The world's first Christmas card. (Wikimedia Commons)

Americans bought around 2 billion Christmas cards in 2010, according to the Greeting Card Association. Despite women making 85 percent of greeting card purchases these days, we send and receive Christmas and holiday cards thanks to a British fellow (kind of like how men invented high heels). Mental Floss reports that in 1843 Sir Henry Cole was too busy to jot down season’s greetings to individual family members and friends and decided a mass mailing of uniform cards would better serve his hectic schedule, which would eventually include organizing The Great Exhibition of 1851.

Cole’s hand-colored, lithographed card wasn’t all that different from those 2 billion mucking up our mailboxes these days. He kept the verbiage short and sweet, simply wishing recipients “A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to You.” On a related note, 1843 was a pretty big year for Christmas culture in general, since in addition to Cole dreaming up his time-saving Christmas card, Charles Dickens also penned “A Christmas Carol.”

Holiday card sales are on the decline as more people opt for e-cards and social media to send forth their glad tiding, but some of Cole’s originals are still floating around. One of those cheerful cards, which originally cost around a pence to print, sold at auction last year for more than $34,400.

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(alsis35/Flickr Creative Commons)

The moral outcry comes as no surprise, but augmented sales of Kinsey whiskey? Tell me more, Internet.

Indeed, Kinsey Distillers, owned by Continental Distillery and in no way connected with Indiana University at Bloomington, experienced a surge in consumer interest starting with the 1948 publication of  “Sexual Behavior in the Human Male.” Unfortunately, customers weren’t so much interested in procuring bottles of Kinsey, “the unhurried whiskey,” than in getting their hands on a copy of the scintillating survey.

In September 1948, the New Yorker reported:

T. A. DuBois, the whiskey sales manager, said that the company has received several hundred letters asking for copies of the Report. Early in the game Du Bois sent out a form letter explaining the situation. Lately he has enclosed a brochure entitled “Kinsey’s Own Report on the Kinsey Report.” The cover of this booklet bears a reproduction of a knight in armor, the advertising symbol of Kinsey whiskey. He is depicted reading a copy of the Real Kinsey Report.

A quick perusal of NYT “Weddings/Celebrations” reveals a certain similar cache among that envied in-crowd. For instance, Katie Baker over at Grantland noticed how boarding school alumni, people with Roman numerals attached to their names and Ralph Lauren employees. To get some empirical data around these anecdotal nuptials announcement trends (because what could be of more importance?), The Atlantic crunched some numbers to find out specifically which criteria can get you ahead of the masses and into that coveted newsprint.

Here are the “Wedding/Celebrations” selection odds The Atlantic calculated:

• Growing up in Greenwich, Conn. (or a similar moneyed neighborhood) improves your odds by 21.
• Ivy league educations bump you up by a whopping 100.
• Congressional staffers have 75 times better odds.
• Same-sex couples are 74 times more likely (and imagine if they met at Princeton!).
• Investment banking amps your chances 87 times.
• Lawyers at snazzy firms have odds — wait for it –974 times better than the average Joe or Jane.

Turns out, it’s pretty simple if you plan ahead — way ahead. Simply make sure that you grow up Greenwich, Conn.; Palm Beach, Fla.; or Southampton, N.Y.; and attend an Ivy League school where you will pursue law and meet a silver spoon-fed, well-educated investment banker to-be.

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Just because he's daydreaming doesn't mean it's about sex. (Sheer Photo, Inc/Getty Images)

Ever been suspicious of that old saying about men thinking about s-e-x every 7 seconds? There’s good reason to be because it’s complete bunk.

First, if sex were to cross men’s minds roughly 12,342 times every 24 hours, they’d get very little done (especially if the stereotype of male as less adept multitaskers is true). Also, there’s no empirical evidence whatsoever that the average man constantly thinks about sex. The Kinsey Institute points to a 1994 studyon the frequency of sexual fantasy among men and women:

• 54% of men think about sex everyday or several times a day, 43% a few times per month or a few times per week, and 4% less than once a month (Laumann, Gagnon, Michael, Michaels, 1994).
• 19% of women think about sex everyday or several times a day, 67% a few times per month or a few times per week, and 14% less than once a month.

