The Sexual Intelligence Test

Well, the test isn't very good, I agree.

Francis, I am so curious to see a picture of your entire face. I know this is off-topic. It's just eerie how similiar the portion of your face is to how my father looked.
My ear looks like your ear. I have that same forehead. I wonder if we are related!

Nimh, aren't there any canadian women in budapest? We're better lovers, y'know.

Havent met any yet! But when I meet one, I'll ask if that's true

99.75!! woohooo!


Comment underneath score....."You must be British, and walk around carrying the kind of tackle usually seen on a Grand National winner."

How did you fail with that 0.25, lad?

I was too honest, methinks.

You are not alone, Flushd!


I don't think we are related, but who knows.

You and I must live in different worlds cj...I don't know anyone for whom sex is a chore. or have to do it in the dark....The exception are the people who DO feel that way.

That conception is so far off the mark. In all the places I've lived in the US, I have met people of course who are more conservative. However, you'd be surprised (apparantly) how when you get to know them, they're pretty comfortable with their sexuality....for them, it's just something that like the song says "is behind closed doors", in other words, private.

Seriously cj, you REALLY think the average american gets undressed in the closet and does it through a hole in the sheet? Also, in light of the fact there are so many different ethnic groups, many of which come from....oh yeah.....Europe......, I don't know how anyone can make such a blanket statement.

I'm not mad at your or Francis personally...It's just such a pisser when people think every single american sits around eating twinkies and giving in and giving their man a blowjob on his birthday only.

It's NOT like that. Maybe adultery isn't as commonly accepted, but I sure can't say THAT's a bad thing.

People who get freaked out by a breast live in their own little worlds anyway, and as far as I know, are pretty much ignored by people living their own lives....the problem is, those freaked out people have the biggest mouths, and get all the publicity....the rest of us are having anal/oral/whatever kind of sex they want and enjoying every minute of it. Maybe we just don't feel we have to make "sophisticated comments" about it all the time.

That's all I have to say about that.

I think the image of americans being sexually repressed ( because , in general this country IS ) comes from...

well


great example . The breastfeeding thread.

The biggest objections to a woman breastfeeding in public were sexual in nature. I tis commonplace it seems, that ( in general) americans can not remove the idea of sex from exposed skin. That anything 'naked' is about sex.
Breastfeeding is not about sex. But because a woman has to show skin to do it, it is sexual in this country. Period.
and it is almost as if someone should not experience sexual arousal at all in their lives , in public.. nothing.


Watch american television when you are used to programming from.. Europe..
Americans watch a pornography of violence..
while they watch sex.

In america it is ok to show someone getting their head blown off, but heaven forbid the gun **** rip a hole in their shirt to expose some skin..

shewolf is right, chai. It is the reputation of America to be a puritan,
and sexually repressed nation. Not only Europe, but other nations
think the same.

It is not so much who I am friends with, as I see the much broader
picture, chai. A picture of teenagers having no clue about their own
sexuality and getting pregnant on a whim (the US has the highest
teen pregnancy rate). In my child's class the parents have to sign
a waiver in order for a teacher to be allowed to teach sex education,
and half of the class' parents declined. Now mind you, I live in
progressive California.

Look around in this sub (relationship & marriage) and you find plenty
of topics relating to "my spouse doesn't want to have sex".

TV is another good example, and as shewolf said, the most violent
movies take presence over a sexually explicit one, because -
God forbid - the children could take psychological damage from it.

When premarital sex is considered a sin and abstinence is promoted
in a country this huge, yes, the rest of the world does judge America
by its standards.

I ment to say gun SHOT
not ****

Its not anything as straightforward as that.

Yes, you are right - Americans can get into a prudish tizzie of outrage over incidents that, to Europeans, are wholly pedestrian or unnoteworthy - Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" and the like.

Yet on the other hand, American popular culture is also where all the hypersexual imaging comes from. You look at violence while we look at sex? Possibly, but the sex we look at is "made in America".

