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Web Log Archives: October 12, 2003 - October 18, 2003 Saturday, October 18, 2003
Friday, October 17, 2003
But, concerned about a dearth of data on how safe the implants are and how well they hold up over a decade or more, the panel said its approval was contingent on a list of conditions, like education of surgeons and patients and continued monitoring of women who get implants. The implant maker, the Inamed Corporation, had volunteered most of those conditions in seeking the agency's approval. Silicone implants were pulled off the market in 1992 over health concerns, and implant maker Dow Corning lost a massive class action lawsuit to women who claimed silicone implants made them ill. However, no scientific evidence has ever backed up the anecdotes. Reason has published several good articles since 1992 about the bogus health scare and unnecessary ban. In 1998 Jacob Sullum summarized the findings of medical experts commissioned by the judge overseeing several implant lawsuits. "There is no evidence that silicone breast implants precipitate novel immune responses or induce systemic inflammation," the report concludes. Furthermore, "Women with silicone breast implants do not display a silicone-induced systemic abnormality in the types or functions of the cells of the immune system." In studies looking at the incidence of illnesses allegedly caused by implants, "No association was evident between breast implants and any of the individual connective tissue diseases, all definite connective diseases combined, or other autoimmune/rheumatic conditions." The panel notes that many of the complaints from women with implants "are common in the general population," and "no distinctive features relating to silicone breast implants could be identified." The Houston Chronicle praises this week's FDA panel decision and tosses in some odd civic boosterism. Plastic surgeons and patients in Houston -- birthplace of the breast implant and one of the nation's busiest breast enlargement centers -- applauded a government panel's recommendation on Wednesday to lift the 11-year ban on silicone-gel breast implants. [...] Houston's connection to breast implants dates back to the device's invention in 1962. A Houston plastic surgeon, Dr. Thomas Cronin, and his resident, Dr. Frank Gerow (both deceased), are credited with creating the breast implant and later working with Dow Corning to bring the devices to market. The first recipient, Timmie Jean Lindsey, now in her 70s, still lives in northeast Harris County. In Houston, where big cars, big hair and big breasts define high style for many, silicone gel implants were a big hit until the early '90s. A Texas Monthly article dubbed Houston "Silicone City." Plastic surgeon Franklin Rose says he has performed more than 4,000 of the operations in his 21-year career and says Houston ranks only behind Los Angeles in the number of breast augmentations performed annually. In 1992, fears that leaking silicone was causing serious diseases prompted the FDA to end routine sales. Houston became a center of breast implant litigation as the city's best-known plaintiff lawyers signed up clients by the hundreds. Lawyers in other cities followed suit, and soon most of the manufacturers were heading out of business or into bankruptcy court. Slate's "explainer" column explains the differences between saline and silicone implants. "The saline implants that have been used in the interim are often criticized for looking and feeling less natural than their silicone counterparts."
The first cartoon featured a schoolgirl being raped by giant alien wolf creatures. Then she masturbated and this somehow summoned evil aliens who raped all her schoolgirl friends with thick, slimy tentacles. Then there was a cute, talking bat on the schoolgirl's shoulder, and then it morphed into a giant bat that killed a wolf creature that was trying to rape her. Later she was tied up naked and raped by regular wolves who lapped at her crotch. William Dean writes more generally about sex and horror in a Halloween-themed article. The entertainment media -- from the earliest days of scary shadows on cave walls to the current horror flicks at your local theater -- have known that spooky can be exciting; add the extra flavor of sexy goings-on and you've got a brightly burning flame to ignite the fertile imagination and send shivers and goosebumps to places we like to have cuddled, kissed, licked, sucked, and probed. Even by monstrous creatures, randy robots, and spectral things from the ethereal plane. His examples range from Roger Corman and Hammer films to the hentai film La Blue Girl, which "introduced the world to the exotic concept of tentacle sex and the plentiful scenes of tying a girl up and fucking her with an object so big it could be mistaken for a Ford Escort." Thursday, October 16, 2003
Wednesday, October 15, 2003
"God is okay with me being sexy," believes a deeply religious 'Destiny's Child' beauty Beyonce Knowles. The star insists that there is no hypocrisy in her body-baring outfits and sexual dancing — she's so secure in her relationship with God, she knows he understands. "I have standards. There are things I will not do. I always carry myself like a lady. I don't feel like I ever do anything raunchy. I'm not disrespectful or dirty or nasty," Beyonce explains. "It's entertainment and I believe God is okay with that. I honestly believe he wants people to celebrate their bodies, as long as you don't compromise your Christianity in the process," she added. "God is the main person in my life and I wouldn't do anything to offend him. People say it's hypocritical to wear sexy clothes and then sing about God — but it's not like that at all. I obviously wouldn't wear hot pants in normal life or if I was going to church," she adds. God hasn't told me one way or the other what he thinks of Daze Reader. Guess I'm not a big enough celebrity for him. (Don't bother sending angry email telling me what you think God thinks of me. Why would he tell you to tell me rather than just tell me directly?) UPDATE: In another interview (or another story based on the same interview), Beyonce clarifies God's word: his approval of body-celebrating does not extend to onstage lesbian kissing.
