SEX
Also of course, see the Socio-Biology file.
Dec 29, 05: A new study shows that imperfect male swordtail fish are all the rage of the mating scene among older females of their species.
. . Over their lifetimes, female fish switch from preferring males with symmetrical patterns to those with asymmetrical designs, a new study finds. Scientists now wonder if human mating preferences might shift with age, too. "What this tells us is that females are most likely weighing several different factors when they choose a mate", said Molly Morris, an associate professor of biological sciences at Ohio University.
. . Previous studies showed females preferred mates that were symmetrical, an indicator of good genes. However, Morris' study and several others have found that as female fish get older, their mating preferences completely reverse.
Dec 29, 05: Nazir Ahmed appears calm and unrepentant as he recounts how he slit the throats of his three young daughters and their 25-year old stepsister to salvage his family's "honor" —-a crime that shocked Pakistan. He confessed to just one regret —-that he didn't murder the stepsister's alleged lover too.
. . Hundreds of girls and women are murdered by male relatives each year in this conservative Islamic nation, and rights groups said Wednesday such "honor killings" will only stop when authorities get serious about punishing perpetrators.
. . The independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said that in more than half of such cases that make it to court, most end with cash settlements paid by relatives to the victims' families, although under a law passed last year, the minimum penalty is 10 years, the maximum death by hanging.
Dec 22, 05: Two Montreal clubs that cater to group sex do not breach standards of decency, Canada's Supreme Court has ruled. Wednesday's ruling, written by Chief Justice Beverley McLachlin, said group sex among like-minded adults in private does not meet the test of indecency. The decision might make it easier for "swinger" clubs or gay bath houses to operate without the threat of police intervention or arrest.
Dec 22, 05: Outrage and protests mounted in India after TV channels showed police officers repeatedly slapping, punching and pulling the hair of young women on a date in a public park in a north Indian city. Indian media reported one couple was so humiliated by the police action in front of TV crews they have not returned home.
. . "Is falling in love wrong? Who gave the police the right to beat and hit people and misbehave in such a manner", a woman in Meerut city in Uttar Pradesh state told television news. Since Tuesday, shocked TV viewers in India have been watching images of female officers pummelling and abusing crying young women in Meerut in what the media is calling "moral policing."
. . TV footage also showed male policemen with sticks surrounding the scared women and taking them to women officers who beat them. Several of their male companions were beaten also.
. . The outcry, including from women groups, has forced the police to suspend two women officers and probe the incident. One of India's most conservative states, Uttar Pradesh is also one of the most crime-ridden, known for gangs indulging in murder, extortion and kidnapping. People in Meerut are amazed that police have the time to go after dating couples.
As Ann Regentin wrote recently at Clean Sheets, "what straight people call foreplay bears a remarkable resemblance to what lesbians call sex."
. . 5 mm is the average size of the visible part of the clitoris.
Dec 14, 05: The average human male can stay engaged in sexual intercourse for 5 to 7 minutes. For better or worse, the advent of the new premature ejaculation drug dapoxetine could bring that up to about 20.
. . The current record holder is the stick insect, says John Alcock, an evolutionary biologist from the University of Arizona. Stick insect sex "can go on for several months", he said. Luckily for her, the male is about half her size.
. . Judson says the clinginess of the male stick insect reflects not so much ardor as possessiveness. Males may have evolved the propensity to stay in conjugal attachment for so long because it keeps other males away from the female they've chosen. That way, a male can be assured only his sperm will fertilize her eggs.
. . Some animals also mate for extended periods because they transfer more than just sperm to the female during sex. Male houseflies inject females with a drug that causes them to lose interest in sex, making them less likely to mate with other males.
. . Some species of tick spend about eight hours on what looks like foreplay, said Judson. This might have something to do with removal of sperm left by a rival — another common reason sex can last hours or days. In other species, the sex act has to stimulate the female to ovulate. "Maybe it's a kind of test", said Judson, allowing females to get impregnated only by the males "strong enough to get through all this rigmarole."
. . Still, our sex acts go on longer than those of our closest relatives, the chimpanzees. Male chimps last less than a minute. Females deal with this by moving on — quickly. Scientists have observed female chimps mating with as many as eight different males within 15 minutes.
. . The British men won for most enduring lovers with an average time of 7.6 minutes. Americans came in a close second with 7 minutes even. The average was 5.4 minutes, but the men ranged from 30 seconds to 45 minutes.
Dec 9, 05: For male bats, intelligence comes at a steep price. A new study found that bat species with large brains have smaller testicles. The correlation is likely an evolutionary tradeoff between having to maintain a large brain and producing lots of sperm, said Scott Pitnick, a biologist at Syracuse University.
. . "The male who ejaculates the greatest number of sperm may win at this game, and hence many bats have evolved outrageously big testes", Pitnick said. "Because they live on an energetic knife-edge, bats may not be able to evolutionarily afford both big testes and big brains."
. . Female bats in many species mate with more than just one male, and sperm can survive in the female's body for long periods of time; this leads to fierce competition between sperm to fertilize the egg. Pitnick suspects that the males with relatively large testes and small brains leave more offspring than larger-brained and less fertile competitors.
. . Pitnick and colleagues analyzed 334 species of bats and found that in species with promiscuous females, the males had evolved larger testes but had relatively small brains. In species where the females were faithful to their mates, the correlation was reversed. The study also showed that male fidelity appeared to have no influence over testes or brain size.
. . In some bat species, the male's testes can make up as much as 8.5% of body mass. Of all mammals, bats have the widest range of testes mass: between 0.12% and 8.5% of body mass. As a comparison, testes mass in primates (including humans) varies between 0.02 and 0.75%. [Hey; speak for yourself....]
Dec 5, 05: Masturbation in infant girls sometimes leads to doctor visits because parents think the children have a movement disorder, a new study finds. Don't worry, the researchers say. It's all natural and harmless.
. . In the study, researchers reviewed a dozen cases of young girls who were referred to pediatric movement disorder clinics between 1997 and 2002 for evaluation of episodic dystonic posturing, characterized by involuntary muscle contractions that force the body into abnormal movements and positions.
. . After sometimes-invasive testing and medication, the neurologists discovered the symptoms were actually normal muscle contractions that accompany masturbation.
. . "Masturbation is a normal human behavior. It's not harmful to anybody", said study leader Jonathan Mink, Chief of Child Neurology at the University of Rochester Medical Center.
. . Infant boys who masturbate don't end up at the doctor as often, Mink figures, because the action in boys is more recognizable: They tend to touch their genitals. Girls don't necessarily directly touch their genitals when masturbating. An episode may begin in a car seat or high chair where straps place pressure on the genital area, or they may start when a child is tired or bored. "They associate it with comfort, like thumb-sucking."
Nov 30, 05: Your heartbeat accelerates, you have butterflies in the stomach, you feel euphoric and a bit silly. It's all part of falling passionately in love --and scientists now tell us the feeling won't last more than a year.
. . The powerful emotions that bowl over new lovers are triggered by a molecule known as nerve growth factor (NGF), according to Pavia University researchers.
. . The Italian scientists found far higher levels of NGF in the blood of 58 people who had recently fallen madly in love than in that of a group of singles and people in long-term relationships. But after a year with the same lover, the quantity of the 'love molecule' in their blood had fallen to the same level as that of the other groups.
. . The Italian researchers said it was not clear how falling in love triggers higher levels of NGF, but the molecule clearly has an important role in the "social chemistry" between people at the start of a relationship.
Nov 30, 05: They're in the final rounds of testing for a drug called PT-141, which will enable users to fall into an erotic trance at will with just the spritz of a nasal inhaler. Called the love drug and the Barbie drug because it will presumably work for women as well as men, PT-141 is the new generation of sexual enhancement, which works directly on our brain chemistry. Viagra and Cialis act only on the vascular system.
. . PT-141 will not just fix the plumbing as vascular drugs do, it promises to renovate the entire kitchen. Based on the compound Melanotan II, PT-141 has the ability to light up the nervous system like a Christmas tree in December, and it may be available as soon as 2007. (Melanotan's erotic properties were discovered accidentally when it was being tested as a sunless tanning agent.) Combined with new scientific studies, which show that the sensations we call "falling in love" actually have the brain chemistry of addiction with its early pleasures, its increasingly elusive satisfactions and its final, painful withdrawals, PT-141 conjures up an image of a grinning, love-stunned population wandering around in a haze of desire. The hundreds of rats and the 300 men who have already participated in the clinical trials are reportedly over the moon. They say it makes them hum. It's a 21st century Love Potion No. 9. Instead of smelling like turpentine and tasting like India ink, PT-141 is a pleasant nasal spray.
Nov 30, 05: [Interesting: this item also went into the Evolution News page, as is so often appropriate.] Most mammals possess only one species of louse, but we have three (scalp, pubic and body lice). Biologists have long reasoned that they evolved from a common ancestor when we lost our body hair and evolved three unique patches of hair. And the recent DNA dating work of Mark Stoneking and his colleagues at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig shows that our three lice separated from each other about 70,000 years ago, which dates our body nakedness to then.
. . About 70,000 years ago, the artistic instinct seems suddenly to have exploded in humans, and we lost our bodily hair to paint and decorate ourselves in uniquely creative ways. Why? For sex of course; but for a specially human type of sex — intelligent sex.
. . We find intelligence sexy because it translates into wealth and power. Repeated surveys have shown that the more intelligent a person is, the better is that person’s health, wealth and social standing. And because intelligence is linked to wit and creativity, the person who decorates their body in the most creative, charming or amusing way is signalling their intelligence and thus their attractiveness.
. . This month, Miriam Law Smith, of St Andrews University, showed that girls awash with estrogen are sexy. The higher the levels of a girl’s oestrogen, the larger are her eyes, the fuller her lips and the smaller her nose. Men like that sort of thing, and because estrogen also promotes fertility it is called an "honest" biological signal: it attracts men to women who are genuinely fertile. But Miriam Law Smith also found that women with low estrogen who used make-up shrewdly could fool men into finding them as attractive as their more fertile sisters. Art and IQ, in short, are mightier than the hormone.
Nov 30, 05: Pablo Picasso, Lord Byron and Dylan Thomas had more in common than simple creativity. They also had active sex lives, which researchers said was no coincidence. Psychologists at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne and the Open University in Britain found that professional artists and poets have about twice as many partners as other people. Their creativity seems to act like a sexual magnet.
. . Although creative people have long been associated with active sex lives, the researchers believe their study is the first to back it up with research. They found that professional artists and poets had between 4 and 10 sexual partners, while less creative people had an average of three. But they also have high rates of depression. [Hmmm, seems very low. Or is that per year?]
Nov 10, 05: Women who lose their sexual desire as they age may not be the victims of hormonal changes but may be reacting to their own body image, U.S. researchers reported.
The more a woman perceived herself as less attractive, the more likely she was to report a decline in sexual desire or activity over the past 10 years.
. . Nearly 21% of the women could not think of even one attractive feature and reported an overall sense of dissatisfaction with their bodies. The women especially disliked their stomachs or abdomens, hips, thighs and legs.
. . Two-thirds of the women said they either desired sex less than 10 years before or that they had sex less often.
. . But the women reported that when they did have sex, there was a high level of enjoyment, with 72% saying they were physically and emotionally satisfied in their sexual relationships.
The funnier the cartoon, the more the reward center in the women's brain responded, unlike men who seemed to expect the cartoons to be funny from the beginning, the researchers said. The team studied the response of 10 women and 10 men to 70 black-and-while cartoons, asking them to rate the jokes for how funny they were. While the volunteers were looking at the cartoons their brains were being studied with an MRI to determine what parts of the brains were responding.
. . In large part, men and women had similar responses to humor. In women, however, some areas were more active than in men. These included the left prefrontal cortex, which the researchers said suggests a greater emphasis on language and executive processing, and the nucleus accumbens, or NAcc, which is part of the reward center.
. . Reiss said he was surprised at the NAcc finding. The researchers theorized that because women were being more analytical they weren't necessarily expecting the cartoons to be as funny as did the men. Then, when they saw the punch line, the reward center lit up, indicating something pleasant and unexpected.
Nov 7, 05: More than 50,000 people flocked to the opening day of a racy sex festival in southern China in a sign the conservative nation is shedding its sexual taboos. The three-day event, which began on Saturday in the southern province of Guangzhou, featured lingerie shows and adult toy exhibitions as experts and local authorities sought to convey information about the dangers of unsafe sex. Other cities are planning similar festivals.
. . Experts worry that sex education in China has fallen behind over the past 25 years as economic development changed people's attitudes about sex. In one of many recent studies, the average age of first sexual experience for most Chinese had dropped to 18 from 22 only a few years ago.
. . Xu said a lack of classroom education and general ignorance about safe sex was one reason that HIV/AIDS and venereal diseases were spreading in China. The government estimates China has 840,000 HIV-positive cases, although a new survey is now being carried out. About 30% have been infected through unsafe sex, and that figure has been rising steadily, prompting calls from health experts for 100-percent condom use programs throughout China.
Oct 27, 05: Scientists have found the gene responsible for controlling a first key step in the creation of new life.
. . The HIRA gene is involved in the events necessary for the fertilization that take place once a sperm enters an egg. Faults in this gene might explain why some couples struggle to get pregnant despite having healthy sperm, say the researchers. It may be worth screening infertile couples to see if they have a faulty version of HIRA, experts suggested.
. . Dr Tim Karr, from the University of Bath, said: "All sexually reproducing animals do the same kind of DNA 'dance' when the DNA from the mother's egg cell and the father's sperm cell meet for the first time."
. . When the sperm enters the egg, its DNA has to undergo a complete transformation so that it can properly join with the female DNA to form a genetically complete new life. Sperm makes this change by swapping the type of 'packing material, known as histone proteins, it contains. The result is called the male pronucleus, which can then combine with the female pronucleus. The process is controlled by the HIRA gene.
COMMENTARY By Arthur Caplan, Ph.D.
. . There may be a sillier strategy for dealing with sex among teens than promoting the choice of "abstinence-only-until-marriage", but I am not quite sure what it is. Not only is such an approach contradicted by everything that medicine and science know about teens and sex, but it flies directly in the face of everything all ordinary Americans know about teens and sex.
. . Recent surveys show that 70% of U.S. teens have engaged in oral sex by the time they reach 18, and more than 45% have had intercourse at least once. More than 70% of young women and 80% of young men approve of premarital sex, according to a study published recently in the Review of General Psychology.
. . A recent study found that teens who took pledges of virginity as part of abstinence-only sex ed classes ultimately had STD rates similar to other young people and were less likely to use contraception or other forms of protection when they did become sexually active.
. . I am completely against abstinence-only sex ed programs for three reasons: there is no evidence at all that they work; common sense says they have no chance of working; and it is not clear that ethically they send the right message to young people.
. . More than a billion dollars have been spent to support these programs.
Oct 25, 05: Women often ask for testosterone, the male sex hormone that many women think will give them their old sex drive back, or boost it to new levels. Why or how it works is still not clear. Women’s libidos are a lot more complicated than men’s. While a man might be aroused by a glance at Pamela Anderson, women need a lot more: a healthy relationship, a healthy body and a healthy mind. In other words, a little pill may not do it.
. . But for some women, a dose of testosterone is the best option. Unfortunately, almost no testosterone treatments designed for women are currently on the market. Most of the choices available—shots, patches or pellets injected under the skin—were made for men, even though they have 10 to 20 times more testosterone than the average woman. Doctors have to guess at what the right dose of testosterone should be for women. "One-fifth of all the prescriptions written for testosterone products branded for men are actually written for women."
Oct 25, 05: Women feel more pain than men, studies have shown. New research reveals one reason why. Women have more nerve receptors, which causes them to feel pain more intensely than men. On average, women have 34 nerve fibers per square centimeter of facial skin. Men average just 17.
. . "Because women have more nerve receptors, they may experience pain more powerfully than men, requiring different surgical techniques, treatments or medicine dosages.
