Anglonautes > English vocabulary > Love, Sex, Sexual health

New York Times > One in 8 Million > The Ladies' Man
A vegan and an actor fascinated by human behavior, Mr. Keegan, 35,
hires himself out as a coach for men who want help meeting women.
http://nytimes.com/packages/html/nyregion/1-in-8-million/index.html

when will I see you again?

date

dating
http://dating.guardian.co.uk/s/?ILC-SOUL&link=Front_slot_rightnav

dating agency

speed-dating
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/13/nyregion/13dating.html

online dating
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1136382,00.html
http://www.uniformdating.com/

online relationship
http://shopping.guardian.co.uk/valentinesday/story/0,11526,1412282,00.html

perfect match

goer

proposition

rake

rakish

raffish

profligate

profligacy

a "man about town"

libertine

debauchery
http://www.guardian.co.uk/conservation/story/0,13369,1228324,00.html

mass orgy
http://travel.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,7445,1246094,00.html

Fusion Press

I'd Rather Be Single Than Settle: Satisfied Solitude and How to Achieve It

by Emily Dubberley, a relationship and sex writer from Brighton, England.

Free as a bird and loving it: Being single has its benefits

By Sharon Jayson

USA TODAY

11.4.2007
http://www.usatoday.com/life/lifestyle/2007-04-11-being-single_N.htm

heartache

heartbroken
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/poll/2010/nov/16/prince-william-kate-middleton-engaged-monarchy

break up with ...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/may/11/42-ways-to-split-up

break-up

marital break-up

break off engagement

drift apart

grow apart from ...

separation

separate

love split

split
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/01/al-gore-tipper-announce-split

split
http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,,1777406,00.html

split up
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/may/11/42-ways-to-split-up
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/election/story/0,15803,1437072,00.html

be on the outs
http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2006-08-28-springsteen-scialfa_x.htm

be on the rocks

on rocks

it's over

separate
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jun/01/al-gore-tipper-announce-split

leave
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2010/feb/23/cheryl-cole-leaves-ashley

his estranged wife / The estranged wife of ...

divorce
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/cash/story/0,,1799973,00.html

divorce
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/divorce
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/dec/14/everything-you-need-know-divorce
http://www.guardian.co.uk/britain/article/0,,1862794,00.html

celebrity divorce
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1925595,00.html

divorce from ...

divorce rate

reach a settlement
http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2007-03-29-britney-divorce-settlement_N.htm

divorce settlement
http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2007-03-29-britney-divorce-settlement_N.htm

shared custody
http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2007-03-29-britney-divorce-settlement_N.htm

twice-divorced star

dissolve

jilt

dump

ditch

old flame
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1294627,00.html

close friends and confidants
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2006-06-22-friendship_x.htm

amorous friendship

romance

fling
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/07/opinion/07dowd.html
http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/relationships/story/0,,2291213,00.html

tender moment

flagging libido
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/nov/16/female-viagra-sexual-desire-libido

women with low libido
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/06/opinion/l06sex.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/opinion/27Paglia.html

sexual apathy
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/06/opinion/l06sex.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/opinion/27Paglia.html

sexual malaise
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/06/opinion/l06sex.html

Viagra
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/viagra_drug/index.html

desire
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2009/nov/16/female-viagra-sexual-desire-libido
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/love-sex/desire/desire-what-really-turns-us-on-1606978.html

desire
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/jan/20/sex-addiction-is-making-me-unhappy

lust
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/jan/20/sex-addiction-is-making-me-unhappy

lust 2009
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/love-sex/desire/desire-what-really-turns-us-on-1606978.html

lustful

lecherous

lewd
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/16/us-usa-politics-weiner-idUSTRE75F3T320110616

be obsessed with...

spanking
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/aug/26/sexual-healing-spanking-fantasy

Chris Slane

Aukland, New Zealand

The Listener

Cagle

2.7.2008

love-making
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/mar/22/fertility-problems-relationships

sex
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/oct/31/stephen-fry-sex-women-relationships-attitude
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/jun/18/love-sex-masturbation
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/dec/07/women-equality-rights-feminism-sexism1
http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/relationships/story/0,,2289888,00.html
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/relationships/article3508332.ece
http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/relationships/story/0,,2108886,00.html

'I'm not in the mood for sex'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/nov/03/not-in-mood-for-sex

partner
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/jan/27/dont-want-sex-with-partner

amazing sex
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/jan/27/dont-want-sex-with-partner

The National Survey of Sexual Health and Behaviour USA 2010
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/oct/05/sex-us-american-attitudes-survey

Why women have sex
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/sep/28/sex-women-relationships-tanya-gold

'gourmet sex'
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/mar/22/fertility-problems-relationships

sex scandal
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2008-10-28-detroit-mayor_N.htm

political sex scandals USA
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/06/us-usa-politics-weiner-factbox-idUSTRE7556TT20110606

sex appeal
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/dec/12/camille-osullivan-cabaret-christmas

sex symbol
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/26/arts/television/26appraisal.html

sex drive
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/apr/21/increasing-my-wifes-sex-drive
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/jul/09/relationships

sex addict
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/jan/10/sex-addicts-talk
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/jan/20/sex-addiction-is-making-me-unhappy

Sexaholics Anonymous
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/jan/20/sex-addiction-is-making-me-unhappy

sexologist 2009
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/love-sex/desire/desire-what-really-turns-us-on-1606978.html

No sex please, we're British

asexuals
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/26/among-the-asexuals

condom

condom > Durex ads
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/may/18/durex-sex-orgasms-ssl-profits

sex diseases / sexually transmitted diseases
http://society.guardian.co.uk/publichealth/story/0,11098,1143123,00.html

sexual health hotline
http://www.playingsafely.co.uk/

sexually imaginative

over-sexualised clothing for kids
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/apr/16/children-clothing-survey-bikini-heels

Sex Inspectors
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,6903,1345128,00.html

sexist

sexist pig

sex agony aunt 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2008/oct/23/kele-okereke-sex-agony-aunt

The Joy of Sex first edition, 1972
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2008/sep/09/healthmindandbody.relationships

virtual sex 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/sep/04/virtualworlds.secondlife

sex boot camp 2008
http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/family/story/0,,2290467,00.html

attitude to sex 2008
http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/relationships/story/0,,2271864,00.html

Bad Sex Award
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/badsexaward
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/oct/15/tony-blair-bad-sex-award

Bad Sex Award 2007
http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,,2217735,00.html

Britain's attitudes towards sex, relationships and fidelity
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1692307,00.html

'Wild, energetic sex is key to conception' March 2009
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2009/mar/22/fertility-problems-relationships

An A-Z of the British and sex
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/sex/story/0,,887253,00.html

premarital sex USA
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-12-19-premarital-sex_x.htm

sex in space 2007
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2000/feb/24/spaceexploration.internationalnews1

sex encounters
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/apr/01/nickclegg.pressandpublishing

during sex

instigate sex

promiscuous

sex drive

sextrology
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/tm_objectid=
14372115%26method=full%26siteid=50143%26headline=
sextrology%2d%2dwho%2dmakes%2dthe%2dbest%2dlovers%2d-name_page.html

sexathon
http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2004440415,00.html

sex discrimination

sex education
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/sexeducation
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/nov/02/america-problem-sex-education
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/20/1
http://education.guardian.co.uk/sexeducation/story/0,,2291616,00.html
http://society.guardian.co.uk/children/story/0,1074,1493444,00.html

sex education USA
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/31/us/sex-education-for-teenagers-online-and-in-texts.html

sexism
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,3604,1234479,00.html

sexy

sex pests
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1764585,00.html

transsexy

sexual

asexual
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/sep/08/relationships.healthandwellbeing

sexual coercion

The Guardian > Series > Sexual healing > Advice on sexual matters
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/series/sexualhealing

sexual deviance

sexual abstinence 2009
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/faith/article5923927.ece

sexuality

the women's sexuality movement Cake (American slang for female genitalia)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/gender/story/0,,1774954,00.html

transsexual

transvestite

sex-change op

become a woman

grope

caress

carnal action
http://film.guardian.co.uk/features/featurepages/0,,1955227,00.html

raunchy
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/feb/09/rihanna-bbc-radio-edit

sleep with...

have sex
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/nov/25/sexual-healing-no-sex-retaliation

have sex with...

have sex sessions

have fantastic sex

ooh
http://books.guardian.co.uk/extracts/story/0,6761,1204786,00.html

How do I love thee? Which of the nine ways?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/science/story/0,12996,1501321,00.html

bed

bed-hopping

a flop between the sheets
http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/science/story/0,12996,1501314,00.html

orgasm / orgasm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/science/story/0,12996,1501314,00.html

female orgasm
http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/science/story/0,12996,1501314,00.html

fantastic orgasms

spiffing orgasm

orgasmatron

climax

climaxing

erotica

erotic stimuli

sex and food > aphrodisiac
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/sep/18/sex-after-bereavement-widower-relationships
http://www.guardian.co.uk/food/story/0,,1986807,00.html

erotic fantasies

sexual fantasies

fantasise
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/jan/27/dont-want-sex-with-partner

explicit pictures / imagery / scene

have a strong sexual content

masturbation
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/jun/18/love-sex-masturbation

masturbate
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/12/i-have-never-masturbated

orgy

log on to the internet to scan for romance

junk sex

sexual domination
http://www.guardian.co.uk/britain/article/0,,1778620,00.html

sadism and masochism 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/nyregion/1-in-8-million/index.html?hp&hp#/lolita_wolf

fetishism

fetish club
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/nov/18/sexual-healing-husband-into-rubber

female-orientated sex boutique

passionate romps

sex romp

bonk

stir

arouse
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/sep/09/illness-sex-lover

aroused

arousal

come

come on

body

penis

vagina

mouth

anus

ejaculation

pre-ejaculatory fluid

semen

lingerie

G-string
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/love-sex/sex-industry/the-ten-best-sex-toys-939780.html?action=Popup&ino=9

sex toy
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/love-sex/sex-industry/the-ten-best-sex-toys-939780.html
http://www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk/articles/article.aspx?ArticleId=1690

vibrator
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/nov/07/vibrator-victorian-women-film-hysteria

dildo
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/love-sex/sex-industry/the-ten-best-sex-toys-939780.html?action=Popup&ino=5

PT-141
http://www.guardian.co.uk/medicine/story/0,,1759113,00.html

casual sex

one-night stand

good sex

Cupid

sex God

sex hotel
http://www.guardian.co.uk/britain/article/0,2763,1329704,00.html

sex tourism
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,,1827032,00.html

swinging
http://www.guardian.co.uk/britain/article/0,2763,1329704,00.html

naughty

sex life
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/oct/28/sexual-healing-imitating-animals
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2010/sep/09/illness-sex-lover
http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,,1753327,00.html

people with disabilities > sex life
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2006/aug/17/health.healthandwellbeing

sex machine

sex kitten
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/jan/09/cleopatra-paul-greengrass-angelina-jolie

sex tease

sex bomb
http://www.lyricsxp.com/lyrics/s/sex_bomb_tom_jones.html

sadomasochists / bondage commmunity 2008
http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/relationships/story/0,,2290680,00.html

S&M
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/feb/09/rihanna-bbc-radio-edit

when I get excited
http://www.ugcs.caltech.edu/~harel/cgi/page/htmlit?China_Girl.html

Gloria you make me feel alright
http://www.rickspringfieldfans.com/covers/gloria.html

you drive me crazy

turn on 2009
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/love-sex/desire/desire-what-really-turns-us-on-1606978.html

you turn me on
http://lifeandhealth.guardian.co.uk/relationships/story/0,,2290680,00.html

intercourse

fuck / fuck

shag
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/fashion/article5307550.ece

bed

performance in bed

bed

do it every way

Kama Sutra
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2011/feb/14/kama-sutra-lessons-modern-lovers

marathon love-making sessions

same-sex couple

unwed couple

lesbian couple

lesbianism

busty woman / pinup

kiss

baby kiss me one more time

kiss
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/gallery/2009/feb/13/in-pictures-kiss?picture=343219532

snog

snogger

cuddle

hug

hold hands

canoodling
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,5500,1320866,00.html

devour each other

touchy-feely

French kiss

French letter

love letter
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/
mary-wakefield-the-modern-love-letter-is-written-online-1609201.html
http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,1253722,00.html

dogging

erotic dream about

fancy woman

sweet nothings
http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/gallery/2009/feb/13/art-valentines-day?picture=343217017

billet-doux

cherie amie

embrace

take liberties with

passionate

jealous

Image: David Newton

Sex, now

Our number of sexual partners is on the rise,
while the internet tells us what to do in bed.
Yes, our sex lives are changing,
finds Decca Aitkenhead - but do we want love, or a one-night stand?
Case studies by Craig Taylor

