First and foremost I want to say thank you so much for being a part of our team and doing our Sex in the News for so long. We’ve absolutely LOVED having you on! Due to our merger w/ XM Radio, which launches on Monday, Sirius has asked us to make some changes to the show. We are taking the Sex in the News segment and the show in a different direction and will no longer need you to come in every Tuesday to do the news. Again, we’ve loved having you. Please stay in touch with us and let us know when you are promoting something, so we can have you as a guest. We will miss seeing you every week!

I’ll miss it too. I am grateful to have had the opportunity — and even as I indulge in some personal mourning at the loss, I look forward to what’ll show up next. Because something always does. Right? Right.

In other words, each judges the other by themselves, a common human trait that gets us into all sorts of trouble.

However, when a person is direct (“Stop”), the other person is more likely to get it for what the person means, vs when a person is indirect (“I have a partner”).

In Sexier Sex, I noted that women who say “just dinner” need to stick to it, no matter how much they then decide they want to have sex, because otherwise it just trains others to persist in the face of adversity. “Ah ha!” they think. “The thought has crossed her mind! I’m winning!”

If you change your mind and want it, call ‘em tomorrow and go for it — before breakfast if necessary, eh? Or, if you have the slightest suspicion you might be open to sex, don’t set up the dinner date as “just dinner.” Women shouldn’t have to be coy about sexuality, pretending one hunger to justify another.

On air, we talked a bit about how being direct does not have to mean being hurtful, rude, snide, or snarky.

“We need to stop here, as we’ve reached a line I don’t want to cross,” is honest and not hurtful of feelings. “It’s getting late” is vague and leads to misunderstanding and possibly regrets or deliberate manipulation. “You’re disgusting and I never want your tongue in my mouth again” is direct but insulting. Even if it’s true.

We’ve all been there, of course. I’ve had accidental makeout and accidental sex in my life, before I knew it was okay to say no to someone who wanted to. (I know, I know, silly of me. But those experiences taught me otherwise and I don’t regret them. Not even Jeremy Blow-n-Go, about which I’m finally not even embarrasssed.)

But man I tell you whut, women are taught from such an early age never to be direct, never to risk “hurting someone’s feelings,” and they (we) end up causing so much more annoyance/pain/frustration for everyone involved because of our dancing around. Men learn early on that if they just keep pushing, they can wear women down into a yes, because it’s easier for her than to stay true to her own desires and communicate them honestly and respectfully and, yes, kindly.

That’s a skill you can learn and practice online, by the way, if it’s hard for you to speak up directly in person.

First, I jumped on the “revise the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) so it doesn’t assume kinky behavior is a mental illness” bandwagon and the recent petition circulating among sex-positive folks.

(Well, actually, FIRST, I described my adventure in rescuing a puppy from the streets and finding its home and returning it to the lady — and I did this all in Spanish, of which I’m proud. SECOND, I noted that I got to have teh sex yesterday for hours and hours until I could barely sit down in the studio this morning and was still rather aromatic. But THIRD, I dove into the news with … the petition.)

Kinky Is Not a Diagnosis
The petition calls on the American Psychiatric Association’s (APA) to rethink its section on paraphilias, which are traits and behaviors involving “nonstandard” or “unusual” sexual interest. Some of the statements in the DSM have been contradicted by scientific research and it’s time to revise them to reflect the evidence rather than the cultural bias. Kink is not mental illness, and while some mental illnesses get expressed in sexual behavior, it’s the illness, not the behavior, that gets the diagnosis. (Some people do “nonstandard” and “unusual” things with food or alcohol but that doesn’t make eating or drinking a mental illness for everyone.)

Oral Sex Down Under
Australians have “discovered” oral sex, a funsie formerly confined to sex workers, claims news.com.au. Really? I always thought Australians invented oral sex, and that’s why we called it “down under.” Ba dum pum pum. But seriously, I can’t help but view the sexual health experts somewhat askance — it’s not possible that oral sex was Not Done before the sexual revolution and women’s lib. Perhaps they didn’t talk about it, if it was so taboo, but I bet you $5 that it was done. Oh yes.