Oct 8, 05: Do you always get what you ask for? Swedish researchers showed a pair of female faces to 120 volunteers for 2 seconds and then asked them to choose which one they thought was more attractive. The researchers then asked the volunteers to explain their choice.
. . The trial was repeated 15 times for each volunteer, using different pairs of faces. but in three of the trials the faces were secretly switched after a decision had been made.
. . Surprisingly, not only were a large number of the volunteers oblivious to the switch when ultimately allowed to take a longer look at their choice, they were actually able to gave detailed explanations for why they preferred the face that, indeed, they had actually rejected.
. . It would be asking for an apple and then explaining exactly why you wanted the banana you got instead. The researchers call the phenomenon "choice blindness."
Sept 29, 05: A new study shows female barn swallows keep shopping around even after mating. And these females aren't looking for good providers or even good company. They want only the best-looking birds. For barn swallows, good looks equals a nice red breast and belly, Safran and colleagues report. And the equivalent of a little hair dye serves them well.
. . If the male's red breast is not as dark as other males, the female is more likely to secretly mate with another male, they found. Some unfortunate males even rear an entire nest of some other male's young, Safran's team found.
. . For their experiment, Safran and colleagues allowed 30 pairs of swallows to mate naturally and lay eggs. They then stole the eggs so the birds would mate again, and they tested the eggs to determine paternity.
. . Before the females chose their mates for their second clutch, Safran captured the males and either painted their throats, breast and belly feathers with a red marker, left them alone, or used a clear marker in case smell or some other factor played a role. Then she let the pairs breed again and DNA-tested the resulting chicks.
. . All the females remained socially paired with their original mates, but also copulated with other males. The males with red marker enhancements fathered many more chicks than in the first round of mating. Males whose color was unchanged fathered the same number or fewer chicks than they had in their first nests.
. . Bird experts believe that feathers reflect a bird's overall health, and those of their young.
Sept 14, 05: Female greater horseshoe bats like to keep it all in the family --they share mates with their mothers and even their grandmothers-- but, somehow they avoid incest, a new study reports. "She won't mate with her father. But she will mate with her mother's partner --but only when her mother has switched partners."
. . Although this behavior sounds strange --and leads to some very confusing family trees-- Rossiter suggests that it evolved to tighten relationships within the colony. "One possibility is that by increasing kinship, sharing sexual partners strengthens social ties and promotes greater levels of cooperation within the colony." In some cases, a female and her maternal half-aunt were also half-sisters on their father's side. It's pretty confusing.
. . This study was part of one of the world's longest-running wild animal population studies. The researchers used genetic analysis techniques to draw up the family trees for over 450 bats in the attics of Woodchester Mansion in Gloucestershire, UK.
. . For most of the year, female horseshoe bats live in a colony separate from the males, which generally live off on their own. The females raise the young together in a large group, presumably to keep warm and for safety reasons. But once a year, the females and males all get together for a wild mating season during which one male may be shared by several generations of females.
. . So how did these bats start this kinky behavior? One answer could be that generations ago the female colony all made the trip to the same mating site. Once there, the females may have shared information with each other about which of the males were good mates.
. . "Presumably it's through some sort of olfactory sense --they smell out who their relatives are." Animals in the wild generally tend to avoid inbreeding, although researchers aren't entirely sure they know how this works. One thing they do know is that incest can cause the expression of harmful genetic information.
. . Each gene is made up of two alleles, which come in dominant and recessive versions. If an individual has a combination of the two versions, they're heterozygous for this gene. If they have either two copies of the dominant, or two copies of the recessive, they're homozygous for the gene.
. . If an individual is heterozygous, the dominant allele wins out and gets expressed. This is good for the individual if the recessive allele is harmful. Incest creates an increase of homozygous parings in a population, making it more likely that a harmful recessive-recessive could occur. "The expression of these harmful alleles can lead to lowered reproduction and survival, known as inbreeding depression."
Sept 8, 05: Three quarters of British women over 40 reckon sex is better now than it was in their 20s. A survey found that 77% enjoyed sex more in their 40s --and rather than slowing down, 45% had a greater sexual appetite than when younger. 69% of the women surveyed felt more sexually adventurous than ever before and 66% felt more confident about their bodies than in their younger days.
. . The survey brought bad news for would-be toy-boys, with just 33% of women over 40 preferring a younger man, compared to 51% going for someone their own age.
Sept 7, 05: A bill that would allow same-sex couples to marry won final passage on y'day in the California Assembly, marking the first time a state legislature in the United States has endorsed gay marriage.
. . The bill by San Francisco Democratic Assemblyman Mark Leno passed by a 41-35 vote, with the help of four Democrats who had not voted for it when the Assembly had previously taken up the legislation. The state Senate backed the same bill last week.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has previously opposed gay marriage, issued a statement saying he believes that the issue is best decided in the courts.
. . Massachusetts lawmakers are to vote next week on a proposed amendment to ban same-sex marriage, but the proposal is not expected to succeed.
August 30, 2005: CBS: Bisexual men aren't fully bisexual, a controversial study suggests. In the study, bisexual men reported being sexually aroused by erotic videos of both men and women. But a device attached to their genitals told another story.
. . Last year, Bailey, Rieger, and others published a study in which they measured female sexual arousal. They concluded that women —-whether they identify themselves as homosexual or heterosexual-— have bisexual arousal patterns. That's because the genitals of women participating in the study became aroused when they watched porn, regardless of whether it featured men or women.
. . The men viewed an 11-minute nonsexual film, followed by several two-minute sexual films and another neutral film. The sex films depicted either men having sex with men or women having sex with women. The men indicated how aroused they felt by moving a lever up or back. Their genital arousal was measured by an elastic device attached to their penises.
. . Homosexual men said they were aroused by the male/male porn but not the female/female porn. So did their genital measurements. Heterosexual men said they were aroused by the female/female porn — and their genital measurements agreed. Bisexual men said they were turned on by both sets of videos — but their genitals responded to one or the other, not to both. "The majority of bisexual men got aroused to men and only to men", Rieger says.
. . Kritzer, too, questions the study design. She points to the large number of men who were not genitally aroused during the study. "About a third of the people had no response to any of the porn, whether they identified as gay, straight, or bisexual", she says. "The researchers said this means they had no response, so throw this data out. Yet they said that when bisexual men did not respond to all of the videos, it meant they were gay or straight." None of the study's flaws is fatal, says Rodriguez Rust. The problem is with Kritzer and Bailey's interpretation.
Aug 13, 05: Successful couples are said to have chemistry, but a study by an Oxford graduate suggests that dating may actually have more to do with physics. Richard Ecob adapted a system for modelling atoms in radioactive decay to investigate how we look for partners. He found that "super daters", people who have many short relationships, have a good effect on others' lives. This is because they break up weak couples, forcing their victims to find better relationships.
Canada's parliament passed the same-sex marriage bill in July, ending nearly four years of debate and political maneuvering that at times divided both the House and the country. MPs voted 158 to 133 in favor of the legislation, following a Supreme Court of Canada ruling that changes to the marriage laws from "a man and a woman" to "two people" would not contravene the country's constitution.
Aug 8, 05: Malaysian Muslim men are allowed four wives under Islamic law, but a survey has found that the majority are satisfied with just one spouse, a report said.
The poll of 13,000 Malaysians showed that nearly 90% of Muslim men are one-woman men, while only 5% have two wives and 4.3% have three.
. . While bigamy is outlawed for non-Muslims, the survey, carried out last year to track behavioral habits that could lead to HIV infections, found that 4% of Chinese men an 3% of Indian men had two wives.
. . Islam's Sharia laws vary from state to state in Muslim-majority Malaysia, but they generally require the signed consent of a man's first wife before he is allowed to take a second.
Aug 3, 05: Men whose masculinity is challenged become more inclined to support war or buy an SUV, a new study finds. Their attitudes about gays change, too.
. . Cornell University researcher Robb Willer used a survey to sample undergraduates. Participants were randomly assigned feedback that indicated their responses were either masculine of feminine. The women had no discernable reaction to either type of feedback in a follow-up survey.
. . But the guys's reactions were "strongly affected"."I found that if you made men more insecure about their masculinity, they displayed more homophobic attitudes, tended to support the Iraq war more and would be more willing to purchase an SUV over another type of vehicle", said Willer said. "There were no increases [in desire] for other types of cars." Those who had their masculinity threatened also said they felt more ashamed, guilty, upset and hostile than those whose masculinity was confirmed, he said.
Aug 3, 05: A grand jury documented assaults on children by more than 50 Philadelphia-area priests and harshly criticized Roman Catholic Church leaders for shielding abusers, but brought no criminal charges, a newspaper reported. The decision reflected legal and factual hurdles facing prosecutors, including the expiration of the statute of limitations in virtually every case.
. . The report said archdiocese officials often made only a cursory inquiry into complaints by children or parents. It said church officials did not contact police and rarely, if ever, advised victims to do so.
A heatwave in China has led to a rash of nude swimming this summer, sparking a debate over whether such skinny-dips should be allowed.
July 27, 05: Vienna's Leopold Museum has invited the public to come in the nude on Friday to view an exhibition of erotic works by Austrian masters like Gustav Klimt and Egon Schiele, a spokeswoman said. "At this time of the year, people prefer the beach to museums because there they get to take their clothes off. So we thought they find this an attractive proposition."
July 25, 05: A sculpted and polished phallus found in a German cave is among the earliest representations of male sexuality ever uncovered, researchers say. The 20cm-long, 3cm-wide stone object, which is dated to be about 28,000 years old, was buried in the famous Hohle Fels Cave near Ulm. [There were still Neandertals around!]
. . Current evidence indicates that the Swabian Jura of southwestern Germany was one of the central regions of cultural innovation after the arrival of modern humans in Europe some 40,000 years ago.
[Meanwhile, in the dark ages...] In Alabama, it's illegal to "produce, distribute or otherwise sell sexual devices that are marketed primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs."
July 12, 05: Most Italians think nude sunbathing is perfectly natural and don't mind crossing paths with bottomless beach-goers --even when those bottoms are unsightly, survey results said. While topless sunbathing is widely practiced in Italy, bottoms are usually required.
. . The Italian Naturalist Federation said a poll it commissioned from a mainstream media outlet found nearly 70% of those surveyed said they would sunbath nude if everyone else did it. More than 80% said nudism was not erotic, but natural.
Women were more frequently bothered by nude sunbathing than men. Just over 40% of women said they did not like seeing other naked females on the beach, while just 5% of men shared their opinion about nude women. The survey found nearly two-thirds of men said they weren't bothered by nude male sunbathers.
. . When it came to unattractive or "brutto" sunbathers, most of those surveyed in the country that champions physical beauty said they didn't object to seeing them naked either. Only about 16% said they were vexed by unattractive women nudists and 9.7% objected to unsightly men.
July 7, 05: An Ohio man with the breasts of a woman has been charged with indecent exposure after he was spotted shirtless. "He's a guy. He's real tall, and he's got a full set of breasts", assistant Cincinnati solicitor Kevin Donovan told the Cincinnati Post.
. . Jerome Mason, 23, was spotted shirtless by police at 1:00 am on April 22. Since then, the 6-foot, 200-pound man's case has floundered in the courts because he has failed to meet with his court-appointed attorney. But public defender Michael Welsh said the charges really ought to be dropped. "It's not illegal for a man to expose his breasts", Welsh told the Cincinnati Post. "It's also not even technically illegal for a woman to expose her breasts (in public)", he said.
July 6, 05: New research has found that women report more pain throughout their lifetime. Compared to men, women feel pain in more areas of their body and for longer durations. "The bottom line seems to be that women are suffering more than men", said Ed Keogh, a psychologist from the Pain Management Unit at the University of Bath.
. . In one study, Keogh and his collaborators interviewed patients in a pain management program. Although the program reduced chronic pain for all the subjects, in follow up exams the women in the group reported pain levels as high as before the treatment --whereas the improvements in the male group were longer lasting.
. . In another set of experiments, volunteers were asked to put their arms in an ice water bath. Men were found to have higher pain thresholds (the point where they began to feel pain), as well as higher pain tolerances (the point where the pain became too much).
. . With the notion of gender distinctions in pain perception becoming more widely accepted, scientists are now asking why men and women suffer differently, and whether treatments need to be made sex-specific. Part of pain perception is clearly dependent on the genetic and biochemical differences between men and women. Women report varying pain experiences throughout their menstrual cycle, when estrogen levels vary widely. Moreover, pregnant women --who often have elevated estrogen levels-- can tolerate the intense physical pain of childbirth.
. . Testosterone may have a similar protective effect for men, Keogh said. But he also thinks that the cultural differences between men and women are important as well. In contrast, men typically think only of the sensation itself, which may explain their higher thresholds and tolerances. Women who concentrate on the emotional aspects of their pain may actually experience more pain as a result.
July 5, 05: A dangerous underground of "pump parties" has sprung up around the country catering to transgender individuals seeking more feminine features through cheap --sometimes deadly-- black-market silicone injections, experts say. Two San Diego transgender women were near death on Friday after unlicensed practitioners injected them with liquid silicone at a "pump party" five days earlier, officials said.
. . At pump parties, groups of patients typically receive silicone injections from an unlicensed, untrained person who is often using non-medical silicone. Costs tend to run between $200 and $1,000 per treatment, police said. Industrial-grade silicone, floor products and sealers, and a host of contaminants including motor oil and paraffin have all turned up in post-party patients.
. . The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has prohibited direct injection of silicone since 1992. Medical-grade silicone now can be inserted into bodies legally only if it is encapsulated in a sac --as in a breast implant-- and does not come into contact with tissue.
. . The black market silicone and contaminants can trigger an immune system reaction that results in respiratory arrest --as happened to the two San Diego women, police said. Doctors warn that there is no safe way to inject silicone.
July 4, 05: Hong Kongers usually rank near-bottom of the international list of lovers and a social worker may have discovered why: they don't know what to do between the sheets. Grace Wong of the southern Chinese territory's Family Planning Association said the number of inquiries at her agency rocketed 50% last year, with many clients claiming to have no idea how to have sex. "Some married couples are not familiar with their body parts", Wong said. "They don't know where their sex organs are. "They don't know the physical changes associated with sexual response, like males getting an erection", she added.
. . Regular international surveys by condom manufacturers have found the city is less than amorous. Durex's last poll found Hong Kongers get it together 79 times a year, while the French manage it the most, at 137 times. Another poll even suggested Hong Kong men prefer to go to work rather than have sex.
. . The frenetic work ethic in the former British colony is usually blamed for interfering with the course of nature. But the paper said sociologists believe Chinese sensibilities, which deem discussion of sex even in school as taboo, are responsible.
June 28, 05: Canada's Parliament today approved legislation to allow same sex marriages across the country, despite fierce opposition from conservative politicians and religious groups. Legislators voted by 158-133 to support the bill, which makes Canada only the third country in the world after Belgium and the Netherlands to permit gay marriages. Most Canadian provinces already allow same-sex marriages, and Canada has become a popular destination for gay and lesbian couples from countries where these unions are banned.
. . The Liberal government said it had to draw up the legislation after courts in eight of the country's 10 provinces ruled that a ban same-sex marriages was unconstitutional because it violated Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
. . "We are a nation of minorities and in a nation of minorities, it is important that you don't cherry pick rights. A right is a right and that is what this vote tonight is all about", Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin said shortly before the vote.
Gay and lesbian viewers now have two full-fledged networks of their own. Logo, MTV Networks' long-planned basic-cable channel, launched June 30th in 10 million digital cable homes in 22 top cities.
. . Here!, which features R-rated movies and dramas that don't shy from sexuality, is earning nearly $1 million a month in subscription fees. Because Logo is free, it's attracting more notice, though its content is far tamer.
For men with low sperm counts, sexual abstinence --but only for a day-- increases semen quality. More prolonged sexual abstinence may actually reduce sperm numbers, a new study indicates.
June 20, 05: Women may be able to fool their partners by faking an orgasm but a brain scanner will catch them every time, a conference heard. Researchers at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands have used scans to show that different areas of the brain are stimulated during an orgasm but are not activated when a woman fakes it.
