All posts tagged: Pleasure

Parkinson’s drug helps restore pleasure and motivation in depression patients

Parkinson’s drug helps restore pleasure and motivation in depression patients

Published by Jenni Sidey

In a randomized placebo-controlled trial, pramipexole significantly improved anhedonia in people with mood disorders who continued their existing antidepressant or mood-stabilizing treatment. The Parkinson’s drug was also associated with greater light physical activity and relative preservation of reward-related activity in the ventral striatum, offering evidence that the treatment engaged brain systems linked to motivation. The findings are promising but preliminary. The trial was conducted at a single center with 85 randomized participants, and larger studies are needed before pramipexole could become a routine treatment for anhedonia. A loss of joy can quietly reshape a person’s life. Activities that once brought meaning begin to feel distant or empty. This experience, known as anhedonia, remains one of the most difficult symptoms of depression to treat. A new study led by researchers at Lund University, in collaboration with psychiatric services in Region Skåne, offers a possible new path forward. The research suggests that a drug long used for Parkinson’s disease may help restore motivation and pleasure in people with depression. The medication, pramipexole, is not new. Doctors have …

11 Basic Habits Of People Who Focus On Their Own Happiness Without Being Selfish

11 Basic Habits Of People Who Focus On Their Own Happiness Without Being Selfish

Published by Jenni Sidey

“A passion for pleasure is the secret of remaining young,” said Oscar Wilde. Poor Oscar, though, who lived in unenlightened times and suffered for his pleasures. But I did learn a thing or two from his highly quotable self about living a velvety, extravagant existence.  If this is our only shot at living, we must indulge a little bit. Am I wrong, darling? So reach for all the meaning you want, but here are my thoughts on how to truly focus on your own happiness and pleasure while being just the right amount of selfish.  People who truly enjoy life to the fullest without being totally selfish usually do a few things: 1. They play hooky Are you the always-present trooper who shows up for every meeting, never lets anyone down, and shows up for work even when sick? Call in sick already, and do something fun on your day off. RELATED: The Art Of Being Unbothered: 5 Easy Ways To Live A Happy Life 2. They learn to say no I know, I’m supposed to …

📚 A great deal of pleasure

📚 A great deal of pleasure

Published by Jenni Sidey

Shaun Tan is a bestselling and Academy Award-winning author-artist of The Arrival, among many others. His newest graphic novel is Hometown, out tomorrow from Levine Querido Books. Below, he discusses 20 years of his career creating art about belonging. Twenty years have passed between creating The Arrival and Hometown, and, as in real life, some things are different, and some are the same. Since 2006, I’ve gotten married, become a parent, moved house several times, worked on various unusual art projects, all with the usual ups and downs, joys, anxieties, and challenges. Where The Arrival is about a character venturing forth into an unknown world to begin a new life, Hometown is about someone very much at peace already: a teenage girl with a loving family, a comfortable home, and a secure sense of meaning. Where The Arrival presents a search for humanist sanctuary, Hometown presents a humanist sanctuary taken for granted. Well, not really, because there are no humans in this sanctuary. Except for the girl, of course, blissfully unaware of her genetic identity …

‘I never imagined such pleasure could be had from the simple sardine’: readers’ favourite foodie experiences in Europe | Food and drink

‘I never imagined such pleasure could be had from the simple sardine’: readers’ favourite foodie experiences in Europe | Food and drink

Published by Sam Flores

Simple sardines in the Algarve Last August, the smoky aroma of grilled sardines drifting over the beach in Portimão woke me up from my sunbathing on the beach. Attracted by the aroma of barbecued fish, we found ourselves in the old port where, for €12, I was served two delicious sandwiches on rustic bread of sardines in garlic and olive oil, with a small cold beer. I sat down, ate and chatted with locals on benches at simple communal tables. The important thing seemed to be to enjoy food together. The next morning, a reenactment of the fishing boats arriving loaded with fish, as they once were, was a real spectacle – complete with guitar playing, drum-banging and excited seagulls whirling and wailing above in the hope of a feast. Later, concerts and dancing animated the town as the party for the sardine festival went on well into the night. Cooking demos and dishes including sardine-based soup and salads, added to the enjoyment. I never imagined such pleasure could be had from the simple sardine.Joe …

I thought I was too broken for sex. Here’s how I found pleasure again | Well actually

I thought I was too broken for sex. Here’s how I found pleasure again | Well actually

Published by Sam Flores

Ten years ago, my right elbow started to hurt. The internet suggested I had tennis elbow, so I stopped playing tennis. Once the outer elbow pain moved inward, I changed my self-diagnosis to golfer’s elbow. I stopped lifting weights, competitive dragon-boating and bouldering. For good measure, I consulted an occupational therapist about my nightly bullet-vibrator routine after reading that golfer’s elbow is common among construction workers who operate heavy-duty vibrating machinery. He listened closely and said he’d note VRI on my patient chart. I asked what VRI meant, eager to end my diagnostic journey. “Vibrator-related injury,” he responded. We busted out laughing. After three years, weak hands and shaky legs had joined the elbow pain. None of the diagnoses I researched or received (a pinched ulnar nerve, tendinitis and thoracic outlet syndrome) fully explained my symptoms. Eventually, an MRI found a tumor growing inside my spinal cord. One surgeon estimated that without treatment, my body would undergo complete, permanent paralysis from the neck down within a year. The surgery itself carried the same risk. Against …