A 1990 study of sexual fantasies and urges among heterosexual men and women similarly discredits the “7 Second Rule”. The self-reported data averaged out to a mere seven sex-related thoughts among men and 4.5 sex-related thoughts among women every day. But according to a recent study from Ohio State University, those figures are on the low end.

Psychologist Terri Fisher calculated a male sexy thoughts median at 18 times per day, and individual reports on sex-related thoughts among male participants ranged from 1 to 388 times per day. And you know what else guys think about roughly 18 times per day? Food, followed up by sleep.

So much for the one-track mind assumption.

Moreover, women aren’t too far behind men in the steamy thoughts department. Their individual reports spanned 1 to 140 times per day, with a median 10 instances, to which Fisher commented:

“For women, that’s a broader range than many people would have expected. And there were no women who reported zero thoughts per day. So women are also thinking about sexuality.”

And as for the “7 Second Rule,” Fisher attributes men’s slightly higher frequency of sexual thoughts to possibly being more attuned to biological urges (i.e. sex, food, sleep). It doesn’t support the notion that men are innately more sexually compelled:

“This suggests males might be having more of these thoughts than women are or they have an easier time identifying the thoughts. It’s difficult to know, but what is clear is it’s not uniquely sex that they’re spending more time thinking about, but other issues related to their biological needs, as well.”

(via Slate and Language Log)

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People perceive semi-nude people as more prone to pain. (Ghislain & Marie David de Lossy/Getty Images)

Conversations around nudity and objectification often frame women as the targets. Moreover, sociologists have concluded that men and women alike are more comfortable viewing female nudity, compared to male nudity. But a new study from the Maryland Mind Perception and Morality Lab uncovered some surprising similarities among the inferences we make about semi-nude females and males alike.

It seems that objectification isn’t as cut and dried as we might think. While a correlation exists between nudity and dehumanization, the fewer clothes one wears also incites certain non-sexual, emotional responses as well. In a series of six experiments the Maryland researchers evaluated how participants (both male and female) respond to images of men and women in varying degrees of nudity.

Whereas semi-nude people were seen as “less morally responsible” and less in control of their own actions, they also triggered sympathetic responses. As Christie Nicholson explains at Scientific American, “this latter group was also, curiously enough, thought of as more sensitive and needing more protection from fear or pain.” Perhaps the laboratory setting of the experiment muted any sexual connotations of nudity, prompting participants to want to find a jacket or afghan to toss around those bare shoulders rather than a cozy corner to curl up in together.

The Maryland study authors label that psychological effect as a subconscious diminishing of our “perceptions of agency” (i.e. morals, self-control) in exchange for heightening “perceptions of experience” (i.e. vulnerability to sensation and physical pain). So while stripping away clothing appears to simultaneously strip away our attention to intellect and morality, it doesn’t disengage us entirely. Rather, it switches our gears away from logic and turns toward the emotional — whether we’re looking at a bare-skinned guy or gal.

Well, at least there are pants. (Tommaso Boddi/Getty Images)

Last year, the Stuff Mom Never Told You Halloween episode discussed the ubiquitous and ridiculous “sexy” costumes, and we asked listeners to let us know what they donned for the Best Night of the Year. It’s getting down to the wire yet again to come up with a costume, so I culled a list of ideas from listeners and historical figures and female characters we’ve discussed on the podcast.

If Caroline and I hit up any Halloween happenings together, I might insist on us going as that mother-daughter duo mentioned below.

MomStuff-Inspired Costumes

Zombie Zooey Deschanel and bonus points for a zombie Ben Gibbard, putting the “Death” in Death Cab for Cutie. (Jokes!)

A Pickup Artist: Peacock the night away, fellas (or ladies)!

