During the First Congress for Catholic Youth in Guatemala, more than 7,000 young people, together with Mexican actor Eduardo Verastegui, promised “to work for the virtue of purity” and "lead a chaste life.”

Labels: Catholic Church, Central America, chastity, Guatemala, religion, sex

posted by Eve at 5:39 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

I’ve been blogging long enough and have witnessed enough scandals that it’s pretty hard to take my breath away anymore.

Well, “Sex Positive Week” at (Jesuit-founded, Catholic) Georgetown University did.

Folks, looking at what activities this week included, it’s pretty clear we’re not even on planet earth anymore. I can’t write about what they talked about, because I don’t want Google to blacklist my blog as pornographic.

Last year (yes, they’ve done it before) coincided with the first week of Lent. ...

Catholic News Agency notes that similar events are taking place at (Jesuit) Loyala University of Chicago and (Jesuit) Seattle University.

Labels: Catholic Church, culture, premarital sex, religion, sex, universities

posted by Eve at 3:34 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Sociologist and gay rights activist, Li Yinhe, continues to stun the country with her comments on hitherto taboo topics such as sex and same-sex marriages.

She has submitted, for the fifth time, to the ongoing 2010 annual sessions of the NPC and CPPCC, proposals to allow same-sex marriages, and rescind the ban on sexual orgies as a violation of the Criminal Law of the PRC. ...

In 2006, Li caused a flutter with her support for one-night stands and polyamory (multiple sexual partners). Explaining her stance, she says unmarried people have the legal right to one-night stands. And while it may be morally wrong for married couples to do so, there is nothing illegal about it. ...

She says polyamory offers important evidence for her sociological studies.

"I know of three lovers living together in harmony, in China and in other countries. They are straight and are not jealous of sharing lovers," she says, adding this proves that the human emotion of jealousy stems from social rather than physiological reasons.

Labels: China, gay marriage, polyamory, premarital sex, sex

posted by Eve at 6:55 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Julie Klausner has slept with a lot of losers and perverts, she tells us in her funny, trenchant new collection of essays I Don't Care About Your Band. She is not permanently wounded by these encounters and yet she feels bad. And then she feels bad about feeling bad. "When you cry about things not working out, you're crying not only because a guy you slept with now doesn't seem to care you're alive," Klausner writes, "but also because you're ashamed of yourself for crying."

Why would she be ashamed? After all, Klausner is a feminist who doesn't believe there is anything wrong with casual sex. But she's not the only recent memoirist with regrets. Hephzibah Anderson had such deep ones that she decided to abstain from what she calls "penetrative sex" for a whole 12 months. "A tiny bit of me can't help judging myself, nor, presumably, can those women who consistently shave their own tallies in sex surveys," she writes in her memoir Chastened (out in the United States in June), which chronicles this self-imposed dry spell. "Liberated women that we are, we'll blame Victorian morality and its outmoded, repressive mores—we'll blame ourselves for succumbing and we'll deny our feelings."

From whence this confusing, shame-feedback loop? Compelling research shows that hooking up is not psychologically damaging, and only purity-ring-clutching evangelicals believe that it's wrong to have sex before marriage. Feminist Web sites advise that is it our "feminist duty to 1) seek pleasure and feel entitled to it and 2) to make the world a more orgasmic place for other women." And yet there seems to be something else at play in the culture that's making Klausner and Anderson regretful, some new wave of anti-orgasmic sexual conservatism that makes you hate yourself for what you did last night. ...

At the start of this decade, we have thoroughly internalized these recent conservative cultural messages about the importance of marriage: "73 percent of women born between 1977 and 1989 place a high priority on marriage," writes Hannah Seligson in the Wall Street Journal. If what Gen Y wants is marriage, then it follows that feelings about sex would be more complicated—and in some cases, deeply judgmental. A Princeton freshman wrote an op-ed last week about why her friend should not be allowed to claim rape after a night of highly inebriated sex, the implicit message being that she should not have been having inebriated sex in the first place. A poll taken last month in London showed that women were less likely to forgive a rape victim than men were.

Labels: culture, feminism, Marriage, sex, women

posted by Eve at 11:33 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

The kids are calling it “Two Teachers, One Chair,” and it has all the makings of a YouTube hit.

But school administrators and parents are hard pressed to find humour in a graphic lap dance caught on video between two teachers at a spirit rally at Churchill High School in Winnipeg last week.

The two teachers, one of whom was identified by students as phys-ed instructor Chrystie Fitchner, have been sent home without pay after the spirit dance before 100 students as young as 13 years old. The identity of the male teacher could not be confirmed. Efforts to reach Ms. Fitchner Tuesday night were unsuccessful.

The whole routine has since been distributed on the Internet, thanks to the footage captured on a student's cellphone camera. The Winnipeg School Division is investigating. ...

The female teacher threw her head back and thrust her one leg out as the male teacher continued to dance over her. There was butt-slapping and further gyration. Then the man dipped his head down between her legs and simulated oral sex.

Labels: Canada, culture, schools, sex

posted by Eve at 2:10 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Even the Yale College Dean’s Office is interested in Yale’s sex scene.

With the overhaul of its Web site this coming summer, the Dean’s Office will post a new student-generated essay collection under the title “sex@yale.” The site will include 500- to 1,000-word essays by current undergraduates, allowing them to reflect anonymously on their sexual experiences at Yale and their impressions of the sexual culture here.

