Deano’s answer to: “Do gay males have special biological traits that make anal sex enjoyable or do straight males also have the capacity for this?”

Let me put it this way: heterosexual women who enjoy receiving anal sex are no closer to being gay men than their male partners.

Put even more simply: No. There are no physiological differences between gay and straight men that allow one to experience heightened pleasure during anal sex (topping OR bottoming).

Rather, it is the psychological and sexual identity differences (which may, indeed, have a genetic or other biological component) that allow some men to enjoy giving or receiving anal. Note that I'm not making a strict gay/straight delineation here – there are plenty of straight men who enjoy receiving anal sex from their wife/girlfriend using a strap-on. Heck, it's a whole educational video series:

In theory, everyone in good colo-rectal health has the physical capacity to enjoy anal sex. In practice, this is a lot more a case of "nurture" rather than "nature" determining the outcome – both in terms of sexual identity and being comfortable with the idea, as well as being comfortable with the act itself (usually involving cautious insertion and lots of lubricant).

With enough patience, practice, and prostate stimulation, just about anyone can come to enjoy anal sex. Er, pun intended.

Do gay males have special biological traits that make anal sex enjoyable or do straight males also have the capacity for this?

Deano’s answer to: “How many women enjoy anal sex?”

This may sound like an odd answer, but I'd lean towards 100%… Simply because of a larger conceptual argument – if you're not enjoying it, it's not sex.

That said, the pain and frustration issues around willing receivers is common to men and women – how do you "relax to fit" in a situation where the orifice/passage are not self-lubricating? This challenge, and discovery process leading to a satisfactory answer, seems to be "too much work" for a lot of women (and men, for that matter), which leads many to think that because their initial attempts were painful, it's just always going to be that way.

Getting an idea for how many people "give up" on anal sex before learning how to properly accomodate, plus those who genuinely dislike this form of stimulation, is very difficult to assess statistically.

About the closest you can get these days is to use the "practicing" numbers, and assume that people practicing anal sex do enjoy it (which is my original point, actually). For details on those numbers, try reading the great top answer to the question How common is anal sex?, by Anonymity on Quora (D'oh!).

How many women enjoy anal sex?

Deano’s answer to: “How many deaths from self-driving cars will kill the initiative?”

Killing the initiative will have nothing to do with accidental deaths. It will be killed by:

  • an automotive industry that cannot survive the transition to a pay per use model for its product,
  • the fuel industry, which makes much higher margins on consumer vs. fleet sales,
  • and to a lesser extent by the taxi cartels in major metro areas.

The primary use case for a self-driving car is not to get you home when you're drunk, or let you join the "foot high club" on a road trip. Instead, self-driven vehicles are a mashup between Zipcar and Ubercab – cars that pick you up at your door within minutes, then go find their own parking space (or a new passenger) when you reach your destination. It frees the lower and middle class entirely from monthly car payments (okay, now banks hate the cars too), and reduces local government income from metered parking and yes, parking and moving violation fines (is there anyone left to love these awesome tech marvels?).

Long story short, they'll come, they will happen… But the level of disruption is so great, you can bet the self driving car will not be an America-first phenomenon – and even when it does get here, it will be the small to mid-sized rising metros, with fewer entrenched interests, that get them first.

How many deaths from self-driving cars will kill the initiative?

Deano’s answer to: “Do other Dropbox-like tools have an app for iPhone?”

An unordered list of Dropbox-like* tools which have an accompanying iOS app:

SpiderOakhttps://spideroak.com/
SugarSync http://sugarsync.com/
Jungle Diskhttps://www.jungledisk.com/
Wualahttp://wuala.com/
Mozyhttp://mozy.com/
Box.nethttp://box.net/
Nomadeskhttp://nomadesk.com/
ZumoDrivehttp://zumodrive.com/
MobileMe iDiskhttp://mobileme.com/
Tonidohttp://tonido.com/
SMEStoragehttp://smestorage.com/
ZumoCast http://zumocast.com/currently suspended, may not return?
Memopal http://memopal.com/
Pogoplughttp://pogoplug.com/
TrendMicro SafeSynchttp://us.trendmicro.com/us/prod…
Carbonitehttp://www.carbonite.com/
Here, File File!http://herefilefile.com/
Filerhttp://itunes.apple.com/us/app/f…
Soonr http://www.soonr.com/
JOTTA http://www.jottabackup.com/

*Not all of these tools share all the features of Dropbox… Nor does Dropbox have all the features of the above alternatives. What they do share are the same principles around cloud/network storage of files, with subsequent remote access from browsers and native iPhone and/or iPad apps.

Do other Dropbox-like tools have an app for iPhone?

Deano’s answer to: “Can someone tell me what this Japanese commercial means?”

This commercial is totally straightforward:

  • A Japanese boy returns home from school in a sad state.

  • His dog, Panchi, comes to him, tries to figure out what's wrong, and figures out the boy is heartbroken over a girl at school.

  • Panchi then proceeds to perform a variety of silly tricks to cheer the boy up and get him back in "gambare mode".

  • Panchi's power works too well, and the boy wins over the girl, leaving Panchi home alone and in the lurch.

  • Unlike his more "emo" master, Panchi's good spirits can be returned simply by eating Calbee Consommé-flavor[*] potato chips (which are, actually, pretty delicious).


See? Simple!

[* Yes, consommé, like the French soup… Don't knock it til you try it! ]

Can someone tell me what this Japanese commercial means?