Tag: Sexual Attitudes

The 1st Pubic War

Not to be confused with the Punic Wars that Carthage fought with Rome…..(BAM!  Dropped some history on ya)…..

It is the weekend and as usual I try to find subjects that distract my readers from the terrible condition the world is becoming.  I think I found something unusual and strange enough to distract you…..

WE have had our War on Women and it is the time of year that we will be bombarded with the usual bullshit about this War on Christmas….but I found an even better war……

Pubes!

Huh?

We have waxing(ouch!)……and special lotions to make bare…..and utensils that trim and beautify….but for what?  Is it vanity?  Maybe a “fad” or even for good reason(?).

People who groom their pubic hair regularly are more likely to have a sexually transmitted infection, say researchers in a new study. To be clear, the researchers aren’t saying that the grooming itself helps lead to the STI, reports Live Science. While it’s possible that’s the case—perhaps because shaving causes small tears that lead to vulnerability—it’s also possible that people who groom down there are more sexually active to begin with and thus more likely to pick up an infection. In scientist-speak, this is all about correlation, not causation. Still, the study in Sexually Transmitted Infections found that regular groomers were about four times more likely to report having had an STI. For the study, researchers surveyed 7,580 people ages 18 to 65 and learned that 84% of women and 66% of men had shaved or otherwise trimmed their nether regions.

Of those, 17% fell into the “extreme” category of removing all hair once a month and 22% were in the “high frequency” category of trimming daily or weekly. The greater the frequency, the greater the link to STIs. The upside for groomers: They had fewer reports of lice. For the record, electric razors were the most common method for women and manual razors for men, notes the BBC. Also of note: Of the 7,580 adults, 110 said they were virgins. Given the lack of a definitive link, how might the findings be put to use? “If a clinician were to see evidence of grooming upon physical examination, perhaps that physician should inquire about safer sex practices or a sexual history,” says lead author Charles Osterberg of the University of Texas Dell Medical School, per Time.

In other news…. for those who live the “sex, drugs and rock and roll” lifestyle…..gonorrhea is on track to defeat all known drugs in another five years…

Have a lovely days and for god sake…..be careful!

This is it for the day…I have a tangerine crop to get off the trees…..please go out and enjoy your day and your family…..I will return tomorrow.

Sex, Sex And More Sex

The weekend begins and I look forward to my granddaughter and some mental relaxation for these two days……

Today I would like to write about a subject that is near and dear to most people’s mind……SEX!

I may live to regret this post……kinda like a post I did 8 years ago…..”Does Watermelon Make You Horny”…..sadly it is one of my most popular posts……and this one has all the earmarks of another such phenom……

Back in the day the idea of virginity was all consuming for men and women…..for the most part those days are behind us……but did you know it is predictable when one would lose their virginity?

Sure, people become sexually active under countless circumstances for countless reasons and at many different ages, but at least part of the timing appears to come down to our genes, Cambridge University researchers report in the journal Nature. Studying the genes and life histories of nearly 400,000 people, they conclude “there is a heritable component to age at first sex,” reproductive aging expert John Perry tells the Guardian, “and the heritability is about 25%, so one-quarter nature, three-quarters nurture.” Genes also appear to influence the age of the onset of puberty, first birth of a child, and even total number of offspring, reports the Telegraph. Perry’s example: The genetic variant in CADM2 is associated with higher odds of risk-taking, earlier sex, and a greater number of children.

So what accounts for the other 75%? New Scientist reports that previous research has found teens are more likely to become sexually active younger if they are not religious, come from poorer families, and if their parents didn’t get involved in their lives. But this study found that the earlier onset of puberty is associated with earlier sexual activity, notes Popular Science. In the mid-1800s, for instance, girls were getting their period at an average age of 18—a number that plummeted to age 12 by 1980. Earlier loss of virginity ricochets, adds a clinical epidemiologist, into “other consequences such as, all things being equal, earlier first birth, having more children, less likely to remain childless, and poorer educational outcomes.” Future studies may look at non-Western countries (this one focused on the UK, Iceland, and US) to account for different cultures and attitudes about sex, one expert tells the Verge. (Earlier this year, South Africa was offering scholarships to virgins.)