Mother and daughter in terribly awesome 80s douche commercials. All you need is some Lysol and a chunky cable knit sweater.

Gloria Steinem as a Playboy Bunny (suggested by a listener last year)

Hypatia, ancient Egyptian mathematician: tunic + calculator = done.

A Night Witch, as suggested by a MomStuff listener. “In WWII the Soviets had female fighter pilots who flew glorified crop dusters with bombs strapped to them. They’d cut out their engines and glide in. By the time the Germans heard the wind whistling off their wings, it was too late, and BOOM!”

Lise Meitner, “mother of the atomic bomb.” Mushroom cloud headpiece and a pillow under your shirt. Will anyone know who you are? Heavens, no! But that’s when you drop the Lise Meitner science bomb on them and wow their brains.

Victoria Woodhull, the first woman to run for President. She was sassy, that Woodhull. If you magically have access to Victorian era dresses, do it! Or toss on some bloomers, take out your fixed gear and be an groundbreaking lady biker.

“Sexy” Costumes as Suggested by MomStuff Listeners (yes! These were worn last year by some of you out there)

• Sexy Hans Solo
• Sexy Sponge Bob
• Sexy Suffragette
• Sexy Winnie the Pooh
• Sexy Abraham Lincoln (“Baberaham” Lincoln)
• Sexy Virginia State Flag
• Sexy Ghost (cut that white sheet reeeeaaaallly short)
• Sexy Suffragette (nice irony, ladies)

The “Women on TV” episode and fantastic listener feedback is a treasure trove of potential Halloween costumes:

• Blossom & Six
• Angela Chase & Rayanne Graf, “My So-Called Life”
• Jerry Blank, “Strangers with Candy”
• Velma, “Scooby Doo”
• Leela, “Futurama”
• Jessica Fletcher, “Murder She Wrote”
• Laura Ingalls, “Little House on the Prairie”
• Any “Mad Men” character
• Buffy
• Veronica Mars
• Daria
• Liz Lemon
• Murphy Brown
• Designing Women
• Golden Girls (!!)
• Rainbow Brite
• Jem and the Holograms
• Punky Brewster
• Carmen San Diego

…And so forth. Suggestions one and all welcome! Oh, and happy Halloween, y’all. Be safe out there.

A Stuff Mom Never Told You playlist for the broken-hearted. (CarbonNYC/Flickr)

The Stuff Mom Never Told You library of podcast episodes has ballooned so much in the past couple years I sometimes forget topics we’ve covered way back when. Simply scrolling through the lengthy MomStuff catalog on the HowStuffWorks apps (ding, ding!) is a thumb-numbing process.  And new listeners jumping on board might not even realize the wealth of what we’ve discussed and dissected (and, yes, I am certainly including our beloved conversation about poop with said “wealth”).

When you cross this much territory, it’s now common for podcast topics to intersect and build on each other. I often catch myself saying, “as we talked about in previous podcast…” — but what if listeners understandably don’t know which related podcast episode to reference or how to go about hunting it down? From time to time, I’m going to start posting All-Star MomStuff playlists of five or six previously released episodes that happen to all focus around a broader topic to help break down the Stuff Mom Never Told You library into more digestible bits.

So, to kick things off, here’s Top 5 Stuff Mom Never Told You Episodes to Listen to During a Breakup:

1. Why does the sizzle fizzle? One of Molly’s and my favorite episodes to research since we discovered Helen Fisher’s “why-haven’t-we-read-this-before?!” work on the neurology of love and attachment.
2. Do men and women cheat for different reasons? Even if you’ve never come close to cheating, the science in this one should provide a brief distraction away from breakup woes.
3. Are rebound relationships unhealthy? Everyone does it at some point, yet rebounding has such a shady reputation. Some psychologists say to go for them, though.
4. Does living together before marriage lead to divorce? Moving in together is becoming a common step in long-term adult relationships, but some sociologists and marriage advocates say it’s a trainwreck waiting to happen. Let the debate begin.
5. Should you consider a prenup? Because let’s be honest: breakups happen.

