Inside Gloria's Mind

Ah humanity: bestial sex death tops Seattle news

The editor seems surprised that a sensational freaky sex story would be in such high demand- but I'm not and would bet many of you aren't either.

The Seattle Times: Horse sex story was online hit

As I look back at the year in news, it's clear I should have focused more on people having sex with horses.

That's the conclusion I reach after reviewing a new list of the year's top local news stories. Only this list is not the usual tedious recounting by news editors or pundits who profess to speak for you readers. This is the people's-choice list.

It's not a survey of what news you say you read.

It's what you actually read.

By tallying clicks on our Web site, we now chart the most read stories in the online edition of The Seattle Times. Software then sorts the tens of thousands of stories for 2005 and ranks them....

Which brings me back to sex with horses. The story last summer about the man who died from a perforated colon while having sex with a horse in Enumclaw was by far the year's most read article.

What's more, four more of the year's 20 most clicked-upon local news stories were about the same horse-sex incident. We don't publish our Web-traffic numbers, but take it from me — the total readership on these stories was huge.

So much so, a case can be made that the articles on horse sex are the most widely read material this paper has published in its 109-year history.

I don't know whether to ignore this alarming factoid or to embrace it....

As I see it this story combined a whole host of elements to appeal to moralists as well as ghouls; to the kind of people who search for signs that the apocalypse is coming and the kind who get a kick out of reading about horrible strange deaths; it appeals to the arm-chair sexual thrill-seeker, the hormonally-overloaded adolescent mentality, and the jaded voyeur perpetually seeking something new; from both people who take pleasure in others' misery and people who are exhilarated by outlandish, high-risk behaviors; people who read it and worriedly reassure themselves, "I would never do that!" to people who are fascinated and think, "I'd like to try that, but in a safe way" to those who need to prove how hip, how outrageous they are, and jeer, "Wow, did you hear about the horse-fucker?" and people who weep at the waste of human life and pray for this man's soul.

In other words, it's a story with universal appeal.

If you've read this story more than once (by choice), do you know why?

Disco head

Some people really get into the holiday spirit. (Plus this guy raises funds for charity by turning himself into a human oddity - how cool is that?)

Human Disco Lights Up The New Year

A man who wore a Christmas tree on his head for a month has turned himself into a human disco to see in the New Year.

Mark Davis, 31, attracted media attention from around the world when he wore the tree, woven into his hair, to raise funds for a local hospice.

Now he hopes to raise even more cash by attaching a flashing and spinning disco ball to his head.

The style, topped off with metallic spikes and 2006 shaved into his head, means the New Year party spirit will be with him wherever he goes....

Big surprise: not using condoms leads to HIV infection

Talk about an obvious headline.

Well, they've figured out why the rate of HIV infection in Portugal is so high. People won't use condoms.

My wish for the New Year? That people would quit contracting fatal diseases they CAN prevent.

Portuguese skip condom use despite AIDS threat: poll

Portugal has one of the highest AIDS infection rates in Europe but most citizens have not changed their sexual behaviour to avoid catching the disease, a new poll showed.

Asked if the threat of AIDS had caused them to alter their sexual activities, 60.2 percent of women and 44 percent of men, said no, the survey published in weekly newspaper Expresso found....

Portugal had an HIV incidence rate of 78.6 cases per one million people, compared to an average of 14.2 cases in the 25-member European Union, in 2003....

Cops commit cock-a-doodle-don't

Dear me. These drugs are so easy to obtain, it's beyond silly that cops would bother pocketing them.

Cops Suspended Over Levitra Medication

BILLINGS, Mont. - The city has disciplined three police officers for mishandling packets of erectile dysfunction medication that were recovered from a driveway.

Officers Sandy Leonard, Terry Bechtold and Curtis Eckhardt were suspended without pay for two weeks....

In disciplinary documents, St. John said that shortly after Leonard brought the recovered Levitra medication to the police station to log it as "found property," the officers began joking about the pills and their purpose.

"Officer Bechtold was present and subsequently took two sample boxes ....

Brits launch inquiry into butt size

British academics to tackle fashion's bottom line

It is one of the most fundamental -- and, for men, potentially hazardous -- questions of modern life, for which academics now hope to provide the definitive answer: "Does my bum look big in this?"

The School of Textiles and Design at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh have begun what is believed to be the world's first-ever study on how women's clothing affects the bottom.

Models with variously sized posteriors will wear different types of clothing as part of the research, which will examine how designs, colours, patterns and fabric types affect perception.

Others will be asked to assess how big or small each model's backside appears to look in the outfits....