Nope not finished yet……

For decades there had been a debate on the pros and cons of circumcision….and the whole sensitivity thing……is it is or is it ain’t?

Men who are circumcised as infants are no less sensitive than those who keep their foreskin. At least this is what Queen’s University scientists are reporting in the Journal of Urology after testing 62 men between the ages of 18 and 37, half of whom had been circumcised as babies and half of whom hadn’t. They performed both tactile and heat sensitivity tests on each participant at four different locations of the penis: per the New York Times, “the midline shaft, the area next to the midline, the glans and, for the uncircumcised, the foreskin.” The researchers tested the inside of the forearm to serve as the control. Turns out the men didn’t differ in sensitivity to either touch or heat at any place tested, and for both groups the forearm was less sensitive than any part of the penis. “We can conclude that there are no significant differences in sensitivity between the circumcised and uncircumcised groups,” says a study co-author.

“One researcher who only used fine touch to measure penile sensitivity claimed the foreskin is the most sensitive part of the penis, so removing it via circumcision is detrimental to men’s sex lives,” the lead researcher says in a Queen’s University statement. “We found that while the foreskin was more sensitive to fine touch, it was not more sensitive to the other stimuli we used, and those stimuli are likely more important in sexual pleasure.” One-third of males in the world are circumcised, per the release, a number that could climb with both the US in favor of neonatal circumcision and a push for it in African countries to reduce HIV transmission. The Independent reports that only 8.5% of men in the UK have been circumcised since the NHS stopped covering the procedure in 1948, while more than 75% of men in the US have been circumcised. (Here’s why the CDC is in favor of neonatal circumcision.)

Let me see….I have covered the wide range of sexual info…… virginity thing and the whole “schmeckle” thing and now there has got to be a third part of any trinity…..thinking…….got it!  STDs!

Sex like all other joys there is a good side and a bad side…….and the bad can be really BAD!

Last year’s emergence of so-called “super gonorrhea” in Leeds hasn’t ended in the UK city. The STD is now popping up in new British cities including London, and doctors are worried it may spread faster just as it becomes untreatable. Because the STD is so good at fighting off antibiotics, treatment typically involves a combination of two drugs—azithromycin and ceftriaxone—but resistance to azithromycin is spreading and doctors worry ceftriaxone will soon be next, reports the BBC. The spread is a “further sign of the very real threat of antibiotic resistance to our ability to treat infections,” says Public Health England, which has had only limited success in tracking down sexual partners of those diagnosed with super gonorrhea, reports the Independent.

“The spread of high level azithromycin-resistant gonorrhea is a huge concern and it is essential that every effort is made to contain further spread,” says Dr. Elizabeth Carlin, president of the British Association for Sexual Health and HIV. While the outbreak seems to have started among heterosexual couples, it is now infecting gay men as well. Just last week Chancellor George Osborne declared resistance to antibiotics “an even greater threat to mankind than cancer” if there is no concerted global action. Caused by the bacterium Neisseria gonorrhoeae, gonorrhea spreads by unprotected sex, but can also pass from mother to child in utero. In the past few years the infection rate in the UK has more than doubled, reports Vice, with only chlamydia higher up the list. Syphilis infections are up for the first time in years as well. (A study says syphilis can’t be blamed on Columbus.)

Enough is enough, chuq!

Thanx for your visits and please go now and joy your weekend.

 

Why Is Sex A “Dirty” Word?

A lazy Sunday and one day left before back to work doing what I like best….research and writing……

Today I would like to talk about just about everyone’s favorite pass time….SEX!

And there are those that opposed to the very idea of having sex…..(what’s up with that?)

Some say the word SEX is a dirty word….and then there are those that think the act of sex for pleasure is a sin……so with all that said where did all these convoluted ideas about sex originate?

Since today is Sunday…I am glad you asked……

The Catholic Church is obsessed with sex. Even if you’re secular you’re not immune from its noxious ideas

Source: Sex for “mere pleasure”? Shame on you! — 15 sexual hang-ups we can blame on the Catholic Church – Salon.com

Surely there are a wealth of opinions on this……let them fly….we are waiting to see what is what……

Irene, Keep An Eye Out For The Sex Police

Smiling now!   It is the weekend and all my hard work from last week can be put to bed for a couple of days and I can smile and enjoy family and food…….. lots of food…….and maybe a nice Bordeaux.

