Sex, love and the push-up bra

from Ask Sam

You may have caught that little news factoid recently that stipulated sex might just be a cure for the female blues. Which is good news really (especially for the gents trying to cheer up their surly ladies) considering a whopping estimated 800,000 Aussies suffer from depression each year. So what better antidote could there be for the blues (other than chocolate) than getting frisky between the sheets?

"Having sex helps them feel that closeness and security," surmises Dr Sabura Allen, clinical psychologist and the lead researcher in the Monash University study.

The findings revealed that women associate sex with love (much to the horror of male booty-call buddies!).

The study also discovered that, surprisingly, single women have less sex than single men, which makes you wonder who all these men are getting it on with in the first place ...

Two blokes, David Blanchflower, a Dartmouth College economist, and Andrew Oswald of the University of Warwick in England, undertook a similar survey. They polled 16,000 people and found that sex is so important to happiness, we should be increasing it's frequency from once a month to once a week, (hear that folks?). Adding fuel to the more-sex debate is the fact that the happiness generated from the increased hanky-panky is equivalent to being told you're getting a $50,000 raise on your income!

Economists have also calculated that a lasting marriage equates to the happiness generated by getting an extra $100,000 each year. (Divorce depletes happiness levels equivalent to losing $66,000 annually.)

Then there's the recent story I read in The Economist magazine, which cited a study carried out by the World Database of Happiness in Rotterdam (it collects information about what makes people happy and why), which revealed this: "Married, extroverted optimists are happier than single, pessimistic introverts". Ouch!

Despite its reliability, all these studies sort of threw me off a little. Because it got me wondering: what happened to us being Proud Singletons? Aren't quirky alones supposedly the happy ones? Aren't we a generation of independent women who don't actually need a man?

Not according to science. Yep, apparently we've all been duped. "We do need men more now than ever", says my smug-married friend, J. By J's reckoning, the ultimate antidote for a mutual friend of ours who is constantly complaining she's depressed, is simply this: "Find her a bloke!"

Yet considering our mutual friend is smart, gorgeous, articulate, and doesn't have a smoking habit or penchant for bad boys, I had to wonder why she was finding it so difficult to nab a man.

"Maybe it's because she smells of desperation," J proffered. "She thinks she won't be happy until she has a man and the guys know it. They can see it from a mile away."

Hence J's pushy ways and myriad blind dates aren't helping her case either.

But if love, sex and companionship are really the answers to our ultimate happiness, then I'm a little worried about our generation's future ...

Strange happiness stats:

* 47% of men would give up sex for six months for a 50-inch plasma (Comet Poll, UK)
* 40% of women prefer shoes over sex (Daily Mail)
* 52% of women prefer chocolate over sex (Cadbury)
* 100% of men prefer sex over shoes (Ask Sam Blog)

Q: What is happiness to you? When are you most happy?

STOP PRESS!

If you had to name the best invention ever, you would probably surmise it had something to do with your new Blackberry (email and SMS!), Facebook (friends and prospective dates!) or caramel cappuccinos with extra froth. But recent research has proven otherwise. According to a survey conducted by the British store Debenhams, the ultimate fashion invention ever is in fact the push-up bra. That's right folks. The magic tool that gives us more cleavage (without plastic surgery) rates above g-strings, flip-flops and sneakers as the invention of the century. No doubt they bring about happiness to both sexes alike ...