In 1984, Fred Waitzkin published Searching for Bobby Fischer, the story of three years in the lives of Fred and his chess prodigy son, Josh Waitzkin. The book became an internationally acclaimed bestseller. Five years later, Paramount released the movie version of Searching for Bobby Fischer, which has become a cult classic. Waitzkin also wrote Mortal Games (1993), [...]

Dear Jesse, I have a pretty serious porn/Internet addiction. Yeah, yeah, every other guy says they’re addicted, but for me it has impeded school, sleep, eating, and socializing. I’ve failed classes because of it and lost friends. Last semester, I probably spent more time online than I did sleeping. Often, I would go multiple days [...]

Back when I was a graduate student in Louisiana studying chimpanzees, I came across a chapter from an old book called The Speech of Monkeys. First released in 1892, it was a pioneering text in animal behavior and the study of nonhuman communication, published by the very respectable Charles L. Webster and Company, the house [...]

It is admittedly odd to think that a progressive, humanitarian shift in attitudes toward gays and lesbians might lead, ironically, to a noticeable decline in the homosexual population. Yet this is precisely what I predict will happen over the very long course of natural selection should the societal-level normalization of adult homosexual relationships, such as [...]

I confess: this subject—the science of female ejaculation—is not an easy topic for me to write about. I could, in principle, feign complete gynaecological objectivity, affixing to my literary visage the stone-faced look of a caring urologist palpating your pudendum. But I suspect you know me better than that by now. Of course I do [...]

  Most psychological science is the science of being and feeling like a human being, and since there is only one human being that I have or ever will have experience in being, it is not always clear to me where my career ends and my personal life begins. And this is especially salient to [...]

There are signs, some would say omens, glimmering in certain children’s demeanors that, probably ever since there were children, have caused parents’ brows to crinkle with worry, precipitated forced conversations with nosy mothers-in-law, strained marriages and ushered untold numbers into the deep covenant of sexual denial. We all know the stereotypes: an unusually light, delicate, [...]

On June 6, 1969, a detective in southern Michigan, apparently sensing some scholarly significance in the unusual case report before him, sat down at his desk and typed up a matter-of-fact, single page cover letter to an associate at the Kinsey Institute for Sex Research at Indiana University in Bloomington. The detective was writing with [...]

As a decades-long fan of The Golden Girls, I was saddened to learn of the death of Rue McClanahan last week. In fact, I think I genuinely shed a palpable, detectable tear, which is something I can’t remember ever doing on the death of a celebrity, with the exception perhaps of Bea Arthur and Estelle [...]

Out of context, many of our behaviors—if limited to the mere veneer of plain description—would raise many an eyebrow. The most innocent of things can sound tawdry and bizarre when certain facts and details are omitted. Here’s a perfect example: I accidentally bit my dog Gulliver’s tongue recently. Now you may be asking yourself what [...]

Gay people are often asked by the curious: When did you first realize you were gay?” In my case, I remember undressing my Superman doll–and being terribly disappointed at the result–as well as being motivated to befriend the more attractive boys in third grade. But hormonally speaking, it wasn’t until I was about fourteen that [...]

Readers of this blog are likely already aware of Naomi Wolf’s book Vagina: A New Biography. I’m late to the party, because it just seemed wrong to pile on a feminist more senior to me who, though misguided, is at least working towards equality for women. But the more I read, the harder it has [...]

Good news is rare these days, so I’d like to take a moment to celebrate last week’s decision by a federal judge that Proposition 8, California’s ban on same-sex marriage, is unconstitutional. That’s the news hook for my main topic: the misuse of my writings by religious fundamentalists. To my dismay, some Christians embraced The [...]

June is Pride Month in the United States, and in communities across the country, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered Americans are celebrating with carnivals, parades, and marches. Pride is a rebuke to the shame and marginalization many LGBT people face growing up, and a celebration of the freedoms we’ve won since the days when our [...]

Circumcision might reduce a man’s risk of developing prostate cancer by 15 percent, according to new research published online March 12 in Cancer. Of 1,754 men surveyed who had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, fewer—percentage-wise—had been circumcised than the 1,645 men who did not have prostate cancer. Men with more aggressive forms of prostate cancer [...]

Sex might seem like a risky occupation for the more than 27 million Americans who have been diagnosed with heart disease. But that’s not necessarily so, says a new report. The risk varies greatly depending on the severity of a person’s condition—as well as how stressful (or, perhaps, exciting) the sex is. Cardiac patients whose [...]

The pop psychology section of Barnes & Noble is filled with self-help books that dutifully explain how the brain is the body’s primary erogenous zone. Now researchers have spliced together a series of fMRI images to make a movie that shows the extent to which that clichéd adage rings true. A video, shown on an [...]