Web Log Archives: January 05, 2003 - January 11, 2003
Saturday, January 11, 2003
Sharon Verghis goes in search of the New Lass, aka Sydney women on the prowl. "So true to form are they that it almost seems to be a none-too-subtle send-up of laddish behaviour. In recent years, this small revolution has caused a shift in the sexual politics that underwrite Friday and Saturday nights. The great Aussie male's right to be a sexual boor has been well and truly hijacked. Young women, armed with financial clout, are the new sexual aggressors - taking firm control of the mating game as men, for the most part, retreat to the margins and the safety of numbers."
Elizabeth Ellen reveals What I Learned During My Twelve Months At Victoria's Secret.
Violet Blue profiles four vintage vixens — Ginger Lynn, Nina Hartley, Marilyn Chambers and Juli Ashton.
David Steinberg discusses the mini-scandal around Jack McGeorge, the UN weapons inspector who's also a prominent figure in the S&M world.
From the Guardian books section: "In his yet to be published first novel, Politics, Adam Thirlwell asks, 'Why is it never enough simply being dirty?' The immediate context is a love scene between two characters in a flat in Finsbury, north London; the wider context is the inclusion of Thirlwell on the Granta list of best young British novelists. Since the novel is not to be published until the summer, the only clue we have to 25-year-old Thirlwell's talents is a 12-page extract in the literary magazine, Areté, most of which is taken up with an account of Nana and Moshe's punt at anal sex."
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof discusses the secret war on condoms. "Evangelical groups do superb work in Africa, running clinics for some of the world's most wretched people — like poor AIDS victims. So it's baffling to see these same groups buying into junk science in ways that will lead to many more AIDS deaths."
Friday, January 10, 2003
AP: "Three former Romanian gymnasts who have been heavily criticized for appearing nude in a DVD film and photographs in Japan bared all yet again in a Japanese news magazine. The photos, published in the latest issue of the Shukan Gendai, show Lavinia Milosovici, 26; Claudia Presecan, 23; and Corina Ungureanu, 22, posing naked and performing gymnastics on a balance beam in only a G-string."
Germaine Greer takes on the "female sexual dysfunction" controversy.
Nick Galvin at the Sydney Morning Herald reports on the booming amateur porn cottage industry. "Not all those new-fangled digital cameras are used for the shots of happy families and fluffy pets depicted in the ads." (Link snagged from World Sex News.)
Wai Wai covers another exciting new trend in Japanese prostitution: Sexy lady pro wrestlers gently grapple guys' gonads.
The Age: "The dangerously low-slung jeans pioneered by Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears have raised serious aesthetic concerns, but it now seems bottom cleavage may be the least hipster-wearers have to worry about. The pants can squeeze a sensory nerve under the hip bone and cause a tingling sensation in the thighs called paresthesia, according to one Canadian doctor."
Self Exposed collects links to personal websites with nude self-portraits.
Calgary Sun: "A police raid has forced sex between gay men from the confines of a bathhouse out into the streets and in public view, say leaders of Calgary's gay community. 'I think what you're going to see is an increase in that activity until either the bathhouse is open again or an alternative facility (is introduced),' said Roy Heale, publisher of Calgary's gay magazine Outlooks." So they're having sex outdoors in Calgary in January? My testicles are shriveling up just thinking about it.
Thursday, January 9, 2003
Heather says, Sex is good for you. "You heard me right. This is my credo for 2003. Not 'Sex can be okay if it's safe,' or 'Sex can be good, but so can abstaining,' and certainly not, 'Sex is deadly.' Nope. Sex is good for you." (January 2 entry.)
Virginia Heffernan at Slate raves about The Bachelorette: "Far from representing a dramatic role-reversal, this new setup—suits in a semicircle, blonde at the center—is iconic; it recalls a debutante ball, or any scene in Trollope in which lords and baronets vie for the attention of an heiress." Jessica Shaw at EW is also "pretty hooked": "Will Trista's tongue explore as many mouths as Aaron's? Just how many bikinis can one girl own? Did Trista eliminate the breast implant dude because she simply does not need his services? How did producers find a firefighter poet anyway?"
Maui Naturist is a site by and about the denizens of Little Beach, "one of the most beautiful nude beaches in the world." The news section contains articles about the ongoing political battle over the beach's clothing-optional status. Or you can check out the photo galleries and videos of frolicking naked people. A reprinted article from the Honolulu Advertiser traces the history of the beach's hippie culture.
The Register considers the problems of internet child pornography and predatory pedophiles, without the sensationalism or exaggeration that often clouds these discussions.
"The pursuit of penis enlargement is as old as the quest for a baldness cure. With surgery and drugs, modern medicine is finally making progress on both fronts, but medical solutions can be expensive, and they often yield less than miraculous results. So men continue to be wooed by 'natural' potions and schemes that promise quick growth up top, and down below." Martin Downs at WebMD takes a skeptical look at a technique called 'jelqing', which involves kneading your penis in a milking motion for 45 minutes per day.
Wednesday, January 8, 2003
Lusty photoshoppers have created Lord of the Rings slash art. (Thanks, Xeni.) And Cassandra Claire has posted some new very secret diaries based on The Two Towers, starting with Aragorn and Theoden.
A shocking investigation by News of the World reveals that British twentysomethings on vacation in the Greek islands get really drunk and have lots of sex. Shocking anecdotes and statistics galore. (Link snagged from Attu Sees All.)
Fox's new reality show Joe Millionaire debuted Monday, and The Smoking Gun has turned up some intriguing background on the star. "Before Fox Television turned him into 'Joe Millionaire,' the eligible bachelor supposedly worth $50 million, Evan Marriott earned spare change modeling skimpy briefs for a California firm specializing in revealing swimwear, thongs, and leatherette underwear. Marriott, whom Fox describes as a $19,000-a-year construction worker, posed in November 2001 for California Muscle, a Los Angeles-based firm that sells its racy garments via a bi-annual catalog and web site." TSG has three very revealing fullpage beefcake shots.
Tuesday, January 7, 2003
San Francisco Bay Guardian profiles the owner of Divine Interventions, maker of the Jackhammer Jesus dildo and other religion-themed sex toys. He's not making nearly as much money as you might think (or as he deserves), and many sex shops, even kink-friendly San Francisco sex shops, decline to carry his products for fear of offending customers. (Link snagged from Eros Blog.)
New York Times profile of artist Laura Carton, who downloads internet porn photos, then photoshops out the bodies leaving only the empty backdrops. "You as the viewer rewrite the narrative - where were the bodies, what were they doing? There's a bodily presence in their absence." (Link snagged from Jonno.)
A New York magazine article claims that "the rise of Internet dating has brought a sexual openness (not to mention one-night stands) to the younger generation not seen since the seventies heyday of Maxwell's Plum."
Monday, January 6, 2003
An article in Nature Australia magazine describes the mating habits of the greater blue-ringed octopus. This particular species "cannot figure out the sex of its partner until a specially modified arm has checked out the target . . . Copulation involves inserting the arm equipped with a spermatophore, or a sperm packet, into the other octopus' body. Males were equally likely to copulate with other males as females . . . Most male-to-male copulations ended rapidly in amicable separation, while in male-female copulations the male was less enthusiastic about departing and would take more than an hour and a half, to ensure fertilization, the scientists said."
Sunday, January 5, 2003
Christopher Buckley reviews the new edition of The Joy of Sex.
