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Good sexual intercourse lasts minutes, not hours, therapists say Good sexual intercourse lasts minutes, not hours, therapists saySatisfactory sexual intercourse for couples lasts from 3 to 13 minutes, contrary to popular fantasy about the need for hours of sexual activity, according to a survey of U.S. and Canadian sex therapists.
Penn State Erie researchers Eric Corty and Jenay Guardiani conducted a survey of 50 full members of the Society for Sex Therapy and Research, which include psychologists, physicians, social workers, marriage/family therapists and nurses who have collectively seen thousands of patients over several decades.
Thirty-four, or 68 percent, of the group responded and rated a range of time amounts for sexual intercourse, from penetration of the vagina by the penis until ejaculation, that they considered adequate, desirable, too short and too long.
The average therapists’ responses defined the ranges of intercourse activity times: "adequate," from 3-7 minutes; "desirable," from 7-13 minutes; "too short" from 1-2 minutes; and "too long" from 10-30 minutes.
"A man’s or woman’s interpretation of his or her sexual functioning as well as the partner’s relies on personal beliefs developed in part from society’s messages, formal and informal," the researchers said. "Unfortunately, today’s popular culture has reinforced stereotypes about sexual activity. Many men and women seem to believe the fantasy model of large penises, rock-hard erections and all-night-long intercourse. "
Past research has found that a large percentage of men and women, who responded, wanted sex to last 30 minutes or longer.
"This seems a situation ripe for disappointment and dissatisfaction," said lead author Eric Corty, associate professor of psychology. "With this survey, we hope to dispel such fantasies and encourage men and women with realistic data about acceptable sexual intercourse, thus preventing sexual disappointments and dysfunctions."
Corty and Guardiani, then-undergraduate student and now a University graduate, are publishing their findings in the May issue of the Journal of Sexual Medicine, but the article is currently available online.
The survey’s research also has implications for treatment of people with existing sexual problems.
"If a patient is concerned about how long intercourse should last, these data can help shift the patient away from a concern about physical disorders and to be initially treated with counseling, instead of medicine," Corty noted.
***And the RNG Excellence in Journalism Awards went to...
Award-winners vindicate our faith that journalism is an act of character, said Express chairman, MD, Viveck Goenka
The award winners with President Kalam and Viveck Goenka, chairman and managing director, the Express Group.
In Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, an AIDS orphan tells his story in his own words; in Kashmir, earthquake victims struggle to rebuild their lives and elsewhere, a group of Dalit government officers dream of finding a place in urban India. These were among the stories that deserved to be told — and once they were, they were celebrated and rewarded by President A P J Abdul Kalam at the second Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards, the biggest media awards in India this evening.
The award-winning stories came in from all parts of India, in all languages: from the HIV battleground of Sangli in Maharashtra to the heart of hatred and fear in Gujarat to the refugee camps in Lower Assam. Reporters worked against all odds to bring to the nation stories of resilience in Kashmir, sent dispatches from the Naxal heartland and captured the plight of scavengers in West Bengal. And occasionally, they let the people tell their own story.
From these stories across the country to the corridors of the national government is a long way but excellence brought both together when Ritu Sarin of The Indian Express won the Journalist of the Year (Print) for her series of investigative stories on the CBI’s lapses, the Bofors trail, the breach in the national security establishment and the allegations in the Paul Volcker report. Rajdeep Sardesai of CNN-IBN was judged the Journalist of the Year (Broadcast) for spearheading the coverage of all major news events of the year and giving a distinct edge to a new news channel with sharp reportage on political events. Both these awards carried a prize money of Rs 2.5 lakh each.
Instituted last year, the Ramnath Goenka Awards for excellence in journalism have set a much-needed benchmark for journalism in India. As Viveck Goenka, chairman of the Ramnath Goenka Foundation and Chairman and Managing Director of The Indian Express Group, pointed out, “There is a ceaseless deluge of information on the internet: of news, views, and more commonly, views as news. It’s here that good journalists have to step in with their compasses and their searchlights. That’s why never before has there been a more pressing need for the media to build public trust and credibility.”
All the prize-winning reports today, he added, fulfilled this trust. These were stories that would never have been told had these reporters not gone after them. The award for Uncovering India Invisible (print) went to The Indian Express’s Vivek Deshpande for his reports from the Naxal belt and to Nilanjana Bose of CNN-IBN for her report on AIDS orphans.
In all, 24 awards were given to stories that met the highest standards of journalism. “The fact that none of last year’s winners were repeated this year is a compliment to the profession and says that is in safe hands,” said The Indian Express Editor-in-Chief Shekhar Gupta.
This year, four new awards were introduced. Recognising the role the media can play to increase awareness and overcome prejudices on HIV/AIDS, the Ramnath Goenka Memorial Foundation in association with USAID, Avert Society and Health Communication Partnership/Johns Hopkins University, presented two awards for excellence in HIV/AIDS reporting. This year, the winners were Loksatta’s Shekhar Vasant Deshmukh (Marathi) and Sadhna Mohan (English) of AIDS Buzz.
Two books in The Indian Express Group Book Series were also launched at the function: India Empowered, a collection of articles by leaders from various fields written for a special series published by the newspaper and The Prize Stories, a book on the reports that won the awards last year.