The Web site will not be password protected, so anyone can read it, said Melanie Boyd, director of undergraduate studies in Women’s Gender & Sexuality Studies and the new special advisor to the dean of Yale College on gender issues. ...

Student organizers said the initiative will attempt to change Yale’s sex culture and overturn the perception that it is dominated by casual hook-ups. But Gottesdiener was careful to emphasize that the initiative is not against hook-ups per se; rather, it will elaborate on it by showing that sexual encounters at Yale go far beyond the hook-up scene, she said.

Boyd added that the content of the site will reflect core values of consent, desire and “being thoughtful.”

Labels: culture, hooking up, sex, universities

posted by Eve at 9:07 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

...In Dr. Jemmott’s research, only about a third of the students who participated in a weekend abstinence-only class started having sex within the next 24 months, compared with about half who were randomly assigned instead to general health information classes, or classes teaching only safer sex. Among those assigned to comprehensive sex-education classes, covering both abstinence and safer sex, about 42 percent began having sex.

Dr. Jemmott’s research followed 662 African-American students at urban middle schools, who were paid $20 a session to attend the classes, plus follow-up and evaluation sessions. The abstinence-only classes covered HIV, abstinence and ways to resist the pressure to have sex.

“Because African-Americans tend to have a higher rate of early sexual initiation than others, we thought that within two years, a reasonable number would start having sex,” Dr. Jemmott said. “If we went younger, we couldn’t show that intervention works.”

The research, published in the Archives of Pediatric & Adolescent Medicine, appears just as the Obama administration is eliminating federal financing for abstinence-only programs, and starting a pregnancy-prevention initiative that will finance programs that have been shown in scientific studies to be effective. ...

Ms. Brown noted that the abstinence-only classes in the Jemmott study centered on people with an average age of 12 and that unlike the federally supported abstinence programs now in use, did not advocate abstinence until marriage.

The classes also did not portray sex negatively or suggest that condoms are ineffective, and contained only medically accurate information. Dr. Jemmott’s abstinence-only course was designed for the research, and is not in current use in schools.

Labels: abstinence, culture, sex

posted by Eve at 9:01 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Liberals hated almost everything about George W. Bush’s presidency, but they harbored a particular animus toward a minor domestic policy priority: abstinence-based sex education. The abstinence effort accounted for about a hundred million dollars in a trillion-dollar budget, but in the eyes of many critics it was Bushism at its worst — contemptuous of experts, careless about public health and captive to religious conservatism.

So last week’s news that teenage birthrates inched upward late in the Bush era, after 15 years of steady decline, was greeted with a grim sort of satisfaction. Bloggers pounced; activists claimed vindication. On CBS News, Katie Couric used the occasion to lecture viewers about the perils of telling kids only about abstinence, and ignoring contraception. The new numbers, declared the president of Planned Parenthood, make it “crystal clear that abstinence-only sex education for teenagers does not work.”

In reality, the numbers show no such thing. Abstinence financing increased under Bush, but the federal government has been funneling money to pro-chastity initiatives since early in Bill Clinton’s presidency. If you blame abstinence programs for a year’s worth of bad news, you’d also have to give them credit for more than a decade’s worth of progress.

More likely, neither blame nor credit is appropriate. The evidence suggests that many abstinence-only programs have little impact on teenage sexual behavior, just as their critics long insisted. But most sex education programs of any kind have an ambiguous effect, at best, on whether and how teens have sex. The abstinence-based courses that social conservatives champion produce unimpressive results — but so do the contraceptive-oriented programs that liberals tend to favor. ...

None of this renders the abstinence-versus-contraception debate pointless. But we should understand it more as a battle over community values than as an argument about public policy. Luker describes it, aptly, as a conflict between the “naturalist” and “sacralist” approaches to sex — between parents in Berkeley, say, who don’t want their kids being taught that premarital intercourse is something to feel ashamed about and parents in Alabama who don’t want their kids being lectured about the health benefits of masturbation.

Labels: abstinence, culture, premarital sex, sex

posted by Eve at 12:07 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

My initial response to the question--and I'm not being facetious--is the following: Stop talking about marriage when you talk about saving sex. ...

The unpleasant, unfulfilling realities of hookup culture have made abstinence more attractive. But tying a discussion about abstinence to marriage, in my opinion, is a pedagogical mistake. Most students need help in seeing their way out of hookup culture for this coming weekend, never mind being asked to see years beyond graduation to the second half of their 20s, when the average college graduate is likely to marry.

There is so much talk about sexual experimentation during the college years. Choosing abstinence is a kind of sexual experimentation. We just don't often discuss it in such terms. But college students love the idea, and, once they have thought about it for a while, are often eager to experiment with it.

...What we can change, however, is our widespread misunderstanding of how marriage happens. Christian scholar James Olthuis reminds us that entering into Christian marriage is not a light switch that's flipped on at the wedding, but rather a process in this intended order: a pledge of fidelity, reliability, integrity, and friendship between a man and a woman, a covenant between the two persons and God, a communal recognition of the marriage, and sexual consummation.

In one sense, there's no such thing as premarital sex. There is only non-marital sex and marital sex. When couples skip some of the steps, it's the job of the church to make sure the others occur, or to call non-marital sex the sacrilege it is.

