On the theme of adult dolls (passed along by Andrea - thanks!):
The sanctity of marriage.
Passed along by Amy (thanks!):
Last Night.
Last Night, which addresses a topic covered in class, comes recommended by Ksenia (thanks!):
This is a nice movie on the topic of emotional versus sexual cheating.
The trailer:
So much for progress.
From the CBC:
B.C. Mountie alleges years of sexual harassment
CBC News has learned that one of B.C.'s highest profile Mounties says she's suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after years of sexual harassment.
Cpl. Catherine Galliford was the face of the B.C. RCMP for years. During her tenure as the RCMP's spokesperson, Galliford announced the arrest of Robert William Pickton and revealed charges had been laid in the Air India bombing.
But in an internal RCMP complaint, Galliford makes serious allegations about misconduct inside the RCMP. She shared the complaint with CBC News and spoke with reporter Natalie Clancy about her claims.
"Everything that came out of his [a supervisor's] mouth was sexual," Galliford said. "If I had a dime for every time one of my bosses asked me to sit on his knee, I'd be on a yacht in the Bahamas right now."
Galliford says she faced constant sexual advances from several senior officers from the moment she graduated from the RCMP Academy in 1991.
Read the rest of the article here.
And one more on real dolls.
Abortion protection laws on the chopping block.
Sent to me last week by Maggie to post on the blog (thanks!):
Mississippi might be the first US state to rule abortions ILLEGAL! The Personhood Amendment would make it a crime to abort any child as soon as the embryo begins to divide (or something to that degree) and even though the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of abortion, it is still so scary that there could be a precedent so close to Canada. Certain forms of birth control might also become illegal! Like certain pills or Morning After. This is also in complete disregard to rape and incest.
This an extremely scary prospect, and represents a trend that's sweeping conservative parts of the states. As noted in a previous post, Mitt Romney, who'll probably be the Republican nomination for next year's American election, supports this sort of legislation. The man pictured above is Les Riley, the sponsor of the bill.
The vote on the amendment will happen tomorrow. Keep posted for the results.
To read more about the amendment, and the sort of unintended nasty consequences it would have, read the following links: here, here and here.
More robot love.
Davecat is a visionary in the robot-human intimacy world. He is a "doll husband", probably the first ever. His relationship with Sidore, a Real Doll, is going on ten years plus, although she's recently worn out and has been reincarnated (i.e., replaced with the same model).
From an Asylum article about Dave and Sidore:
Let's pretend, for a second, you're a lonesome guy who has bad luck with women. You buy an upscale silicone love doll and grow attached to "her"; but, after a decade of lovin', she starts to fall apart.
What's a man to do?
If you're 37-year-old Michigan telemarketer Dave Cat, you have the $6,500 rubber lady "reincarnated." Which is to say, you commission an exact replica of her to be stripped, molded and painted. And you bring her back from the freakin' dead.
Dave considers himself a "doll husband" and hasn't dated a flesh-and-blood woman since he bought his Real Doll -- a synthetic female with a skeletal frame, joints, and rubber sex organs -- in July 2000.
So imagine his sense of horror when, a few months ago, he noticed an 8-inch tear in her lower back, where her plastic hips connect to a spine. "She was literally bed-ridden," he tells Asylum. "I couldn't take her downstairs, and the sex was very limited."
Worried, he called Real Doll founder Matt McMullen, who is the mad scientist of the sex-doll industry. "He asked us to save her,'" McMullen says. "To me it was really touching."
Dave spent years conceiving his doll's personality and back story. He'll tell you her name is Sidore -- "friends call her Si-Chan" -- and that she was born near Tokyo, but later moved to England. She's a Goth and is "partial to Joy Division, Mecha-based video games and foot rubs."
The rest of the article is here.
Dave has blogged extensively about his relationship, and it's fascinating on many levels. From his bio:
Long-term partner to Synthetik Goth girl Sidore Kuroneko, Davecat spends his days sleeping, (barely) restraining his contempt for popular culture, researching developments in Gynoid and high-end dutch wife production, listening to Power-electronics and Sixties yé-yé in equal measure, pretending he’s a bon vivant, overshooting his spending limit, and writing about himself in the third person. He lives in a city on a land mass, somewhere in the Northern Hemisphere.
His blog can be found here.
The idea of human-robot relationships is nothing new. For example, in the 1982 film Blade Runner (which rules, and you should see it if you haven't), Harrison Ford's character falls in love with a female replicant. The trailer:
Is this what the future holds for us?
