Wednesday nibbles

Image by DAVIDOVSKY.

Points of interest in sex include porn as a possible one-a-day vitamin, a sperm donor’s nightmare come true, bad news for gay Catholics, a true Handmaid’s Tale, ABC concluding that porn censorship is leading to “labiaplasty madness” and much more.

* An unflinching fan of Ms. Naughty, I was excited to read her post reflecting on her experiences and observations ten years as female-focused, online female pornographer. It’s eye-opening and is a story I’d like to see profiled in women’s magazines — if they had the courage of Ms Naughty, that is.

* Porn: it does a body good. The Scientist seems a straight-laced magazine, so it’s with excited surprise that I enjoyed their findings in Porn: Good For Us? (Scientific examination of the subject has found that as the use of porn increases, the rate of sex crimes goes down. And there you have it. (the-scientist.com)

* Two posts on Laughing Squid you won’t want to miss: a full-on sperm roundup is in National Geographic’s Great Sperm Race and I finally covered someone’s coverage of Zentai, the Spandex encasement fetish. (laughingsquid.com, thanks Dweller)

* Why, God, why? That’s what a lot of same-sex couples were crying last week when the church recently caught in a long-running, high-tier gay sex scandal in the Vatican was also the same church running charities that decided to punish pretty much everyone for gayness. read To Avoid Funding Gay Marrieds, Catholic Charities Denies Benefits to All Spouses and cry quietly with me at home about the price of faith. (washingtoncitypaper.com, thanks MW)

* People close to me got excited that I was on All Things Considered last weekend, but the fun NPR story is about New York’s new official condom design: the power-on symbol for computing! New York’s New Sex Symbol is a humorous read and a delight to listen to as people talk about the symbol in and out of context. You will LOL. (examiner.com, npr.org)

* Oh. My. Fucking… Ow. The video is insanely difficult to watch, but big BIG kudos to ABC TV Australia for their segment on why they think Australian porn censorship has created abnormal perceptions of what women’s ladyparts should look like, leading to what they are calling “labiplasty madness.” Read more and if you want, watch the YouTube video (don’t worry, it does not autoplay) in Labiaplasty and Australian Censorship. (wilfuldamage.blogspot.com)

* Ladies, cross your legs and guard your babymaker for one more item: The Handmaid’s Tale is starting to come to life in Iowa. Read Pregnant Iowa Woman Arrested for Falling Down and be outraged, really really outraged. (richarddawkins.net, thanks Mojo)

* As usual, this requires a dose of context: Time reports on a recent British study in Even in Old Age, Men Want Sex More Than Women Do. Actually, the main jist of the story is that an active sex life makes you healthier in old age than otherwise; we’re going to have to assume what the study subjects mean by sex, as I’m guessing that it’s sex that is enjoyed, which would also include a healthy solo sex life. It’s an interesting read, though as for the perpetuation of the myths around the always-horny man and predictably frigid woman — whose generation are they talking about, anyway? That’s the context that is missing. (time.com, beware of popups)