men

long hair returns among men

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Men’s hair never completely said goodbye, it’s true, but over the last few years (more than a decade) the fashion that has reigned among men has been its antonym: courteous fade. Short hair and impossible gradients that in many cases included shaved necks and temples. They were (still are) requested in thousands in barbershops and their image was repeated everywhere: gyms, bars, offices and of course on TVs and networks (from Llados to Ibai), where the fade in its multiple forms gradually took shape as part of the image of the manly-looking, productive and successful man. The model to follow. The World Cup has reminded us that that is changing. The other protagonist of the World Cup: If we talk about national teams, Spain has been the main protagonist of the World Cup, but things change when we focus on the players. In that case the ‘photo’ is much more diverse. And not always for sporting reasons. There are two footballers who (beyond their merits on the field) have gone viral for their appearance: Erling Haaland and Marc Cucurella. The first is a Norwegian of almost two meters that could well illustrate an article about Vikings; The second, born in Barcelona, ​​is dark and does not reach 1.8 m. Both do share one trait in common: hair that (although with obvious differences in both cases) looks proudly long. In the case of Haaland we have seen it mostly tied up in a ponytail. Cucurella usually wears her curly hair loose, with a discreet headband, which gives it so much volume that it has starred in one of the most viral memes of the World Cup: a cat with a curly wig reminiscent of that of the Spanish full-back. @foxsportsmx THIS IS THUS A MEME WAS BORN 😻🇪🇸 If you were wondering where the “Michi-Cucurella” came from, here is the answer 📹 (welcometolevusch/TikTok) #cucurella #humor #soccer ♬ original sound – Fox Sports Is it important? Yes. It is true that in the stadiums of the USA, Mexico and Canada we have seen many other players with shaved heads or short hair; but it is equally true that footballers like Haaland, Cucurella, Alisson Becker, Darwin Núñez, Dominik Szoboszlai, David Raya or Marcos Llorente demonstrate that something is changing in men’s style patterns. We don’t say it. Over the last few weeks they have pointed it out several analysts who agree that, sporting issues or of geopolitics Apart from that, the big winner of the 2026 World Cup has been men’s hair. Not so much because it was the majority aesthetic option but because the FIFA event has reminded us that long hair, in a way, has been resigned. A new meaning? That’s how it is. Haircuts are just that: haircuts. But it doesn’t mean that they don’t end up loaded with meaning. In recent years, faded cuts have become part of the business card of a masculinity associated with certain ideas, such as explained a few days ago Álvaro Fernández-Espina in ICON: they showed correctness, efficiency, cleanliness. Also certain status. And it’s normal. You can’t wear a fade if you don’t go to your hairdresser every few weeks to touch it up, which in turn denotes money, time, and conscious concern and care for your own image. It doesn’t just happen with cuts fade. Shaved heads, pin up hairstyles, bob hair, ‘broccoli’ hair, long sideburns, layered men’s cuts with forward bangs, dyed hair… Often when people choose a specific way to wear their hair, they do so not only based on strictly aesthetic criteria or for comfort, it also transmits (deliberately or not) a message. And that background reading is changing in men’s hair. Beyond surfers and rockers. What the World Cup has shown us is that the men’s hair of 2026 has little to do with those of the 80s or 90s. Not even with those of the early 2000s. Long hair is no longer something for surfers, rockers or unkempt rebels; They have become a sign of sophistication and status. Exactly the same as the gradients. Marc Cucurella, Erling Haaland, Dominik Szoboszlai and Alisson Becker share another characteristic in common, beyond being elite footballers who more or less coincide in their hair choice: they show perfectly cared for hair. The importance of details. It is not a minor issue. Has cuts fade who can afford the time and resources that a good gradient requires. The same applies to tanned skin, muscular bodies in the gym, ironed clothes and… (exactly) long, shiny and healthy hair. If something surprises when we see Cucurella running with her mop of curls, it’s not just her hair, it’s how she wears it. With it he shows a personal choice, but also a dedication and hard work that has little to do with the idea of ​​carefree or rebellion that we associated with the rockers of the 80s. Does it only happen in football? No. The FIFA World Cup has been the great mass spectacle of the summer year and that makes us look at its protagonists and trends with a magnifying glass, but men’s hair hydrated and cared for with masks, treatments and hours of dedication, takes time also making its way into other areas, such as cinema or music. There they are (or were there not so long ago) Jared Leto, Keanu Reeves, Jeremy Allen White, Johnny Depp, Brad Pit, Harry Styles, Orlando Bloom or Jason Mamoa, to name just a handful of examples. Also some K-pop stars. The nuances. The most interesting thing about fashions is that they are not exclusive or zero-sum games. That long hair is regaining ground does not mean that it cannot coexist with other radically opposite trends, such as shavedcuts that they keep playing with gradients or simply allow the hair to grow to gain volume but without reaching the mane, something that we have been seeing for years in the famous “broccoli hair” that is having so much success in Generation Z. In the background, a … Read more