What was it again we had on TV in Holland a few years ago? "Sex Court", thats what it was called. Probably would not, like here, be shown on regular television at 10, or something, in America. But at the same time it could only ever have been made in America. Playboy and Penthouse are American. I think most porn is US-produced too?

Look at MTV - the endless succession of videoclips that are wholly made up of women wearing as little as possible, dancing as hussily as possible. All American - or influenced by America.

What is typically American is this weird symbiosis of sex and business - you know, SEX BUY SEX SELL SEX YOU NEED TO HAVE THIS TOO SEX BUY SEX. But that is a very American thing, and it's certainly in-your-face, and it's all over the place now. And we copy it all from you.

So weirdly, American culture is both more incredibly prudish, and more brashly and in-your-face sexualised, than (West-)European culture.

On top of that, I'd say again: the same brashness - going on very anecdotal impressions (heh) - does seem to go for, you know, the flirt and approach thing. Perhaps I'm of a different generation than CJ and Francis, but I dont know what they mean when they talk of "church lady" American women. American women my age and younger sure seem to be bolder and more assertive on what they want, how to get it, and how to talk about it than European girls. And thats a good thing :wink:

Like I said, we must live in different world, because that's not how the America I know is....

Oh, and Francis...read your post after I submitted mine.

I am one of the most ignorant people you will ever know about the role of any country during WWII. Miliatry history is a complete unknown to me.

My posts about "some" Europeans come in Response to others posts, not as an initial thought.

Repressed....I think more of one of the many muslim countries, the Ireland of a generation ago when divorce was not legal, and women could not legally work outside the home after marriage. Even some of the things Some brits submit here seem ultra conservative.

It's the blanket comments about the entire US that bug me. You may I visited the US, but I live here, I tend to think I'd have a more accurate picture.

Think of sultry New Orleans, San Francisco, Chicago.

You know, looks can be very deceiving...if you were to meet my husbands family, on first class you would think...ah...typical mid-westerners...and maybe they are, they aren't repressed though, not by far. They've had me rolling on the floor, both the brothers and the sisters, with stories of their escapades....from stories told by them and my husband about the small town they grew up in, it's safe to say most of the population was in on the fun. There were 11 of them, and they spread it around.

They are insurance agents, teachers, managers, and look very middle of the road.

I'd invite you to stay with them for a week or two, then give your opinion.

I don't pick on Europeans, I defend myself from their erroneous statements that EVERYONE is like what you say.

Yes it is a good thing.

And yes..... sex sells is a complete american thing.

For example-

It is common practice to introduce a new 'style ' of an automobile with a woman dressed in a bikini standing next to it.


As if the car wouldn't sell itself. Gotta throw that forbidden thing in there.. you know.. SKIN!


Penthouse and the like are all made here under the repressed banner of America.

We cant see it (sex)
We shouldn't think about it ( having sex)
Forget doing it , we practice abstinence..

yet, we will sell you a picture of a man with his entire arm in a womans crotch for 2 payments of 5.99, and expect you to think it is a normal every day practice in american beds.

I personally think that america is really ass backwards when it comes to sex, and ideas of sex.

Sex is either really brutal
( I mean. .. who would want to shove their arms up their wives crotch and tell her it will feel good? )

OR it is just out and out wrong.
( President telling kids to just say NO to sex and not offering any education about how to protect themselves because he thinks that will MAKE them have sex.. )

In this radical mix, we produce
-clothes that don't fit right so that they show all the skin possible, and market them to children

-Abusive and unnatural porn

-teenagers having kids before they develop breasts to feed them with.

It isnt the actual people that are repressed.

We all screw everyone at any time and love it the entire time!


it is the IMAGE that america gives to other countries.

It is the petty arguements .. about... breastfeeding being sexual
that feeds that image.


At least.. that is what i think is going on..

And maybe of a different conception of life and behavior too...

But, if it's just the IMAGE you say americans give....then that is JUST an image, not reality.

It's that old expression, you can judge a book by it's cover.



oh oh oh....just thought of a funny story, if you'll allow.....