Yesterday, Friday, was a horrible day….my internet was intermittent at best…..we all know how frustrating that can be, right?

I have been researching Central Asia for a series that I am writing for my friends over at Legationes……that is an area that has little info in Western sources so I have to read a lot and give myself massive headaches……

Who doesn’t like a post on sex?

However I did find something of interest while researching……a sex tax!

Say what?  No, really there is a proposal coming out of Kazakhstan…….

It may or may not have been a joke: The leader of a Muslim group in Kazakhstan has laid out a series of possible sex taxes, taking into account variables such as knowledge of the state language, homosexuality and even (perhaps) how well-endowed you are.

Murat Telibekov, of the Muslim Union of Kazakhstan, came up with a comprehensive list of financial repercussions for engaging in various kinds of intercourse, and posted it on Facebook. Kazakh and Russian media were quick to pick it up.

Admittedly, there is nothing in the post indicating whether he was serious or not, and some of the outlets suggested that it may have been a response to a recently-introduced tax on picking wild mushrooms and berries.

The extensive list covers most of the ways of cavorting in bed (or not) that you might be able to think of, and proposes a broad range of fees, to be paid on a by-case basis.

Under the proposal, the cheapest you can pay is about $1, if you’re married and a Kazakh. This includes a 50 percent discount if at least one of you knows the state language. However, that is only if you do it the ‘traditional’ way and for no longer than 14 minutes.

From there, the tax only grows: If you and your partner are in a long-term relationship, but not officially married, it’s about $2.50 (again, this and any other price on the list can be cut in half if you know Kazakh).

A one night stand will cost you a base fee of almost $7.

If you’re gay, the proposal sets the tax at some $10.

Then it gets interesting: A vaguely-defined “non-traditional” act should be taxed at about $18, the proposed bill says.

Further multipliers are applied if you last for over 14 minutes, if you are especially well-endowed (assuming “engine volume” to be a euphemism for this), or if you’re a foreigner. Foreigners, naturally, will have to pay double to have sex in Kazakhstan.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the proposal is the part on how the tax is supposed to be enforced……………. Via a special police unit with the right to invade homes without a court ruling.

The proposal does have a well-meaning goal.  All the tax money will go to improve the reproductive health of Kazakhstan’s people and combat STDs.

You have heard about the Food Police…..maybe even the Thought Police (1984)……but a Sex Police?

I am sure there will be someone clever enough to make it about Islam……..But if you think about it….it does sound like something the GOP would consider.

Please throw out a few comments……

The Problem With Poaching

The weekend and we divert from the insanity of war and politics and look for something else that can amuse and/or inform us…..

Poaching has been a big story for awhile now…..most of it is about the poaching of say elephants for their ivory and then there are those animals that are poached so that Asian gentlemen can put a little lead in their pencils…..black bear bile, rhino horn, pads off of certain animals feet…all supposedly will put the “go” into your giddy up…….lead in your pencil……

Put there is another form of poaching that does not killing an animal….for the same reasons….POTENCY!

A federal judge earlier this month sentenced a North Carolina man to six months in jail. The crime? Illegally possessing more than 500 ginseng roots he harvested in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, reports the Asheville Citizen-Times. He’s far from the only domestic ginseng poacher: By New York magazine’s count, the last five years have seen 53 arrests for the crime in that park alone. There’s a financial incentive to breaking the law. Thanks in part to its reputation as nature’s Viagra, ginseng’s popularity could drive prices for this fall’s harvest to $1,400 a pound. But the price of that popularity is that it is now being overharvested in places where it grows wild—primarily in public parks in the Ozarks and Appalachia—and this could have major implications for those ecosystems.