For the first time, Tokyo allows men to wear shorts to the office. And that is causing a revolution

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Noboru Watanabe is 53 years old, works as a civil servant in the Tokyo Metropolitan Government and a few days ago His office colleagues saw his shins for the first time. The heat was pressing and Watanabe, like another handful of colleagues (few), decided to swallow his shame and skip the rigid code of etiquette that dictates that office workers must wear a shirt, jacket, tie and long pants. He didn’t do it just because. With his gesture he joined an initiative launched in April by the authorities to make the heatwave more bearable. There are those who are not so clear. calves in the air. It is not easy to combat extreme heat waves. In Spain there are institutions that have begun to distribute thermal bracelets among the workers who work on the street and in France have reached restrict alcohol so that emergency services can prioritize heat strokes. However, there are few initiatives as peculiar (and extravagant) as the one they have activated in Tokyo. There, in April, anticipating what was to come, the Metropolitan Government gave carte blanche his employees to come to the office in shorts. Not only that. With its measure, the Executive hope to set an example and that companies also relax their dress codes. Dating back to 2005. To understand the measure we have to go back to 2005, when the Ministry of the Environment launched a campaign called “Cool Biz” to promote energy savings. Its premise was simple: the strict Japanese etiquette code leads office workers to go to their jobs with a tie, jacket and long pants, which in turn forced companies to spend more money (and energy) on air conditioning to make their day more bearable. So… Why not change it? “It’s liberating”. As part of the campaign, the authorities agreed that the thermostats in public offices should set at 28ºC and they relaxed the dress code for their employees. Of course, not too much. The ‘flexibility’ was limited to jackets and ties, which became optional items of clothing. “There were complaints and resistance, but they soon realized that not wearing a suit and tie in 35ºC is liberating,” remember Sumie Kawakamiprofessor at Yamanashi Gakuin University. The idea was to set an example from the public to the private sector to control energy expenditure and pollution in the country. one step further. The great architect of that measure was Yuriko Koikethen Minister of the Environment and since 2016 governor of Tokyo. Hence, he has taken advantage of his new position to go one step further in the capital: in spring Koike publicly encouraged his administration officials to leave their long pants in the closet when the heat hits. The idea was the same: to make the heatwave more bearable without having to skyrocket the energy bill, an important objective if two keys are taken into account. And what are they? First, last year Japan experienced a summer of record temperaturesabove 40ºC, and begins to get used to supporting extreme heat waves. He even named them: kokushobi. The second key is that when Koike launched the measure, in April, the energy cost was a national concern, both in Japan and in much of the planet. It had been barely two months since the start of the Iran war and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz had shot the price of oil, taking it to levels not seen for years. It is estimated that 90% of imports of oil that Japan receives arrive through that strategic maritime passage. The great enemy: taboo. However, ending a habit carried on for decades is not so easy. When the AFP agency visited the office government where Noboru Watanabe works, a week ago, he only saw five men wearing shorts. And that day they reached 34º. Among those brave few was Watanabe himself, who admits that at first he was embarrassed to walk among his colleagues showing his shins. The reporters of The New York Times they met with a similar panorama: They only saw 11 men wearing shorts, just 16% of a staff of 70 men. And the great debate began. The shorts perhaps they are more comfortable for the summer (Watanabe himself recognize that once the initial reservations are overcome, they are “comfortable” and even make you feel “younger”), but that doesn’t mean they convince everyone. In June The Japan Times public a column in which it was slipped that the Tokyo government may have gone “too far.” Other Asian media have collected testimonies from Japanese who do not quite accept the new Tokyo directive. “I’ve been to business meetings in Pakistan, Thailand and the Philippines and people there don’t wear tights when it comes to something important,” explains a 56-year-old businessman. A new concept: Sune Hara. It’s not just a question of whether to go with shorts to a meeting is appropriate or not. In Japan, a new term has been coined that indicates a deeper debate: sune hara“bullying because of leg hair.” Its approach is very simple. Now that men can wear shorts, will they also experience the pressure that women feel to have perfect legs? Why does society expect a woman to spend time and money getting rid of hair but tolerate it in a man? Will women still be expected to wear long skirts or stockings in certain areas? “Wearing shorts in the workplace has started to gain acceptance, but will society accept women showing bare, stockingless, hairy legs (because women have hair on their legs too) in a business environment?” a user launched one recently on the Weekly Women’s Prime platform. “If it is acceptable to men, it stands to reason that women’s legs should also be accepted.” Images | Egor Myznik (Unsplash) and Fikri Rasyid (Unsplash) In Xataka | 30 years ago we laughed at China and Japan for their obsession with sun protection. Now we’re following your path