Far too many Christians link sexual morality to the issuance of a legal document by a secular state. But the state does not permit marriages; it only recognizes them. The biblical writers never presumed that marriage was the domain of the state, nor did they presume that it belonged to the church. It was simply an institution among institutions.

Unfortunately, most young Christians move into their 20s without realizing that a vocational calling--to marriage or singleness--has already been given to them by a loving Creator. Instead, they imagine marriage as the capstone to the self and a wedding as its commencement, to take place when they wish it to.

Labels: abstinence, Christianity, Christianity Today, Donna Freitas, Mark Regnerus, premarital sex, religion, sex

posted by Eve at 5:39 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

...They asked more than 1,300 young Minnesota adults about their most recent sexual encounters, their self-esteem and their emotional well-being. Interestingly, only about one-fifth of the subjects said their last encounter was casual. But their overall emotional status was no different than the four-fifths who said they were in committed relationships with their most recent sexual partner. ...

The researchers surveyed 1,311 young adults in Minnesota, pulled from a group they began following years ago as part of a major ongoing research study in adolescent health and nutrition. All the people in the study were sexually active and answered a series of survey questions about their last sexual encounter, depressive symptoms and self-esteem.

The researchers divided the responses by how the subjects described their most recent sexual encounter. About 25 percent said it was with a committed partner, 55 percent said it was an exclusive dating partner, 12 percent said it was with a close, but not sexually exclusive, partner, and 8 percent said it was a casual acquaintance.

That breakdown fits with other similar surveys of young adults, Eisenberg said.

But what was different is that they found no differences in reports of depression or self-esteem, regardless of gender or the type of most recent sexual encounter, she said. ...

They did find some differences among the groups. Black men, for example, were more likely than white men to describe their last sexual encounter as casual. And twice as many men as women said their last sexual encounter was casual - 29 percent compared to 14 percent.

That difference raises the obvious question: How can there be twice as many men having casual sex as women? The answer, Eisenberg said, most likely lies in cultural norms that make it more acceptable for men to describe their sexual encounters as casual.

"Young women have more of a tendency to characterize it as more special than, perhaps, the man did," she said.

Labels: committed relationships, gender differences, premarital sex, sex, universities

posted by Eve at 2:20 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

If you're a heterosexual man, you've done at least one thing today purely intended to woo the ladies. The level of effort ranges from merely remembering to shower to training to be an astronaut, but the effort is there.

But it turns out many of the most important things you do to attract the opposite sex have nothing to do with skill.

#6. Be Effeminate.

Labels: contraception, gender, heterosexual couples, sex

posted by Eve at 9:30 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Mohammad, a 40-year old Lebanese Shiite who lives in Hezbollah's stronghold in Beirut's southern suburbs, was holding forth on the virtues of resistance, loyalty, and sex. "You could create the most loyal army by providing political power, social services and fulfilling the desires of your men -- namely, sexual ones," he declared.

"And Hezbollah has been very successful in this regard," Mohammad continued. It is hard to disagree. Hezbollah liberated South Lebanon from Israeli occupation, expanded the Shiite community's political power within the country, and has provided social services, such as health care and education, to its constituency since the 1980s. Today, it is also working to fulfill the sexual needs of its supporters, though a practice known as mutaa marriage.

Mutaa is a form of "temporary marriage" only acceptable within Shiite communities, one that allows couples to have religiously sanctioned sex for a limited period of time, without any commitments, and without the obligatory involvement of religious figures. In conservative Muslim societies known for their strict sense of propriety, mutaa offers an escape clause. The contract is very simple. The woman says: "I marry myself to you for [a specific period of time] and for [a specified dowry]" and the man says: "I accept." The period can range between one hour and a year, and is subject to renewal. A Muslim woman can only marry a Muslim man, but a Muslim man can temporarily marry a Muslim, Christian, or Jewish woman, as long as she is a divorcée or a widow. However, those interviewed for this article confirmed that Hezbollah-the "Party of God"-has allowed the practice to spread to virgins or girls who have never married before, as long as the permission of her guardian (father or paternal grandfather) is obtained.

Temporary marriage has long been practiced by Shiites around the world. However, it has recently become more commonplace in Lebanon, notably within Hezbollah strongholds in Beirut's southern suburbs and in southern Lebanon after the 2006 war with Israel[.]

Labels: culture, Islam, Lebanon, Marriage, sex, temporary marriage

posted by Imapp Staff at 7:16 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

It's no secret to students that coed dorms are more fun than same-sex dorms. But they can also fuel very unhealthy behavior that might otherwise be moderated.

A new study finds university students in coed housing are 2.5 times more likely to binge drink every week. And no surprise, they're also likely to have more sexual partners, the study found. Also, pornography use was higher among students in coed dorms.

Some 90 percent of U.S. college dorms are now coed. ...

In light of the finding, the natural question is whether a selection effect is in play. For example, do partiers and teetotalers sort themselves out in the housing application process?

That doesn't appear to be the case, the researchers said in a statement today. College housing offices generally assume students prefer coed housing and give them the option to "opt out" if single-gender housing is available. Very few exercise that option.

"Most of the students who live in gender-specific housing did not request to be there; they were placed there by the university," said Brian Willoughby, lead author of the study. Willoughby recently earned a Ph.D. from the University of Minnesota and returned to BYU as a visiting professor.

A wealth of information on the study participants allowed the researchers to examine other factors that could predict binge drinking. Their statistical analysis took into account the effects of age, gender, religiosity, personality and relationship status.

