health

Bookmarks for January 28th

by Viviane on 01/28/2010

China’s latest scandal is counterfeit condoms – latimes.com – Health officials warn that inferior contraceptives can spread the diseases they are supposed to protect against. Some of the brand-name knockoffs have reached the U.S.
La Figa Â» Trans Speaker Receives Threat Over Appearance at Yale â€œSex Weekâ€ – The threat, received through Angelâ€™s Facebook account via a sock puppet, was relayed to Yale, and organizers have arranged 24 hour security for the transman porn actor.
Courting Attention: Covering Calif.’s Marriage Trial : NPR – In California, lawyers are two weeks into a landmark federal court case challenging California’s Proposition 8, which bans same-sex marriage in that state.Margaret Talbot has been blogging about the trial for The New Yorker’s Web site, and she has written about it in this week’s issue of the magazine.
The 4 Big Myths of Profile Pictures Â« OkTrends – In looking closely at the astonishingly wide variety of ways our users have chosen to represent themselves, we discovered much of the collective wisdom about profile pictures was wrong.

Tagged as: condoms, culture, data, dating, harassment, health, marriage, online, plugin, proposition+8, same-sex, socialmedia, transsexual, wordpress

Bookmarks for November 30th

by Viviane on 12/03/2009

in del.icio.us, sex

The Sex Doctor Is Out / Violet Blue: Talk to your doctor about sex? You’re better off asking Twitter – Picking out a new doctor that you'll feel comfortable talking to — and hope to get accurate answers from — is a challenge with a health care system that is not consumer friendly, nor awake to the concept of sex-positivity.
YouTube – NYS Senator Diane Savino speaks on the Marriage Equality bill –
13-Year-Old Girl Commits Suicide After Classmates Spread Nude Photos : The Curvature – Hope Witsell made the decision to end her own life. A whole lot of other people seemingly decided that keeping women in their place was a lot more important than protecting a 13-year-old girl, and than stamping out sexual misconduct. A whole society backed that second decision up.
Female Sexologist Awaits Pawtucket Zoning Board | Womens eNews – A sexologist in Rhode Island is trying to open an adult-ed center focused in part on the female pleasure principle. Her battle has been complicated by the recent passage of a ban on indoor prostitution, which she opposed.
The Hunt for Porn-Virgins | Carnal San Francisco – A study that set out to examine male subjects who had never been exposed to pornography was foiled by a lack of porn-virgins.
Good Vibrations Magazine » Blog » Sex-Positivity and Judgment – When I started putting these two simple and elegant concepts together, I came to see just how much I was letting my judgments come out. As I learned to pay attention to how my reactions arise, I began to be able to own them and take responsibility for them. When I learned to use language that reflected the fact that my emotions were internal feelings rather than statements of identity or descriptions of the world around me, they became much less likely to take over my experiences…I think that this has major ramifications for sex-positivity. Speaking from a sex-positive place means that we can take responsibility for our judgments.
Speaking to Las Vegas in the Language of Las Vegas — Kickstarter – This is going to be an art installation that combines sculptural elements, performance, audio, video, photo documentation, and illustrated portraits of Las Vegas sex workers. The purpose of this show is to investigate the connections between the Las Vegas economy & the legal & illegal sex work that happens there.
Hand Holding vs. Hand Held – All Tech Considered : NPR – Can you love your partner and your cell phone?

Tagged as: art, health, IloveNewYorkequality, judgment, marriage, perception, politics, porn, relationships, research, samesex, sexuality, sexwork, society, technology, zoning