Men over 45 have 31% more genetic mutations than those under 30

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Historically we have heard that only women have to worry about their biological clock when it comes to having children, meaning that the sooner they get pregnant, the better. The classic biological argument was based on the finite ovarian reserve and the cellular aging of the oocytes. But the evidence has been warning for years that the clock is ticking for men. A new study presented by the IVI Foundation during the 42nd Annual Meeting of the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology has put a figure specific to male reproductive aging. This indicates that men over 45 years of age have 31% more mutations in their sperm compared to men under 30. A cell factory. Unlike oocytes, which are formed during female embryonic development and remain in a state of latency until ovulationsperm are produced continuously from puberty. This implies that the stem cells from which the sperm come are constantly dividing, causing even a seventy-year-old man to continue producing sperm. In cell biology, each division is an opportunity to make a copying error in DNA. And although cellular repair mechanisms are amazingly efficient, they are not perfect. Over the decades, errors accumulate and these genetic alterations that were not present in the parents but appear in the offspring are known as de novo mutations. They warn you. Science has been documenting this phenomenon for more than a decade and we have an example in an article published in Nature in 2012 that already established that approximately 80% of mutations of note They come from paternal genetics. Furthermore, the researchers estimated that the offspring’s genome acquires between 1 and 2 additional de novo mutations for each year that the father’s age increases. Now the new study confirms these data. Selection of sperm. The 31% increase in mutations is not solely due to a passive failure in DNA repair due to the simple wear and tear of age. This is where a fascinating, microscopic evolutionary mechanism operating in the testes called “selfish spermatogonial selection” comes in. In this case, some of the mutations that occur in sperm stem cells are not neutral, but rather confer a proliferative advantage to the cell itself. Specific mutations, such as those that occur in the gene FGFR3 or in the RAS signaling pathway, cause these mutated stem cells to divide faster and survive better than neighboring healthy cells. Over time, these mutated “clones” end up dominating large areas of the testicle, producing an increasing proportion of sperm carrying the mutation. Relative risk. The mutations de novo associated with advanced paternal age are strongly linked to the appearance of rare diseases of monogenic origin in offspring, such as achondroplasia, Apert syndrome or Costello syndrome, in addition to showing complex genetic correlations with neurodevelopmental disorders. However, the absolute risk of a father over 45 years of age conceiving a child with one of these severe pathologies remains statistically very low, specifically less than 0.5% in those over forty years of age. All of this means that the mutational increase is undeniable at the genomic level, but the probability that these mutations directly impact a critical gene and result in a congenital syndrome remains rare. Images | freepik In Xataka | Fertility rates have plummeted around the world. There is an unnoticed suspect: tobacco

Millions of men wake up every morning with an erection. This is excellent news for them.

