Gloria's Oversexed Mind

And people complained when she got a Harley....

July 31, 2005 in Sexual Humor | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Bizarre murder case woman finds new life showing erotica

The woman at the centre of one of Sydney's most sensational murder trials has opened an art gallery that specialises in erotic works.

Irena Hatfield was acquitted in 2000 of shooting dead her philandering husband Christopher at their Maroubra home in 1985. Despite the trial clearing her name, her bizarre life of lust and betrayal was served up to a fascinated public through court documents that read like scripts from a daytime soap....

Now 56, German-born Ms Hatfield has restored a Surry Hills property into an up-market gallery showroom called LushArt.

Ms Hatfield said that while the days of wet-shirt competitions and extra-marital affairs were long gone, lust would forever remain part of her nature.....

When Christopher Hatfield was found dead with four gunshot wounds to the head in 1985, the killing was blamed on an unknown intruder. But 12 years later, Ms Hatfield allegedly confessed to the murder while with her young law-student lover, Atticus Busby.

After initially telling police she had enjoyed a "normal marriage", she admitted to a string of flings, exposing radio announcer Grant Goldman, an American named Bruce, a "German guy" named Robert Bader and Sydney science teacher Malcolm Stokes.

Ms Hatfield claimed her alleged confession to Busby was merely a game she played to excite him.

"During times of intimacy we would enter into role play and those sorts of things would be said during sex. This is what would turn him on," she said during the trial....

July 31, 2005 in Sex and Arts, Sex Laws and Crimes | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Early last week, I came across this bit in an advice column published on Philly.com. I decided to do my bit for better understanding of SM with a short note to the writers. Haven't heard back yet from them but if I do, I'll publish their reply here.

Dear Mia and Steve,

Recently, in response to a question about asexuality, Mia replied:

Mia: What is normal anyway? Some people like to be abused by leather-clad women carrying whips. That doesn't sound so normal either.

On behalf of women who like to wear leather (and the people who love us in leather), I would like to point out that we sadomasochists are no more abusive (and possibly considerably less so) than the rest of the population.

Abuse is when you do something to someone that they don't want you to do. We do the things our partners want us to do to them, for the sake of mutual pleasure.

With that one word, you display your prejudice against kinky sex, even while trying to explain there is no such thing as "normal." Many clinicians, myself included, would tell you that on the cosmic scale of sexual normalcy, it is much more normal to be interested in SM/fetish sex than to be asexual.

Gloria

You can read the column here: Steve and Mia@philly.com

July 31, 2005 in Sex and Sadomasochism, Sex On-Line | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

The Unknown Jefferson: An Interview with Andrew Burstein

....Do you believe that Jefferson had an affair with Sally Hemings?

Yes, and I would not characterize it as an affair, or suggest that the relationship can be understood in modern terms. On Jefferson’s isolated mountaintop, sex took place as part of a hierarchy that everyone involved understood. Jefferson, and those of his class, did not share our current understanding of sexual morality. Sally Hemings was his servant, and had little power. She was dependent economically, though this does not mean her feelings were irrelevant. But it does mean that he had extraordinary power, and she very little, and so, as his concubine, she likely replicated her mother’s relationship with Jefferson’s father-in-law; for she was, in fact, Jefferson’s late wife’s half-sister, and I have described the Hemings family as a parallel, subordinate family to the all-white Jeffersons.

Of course, many people still do not believe that Jefferson slept with Hemings. Virginius Dabney famously said that it was inconceivable--it just wasn’t in Jefferson’s character. But you provide evidence that Jefferson could be duplicitous and that he even lied to his family. Jefferson could lie?

We should not be surprised by the lie. Dabney is correct that it was not in Jefferson’s character as he appears in his better-known texts—but those texts do not delineate the whole man. The more perplexing question at this point is whether members of the family who explicitly denied the relationship were complicit in the lie, or believed what they preferred to believe. Importantly, Jefferson was mocked by his enemies not for sexual immorality but for a social transgression—acting out the ordinary urges of an ordinary man, having sex with an alluring, lower-class woman when he appeared to all as a philosopher, immune to base urges. I offer abundant evidence in the book that Jefferson could rationalize his behavior to himself on the basis of the medical authority of his age, which literally recommended for a widower like himself occasional sex with a young, healthy, fruitful, attractive female, in order to preserve his own mental and physical health.

Jefferson never offered a defense of his alleged relationship with Hemings. But you explain how he might have rationalized his conduct. What might have been his rationale?

The leading medical authority who set the tone for Enlightenment intellectuals’ understanding of healthy versus unhealthy sexual behavior was a Swiss physician, Dr. Samuel Tissot. Jefferson owned practically everything he wrote. Tissot and his many disciples—-he was the Alfred Kinsey of his generation-—warned against masturbation and recommended a moderate routine of intercourse. The prevailing medical theory specifically gave permission to men of letters, upper class men, to find suitable sex partners to safeguard their physical and emotional health. Physicians helped one such as Jefferson justify the correctness of his course as a sexually active man, assuring that spermatic fluid was healthy for the female who received it. Sally Hemings’s exclusive attention to him would also have protected him against venereal disease, which was prevalent. Middle age was a time of anxious prevention, and standard advice books recommended, for example: "There is nothing in the world more refreshing to those that are bilious than the caresses of women." In sum, regular intercourse was thought to preserve a man’s energy and sustain his productive imagination. Both celibacy and masturbation were thought to weaken the nerves and lead to recurring melancholy. How convenient for lustful 18th-century men!....

July 31, 2005 in Sex and Culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Carburetor breast fantasy wins bad writing contest

A Microsoft analyst has won an annual contest celebrating bad writing by comparing fixing carburetors to fondling a woman's breasts.

"As he stared at her ample bosom, he daydreamed of the dual Stromberg carburetors in his vintage Triumph Spitfire, highly functional yet pleasingly formed, perched prominently on top of the intake manifold, aching for experienced hands, the small knurled caps of the oil dampeners begging to be inspected and adjusted as described in chapter seven of the shop manual," went Dan McKay's winning entry in the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest....

July 31, 2005 in Sex and Arts | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

N.C. Minister Arrested On Peeping Charges

GREENVILLE, N.C. -- A Pitt County pastor accused of secretly videotaping a woman at Surf City has been arrested after investigators viewed videotapes showing at least 10 women and girls at his church.
Leon Harris is charged with sexual exploitation and peeping. He turned himself in to the magistrate's office Wednesday morning. He's been released on $30,000 bond, and scheduled for trial on Oct. 7.
Harris is charged with six counts of secretly peeping and four counts of sexual exploitation of a minor. He's been ordered to stay away from Rose Hill Free Will Baptist Church and not to contact anyone he's accused of videotaping.