Bookmarks for November 12th

by Viviane on 11/13/2009

in del.icio.us, sex

SHPANK, CRØSS & STÖCK: Flat-pack on your back — Bookkake – Fake ikea instructions for bondage gear
Where The Party’s At: The Real Stars Of The Fleshbot Awards –
Bad Reputation: Doing Damage Control on Your Internet Profile | TechCoquette – If you find that you’re not pleased with how the internet reflects you, there are two basic approaches to fixing it: removing stuff, and patching up blank spots. You do what you can to control unflattering information, while adding in things that represent you more accurately. If you’re an absolute baseball fanatic, or you like to bake, that’s the sort of information you can add to your online profiles without much effort. But first things first: how do you delete incriminating info from your “internet record”?
High BPA levels linked to male sexual problems – washingtonpost.com – BPA, which was developed in the 1930s as a synthetic version of estrogen, appears to throw off the hormonal balance in the human body, Li said.
BBC NEWS | Health | New warning on ‘perfect vaginas’ – But rather than curing sexual problems, Dr Creighton suggested surgery might exacerbate them by damaging the nerve supply to the area, impairing sexual sensitivity and satisfaction.
Welcome to the 6th Feminist Carnival! | Scarleteen – In the spirit of rebirth, and in alignment with the readers and mission of Scarleteen, this round puts it's focus on young feminist bloggers and feminist issues particularly pertinent to younger women.

Tagged as: bondage, carnival, feminism, furniture, galleries, health, image, internet, men, nyc, porn, reputation, women

Bookmarks for November 6th

by Viviane on 11/09/2009

in del.icio.us, sex

High Schools Struggle When Gender Bends the Dress Code – NYTimes.com – Dress is always code, particularly for teenagers eager to telegraph evolving identities. Each year, schools hope to quell disruption by prohibiting the latest styles that signify a gang affiliation, a sexual act or drug use…But when officials want to discipline a student whose wardrobe expresses sexual orientation or gender variance, they must consider antidiscrimination policies, mental health factors, community standards and classroom distractions.
Sex-All ages Dr. Dick on Demand: Virginity, Part 2 – Teenagers face enormous peer pressure when it comes down to sex, yet there’s precious little education afforded them in terms of the fundamentals of human sexuality. This dearth of clear, unambiguous information on how our bodies work is just the first way we let our children down. There’s almost nothing available to teens to emotionally prepare them for partnered sex.
Why The Stupak Amendment Is A Monumental Setback | RHRealityCheck.org – If you thought that just because abortion is a constitutional right and part of basic reproductive health care it would be available in the reformed health insurance market known as the Exchange, think again. The Stupak Amendment, passed Saturday night by the House of Representatives after a compromise deal fell apart, potentially goes farther than any other federal law to restrict women’s access to abortion.
2010 Sex Blogger Calendar Release Party | Photos By: Nick McGlynn | Random Night Out –
Pleasurists – Round-up of Adult Product and Sex Toy Reviews – Pleasurists is a round-up of the adult product and sex toy reviews that came out in the last seven days from bloggers all around the sex blogosphere.

Tagged as: abortion, clothing, Events, gender, health, nyc, politics, sex, sexbloggers, sexblogs, sextoys, sexuality, society, teens, virginity, women

Bookmarks for November 5th

by Viviane on 11/05/2009

in del.icio.us, sex

Sexy Biz: Durex, Lifestyles, and Trojan lead in Consumer Reports condom test | Examiner.com – Consumer Reports tested 15,000 condoms for its most recent report, representing 20 models from different brands. The most reliable? While all of the condoms tested met minimum reliability standard requirements for volume and pressure, there were four different models from Trojan, two from Lifestyles, and one from Durex that all had perfect scores, including Consumer Reports' most stringent strength measure, in which condoms are filled with 25 litres of liquid.
Porn Industry Debates Mandatory Condom Use – ABC News – James is now campaigning to make condom use mandatory in adult films. He predicted years ago that his infection would not be the last the industry would see. In June of this year he was proven right when another performer was diagnosed with HIV.
Obama Lifts 22-Year-Old Ban on HIV-Positive Persons Entering the US | Carnal San Francisco – As of today, 22 years of a discriminatory policy against people with HIV has ended. Today, Barack Obama signed the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Extension Act of 2009. The bulk of the bill is devoted to providing health-care services to low-income people with HIV or AIDS, but it also ends the decades-long policy of forbidding HIV-positive people from entering the United States, either for travel or immigration.
Sex and the 405 | what your newspaper would look like if it had a sex section. – Sex and the 405 is what your newspaper would look like if it had a sex section.
Here you’ll find news about the latest research being conducted to figure out what drives desire, passion, and other sex habits; reviews of sex toys, porn and other sexy things; coverage of the latest sex-related news that have our mainstream media’s panties up in a bunch; human interest pieces about sex and desire; interviews with people who love sex, or hate sex, or work in sex, or work to enable you to have better sex; opinion pieces that relate to sex and society; a raunchier kind of celebrity gossip.
Symposium: Trafficking in Sex and Labor: Domestic and International Responses | University of Pennsylvania Law Review – November 13th and 14th, 2009 at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, Philadelphia, PA. The University of Pennsylvania Law Review Symposium will address trafficking in persons—the transportation of people across national borders, often through the use of force, coercion, fraud, or duplicity—from a domestic and international perspective.

