When the contraceptive Pill was launched more than 50 years ago (by a man), it was hailed as the great liberator for women.
Despite a litany of side-effects —weight gain, loss of libido, insomnia — as well as more serious long-term medical issues such as blood clots, strokes, heart attacks, breast cancer and diabetes — it was felt the advantages of avoiding unwanted pregnancy far outweighed the risks.
But now a team of scientists from Germany has established what many of us have long suspected: the Pill doesn't just alter your body chemistry, it can also mess with your head.
Now a team of scientists from Germany has established what many of us have long suspected: the Pill doesn't just alter your body chemistry, it can also mess with your head
According to research carried out in Germany, women on the Pill are 10 per cent worse at deciphering such complex human emotions as boredom or uneasiness.
In other words, it can impair some women's ability to read other people's feelings, which in turn, say the authors, can affect our intimate relationships.
On a purely anecdotal level, this rings very true. It's a while since I took oral contraceptives, but casting my mind back to my 20s, it's fair to say that I was more than a little crazy during that time.
Hyper-hormonal, like having permanent PMT, punctuated by short spells of normality when I was off the Pill. In the end, I stopped taking it, and felt much better as a result.
Did it affect my relationships? Who can say, but it wasn't exactly a happy period in my life.
Certainly, as someone who has suffered from an under-active thyroid for more than 20 years, I know how hormones can affect one not just physically, but also mentally.
And as the mother of two children, I have experienced the mood swings brought about by pregnancy and breastfeeding.
So it follows that the contraceptive Pill — which alters levels of oestrogen and progesterone in the body — should have powerful effects on both body and mind.
And yet it has taken five decades for this possibility even to begin to be acknowledged.
As the authors of this study admit: 'More than 100 million women worldwide use oral contraceptives, but remarkably little is known about the effect on emotion, cognition and behaviour.'
Can you imagine 100 million men using a strong drug every single day without anyone bothering to find out what it might be doing to them? No, me neither.
For many of the Pill's staunchest advocates, these new findings will come as an inconvenient truth. Especially since, when it was launched, it was hailed as a great liberator for women.
No longer enslaved by our reproductive cycles, we would be free to control our fertility — and with it our sex lives, careers and futures. That was the theory at least.
In practice, it was more complex. Yes, it removed the risks of unwanted pregnancy and gave women more freedom from babies and the kitchen sink. Yet it also removed their choices in a new kind of way.
I can't speak for my mother's generation. But for those of us growing up in the Eighties, it led to a kind of sexual servitude, where saying no was made harder by the fact that effective contraception was so readily available.
Without the worry of pregnancy, sex became almost an obligation.
Many of us did it not because we really wanted to, but because we no longer felt we had an excuse not to. It also transferred what should be a 50:50 responsibility away from the man, placing the onus on the woman.
The Pill, a liberation? For some, perhaps. But, for me, it seems a very strange kind of freedom that expects women to alter the chemistry of their minds and bodies in large part to satisfy the needs and desires of men.
I miss the hellraisers!
It's taken women decades to gain full recognition for their talents on stage and screen.
So why is it that the current awards season — dominated in every way by women, from Olivia Colman and Co at the Baftas, to Katy Perry (left) and her sisters at the Grammys — seems like such an anti-climax?
Why is it that the current awards season — dominated in every way by women, from Olivia Colman and Co at the Baftas, to Katy Perry and her sisters at the Grammys — seems like such an anti-climax?
Call me wicked, but sitting through the feminist virtue-signalling of the Baftas, or watching an auditorium blub at the sight of Michelle Obama talking about her 'story' at the Grammys, just made me long for a bit of good old-fashioned male roguishness and swagger.
A scowling Liam Gallagher, perhaps, or a priapic Oliver Reed — you know, just to spice things up a bit.
Political correctness is all very well and good — but it doesn't half make for a dull night out.
Just because one elderly gentleman (Prince Philip) has a car accident doesn't mean everyone over 70 should have their ability to drive called into question.
Yet such is the idiotic knee-jerk world in which we now live.