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There is a deep-rooted popular belief that associates the presence of morning erections exclusively to testosterone levels and the “virility” that man has. But recently it is being seen that this is something that can be an indicator of having good cardiovascular health, although logically not having them does not categorically mean that there is a disease in the heart or arteries. Its foundation. Here the scientific literature has a very important position, since, although there is a real basis to point out that the absence of these erections is an important symptom, it does not function as a ‘yes or no’, but is a continuous and complex marker. In this way, if we analyze the evidence from the most powerful population studies of recent decades, we discover that morning erections speak much less about our hormones and much more about our arteries. A thermometer of cardiovascular health. To understand why an erection matters at a systemic level, we must remember that we are dealing with a fundamentally vascular phenomenon. The arteries of the penis in this case are much narrower than the coronary arteries, and that is why, if we have a process of atherosclerosis or endothelial dysfunction that is beginning in the body, the smaller arteries will be the first to fail. This is why erectile dysfunction is a very important predictor for cardiologists and urologists to know what the inside of the arteries may be like without having to do any extra tests. Risk in escalation. A landmark study published in PLOS Medicine in 2013 continued to more than 95,000 men and showed that cardiovascular risk is increasing. In this way, it was seen that men with severe erectile dysfunction had almost double the risk of general mortality compared to those who did not suffer from it. This adds to a second study published in Circulation with almost 93,000 men which confirmed that erectile dysfunction increases the risk of total cardiovascular events by 44% and the risk of acute myocardial infarction by 62%. Testosterone. This is where popular culture collides with the data provided by scientific evidence. It is true that testosterone reaches its maximum peak in the morning and it is logical to think that this enhances the morning erections that men have, but a 2019 observational study carried out on 761 men showed that those who maintained their nocturnal erections had, on average, slightly higher total testosterone and lower libido. But testosterone does not explain the risk of suffering from serious disease in our arteries. Here the European Male Aging Study followed about 1,660 men for more than 12 years and analyzed different specific symptoms: erectile dysfunction, low libido and loss of morning erections. And here they saw that having poor erections in the morning increased the risk of mortality by 28%. It’s not testosterone. The key to this study is that, when adjusting the results based on the patients’ testosterone levels, the risk of mortality remained exactly the same. This means that it does not matter whether you have more or less testosterone, because what is truly important here is to have ‘clean’ arteries that allow blood to be carried to the penis without any type of obstacle. There is no need to obsess. We must not fall into the trap of stating that the absence of morning erections is the same as having a major underlying disease. What we must keep in mind is that we are faced with one more risk factor or symptom that is added to many others in a complex puzzle that must occur for a specific disease to occur, and that is why this is something that is left in the hands of medical specialists to determine what may be happening inside the arteries. Images | Tania Mousinho In Xataka | The strange syndrome of painful erections: there are only 66 cases in the world and science is just beginning to understand it

Two men thought it was a good idea to lend their houses to a North Korean laptop farm. It went wrong

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Teleworking has accustomed us to a very comfortable idea: if someone delivers work, attends meetings and responds to messages, perhaps it doesn’t matter too much where they do it from. The problem appears when that distance becomes an advantage to hide identities, move money and enter companies that believe they are hiring a legitimate professional. North Korea has been exploiting precisely that rift. And the case of two men convicted of hosting laptops in their homes shows the extent to which the plot could rely on domestic infrastructure. Two men condemned. Matthew Isaac Knoot, of Nashville, Tennessee, and Erick Ntekereze Prince, of New York, have been sentenced in the US to 18 months each in prison for their role in fraudulent schemes involving remote IT workers linked to North Korea. according to the Department of Justice. The house as a piece of the plot. The mechanism was more domestic than one might imagine. Companies shipped corporate laptops to American addresses because they believed the contracted workers were there. Once received, the computers were housed in those homes and configured with remote desktop applications installed without authorization. This allowed the fake workers to operate from abroad while, to the companies, the connection appeared to come from an address within the United States. What did each one do?. Prince, according to official information, facilitated at least three North Korean IT workers to obtain remote employment in US companies between June 2020 and August 2024, and used his company Taggcar Inc. to fraudulently supply “certified” workers, despite knowing that they were outside the US and using false or stolen identities. Knoot, for his part, operated a laptop farm from his Nashville residences between July 2022 and August 2023. Money, companies and damages. The Justice Department maintains that the two schemes together generated more than $1.2 million for North Korea and affected nearly 70 U.S. companies. In the Prince case, the companies paid more than $943,069 in salaries to IT workers linked to the file. In Knoot’s case, the payments exceeded $250,000. More than labor fraud. The US justice system presents the sentences as part of a specific line of action against facilitators located in the US. The note itself highlights that these are the seventh and eighth convictions of “laptop farmers” obtained in the last five months within their efforts to interrupt North Korea’s illicit generation of income. It is an important nuance: the focus is not only on those who connect from abroad, but also on the local network that makes the operation viable. Expansion into Europe. As we have seen in the pastthese cases are also present outside the United States. The Record discovered in April 2025 an investigation by Google Threat Intelligence Group according to which North Korean operatives had increased their activity in Europe following US police actions against laptop farms and financial networks. At the center were job searches linked to the United Kingdom, Germany and Portugal, in addition to the use of local facilitators to support the alibi of a work presence in the corresponding country. AI and fake identities. One of the most current layers of this story is not only in the laptops, but in the ease of building increasingly credible profiles. BISI points out that North Korean operations combine stolen identities, manipulated professional profiles and AI tools capable of writing localized CVs and cover letters. In the Old Continent, platforms such as Upwork and Freelancer are usually used, in addition to Telegram. The consequence is obvious: detecting the fake candidate can become much more difficult before the company even ships the equipment. What started with laptops housed in private homes ends up having something much bigger than a criminal conviction. The companies were not attacked from outside in the classic sense, but ended up opening the door to workers they believed to be legitimate. So everything seems to indicate that in these times it is no longer enough to protect servers, credentials or repositories, but rather to review the processes that we consider normal, such as the hiring of personnel. Images | Xataka with Grok In Xataka | The ‘vibe coding’ promised to democratize software. Your first gift is 5,000 apps with open sensitive data