Politics unmakes strange bedfellows

Austria to pull Chirac-Queen-Bush sex posters

The sponsors of spoof posters depicting Britain's Queen Elizabeth having sex with the U.S. and French presidents have decided to remove them from Vienna's streets to quiet an outcry ahead of Austria's EU presidency, APA news agency said on Thursday.

The images on electronic rolling billboards showed two naked female models wearing masks of President George W. Bush and the queen, and a male model with a President Jacques Chirac mask, positioned as if engaged in a sex act....

(Thanks to Mike for pointing me to the picture!)

SM bust in Connecticut III

I blogged this story about a week ago. Here is the promised in-depth on the story from the Hartford Advocate.

Apparently they are going to try and get her on a prostitution rap. For her sake, I hope

Pleasure Principles

Enfield dominatrix Michelle Silva has described a police raid on her home last month as an attack on her free speech rights and a scare tactic by a town straining for a justification to shut her down. But initially no one knew for sure why the police searched her home on Nov. 16 and seized her computers and bondage furniture, since the search warrant remained sealed.

Now the seal has expired, and the warrant is very clear: it states that the "promotion of prostitution" constitutes the bulk of the charges Silva could face.

Silva, 33, operates an S&M website, EmpressM.net, that offers bondage photos and videos that she argues she has the legal right to distribute. But the warrant barely mentions the videos; rather, it is Silva's other business as a dominatrix who invites customers to visit -- and pay hundreds of dollars for services -- that drew attention from police....

The article ends with a (somewhat altered) quote from me (and a mangling of the title of Different Loving)...

...The relationship between consensual sadomasochism, often called BDSM, and sex is a vexed one. In an article on BDSM published in the Hartford Advocate earlier this year, some practitioners were at pains to explain that at its core, flogging, binding, wax play, role-playing, humiliation, and the whole range of BDSM activities are intended to create intimate connections between the participants, and not necessarily sexual ones ("Slaves and Masters," July 21). At the same time, they admitted that BDSM sometimes involved sex.

"I have an opinion that's not popular among a lot of BDSMers," Dr. Gloria Brame said in an interview last week. Brame, an Athens, Georgia, clinical sexologist, is an S&M advocate and author of the book A Different Kind of Loving . "I say it's sex, and the hell with it. I say nobody is going to pay to go somewhere if they're not going to get turned on. They're paying to get turned on."

Brame said in an ideal world, consenting adults could have sex or perform BDSM or engage in whatever combination they like, without having to worry about police raids. But she also said that someone who has a business like Silva's has to be aware that things get tricky when the clothes come off, and it's smart to check everything with your lawyer, well before the cops come knocking.

Everyone needs a hobby BUT...

Man Accused of Lobbing Urine Into Yards

CLIVE, Iowa - A Nebraska man has been arrested in central Iowa for allegedly delivering some unwanted Christmas gifts. Reno Tobler, 54, was arrested Thursday in Clive after police caught him lobbing urine bottles into backyards.

"We've got a Grinch that has been lobbing urine," said Clive Police Chief Robert Cox. "Since this fall, we've had eight to 10 incidents reported where people have found containers full of urine thrown into their backyards."

Tobler is a truck driver whose route regularly takes him to the Clive area. He was charged with littering and harassment for allegedly tossing detergent-sized bottles of his urine over fences.

Tobler told police that it was a longtime hobby of his to deliver the bottles.....

It occurs to me...this guy probably won't do any jail time for this...or find himself facing prosecutors determined to take him down. Whereas if he'd been caught spanking or doing bondage with a consenting adult at a club in this same town, what do you bet the law would come down on him harder than a two-ton paddle?

Panoramic view of the gardens

This panoramic photo was snapped during the weekend-long Thanksgiving festivities at Castle Bramenstein by one of our guests (thanks Dan M!). My friend Bethie is the lady on the right enjoying the view from our deck. (Bethie, where's your neck?? Strange strange camera!)

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Ah - if you take a close look at the picture, you'll see a figure in light blue, working on a bed. That would be your humble blog-etrix.

Gardening for pleasure

It is 60 degrees! And the temperature's climbing!

And that means Nature absolutely requires my presence.

This is a wonderful time to garden in the South. No bugs, no fire ants, no humidity, and the bare trees let sunlight stream down throughout our heavily wooded acres. Also, thanks to a new friend and rabid horticulturist who dropped by yesterday to talk gardening, I have about a dozen new plants and shrubs sitting on my deck, waiting to be settled into permanent homes.

So I'm going to take the afternoon off from the Internet and immerse myself in my favorite form of zen aerobics! Have shovel, will garden!

See you when night falls.