Tagged as: condoms, discrimination, health, hiv, law, politics, porn, sex, sex+trafficking, sexblogs, sexwork

Bookmarks for October 25th through October 26th

by Viviane on 10/27/2009

in del.icio.us, sex

These are my links for October 25th through October 26th:

Scary Sex Toys â€“ Sex Toys That Are More Scary Than Sexy | Cory Silverberg – the sex toys below are ghoulish not just in their looks, but in misguided conception, poor design, and sometimes obvious danger.
Social Networking – Legal and Ethical Issues for Lawyers and Investigators | Private Investigator Public Records Internet Search Privacy Reporting – PI Buzz – Much of the discussion concerned access to profile content, – the difference between civil and criminal (where thereâ€™s the familiar prosecution/defense imbalance) cases – whether certain information should be private even if it can be viewed by unintended parties.
Kids and Sexy Costumes: The Problem With Halloween | BlogHer – Without a doubt, Halloween is a survivor; one that sticks around by absorbing the qualities of the culture in prominence where the holiday is celebrated. The truth of the matter is that Halloween is not a holiday for kids. The shift to kids is a very recent thing in its epic history, and I think the emergence of more and more sexualized costumes is both a reflection of our culture’s attitudes toward sex and an attempt to take the holiday back.
Dr. Dick on Demand: Sex and the Aging Male – Iâ€™m receiving a startling number of correspondences lately from older men and their partners, highlighting the sexual difficulties of the aging process. Itâ€™s not surprising that these people are noticing the changes in their sexual response cycle as they age, but it is astonishing that they havenâ€™t attributed the changes to andropause.
Editorial – Oklahoma vs. Women – NYTimes.com – What persuaded the judge was not the affront to womenâ€™s rights, but a technical defect: the law addressed disparate issues in one bill in violation of the stateâ€™s Constitution. Still, the victory for reproductive freedom is heartening.
How to Talk to Kids About Pornography – Tips for Parents on Talking to their Kids About Pornography | Cory Silverberg – If I could only give you one reason why you should at least think about talking to your kids about pornography it’s that, if statistics are to be believed, they are likely to encounter some of it before they reach an age where theyâ€™ll be able to critically understand what they are seeing.
Google Docs Batch Export – Now you can export all your documents, spreadsheets, presentations and PDFs from Google Docs in a ZIP archive.
Time to boycott Scholastic Books? Lauren Myracle’s ‘Luv Ya Bunches’ banned from school book fairs – Last week theSchool Library Journal and other sources reported that Scholastic Books is banning Luv Ya Bunches (a young adult novel by Lauren Myracle) from its book fairs because one of the main characters has gay parents and thus fails to “meet the norms of the various communities that host the fairs.”
Rainbow Response Coalition – Welcome to the home page of Rainbow Response, a grassroots coalition that brings together organizations and leaders from the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Questioning (LGBTQ) communities, along with traditional domestic violence service providers and government agencies. We collaborate to increase the awareness about Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) amid the relationships of LGBTQ individuals, educating within the LGBTQ communities and beyond.

