- Grab Your Dick and Double Click : Librarian Hot – It should come as no surprise that I really enjoyed the Blue and Lust books, while I wanted to throw the Jensen and Paul books across the room (or out the window, or off of a really big cliff). I do agree with them about a few things: for one, that pornography addiction is real, and it can cause serious damage to relationships (as can, of course, any addiction or compulsive behavior). I also agree that most mainstream porn is indeed extremely misogynistic. But do you know what I find even more demeaning to women? Anti-porn crusaders’ tired gender essentialism arguments.
- How the Media Should Treat the Sexual Assault Allegations Against Al Gore | The Nation – A handful of feminist blogs, including Feministing, precede me in decrying the media's haste to impugn the credibility of the accuser. As they rightly observe, almost all other media coverage of the story has given the rest of us permission to giggle, when what we really need is a sober dose of reality: that these are credible charges against a very powerful and influential man. It's in our shared interest to take them seriously, evaluate them based on whatever information comes to light and demand answers and accountability.
- The New Abortion Providers – NYTimes.com – This abortion-rights campaign, led by physicians themselves, is trying to recast doctors, changing them from a weak link of abortion to a strong one. Its leaders have built residency programs and fellowships at university hospitals, with the hope that, eventually, more and more doctors will use their training to bring abortion into their practices. The bold idea at the heart of this effort is to integrate abortion so that it’s a seamless part of health care for women — embraced rather than shunned.
- For Women, Social Media is More Than "Girl Talk" | Mashable – It turns out that sociolinguists have found women to be innovators when it comes to communication, especially with new forms of languages. … The practical benefits that social media affords, combined with its emotionally fulfilling features make it likely that women will not only continue to engage with social media, but with future related innovations, as well.
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- Of Death and the Gender Binary | Cory Silverberg – What they found, after interviewing 38 men, aged 24-50, was that their experience of masculinity at times increased their risk and at other times reduced it. Sometimes, ideals of strength and being a "family man" resulted in men being less likely to think of suicide. Other times men's perceptions of themselves as needing to be alone, capable of solving all problems on their own (which again, they link to traditional gender roles), increased their social isolation which in turn increased their risk. In other words, these men told stories that revealed the relationship between gender and suicide to be complicated.
- Cervical cancer test approved for the women who need it most | Society | guardian.co.uk – But a piece of good news is the approval by the European Union (in the form of a health and safety CE "kite mark") of a test which the designers say will be easy to use in hot countries with no running water or electricity. It detects the DNA of the cancer-causing virus within a matter of hours, which means a woman who may have walked miles to a clinic can wait for her result and possibly treatment. It is made by Netherlands-based QIAGEN, which offers a more complex HPV test in the wealthy countries.
- Sex Ed for seniors? Annals of IM: ‘Men who use ED drugs have higher rates of STDs, particularly HIV’ – The authors of Sexually Transmitted Diseases Among Users of Erectile Dysfunction Drugs: Analysis of Claims Data (Annals of Internal Medicine, July 6, 2010, vol. 153 no. 1 1-7) studied a database of private, employer-based insurance claims from 1997 to 2006 for 1,410,806 men older than age 40 and found that users of erectile dysfunction (ED) drugs had higher rates of sexually transmitted disease infection, particularly HIV, than non-users.
- Fertilty, Infertility and The Make Up Counter! | The Fertility Advocate – Many of us use all kinds of lotions, cremes and expose ourselves to countless concoctions every day which contain an incredible of synthetic chemicals. We do this often without a thought about how these chemicals could be adversely affecting our overall health and our fertility.
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- FDA advisory panel rejects Flibanserin | Dr. Petra Boynton – We also need to be careful to avoid getting into debates about whether a pill is needed or whether women have sexual problems, as has been the case in the current coverage of Flibanserin. This has missed the wider aspects of marketing, poor trial design and other research questions that really needed to be talked about. Instead we’re often left with an argument that in questioning medicalisation of female sexual functioning we’re somehow denying women have problems.
- Wonder Woman, 69, Has Style and Mythos Makeover – NYTimes.com – Wednesday is a good day for Wonder Woman. This 69-year-old superheroine, published by DC Comics, will don a new — and less revealing — costume and enjoy the publication of Issue No. 600 of her monthly series.
- 10th Annual Trafficking in Persons Report & Redlight World Premiere – The U.S. Department of State’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons has released its 10th annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report. For the first time, the report is introspective to the extent that human trafficking within the United States is also covered by the report.
- How to Receive Pleasure Without Feeling Guilty (Part 1) | Joy Davidson, Ph.D – In my experience as a sex therapist, I’ve found that one of the most common reasons women feel awkward in sexual situations is that they don’t know how to ask for pleasure without feeling that horrid, creeping sense of guilt, almost as if they are undeserving of erotic joy.
