By Dave Smith (International Business Times) A promising new birth control treatment — for men, not women — looks to be the future of contraception. It’s safe, relatively uninvasive, 100 percent effective, and completely reversible. Developed by Prof. Sujoy K. Guha of the Indian Institute of Technology, the procedure called “Reversible Inhibition of Sperm Under Guidance,” or RISUG, is currently in advanced clinical trials in India. Researchers hope to get Vasalgel (or “RISUG” in the Indian trials) on the market as a common alternative to vasectomy as early as 2015.

In this new procedure, a doctor would inject a polymer gel called “Vasalgel” directly into the vas deferens instead of cutting it, which coats the walls of the duct and kills sperm as they go by. Should the man want to reverse the treatment for any reason at all, the procedure can be reversed simply by flushing out the Vasalgel with another injection of DMSO, a compound that is used in the medical treatment of many conditions and that is bioacceptable in the small quantities necessary.

 

via New Male Birth Control Procedure Is 100 Percent Effective, Completely Reversible [STUDY] – International Business Times.

 May 9, 2012  Posted by at 12:12 pm No Responses »
 

By  Melissa Boteach (ThinkProgress) Ann Romney has tweeted, “All moms are entitled to choose their path.” But unfortunately for low-wage working moms and nearly half of private sector workers, the” choice” is either “go to work and send my sick kid to school” or “stay at home with my sick child and risk losing my job or needed income.” That’s a choice no parent should have to make. Does Mitt Romney agree?

Women are now half of all workers on U.S. payrolls and breadwinners or co-breadwinners in nearly two-thirds of all families. Their incomes are sorely needed to provide basic economic security for their families.

Yet the U.S. also faces high rates of work-family conflict with few laws to support working families. One of the biggest culprits is workers’ lack of paid sick days to care for themselves, an elderly parent, or a sick kid – an issue that has been largely absent in the election debates.

Forty percent of private sector workers and 80 percent of low-wage workers do not have a single, paid sick day to recover from a short-term illness or to provide care for their loved ones.

via Does Mitt Romney Support Paid Sick Days? | ThinkProgress.

 April 14, 2012  Posted by at 6:26 pm No Responses »
 

(Medical Express) Findings from a first-of-its-kind study by Indiana University researchers confirm anecdotal evidence that exercise — absent sex or fantasies — can lead to female orgasm.

Sex researcher Debby Herbenick. Credit: Indiana University
Sex researcher Debby Herbenick. Credit: Indiana University

While the findings are new, reports of this phenomenon, sometimes called “coregasm” because of its association with exercises for core abdominal muscles, have circulated in the media for years, said Debby Herbenick, co-director of the Center for Sexual Health Promotion in IU’s School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation. In addition to being a researcher, Herbenick is a widely read advice columnist and book author.

“The most common exercises associated with exercise-induced orgasm were abdominal exercises, climbing poles or ropes, biking/spinning and weight lifting,” Herbenick said. “These data are interesting because they suggest that orgasm is not necessarily a sexual event, and they may also teach us more about the bodily processes underlying women’s experiences of orgasm.”

The findings are published in a special issue of Sexual and Relationship Therapy, a leading peer-reviewed journal in the area of sex therapy and sexual health. Co-author is J. Dennis Fortenberry, M.D., professor at the IU School of Medicine and Center for Sexual Health Promotion affiliate.

The results are based on surveys administered online to 124 women who reported experiencing exercise-induced orgasms (EIO) and 246 women who experienced exercise-induced sexual pleasure (EISP). The women ranged in age from 18 to 63. Most were in a relationship or married, and about 69 percent identified themselves as heterosexual.

Continue reading »

 March 19, 2012  Posted by at 3:22 pm No Responses »
 

By Daisy Grewal (Scientific American) A 2009 study demonstrated that after a short interaction with an attractive woman, men experienced a decline in mental performance. A more recent study suggests that this cognitive impairment takes hold even when men simply anticipate interacting with a woman who they know very little about.

In one experiment, just telling a man he would be observed by a female was enough to hurt his psychological performance.

Sanne Nauts and her colleagues at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands ran two experiments using men and women university students as participants. They first collected a baseline measure of cognitive performance by having the students complete a Stroop test. Developed in 1935 by the psychologist John Ridley Stroop, the test is a common way of assessing our ability to process competing information.

Men who thought a woman was observing them ended up performing worse. This cognitive impairment occurred even though the men had not interacted with the female observer.

Women’s performance did not differ, regardless of whether they were expecting a man or woman to observe them. But men who had been told a woman would observe them ended up doing much worse on the second Stroop task. Thus, simply anticipating the opposite sex interaction was enough to interfere with men’s cognitive functioning.

via Why Interacting with a Woman Can Leave Men “Cognitively Impaired”: Scientific American.

 March 16, 2012  Posted by at 12:12 pm No Responses »
 

By David Edwards (RawStory) Republican Georgia state Rep. Terry England says that his experience with cows, pigs and chickens has proven to him that women should be forced to have their babies after 20 weeks of pregnancy.

In a debate over Georgia House Bill 954, which would ban abortions after 20 weeks even if the baby is not expected to live, England recalled the time he had spent with livestock.

