1. Fear of loneliness
   
   Some individuals fear being alone or believe that being in a toxic relationship is better than being by themselves. They may worry about not finding someone else or feel a sense of comfort in having a partner, even if it’s an unhealthy relationship.
   
   
2. Low self-esteem
   
   People with low self-esteem may believe they don’t deserve better or that they won’t find someone who treats them well. They may internalize negative messages from their partner and struggle to see their own worth.
   
   
3. Financial dependence
   
   Financial considerations can be a significant factor. If one partner is financially dependent on the other, they may fear the consequences of leaving, such as a decline in their standard of living.
   
   
4. Emotional investment
   
   Over time, individuals may invest a significant amount of time and emotional energy in a relationship. This investment can make it difficult to walk away, even when the relationship becomes toxic.
   
   
5. Hope for change
   
   Some individuals stay in toxic relationships because they believe their partner will change or that the situation will improve. They may hold onto the hope that things will get better, especially if the toxic behaviour is intermittent.
   
   
6. Cultural or societal pressures
   
   Societal or cultural expectations, family pressure, or religious beliefs can play a role in individuals staying in relationships. There might be a fear of judgment or stigma associated with ending a relationship, particularly in cultures that emphasize commitment and endurance.
   
   
7. Manipulation and control
   
   In some toxic relationships, one partner may use manipulation and control tactics to keep the other person in the relationship. This can include emotional manipulation, threats, or isolation from friends and family.
   
   
8. Lack of awareness
   
   Some individuals may not fully recognize or acknowledge the toxicity of their relationship. They might downplay or rationalize the negative aspects, focusing on positive moments or making excuses for their partner’s behaviour.
   
   
9. Dependency
   
   Emotional or physical dependency on a partner can contribute to staying in a toxic relationship. This dependency might stem from a lack of self-reliance or an overreliance on the relationship for emotional well-being.

How do you exit a toxic relationship? It starts with self-awareness and finding someone or a support group that may help you exit the abusive cycle. It’s important to emphasize that staying in a toxic relationship can have serious consequences for one’s mental and emotional well-being. If you or someone you know is in a toxic relationship, seeking support from friends, family, or professionals can be crucial in facilitating positive change.

Featured photo by Claudia Wolff on Unsplash

Now here is the ideal person/couple to look for when searching for some bedroom fun. A bisexual person or couple literally reach down someone’s pants and will be satisfied with whatever they find. There we have it, the perfect concoction for a successful night out as long as the attraction is there.

To a lot of people, hearing “I’m bisexual” is tantamount to announcing, “I’m up for anything.” Truth is bisexuals act on their attraction that could be to either a woman or a man and not to any woman or any man. This is where the misconception springs from, like many of us heterosexuals, bisexuals; equally don’t like everyone only those they’re attracted.

In the heterosexual world, female bisexuality is applauded and almost a prerequisite in the list of desirability in a female’s sexual repertoire.
Male bisexuality has still to evolve to this status of ‘desirability’ in the heterosexual world, or at least at the same comfort level. Heterosexual males quiver at the knees, should you divulge your attraction and seemingly make a move on them. It brings about questions about their own sexuality. Does it mean if you have an encounter no matter how small or insignificant make you bi too? A little experimentation with the same-sex gender is not going to make you bi or gay all of a sudden. Relax, being curious and being experimental is a healthy expression of our desires and a way of growing sexually.

Bisexuals are attracted to more than one gender. Just like in general we are attracted to people of more than one height, weight, age group, hair colour and race. But to bisexuals it also includes gender.
Being bisexual is about the gender you’re attracted to. Remember like many of us heterosexuals, bisexuals; equally don’t like everyone only those they’re attracted.

Our sexuality is inclusive not exclusive of who we really are. Let’s then explore, enjoy and celebrate our differences and ideally live the moment without regrets.
Actresses, Olivia Wilde and Megan Fox, as many before them believe that in essence we’re all bisexuals and then due to social pressure we’re made to choose to be hetero. In 1999, actress Megan Mullally went as far as stating that she believes we are all innately bisexual. An improvement to this statement probably would be that we’re all at least a bit bi-curious especially when we’ve encountered the right person.

Let’s dispel from all this categorizing and labeling for a minute and look at the lost potential of intense nights of wild sexual fun. We’re here for the good times, for good connections and good friends and endless possibilities. Let’s put our guards down and look genuinely at our attractions and let the good times roll.

Not everyone’s cuppa tea? Understandable. However, if someone of the same sex expresses their attraction to you and you do not feeling the same just let them know that you’re flattered but not reciprocal, and find your own game play without spoiling someone else’s, be open minded.

The divorce rate among couples who shared housework equally was around 50 per cent higher than among those where the woman did most of the work.