“It is becoming a concern,” a conservation officer in Indiana tells the Indianapolis Star. “We are seeing declining numbers.” That state doesn’t allow for harvesting before Sept. 1, the point at which the root’s berries can be replanted; ginseng younger than five years also can’t be legally uprooted. Whether the ginsenosides found in ginseng actually boost mood, energy, and sexual appetite is up for debate, but one of about 15 licensed ginseng dealers in Indiana says it does and gives a small chuckle. The roots with longer necks and more rings are said to be more potent, and harvesting them can take hours. “Poke a hole in it with a shovel,” America’s preeminent ginseng specialist says, “and you’re screwed.” Some 95% of ginseng is exported to Asia, chiefly Korea and China, where wild ginseng has been harvested “into near extinction,” as New York puts it. Odd fact: Buyers will pay extra for a “man root,” meaning one that is in the shape of a human with four limbs and a penis. (Kim Jong Un has made a wild claim involving ginseng.)

And there you have the new poaching grounds for illegal joint multipliers…..oh what we men will do to keep the joint working……..it would be sad if it weren’t so damn humorous.  Maybe the rhinos and other poor animals will catch a break now.

Any input?

Have a good weekend my friends!

How About Sex On The Beach?

Have you ever fantasized about having sex on a beach?  If so then maybe you should reconsider it………

A Florida jury on Monday convicted Jose Caballero, 40, and Elissa Alvarez, 20, on charges that they had sex on Bradenton Beach in broad daylight. They face up to 15 years behind bars and will have to register as sex offenders.

Each of them faced two charges of lewd and lascivious behavior, carrying a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison, the Bradenton Herald reported.

OKay I have a problem with this…….maybe they should have been a bit more discreet….but 15 years and a sex offender?  That should put the limber in his joint.

Witnesses watched them have sex……did they think about turning away?  The kids that may have seen the act…….most were under the age of five……bet not one of them had any idea what was happening until the parents went ape shit…….

The sex offender thing is what I question most.  It is like a good that wakes up from a hard drunk and has to pee so he goes to the nearest tree to do his business….the problem is the tree is located just outside a school yard…..should he be labeled a sex offender?

I say no…..because he did not set out to involve children in the act of peeing…..he did not do it intentionally because it was a school.  Why ruin this man;s life for being a boneheaded drunk?

The same with these two……I bet they did not pick the place to have sex because there were children there….it was probably a spur of the moment thing…….

This crack down on sex offenders is a good thing to protect children but at the same time they can ruin people’s lives that had NO intention of involving kids in what they were doing….they just had a brain fart..

I say if we want to crackdown on stupid activity then maybe the best place to start would be with our politicians……then move on from there……

Any thoughts?

But wait!  There’s more!

Does having lots of sex make you happy?  Wrong!

You’ve heard the message, seen the magazine covers: Having more sex will make you happier. A new study out of Carnegie Mellon University, however, suggests that the opposite is true, according to a post at Phys.org. In their experiment, researchers asked one group of married couples to have twice as much weekly sex as usual over a three-month period, and they gave no instructions to a second group. All the couples filled out surveys along the way, and, as Bustle notes, “this is where things get weird.” Those who had double the amount of sex reported lower levels of sexual enjoyment and happiness at the end of the experiment than they did at the beginning.

The lead researcher is the first to acknowledge that the reason might be because the couples were instructed to have more sex as part of a research experiment, not the most thrilling of circumstances. He elaborates, with some oddly specific advice: “If we ran the study again, and could afford to do it, we would try to encourage subjects into initiating more sex in ways that put them in a sexy frame of mind, perhaps with baby-sitting, hotel rooms, or Egyptian sheets, rather than directing them to do so.” Another researcher adds that couples should be less focused on numbers and more on creating the right environment when they do have sex. Or as Wired sums up: “The moral of the story, folks, is that it’s all about quality over quantity.” (Another study finds that millennials will have fewer sexual partners than their parents.)

May I see a show of hands of the people that believe this?

I will do my own research, thank you……..and to the researchers……BITE ME!

Make Way For The Morality Police

We all have seen the reports out of the Middle East about the “morality police”…..those little pricks that prance around deciding if what you do is moral or not…..

They are scoffed, laughed at and totally looked down upon…..but there is not a issue solely in the Middle East that is mocked more….the very thought of a “Morality Police”…….an absurd reality, right?

If some of the religious d/bags have their way then we could see a “morality police” in this country……think not?

Welcome to the America of the Religious Right!

Read on!

 

Morality Police.

