Richard Dawkins on monogamy, ethics, and religion.

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In the wake of the Anthony Weiner's resignation from the US Congress after getting caught sending naked photos of himself to women other than his wife, Richard Dawkins, wrote this excellent piece for The Washington Post:

Banishing the Green-Eyed Monster
"Is sex outside of marriage a sin? Is it a public matter? Is it forgivable?" No, of course sex outside marriage is not a public matter, and yes, of course it is forgivable. Only a person infected by the sort of sanctimonious self-righteousness that religion uniquely inspires would apply the meaningless word 'sin' to private sexual behavior.
It is the mark of the religious mind that it cares more about private than public morality. As the bumper sticker slogan put it, "When Clinton lied, nobody died." Officially, Bill Clinton was impeached not for sexual misconduct but for lying about it. But he was entitled to lie about his private life: one could even make a case that he had a positive duty to do so. Tony Blair should have been impeached for lying to the House of Commons about alleged evidence for weapons of mass destruction, because his lies persuaded Members to vote for a war when they otherwise would not. Lying to Congress by saying, "I did not have sex with that woman" should not be an impeachable offense, because where a man puts his penis is none of Congress's damn business. Nor is it any journalist's damn business whether a politician once took drugs at university. Or whether he is gay.
And please don't say the right answer to an impertinent question about your private life is "No comment", because we all know how that would be interpreted. Telling a lie is often the only way to convey an effective "No comment."

Read the rest of the article here.

Noseless saddles better for your penis.

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From The New York Times:

Robert Brown is an officer in the Seattle Police Department’s bicycle patrol, which lacks the sleek machines and tight jerseys of the Tour de France. But Mr. Brown has something that could be more important to both male and female cyclists: a no-nose saddle.

Like most cyclists, Mr. Brown at first didn’t see any need to switch from the traditional saddle on the mountain bike he’d been riding full time for five years on the force. When researchers at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and Safety offered new noseless saddles intended to prevent erectile dysfunction, he quickly told his supervisor, “No problems here!”

But then, after trying the new saddle, he felt the difference. His weight rested on his pelvic bones instead of the crotch area, which formerly pressed against the saddle’s nose. During his sleep, when he wore a monitor, the measure known as “percent of time erect” increased to 28 percent from 18 percent.

[...]

Before the study, nearly three-quarters of the officers complained of numbness while riding. After six months, fewer than one-fifth complained. They did better on the biothesiometer test of sensitivity and also reported improved erectile function.

Read the rest of the article here.

Julyna.

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First there was Movember (link here) - now there's Julyna. From the website:

Julyna was dreamt up by a group of girls sitting around a booth at Le Petit Castor, in Rosedale, Toronto. It was mid-November, right around the time that Movember (The global charity that raises funds and awareness for men’s health through the power of the moustache) was in full swing. “Wouldn’t it be great if we could grow out our mustaches?” one of us said after a sip of her pink panther. “Well, I’m sure I could grow one,” another laughed. At that very moment there was a suggestion, “Why don’t we start a charity to raise money for cervical cancer? What about calling it muffember, or bevember, or vulvember…?” The names kept coming but it wasn’t until many months later that we came up with the term “Julyna.” The cause was obvious--as all of us knew someone who had experienced cervical cell dysplasia or cancer. Hence, Julyna was born and the rest is history.
The rules for Julyna are simple: Women will spend the month of July exercising creativity and personal wellness by choosing a style for their hair down there and sticking to it—as a fundraising technique. Women don’t have to leave it au naturel, or choose a standard pattern like “The Charlie Chaplin.” They can make something up. Get creative! Not only do we hope that Julyna raises funds for cervical cancer, but also that the added attention drawn below the belt will inspire women to take care of this area in other ways, i.e. through scheduled Pap tests or by discussing the HPV vaccine with their family doctors. I’ve been getting a lot of people saying “I won’t get to see the designs, so why would I give money without proof?” First of all, people give money to marathon runners and it’s rare that they will actually see him/her running. Secondly, do you really need proof of the handy work to give money to a cause that will ultimately result in saving the lives of many women? That’s right, I didn’t think so! So to all you philanthropists out there—get creative and get generous. And, if you don’t want to style your hair for money, please donate to the cause by sponsoring someone who is participating in Julyna this year.

