BERLIN - Inner tension mounts. Heart rate increases, breathing is faster, small body hairs stand on end. Sudden muscle contractions, spasms, indescribable feelings of pleasure: an orgasm, over relatively quickly for men but sometimes lasting up to 30 seconds for women.

Along with intense feelings of release following an orgasm, come feelings of happiness and blissful exhaustion. Some couples laugh with joy, and this is the moment for whispering, “I love you.”

The main reason this sexual experience is sought over and over again is that it is such fun.

And as far as men go it serves a clear-cut purpose: as American neuro-psychiatrist Louann Brizendine writes in her book The Female Brain, the more often a man sows his seed, the greater the chance of passing down his genes to future generations.

So why is there such a thing as a female orgasm? Women can after all conceive without one. Gynecologist Johannes Huber, a specialist in reproductive medicine speaking at a conference on sexuality in Salzburg, says that female orgasm is helpful to conception. With researchers at the University of Vienna, he has shown that female orgasms lead to the release of high amounts of the neurotransmitter oxytocin.

Getting these results "wasn’t so easy," he explains. "The molecule has a half life period of only a few minutes. So within a two-minute time frame we needed to take blood from a post-orgasmic female subject and centrifuge and deep-freeze it to get reliable measurement results." In doing so, the researchers were able to establish what role oxytocin plays with regard to orgasm.

For one thing, the neurotransmitter effects muscle contractibility on the pelvic floor. For another, large amounts of oxytocin increase concentration of the luteinizing hormone (LH) that causes ovulation. "When a woman near ovulation has an orgasm it triggers ovulation. So female orgasm is helpful to conception,” Dr. Huber says.

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As we push into the final shopping week before that retail holy grail of Christmas, it’s time for retailers to take stock of their sins and wins – who’s been profitably good and (gross) marginally naughty.  And for those retailers (and brands) that traditionally sell sex, this will turn out to be a nakedly bad selling season.

In particular, 2 companies - Abercrombie & Fitch and American Apparel - will most likely be waking up to a wicked holiday hangover, the cure which does NOT mean more of selling of sex, but instead necessary (and unsexy) operational and product fixes.

The recent decline in marketshare for the two above-listed retailers has been well-documented. No longer catching the eye of retail-and-internet savvy Millennials by selling overpriced, disposable product in a fast fashion world, A&F and AA find themselves in the middle of retail wasteland, with no consumer oasis in sight.

These are but two of many retailers that have recently lost their edge and customer base, as a combination of passé scandalous ad campaigns and mis-priced merchandise have ceded their place in the white noise of social media, online shopping, and a revolutionized production process that’s dropped prices and made inventory turns more important than ever.  After all, is it even news anymore that American Apparel’s offended someone, somewhere, with its ads of children (or models who look like children) placed in sexual poses? What worked before works no longer.

So what’s a retailer to do?

A&F and AA offer an illustrative lesson in the need to consistently change and evolve as retail continues pushing the boundaries of how and when and where to reach consumers.  No longer are ad campaigns (or shock value) enough – instead of continuing its reliance on scandalizing and titillating, American Apparel, for example, must now focus on leaning up its operating, working, and structural costs, which will in turn compress costs and drive up margins (seriously – WHAT company needs 800,000 highly-priced square feet in downtown LA?). 

A&F, in turn, has lost a third of its market value this year, as it continues to rely upon soft porn-inspired ads and bags to stimulate young shoppers who have already turned elsewhere for their faded t-shirt and slouchy boyfriend needs. The retailer must ditch immediately its stale product and slow-turning inventory, and decide whether it wants to compete with J Crew or H&M and produce, price, and market accordingly.

In conclusion, both A&F and AA must figure out what they want to be when they grow up.  After all, the market has passed them by – and it turns out to be one made up of consumers that can’t be titillated, seduced, or otherwise aroused into buying $60 henleys or $50 bodysuits. 

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On Friday, we may all die. OK, for reals though, we definitely won't.

That doesn't stop us from having a little fun with the idea of impending doom. Recent polls have found that about 20 percent of Americans are "somewhat concerned" about the hellfire about to be rained down upon us.

But, when the end is nigh, what are people really worried about?

As LAWeekly reports, a Harris Interactive poll of 3,036 adults commissioned by California online data-storage company Backblaze found that almost 70 percent of people are worried about their digital family photos surviving the apocalypse.

But more than anything, it seems men are still thinking sex sex sex, the LAWeekly blog reports:

One in 4 men said they would regret not having more sex if the world does end. Only 1 in 10 women expressed the same sentiment.

SEE ALSO: 10 Foods That Will Last Forever In The Post-Apocalyptic World

SEE ALSO: 10 Times The World Was Supposed To End And Didn't

SEE ALSO: 14 Places To Hide Out During The Apocalypse

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A woman's relationship satisfaction changes as she nears ovulation, when she's most fertile.