The Guardian Weekend pp. 25-26

Saturday April 15, 2006
http://www.guardian.co.uk/weekend/story/0,,1753327,00.html

sexual health
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/sexual-health
http://www.bbc.co.uk/relationships/sex_and_sexual_health/

sex
http://www.playingsafely.co.uk/index.asp

safe sex
http://society.guardian.co.uk/health/story/0,,1945217,00.html

safer sex
http://www.playingsafely.co.uk/worried/contraception/safer_sex.asp
http://www.bbc.co.uk/health/conditions/aids1.shtml

oral sex
http://www.nat.org.uk/page/226

anal sex
http://www.nat.org.uk/page/226

sexual promiscuity

condom
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/sep/26/young-people-unsafe-sex-contraception
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2006-08-02-teens-condoms_x.htm
http://www.playingsafely.co.uk/worried/contraception/all_about_condoms.asp

how to use a condom > male / female condoms
http://www.playingsafely.co.uk/worried/contraception/use_condom.asp
http://www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk/articles/article.aspx?articleId=414
http://www.durex.com/cm/howToUse.asp?intMenuOpen=10
http://www.bbc.co.uk/relationships/sex_and_sexual_health/contr_condoms.shtml

condom safety
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2100972.stm

unsafe sex
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/sep/26/young-people-unsafe-sex-contraception
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1779841,00.html

unprotected sex
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/sep/26/young-people-unsafe-sex-contraception

sexual transmitted infections STIs
http://www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk/articles/article.aspx?articleID=436
http://www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk/articles/article.aspx?ArticleId=969

sexual health > National Health System NHS
http://www.nhsdirect.nhs.uk/chq/chq.aspx?ClassId=19
http://www.hebs.scot.nhs.uk/topics/sexualhealth/index.htm

birth control and family planning
http://health.nytimes.com/health/guides/specialtopic/birth-control-and-family-planning/overview.html

contraception
http://education.guardian.co.uk/schools/story/0,,1928915,00.html
http://www.durex.com/cm/education.asp?intMenuOpen=10

pill / birth control pill
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/04/health/04pill.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/opinion/27allen.html

sexually transmitted infections (STIs) > AIDS, syphilis, herpes and gonorrhea
http://www.bbc.co.uk/relationships/sex_and_sexual_health/stis_index.shtml
http://www.nat.org.uk/page/226
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/sep/26/young-people-unsafe-sex-contraception

HIV > AIDS
http://www.bbc.co.uk/relationships/sex_and_sexual_health/stis_hivaids.shtml

pass on / pass on to transmission

virgin

abstinence

abstinent

chastity

chastity ring
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1800271,00.html

The Guardian p. 24 14.2.2006

Popeye Hy Eisman King Features

15.8.2004
http://www.kingfeatures.com/features/comics/popeye/about.htm

sexual harassment

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/30/business/note-that-led-to-downfall-of-hewlett-chief-surfaces.html

female genital mutilation

prostitute
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/opinion/28kristof.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/sep/11/paying-for-sex-prostitution
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/jan/15/why-men-use-prostitutes

prostitution
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/prostitution
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/subjects/p/prostitution/index.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/opinion/28kristof.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/sep/11/paying-for-sex-prostitution

commercial sex
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=3151258

slave
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/opinion/28kristof.html

whore

whorehouse

the madam of a whorehouse

brothel
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/15/science/earth/15ranch.html

pimp

kerb crawling

red light area

pornography and technology 2009
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/features/
isex-how-pornography-has-revolutionised-technology-1749247.html

pornography
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/pornography
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/03/fashion/03porn.html

porn
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2011/jan/20/sex-addiction-is-making-me-unhappy

be hooked on internet porn
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/apr/07/women-addicted-internet-pornography

The Anti-Porn Men project
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2010/oct/25/men-believe-porn-is-wrong

Paul Raymond (Geoffrey Anthony Quinn), entrepreneur 1925-2008
king of the Soho strip clubs and soft-porn magazine trade for more than 40 years
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/mar/03/2
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article3475064.ece
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/obituaries/article3476233.ece
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1019570.ece

blue movie

graphic scenes of unsimulated sex
http://film.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,12589,1330745,00.html

the king of the nudies
http://film.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,12589,1310250,00.html

internet porn / online porn
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/may/07/online-porn-regulate-kids-not-net
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/apr/07/women-addicted-internet-pornography

online relations with women
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/06/us-usa-politics-weiner-factbox-idUSTRE7556TT20110606

Hardcore documentary 2011
this documentary offers a horrifying glimpse into the abuse of women in porn
http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2011/jul/14/hardcore-abuse-of-women-in-porn

Ohio Man Proposes to Girlfriend With Bus Ad

February 15, 2011
Filed at 10:22 a.m. EST
The New York Times
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

CANTON, Ohio (AP) — An Ohio woman has said yes to a marriage proposal that arrived by bus.

Laura Kalamets looked out a Canton restaurant window during a Valentine's Day lunch with her boyfriend

and saw a public bus with an ad on its side that read: "Laura, Will You Marry Me?"

It was signed "Mark" and included in smaller letters the words "and make me the happiest man in the world."

Kalamets says she thought she'd have a heart attack.

Mark Rose paid the transit agency $300 for the special ad and arranged for the bus to be parked in the right spot around noon on Monday.

The Repository newspaper of Canton reports the ad will remain in place for a week.

Now it has the additional message: "She said yes."

Ohio Man Proposes to Girlfriend With Bus Ad, NYT, 15.2.2011,
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2011/02/15/us/AP-US-ODD-Bus-Ad-Proposal.html

A Woman. A Prostitute. A Slave.

November 27, 2010
The New York Times
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Americans tend to associate “modern slavery” with illiterate girls in India or Cambodia. Yet there I was the other day, interviewing a college graduate who says she spent three years terrorized by pimps in a brothel in Midtown Manhattan.

Those who think that commercial sex in this country is invariably voluntary — and especially men who pay for sex — should listen to her story. The men buying her services all mistakenly assumed that she was working of her own volition, she says.

Yumi Li (a nickname) grew up in a Korean area of northeastern China. After university, she became an accountant, but, restless and ambitious, she yearned to go abroad.

So she accepted an offer from a female jobs agent to be smuggled to New York and take up a job using her accounting skills and paying $5,000 a month. Yumi’s relatives had to sign documents pledging their homes as collateral if she did not pay back the $50,000 smugglers’ fee from her earnings.

Yumi set off for America with a fake South Korean passport. On arrival in New York, however, Yumi was ordered to work in a brothel.

“When they first mentioned prostitution, I thought I would go crazy,” Yumi told me. “I was thinking, ‘how can this happen to someone like me who is college-educated?’ ” Her voice trailed off, and she added: “I wanted to die.”

She says that the four men who ran the smuggling operation — all Chinese or South Koreans — took her into their office on 36th Street in Midtown Manhattan. They beat her with their fists (but did not hit her in the face, for that might damage her commercial value), gang-raped her and videotaped her naked in humiliating poses. For extra intimidation, they held a gun to her head.

If she continued to resist working as a prostitute, she says they told her, the video would be sent to her relatives and acquaintances back home. Relatives would be told that Yumi was a prostitute, and several of them would lose their homes as well.

Yumi caved. For the next three years, she says, she was one of about 20 Asian prostitutes working out of the office on 36th Street. Some of them worked voluntarily, she says, but others were forced and received no share in the money.

Yumi played her role robotically. On one occasion, Yumi was arrested for prostitution, and she says the police asked her if she had been trafficked.

“I said no,” she recalled. “I was really afraid that if I hinted that I was a victim, the gang would send the video to my family.”

Then one day Yumi’s closest friend in the brothel was handcuffed by a customer, abused and strangled almost to death. Yumi rescued her and took her to the hospital. She said that in her rage, she then confronted the pimps and threatened to go public.

At that point, the gang hurriedly moved offices and changed phone numbers. The pimps never mailed the video or claimed the homes in China; those may have been bluffs all along. As for Yumi and her friend, they found help with Restore NYC, a nonprofit that helps human trafficking victims in the city.

I can’t be sure of elements of Yumi’s story, but it mostly rings true to me and to the social workers who have worked with her. There’s no doubt that while some women come to the United States voluntarily to seek their fortunes in the sex trade, many others are coerced — and still others start out forced but eventually continue voluntarily. And it’s not just foreign women. The worst cases of forced prostitution, especially of children, often involve home-grown teenage runaways.

No one has a clear idea of the scale of the problem, and estimates vary hugely. Some think the problem is getting worse; others believe that Internet services reduce the role of pimps and lead to commercial sex that is more consensual. What is clear is that forced prostitution should be a national scandal. Just this month, authorities indicted 29 people, mostly people of Somali origin from the Minneapolis area, on charges of running a human trafficking ring that allegedly sold many girls into prostitution — one at the age of 12.

There are no silver bullets, but the critical step is for the police and prosecutors to focus more on customers (to reduce demand) and, above all, on pimps. Prostitutes tend to be arrested because they are easy to catch, while pimping is a far harder crime to prosecute. That’s one reason thugs become pimps: It’s hugely profitable and carries less risk than selling drugs or stealing cars. But that can change as state and federal authorities target traffickers rather than their victims.

Nearly 150 years after the Emancipation Proclamation, it’s time to wipe out the remnants of slavery in this country.

A Woman. A Prostitute. A Slave., NYT, 27.11.2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/28/opinion/28kristof.html

No Sex Please, We’re Middle Class

June 25, 2010
The New York Times
By CAMILLE PAGLIA

Philadelphia

WILL women soon have a Viagra of their own? Although a Food and Drug Administration advisory panel recently rejected an application to market the drug flibanserin in the United States for women with low libido, it endorsed the potential benefits and urged further research. Several pharmaceutical companies are reported to be well along in the search for such a drug.

The implication is that a new pill, despite its unforeseen side effects, is necessary to cure the sexual malaise that appears to have sunk over the country. But to what extent do these complaints about sexual apathy reflect a medical reality, and how much do they actually emanate from the anxious, overachieving, white upper middle class?

In the 1950s, female “frigidity” was attributed to social conformism and religious puritanism. But since the sexual revolution of the 1960s, American society has become increasingly secular, with a media environment drenched in sex.

The real culprit, originating in the 19th century, is bourgeois propriety. As respectability became the central middle-class value, censorship and repression became the norm. Victorian prudery ended the humorous sexual candor of both men and women during the agrarian era, a ribaldry chronicled from Shakespeare’s plays to the 18th-century novel. The priggish 1950s, which erased the liberated flappers of the Jazz Age from cultural memory, were simply a return to the norm.

Only the diffuse New Age movement, inspired by nature-keyed Asian practices, has preserved the radical vision of the modern sexual revolution. But concrete power resides in America’s careerist technocracy, for which the elite schools, with their ideological view of gender as a social construct, are feeder cells.

In the discreet white-collar realm, men and women are interchangeable, doing the same, mind-based work. Physicality is suppressed; voices are lowered and gestures curtailed in sanitized office space. Men must neuter themselves, while ambitious women postpone procreation. Androgyny is bewitching in art, but in real life it can lead to stagnation and boredom, which no pill can cure.

Meanwhile, family life has put middle-class men in a bind; they are simply cogs in a domestic machine commanded by women. Contemporary moms have become virtuoso super-managers of a complex operation focused on the care and transport of children. But it’s not so easy to snap over from Apollonian control to Dionysian delirium.

Nor are husbands offering much stimulation in the male display department: visually, American men remain perpetual boys, as shown by the bulky T-shirts, loose shorts and sneakers they wear from preschool through midlife. The sexes, which used to occupy intriguingly separate worlds, are suffering from over-familiarity, a curse of the mundane. There’s no mystery left.

