Even women who can’t get no satisfaction are not necessarily upset about it. To put it another way, they know they don’t come easy, but they don’t care. A new study of 32,000 women from ages 18 to 100 done by Massachusetts General Hospital found that 40 percent of women surveyed said they had sexual problems – lack of interest in sex, low levels of arousal, difficulty in achieving orgasm.

But only 12 percent of the women said that the issues caused them “significant personal distress.” Distress was defined as causing them anger, guilt, frustration, and worry.

The results are in the November issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology. "Sexual problems are common in women, but problems associated with personal distress, those which are truly bothersome and affect a woman's quality of life, are much less frequent,” said Dr. Jan Shifren of the Mass General Obstetrics and Gynecology Service, who was in charge of the study.

Some 39 percent of the women surveyed said they had low levels of desire; 26 percent said they had problems with arousal; 21 percent said they had problems with reaching orgasm.

The greatest prevalence of sexual problems was in women over 65 years of age. But that group also reported the lowest level of distress. The assumption is that these women are either in sexless but otherwise satisfying marriages, or that they don’t have a sex partner and don’t really miss one.

The youngest women had fewer sexual problems and reported less distress about them.

The group that reported the greatest distress was women from 45 to 64. Another recent study, this one on infidelity from the University of New Hampshire, said that the peak age at which married women commit adultery is 45. (For men, the peak was 55.)

read more »

An Indian man filed for divorce because he found his new bride's facial blemishes unbearable, according to The Times of India. In fact, he was so turned off that they never consummated the arranged marriage. He said she tried to hide her "condition," — that she attempted to fool him. (Reminder: This is a case of acne.)

The family court judge that presided over the case noted that although the women's acne was devastating for her, he was also sympathetic to the husband, for whom it must have been "traumatic." Sure, file this under "divorce news of the weird," and end of story, yes? No. It gets a bit stranger.

The man divorced his ex in 1998, and the court ruled the marriage was null and void in 2002. So why is this current day news? Because for the past six years, the woman has been fighting family court to have the negative remarks regarding her appearance expunged. In her own words:

Pimples are curable and don't hamper peaceful co-existence in married life, she said in her petition to the Bombay high court six years back.

The court has finally withdrawn the allegations last week.

Not sure if we'd call that "justice," but it's a start.

Rosie O'Donnell never minces words. Part of the reason we love her, right? In supporting Oscar winner Jennifer Hudson, whose mother, brother and nephew were tragically murdered in Chicago, she blamed "guns and domestic violence."

In her blog, O'Donnell wrote, "Guns and domestic violence are a lethal combination — injuring and killing women every day in the United States. A gun is the weapon most commonly used in domestic homicides. In fact, more than three times as many women are murdered by guns used by their husbands or intimate acquaintances than are killed by strangers’ guns, knives or other weapons combined. Contrary to many public perceptions, many women who are murdered are killed not by strangers but by men they know."

Those men could be husbands, ex-husbands or even stepfathers.

She also cited these stats:

• Nearly one-third of all women murdered in the United States in recent years were murdered by a current or former intimate partner. In 2000, 1,247 women, more than three a day, were killed by their intimate partners.

• Of females killed with a firearm, almost two-thirds of were killed by their intimate partners.

• Access to firearms increases the risk of intimate partner homicide more than five times more than in instances where there are no weapons, according to a recent study. In addition, abusers who possess guns tend to inflict the most severe abuse on their partners.

• In 2002, 54 percent of female homicide victims were shot and killed with a gun.

Details are still sketchy on who shot Hudson’s family.

Hudson’s mother, Darnell Donerson and brother Jason Hudson were with the Oscar winner’s nephew, Julian King, at the boy’s home in Chicago. His mother, Julia Hudson, was not in the house at the time of the murders.

read more »

She was beautiful, and had a 5 year old daughter with her husband, the actor Danny Huston. She committed suicide this month before their divorce was even final, but the divorce did not “cause” her suicide. What caused it was bipolar disorder.

