- In one fell swoop, the enormous tattoo on a bare woman’s body on the cover of this month’s issue of FHM India managed to demystify, emasculate and parody the ISI (Pakistani’s secretive Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate) — something most people have been afraid to do in public since the inception of the agency a year after the birth of the nation in 1947. What the Reaction to Veena Malik Says About Pakistan Today (The AfPak Channel)
- A Navy tradition caught up with the repeal of the U.S. military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” rule on Wednesday when two women sailors became the first to share the coveted “first kiss” on the dock after one of them returned from 80 days at sea. Two women share first kiss at US Navy ship’s return (MSNBC)
- This. Is. Beautiful. “Gender is not a subject that I would have broached in primary grades a few years ago. In fact, I remember scoffing with colleagues when we heard about a young kindergarten teacher who taught gender-related curriculum. We thought her lessons were a waste of instructional time and laughed at her “girl and boy” lessons…” One teachers approach to preventing gender bullying in a classroom (Together For Jackson County Kids)
- Sex workers are protesting Google. SWAAY is spearheading the response to Google’s large donations to three morality groups that push for the further criminalization and dehumanization of sex workers, groups whose work has been especially harmful to sex workers in the developing world. Why are sex workers’ rights supporters upset with Google? (SWAAY)
- The FDA is cracking down on a Silicon Valley man who gives away his sperm on the internet to people he meets through his website. But all the reports about him leave out one fairly important fact. He is extremely fond of posting explicit videos and pictures of his sperm donations on the web. The Porny Pastimes of the World’s Most Famous Sperm Donor (Gawker)
- World Series sex tickets no big deal after all. A Pennsylvania judge has overturned an attempted-prostitution conviction for a woman accused of trying to trade sex for World Series tickets. Sex-for-Series tickets conviction tossed (UPI)
- Oh bears. Is there anything they can’t do? This Sexy Santa prank video by Destructiod is currently viral. Sexy Santa (YouTube)
- A group of dancers from a number of San Francisco strip clubs presented a check for $20,000 to a local firefighters’ union Wednesday evening for its annual toy drive. This year’s donation made headlines after the check presentation, which was scheduled to take place at Fire Station 1 on Howard Street, had to be moved because Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White objected to holding the event at the station. Strippers can’t present toy-drive check at San Francisco firehouse, chief says (San Jose Mercury News)
- Durex condoms is currently running an ad in India that shows a woman smiling coyly alongside the copy “hmm…did he? didn’t he?” Below her, it reads: “Experience the new durex superthin ultima. Our thinnest condom. So thin, you can leave her pleasantly puzzled–did he really use one? Or didn’t he?” I don’t generally find it “pleasant” to have to “puzzle” over whether or not I’ve just been exposed to potential impregnation and whatever STDs the person I’ve slept with might have… Durex Thinks It’s Cute To Leave Her Wondering Whether Or Not You Used Protection (The Gloss)
- Last week saw the publication of a paper Multi-person Sex among a Sample of Adolescent Female Urban Health Clinic Patients. The paper uses terms like ‘sex parties’, ‘multiple sexual partners’ and ‘gang rape’ interchangeably in places. Media reported on the story with scare-mongering headlines like: Group sex is the latest ‘trend’ for teenage girls, disturbing report reveals – Daily Mail (The Daily Mail ran coverage of it twice). Teenagers and group sex: a cause for concern? (Dr. Petra)
- Eight cases of cancer had been reported in women who had received banned breast implants. French medical authorities will this week tell 30,000 women who received defective breast implants to have them removed after several suspcious cases of cancer, Daily Liberation reported Tuesday. France to order 30,000 women to remove breast implants after several suspicious cases of cancer (NY Daily News)
Thank you very much, Violet, for posting that teachers story about gender bullying. I’m passing it along to a few friends.
The santa prank.. Well I guessed it would be a guy but didn’t expect them to change the actor, clever editing made me smile.
The breast implants story is interesting because in the UK, we are being told that there is no real proof of a link from the implants to cancer (the French are considering it as a preventative measure) thus the implants should be left in place (if not ruptured) due to the risk of removing them – though the policy may change.
The problem is down to the “post hoc” argument, some women with these implants got cancer, thus the implants caused the cancer. Is it a fact or is it a tragic coincidence? The NHS in the UK will not generally pay for cosmetic procedures for “vanity” reasons so the women with the implants are mostly those who have chosen to do so, though there are stories about women who have had breasts removed following breast cancer having these implants in afterwards. I think if there is a link, it would make sense to pay for all to be removed and do the “vanity” ones as well and put proper implants in after.
We have a BBC2 (publicly funded) debate/phone in at lunch times (the Jeremy Vine show) which discussed this yesterday and I was disappointed so many of the listeners were being so condescending towards women with implants, suggesting everyone who has a boob job has some underlying “mental” problem and that they had implants to make themselves feel better and pretty much it was their own fault, not one person I heard considered that the women wanted implants simply because they wanted them but rather it was all down to insecurity.