Tagged as: abortion, backup, culture, domestic+violence, facebook, google, googledocs, health, legal, legislation, lgbt, men, parenting, politics, privacy, relationships, sexed, sextoys, sexuality, socialmedia, tools

Bookmarks for October 21st through October 22nd

by Viviane on 10/22/2009

in del.icio.us, sex

These are my links for October 21st through October 22nd:

Mollena Williams Named Ms. SF Leather 2009 | San Francisco Bay Times – Originally from New York, Mo has been active in the BDSM community since 1996. She is a founding member of the Crowded Fire Theater Company and speaks at leather events across the U.S. on many kinkcentric topics. Over the next year, Mo will be at every major leather event in the Bay Area and will produce several fundraising events to benefit Bay Area non-profits organizations. Mo plans to travel extensively and, in March 2010, will be competing for the title of International Ms. Leather here in San Francisco.
NYS Updates Rape Kit, For the First Time in 20 Years | WNYC – For the first time in 20 years, New York is overhauling the way it collects forensic evidence from sexual assault victims. They found the rape kit needed to be updated to include more areas of the body for possible DNA collection. Evidence will also be gathered in a different sequence, from head to toe so it's not destroyed.
Two Yale Law Grads Settle Suit Against Once-Anonymous Online Critics | ABA Journal – Law News Now – Two graduates of Yale Law School have settled their defamation lawsuit against several online critics who wrote nasty comments about them on the law school discussion board AutoAdmit.
Rape Is a Pre-Existing Condition? The Heartlessness of the Health Insurance Industry Exposed | Health and Wellness | AlterNet – Some women have contacted the Investigative Fund to say they were deemed ineligible for health insurance because they had a pre-existing condition as a result of a rape, such as post traumatic stress disorder or a sexually transmitted disease. Other patients and therapists wrote in with allegations that insurers are routinely denying long-term mental health care to women who have been sexually assaulted.
The Daisy Dick Strap-on/Strap-off rope harness | Feel the Love – I spent the entire weekend on into tonight mucking with it and ended up making a decorative dick harness that can be taken off, reused, and even washed (theoretically). It can be sized to custom fit any body. The centerpiece knot is a modified doubled up version of the Good Luck Knot, which can be seen here.
The Gender Illusion | jaysays.com | – Caster outwardly threatens the gender illusion with her deep voice, masculine build and female identity. Because of her amazing athleticism she is now scrutinized and labeled in an attempt to disenfranchise her from her own identity. The boundaries of her gender and the legitimacy of her very existence are being judged by people who have no way of accomplishing such a task.
Judge shoots down challenge to Craigslist erotic services • The Register – The ruling by US District Judge John F. Grady is good news not only for Craigslist but for any US-based website that accepts comments, photos, or other types of user-submitted content. The 22-page decision made it clear that a provision in the CDA, or Communications Decency Act, fully immunizes the site for user-supplied ads even when they "provide" contact details for prostitutes and brothels.
KinkForAll (aka. KinkCamp) / KinkForAllSanFrancisco – KinkForAll San Francisco will be the first sexuality unconference of its kind in the Bay Area! Imagine what would be possible if you combined TED Talks with BarCamp. Welcome to KinkForAll! Now, get ready to change the world. Don't worry, it's actually not very difficult, and it's a lot of fun.
WordPress › WordPress Exploit Scanner « WordPress Plugins – This plugin searches the files on your website, and the posts and comments tables of your database for anything suspicious. It also examines your list of active plugins for unusual filenames.
WordPress 2.8.5: Hardening Release – We have also been working on trying to make WordPress as secure as possible and during this process we have identified a number of security hardening changes that we thought were worth back-porting to the 2.8 branch so as to get these improvements out there and make all your sites as secure as possible.

Tagged as: AutoAdmit, bloggers, craigslist, crime, Events, gender, harassment, health, intersex, kink, law, leather, nyc, plugins, politics, rape, rope, sanfrancisco, security, sex, sextoys, sexuality, shibari, women, wordpress

Men Decline Vaccination That Protects Partner (Psych Central News)

by Viviane on 06/08/2009

in hpv

By Rick Nauert
PhD Senior News Editor

Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on June 4, 2009

Informing men that a new vaccine to prevent human papillomavirus (HPV) would also help protect their female partners against developing cervical cancer from the sexually transmitted infection did not increase their interest in getting the vaccine.

Mary Gerend, assistant professor of medical humanities and social sciences at Florida State University School of Medicine, and Jessica Barley, a 2008 Florida State psychology graduate who based her honors thesis on the study, found that men are no more likely to want the vaccination just because they can help protect their female sexual partners.