But whether or not she's more or less happy with her guy depends on his sex appeal.

In a new study, heterosexual women who rated their guys as highly sexually desirable felt closer to their partners and more satisfied with their relationships just before ovulation, as compared to their less-fertile days.

The opposite was true for women who said their partners were less sexy; they felt less close to their male partners and were more critical of their mate's faults as they approached ovulation.

Previous research has shown that the type of man a woman prefers tends to change across her ovulatory cycle, as she becomes more attracted to masculine faces and bodies, and bilateral symmetry, when she's fertile.

Another recent study showed that heterosexual women actually look and sound more attractive to guys on the women's fertile compared with non-fertile days.

"This is the first research to show that these changes have implications for relationship functioning," said study researcher Christina Larson, a psychologist at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Hormones likely influence these fluctuating preferences and evaluations. However, the researchers didn't directly measure hormones.

"So we can't say exactly which hormones were responsible or how exactly they change women's behaviors," Larson said. Estrogen, which peaks at ovulation, is a strong candidate, she said.

Sexiness and satisfaction

The study, detailed online Dec. 3 in the journal Hormones and Behavior, involved 108 heterosexual women who had not used birth control in the past three months and who were not pregnant or breast-feeding.

The women, who had been in committed relationships for an average of two years, answered the same questions during two sessions, one during their high-fertility phase and one during their low-fertility phase.

The subjects self-reported where they were in their cycles, and the researchers confirmed the high-fertility session with an ovulation test. [10 Odd Facts About a Woman's Body]

The questionnaires included prompts such as, "How desirable do you think women find your partner as a short-term mate or casual sex partner, compared to most men?" and, "How sexy would women say your partner is, compared to most men?"

The women also answered questions about their closeness to their partners, their partners' faults and virtues, and the women's commitment to and satisfaction with their relationships.

The good news for men: Although a woman's time of the month seemed to influence her feelings about her partner and relationship satisfaction, her commitment to the relationship stayed constant throughout the cycle.

The findings are in line with the so-called dual-mating hypothesis, which suggests that women have two mate-choice mechanisms: "one leading to preferences for sexually desirable men who have high-fitness genes, and one leading to preferences for men who are able to invest in a woman and her children," the authors wrote in the journal article.

Choosing mates

Though the researchers can't say that hormones caused the mate-preference changes, there's reason to think the two might be related from an evolutionary perspective.

Dissatisfaction with a less sexually desirable partner when a woman is near ovulation may have encouraged cheating among our female ancestors, thus increasing the likelihood of conceiving children with sexually desirable partners, Larson told LiveScience.

Because sexually desirable traits like masculine appearance in men are thought to have indicated genetic quality in ancestral environments, these couplings outside the primary partnership might have provided an evolutionary advantage for ancestral women.

"All else being equal, a woman who conceived children with men who possessed high fitness genes (e.g., relatively free of deleterious genetic mutations) probably had children who were more likely to survive and later reproduce than the children of a woman who chose a less genetically fit partner," the authors wrote.

Sexually desirable men would have benefited, as well, but "if men were sexually undesirable, these behaviors were likely to be reproductively disadvantageous if they caused their partners to conceive children with other men," Larson said.

Jealousy and mate guarding — actions that men perform more frequently when their partners are fertile, according to research — may have coevolved to counter cheating. Larson’s lab previously showed that men identified as not very sexy were more jealous and attentive to their mates on the women's high-fertility days.

In the future, Larson plans to study whether or not women actually change their behavior — treating less desirable partners differently than sexier guys, or even cheating on them — when fertile.

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An "irresistible" Iowa dental assistant fired for threatening her boss's marriage -- even though she turned away his advances -- has lost her discrimination lawsuit.

Melissa Nelson, who is married with children, had worked for James Knight for 10 years before his wife complained about his infatuation with her.

Nelson told the court that she had seen Knight as a father figure and a man of "integrity" who generally treated her with respect.

But about nine years into the job, Knight started to complain that her clothes were "distracting" because they "accentuated her body," and he sometimes asked her to cover up with her lab coat.

At one point, Knight told Nelson that "if she saw his pants bulging, she would know her clothing was too revealing," court records showed.

After she told him that his complaint about the tightness of her shirt wasn't fair, he texted back that it was a good thing she didn't wear tight pants too "because then he would get it coming and going," the court records showed.

And at one point when Knight discussed infrequency in Nelson's sex life, he told her "that's like having a Lamborghini in the garage and never driving it."

Knight's wife, who also worked in the dental office, put her foot down when she discovered the two were texting each other.

After meeting with their pastor, Knight agreed to fire Nelson because she was a "big threat to our marriage."