“The more a man does in the home, the higher the divorce rate,” Thomas Hansen, co-author of the study entitled Equality in the Home, said.

Researchers found no, or very little, cause-and-effect. Rather, they saw in the correlation a sign of “modern” attitudes.

“Modern couples are just that, both in the way they divide up the chores and in their perception of marriage” as being less sacred, Mr Hansen said, stressing it was all about values.

“In these modern couples, women also have a high level of education and a well-paid job, which makes them less dependent on their spouse financially. They can manage much easier if they divorce,” he said.

There were only some marginal aspects where researchers said there may be cause-and-effect.

“Maybe it’s sometimes seen as a good thing to have very clear roles with lots of clarity … where one person is not stepping on the other’s toes,” Mr Hansen suggested.

“There could be less quarrels, since you can easily get into squabbles if both have the same roles and one has the feeling that the other is not pulling his or her own weight,” he added,

In Norway, which has long tradition of gender equality, child-rearing is generally shared equally between mothers and fathers (in seven out of 10 couples), said Mr Hansen, speaking notably from a park where he was minding his children.

But when it comes to housework, women in Norway still account for most of it in seven out of 10 couples.

The study also pointed out however that those women were largely satisfied with the situation, and their overall happiness was very close to those women who lived in “modern” couples.

Source: perthnow.com.au

For this project, Flesh Love, he’s photographed over 80 couples. Kawaguchi says the men panic more often than the women. A few have struggled for air while in the bag and one man ended up pissing himself. The women just want to look good, he says.

Source: featureshoot.com

As the couple set off for their honeymoon to France in December, the newly-wed was shocked to find her new mother-in-law at Rome’s Fiumicino airport, all set to come on the trip, the agency cited her lawyers as saying.

When she protested, her husband of two days said he couldn’t leave his mother alone for health reasons.

The three spent the honeymoon together, but as soon as they returned from France the woman filed for divorce, citing an “excessive emotional attachment” between her future ex-husband and his mother.

Source: ninemsn.com.au

THE Hill-Thompsons* are like any other young family expecting their first baby.

They’re buying maternity clobber on eBay, weeping during ultrasounds and giggling when the malapropistic midwife leading their prenatal classes advises them to gouge their birth companions carefully.

There is, however, one thing about the Hill-Thompsons that makes them a little unusual: there are three of them.

Mari (a 33-year-old student doing her second degree), Sara (a 32-year-old uni lecturer) and David (a 35-year-old IT geek) have been a sexually monogamous, three-way unit for six years.

They are not religious, they’re not cult members and they’re not even that into group sex.

They just happened to all fall in love with each other at roughly the same time.

For the most part, the Brisbane trio have kept the details of their polyamorous private life to themselves. But they are slowly coming out of the closet now Mari is eight months up the duff. Sara is also hoping to conceive in the not-too-distant future.

Telling people about their super-sized relationship is complicated by a lack of unloaded language options. Threesome sounds too sexy and there is no triplicate version of the word couple.

“Usually we just tell people there are three of us,” Mari says. “But polyfidelitous might be the best technical term.”

Polyamory, also known as ethical non-monogamy, is billed by many activists as the new gay; the next sexual revolution. It’s separate from swinging, in that (as the Latin root suggests) emotion is involved. Its also very different to religious polygamy such as that portrayed on the HBO TV show Big Love.

In short: more than two people, more than just sex, God optional.

Books, blogs and academic research into the practice are all rising, as is the predictable outrage from traditionalists and even from some non-traditionalists who say the trend muddies the gay marriage debate.

While a common joke is that the complexities of poly relationships leave little time for activism, in Canada on Monday the Canadian Polyamory Advocacy Association will begin fighting for group marriage rights in that nation’s supreme court.

“What they plan to say,” the Vancouver Sun has written, “is that polyamory is a more highly evolved form of family-conjugal relationship that is beneficial to all of its participants; the way of the future, if you will.”

The CPAA contends that at least two million Canadians live in polyamorous relationships, many belonging to what is known as the friends with benefits category.

It’s hard to know the number of polyamorists in Australia because for some reason the question isn’t asked on the census. There is, however, at least one in Britain.

Actress Tilda Swinton, 50, shares a house with playwright John Byrne, the 70-year-old father of her twins. Her other companion is 32-year-old Sandro Kopp, an artist she met while filming The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. Kopp had a small role as a centaur.

“The arrangement is just so sane,’ Swinton has said. “John and I live here with our children, and Sandro is sometimes here with us, and we travel the world together. We are all a family.”

Byrne agrees, saying of Kopp: “We all love him dearly.”

Given the ubiquity of cheating spouses (there are now commercial websites devoted to facilitating marital infidelity), it seems grossly hypocritical to judge those who are open and ethical about having more than one lover.