Katie Jane Evans, 35, was a born and bred English beauty, and her husband, 46, was the illegitimate son of the director John Huston and the English actress Zoe Sallis. They married in 2002, and moved to a house in the Hollywood Hills, in California, while Huston appeared in movies like How to Lose Friends and Alienate People. They visited Huston’s half sister, the actress Anjelica Huston. She was friends with the aristocratic Emma Parker Bowles, who also lived in LA.

Life seemed glamorous and exciting. Then things turned bitter.

The divorce proceedings, which she filed in California last year, were fraught with charges and countercharges. He used drugs. She tried to commit suicide with pain killers and alcohol, and had gone into rehab. He wasn’t capable of caring for their child. She wasn’t capable of caring for their child. She told Huston’s talent agent that she was bipolar, and had hidden that from her husband for their entire marriage.

Bipolar disorder is a serious mental illness also called manic depression; people with a severe form live chaotic lives on the edge, take risks, have periods of exhilaration and wild creativity, followed by deep depressions. Some 20 percent of the most seriously afflicted commit suicide.

Despite the acrimony, the terms of the divorce were settled amicably: Huston gave her their Hollywood Hills house and $17,500 a month, half his income, and they agreed on shared custody of their daughter, Stella.

But, her friends said, she went into a deep depression over the end of her marriage.

read more »

After going through the stress of many in vitro fertilizations, I vivdly remember signing a paper giving the unused embryos to scientific research. In my mind, it was the least I could do since, thanks to this modern day miracle, I could possible conceive the child I so desperately wanted.

But I also realized that the pain — both physical and emotional — of this process could also break couples apart. It was right there in front of me, as I witnessed the cumulative strain on people in the waiting room.

What, I wondered, would happen to their embryos if indeed they broke up? A woman on fertility drugs can produce as many as 20 or 30 eggs. Who would get them?

The nurses would smile and tell me not to worry about it, especially since my husband and I were, they said, such a happy couple. Naturally the reporter in me wanted answers. Where exactly did the embryos go? Did they go into one large unpatrolled laboratory where a rogue nurse would sell them elsewhere. And then, in years to come, I'd meet my lookalike in the mall.

Yes, I know, it seems like something out of a Robin Cook medical thriller, and I laughed at how fertile my imagination could be. So did the nurses. Everything, they assured me, was properly monitored and nothing could happen to the embryos without both parents’ consent.

With in vitro fertilization (IVF), doctors usually implant no more than four fertilized eggs to prevent high-multiple births. In Oregon, a divorced couple split on what to do with their six frozen fertilized eggs, and the case ended up in the Oregon Court of Appeals.

Laura Dahl and her former husband, Darrell Angle, had stored their “embryos” with Oregon Health and Science University, where she had undergone IVF. (For the sake of argument, the court called the fertilized eggs “embryos,” although they said that, technically, they would become embryos only once implanted in a woman’s womb.)

read more »

With the country embroiled in a tainted-milk scandal, a Chinese woman is suing her husband for the right to breastfeed her son, and therefore prevent her husband from divorcing her.

What is as pure as mother’s milk, or as safe? That’s a question that even Confucius would have trouble debating. But a Chinese court will now have to.

The couple met online and married quickly, in September, 2007. Clearly they didn’t use eHarmony and didn’t know the perils and pitfalls of online dating.

Almost before they got to know each other, a baby was conceived. But while she was pregnant, she says, her husband took too many pregnant pauses. He was away for long stretches of time.

Once the son was born, her husband snatched the baby, telling her, “If you want to see your son, we have to divorce.”

She looked for her son, and finally found him after a frantic search — and with her breasts and temper engorged — at her husband’s sister’s house, and took him away. The victory was short-lived.

The husband went ahead and filed for divorce, but the court rejected his request because it ruled that when a child is still breastfeeding, a husband cannot file for divorce. Dripping with venom, the husband ignored the court’s ruling, rounded up a group of friends, and took the child away again, by force.

How dare he?

Now the wife is suing her husband to get the child back, and to breastfeed without interruption.

The court has yet to rule on this case. But your FWW scribes will keep you abreast of the situation as it unfolds.