Knight had his pastor by his side when he told Nelson that their relationship -- even if there was no sexual affair -- had become a "detriment" to his family and that for the sake of both their families they shouldn't work together.

He later told Nelson's husband she had not done anything wrong or inappropriate, but that he was worried "he would try to have an affair with her down the road if he did not fire her."

Since Nelson did not consider Knight's behavior to be sexual harassment, the Iowa Supreme Court determined the question to be "whether an employee who has not engaged in flirtatious conduct may be lawfully terminated simply because the boss views the employee as an irresistible attraction."

While Iowa law prohibits discrimination against employees based on gender, the all-male court ruled that Knight's conduct was "unfair" but "did not amount to unlawful discrimination."

"I'm trying to stay strong. It's tough," Nelson told CNN on Saturday, two days after the ruling was released. "I don't think it's fair. I don't think it's right."

She denied wearing provocative clothing, telling the television network she wore loose-fitting scrubs to work under her lab coat.

Knight's attorney said there was a clear precedent to allow employers to fire employees who aroused jealousy in their spouses.

"He and his wife really agonized about it," Stuart Cochrane told CNN. "He didn't want to terminate her."

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Many have spent long hours wondering if a marriage is going to last, considering things like love, children, taxes, and the opinion of friends and  professionals.

But the best and easiest answer may be this formula:

frequency of lovemaking minus frequency of quarrels

A positive difference predicts marital happiness, a negative one unhappiness.

The formula was derived from a series of studies in the 1970s. One study of married students at University of Missouri-Kansas City found that 28 out of 30 self-described happy couples had sex more than they argued, while all 12 self-described unhappy couples argued more. These results were corroborated by a 1974 study by John Howard and Robyn Dawes, in which all 23 happy couples had a positive score and all 3 unhappy couples had a negative score.

Howard and Dawes describe their findings in "Linear Prediction Of Marital Happiness":

The linear combination discussed above has at least one clear advantage over the commonly used assessment devices: simplicity. Anyone capable of counting and subtracting can use it. Edwards and Edwards (1973, unpublished) consider the difference score predictive; couples with consistently negative scores frequently separate or divorce within relatively short times. If further investigation confirms that the difference score is a reliable predictor, the simplicity of the method might allow couples to use it as-a relatively objective self-monitoring technique. If a previously positive difference shifted to a negative score, the couple would at least be forewarned, and might seek the cause (and cure) of their problems. A limitation of these studies concerns the old saw, "correlation does not imply causation." Not only do we not know direction of causality, we do not know what would happen if the rates of argument or sex were manipulated experimentally or therapeutically. It does not, for example, follow that we can increase marital happiness of people who argue a lot by encouraging them to have intercourse more often--but it would be an interesting technique to try.

We came across this study in psychologist Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast And Slow, in a discussion of the value of simple formulas.

"The important conclusion from this research is that an algorithm that is constructed on the back of an envelope is often good enough to compete with an optimally weighted formula, and certainly good enough to outdo expert judgment," writes Kahneman.

Indeed the best thing about a formula is that it overrides the brain's faulty intuition system. Kahneman also discusses the bad intuition of hiring agents, financial advisors, amateur investors, pundits, and pretty much everyone.

DON'T MISS: 57 Behavioral Biases That Make Us Think Irrationally >

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We've already shown you bestselling author Robert Greene's 48 tips on becoming more powerful.

The master of persuasion has another book titled, "The Art of Seduction" which offers 24 techniques to get what you want by manipulating everyone's greatest weakness — the desire for pleasure.

Greene also identifies 10 different types of seductive characters, including "The Siren,""The Charmer," and "The Natural." 

Greene gave us permission to republish these rules from his book.

Choose the right victim

"Everything depends on the target of your seduction. Study your prey thoroughly, and choose only those who will prove susceptible to your charms. The right victims are those for whom you can fill a void, who see in you something exotic. They are often isolated or unhappy, or can easily be made so—for the completely contented person is almost impossible to seduce. The perfect victim has some quality that inspires strong emotions in you, making your seductive maneuvers seem more natural and dynamic. The perfect victim allows for the perfect chase."

Source: Robert Greene's "The Art of Seduction"

Create a false sense of security—approach indirectly

"If you are too direct early on, you risk stirring up a resistance that will never be lowered. At first there must be nothing of the seducer in your manner. The seduction should begin at an angle, indirectly, so that the target only gradually becomes aware of you. Haunt the periphery of your target’s life—approach through a third party, or seem to cultivate a relatively neutral relationship, moving gradually from friend to lover. Lull the target into feeling secure, then strike."