The event was attended among others by BJP leaders L K Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi and Ravi Shankar Prasad, Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit, civil aviation minister Praful Patel, minister for petroleum and gas Murli Deora, minister for science and technology Kapil Sibal, minister of state (PMO) Prithviraj Chavan, CPI-M leader Sitaram Yechury, MPs Rajeev Shukla, Sachin Pilot, Naveen Jindal and Sandeep Dikshit, Infosys chairman N.R. Narayanamurthy, former ONGC chairman Subir Raha, senior SC lawyer Fali Nariman, economist Meghnad Desai, former editor of The Indian Express Arun Shourie and filmmaker Shyam Benegal.
The awards given, it was the President’s turn to receive a memento: two photographs of him taken by Express photographer Praveen Jain, one the day before he took charge as President, the other his chariot ride.
Ramnath Goenka Excellence in Journalism Awards 2006-2007:
• Journalist of the Year (Print): Ritu Sarin, The Indian Express
• Journalist of the Year (Broadcast): Rajdeep Sardesai, CNN-IBN
• Reporting on HIV/AIDS (Print), Marathi: Shekhar Vasant Deshmukh, Loksatta
• Reporting on HIV/AIDS (Print, English): Sadhna Mohan, AIDS Buzz
• Journalism Award for Books (Nonfiction): Dionne Bunsha, Frontline
• Films and Television (Print): Mayank Shekhar, Mumbai Mirror
• Business and Economic Journalism (Broadcast): Hiral Sachde and Khusboo Narayan, CNBC
• Foreign Correspondent Covering India (Print): Amelia Gentleman, International Herald Tribune
• Uncovering India Invisible (Broadcast): Nilanjana Bose, CNN-IBN
• Uncovering India Invisible (Print): Vivek Madhao Deshpande, The Indian Express
• Environmental Reporting (Print): Dionne Bunsha, Frontline
• Environmental Reporting (Broadcast): Bahar Dutt, CNN-IBN
• Political Reporting (Broadcast): Rohit Khanna, CNN
• Political Reporting (Print): Manini Chatterjee, The Indian Express
• Regional Award, Indian Language (Broadcast): MV Nikesh Kumar, Indiavision
• Regional Award, Indian language (Print): Reji Joseph, Rashtra Deepika
• Regional Award, Northeast (Broadcast): Kishalay Bhattacharjee, NDTV
• Regional Award, Northeast (Print): David Buhril, Northeast Sun
• Regional Award, Jammu and Kashmir (Broadcast): Zaffar Iqbal, NDTV
• Regional Award, Jammu and Kashmir (Print): Syed Nazakat, Sahara Times
• Sports Journalism (Broadcast): Gautam Bhimani, ESPN/Star Sports
• Sports Journalism (Print): Shivani Naik, The Indian Express
• Regional Award, Hindi (Broadcast): Ravish Kumar, NDTV
• Regional Award, Hindi (Print): Bhasha Singh, Outlook Saptahik
source:http://www.indianexpress.com/story/205273._.html Posted by phr at 3:18 AM 0 comments Labels: Excellence in Journalism, Good sexual intercourse lasts minutes, Indian Express, not hours, Ramnath Goenka, therapists say Wednesday, August 1, 2007P Sainath Sainath gets Magsaysay Award

P. Sainath, Rural Affairs Editor of The Hindu, is among the seven awardees of the prestigious Ramon Magsaysay Award for 2007, it was announced in Manila on Tuesday.The Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation said that Mr. Sainath won the award in the category ‘Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts.’ The award will be presented in Manila on August 31.The Board of Trustees of the Foundation recognised Mr. Sainath for his “passionate commitment as a journalist to restore the rural poor to India’s national conscious- ness.”Mr. Sainath is the sixth Indian print media journalist to win the award. The previous awardee was R.K. Laxman in 1984.Mr. Sainath, on learning of the award, said: “This award is as much The Hindu’s as it is mine… If my work has won the recognition it just has, it is because there was a newspaper backing it unreservedly and giving me total freedom of movement and agenda.” He said he would use the award to push the issue of agrarian crisis much harder.According to the citation accompanying the award, “Sainath’s authoritative reporting led Indian authorities to address certain discrete abuses and to enhance relief efforts.” It added: “Sainath discovered that the acute misery of India’s poorest districts was not caused by drought, as the government said. It was rooted in India’s enduring structural inequalities — in poverty, illiteracy, and caste discrimination — and exacerbated by recent economic reforms favouring foreign investment and privatisation.”Mr. Sainath joined The Hindu in June 2004 and wrote extensively on the agrarian crisis. He also reported on issues relating to Dalits, caste violence, water, food and hunger, employment, inequality, and media developments. Before he formally joined The Hindu, he contributed a large number of stories and photographs to the paper’s Sunday Magazine and to Frontline. Many laurelsMr. Sainath has won several prestigious awards and fellowships, including the B.D. Goenka prize for Excellence in Journalism in 2000, the Prem Bhatia Journalism Prize, the European Commission’s Lorenzo Natali prize, the People’s Union for Civil Liberties’ Human Rights Journalism Prize, 1995, and the Eisenhower Fellowship.His reports on some of the poorest districts of the country were published as a book — Everybody loves a Good Drought. His photo exhibition, “Visible Work, Invisible Women,” has been exhibited in several Indian cit ies and in the U.S., Canada, Japan, Switzerland and South Africa.Established in 1957 in memory of the third Philippine President, the Ramon Magsaysay Award is given every year to individuals or organisations in Asia in recognition of their selfless service in different fields.