We know we may be preaching to the choir here, but just in case you need some more encouragement to register to vote (state-by-state deadlines start dropping in October!), to volunteer your time to the Obama campaign, and to actually vote on November 6th, 2012, here you go:

This post is sponsored by LELO

Give support, get pleasure!

October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month, and our friends over at Lelo are partnering up with Breastcancer.org for Rediscovering Intimacy, an initiative focused on helping breast cancer sufferers and their partners reconnect, and also to encourage people to understand more about this disease that affects 1 in 8 women in North America alone.

All month long, 50% of all proceeds from sales of their LILY personal massager, in Pink, will go to Breastcancer.org, the leading online expert resource of breast health and breast cancer information. When someone or someone you love is given the diagnosis, Breastcancer.org is there to give answers and support, thereby offering comfort and empowerment that their extensive knowledge provides.

So buy a LILY of your very own in the LELO web shop, or visit the Donation Page at Breastcancer.org to get involved; doing your part for Breast Cancer Awareness Month has never been easier, and now, has never felt better!

MORE LIKE THIS FROM EMandLO.com:

• Kegel Week! An Intro to Pelvic Floor Health
• 5 Reasons Why More Sex Can Help Your Career
• How to Buy a Sex Toy with No Buyer’s Remorse

photo via RedModelBar.com

That question is now serious business in South Korea, where the old-school hostess culture — i.e. rich businessmen visiting male-only establishments, paying the female hostesses for their flirtatious company and more — has given rise to its exact opposite: rich women visiting female-only establishments, paying the male hosts for their flirtatious company (and sometimes, yes, more). Sometimes the women talk to the guys’ they’re paying, and sometimes they want to take them out dancing or along to a karaoke bar for the night (we’re sure that every woman whose boyfriend loathes karaoke or refuses to hit the dance floor can relate).

These bars first started because hostesses wanted a place to blow off steam after a night of catering to rich dudes’ whims — how else to cleanse the palate, we suppose, than to boss around some hottie yourself? But now hostesses make up only about half the clientele at host bars.

Is this awesome or is this depressing or is it something else entirely? We can’t decide. We love that women with disposable income are now demanding exactly what the men in their country get — we just wish it didn’t mean that these empowered and wealthy women wanted to sink down to those sleazy dudes’ level.

One difference, though, is it seems that often, the female clientele really do just want to talk. (Which is perhaps even more damning of the male culture in that country than the existence of host bars!) In fact, a new chain of bars, Red Model Bars, caters to exactly this group. Unlike in other host and hostess bars, there is no touching allowed, period. So if you want to talk to a male model with a Justin Bieber haircut about how shitty your day was, and your friends are too busy or self-involved, and your therapist is not nearly as pretty or young or buff, then there’s a place for you. Where everybody knows your name — so long as you keep coughing up the dough.

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LELO created this fun infographic (included below), which could be more simply titled “5 Reasons Why More Sex Helps Your LIFE.” A few thoughts on each point:

1. Honestly, in this recession, we think most people would take the raise over the sex (including us).
2. Yes! Sex beats shopping every time. (Or at least it should.)
3. Wait: Married couples having sex a little more than once a week leads to more frustration, fights and tension because that’s not enough? Seems kind of like a glass-is-half-empty analysis of the data, if you ask us.
4. Sex cleans your pores, prevents wrinkles and age spots, and gives your skin a healthy glow? Sounds like this came from the “semen is good for your skin” study out of Teanboi University. We do, however, agree wholeheartedly that if the average woman is spending $75 on facials per month (WTF?!), she could put that time and money to much better use (e.g. in some quality alone time with our Toy of the Month).
5. If calling sex “exercise” (admittedly a stretch) makes you do it more, then more power to you!

Getting On By Getting It On – LELO’s More Sex for a Better Career Infographic

photo via Flickr

• Cell phone use and fatty food consumption is increasing; sperm quality is declining.
• Old maid, schmold schmaid: Older women no longer prioritize marriage.
• Calgary sexual health center wants you to get informed…by painting a woodie.
• What was that about sticks and stones? Words definitely hurt LGBT kids.
• Don’t just trust GLEE: extensive new survey on American attitudes towards teen sexuality and sex ed.
• AP Sugar & Spice: Gender binarism and stereotyping abound in public schools.
• Crass or genius?: DNA testing, food-truck style.

This post is a part of The Sundance Channel Blog

photo via Travels with Two

When I (Em) was in Paris a few months ago, I couldn’t figure out why the bridge behind Notre Dame was covered in thousands of tiny padlocks (plus a few bike locks). They weren’t there when Lo and I visited back in 2004. A quick spot of Googling (thanks to “wee-fee,” as the French call wifi) and I learned that they were “love locks” — a fairly recent tradition wherein couples celebrate their love (and, perhaps, hope to ensure its survival) by affixing a padlock to a romantic bridge and tossing the key into the river below. They might also attach a ribbon to the padlock, or simply adorn it with their initials. When I was there, enterprising young salespeople were selling new padlocks at each end of the bridge in case you were moved to do the same.

