Speed Dating Events

Rabbi Yonah says that even if you are honest and open about coveting something, this will still have destructive consequences. For example if you desire to buy an object that belongs to your friend, and you know that once you ask him for it he will find it difficult to say no, it is forbidden to make the request. Your covetousness has become coercive and therefore very unfair. Read the rest of this entry »

‘I want to ask you a question.’

‘What?’ I said, in a small unpromising voice. ‘How would you like to be Mrs Buddy Willard?’

‘Man proposes, God disposes’, runs the proverb. And women have to put up with the mess they both make of it’, as one of England’s premier duchesses observes in her irreverent moments. Since society and custom have traditionally favoured men with the right of proposing, all too often women are no more than sitting ducks — and there are some terrible bird dogs around. Read the rest of this entry »

`Suffer me, suffer me then,’ cried he with warmth, ‘to hasten the time when none shall longer harbour any doubt — when your grateful Orville may call you all his own!’

It’s all very well being crept up on, when the marriage moment takes both partners by surprise. But there’s no doubt that both women and men love a little more formality on this extra-special occasion. Romantics look back wistfully to the Good Old Days, when a proposal of marriage was a serious business, and taken seriously by all concerned. Read the rest of this entry »

Self-stimulation can help survivors through impasses with insertion. Stimulate the clitoris before and during the dilator exercises. Sexual arousal increases natural lubrication and causes vaginal expansion, often making insertion easier. This variation is also useful in helping a survivor associate pleasurable sensations with vaginal fullness. Feeling comfortable with these sensations can eventually facilitate the ability to have orgasms during intercourse. Read the rest of this entry »

Women survivors may have difficulty with vaginal penetration because of two sexual problems.

Vaginismus is a reflexive tightening of the muscles in the outer third of the vagina when penetration is attempted. Women with this condition may have difficulty with intercourse as well as with insertion of a finger, dildo, or medical instrument.

Dyspareunia, or painful intercourse, is another dysfunction that can make intercourse difficult. In this condition, a woman experiences pain as burning, cramping, or sharpness that begins sometime during intercourse itself. Both vaginismus and dyspareunia can result from associating fear and pain of past sexual abuse with present intercourse. In some cases painful intercourse may be directly related to actual physical damage to vaginal tissues, nerves, and internal organs done during brutal sexual assault. Read the rest of this entry »

One man who most uncharacteristically takes it at a jump is Mr Knightley, in Jane Austen’s Emma. Knightley is nothing but grave and circumspect when it comes to other people’s affairs, but when it comes to his own moment, it sort of steals up behind him and pushes him over the edge.

This proposal comes as a great surprise to both participants, since the lucky recipient herself does not see it coming. Emma is convinced that Mr Knightley is going to tell her off, as he has been a stern recording angel of her minor follies and vanities. So when she senses that Mr Knightley is on the brink of something, ‘her immediate feeling was to avert the subject if possible.’

But like murder, love will out:

Emma could not bear to give him pain . . . cost her what it would, she would listen . . . Read the rest of this entry »

Strange fits of passion I have known,

And I will dare to tell

But in the lover’s ear alone

What once to me befell.

But the process by which he winkles it out and drops it into the ear of his chosen one is shrouded in mystery. Proposing is one of the world’s greatest secrets, like sex. Everyone knows that everyone else does it, but they never know exactly how and when. This is why, since you can’t be doing it yourself all the time, there’s a constant fascination with reading and talking about it. Read the rest of this entry »