. . When women genuinely achieved an orgasm, areas of the brain involved in fear and emotion were deactivated. Those areas stayed alert however when women were faking it. The researchers also found that the cortex, which is linked with consciousness, is active during a fake orgasm but not during the real thing. "The deactivation of these very important parts of the brain might be the most important thing necessary to have an orgasm. It means that if you are fearful or at a very high level of anxiety, then it is very difficult to have sex because you really have to let yourself go."
. . The brain scans for men during orgasm were less conclusive. They had trouble getting reliable results from the study on men because the scanning machine needs activities lasting at least two minutes to record an activity. But the men's climaxes didn't last anywhere near that long, meaning he could not reliably compare the scans before climax and during. [not getting TO it, but the org itself...]
. . However, for women, the results were clear.
Female birds have a special song/call for when her mate is far enough away for other males to mate with her! [Talk about a booty-call!]
It's probably a "four-year itch", not seven --the primordial birth spacing --time to again select a mate for new offspring --not necessarily the same choice as last time.
June 16, 05: In Japan, nearly half of all 17-year-old girls have had sex, up from around 17% in 1990. For boys, the figure is 40%, nearly double the 1990 figure, according to their Health Ministry data. This has touched off debate about sex education in a nation where pornography is widely sold, but taboos about frank discussions of sex linger.
. . Many Japanese teens have a high turnover in partners --as many as three or more a year-- but believe they're safe from sexual diseases because they only have one partner at a time.
June 16, 05: A German court has upheld the right of Wal-Mart staff in Germany to flirt at work. The court had found the clauses, including one banning "any kind of communication that could be interpreted as sexual", contradicted German labor law, in its ruling on the case brought by Wal-Mart's works council.
June 9, 05: Nearly 40% of French men told a recent survey that they would, science permitting, like to become pregnant. 38% of the more than 500 fathers of children up to seven interviewed by phone said they would like, or would have liked, to be the one to carry their offspring to term. A slightly higher percentage of women respondents liked the idea of their spouses taking on the nine-month job.
June 8, 05: A German city is rushing to install a series of drive-in wooden "sex garages" in time for next year's Soccer World Cup and an expected boom in the local sex trade, a city official said. Dortmund, one of 12 cities to host World Cup matches, is anxious to keep prostitutes and their clients off the streets by providing them with discreet places to do business. Experts estimate as many as 40,000 prostitutes may travel to Germany to offer their services.
. . Prostitution is legal in Germany in designated areas. "In Dortmund we have an official red light district on the outskirts, but there is a problem. There is not enough space for everyone to park." Dortmund plans to arrange the Dutch-designed huts, which have been introduced in the city of Cologne, another World Cup venue, in an area with condom machines and snack bar.
June 7, 05: Women who have difficulty reaching orgasm can blame it on their genes. Like heart disease, anxiety and depression, scientists discovered in a study of 1,397 pairs of female twins that there is a genetic basis to female orgasm.
. . "We found that between 34% and 45% of the variation in ability to orgasm can be explained by underlying genetic variation." Between 12-15% of women don't have orgasms compared to about 2% of men. Males are also quicker at 2.5 minutes, while the average time it takes for a woman to reach orgasm is 12 minutes, according to Spector.
. . "Why is there this biological difference between the sexes? The fact that some of this is heritable suggests that evolution has a role."
. . 32% said they never or infrequently had an orgasm. But 14% said they always had an orgasm during intercourse. "More women were able to orgasm during masturbation, with 34% always reaching orgasm." The frequency of orgasm was higher for identical twins with a partner and by themselves which suggests a clear genetic impact. Many genes could be involved.
. . If scientists could discover which genes and how they function, it could potentially pave the way for future therapies to treat women who cannot reach orgasm. But Spector said orgasm is a very complex process which is poorly understood. Little research has been done because it is still a taboo subject.
June 4, 05: Altering a single gene in a fruit fly can turn its sexual orientation around, causing male flies to lose interest in females, and females to display male mating rituals to other females, according to a study published in the journal Cell
. . The research by Barry J. Dickson and Ebru Demir of the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology of the Austrian Academy of Sciences into the workings of a "switch gene" touched on the scientific debate about whether genes or environment determine human sexual orientation.
. . Male courtship in Drosophila is an elaborate ritual and largely a fixed-action pattern easily identified by the researchers. The male taps the female with his forelegs, sings a specific courtship song by extending and vibrating a wing, licks her genitalia, and then curls his abdomen for copulation.
. . Through gene splicing, they were able to swap the orientation of male and female fruit flies they studied in an observation chamber. "Forcing female splicing in the male results in a loss of male courtship behavior and orientation", the study said. "More dramatically, females ... spliced in the male mode behave as if they were males: they court other females. "A complex innate behavior is thus specified by the action of a single gene, demonstrating that behavioral switch genes do indeed exist."
. . Female flies with the male version of the gene also made amorous advances toward male flies expressing female pheromones, while altered male flies were more likely to court other males.
June 2, 05: Scientists have discovered it is surprisingly easy to reverse sex roles in fruit flies. By changing just one gene, they can make a female perform the courtship ritual of the male. She'll sing, vibrate her wings and lick a potential female suitor. But it's all for naught, as nature doesn't let the flip-flopped sexual advances proceed to any productive conclusion.
. . Previous studies found that a single gene controls courtship in fruit flies. Males have a form of the gene that produces a protein, dubbed "fruitless", that governs their complex rituals designed to impress a mate. It also is responsible for the males' preference to breed with females. In females, the gene produces a different form of the fruitless protein.
Female flies with the male version of fruitless behave like males. They courted other females, just as a normal male would. The sexually altered females also danced for certain males -- those that express female pheromones.
. . It does figure into on an ongoing debate about whether a single gene can profoundly affect behavior or if behavior is too complex to be reduced to the influence of any one gene. [AND the debate about how genes affect sexuality! These were --more or less-- "born gay"!]
June 2, 05: All he was asking, says Mohammad al-Zulfa, was that his fellow legislators think — just think — about studying the possibility of allowing women — not all of them, just some — to drive. But circumspect though he was, he has touched off a fierce controversy, pitting women's rights campaigners against conservatives who believe that lifting Saudi Arabia's ban on women drivers is un-Islamic and will lead to permissiveness.
. . There have been calls to kick al-Zulfa off the Consultative Council, the all-male legislative arm appointed by the king, and even to strip him of Saudi citizenship. His cell phone rings with furious calls accusing him of encouraging women to commit the double sins of discarding their veils and mixing with men.
=====
May 27, 05: A species of Alpine cricket has proved itself to be an uncharming lothario who can mate every 18 seconds, European scientists report. While most crickets serenade their lady friends before making a move, this particular species is somewhat brutish, often causing injury during sex. Anonconotus alpinus will sneak up on any passing female, clamping her violently with his sharp pincers. What's more, he is ready for action again after only seconds of rest.
. . "Pre-copulatory song usually acts as a barrier to cross-species mating because females aren't attracted to the song of another species." But alpinus males do not bother with any such formalities: they will apparently leap on any unsuspecting cricket --male or female. So Dr Vahed and his colleague Gilles Carron would like to spend more time in the alps working out just how alpinus avoids wasting time and energy on inter-species liaisons.
Seven states have anti-cohabitation laws: North Carolina, Virginia, West Virginia, Florida, Michigan, Mississippi and North Dakota. Four other states --Illinois, Minnesota, South Carolina and Utah-- have laws against fornication, defined as unmarried sex. The ACLU argues all these statutes are unconstitutional, citing a 2003 Supreme Court decision striking down a Texas anti-sodomy law, which established a broad constitutional right to sexual privacy.
. . In Washington state, Gov. Christine Gregoire signed a law in April 05 that allows pregnant women to divorce their husbands.
Soon to be a movie?: A wronged Israeli wife, whose husband made love to his secretary in a bachelor hideaway, quenched her lust for revenge by indulging in her own extra-marital dalliances in the same rented apartment.
. . The woman hired a private detective to track her cheating husband down to a flat he rented on the sly to pursue his affair. Striking back, the woman found the keys to the flat, made a copy and arranged her own sex trysts in the same property.
. . Fearing that his *mistress was betraying him with *another man after one day discovering a bunch of roses, the cuckolded husband filed for divorce so he could marry his mistress, despite his repentant wife begging him not to leave.
. . A judge ordered the couple to reflect on their future together.
May 22, 05: Couples desperate to produce a son could boost their chances if one or both of them switches to a "masculine" profession such as engineering or accountancy, a report said. Equally, those keen for daughters are more likely to have success if they hold down "caring" jobs such as teaching or nursing, a British study has discovered. The conclusion comes from a survey of 3,000 people from various professions by the London School of Economics.
. . For engineers and other "systemisers", the ratio is 140 boys per 100 girls. Nurses and the like produce around 135 girls for every 100 boys, the study found. Kanazawa predicted that a physicist and a mathematician would be the most likely pairing to produce a boy, while a therapist and a chat show host would be odds-on favorites for a daughter.
A Chinese city has taken its fight on corruption to the bedroom, ordering officials to own up to extramarital affairs, in the hope of keeping public money out of the hands of mistresses, Xinhua news agency reported. China has tried assorted checks and balances to curb corruption which has returned alongside market reforms after being virtually wiped out when the Communist Party swept to power in 1949.
May 16, 05: A woman isn't legally responsible for injuries her boyfriend suffered while they were having consensual sex more than a decade ago, a state appeals court ruled today. The man, identified only as John Doe in court papers, filed suit against the woman in 1997, claiming she was negligent when she suddenly changed positions, landed awkwardly on him and fractured his penis.
. . The man underwent emergency surgery in September 1994, "endured a painful and lengthy recovery" and has suffered from sexual dysfunction that hasn't responded to medication or counseling, the appeals court said.
. . Although the woman may have exposed her boyfriend to "some risk of harm", the three-judge panel said her conduct during the sexual encounter wasn't "wanton or reckless" and can't support a lawsuit.
May 17, 05: Women teachers at a school in the Indian city of Bhubaneswar, India, have been told to wear aprons so that senior male students do not get distracted by their bodies, Indian newspapers reported. Women's groups are outraged. "What does the principal expect? Should women teachers come to classes clad in burqas?"
An impotent Italian man who kept his problem a secret from his wife until after their wedding must pay her damages for 'eroding' her right to have a family, Italy's Supreme Court has ruled. She demanded damages, saying she had been robbed of her "right to sexuality" and the promise of a family.
Leonard Shlain's book: Sex, Time and Power: How Women's Sexuality Shaped Human Evolution. What makes humans different from every other species? Shlain claims that it's our ability to plan for the future (and envision our own deaths) and it's women who figured it out first. The apple of knowledge was a direct consequence of hormonal cycles, loss of estrus, and the need for iron.
May 10, 05: A compound taken from male sweat stimulates the brains of gay men and straight women but not heterosexual men, raising the possibility that homosexual brains are different, researchers in Sweden reported. It also strengthens the evidence that humans respond to pheromones --compounds known to affect animal behavior, especially mating behavior, but whose role in human activity has been questioned. The pheromone in question is a derivative of testosterone called 4,16-androstadien-3-one, or AND.
. . In a previous study, Ivanka Savic of Karolinska University Hospital in Stockholm and colleagues found that the hypothalamus region of the brain became activated when women smelled AND and when men smelled a corresponding compound in female urine called EST.
. . This time, they compared the reactions of 12 women, 12 heterosexual men and 12 homosexual men. They let them smell EST, AND, and ordinary odors such as lavender, and used positron emission tomography to watch their brain responses. "In contrast to heterosexual men, and in congruence with heterosexual women, homosexual men displayed hypothalamic activation in response to AND."
. . A region of the brain called the anterior hypothalamus responded most strongly --an area that in animals "is highly involved in sexual behavior." But other smells were processed the same in all three groups. "These findings show that our brain reacts differently to the two putative pheromones compared with common odors, and suggest a link between sexual orientation and hypothalamic neuronal processes", Savic's team wrote.
May 9, 2005: Scientists trying to sniff out biological differences between gay and straight men have found new evidence --in scent. It turns out that sniffing a chemical from testosterone, the male sex hormone, causes a response in the sexual area of gay men's brains, just as it does in the brains of straight women, but not in the brains of straight men. "It is one more piece of evidence ... that is showing that sexual orientation is not all learned", said Sandra Witelson, an expert on brain anatomy and sexual orientation at the Michael G. DeGroote School of Medicine.
May 9, 05: Love doesn't come cheap in Britain, where the typical date costs 200 pounds (295 euros, 375 dollars), according to a survey of some of the nation's 8.6 million "singletons". On average, ladies will spend 90 pounds on, for instance, a new outfit, a trip to the hairdresser, make-up and lingerie.
. . On average, the single British man or woman goes out on a date five times a year, with the Welsh the keenest date hunters, spending more on looking for that someone special in bars and clubs. London is the lonely hearts capital with 33% more single people than other parts of Britain, even though the cost of a date there is almost 50% more expensive.
. . Office romances are blossoming, with 42% of Britons saying they look for love at work. But 56% said they are most likely to meet their potential partner in a bar or club. Only 15% use modern techniques, such as Internet dating and speed dating, to pinpoint a partner.
Apr 25, 05: A Swedish lesbian couple who were thrown out of a Stockholm restaurant in 2003 for kissing won an appeal Monday against an earlier court ruling that cleared the restaurant owner of sexual discrimination. The Court of Appeals in Stockholm ordered restaurant owner Aziz Cakir to pay 50,000 crowns ($7,100) in damages and to cover the legal costs of Sweden's ombudsman against sexual discrimination, HomO, which filed the appeal.
. . Stockholm District Court cleared him of discrimination, a charge that can result in a year in jail, in the country's first test of legislation against sexual discrimination in the provision of goods and services. But HomO director Hans Ytterberg said the appeals court found the restaurant failed to prove "these two girls behaved in a way that would justify telling them to stop or telling them to leave the premises. The Court of Appeals has made it clear that discriminating on grounds of sexual orientation is a serious violation of people's rights and can cost you dearly. This will hopefully function as an effective deterrent."
Apr 23, 05: India manufactures more than 1 billion condoms annually. Only a quarter of them are used for sex, most of the others are used to make saris, toys and bathroom slippers, a newspaper reported.
. . The condoms are valuable to manufacturers because of the lubricant on them. Sari weavers place the condoms on their thread spools and the lubricant on the prophylactics is rubbed off on the thread, making it move faster through their sewing machines. Sari makers also turn the condom's inside out, place them on their fingers and use the high-quality lubricant to polish gold and silver threads used in the traditional Indian women's outfits.
Germany has an estimated 400,000 prostitutes, whose services are used 1.2 million times a day. (3 apiece).
. . The Hungarian Interior Ministry looks set to allow prostitutes to tout for business in shopping malls. The ministry is thinking of allowing dedicated shopping centers where prostitutes could strike deals for sex as long as they move to a place of their own to carry out the transaction. Hungary allows local governments to set so-called "zones of patience" for the country's up to 20,000 prostitutes, but no municipality has done so yet.
Apr 21, 05: Chinese men have no reason to feel inferior about the size of their penises, according to a Hong Kong study which showed local men measured up to others elsewhere in the world. The average length of their flaccid penises was 3.33 inches, which compared favorably with similar studies on other men overseas.
. . Germans have average lengths of about 3.4 inches, Israelis 3.27 inches, Turks 3.07 inches and Filippinos 2.89 inches. Italians were the longest at 3.54 inches, and Americans averaged 3.46 inches.
. . The study did not measure the penises when they were erect. [isn't this like measuring a car's speed-potential by measuring its speed around town?] It found that a man's height bore no relation to the length of his member, but those with higher body mass indexes, or fat content, appeared to have shorter penises.
Apr 15, 05: In a recent online poll conducted by Esquire magazine, 11,000 women in 15 countries were asked to rate Bush's sex appeal on a scale of one to 10, and America's commander-in-chief failed to register much more than a two. Women in Australia, Germany and the Netherlands were the harshest judges of George W.'s sexual allure, giving him an average rating of 1.4 each, Esquire said in its survey released earlier this week.