Source: Robert Greene's "The Art of Seduction"

Send mixed signals

"Once people are aware of your presence, and perhaps vaguely intrigued, you need to stir their interest before it settles on someone else. Most of us are much too obvious—instead, be hard to figure out. Send mixed signals: both tough and tender, both spiritual and earthly, both innocent and cunning. A mix of qualities suggests depth, which fascinates even as it confuses. An elusive, enigmatic aura will make people want to know more, drawing them into your circle. Create such a power by hinting at something contradictory within you."

Source: Robert Greene's "The Art of Seduction"

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"Incurable" gonorrhea has been found in North American humans for the first time, according to Canadian scientists.

The research, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, found that nine of 133 patients with gonorrhea at a Toronto clinic still had the disease after a round of cephalosporins, the last effective oral antibiotic for treatment.

"Its arrival is deeply troubling," Dr. Robert D. Kirkcaldy of the Division of STD Prevention of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a press release. "Clinicians now face the emergence of cephalosporin-resistant N. gonorrhoeae without any well-studied, effective backup treatment options."

Gonorrhea, the world's second most common sexually transmitted disease, infects an estimated 700,000 Americans each year. Common symptoms include itching, painful urination, abdominal pain, genital discharge and infertility in women.

The World Health Organization and CDC have been warning about an era of untreatable gonorrhea after individual cases were found in lab settings in addition to being reported in Japan, the UK, Austria, France and Norway.  

Lead researcher Vanessa Allen told U.S. News and World Report that although the results "aren't generalizable to the overall concentration because they all came from one clinic," the problem "appears worse than we originally thought."

SEE ALSO: Three Scary Charts On The Post-Antibiotic Era

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We don't need to teach you the mechanics of safe sex, but we are intrigued by a new iPhone app that you might want to insert into the process.

The app is called MedXSafe and it was created by Dr. Michael Nusbaum and his medical records company, MedXCom.

Here's how it works:

• You go to a doctor and get tested.
• You download the app to your phone (iPhone or Android).
• You have the doctor send your tests results to your phone via the MedXCom system. (The doctor would have to use MedXCom or be willing to register for it.)
• Your would-be partner does the same.
• You share your "STD FREE status" by bumping phones together. The app uses the popular Bump app tech to make that happen.

The folks at MedXCom say that there's no way for someone to cheat and share a clean bill of health if they really don't have one because only licensed health care providers can register for MedXCom.

MedXSafe is a feature of the free MedXCom app.

See Also:  10 Mind-Blowing Projects Made With A Tiny $35 Computer

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The case of the accused "cannibal cop" will include such graphic allegations the defense is probing potential jurors' attitudes about sex to ensure they can keep an open mind.

New York Police Department officer Gilberto Valle is accused of conspiring to kidnap, cook, eat, and rape women.

He even allegedly told a co-conspirator he planned on "getting some girl meat" for Thanksgiving.

But the defense has argued Valle was just discussing sexual fantasies online that he had no intention of actually carrying out.

So, as his February trial approaches, both the prosecution and the defense have to find jurors who can stomach the details of the case without being unduly swayed by Valle's allegedly graphic plots and sinister online chats.

In this juror questionnaire, released Tuesday by Courthouse News Service, the defense asks potential jurors how they feel about Bondage, Discipline/Domination, Submission, Sadism, Masochism, otherwise known as BDSM. It also asks them whether they look at online porn and how they feel about people who enjoy visiting websites that depict sexual violence.

The prosecution has objected to the questions, saying a questionnaire isn't even necessary.

Check out the full survey for yourself.

The sexually explicit questions begin in Part IV when jurors are asked whether they look at porn online or visit fetish websites like girlsinabind.com.

Judge Paul Gardephe still needs to look over the defense's questionnaire and will send a final list of questions to at least 75 potential jurors on Feb. 8, according to CNS.

DON'T MISS: Accused Cannibal Cop Considers Himself A 'True Gentleman' >

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Former London-based investment banker-turned-sex therapist Mike Lousada, who was dubbed the "orgasm guru" by British GQ, has revealed Wall Streeters' biggest problems in bed.

eFinancial Careers' Sarah Butcher reports: 

"There are two problems with men in banking," he said. "One is erectile dysfunction (ED). The other is premature ejaculation (PE). Both are linked to the nature of banking jobs."

Lousada said male bankers are prone to ED because they suffer from performance anxiety. "Banking is a performance-related, competitive culture. If you work in an environment which emphasizes performance so heavily, it creates a mindset that spills out into other areas of your life."

Lousada, who spent spent twenty years working in the City (London's version of Wall Street) at Barclays, SocGen, JPMorgan Chase and Nomura, describes himself as psychosexual body worker. 

This definitely isn't your typical career that you would segue into after a long stint on the Street, so we decided to learn a litte more. 