Pitt County detectives started investigating Harris after Surf City police discovered several videotapes and DVDs in Harris' possession. Officers noticed Harris because a woman complained he was videotaping her on the beach with a camera attached to a metal detector....

July 31, 2005 in Sex Laws and Crimes | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

July 29, 2005 in Sexual Humor | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Or vice versa?

July 29, 2005 in Pets and Animal Love | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The pup is wearing camoulflage...I guess it's supposed to be a hunter.

But what's with the bad 70s pimp hat? Is this dog hunting for pussy?

July 29, 2005 in Pets and Animal Love | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

As announced on Monday, Fridays will be devoted to the ritual humiliation of fur babies. If you would like to share a photo of your companion animals outfitted in clothes or accessories, send me a picture (.gif or or .jpg ONLY) in email, and your baby could be featured here too.

I'll kick off the pet-fest with one of my personal favorites, this travesty...this mockery...this utterly adorable bunny-dog.

July 29, 2005 in Pets and Animal Love | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Surfing various of the newslinks that arrive daily in my mailbox, I clicked on this--always curious to see how other writers and therapists define fetishes and their formation. More often than not these days, I'm pleased to find that understanding for fetish and SM-related sexual behaviors is growing. Many columnists take the time to discuss the consensual aspects and acknowledge it as a fairly common adult sexual urge, sparing us the kind of earnest psychoanalytical jargon that reduces SMers to ludicrous cliches and antiquated stereotypes.

It was disappointing to read this bit of advice from "The Psychologist" column of UK's The Guardian. It borrows all its ideas from a famous book by John Money, while oversimplifying those ideas into what is tantamount to a judgment of kinky sex as an expression of sexual neurosis.

The Psychologist

Q How do fetishes develop in male sexuality? What's behind the PVC, leather, rubber, etc?
Ken O'Sullivan

A There is a very good book on this subject, Lovemaps by John Money (£15, Prometheus Books), which deals with every variety of sexual desire, including many that I never knew existed. In his view, lovemaps are drawn by the end of childhood, and 'once a lovemap has been formed it is, like native language, extremely resistant to change'. Based on your childhood experiences, you develop notions of an ideal partner, a lover with whom you enact fantasy scenarios that you may hope to carry into reality, linking love and lust. If you are deprived of childhood sexplay or are sexually exploited, your lovemap is vandalised. Lust may be wholly inhibited with only love possible, no sex. Or lust may become disconnected from love and you may turn into a sex addict, craving genital sex without relationship. Finally, lust and love may be connected but in pursuit of self-destructive relationships or lonely sexual outlets, like fetishes. Regarding leather and PVC, Money writes that 'They bridge the gap between touch and smell. Leather shoes and their smell, and rubber training pants and their smell, are probably the respective early sources of leather and rubber fetishes.' Based on cases he has worked with, Money believes that around the age of five to eight, a boy has experiences which cause him to associate arousal with those stimuli. Suppression of those lusts causes him to become an adult who constantly seeks to recreate them....

Dr. Money is without a doubt an expert in paraphilias (the clinical term for sexual perversions), and has written extensively on everything from SM to amputees. However Dr. Money is also a neo-Freudian, who still looks to Freud's model (that sexual perversions are caused by traumatic events and sexual guilt) as authoritative.

Nothing, however, in the research and science of sexuality in the past 20+ years (and especially not since we wrote Different Loving in 1991) suggests that SM or fetishes are necessarily the product of trauma, much less a response to shame or guilt about sex. There MAY be a traumatic sexual event and there may be shame and guilt in a person's past--and those events likely affected their sexual development. However, no statistics exist to prove either childhood trauma or sexual guilt are more common among SMers than among the non-kink-inclined; and much data exists to support the idea that two people may experience the same exact trauma but while one fetishizes it, the other is permanently turned off as a result.

From my own research and practice, I am convinced there is no such thing as a "pivotal event" that permanently traps our sexuality at some stage of development. Money's "lovemap" concept is intriguing and useful: I agree wholeheartedly that sexual identity is an evolving system within human personality.

Unlike Money, however, I don't believe it takes us until ages 5-8 for our sexual identity to begin forming. I believe children are born sexual, and that even in infancy (perhaps even at birth), stimuli begin to impact the formation of our sexual identity. A child's identity, is malleable; so is a teen's; and thus sexual identity is very malleable in youth. Traumas, along with delightful experiences, will shape a young person's sexual identity; and, in fact, sexual identity seems to be so malleable as to continue to evolve throughout our lives, in response to both negative AND positive stimuli.

And this is where I most significantly depart from the neo-Freudians. For some people, fetishes and SM fantasies are the products of pleasurable experience. They may be the products of positive re-enforcement in childhood; or later in life from friends, lovers, or a peer group. The "kink switch" may be thrown at nearly any age. Even in our 50s and 60s (and older still) we may "discover" a buried sexual need or may develop a penchant for something that never turned us on before.

Neither do I believe that SM desires are divorced from love, or that we are, as a group, emotionally disconnected, or that we are the way we are because our lust was thwarted. If thwarted lust was enough to make a person perverse, well, it would be a better world, perhaps, because sexual frustration is so common an event, it would guarantee a world of perverts.

Certainly SM/fetish people do not hold the patent on sexual guilt and shame. Often the shame and guilt we feel are not the result of our sexual urges but the recognition that our fantasies are harshly criticized by others. Most of us truly don't realize there is something wrong with our sexual fantasies until the first time someone tells us we are sick for having them. When these mysterious urges first awaken in childhood, we usually don't question them any more than we question why it feels good to pick one's nose or rub one's genitals. We learn to control behaviors, and we learn which ones are taboo, from other people, usually our parents and siblings, sometimes peers, teachers and books. If they make us feel shame, we feel shame. If they communicate approval, we don't.

To my mind, Money's work (which I respect for its boldness and originality) is tainted by Freudian theory.
For the Guardian's columnist to simply condense Money, and to assume that the need for SM or fetish sex is always or uniquely the result of a "vandalised" love-map doesn't capture all of Money's subtleties and insteads forwards the theories of Freud-- who had neither the scientific data, nor the personal understanding, to speak authoritatively about perversions in the first place.