Birds in cities are more afraid of women than men

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Walking through a park and having a pigeon, a parrot and a sparrow fly away when we approach is quite an everyday occurrence, since they see us as a threat, probably due to our large size in comparison. But the truth is that we now know that this gesture It is more common when the human approaching is a womanas if it were a genre that scared him more. They have investigated it. This curiosity has been the conclusion reached by a published scientific study in British Ecological Society in which it is noted that birds escape sooner when women approach than when men approach. And to get here, the research team did not rely on a few observations, but designed an experiment that grouped 2,701 observations across five European countries and 37 different urban species. The results. If we look at specific figures, it has been seen that when the person approaching the birds is a woman, the flight distance is approximately one meter greater than when a man approaches. And here the question we can ask ourselves is whether this is a simple coincidence, but here the researchers have made it clear that this is not the case, since the conclusion that birds distinguish the sex of the human observer is statistically solid. And to ensure this accuracy, the researchers controlled multiple variables during the approaches, including initial distance, the size of the bird school, and surrounding tree cover. Because? Although the pattern of behavior is undeniable, the exact causes remain largely a mystery, with researchers pointing to a lack of a concrete explanatory mechanism. The theories that are mainly pointed out are related to different factors, such as differences in body shape between the woman and the mobile phone or even movement, since the way of walking can be a warning signal for animals. Furthermore, it is proposed that the smell that each of the genders has is a possible hypothesis to explain this anticipated flight reaction. But the truth is still a great mystery. Survival in evolution. The fact that birds pay so much attention to humans makes sense if we take into account the enormous evolutionary pressure that cities exert, since in a very short time birds have had to adapt to our presence and above all to the pressure of having us literally on top of them in part of their environment. And little by little we are learning that not all human beings have the same effect on them. Images | wirestock at Magnific ArthurHidden on Magnific In Xataka | Spain has a very ugly bird that does not want it to become extinct. And all of Europe depends on you not doing it