Walking the Walk
Sex researchers guessed 80 percent correctly about whether women could have orgasms and whether they had “vaginal orgasms” by watching videos of how women walked.

Virginity Dumping Kit
Quirk Books released a First Timer’s Kit for those wanting to lose their virginity. But it’s missing something pretty important: a condom, a backup condom, a third condom in case things go well, and some lube.

[I tried to put the picture here but wordpress is balking me, so if you want to see it, follow the link. It's very "church of the subgenius" style.]

Social Media More Popular than Porn
Bill Tancer, data geek, analyzed 10 million web users (well, their information, anyway) to find that we are what we click: internet searches and usage reflect societal change.

So many “duh” moments to this, my wrists hurt too much to type ‘em. It starts with “everyone uses social media including kids but believe it or not, everyone doesn’t go for porn online” and goes all the way down to “sex is more engaging, takes longer, and requires more repeat visits than porn, so comparing social media traffic to porn traffic online is pointless.”

But it’s nice to see someone officially pointing out that we are who we are, online or off, and that we don’t dump all our cultural conditioning when we log on and then pick it up the instant we log off. (Er, duh.)

And it was also fun to tell Tiffany that she and I are MySpace friends, which she didn’t realize.

One is that writing is archived forever — and it isn’t instant. So when I start to write things like “you can annul a marriage in California up to the five-year mark,” I can then go verify that I’m right. Then I find out I’m wrong, by an inch or a mile, and I revise my writing. On air, I can’t do that, so I say these things and then I go “wait! I’m not sure!” and the producers go looking stuff up but meanwhile I’m hanging there live on air being wrong with stuff people might depend on me to be accurate with. (In the spirit of live radio I’m not going to revise that poorly constructed sentence into a more readable one.)

So, to clarify, in case you missed the correction on air: In California, you can get a summary dissolution within the first five years of marriage, not an annulment. Annulment (talking legal term here, not religious) is specific to certain conditions such as incest or bigamy and does not depend on the amount of time married. Here’s a summary of the law from the Superior Court of Sacramento.

I think that’s it for this week’s corrections, so now, on to Sex in the News.

The divorce/annulment/dissolution subject came up in the context of the story about Germany considering making marriage licenses renewable, in hopes of cutting back on the divorce rate. In this way couples would have to renew their legal marriage on a periodic basis — or not renew, which would be a different legal action than filing for divorce. Dina over at This Marriage Thing has a nice summary and an invitation to conversation on the issue.

On air, we compared it to the Scottish tradition of handfasting, where you pledge a year and a day of “as-if” marriage, and on that day decide whether to get married, split up with no legal/social repercussions, or renew the handfast.

I think this concept recasts relationships because it changes the default from “stay together” to “split up.” It forces couples to decide actively to stay together, otherwise legally their status as a married couple dissolves. (I know that in marriage people make active decisions to stay together every day, sometimes every hour – I’m talking on a larger scale than that, here, about legal status.) As it is now, marriage licenses default the relationship to staying together, making divorce the active decision.

I wonder how that would change things, if the renewal period fell within one of the inevitable bad spells of a marriage? Would couples, faced with losing their marital status whether they like it or not, just let things dissolve? Or would an inevitable renewal date help couples see beyond the temporary horribleness and misery and grasp for some reason to work it out? How would letting a marriage expire affect the emotional aspect of a breakup, even if legally it’s a different action/status than divorce?

(I want to get these show notes posted quickly so I’m going to leave it at that, but this is an idea I’d like to revisit in the future and would have totally written a column about, back in the day.)

We also talked briefly about this cosmetic surgeon who “did not attempt to stop” a patient from blowing him, and who also chose to perform her nose job anyway. Reading between the lines, it sounds like the 22-year-old woman thought she could get away with something by blowing the 50-year-old male doctor and later suing him, and the case was dismissed. But I couldn’t help but laugh at this quote: “Knowing her nose better than anyone else, I was in a unique position to take care of the problem.”