The website offers up some design inspirations. I particularly like the David Suzuki:

david
david

Nothing says protecting public climate, reconnecting with nature and building community like the David Suzuki style. If you’re looking for a way to offset your carbon footprint, this is not it. But this guilt free, low maintenance style conserves grooming energy by teetering on the verge of being au natural.

For more information and how to get involved, visit the Julyna website here.  

Sex on the male brain: Every seven seconds?

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Reported at Livescience:

Men think about sex every seven seconds, right? Not according to a new study that finds men ponder sleep and food as much as they do sex.
The median number of thoughts about sex by college-age men was 18 times a day to women's 10 times a day, the study found. But the men also thought about food and sleep proportionately more.
"In other words, there was nothing special about sexual thoughts," study researcher Terri Fisher, a psychologist at The Ohio State University, Mansfield, told LiveScience. "Males thought more about any of the health-related thoughts compared to females, not just thoughts about sex."
The "men think about sex every seven seconds" axiom is an urban legend, Fisher said. But there is little reliable research on how often men and women really do have sexual thoughts. Most studies have asked people to think back across their day or week and try to remember how many sex thoughts they had -- a method that doesn't always provide reliable results.
[...]
"The stereotype is that men think about sex constantly and women rarely [think about it]," Fisher said. But that's not what she and her colleagues found. There was a broad range in the number of sex thoughts, from several participants who recorded one thought a day, to a male participant who recorded 388 thoughts in a day. Factoring in the participant's sleep time, his 388 thoughts broke down to having a sexual thought every 158 seconds, Fisher said, still far fewer than the "every seven seconds" legend would suggest.

Read the rest of the article here.

The guy who hates blowjobs.

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From So Then She...:

The scene’s always the same, with only the backdrop of the bedroom changing. I’m lying on my back in bed, pants unfastened, shirt slightly pushed up. She’s atop me, on all fours, slowly kissing her way down my neck, chest and just before she hits my stomach, I know where we’re headed. Blowjob time. Yuck.

Yep, you read that right. This full-blooded, straight male loathes blowjobs. She doesn’t know this of course, so the closer she gets to my erogenous zone, the more I squirm and my hand stops gently caressing the back of her head and begins subtly trying to nudge it, and her mouth, north. She resists. I sit up a little, sliding my crotch away from licking striking distance of her face. She looks confused. Then the conversation begins.

Read the rest of the entry here.

The Sissy Boy experiment.

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Finally, this story is getting mainstream airtime and the practitioners of reparative therapy are being taken to task. George Rekers is one of the pioneers of this type of extremely cruel and harmful treatment, and a former officer and scientific advisor of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH). Not at all coincidentally, he was caught going on a trip to Europe with a rent boy who provided him "sexual massages." From CNN:

In 1970, a five-year-old boy named Kirk Murphy was subjected to an ex-gay experiment. Under the care of Dr Ivor Lovaas and George Rekers, then a doctoral student, of UCLA, he underwent therapy to eliminate supposed effeminate behaviors.

In 1970, a five-year-old boy named Kirk Murphy was subjected to an ex-gay experiment. Under the care of Dr Ivor Lovaas and George Rekers, then a doctoral student, of UCLA, he underwent therapy to eliminate supposed effeminate behaviors.

In 1970, a five-year-old boy named Kirk Murphy was subjected to an ex-gay experiment. Under the care of Dr Ivor Lovaas and George Rekers, then a doctoral student, of UCLA, he underwent therapy to eliminate supposed effeminate behaviors.

Sex and secularism.