Here's what we now know about Lousada's profession: 

• His clients include mostly women, but he also works with men.  He does not consider himself gay or straight, according to a report from the Independent.
• The female clients he sees may be women who have never orgasmed before, they don't enjoy sex or they're virgins, he told The Sun back in 2011.
• The women he sees are typically ages 35 to 55.  He's seen clients young as 25 and as old as 60, according to a report in The Sun.
• For the therapy part, Lousado's sessions can range from talk work, non-intimate body work to intimate body work, according to his website.  Lousado has sex with some of the clients, but it's "purely therapeutic," he told the Independent last year.
• For men's sex and intimacy issues, he works with them through "talk work, education and non-intimate bodywork," according to his website.
• According to The Sun, he charges £100 per session and up to £300.  He can also be booked up a month in advance.

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Arnold Schwarzenegger called Thursday for an end to "doom and gloom" environmentalism as he hosted the first conference of his new green movement fostering action by local governments and individuals.

"If we want to inspire the world, it is time for us to forget about the old way of talking about climate change, where we crush people, where we overwhelm people with data," the former California governor, bodybuilder and film star said.

"There is a new way, a more sexy, a more hip way. Instead of using doom and gloom and telling people what they can't do, we should make them part of our movement and tell them what they can do," he said.

"I mean I still drive my Hummers but now they are all on hydrogen and biofuel ... We need to send a message that we can live the same life, just with cleaner technology."

Following his success implementing environmental legislation in California ahead of federal US action, Schwarzenegger's created the R20 Regions of Climate Action movement in 2010.

It is aimed at getting other regions, states and cities to follow the Golden State's example in the absence of effective national and international agreements on reducing carbon emissions widely blamed for the Earth's climate becoming more volatile in recent decades.

"The old way was to wait for the capitals, or an international agreement to create a sustainable energy future, is over," Schwarzenegger, 65, told the conference of around 800 people in his native Austria.

"We believe in a new way, in moving forward at a subnational level. We can't be paralyzed, waiting for an international agreement or federal action or anything else," Schwarzenegger said.

"I believe we should move forward at a subnational level, in the states, in the provinces, in the cities, in the private sector, in the academic sector and in the non-profits. These should be defined by our momentum, not our hesitation."

Attendees in Vienna included Jose Manuel Barroso, European Commission president, but absent were green pressure groups such as Greenpeace or WWF, who complained last week that the event risked being "elitist" and "Greenwashing".

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One fact from a study out this week in the New England Journal of Medicine about obesity myths, caught our eye.

The researchers claim in the article that the average sex session only burns about 21 calories, much less than the hundreds that many woman's magazines claim. 

From the paper:

This level of expenditure is similar to that achieved by walking at a moderate pace (approximately 2.5 miles [4 km] per hour). Given that the average bout of sexual activity lasts about 6 minutes,19 a man in his early-to mid- 30s might expend approximately 21 kcal during sexual intercourse. Of course, he would have spent roughly one third that amount of energy just watching television, so the incremental benefit of one bout of sexual activity with respect to energy expended is plausibly on the order of 14 kcal.

The study also pointed out multiple other myths about obesity and dieting, but many are saying that the researchers are biased because of the lengthy conflict of interest section detailing the many kickbacks from food industry and pharmaceutical companies. Though I don't think the bias is at work in this case, since the amount of calories are burned during sex has little to do with those interests.  

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A guard at a federal jail in Brooklyn has been charged with sexually abusing an inmate whose child she's carrying.

Nancy Gonzalez was expected to appear before a judge Tuesday after authorities accused her of having a four-month affair with convicted cop killer Ronell Wilson, The New York Times reported Tuesday.

She's now eight months pregnant with his child, authorities say.

Wilson was convicted in 2006 of killing two New York City police officers and was sentenced to death in 2007, The Associated Press reported in September 2012.

A federal appeals court tossed the sentence in 2010, leaving his fate up to a new jury, which isn't expected to make a decision any time soon.

Meanwhile, police allege Gonzalez told another inmate in a recorded call that getting pregnant with Wilson's child could give him "some kind of hope," according to the Times.

“I took a chance because I was so vulnerable and wanted to be loved and now I am carrying his child,” Gonzalez allegedly said in one of the recorded calls.

That hope might come in the form of a more lenient sentence.

The New Daily New speculated that Wilson was trying to avoid the death penalty by getting Gonzalez pregnant.

DON'T MISS: California Preschool To Close After Students Allegedly Engaged In Sex Acts With Each Other >

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This is the Safe-Sex Sweater from Firebox.

Why We Love It:"It's always good to be prepared," jokes the product description of this sweatshirt on the Firebox website. The unisex sweater is decorated with pictures of condoms and condom wrappers, but is actually just made of polyester with "ribbed for your pleasure" cuffs.

And though shirts may not be a medically recognized way to keep babies and STDs at bay, the company does promise that you will only have a 1% chance of getting laid while wearing it — making your odds of getting pregnant or getting someone else pregnant lower than actual condoms!