The elemental power of sexuality has also waned in American popular culture. Under the much-maligned studio production code, Hollywood made movies sizzling with flirtation and romance. But from the early ’70s on, nudity was in, and steamy build-up was out. A generation of filmmakers lost the skill of sophisticated innuendo. The situation worsened in the ’90s, when Hollywood pirated video games to turn women into cartoonishly pneumatic superheroines and sci-fi androids, fantasy figures without psychological complexity or the erotic needs of real women.

Furthermore, thanks to a bourgeois white culture that values efficient bodies over voluptuous ones, American actresses have desexualized themselves, confusing sterile athleticism with female power. Their current Pilates-honed look is taut and tense — a boy’s thin limbs and narrow hips combined with amplified breasts. Contrast that with Latino and African-American taste, which runs toward the healthy silhouette of the bootylicious Beyoncé.

A class issue in sexual energy may be suggested by the apparent striking popularity of Victoria’s Secret and its racy lingerie among multiracial lower-middle-class and working-class patrons, even in suburban shopping malls, which otherwise trend toward the white middle class. Country music, with its history in the rural South and Southwest, is still filled with blazingly raunchy scenarios, where the sexes remain dynamically polarized in the old-fashioned way.

On the other hand, rock music, once sexually pioneering, is in the dumps. Black rhythm and blues, born in the Mississippi Delta, was the driving force behind the great hard rock bands of the ’60s, whose cover versions of blues songs were filled with electrifying sexual imagery. The Rolling Stones’ hypnotic recording of Willie Dixon’s “Little Red Rooster,” with its titillating phallic exhibitionism, throbs and shimmers with sultry heat.

But with the huge commercial success of rock, the blues receded as a direct influence on young musicians, who simply imitated the white guitar gods without exploring their roots. Step by step, rock lost its visceral rawness and seductive sensuality. Big-ticket rock, with its well-heeled middle-class audience, is now all superego and no id.

In the 1980s, commercial music boasted a beguiling host of sexy pop chicks like Deborah Harry, Belinda Carlisle, Pat Benatar, and a charmingly ripe Madonna. Late Madonna, in contrast, went bourgeois and turned scrawny. Madonna’s dance-track acolyte, Lady Gaga, with her compulsive overkill, is a high-concept fabrication without an ounce of genuine eroticism.

Pharmaceutical companies will never find the holy grail of a female Viagra — not in this culture driven and drained by middle-class values. Inhibitions are stubbornly internal. And lust is too fiery to be left to the pharmacist.

Camille Paglia, a professor of humanities and media studies at the University of the Arts, is the author of “Sexual Personae.”

No Sex Please, We’re Middle Class, NYT, 25.6.2010, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/27/opinion/27Paglia.html

Editorial

Morning-After Pills

April 24, 2009
The New York Times

In a further break from the Bush administration’s ideologically driven policies on birth control, the Food and Drug Administration has agreed to let 17-year-olds get the morning-after emergency contraceptive pills without a doctor’s prescription. It is a wise move that complies with a recent order by a federal judge, based on voluminous evidence in F.D.A. files that girls that young can use the pills safely.

For much of the Bush administration, the agency — ignoring the advice of its own scientists — refused to let the pills be sold over the counter to anyone. It insisted that women obtain a prescription, a time-consuming process that could often render the pills useless. The morning-after medication, actually two pills taken in sequence, blocks a pregnancy if taken within 72 hours of intercourse and is most effective within the first 24 hours.

Facing intense Congressional and legal pressure, the F.D.A. finally relented in 2006 and made the pills available to women 18 and older without a prescription. So far there has been no measurable effect on abortion or teenage pregnancy rates. But individual women in distress have surely benefited from easier access.

Now the agency has announced that it will not appeal a federal judge’s ruling that it must lower the age limit by another year. Still to be determined is how the F.D.A. will respond to the judge’s additional order that it consider removing any age restrictions, as recommended by health authorities. There is no indication that the manufacturer plans to seek the agency’s permission to market to girls 16 or younger.

Morning-After Pills, NYT, 24.4.2009, http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/opinion/24fri3.html

Bettie Page, Queen of Pinups, Dies at 85

December 12, 2008
The New York Times
By ROBERT D. McFADDEN

Bettie Page, a legendary pinup girl whose photographs in the nude, in bondage and in naughty-but-nice poses appeared in men’s magazines and private stashes across America in the 1950s and set the stage for the sexual revolution of the rebellious ’60s, died Thursday in Los Angeles. She was 85.

Her death was reported by her agent, Mark Roesler, on Ms. Page’s Web site, bettiepage.com.

Ms. Page, whose popularity underwent a cult-like revival in the last 20 years, had been hospitalized for three weeks with pneumonia and was about to be released Dec. 2 when she suffered a heart attack, said Mr. Roesler, of CMG Worldwide. She was transferred in a coma to Kindred Hospital, where she died.

In her trademark raven bangs, spike heels and killer curves, Ms. Page was the most famous pinup girl of the post-World War II era, a centerfold on a million locker doors and garage walls. She was also a major influence in the fashion industry and a target of Senator Estes Kefauver’s anti-pornography investigators.

But in 1957, at the height of her fame, she disappeared, and for three decades her private life — two failed marriages, a fight against poverty and mental illness, resurrection as a born-again Christian, years of seclusion in Southern California — was a mystery to all but a few close friends.

Then in the late 1980s and early ’90s, she was rediscovered and a Bettie Page renaissance began. David Stevens, creator of the comic-book and later movie character the Rocketeer, immortalized her as the Rocketeer’s girlfriend. Fashion designers revived her look. Uma Thurman, in bangs, reincarnated Bettie in Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction,” and Demi Moore, Madonna and others appeared in Page-like photos.

There were Bettie Page playing cards, lunch boxes, action figures, T-shirts and beach towels. Her saucy images went up in nightclubs. Bettie Page fan clubs sprang up. Look-alike contests, featuring leather-and-lace and kitten-with-a-whip Betties, were organized. Hundreds of Web sites appeared, including her own, which had 588 million hits in five years, CMG Worldwide said in 2006.

Biographies were published, including her authorized version, “Bettie Page: The Life of a Pin-Up Legend,” (General Publishing Group) which appeared in 1996. It was written by Karen Essex and James L. Swanson.

A movie, “The Notorious Bettie Page,” starring Gretchen Mol as Bettie and directed by Mary Harron for Picturehouse and HBO Films, was released in 2006, adapted from “The Real Bettie Page,” by Richard Foster. Bettie May Page was born in Jackson, Tenn., the eldest girl of Roy and Edna Page’s six children. The father, an auto mechanic, molested all three of his daughters, Ms. Page said years later, and was divorced by his wife when Bettie was 10. She and some of her siblings were placed for a time in an orphanage. She attended high school in Nashville, and was almost a straight-A student, graduating second in her class.

She graduated from Peabody College, a part of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, but a teaching career was brief. “I couldn’t control my students, especially the boys,” she said. She tried secretarial work, married Billy Neal in 1943 and moved to San Francisco, where she modeled fur coats for a few years. She divorced Mr. Neal in 1947, moved to New York and enrolled in acting classes.

She had a few stage and television appearances, but it was a chance meeting that changed her life. On the beach at Coney Island in 1950, she met Jerry Tibbs, a police officer and photographer, who assembled her first pinup portfolio. By 1951, the brother-sister photographers Irving and Paula Klaw, who ran a mail-order business in cheesecake, were promoting the Bettie Page image with spike heels and whips, while Bunny Yeager’s pictures featured her in jungle shots, with and without leopards skins.

Her pictures were ogled in Wink, Eyeful, Titter, Beauty Parade and other magazines, and in leather-fetish 8- and 16-millimeter films. Her first name was often misspelled. Her big break was the Playboy centerfold in January 1955, when she winked in a Santa Claus cap as she put a bulb on a Christmas tree. Money and offers rolled in, but as she recalled years later, she was becoming depressed.

In 1955, she received a summons from a Senate committee headed by Senator Kefauver, a Tennessee Democrat, that was investigating pornography. She was never compelled to testify, but the uproar and other pressures drove her to quit modeling two years later. She moved to Florida. Subsequent marriages to Armond Walterson and Harry Lear ended in divorce, and there were no children. She moved to California in 1978.

For years Ms. Page lived on Social Security benefits. After a nervous breakdown, she was arrested for an attack on a landlady, but was found not guilty by reason of insanity and sent to a California mental institution. She emerged years later as a born-again Christian, immersing herself in Bible studies and serving as an adviser to the Billy Graham Crusade.

In recent years, she had lived in Southern California on the proceeds of her revival. Occasionally, she gave interviews in her gentle Southern drawl, but largely stayed out of the public eye — and steadfastly refused to be photographed.

“I want to be remembered as I was when I was young and in my golden times,” she told The Los Angeles Times in 2006. “I want to be remembered as a woman who changed people’s perspectives concerning nudity in its natural form.”

Bettie Page, Queen of Pinups, Dies at 85, NYT, 12.12.2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/12/arts/12page.html

Modern sex: Catherine Townsend

logs on to the new revolution

In the 21st century, technology is allowing people to express their desires
and fulfil their fantasies in ways never before possible
– and all at the touch of a button.
Catherine Townsend logs on to the new sexual revolution

Interviews by Esther Walker

Saturday, 6 December 2008
The Independent

After watching Blade Runner recently on late-night television, I wondered: whatever happened to all those scientists' predictions that humans would be having sex with robots by now – or at least in the very near future? After all, Ridley Scott's film is only set in 2019.

I still can't imagine having a hot replicant boyfriend any time soon – a battery-operated vibrator is about as high-tech as it gets for me. Others, however, are fast becoming accustomed to using technology to take things a step further: men already go online to purchase custom-made "real dolls", which are like silicon Stepford Wives minus the vocal cords, and cost several thousand pounds. Fans claim they are a viable alternative for the lonely and socially awkward. But can it really be healthy to seek out intimacy with an inanimate object?

At the same time that technology is causing some people to withdraw from the dating game – preferring online porn and virtual sex to the real thing – the sheer volume of specialised websites means that huge numbers of people are now connecting in ways that they never have before. Though most deviant sexual behaviours have been around for ages (the Romans were having orgies, after all) the Noughties have ushered in the normalisation of fetishes – and made it vastly more easy to find others with similar tastes. These days, BDSM (Bondage, Domination and Sado-Masochism) has gone from underground fringe clubs to housewives browsing spanking paddles online and in high-street sex shops.

Sex parties, too, have shed their image of dumpy, middle-aged couples circling a bowl of car keys, and now upmarket swinging events such as Fever and Killing Kittens cater to young and more conventionally attractive couples by using their website to vet applicants. These days, more and more single women are taking the plunge.

Technology has also made casual hook-ups – and infidelity – simpler than ever: a well-placed digital photo and a reasonably witty online profile can bring dozens of responses within a few hours. And there are niche markets for everything (among the more obscure I've come across: love connections for the freakishly tall and even for devotees of the American writer Ayn Rand).

But what a friend of mine calls "the crack cocaine of online dating" does have its risks. Ultimately, it's much easier to hide one's true intentions behind the anonymity of a keyboard, and to lie. I've met men who happily crop out years of their life (and children!) as easily as the woman standing next to them in their profile picture.

Of course, not everyone online is a cheater. Some people are completely open about their alter egos, and use their "avatars" to have cybersex on sites such as Second Life. And many see it purely as a form of escapism, and have no intention of actually meeting in person.

The internet does, of course, provide people with fetishes with an easy way of finding each other. I personally would not want to change an adult baby's nappy, but it seems there are people out there who want to breast-feed and role-play a nanny scenario. And it's much easier to send an e-mail through a website than to mention the subject casually on a first date.

In a world bombarded by hyper-sexualised images, even those who identify themselves as asexual or celibate are able to surf over the sea of pornography and connect with people who understand them.

Modern sex, to me, is about easy connectivity, and open-mindedness – whether your sexual soulmate wants to be spanked over a desk or likes to dress up as a giant squirrel. Today, there really is something for everyone.