An HPV vaccine for women has been available since 2006, and a vaccine for men is likely to be approved in the near future.

Link

Tagged as: health, hpv

Masturbation and Prostate Cancer Risk (WebMD)

by Viviane on 01/28/2009

in health, men

Masturbation Frequency Linked to Prostate Risk in 20s, Protection in 50s

By Daniel J. DeNoon
WebMD Health News

Reviewed by Louise Chang, MD

Jan. 27, 2009 — Frequent masturbation in young men is linked to higher risk of early prostate cancer, but it lowers prostatecancer risk for men in their 50s, a study shows.

High levels of male sex hormones, or androgens, may increase a man’s risk of prostate cancer. But different studies of this question, done in different ways, have reached different conclusions.

To look at the question in a new way, a team of researchers at England’s University of Nottingham looked at whether men with more intense sex drives were at higher risk of prostate cancer.

Polyxeni Dimitropoulou, PhD; Rosalind Eeles, PhD, FRCP; and Kenneth R. Muir, PhD, obtained detailed sexual histories from 840 men. About half the men got prostate cancer by age 60, and about half did not have cancer.

The findings were surprising. Sexual intercourse did not affect prostate cancer risk. But frequent masturbation did — in different ways, at different times of life.

“Frequent masturbation during men’s 20s and 30s increased their risk of prostate cancer,” Dimitropoulou tells WebMD. “But men in their 50s who masturbated frequently had decreased risk.”

More. . . .

Thanks, Lynsey!

Tagged as: cancer, health, men

Obama Repeals Global Gag Rule; Critical Step for Foreign Policy(RHRealityCheck)

by Viviane on 01/23/2009

in birth control

by Daniel Pellegrom

President Obama signed an executive order late Friday afternoon ending the Global Gag Rule.

President Obama’s decision to lift the Global Gag Rule gives me extraordinary reason to rejoice. I became Pathfinder International’s president in 1985, shortly after President Reagan imposed the original version of the Global Gag Rule (also known as the Mexico City Policy). I have openly opposed the gag rule, working for its repeal ever since.

At Pathfinder, we challenged this harmful policy in federal court in the late 1980s. Although we did not obtain an outright victory in the courts, the lawsuit forced the U.S. government to clarify what activities were legally permissible under the rule, paving the way for resumption of life-saving post-abortion medical services. Indeed, that legal challenge revealed to the court that among the repercussions of the U.S. gag rule were the preventable deaths of women in the globe’s poorest countries.

(More. . .)

Tagged as: health, legislation, politics, women

Roundup: Early Action on Reproductive Health Expected for New Administration (RH Reality Check)

by Viviane on 01/21/2009

in politics

by Emily Douglas

President Obama took office just 24 hours ago, and the world is already a very different place for women and their reproductive health.

Global Gag Rule, Conscience Rule, and Ban on Stem Cell Funding on the Chopping Block

Word is that the administration will repeal the global gag rule tomorrow, on the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade.Â “This is a big victory for women overseas,” said Tod Preston, vice president for government relations at Population Action International, told the LA Times. “We know their health has been severely impacted by the cutoff. If you want to reduce unintended pregnancies, abortion and women dying from high-risk pregnancies because they don’t have access to family planning, you don’t do it by cutting off U.S. assistance.”

The LA Times reportsthat the new administration also plans to “freeze” many of the midnight regulations promulgated by the Bush administration, including the Department of Health and Human Services’s provider conscience expansion, which would enable health care providers to deny access to critical health care, including forms of contraception, to women.Â But the New York Times says addressing this regulation may take more time, as it went into effect January 19: “A 1983 Supreme Court decision suggests that the new administration would need to go through a formal rule-making process, with an opportunity for public comment, if it wanted to revoke this rule.”

(More . . .)

Tagged as: health, politics, women

Sex Hormone May Increase Risk of Ovarian Cancer in Obese Women (Bloomberg.com)

by Viviane on 01/06/2009

in health, women

By Jason Gale

Jan. 6 (Bloomberg) — A sex hormone stimulated by excess body fat may trigger deadly ovarian cancer, a new study found.