Where To Buy: Available through the Firebox website.

Cost: $62.79.

Want to nominate a cool product for Stuff We Love? Send an email to Megan Willett at mwillett@businessinsider.com with "Stuff We Love" in the subject line.

SEE ALSO:  This Travel Grooming Kit Is Not Much Bigger Than A Wallet

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If you have the right attitude, working on a phone sex hotline isn't the worst job in the world.

A woman who used to work as a "phone sex actress"hosted a Q&A thread on The Straight Dope Message Board, an adjunct to the popular Straight Dope column that's published in more than 30 newspapers in the U.S. and Canada.

According to "Tonya," she's a "nice girl" who worked in the industry from 1994 to 1997 because "the money was better than anything else I was qualified to do (or at least anything else that was legal)."

"Hey, as far as I was concerned, it was an acting job," she wrote. "Anyone who had actually seen me playing solitaire on my computer, sipping coffee and wearing a cotton nightshirt with little duckies all over it when I worked would never have doubted that."

We reached out to Cecil Adams, administrator of the site, who gave us permission to share some of the Q&As from her post. We've slightly edited questions and answers for clarity.

Q: Can I ask how you got hired?

A: I read about the job in the Help Wanted ads in the local newspaper. There was a group interview in a hotel conference room. In that interview, we were told about the job and given some tips. Those of us who were still interested at the end of the interview were given applications to fill out, and then we did audition calls. After the audition call, a supervisor called us to tell us whether we'd passed and then, we could begin working.

Q: How much did it pay?

A: When I started, it was $8.00 an hour plus bonus. Bonus was based on requests from people who specifically asked for you. You have to get more than ten requests per month to get a bonus. Most months I ended up averaging about $15.00 hourly. I also got a 1, 2, or 3 percent raise every six months.

Q: Did you receive any kind of benefits?

A: The only benefit we got was our birthday off with pay. My husband's job provided the health insurance.

Q: Did you have set hours? A separate phone line?

A: Yes, my regular shift was 9 p.m. to 5 a.m., which was timed for the kids being in bed. Because of my hours, no separate phone line was needed, but I did disable the call waiting while working.

Q: Were you working off a script, improvising within some specific guidelines or just totally making it up as you went along?

A: There was no script. It was all improv. We did have some general idea, though, because the call always went to an operator first, who found out what kind of woman the guy was looking for and if he was interested in anything specific. Then the operator would call me and say something like "I have a guy who wants a blonde with ..." Then, when she patches the guy through, I already had an idea of what he was looking for. The rest, I was pretty good at drawing out.

Q: How did the phone system work?

A: At the start of my shift, I'd call in and let the operators know I was ready. They'd clock me in. When a call came, they'd patch it through to me. When the call was over, I'd call the office and let them know I was free again. Break times worked the same way. When my shift was over, I'd call to clock out.

Q: Did your employer ever monitor your calls?

A: Calls were randomly monitored for training (we did training calls with a trainer who would give us advice on how to improve our performance) and to make sure we weren't breaking rules. And you never knew you were monitored until after the fact.

Q: What do you usually wear while working?

A: Well, the coy answer would be "whatever the client wanted me to be wearing." The truthful answer would be a cotton nightgown or sleep shirt in the summer, sweats in the winter (my office was in the basement, and it got chilly down there).

Q: How much variety was there in the kinds of callers you received?

A: There was a pretty good variety. I had guys who would call with their girlfriends; I'd have women who may have been gay, or may have just been investigating aspects of their sexuality; I had guys who were into animals, bodily functions, married women who cheat on their husbands, whatever.

Q: Did you ever have a call that didn't go the way you expected?

A: Well, probably the closest would be when the guy doesn't so much want to talk about sex as he just wants to talk. I was pretty good at that, too.

Q: What was the strangest call you ever had?

A: There was the one guy who wanted to talk to an overweight, 30-something-year-old housewife. And I thought to myself, 'Boy is he in luck!'

Q: How did you keep from just cracking up laughing?

A: Boy, it was tough sometimes. In fact, every once in a blue moon, I'd lose it, and fake a coughing fit.

Q: Did you ever actually get into it, or did you always fake your enthusiasm?

A: Just like anyone else with a normal, healthy sexual appetite, there are certain things that turn me on, and I did have some regular customers that I developed a good rapport with. About 98 percent of the time, I faked it, but the other 2 percent, I sometimes thought, I should be paying him.

Q: Were there things you couldn't talk about on the phone because it'd be against federal law?

A: The number one Federal law concerned child pornography. I could not, at any time, portray someone who was under 18 years of age. I couldn't talk about a time when I was under 18 and had sex (if a customer asked when I lost my virginity, the answer had to be 18 or over).