The doll fetishist

James, 52, civil servant

I suppose you could say that I am a recluse. I've always lived on my own and find it hard to make friends or have happy relationships – I've got a history of unsuccessful relationships with women. I did hope that eventually I would find happiness settling down with a partner and I have tried internet chatrooms and online dating but nothing worked. A few years ago I watched a TV documentary about men who live with "real dolls" (see introduction) and thought it might be the perfect solution as I was extremely lonely at the time. I contacted an online company that makes dolls to order and although I was very nervous about the whole thing they put me at my ease and helped me decide what sort of doll I wanted.

Alice cost me about £6,000 and via the company's website I was able to customise every area of her looks and physical attributes – I admit it seems childish but I got a real kick out of creating my fantasy woman. She's aged about 25 and has dark hair and the perfect body. I also enjoyed being able to choose all her clothes at the click of a mouse; perhaps it's the power thing that appeals – being in control of every aspect of her.

Whe she first arrived, it was a very surreal feeling having this gorgeous and life-like silicone creature sitting opposite me in the lounge.

Very gradually, however, I have got used to having her around and now I have grown to love her as I would a real woman. I know it must seem pretty sad, but for me, she's everything. I think of her primarily as a companion, although obviously she fulfils my sexual needs too – in my experience it's a lot easier and more pleasurable than the real thing! I like the fact that she's always there for me; she eats with me, sits and watches TV with me and sleeps with me. I haven't told anyone about Alice; my work colleagues would laugh at me and if my neighbours saw her they would probably freak out too. To me, however, it's the perfect partnership – and what harm am I doing to anyone else?

The internet sex addict

Simon, 38, regional sales director

I got into internet sex by accident; I wasn't even looking for sex. I was at work about four years ago and a friend was registered to one of those dating sites, and he was having a whale of a time.

He was single at the time and went out on lots of dates with different women and met them once or twice and then slept with them and after that he didn't really see them again. I joined my first internet website for a laugh when I was bored, and I couldn't believe how easy it was to meet up with women. I said I was single on my profile but I was married, of course. I hooked up with one or two girls in the first couple of months but they were all looking for relationships and I wasn't. I felt a bit guilty, to be honest. I was already lying to my wife and I didn't want to have to start lying to another woman as well.

After that I discovered some other specialist websites where married people can contact each other for a bit of flirting and then hooking up. I usually meet the women in a bar first and then maybe we'll go to a hotel.

I spend a fair amount of time surfing the sites, maybe an hour or two a day when I'm at work and then maybe an hour or two at home. I don't think it's excessive, though – people spend hours and hours on Facebook, don't they?

It's not that I don't love my wife or that we don't have sex – we do! But we've been married for 12 years now and we've got small kids and it's not really the same as it used to be. I suppose you might call me highly-sexed. It's just sex, pure and simple. I don't sneak around with the same woman, and I'm not having a big romance behind my wife's back. And I never really have to worry about her finding out because, first, the women I sleep with are married, too – so it's not in their interests to tell my wife – and second, I'm incredibly careful. My wife could go through my computer with a toothcomb and she wouldn't find a thing.

What surprised me about it all was how many women there are out there who were really up for casual sex with someone who's not their husband. I know so many men who say things like, "Oh my wife wouldn't cheat on me," and I laugh and think, OK, whatever, mate – she probably already has, with someone just like me.

The modern Mrs Robinson

Marian, 54, interiors consultant

I was with my husband for 25 years and then he ran off with one of our neighbours and we got divorced. It was quite funny really, looking back on it. I don't miss him at all; it was the best thing that happened to me. But at the time I was really angry and sad.

I kept the house after the divorce and my children were grown-up and I had plenty of money and I sat down one day and thought, "What the hell am I going to do with the rest of my life?" Eventually I hit on the idea of starting my own interiors company, and I was contacted by this woman who was having her whole house re-done after getting a divorce, just like me. We started chatting and she told me about a website where she met young men online for sex. She said it was brilliant and I should give it a go.

So I went online, and within a fortnight I was dating this amazing boy. He was only about 30. He was amazing-looking and wanted to do all the things that men my age just aren't interested in. We went out to the theatre and to the movies and out for dinner and he was just so fun and alive. We saw each other for about three months and then he sort of disappeared, and I didn't mind at all. When I was younger I would maybe have been a bit upset but I didn't give a damn.

When men get into their forties and fifties they don't want to do anything. They just talk about their new cars and sit on the sofa flicking through the channels with the remote. And now I've got so much energy. Ten years ago I felt totally dead, like a zombie, but now I jump out of bed in the mornings. Life is so exciting.

No one believes me when I say it, but going out with much younger men is not just about the actual sex – even though the sex is great and young men these days know much more about it than men my age. The fundamental thing for me is that men in their twenties are a better match for women in their fifties and sixties than men of the same age are. I went on some dates with men my own age after Keith left and all they wanted was a replacement wife to wash their pants. I wasn't having any of that.

I'm seeing a couple of boys at the moment, but nothing serious. And I don't care really. This time in my life is just for me – for as long as I can remember it's been about other people, my husband and my children. Now it's just for me and I love it.

The party animal

Gemma, 23, shop assistant

People think that sex parties are really seedy but actually, they're not. They're much less seedy than most nightclubs, in a way. Firstly, there are so many sex-party swinging sites on the internet, so you can do lots of research in the comfort of your own home. Once you decide to actually go to a sex party, there's no pressure on anyone to do anything; it's usually just a fun atmosphere with people standing about chatting – quite often just drinking tea or something.

I got into swinging, at first, with my then boyfriend Tim, when I took him to a swingers' party in Brighton for his birthday present. He actually didn't enjoy it that much, but I thought it was really fun. The people were nice and there was hardly any drinking or taking drugs or anything like that.

There were living-room areas, where you couldn't get up to anything particularly racy, and then bedrooms upstairs, some with the lights on and some with the lights off, where you could go for more explicit action.

I broke up with Tim about a year later. We hadn't been back to any swingers' parties but I had had sex with someone else at that first party with my boyfriend looking on in the same room and I don't think he enjoyed it; we both realised that we had such different levels of inhibition. I'm not at all shy!

After I broke up with Tim, I went online and signed up for what I suppose you'd call an orgy. It's just the same as a swingers' party, really, except that not everyone is in a couple. It was just really fun. I met so many like-minded people; it wasn't just about sex, it was about being yourself and letting go a bit. There's no pussyfooting around – so if you meet someone and think, "I really like you" and if they like you back, you can just have sex without anyone judging you or thinking you're weird.

I'd never tell my family or some of my more straight friends about this. I don't think they'd get it and there's no point in trying to explain to someone who isn't open-minded what you get out of it. They'd just think I was being a bit of a slag, and I'm not at all.

I don't feel ready to have a steady relationship now. Even if a prospective partner was really amazingly cool, I wouldn't introduce him to the idea of a swinging party because nine times out of 10 he'd be scared off by it.

The asexual

Mark, 44, scientific glassblower

I've always known that I was different from other people, especially when I hit puberty and found that I just wasn't interested in sex in the same way that my friends were. I also found my own gender more interesting and nicer-looking than the opposite sex, so I thought I might be gay. Back in the Seventies, there was still a lot of homophobia.

I started hanging out on the gay scene, which led me to being in bed with people, sometimes men, sometimes women – and I realised that I'm not capable of sex. I just don't get aroused. I did have relationships, but they tended to be very short-lived. I greatly enjoy physical contact, such as hugging, as well as companionship, but unfortunately once people realise that there's not going to be any sex, the relationship usually comes to an end.

My longest relationship was in 1997 with a man. We were together for 10 months and it was a sort of mutually beneficial arrangement whereby he tolerated my affections and I was his ticket to friends and parties. When that ended I thought: this is a pointless pursuit.

My brother, to whom I'm really close, went through a divorce a couple of years ago and I was driving in a car with him and talking about relationships. And I told him. I said, "I'm asexual." And he said, "You lucky bastard!" We laughed so much! I think some people still assume that I'm gay but if they do then it's not an issue. My brother later told me that my parents had asked him more than once if I was gay. I suppose they thought it was strange that I never brought anyone home.

My life really changed when I saw a piece in the paper in 2004 about the differences between asexuality and celibacy – in the former there is no sexual attraction and in the latter a conscious decision is made not to have sex. I saw it and it was a total epiphany. I was so thrilled to find there were other people like me. There's a range of different kind of asexuals – some are born that way (like me) and some become that way over time. At the end of the article there was a reference to AVEN (asexuality.org), the website for the asexual community, and I joined up straight away. When I went to the first meet-up it was a revelation to meet other people who felt the same way as I did. There's always a lot of stuff going on and I've got a busy social life – although I do worry a bit about what things will be like when I get older and I'm on my own.

The adult baby

John, 45, computer programmer

My mother walked out on my family when I was four, so I think I always craved being nurtured by a female figure. My two older sisters and I were looked after by a very strict nanny at our house in Nottingham, who showed us no affection. My father would come home late from work and was of the "children should be seen and not heard" school of thought. My sisters and I spent a lot of time on our own and would invent games where they would play at being nurses and would give me baths, get me dressed and so on.

I have always been quite sexually dysfunctional and my sisters haven't managed to form lasting relationships either. When I was in my early twenties I started a string of relationships with older women and realised that I was fantasising about a mother figure. Things started to spiral out of control when I had strong fantasies about dressing up as a baby – it's called infantilism. At the beginning, being honest about my desires was very hard. I felt like a pervert and didn't know who to turn to. Then I confessed to one of my older girlfriends and she encouraged me to seek professional counselling. My counsellor helped me to understand the root causes for my predilections – a lack of love in childhood – but although she encouraged me to stop dressing as a baby I wasn't able to achieve this.

I then discovered an online adult-babies' club in south-east England where I found like-minded people who wanted, as I do, to dress up in adult-sized baby clothes and behave as a baby might do. This might include being bathed by "nannies", wearing nappies and being "breast-fed". I realise that it sounds weird, but it gives me some sort of comfort at the same time as addressing my sexual needs. The fact that it's all done anonymously through the web provides me with extra privacy, too.

Modern sex: Catherine Townsend logs on to the new revolution, I, 6.12.2008, http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/love-sex/sex-industry/modern-sex-catherine-townsend-logs-on-to-the-new-revolution-1050428.html

Pastor’s Advice for Better Marriage: More Sex

November 24, 2008
The New York Times
By GRETEL C. KOVACH

GRAPEVINE, Tex. — And on the seventh day, there was no rest for married couples. A week after the Rev. Ed Young challenged husbands and wives among his flock of 20,000 to strengthen their unions through Seven Days of Sex, his advice was — keep it going.

Mr. Young, an author, a television host and the pastor of the evangelical Fellowship Church, issued his call for a week of “congregational copulation” among married couples on Nov. 16, while pacing in front of a large bed. Sometimes he reclined on the paisley coverlet while flipping through a Bible, emphasizing his point that it is time for the church to put God back in the bed.

“Today we’re beginning this sexperiment, seven days of sex,” he said, with his characteristic mix of humor, showmanship and Scripture. “How to move from whining about the economy to whoopee!”

On Sunday parishioners at the Grapevine branch watched a prerecorded sermon from Mr. Young and his wife, Lisa, on jumbo screens over a candlelit stage. “I know there’s been a lot of love going around this week, among the married couples,” one of the church musicians said, strumming on a guitar before a crowd of about 3,000.

Mrs. Young, dressed in knee-high black boots and jeans, said that after a week of having sex every day, or close to it, “some of us are smiling.” For others grappling with infidelities, addictions to pornography or other bitter hurts, “there’s been some pain; hopefully there’s been some forgiveness, too.”

Mr. Young advised the couples to “keep on doing what you’ve been doing this week. We should try to double up the amount of intimacy we have in marriage. And when I say intimacy, I don’t mean holding hands in the park or a back rub.”

Mr. Young, known simply as Ed to his parishioners, and his wife, both 47, have been married for 26 years and have four children, including twins. They have firsthand experience with some of the barriers to an intimate sex life in marriage, including careers, exhaustion, outside commitments, and “kids,” a word that Mr. Young told church members stands for “keeping intimacy at a distance successfully.”

But if you make the time to have sex, it will bring you closer to your spouse and to God, he has said. You will perform better at work, leave a loving legacy for your children to follow and may even prevent an extramarital affair.

“If you’ve said, ‘I do,’ do it,” he said. As for single people, “I don’t know, try eating chocolate cake,” he said.