"When we first identified these differences with binge drinking, we felt certain that they would be explained by selection effects," Willoughby said. "But as we examined the data further we found that the differences remained."

Labels: premarital sex, sex, universities

posted by Eve at 3:31 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

...The study’s participants indeed were university students; 353 undergraduates (61 percent of whom were female) answered a questionnaire that asked them about their alcohol use, impulsivity, religiousness, spirituality, and sexual practices. The statements on spirituality, which were ranked by level of agreement, included “In the quiet of my prayers and/or meditations, I find a sense of wholeness,” and “Although individual people may be difficult, I feel an emotional bond with all of humanity.”

The study found that spiritual men weren’t sexually affected — in fact, their frequency of sex decreased. The researchers figure men might not view spirituality as sexual because they biologically don’t think of sex as a gateway to emotional intimacy.

For women, however, spirituality was the strongest predictor for the number of sexual partners, the frequency of sex, and the tendency to have sex without a condom.

“It is possible female young adults yearn for greater connectedness with other humans,” Burris writes. “Spirituality, at least for women, could be considered a risk factor.” ...

But is it really spirituality that makes women more sexual, or does spirituality just imply an open-mindedness that manifests itself through sex?

“Research suggests that spirituality provides predictive utility over and above personality traits such as conscientiousness, extraversion, and openness,” Burris told LiveScience. “So while it may be the case that spirituality is correlated with other variables that show similar relationships with human sexuality and sexual practices (such as openness to experiences), the relationship we observed, in my opinion, cannot simply be explained away by other variables.”

Labels: culture, gender differences, men, religion, sex, women

posted by Eve at 5:34 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

FARGO — The case is unusual: A Fargo father accused of trying to kidnap a 14-year-old Kentucky bride-to-be for his teenage son.

But a variety of area agencies have contended for years with a custom among some local immigrants to marry daughters and sons very young. The practice springs from the culture of Roma immigrants from Bosnia and other Balkan countries.

Efforts by Fargo police and other groups to stress the legal repercussions of keeping that custom alive in America have had mixed results: Some families are holding off until their children are 16, when the couple can wed legally with their parents’ consent. Others are keeping traditional ceremonies under wraps. And, in rare cases, girls are rebelling against the custom.

Many Roma do not agree with the practice of early arranged marriages. In any case, snatching a girl with-out her parents’ consent — as was allegedly the case in the Kentucky incident — is uncommon. ...

Hatidza Asovic, a coordinator at the Metro Interpreter Resource Center, says these marriages are rooted in customs dating back centuries.

Asovic explained that at the heart of the custom is a powerful stigma attached to a girl who has sex outside of marriage and a sense that early marriage protects girls against a life of promiscuity and ruin.

“They don’t want to have a little Britney Spears running loose,” she said. “At least these Roma teens have parental supervision.”

Fargo police and the Interpreter Resource Center both try to impress upon parents that they can run afoul of the law. They also tell girls they can choose their spouse in this country and urge them to stay in school.

In 2004, the Cass County state’s attorney charged two sets of parents with encouraging the deprivation of a minor because of sexual relations between their married children, ages 15 and 20. That case and education efforts have made an impression. Some families have become more patient, others simply more discreet.

“Now they fully understand it’s illegal; they’re more savvy about being quiet about it,” said Jacobsen. “So in some ways, you could say our education is having an effect, just not necessarily the effect we hope.”

Immigrant advocates are especially concerned about the custom because young brides tend to drop out of school. A few years ago, the Fargo Public School District tracked graduations by ethnicity. Virtually no Roma Bosnian girls graduated, said Assistant Superintendent Lowell Wolff.

“They were marrying much younger and dropping out,” he said.

Labels: arranged marriage, culture, Marriage, North Dakota, Roma, sex

posted by Eve at 5:28 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

The Special Committee to Study Issues of Civil Unions and Christian Marriage has acknowledged what has been clearly demonstrated in debates, governing body votes and judicial decisions throughout the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.): Presbyterians are not of one mind on the role of same-gender relationships in the church.

The special committee, authorized by the 2008 General Assembly, unanimously approved its preliminary report to the 2010 Assembly here Sept. 17, answering the central question before it -- What is the place of covenanted same-gender partnerships in the Christian community? -- with a three word response: "We cannot agree." ...

The complexity of the relationship between church and civil law is particularly troublesome, said special committee member the Rev. William Teng of National Capital Presbytery.

"I believe we have to address two issues," he said, "Practical help on how to deal with ministers and sessions in states where same-sex marriage is legal and the whole relationship between church and state. Personally, I think we should encourage ministers not to serve as agents of the state [in formalizing civil marriage contracts] as a practical solution."

The report states, "We acknowledge that current law, in which clergy act as agents of the state, is a source of confusion. On behalf of the state, ministers are granted the authority to officiate at marriages, and yet no authority is granted them to dissolve such unions. Some argue the church should relinquish its state-sanctioned power to marry. Others feel that, even in confusion, it should be retained to further the cause of the gospel."

The report poses three prevalent perspectives it says are held in the church, with
"proponents of each view believing that their position is rooted in Scripture":

* That "laws that fail to give benefits equal to marriage to same-gender couples and their families violate the standards of social justice/equal protection," noting "the different cultural settings between modern society and biblical times ..."

* That differences in benefits don't violate social justice/equal protection norms because "traditional marriage is foundational" and that it's not true that "all family formations are equally stable and nurturing for children ..."

