| Sunday, December 28, 2008 | ||
| Darling, What are you Doing in This Brothel? | ||
A tale with both humour and pathos came out of Poland this last week. A man showed up at a brothel to discover that his wife was one of the workers there. He was horrified and appalled, and it was reported that their apparently not-so-communicative marriage of 14 years is now headed for divorce.  But the quality of their relationship is not the issue here, nor is it merely a question of those little vocational details that one spouse might want to spare the other. The question here is who should be more disgusted – he or she? In most countries around the world, sex work is criminalized. Women, and less often men and transgenders, who are caught in the act of soliciting, are arrested. Sometimes, to save the paperwork, they are just beaten up or sexually abused by the good folks of the law enforcement. But had this story taken place in nearby Sweden, where the criminal act is the buying of sex and not the selling of it, the outcome might have been very different. Perhaps the couple would still be planning to stay together but he'd have dishwashing duty for the next year, or as long as it takes him to regret pursuing such transgressive activities while his wife is out working hard. Read more about the Problems of Criminalizing Sex Work |
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| Monday, December 22, 2008 | ||
| Romantic Comedies Are Bad for You | ||
This could be the bit of evidence the guys have been waiting for. Despite their innocent appeal, those cute Meg / Julia / Cameron / Jennifer / Sandra movies might just be doing some serious undoing of our existing relationships and the relationships that we plan on having.  Research at the Department of Psychology at Heriot Watt University in Edinburgh (Holmes et al.) have been studying box office hits of the romantic comedy genre and have drawn a few tough conclusions. We may all watch the cheesy romance and think we are able to differential between reality and fluff, but research shows that many people are more influenced by media portrayals than they realize. The films, after all, portray great sex as a given when a couple love each other. What about lovers who have special needs or special tastes (hey, that's everyone!)? What about actually talking about what you want or need, both in bed and out, and not counting on lovers' intuition? Maybe romantic comedies are simply the new female porn? They provide illusions to women of what love is like, in the same vein that old-fashioned male porn provides illusion of what sex is like. |
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| Monday, December 15, 2008 | ||
| Who Said Anything about Him Putting On the Condom? | ||
Congratulations to the FC2, otherwise know as the New Female Condom, which won out 15-0 at the FDA last week. Now 15-0 isn't a big deal in tennis, but it is certainly a great score at the Food and Drug Administration.  This is not a final thumbs up from the FDA, but it means that a panel of outside advisers to the FDA gave a unanimous vote of confidence and made a positive recommendation to the FDA to pass this product. Unlike the regular old condom, the ladies' version fits into her, so it gives a woman the ability to control her own protection. Up until now, the original female condoms have cost a few times the amount of male condoms and are tougher to get hold of. The new generation FC is expected to be available at lower costs. |
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| Wednesday, December 10, 2008 | ||
| More and More Sex Surveys | ||
Girlie magazines tend to put out sex surveys regularly, because most people are chronically curious about how all the others are behaving between the sheets and in various other unsanctified venues.  The latest survey comes from the UK's More magazine. We are not told much about the interviewees, not how they were located, nor any of their demographics, just that there were two thousand 20-something women and men; the ladies spoke up in ways that would make their mums and maybe even their boyfriends blush. So having said that this information cannot be seen as representative nor of great research value, we'll nevertheless share some of the catchy findings, just in case you were wondering. The survey found that young women had had more sexual partners than young men. At age 21, the average female respondent said she'd already had nine partners, whereas the guys had counted seven at this point. The ladies spoke out freely about cheating on partners. Half admitted to having done so and a quarter knew that a partner had cheated on them. 70% of respondents had had a one-night stand. About half had lost their virginity by age sixteen. 40% said that they would sleep with their boss in order to get a promotion. 25% said they would have no problem sleeping with a married man. 39% had sex without using a condom and 16% of the young women had already contracted a sexually transmitted infection. A pitiful 1% of the women interviewed wanted to stay virgins until their wedding. The overwhelming tone among the respondents is that they were not having as much sex as they'd like to. On average, women were having sex 3 times a week but would have preferred 5 times. The final statistic, if not all the others, when compared to more serious surveys in the UK and other Western countries, just goes to show that the relationship between this survey and reality is purely coincidental. Read more about How much sex is normal? |
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| Monday, December 08, 2008 | ||
| Festive Sex and a Happy New Year | ||
Maybe its all the drinking, maybe its the mood over the holidays. Whatever the cause, the effect is lots more holiday sex. Sounds like fun, but come January-February, abortion clinics have a longer than usual list of women waiting to terminate unwanted pregnancies. Not as much fun.  According to the sexual health organization, Marie Stopes International, the beginning of the year means an increase in demand for abortion, which indicates more unsafe sex is happening around the end of year holiday period that during any other period of the year. So this year they are trying to do something about it. If you live in the UK, you can send a text message (details here) and you'll get free condoms. The offer starts TODAY and runs for one week only, so get to it! For all the rest of you, stop being such damn Scrooges. Go pick up some condoms at the nearest store/pharmacy/condomat. And make sure you have a couple on you before every event in which there is even the slightest chance of doing anything you'll regret in the morning. |
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| Monday, December 01, 2008 | ||
| Two of the Faces of HIV | ||
34 million living victims and going strong. Year after year for twenty years now, we've heard mind blowing statistics every 1st of December, numbers that once scared us, later became just too imposing to be a constant warning. We need to fight that apathy; anyone who has sex or knows people who have sex – that's pretty much everyone! - has a stake in the war against HIV/AIDS.  Today is World AIDS day. I prefer to speak less about the millions and more about the individuals behind those numbers. For example, take Gina and Chelsea. Here are two women who have done little more than most people in the way of risk, in fact, they could hardly be expected to behave differently with the education that they received. But they now live with HIV. Both women have chosen to be pro-active and make something of their situations. Watch them tell their stories here in the hope that they can save others and inform about the vital place of sex education to bring the HIV/AIDS epidemic under control. Thanks to RHRealitycheck for producing this. |
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