. . And while American women said it takes an average of 5.5 dates with a man before having sex with him, Swedish women said they would sleep with a man after 4 dates, the survey showed.
Apr 7, 05: Sex, cryptic crosswords and a good run could help ward off dementia and other degenerative conditions by stimulating new brain cells, an Australian researcher said. He said mental and physical exercise helped create and nurture new nerve cells in the brain, keeping it functional and warding off diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
Apr 7, 05: A girl in eastern India has been married to a dog in a bid to ward off tigers. Local people said the girl had developed abnormalities in her teeth which made her prone to "being devoured by a tiger".
Apr 6, 05: "Last year, we (Washington Post), along with several other news sources, wrote about the practice of "toothing", a growing fad in the U.K. in which strangers send each other pictures and messages through phones enabled with "Bluetooth" technology in order to meet for anonymous sex. With a range of about 10 meters, the idea was that people could spot each other on public transportation, as well as bars and restaurants, and hook up on the spot.
. . Too bad it's a hoax. Wired.com reported that one of the sources in its story came clean: "After first creating an online forum, the pranksters persuaded friends to fill the site with scores of salacious, but fictitious, stories." Maybe the hoax spawned the real deal. Not that we've ever gone toothing ..."
Women with a low waist to hip ratio and large breasts are roughly three times as likely to get pregnant as women with other body types, according to a study by Peter Ellison and Susan Lipson at Harvard University. This suggests western men's penchant for women with an hourglass shape may have some biological justification. Women with a relatively low waist-to-hip ratio and large breasts had about 30% higher levels of the female reproductive hormone estradiol than women with other combinations of body shapes.
. . Two of the team, Peter Ellison and Susan Lipson at Harvard University in the US, have previously shown that higher levels of estradiol are indeed related to higher fertility in women trying to get pregnant. "If there are 30% higher levels, it means they are roughly three times more likely to get pregnant."
. . Women who were extremely underweight or overweight were not included. Saliva samples taken from the women revealed that those with narrow waists and large breasts had on average 26% higher levels of the hormone 17-b-estradiol, than women of other shapes. In the middle of their menstrual cycle, this peaked at 37% higher levels than women in other groups.
. . Waist-to-hip ratio also had a strong effect on levels of another female hormone, progesterone. Jasienska, says that higher progesterone levels should also theoretically translate to increased fertility. However, large breast size was not significantly related to increased progesterone.
. . Jasienska says that a preference for low waist-to-hip ratios is a "universal feature" in psychological studies of men. "It was interesting to see what we observed in psychological studies has some biological background."
. . Maryanne Fisher, a psychologist at York University in Toronto, Canada, whose study of Playboy centerfolds over 50 years revealed a drift in Western men's tastes. She points out an ongoing debate over the relative importance of waist-to-hip ratio and body mass index (BMI) as features used by men to judge female attractiveness. She says women who have a "great" waist-to-hip ratio may not necessarily be attractive if they also have a high BMI. Fisher's study showed that over 50 years, men's preferences had moved from voluptuous to more androgenous models who had higher WHR but were thinner.
Apr 4, 05: One in five U.S. teenagers say they have engaged in oral sex, an activity that some adolescents view as not sex at all and certainly less risky than intercourse, a report said. The survey of 580 children with a mean age of 14-1/2 found 20% said they had engaged in oral sex, compared to 14% who said they had engaged in sexual intercourse.
. . In addition, one-third of the multi-ethnic 9th graders surveyed said they intended to have oral sex within the next six months and nearly one-fourth planned to have intercourse during the period. It was more common for boys to have performed oral sex on girls than vice versa, the report said. [!]
A lactating woman in Myanmar [Burma] has volunteered to breastfeed a pair of endangered Bengal tiger cubs recently born at a Yangon zoo and separated from their aggressive mother. One year ago, Myanmar's military government created the world's largest tiger reserve to protect its big cats, 250 of which remain in the wild.
Mar 30, 05: A new study using genetically modified yeast helps to settle the question: Sex is indeed beneficial. The experiment pitted a strain of yeast that reproduces sexually against a modified, asexual version of the same strain. Each grew and reproduced at the same rate, said Matthew Goddard of the University of Auckland.
. . Goddard and his colleagues raised the stakes, providing less food to the little critters. Under these conditions, those engaging in the ultimate act still managed a growth rate of 94% whereas the asexual strain only reached 80%.
Mar 31, 05: A Swedish bikini-style top for toddlers will be withdrawn from sale amid criticism from a Norwegian cabinet minister that bra-like clothing was inappropriate for small girls. "This is a terrible commercialization of childhood. Children are not women. Bikinis on small children are a way of linking children to sexuality." ~Norwegian Minister of Children and Family Affairs Laila Daavoey. [This is fine --I simply note the reverse-implication that wearing *more clothing is thot too sexy....]
Mar 29, 05: Many Americans are so sleepy that they are having problems in their marriages, making mistakes at work and even going without sex. The poll by the National Sleep Foundation found that 75% of adults frequently have a symptom of a sleep problem such as frequent waking during the night or snoring. But few believe they have a sleep problem and most ignore it. The survey of more than 1,500 adults found that 87% usually watched TV in the hour before going to bed, 47% usually had sex and 64% read.
. . Nearly a quarter of those in a marriage or relationship said they had sex less often or had lost interest in sex because they are too sleepy. The Foundation recommends that adults get between seven and nine hours of sleep a night but the survey found that Americans get an average of 6.9 hours.
. . More than a third of people who described themselves as poor sleepers said their intimate relationships were affected because they are too sleepy, compared to 8% of good sleepers.
Mar 24, 05: More than one-fifth of all 14-year-old girls in Britain have had sex with an average of three partners, but half of them regretted the experience, a survey revealed. The research for the teenage Bliss Magazine also found that 70% of all the girls asked said they needed more information about love and sex. The magazine surveyed 2,000 teenage girls across Britain with an average age of 14.5 years.
. . Despite their early sexual encounters, the vast majority of 14-year-olds still held on to old-fashioned values, with 94% dreaming of getting married by the age of 25 and 89% saying they wanted to tie the knot before having children. Also, 94% said love, affection and romance was more important to them than sex.
Mar 24, 05: Young people who make pledges of virginity begin having sex later and have fewer sexual partners. But oddly they are infected with sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) just as often, a new study found. One reason is that they are less likely to use condoms when the first enter the world of sex, scientists said. "We were surprised by the findings." If pledgers have infections for longer periods of time than non-pledgers, this is a reason for concern", said Bruckner.
. . Other findings in the study:
. . * Among virgins -- those who have not had vaginal intercourse -- male pledgers are four times more likely to have anal sex.
. . * Male and female pledgers are six times more likely to have oral sex than non-pledgers.
Mar 24, 05: Seven years of withholding sex went too far in the eyes of an Italian court, which ordered a Sicilian man to pay alimony to his wife for refusing conjugal relations. The highest Italian appeals court called the man's actions --or rather, inactions-- an "offence to her dignity", and said it constituted grounds for separation. The court also ordered him to pay alimony to his now former wife and their children, born when their marriage saw happier times, and carry the legal costs of the case. The behavior is a violation of article 143 of the civil code which imposes a duty of moral and material assistance between husband and wife, the court ruled.
Germany has an estimated 400,000 prostitutes, whose services are used 1.2 million times a day. (3 apiece)
Mar 24, 05: South Africa's jails watchdog and prison officials have locked horns in a public row over proposals to allow consensual sex behind bars. The Department of Correctional Services says criminals have no right to demand sex, but the Judicial Inspectorate of Prisons (JIP) said in a report this week that sex between inmates was a basic right and could help root out widespread rape and sexual abuse in the country's prisons.
. . The report followed a complaint by two male prisoners who were charged with misconduct by authorities after they were caught having sex. They appealed to the JIP --which oversees the Department of Correctional Services-- who ruled in their favor.
Mar 24, 05: Proposals to allow British parents having fertility treatment to choose the sex of their unborn baby split an influential group of lawmakers, reigniting the debate over "designer babies." Half of the committee's 11 members rejected the findings as "unbalanced and light on ethics."
. . Critics say sex selection would turn unborn babies into consumer items and could pave the way for parents choosing other characteristics such as hair or eye color. "On balance, we find no adequate justification for prohibiting the use of sex selection for family balancing", the report concluded.
. . Anti-cloning group Comment on Reproductive Ethics compared gender selection to the world of designer babies envisioned in Aldous Huxley's 1932 novel "Brave New World."
Mar 24, 05: When given the opportunity to choose the sex of their baby, women are just as likely to choose pink socks as blue, a new study shows. Of the 561 women who participated in the study, 229 said they would like to choose the sex of a future child. Among these 229 there was no greater for demand for boys or girls. However, the data showed that women who already had one or more children of one sex would prefer for their next child to be of the opposite sex to create gender balance.
. . There are two methods of sex selection being used in the United States today. One is sperm separation --the concept being that sperm with an X chromosome (for girls) weigh a little more than sperm with a Y chromosome (for boys). Because of this slight difference, the sperm can be sorted out and prepared for a simple insemination procedure. Sex selection by sperm separation has a success rate of about 90% for girls and about 70% for boys.
. . The other common method is pre-implantation genetic diagnosis, or PGD, which is a form of in vitro fertilization, where embryos are prepared in a test tube before implantation in a woman's uterus. Unlike traditional in vitro fertilization, doctors take a few cells from each prepared PGD embryo to determine its sex, and they only implant embryos of the desired sexes. This method has a success rate of nearly 100%, but is more expensive and much more physically intrusive for a woman.
. . Sex selection for non-medical reasons is banned in the United Kingdom --a decision that was favored by 80% of the population-- but there are currently no laws to stop American parents-to-be from employing the technology.
About half of the states allow first cousins to marry, according to stateline.org, a research site on state laws. (eg: their mothers are sisters)
Mar 17, 05: Marmosets who are fathers have a muted reaction to sexually available females --an unusual response among primates, scientists said. "It is a common notion that males are always interested in sex, regardless of their social status. But this study counters what has been seen in all other primates. I'm happy that we've finally found a species where, as parents, both females and males do the heavy lifting."
. . They exposed 30 male marmosets to the scent of ovulating females and found the 15 animals that were fathers had diminished hormonal responses and erections compared to the monkeys who were not fathers.
. . Marmosets live in groups of between three and a dozen individuals that share parenting responsibilities. Couples are monogamous, producing two sets of twins each year.
Mar 14, 05: A California Superior Court judge ruled that the state's ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional. The ruling stemmed from litigation over San Francisco's decision last year to allow gay marriage. Those weddings were ruled invalid by the California Supreme Court, but the top court asked a lower court to consider the broader issue.
State Sen. John Ford testified in a juvenile court hearing that he keeps two homes, living with two different women whose children he fathered. Ford said he lives some days with ex-wife Tamara Mitchell-Ford and the three children they had together. On others, he stays with his longtime girlfriend, Connie Mathews, and their two children.
Mar 7, 05: Some beetles are born with an imbalance rare in nature: They only have one testicle. A new study found that three major groups of beetles, all of the carabid family, lack the usual second testicle. While the beetles get along fine without it, they are violating a major rule in animal biology: bilateral symmetry, where each half of the body mirrors its opposite.
. . While some animals are radially symmetrical, like jellyfish and starfish, bilateral symmetry is by far the most popular body shape in the animal world. There are a few exceptions to the rule. Male fiddler crabs have one extra-large claw that they use to attract females and fight male competitors.
. . Organ absence, however, is less common. When it does occur, there is usually a good reason. For example, snakes only have one lung because of their extremely long and thin body shape, and most birds only have one functioning ovary, which may help optimize their bodies for flight. Male crickets provide more than just sperm to the female —-they also provide nutrition to the eggs with the inclusion of extra fluid from accessory glands.
Mar 7, 05: The tendency of some mothers to coddle their sons may be ingrained, at least in species where males compete for mates. A recent study of Iberian red deer on a research farm has shown that mothers produce more milk of higher growth-potential for a male calf than a female one. The reason appears to be a genetic advantage, seeing as healthier, stronger males will mate more often –-spreading the mother’s genes.
. . In equal circumstances, sons were not only given more milk, but the milk was also 3% higher in protein concentration than what females were given. "This is the first time in any mammal that it has been found a chemical difference between milk for sons and daughters." In many species, more males are born than females. In humans, the sex-ratio at birth is around 51.4%, or about 106 boys to every 100 girls. Having more sons at birth is thought to offset the fact that males have a higher mortality rate in most age ranges –-for deer and humans. On the farm, the males had twice the mortality rate of females during the nursing period. This is similar to what is reported in the wild.
. . The researchers found that smaller males –-those most susceptible to dying prematurely-– were not given proportionally more milk to help them catch up. And neither is the milk difference a response to the needs of a heavier son. When males and females of similar birth weights were compared, the males consistently received the better milk. "Their sons have a small chance of being the strongest, whereas their daughters are going to reproduce anyway."
. . In the case of elephant seals, male calves are so much larger than female calves, that mothers below a certain weight can only have daughters.
Mar 2, 05: The 2000 U.S. decennial census undoubtedly undercounted them, but it does provide substantial new information --specifically, on those gays and lesbians who live together as couples.
. . The census form asked respondents to classify any unrelated people in their household as a housemate, boarder, foster child, unmarried partner or other nonrelative. If the unmarried partner is reported to be of the same sex, that partner and the respondent are very likely gay or lesbian. [this is merely an assumption!] The census showed that 0.6% of men and 0.5% of women 18 years of age and older live together as same-sex unmarried partners. The data provide a good indication, also, of geographic distribution.
Feb 27, 05: An appeals court said a man can press a claim for emotional distress after learning a former lover had used his sperm to have a baby. But he can't claim theft, the ruling said, because the sperm were hers to keep.
. . Phillips accuses Dr. Sharon Irons of a "calculated, profound personal betrayal" after their affair six years ago, saying she secretly kept semen after they had oral sex, then used it to get pregnant. He said he didn't find out about the child for nearly two years, when Irons filed a paternity lawsuit. DNA tests confirmed Phillips was the father, the court papers state.
. . "She asserts that when plaintiff 'delivered' his sperm, it was a gift — an absolute and irrevocable transfer of title to property from a donor to a donee", the decision said. "There was no agreement that the original deposit would be returned upon request."
Feb 22, 05: [It's difficult to imagine what mental processes led to such an utterly stupid decision!! What could they think "privacy" means?! ] The U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal by a group of individuals who regularly use sexual devices and by two vendors who argued the case raised important issues about the scope of the constitutional right to sexual privacy.
. . The law prohibited the distribution of "any device designed or marketed as useful primarily for the stimulation of human genital organs." First-time violators can face a fine of up to $10,000 and as much as one year in jail. The law, adopted in 1998, allowed the sale of ordinary vibrators and body massagers that are not designed or marketed primarily as sexual aids. It exempted sales of sexual devices "for a bona fide medical, scientific, educational, legislative, judicial or law enforcement purpose."
. . Georgia and Texas are the only other states that restrict the distribution of sexual devices.
. . Attorneys for the American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites), representing those who challenged the law, argued that private, consensual sexual conduct among adults is constitutionally protected and beyond the reach of government regulation. The attorneys said the state did not contest the evidence that about 20% of all American women use a vibrator and at least 10% of sexually active adults use vibrators in their regular sex life.
Consensus is that office romance is on the rise due to an increase in the number of single workers (up 18% in the past decade, according to CNN) and the number of women --both married and single-- in the workplace.
Feb 21, 05: Six male penguins at a German zoo are proving stubbornly resistant to the advances of four females brought in from Sweden to tempt them into breeding. Of the ten male Humboldt penguins at the zoo in the northern port city of Bremerhaven, six have formed into 'homosexual' couples and have shown no interest in the females, making breeding an impossibility. So the zoo imported the four penguins from Sweden last month, full of hope that the new arrivals could 'turn' the males. But so far, the boys are remaining strictly with the boys.
