photo by Giovanni Dall’Orto via WikiCommons
This week, a gay Episcopalian, who fell in love with a one-night-stand turned fiance, can learn how to survive a hurricane barreling through her upcoming wedding nuptials.
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Is it possible that bad parenting could lead to bad sex? Could spoiled and selfish kids grow up to be spoiled and selfish bed partners? A recent article and book review in The New Yorker, “Why are American kids so spoiled?” got us thinking along these lines.
The basic question that journalist Elizabeth Kolbert wants to answer is, How did children become the miniature bosses of the household, doing nothing and expecting everything — even past college age. Kolbert talks about “a generation of kids who can’t, or at least won’t, tie their own shoes,” and how this has given rise to a new genre of parenting books — The Price of Privilege, The Narcissism Epidemic, etc. The latest title in this field is Slouching Toward Adulthood: Observations from the Not-So-Empty Nest. Author Sally Koslow writes, “Our offspring have simply leveraged our braggadocio, good intentions, and over investment. … [They inhabit] a broad savannah of entitlement that we’ve watered, landscaped, and hired gardeners to maintain.” Her advice? ”The best way for a lot of us to show our love would be to learn to un-mother and un-father.”
For the record, neither Kolbert nor Koslow talk about what kind of adult sex partners these children — or overgrown children — turn out to be. But we can’t stop thinking about it. That guy who spends hundreds of thousands of dollars of his parents’ money to get a college degree then returns home to his childhood bedroom so he can sit on his parents’ couch and drink their beer… How much do you want to bet he’s not exactly the first to offer cunnilingus?
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photo via flickr
We have a love-hate relationship with sex research — on the one hand, we think it’s incredibly important to study how and why we do (or don’t do) what we do when the lights go out. But on the other hand — well, a lot of this research can be a little on the flimsy side. This week, sex research highlights teen sexting, work-life balance, and how to fake love.
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photo via flickr
This week a court in Germany ruled that circumcising boys for religious reasons is “bodily harm.” The ruling came as a result of a court case about medical complications following the circumcision of a four-year-old boy. The doctor was acquitted, but apparently the court felt like stirring up a shit-storm anyway. The ruling isn’t binding but it certainly sets a precedent.
Also, this happened in Germany. And circumcision of newborn boys has been a tradition in Judaism (amongst other religions and cultures) dating back thousands of years. Er, guys? You do remember the Holocaust, right? Don’t you think you might want to step a little more lightly when it comes to religious freedom, and in particular the religious freedom of Jewish people?
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image via Zazzle.com
Did you know that when someone “likes” your Facebook status — or, even better, actually comments on it — that warm fuzzy feeling you get is akin to the feeling you get from good food or good sex? Of course you knew that! Why else do you waste so many hours on social networking sites, over-sharing the minutiae of your life, and willingly sharing so much private data with massive technology companies who can then tailor advertising to you?!
Well, in case you were wondering, some nerds (sorry, scientists) at Harvard University have now confirmed this. In official lab lingo, what you’re doing is called “self-disclosure” — even when you’re just posting about what an awesome poo your toddler just took in the potty, or how much you love your snookums on your second wedding anniversary. And the more you self-disclose, and the more attention you get for it, the more your dopamine levels spike. It’s that whole pleasure and anticipation reward center in your brain — where good sex and good food are also logged. The research was published last month in a journal called Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
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photo via flickr
This week Conan apologizes for a trans joke but unfortunately no one apologizes for genital whitening products, Olympic gender testing, or rape as a plot device to “strengthen” female characters. And we think that everyone who ever judged open relationships as “slutty” should apologize — it turns out that “monogamous” cheaters are way more likely to forgo a condom.
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Change.org is like AA: it works if you work it. That was made quite clear this week when Holly Kearl of StopStreetHarassment.org posted a petition on Sunday and got results in less than 24 hours.
MarketFair Mall in Princeton, NJ, was in the middle of some construction and had the bright idea to put up the above sign, which normalizes — indeed encourages — sexual street harassment and paints all construction workers as mindless harassment zombies. So Kearl put up her first Change.org petition and in less than a day got 1500 signatures (she was hoping for 250). When she contacted the VP of marketing at the mall Monday day, they told her they’d take down the sign later that night after all the patrons had left. She got confirmation yesterday by the original photographer of the image above that the sign had indeed been taken down. Victory!
Here’s the very convincing case made by the petition letter (which we tried to sign before realizing change had already been effected):
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In case you missed it — in case you were wondering why all your friends were using the word “vagina” in their Facebook status updates over the weekend — late last week two representatives (both women) were banned from speaking in the Michigan House during a debate over a bill that bans all abortions after 20 weeks, with no exceptions for rape, incest or the health of the mother. The Majority Floor Leader Jim Stamas hasn’t specified exactly what offended him, but one of the representatives, Democrat Lisa Brown, claims it’s because she used the word vagina. “Apparently, ‘vagina’ is another v-word that Must Not Be Named. Like Voldemort,” Brown told Jezebel.com. Here’s a (very abridged!) sampling of Vaginagate coverage:
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July 13, 2012
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