Researchers at the National Cancer Institute found that, among women who had never taken hormones after menopause, obesity was associated with an almost 80 percent higher risk of ovarian cancer, the deadliest type of gynecological malignancy. Production of the hormone estrogen linked to excess body mass may stimulate the growth of ovarian cells and play a role in the development of cancer after menopause, the study said.

The findings, published in the Feb. 15 issue of the American Cancer Societyâ€™s journal Cancer, adds to evidence about the health risks of obesity, a condition the World Health Organization says affects more than 400 million adults. The Geneva-based agency says overweight and obese people have a greater risk of colon, breast and endometrial cancer.

via Bloomberg.com: Science.

Tagged as: health, women

Merck vaccine protects men from wart virus, too (Reuters)

by Viviane on 11/14/2008

in health, hpv

By Maggie Fox, Health and Science Editor

WASHINGTON, Nov 13 (Reuters) – A vaccine designed to protect women and girls from cervical cancer caused by a wart virus may protect men, too, maker Merck and Co (MRK.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) reported on Thursday.

The Gardasil vaccine was 90 percent effective in preventing lesions, mostly sexually transmitted warts, caused by the virus in men, Anna Giuliano of the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute in Tampa, Florida, and colleagues found.

It was about 45 percent effective in preventing infection with the four strains of HPV that it targets.

Full story

Tagged as: health, hpv, Merck

Linkage: 10-29-08

by Viviane on 10/29/2008

in del.icio.us

RH Reality Check’s Election and Reproductive Health Guide

Barbara Nitke has a beautiful new website, and is now blogging. I helped!

Lolita Wolf is a spanking expert – she was interviewed for the 30th anniversary issue of Penthouse Variations.

Gerard Damiano, director of Deep Throat, has passed away at the age of 80. (NYT).

Regina Lynn reviews the Tanni Machine.

No on Prop 8: Anita Wagner reprints Anthony Romero, Natl Director of ACLU‘s letter.

Lauren Wissot on the sexiest vampire movie ever.

Butterfly Temptress’ series Life. Love. Cancer is being reposted here. You can contribute to her medical expenses fund by clicking on the Paypal link at the right side of my blog.

A Yes vote on Prop K is a vote for human rights.

Susie Bright’s running a Sarah Palin Halloween costume contest. You have until Saturday to submit.

Gus Van Sant’s Harvey Milk premiered last night in San Francisco.

I’m not so good at Scrabble. (XKCD)

Tagged as: health, movies, sex, women

Melamine risk spreads, so to speak… (Reuters)

by Viviane on 10/21/2008

in health

By Laura MacInnis

GENEVA (Reuters) – Chocolate-flavored body spreads sold in British sex shops have been found to be tainted with melamine, the chemical that made thousands of babies ill in China, food safety authorities said Monday.

The British Food Standards Agency (FSA) said melamine had been found in Chinese-made “I Love You” sets, sold at Ann Summers sex shops, containing chocolate and strawberry body pens and chocolate-flavored penis and nipple spreads.

“This is a first. We’ve never had to put out an alert before on ‘willy spread’ — chocolate-flavored or otherwise,” the FSA said on its Web site, www.foodstandards.gov.uk.

It said the health risk from the affected products was low.

At least four children died in China and thousands of others were treated in hospital after consuming milk powder containing melamine, an industrial compound added to cheat quality tests.

Dozens of countries have since banned imports of Chinese dairy ingredients and recalled products ranging from cookies to herbal drugs and octopus dumplings.

Peter Ben Embarek, a food safety expert at the World Health Organization (WHO), said national authorities needed to widen their checks and tests.

“Milk powder is a very common ingredient in a very large range of products, from candies to biscuits, chocolates, drinks, and so on and so on,” he said.

The levels of melamine detected in the “I Love You” sets, manufactured in China by Le Bang and imported into Britain by Scobie (Llarn) Ltd, ranged from 126 milligrams per kg to 259 milligrams per kg, the FSA said.

Link

Tagged as: health, safety

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