Bragança's meninas brasileiras, or Brazilian girls, are part of the estimated $50 billion global sex trade that profits from the hundreds of thousands of women transported across national borders by human traffickers — often through coercion, sometimes willingly — to be sold or rented on the other side. A tiny fraction have found their way to Bragança, a town of 27,600 tucked into the corner of Portugal's isolated Trás-os-Montes (beyond the mountains) region. But there's nothing small or insignificant about the effect the meninas have had on the town, which for 800 years was known mostly for its storybook castle, complete with a "Princess Tower" where at least one heartbroken maiden is said to have jumped to her death. As Paula and an activist band of other wives see it, the meninas have invaded and degraded their town. To explain the hold these Brazilian women have over their husbands, the wives tell themselves stories, accusing the prostitutes of using drugs and even witchcraft to seduce the men. "The men are the most guilty, but the meninas are the most dirty," says Paula. And earlier this year, as seven strip clubs and countless private brothels opened in Bragança, the wives decided to fight back. In response to the negative attention, the Portuguese government may pull its tourism ads from Time for a week or two.
Louie, a professor of photography at the San Francisco Art Institute, spent six years photographing the Asian sex trade in China, Japan, Korea, Thailand and other places throughout Southeast Asia. A Chinese-American, he has said he wanted to disabuse himself of Western stereotypes about the sexuality of Asian women and to explore the nature of sexual relations between Asian women and men. He said he chose to focus on the sex industry because relations there are, as he puts it in the book, "heightened, more visually displayed." Yet another purpose, he added, was to look at identity and the role playing that always have been part of selling sex. (A cynic might also note that art photographs of naked women sell better than art photographs of construction workers on skyscrapers. Not that there's anything wrong with that.) Two good gallery essays about Louie's work with single photos here and here. Artnet has five thumbnailed images (flaky site, try hitting "refresh" if you get an error page). Nerve also has a Louie gallery (available only to paid subscribers). Tuesday, October 14, 2003
One scene shows two women touching each other on the arms and legs and then kissing each other on the shoulders and neck. It culminates in the simulation of a woman cutting off a man's penis. Another features several people shackled to a wall and a dominatrix whipping a man attached to a leash. The show was slated to open last week but remains in rehearsals for now.
Germaine Greer argues against the conventional notion that the female body has always been used to represent the primary object of visual pleasure in Western art. In Greer's view, it is traditionally the figure of the young male, or 'The Boy' who represents the ultimate in human beauty. Greer traces the origins of art's obsession with the boy from Ancient Greece to the present day. Greer opposes the common assumption that male artists painted boys to express their own sexual preferences and to appeal to the homo-eroticism of other men. She argues that women too have always looked at boys for pleasure and should be encouraged to do so. The Guardian ran a lengthy excerpt from Greer's book over the weekend. Most models for nude boy paintings throughout art history were anonymous. It was startling, then, in the course of my research for a book about male beauty, to come across a boy fully identified as Prince Henryk Lubomirski, stripped to the buff and posing full frontal for Canova in 1786. Even more startling is the fact that he posed for Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, Angelica Kauffmann, Maria Cosway and Anne Seymour Damer as well. Engravings of one of Lebrun's images were sold by dealers all over Europe. By what strange concatenation of circumstances could a prince of the stiff-necked Polish familia have become the first ever mass-marketed poptastic boy babe? Greer eventually travelled to Poland to research Lubomirski's life and modelling career. Monday, October 13, 2003
Many modern stories with sexual content are clever, intelligent, provocative, sad and funny. In the best ones, the characters are marvelously human. But in our sophistication and scrupulous questioning, it seems we have lost something — the force of that animal which can come out of "nowhere," tear your precious personality to pieces, then melt back into the dark to quietly lick its paws. At the bottom of the page are links to stories by Maureen Gibbon, Steve Almond and Nani Power. |
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