The Absolute Pleasure of Tim Curry

The Absolute Pleasure of Tim Curry

Published by Daniella Wilson

It’s a brisk night in downtown Boston in the early 1980s, and I’m out with a group that includes a very nice, very pretty young woman from my college whom I hope to get to know better. After dinner, one of the guys has an idea: a movie! Better yet, a midnight movie, after which, of course, we’d have to be gallant and walk the girls home. Ambling down Newbury Street to the Exeter Street Theater (now long gone), I spot an unexpected and sartorially strange crowd lined up around the corner. I am dressed like a basic preppy-wannabe: jeans, loafers, a button-down shirt. But the people lined up to get into this movie include men in heavy makeup and—wait, can this be?—garter belts. What the hell am I doing here? The movie, of course, was the 1975 flop turned cult hit The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and audiences came dressed as their favorite character. Those tarted-up men were paying tribute to Tim Curry’s bizarrely glorious Dr. Frank-N-Furter, who belts out a song about being …

These ‘Masturbation Consultants’ Were Hired to Pleasure Themselves With AI

These ‘Masturbation Consultants’ Were Hired to Pleasure Themselves With AI

Published by skeptic

For 28 days, Keshav had a new item on his daily to-do list: masturbate for research purposes. Both before and after self-pleasuring, he logged his mood, energy levels, cravings for various vices, and whether he was procrastinating. Keshav was taking part in AI companion company Joi AI’s experiment assessing what happens if erotic self-stimulation becomes “an AI-guided wellness ritual.” Throughout July, 10 “masturbation consultants” were instructed to masturbate every day except Sundays, enlisting Joi AI’s sultry digital companions twice a week and using their own preferred methods the rest of the time. “It’s almost like you are chatting with a real person,” says Keshav, a single, 38-year-old Indonesian trader, who did not want to use his surname for professional reasons. Joi AI invites users, for a fee, to chat and play with premade characters or to create their own companions, including with X-rated kinks such as blackmail fantasy, gangbangs, and emotional dependency, and capabilities and functions like squirting and roleplay. During five-minute video calls with the digitized characters, Keshav explains, his female companions opened and …

For Your Reading Pleasure: Creature Feature Horror Novels

For Your Reading Pleasure: Creature Feature Horror Novels

Published by Jenni Sidey

Creature feature films have captivated moviegoing audiences for generations, but what about creature feature horror novels? A creature feature is a work of horror in which the primary antagonist is a monster or monstrous creature of some sort. Think the eponymous vampire in Dracula or the giant shark in Jaws. Although the term is usually restricted to TV and film usage, it has plenty of applications in the literary realm as well. Creature feature horror novels are almost as old as horror novels themselves. Stories like Frankenstein, “The Vampyre,” and “The Murders in the Rue Morgue” feature monsters and monstrous creatures at their very hearts. In these tales, the horrors are externalized, even personified, in the shape of the villains. But you don’t need to read them for that reason. Creature features are, above all else, loads of fun. You don’t have to analyze the story to figure out what the creature represents—although you absolutely can, if you like that sort of thing. The important thing is to have a good time with the book, …

What did L.A.’s ultimate party girl say about pleasure and fame? A peek inside Eve Babitz’s private letters in “Too L.A.”

What did L.A.’s ultimate party girl say about pleasure and fame? A peek inside Eve Babitz’s private letters in “Too L.A.”

Published by Sam Flores

Last things first: Eve Babitz is a major minor L.A. writer who died five years ago at age 78. She spent nearly a quarter-century as a recluse, having suffered in 1997 a shocking and disfiguring accident while striking a match to light her Tiparillo. Her thin Indian skirt caught fire searing her panty hose into her flesh, leaving her with third-degree burns over more than half her body. She never published again, though many championed her gifts, including me. At the time of her misfortune, I was book editor of the Los Angeles Times. I had long admired her, especially the rollicking and indispensable “Slow Days, Fast Company,” first published in 1977, a charming and insightful series of stories bursting with pluck and sass. I recommended to John Carroll, the then-editor of the paper, that he make her a columnist and urged Babitz to write him directly. She did, and that letter from October 2000 is the last included in “Too L.A.: Letters Never Sent (But Some Were),” a book of letters expertly edited and …

‘They said to me, you were the best sex toy we ever had’: the pain, pleasure and paranoia of life in a throuple | Relationships

‘They said to me, you were the best sex toy we ever had’: the pain, pleasure and paranoia of life in a throuple | Relationships

Published by Sam Flores

Priscilla can pinpoint the moment she realised that her throuple was falling apart. Her fiancee, Kiara, had started kissing their shared girlfriend, Olivia, in a way that went on for just a little too long. One night, after the three of them had gone out for a romantic dinner in Savannah, Georgia, where they live, Olivia and Kiara started kissing in the front seats of the family car and it seemed as if they were never going to stop. About 10 minutes in, Priscilla tried to reach out and touch her fiancee’s shoulder, but her seat belt was buckled. Unbuckling and leaning forward felt intrusive. And, anyway, Kiara and Olivia seemed to have forgotten all about her. Watching the kiss unfold, squashed into the back with all the baby seats and toys, Priscilla thought about how by rights it was her turn to sit up front. She was always in the back seat. She felt a flicker of something competitive. “I worried, am I desired less than her?” she recalls now. “Will I be replaced?” In the early days, Priscilla …