Well, I was doing my usual, bored-as-can-be internet wandering this morning and ran across this article on MSN called "Do I Love My Wife"-  http://lifestyle.msn.com/relationships/articlees.aspx?cp-documentid=20479695&gt1=32023.  For anyone who does not feel compelled to click on the link and read the article, here it is in a nutshell.

     A man named A. J. Jacobs went to New York University where they did an MRI of his brain while he was shown images of his wife and Angelina Jolie to measure his responses in three systems of the brain to determine how and if he loved his wife and then wrote the nifty little article I found.  They determined that he does in fact love his wife-good for them-in the complicated way that most of us love our long-term spouses/partners/what have you. 

     I myself found several things interested about the article.  For one thing, they compared his wife Julie to Angelina Jolie in the Sex Drive test.  The result: his brain found both of them to be equally attractive.  I, as were the Jacobs, was delightfully surprised!  I have spent nearly my entire life with any and all self-confidence readily squandered when the next beauty queen walked in the door.  I have debated with myself time and time again whether or not my husband thought I was the most beautiful woman in the world, or the county, or the room.  He has often said (while skipping over anything to do with the "most beautiful" debate) that when he looks at another woman, even a shockingly hot woman that MY usually heterosexual self is momentarily swayed by, he does not think that I am any less hot than he did, nor does he find her any more attractive than he does me.  I took this to be his polite way of smoothing the edges for me, like when kids called me fat at school and Mom said I had "graceful curves".  But, alas, science is proven that perhaps there is hope for me in my gut-wrenching, and often time consuming debate.  Ahhhhh... Angelina Jolie, Megan Fox, and graceful curves be damned!

     Another interesting tidbit: Men DO think about sex constantly.  Even in the romance phase of testing, when he was thinking about kissing his wife in the rain, the first time he held her hand, gondola rides in Venice, the part of his brain dealing with sexual impulses lit up.  I find this so pertinent because I can't even begin to do justice to the way I feel about cuddling.  I could spend the rest of my life snuggled up to my husband's side, head on his shoulder, watching movie after movie after movie.  I adore it.  So, when it finally occurred to me that a strong 99.9% of the time when we cuddle I end up with his hand latched onto the "gentle curves" of my Acreage For Sale backyard I could not help but wonder if his snuggle advances were not, in fact, all part of a greater plan.  I mean, my Lord, we hardly ever finish an entire movie without, you know, "loving" each other.  But the findings in this study seem to show that for a man, romance and attachment are directly connected to some good ole chika-chicka-bow-wow...I don't know, I just found it interesting...I'm still not convinced his cuddles aren't a ploy.

     Also interesting was that the scientist recommended that married men with children, "in captivity" as she put it, go on the internet and look at pornography in order to get blood flowing to parts of the brain dealing with sexuality in order to keep those parts performing their function in all aspects of love.  From a scientific view including the findings of this research, that does make sense and I am almost giddy about the notion that perhaps my husband could watch that and not walk away thinking "God, I wish my wife would do lunges and get rid of those graceful curves."  However, I still do NOT want to see him watching it, nor do would my heart spew forth a million roses and daisies if I looked on our internet browser history to find  a list of lewd and lascivious website names.  I'm sorry but that's an entirely different blog entry! 

     Anyhow, it's a really interesting article that in a way has actually set me free.  No more shall I dread beauty queens skipping around being beautiful and what not.  No, instead, I will wait for them to get out of line.  Then I'll squash them with my "graceful curves".