* That the church should not be complicit in "further separating appropriate sexual activity from marriage between a man and a woman" because such sexual activity is "explicitly proscribed by Scripture."

Labels: culture, gay marriage, homosexuality, Marriage, Presbyterian Church, religion, sex

posted by Imapp Staff at 4:59 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

In a cynical review of a sensationalistic book, The New York Times featured--front page--the thesis that there is nary a difference between men who must wine and dine women before they fork over sex, and johns who pay for prostitutes. In a discussion that would (or at least should) embarrass a bunch of fraternity boys, the New York Times argues, "Money is the elephant in every bedroom." Toni Bentley's review ("Meet, Pay, Love") of Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys, a collection of essays written by sex workers, finds nothing problematic about equating sex between romantic partners and sex between clients and prostitutes, asking "Why is sex supposed to be free? It never is." Ms. Bentley complains that "it is still taboo to regard sex and money as inextricably interwoven" and quotes approvingly British artist and author Sebastian Horsley, who asserts, "The difference between sex and money and sex for free...is that sex for money always costs a lot less." (The book itself is concerned only with straight-up money-for-sex transactions and has little to say about role of money in personal, intimate relationships.)

Labels: Amitai Etzioni, culture, sex

posted by Eve at 9:55 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Labels: culture, gender, sex

posted by Eve at 10:19 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Labels: abortion, contraception, culture, heterosexual couples, sex

posted by Eve at 8:07 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

...The utterly ridiculous thing is that my husband is ovulating too. It happens. He sniffs me out, and the drive to procreate becomes just as fierce in him as it does in me.

The bedroom dialogue when I’m ovulating:

Husband: “Come here. Let me just rub your back. We won’t do anything. I promise.”

I hide in the bathroom, picking my zits or something. “Just a minute.” I peak through the crack in the bathroom door to see if he’s fallen asleep yet. Much as I want that backrub, I know where they lead. They’re dangerous. Dangerous.

Contrast with bedroom dialogue when I’m not ovulating:

Husband: “Wanna do it?”

Me: “Is that foreplay?”

Husband: “Yeah, but if it helps, I’ll let you see me naked too.”

Ooooh….That’ll do it.

Well, I’m not falling for it this time. I’m not going in for that backrub. I am going to invest my creative energies in something other than procreation. The [Natural Family Planning] experts say that spouses should not avoid one another during fertile periods--that they should not abstain from signs of affection while they are abstaining from sex. I find that advice a little naïve.

If I have to go seven days without showering or brushing my teeth, I’ll do it. I’ll wear the hijab. I’ll hide in the closet when my husband comes fee, fie, foe, fumm-ing home from work. I’m serious this time.

Labels: Catholic Church, contraception, family size, Marriage, sex

posted by Eve at 11:53 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Labels: Catholic Church, culture, religion, sex

posted by Eve at 9:17 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

HAVING sex without a condom is good for your mental health, according to controversial research conducted by a leading Scottish psychologist.

Professor Stuart Brody concludes that unprotected heterosexual sex can significantly boost men and women's mental wellbeing.

Conversely, Mr Brody claims that heterosexual sex with a condom is associated with poorer mental health, problems with dealing with stress and even conditions such as depression.

The claims were immediately criticised by sexual health campaigners, who warned that unsafe sex leads to unwanted pregnancies and diseases.

Mr Brody, of the West of Scotland University, Paisley, believes that mankind is biologically programmed to enjoy unprotected sex because it gives couples an evolutionary advantage and maximises the chances of reproducing. ...

Mr Brody based his conclusions on a study of the sexual behaviour of 99 women and 111 men in Portugal. They filled in questionnaires about the pleasure they derived from their sex lives and contraception use.

Using a measure of psychological health developed in Canada, Mr Brody concluded that condom use was associated with members of the sample who exhibited problems dealing with stress.

Those that had unprotected sex appeared to be able to deal with stress in a more mature way by taking effective action. They also had better mental health.

"The more often people are using condoms independent of age, independent of the nature of their relationship, the greater use of immature defence mechanisms against stress.

"In contrast, the more often they have sex without condoms, the better their mental health and the more mature their mechanisms."

Labels: contraception, Portugal, reproduction, sex

posted by Eve at 12:33 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

The Church of England is offering couples a two-for-one service - marriage for them and baptisms for their children.

The church says it is recognizing the changing reality of British families. Statistics show that 44 per cent of children in Britain are born to unmarried women. ...

The church said it was responding to demand, but still believed the best place for sex was within marriage.

Labels: Church of England, culture, Marriage, out-of-wedlock births, premarital sex, religion, sex, United Kingdom

posted by Eve at 7:21 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

A National Health Service leaflet is advising school pupils that they have a “right” to an enjoyable sex life and that regular intercourse can be good for their cardiovascular health.

The advice appears in guidance circulated to parents, teachers and youth workers, and is intended to update sex education by telling pupils about the benefits of sexual pleasure. For too long, say its authors, experts have concentrated on the need for “safe sex” and loving relationships while ignoring the main reason that many people have sex, that is, for enjoyment.

The document, called Pleasure, has been drawn up by NHS Sheffield, although it is also being circulated outside the city.

Alongside the slogan “an orgasm a day keeps the doctor away”, it says: “Health promotion experts advocate five portions of fruit and veg a day and 30 minutes’ physical activity three times a week. What about sex or masturbation twice a week?”

