The interview that made it famous. Take it away Ms. Hewitt...
And a more recent clip from Conan:
Check the reply section for a student's account of the vajazzling experience.
Ethnocentrism and female circumcision (FGM).
There are two main types of female circumcision: clitoridectomy and infibulation. Clitoridectomy is the removal of the clitoris, while infibulation is the removal of the entire vulva and the suturing of the vaginal opening. The procedures are predominant and culturally important in parts of Africa and the Middle East. Both are considered genital mutilation by the World Health Organization (WHO). More information from the WHO can be found here. As Westerners, we are typically horrified by this tradition. The vulva, especially the clitoris, are considered essential anatomy for experiencing sexual pleasure. The procedures seem cruel and misogynistic, and it's impossible for us to imagine how female circumcision could be a good thing, from any perspective.
But, is this a case of ethnocentrism, and should we mind our own business?
In these videos, women talk about the importance of female circumcision, as both a ritual and in terms of women's worth as future brides.
*Disclaimer* I have no idea how accurate the translations are.
A group of Italian researchers who examined the effects of female circumcision on sexual functioning cautiously reported some surprisingly and remarkably positive results:
The group of 137 women, affected by different types of FGM/C, reported orgasm in almost 86%, always 69.23%; 58 mutilated young women reported orgasm in 91.43%, always 8.57%; after defibulation 14 out of 15 infibulated women reported orgasm; the group of 57 infibulated women investigated with the FSFI questionnaire showed significant differences between group of study and an equivalent group of control in desire, arousal, orgasm, and satisfaction with mean scores higher in the group of mutilated women. No significant differences were observed between the two groups in lubrication and pain.
The entire article can be downloaded here: Catania et al., 2007.
Their results are hard to believe, as the circumcised women reported better sexual functioning than what you'd find in a typical Western population.
The study has been criticized for several reasons, including: poor control group; measures normed for Western cultures; and bias associated with self-reports. However, similar findings have been reported before. In these cultures, it's likely that female circumcision is a key part of women's identities as sexual beings. And perhaps that strengthened identity is associated with better sexual functioning.
Some have suggested that a possible compromise might be genital nicking. Rather than removing the vulva, the vulva are nicked instead. A description and background can be found in this New York Times article.
The New York Times has reported extensively on female circumcision. All the articles can be found here.
Swedish sex ed video.
in Sex Ed, Humour Etc.
This video was produced to help educate kids about genitals. Translation below.
“Jumpedy jump jump, prickely prick, here comes the dick in full speed He with no pants on, he dangles his gear and rear Snippety snipp snipp, the vagina is way more awesome though Even on and old lady, the vagina there is so elegant located So unlike, but it’s almost the same thing You piss the piss through the prick, or from the vagina if youre a girl The prick and the vagina, what a lovely crew! The prick and the vagina dig along The prick and the vagina belong to our body The prick hangs and dangles on a small body The vagina is awesome, baby I love you”
Apparently, though, the translation of vagina is difficult, the Swedish word for it being used is more of a childish nickname for vagina (“snippa”)
Key & Peele: Cunnilingus class.
NSFW language:
Thursday mail - January 15th.
Have any questions or comments? If so, fire away.
The origins of labia insecurity.
There have been several theories proposed as to the root causes of labia insecurity, one being the effect of pornography. This theory is particularly pertinent in Australia, where censorship laws are such that softcore porn cannot display inner labia (which appears to be entirely arbitrary - since when are inner labia more explicit???). Here's a brief clip describing the state of affairs (NSFW):
Tales from the sex ed trenches, via Reddit.
Seinfeld: Name?
East India Comedy: Sex Education in India.
From the description:
The health ministry of India recently [summer 2014] suggested that sex education be banned in the country. We look at India's attitude towards sex through a "government approved" sex education lecture.
Swinging for Jesus.
From SheKnows:
Christian wife-swapping couple evangelizes by 'swinging for Jesus' by Bethany Ramos
Christian couple vows to spread God's Word through wife-swapping.
It's not every day that you hear about Christians who are willing to do anything, and I mean anything, for Jesus. I say this as a Christian — it is possible to go too far in your attempt to spread the word of the Lord. One Christian couple proves my point perfectly by attempting to run a Christian swingers' social network, all in the name of Jesus.
Oh, boy. I would love to say that this swinging for the Lord site is an internet hoax, but alas, Cristy and Dean Parave are the real deal. This Florida couple has taken up their cross to start a Christian swinging website to spread the gospel and share their interests with other devoted Christians.
What are their interests, you ask? Jesus, wife swapping and bodybuilding — in that order. That's why the Paraves have chosen to name their site FitnessSwingers.com.
There's so much to say about this that I don't even know where to begin. First — and most obviously — what an interesting mix of interests. I'm sure there are other holy-rolling, fitness-loving, swinging married couples out there, but to say that this site is niche would be putting it mildly. I'm no business expert, but I don't see a huge market for iron-pumping sexy swingers who also love the Lord. I could be wrong.
