Tag: Sex Education

The Heels Have It

Women have long known about the impact high heels can have on sex appeal. Stilettos make them look taller, boost the confidence, and, yes, tend to be more effective at attracting men than a ratty pair of Birkenstocks. But now we have proof that those to-die-for-shoes are actually good for a woman’s sex life, The Daily Mail reports. And who better than a doctor from Italy to be the first one to discover the surprising sexual health benefits of high heels?

“I adore high-heeled shoes and I wanted to find something positive about them,” says Dr. Maria Cerruto, a urologist at the University of Verona. “In the end I achieved my goal.”

What the lovely doc did was verify that wearing a moderate heel (about two and a half inches) is actually good for women, working the pelvic muscles and reducing the need to exercise them (no more Kegels!). The study, involving 66 women under the age of 50, found that women who held their feet at a 15-degree angle to the ground showed up to 15 percent less electrical activity in their pelvic muscles. (No, we don’t know how they measured this, but let your imagination suffice.)

And even though the study focused on women under 50, older women shouldn’t worry about strutting their stuff in stilettos.

Fear No Pleasure

If you’ve never heard of “cake parties,” think harnesses are just for horses and can’t really discuss the merits of silicone versus rubber, then chances are you’re not “sex positive.”

Being sex positive doesn’t mean that you’re positive you want to have sex — it means you have what is perceived as a healthy attitude toward your sexuality.

You might be vanilla in your straight, bisexual, homosexual or transgender sex life without polyamorous, open or fetishistic complications. But you at least know a thing or two about these things, aren’t afraid to talk about them, and you definitely know what you like.

This quieter, more educated version of the sexual revolution isn’t a phenomenon born on the couch of a therapist or at the counter of a sex shop — it’s also a pop culture phenomenon. Think of prim ‘n’ proper Charlotte on “Sex in the City” becoming addicted to her vibrator (and her friend Samantha, the Energizer Bunny of Manhattan’s sex scene). Or MTV fave Missy Elliott and fringe, post-feminist rapper Peaches, who rap about female sexual fulfillment as a right.

And the acceptance of porn — at least certain types of it — seems to be a part of this sex-positive thing — or so we heard when we attended a workshop at Toys in Babeland last month. The sessions, held at the Capitol Hill store, generally fill up fast, with tickets going for about $30 a class. On the night we attended, there was a full house — about 30 students, mostly female, with six or seven males. We’ll skip the details, but say this much: The two instructors were funny, personable, well informed and approachable. Action and apparatus were discussed without being gratuitously crude or clinical. It’s a fine line, you understand.

A Sex Museum?

China’s first museum of sex education for women, disseminating information on human reproduction and sexual psychology, has opened in the southern city of Guangzhou, the China Daily reported Friday.

The exhibition, which men are barred from, has eight halls with more than 500 exhibits, housed in the city’s Ren’ai Hospital.

Women will be shown films and pictures imparting ‘knowledge on pregnancy, abortions and childbirth,’ the newspaper said.

The museum hopes for at least 200 visitors per day.

Authorities hope the experience will allow women to make more informed choices in their relationships with male partners and in family planning.
In 2000, the China Family Planning Association launched a five-year project to ‘promote reproductive health education among Chinese teenagers and unmarried youth’, providing information on pregnancy and HIV prevention.

Widespread ignorance on sex issues have been seen as a major impediment to the Chinese government’s efforts to control the population explosion, and has contributed to the spread of HIV in recent years.

There are currently an estimated 1.5 million HIV infected in the country.