I also was not required (by the company) to participate in rape or forced sex fantasies. Although that was up to me.

Q: How did they keep you from taking your best clients and going independent?

A: We signed a contract saying we wouldn't. But when I told one of my regular clients that I was leaving, he told me he wouldn't talk to anyone else. I told him there was nothing I could do about that. I did however, offer to send him a photograph (not really of me, of course), and when I sent him the photo, I sent him a number I could be reached at, too.

I'm sure the company would have been very angry, and I'm not trying to justify my actions, but I really was going to be leaving anyway, and the fact that he was willing to pay me $100.00 an hour versus paying my former employer $85.00 an hour says something. He also calls me by my real name now, and I've seen him on TV.

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1) Definitely stare deep in their eyes

Oliver Burkeman’s Help! How to be slightly happier and get a bit more done pointed me to evidence that staring into each others eyes really does increase attraction:

In two studies, subjects induced to exchange mutual unbroken gaze for 2 min with a stranger of the opposite sex reported increased feelings of passionate love for each other.

2) Still early in the relationship? Talk about travel, not movies.

Via Quirkology: How We Discover the Big Truths in Small Things

When talking about movies, less than 9 percent of the pairs wanted to meet up again, compared to 18 percent when participants spoke about the top topic—travel.

3) Want to look more attractive?

How long does it take to determine if someone is hot? Thirteen milliseconds. Really: thirteen milliseconds.

Via Do Gentlemen Really Prefer Blondes?: Bodies, Behavior, and Brains–The Science Behind Sex, Love, & Attraction:

To find out exactly how quickly we can tell if a person is hot or not, neuroscientists Ingrid Olson and Christy Marshuetz devised a sneaky experiment. They exposed men and women to a series of pre-rated faces, some gorgeous and other homely, and asked them to rate their appearance. The twist was that the faces flickered on the screen for ony thirteen milliseconds — a flash so fast that the exasperated viewers swore they didn’t see anything. Yet when forced to rate the faces they thought they didn’t see, the judges were uncannily accurate. 

So you don’t have a lot of time but there are some things you can do:

• Beauty sleep? Yeah, it’s real. Get some.

• Red clothes. Men, women, whatever. Wear red.

• Guys: chin up. Ladies: chin down.

4) Forget a boring dinner. Go somewhere exciting for Valentine’s Day.

The research points again and again to how important thrills are:

• What reignited passion in long term marriages? Doing exciting things together.

• Think a pleasant evening is all it takes? Researchers did a 10 week study comparing couples that engaged in “pleasant” activities vs “exciting” activities. Pleasant lost.

• Why would doing anything exciting have such a big effect on a relationship? Because we’re lousy about realizing where our feelings are coming from. Excitement from any source will be associated with the person you’re with, even if they’re not the cause of it.

The fun moments are more powerful than the bad moments: “…how you celebrate is more predictive of strong relations than how you fight.”

Via Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being:

Shelly Gable, professor of psychology at the University of California at Santa Barbara, has demonstrated that how you celebrate is more predictive of strong relations than how you fight.

5) Go ahead and babytalk

It’s a good thing:

Individuals who had babytalked to friends or romantic partners tended to be more secure and less avoidant with regard to attachments in general. Within a particular romantic relationship, indicators of intimacy and attachment accounted for about 22% of the variance in babytalk frequency. Partner’s babytalking was the strongest predictor, accounting for about 42% of the variance. Communication intentions accompanying babytalk paralleled the hallmarks of attachment, especially affection and play. These and other results suggest that babytalk functions in the process of intimate personal connection.

6) Best Valentine’s Day gift?

Studies show people like your gifts more when you stop being so creative and just get them what they want.

Dan Ariely, author of the excellent Predictably Irrational: The Hidden Forces That Shape Our Decisions, adds to that saying:

In summary, I think that the best gifts circumvent guilt in two key ways: by eliminating the guilt that accompanies extravagant purchases, and by reducing the guilt that comes from coupling payment with consumption. The best advice on gift-giving, therefore, is to get something that someone really wants but would feel guilty buying otherwise.

Wanna go even further and be doubly sure they’ll like that present? Wrap it. And guys? Flowers work.

(Did you receive a lousy gift for Valentine’s Day? Here are pro tips on how to act like you’re not horribly disappointed.) 

7) Ask the right questions

Arthur Aron studies what makes people connect quickly and deeply and has found it’ can be a matter of just asking the right questions.

Via Sam Gosling’s book, Snoop: What Your Stuff Says About You:

Arthur Aron, a psychologist at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, is interested in how people form romantic relationships, and he’s come up with an ingenious way of taking men and women who have never met before and making them feel close to one another. Given that he has just an hour or so to create the intimacy levels that typically take weeks, months, or years to form, he accelerated the getting-to-know-you process through a set of thirty-six questions crafted to take the participants rapidly from level one in McAdams’s system to level two. 