The sex-starved marriage has been the topic of at least two recent books, “365 Nights” and “Just Do It.” But Mr. Young’s call from the pulpit gave the discussion an added charge.

It should not, in his view. This is not a gimmick or a publicity stunt, Mr. Young says. Just look at the sensuousness of the Song of Solomon, or Genesis: “two shall become one flesh,” or Corinthians: “do not deprive each other of sexual relations.”

“For some reason the church has not talked about it, but we need to,” he said, speaking by telephone Friday night on his way to South Africa for a mission trip. There is no shame in marital sex, he added, “God thought it up, it was his idea.”

Those who attend Fellowship’s location here or one of several satellite churches in the Dallas area and one in Miami are used to Mr. Young’s provocative style. (The real “f word” in the marital boudoir, he says, is “forgiveness.”) But the sex challenge was a bit much for some of his church members, who sat with arms crossed in uncomfortable silence, he recalls, while many in the audience gave him an enthusiastic applause.

One parishioner, Rob Hulsey, 25, said his Baptist relatives raised their eyebrows about it, but he summed up the reaction of many husbands at Fellowship Church when he first heard about the sex challenge — “Yay!”

A week later, he and his wife, who are expecting a baby and have two older children, could not stop holding hands during the sermon. His wife, Madeline Hulsey, 32, said she was just as thrilled to spend a week focusing on her husband. Usually, “we start to kiss, and it’s knock knock knock, Mom!” she said.

Others found that, like smiling when you are not particularly happy, having sex when they did not feel like it improved their mood. Just eight months into their marriage, Amy and Cody Waddell had not been very amorous since Cody admitted he had had an affair.

“Intimacy has been a struggle for us, working through all that,” Ms. Waddell said. “This week really brought us back together, physically and emotionally.”

It is not always easy to devote time for your spouse, Pastor Young admitted. Just three days into the sex challenge he said he was so tired after getting up before dawn to talk about the importance of having more sex in marriage that he crashed on the bed around 8 p.m. on Tuesday night.

Mrs. Young tried to shake him awake, telling her husband, “Come on, it’s the sex challenge.” But Mr. Young murmured, “Let’s just double up tomorrow,” and went back to sleep.

Pastor’s Advice for Better Marriage: More Sex, NYT, 24.11.2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/24/us/24sex.html

Op-Ed Contributor

The Pope vs. the Pill

July 27, 2008
The New York Times
By JOHN L. ALLEN Jr.

FORTY years ago last week, Pope Paul VI provoked the greatest uproar against a papal edict in the long history of the Roman Catholic Church when he reiterated the church’s ban on artificial birth control by issuing the encyclical “Humanae Vitae.” At the time, commentators predicted that not only would the teaching collapse under its own weight, but it might well bring the “monarchical papacy” down with it.

Those forecasts badly underestimated the capacity of the Catholic Church to resist change and to stand its ground.

Down the centuries, Catholics have frequently groused about papal rulings. Usually they channeled that dissent into blithe disobedience, though occasionally a Roman mob would run the Successor of Peter out of town on a rail just to make a point. In 1848, Pope Pius IX was driven into exile by Romans incensed at his refusal to embrace Italy’s unification.

Never before July 25, 1968, however, had opposition been so immediate, so public and so widespread. World-famous theologians called press conferences to rebut the pope’s reasoning. Conferences of Catholic bishops issued statements that all but licensed churchgoers to ignore the encyclical. Pastors openly criticized “Humanae Vitae” from the pulpit.

In a nutshell, “Humanae Vitae” held that the twin functions of marriage — to foster love between the partners and to be open to children — are so closely related as to be inseparable. In practice, that meant a resounding no to the pill.

The encyclical quickly became seen, both in the secular world and in liberal Catholic circles, as the papacy’s Waterloo. It was so out of sync with the hopes and desires of the Catholic rank and file that it simply could not stand.

And in some ways, it didn’t. Today polls show that Catholics, at least in the West, dissent from the teaching on birth control, often by majorities exceeding 80 percent.

But at the official level, Catholicism’s commitment to “Humanae Vitae” is more solid than ever.

During his almost 27-year papacy, John Paul II provided a deeper theoretical basis for traditional Catholic sexual morality through his “theology of the body.” In brief, the late pope’s argument was that human sexuality is an image of the creative love among the three persons of the Trinity, as well as God’s love for humanity. Birth control “changes the language” of sexuality, because it prevents life-giving love.

That’s a claim many Catholics might dispute, but the reading groups and seminars devoted to contemplating John Paul’s “theology of the body” mean that Catholics disposed to defend the church’s teaching now have a more formidable set of resources than they did when Paul VI wrote “Humanae Vitae.”

In addition, three decades of bishops’ appointments by John Paul II and Benedict XVI, both unambiguously committed to “Humanae Vitae,” mean that senior leaders in Catholicism these days are far less inclined than they were in 1968 to distance themselves from the ban on birth control, or to soft-pedal it. A striking number of Catholic bishops have recently brought out documents of their own defending “Humanae Vitae.”

Advocates of the encyclical draw assurance from the declining fertility rates across the developed world, especially in Europe. No country in Europe has a fertility rate above 2.1, the number of children each woman needs to have by the end of her child-bearing years to keep a population stable.

Even with increasing immigration, Europe is projected to suffer a population loss in the 21st century that will rival the impact of the Black Death, leading some to talk about the continent’s “demographic suicide.”

Not coincidentally, Europe is also the most secular region of the world, where the use of artificial contraception is utterly unproblematic. Among those committed to Catholic teaching, the obvious question becomes: What more clear proof of the folly of separating sex and child-bearing could one want?

So the future of “Humanae Vitae” as the teaching of the Catholic Church seems secure, even if it will also continue to be the most widely flouted injunction of the church at the level of practice.

The encyclical’s surprising resilience is a reminder that forecasting the Catholic future in moments of crisis is always a dangerous enterprise — a point with relevance to a more recent Catholic predicament. Many critics believe that the church has not yet responded adequately to the recent sex-abuse scandals, leading to predictions that the church will “have to” become more accountable, more participatory and more democratic.

While those steps may appear inevitable today, it seemed unthinkable to many observers 40 years ago that “Humanae Vitae” would still be in vigor well into the 21st century.

Catholicism can and does change, but trying to guess how and when is almost always a fool’s errand.

John L. Allen Jr. is the senior correspondent for The National Catholic Reporter
and the author of “The Rise of Benedict XVI.”

The Pope vs. the Pill, NYT, 27.7.2008, http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/27/opinion/27allen.html

FACTBOX - Sex scandals in U.S. politics

Mon Mar 10, 2008
9:29pm EDT
Reuters

(Reuters) - New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer, the one-time "Sheriff" of Wall Street who campaigned on a promise to clean up state politics, is embroiled in a sex scandal that threatens to force his resignation.

Following are some other sex scandals involving politicians in the United States.

* IDAHO SEN. LARRY CRAIG was publicly admonished by the Senate Ethics Committee for improper conduct after his arrest in a sex-sting operation in a men's toilet in June 2007.

The Republican lawmaker pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct after he was caught in an undercover investigation of lewd behaviour in a men's room at the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport. He later tried to recant saying he agreed to a misdemeanour charge without consulting a lawyer and in hopes of quickly disposing of the case. He remains in the Senate.

* LOUISIANA SEN. DAVID VITTER, a Republican and social conservative, apologized and admitted "a very serious sin" after he was linked last July to a Washington escort service. Vitter said his misdeeds occurred several years previously and he had dealt with them in confession and marriage counselling. He remains in the Senate.

* MARK FOLEY, a Florida Republican, resigned from the House of Representatives in 2006 after it was disclosed he had sent sexually explicit text messages to teenage boys who served as interns in the House. The revelations led to charges that Republican leaders tried to cover up the matter.

* NEW JERSEY GOV. JAMES MCGREEVEY, a Democrat, stepped down in 2004 over a gay affair with a man whom he hired in 2002 to head the state's Homeland Security department.

* PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON, a Democrat, had a sexual relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky, then 21, which led to his impeachment after accusations he lied about it under oath. He survived the impeachment process and was able to serve out his term but his presidency, which ended in 2001, was badly damaged.

* FORMER HOUSE SPEAKER NEWT GINGRICH, a Republican, has admitted he was having an extramarital affair while leading the impeachment charge in Congress against Clinton.

* SEN. BOB PACKWOOD, a Republican from Oregon, resigned in 1995 after 26 years in Congress. He had been accused of sexual misconduct with 17 women, among other charges.

* REP. BARNEY FRANK, a Massachusetts Democrat who is homosexual, was reprimanded in 1990 after it was learned that a lover had run a prostitution ring out of his Washington apartment.

* SEN. GARY HART, a Colorado Democrat, saw his second presidential bid end in 1987 when it was learned he spent the night on a yacht, named the Monkey Business, with a woman who was not his wife.

* REP. DAN CRANE, a Republican from Illinois, and REP. GERRY STUDDS, a Democrat from Massachusetts, were censured in 1983 for illicit affairs with underage pages. Crane, who had had sex with a teenage girl, was voted out of office but Studds, who had had an affair with a boy, was returned to office many times.

* REP. WILBUR MILLS, a Democrat from Arkansas and chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee, was caught in 1974 with stripper Fanne Foxe, who performed as "the Argentine firecracker." Foxe leapt from Mills' limousine after it was stopped by police and jumped into the Tidal Basin. Mills went into treatment for alcohol and retired two years later.

(Compiled by Claudia Parsons)

FACTBOX - Sex scandals in U.S. politics, R, 10.3.2008, http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUKN1050929120080311

Researchers Complile 237 Reasons for Sex

August 1, 2007
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 12:18 a.m. ET
The New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- After exhaustively compiling a list of the 237 reasons why people have sex, researchers found that young men and women get intimate for mostly the same motivations. It's more about lust in the body than a love connection in the heart.

College-aged men and women agree on their top reasons for having sex -- they were attracted to the person, they wanted to experience physical pleasure and ''it feels good,'' according to a peer-reviewed study in the August edition of Archives of Sexual Behavior. Twenty of the top 25 reasons given for having sex were the same for men and women.

Expressing love and showing affection were in the top 10 for both men and women, but they did take a back seat to the clear No. 1: ''I was attracted to the person.''

Researchers at the University of Texas spent five years and their own money to study the overlooked why behind sex while others were spending their time on the how.

''It's refuted a lot of gender stereotypes ... that men only want sex for the physical pleasure and women want love,'' said University of Texas clinical psychology professor Cindy Meston, the study's co-author. ''That's not what I came up with in my findings.''

Forget thinking that men are from Mars and women from Venus, ''the more we look, the more we find similarity,'' said Dr. Irwin Goldstein, director of sexual medicine at Alvarado Hospital in San Diego. Goldstein, who wasn't part of Meston's study, said the Texas research made a lot of sense and adds to growing evidence that the vaunted differences in the genders may only be among people with sexual problems.

Meston and colleague David Buss first questioned 444 men and women -- ranging in age from 17 to 52 -- to come up with a list of 237 distinct reasons people have sex. They ranged from ''It's fun'' which men ranked fourth and women ranked eighth to ''I wanted to give someone else a sexually transmitted disease'' which ranked on the bottom by women.

Once they came up with that long list, Meston and Buss asked 1,549 college students taking psychology classes to rank the reasons on a one-to-five scale on how they applied to their experiences.

''None of the gender differences are all that great,'' Meston said. ''Men were more likely to be opportunistic towards having sex, so if sex were there and available they would jump on it, somewhat more so than women. Women were more likely to have sex because they felt they needed to please their partner.''

But this is among college students, when Meston conceded ''hormones run rampant.'' She predicted huge differences when older groups of people are studied.

Since her study came out Tuesday, people are coming up with new reasons to have sex.

''Originally, I thought that we exhaustively compiled the list, but now I found that there should be some added,'' Meston said.

------

On the Net:

University of Texas study ''Why Humans Have Sex'': http://tinyurl.com/ypzwvr

Cindy Meston's Sexual Psychophysiology Laboratory: http://www.mestonlab.com/

Researchers Complile 237 Reasons for Sex, NYT, 1.8.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Sex-Reasons.html

Britons spend £60m a month on affairs

Friday July 20, 2007
Guardian Unlimited
Press Association

The amount people are spending on secret affairs is rising rapidly, with Britons collectively lavishing £189m on liaisons in the past three months, research showed today.