I admire Freud as a philosopher of sex; but as a scientist, he makes Kinsey's controversial methodologies look exacting. Freud's samples were slanted (as are Money's--both depended on clinical drift, i.e., the people who came to them seeking relief from mental anguish). Their samples were tiny (as compared, say, to the large-scale studies we are accustomed to nowadays). And Freud was, in every respect, a Victorian gentleman with decidedly conservative social views on sexuality and women. Many of his theories--such as the ones on drive; on penis envy; on female hysteria--have been discounted in the last 40 years. It's high time for his theories about the formation of sexual perversions to be acknowledged as so flawed as to be useless.

July 28, 2005 in Sexual Science and Medicine | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

A trial is currently underway in England, charging a young man with the murder of his older lover. The young man was the Master in the relationship and his slave was a very successful and beloved literary agent.

It's an old story--young guy trying to hustle and star-fuck his way to fame by sleeping with a rich, needy older man; older man realizes he's being duped and tries to break it off; and when the lover realized his dreams of fortune and wealth will not be fulfilled, he commits the ultimate act of revenge. It's an old story and a sad story and, in this case, a sensational one because of the SM angle.

My sincerest condolences to Mr. Hall's friends and family.

Jilted lover killed Billy Elliot agent during sadomasochistic sex

A "gentle, caring and mild-mannered" literary agent was stabbed to death by his jilted lover during a sadomasochistic sex session, an Old Bailey court heard yesterday.

Rod Hall, who represented the writers of The Full Monty and Billy Elliot, had wanted to end his relationship with Usman Durrani, a 20-year-old student, said Aftab Jafferjee, prosecuting.

Mr Hall, 53, had recently split up with his partner of 27 years and was having short-term relationships with other men.

One of these was Durrani, whom he met through the internet. The pair began a brief, sadomasochistic relationship, with Mr Hall acting as the "slave" and Durrani "the master", the court heard.

But the relationship turned sour when Mr Hall realised his lover was interested only in his money and fame....

The jury was told that Durrani resented the fact that Mr Hall wanted to finish with him and, motivated by anger and revenge, persuaded the agent to have sex once more.

Mr Jafferjee said that Mr Hall ignored warnings from friends and agreed to be chained and manacled in a room in his home.

"When Mr Hall was, in effect, strung up and utterly defenceless, he was stabbed to death," said Mr Jafferjee....

July 28, 2005 in Sex Laws and Crimes | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

I'm a little late running this (it was announced on Monday), but if you hadn't already heard, the NCSF lost its effort to convince federal judges that a piece of CDA legislation regarding obscenity on the Internet was unconstitutional.

It's very disappointing. This was a big case for the SM community, and a wide range of SMers and free speech advocates testified at the trial. (I submitted written testimony but didn't appear in court.)

First, coverage from NY Newsday:

New York judges refuse to say Internet obscenity law is unconstitutional

A special three-judge federal panel on Monday refused to find unconstitutional a law making it a crime to send obscenity over the Internet to children.

The Communications Decency Act of 1996 had been challenged by Barbara Nitke, a photographer who specializes in pictures of sadomasochistic sexual behavior, and by the National Coalition for Sexual Freedom, a Baltimore-based advocacy organization.

They contended in a December 2001 lawsuit brought in U.S. District Court in Manhattan that the law was so broad and vague in its scope that it violated the First Amendment, making it impossible for them to publish to the Internet because they cannot control the forum.

A judge from the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals and two district judges heard the facts of the case and issued a written decision saying the plaintiffs had provided insufficient evidence to prove the law was unconstitutional.

The panel noted that evidence was offered to indicate there are at least 1.4 million Web sites that mention bondage, discipline and sadomasochism but that evidence was insufficient to decide how many sites might be considered obscene.

Next, a couple of quotes in response to the news from the NCSF website:

John Wirenius, attorney for the plaintiffs, says, "We are disappointed that the court did not act on the uncontradicted evidence we presented that artists and citizens who are sexual minorities are disproportionately censored by the Government's ability to pick its own forum and standard for obscenity cases. The government brings obscenity cases where it knows it can get convictions."

"I am appalled by this decision," says co-plaintiff Barbara Nitke, a fine art photographer who explores sexual relationships in her work. "It is vitally important to keep the Internet free for education, the arts and open discussion on sexual topics. This law is a form of unfair censorship that must be stopped. I am absolutely going to appeal this."

July 28, 2005 in Sex Laws and Crimes | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

The editorial excerpted below reminded me of one of my biggest beefs about the way we treat prisoners in America: we seem to think that when a person goes to jail, he or she ceases to be a human being with normal emotions and vulnerabilities.

To me, its most disturbing manifestation is our virtual indifference to the rape of men in prison. Indeed, there is a trend in popular culture to make light of it. People talk about it with a smirk or giggle. I've seen people wish it on others ("I hope he's put in a cell with a Bubba" or "he'll get his, he'll be someone's bitch in prison") and comedians do jokes about it. Folks talk about it as if it is part of a just punishment--and you can tell that, in their minds, they get a real satisfaction from imagining male prisoners being beaten and violently coerced into painful, often injurious sex acts.

Now, one might think that after movies such as "The Shawshank Redemption," which depicted prison rape for what it is--a nauseatingly violent and dehumanizing attack on the helpless--that the culture would have a better, deeper understanding of how negligent and brutal the American prison system can be.

Nope. It's become little more than fodder for off-color jokes. Of course, they don't use the word "rape," because that would make it too real. "Rape" is when women--our culture's victim group of choice (watch Lifetime TV if you don't believe me)--are violated. When men are raped, well, except for the men themselves and people who genuinely care about them, no one wants to admit that, under some circumstances, a man is just as vulnerable to sexual victimization as a woman and, when it comes to prison settings, a man is usually MORE vulnerable.

Example: if Martha Stewart had written letters from prison to decry a high incidence of woman-on-woman rape, I think there would be a huge public outcry, and that prison administrations would try to crack down while fending off a media feeding frenzy. I can imagine the patronizing patriarchal pap that would stink up the air-waves across the U.S. Something must be done to protect our women, the poor helpless little things.

But if Tommy Chong or Robert Downey had written letters from prison, decrying the same thing--would anyone care? Would anyone do a damn thing about it? I don't think so. And the reason I don't think so is because WE ALREADY KNOW THIS STUFF IS GOING ON. The message from the outside world is clear: if you're a man in prison, you deserve to be there; if you deserve to be there, you deserve the worst prison has to offer; and if the worst is being raped nightly, well, ha-ha, loser, that's your problem.