. . The zoo's decision to draft in the Swedish 'temptresses' has prompted a furious reaction from gay and lesbian groups. A gay website in Austria has even launched a petition protesting against the treatment of the 'gay penguins', claiming it is "clear discrimination".
February 14: Do Opposites Attract? It's an age-old question, and a new study says the answer is "no." People tend to marry people with similar attitudes, religion and values, but similarity of personality appears to be the big factor in happy marriages. The 291 couples in the survey were married less than a year when it began and had dated for an average of three and a half years. "Once people are in a committed relationship, it is primarily personality similarity that influences marital happiness because being in a committed relationship entails regular interaction and requires extensive coordination in dealing with tasks, issues and problems of daily living. Whereas personality similarity is likely to facilitate this process, personality differences may result in more friction and conflict in daily life."
A plan by a German zoo to test the sexual appetites of a group of suspected homosexual penguins has sparked outrage among gay and lesbian groups, who fear zookeepers might try to force them to turn straight.
February 14: Do Opposites Attract? It's an age-old question, and a new study says the answer is "no." People tend to marry people with similar attitudes, religion and values, but similarity of personality appears to be the big factor in happy marriages.
Feb 9: People are always saying they want a mate with a sense of humor. The desire appears to mean totally different things to men and women, however. A study of 150 students at McMaster University in Canada found the women mean they want someone who makes them laugh. To a man, a sense of humor means someone who will laugh at his jokes. "Women choose men who produce humor 62 per cent of the time; conversely, men choose women who appreciate their humor 65 per cent of the time. When it comes to friendships, men like to be around women who produce humor. When it comes to sexual relationships, they only dig women who laugh at their jokes."
Feb 7, 05: A kissing crackdown [not funny]. Indonesia's government is considering a law banning unwed couples from pecking in public —-and harshly penalizing those who do. The head of the panel that drafted the law said Muslim beliefs about decency had influenced its decision. Neighboring countries with large Muslim populations, such as Malaysia and Brunei, already enforce laws defining "khalwat", or "close proximity", a crime akin to adultery for unchaperoned meetings between Muslim men and women!
. . This permits police raids on the homes of those suspected of living together out of wedlock. Pornography and public displays of "certain sensual body parts" would be outlawed and media, movies and songs censored.
. . Penalties for law breakers would range from fines as high as 300 million rupiah (US $32,800; euro 25,300) & to up to 10 years imprisonment!
Feb 7, 05: The concept of lovesickness might be more than just a flighty poetic notion, as it can burden the afflicted with genuine mental trauma, a British psychological study warned. In the most serious cases, the "disease" can prove fatal, the researchers said, calling for lovesickness to be taken more seriously by the medical profession.
"Many people are referred for help who cannot cope with the intensity of love, have been destabilised by falling in love, or who suffer on account of their love being unrequited."
. . Symptoms can include mania, such as elevated moods and inflated self-esteem, depression, or obsessive compulsive disorder, such as repeatedly checking for e-mails. The most serious cases could lead to suicide, the article said.
Feb 7, 05: The Seven Deadly Sins --anger, gluttony, sloth, envy, pride, lust and greed-- are out of date and should include cruelty, adultery and bigotry, the results of an opinion poll suggest. Greed is the only one of the seven that should remain a sin in today's Britain, according to the poll for BBC television's "Heaven and Earth" program.
. . Cruelty was ranked the worst sin by 39% of respondents, followed by adultery (11%), bigotry (8%), dishonesty (7%), hypocrisy (6%), greed (6%) and selfishness (5%).
. . Of the 1,001 adults interviewed, only 9% said they had not committed any of the sins. [yah, right]
. . 79% said they were guilty of anger --while 41% of men and 26% of women said lust was the sin they "most enjoy committing".
Feb 1, 05: Research reveals a semantically complex rule that seems to guide adolescent sexual conduct. Here goes: A girl is loath to date her old boyfriend's new girlfriend's old boyfriend. Adults don't generally adhere to any similar rule.
German sex workers have been on a par with any other employee since the government legalized prostitution in 2001. They are entitled to social security benefits and pay taxes
Jan 27, 05: A mystery chemical isolated from the sweat of young women seems to act as a romance booster for their older counterparts. When the researchers added the compound, Pheromone 10:13, to a perfume and gave it to older women, it made their partners more affectionate.
. . Joan Friebely of Harvard University and Susan Rako, a doctor from Newton, Massachusetts, studied the behavior of 44 post-menopausal women. Half were given a perfume with the compound while the remainder used a fragrance with a placebo or dummy chemical. Biologist Winnifred Cutler, the discoverer of the mystery pheromone, is keeping the identify of the compound a secret until patents have been granted to her organization.
Jan 24, 05: HOUSTON -Sometimes going undercover in Texas means no cover at all. Some suspects in prostitution investigations are confronting naked justice. A prosecutor says police are now allowed to undress in an effort to persuade suspected prostitutes to negotiate sex acts.
. . During a four-month sting operation that ended with 56 arrests in November, some undercover vice officers dropped their covers altogether. Knowing police were not allowed to disrobe meant sex workers could ask customers to undress before propositioning them to determine if a potential client was an undercover officer.
Jan 21, 05: The Illinois House passed a bill Jan. 11 adding "sexual orientation" to a list of protected classes. It now goes to the desk of Democratic Gov. Rod Blagojevich, who supports it and said he would sign it. The bill passed the House 65-51 and the Senate 30-27.
. . In Israel, the nation's supreme court ruled Jan. 10 that two lesbians who live together may adopt each other's children. The vote was 7-2 and overturned the rulings of two lower courts.
Jan 21, 05: Canada's Federal Justice Minister Irwin Cotler has said the government plans to introduce a bill in Parliament in February to legalize same-sex marriage across Canada, and hopes to have it passed into law by the summer.
. . Courts in seven provinces and one territory have already struck down the old definition of marriage. Ontario's Appeal Court ruled in June 2003 that the right to marry should be extended to same-sex couples --a decision that deemed Canadian law on traditional marriage unconstitutional.
. . Former Prime Minister Jean Chretien eventually flipped on the issue to support same-sex "marriage." He simply said society had "evolved." Prime Minister Martin and (former) prime minister Chretien both were Catholics.
. . Spain's Socialist government also is expected to legalize same-sex "marriage" this year, joining the Netherlands & the U.K..
Jan 20, 05: In a substantial shift from traditional policy, the spokesman for the Catholic Church in Spain has said it supports the use of condoms to prevent the spread of AIDS. The Catholic Church has repeatedly rebuffed campaigns for it to endorse the use of condoms in the fight against AIDS. The Vatican states that condoms, because they are a form of artificial birth control, cannot be used to help prevent the spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
. . There was no comment from the Vatican to the Spanish statement.
Jan 25, 05: South African authorities say they want to introduce special courts to prosecute people doing botched circumcisions in the Eastern Cape as they try to stamp out a practice that has left boys dead or mutilated.
. . Since 1995, more than 6,000 boys have been admitted to hospital in the province, with over 30 dying and 70 needing their genitals amputated after complications or infections.
Circumcision is seen as a crucial initiation step for young men among many of the tribes in Eastern Cape. "It also contributes to AIDS. We had one man who had done 161 boys with the same instrument."
. . South Africa has the highest number of people living with AIDS, with an estimated one in nine of the country's 45 million people believed to be infected.
Jan 19, 05: Diminutive Giant Australian Cuttlefish males have taken to pretending to be female to elbow out larger love rivals. With males outnumbering females four to one, smaller cuttlefish stand little chance of getting close to a mate. But they have been spotted changing color to mimic females and hiding their masculine fourth arms.
. . Scientists say they were then able to trick their way past male consorts to make their move, often successfully. "We found that female mimickers could successfully deceive the consort male and that they were able to position themselves near the female in 30 out of 62 attempts." Of the five males that tried to mate, one was rejected, one was unmasked by the "consort male", and three were successful. Two of the three successfully fathered offspring with the female.
. . But there were risks attached. Some of the larger males got a little confused --researchers saw 41 attempts to mate with the fake females.
Gay Sims (in the computer game) are not confined to expansion packs and add-ons. They're simply part of the game. If you're wondering why that's news, good for you.
Fewer gays are closeted, and the average age for "coming out" is now 16, down from the mid-20s in the 1970s. Knowing someone who is openly gay or lesbian is the single biggest predictor of tolerance on same-sex marriage.
Jan 13, 05: A new biography of Abraham Lincoln is making headlines with its assertion that the romantic leanings of the renowned 16th president of the United States were primarily homosexual.
. . "The Intimate World of Abraham Lincoln", by C.A. Tripp, has ruffled more than a few feathers among biographers, historians and readers alike by focusing on an issue that has been a subject of scholarly debate for years.
Early Jan, 05: Brazil, one of the Latin American countries hardest hit by the AIDS epidemic, will hand out a record 11 million condoms to prevent the spread of the disease during its erotically charged Carnival festival when casual sex rises.
. . With the pre-Lenten celebrations, the "Dress Yourself" campaign is to remind revelers a condom should be part of their outfit, no matter how little they wear to parades and parties renowned for semi-nude, hip-thrusting dancers.
The safe-sex campaign hits Brazilian television screens next week showing grinning celebrities waving condoms as they dance to popular Carnival samba tune, "What will you wear?"
. . Brazil, a country of 180 million people, uses around 1.2 billion condoms a year. The government wants to boost that number to 3 billion by 2008 through free distribution and manufacture of cheaper domestic products.
Early Jan, 05: Antwerp will dim the bright new lights along the Belgian port city's waterfront after prostitutes complained they were putting off potential clients. The port, which tolerates prostitutes in a select few streets near the waterfront, will next week test an electric system to dim the lights, city council spokesman Jorn Verbeeck said. If the test gets the thumbs-up from the city's sex workers, the system will be rolled out across the red light district.
Jan 4, 05: One indication of growing Human Rights acceptance comes from the California Department of Health Services, which is updating its birth certificates to replace the lines for "mother" and "father" with the gender-neutral "parent" and "parent."
. . Same-sex couples in California for the first time will have access to divorce court for dividing their assets, seeking alimony and securing child support. They also will have automatic parental status over children born during the relationship and responsibility for each other's debts. It guarantees domestic partners a say over what happens to their loved one's remains at death and means they cannot be forced to testify against each other in state courts.
Under Iran's Islamic law, a father need only pay blood money for killing his children, but adultery is punishable by death.
Dec 23, 04: Johannesburg zoo plans to artificially inseminate a pair of female birds who appear to be lovers to help boost dwindling numbers of the endangered wattled crane species, it said. Staff at the zoo assumed Cherry and Amazona were lovers when they arrived earlier this year and charmed visitors with typical mating rituals --including dancing, serenading one another with song and tossing sticks into the air.
. . Tests showed the pair were both females, but due to a shortage of male wattled cranes and the species' faithfulness to one partner, the zoo decided to artificially inseminate the birds so they could reproduce.
Dec 25, 04: Researchers have found a number of same-sex pairs of penguins at aquariums in Japan. A research group led by Keisuke Ueda, professor of behavioral ecology at Rikkyo University in Tokyo, found about 20 same-sex pairs at 16 major aquariums and zoos. It is not known if the frequency of homosexuality is higher than in the wild, where telling the sexes apart is tough. Many of the gay male pairs and two of the female pairs were seen performing mounting behavior.
Dec 22, 04: Alarmed by glimpses of sweaty citizens in the buff, the city council in the southeastern Mexico city of Villahermosa has adopted a law banning indoor nudity! Pulido said she was confident that citizens who catch a glimpse of offenders would report them to police —-though the law also threatens jail for peeping Toms!
. . The city on the southern Gulf of Mexico is noted for its swelteringly hot, humid climate.
Dec 22, 04: Extremist violence and corruption are key problems facing Indonesia's new President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono --but so, it seems, are women's belly buttons. For the second time in as many weeks, the president has spoken out against exposed navels, urging women in the world's largest Muslim-populated country to cover up.
. . Indonesian television is increasingly liberal in its programming. Kissing, formerly taboo, and skimpily dressed women are now common features in local soap operas.
John XII, deposed in A.D. 963, turned St. John Lateran into a brothel: he was accused of adultery and incest. Leo VIII, who replaced him, died stricken in paralysis in the act of adultery. Benedict IX, elected Pope at the age of ten, grew up "in unrestrained license, and shocked the sensibilities even of a dull and barbarous age." Balthasar Cossa, elected Pope to end the Great Schism, later admitted to incest, adultery, and other crimes ("two hundred maids, matrons and widows, including a few nuns, fell victims to his brutal lust"). In one famous occurrence at the court of Pope Alexander VI, prostitutes were called to dance naked before the assembly, after which prizes were offered to those men who, in the opinion of the spectators, managed to copulate with the most number of prostitutes.
The average position of the erect penis, observed for all ages, is very slightly above the horizontal. There are approximately 15 to 20 per cent of cases where the angle is about 45 degrees above the horizontal. In general, the angle of erection is higher for males in their early twenties, and lower in more advanced ages. "Average angles become definitely reduced in males past fifty."
A French civil union known as Pacs allows two people --heterosexuals or homosexuals-- to sign a contract giving them similar rights to married couples.
A condition known as micropenis is thought to affect 0.6% of men. Instead of achieving the average length of about 12.5 centimeters (5"), a micropenis is around 7 cm (2") or less.
. . Corrective surgery allows some men born with an undersized penis to urinate normally and, according to the David Ralph, a urologist at the University College London who performed it, to enjoy sex more.
. . A micropenis can be caused by inadequate testosterone in the 2nd and 3rd trimester of fetal growth, researchers say, or it could result when a fetus begins as a male but is insensitive to the male hormone testosterone during growth.
Flower sex: blossoms have both male and female organs --stamens and pistils. Male sperm is contained in pollen grains distributed by the stamens --pollen-tipped stalks in the flowerhead. The female egg is held in the ovary at the base of the pistil, a sort of central vaselike structure with a long narrow neck.
. . Pollen lands on the tip of the pistil. It must germinate and grow a pollen tube that reaches down through the neck of the vase to where the egg reposes. Sperms then scurry down the tube and fertilize the egg. It's as if a flower had to grow a new penis with every act of copulation.
. . Here's where the female part of the plant can pick and choose. A chemical conversation takes place in a flower when pollen lands on the pistil. The female organ initiates the conversation, in effect asking the pollen for the password. If the pollen responds correctly, it sprouts a pollen tube and gains admittance to the egg. If the password is incorrect, the consequence for the pollen is fatal.
Dec 8, 04: The Korean Anti-AIDS Federation said it would drop the use of a suggested new word for condom, "ae-pil", which was derived from the Chinese characters for love and necessity. The name, picked from 19,000 suggestions sent in by the public, had prompted complaints from many South Koreans with similar-sounding characters in their names.
Dec 9, 04: At first glance, the Massa Marittima mural looks fairly similar to dozens of other medieval frescoes dotted across Tuscany.
. . But look closely at the spidery tree that dominates the center of the painting and you notice something peculiar. Its branches are covered in penises. There are 25 of them in all, of different shapes and sizes, complete with testicles. They hang from the limbs of the tree like leaves fluttering in the breeze. The mural dates from the 13th century and is still visible on a wall in the Italian town of Massa Marittima where it was discovered during renovation work four years ago.
. . Until now, it was assumed the phallus tree was a fertility symbol because it stands by a fountain --the town's main source of water in medieval times.
. . But, according to a British-based expert, it is actually a unique piece of political propaganda, commissioned by one Tuscan faction to sully the reputation of another. "It's a very clear political poster", said George Ferzoco, director of the Center for Tuscan Studies at the University of Leicester in central England as he unveiled his theory about the picture for the first time.
. . "It's a message from the Guelphs, telling people that if the Ghibellines are allowed power they will bring with them heresy, sexual perversion, civic strife and witchcraft." The Guelphs and Ghibellines were two factions who fought for power in Tuscany and northern Italy for decades during the Middle Ages.
. . Perhaps the most famous victim of their feuds was the poet Dante, a Guelph expelled from his native Florence in 1302 after a rival Guelph group took power.