Meet Roxxxy.
According to experts in the field, we're not far off from full-on robot-human intimate relationships. From a LiveScience interview with Dr. David Levy, one of the pioneers:
"My forecast is that around 2050, the state of Massachusetts will be the first jurisdiction to legalize marriages with robots," artificial intelligence researcher David Levy at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands told LiveScience. Levy recently completed his Ph.D. work on the subject of human-robot relationships, covering many of the privileges and practices that generally come with marriage as well as outside of it.
At first, sex with robots might be considered geeky, "but once you have a story like 'I had sex with a robot, and it was great!' appear someplace like Cosmo magazine, I'd expect many people to jump on the bandwagon," Levy said.
The rest of the article, including discussion of robot love, ethics, and more pragmatic issues, can be found here.
The idea of having sex with life-sized dolls is nothing new. As a matter of fact, there are already piles of sex dolls on the market, most of which are inflatable. For the DIYers out there, you can also make your own like these:
Instructions and more images can be found here.
But Roxxxy is different. She has five different personalities to choose from, and rudimentary artificial intelligence. Roxxxy doesn't come cheap, though, at $7000 US.
From an article on gizmag.com:
When it comes to technology, the sex industry is no laggard, and as robotics become more human-like in their appearance and abilities, US-based company TrueCompany is poised to launch Roxxxy – the world’s first "sex robot" that has many more capabilities than your average sex doll. Apart from having better defined physical features than previous dolls, Roxxxy has been programmed with her own personality and her manufacturers say she can listen, talk, carry on a conversation, feel your touch and respond to it, as well as move her private areas inside when she is being “utilized” to deliver an unforgettable erotic experience. There are even plans for a male version - Rocky the Robot.
The full article, with image gallery, is here.
Roxxxy made her debut at last year's AVN expo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2MeQcI77dTQ
Roxxxy's webpage is here.
Fisting.
From an interview with Deborah Addington in Vice Magazine:
A few months ago we featured some photos from a young lady who takes pictures of all the weird things she finds while working at a thrift store. One of the gems she discovered was a book by Deborah Addington, called A Hand In the Bush - The Fine Art of Vaginal Fisting. Needless to say, I was intrigued, so I ordered the book from Amazon the next day. Part of me thought the book was a joke. I imagined it to be some sort of satirical, voyeuristic look at a black belt-level sex move most people don't have the gusto to try for themselves. I couldn't have been more wrong.
A Hand In the Bush is an excruciatingly didactic field manual for anyone who has ever considered getting wrist-deep in a vagina. After reading this book, an arthritic virgin could navigate their hand into a woman with the confidence of a seasoned pilot easing a 747 into its hangar. The book includes graphic illustrations of everything from regular old vaginal fisting to mutual fisting to the mind-boggling double fist (pretend you're applauding, only don't pull your hands apart).
VICE: Your book is called The Fine Art of Vaginal Fisting. Do you really consider fisting vaginas an art form? Deborah Addington: I do. We all have fingers at the end of our hands, but a lot of people don't organically look at their hands and go, "Gee, I could put that in a bodily orifice!" So you're taking something that preexists, reconfiguring it, applying creativity, and producing a spectacular result.
How many and what type of doctors did you consult during your research for this book? I talked to three doctors. I also spoke with a registered nurse practitioner who dealt with a lot of sexuality issues. All but one of them were OBGYNs, and the one who wasn't is a kink-friendly physician out of the BDSM community who specializes in dealing with what a lot of other people might be balked by.
Had any of the doctors tried vaginal fisting? I know two of them did for sure. The other one was a clinician who was dealing with getting all of the anatomical information, and they might not have been into fisting. I'm not sure.
Read the rest of the interview, and lots about fisting, here.
Comma Sutra.
Passed along by Keirstyn (thanks!)
Thursday mail - November 2.
Have any questions or comments related to class or otherwise? If so, fire away.
Craigslist ad parody.
in Humour Etc.
From P0YKPAC:
Funny nerds.
in Humour Etc.
The real headline for an article at The Cosmos News explaining why Uranus' axis has shifted substantially:
Uranus takes a pounding more frequently than thought
And the equally funny first paragraph of the article:
Uranus isn't just gassy, it's also tilted completely sideways, such that instead of rotating like a spinning top, it rolls around the plane of the solar system more like a giant ball. Now astronomers think they know how this happened, and it means that Uranus has been pounded really, really hard not once, but twice.
Read the rest of the article here.