“Life gives us many experiences,” he explained. “I’ve had the experience of delivering calves, dead and alive — delivering pigs, dead and alive. … It breaks our hearts to see those animals not make it.”

House Bill 954 easily passed last week by a vote of 102-65.

Opponents have said that the so-called “fetal pain” bill would force women to carry stillborn fetuses or to have a Cesarean delivery. Doctors could also face 10 years in prison if they are involved in illegal abortions.

via Georgia lawmaker compares women to cows and pigs | The Raw Story.

 March 10, 2012  Posted by at 7:02 am No Responses »
 

(NY Daily News) A Zimbabwe teenager has been sentenced to caning as physical punishment for a rude Facebook post, an African court ruled.

The 17-year-old reportedly took a photo of a woman with his cell phone camera, posted it on the social networking website and called her a prostitute in the caption, according to The Herald Newspaper.

via African teenager to be caned over offensive Facebook post in which he called a woman a prostitute – NY Daily News.

 March 7, 2012  Posted by at 9:38 am No Responses »
 

By Monica Alonzo (New Times) Pinal County Sheriff Paul Babeu — who became the face of Arizona border security nationally after he started stridently opposing illegal immigration — threatened his Mexican ex-lover with deportation when the man refused to promise never to disclose their years-long relationship, the former boyfriend and his lawyer tell New Times.

The latest of the alleged threats were made through Babeu’s personal attorney, who’s also running the sheriff’s campaign for Congress in District 4, the ex-lover says.

He says lawyer Chris DeRose demanded he sign an agreement that he would never breathe a word about the affair. But Jose (New Times is withholding his last name because Babeu and his attorney have challenged his legal status) refused.

The 34-year-old from central Mexico charges that the sheriff’s lawyer warned against mentioning the affair with Babeu. DeRose said gossip about Babeu would focus attention on Jose, attention that could result in his deportation, Jose says.

via Paul Babeu’s Mexican Ex-Lover Says Sheriff’s Attorney Threatened Him With Deportation – Page 1 – News – Phoenix – Phoenix New Times.

 February 18, 2012  Posted by at 9:50 am No Responses »
 

Rumors Of Extramarital Affair End Campaign Of Presidential Candidate Who Didn’t Know China Has Nuclear Weapons

via Rumors Of Extramarital Affair End Campaign Of Presidential Candidate Who Didn’t Know China Has Nuclear Weapons | The Onion – America’s Finest News Source.

 December 3, 2011  Posted by at 8:32 pm No Responses »
 

By Brian Maass (CBS4)  Former Arapahoe County Sheriff Patrick J. Sullivan Jr. has been arrested, suspected of trafficking methamphetamine, a controlled substance.

Sullivan, 68, was the elected Arapahoe County Sheriff for 19 years. He retired in 2002 and went on to become director of safety and security for Cherry Creek Schools. He was a nationally-regarded law enforcement figure and in 2001 as the National Sheriff Association named Sullivan “Sheriff of the Year.”

Authorities say Sullivan agreed to meet a male informant and provide the man drugs in exchange for sex. That’s when Investigators and members of the South Metro Drug Task Force arrested Sullivan. The former sheriff is being held on $250,000 bond as of Tuesday evening.

Ironically, Sullivan will be jailed in the Arapahoe County Jail, which was named for the legendary sheriff — The Patrick J. Sullivan Jr. Detention Facility.

via Former Arapahoe County Sheriff Arrested On Drug Charge « CBS Denver.

 November 30, 2011  Posted by at 7:31 am No Responses »
 

By Paul Krassner (Huffington Post) Jim Jones, founder of the 8,000-member People’s Temple in San Francisco, once asked Margo St. James, founder of the prostitutes’ rights group, COYOTE (Call Off Your Old Tired Ethics), how he could obtain political power.

She answered, sardonically, “Arrange for some of your women to have sex with the bigwigs.”

It was well known around City Hall that Moscone had a predilection for black women. Police almost arrested him once with a black prostitute in a car at a supermarket parking lot.

Soon after the Dan White trial, Lee Cole, an ex-Scientologist I had met in Chicago while researching the Charles Manson case, took me to see Lowell Streiker, author of The Cults Are Coming! and a deprogrammer who had counseled one-third of the Jonestown survivors. In the course of our conversation, I mentioned my theory that Jim Jones had served as a pimp at City Hall and maintained power by implied blackmail.

Dr. Streiker told me of his friend — a member of Jones’ planning commission — who had told him about the technique that People’s Temple had used on Mayor Moscone. They sent a young black female member to service him, as a gift, then called the next week about a serious problem — she had lied, said she was eighteen, when in fact she was underage, but don’t worry, we have it under control — just the way J. Edgar Hoover used to manipulate top politicians with his juicy FBI files.

So Jim Jones had taken Margo St. James’ sardonic advice after all, on how to achieve political power: “Arrange for some of your women to have sex with the bigwigs.” And he had taken it all the way to a mass suicide-murder — which occurred simultaneously with a mass demonstration by the women’s movement in San Francisco, called “Take Back the Night!”

Paul Krassner’s dialogue with Andrew Breitbart appears in the December issue of Playboy.

via Paul Krassner: Sex, Corruption and the Kool-Aid Massacre.

 November 25, 2011  Posted by at 9:21 am No Responses »