If it all sounds a bit rom-com, a bit not-exactly-Parisian, then you’d be right. My favorite argument for why tourists shouldn’t attach padlocks to Parisian bridges was made recently in the New York Times. The Paris-based writer says:

Parisians have felt increasingly irritated. Walking on those bridges has become almost insufferable for them. The pain doesn’t come only from the fact that some bridges, like Pont de l’Archevêché and Pont des Arts, now feel as if they could collapse under the weight of tourists’ undying love but also from the idea that a lock could represent love. Such an idea is abhorrent to many French people…. At the heart of love à la française lies the idea of freedom. To love truly is to want the other free, and this includes the freedom to walk away. Love is not about possession or property. Love is no prison where two people are each other’s slaves. Love is not a commodity, either. Love is not capitalist, it is revolutionary.

In other words, the idea that everlasting love that can be guaranteed by tossing away a key in the city of love is a Disney fantasy.

Read the rest of this post on SUNfiltered

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photo via flickr

We know, we know: it sounds like a bad frat-house joke. But there’s a lot of sex research making the rounds this week, and while some of it is very welcome (amongst college students, women are no longer judged as harshly for their sexual behavior; also it turns out rape victims actually have a higher rate of pregnancy… and goddamn Akin for making that seem like good news), other news seems ripe for abuse (semen can improve women’s moods?!). But, hey, at least the walnut industry should get a boost with the news that eating those nuts improves semen health.

• Thank you, Washington Post, for pointing out that research shows rape victims have a higher rate of pregnancy.
• Apparently, walnuts improve sperm health. So there you go.
• Move over Akin, there’s a new rape-denier in town: British politician defends Julian Assange and says it’s not really rape if she’s sleeping.
• Lars von Trier wants to show real sex in his next movie. Of course he does. And apparently, star Shia LaBeouf has no problem with that.
• According to a  recent study of college students, men and women are now judged more equally when it comes to sexual behavior. We guess Akin didn’t get the memo.
• We can hardly bear to repeat this news — we can only imagine what Maxim et al will do with it — but, sigh, we guess you’ll hear about it one way or another: According to new research out of SUNY Albany, performing oral sex or having sex without a condom may benefit both mental and physical health in women. This is according to scientists who studied the effects of semen’s “mood-altering chemicals.” We still half-believe that this “research” was actually conducted in some frat house dorm room at SUNY Albany, but the study was published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior, so we suppose it’s legit.

Read the rest of this post on SUNfiltered

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• What’s a Nice Way to Give Oral Directions?
• Vagina vs: Vulva: Why You Should Know the Difference
• What’s the Appeal of the Money Shot?

photo by DonkeyHotey on Flickr

A big thank you to Missouri Republican Senate candidate and House Committee Member on “Science, Space and Technology,” Todd Akin (pictured above), for finally saying what no one else has had courage to say publicly: that there’s legitimate rape (you know the type: big, scary, minority stranger breaks into your house in the middle of the night, threatens you with a weapon, beats you to a pulp, sexually assaults you and leaves you for dead) and then there’s just a bad date night. For too long, the liberal, feminist, pagan, vegetarian, drug-addicted, sexually promiscuous, and amoral elite have conflated the two. Well, not any more! For further clarification, read the following list which outlines the five main types of non-rape “rape”:

1. If you dressed provocatively. Why do you dress like that if you don’t want to get raped? You’re basically just asking for it, tempting men with your sinful curves and your devilish décolletage. How can you expect men to control themselves when you titillate them so? Try a shapeless turtleneck next time, or maybe a muumuu with a hideous floral pattern. Just look at radical Islamic countries where the women wear burkas and rape is virtually non-existent, right?
2. If you’re fat and/or ugly. Either someone took pity on you or you bribed someone to sleep with you and now you’re having regrets about it. Because really, why would a legitimate rapist risk so much for someone that’s not even attractive? No one’s buying it, Jabba.
3. If you’re married. Oh, you silly thing, your husband can’t rape you; he owns you. It is your obligation as a wife to honor every sexual whim of your spouse at any time. You know, “graciously submit to the authority of your husband” and all that. Should you renege on this duty, then he has every right to make you do your marital job.
4. If you were drunk. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Don’t you know that when you make an immoral mistake like drinking too much and passing out, you automatically relinquish your rights to bodily autonomy? In fact, in the most egregious cases, you actually deserve to be taken advantage of, as punishment. Maybe then you’ll learn your lesson, you alchy.
5. If you end up pregnant. Obviously, some part of you — deep down inside – wanted this to happen. Otherwise, your body would have either physically prevented you from becoming pregnant in the first place or else eventually caused a miscarriage. Something to do with hormones creating an inhospitable environment or something like that….but let’s not get bogged down with science. Basically, a bun in the oven means you wanted it and God wanted it. And if God wanted it, then we good, conservative Christians want it, too. (That is, until it’s born — then you and the bastard are on your own.)

RELATED ARTICLES ON EMandLO.com:

• Why Women Have Ravishment and Rape Fantasies
• Do Men Have Rape Fantasies, Too?
• Dream Interpretation: I Was Date-Raped By My Boyfriend

Much of this week’s news was slightly infuriating: Animals get birth control but humans don’t? The mistress gets punished but the married man doesn’t? Rapists get rights but their victims don’t? Aaaaaarrrrrggggghhhh!