Labels: adolescence, premarital sex, sex, sex education, United Kingdom

posted by Imapp Staff at 7:17 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

44. The notion of rights and duties in development must also take account of the problems associated with population growth. This is a very important aspect of authentic development, since it concerns the inalienable values of life and the family. To consider population increase as the primary cause of underdevelopment is mistaken, even from an economic point of view. Suffice it to consider, on the one hand, the significant reduction in infant mortality and the rise in average life expectancy found in economically developed countries, and on the other hand, the signs of crisis observable in societies that are registering an alarming decline in their birth rate. Due attention must obviously be given to responsible procreation, which among other things has a positive contribution to make to integral human development. The Church, in her concern for man's authentic development, urges him to have full respect for human values in the exercise of his sexuality. It cannot be reduced merely to pleasure or entertainment, nor can sex education be reduced to technical instruction aimed solely at protecting the interested parties from possible
disease or the “risk” of procreation. This would be to impoverish and disregard the deeper meaning of sexuality, a meaning which needs to be acknowledged and responsibly appropriated not only by individuals but also by the community. It is irresponsible to view sexuality merely as a source of pleasure, and likewise to regulate it through strategies of mandatory birth control. In either case materialistic ideas and policies are at work, and individuals are ultimately subjected to various forms of violence. Against such policies, there is a need to defend the primary competence of the family in the area of sexuality,111 as opposed to the State and its restrictive policies, and to ensure that parents are suitably prepared to undertake their responsibilities.

Morally responsible openness to life represents a rich social and economic resource. Populous nations have been able to emerge from poverty thanks not least to the size of their population and the talents of their people. On the other hand, formerly prosperous nations are presently passing through a phase of uncertainty and in some cases decline, precisely because of their falling birth rates; this has become a crucial problem for highly affluent societies. The decline in births, falling at times beneath the so-called “replacement level”, also puts a strain on social welfare systems, increases their cost, eats into savings and hence the financial resources needed for investment, reduces the availability of qualified labourers, and narrows the “brain pool” upon which nations can draw for their needs. Furthermore, smaller and at times miniscule families run the risk of impoverishing social relations, and failing to ensure effective forms of solidarity. These situations are symptomatic of scant
confidence in the future and moral weariness. It is thus becoming a social and even economic necessity once more to hold up to future generations the beauty of marriage and the family, and the fact that these institutions correspond to the deepest needs and dignity of the person. In view of this, States are called to enact policies promoting the centrality and the integrity of the family founded on marriage between a man and a woman, the primary vital cell of society, and to assume responsibility for its economic and fiscal needs, while respecting its essentially relational character.

Labels: Catholic Church, demographics, family policy, Marriage, religion, sex

posted by Imapp Staff at 4:09 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Noel Coward's "Design for Living" — now in revival by the Shakespeare Theatre Company — shocked audiences when it premiered on Broadway in 1933. It's not hard to see why.

The play, about a polyandrous relationship between two men and a woman, makes no apologies for its liberationist view of sex and relationships and could hardly be more direct in its sympathetic presentation of gay attachment. "Design for Living" was considered so risque that Coward had to wait until 1939 before staging a production in London for fear of offending British censors.

Seen today, the play shocks, but for an altogether different reason: Its message is so outdated that it's bewildering why any theater would put it on except for its curatorial interest as a period artifact. ...

"Design for Living" premiered in an era when traditional ideas about sex and the role of women in society were being challenged, and the play's notoriety almost surely had something to do with the audience's vicarious envy of the characters' ability to break free of oppressive conventions. In the ensuing 70-plus years, however, America has witnessed the wages of free love, and we've decided they're not pretty. The play's controversy is obsolete; there really is no serious constituency these days arguing for the virtue of non-monogamous relationships. And as much as gays have been cultural iconoclasts, it's difficult to imagine a leading gay playwright of Coward's artistic stature today endorsing the sort of message presented in "Design for Living."

...The D.C. audience seemed to go along with the paeans to honesty and unconventional love for a very long time. Although if you're less committed to total honesty than these characters you may find their impassioned revelations self-centered and cruel, they are drawing on a powerful philosophy which commentator James Poulos has dubbed Eros lo volt! -- romantic love is its own justification.

Coward in some ways stacks the deck in favor of the lovers: Gretchen comments defensively that at least they aren't out "peppering the world with illegitimate children," and in fact none of the main characters have families or a history which precedes their meeting. Their bodies' only vulnerability is in sexual desire; no aging, no pregnancy, no illness. ...

There's something unfinished about Design for Living, some sense that we're still seeing the plot synopsis rather than the full interplay of characters. Perhaps some of the missing aspects become clearer when Coward's play is compared to its recent descendant, Edward Albee's 2002 The Goat, or Who Is Sylvia?: Notes Toward a Definition of Tragedy. Albee name-checks Coward in both the stage directions and dialogue, but recasts Design for Living's story as ambiguously-reactionary tragedy rather than ambivalently-liberal comedy. Albee marshals the same ideas of the unstoppable, unimaginable, irresistible power of erotic love… and puts them in the mouth of a man besotted with a nanny goat.