Really? And what position was that, Doctor?

Also, I’d like to know what a “celebrity plastic surgeon” is and how that differs from non-celebrity plastic surgeons.

We didn’t get to the story about the German phone sex addict who has a history of checking into hotels, running up the phone bill, then running away without paying. His latest transgression is a six-day stay and about $10,500 in phone sex bills.

And we spent the first 25 minutes of the segment discussing the Bondage lovers happier than normal sex counterparts study, because as it turns out, the column I wrote on the subject was inspired by a conversation with Tiffany and the fishbowl while I was a guest on the show last year.

First, though, I have to clear up a misunderstanding: While I did squeal with delight at the chance to flash my ass at Tiffany and the girls, my bruise is actually on the side of my hip. I include a photo here showing some leg for scale and to correct the misconception of the position of said contusion.

[[If you're reading this from my day job, please note that yes, I took this in a bathroom, and I cropped most of it out but left in just enough leg to show the scale. I'm sorry that means my sensible cotton panties are visible. It's for medicinal purposes, not porn. Besides, when I cropped closer so as not to show panties, then I looked naked, which of course would be entirely inappropriate. If you are from my day job and find this inappropriate, don't click the Read More link. If you do, you've asked for it, and I refuse to be fired over it. Heh. ]]

And now, on to the news…

Englishwoman Kerry Norris has been fined £315 for having illegally loud sex all night long on a regular basis with her boyfriend Adam Hinton. Neighbors complained to the city council, saying that one couple’s children had to sleep in the front room to avoid the noise, while another neighbor’s four-year-old has nightmares and wets the bed “because of what she heard.” It’s not just body noises; apparently the couple yells “obscenities” and bangs the headboard against the wall until 6am.

My question is: Why fine only Kerry and not the boyfriend?

A Chinese man had a penis accident in Lan Tian park in Hong Kong this weekend, when he decided to have sex with a park bench and got stuck in the hole. Apparently the blood couldn’t flow back out of his penis once he got hard and officials on the scene could not extricate him. They ended up cutting the bench and taking it, with him still entwined, to the hospital, where it took four hours to cut him loose. Another hour and they’d have had to amputate the penis, not just the bench.

Back in England, a couple has been suspended from work after having sex in an office. The two employees of Unity Partnership, contracted to improve public services by the Oldham Metropolitan Borough Council, apparently forgot that windows facing to the outside count too when sneaking a morning quickie at work. After about 20 minutes, outside passersby notified management, who went in and stopped “the incident.” The police seem to have reprimanded the lovers but didn’t charge them with anything; it’s the employer that is figuring out what steps to take.

In Sweden, the state-run chain store Apoteket began in June to carry vibrators and “other items” for adults. Two claims were filed with the country’s equal opportunities ombudsman that the store violates sex discrimination laws by carrying “only female sex aids.”

One said that Apoteket was guilty of double standards, giving a “misguided and untrue view on sexuality where a woman with a dildo is seen as liberated, strong and independent, whereas a man with a blow up plastic vagina is viewed as disgusting and perverted.”

But the company has defended its decision, saying it would stock sex toys for men if there were any good ones on the market.

The claims were thrown out, but both sides show a disappointing ignorance about the whole concept of sex toys. All sex toys are for all sexes, although of course some work better for certain body parts than others. But you can use them with partners, you can use them on body parts they aren’t primarily intended for (e.g., a male masturbation sleeve on a slim female forearm), and you can give them as gifts to people of the sex you think most likely to gain pleasure from them.

Apoteket also says it would carry toys for men if any “good quality” ones existed. Apparently they have yet to learn about Aneros, Fleshlight, nJoy, and a whole slew of awesome lubes and creams designed specifically for putting someone’s hand on someone’s penis. I think I’ll drop their spokeswoman an email about this, actually.