The Fascination With Sex

I am beginning to think that the GOP can only talk about sex when they are trying to define it for the rest of us…….like what Florida is trying to do……

What does “sexual intercourse” mean in Florida? The state’s Supreme Court justices are pondering the question in a case that threatens to weaken a 1986 law requiring HIV-positive people to reveal their infection before having “sexual intercourse.” A defense lawyer told the court yesterday that Florida’s laws have always used the term to describe traditional sex between a man and a woman, and not any other sexual activity by either gender. The case involves a man charged with a felony after failing to tell his male sex partner he was HIV-positive. The record shows that Gary Debaun’s partner asked him to take an HIV test, and that Debaun, who knew that he was infected, gave him fake test results showing he was free of the virus that causes AIDS.

“In the history of Florida law, the specific term ‘sexual intercourse’ has always been interpreted to mean reproductive sexual conduct,” said Debaun’s public defender, who’s trying to get the charge dropped. “It’s not the way that I’d want to define it, maybe—maybe not the way you’d want to define it—but that’s the way it’s always been in Florida law.” Most states legally require people with HIV to disclose the infection to sex partners, but the public defender told the justices that other states’ laws use the term “sexual activity” or specifically spell out sexual acts, rather than use Florida’s narrow language. Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Geldens argued that it was clear that the statute was enacted with the intent to protect people who engaged in any kind of sexual activity.

This from the party that thinks the government has no business telling people what to do….as long it is what they, the GOP,  believe…..

But hold on!  Utah had to be part of the conversation……..

A Utah bill stating that unconscious people cannot consent to sex proved to be more controversial than expected when it came before a legislative committee earlier this week. Rep. Brian Greene wondered if it meant that somebody who had sex with an unconscious spouse could be charged with rape, saying a rape charge “makes sense in a first date scenario, but to me, not where people have a history of years of sexual activity,” the Salt Lake Tribune reports. After at least one other Republican voiced similar concerns, an attorney from the Utah Prosecution Council explained that under the bill, “consent is a decision that has to be made at the time of the act” and you “cannot give consent to sexual activity if you’re unconscious.”

Sex with an unconscious person “is rape. Period. End of story,” Democratic Rep. Brian King told the committee, according to the Tribune. Greene ended up voting for the bill and apologized for his comments yesterday, saying he abhors “sexual assault under any circumstances, including within marriage.” The director of the Rape Recovery Center tells USA Today she hadn’t expected a debate and was shocked by Greene’s comments. “He’s a lawyer, you think he would know better,” she says. “But with the kind of work we do, we realize that so many people don’t understand this issue.” The bill was introduced after a 2013 case where a man claimed he had sex with an unconscious neighbor on her porch to keep her warm and “save her life,” Politico reports.

See…..the GOP is a prudish bunch of sex addicts……..I know that sounds like an oxymoron……but the GOP still thinks it has a right to intervene in the bedroom……..

Thoughts?

Recreational Sex?

Finally the weekend has arrived….a time to let the brain rest and recover from all the events of the past week…….there is only so much we can cram into the deep recesses of the mind before it wants to shut down and go into hibernation mode…….

As my tradition I try to find stuff that I would not normal post on during the week……this Saturday I want to talk about SEX…….

In my younger days I was the manager of a bar and in those days most of my sex was recreational….not bragging just stating the truth…….I could tell you some tales but that is not why I am writing this…….

One of the co-inventors of the birth control pill is impregnating the Internet with a new theory: that his own invention will be pretty much obsolete by the year 2050 and that sex will be reserved for recreational, rather than procreational, purposes. In an interview with the Telegraph, Austrian-American chemist Carl Djerassi says that as fertility treatments improve, more people will take advantage of them and save in-bedroom antics for fun only. Predictions from his interview:

  • Advances in IVF will mean that even people who aren’t having fertility problems will give it a whirl, with potential future parents becoming part of a new “mañana generation” that puts off reproduction until they’re good and ready.
  • Delaying parenthood this way may result in healthier babies overall, since people will ostensibly freeze their eggs and sperm at a younger age and then get sterilized.
  • “Women in their twenties will first choose this approach as insurance, providing them with freedom in the light of professional decisions or the absence of the right partner or the inexorabl[e] ticking of the biological clock,” Djerassi says. But what will eventually lure them to IVF pregnancies: more accurate genetic screening.
  • Although Djerassi doesn’t believe a male contraceptive pill is forthcoming (it would take too many years to study the effects on sperm, he says), he thinks our armed forces would be perfect guinea pigs for testing how long frozen sperm can last. “With little difficulty and relatively minor expenditure, tens of thousands of volunteers could collect their own semen to be cryopreserved for many years,” he says.
  • Fighting over abortion will be a distant memory: Unwanted pregnancies just won’t happen anymore.