Happy listening, and if there’s any all-star list topics you’re interested in seeing, just shout it out in the comments below.

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Considering that the “My Little Pony” franchise has been marketed to young girls since it broke out of the stables in 1982, Regina wrote that she was dubious that bronies really existed. But a visit to a bronies meet-up event proved otherwise.

Regina recounted:

Then I went to a brony meet up in my city after seeing it advertised on Equestria Daily, probably the biggest fan-run websites about the show. Of the attendees, 22 were male (ages 17-30) and 3 females including myself (all of us were in our early 20s). Having spoken to some of these male fans myself, a common theme appeared that didn’t surprise me: those who were open about their love for the show were often called gay/pansies/etc. by others. As a result, some were very closeted about their fandom. For example, we went to Target, which has a lot of exclusive MLP (“My Little Pony”) merchandise. One of the male fans, excitedly purchased a pink MLP duvet for his college dorm featuring two of the unicorn characters. He said, “I know I’m going to get so much crap for this from everyone, but I want this.”

In addition to extensive 4Chan posts, bronies have churned out “MLPFISM” video mash-ups, fan art and fan fiction. Internet fandom doesn’t get much better than the bronies in my book. Not least because of the gender norms the bronies buck by unabashedly adoring the sparkle ‘n’ pop Ponies.

As a fantastic bronies article in Wired magazine observed earlier this year:

Despite a tacit understanding that some people might be surprised by their choice of entertainment, most bronies show little to no compunction about their fandom. They shouldn’t have to. And, intentionally or not, they might be bucking the gender socialization of things considered to be “for girls” or “for boys.”

“This might be a little short-sighted on my part, but I just assumed that any adult man who didn’t have a little girl wouldn’t even give it a try,” Lauren Faust, “MLPFISM” creator and brony icon, told Wired.

I first heard about Faust and “My Little Ponies Friendship Is Magic” over at the Ms. magazine blog last December. Rather than giving props to Faust and the bronies, the Ms. blog post excoriated the show and its creator for promoting “homophobic, racist and slut-shaming” themes. Going off of a promotional image for “MLPFIM,” along with a couple clips and show descriptions, the blogger leapt to some hostile conclusions, such as the loaded meaning behind Rainbow Dash’s multicolored mane and tail, Princess Celestia’s black soldier ponies and a plot line about making friends.

Rainbow Dash from "My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic." (HubTV.com)

But when “MLPFIM” creator Faust caught wind of the accusations and responded, it quickly became clear that  the inflammatory blog post stands as a case study in Why It’s Important Not to Jump to Knee-Jerk Conclusions About the Insidious Agendas of the Pop Culture Machine at Large. Because sometimes a Rainbow Dash Pony really is just a ““capable and athletic” character, and not a representation of “angry, tomboyish lesbians” as the Ms. blogger surmised.

In a sharply written rebuttal, Faust handily debunked the subliminal anti-feminist “My Little Pony” messages the blogger thought she had uncovered. Rainbow Dash, for instance, “has rainbow-striped hair because of her name and because she is very interested in sports, specifically flying. She is a tomboy, but nowhere in the show is her sexual orientation ever referenced. As we all know, there are plenty of straight tomboys in the world, and assuming they are lesbians is extremely unfair to both straight and lesbian tomboys.”

From the looks of the dog pile of comments on the original post, Faust almost didn’t need to go back and defend herself and her magical ponies. In response after response, outraged “MLPFIM”-loving bronies already had her back.

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Birth control can affect women's memory for details. (Tooga/Getty Images)

A new study out from the University of California, Irvine found that hormonal contraception influences how women remember emotionally provocative events, compared to women who aren’t on birth control. Specifically, naturally cycling women may retain more details about an emotional event  (i.e. the type of car involved in a fatal car accident, the accident setting, etc.), whereas women taking birth control pills may better recollect central information, or the “gist” of it.