- The State of LGBT Health—Minus the “T” – The Sexist – Washington City Paper – This is the District’s first report to address the health of lesbians, gays, and bisexuals in the District. But as the report’s title makes clear, the transgender community has yet again been excluded from the official conversation on health.
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While the whole world was debating the American Academy of Pediatrics’s position on “female genital cutting” the AAP was against it before they were for it, and now, after an outcry, they’re against it again Alice Dreger and Ellen Feder have been raising the alarm about “medical research” currently being conducted at Cornell University. A pediatric urologist at Cornell Dix Poppas has been operating on little girls with what he judges to be oversized clitorises, cutting away important clitoral tissues, and then stitching the glans to what remains of the shaft. Poppas claims that, unlike past clitoral-reduction procedures, his procedure is “nerve sparing.”
…There’s lots to be outraged about here: there’s nothing wrong with these girls and their healthy, functional-if-larger-than-average clitorises; there’s no need to operate on these girls; and surgically altering a girl’s clitoris because it’s “too big” has been found to do lasting physical and psychological harm. But what’s most outrageous is how Poppas is “proving” that his surgery “spares nerves.”
Link
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- Kids With Lesbian Parents Do Just Fine – US News and World Report – When compared to teens of the same age, adolescents raised by lesbian parents are doing just fine socially, psychologically and academically, new research finds.<br />
<br />
Not only that, they have fewer social problems, and less aggressive and rule-breaking behaviors than other teens.
- Americans’ Acceptance of Gay Relations Crosses 50% Threshold (Gallup) – There is a gradual cultural shift under way in Americans' views toward gay individuals and gay rights. While public attitudes haven't moved consistently in gays' and lesbians' favor every year, the general trend is clearly in that direction. This year, the shift is apparent in a record-high level of the public seeing gay and lesbian relations as morally acceptable. Meanwhile, support for legalizing gay marriage, and for the legality of gay and lesbian relations more generally, is near record highs.
- Just How Bad Is Porn, Anyway? : The Thoughtful Animal (Jason Goldman) – This is meant to review some of the research that's been conducted on whether or not there is a reliable causal relationship between pornography and various Bad Things.
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Two studies about the safety of lubricant use during anal intercourse were presented last week at the 2010 International Microbicides Conference in Pittsburgh. The data from the studies has yet to be published, but there have already been several write-ups about the research , which at first blush seem to suggest that using lubricant might be found to be associated with an increased risk of STDs. As Jim Pickett, the chair of the International Rectal Microbicide Advocates (IRMA) one of the organizations involved in putting on the conference, said to me in an email, what is key is that this research be discussed and interpreted without hyperbole. If you're confused by what you've read so far, you're not alone. Let's start with the research itself.
One was a laboratory study of six popular lubricants used during anal intercourse. Actually only five of them are popular for anal intercourse (Astroglide, Elbow Grease, ID Glide, KY Jelly and Wet Platinum), the sixth (Pre) was used because it is isotonic (more on that below). The popular lubricants were chosen based on a large global survey which asked over 9,000 people about lubricant use during anal sex. Researchers did not report on which specific style of each product was used in the research, but in one write up I read that the “basic formulation” was used from each brand. (Interesting side note from my years in sex shops: the lubricant Pre is a lubricant made specifically for women trying to conceive. In addition to being isotonic, it is the only lubricant on the market that is specifically designed not to harm sperm).
The overall purpose of the study was to see if lubricant might play a role in increasing risk of STD transmission during anal intercourse. To this end, the researchers wanted to understand what, if any, direct damage lubricants might have on rectal and cervical tissue. They also wanted to see how the lubricants might impact healthy bacteria that are present in the rectum. There are, of course, many ways to damage rectal tissue. In this study the researchers focused on one particular effect which can damage the tissue in the rectum essentially by drying up cells, causing them to die and slough off. This can happen if the lubricant being used has higher concentrations of salts and sugars than are found in the skin cells it comes in contact with. The lubricant can draw water out of the cells, resulting in damage that can increase risk of infection (the science minded among you can find more detailed explanations here, here, or here).
. . .
A second study looked at the use of lubricants during anal intercourse outside the laboratory. This study included 229 men who had reported having receptive anal intercourse in the past month, and 192 women who reported having receptive anal intercourse in the past year. Participants completed a computer assisted self-interview about sexual behavior. Among other things, participants were asked about use (or non-use) of lubricants and the particular brands they used during anal sex. From that group, 302 participants also had rectal tests for chlamydia and gonorrhea. Most of the participants reported using lubricant the last time they had receptive anal intercourse. Of the 302 participants, 25 tested positive for an anal STD. More than two-thirds of the people diagnosed with an STD reported using lube the last time they had receptive anal intercourse, compared with one third of people who had not used a lube. Read another way, people who reported using lubricants the last time they had anal sex were about twice as likely to have chlamydia or gonorrhea as those who did not use lubricants.