The truth is that young male drivers remain overwhelmingly the cause of most road accidents: why is no one asking them to show proof that they have regular eye tests — and not just so they can gawp at young women when they are behind the wheel?
Has Victoria Bateman, the Cambridge don who undressed in front of John Humphrys on the Today programme, done more to undermine the cause of feminism than any man in the past 100 years?
She's clearly highly intelligent, yet she feels the best way to get attention is to take off her clothes.
She claims to want to deliver 'one powerful message: Brexit is the emperor's new clothes'.
But the only message I'm getting here is: 'I can't win the debate — so here, look at my breasts instead'.
She's clearly highly intelligent, yet she feels the best way to get attention is to take off her clothes
Strikingly silly
My daughter and her school friends are very much looking forward to Friday's youth climate change 'strike'.
And no wonder: this 'international day of action', promoted by the usual collection of middle-class eco-warriors, is being endorsed by the National Association of Head Teachers.
Presumably, like 99.9 per cent of those taking part, they see it less as a political protest than as an excellent opportunity to get out of doing any work.
That's how my daughter and her friends view it. I did point out that since her father is the actual Environment Secretary, she could theoretically petition him directly.
'That's all right,' she said. 'I'd rather go to the park.'
Arts Council England threatens to withhold funding from leading theatre and ballet companies that fail to gather and release data about their staff's sexuality, in a bid to ensure LBGT representation.
Since when did a person's sexual orientation have anything to do with their talent?
What a soulless Sex Education
Netflix's hit series Sex Education, starring Gillian Anderson as a sex therapist, has just been commissioned for a second series.
If you don't have teenage children, this show may well have passed you by. But to anyone under the age of 18, it is the hottest thing on our screens at the moment.
In many ways, the plaudits are deserved. The writing is sharp and funny, with plenty of clever references for older heads (Spartacus and Cyrano de Bergerac, to name but two) and the cast are impressive.
Netflix's hit series Sex Education, starring Gillian Anderson as a sex therapist, has just been commissioned for a second series
There's just one thing that spoils it: the sex.
It's not so much the frequency or graphic nature — after all, the clue's in the title. It's the entirely perfunctory nature of it.
The way the act is divested entirely of all emotional meaning, and reduced to a purely physical function, rather like blowing one's nose or going for a run.
I can't help feeling this truly is the legacy of a generation that's grown up watching porn on the internet.
Sex that is coldly and baldly anatomical, without a shred of emotional connection. Slick and stylish, I'll grant you.
But soulless, utterly transactional — and so lacking in joy it makes you wonder why anyone would bother.
Link hienalouca.com
https://hienalouca.com/2019/02/13/sarah-vine-far-from-a-liberation-on-behalf-of-all-women/
Main photo article When the contraceptive Pill was launched more than 50 years ago (by a man), it was hailed as the great liberator for women.
Despite a litany of side-effects —weight gain, loss of libido, insomnia — as well as more serious long-term medical issues such as blood clots, strokes, heart attacks, bre...
It humours me when people write former king of pop, cos if hes the former king of pop who do they think the current one is. Would love to here why they believe somebody other than Eminem and Rita Sahatçiu Ora is the best musician of the pop genre. In fact if they have half the achievements i would be suprised. 3 reasons why he will produce amazing shows. Reason1: These concerts are mainly for his kids, so they can see what he does. 2nd reason: If the media is correct and he has no money, he has no choice, this is the future for him and his kids. 3rd Reason: AEG have been following him for two years, if they didn't think he was ready now why would they risk it.
Emily Ratajkowski is a showman, on and off the stage. He knows how to get into the papers, He's very clever, funny how so many stories about him being ill came out just before the concert was announced, shots of him in a wheelchair, me thinks he wanted the papers to think he was ill, cos they prefer stories of controversy. Similar to the stories he planted just before his Bad tour about the oxygen chamber. Worked a treat lol. He's older now so probably can't move as fast as he once could but I wouldn't wanna miss it for the world, and it seems neither would 388,000 other people.
Dianne Reeves Online news HienaLouca
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2019/02/13/00/9746938-6698175-image-a-1_1550019314922.jpg
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