Next on the list, there's the big elephant in the room: Jesus. What does He think about a website dedicated to religious folks who swap partners like used Bibles at a Sunday morning church service? You can put your mind at ease because the Paraves believe that God is totes fine with their lifestyle.
"I don't think God would be mad at what we are doing... Dean and I are both in agreement with this lifestyle, so we're not committing adultery. God put people on the earth to breed and enjoy each other," Cristy told The Daily Mail.
I'm certainly not a hellfire-and-brimstone Christian. I see where Cristy is coming from. God wants us all to enjoy life and have a good time. He's not lurking around every corner to smite us because we make one silly mistake.
But slapping a "for the Lord" label on whatever you do to make yourself feel better about your decision makes little sense. If you want to swing while being a Christian, that's up to you and your partner. If you want to visit or even create a swinger's website to share like-minded interests, go nuts. Get your freak on, have a good time and mix and mingle with other couples — just don't pretend like you're doing it for Jesus.
And a video clip from Barcroft TV:
TEDx: Debby Herbenick on Making Sex Normal.
More PostSecrets.
in Humour Etc.
Salt N Pepa - Let's Talk About Sex
A classic from 1990 - this came out while I was in high school. It was super popular but I don't think it had the impact here that it did in the states. There was outrage! But at least the message was received.
The Sex Talk.
in Sex Ed
Thursday mail - January 8th.
Have any questions or comments? If so, fire away.
Play Doh's Christmas surprise.
From Global News (and pretty much everywhere else):
Hasbro plans to replace penis-shaped Play-Doh tool By Michelle R. Smith
PROVIDENCE, R.I. – It was an embarrassing Christmas for Nivea Cabrera after she was accused by her fiance’s mother of letting her 5-year-old granddaughter play with a sex toy. A mortified Carbrera asked the child where she got the penis-shaped plastic cylinder.
“It’s from my Play-Doh,” the girl replied.
Hasbro, the Pawtucket-based toy company, is now doing damage control over the extruder tool in its Play-Doh Cake Mountain toy. The two-piece syringe-like tool, which includes a tube with corkscrew-type ridges around the outside and a dome-shaped top with a hole at the tip, can be used to squeeze Play-Doh to look like decorative cake frosting.
Complaints have been surfacing since at least November, when Tulsa, Oklahoma, TV station KTUL showed the tool to parents and asked them what they thought. The station blurred the image of the tool during the piece, saying it was due to parents’ reactions. One woman told the station it was “a pretty phallic cake-decorating piece.”
After Christmas, comments started pouring in to Play-Doh’s Facebook page, including from Cabrera, of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. She said Hasbro called her after she posted a photo of the tool and asked about the shape on Christmas Day. She said the company offered to send her a replacement tool in a different shape, which she has not received.
Erin Rivers, a mother of two from Melbourne, Florida, thought it was hilarious when she helped her 6-year-old daughter open the box.
“I pulled out this extruder tool, and I just started cracking up at it, I couldn’t help it. Then I immediately put the Play-Doh in it and took a picture of,” she said.
Then, she posted it on Facebook.
“My friends have just as dirty minds as I do,” she said. “It was hysterical to me. And then I gave it my daughter to play with.”
She said her daughter and 4-year-old son don’t notice anything strange about the toy.
Hasbro Inc. has received thousands of comments on the Play-Doh Facebook page pointing out the obvious.
“We are in the process of updating all future Play-Doh products with a different tool,” it said in a statement posted on the page Tuesday.
It also offered to replace the tool for anyone who has complaints.
Rivers, who works in a pediatric dental office, says she’s not upset at all. But she is flabbergasted that the toy slipped past so many layers of people at Hasbro.
“They have to have someone who creates it, someone who makes the plastic mould, someone who plays with it,” she said. “I can’t imagine that as many people that probably saw the toy, not one person said, ‘Does anyone else think this looks like a penis?”‘
Trans (porn) superstar Buck Angel.
This is Buck Angel. He's a porn superstar, educator, advocate and supposedly all-around awesome dude. He describes himself as "the man with a pussy."
He was interviewed and photographed a while by Dirty Magazine:
BUCK WILD By Kirsten Matthew
Buck Angel has lived through several lifetimes. Born a girl in Southern California's San Fernando Valley, he made a living as a model (and developed a serious crack habit) before deciding to become a man, 18 years ago. As the "Man with a Pussy" he went on to marry a woman, and make award-winning porn. Now, he's keen to mainstream, by becoming an author, educator and lecturer.
DIRTY: DO YOU REMEMBER THE FIRST TIME YOU REALIZED YOU WANTED TO BE A BOY RATHER THAN A GIRL?
BUCK ANGEL: I always felt like a man. It wasn’t ‘I think’; it was ‘I am’. My parents treated me very much like a boy. They called me Buck. They didn’t treat my sisters like that. My sisters are both butch too; they have that masculine energy. But mine was male energy. That’s not really normal but it felt normal to me. Going through puberty at 15, things started changing. That was a breaking point for me. I got into drinking and smoking pot; had a psychological breakdown. I was extremely shy. I always wore a baseball cap. I couldn’t make eye contact, start up a conversation.