From down under: an entire generation of young successful career singles say that they’d rather have “a partner and a happy home” than “a successful career,” as if the two things are mutually exclusive. I admit, I ranted a bit at the part about this group reporting that they have too much spare time. I believe I said something along the lines of “there’s a cure for too much spare time, y’know.” Tiffany said “Sex?” and I said “Volunteer.” She said “after their long day at work?” I said “They say they have too much spare time and they’d rather have a happy home and a partner than career success, so why not go do good stuff and keep an eye out for a partner who doesn’t confuse happiness with money?”

The demographic also reports higher levels of smoking, drinking, and overspending than other groups — all habits that to contribute to feeling like you are stressed, depressed, lonely and have unfulfilling spare time. Other groups, including couples without kids and adults with kids, reported higher levels of satisfaction than the no kids young folks. But I worry a bit about that. Kids aren’t something you can have in your spare time and put away when you have other stuff to do.

Speaking of spare time. Playgirl magazine is ceasing publication soon, and Boinkology has an interesting comment thread about whether it’s time for another magazine to take its place, one with naked men and intelligent sexual conversation and interesting topics that appeal to women. Or whether women can get what we need from romance novels and the internet.

Jamye Waxman, who wrote an excellent advice column for the magazine for several years, muses about its demise on her blog and notes that in the UK, there’s a magazine that does what Playgirl should have done, and that’s very good: Scarlet. It’s the first I’ve heard of it so I’m going to check it out.

I subscribed to Playgirl for a few years, when Jill S— was the managing editor, and it was surprisingly good. The writing was good, the topics interesting, the articles different from regular women’s magazines. But when Jill left, the articles disintegrated; not just in content and quality but in very basic things like spelling and grammar.

They did some smart things about the picture content, re-using archive material in blasts-from-the-pasts and adding a celebrity section with fuzzy stills taken from movies. That let them provide more content without spending as much money (particularly the archives, which they already owned), but when the articles go bad, it brings the whole magazine down.

My guess is the money side didn’t want to fund enough editors or hire experienced editors and that the staff was working so hard to write content at all, no one had time/brain cells left for content and copy editing. But still. Joke about reading Playwhatever for the articles all you want, but without good ones, a women’s magazine isn’t going to succeed.

I told her my own fairly recent strategy, when I hear myself complaining about things that aren’t that important: I cut myself off with a mock-wail of “… and the remote control to my Mercedes is broken!” Because honestly, I know just how privileged I am, and also how precarious the world is. I’m damned lucky to drive a Toyota and have a nice place to live and fast internet and aqueducts and sanitation.

Not to mention, Sex in the News!

A young man sent NPR’s Youth Radio listeners into a controversy by noting on the air that condom-free sex has replaced (or at least, precedes) the engagement ring in his generation:

“My generation has known the threat of HIV/AIDS for our entire lives, and sex without a condom isn’t something we enter into lightly. For a lot of my friends, the transition from having sex with, to sex without a condom, is seen as a symbolic engagement. It shows trust, commitment and the prospect of a shared future. An engagement more practical than spending on money on a piece of jewelry for a marriage that might not pass the test of time.”

Tiffany and I talked about that for a while. We both see the truth in it, and the danger — HIV infections are up 40 percent in the United States in the past couple of years, folks! — as well as the generational difference. Last week we talked about older people having more sex and how STDs are on the rise in retirement communities, attributed to folks not realizing that they too need to practice safer sex. For those folks, condoms represent birth control, which is not usually needed if you’re over 65. But for everyone under 40, condoms represent STD prevention — so when you stop using them as part of your ongoing relationship, it’s assumed you’ve got some other birth control method in place.

The NY Times has a nonstory about HIV research that nevertheless left me feeling a tiny bit of hope. I say it’s a nonstory because it’s basically “Can a daily pill prevent HIV? No one knows!” even though the headline suggested something more … complete. However. The story notes that several studies are looking at the potential of a daily pill we could take to prevent HIV, a “pre-exposure prophylaxis” or PrEP method of prevention (vs a one-time vaccine, for example).