How low has this culture sunk, that we consider violent rape to be an acceptable punishment for someone who the court has already justly punished with a prison sentence? How jaded that we think rape is funny?

Neocons and Christian wing-nuts bray about the depravity in American culture by pointing to consensual sexual behaviors such as SM, swinging, gay sex, and so on. The real depravity in American culture is that anyone could believe consensual sexual behaviors are wrong but the rape of prisoners is no big deal. IT IS A BIG DEAL. And it's getting a whole hell of a lot bigger, now that AIDS is running rampant in the prison system, no doubt, at least partly attributable to the number of rapes.

U.S. Should Do More To Curb Spread of HIV, Other Diseases in Prisons, Editorial Says

The US must do more to curb the spread of HIV and other diseases in its prison systems to reduce the number of people "who get out with infections that endanger society," a... New York Times editorial says. Prison has become "the perfect environment" for the spread of HIV, tuberculosis and hepatitis C because of overcrowding, unprotected sex among inmates and needle sharing among injection drug users, according to the editorial. Therefore, more prisons need to adopt drug treatment and "harm-reduction" methods, such as offering methadone maintenance, condoms, and HIV/AIDS testing and education, the editorial says. Rather than indulge in the "pervasive denial of drug use and sex behind bars," the U.S. needs to realize -- as Europe has done -- that "infections contracted behind bars end up back in the broader society when infected inmates get out," the Times says (New York Times, 7/22).....

July 26, 2005 in Sex Laws and Crimes | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Dear Gloria,

Super Sexy

Dear Super Sexy:

I wish all my clients had your problems.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with a healthy young person being horny--whether you're horny "a lot" or "all the time," it's pretty normal for people in their teens and twenties to be in hormonal overdrive. Most of that can be explained by normal hormonal function. It isn't just in your head. Your body is ready, willing, and eager to reproduce, and the drive to mate is extremely powerful during those years.

For most people, it starts slowing a little in their 30s and 40s, and may head into a more significant decline in their 50s. However this is not true of everyone: some people stay lusty right up until the end of their lives (or at least until the Viagra runs out). What does impact (and often diminish) sex drive after age 30 has more to do with circumstances and environment. For example, work stress, illnesses (yours or others'), kids, busy schedules, relationship problems, and money issues make people less "in the mood."

It is said that men peak at 18, while women don't peak until they're in their 30s. Some of that is biological but attitude plays a role too. Often, women aren't as comfortable with their bodies as you seem to be with yours--it may take them years of marriage before they relax enough to really enjoy sex. Such women often have have happy new sexual awakenings later in life. Sadly, some people never really enjoy sex because of emotional baggage or body image issues.

There is no such thing as "normal" when it comes to sex. The "right" number of partners is the number you can handle without throwing your life into chaos or neglecting your other responsibilities. The same is true of orgasms. Some people need to cum eight times a day; some are happy with 2-3 orgasms a day; most people would be thrilled if they had one a day; and a surprising number of adults cum once a week or less. As a sex therapist, I view the inability to have sexual orgasms as a sign of problems. People who love to cum usually only have one major problem: finding someone who loves sex as much as they do!

As for people who have a lot of partners, or change partners frequently, if it makes them unhappy, it's a problem; otherwise, I don't believe anyone should tell a person how much pleasure they are allowed to have--unless, of course, it's a Mistress/slave relationship :-)

To tell if you're too obsessed with sex, ask yourself a few questions: is having sex more important to you than taking care of your kids? Do you skip work so you can get more sex? Do you spend money you shouldn't (or don't have) to get sex? Do you take stupid risks (not using contraception, not taking precautions to avoid STDs)? Are sexual encounters enjoyable or do they leave you dissatisifed, depressed or otherwise unhappy? Do you find yourself hurting people you love because of your sex drive? Do you feel like you're in control of your sex life--or like it's in control of you? If you answer yes to one or more of these questions, then you might need counseling.

As to your bisexual experience, if it turned you on, and you both had fun, there is absolutely no harm in it and lots of good about it. Sex is, fundamentally, a healthy activity for adults: good for your heart, your nerves, your reproductive system, and your mind. You are at a great age to begin exploring what your turn-ons are, whether it's other women, particular sex acts or fantasies, or other creative variations. Don't be fooled by the puritannical public images of sex paraded in media: it's very common for adults not to fit those molds. Monogamy is not natural to everyone; bisexuality is a common fantasy (for men and women alike); oral sex, anal sex, swinging, group sex, BDSM fantasies, role-play, transgender sex, you name it--it's all quite normal, but you'd never know that from watching television.

So when it comes to what's "socially acceptable," honestly, the answer to that is BORING! (And dishonest, too.) It's kind of tragic but you just won't find much social acceptance for people who really love sex. My advice: keep your sex secrets to yourself--or stick with people like yourself, who are open-minded. Otherwise, it's nobody's business what you do with your clothes off--unless you make it your business to tell them.

What is important is making positive choices that leave you feeling happy and strong, and that cause harm to none. That's one of the secrets to great sex--knowing what you need and not being ashamed to go after it with like-minded adults.

world-wide hugs,

Glory

July 25, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

I receive so many requests for information and guidance from students of all ages about becoming a sex therapist that last week I created an impromptu FAQ to address the most common questions. If you see any mistakes, have more resources to add to this, or want to contribute other questions/info to the FAQ drop me an email at gloriasmind@aol.com and I'll include 'em in future revisions.

--------------------------------------------------------

Dr. Brame's FAQ on Sex Therapy as a Career

Sorry for the impersonal nature of this form, but it is the only way I can respond to everyone. If you'd like to suggest more questions for the FAQ, please email me and I will add them to future revisions of this FAQ.

Q: I'm graduating high school and was wondering what kind of college classes I should take to become a sex therapist?

GGB: Relatively few colleges offer sexology as a major (or even as a minor). Instead, your best bet is to take psychology or social work as a major, and then sign up for all the sex-related electives that your school offers. This can range from art courses about erotic art, to biology classes about reproductivion and sexual behavior, to literary courses about sex in literature, to anything offered by the social sciences dealing with sex attitudes or behaviors. If you attend a college which allows you to create your own major, you can create one in sexology, as long as the school offers enough courses for you to build a degree.

Q. I am in college. I am interested in Sexual Therapy as a profession and am trying to see what road would be most beneficial for me to follow, Psychology or Social Work?