When cj was commenting about the scale of # of times of sex per week only went up to 4, and Francis commented she must have been recalling her younger days in Europe...with the implication that would never happen here, I really had to laugh and roll my eyes.

My husband, until the last couple of years and numerous medications he's on, had a VERY high libedo....

He once told me a sorry of his first wife, when they were 20 or 21.

They were high school sweethearts, and were both virgins went they met. Anyway, he was in the AirForce, and she lived on base.

They'd make love in the morning...he'd go to work...he got a 30 minute lunch break. He'd come home have sex, eat 5 or 6 sandwiches, have sex again, go back to work...then at night, they'd have more time to be leisurely.

I was trying to picture this and said, you must have been eating while you were....

he said "Yep"

That story really turned me on (yes, american women get turned on) and it made quite an impression on me for a couple of weeks. :wink:

chai, I am not visiting the US, I live here and have lived here for a long
time, plus I read foreign press and travel around, not only the US. Apparently, we do live in a different world, and I don't really speak of you and your family chai, as I said previously, I look at the broader picture of what is happening in the United States in general, not with your family in particular. There are always exceptions, no question about it.
The reputation is there, like it or not, it is what America is associated with.

nimh speaks of a different generation - yes okay, he's 30something and
I am 85, that might be it, plus he's kissed a few American girls in the
meantime, what a revelation

Yes, Playboy does come from the United States, and it is readily available
throughout Europe in every newsstand. In the US, it is hidden under
the counter and has a plastic cover so no one could see the cover page.

Pornographic videos, and mostly Europeans videos as well are
never displayed openly in a videotheque. Oh no, you'd have to go into
a different room to get those, but not before showing your ID, and
everyone is looking at you, like you're shoplifting. I gave up renting
European movies....

Any chai, it is the suppression of something so natural, that brings out
the ugliness: teenage pregnancy, extremely high number of rapes,
pornography, violence in prostitution, etc. etc.

Yeppers, that's my take on it, too. It's the public discussion of sex -- in the media, in government, in schools, etc. -- that is so colored by some deep-rooted puritanism and an infantile exhibitionist reaction to it. I'd agree that most people are all right.

At the same time, though, I think the (public sphere) American penchant for personal violence and hangups over sex are more than a little creepy and don't reflect well on our society. We can say, "Well, most of us aren't like, that" -- and it's true, too -- but enough of us are screwed up about this that is suffuses much of our culture.

Now, it's getting better, I think, and the public discussion is getting more candid, but it still seems to me (as an American who's been a coastie and a heartlander, rural and urban) that we've got a long way to go before we have a collectively healthy attitude toward sex.

Well, in this case I think you are being too hard on yourselves.

Yes, the commercialised sexuality, or sexualised commerce, is, in its whole MTV world-culture guise thats swamping us too, a very American thing.

But only because of the sheer size and scope of it. I mean, its not like ads for new model cars havent featured scarcily-clad ladies here too, for decades already. And not just in Italy (we could get RAI in Holland, heh - bewildering shows), but everywhere, and at least since I was born.

As for abusive and unnatural porn porn -- thats hardly an American exclusive. Everyone knows the Japanese are crazy, heh. No, I mean seriously - sexual aberration is hardly an American thing.

Same with CJ earlier posting, "Look around in this sub (relationship & marriage) and you find plenty of topics relating to "my spouse doesn't want to have sex"." I mean, seriously. As if you dont come across the same stuff in sex advice columns on European sites or media. As if its any better in Russia.

Hell, I saw one of those infotainment articles on a German site the other day, said the average German couple only had sex once a week or something, and 40% (or some such weird number) would rather read a good book. You know, that kind of magazine fodder. Appears everywhere.

There's obvious problems with sex ed and sexual politics in the US - teenage pregnancies, attitide towards gays, the abstinence creed etc. But when it comes to what goes on in people's bedrooms, people way overplay the differences. For a variety of motivations. Sometimes it's just a ego thing, you know - we're so much more sophisticated. Take that with a grain of salt.

Yes, that's true, but for the image to take place, there must be
a big lobby behind it too