy Solutions For Setbacks In The Sack…

Growing up, my mom and dad shared the responsibility of bringing home the bacon…well, the proverbial bacon—we’re Jewish. Anyway, my mom was a realtor and good at her job, but I’ll never forget her main competitor. His wife didn’t work and he was a jerk, the kind of guy who used too much hair grease and put his cheesy head shot up at bus stops. While my mother kept me in enriching after school programs, this other slick Realtor dude would scam his clients for sympathy by dragging his son around to meetings. One particular prospective female client even told my mother she was going to go with this guy because he was really his family’s breadwinner. Puke—that’s some serious girl-on-girl crime! I was always proud of my mama for Mary Tyler Moore-ing it up in the face of sexist foolishness, but apparently this chauvinist realtor isn’t the only man who has cashed in on close-mindedness.

Finding that special someone can seem like an impossible search for a single gal, but the Swiss experts at Gene Partner have gotten the hunt down to a science. While normally it takes a little romance, a couple drinks, and at least one meal to know if a man is right for you and your crotch, these wise guys think they have it all figured out thanks to some stanky shirts. After a study was conducted at the University of Bern in which women picked which men’s t-shirt BO smelled the best to them, Dr. Wedekind was able to link that we’re subconsciously charmed by mates with the best baby making potential based on a dramatic difference in HLA, or the genes that inform your immune system.  So, when it comes to long-term love and the success of your potential spawning, opposites do attract! But how do you get to know if your stats should bump uglies? 

Being a life-long bachelor has its obvious perks, but now it’s also as healthy a lifestyle as being married—arguably even healthier. Back in 1973, a Michigan State University sociologist started surveying men, single, widowed, and betrothed, about their health without giving them medical examinations. Since then, Dr. Hui Liu has interviewed over a million men from 25 to 80.  At first, his research seemed to conclude that married men were in the best shape. But over the years, as they asked each demographic how they felt, the gap began to narrow between those who were married and those who were single. 

While sex used to be saved for cable television shows, networks have been trying to compete by showing some skin themselves. Hits like Gossip Girl and Desperate Housewives have been steaming the storylines, and the ratings, up. Over the past few years the change has been so noticeable, consumer watchdogs, the Parents Television Council, decided to launch a “Happily Never After” study to test how much of the sex being shown was in the context of a wholesome marriage. Needless to say, the numbers reflected what married friends keep telling their single gal pals—sex is way more interesting when you’re unattached.  According to the research, which examined four weeks worth of network prime time programming last fall, there was three times as much dirty talk and four times as many eyefuls of un-wedded sexual bliss than there were married couples getting it on. And the sex itself isn’t exactly vanilla either! Voyeurism, masturbation, threesomes, fetishes, S&M, transsexuals and sex toys have been making television shows spicier. But is it too hot to handle? Not even the critics think so. Airing the kinks we’ve all come to know and love is just a sign of the times—it’s art imitating life. [Forbes]

Ironically, hormones, the thing that causes women to become emotionally irrational at times (specifically once a month), may actually help ladies who suffer from schizophrenia. Dr. Jayashri Kulkami, MBBS, PhD, applied the old adage that there’s a grain of truth in every joke when she heard her patients were covering up for their symptoms by blaming them on hormones.  So, she set up a study with 102 women diagnosed with the mental disorder.  In addition to their regimen of medication, half of the women were given a patch of estrogen and that group reported a decrease in delusions, hallucinations, and disordered thinking.  While estrogen had been linked to mental illness over a century ago, medical science is still trying to figure out the exact relationship.  Surprisingly enough, the estrogen was even a success when tested on men!  But there are side effects to taking these hormones besides moobs—it increases the risk of cervical and breast cancer. With these factors in mind, Dr. Kulkami is continuing her research and currently examining the effectiveness of an alternative known as SERMs (selective estrogen receptor modulators).  [Health News]