An estimated 260,000 people are currently engaged in an ongoing affair, spending an average of £297 per couple on each encounter, according to website IllicitEncounters.com.

The group said spending on extra-marital dating soared by 60% during the second quarter of this year, compared with the same period of 2006, to reach £189m.

It added that it estimated the "affair economy" to be worth around £557m in 2006, and this could rise to more than £700m for this year.

An IllicitEncounters spokeswoman said: "Our research indicates that a number of pressures are being brought to bear, but the key element is that people are choosing to develop secret extra-marital relationships rather than file for divorce.

"Life is complicated and expensive enough, they seem to be saying, plus there is a deepening concern that the harm a divorce can cause to children."

The research found that most couples spent between £120 and £200 on a room in a four-star or higher rated hotel when they met up, with dinner and drinks costing a further £62.50 to £100.

Travel could cost up to £100, while many also spent up to £200 on a new outfit or lingerie for their date.

Once an affair was under way, most couples met and spent the night together an average of 1.64 times a month.

Overall, they spent an average of £1,461 on their affair during the three months to the end of June, up from £1,275 during the previous quarter.

The spokeswoman said: "Most of our members have indicated that they prefer to lean towards a little luxury when meeting up, and are perfectly happy to spend a little extra to ensure their encounters are special."

Around a quarter of men paid for the full cost of the encounter, something that just 5% of women did.

On average men picked up two-thirds of the cost, with women generally making a contribution towards drinks, cabs and entertainment such as cinema tickets.

IllicitEncounters questioned 1,287 people during June.

Britons spend £60m a month on affairs, G, 20.7.2007, http://money.guardian.co.uk/familyfinance/story/0,,2131265,00.html

Abstinence Education Faces an Uncertain Future

July 18, 2007
The New York Times
By LAURA BEIL

HALLSVILLE, Tex. — When Jami Waite graduated from high school this year in this northeastern Texas town, her parents sat damp-eyed in the metal bleachers of Bobcat Stadium, proud in every way possible. Their youngest daughter was leaving childhood an honor graduate, a band member, a true friend, a head cheerleader — and a steadfast virgin.

“People can be abstinent, and it’s not weird,” she declared. With her face on billboards and on TV, Ms. Waite has been an emblem of sexual abstinence for Virginity Rules, which has risen from a single operation in nearby Longview to become an eight-county abstinence franchise.

For the first time, however, Virginity Rules and 700 kindred abstinence education programs are fighting serious threats to their future. Eleven state health departments rejected abstinence education this year, while legislatures in Colorado, Iowa and Washington passed laws that could kill, or at least wound, its presence in public schools.

Opponents received high-caliber ammunition this spring when the most comprehensive study of abstinence education found no sign that it delayed a teenager’s sexual debut. And, after enjoying a fivefold increase in their main federal appropriations, the abstinence programs in June received their first cut in financing from the Senate appropriations committee since 2001.

But the final outcome is in question. Some $176 million in federal support has survived several early maneuvers in the House, and the full House plans to debate the issue July 18 as part of the proposed Health and Human Services budget.

Lost in the political rancor, however, is that teenagers throughout the country are both abstaining more, and, especially among older ones, more likely to use contraception when they do not abstain.

While the reasons are not all understood, government data show the trend began years before abstinence education became the multimillion-dollar enterprise it is today. Through a combination of less sex and more contraception, pregnancy and birth rates among American teenagers as a whole have been falling since about 1991. Texas, however, has seen the smallest decline despite receiving almost $17 million in the name of virginity.

No state has more to lose in this battle than Texas, which draws more abstinence money than any other. Drive through the piney woods of northeastern Texas, and the earnest faces of adolescents appear on billboards with slogans like “No is where I stand until I have a wedding band.”

The Longview Wellness Center, which sponsors Virginity Rules, collects almost $1 million annually in abstinence financing, and serves 33 area school districts.

Even in this state, where President Bush acquired his loyalty to the policy, abstinence cannot be typecast. Megan Randolph of Dallas, who like Jami Waite just finished high school, believes in the abstinence message. But she is bothered by courses that try to scare teenagers with harrowing talk of ruined lives. “In those classes, there are going to be kids who have had sex and that hasn’t happened,” Ms. Randolph said. “So they’re going to think that doesn’t apply to them.”

Teenagers, she said, crave unfettered information — the kind restricted under federal abstinence education law, which discourages intimacy outside marriage but provides no instruction for safer sex.

At her school, Ms. Randolph, 19, was the “sexpert,” the one girls often called late at night, asking questions. And this year, before leaving Dallas to attend the Air Force Academy, Ms. Randolph was hailed as volunteer of the year by the area’s Planned Parenthood — part of abstinence education’s axis of evil.

In northeastern Texas, advocates of abstinence education vow to fight for their mission because to them, it is not just a matter of sexuality or even public health. Getting a teenager to the other side of high school without viruses or babies is a bonus, but not the real goal. They see casual sex as toxic to future marriage, family and even, in an oblique way, opposition to abortion.

“You have to look at why sex was created,” Eric Love, the director of the East Texas Abstinence Program, which runs Virginity Rules, said one day, the sounds of Christian contemporary music humming faintly in his Longview office. “Sex was designed to bond two people together.”

To make the point, Mr. Love grabbed a tape dispenser and snapped off two fresh pieces. He slapped them to his filing cabinet and the floor; they trapped dirt, lint, a small metal bolt. “Now when it comes time for them to get married, the marriage pulls apart so easily,” he said, trying to unite the grimy strips. “Why? Because they gave the stickiness away.”

Shoring up marriage was Robert Rector’s vision a decade ago. A fellow at the Heritage Foundation, Mr. Rector wrote the first bill that legally defined abstinence education, and got it attached as a stowaway to the 1996 welfare overhaul, backed with $50 million for the states. A later Congress, irked at states’ finding loopholes in the original intent, designated a second pool of abstinence money in 2001, now the lifeblood of the movement.

Mr. Rector says viewing abstinence primarily through the lens of public health distracted the focus from marriage. “Once you understand that that’s the principal issue,” he said, “you understand that handing out condoms to a 17-year-old is utterly irrelevant.”

Strengthening marriage this way may resonate with teenagers like Ms. Waite, whose conviction is planted in a deeply held marital value, but not necessarily with Ms. Randolph, who says she is more preoccupied with succeeding in the Air Force than with marriage.

In abandoning abstinence education, states have largely said that comprehensive sex education programs, which discuss contraception beyond the failure rates, have a better scientific grounding. New laws in Colorado, Iowa and Washington state that sex education must be based on “research” or “science” — which is often interpreted as code for programs that include discussions of safer sex.

Much of the data cited in support of the efficacy of abstinence programs are from surveys taken immediately before and after a program. These commonly find an increase in intentions to stay abstinent, but do not necessarily mean that a year later, high on emotion, teenagers will follow the script.

Most studies so far have found no significant impact on behavior, and the few that do see only modest changes. In April, Mathematica Policy Research released a report that was nine years and $8 million in the making. Scientists followed middle school children enrolled in four separate abstinence programs for about five years, and found no difference in the age of first intercourse between them and their peers.

Opinions vary on whether the absence of evidence — to borrow from Carl Sagan — is evidence of absence. One of the leading experts on sex education programs, Dr. John Jemmott of the Annenberg School of Communication at the University of Pennsylvania, says some abstinence education programs in the future might show promise. He is hopeful about an abstinence curriculum that he has designed which, unlike many, tries to get teenagers to think long-term about their behavior and its consequences, questioning, for example, whether a boyfriend would really love you if you had sex with him. Many programs dwell on the risks of sex, not the reasons.

Dr. Jemmott knows many colleagues view abstinence education as a failed experiment. “I think that is unfair,” he said. “I think what they should say is there is not enough evidence to state whether it is efficacious.” On the other hand, he said, it is also unfair to say that sex education that discusses — without maligning — condoms encourages sex. Data from many programs, in fact, find the opposite.

[Those who thought abstinence education financing would decline swiftly under a Democratic watch were wrong: On July 11, the full House extended state grants through September — a reprieve at the edge of expiration. That same day, the House Appropriations Committee increased spending, a political move to make the proposed Health and Human Services budget more appealing to Republicans, said Representative David R. Obey, Democrat of Wisconsin, the committee chairman.]

While the future of abstinence education is unclear, Mr. Love, back in Longview, believes “the message will go on, whether the government decides to fund it or not.”

Just ask Jami Waite. The former cheerleader is carrying her resolve to college, where she is on her way to becoming a nurse. One day she plans to wed. Until then, she says, virginity will rule.

Jacqueline Palank contributed reporting from Washington.

Abstinence Education Faces an Uncertain Future, NYT, 18.7.2007, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/18/education/18abstain.html

Sex is on everyone's mind at swinging convention

Sat Jul 22, 2006 1:33 PM ET
Reuters
By Adam Tanner

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Vera Rhodes has come a long way from her conservative upbringing in Pennsylvania's Amish community.

There she was a virgin until she married at age 30. Now, she is an enthusiastic 54-year-old member of the millions-strong "swinging" community who speaks openly of her encounters with multiple sexual partners.

"Last night it was really special," said Rhodes, who is divorced and makes a living giving massages in the Midwestern state of Iowa. "There was a couple from Mexico, a couple from Virginia and a couple from Ireland, from Australia."

"I like to participate in life as much as possible," she said with a broad smile.

Rhodes was among some 3,000 people gathered on Saturday at the Stardust Hotel in Las Vegas for the annual Lifestyles conference, a five-day, $700-per-couple event that offers a mix of seminars, socializing and sex.

Early on Saturday, Rhodes was back for more, joining the action in a suite where more than a dozen couples were having sex.

The conference organizer, Robert McGinley, 72, president of The Lifestyles Organization, estimates that there are 3 million swingers in the United States alone. He founded his group in 1969 and began holding the annual conferences in the 1970s.

He said his firm brings in millions of dollars in annual sales from organizing tours to swinger-friendly resorts, Internet sites and from conferences. The Las Vegas event is the largest annual U.S. swinging event, he said.

"The lifestyles community is rapidly expanding," he said. "It's an expanding economic powerhouse."

MOSTLY MIDDLE-AGED

The crowd at the Stardust appeared mostly middle-aged and middle-class. And many were nowhere near as active as Rhodes. Organizers estimated that perhaps 40 percent of the couples were attending their first conference.

"I'm still thinking about it; we've been monogamous for 26 years," said one middle-aged newcomer from Palm Springs, California, who said she was raised a Roman Catholic.

At one seminar, several women were overcome as the presenter demonstrated a sexual device -- one passed out in the packed room.

For all their enthusiasm, few of the swingers tell family and friends about their hobby.

"Socially, we're pariahs," said Drew Alexander, 40, who attended with this wife Tina, 38. "We're behaving in a way that's completely against the ingrained Catholic values."

Another couple did not want their names printed but were far from shy. They made love early on Saturday in the hospitality suites where couples wandered from room to room to watch the action at close range. They emerged from their experience beaming, saying seeing others sparked more passion.

One attendee who stayed completely on the sidelines was the man behind the event.

"I've never been a big swinger, that's not the point," McGinley said. "What I would like to do is bring a new understanding of sexuality in our lives and our relationships."

Sex is on everyone's mind at swinging convention, R, 22.7.2006,
http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-07-22T173322Z_01_N22274663_RTRUKOC_0_US-LIFE-SWINGERS.xml&WTmodLoc=Home-C5-domesticNews-2

Banned

Schoolgirls are forced to take off chastity rings - or be ordered out of lessons

The Observer
Sunday June 18, 2006
Gaby Hinsliff, political editor

It is only a band of silver, imprinted with a Bible verse, worn by a schoolgirl.

But the decision by one of the country's top state schools to ban American-style 'purity rings' - increasingly worn by Christian teenagers to symbolise a pledge not to have sex before marriage - has prompted not just a standoff with local parents, but a debate over religious expression and sex education.

