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Aswad -> RE: The difference between male and female (12/25/2009 2:11:19 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Drifa
Men and women kiss differently. I swear, I think it's because men have more muscles in their tongue or something.Women can make a kiss much softer and more sensual than most men can.
Nerve endings. Women have more of them per surface area than men do. Try a quick rinse of Listerine a few seconds up front, and you'll probably notice a difference due to the reduced sensitivity caused by the methyl salicyclate used in that rinse. Of course, you'll have to rinse out the rinse first, or else the person who is judging the difference will also get reduced sensitivity, and thus miss out on the distinction.
Similarly, try using a scotch brite sponge on a man's legs in the tub (not the scrubbing side of the sponge, unless he has stubbly hair), and you'll find that to him it will feel a lot like a woman would feel a slightly coarse-skinned hand running along her legs. Quite pleasant, I might add, which was the discovery that prompted me to look into the same kinds of skin related stimulation that she likes, just adapted to a lower overall sensitivity and larger surface area.
Unfortunately, I have no idea what might heighten a man's sensitivity, but the bottom line is the same as anyone that's handled a cow knows: petting it like you might pet a cat will just tickle, while petting the cat like you would pet the cow will hurt. Similarly, what might hurt a woman may be just right for a man, and what might be sensual to a woman might well be imperceptible or annoying to a man. There are some patches of skin that have equivalent sensitivity, but overall sensitivity is very different.
Some of this is because of a similar number of nerve terminals covering a larger area (men tend to be larger). Notably, the glans of the penis is innervated in the same way (and by the same nerves) as the clitoris, but is a much larger bulb. The feet and hands are also generally larger, so anyone that has had unsatisfactory experiences with foot worship (in regard to the physical sensation) might want to consider that someone that's used to doing it on a man needs to be gentler, while someone that's used to doing it on a woman needs to be more forceful. Similarly, since the tongue has different sensitivities to pressure, what will seem to be an appropriate amount of force to a person of a given gender will- most likely- not be ideal with someone of the opposite gender. A man will feel as if he's applying less force than the woman perceives him as applying, and a woman will feel as if she's applying more force than the man is feeling (in fact).
That's guesswork on my part, but backed by my own anecdotal experiences, at least. Anything I experience as pleasant must be eased up a bit for her to perceive it the same way. And what she considers pleasant will just make me ticklish, spoiling the enjoyment entirely. After we started adjusting for that, there's been a significant overlap in what we find to be sensual and pleasant.
Some lady with a male sub who is less than impressed with his kissing might want to see if he can train the sensitivity and dexterity of his tongue. I have found that both of these improved in the course of my working on learning how to pronounce sounds that do not exist in my native language, particularly the vowels (which require a far more accurate placement of the tongue than do the lingual consonants). That offers acoustic feedback, at least. I would think that applying a lighter touch after building dexterity- whether by that means or otherwise- should give a better result to proceed from. And, of course, practice.
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As for the general topic, most of the differences between male and female are cultural and linguistic, though some are physiological (e.g. bulk muscle) and neurological (e.g. brain mass). The difference in the corpus callosorum that was mentioned earlier is, as far as I know, not particularly well substantiated; the original finding was not duplicated in a subsequent investigation, so I would be surprised if it were found in a representative sample. There are differences in activation of the limbic system, for those who subscribe to the existance of such a system, and in language processing and various other areas. If we're going to pop-sci it, the male brain has sequential, hierarchial and spatio-temporal processing power, while the female brain has parallell and interconnected processing power.
The cultural and linguistic differences have been studied, and one researcher that has verified most of my observations is Deborah Tannen. In effect, men and women are from different cultures, with superficially similar languages (not a boon in learning to communicate, as anyone who has tried learning a language similar to their own can attest). From an early age, men are more concerned with competing, performing (and being seen doing so), and looking out for themselves, while women are more concerned with cooperation, team performance and group harmony. Men apologize when they feel they've done something wrong, or when they've been conditioned to, and their guilt remains with them after minor faults. Women apologize to empathize with the negative outcome of a situation, without ascribing the outcome to their own actions and without guilt (I'm using the word in a specific sense, so read the source before arguing, please). Men avoid eye contact when not engaged in a challenge, and appear not to pay attention when they're highly focused on the conversation. Women fix their gaze in the facial region of the other party. Men sympathize by downplaying problems. Women sympathize by expressing empathy with the problems. Men skip back and forth between topics. Women stay on one topic. Men argue and challenge with no hard feelings. Women edge in other points of view with less friction. Men organize hierarchially. Women organize by exclusion. Men consider secrecy rigidly inviolate. Women exchange secrets to show trust and intimacy and thereby build networks (you can actually map social networks by tracking the exchange of secrets). In this sense, women track down the leaks and exclude them. Men forget but do not forgive, ever. Women forgive but do not forget, ever.
That's just scratching the surface of some of the general differences, and applies to androculture vs gynoculture, not sex. It mostly originates with peer interactions while growing up. My dear is androcultural, and has as much trouble with women as the average man, and is universally accepted as "one of the boys" in social settings and related to as such. On forums where gender isn't listed, she is regularly mistaken for a man, and women tend to find her difficult to relate to (for instance, the exchange of secrets is alarming to her, as she has stereotypically male ideas about secrecy, privacy and so forth, and feels that the disclosure of such is making her an unwilling accomplice in a wrongdoing). One can still tell the difference (she doesn't have an innate competitive streak, for instance), and I haven't felt romantic attraction to a man yet, for instance.
These things are part of the reason I've been arguing that it's nigh impossible to determine what traits are female and what traits are male, because our conceptions of gender are so strongly tied to social norms that one might argue that- apart from a few core differences- the notion of gender is a purely social construct, and a construct that has developed away from anything with a useful relation to the core differences.
Incidentally, androcultural women were allowed to change social gender during the Viking era, which gave them the responsibilities, rights and privileges of a man, while stripping them of the responsibilities, rights and privileges of a woman. Men could do the same, but that was comparatively rare, save for seidmennr. Biologically, this makes a lot of sense, as one might- somewhat simplified- say that the woman is the default model human from the foetal stage onward, whereas the man is a specialization; a default model can develop in the specialized direction culturally via rearing, while for a specialized model to be regeneralized is harder because the specialization isn't cultural in nature- it's autoculture (i.e. genetically preprogrammed behavioral modifications in a man, whose reinforcement is hardwired). The rest is a legacy of culture that builds on that divergence.
In any case, trying to relate to the opposite gender as having a different but equally valid cultural background helps reduce friction. Anyone from the West who has tried to do business in Japan, for instance, will know exactly what I'm talking about. Trying to bridge an intercultural gap is both more and less difficult than one might imagine, but it's way easier when one is trying to do precisely that, rather than incorrectly assuming that both parties are from the same culture and work the same.
Just some random thoughts...
Health,
al-Aswad.
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