Labels: culture, gay marriage, Marriage, polyamory, sex

posted by Eve at 4:31 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

...Alas, ours is not the most sexually transgressive age by far, though it is assuredly one of the more permissive and remissive. As Andrew Sullivan has quipped, “The culmination of the sexual revolution was at 4 a.m. in the Mineshaft in the late 1970s. It is not the civil marriage of two elderly lesbians in a town hall in California in 2008.” Even in its details, we have extremely vague sexual politics. Its commitments—typified by the triumph of awkward, legalistic mysticism known as Planned Parenthood v. Casey—are squishy in substance and procedurally circumspect. Its boundaries, limned in the turnabouts of certain states’ marriage laws, are shifting and ill-defined.

Yet, out of the contradiction and imprecision, a common point of reference, a cultural rule of thumb, has arisen. We are given to understand that there is no legitimate ground on which to criticize someone for pursuing, exploring, and expressing ‘their sexuality’—so long, of course, as they don’t ‘harm anyone else’ in doing so. Further, we believe that there is no ground, period, on which to criticize the achievement of our full capabilities ‘as sexual beings’ but for the puritanical religious ground of sin. Absent an idea that some pursuits of sexuality are sinful, we think, no conceptual framework for attacking them exists. And therefore, because the only possible ground for disapproval is illegitimate, anyone who disapproves is speaking illegitimately, whether inside politics or out of it.

* * *

This line of thinking represents a clear and convincing victory for John Stuart Mill, a man who should be proclaimed the world’s first liberaltarian.

Labels: culture, James Poulos, sex

posted by Eve at 11:50 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

The federal government is spending $423,500 to find out why men don't like to wear condoms, a project government watchdogs say is a nearly-half-a-million-dollar waste of taxpayer money.

Researchers at Indiana University's Kinsey Institute, with funding from the National Institutes of Health, are investigating why "young, heterosexual adult men" have problems using condoms. The study will include "skill-based intervention" to teach grown men how to use protection.

The first phase of the two-year study called "Barriers to Correct Condom Use" will be a simple Q&A, but doctors say the second phase will plumb uncharted territory.

"The second phase involves a laboratory study, and focuses on penile erection and sensitivity during condom application," reads the abstract from Drs. Erick Janssen and Stephanie Sanders, both of the Kinsey Institute. ...

For American men -- many of whom have already undergone years of awkward sex ed in the care of gym teachers -- the study might not offer much of a boost, Williams said.

"Are they going to hand out the study and are people going to go, 'Ohhh ... I'm going to do things differently this time?'" he asked, noting that the private sector was successfully handling issues related to erectile dysfunction.

"I don't think they should have any delusions of grandeur that what they're doing is going to change behavior and that it's really going to fundamentally change the way men and women get together."

Labels: sex

posted by Eve at 5:10 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

The hookup -- that meeting and mating ritual that started among high school and college students — is becoming a trend among young people who have entered the workaday world. For the many who are delaying the responsibilities of marriage and child-rearing, hooking up has virtually replaced dating.

It is a major shift in the culture over the past few decades, says Kathleen Bogle, a professor of sociology and criminal justice at La Salle University.

Young people during one of the most sexually active periods of their lives aren't necessarily looking for a mate. What used to be a mate-seeking ritual has shifted to hookups: sexual encounters with no strings attached.

"The idea used to be you are going to date someone that is going to lead to something sexual happening," Bogle says. "In the hookup era, something sexual happens, even though it may be less than sexual intercourse, that may or may not ever lead to dating."

Labels: premarital sex, sex

posted by Eve at 10:52 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

A jury sentenced a suburban Dallas man to 45 years in prison Friday for knowingly infecting six women with the AIDS virus.

Philippe Padieu, described by his own lawyer as a "modern-day Casanova," shook his head and looked down when the decision was read. Jurors sentenced him to 45 years on five counts and 25 years on the sixth, to be served concurrently. Padieu had faced up to 99 years.

The Collin County jury convicted 53-year-old Padieu (pah-DOO') on Wednesday on six counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Since HIV is the virus that causes AIDS, prosecutors contended Padieu's bodily fluids were a deadly weapon.

Padieu is a former martial arts instructor who continued to have unprotected sex after he tested positive for HIV in 2005.

Labels: sex, STDs

posted by Imapp Staff at 8:45 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

There’s no doubt that Yalies are interested in sex. From conspicuously empty plastic baggies hanging in freshman entryways to Porn in the ‘Morn’s overflowing enrollment, signs abound that Yalies want to learn about it, watch it and even do it. Still, while drunken hook-ups and steamy relationships may be fodder for salacious Sunday brunch conversations, pregnancy, typically, is not.

But despite its lack of visibility, pregnancy is far from a non-issue on campus.

In fact, according to a News poll sent to 2,000 Yale undergraduates last week, one in three of the 281 female respondents reported having used Plan B at least once to prevent a possible pregnancy during their time at Yale. In addition, 20 percent of female respondents reported having believed they were pregnant at some point, while five students indicated that they had actually been pregnant. (Plan B is an emergency contraceptive that reduces the chance of pregnancy by 89 percent if taken up to 72 hours after unprotected sexual intercourse or contraceptive failure. Unlike the abortion pill, RU-486, it does not affect an existing pregnancy.)

Concerns about pregnancy are perhaps unsurprising, considering that, of the 55 percent of respondents who indicated they had previously had or were currently having heterosexual sex, nearly 20 percent said they either used ‘the pull-out method’ or no form of contraception at all.