Heather and Philip Playfoot have spent almost two years in dispute with Millais School in Horsham, West Sussex, over their 15-year-old daughter Lydia's ring. While the school's uniform rules forbid jewellery, they argue that the rings - given to teenagers who complete a controversial evangelical church course preaching sexual abstinence - hold genuine religious significance.

'The ring is a reminder to them of the promise they have made, much the same as a wedding ring is an outward sign of an inward promise,' said Heather Playfoot.

'There are Muslim girls in the school who are allowed to wear the headcovering, although that isn't part of the school uniform, and Sikh girls who are allowed the wear the bangle although that isn't part of the uniform. It's a discriminatory policy.

'We don't want her education to be disrupted because of it but we do want her to feel free to wear something that is very significant.'

The family claim that Lydia and up to a dozen other pupils wearing purity rings have been forced to take lessons in isolation as punishment for breaking the rules, threatened with detention and that - in Lydia's case - the school governors intimated she could be expelled for repeatedly defying the rules. Heather Playfoot said the school had told them it was a health and safety issue.

Lydia has now stopped wearing the ring in school. 'It makes me feel quite upset and angry as well, and in a way betrayed a little, because the school are always teaching us to be safe and we are trying to stand up for something,' she told The Observer. 'We get picked on and called out of lessons to see if we have got [the rings] on. I do actually keep to the school rules and I don't like stepping out of line or anything, but I just think this is really unfair.'

Her ring came from the Silver Ring Thing, an evangelical initiative recently introduced to Britain from the US, with which her parents' local church is involved.

The organisation is highly controversial, with some experts arguing that abstinence pledges are actually less effective than conventional sexual education which advocates teenagers waiting until they are ready, but emphasises safe sex.

Silver Ring Thing is critical of contraception, suggesting it is dangerously fallible - which critics say only encourages teenagers who do break their pledges to have unprotected sex.

The Playfoots however are equally critical of standard sex education. 'Here you have 12 girls who want to live an alternative lifestyle: we are not asking the school to subscribe to it, just respect it,' said Heather Playfoot.

The issue has now been taken up by the Tory MP Andrew Selous, chair of the Conservative Christian Fellowship, who raised the wearing of purity rings with the Schools Minister Jim Knight in the House of Commons last week.

Knight told him in a written parliamentary answer that while school governors had freedom to set uniform rules, government guidance states that they 'should have regard to their responsibilities under equalities legislation' and be 'sensitive to pupils' cultural and religious needs'.

Selous said while many schools banned jewellery he did not see a problem with purity rings, adding: 'Given that the government is failing to avchieve its teenage pregnancy targets, you would have thought that schools would do everything in their power to help children help themselves.'

However Keith Porteous Wood of the National Secular Society defended the school, adding: 'If the school has the uniform policy I don't see why it should make an exception for this. I'm deeply distrustful of these Silver Ring Thing-type initiatives: the research is quite clear that they don't work.'

Leon Nettley, headmaster of the Millais School, said in a statement that the school's own sex education programme already stressed the illegality of underage sex and encouraged pupils to discuss the issues, adding: 'In relation to the issue of wearing a purity ring, the school is not convinced that pupils' rights have been interfered with by the application of the school's uniform policy.'

The abstinence debate

Hundreds of British teenagers are thought to have gone through courses organised by the Silver Ring Thing, created a decade ago by two Christian activists in Arizona as a response to rising teenage pregnancies. It promotes abstinence before marriage and sexual fidelity within it, using Bible teachings and DVD clips to emphasise the horrors of sexually transmitted diseases and abortions.

At the end of the course, children prepared to pledge chastity can pay £10 for a silver purity ring to be given to their spouse on their wedding day: even non-virgins can be 'born again'.

US President George Bush has heavily advocated abstinence teaching, budgeting $170 million a year for it. However, research by Columbia and Yale Universities found while those who pledge chastity may delay first sex, 88 per cent of them eventually break the promise, and are then less likely than non-pledgers to use contraception.

A MORI poll for The Observer found a fifth of British teenagers had had underage sex. The average age of losing virginity was 17. Almost a third of women questioned wished they had waited longer.

Banned > Schoolgirls are forced to take off chastity rings - or be ordered out of lessons, O, 18.6.2006, http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1800271,00.html

Sister is stabbed to death for loving the wrong man

Children were made to watch an attack on a woman
who was forbidden to marry outside her caste

June 17, 2006
The Times
By Steve Bird

A BUSINESSMAN is facing a life sentence for stabbing his sister to death in front of his two young daughters in a so-called honour killing.

Azhar Nazir, 30, and his cousin, 17, used four knives to cut Samaira Nazir’s throat and repeatedly stab her after she fell in love with an asylum-seeker from what they saw as an unsuitable caste.

Miss Nazir, 25, had rejected suitors lined up to meet her in Pakistan and had been summoned to the family home in Southall, Middlesex.

The father, also called Azhar, Nazir and the youth launched the attack and at one point dragged her by her hair back into the property.

Miss Nazir, a businesswoman described as “strong-willed”, was heard to shout at her mother, Irshad Begum: “You are not my mother any more.” She was then held down as a scarf was tied around her neck and her throat was cut in three places. Nazir’s daughters, aged 2 and 4, were screaming and were splattered with blood. Police fear that they were ordered to watch as a warning to them. Neighbours called the police after hearing the screaming.

Nazir was found guilty yesterday of murdering his sister; a day after his cousin, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was convicted for his part in the murder. They were remanded in custody and will be sentenced at the Old Bailey in London next month.

The court was told that the 17-year-old believed that Miss Nazir had become a victim of black magic at the hands of Mr Mohammad, an Afghan asylum-seeker. Nazir denied murder but told police that his sister “had to be stopped”.

The father was also charged with the murder but fled to Pakistan, where he has gone into hiding. Charges against the mother were later dropped.

The court was told that Nazir and his father ran Rana Brothers, a successful grocery store on Southall Broadway. The son also owned a recruitment company, S & F Staffing, which supplied workers for the Hilton hotel chain and had made Miss Nazir a director.

She was articulate and well-educated and had studied travel and tourism at Thames University. She was described as the brightest in the family.

She clashed with her family when she told them that she wanted to marry Mr Mohammad, who become known to the family after he came to the country illegally.

After the couple fell in love,Mr Mohammad tried to ingratiate himself with the family by arranging to bring the 17-year-old cousin to Britain from Pakistan. Mr Mohammad and Miss Nazir kept their affair secret for years.

He told jurors: “We were as boyfriend and girlfriend for about five or six years. But we couldn’t tell her family because Samaira said her father was a very strict man who would not allow any female in his family to marry outside of his caste or tribe. We had discussed marriage. Samaira wanted to tell her family herself. Her father was very upset and said I was only after their money.”

When the couple announced their engagement, Mr Mohammad, who ran a stall selling phone cards, said the father went at him with a knife and threatened to kill him.

In April last year Miss Nazir was summoned to the home to be killed to protect the family’s honour. As she screamed for help one neighbour banged on the front door, but the father emerged claiming that his daughter was having a fit.

When police arrived they found a trail of blood from the front of the house to the back door and then to the hallway where Miss Nazir’s body was slumped in a pool of blood.

The amount of blood on the children suggested that they were only feet from the attack. A neighbour spotted Miss Nazir’s bloodstained arm emerge momentarily from the front door before she was dragged back inside and the door slammed shut.

She received 18 stab wounds and three cuts to her throat.

Sister is stabbed to death for loving the wrong man, Ts, 17.6.2006, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-2229505,00.html

The art of kissing, 1930s style

Extracted from The Art of Kissing (1936) by Hugh Morris.

Approved methods of kissing

A man must be able to sweep a woman into his strong arms, tower over her, look down into her eyes, cup her chin in his fingers, and then bend over her face and plant his eager, virile lips on her moist, slightly parted, inviting ones. All of these are impossible where the woman is the taller of the two. When the situation is reversed, the kiss becomes a ludicrous banality.

Preparing for the kiss

The breath should be kept always sweet and pure so that, when the lips are opened, the breath will be like an aromatic breeze. Sometimes it is advisable to touch the corners of the mouth with perfume. The teeth should be kept cleaned and polished. Nothing can dampen a young man's ardour, or a young woman's, for that matter, than a row of brown-stained, unkempt teeth.

How to approach a girl

In kissing a girl whose experience with osculation is limited, it is a good thing to work up to the kissing of the lips. Only an arrant fool seizes hold of such a girl, shoves his face into hers and smacks her lips. Hold her gently but firmly and allay her fears with kind, reassuring words. Your next step is to flatter her in some way. All women like to be flattered. They like to be told they are beautiful even when the mirror throws the lie back into their ugly faces.

The French "soul" kiss

There is more to your tongue than its tip. Probe further. Gently caress each other's tongues. For, in doing this, you are merging your souls. That is why this kiss was called the "soul" kiss by the French, who were said to be the first people to have perfected it. It is because of the fact that they dropped Puritanism many years ago that the French were able to perfect themselves in the art of love and, particularly, of kissing.

Learn from the French.

The "vacuum" kiss

Open your mouth a trifle, then indicate to your partner that you wish her to do likewise. Then instead of caressing her mouth, suck inward as though you were trying to draw out the innards of an orange. If she knows of this kiss variation your maid will act in the same way and withdraw the air from your mouth. In a short while, the air will have been entirely drawn out of your mouths. Your lips will adhere so tightly that there will almost be pain, instead of pleasure. But it will be highly pleasurable pain.

Electric kissing parties

Some few years ago, a peculiar kissing custom arose which deserves mention here. An excerpt from a contemporary writer will, perhaps, give us some idea of what happened.

"The ladies and gentlemen range themselves about the room. The ladies select a partner, and together they shuffle about on the carpet until they are charged with electricity, the lights in the room having been turned low. Then they kiss in the dark; and make the sparks fly for the amusement of the onlookers."

In time, you will become so inured to the slight shock that you will seek more potent shocks. These can be obtained with the use of any device worked from a battery and a coil which steps up the weak three volts of the battery.

Reprinted in 1988 by publishers NP.

Source : G, 13.2.2004, http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1147027,00.html

SEXTROLOGY:

WHO MAKES THE BEST LOVERS?

June 28 2004 Adapted by Jane Rildley The Mirror

WHETHER you're predatory Pisces, teasing Taurus or charming Cancer, your star sign rules your tastes between the sheets and the type of lover you're drawn to.

According to top New York astrologers, Stella Starsky and Quinn Cox, the zodiac offers one of the best clues to our sex lives. Unlike many stargazers, they believe male and female versions of the same sign are markedly different - especially when it comes to sex.

Here, in the first part of their exclusive Daily Mirror Sextrology series, they outline the 24 gender types, examining the sexual make-up of each sign and revealing their biggest turn-ons.

Aries March 21 - April 20

ARIES MAN - alpha male (Star Arians: Daniel Day Lewis, Russell Crowe, Colin Farrell)

BENEATH the Ram's clean-cut appearance lies a hormonally-raging animal ready to take the sexual lead. He is known for being rough in bed, treating women like either princesses or playthings.

Sexy secret: Prefers the missionary position, as he likes to take the dominant role.

How to turn him on: Call him 'Master', and ooh and ahh at the sight of his equipment.

ARIES WOMAN - original Eve (Stars: Victoria Beckham, Keira Knightley, Mariah Carey)

NOTORIOUSLY cool customer, she sees herself as the 'Catch of the Century'.

Aries woman has strong physical needs for sex every day and craves instant gratification.

Sexy secret: Likes it on top and a little rough.

How to turn her on: Introduce a shock factor such as outdoor sex or nookie on the train - Aries woman would just love to be caught!

Taurus April 21 - May 21

TAURUS MAN - the idol (Stars Taureans: George Clooney, Bono, David Beckham)

HE wants to be wanted and is attracted to dominant females who'll treat him like a trophy. Strong and silent, he is the epitome of manhood, but always expects the woman to make the first move.

Sexy secret: Loves epic foreplay.

How to turn him on: Fit a mirror on the bedroom ceiling - watching you drives him wild.

TAURUS WOMAN - living doll (Sign stars: Renee Zellweger, Zara Phillips, Penelope Cruz)

FEMININE and beautiful, she longs for a man to play Ken to her ever-adoring Barbie. She is wild in the bedroom in order to satisfy her man, unashamedly lusty and instinctive.