[…]
D: HOW DID YOU MOVE INTO THE ADULT FILM INDUSTRY?
BA: I think it was over 10 years ago or so that I made my first fetish film. It was for my own company, The Pro Dominatrix, that I started with my wife at the time. We made dominatrix and fetish (foot, smoking, bondage) films in our dungeon in downtown Los Angeles. I taught myself to use a camera and edit. We put them on VHS and sold them through the website. Then I started trying the Buck stuff. I have done 15 Buck films; most under my own label, Buck Angel Entertainment. I control my image. I only release one or two movies a year because I do not want to over-saturate the market with my product. I really love all my films. I have seen such a growth with my work and also with the talent that I am able to cast now. In the beginning it was very hard for me to cast, as people were scared to be in a film with me because they had no idea how this would reflect on their career. The adult entertainment business is very conservative in a sense that you can not really do crossover gay, straight work. But, I did it. And one more film and then I think I’m done with making adult films.
His commercial website can be found here (NSFW!).
Buck did a talk a while back at Idea City. He discussed his experiences growing up, his rise to stardom in both the adult movie industry and the popular media, and the politics and culture surrounding transgenderism. The clip of his talk is long, but worth every minute.
A documentary about Buck was released last year. Here's the trailer:
http://www.thegayuk.com/magazine/4574334751/SEXING-THE-TRANSMAN-The-Buck-Angel-Interview/9298703
Letters from Working Girls.
in Sex Work
Another of Susannah Breslin’s projects about sex work.
A sample from a letter:
I am also, as always, conflicted. As a women with radical feminist politics, this is the one area where I diverge from the dominant opinions of that group. I am constantly evaluating how I can be a truly feminist sex worker. For me that question of feminist integrity matters more than how to be a safe sex worker, a high paid sex worker, or anything else. My integrity is the most important thing, and I never do anything with a john that I wouldn't do by my own choice.
I turn down the piss requests, the "will you let my dog fuck you?" guys, the ones who try to bargain for more time and less money. I do not turn down the ugly ones, the lonely ones, the very hairy and sexually confused ones. There is something in me that loves them and their small perversions, loves the taboo of sex work and the incredibly novel situations that I find myself in. As an Ivy league masters candidate, this is not my last resort. I've lived with the love of my life for years and am satisfied in every way by our love/sex/friendship. I'm educated and well adjusted, yet I am also a working girl. We tend to defy your expectations, don't we?
The rest of the letter, and many more, here.
Letters from Johns.
in Sex Work
One of Susannah Breslin's projects: Letters from Johns. The project provided (it wrapped in 2009) an opportunity for men who've used the services of sex providers to share their stories, motivations, and experiences.
A sample from a letter:
I was a thirty four year old virgin when I first visited a prostitute.
I've always been shy and a bit of a computer geek, and somehow I missed out on opportunities at college and university that might have got my sex life off to a start. Once I graduated I ended up in an IT job, full of other single male geeks. None of us had much in the way of a social life, but I was furthering my career so it didn't seem to matter much. It was only when I hit thirty that I started to worry about the other things missing from my life. At that point, my age and lack of experience were a major worry. I was tempted by online dating, but knew that anyone I might meet would be more sexually experienced than me, and this became a major stumbling block.
At one point, I seriously considered sexual surrogate therapy, but in the end the price put me off. It did, however, make me start thinking about paying for sex, but at a different level. Websites and forums are what I do, and mostly how I interact with other people, so it didn't take me long to find forums devoted to escort work. I researched diligently, read up on the pros and cons, and the dangers, health and otherwise, of seeing escorts. The forums were an eye opener. The escorts posting sounded genuine, even relatively normal, and not the junkies I'd expected. I made up my mind to go for it.
The rest of the letter, and many more, here.
One of the original letter writers sent an update letter, two years after he sent his first letter. Link here.
Vice documentary: The Japanese Love Industry.
From Vice:
Japan is a country that is dying—literally. A nation that was once considered the strongest economical powerhouse in the world, rivaling the US, has now slipped to second best. Japan has more people over the age of 65 and the smallest number of people under the age of 15 in the world. It is the fastest growing negative population in the world, and that's because hardly anyone is having babies. In these difficult times, the Japanese are putting marriage and families on the back burner and seeking recreational love and affection as a form of cheap escape with no strings attached. We sent Ryan Duffy to investigate this phenomenon, which led him to Tokyo's cuddle cafes and Yakuza-sponsored prostitution.
Some have pointed out that documentaries like this are simply capitalizing on the whole Japan is super weird stereotype. The content of this documentary is not representative of the Japanese culture in general - Vice tends to focus on experiences that are outside of the norm (i.e., cuddle cafes and the Yakuza), as that's what they find most interesting.
Somewhat NSFW (you can also watch a way more NSFW version on Vice.com: link):