And yes, I'm still 13.
Currently the oddest video on the web?
in Humour Etc.
Via Violet Blue:
Perhaps studying delirium will help with interpreting this masterpiece of weirdness.
Trends in men's body hair removal.
in Attitudes, Attraction
From a 2008 study:
Abstract Although hairlessness is rapidly becoming a component of the ideal male body, little research has examined men’s concerns about their body hair or their hair removal practices. Samples of gay and heterosexual men completed questionnaires that assessed whether they had ever removed their back, buttock or pubic hair, the frequency with which they did so, the methods used and their self-reported reasons for removing this hair, as well as their level of appearance investment. Results indicated that many gay and heterosexual men remove their back, buttock and pubic hair regularly and that their primary reason for doing so is to maintain or improve their appearance. The frequency of hair removal was also associated with the motivational salience component of appearance investment. The findings offer further support to the premise that gay and heterosexual men exhibit similar body image concerns.
Download the entire paper here.
Rick Mercer on gay bullying.
This past month, James Hubley (pictured below with his dad), an out gay high school student, committed suicide after being mercilessly and persistently bullied. He is one of many such cases - it seems like there's a new case of gay teen suicide due to bullying every week.
In the States, Dan Savage, of Savage Love, started a project called It Gets Better due to the rash of gay teen suicides. I've posted about it before on the blog (here, here and here). The intention of the project is to give gay kids hope. But, as some have noted, these gay teens still need to make it through high school before things may improve. Kids can be extremely cruel.
In response to the case of James Hubley, Rick Mercer, a Canadian comedy icon and political commentator, had this to say on his show, The Mercer Report:
Pornkins.
Via Gizmodo:
Carving pumpkins with scary faces is kids stuff. Carving pumpkins with sexual scenes more explicit than you ever thought possible (for a pumpkin)—that's what mature witches and warlocks do.
For more Porkins, click here.
Or you could DIY it by making your own stencils - probably more fun.
Out of your league.
in Attraction, Body Image
From Jezebel (and source of the quote used in class this week):
The Fallacy Of Your Romantic League
The concept of one's "league" — that is, a fixed category of people one is attractive enough to date — is firmly entrenched in pop culture and in many of our psyches. Here's why it's bullshit.
First, some background. Nerve.com illustrates the concept of the league this week with five stories of men and women sexing unprecedentedly hot partners. An instructive example, by Dane Samson:
She was bordering on the edge of short, with long blonde hair, piercing blue eyes, an amazing body, sexy Aussie accent, and an attitude of completely not giving a fuck. In other words, she was the definition of "out of my league."
Samson determined his league based on women he'd been with before: "I usually ended up with average-looking girls, and in relationships that seemed to be sexually average at best." Others use different metrics, such as their own perceived mediocrity — writes Brandon Stevens, "I [...] have a five head, and my abs are hidden behind incurable baby fat." Whatever the case, all five stories go something like this: I fucked someone who totally shouldn't have wanted to fuck me.
Coming at the league issue from a slightly different angle is a recent writer to The Hairpin's Ask A Lady column, who laments,
I'm ugly. That's right, on the classic 1-10 scale, I'm probably a 3. This isn't a self-esteem thing. I'm a fairly confident person. I have an easy time approaching women and striking up a conversation and asking if I can take them out sometime. I don't spend hours crying about my looks, or avoid walking by mirrors or anything like that. I'm fine with who I am. It just so happens that who I am is a balding 30-year-old with a gut that won't go away, and several other features that make me empirically unattractive, many of which I couldn't change without resorting to surgery. But that's not the problem. Despite being aesthetically challenged, I get plenty of dates. The problem is — and this is the part where I hope you don't write me off as a shallow jerk — the dates I get are with women who are also 3's.
Basically, this guy thinks he's dating within his league, and he's not happy about it. A Lady suggests that "maybe — MAYBE — your opinion of your looks has become a 'self-esteem thing,' making you hold back with women you think are out of your league or whatever." Or "maybe you are just a shallow jerk." What she doesn't really address, however, is that this guy is going about assessing hotness — his own and other people's –- in all the wrong ways.
Read the rest here.
More photoshop fun.
From the SLOG:
The internet is full of these sorts of before-and-after images, but these rollovers for some reason really hammered it home to me: Fashion photography is less about actually photographing a human being and more about sculpting pixels.
The rollovers, courtesy of M. Seth Jones: link here.
Thursday mail - October 27.
Have any questions or comments related to sex or sexuality? If so, fire away.