Dec 8, 04: Asked whether next year they would prefer more money, more regular sex or extra free time, 62% of the 1,000 Germans polled opted for cash, compared with just 6% choosing sex. 26% plumped for free time. It's in the German edition of Playboy for January.
Dec 1, 04: Most German men wear condoms of the wrong size, a condom distributor has said, after asking more than 2,500 men to measure their erect penis.
. . "People measure their feet when they buy shoes...."
. . The study found the average erect penis size was 14.7 cm (5-3/4 inches), with 40% of participants reporting lengths between 12 and 15 cm (4-3/4 and 5-7/8 inches).
. . When compared with the condoms normally used by the participants, the results showed only 18% wore the right size, with nearly half squeezing into condoms that were too small and 34% trying to use those that were too big.
Nov 29, 04: The Supreme Court today sidestepped a dispute over gay marriages, rejecting a challenge to the nation's only law sanctioning such unions. Justices had been asked by conservative groups to overturn the year-old decision by the Massachusetts Supreme Court legalizing gay marriage. They declined, without comment. In the past year, at least 3,000 gay Massachusetts couples have wed, although voters may have a chance next year to change the state constitution to permit civil union benefits to same-sex couples, but not the institution of marriage.
Dec 1, 04: China's first nationally televised show about sex will get participants talking freely but allow them to wear masks to avoid embarrassment. "Breaking the taboo of talking about sex in public, the show reflects a changing society, and a positive change at that", the state-run China Daily said. Surveys often show high levels of ignorance and dissatisfaction with people's sex lives. "Without having had proper sex education at schools, many adults do not have comprehensive knowledge of sex, which is detrimental to their sex health."
Nov 24, 04: Genetic factors influence female infidelity and the number of sexual partners women have, British scientists said. They studied the responses of 1,600 pairs of identical and non-identical twins in a confidential survey to look at the impact of genes on behavior.
. . "We found that around 40% of the influence on the number of sexual partners and infidelity were due to genetic factors. The fact that psychosocial traits such as number of sexual partners and infidelity appear to behave as other common complex genetic traits in humans ... lends support to evolutionary psychologists' theories on the origin of human behavior", Spector said.
. . The scientists questioned the twins about their sexual behavior, total number of partners and their attitudes about infidelity. 22% admitted that they had been unfaithful. "More than 90% of the women admitted to having had thoughts of infidelity at some time."
. . Genetic factors did not appear to influence the women's attitudes to infidelity. Many of the women in the study, even those who admitted being unfaithful, said they thought it was wrong.
. . Women who had been faithful had about four sexual partners, compared to eight in the infidelity group.
. . The scientists suspect that many genes could be associated with sexual behavior. They believe genes on chromosomes 3, 7 and 20 could be involved.
The U.S. male population who have been circumcised: about 63% (one of the highest rates in the world).
Contrary to popular belief, the Today Sponge was not taken off the market for safety reasons. In 1995, the FDA told Wyeth, the sponge's original manufacturer, that it needed to upgrade its sponge factory in Hammonton, New Jersey. Wyeth decided to shut down the whole operation rather than pay to upgrade its plant.
A television news anchor appeared on the air nude in a first-person report about an artist's photographs, drawing a record number of viewers for the time slot, the station said. Sharon Reed was one of hundreds of people who participated in Spencer Tunick's nude photo installation in Cleveland in June. Her report, shown Monday on the 11 p.m. newscast on WOIO-TV, showed far away angles of her nude and some closer seminude shots, as well as other participants.
Nov 15, 04: In Utah, two morning radio hosts settled a lawsuit in which the female half of the duo was accused of getting breast implants to seduce her married co-host.
Nov 12, 04: [Look who's ahead of us!] Peru's constitutional court has granted gays in the military the freedom to have sex, declaring that a rule which had deemed such relations illegal was unconstitutional.
Nov 2, 04: A lawyer has compiled a list of 2,600 Roman Catholic priests nationwide who have been accused of sexual misconduct against children and plans to post it online by early '05. Sylvia Demarest, a Dallas lawyer, and her staff spent 11 years on the list, which a victims' rights advocate says may encourage more of those who were abused to come forward.
. . See SNAP, The Survivors' Network of those Abused by Priests,) is a national, self-help organization of victims of sexual abuse by clergy and sexual abuse by nuns.
In Brazil, 25,000 to 27,000 women undergo breast augmentation annually. "They say now that a Brazilian woman goes to the plastic surgeon as often as the dentist."
. . Silimed is the world's third largest maker. Their clients --plastic surgeons worldwide-- charged between $500 and $1,200 for packs ranging from modest 40 cubic centimeters (2.5 cubic inches) to buxom 600 (36.5 cubic inches).
. . Increasingly popular, although expensive, silicone packs are coated with a thin layer of polyurethane foam, which sharply reduces the chances of an implant and the breast deforming. "Sometimes the breast with an implant starts looking like there's a billiard ball inside, but polyurethane helps to avoid it."
23% of Australian households are single-person and a quarter of women of child-bearing age are likely to remain childless.
=====
Nov 6, 04: Variations in the genetic program we inherit from our parents, rather than in the genes themselves, might determine sexual preference. THERE has been much debate over "gay genes". Now an intriguing study raises another possibility: in some cases, variations in the genetic program we inherit from our parents, rather than in the genes themselves, might determine sexual preference.
. . Our genome is "programmed" by the addition of chemical markers called methyl groups to the DNA, which shut down genes. One of the most dramatic examples of methylation is the shutdown of one of the two X chromosomes (one from each parent) in every woman's cells, a process called X-inactivation.
. . Normally, this process is random; either of the X chromosomes can be inactivated. But when Sven Bocklandt of the University of California, compared blood and saliva samples from 97 mothers of gay men with samples from 103 mothers without gay children he found this process was extremely skewed in some of the mothers.
IF homosexuality is an inherited trait, why do genes for it survive? Because these genes may make women more likely to reproduce. Andrea Camperio-Ciani's team at the University of Padua, Italy, asked 98 gay and 100 straight men to fill in questionnaires about their families. They found mothers and aunts had more children if related to a gay rather than a straight man. Mothers of gay men averaged 2.7 babies, compared with 2.3 born to mothers of straight men. Aunts on the mother's side had 2 babies compared with 1.5 for maternal aunts of straight men.
. . The team suggests that gene variations on the X chromosome make women more likely to have more children, and men more likely to be gay. "We think of a gene for male homosexuality, but it might really be a gene for sexual attraction to men", says Simon LeVay, a neuroscientist at Stanford University and a writer on sexuality.
. . But the "maternal effect" could at most account for only 14 per cent of the prevalence of male homosexuality, the Italian team cautions. "Our findings, if confirmed, are only one piece in a much larger puzzle on the nature of human sexuality."
Oct 16, 04: How can a "gay gene" be passed down the generations? BACK in 1993, when Dean Hamer discovered what appeared to be a gene that predisposed men to homosexuality, he created a paradox. According to Darwinian thinking, if homosexual men have fewer children than straight men the "gay gene" should quickly disappear from the population. Yet we know that homosexuality persists.
. . So what is the mechanism that keeps the gene in circulation? Perhaps gay men are good at looking after their straight brothers, who share a proportion of their genes. That way, the gay gene may be passed on by the brothers of gay men, even if they themselves have no children. Unfortunately for this idea, studies so far have found that gay men do not help out their brothers financially or emotionally any more than straight men do.
Oct 15, 04: More men are willing to have sex with their bosses to get a promotion or a salary increase than women, a Belgian human resources weekly said today. According to the Vacature poll -- based on 12,078 Belgians interviewed --12% of all men would be willing to sleep with their boss to try to advance their career, compared to only 1% of women.
. . The survey did not reveal how many said they actually had sex with their bosses. It showed that 22% of males often fantasize about having sex with one of their colleagues, compared to 7% of women.
Oct 15, 04: A woman seduced and had sex with strangers while she slept and later had no recollection of her infidelities due to a sleeping disorder, her Sydney doctor said. The middle-aged woman had no idea that she was sneaking from her house at night in search of sex with random strangers until her partner awoke, discovered she was missing from the bedroom, and found her having sex with another man.
. . Her partner was already aware that she was a sleep walker and also had been confounded by condoms he found strewn around the house.
. . The doctor will discuss the case when he lectures on sleep sex —-the disorder has yet to be given a formal title-— at the Annual Scientific Meeting of the Australasian Sleep Association in Sydney. "People are often stunned and overwhelmed when they're told what they've been doing."
Oct 13, 04: Genetic factors, along with cultural and early experiences, influence male homosexuality. Researchers at the University of Padua said the genetic components are linked to the X chromosome which is inherited only from the mother. But they are probably on other chromosomes and could partly explain male homosexuality.
. . The results are based on a study of 98 homosexual and 100 heterosexual men and about 4,600 of their relatives. The scientists compared the frequency of gay men on the maternal and paternal lines of the families. Among homosexuals, there were a greater number of gay men in the maternal line of the family, as well as greater fertility in the female relatives.
. . An interest in sex before the age of 10 was also a predictor.
Oct 14, 04: Long before suffragettes shackled themselves to railings and Women's Libbers burned their bras, female freedom fighters were waging a more covert war, using lipstick, mascara and false bosoms as weapons. Far from being instruments of oppression in a vast male conspiracy, such "beauty devices" were used by women to manipulate the judgmental masculine eye in an effort to control the uncontrollable, says feminist author Teresa Riordan.
. . Researching a century from Victorian corsets and bustles to the nail polish and girdles of the 1950s and Marilyn Monroe's breast implants, Riordan has written in her book "Inventing Beauty", a history of the commercial inventions used by women to transform themselves.
Oct 13, 04: Around 1% of adults have absolutely no interest in sex, a surprisingly high figure that is not far from the estimated 3% of the population who are gay, according to a study reported in next Saturday's New Scientist.
. . Plucky activists have already started campaigning to promote awareness and acceptance of asexuality, it reports. One such group, the Asexual Visibility and Education Network has an online store selling T-shirts bearing such slogans as "Asexuality: it's not just for amoebas anymore."
Oct 12, 04: France is well positioned as the world's sexiest state, according to a global survey of lovemaking. In a poll of more than 350,000 people, condom maker Durex found that lovers across the globe have sex an average of 103 times per year, but the French are living up to their romantic reputation with an average of 137 times (2.63 /week). Greeks and Hungarians followed close behind, with averages of 133 and 131 times a year.
. . Asian countries lag behind in the love stakes with the Japanese managing just 46 times per year and those in Hong Kong and Singapore just 79 times.
. . Britons lead the pack when it comes to foreplay, devoting an average of 22.5 minutes compared to a global average of 19.7. The fastest lovers were the Thais with just 11.5 minutes. But despite their efforts on foreplay, Britons appear to be among the least satisfied by their sexual experiences, with a third saying they had faked an orgasm in the last year. The Macedonians were the most satisfied with only 13% saying they had faked an orgasm and the Japanese are the least satisfied at 40%.
. . Those most likely to throw caution to the wind were the Danes and the Swedes, both on 64%, followed by the Japanese, Norwegians and South Africans, all at 58%.
. . To spice up sex lives, pornography emerged as the most popular choice, with more than a third of lovers worldwide admitting to having used porn.
Oct 6, 04: Canadian clergy are watching closely as the Supreme Court turns its attention at long last to the government's proposal to legalize same-sex marriage. Canada would join Belgium, the Netherlands and Denmark in allowing same-sex marriages. The court was scheduled to begin hearings on the matter today.
. . The courts of six Canadian provinces or territories have ruled to allow same-sex marriages. British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec allowed gay marriages in 2003, the Yukon territory followed in July and Manitoba and Nova Scotia last month. The Saskatchewan court is expected to rule this month.
. . Most constitutional experts agree that provisions for religious freedom in Canada's Charter of Rights already protect the clergy from performing ceremonies they don't support. The court will hear 28 briefs on both sides of the issue.
. . Three days have been set aside for the Canadian hearings and the court is expected to rule next year.
Sept 29, 04: The first prescription treatment for women with a flagging libido could enter the market next year, and a second, related product might not be far behind. Both deliver testosterone through the skin and are aimed at women who have had their ovaries removed, causing them to go into menopause.
. . Over time, excessive testosterone can lead to facial hair growth, deepening of the voice and other signs of masculinization in women.
Sept 28, 04: 70% of German men want their partner to be more adventurous sexually, according to a survey entitled "What do men expect from an ideal partner?" carried out for a local magazine.
. . The survey also revealed that 51% of men would like a partner who does not lose her temper easily, while 48% said they never wanted to be asked "What do you think?" by their girlfriends or wives. And one German man in four said their ideal woman would be one who could cook like their mothers.
Sept 28, 04: Paternity tests are becoming increasingly common in China along with casual sex as suspicious husbands check on their wives' fidelity, a news agency says. Attitudes towards sex relaxed after China began Western-style market reforms in 1978, unleashing a boom. Applications for the DNA test, which in the West can cost hundreds of dollars, had risen 20% a year in one Beijing hospital. "According to the investigation, most men do the paternity test just to find out whether their wives are loyal."
. . 80% of tests proved that the husbands were indeed fathers of their children.
Sept 22, 04: SAN FRANCISCO: City prosecutors said it was not illegal to perform naked yoga in the city The Naked Yoga Guy, whose name is George Monty Davis, had stripped to stretch near Fisherman's Wharf, prompting a public complaint. But prosecutors decided they had a weak public nuisance case against him because local laws do not bar public nudity.
. . "Simply being naked on the street is not a crime in San Francisco", said Debbie Mesloh, a spokeswoman for the district attorney's office. "To bring a case, a person would have to exhibit lewd behavior, block traffic or impede pedestrians on a sidewalk, something along those lines."
. . In another case involving a Los Angeles teenager who dropped his pants to expose his bottom, or "moon", passing motorists from a nearby sidewalk, a California appellate court ruled nudity itself is not a crime, Mesloh said.
Sept 22, 04: Parents in Tokyo would be legally responsible for keeping school-aged children from having sex if the city's top law and order official gets his way. The legal age of consent in Tokyo is 18. Some 20 to 30% of Japanese 16-year-olds have had sex and nearly a quarter of these have four or more partners.
Sept 21, 04: Dutch singles aren't having satisfying love lives despite the country's reputation as a haven for free and easy sex, according to a new poll. Close to two-thirds of the men and women surveyed said their intimate relations compared poorly with married couples, and one third of the men and nearly half the women complained they had no sex lives at all. Overall, the poll of more than 1,000 single Dutch men and women by the on-line journal MVlife (www.mvlife.nl) found less than a fifth of them were happy with their sex lives, despite the finding that many men and women had regular one-night stands.
. . But the survey found that at the other end of the scale, most of the singles with vigorous sex lives had thrown caution to the winds despite the risk of AIDS.
. . Just 6% of single women and 4% of men said they were in monogamous sexual relationships, and more than one third of women and almost half of men said they regularly had one night stands.
Sept 17, 04: A Spanish man tried to have his wife charged with domestic abuse because she refused to have sex with him on five consecutive days, Spanish newspaper El Sur reported. The middle-aged man from Seville --the city of Don Juan and Carmen-- said her refusals amounted to "degrading treatment" and domestic abuse, a term used more often to describe wife-battering.
Sept 9, 04: What's a big cud-chewing Scottish cow have to do with preserving public decency? According to the mayor of a small Dutch town, allowing Highland heifers to graze in a nearby nature reserve will help deter couples who have scandalized the upright citizens of Spaarnwoude with their open-air sex antics.
Sept 9, 04: Half of British fathers either continue to doze or pretend to be asleep when their babies cry during the night, making many mothers resentful, a new survey shows.
. . The lack of support leaves six in 10 mothers feeling bitter toward their partners. Restless nights also mean 86% of mums prefer sleep to sex.
. . "It's amazing so many relationships survive the onslaught of a baby, but sadly, some never recover. And the problem is compounded because so many couples with a baby now both work and they feel ravaged with tiredness", said Elena Dalrymple, editor of Mother & Baby magazine, which carried out the survey of 2,000 parents across the UK.