Crawling for love

Now ordinarily I'd approve of such behavior...still, this sounds more like "man on his hands and knees for publicity" than love to me, but read on.

Man On His Hands And Knees For Love

A lonely maintenance worker looking for love has set off on a 55 mile pilgrimage to find a partner - on his hands and knees.

Mark McGowan, 37, is following the medieval pilgrimage trail from London to Canterbury Cathedral.

And he is hoping to attract a girlfriend while raising awareness of people left isolated during the festive period.

He embarked on his trip with a sign saying "could you love me" strapped to his back and 18 boxes of chocolates trailing behind him on.

Mr McGowan from Peckham, south London said: "I can remember one Christmas I wasn't in a relationship and didn't want to spend it with my family. I ended up cooking two fish fingers.

"I'm sure a lot of people have had that experience...."

You know, even on my worst counseling day, this is NOT the kind of advice I'd offer to a single man.

Meanwhile, I hope you all did better than two fish fingers for your holiday feast.

Pope immune to cover-up charges: US Courts

Judge Dismisses Pope From Sex-Abuse Suit

A U.S. judge in Texas dismissed Pope Benedict XVI from a civil lawsuit accusing him of conspiracy to cover up the sexual abuse of minors by a seminarian, ruling Thursday that the pontiff has immunity as a head of state.

U.S. District Judge Lee Rosenthal cited a motion filed by the Justice Department, known as a "Suggestion of Immunity," in which the government said allowing the lawsuit to proceed would be "incompatible with the United States' foreign policy interests...."

Joseph Ratzinger — Benedict's former name — is named as a defendant in the civil lawsuit, accused of conspiring with the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston and some of its officials to cover up the abuse of three boys during the mid-1990s. The lawsuit seeks unspecified monetary damages....

Daniel Shea, who is counsel to the lead attorney in the case, said Thursday that they were considering an appeal.

"I think it's a setback for the American people that the administration ever gave the Vatican diplomatic immunity to begin with, and that it's using that to shield them from the conduct that's involved in here," he said.

The pope's lawyer, Jeffrey Lena, said the ruling was significant in that Benedict was identified as "head of a foreign state, the Holy See." Some plaintiffs have sought to identify Benedict as only head of a religious entity.....

The three wise crossdressers

Transvestite nativity shocks Rome

A nativity scene that includes naked women and transvestites standing near the baby Jesus has caused outrage in Italy.

The scene was created by the Scuotto siblings from Naples, who are famous for carving traditional nativity scenes.

Their latest, more controversial, offering is now on show at the San Giacomo church in Rome.

Father Raffaele has refused to remove the set despite members of the congregation expressing their outrage at the "blasphemous" scene.

Defending the sordid depiction of the birth of Christ, Salvatore Scuotto said: "Such scenes are a part of reality....

Involuntary cellphone swallowing

I blogged this the other day. Now it turns out the cops think she was forced to swallow it. Eeeep.

Swallowing Cell Phone May Not Be Voluntary

A woman who police thought deliberately tried to swallow her cell phone during an argument with her boyfriend was apparently the victim of an assault instead, authorities said.

Police have a suspect in the bizarre incident that sent the 24-year-old woman to the hospital last week, Sgt. Allen Kintz said. Police would not say whether the boyfriend was the suspect and would not explain exactly what they believe happened.

"It appears she didn't voluntarily swallow this phone," Kintz said. "It's not quite the way it was first portrayed...."

DVD Talk's top porn picks

Top 20 Adult DVDs of 2005

The trends in porn for 2005 closely followed those for 2004 as gonzo continued to become the dominating force in the industry. This didn't stop most of the larger companies from trying their hand at big budget features, some of which impressed even the naysayers for the depth and complexity of the movies, but by and large the biggest sellers tended to be the more extreme sex as an increasingly jaded audience sought out more kink, more hardcore, and more of the circus act sex that industry pundits warn will cause a backlash with the current governmental climate poised to intervene.....

The DVDs they've selected are mainly vanilla, with lurid titles like "Teenage Spermaholics" and "Ass Worship: Asphyxiation." But one - Catherine sounds awfully, interestingly strange.

From the full review:

In Ninn Worx's biggest production of the year, Audrey Hollander stars as Catherine, who may or may not have a severe psychological problem. She's plagued by flashbacks from her memory, demonstrating some of her past sexual exploits, and in order to redeem herself, she's going to have to get over them. The back copy on the box art for this two disc release describes it as 'The story of a haunting women. The story of a woman haunted.' That more or less sums it up, right there.