I’m cynical about developing monthly pills for anything, of course, knowing that it’s a lot more profitable to sell people 30-day supplies of medication for 50 years than to sell them one shot every 10. On the other hand, I know people who take acyclovir on a daily basis and suppress herpes outbreaks quite successfully, even through times of stress or other triggers. And I am certainly not opposed to treatments, cures and preventions that work!

Experts say we’d still need to follow all the precautions and that a pill would be just one more tool in the toolbox for sexually active people to keep safe and healthy.

Speaking of sexually active people who play safe: we took a detour down the “there’s a social network for every niche” path and talked about FetLife, an adult social media community. I mentioned it mainly because when you’re always reading about sex, your sense of vanilla, kinky and fetish gets all messed up, and I was wondering what exactly qualifies a person to sign up on FetLife, for example, rather than, oh, I dunno, OKCupid or Facebook or wherever people hang out these days.

Funny and life-saving at the same time, the new kugelsicherebustenhalter has been handed out to 3,000 female police officers in Germany. These bullet-proof bras are intended to solve the issue of a bullet-proof vest smashing a regular bra into your ribcage, gouging your flesh with underwires and metal fastenings and making it even more difficult to breathe. Not to mention the burns, punctures and other dangers of a bullet hitting metal that close to you. The Register story I linked to above is funny; the BBC has more actual details and the photo I posted at the top.

The Explorers Blog announces that Canadian sex ed site Sexuality and U is now using Browsealoud, software that reads the site content aloud for you. You can also record the audio to MP3 for later listening — sort of like TiVo for your sex ed.

Young women outnumber young men in social media, says Rapleaf, which I found through ReadWriteWeb. Who’s surprised? I’ve always felt that girls are more likely to express themselves in writing, to keep journals and diaries, to discuss everything in excruciating detail with other girls … it’s not going to change just ’cause it’s gone all electronic ‘n’ stuff.

I do think it’s interesting that LinkedIn, of which I was an early adopter and still a big fan (despite a backlog of updates and communications; I’m sorry folks I’ve been so slammed for so long!), is still mainly male. I wouldn’t lump it in with other “social networks” though. I still think of it as a professional networking site, and while professional and social do blend quite a bit, putting LinkedIn in the same category with Facebook or MySpace seems too broad. I would never flirt with someone on LinkedIn, so to my mind, it’s not social. Funny to realize that’s my barameter!

Lucrezia Magazine highlights a new robot who responds to love and abuse in similar ways to human response. It relaxes when it receives affection and gets anxious when it is hit or yelled at. The idea is that artificial emotional intelligence is not as far away as we might think, and that this teddy bear is a forerunner of an interactive sex doll.

It’s that writer thing, y’know? Just as everyone you love is going through the most horrible of things, there’s a little part in the wayback part of your brain – at the base of your spine – that’s going I could write this….

It was fun to be the techie in the room, ’cause I was looking it up on USGS before the aftershocks even stopped, and there it was: a 5.6 epicentered in Chino Hills. We were able to reassure Tiffany that her house/dogs/husband were okay, that the quake was even further from her home than the studio, and after about two minutes of music filling the air she was able to get back on. And I think her listeners will spend the next couple of hours calling to offer support and love and she’ll be okay.

But! Before all the excitement, we had Sex in the News.

We started with a shout out to Stroker Serpentine and his company Eros, which has just opened up a virtual Las Vegas inside Second Life, and celebrated by offering some free time with the SexGen playthings.

Boston College researchers found a direct relationship between quality – respectful, attentive, joyful – family time and teenagers practicing safer sexual activity. The opposite also holds true: the less secure a young person’s environment, the more likely they engage in sexual risk. I’m sure this pertains to drinking, drugs, tagging, gang membership, crime, and just about every other rebellious / risky behavior. Not a surprise finding, but nice to have evidence, and nice to see people looking beyond the “are they/aren’t they” into more complex questions.