the forgotten story of the 11 deaf men of NASA

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In the late 1950s, NASA was very clear that it wanted to send astronauts into space and that that would be the beginning of a new era. Therefore, it was very important to thoroughly study how microgravity could affect the health of human beings. The first step would be to see how sick these travelers would get. And what better way to study it than with a group of people incapable of getting dizzy? Yes, although it may not seem like it, that makes sense. The Gallaudet 11. Gallaudet College, now known as Gallaudet University, was the first school in the world dedicated to the advanced education of the deaf and hard of hearing. That’s why it was there where NASA recruited 11 men between 25 and 48 years oldwhose deafness came mostly from damage to the vestibular system. 10 of them had lost hearing at an early age due to spinal meningitis that had deteriorated this system involved in balance. Having it affected they couldn’t get dizzy. Therefore, by studying their cases, NASA scientists hoped to better understand how seasickness occurs, in order to find the best methods to prevent it. A question of contradictions. motion sickness, also known as motion sicknessis a mechanism of the brain to react when faced with something it detects as contradictory. While the eyes detect that we are still, in a car, for example, the vestibular system, located in the ear, detects that we are moving. Faced with this contradiction, the brain tries to defend itself from danger, causing that feeling of dizziness that alerts us that something is supposedly going wrong. In the case of space travel, the vestibular system loses the reference influenced by gravity that it normally interprets as being in balance. Therefore, a similar effect is produced. But of course, if someone has damaged the vestibular system, it is impossible for them to perceive this type of dizziness. 11 men at the limit. The 11 volunteers recruited for this study They were divided into several groupswho underwent different experiments related to motion sickness and the absence of microgravity. For example, several of them spent 12 days in a slow-rotating room, which rotated 10 times per minute. Many others climbed into centrifugal capsules that they spin at high speed to simulate hypergravity. And possibly those who took it most to the extreme were those who went on microgravity simulation flights in which the aircraft flies upward quickly, stops and drops abruptly. One of these planes is known as the Vomit Comet for reasons that leave little room for the imagination. Unaffected by seasickness. Participants did not feel dizzy in any of these experiments. In fact, in the fourth exercise, in which they had to travel on a ferry in the rough seas of Nova Scotia, the researchers had to cancel the test due to the terrible dizziness they experienced. The 11 volunteers, on the other hand, were playing cards calmly. The benefits for the future. Thanks to these experiments, it was understood that space motion sickness is something temporary and manageable, linked to the vestibular system. Better training was also designed so that astronauts would be ready to avoid getting sick on their trips to space. For all this, although they never traveled to space, they were crucial for the well-being of all those astronauts who did. Their contributions were key in milestones as important as the one we just experienced with Artemis II. Image | POT In Xataka | We knew that Mars has gravity. Now we have just discovered the unexpected effect it has on the Earth’s climate

An app promises to free men from their “addiction” to porn. Behind it is something darker: the NoFap movement

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“Embrace this pause. Reflect before you relapse.” It doesn’t refer to alcohol or drugs, but to porn. With this claim, Quittr is presented, an app for people looking for overcome your porn addiction. Although you can register as a woman, the app is clearly focused on the male audience, So I pretended to be Manuel 28 and made an account. It didn’t take me long to realize that giving up porn is the excuse to sell something else. As soon as you start, the app asks you a questionnaire about your consumption habits, such as how often you watch porn and what negative symptoms you have noticed in your life (it caught my attention that one of them was “Feeling distant from God”, this already gives clues as to where we are headed). As soon as I finished the questionnaire they already had a personalized plan for Manuel and they also promised me that by June 7 he would have stopped porn. The bad part is that it was going to cost me 31.99 euros per year, 20.99 euros if I accepted the offer. Giving up porn has a price. I haven’t paid, but I have been researching the features that Quittr offers. The app tracks your progress, which is represented by “the tree of life,” and the longer you go without porn, the more it grows. It also offers motivational exercises, has a “panic button” in case you are about to relapse, and also allows you to chat with other members of the community. Based on science, but little Both on the website and in the app itself they say several times that Quittr’s method is based on science, but let’s see if this is the case. As soon as you finish the questionnaire, a message appears that claims that pornography is a drug and that “releases a chemical in the brain called dopamine.” According to the WHO definitiona drug is “a natural or synthetic compound that acts on the central nervous system and produces alterations in the processes that regulate thoughts, emotions, perception and behavior.” Watching porn can generate pleasure, but nothing is being introduced into the body, it is a natural response. In this sense, if pornography is a drug because it “releases dopamine”, we should also consider anything that gives us pleasure a drug, from food to keeping the house tidy. What it can do is cause compulsive consumption, which we could describe as addiction, which is very different. The ICD-11 clinical guide includes “compulsive sexual behavior disorder”, but of course, that sells less. In the app’s description they also state that their method is “based on extensive research into the science of addictions,” but there is no link to any study. The NoFap movement Browsing the web, I have found that there are several influencers who promote the app. Well, they are all Christian fitness content creators such as Jeremiah Jones either Caleb Hammett. When I entered the news blog section it was already clear to me what this was about. Some of the news from Quittr’s blog. He NoFap movement It was born as a kind of support group for people who want to stop masturbation, either because they perceive it as an addiction or also for religious reasons. This idea began to become popular a few years ago and its scientific basis is a study conducted in 2003 which linked increased testosterone levels to abstinence from masturbation. The study was refuted, but continues to be cited in these circles. In the beginning, NoFap followers They were looking to increase their testosterone and improve your health, but Nowadays it has become a lifestyle with a strong religious component. In Spain we have the reference of René ZZ, whose content gave a radical turn from tattoos to religion, personal improvement and the abandonment of masturbation. Applications like Quittr or Relay They are sold as the solution to porn addiction, which is something that many people will see as positive, but they do not highlight the religious part that advocates these rigid and moralistic abstinence models. In slate They tell the story of one of these men who entered NoFap looking to quit porn and ended up trapped in a cycle of relapse and extreme shame that ended up seriously affecting his mental health. Quittr’s other secret In addition to the moralistic component that Quittr hides, there is another fact that has recently become known and it is a security problem in its app. They count in 404media that several hackers notified the creators of the app of a serious vulnerability that exposed the data of its users, among whom there are minors. The failure was no small thing. This was a bug in Google Firebase configuration that allowed anyone to authenticate as an administrator and read the database. User data includes age, how often they watch porn, and even messages about their masturbation habits. The problem is no longer that vulnerability exists, it is that Those responsible for Quittr did nothing for at least six months. The first researcher who notified the company even spoke with the founder of the app Alex Slater, who responded that he would solve it in a matter of hours, but months later it was still not solved. Finally, they reacted when 404media insisted for the third time. Image | Franco Alva in Unsplash In Xataka | There is already a European country that requires you to be 18 years old to watch porn on the Internet. And there are already a thousand ways to skip it