One of the must surreal adult films I've ever seen (and that means something, considering many of my favorite smut films are from the seventies, where surrealism and XXX filmmaking often went hand in hand), Catherine is a fantastic visual trip through Ninn's erotic obsessions and it more or less picks up where the Neo Pornographia movies left off. While the sex doesn't go to quite the derogatory extreme that those releases did, this is still very much hardcore material in the truest sense of the word and don't let the avant garde style in which it was made fool you – it's just as explicit as you want it to be....

Read the full review of Catherine

Beaverage of choice

Hm...it occurs to me that dominants could get lucky in a place like this. Probably a higher percentage of masochists here than at your typical SM club.

The Fuzz That Was

On the night of Nov. 4, Aleks Weir stumbled off the Line 20 bus onto East Burnside Street—and into the middle of a cultural trend.

"I realized I'd gotten off at the wrong stop," the 21-year-old Portland man says, "and all of a sudden I saw this giant beaver coming towards me. It was reaching out for my hand, and it pulled me through the door into this place."

"This place" is Wax On (734 E Burnside St., 595-4974), a waxing spa holding its grand-opening party the night Weir was beckoned inside by the man in the beaver suit. Champagne and vodka flowed freely, techno pulsed over the sound system, and pretty young things glided past billowing fabric partitions, en route to free waxing demonstrations. The festive atmosphere, designed to whet Portlanders' appetites for the agonies and ecstasies of radical hair removal, worked its magic on Weir. Within 10 minutes, he was on his back, shirtless, getting the hair yanked out of his underarms.

"My favorite WWF [pro-wrestling] characters don't have hair on their armpits," he explained afterwards, "and I've always had this sadomasochistic urge to try it. But there was hardly any pain at all—compared to getting your nipples pierced."

....According to the American Association of Plastic Surgery, 1.4 million Americans had laser hair removal last year, more than double the amount for 2003....

Baby convulsions could be orgasms

Infant Masturbation Often Misdiagnosed

Masturbation in infant girls sometimes leads to doctor visits because parents think the children have a movement disorder, a new study finds.

Don't worry, the researchers say. It's all natural and harmless.

In the study, researchers reviewed a dozen cases of young girls who were referred to pediatric movement disorder clinics between 1997 and 2002 for evaluation of episodic dystonic posturing, characterized by involuntary muscle contractions that force the body into abnormal movements and positions.

After sometimes invasive testing and medication, the neurologists discovered the symptoms were actually normal muscle contractions that accompany masturbation.

"Masturbation is a normal human behavior. It's not harmful to anybody," said study leader Jonathan Mink, Chief of Child Neurology at the University of Rochester Medical Center.

Infant boys who masturbate don't end up at the doctor as often, Mink figures, because the action in boys is more recognizable: They tend to touch their genitals. Girls don't necessarily directly touch their genitals when masturbating. An episode may begin in a car seat or high chair where straps place pressure on the genital area, or they may start when a child is tired or bored....

Men with ED at risk for heart problems

Study: Impotence can be predictor of heart disease

A large study of men age 55 and older adds to evidence that impotence can be a warning sign for heart disease.

Men with erectile dysfunction were more likely than other men to experience chest pain, a heart attack or a stroke during the next seven years, the study found.

The results suggest that men who see their doctors for impotence drugs also should consider getting screened for heart disease, said study co-author Dr. Ian Thompson of the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio....

I'll be wet for Christmas

Thanks to rt for finding me a Santa I can get behind.

So to speak.

Hunky Santa aims to get you hot for the holiday

....a Los Angeles mall has decided to give Jolly Old St. Nick a macho makeover that puts a little more sizzle into the season — offering us the opportunity to impart our Christmas wishes to a "Hunky Santa."

Yes, it appears Santa has finally realized his rotund appearance was in need of some improvement, and after some well-spent time at the North Pole gym, he has traded in his belly full of jelly for six-pack abs and bulging biceps.

Shopping mecca Beverly Center says Hunky Santa is posing for photos this week but only in the evenings — an old-school Father Christmas is available during the day for youngsters who may find the buff version a bit icky....

Google baby Jesus

Thanks to Paul for sending me this tip. When you type baby jesus into Google, this is what pops up first...

Baby Jesus Butt Plug

Use him as the ultimate pacifier or make Baby Jesus the centerpiece of your magnificent Dildo Creche. What would Jesus do? Baby Front, color chart.

www.divine-interventions.com/baby.php - 9k - Cached - Similar pages

Elephant sex and human pheromones

Elephant sex drive linked to human sixth sense

The aggressive sexual activity of Asian elephants could be a key to understanding the human sixth sense, according to new research to be published this week in the international science journal Nature....

The jury is out on whether humans have the ability to communicate using pheromones but the research into elephants is considered a significant step forward in the understanding of this signalling in mammals....