• Kristen Stewart is dropped from the Snow White sequel while the MARRIED MAN director is not. Seriously? The only thing NOT frustrating about this article is the picture of Chris Hemsworth.
• This is trashy — we feel dirty even linking to it — but if you’ve read “Fifty Shades” you won’t be able to stop reading about this real-life BDSM relationship recently gone wrong.
• In Africa, birth control is apparently easier to get for elephants than it is to get for humans. (This is a cheap shot but we had to take it.)
• Paul Ryan, we didn’t need another reason to dislike you, but you leave us no choice, you adorable little rapist sympathizer you.
• RIP Helen Gurley Brown. Here are the 10 best tips from “Sex and the Single Girl”according to The Daily Beast.

More from yours truly:

• Why Women Have Ravishment and Rape Fantasies
• Vagina vs. Vulva — There’s a Difference, People
• What’s a Nice Way to Give Oral Directions?

photo via Parlez-Moi

We wrote a post wrote here a few weeks back about research into men’s and women’s fantasy lives — and in particular, how often this sort of research is willfully misinterpreted. That got us wondering what other new fantasy research might be out there… and we came across a fascinating study about why women have rape fantasies — or ravishment fantasies, as we prefer to call them (more on that issue below).

Previous research into this topic found that between 31 and 62% of women have rape fantasies. The authors of the new study posed the following question: “To be sexually aroused by such an imagined scenario represents a psychological mystery. Why fantasize about a criminal act which in reality is repulsive and harrowing?”

The researchers, based at the University of North Texas and the University of Notre Dame, studied 355 young women. In one of the exercises, the women’s arousal levels were studied as they listened to a ravishment fantasy scenario over headphones (gotta love audio erotica!) — and we say ravishment in this case because the scenario was pulled from the kind of story lines typical to romance novels… i.e. it was very clearly an erotic fantasy and not an actual account of a real-life rape. The women listening were told to imagine themselves as the woman in the narrative.

So why are women turned on by this kind of scenario? In the past, the theory went that women didn’t want to be perceived as “slutty” for enjoying sex, and so rape fantasies were a way to avoid taking blame for their sexual desires. We’re delighted to report that the researchers of this new study found no such thing! (Though they say that this theory may have held more water in the past, when attitudes toward women’s sexuality were more uptight.)

On the contrary, in fact: this new study found that the less repressed women said they were about sex and the more positive attitudes they had about sex, the more likely they were to fantasize about rape or ravishment. It makes sense, when you think about it: these women are more open to fantasy in general, and are less likely to feel guilty about their fantasy lives.

According to the study, women who reported frequent rape or ravishment fantasies were also more likely to enjoy fantasies about “overpowering or forcing a man to surrender sexually against his will.” Oh yeah, and they were also more likely to fantasize about being a stripper. And just in case that doesn’t completely shut down the slut-shame theory: women who reported more rape fantasies were more likely to have high self-esteem.

So, back to the rape vs. ravishment thing. A reader once called us out for our use of the term “rape fantasy,” claiming that “no one actually wants to experience what actually being raped would feel like. … Women might have fantasies about someone taking control (generally someone they find attractive and of course should trust) but as far as I believe, never about someone forcibly using their body against their will. If anything it should be called a “ravishment fantasy” because the word rape, especially in context with women, creates a greater possibility for people to take rape less seriously and disturbing as it is, to take the idea that women have “rape fantasies” to mean that it’s okay to rape someone. … Find a new language to speak about this kind of fantasy.”

Some readers responded positively to that comment — one man said that he’d feel much more comfortable using the term “ravishment” to explain his fantasy to his girlfriend. But some women said, no, this isn’t true for all women, and “ravishment” is too romantic a word for what I fantasize about.

So clearly there’s a broad range of rape and ravishment fantasy. Some people want the romance-novel style fantasy, and others want something much darker… but the one thing these scenarios all have in common is consent. So we understand why the word “rape” offends people — especially when a reader of our site writes, “My fiance raped me. It wasn’t play, wasn’t a scene. It was rape. But, the police didn’t believe me because of such things as rape fantasy. They told me that it’s not his fault that the fantasy got out of control and to just calm down.”

The last thing we want to do is prescribe rules for people’s fantasy lives. After all, the sex you have in your own head is the one time you get to break all the rules — rules of law, rules of morality, of monogamy, of hygiene, of gravity…

So if you want to fantasize about the kind of rape that would be more fitting on an episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit than in a romance novel, then go right ahead. And if, in the privacy of your own bedroom, you want to call it a rape fantasy, then go right ahead with that, too. But understand that when you’re talking about these fantasies outside the bedroom, the language you use has consequences. Sure, “ravishment fantasy” might sound a bit too purple-prose for your tastes, but if it helps preserve the rights of actual rape victims in the real world, we’re sure you can suck it up.

(And if you’ve got a better idea for a replacement term, please do let us know!)

• This post is a part of Sundance Channel’s SUNfiltered Blog
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