Meanwhile, the most widely used form of contraception among the poll’s respondents was condoms, at 45 percent. Last year, Yale University Health Services provided 10,000 of them to undergraduates, said James Perlotto, chief of student medicine at YUHS.

Still, in actual use, condoms fail 11 percent of the time, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That is potentially 11 pregnant Yalies for every 100 who only use condoms to protect against pregnancy.

So what’s a girl to do if contraception fails, if she has unprotected sex — or if she winds up pregnant? ...

But even if Plan B is used, it is not 100 percent effective. Of the poll’s 281 female respondents, five reported they had gotten pregnant while at Yale — three of whom reported that they had terminated the pregnancy.

Labels: abortion, contraception, culture, pregnancy, premarital sex, sex

posted by Eve at 4:55 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

...For example, it’s easier for a gay person to see the paradox of arguing against both same-sex marriage and concerns about autonomous individualism. In fact, for someone who is gay, the policy of prohibiting same-sex couples from forming committed, legally binding relationships for themselves and their children is what leads to the perception that gay sexuality is unchecked. Isn’t it the lack of such relationships that demonstrates gay men (in particular) are autonomous individualists, and actually seems to prefer that state for us – or at least offer us no alternative?

That relates to Dreher’s second point about the nature and purpose of sex and sexuality, and I think that lies at the heart of my differences with him. If the nature and purpose of sex and sexuality is procreation and only procreation, then his objection is not to same-sex marriage, but to homosexuality itself. Whether or not gays get married, their uncloseted existence in the society is a challenge to that notion of sex. But procreative sexuality has a much bigger antagonist than the 3 percent or so of us who are gay. It was not gays, but the U.S. Supreme Court who told heterosexual married couples in 1965 that the constitution guaranteed no state could prohibit them from using birth control, and followed up a few years later to clarify that this protected single heterosexuals as well. Some people really do seem to find it problematic that heterosexuals (particularly younger ones) enjoy sex so much, but I'll be damned if I'll take the rap for that. It is, perhaps, a bit harder to get heterosexuals to give up their constitutional right to nonprocreative sexual pleasure than to place the blame for sexual libertinism on a group of people who are asking, not for the legal right to have sex, but the legal right to have their relationships acknowledged. ...

It is unfair that homosexuals are being held, somehow, accountable for the tensions that sexual roles are subject to today. It's not in our power to wipe out the memory of Sex and the City and Will & Grace. We live in a civil society right alongside heterosexuals, and that's not going to change. If we can't have equal marriage rights, what can we have without transgressing Dreher's concerns about gender roles in marriage? That isn't clear to me in Dreher's posts. Should we be allowed to enter legally recognized civil unions identical to marriage? Be allowed some of the same legal rights as married couples but not others? Have our relationships ignored in the law, as they have been for centuries? I do not think Dreher would believe we should simply disappear, so unless he thinks that we are somehow not really homosexual at all, and are just being perverse in not choosing to marry someone of the opposite sex, it is fair to ask him how he thinks the law should treat our relationships.

Labels: contraception, gay marriage, sex

posted by Eve at 12:29 AM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

Put down that cheeseburger and listen up: If food has become what sex was a generation ago -- the intimidatingly intelligent Mary Eberstadt says it has -- then a cheeseburger is akin to adultery, or worse. As eating has become highly charged with moral judgments, sex has become notably less so, and Eberstadt, a fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, thinks these trends involving two primal appetites are related.

In a Policy Review essay, "Is Food the New Sex?" -- it has a section titled "Broccoli, pornography, and Kant" -- she notes that for the first time ever, most people in advanced nations "are more or less free to have all the sex and food they want." One might think, she says, either that food and sex would both be pursued with an ardor heedless of consequences, or that both would be subjected to analogous codes constraining consumption. The opposite has happened -- mindful eating and mindless sex. ...

Today "the all-you-can-eat buffet" is stigmatized and the "sexual smorgasbord" is not. Eberstadt's surmise about a society "puritanical about food, and licentious about sex" is this: "The rules being drawn around food receive some force from the fact that people are uncomfortable with how far the sexual revolution has gone -- and not knowing what to do about it, they turn for increasing consolation to mining morality out of what they eat."

Perhaps. Stigmas are compasses, pointing toward society's sense of its prerequisites for self-protection. Furthermore, as increasing numbers of people are led to a materialist understanding of life -- who say not that "I have a body" but that "I am a body" -- society becomes more obsessive about the body's maintenance. Alas, expiration is written into the leases we have on our bodies, so bon appetit.

Labels: sex

posted by Eve at 2:34 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT

...But I digress. This is about gay sex in particular. And the fact that gay men, like it or not, are being asked - implicitly or explicitly - to shut up about sex while the GMM forges on. Even as gay sexual life, such as it is, continues on its way. I hear from a friend that several single gay men found themselves being hit on by gay couples looking for threesomes - at a gay marriage convention. I know, from the constant swinging of the doors of my neighbourhood bathhouse, and from my conversations with friends, that there's plenty of gay sex going on all around me.

I'm sad about how much of gay sexual culture is being made to go away while the adults play at respectability in order to win the marriage game. I wonder: After gay marriage is won, will we talk more openly about what married gay men actually do with and to each other? Or will we have completely forgotten how to have those conversations?

Labels: culture, gay marriage, gay/straight differences, gender differences, open relationships, sex

posted by Eve at 1:40 PM EMAIL SHARE PRINT