Last WTF: Isn't it a tad late to learn this basic skill?

As my last "WTF" of the night...this image, alleged to be taken in a public toilet in Germany...which seems to suggest that German men would not know how to pee sitting down without a graphic illustration of urine dribbling from their cartoon penis. (And the way it's drawn, he kind of looks like he's dribbling down his own leg in the second image...oh! it's the toilet bowl! oh!)

Equally important: punks and thugs may roguishly wear their caps backwards when standing to pee, but proper protocol demands that gentlemen turn their visors to the front when sitting down.

WTF?

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Happy holidays to all who celebrate!

WTF 5: Sausage Rocket Guy

OK. I get the joke. Sausage. Penis.

But I still don't understand why his logo model is riding a jet-powered vibrator.

WTF 4: Mixed message

WTF 3: Smile, though your wind is breaking

Yeah, yeah, the young pishers who read this blog probably never even heard of the song Smile, right?

Anyway, back to tonight's WTF iimage gallery.

Some photos aren't quite as confusing as others - and yet...WTF? Is it the sign of a new sexual fringe - a Furry Fetish/Wet Sex sub-genre splinter group, "Happy Golden Furry"?

Or a sign of the APOCALYPSE?! (George, are you reading?)

Demon sex? WTF 2

This has been sitting in my files forever. I think I found it on an BDSM personals site. I have no idea why anyone would post this image. I have no idea what the image is supposed to represent or whether the woman is (a) real (b) a doll (c) an alternate life form. I have no idea if whoever posted this demonic homage to his penis thought this was just the kind of picture that would make women fall instantly in love. Unless he is hoping to hook up with greys?

And, I shamefully confess I have no idea why I've kept this picture - or why I will pop it open now and again and stare at it in puzzled fascination. Help me purge myself of this strange fetish for a photo I can't figure out. You look at it. Then I won't feel so alone.

M-I-C-K-K-K M-O-U-S-WTF?

I've been saving a few random pix for a special occasion and tonight's the night. These are images I've found in my Internet rambles and snagged because, while visually captivating, I couldn't figure out what the hell they are supposed to be. Like this first one: WTF?

Esophagus of steel

Good Lord, I have enough trouble swallowing multi-vitamin pills!

Woman Swallows Cell Phone After Argument

BLUE SPRINGS, Mo. - A lovers' dispute over a cell phone ended suddenly when the woman swallowed the phone whole, police said.

Police said they received a call at 4:52 a.m. Friday from a Blue Springs man who said his girlfriend was having trouble breathing. When they arrived at the house they found the 24-year-old woman had a cell phone lodged in her throat.

"He wanted the phone and she wouldn't give it to him, so she attempted to swallow it," Detective Sgt. Steve Decker of the Blue Springs Police Department. "She just put the entire phone in her mouth so he couldn't get it...."

No wonder Canada feels more foreign

While U.S. policies on sex lurch back to the dark ages, Canada's social policies on sex are getting increasingly progressive. If it goes on like this, in a few years Americans won't flee to Canada to escape the draft, they'll move there to escape the sex police.

Top court redefines obscenity

In a landmark ruling that shifts the legal ground under Canadian sexual behaviour, the Supreme Court of Canada said two Montreal swingers clubs didn't break obscenity laws because the group sex caused no harm to those doing the groping, or to society as a whole.

The decision -- hailed as a "stamp of approval" by swingers-club owners and deplored by conservative groups as a licence for libertine behaviour -- essentially legalizes group-sex clubs as long as participants are consenting adults....

(Thanks to Mike for sending this.)

Osama's niece exposes flesh to win friends

Umm. Did she come up with this idea on her own or did someone convince her that posing semi-nude for GQ was the fast track to a Paris Hilton party? Personally I think that working for a charity, or demonstrating her sincerity through good deeds (hey, how about raising some of that Bin-Laden family money to offer reparations for terrorist crimes?) would win her a lot more credibility than showing her tits to GQ but, hey, what do I know...

Osama's Niece Poses in Racy Photo Shoot

Osama bin Laden's niece, in an interview with GQ magazine in which she appears scantily clad, says she has nothing in common with the al-Qaida leader and simply wants acceptance by Americans.

"Everyone relates me to that man, and I have nothing to do with him," Wafah Dufour, the daughter of bin Laden's half brother, Yeslam Binladin, says in the January edition of the magazine....

Dufour, who adopted her mother's maiden name after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks that have been blamed on bin Laden, appears in several provocative photos in the magazine.

The pictures are likely to be considered obscene by conservative Muslims in and outside of Saudi Arabia where women are required to be veiled....