GGB: Sex therapists come from a variety of backgrounds. Most typically, they are psychology or social work graduates, but no matter what your college major, to become a therapist you will have to take either graduate training (in an accredited sex ed graduate program) or sexological training in addition to your degree. I myself come from a liberal arts background (an M.A. in English). If I knew back in college that I would one day want to be a sexologist, though, I would have been a psychology major. This is because work as a therapist does require basic knowledge of human psychology. Any training you receive, and any insights you gain into human behavior, will help enormously when you pursue your sexological education.

Q; I was wondering if its possible if you could give me any advice as what to do after graduation from college to achieve my goal as a sex psychologist?

GGB: There are a number of paths you can take towards becoming a sex therapist or a clinical sexologist. You could be a psychologist who also offers sex therapy; or a social worker who counsels on sex and relationships; or you can specialize--as I do--in sex therapy. Typically, after completing your bachelor's, you attend a university which offers graduate degrees in sexology. For a list of schools which have degree programs in sexuality, click this link to the on-line "Guide to Graduate Study in Sexology":

http://www.sexuality.org/l/sex/sexgrad.html

There are different certifications and degree levels you may obtain, ranging from a certificate program which permits you to work as a sex educator to Ph.D. programs which prepare you to work as a sex therapist or scholar. You can then obtain further credentials as a licensed clinical sexologist from a professional organization. Obviously, the further you go with your education, the better your potential income (someone with a PhD, for example, usually will command a higher fee than someone with an M.A. or an MSW).

Q. What would those possible jobs be and what are those duties?

GGB: Here is a quick and dirty breakdown of sex-therapy-related professions.

A sex educator is someone who goes into communities to lecture and teach about sex/relationship issues.

A sex counselor or a peer counselor usually takes some training in sex, and offers non-professional counseling. They may not legally describe themselves as therapists (depending on the state they live in), and generally they will not be allowed to work in clinical settings.

A sex therapist is somewhat like a regular therapist, except all the focus is on sex and relationships. Therapists receive professional training at the graduate level (Masters or Doctoral). Again, rules about whether you may call yourself a therapist or not vary from state to state. In some states, it is illegal to call yourself a therapist unless you have been approved by a state-level professional board which inspects your credentials. This is hard for sexologists, since most state boards only review psychologists and social workers' credentials and don't even have a category for sexologists.

A clinical sexologist is someone who has achieved the highest level of education in sexology (usually a Ph.D.), and who has submitted credentials to a professional sexological organization and been licensed or certified by that organization to practice. Some of the bigger ones are: The American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Teachers (AASECT); The Society for the Scientific Study of Sex ("Quad-S"); and the one I belong to, the American College of Sexologists (ACS). A clinical sexologist may open a private practice; or he or she may work in a clinical or hospital setting.

Q. What is the general pay for a sexual therapist?

GGB: As in the field of psychology, there is no "general" pay range. If you work in a clinic, hospital, senior center or other institutional setting, then you will likely be paid in line with psychologists who have the same level of education and experience that you do. Most sex therapists open private practices, and that is where the real variety in pay occurs. In 2005, a beginning therapist may not be able to charge more than $65-$75 per hour. An experienced therapist, with solid credentials, who is in high demand, may charge $150 per hour. Most of us offer sliding scales to patients in need. What you'll earn will depend on a combination of market demand, overhead costs, and your business philosophy.

Remember that, in private practice, it is the rare therapist who sees more than a few clients each day. $75 an hour may sound like a lot of money, but if you only have four or five patients, who see you only once a week, it's going to be a struggle. So the key to making a great living as a private therapist is to know how to draw and maintain clients. (If you work in a clinical setting, you may see as many as 8 patients a day but are paid on salary, not by patient.)

It is very difficult to build a practice at the beginning, unless you have the contacts, fame, or following to ensure that you will have clients. But since sex therapy is a small field, your earning potential is much greater than as an MSW or a beginning psychologist. The competition in those fields is intense, and jobs scarce, because there are tens of thousands of people who hold those degrees. There are far fewer trained sexologists, so you have less competition and clients tend to seek you out.

One thing to keep in mind: running a private practice requires some of the same skills you need to run any business. That means you need to keep careful records, maintain books for the IRS, be in compliance with FEMA and other workplace laws, plus market, advertise, pass out your cards, and so on.

Finally, a personal comment: if you're in this for the money only, you probably are not cut out for it. The earning potential is there but it's not Silicon Valley where you can expect to walk into a high-paying job right off the bat. Like all helping professionals (doctors, psychologists, etc.) you will have to work very hard at the beginning for only modest financial rewards, in hopes that you will build up to a successful practice one day that will compensate you very well. Many sex therapists teach or write to supplement their income.

However, if you are genuinely excited about the idea of working with people on their most intimate issues, seeing their lives change for the better, and knowing you helped them get there, the rewards of being a sex therapist will thrill you right from the start.

******

Looking for more info? Visit my alma mater, the Institute for Advanced Study of Human Sexuality, and see what they have to say about sexology. The URL is:

http://iashs.edu/

IASHS is not for everyone. If you are just out of college, the loose structure may be too confusing for you. However if you are a HIGHLY motivated adult, a returning student, or someone who needs long-distance educational opportunities (and has the self-discipline to work his or her tail off without teachers breathing down your neck), the school is one of the best places in the world to learn about sex in a relaxed, free-thinking, non-judgmental atmosphere.

------------------------------

Revised: July 19, 2005
copyright@ Dr. Gloria G. Brame, all rights reserved
REPRINT NOT PERMITTED WITHOUT PERMISSION

Want to add to the FAQ? Email: gloriasmind@aol.com

July 25, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

I don't have the time to answer most of the questions people send me privately about sex and relationships, but starting today, and every Monday from now on (or at least until I change my mind), I will publish a couple of questions from the previous week's mail, along with my in-depth answers.

To get me to answer your question on the blog, you must follow these E-Z directions.

1. Send me email at gloriasmind@aol.com with your question.

2. If you want your name published, tell me: otherwise, all questions will appear anonymously (and I will delete all identifying information as well).

3. You can ask me ANYTHING related to sex, from questions about what's normal to unusual fetishes, problematic relationships, sexual dysfunction, to get my professional opinion. You can also ask me personal questions or questions about my books, practice, etc. I don't mind. Be creative!

I can't answer everyone. If I get too many questions, then I'll start picking and choosing according to ones that are unique in some way--whether it's a rare fetish, a strange situation, or a really surprising/funny question.