If the question is why men don’t wear skirts, the answer lies in the 18th century: the Great Male Renunciation

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We have it so internalized, so assimilated, that perhaps you have never thought about it, but here goes one of those questions that sound like a truism: Why do men and women dress differently? Why is it that when we go to a wedding, a gala or an elegant dinner, it is taken for granted that they will wear a more or less sober suit and discreet colors while they will wear dresses and heels? Why are ‘men’s’ clothes usually more functional than women’s clothes? And already, why don’t we wear skirts, like was wondering recently David Uclés? As is usually the case when we talk about fashion (social trends in general), none of the above is the result of chance or simple whim. Why do you dress the way you dress? Things as they are: if you are a man (at least in the Spain of 2026) and you go to a meeting in a dress and heels, it is quite likely that your colleagues will be surprised to see you cross the door. However, the same clothing on a woman would be considered very normal. Because? That same question was recently asked by the writer David Uclés. And it’s not the first. Before him, others had already slipped it, such as the designer and photographer Ana Locking, who in another recent interview on the SER network encouraged men to be much more risky when selecting their wardrobe. “If you want to feel sexy today, dress sexy. The boys’ legs are super sexy, the boys’ necklines are super sexy. Open your neckline, wear a skirt, some shorts, some ankle boots with a little heel,” encouraged Locking after lamenting that, as they mature, men “clip their wings” when they confront the closet. “What they will say comes into play a little bit, feeling vulnerable.” Is it just social pressure? It depends how you look at it. Fashion in itself is a social construct, but the tendency that leads us men to opt for sober clothing and banish skirts, heels and clothing that may be considered ‘extravagant’ from our wardrobes is explained by another reason: the story. In fact, it is not a guideline that has always been applied. Come take a walk through the Costume Museum or El Prado to prove that when it comes to men’s fashion, sobriety has not always been synonymous with good style or elegance. For example, this canvas of King Philip V with his family painted in 1743 by Louis Michel van Loo or this other work from the end of the 17th century, also preserved in El Prado, and in which Jacob-Ferdinand Voet shows us Luis Francisco de la Cerda, IX Duke of Medinaceli. Is there anything that catches your attention about them? Wigs, high heels and brilli brilli? Exact. If you look at both works you will see that the men wear wigs, heels, stockings, loose jackets that fall almost like skirts, and an abundance of bright colors, the kind of clothing that at that time (late 17th century, first half of the 18th century) denoted status. If you think about it it makes sense. What they show us Jacob-Ferdinand Voet and Louis Michel van Loo They are characters dressed in colorful outfits, although they are not what we would say ‘functional’. But… Why should they be? If anyone could afford that kind of clothing it was aristocrats who didn’t have to work. Who doesn’t like heels? William Kremer explained it well in 2013 on the BBC when reviewing The history of high heels and why men stopped wearing them. Again, it may sound like a far-fetched question, but it actually makes a lot of sense and reveals even more about our history. For centuries heels were worn in the Middle East as part of horse riding clothing. And not only for aesthetic reasons. With them Persian soldiers could stand on the styles, stabilize themselves and adopt a good posture to use the bow. When at the end of the 16th century sha Abbas I of Persia He sent a diplomatic mission to Europe to gather support. The nobles noticed the Persian-style shoe. They liked it so much that over time they began to wear high heels that highlighted their size… and their social rank. And all that with heels? That’s how it is. “One of the best ways to convey status is through the impractical,” commented in 2013 Elizabeth Semmelhack, of the Bata Footwear MuseumToronto. Perhaps heels were not very advisable for walking through the countryside and the paved and potholed streets of the 17th century cities, but did the same nobles who posed for chamber painters dressed in clothes as luxurious as they were cumbersome have to do so? “They don’t work in the fields nor do they have to walk a lot.” Why did they stop being used? Times have changed. And the way of thinking. When they review the history of fashion (especially men’s fashion) historians usually stop at the Enlightenment, between the mid-17th century and the beginning of the 19th century, a time in which intellectuals opted for a way of thinking in which what was rational and useful was prioritized. Also education about privileges. Status is no longer an inherited gift, but the result of training and work. As far as fashion is concerned, this translated into a new sensitivity that favored the use of garments comfortable and functional. In England, for example, even landowners ended up embracing a more practical style, better suited to managing their properties. At least that’s how it was among men. The rational aspect stood out among them; The emotional nature was highlighted in them. Did only the Enlightenment influence? No. The Enlightenment mentality played a crucial role, but historians usually point out an episode that (although inspired by the Enlightenment) is much more specific, both geographically and temporally: the french revolution. Against this backdrop, the way one dressed became more than a simple aesthetic choice or a mark of status. … Read more