Meanwhile, grown-up people are having more sex and more importantly, enjoying it more. Why? Combination of things. We have better treatments for physical issues that make it more difficult to do teh sex as we retire, like arthritis, and for sexual function, like Viagra and prescription estrogen vaginal lubricant creams. I also think the social changes have helped; the boomers came of age expecting to have and enjoy sex even if they were – gasp – female. But they’ve got to catch up on the whole safer sex thing.

National Orgasm Day is July 31, this Thursday, so we urged listeners to practice their Kegels, Pilates, Yoga, etc. and get their pelvic floors in shape for the big day.

A fun little utility over at MikeOnAds.com analyzes your browser history and guesses whether you are male or female. It’s just for fun, not for market analysis, but I was surprised that it nailed me at 99 percent probability as female. I do realize that last week I worked onsite at my day job all week, and the column before that I covered the Adult Novelty Expo, so in the past 30 days I haven’t done as much tech-and-sex browser research as usual. But a male friend of mine came out 51 percent probability of male and another came out 74 percent probability of female (this is a correction, btw, as on air I said male instead of female, oops).

I chose not to deal with the Lifestyles claiming they’ve asked Mylie Cyrus to rep their message of ’safer sex.’ Maybe I’ll write about that later, as I have some fledgling but strong opinions on it. Mylie’s publicist claims Lifestyles did no such thing. Here’s the article I saw.

And I know we’ve talked about that on a previous episode…which means it’s really happening, I really do get to be on the radio as a regular. *beam*

Kind of a slow news week in sex, or at least, in the kind of stories I like to find.

The big one is an obscenity case in Florida in which the defense wants to bring in results of Google Trends, to show that the accused is not actually violating community standard.

What’s Obscene? Google Could Have an Answer
In the trial of a pornographic Web site operator, the defense plans to show that residents of Pensacola are more likely to use Google to search for terms like “orgy” than for “apple pie” or “watermelon.” The publicly accessible data is vague in that it does not specify how many people are searching for the terms, just their relative popularity over time. But the defense lawyer, Lawrence Walters, is arguing that the evidence is sufficient to demonstrate that interest in the sexual subjects exceeds that of more mainstream topics — and that by extension, the sexual material distributed by his client is not outside the norm.

It is not clear that the approach will succeed. The Florida state prosecutor in the case, which is scheduled for trial July 1, said the search data may not be relevant because the volume of Internet searches is not necessarily an indication of, or proxy for, a community’s values.

But the tactic is another example of the value of data collected by Internet companies like Google, both from a commercial standpoint and as a window into the thoughts, interests and desires of their users.

“Time and time again you’ll have jurors sitting on a jury panel who will condemn material that they routinely consume in private,” said Mr. Walters, the defense lawyer. Using the Internet data, “we can show how people really think and feel and act in their own homes, which, parenthetically, is where this material was intended to be viewed,” he added.

We then tried to use Google Trends to see what Los Angeles is surfing today, but of course that’s when I remembered never to try something fresh, live on air, because I misunderstood how Google Trends works. I thought you could put in a region and see what people were searching; turns out you put in search terms and then see what regions are using them. Grumble. That’s not useful!

In other news, 21 international experts have determined a new official definition for premature ejaculation, and while the definition still makes it a vagina-specific condition, it does mention that you must be in mental distress for it to be official p.e. Also, Cory Silverberg says that the group does acknowledge other sexual acts than vaginal penetration, even though it’s not part of the definition. I was surprised to learn that 20-30% of men are affected by this (which I think means either have it or fear that they have it); so if you’re worried you’re the only one and that’s why you aren’t going to the doctor, make that appointment now. They can do something about it if it’s distressing you.

The first World Naked Bike Ride takes place this Friday in Greece, for a cause:

It’s time to put a stop to the indecent exposure of people and the planet to cars and the pollution they create.

We face automobile traffic with our naked bodies as the best way of defending our dignity and exposing the vulnerability faced by cyclists and pedestrians on our streets as well as the negative consequences we all face due to dependence on oil, and other forms of non-renewable energy.