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From the Daily Mail (and reported extensively all over the place):

Atheists have 'better sex lives than followers of religion who are plagued with guilt'
Atheists have far better sex lives than religious people who are plagued with guilt during intercourse and for weeks afterwards, researchers have found.
A study discovered that non-believers are more willing to discuss sexual fantasies and are more satisfied with their experiences.
Both groups of people admitted that they carried out the same activities such as masturbation, watching pornography, having oral sex and pursuing affairs.
But followers of religion did not enjoy the experiences as much due to the stigma created by their belief systems, the study found. It left them with intense feelings of regret after they had climaxed.
The findings emerged in the 'Sex and Secularism' survey of more than 14,500 people carried out by psychologist Darrel Ray and Amanda Brown from Kansas University.
All of the people who were questioned were found to have sex around the same number of times a week. They also became sexually active at similar ages.
But devoutly religious people rated their sex lives far lower than atheists. They also admitted to strong feelings of guilt afterwards.

Read the rest of the article, which includes a bunch more of the results, here.

The Healing Power of Sex Work .

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You'll likely be familiar with the name Wrenna Robertson from her project I'll Show You Mine. I've posted about it before (links here and here).

Recently she wrote a fantastic article about a workshop she organized exploring the experiences of sex workers, including her own. The article was published at Love, Sex, and Family:

There’s a story not often told about sex work. It’s a story that most of society would scoff at if they did hear it; write it off as pure, deluded fantasy. Many of us won’t allow it to be true. I am a sex worker, and even I immediately felt that it was too-tall-a-tale-to-tell. It’s the story of the empowered sex worker who finds healing through their work. The sex worker who has become more whole a person because of what they do. But it is a story which rings true for many of the incredible women and men I have had the pleasure of knowing, who work as strippers, escorts, tantric practitioners, porn actors and erotic masseurs.

I have been stripping for half of my life - since just days after my 18th birthday. Almost immediately I became aware of the judgment that would come my way until the present day – from friends, partners, parents, sisters and strangers. They all expressed their disappointment in me for having chosen to make money by taking my clothes off for strangers. When I explained to people that I was doing it to save money for university, they eased off a bit, conceding that it was indeed a good way to put oneself through school.

18 years later, I’m still stripping. It’s gotten harder in the past few years to explain this. For most of my years in the industry, I have been a university student. When I was younger, it was a very plausible story: the stripper working her way through college. I finished one degree, entered my mid-twenties, decided I was enjoying life too much as it was, so continued stripping, and headed back to school for another degree. I traveled lots, earned the envy of others while at the same time accumulating greater disdain. It was celebrated that I was so committed to my education, so well traveled and free-spirited, but there was a growing sense of impatience among my loved ones about when I would exit the sex industry. I internalized the knowledge that I was letting my parents down. The first in the family to get a university education (financed by my stripping career mind you), and I wasn’t even doing anything that my parents could share with their friends. They were getting bored of telling their friends that I was a student. They were getting restless, that story was getting old. Partners asked me when I planned to quit. Clients asked me when I was going to quit.

Read the rest of the article here.

Texas!

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From ABC's Primetime: 

Gay parents dining at a restaurant with their children are berated and discriminated against by their waitress. Other customers witness the blatant gay bashing. Will they step in and defend the couple? What would you do? Subscribe for brand new episodes on the official WWYD channel!

Girls watch porn, too.

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See more http://www.collegehumor.com Girls on girls watching porn.

UPDATE

From Lux Alptraum at Fleshbot:

College Humor just released a PSA promoting the fact that women like porn too. Which would be great if a) the video weren't intended as a joke and b) it actually sounded like it was written by porn-loving ladies. But rather than sit around and complain (which we could do all day!), we're going to do the video one better: we want to make an actual, for real PSA featuring porn loving ladies. And we need your help.