. . The research also showed that most babies are about five months old before they regularly sleep for seven hours a night and a third don't sleep through the night until they are 18 months old.
Sept 8, 04: 25% of women in Britain say they get more pleasure from cleaning house than having sex, a survey for Good Housekeeping suggests. The proportion was even higher among under 35-year-olds, with 40% happier to tidy their homes.
. . 40% of women said they felt guilty relaxing when the house was untidy, although 60% admitted the only time their home got a really good clean was when guests were coming to stay. A further 26% said they gave the impression they had cleaned up by stuffing objects into cupboards and drawers. "Women are forever battling with domestic guilt, and perceptions of clean and tidy vastly differ from household to household."
Sept 6, 04: "It is not good to see people roaming around topless." The head of the Metropolitan Manila Development Authority described the sight of half-naked *men* in the crowded city of 12 million as a sign of decay in moral and cultural values. "If there are many shirtless men roaming around in a certain community, there are also many criminals such as thieves, snatchers and robbers in that area." [Sure, that's logical...]
Sept 6, 04: In the latest sign of relaxing sexual mores in China, the prospect of orgasms and better sex has led scores of Chinese women to sign up for tests of "female Viagra" at a Beijing hospital.
. . A survey conducted a decade ago concluded that 50% of Chinese women did not achieve orgasm during sex.
Sept 1, 04: Turkey's government wants to make adultery a crime, the justice minister was quoted as saying Monday, a proposal that has outraged the main opposition and women's groups. Tho the legislation would also apply to men, a previous adultery law, abolished six years ago, was used mainly against women.
Aug 31, 04: More than half of Chinese men over 40 suffer from erectile dysfunction at some point but wait too long to see a doctor, the first national survey of its kind has found. The patients went to see their doctors on average 22 months after developing the condition, much longer than the average six months in Western nations. 80% of cases in China were physical while the other 20% are caused by psychological factors such as stress and depression.
Aug 31, 04: Iran's moral crackdown has widened its focus from stylishly dressed women to curvaceous shop-window mannequins, a newspaper has reported. Morals police have banned shopkeepers from showing unveiled dummies and lingerie in their windows.
. . Lawmakers are debating an Iranian dress code, advocated last month by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who called for a national costume that avoided European models. "A national costume will be designed for men and women based on Islamic and national criteria", conservative deputy Fatemeh Alia was quoted as saying.
Aug 31, 04: Thousands of young women bared their breasts and danced in Swaziland in the hope of trading a life of poverty for one of royal comfort as one of King Mswati's many wives. The 36-year-old king picks a new [additional] bride each year at the Reed Dance in a royal ritual that is defended by traditionalists as a time-honored piece of the nation's cultural fabric.
. . More than 20,000 young women and girls, which palace sources said was a record, danced in the festivities. Swaziland y'day rejected a human rights report naming its king as one of the world's 10 worst dictators.
Aug 29, 04: Visitors to the Zhengzhou Zoo in central China who do not enjoy passive smoking, let alone being spat on, had better avoid the ape cage. Thirteen-year-old chimpanzee Feili has turned to smoking, begging cigarettes from visitors and spitting on them when they do not comply, the state news agency reported.
. . Her fierce behavior is in reaction to being paired with a male, 28 years her senior, who seems to lack either the interest or the capability to satisfy her sexual demands, the agency said.
. . Although Feili's behavior may seem outrageous, it is no more so than that of the people outside the cage, since she only took up her new habits after observing the visitors to the zoo.
Aug 27, 04: Wearing underwear and nothing else in public does not constitute indecency, a Massachusetts court declared, as it tossed out charges against six animal rights protesters.
Aug 24, 04: The 2004 China Female Sex Survey is being organized by the Chinese Institute of Sexology and the Chinese Medical Association. Women aged 21 and over can log on to the site to respond to 34 questions such as "How often do you have sex per month and how many times to you expect to have sex in a month?", "Do you get pleasure in sex?" and "Have you ever had extramarital affairs?"
. . Ma conducted a smaller survey a decade ago and concluded that 50% of Chinese women did not experience orgasm during sex, it said.
. . There's nothing wrong with talking politics on a first date, 63% of 900 US singles said in a poll. For example, Democrats are better lovers than are Republicans, poll respondents said -- by a two-to-one margin.
. . It may be worthwhile to put your political cards on the table: 57% of singles surveyed would marry someone with different political views.
Aug 11, 04: Scientists say the right name can make you sexier. Linguist Amy Perfors, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, posted photos of men and women on the U.S. Web site "Hot or Not", which lets viewers rate pictures according to how attractive they find them.
. . When she posted the same pictures with different names, she found that the attractiveness scores went up and down depending on the vowels. Men with "front vowels" in their names --sounds formed at the front of the mouth like the "a" in Matt-- were considered sexier than men with "back vowel" sounds like the "au" in Paul, she concluded. The opposite held for women, who were sexier with back vowels than front ones.
. . Perfors said front vowels are often perceived as "smaller" than back vowels, so the difference could be a sign that women are seeking men that are sensitive or gentle, traits usually perceived as feminine. But men who might be thinking of taking more feminine names to become sexier should be careful not to go too far: men with women's names were rated least sexy of all.
Aug 11, 04: Some British viewers may become more interested in what is going on in the world next week when a satellite television channel shows, for the first time in Britain, the day's news read by naked women. Each of the 12 female anchors begin their segment fully clad before gradually disrobing as they continue to speak.
. . Samantha Page, 35, will be the first ever British "Naked News" presenter. She has a degree in psychology and zoology and holds a black belt in karate.
. . "Naked News" was launched in Canada in 1999 and reaches a potential weekly television audience of 34 million people in the United States. While the British "Naked News" will feature only women, men are anchors in programs in other countries.
Aug 11, 04: Chinese eager to bare all in public will have to wait to disrobe after local outrage shelved the opening of the country's first nudist colony. Originally scheduled to open to the public at a woodland park in China's eastern Zhejiang province on Thursday, that plan was put on hold after it sparked a furor among prudish locals, Wang Xiaoting, a spokeswoman for the park, said after she proposed the idea. "We do still want to do it, once related regulations are sorted out. I would say there are as many people who support the scheme as oppose it", she said.
. . The move would have broken new ground in a country where sex is seldom discussed in public.
Aug 8, 04: According to a poll by the UKTV Food channel, many Brits can get up for a cuppa, but not for sex. An overwhelming 52% of women cannot wait to brew up, while just one in every hundred would rather stay in the bedroom and cuddle up.
And when British men are roused from their sleep, just 5% want to get aroused, but 42% want to get the kettle on.
. . Otherwise, 17% of men and 9% of women wake up thinking about work, whereas 11% and 14% respectively would rather rest in bed and doze off again. Just 5% of women and 8% of men have their minds on breakfast, while 6% and 4% respectively contemplate what to wear.
July 27, 04: The average Frenchman spends an hour and 53 minutes a day on domestic tasks, nearly half an hour less than his Swedish counterpart, who was the most helpful man in the study. German women, the least keen on domestic chores, spent 73 minutes a day less on them than Slovenian women --who averaged four hours 24 minutes.
. . In all countries, men spent longer out at work than women, and women managed to sneak in a few extra minutes' sleeping. French of both sexes slept the most --around half an hour more than Swedes who averaged around eight hours a night.
July 23, 04: More than 80% of single German women are perfectly happy without a man in tow and say living solo gives them more freedom to do what they want, according to a survey for Stern magazine.
. . Coming amid mounting political alarm about Germany's low birthrate and aging population, the survey of 1,003 women showed only 2% did not enjoy their solitary lifestyle and 36% opted to stay single because it was more fun.
. . Almost half the women said they preferred single life because it was easier to keep their homes tidy and 36% said with no man on the scene they didn't have to endure watching sports on television.
July 2, 04: The Dutch government backs plans for "seals of quality" for well-run brothels and standard contracts for prostitutes, as well as more support for those who want to leave the world's oldest profession. The Netherlands has some of the world's most liberal rules on prostitution, defined as a legal profession since 1988.
. . The Dutch cabinet said it supported the initiative from the prostitution industry to further improve supervision four years after the Netherlands lifted a ban on brothels to improve regulation of the business and fight trafficking in women.
June 29, 04: A drug that seems to drive female rats mad for sex may offer the first real scientific aphrodisiac for women, U.S. and Canadian researchers said. The drug, Palatin Technologies Inc's PT-141, is being developed for use to fight impotence in men, but the researchers said tests showed it also aroused female rats.
. . "Accordingly, PT-141 may be the first identified pharmacological agent with the capability to treat female sexual desire disorders." "Females treated with the highest dose of PT-141 also attempted to mount the males." In rats, this is considered a sign of sexual impatience.
. . PT-141 is the first of a new class of drugs called melanocortin agonists being developed to treat sexual dysfunction. In human tests for impotence, it takes the form of a nasal spray. It may be safer than current impotence drugs because it does not affect the blood vessels. Current drugs increase blood flow and could be dangerous to people on some heart medications.
June 24, 04: A report found 49% of single heterosexual men between 25 and 34 would tie the knot tomorrow if the right woman came along. But 53% said they are not interested in getting hitched any time soon.
. . The report said 81% of married men in the same age group decided to wed because it was time to settle down; only 15% did so because their wives were pushing for it. 94% of men were happier married than single; 73% said their sex lives were better; and 68% said marriage helped them become more financially stable.
. . However, a sizable number --22% of single men-- said marriage just isn't for them. They are more likely to distrust women over past relationships, worry about the risks of divorce and fear losing their personal freedom.
. . Opinion Research Corp. conducted the survey of 1,010 men.
June 18, 04: [This is about human rights & gender, not
sex.] Transvestites and transsexuals at a private Thai
college have been given their own restroom after being
humiliated by classmates. Chiang Mai Technology College has
designated a "pink lotus" bathroom for use by about 15 of its 1,500 students after the group encountered difficulties using male and female bathrooms.
. . Several female co-eds had complained when the
transgender students were found using the girls' room to
escape the teasing and bullying of men in the boys' room.
Since the "third sex" bathroom opened late last year
complaints by other students have ground to a halt, he
added, while the school had also noted academic improvements by the group.
. . Thailand, notorious for its "ladyboy"
transsexuals, is among Southeast Asia's most tolerant
countries in terms of gay and transsexual issues, although
certain legal hurdles remain including a ban on gay marriage.
June 10, 04: Socio-Biology: Women are likely to have more
sex on the days when they are most fertile (the five days
preceding ovulation and the day of ovulation), even if they
are not trying to get pregnant, scientists say. "There
apparently are biological factors promoting intercourse
during a woman's six fertile days, whether she wants a baby
or not", said Professor Allen Wilcox, of the National
Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. But he and his
colleagues do not understand the reasons and doubt that women are even aware of them.
. . In a study of 68 women who recorded when they had
sex over a three-month period, Wilcox and his colleagues
discovered that during ovulation, when a woman is most
likely to become pregnant, the overall frequency of sex increased by 24%.
. . A woman's libido may be heightened when she is
ovulating so she has an increased interest in sex, or she
may produce more pheromones, chemicals that send messages
to other individuals, that increase her sexual attractiveness.
. . Animal studies have also shown that having sex accelerates ovulation.
Prostitution is legal only in Muslim Turkey's many state-controlled brothels.
With the possible exception of one teenage friendship
(there is no sign that it became physical), Isaac Newton
apparently formed no romantic attachments during his 84
years of life. Furthermore, he was so straitlaced it seems
unlikely he availed himself of, how shall I say, commercial
outlets. 90% of what he obsessed about --alchemy, biblical prophecy, and religious disputations were among his lifelong passions-- was rubbish. [Several other famous geniuses were similar. Like Kepler. --JKH]
May 26, 04: Porsche drivers are less faithful than any
other group of car owners, with almost 50% of them
cheating on their partners, in a survey in German magazine "Men's Car".
. . Among German men, Porsche drivers were the least
faithful, with 49% admitting infidelity, followed by
BMW drivers at 46%. Among women, Audi drivers were
the least reliable, 41% admitting to affairs.
. . The most faithful group were owners of Opel-
Vauxhall cars, with only 31% of male and 28%
of female drivers in Germany having committed adultery.
May 21, 04: Women watching erotic films are stimulated in
a part of the brain associated with planning and emotion,
research from scientists in Germany said. When scientists
from Essen University put volunteers in a brain scanning
tube and showed them pornography they found both men and
women showed activity in the temporal lobes linked to
memory and perception, but only women used their frontal
lobes. [JKH: yup. Just as the jokes say! Robin Williams: "Nature gave men a brain & a penis, but only enough blood-supply to run one at a time!"]
. . "We don't know why these differences between men and women exist. They just do."
May 20, 04: Having an affair can be quite literally
deadly, according to a German study showing unfaithful men
are more likely to die during sex than their loyal counterparts.
After searching through nearly 30,000 post-mortems
covering three decades, researchers at the Center for
Forensic Medicine in Frankfurt noticed 60 cases where
someone died while having sex. Of those, 56 were men who had heart attacks --and of those, only four died in the arms of their spouse or partner.
. . The researchers could only speculate on the
reason why a disproportionate number of men died with
lovers than with partners, suggesting that it may be
because they were putting extra strain on their system by trying harder.
May 20, 04: A third of German motorists fantasize about sex when stuck in traffic while only 10% think of finding an alternate route, according to a motor club
survey. 8% think about how much petrol they have, 7% about their next meal, and seven
percent about going to a toilet. 6% think about their careers.
May 5, 04: The world's oldest woman to give birth is
believed to be a 65-year-old Indian, in April 2003. A woman
from eastern Orissa state had a healthy three-kilo (six
pounds six ounces) baby boy by Caesarean section after in vitro fertilization (IVF).
May 5, 04: The humpback whale is believed to sing its
mysterious songs for the same reason generations of teens
have started bad garage bands: to get girls. But researchers hadn't guessed how long or persistently the ocean crooners woo their women. Humpbacks have a range that covers eight octaves, from a bass so low that humans can't hear it to a magnificent soprano.
. . Their highly structured songs include multiple
themes that are constantly repeated and even rhyme. The
songs last up to 30 minutes, and the whales embellish like jazz musicians.
. . Aside from attracting mates, singing is also
believed to establish a hierarchy among male humpbacks.
Some theorize the singing breaks out among migrating whales
as they start to mix. Clapham said the whales could be
singing because their hormone levels are still high from
winter. Or they could be establishing bonds with females in
hopes of hooking up during the next mating season.
May 5, 04: A study by an Italian researcher shows that
when couples fall in love, their testosterone levels alter.
It falls in men and rises in women, so they become more
like each other. Not all scientists agree with this
interpretation of the results and some say changing
testosterone levels could be a result of increased sexual activity.
. . But whatever the reason, it doesn't last long.
Two years later, when the same people were tested again and
were no longer madly in love, their testosterone levels were back to normal.
May 3, 04: The giant squid reproduces by the male
injecting sperm under the skin of its female partner. But
it's not especially choosy, and will mate blind without
checking if the object of its affections is male or female.
A male specimen being prepared for conservation had sperm underneath its skin.
May 3, 04: The German government's plans to levy fines on
companies that fail to hire trainees will also be applied
to legal German brothels, Der Spiegel news magazine
reported. Brothels failing to employ a certain number of
apprentices will not be exempted from the financial penalties. The legislation will fine companies that do not have one apprentice for every 15 workers.
Apr 21, 04: Japanese and Korean scientists have created a
fatherless mouse without using sperm in a reproductive feat
akin to the birth of Dolly the sheep, the world's first cloned mammal.
. . Bees, ants, aphids and some fish and reptiles
reproduce without having sex in a process called parthenogenesis. But creating a living mammal from same-sex parents was thought to be impossible.
. . Such a mammal is known as a parthenote. "The
parthenote developed to adulthood with the ability to
reproduce offspring. However, this was achieved with even
lower efficiency than the cloning process used to make
Dolly and therefore it is even more unacceptable and unsafe
to consider using this for humans. "Only 0.6% of the
embryos Kono and his colleagues created survived.