But Mari, Sara and David endure way more than their fair share of rude and weird reactions. Their jog-as-a-family neighbours won’t wave back to them and Sara’s mum thinks she is some kind of insatiable, nymphomaniac adulteress.

“But dammit, we’re not freaks!” Sara says. “We’re not hurting anyone. And we have three earners, three minds to think through situations and now three people to care for a baby.”

The story of how the Hill-Thompsons came to be the Hill-Thompsons is long, complicated and, at times, tragic.

Mari and David are high school sweethearts who have been together for 16 years and married in 1999.

“My only other relationships were crushes on girls in my childhood,” David says. “I had never have thought I would find myself in a permanent three-way relationship until it happened.”

Mari and Sara bonded as friends in the late 90s after Mari was raped. Sara then ended up in an abusive marriage in Colombia before visiting Mari and David in Brisbane in 2004. She and Mari got together within days. Then things progressed.

“David found the term polyamory online,” Mari recalls. “I was really relieved to discover that there were other people who had found they could love more than one person at once.

“Sara had asked me lots of questions that I felt were very scientific: I had just wanted her to say she felt the same, and to kiss me!”

Six years later, negotiating life together still involves tricky logistics and sleep rosters. In the early days, they slept in a queen and a single bed pushed together with a lumpy piece of foam filling the gap and a couple of stitched-together sheets on top. Now they take it turns to sleep in twos, only slumbering altogether (sideways in a king-sized bed) a few times a week (pregnant bellies permitting).

“Our schedule has changed over the years and I am sure it will continue to change,” Mari says. “We also alter the sleeping rotation if anyone is likely to feel particularly lonely sleeping by themselves for whatever reason.”

As for sex, the gang tend to avoid the three musketeers approach in this domain, too.

“It takes a lot of brainpower to think about three people’s sexual pleasure and emotional states at once,” Sara says. “Having to think that hard makes sex difficult.”

Another intriguing aspect of the arrangement is Mari and Sara’s status as committed feminists. It certainly confounds assumptions that they are the hapless members of some sort of harem. After all, while some chauvinist types might think David is fortunate to share his life with two women, others might regard living with two feminists as involving two too many.

Life, meanwhile, goes on.

The triumvirate is attending hypnobirthing classes, negotiating who will stay home and who will work, and reading a book called Psycho Kitty in the hope of making their crazed cat baby-friendly.

And as they count down the days until the birth of little Kate next month, they are convinced that any stigma their daughter faces in the community will be well and truly countered by the 50 per cent increase in the usual loving parenthood quotient she will have at home.

Source: theaustralian.com.au

Myth #1: Single men are everywhere

For every couple who has ever received unwanted attention from single men on RedHotPie, it would seem that they exist in plague proportions. In reality, when it comes time to actually finding one, it seems there really aren’t as many eligible men out there as once imagined. Indeed, by the time a couple makes a checklist of what they would like out of a single guy, the massive pool of horny dudes becomes a manageable pond. This still seems hopeful but as more time is put into getting to know these guys, the pond shrinks into a puddle.
Over a one month course of trying to find Mr Right, the guys who match your checklist end up hooking up with a girlfriend (and does the right thing by her and politely declines your threesome invitation), goes overseas on a hiking expedition or the like, or starts a new job that puts him into fly-in/fly-out mode. For those that remain available, some genuinely can’t get their diary synchronised with yours, or some end up psyching themselves out of meeting you. Before you know it, your puddle has dried up and it’s time to go fishing in new waters again: if you’ve got the patience for it.

Myth #2: Guys on RedHotPie are hot and horny for it 24/7

Yes. RHP guys are hot and they are horny but most are not prepared to drop everything in order to ‘get some’. Let’s not forget that single guys are human beings with a life outside of RHP. No doubt there are some guys who would be willing to come around to service a couple with one swift booty call but in most cases we need to exercise some fairness to all concerned.
If you feel like having a spontaneous session late one night, chat up a guy who happens to be online on RHP and manage to get him to your front door within thirty minutes, then consider yourself lucky. However if the poor guy sounds keen but text messages you an hour later and says he can’t make it, try not to get too mad. Consider how you would feel if you were given an hour to meet complete strangers who expect you to perform sexually (you’re not inviting him over for a cup of tea, right?). Well shouldn’t he have said no in the beginning? Totally. But he’s a guy at the end of the day and got revved up by the concept of hot threesome sex. Sadly the organ in charge of logistics (ie – his brain) tapped him on the shoulder and reminded him that he has to get up early to fly out of the country the next day. What’s a guy to do?
In the meantime, you’re left feeling unfulfilled and vowing to take to every single guy with the rough end of a pineapple. We do feel your pain but we can only suggest that you don’t expect too much from spontaneous sessions. Like anyone, single guys need some time to clear their schedules. They might even prefer to go out for a drink first and (shock, horror) get to know you socially before doing the wild thing.