More. . .
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Location: Walter Reade Theater, 65th Streeet near Amsterdam Avenue map
When filmmaker Liz Canner took a job editing erotic videos for a pharmaceutical company’s drug trials, she was permitted to film the company for her own documentary. Her employer was trying to develop the first Viagra drug for women to treat a brand-new disease: Female Sexual Dysfunction (FSD). But are her employer and other medical companies actually taking advantage of women (and potentially endanger their health) in pursuit of billion-dollar profits? Orgasm Inc. is a powerful look inside the medical industry and the marketing campaigns that are literally and figuratively reshaping our everyday lives around health, illness, and desire.
Info at the Film Society of Lincoln Center’s website
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- Heads Up! Silicone Lube is Flammable | Charlie Glickman – I have to admit that it never would have occurred to me to check and see if lubricants are flammable. After all, when I think about the question of whether lubes burn, I’m thinking more about allergic reactions and yeast infections.
- What I Write for Money, Honey | Chelsea G. Summers | Filthy Gorgeous Things – The great irony about it all is that I hold great ambivalence about my sex writing—the only writing that I have complete confidence in. While it’s true that in the kingdom of ambivalence I wear the royal skort and eat with the royal spork, I remain unwaveringly ambivalent about the sex-writing.
- Anna Paquin Comes Out as Bisexual – Anna Paquin : People.com -
- Can Animals Be Gay? – NYTimes.com – Various forms of same-sex sexual activity have been recorded in more than 450 different species of animals by now, from flamingos to bison to beetles to guppies to warthogs. A female koala might force another female against a tree and mount her, while throwing back her head and releasing what one scientist described as “exhalated belchlike sounds.†Male Amazon River dolphins have been known to penetrate each other in the blowhole. Within most species, homosexual sex has been documented only sporadically, and there appear to be few cases of individual animals who engage in it exclusively.
- John Willie’s G-String Tie -
- An Epidemic of Sex Addiction? | Dr. Marty Klein | Sexual Intelligence – I’ve been a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist and Certified Sex Therapist for 30 years. That’s some 30,000 sessions with men, women, and couples—a ringside seat at the human circus. The guy was yet another supposed “sex addict.†I listened to his story carefully, and told him I sympathized with how he had damaged his life and hurt people with bad sexual decisions. “But I don’t treat ‘sex addiction,’†I said. I think it’s a bogus concept.
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- The Art of Restraint @ Femina Potens – Some willing volunteers get all tied up in knots at Femina Potens art gallery's "The Art of Restaint" where attendees indulged in rope bondage, champagne, chocolate and all other kinds of sinful delights.Photos by Gretchen Robinette.
- Why Women Don’t Want Macho Men – WSJ.com – New research suggests that women from countries with healthier populations prefer more feminine-looking men. Jena Pincott on the science behind attraction and masculinity, and the future for manly men.
- Jamie Wetherbe: SXSW Comes Out: The Annual Conference Gets More Gay Friendly – "There was nothing queer about SXSWi, despite many lesbians ― and other parts of the LGBT community ― being techies, geeks and the like," said Bendix who organized the panel. "There have been panels and talks about other minorities in the industry, but nothing specifically LGBT…. I was shocked to find out our panel was the first."
- Q: What to do if attacked by Donna M. Hughes and Margaret Brooks? | Sex In The Public Square – Margaret Brooks and Donna M. Hughes recently attacked Maymay, originator of the KinkForAll unconference model, in a bulletin published by their organization, Citizens Against Trafficking (CAT), which Maymay suggests is more suitably named Citizens Against Sexual Freedom and Discussion (CASFD). The bulletin [1] uses a technique typical of CAT CASFD: Take out-of-context statements and blend them with factual inaccuracies to produce a piece of writing capable of creating (or sustaining) irrational moral panic on the part of those who read it.
- The mythology of prostitution – advocacy research and public policy | Ronald Weitzer – This article examines the claims made by organizations, activists, and scholars who embrace the oppression paradigm, evaluates the reasoning and evidence used in support of their claims, and highlights some of the ways in which this perspective has influenced recent legislation and public policy in selected nations. The author presents an alternative perspective, the polymorphous paradigm, and suggests that public policy on prostitution would be better informed by this <br />
evidence-based perspective.
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- ‘Whip Smart’: Memoirs Of A Dominatrix | Fresh Air – Terry Gross interviews Melissa Febos.
- Whip Smart: A Memoir – Google Books – Melissa Febos’ new memoir, Whip Smart, details the four years she spent working as a dominatrix.