Please remember that my opinions are just that. It's not gospel, even if I express strong opinions. I'm a clinical sexologist and sex therapist in private practice. I hold a Ph.D. and Masters in Public Health, both in human sexuality. I am NOT an M.D., a psychologist or a psychiatrist. The only kind of health issues I advise on are reproductive health and body image. (See my FAQ for a full list of my credentials.)

If you're in a real crisis in your life, a Q&A column is not the solution. Seek out counseling or therapy services. I do not offer referrals. However, you can visit my therapy FAQ for some consumer tips on shopping for competent therapy:

http://gloriabrame.com/therapy

See you in my mailbox!

Glory

p.s. I will repost this every Monday morning.

July 25, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

(thanks to RT for sending this!)

July 24, 2005 in Sexual Humor | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Police send nude shopper home with warning

German police let a nearly naked shopper go home after she told them she was getting groceries in the nude because she lost a spin the bottle contest, a police spokesman in Cologne said Wednesday.

"We're a tolerant city that is open to the world," said spokesman Burkard Jahn. "She could have been arrested for disturbing the peace, but we decided to let her go home with a verbal warning to dress appropriately next time."

The 35-year-old Cologne woman entered the 24-hour shop at 4 a.m. wearing nothing but an unbuttoned jeans jacket....

July 24, 2005 in Sex Laws and Crimes | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Love-struck Kenyan awaiting Clinton's nod to marry only daughter, Chelsea

Former US president Bill Clinton, who was visiting Kenya, will probably never hear about it but he's being offered 20 head of cattle and 40 goats for the hand of his daughter in marriage.

The 36-year-old bachelor, Godwin Kipkemoi Chepkurgor, has waited five years after writing to the president and vows to remain unmarried until he gets an answer.

"I am ready to wait for as long as I can," said Cheprkurgor, who is a municipal councillor in Kenya's Rift Valler town of Nakuru.

Chepkurgor's initial efforts to reach Clinton during his visit to Uganda in 2000 were thwarted by the Kenyan foreign ministry and the state security which failed to deliver his introduction letter.

The electrical engineering graduate promised in the letter to pay his would-be father-in-law 20 head of cattle and 40 goats in dowry in accordance with African traditions....

July 24, 2005 in Sex and Culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

"Whaddya know! That little light...it stays on!"*

Sumo wrestler Takayuki Ichihara from Japan, left, fights against Wiliam Pirimi Perenara from New Zealand....

* caption provided by Will Brame

July 24, 2005 in Post-Modern Pop Culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

And you say it can't happen here....?

Ugandan legislator to reward virgin girls with university scholarships

A Ugandan lawmaker said he would reward girls from his central constituency with university scholarships if they leave high school able to prove their virginity.....

Sulaiman Madada, a member of parliament from Uganda's Kayunga district, said the scheme aimed to promote morality and that successful scholarship applicants would have to submit to a gynaecological exam to demonstrate their chastity....

July 24, 2005 in Sex and Culture | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Wow...I've made submissives do jumping jacks as punishment...it's nice to know the police in India have similar SM fantasies...

Porn drive makes audience sit up and notice

Indian police forced around 200 people caught watching pornography to do sit-ups in public to shame them and keep them away from theaters that illegally screen smutty movies.

The Hindustan Times reported Monday that police stopped the screening of a pornographic movie at a cinema in Balasore district in the eastern state of Orissa and made audience members -- some as young as 17 -- do 10 sit-ups each at a public square, watched by onlookers.

The police made the all-male group vow not to watch pornography again. To make matters worse for the embarrassed teenagers who were caught, police called their parents to watch them doing sit-ups....

July 24, 2005 in Sex and Culture | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

From an article about a Christian convicted of killing his wife come these interesting observations about the irresistible lure of porn to believers. According to the people who minister to them (a second expert is cited who agrees with Brazell), Christian males are more likely than others to become addicted to porn because their shame about sexuality is greater than others....

Others who aren't taught that sex is evil, that lust will destroy you, and that even looking at pornography is a sin, perhaps? And that would be who, exactly?

I think sexual shame (and guilt) are shared pretty equally by Catholics, Muslims and Jews. There are very few organized religions whose most devout elements, the ones who are literalists in particular, feel GOOD about sex. They may not all turn to porn, but--take it from a sex therapist--there is more than one way of manifesting sexual unhappiness and screwing up your life.

The one important point the minister misses is that the solution would be for churches to develop more humane and reality-based approaches to sexual behavior. A little more openness and honesty could go a long way towards ending the psychic torment, and would reduce the staggering numbers of religious folk who punish themselves through obsessive, addictive, dysfunctional, and other self-hating sexual behaviors.

Minister who was addicted to porn says case not rare

When the Rev. Darrell Brazell, an evangelical minister, first heard that police had found thousands of pornographic images on former Christian-school leader Martin K. Miller’s home computer, he wasn’t surprised.

“They said they found something like 6,000 images,” Brazell said. “That sounds like a lot, but it’s not. You can download that much in a very short amount of time.”

Brazell knows. He admitted to being addicted to pornography for 15 years.

“I suspect if there was a forensic examination of all the personal computers in Lawrence [Kansas], some similar-size collections would show up in some very shocking places,” said Brazell, pastor at New Hope Fellowship....

Brazell, who said he’s been “clean” for five years, counsels and coordinates faith-based support groups for men addicted to pornography....

Christian men, Brazell said, are especially susceptible to becoming addicted to pornography and, consequently, masturbation.

“As a Christian, you believe that pornography and masturbation are morally wrong,” he said. “And yet, because of so many issues that we grow up with, you’re attracted to it, which causes all kinds of shame and guilt — you’re in pain."

....As this pain intensifies, Brazell said, so too does the attraction to pornography.

“You wind up in this downward spiral that after a while, you can’t get out of,” he said. “The addict within you does things the rational self would never do.”

Non-Christians, Brazell said, may be less vulnerable to pornography addiction because they experience less shame....

July 22, 2005 in Sex and Spirituality | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

From...the Moscow Times comes the news that sex can be harnessed to increase profits, and that Vladimir Putin is sexually repressed

Why don't we have seminars like this in the US? I'd be happy to host the SM portion of the event....

Business Gets a Lesson in Sex Ed

Business leaders gathered Wednesday for an unprecedented public discussion on how to harness their libidos to maximize profits.

Between dirty jokes and rounds of giggles, some 30 dapper entrepreneurs also raised the possibility that President Vladimir Putin's so-called power vertical is a sign of repressed sexuality.