Myth #3: Single guys will hit anything. Anything!

There’s a sad misconception that all single guys are desperate and likely to fornicate with anything that has a willing orifice. If you as a couple have this mentality when seeking one of those horny beasts to join you, you may be in for a nasty shock. Single guys have tastes and preferences like anyone else on RHP. If you won’t have sex with just anyone, why would a single guy? Or do you want the sort of single guy who will tap absolutely anything?
This myth hasn’t been brought up to suggest that some couples are plain unattractive (we’re all hot here on RHP of course!) but more so to highlight the problem some men face when propositioned by a couple who doesn’t appeal to him sexually. He’s damned if he is honest (many guys subsequently receive a barrage of abuse for being a picky bastard) and damned if he remains silent, blocks the couple and hides under a rock for a while.
Should he offer to meet for drinks at least? Sure, but somehow this could be worse if he decides then not to go ahead with the threesome due to non-attraction.
For some reason, couples can take rejection by a single girl or couple better than by a single guy. Perhaps it’s because of the tendency to assume that single guys aren’t picky, and to have a guy reject you makes the lady feel pretty average and her hubby mad as hell. So what’s a guy to do? Have sex with someone he’s not 100% attracted to or get labelled a time-wasting bastard? Great options.

If there’s a lesson to be learned here, couples who are seeking a single guy should probably not go into the task thinking it’s a no-brainer. Yes, there are many great guys to choose from on RHP but the three myths busted above should give you some idea of how you should go about finding the right guy to fulfill your MFM fantasies.
Firstly, remember that single guys are human beings with normal, human thoughts, emotions and commitments. Many have stressful jobs, kids from previous relationships and amazing passions and past times that may come ahead of meeting couples for threesome fun.
If you’re simply after a spare penis for the night, then you’re welcome to view single guys as a commodity but don’t be surprised if those who respond to your invitation are equally mercenary in their pursuits. If this suits you to a tee then you need only send a mass of messages or replies to various guys and the odds are that you’ll get a few to come and play with you.
If however you’re more into quality and fancy actually meeting a guy who you could possibly even be mates with in the vertical world then it’s worth making the effort to find the right guy for you. Work out what you are seeking in a guy (ie – attached, unattached, bisexual, experienced in group sex, condom-friendly etc.) and do an Advanced Search to get your listing of suitable guys. From there you can see through pics and profile write-ups as to whether a guy is your type of person.
When organising to meet a guy, offer to meet with the guy socially first. Most guys will probably agree to playing right away but of those guys some will sadly get a bit freaked out (experienced in group sex or not, many guys fear performance issues). If you take sex off the table for the time being, you’ll all be relaxed and not under any pressure. If drinks go well then you can easily organise the rest.
To avoid ‘timewasters’, ensure that you have swapped photos and that all parties understand what the threesome is to involve or not, and are happy to meet up. You should insist on a phone number from the single guy or ask him to call you. A quick chat on the phone will ensure that all is well and genuine. There’s sadly nothing that can gauge how well a guy is going to perform in the threesome but it may help to ensure that everyone only drinks in moderation if you’re serious about getting it on properly.

Author Peter Biskind told the New York Post newspaper he had based the figure on “simple arithmetic”.

According to Biskind, Beatty slept with “12,775 women, give or take, a figure that does not include daytime quickies, drive-bys, casual gropings, stolen kisses and so on.”

Biskind said he managed to form a friendship with the Bonnie and Clyde star who eventually opened up to him on his long list of affairs with Hollywood’s leading ladies.

But the 72-year-old actor and producer has already denied the book, titled Star: How Warren Beatty Seduced America, was authorised and said it contains many false assertions.

Beatty’s attorney, Bertram Fields told the Huffington Post the book was full of purported quotes from the actor which he had never said.

According to Biskind, Beatty’s former lovers included Jane Fonda, Joan Collins, Leslie Caron, Isabelle Adjani, Julie Christie, Diane Keaton, and Madonna.

The book also contains a claim from The Nanny star Fran Drescher in which she recalls Beatty inviting her to take part in a threesome. Drescher turned down the offer.

On Beatty’s affair with Collins, Biskind wrote in the book the actor made love to the leading lady “relentlessly”.

“For Collins, it was too much of a good thing,” he wrote. “One Sunday morning, exhausted, she stumbled out of bed. Dragging on a forbidden cigarette, she said, ‘I don’t think I can last much longer. He never stops — it must be all those vitamins he takes . . . In a few years, I’ll be worn out.'”

Source: ninemsn.com.au