Click for his full piece.

Do tell me your thoughts…….

A Contraceptive Way of Life

Saturday and I am free of the conflicts in the Middle East….well for two days anyway……it is a mid-term election approaching and I thought I would focus on one of mthe issues that is snaking its way through the political discourse….Contraception!

The first part of this post is about man’s best friend…no not a dog….a condom.

It seems there is a problem concerning condoms in Uganda……

Ugandan MPs have been inundated with complaints that many condoms on sale in the east African nation are too small, warning the problem is a blow to the fight against AIDS.

Insisting that one size doesn’t fit all, MP Tom Aza said Uganda’s Parliamentary Committee for HIV/AIDS said a recent tour of areas worst hit by the virus revealed that some men “have bigger sexual organs and therefore should be considered for bigger condoms.”

Okay there are a couple of thoughts that come to mind…….1)  Condoms come in sizes?  2) this info could increase the tourism visas the country issues.  Guess that could fortify the old stereo type huh?

With all that said I will not forget the ladies in this post……everyone is looking for that perfect birth control…..some are desperate to find that perfection……….and I read a story that may not be that perfect……….

A 22-year-old Colombia woman who went to the doctor with abdominal pains turned out to have a potato growing in her vagina—because she’d put it there as contraception, says Colombia Reports via Metro. “My mom told me that if I didn’t want to get pregnant, I should put a potato up there, and I believed her,” the woman was quoted as telling a local website. The embarrassed patient, from the central Colombian town of Honda, says she had inserted the potato about two weeks before the pain struck in her lower abdomen. Upon closer inspection, attending nurse Carolina Rojas found potato roots sticking out of the woman’s vagina and even growing inside her.

Luckily the potato was removed without surgery, and medical staff predicted no long-term physical effects, but Rojas blamed the mother for giving her daughter such bad advice. The story is part of an ongoing battle over birth control and sex education in Colombia, where activists say a macho culture and disinterest in common birth control methods have led to high teen pregnancy rates. Indeed, sex ed classes introduced in the 1990s inspired some parents to start groups opposing the lessons. But Colombia isn’t alone in trying odd birth-control methods, the Huffington Post reports: A survey of young British woman found that some used plastic wrap, latex gloves, and sandwich bags.

Best I could think of in this case was…..EEEWWWWWWWWWWW!

Now this part is not about contraception but it is too good to pass on….remember all those enhancement drugs tell you to seek medical help if the erection last for more than 4 hours………but this guy took it a bit further…….

Last Friday, Jason Garnett greeted a new day, as many men do, with an erection. But 17 hours later, doctors were stabbing the British man’s penis with needles in order to end his member’s persistent salute, UPI reports. The 23-year-old North Yorkshire man didn’t worry when his erection stuck around the morning after a night of love-making, reports Northern Echo. He changed his tune around lunch time and tried to tame it with an ice bath and a jog, but after a stiff eight hours, he finally asked his roommate for help. “You should have seen the look on his face … he was in hysterics at first, but then he realized how serious the situation was,” Garnett says, according to Huffington Post.

Garnett’s erection wasn’t a blessing, but a serious medical condition called priapism. The rare malady has nothing to do with arousal or desire and can cause permanent damage if left untreated, reports News.com.au. The “most embarrassing day” of Garnett’s life got worse when doctors drew two pints of blood from his penis and injected it 24 times with erection-reducing meds. “Seeing them stab my penis with a needle was … like something out of a horror film. The pain was a 10 out of 10,” he says. Garnett says his penis now “looks like it’s been through a war. It’s all a bit black and blue.” (Read about a woman whose medication caused “unwelcome” orgasms.)

Sorry….could not resist.

Now on to the rest of my day…..TAH!  Have a good one (no pun intended)