The round-table event, titled "Business and Sexuality," was organized by the Association of Managers, a management-training organization with over 1,000 Russian and international member companies....

The three themes of the round table -- attended in equal numbers by women and men -- were straightforward enough: sexuality as a resource for business success, sexuality as a management tool, and sexuality as a source of barriers and problems....

A clamor erupted when...Mikhail Chernysh, chief researcher at RAN Institute of Sociology, said that research tying repressed sexuality to authoritarian forms of government was relevant to modern Russian life.

"The very term 'power vertical' is closely related to our discussion today," Chernysh said, referring to the term describing Putin's consolidation of power.

"As a rule, verticals are a certain form of the realization of repressed sexual drives in life."

"Don't forget who you're talking about," interjected Dmitry Zimin, honorary president of mobile phone giant VimpelCom.

Further disputes arose over the nature and role of female sexuality in business....

A conciliatory note was sounded toward the close of the event by Anatoly Kupchin of Agentstvo Kontakt, a recruiting firm, who claimed that both men and women should be able to use so-called masculine and feminine styles of leadership regardless of their gender.

"A good manager should be able to switch roles at any time," he said.

Several managers giggled....

July 22, 2005 in Sex and Culture | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

This is one of the more courageously straight-forward, balanced pieces of reporting on SM culture I've seen--with pictures and everything.

Hartford Advocate: Slaves and Masters

Miles, Kim and Laura were in their living room, talking about how they first got into the lifestyle. Laura was in the easy chair, in a sleeveless flower print dress, her long brown hair framing intense brown eyes. Miles, sturdily built, with glasses, short cropped gray hair and a beard, was on a light-brown couch with the center seat folded down so he could rest a glass on its back. Kim, his wife, sat in a chair near the front door, heavy-lidded and quiet, wearing a summery black dress and a thick leather collar with a dangling brass ring....

July 21, 2005 in Sex and Sadomasochism | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

What really can one say but...Hurray for Hollywood....

Nectar Rose, left, and Shamron Moore are in a playful mood....

July 21, 2005 in Sexual Humor | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Issues with body image and size come up regularly in my practice, as well as in my private life. Personally, I weigh a good 15 pounds more now than I weighed for most of my life. Aesthetically, I wish I was 20 pounds lighter and had a few more bones than curves. The people I live with feel they have a lot more than that to lose in order to feel really happy with their appearances.

In my practice, I've had an interestingly high percentage of clients who had significant body image issues. Usually they are unhappy about their weight; but some have been unhappy with their height, others with the size of their breasts or genitals, and a few have felt that some less obvious feature (a weak chin, wrinkles, flabby thighs, and so on) ruined their looks. A number of them have undergone surgeries to reduce their weight, from liposuction to gastric bypass.

I've had extremely attractive women come into my office and tell me how unattractive they are. I can't count the number of nice-looking men I've counseled who thought women would reject them based on their looks. Some days I get the feeling that it must be humanly impossible to feel fully content about one's looks. I wonder if even super-models get insecure sometimes.

It hasn't helped that theories, opinions, and even the science of nutrition have been fraught with contradictory evidence over the years. The old food pyramid we were taught to worship as gospel has been radically revised. The old actuarial weight tables are flawed; the new ones are just as flawed. We stopped counting calories and counted grams of fat and now we're back to calories. Excerise is important. Excercise isn't as important as calories. Exercise is more important than calories. Don't diet or exercise, just take pills. No, don't take pills, they're dangerous. Do the Atkins Diet. No, do the South Beach Diet. The noise-to-content ratio is out of control.

I myself have given up on trying to figure out whether coffee is good or bad for you. Stories over the years have proven it's good for some things and bad for others, All I know is that, at least once a year, a story comes out which contradicts the previous story. So, whatever. I love the taste of coffee.

Now doctors are trying to take a new perspective on body size. Is the new perspective better? It seems to make more sense than the old one. But in a fruity kind of way. The basic premise is that a healthy weight is when you achieve a state of well-being with your body, and that achieving that well-being will result in a healthy weight.

Did you follow that? It's a rather metaphysical approach. There's a part of me that can't help wondering if this new approach is really doctors' way of saying "we really don't know what the hell works, we just want you to stop feeling so bad about yourselves."

An interesting read, but you'll have to join MedScape (it's free) to read the whole article.

Health at Every Size

Promoting weight loss through exercise, dietary restriction, and behavior modification rarely succeeds. It often results in cycles of weight loss and gain, with the potential for serious physical and psychological health risks, and contributes to body hatred, dangerous eating disorders, and exercise addiction.[1,2] Yet we believe that if we continue to use the same approaches, we will somehow obtain different results. Indeed, this is the definition of insanity put forth by Alcoholics Anonymous.

There is, however, an exciting, effective, alternative approach to this problem. It is called Health At Every Size (HAES). The basic conceptual framework of this approach includes acceptance of the:

Natural diversity in body shape and size

Ineffectiveness and dangers of dieting for weight loss

Importance of relaxed eating in response to internal body cues

Critical contribution of social, emotional, and spiritual as well as physical factors to health and happiness.

....What Is a Healthy Weight?

The HAES philosophy promotes the concept that an appropriate, healthy weight for an individual cannot be determined by the numbers on a scale, by a height/weight chart, or by calculating body mass index or body fat percentages. Rather, HAES defines a "healthy weight" as the weight at which a person settles as they move toward a more fulfilling and meaningful lifestyle. This includes, but is not limited to, eating according to internally directed signals of hunger, appetite, and satiety and participating in reasonable and sustainable levels of physical activity....

July 20, 2005 in Sexual Health | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

I recently blogged about bestality as a unique human phenomenon, noting that we seem to the only species who make a regular practice of engaging in sex acts with other species.

And, thanks to Mike (thanks, Mike), some more evidence of just how strange human sexual behavior can be. A man dying as a result of horse-sex.

Leading one (this highly perverted one) to wonder: ummm...how did that happen exactly? Or more to the point--did he suffocate? was he crushed? did he DROWN?

Whoa.

Kind of creepy, eh? Equally creepy, the farm is a known establishment, with enough of a following to be a popular topic in an Internet chat-room. Also creepy, it's located in a state that has no laws prohibiting human-on-non-human sex. (I guess it's a great place to live if you're married to a Vampire or Werewolf too.)

Mike claimed he had nightmares after reading this story. Maybe it brought back a dim memory of a traumatic episode with a mechanical pony for him, I don't know. Personally, I think the real nightmare is dying in a way that makes you a candidate for a Darwin Award.