And finally, Screaming O has released the Two-O, a disposable cock ring with two vibes, one for her and one for him. They make all kinds of small toys that probably won’t get you off on your own, but that play well with others. And of course the benefit of a one-time-use ring is that you can bring it to a new date and not have her wonder whether you cleaned it well after its previous use.

Oh, I did forget about one more, which I accidentally left on my printer at home: a Shine blog post about MissNowMrs.com, which does the tedious work of changing your name once you get married. That led to a discussion about who takes whose names anymore, and why, and who doesn’t, and why, and whether taking your husband’s last name still means that your father has passed on ownership of you to your husband. (I sent the link to the Sex in the News producer in case they want to talk about it tomorrow.)

Yikes!

But moving on to the news. Today’s theme was pretty much “let’s bring sex into everything else!” as half the stories related to non-sex brands adding something sex-ish to their offerings.

MTV has launched a sex blog called Stand By What You Say where you call in and record your response to a topic (like “pick up lines” and “sex secrets”). They use SpinVox to transcribe it to text and post it. It’s part of their Staying Alive charity for AIDS/HIV education.

American Apparel now sells the Hitachi Magic Wand, and doesn’t even pretend it’s not sexual: “This old school hand-held massager has been around for more than 25 years, with good reason. Its low vibration works as well on your sore back as it does in the bedroom. If there is any doubt, google it for worldwide rave reviews.”

Meanwhile, in case the phallus USB drive I mentioned a few weeks ago is too anatomical for you, there’s a USB Humping Dog that provides a similar sort of humor in a slightly cutesier package.

You know how Fark has a category called “Florida”? I feel like I should make one for “Japan.” There’s a new little girlfriend robot for lonely Japanese men, called EMA, for Eternal Maiden Actualization. She will kiss your head, hand out business cards, and sing and dance, just like a real girlfriend — except she’s only 15 inches tall. (But very cute!)

Leaving sexy doohickeys aside for now, researchers have found that straight men and gay women share certain brain characteristics, as do gay men and straight women. I tripped over my tongue several times trying to summarize the story without messing up who was gay and who was straight, so if you want to know more, follow the link.

And finally, speaking of male characteristics:

For those who worry about their penis size, Ed at the astonishingly comprehensive Penis Size Debate has charted the range of sizes women report as ideal, very satisfying, satisfying, enjoyable, and not satisfying.

But I apparently missed this story the first time around:

Woman with objects fetish marries Eiffel Tower
Erika La Tour Eiffel, 37, a former soldier who lives in San Francisco, has been in love with objects before. Her first infatuation was with Lance, a bow that helped her to become a world-class archer, she is fond of the Berlin Wall and she claims to have a physical relationship with a piece of fence she keeps in her bedroom.

But it is the Eiffel Tower she has pledged to love, honour and obey in an intimate ceremony attended by a handful of friends.

She revisits the massive structure as part of a documentary on [BBC channel] Five on Objectum-Sexual women. There are around 40 people in the world who have declared themselves OS, all of them women and many of them also Asperger’s Syndrome sufferers.

The OS term was first coined by Eija-Riitta Berliner-Mauer, a 54-year-old woman who has been “married” to the Berlin Wall for 29 years.

[snip]

Jerry Brooker, from New York State, one of the psychotherapists interviewed for the documentary, said that OS women were motivated by a need for control.

“Someone who falls in love with objects can control that relationship on their own terms,” he said. “Their objects will not let them down. That is extremely attractive for a person who is otherwise often desperately lonely.”

And people worry about the evolution of artificial intelligence and sex robots.

[some time passes]

Now I can’t stop thinking about the romantic orientation of various structures, and what it means to have committed relationship with something that doesn’t have a gender or a central nervous system.

Sex Drive: Tech Helps Soldiers Cope with Invisible Wounds of War

Some war injuries are obvious at first glance, like missing limbs or facial burn scars. Others remain invisible to the casual eye — post-traumatic stress disorder, brain injuries, broken hearts.