- Spencer Tunick nude Sydney installation | Pictures – Volunteers removed their clothes to participate in Spencer Tunick’s installation Mardi Gras: The Base on the steps of the Sydney Opera House…
- March 19 ‘Sex’ art auction | Sexaminer – Phillips de Pury & Company’s Sex auction in London on March 19 features 221 nudes and sex-related works, with heavy emphasis on photography among a who’s who of contemporary artists and some 20th century masters
- FetLife Latest Activity Organizer for Greasemonkey – The FetLife Lastest Activity page leaves much to be desired. A couple busy friends and all your other friends’ activities are blown right off the page. This script will organize all the latest entries in the Everything, Group Activity, and Writing tabs by user and place them into collapsible menus. Now you can actually see what your friends are doing, even if they only make one update a week.
- Sexuality Information Access in U.S. Public Libraries – We are investigating the use of content filters on public library computers with Internet access. The priority research areas are access to information about sexuality and sexual reproductive health. We need help with this work, and request that people all over the United States visit their local public library and do some simple searches using the computers provided by the library.
- Multigenerational Experiences with & Attitudes About Casual Sex Survey – I’m doing this study to try and gather data on multigenerational experiences and attitudes with/about casual sex so as to discover and present a more diverse, realistic and non-prescriptive picture of people’s sex lives and ideas about sex. The data will ideally be used for publication, but your answers are completely anonymous and will only be used anonymously.
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- 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?
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What are some of the issues that affect sexuality during menopause? African American and Caucasian women are needed for a study addressing questions about menopause. Participants must be women between the ages of 40 and 60, experiencing menopause, English speaking, currently not taking hormone replacement therapy (HRT) or on hormonal birth control, in a relationship with a sexual partner, and without major medical or mental health problems.
Participation requires completing an online or paper survey. Some volunteers who live in the Washington, DC metropolitan area may also be eligible to participate in a substudy that involves a small blood draw. Participants in the blood draw substudy may be compensated. For more information, please contact Robert Clark, MS, at 301-295-9666 or at menopausestudy1@gmail.com.
This research study is sponsored by the Uniformed Services University, Department of Medical and Clinical Psychology, in Bethesda, Maryland. You can access the on-line survey here:
https://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=VcP8PJrCyVoqmjAp9o3BJw_3d_3d
This study was endorsed as a meritorious research project on January 30, 2009 by the CARAS Research Advisory Committee, a community advisory board hosted by the Community-Academic Consortium for Research on Alternative Sexualities (CARAS).
For more information on CARAS, please visit the CARAS website at https://www.caras.ws . Download the current CARAS Calendar athttps://www.caras.ws/downloads/CARAS_Calendar.pdf
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We won’t find out by trying to separate biology from culture.
The cover asks “What is Female Desire?” and the story title, “What do Women Want?” seems to promise that scientists are getting closer to figuring out one of life’s great mysteries. Daniel Bergner, in fact, does not attempt to answer those two questions (and the small subtitles make it clear that he isn’t going to try) but rather he profiles the work of several scientists who are researching women’s sexual response, their subjective sense of arousal, and the ways those do or don’t line up.
It is a well-written article and a very interesting read. It takes on complex questions and, within its scope, attempts to address them without oversimplifying or sensationalizing (except for the first sentence of the article, in extra large and colorful print that reads “Meredith Chivers is a creator of bonobo pornography.”). I would encourage anybody to take a look. But prepare to be frustrated as well as intrigued. Some readers will be frustrated, as was Meredith Chivers (a psychology professor at Queens University, and one of the scientists whose work is the focus of the article) because the answers are not clear and meticulous research takes so long and is so difficult to do, and because, as she is quoted as saying early in the piece, “The horrible reality of psychological research is that you can’t pull apart the cultural from the biological.”
More. . ..
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. . . The most consistent data on infidelity come from the General Social Survey, sponsored by the National Science Foundation and based at the University of Chicago, which has used a national representative sample to track the opinions and social behaviors of Americans since 1972. The survey data show that in any given year, about 10 percent of married people — 12 percent of men and 7 percent of women — say they have had sex outside their marriage.
But detailed analysis of the data from 1991 to 2006, to be presented next month by Dr. Atkins at the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies conference in Orlando, show some surprising shifts. University of Washington researchers have found that the lifetime rate of infidelity for men over 60 increased to 28 percent in 2006, up from 20 percent in 1991. For women over 60, the increase is more striking: to 15 percent, up from 5 percent in 1991.
The researchers also see big changes in relatively new marriages. About 20 percent of men and 15 percent of women under 35 say they have ever been unfaithful, up from about 15 and 12 percent respectively.
Link
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Gallery Carre