But how effective can this be really? In under an hour it can create a connection stronger than a lifelong relationship.

Via Click: The Magic of Instant Connections:

What he found was striking. The intensity of the dialogue partners’ bond at the end of the forty-five-minute vulnerability interaction was rated as closer than the closest relationship in the lives of 30 percent of similar students. In other words, the instant connections were more powerful than many long-term, even lifelong relationships.

(You can read some of Aron’s questions used here.)

Is all this making you a little crazy?

That’s okay. Love could be classified as a mental illness:

Via Fascinate: Your 7 Triggers to Persuasion and Captivation:

In the book Love Sick: Love as a Mental Illness, Frank Tallis writes that if we take the symptoms of falling in love and “check them against accepted diagnostic criteria for mental illness, we find that most ‘lovers’ qualify for diagnoses of obsessional illness, depression or manic depression.” Other symptoms include insomnia, hyperactivity, and loss of appetite. Ah, ain’t love grand? 

Related posts:

What 6 things can improve your relationship?

What four things kill relationships?

10 ways science explains why James Bond is so irresistible to women

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ASAP Science has a special Valentine's episode this week on love and all the nasty effects of love on the brain. The biggest take a way? it's pretty much just biologically derived cocaine — you become more sensitive to being happy by little things, and less sensitive to pain and 'aversion' sensors.

See the science here:

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Sex. Many (but not all) animals do it. Partners come together to combine their genetic material in hopes of creating a healthy next generation for passing down their genes.

For humans, romance, love and sometimes Valentine's Day can be involved, although the formula varies greatly depending on culture. Meanwhile, other animals go about it in a dizzying variety of ways.

Creatures may form pair bonds or mate promiscuously, like bonobos. Corals and fish spew their eggs and sperm out into the environment to unite there.

A panel discussion at the New York Academy of Sciences on Tuesday (Feb. 12) explored how lust, and sometimes love, are manifested throughout the animal kingdom, past and present.

First, figure out who's who.

"Sexing," the scientific term for figuring out whether an individual is male or female, has been a challenge for paleontologists studying dinosaurs.

Looking for skeletal differences just didn't work, said panelist Brian Switek, who writes about dinosaurs and is the author of a forthcoming book, "My Beloved Brontosaurus: On the Road with Old Bones, New Science, and Our Favorite Dinosaurs" (Scientific American/FSG).

In recent years, however, the task has become more feasible. For instance, paleontologists have begun looking in fossils for what is called medullary bones.

Among birds, which experts consider to be living dinosaurs, females store calcium for egg-laying in this temporary bone tissue. [Top 10 Swingers of the Animal Kingdom]

Fatherhood can be complicated.

"Thanks to molecular testing, we can now genetically trace, like Maury Povich, who's the daddy," said Danielle Lee, who studies animal behavior and behavioral ecology at Oklahoma State University.

The results of testing: The female's social partner may not be the father of any of her young. Moderator Joshua Ginsberg of the Wildlife Conservation Society pointed out that the same phenomenon applies to humans.

The man on the birth certificate is not always the biological father, although the rates at which this happens vary widely depending on the population.

Marina Cords, a professor at Columbia University who has studied blue monkeys for 30 years, said that the female monkeys who live in harems "seem to get pretty tired of the one guy." She added, "They sneak around, too."

There's more than one way to get the girl.

Not all males within a species are created equal.

Among some animals, such as salmon and squid, some males invest more energy in acquiring the traits attractive to females.

"Others are smaller: the wimpies, if you will," Lee said. These are the "sneaker males," which use their innocuous presence to their advantage to mate furtively with the females.

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Investment-banker-turned-sex-therapist Mike Lousada made headlines recently for his comments on bankers with erectile dysfunction and premature ejaculation—problems related to performance anxiety in a high-stress job.

Of course that's not the only high-stress job.

Vivia Chen at The Careerist learned from Lousada that several senior lawyers also number among his clients.

 "Professions like banking, law, accountancy are very mind-oriented," explained Lousada. "Sitting in front of a computer screen is not what their bodies are supposed to do."

And while his answers for male lawyers were pretty standard — erectile dysfunction and premature ejaculation — his answer that female lawyers suffer from "a loss of femininity" was an interesting concept. 

While there are medicines that can help men work through their problems, Lousada has specific advice for women. 

"I’m not saying throw out the career. I support integrating both parts of you," he told Chen, adding that women need to be able to drop their masculine, high-power side at the bedroom door. "The essence of the feminine is to be in the moment, and to fully experience the state of being while the masculine is more goal-oriented."

SEE ALSO: Law Students Do The Harlem Shake In The Library Made Famous By A Girl Who Filmed Porn There

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