It’s science and that’s why they sleep worse than men

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When sharing a bed with another person, there is a chance that there will be an eternal nighttime thermal war, with one person roasting in the heat and pulling the duvet down, while the other freezes and seeks refuge under the covers. For years, this has been treated as a simple couple anecdotebut the truth is that it has a physiological reason behind it. And something that has been seen is that women, statistically, sleep worse than men, with the thermostat being the culprit. Sleeping differently. To understand this phenomenon, we must first know how our body works when it prepares to rest. In this case, in order for us to fall asleep and enter the deeper phases, our core temperature must drop. However, during the REM phasethe body needs this temperature to rise slightly again. This is where the biological conflict comes in, as is exposed in the podcast Sleep is a Skillwhere a specialist explains how women generally tend to have less muscle mass and a lower basal metabolism than men. This translates into a skin temperature between 3 and 4 degrees colder, meaning that, with colder extremities, women prefer warmer environments to be able to reach that optimal temperature that induces sleep. Something that opens up many anecdotes, like how in a couple women need a sheet to sleep in in the summer. Their differences. In general terms (which is not universal), while men need the room and bed to be cold at the beginning of the night to lower their core temperature quickly, Women require a warmer environment to compensate for colder skin. and not suffer alterations in your sleep architecture. What science says. In the literature, there are multiple studies that confirm these gender differences in thermoregulation. One of these was published in 2023, where it was shown that women recorded higher skin temperatures than men during the sleep phase where there is higher quality. That is, it requires a warmer microenvironment to have a much more adequate sleep. Furthermore, several studies published in Journal of Sleep Research reveal that women reach nocturnal body temperature minimums earlier than men. But also, its temperature drops are less pronounced, which directly affects the quality of continuous sleep. The use of technology. Given this problem, there are companies that have set to work to do something that would a priori solve this problem for couples: use smart mattress covers to regulate the temperature on each side of the bed so that women sleep better. It is true that the data they rely on internally to sell their mattresses still has to be validated. Even so, the pre-existing scientific evidence is robust. Women are not “chilly” on a whim, but their biology requires a different thermal environment to be able to rest properly. Perhaps the definitive solution to disputes over the duvet is not by giving in, but by dividing air conditioning technology in the bed. Images | Vitaly Gariev In Xataka | We thought insomnia was just not being able to sleep. Now we know that there are five different disorders

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