Yes, broken hearts. The recent Army Suicide Report revealed that in 2007, 50 percent of suicides among active duty personnel occurred just after their partners broke up with them, and cites “failed intimate relationships” as the most common reason for suicide attempts even after soldiers return home.

The military does not have a fabulous track record for making sex and relationships a priority, other than promoting heterosexual marriage and families as the foundation of stability and an ideal worth defending. Yet how can you simultaneously encourage marriage while ignoring the emotional toll of deployment and combat on a relationship?

Continued @ Wired…

I can think of a number of things I would recommend that all branches of the military do, including sending personnel to sex and relationship workshops that will give people tools to stay connected and nurture relationships during the stresses of service, whether long-distance or living together, with a particular emphasis on issues only military people face. All that touchy-feely stuff that makes Wired nervous probably scares the bejeezus out of the military, but I think ultimately it would have a positive effect not just on the individuals who take advantage of the offer but on the military as a whole.

Oh, also, she asked me about my threesome experience, having heard in the control room before we went on air that I tested Franklin’s sex game Onyx with the help of a couple I know. Yeah, yeah, my first offline threesome, and it wasn’t even with two men — funny how life sneaks up on you! Franklin had said to me that a first threesome is exactly the kind of situation that Onyx is great for, and he was right. I’ll have more to say about this after I finish my article on the subject.

On to the larger world!

A Lavalife.com member survey found that thirty-four percent of Baby Boomers reported they’d have sex on the first date, while only 17 percent of Generation X said they would. Only 10 percent of Boomers reported any interest in getting married, while a full 60 percent of 30 to 39 year olds want to wed. And 25 percent of Boomers were open to mánage á trois (which is how we got onto the subject of my step into that world).

No wonder there’s so much hysteria about what teenagers might be doing, from all these sexually active kinky parents, eh?

In Sweden, way more young women have same-sex sex than young men, with 6.1 percent of girls but only 1.7 percent of boys saying ja. The story says that “no one is quite sure why the disparity” but it has something to do with the ideas that a) girl sex isn’t really sex, because there’s no penis and b) boy sex is gay and gay is wrong/bad/dirty/shameful. I don’t know why I continue to be surprised by this prejudice, or that people don’t remember or acknowledge that adolescence is a time of trying new things including sexual things or … bah. Insert rant, you’ve heard it before.

Jenny Craig says that 60 percent of women prefer to have sex in the dark because they feel fat. Well, Jenny Craig would say that, wouldn’t she? She suggests that women eat nutritiously and exercise regularly, which boosts confidence, sex drive, and stamina. Really? Only women should do this?

A break from statistics, but also NSFW if you scroll down: Giant Vulva Bicycle Taxi.

World Youth Day in Sydney, Australia is a Catholic-sponsored gathering, and like any big event, economy analysts predict it will flow a lot of money into sex worker purses. Brothels and strip clubs in particular should reap the windfall as about a quarter million people descend upon the city.

A woman can’t switch her phone’s Bluetooth feature on in a public place without receiving a barrage of the love poems and photos of flowers and small children which many Saudi men keep stored on their phones for purposes of flirtation. And last year, Al Arabiya television reported that some young Saudis have started buying special “electronic belts,” which use Bluetooth technology to discreetly beam the wearer’s cellphone number and e-mail address at passing members of the opposite sex

It has very, very recently become acceptable in some families for a woman to talk on the phone with her fiancee before the wedding. Young women are also debating whether it’s ok to have male friends on Facebook.

Naturally most of the young women won’t admit to doing any of these things, and claim they don’t know any other women who do. Wouldn’t want anyone to get in trouble, especially considering just how real that trouble would be for them. At the same time, this infiltration of technology and the ingenuity of young people is bound to crack the rigid structure. I catch my breath thinking about what these youth risk — but also at what they can change, one clandestine text message at a time.