Are you a porn loving lady? Do you know porn loving ladies? Well, step right up and tell us why you love porn—and what you think is missing from the pornographic equation. Tell us if you like gay porn, straight porn, queer porn, feminist porn, gonzo porn, parody porn, POV porn, online porn, amateur porn, any porn; tell us what gets your engine revving, tell us when you like to watch porn, tell us how often you like to watch porn—tell us anything and everything we need to know to create an accurate picture of all (or at least a bunch of) the ways that ladies watch porn.

Find the rest of the entry, and contact info, here (NSFW!).

AIDS discrimination PSA.

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AIDS Discrimination Awareness PSA for Avert *2011 Young Director's Award in Cannes *2011 Bronze Clio HealthCare Awards *2011 Silver ADDY Commercial Award *2011 Silver Telly Commercial Award Director: Y-C Tom Lee Producers: Francis Pollara, Romson Niega, Cathy Peng Associate Producer: Nate Eggert Cinematographer: Justin Gurnari 1st Assistant Director: Marshal Law 2nd Assistant Director:Remii Martini Editor: Nate Tam Composer: Keyun Pan Sound Designer: Blaine O'Brien Title Design: Timothy Cheng Art Director: Jessica Yeh Styling: Evangeline Joo, Grace Zhang Makeup Artist: Kristie Tseng Special Thanks: Armen Perian Cast: Madeleine Misquez, Terri Parks, Ron Mcpherson, Jen Wakefield, Edgar Zatikyan, Taylor Rivera, Nathan Gebele, Maxwell Chase, Garrett Williams, Jalleh Doty, Cameron Davis, Brandon Makovy, Louise Yount, Yarita Betancourt, Armen Perian

Gay marriage update - good news!

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In Canada, gay marriage has been legal across the entire country since 2005, making Canada the fourth country in the world to make it legal. In the States (and most other countries), the battle for gay marriage rights is still being waged. Historically, the public in the US has been strongly opposed to gay marriage, but that has slowly been changing. The latest polls show that for the first time, more people support gay marriage than oppose it. From The New York Times:

A poll from CNN this week is the latest to show a majority of Americans in favor of same-sex marriage, with 51 percent saying that marriages between gay and lesbian couples “should be recognized by the law as valid” and 47 percent opposed.
This is the fourth credible poll in the past eight months to show an outright majority of Americans in favor of gay marriage. That represents quite a lot of progress for supporters of same-sex marriage. Prior to last year, there had been just one survey — a Washington Post poll conducted in April 2009 — to show support for gay marriage as the plurality position, and none had shown it with a majority.
As we noted last August, support for gay marriage seems to have been increasing at an accelerated pace over the past couple of years. Below is an update to the graph from last year’s article, which charts the trend from all available public polls on same-sex marriage going back to 1988.

Read the rest of the article here.

On a related note, Prose Before Hos has put together "a handy graph [i.e., pie chart] for the confused," outlining the potential effects of legalizing gay marriage.

OMG Facts SEX on Twitter.

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A Twitter feed dedicated to weird and interesting sex facts (link here, parent site here). Here are some samples :

“Luv Ewe”, an animal from Farmville, has the same name as a blow-up-doll sheep!

There have been documented cases of “pseudonecrophilia”, when people prefer sex with partners who pretend to be dead.

An archaic word for a woman who performs fellatio is “fellatrix” or “fellatrice”.

Cynthia Plaster Caster is a woman who makes plaster casts of famous people’s penises and breasts. Her 1st client was Jimi Hendrix

Early Christian scholar Tertullian believed that semen had a soul. Thus: swallowing=cannibalism.

Think “frigging” is a clean substitute for the F word? It actually comes from a Middle English word for masturbation.

Agalmatophilia: fetish for statues or mannequins.

In Nigeria there was a widespread phenomenon of people being accused of magical genital theft.

There’s a fetish for being cold. It’s called psychrocism.

Some men practice pseudocastration, pretending to be castrated, because they’re turned on by the fear.

Botulinonia: sex with a sausage

Casanova would use a lemon as a contraceptive.