Last week, we highlighted the story of a husband who threatened to divorce his ex-smoker wife if she lit up again; this week, cigars are the point of contention.

An otherwise happy Egyptian wife is divorcing her husband — and his stogie habit — reports Russian news source Novosti. The woman alleges that her partner refuses to smoke outside their home, and, consequently, she has developed a heavy allergy.

In her own words:

"My husband deliberately puts my life to danger. And I am not ready to sacrifice my life for the sake of love for him," she said.

She calls him "inflexible"; he calls her "inhumane":

"I am a draftsman engineer, and I often take additional work home to earn more money for my loved but ungrateful wife," he lamented.

Feels like everything's going up in smoke these days...

"Honey, I've got a headache" could take on a whole new meaning, say Italian researchers. According to expressindia.com, the burden of cheating brings about stress, which leads to a migraine, which can possibly lead to a life-threatening aneurysm.

The researchers studied hundreds of patients. Some of those who reported the worst headaches were also cheating on their spouses.

The funny thing: Instead of backing up the research with additional research material and stats or cautioning women of the signs that husbands may be straying, the President of the Italian Migraine Society, Lorenzo Pinessi, offers helpful tips for the migraine-prone, cheating husbands!

His advice for frazzled adulterers was to "take a time-out from the affair and have a brain scan."

And, according to him, headache-prone cheats should "avoid the Karma Sutra and stick to simple sexual intercourse" to limit pressure on the heart.

"The sexual position chosen can also have affect as the more physical the more pressure on the heart -- it is probably best to avoid positions where the male is on his feet," Pinessi said.

Right. Of course! Please, guys, stick to "simple sexual intercourse"...with your mistress.

It’s one of those good news-bad news kind of things, especially for women going through divorce who have chosen to hit the chocolate aisle in the supermarket rather than the liquor store. It has now been conclusively proven that dark chocolate prevents heart attacks. The bad news: it doesn’t take that much.

The study, reported in the September “Journal of Nutrition” and in “Science Daily,” traced the amount of C-reactive protein, which indicates a chronic inflammatory state, in 20,000 Italians. The protein, which can be found with a simple blood test, is a marker for the risk of cardiovascular disease, including myocardial infarction and stroke.

“People having moderate amounts of dark chocolate regularly have significantly lower levels of C-reactive protein in their blood,” said Romina di Giuseppi, the lead author of the study. “In other words, their inflammatory state is considerably reduced.”

The beneficial effect is due, she said, to the antioxidants in dark (but not in milk) chocolate, in particular the flavonoids and other polyphenols. Decreasing the C-reactive protein level, she added, would reduce cardiovascular disease for women by one-third and for men by one-quarter.

The Catholic University in Campobasso, Italy, which sponsored the study, said that while chocolate has long been assumed to be heart healthy, this is the first time it was proven conclusively in a population study.

So how much is good for you? Let’s put it this way: maybe it’s better to eat dark chocolate as a reward for filing a set of papers, rather than as a way to get through filling out those papers. To achieve maximum effectiveness, women should consume about 3 ½ ounces a week. There is no further benefit (other than pleasure) after that.

read more »

An Indian woman's smoking has lead her husband to the brink of divorce, says The Times of India. In fact, after several attempts to quit, the woman's husband has taken matters into his own hands. Namely, the prospect of divorce without alimony.

The unnamed woman has given up smoking several times over the course of her two-year marriage, but nothing has stuck. Her husband has even "returned" her to her parents to detox; she came back to him six months later ready to remain nicotine free. Unfortunately, the woman's in-laws detected smoke in various areas of the house and found the incriminating evidence: cigarette butts.

This time around, her husband has submitted an affidavit pledging divorce, without any spousal support, should his wife light up again.

C'mon, now. You'd think she were shooting heroin the way her family is reacting. Were those cigarette butts or syringes they found strewn in the front lawn? I completely understand the desire for a happy, healthy spouse, but is issuing a legal doc against her "wayward ways" the right manner to do so?

How about picking up a patch or some gum first?