As a responsible sexologist, and a kind spirit always looking out for your health. I feel I should issue this warning.

Enumclaw-area animal-sex case investigated

King County sheriff's detectives are investigating the owners of an Enumclaw-area farm after a Seattle man died from injuries sustained while having sex with a horse boarded on the property.

Investigators first learned of the farm after the man died at Enumclaw Community Hospital July 2. The county Medical Examiner's Office ruled that the death was accidental and the result of having sex with a horse.

A surveillance camera picked up the license plate of the car that dropped the man off at the hospital, which led detectives to the farm and other people involved, said sheriff's Sgt. John Urquhart.

Deputies don't believe a crime occurred because bestiality is not illegal in Washington state and the horse was uninjured, said Urquhart.

But because investigators found chickens, goats and sheep on the property, they are looking into whether animal cruelty — which is a crime — was committed by having sex with these smaller, weaker animals, he said.

The farm was talked about in Internet chat rooms as a destination for people looking to have sex with livestock, he said.

"A significant number of people, we believe, have likely visited this farm," said Urquhart....

July 19, 2005 in Sexual Strangeness | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack

This is rich. Mike Rogers, the spokesperson for the openly, vehemently, anti-gay Sen. Santorum accuses a journalist of "twisted wiles" for asking him why, as a self-admitted homosexual, he supports Santorum's anti-homosexual platform.

Seems like a pretty straightforward question to me. If I worked for somebody who was demonizing SMers, I'd consider it a rather legitimate question for a journalist to ask me what was going on in my little cranium. Hell, even if he prefaced it with, "Listen, you crazy-ass self-hating hyprocrite..." I wouldn't blame him. I couldn't.

Rogers is so weirdly compartmentalized that he doesn't even acknowledge the inherent cognitive dissonance of a gay person working to promote a politician whose agenda is to oppress gay people.

Anti-gay Santorum stands by outed spokesman

The senior spokesman for Sen. Rick Santorum, R- Pa., an outspoken opponent of LGBT rights, confirmed to a blogger that he is gay.

Mike Rogers, the publisher and editor of PageOneQ.com, played to the PlanetOut Network a phone conversation in which he confronted Santorum's director of communications, Robert L. Traynham, about his sexuality.

"Are you out to the senator?" Rogers demanded.

Traynham replied, "Yes."

Rogers then asked the staffer how he could work for a politician who had an extensive history of opposing LGBT rights.

Traynham sputtered before finally stating, "Senator Santorum is a man of principle. He is a man who sticks up for what he believes in. I strongly do support Senator Santorum...."

When Rogers asked Traynham if he supported Santorum's opposition to LGBT rights, the communications director became agitated, saying, "This is how you get your twisted wiles." Traynham eventually hung up....

July 19, 2005 in Sexual Politics | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack

Love. It's so strange. Lust is even stranger. It strikes when we least expect it. And, if you're a perv like me, it often strikes as a result of some curious little fetish.

Last year I noticed something about myself that I guess I always knew but which, because it occurred so rarely, had been opaque to me. I have a minor aural fetish. The sound of certain men's voices can really turn me on. They could be talking about sports (yawn) or what they ate for dinner last night, but something in the timbre of their voices makes me go warm all over. It has nothing to do with what they look like, or who they are: it's just something about the VOICE.

I first remarked it during a trip to a garden center. The owner--an older man in not very good shape, though he had a sweet face--was talking about planting shrubs when suddenly I had the most intense desire to have wild romping SM sex with him. What the hell? Being me, naturally I figured he probably was a closet SMer and my kinkdar had been triggered in the worst way. But since then, I've paid more attention to my responses to male voices and whaddya know, there have been a few more men, here and there, whose voices thrill me erotically.

It's made hanging out on Napster a real, um, pleasurable experience, as there are a couple of male singers whose voices can nearly space me. I don't know a thing about the man but if Randy Travis ever sang to me on the telephone...I might end up electrocuting myself. Dang!

So I wonder...this poor fellow who fell in love with the German version of a 911 operator...is he kin to me, the kind of pervert whose hormones can go crazy over the sound of someone's voice?

Man arrested in Germany after 'falling for' emergency hotline voice

A man in Germany who said he had "fallen in love" with the voice of an emergency services operator was taken into custody for repeatedly calling the hotline.

The 45-year-old called the 110 emergency number from several telephone booths in the western city of Duesseldorf until he was picked up by police.

He explained to the officers that there had not been an emergency but that he had found the voice on the other end of the line "so sexy".....

July 18, 2005 in Sexual Strangeness | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack

Lifetime TV has launched an admirable petition drive to lobby Congress to ensure that women get adequate care for breast cancer.

The petition urges Congress to put an end to "drive-through mastectomies," to guarantee that patients get second opinions on cancer diagnoses, and important protections to vouchsafe women's health. Please consider signing it--the breast cancer victim whose life you may be saving could be your mom, your sister, your wife, or your daughter!

Lifetimetv.com: Breast Cancer - Stop Drive-Through Mastectomies

Sign the petition and make a difference!

Sign this petition. By doing so, you'll ensure that women who are diagnosed with breast cancer won't have to worry about being forced out of the hospital after undergoing a mastectomy! The Breast Cancer Patient Protection Act of 2005 will guarantee that women and their physicians, not insurance companies, will decide when they are ready to go home. So voice your support now — with your signature. Lifetime will deliver your signature, along with the millions of others, to Congress. Please add your name to the list to help get this legislation passed.....

Go here to read the full petition and add your name.

July 16, 2005 in Sexual Health | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack

Just how jaded have we become? Jaded enough to play golf with piss, apparently.

Pee Goal : Gizmodo

...The Pee Goal includes a nice pitch, a goal, and a ball on a string. You use your penis to push the ball into the goal, apparently.

Oh wait. Just re-read it. You use your URINE STREAM to push the ball into the goal. It’s about $20 in England, and I suspect you can take this around with you, drop it into a urinal, play a game or two, and then pack it up again....

July 16, 2005 in Sex and Culture | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack

Well, this is totally hilarious. Or it would be, if it wasn't so damn sad that some people really do believe that cocksucking (and lying about it) is a greater threat to the American dream than, say, Iran-Contra or Plamegate....

The All Spin Zone / Ann Compton: Blowjobs Still Worse Than Treason

ABC News' Ann Compton has been covering the White House longer