Apr 14, 04: Researchers looking for the next generation of
erectile dysfunction drugs said they found a precise
mechanism that stimulates erections in rats without
dangerous side effects. Their target is a single molecular
doorway into nerve cells called a receptor --in this case
one used by the message-carrying chemical or
neurotransmitter dopamine. Drugs that stimulate such a
specific mechanism could be expected to have their intended
effect --an erection-- without the dangerous side effects
that make Viagra too risky for some heart patients, they said.
Apr 14, 04: In the search for sex, young female bowerbirds
prefer blue, while their older sisters go for flamboyant
strutting and loud squawks, scientists reported. This, in
turn, explains why males have complex displays --that is to
accommodate the different mating preferences of females they engage in courtship.
Apr 7, 04: Men who ejaculate frequently may be protecting
themselves against prostate cancer. The study, which
involved more than 29,000 healthy men and covered sex of all kinds including masturbation and nocturnal emissions, confirms a smaller Australian study.
. . The new research found that "ejaculation
frequency is not related to an increased risk. There is no
adverse effect. And ... higher elevations of ejaculation
appear to protect men from developing prostate cancer",
said Leitzmann, at the National Cancer Institute. The study
suggested that frequent ejaculations may decrease the
concentration of "chemical carcinogens which readily
accumulate in prostatic fluid" and may reduce the
development of crystalloids "which have been associated with prostate cancer in some."
. . The prostate is a small gland that produces some
of the fluid for semen. Prostate cancer is the second most
common kind of cancer (after skin cancer) diagnosed among
U.S. men, and is highly survivable if caught in time.
. . The earlier Australian study published in July
2003 by the Cancer Council Victoria found that the more
often men ejaculated between the ages of 20 and 50, the
less likely they were to suffer from prostate cancer. That
survey, which covered 1,079 prostate cancer patients and
1,259 healthy men, found that those who had sex at least
once a day in their 20s were a third less likely to develop
the malady. "The more you flush the ducts out, the less
there is to hang around and damage the cells that line them."
Up to 15% of reported drug-rape victims are men.
Anal sex. According to Eli Coleman, director of the
program on human sexuality at the University of Minnesota,
somewhere between 10% and 25% of heterosexual couples engage in it.
The Brazilian government distributes some 600 million condoms a year.
Mar 25, 04: Most Americans oppose gay marriage and same-
sex unions but nevertheless do not support President Bush's
proposal to amend the U.S. Constitution to define marriage
as between a man and a woman, a new poll revealed.
. . The Quinnipiac University Polling Institute survey found that 63% of Americans were against gay marriage while 31% favored marriage for same-sex couples.
. . The poll of 1,865 registered voters nationwide,
with a margin of error of 2.3 percentage points, found that
older Americans were more likely to be opposed to gay
marriage. Younger voters aged 18 to 34 opposed gay marriage by a margin of 52% to 44%. Of those 65 or older, 77% were opposed compared with 15% in favor.
Mar 22, 04: Germans have sex an average 120 times a year, although not always with the same partner, according to an online survey. More than 10,000 people took part. Of those, 36% of female respondents and 30% of men said
they had been unfaithful, a percentage that swelled to one
in two by the time they reached the age of 35. 33% were
unhappy with their love life, most citing a lack of spontaneity or a desire to experiment as being the cause. Some 20% of Germans had unprotected sex in the last year despite the risk of sexually transmitted diseases.
A report from Reuters Business Insight in Feb 03, calculated that sex represented two-thirds of all online content revenue in 2001, and that it had ballooned to a
$2.5 billion industry since then. Lawley estimates that 25% of all Internet search queries are related to sex and that over a million adult domain names exist.
Mar 11, 04: In all lower types of animals, both genders
produce sex cells and remain fertile throughout life. But
in mammals, it was believed only males continued to produce
sperm through adulthood. In females, the ovaries contained
at birth all the eggs needed for a lifetime.
. . Scientists discovered that the ovaries of female
mice contain stem cells that produce new eggs well into
adulthood. Although not yet proven, scientists say the
findings likely apply to humans. If confirmed, the research
re-writes the books on reproductive biology and poses far-
reaching implications for the treatment of infertility, reproduction and menopause.
. . Although the mice in this study are producing new
eggs well into adulthood, it doesn't mean they are fertile
until old age. But the finding that ovaries make new eggs
will force scientists to re-think concepts of infertility
and reproduction. "The observations are still true --older
women have a higher incidence of births with genetic
abnormalities-- but the reasoning to explain and understand it would certainly change."
Mar 10, 04: U.S. adolescents who pledge not to have sex
until they are married have about the same rate of sexually
transmitted diseases as other teenagers and they often fail
to keep their pledge, according to a study. The study of a
nationally representative sample of about 15,000 youths
aged 12 to 18 found that 88% of teenagers who
pledged to remain virgins until they are married ended up having sex before marriage.
. . The study, funded largely by the National
Institutes of Health, found that these teenagers were also
less likely to use condoms when they did have sex because
they had not paid attention to sex education. Because of
their ignorance about sexually transmitted diseases, "pledgers" were also less likely to seek medical help if they contracted one of the diseases.
. . Adolescents who pledged abstinence were much less
likely than others to use contraceptives the first time
they had sex. Consequently, their risk of getting STDs and
becoming pregnant was as high as non-pledgers, the study found.
. . Only 40% of male pledgers had used a
condom in the past year compared with 59% of those
who did not promise to avoid sex. Among females, the gap
was 47% to 55%. "These movements that are ignorant of social science
research defeat the purpose they set out to solve", Bearman said.
Mar 8, 04: Researchers who found homosexual rams in a herd
of sheep said they had found changes in the brains of the
"gay" animals. The results, published in the latest issue
of the Journal Endocrinology, tend to support studies in
humans that have found anatomical differences between the
brains of heterosexual men and homosexual men.
. . They found certain groups of brain cells were
different between rams and ewes in a part of the sheep
brain controlling sexual behavior. And in rams that
preferred to mate with other males, this area was smaller
than in males that preferred females. "There's a difference
in the brain that is correlated with sexual partner
preference rather than gender [of the preferer]." "This
particular study, along with others, strongly suggests that
sexual preference is biologically determined in animals,
and possibly in humans."
. . Animal experts have found that about 8%
of domestic rams display preferences for other males as sexual partners. "Same-sex attraction is widespread across many different species."
. . They found a densely packed cluster of nerve cells in the hypothalamus of the sheep brain, which they named the ovine sexually dimorphic nucleus or oSDN.
The hypothalamus regulates sex hormone secretion, blood
pressure, body temperature, water balance, and food intake,
and also helps regulate complex behaviors such as sexual behavior.
. . The oSDN in rams that preferred females was
"significantly" larger and contained more neurons than in
male-oriented rams and in ewes. There were also hormonal
differences between the brains of homosexual and heterosexual sheep.
Mar 8, 04: Couples caught kissing passionately in public in Indonesia could spend five years in jail. Members of parliament in the world's most populous Muslim country have proposed an anti-pornography bill that includes a ban on kissing on the mouth in public.
Christelle Demichel became both bride and widow in one
ceremony. The deceased groom, a former policeman, was not
present. In French law, a marriage between a living person
and a dead person can take place as long as preliminary civic formalities have been completed that show the couple had planned to marry.
Feb 27, 04: More than 10,600 children said they
were molested by priests since 1950 in an epidemic of child
sexual abuse involving at least 4% of U.S. Roman
Catholic priests, two studies reported. The two studies,
which were commissioned by U.S. Catholic bishops in
2002, said the abuse peaked with the ordination class of
1970, from which one in 10 priests was eventually accused of abuse.
. . The report revealed that 10,667 children were
allegedly victimized by 4,392 priests from 1950 to 2002,
but said the figures depend on self-reporting by American
bishops and were probably an undercount.
Feb 17, 04: Children accused more than 4,000 priests of sexual abuse between 1950 and 2002, according to a draft survey for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. The
survey, to be released February 27, found that children made more than 11,000 allegations of sexual abuse by priests. The 4,450 accused priests represent about 4
percent of the 110,000 priests who served during the 52 years covered by the study.
. . According to the survey, 78% of those
abused were between 11 and 17, 16% were 8 to 10, and nearly 6% were 7 or younger.
. . More than 44,000 priests serve in the United
States, according to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
Feb 18, 04: A Singapore judge reduced the sentence of a
policeman charged with receiving oral sex after his case
provoked a storm of protest. Singaporeans, known for
quietly acquiescing to tough laws, appeared shocked such a
ban even existed, and the government announced last month it may decriminalize oral sex between men and women following a review of the Penal Code.
Feb 13, 04: Love may indeed be blind, whether it is love
for a newborn or its father, British researchers reported.
Writing in the journal NeuroImage, they said their finding
suggests that to some degree, love really is blind to
faults. Scanners showed the brains of young mothers lit up
in the same way when they looked at their babies as the
brains of people who looked at images of their lovers.
. . And the region activated told an important story,
too. It was an area known as the reward system. The areas
activated were brain cells known to be sensitive to
oxytocin, a message-carrying chemical associated with
sensations such as euphoria, pleasure and love. Parts of
the brain turned off when looking at a lover, spouse
or child --and that was the system involved in making negative judgments.
Feb 13, 04: A 20-year study involving more than 600
married couples shows that by carefully plotting how a
husband and wife interact and then reducing those observations to a formula, researchers can tell which marriages will succeed and which are heading for the rocks.
. . How couples resolve differences is a key factor
in whether a marriage will last. The team found that there
basically are three types of stable marriages.
. . The first is a husband and wife who routinely
avoids conflict. When a difference of opinion arises, said
Gottman, "they will never argue. They will listen to the
other, but will not try to persuade." Such marriages, which
he calls the "avoiders", may be unemotional and distant, but they endure.
. . A second type is a volatile relationship "like
two lawyers in a courtroom", said Gottman. "They can argue
at the drop of a hat. They are the Bickersons", he said.
Such marriages tend to last even though there are frequent and impassioned arguments.
. . The third type of stable marriage Gottman calls
the "validating" couple. They listen to each other, respect the other's opinion and only occasionally argue. "They pick the issues they fight about", he said.
. . . Trouble in marriages comes when the couples are
a mix of personalities that do not mesh in resolving conflicts.
Non-governmental organizations estimate the number of child prostitutes in Brazil at between 100,000 and 500,000, out of a total population of 175 million.
Feb 9, 04: Romance blossoms in the workplace for nearly
two thirds of employees, according to a survey. Half of
coupled-up colleagues admit their work suffers as a result,
according to the "Work-Love Balance" survey.
. . Three in ten people said they had "enjoyed
physical intimacy" in their workplace, citing the lift and
stairwell as the most expedient locations.
. . Despite the naughty nurse stereotype, health care
and medical workers are the least likely to indulge in work
romances, while the leisure and tourism industry is a
libidinous hotbed which ensnares eight out of 10 employees, the survey found.
Feb 4, 04: Massachusetts' highest court upheld its
landmark ruling made last year by saying that only
marriages for gay couples and not civil unions were valid
under the constitution. In response to a request from
lawmakers to evaluate proposed legislation that would allow
civil unions --essentially a parallel form of marriage for
gays and lesbians-- the Massachusetts Supreme Court
delivered a flat "no." "The bill maintains an unconstitutional, inferior and discriminatory status for same-sex couples", the court said.
Some people may joke that men don't think with their heads when it comes to sex, but a study in monkeys suggests the brain plays a significant role in the decision to mate,
researchers reported. Brain scans of tiny marmoset monkeys
show a lot of thought goes into choosing mates. The team
studied four male marmosets, offering them gland secretion samples from females at or close to ovulation. They also let the monkeys smell samples from females whose ovaries
had been removed, and who therefore were not fertile and, presumably, not sexy.
. . The researchers were surprised to see how much
more of the animals' brain lit up when they smelled the
samples from fertile females --including areas of complex, cognitive reasoning.
. . "This is the first time anyone has imaged an
awake nonhuman primate in response to emotionally arousing
stimuli. It is also the first link between external sexual
odors and the internal sexual arousal system." He said the
marmoset data corresponded surprisingly closely to human fMRI studies.
Jan 26, 04: Love is not blind --at least when it comes to
facial plastic surgery. Of people who are dating or
married, 59% of women and 54% of men would
like to change at least one feature on their partner's
face. It found that men were most likely to take
suggestions about plastic surgery as an insult. Women were
more likely than men to take suggestions as gestures of love and when a sweetheart offered to pay, were twice as likely to go ahead with plastic surgery.
An 11-year-old girl has given birth to a healthy baby boy, becoming Ukraine's youngest mother on record. The Guinness Book of World Records no longer keeps records of young
mothers. In 1993, an 8-year-old girl gave birth to a boy in
Guadalajara, Mexico, doctors there confirmed.
Santa Fe second only to San Francisco in the percentage of
households headed by same-sex couples.
Jan 14, 04: Proposed legislation in Italy would allow two
people --same sex or not-- to live together and enjoy the
same rights as married couples. Similar legislation was
adopted in France in 1999 and is known as the Civil Solidarity Pact or PaCS.
Jan 5, 04: PAS, the main threat to Malaysia's multi-racial
government coalition, recently unveiled plans for an
orthodox Islamic state, including strict sharia laws. It
rules just two of the 13 states in multi-racial, multi-
religious Malaysia. Authorities in Malaysia's conservative
Terengganu state plan to ban non-Muslim women wearing mini-
skirts or figure-hugging dresses to work as part of a drive
against "indecency". Muslim women will have to wear
headscarves and loose dresses to office, they said, adding employers risked losing their business licenses and face fines if the staff flouted the rules.
. . "The PAS government will not tolerate females,
including those from different religions, wearing such
clothes during working hours", one state official said.
. . In the two states PAS runs, gambling is banned
and so is dancing and public consumption of liquor by non-
Muslims. Men and women are required to use separate checkouts at supermarkets.
. . Women's groups have railed against the planned ban.
Nine former South Korean prostitutes have filed lawsuits
against their pimps seeking damages in a landmark legal
case. Prostitution is illegal in South Korea but flourishes in myriad forms.
. . Seven of the women say they were lured into
prostitution rings as minors under the age of 18 and never
received promised up-front payments of as much as 10
million won ($8,400) in addition to room and board.
A former television presenter in Singapore was sentenced
to 16 months jail and four strokes of the cane for "outrage of modesty"!
Jan 6, 04: Singapore may decriminalize oral sex
between men and women, a government minister said, but
homosexual oral sex looks set to stay illegal. The law
could be revised in two to three months.
. . Protests over the law filled newspaper forum
pages and buzzed in Internet chat rooms. In an earlier
case, a wife tried to punish her unfaithful husband by
performing oral sex on him and then reporting him to the police.
. . Critics have pointed out the irony of the law in
a country where prostitution remains legal. Ho said the law
was mostly used to prosecute cases involving minors, or
mentally and physically handicapped people. [!]
. . Singapore is relaxing other laws such as rules on
bungee-jumping, bar-top dancing and chewing gum in a bid to
shake off its stuffy image and lure foreign professionals.
Jan 2, 04: Morality police in southern Saudi Arabia plan
to conduct raids to ensure that shops do not sell flowers,
candles and gifts to those planning to celebrate New Year.
The Arabic-language al-Watan said the Authority for the
Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice in Aseer
province was determined to uphold a ban by the conservative
Muslim kingdom on non-Muslim celebrations.
Jan 2, 04: China is providing sex education for female
middle school students for the first time, state media
says, in an attempt to demystify sex in a still socially
conservative country. Even in booming big cities like
Shanghai, sex is still a taboo topic for most Chinese
families, and surveys often show a high level of ignorance
and dissatisfaction with people's sex lives. Medical
specialists said local girls were now reaching puberty
around the age of 11, earlier than in the past due to
improved diets, arousing concerns on the need for better sex education.
.
If you got here from the GAIA HOME PAGE, click on
"minimize" or "eXit". (upper right browser buttons)
If you didn't: the site.)