This adds to the body of research findings of how hormonal birth control quietly tinkers with our cognitive functioning, stress and behavior. The study authors, for instance, mention recently established correlations between oral contraceptives and the brain’s gray matter volume, improved verbal memory and a lowered stress response. On Stuff Mom Never Told You, we’ve also discussed how oral contraception in particular may lower women’s libidos and affect short-term and long-term mating choices. The UC Irvine study authors didn’t explicitly describe which types of hormonal birth control the women were taking, however.

These correlations are likely tied to sex hormones, since previous studies have highlighted gender differences in memory formation and recall. Men tend to rely on their right brain hemispheres remember the “gist” of events, and women fire up their left brains to recall more supporting details and nuances. Oral contraceptives prevent ovulation by suppressing natural levels of estrogen and progesterone, replacing it with synthetic estrogen and progestins.  Therefore, the suppression of estrogen and progesterone in women taking hormonal birth control may explain why, in the UC Irvine study, they did a better job recounting a gist of an emotional event, as opposed to the details. This doesn’t mean that either group had superior memory skills; their brains merely called up information differently.

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Winners of a 1934 Better Babies Contest. (Getty Images)

Before girls started prancing, twirling and sashaying across the stages of child beauty pageants, baby parades and contests were all the rage. Child pageant historian and sociologist Hilary Levey Friedman explains how baby parades started in the United States on the East coast in the 1890s, the 1904 Asbury Park parade captured on film by none other than Thomas Edison even filmed . Turn of the centuries folks went gaga over the sea of prams rolling through the streets, nevermind the hint of dirty diapers in the air.

Then, in the 1920s baby parades evolved into Better Babies Contests, marketed as public health initiatives. At these contests, often held in rural fairgrounds, babies would be disrobed, measured, weighed and evaluated for temperament and intelligence. Winning babies might claim titles such as “Heaviest Boy Under 1 Year of Age.” If this sounds a lot like livestock competitions at homegrown fairs that’s because it was!

Better Babies Contests were also rooted in eugenics. Alexandra Stern explores this relationship between eugenics and infant health initiatives in her well-researched paper “Making Better Babies: Public Health and Race Betterment in Indiana, 1920 – 1935.” The Indiana Better Babies Contest was organized by the now-defunct Division of Infant and Child Hygiene, and it “was by far the division’s most spectacular event, drawing hundreds of young entrants and thousands of curious onlookers to the state fairgrounds during the week of Labor Day.” The annual contest kicked off in 1920, around the same time the U.S. Children’s Bureau appointed Florence Brown Sherbon, a member of the American Eugenics Society, as a field agent to rural Indiana. Many state-level public health leaders were also eugenics advocates and supporters of state sterilization and marriage laws.

Though the Better Babies Contest taught rural mothers the importance of infant nutrition and health (good things to know!), the motivations were rooted in the “race betterment” movement that sought to build a stronger white race by restricting who’s allowed to procreate (not so good things to know!). And “by excluding African American children [from the Better Babies contest], the contests reinforced patterns of segregation in Indiana and promoted the idea that only white babies could achieve perfection…” Stern wrote. This eugenics-as-public-health stance is summed up in words of Better Babies lead organizer Dr. Ada E. Schweitzer, “You can not make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear, neither can we make a citizen out of an idiot or any person who is not well born.”

Huh.

These eugenics-laced public health platforms circulated beyond the Better Babies Contest in the form of maternal health bulletins and pediatric publications the state government provided to its rural citizens. In 1932, the Indiana Better Babies Program was defunded and the Division of Infant and Child Hygiene closed. But Better Babies Contests were hardly restricted to the Hoosier State. A 1913 Woman’s Home Companion highlights contests in Vermont, New Jersey, Arkansas and Texas, and the first “Scientific Baby Contest” took place at the Louisiana State Fair in 1908. And what did these little “winners” receive? A loving cup, naturally.

Although eugenics comes up most often in the history of oral contraceptives and Margaret Sanger, the Better Babies Contests were little-known — and equally flawed — practices in post-birth eugenics promotion.

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