Sexy secret: Nibbles, licks and kisses every inch of her lover.

How to turn her on: Work on your pecs, because she loves to be dominated by a beefcake.

Gemini May 22 - June 22

GEMINI MAN - smooth operator (Star Geminis: Johnny Depp, Prince William, Jonny Wilkinson)

MERCURIAL by nature, he works hard to make himself an exciting prospect. But sex must always be fun, so Mr Gemini thrives on experimentation - for some, even if it's sleazy - and detests routine.

Sexy secret: Good with his hands ... a real craftsman

How to turn him on: Dress up as a high-class callgirl and tell him your fantasies. You'll send him wild.

GEMINI WOMAN - Lolita (Stars: Angelina Jolie, Courteney Cox, Kylie Minogue)

ACUTELY aware of her feminine wiles, she takes no sexual prisoners. Often feigns naivety, but can't resist putting on a show in the bedroom. Some can easily lose themselves in sex and become dismissive of the man who is only there to provide the ride.

Sexy secret: Likes it on top where she can control pace and positioning.

How to turn her on: Offer to roleplay as her teacher.

Cancer June 23 - July 23

CANCER MAN - Prince Charming (Star Cancerians: Tobey Maguire, Johnny Vaughan, Tom Cruise)

FOR this romantic hero, sex is an act of worshipping the woman. Notoriously courteous in bed, some are almost cloying, and are aroused by a woman's dominance. A softie, he loves a cuddle and has a breast-fixation.

Sexy secret: A penchant for being tied up with his lover on top.

Turning him on: Brandish a whip and make him lick your shoes.

CANCER WOMAN - Cinderella (Stars: Courtney Love, Pamela Anderson, Liv Tyler)

A MAN'S woman who makes her lover feel like the big, strong protector because she sees him as her saviour. Has a voracious sexual appetite and is a willing recipient of almost anything that is being dished out!

Sexy secret: Cancer Girl is up for most things and loves experimentation.

How to turn her on: Ask her to roleplay as your secretary or nurse to your doctor.

Leo July 24 - August 23

LEO MAN - the golden boy (Star Leos: Matt Le Blanc, Antonio Banderas, Thierry Henry)

PASSIONATE and caring, he can only perform if his heart is really in it. He prefers raw, natural, unadorned sex with no frills and, with his belief in his own superiority, the traditional male dominance role.

Sexy secret: Enjoys a head-to-toe massage

How to turn him on: Lead him into the garden for sex under the stars or among the rhododendrons.

LEO WOMAN - the knockout (Stars: Madonna, Melanie Sykes, Halle Berry)

A FIERCELY energetic woman who, like the lioness, is a wildcat in the bedroom. She always battles with her lovers for dominance and plays cat and mouse with potential partners. Won't get out of bed until she's had two orgasms.

Sexy secret: Loves to put on a show.

How to turn her on: Boast about your incredible stamina and she'll try to match it.

Virgo August 24 - September 23

VIRGO MAN - the mentor (Star Virgoans: Hugh Grant, Colin Firth, Sean Connery)

A GENTLE giant, he is the ultimate caretaker in the bedroom with a startling empathy for women's needs. He has a Svengali-streak and sees women as either madonnas or whores. Likes routine and little fuss in the bedroom.

Sexy secret: Likes the woman to lead the way.

How to turn him on: Pretend he's the doctor and you're one of his patients.

VIRGO WOMAN - Mother Earth (Stars: Cameron Diaz, Rachel Hunter, Beyonce Knowles)

PLEASING a lover tops Virgo's erotic agenda and she treats men like lord and master. Simultaneously sacred territory and sexy bombshell, she is driven to nurture men. Sees sex in terms of mating and seeks partners with staying power.

Sexy secret: Enjoys submission so won't say no to the missionary position.

Turning her on: She has a hygiene fixation so suggest a shower together.

Libra September 24 - October 23

LIBRA MAN - the perfectionist (Star Librans: Sting, Simon Cowell, Viggo Mortensen)

HAS a high-minded, ethereal approach to sex. Witty and charming, he talks women into bed. Sex must be beautiful and he indulges in lavish foreplay, determined to gratify a woman early on. An expert lover.

Sexy secret: He hates rules, so likes to experiment with different, athletic positions.

Turning him on: Dress up as Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast At Tiffanys.

LIBRA WOMAN - the activist (Stars: Susan Sarandon, Catherine Zeta Jones. Kate Winslet)

UNCONVENTIONAL in relationships, some can favour casual sex and are wary of commitment. Fights against male adulation and traditional gender roles in bed, preferring the equality of giving and receiving pleasure.

Sexy secret: Loves positions that keep both partners happy.

How to turn her on: Arm-wrestle her into bed.

Scorpio October 24 - November 22

SCORPIO MAN - the stranger (Star Scorpios: Joaquin Phoenix, Wayne Rooney, Leonardo DiCaprio)

A SEVERE individual, he is insular but lavishes attention on his lover. Most Scorpios enjoy experimenting and some are even turned on by kinky sex.

Sexy secret: Likes to take total control and may get a kick from blind-folding his lover.

How to turn him on: Turn up wearing a mac - with nothing underneath, but a suspender belt.

SCORPIO WOMAN - femme fatale (Stars: Meg Ryan, Bjork, Julia Roberts)

INVENTED the term "hard to get" but skilfully works her way into her lover's psyche without lifting a finger. Highly-sexed and demanding, she sees herself as the ultimate prize. Woe betide he who doesn't meet expectations.

Sexy secret: Likes it fast and furious, anywhere but bed.

Turning her on: Buy her a sex toy she hasn't tried before.

Sagittarius November 23 - December 21

SAGITTARIUS MAN - the maverick (Star Sagittarians: Brad Pitt, Benjamin Bratt, Samuel L Jackson)

WILDLY romantic, he has an untamed energy and sees his lovers as playmates and has incredible luck with the ladies. Any sex is good - he wants to experience it with woman of every kind.

Sexy secret: Loves role reversal with the woman on top and in charge.

Turning him on: Swap underwear.

SAGITTARIUS WOMAN - the leader (Stars: Lucy Liu, Kim Basinger, Britney Spears)

A HIGH achiever, some are obsessed with the idea of choosing only successful, charismatic partners. In bed, her modus operandi is to 'empower' the man, turning him into putty in her hands.Generous and enthusiastic.

Sexy secret: Rope swings are her fantasy.

Turning her on: Get her to act out a scene from 912 Weeks.

Capricorn December 22 - January 20

CAPRICORN MAN - A real gent (Star Capricorns: Jude Law, Olivier Martinez, Orlando Bloom)

AN anachronism, he is deeply old-fashioned and is attracted to traditional, lady-wife types. Tries hard to repress his libido, but some will have fetishes, kinks and hang-ups.

Sexy secret: Prefers the missionary position - with his lover wearing a lace nightie.

How to turn him on: Offer to be spanked.

CAPRICORN WOMAN - a thinker (Stars: Dido, Annie Lennox, Helena Christensen)

NATURALLY cautious, she never rushes into relationships and seeks a spiritual connection first. Has a wild fantasy life and invents dream lovers. A fairly conservative sexual character, she won't be coerced into anything.

Sexy secret: Likes routine - with him on top.

How to turn her on: Borrow a sailor's uniform and act out her fantasies.

Aquarius January 21 - February 19

AQUARIUS MAN - an eccentric (Star Aquarians: Justin Timberlake, John Lydon, Robbie Williams)

He seems sorted and self-sufficient but some Aquarian men have a notoriously skewed, even kinky side in bed. Thinks no woman is out of his league and many are emotionally detached from sex. Some are even turned on by humiliating their mate.

Sexy secret: Has a penchant for cyber and phone sex.

How to turn him on: Be his sex slave.

AQUARIUS WOMAN - eternal optimist (Stars: Geena Davis, Denise Richards, Jennifer Aniston)

SHE loathes over-dependent lovers but, as the zodiac's cheerleader, is her partner's biggest fan. A low-maintenance mate, hates formality and routine. Spontaneity is her big arousal and sex is pure physical pleasure.

Sexy secret: A quickie at the bus stop will excite her.

Turning her on: Take her to an orgy - where she'll only want to watch.

Pisces February 20 - March 20

PISCES MAN - the drifter (Star Pisceans: Shane Richie, Rob Lowe, Bruce Willis)

BEHOLDEN to nobody, this dreamer is his own boss and is drawn to raw, grounded women who are his polar opposite. Super-relaxed about sex, nothing embarrasses him and some Piscean men have a prolific number of partners, many of them one-night stands.

Sexy secret: Dreams of joining the mile-high club on a plane.

How to turn him on: Rent a hard-core porn film with him.

PISCES WOMAN - Prima Donna (Stars: Sharon Stone, Patsy Kensit, Rachel Weisz)

A WALKING, talking paradox - all virtue and all vice wrapped in one, deceiving package. Insists on being treated like a princess in bed. Often finds sex dirty and can behave like a martyr. But secretly adores being adventurous.

Sexy secret: Loves spooning and being taken by surprise.

How to turn her on: Read to her aloud from an erotic novel.

__________

Adapted by Jane Ridley from SEXTROLOGY: The Astrology of Sex and the Sexes by Stella Starsky & Quinn Cox. 2004 Market LLC. All rights reserved. Reprinted by arrangement with HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. Published in the UK by HarperCollinsPublishersUS, price £12.99. To buy a copy call Mirror Direct on 0870 0703 200.

Source : DMi, 28.6.2004, http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/tm_objectid=14372115%26method=full%26siteid=
50143%26headline=sextrology%2d%2dwho%2dmakes%2dthe%2dbest%2dlovers%2d-name_page.html

12 February 1987

'Madame Cyn' strains court-room calm

From The Guardian archive

The severe calm of an English court was sorely tried by the "Madame Cyn" case. But the law proved as unshakable in its stays as the nobly constrained form of Mrs Cynthia Payne herself.

The Inner London Crown Court, where Mrs Payne was cleared yesterday of controlling prostitutes, took it all: accounts of Mrs Payne's style of home entertaining in Ambleside Avenue, Streatham, and the tumultu ous scenes when a police raid brought the party to an end – a great final fling of bedroom doors, revealing prodigies of corsetry and of sexual energy among the elderly infirm.

Judge Brian Pryor, who conducted the trial, sat in his wig and calf-length gown as a constable described his party-time encounter with a gent in curly grey wig and evening frock who introduced himself as Amanda. During a lesbian floor show, of course. Cynthia Payne has always thrown that sort of party.

Day one (January 22) opened with colourful events at No 32 and the denouement as the police crashed in. One man was in Mrs Payne's bathroom sitting on the rim of the bath, with a woman at his knee. When the police burst in she sprang to her feet. The gent toppled backwards into the tub, legs in the air and trousers around his ankles. Mrs Payne could hardly be blamed for his predicament. A sign on the door asked visitors not to fornicate in the bathroom "by order".

Day four: Inspector Colin White described an exchange with Mrs Payne – who said that she used to be a prostitute "until I got someone else to do the work... I prefer to enjoy the parties these days. Anyway, the hostess can't keep disappearing all night."

Day five: Items taken from the house were displayed in court, including a large, green luncheon vouchers sign, contraceptive pills, and a wooden bead necklace. Judge Pryor: "It is notorious that judges have always led sheltered lives but I cannot, for the moment, see the significance of the bead necklace."

February 3: Mrs Payne, with some dignity, explained from the witness box that she never indulged in sex at her parties. "I know it does make people happy, but to me it is just like having a cup of tea," she said.

February 9: Mr Spens, defending, sympathised with the jury who must be feeling "punch drunk" after hearing from a policeman who infiltrated three parties. His version of events amounted to "a sort of sexual marathon not even a Mars bar a day could possibly sustain". Judge Pryor, summing up, warned that the case was a criminal trial, not a form of entertainment.

'Madame Cyn' strains court-room calm, G, 12 February 1987, republished 12.2.2009, p. 34,
http://digital.guardian.co.uk/guardian/2009/02/12/pages/ber34.shtml

9.8.2004
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/tm_objectid=
14615774%26method=full%26siteid=
50143%26headline=girl%2d%2d12%2d%2dblamed%2dby%
2djudge%2dfor%2dsex%2dattack-name_page.html

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