According to Belgian researchers, how you walk is related to how you orgasm.  They studied tapes of a controlled group of women walking on the street, where 50% percent of the group claimed they get an orgasm solely from stimulating their clitoris, while the other 50% can orgasm through intercourse without clitoral stimulation. The report is published with a lot of high-brow lingo, but basically, the “sexologists” associated a good strut, complete with sashaying hips, with the ability to orgasm with only penetration. Surprisingly enough, they were 81% accurate! Even still, these “experts” still weren’t able to pick out women who required clitoral stimulation….isn’t that the story of our lives. Something tells us this study is just a load of good guessing B.S. [Psych Central]

Why do we women do who we do?  It’s the riddle men have been trying to solve since the beginning of time. But apparently, anthropologist Gil Greengross cracked the code to our crotches: self-deprecating humor. After two years of studying how humor affects sex, Mr. Greengross found that if a man knocks himself down, the ladies won’t shoot him down.  A little bit of sweet talkin’ for sympathy is the best strategy because it shows your strong suits to be intelligence, creativity, and humility. And that’s the winning combo! Although, dudes be warned, you don’t want to head into pity lay territory.  There’s a fine line between being the charmingly modest (well at least in movies) Hugh Grant, and the too-sad-to-screw Larry David. [Daily Mail]

Astronauts like to experiment. And recently there’s been push at NASA to start researching sex without gravity—everything from pregnancy to the pill’s potency to the effects of effing with low blood pressure. Now, you can’t tell me that astronauts haven’t at least played with their own equipment, but with a three year mission to Mars on the horizon, they’re going to need to get some deeper satisfaction. After all, like George Michael says, “Sex is natural, sex is good.” So, with life in mind, the agency is considering running tests to make it even better by trying it in a frictionless environment. (Bonus! No need to pack a few years supply of lube.) Plus, I’m sure if all those top scientist conduct “research” we will at least see some interesting ozone-proof titanium sex toys, which may prove to be useful here on earth with global warming and all. Clearly, this is a worthy study for the space race! Especially since you will soon be able to tie the knot in a rocket ship, it’s time to make the thousand mile high club possible. [Gizmodo] [Look, the space shuttles are doing it doggy-style! HAHA!—Editor]

Happy 30th Birthday in-vitro fertilization! That’s right, it’s a big b-day for anyone conceived via IVF, especially Louise Brown, the world’s first IVF baby.  Her parents, Lesley and John, had tried for nine years to have a child (sounds like fun), when they heard about experimental fertility research being conducted at Cambridge University. Physiologist Robert Edwards and gynecologist Patrick Steptoe were pioneering the “test-tube” baby and the Brown’s volunteered to try the controversial method. Three decades later, they’re among many IVF success stories. Over the years, 115,000 babies have been born in the U.S. alone thanks to IVF and just this summer, the fertility miracle helped a 70-year old woman conceive in India!  As for Louise, who works as a shipping company administrator, she is a mother herself, to a healthy 18-month-old boy, which she was able to conceive naturally.  Her younger sister Natalie Brown is also a notable achievement—she was the first IVF baby to give birth and she too was able to conceive without medical aid.  Needless to say, the Brown kids are so grateful to the groundbreaking scientists that they consider them to be their granddads. And thanks to them, now everyone can have eggs scrambled, sunny side up, and even fertilized! [AFP]

The slang “natural born freak” is gaining some expert evidence.  Like to be tied up, rode hard, and left wet…or do that to your lover? Well, some scientific theories are swirling that sadomasochism, whether you’re the dom or the sub, is innate. You’re born wanting to get it on with whips, handcuffs, paddles, gags, and leather or for those S&M vegans, pleather.  While sadomasochistic sex has been portrayed in marriage manuals dating all the way back to ancient India, the roots of the desire are still being debated. In 1948, when renowned sex researcher, Alfred Kinsey, claimed nearly 50% of people like to be bitten during sex, scientists were shocked (or at least pretended to be). Ever since, the studies have been pouring in and people have been putting out, telling their deep, dark, dungeony secrets. Sure, some psychoanalysts think that S&M stems from fears of castrations or early childhood shame, but others have a new idea about the sex play. Vivienne Parry, a self-proclaimed S&M loving columnist with a science background [No relation!—Editor], has done her homework and thinks that just like homosexuality, it’s in your genes if you like to get kinky. That it is in fact nature over nurture. Sounds like people are even more bound to bondage than they imagined! [Times]