In the News

I so want to see this movie. It's directed by Rebecca Miller and has the best female cast ever: Monica Bellucci, Robin Wright, Julianne Moore, Winona Ryder and Blake Lively. And there's a whole pill-fueled bondage/fetish model storyline.

I'm so hoping that Obama is going to end Don't Ask Don't Tell because the numbers are in and women are disproportionately dismissed under this idiotic policy.  Women make up just 14% of the military yet they account for 36% of dismissals under Don't Ask Don't Tell.  And it turns out that most were dismissed from the Air Force.  Seems Top Gun women aren't interested in Tom Cruise.

Now to the why (because I have to go there).  My knee jerk reaction as a woman who chose a male-dominated profession is that these women are under the microscope.

Yes, this is a real ad that Ralph Lauren was using for their Fall campaign.  And, no, this isn't a real image of a real woman.  This is a digitally enhanced or should I say digitally emaciated picture of a woman that minus the hair and the outfit has the physique of an Auschwitz survivor or maybe a Serbian refugee. 

A big thank you to Boingboing.net for calling out Ralph Lauren for this sick, sexist ad.  For a minute, Ralph Lauren sent them this nasty we-may-sue-you legal letter but boingboing didn't cave.  Instead they posted the letter and eventually got an apology from RL.

Haven't we had our fill of skinny?  We get it.  Gay fashionistas don't like curves.  Even pubescent teen models aren't skinny enough for them.  I so respect the German magazine Brigitte for ditching models for real women in ALL THEIR NEW ISSUES.

Betty and I spent the weekend in the Catskills at the Daka/Dakini Fall Conference. For those of you who don't know what tantra is it's basically eastern principles of sexuality. We were their keynote speakers.

Driving up to the Shandelee Lake Inn was no easy task. My gps was fucked, my mapquest directions were shit, and we drove in circles for 30 minutes. Then I decided to just relax. I knew I had to head north and west so I would just follow the signs. We arrived by osmosis.

I can't tell you how much I enjoyed the conference. The inn was an old bed and breakfast that you can rent out for private events so we were their only guests.

While getting a pedi, I caught an article in Marie Claire on the forcefeeding of young girls in Mauritania (West Africa).  They start forcefeeding would-be child brides at age 10 and work up to a diet of over 14,000 calories/day.  Whether you're starving yourself to be a size 0 or overeating to attain stretch marks (they're prized in this culture), it all comes down to risking your life to attract a man.

The Dalai Lama announced today that he's a FEMINIST.  Yay!

Who knew that the Pill could effect our sexual preferences?  A new study has found that hormones in the oral contraceptive suppress a woman's interest in masculine men making boyish men much more attractive.  Here's how it breaks down: as a woman, you're attracted to nice, boyish men BUT when you're ovulating there's a distinct shift and you find yourself more attracted to masculine men who are more assertive.  However, when you're on the pill you never ovulate; hence, you find Johnny Depp much more attractive than Clive Owen.

Another wrinkle to this study has to do with male sexual preferences. 

dear betty, dear carlin

i just wanted to let you know how much your website has entertained me in the last six weeks. my boyfriend is currently working in another country. although i love him a lot and miss him, i enjoy having the entitre flat to myself, living my own rhythm (more sleep, more healthy food...) and being able to dedicate a lot of time on masturbation, watching porn, reading books on sex, reading feminist books, trying to get to know myself better etc. i always try to do that when he is away (i mean i also do those things when he is here but not to this extent..you know what it is like..) and after he returns our sexlife improves! this time i learned how to regurarly have two orgasms during masturbation, yippie! your videos and podcasts are really great. it is so much fun to watch you and see the energy and chemistry going between you two. you are so beautiul and i love your accents too. keep up the great work i am your fan.

best wishes from berlin

I had the biggest crush on my 1st cousin, Miles, growing up.  He was blond and lived in Laguna Beach.  We must have been 7 or 8 years old and we decided to play wedding.  It was then that our parents explained why first cousins couldn't marry: you'd have deformed children.  We still played wedding the entire trip.

As it turns out, the risk of 1st cousins having genetically deformed childrens is quite low.  The Journal of Genetic Counselling findings (based on studies of thousands of births over 35 years) showed risks of between 1.7% and 2.8% above the background risk for congenital or genetic abnormalities for copulating cousins.  There's even a website cousincouples.com dedicated to famous cousin hook ups. 

I guess I could have married Miles all along.  We would have made a great couple but oh well.  My favorite incestuous couple - Bob and Gisselle - will have to respresent for all happily coupled first cousins.

New research, published in the U.S., and relating to a study of more than a million people, shows that women are more miserable than we've ever been. And we're actually getting more miserable.  The World Health Organisation reports that depression is the second most debilitating disease for women; for men, it's the tenth most.

And this is the real point - men are not. According to the same research, men are getting happier and, moreover, are even happier as they get older.

No one knows exactly why women are more miserable.  I had to wade through a pile of BS explanations tracking this research. 

I will admit that when Christina (our unapologetic panty sniffing blogger) first sent me the link to her blog I was deeply disturbed by a post she did on kitten crushing videos.  And it seems that I'm not alone. 

The Supreme Court will hear the federal government's appeal of U.S. v. Stevens, a circuit court's overturning of a 1999 federal law that makes it a crime to create, sell, or possess depictions of animal cruelty for commercial gain. If the court reverses the lower court's decision and reinstates the law, images showing the intentional torture or killing of animals would be deemed illegal. But technically, so might depictions of bullfighting in Spain or fishing and hunting out of season.

Here's what happened while we were shooting today's podcast:

The woman who got pregnant when she was already pregnant - that's 2 uteruses and 2 embryos - explains how it all happened on dailymail.co.uk

The recession is hitting single people harder than married people.  If you're single, there's a 50% greater likelihood you'll find yourself unemployed. 

And apparently there's a masturbation epidemic in Syria.  Must be that Arabic translation of Sex for One;)

My friend Margery Coffey is a fine artist who lives on a reservation in Nebraska with the Omaha People. I have been interested in her book co-authored with Dennis Hastings about the history of the Omaha. Due to a lack of understanding by my kin, the fact that I have Native American blood in my family's background was never documented. Therefore I have no idea what tribe my people came from. This has always been felt as a loss by me. As I read this talk, I realized how much we have to learn from the first Americans who honored the land, water, sky, plants and animals as well as each other. There is much we could learn from the American Indians:

After working on the reservation for many years, Hastings - 34 years, and myself - 19, both felt that it was imperative to preserve the history of the Omaha in a written form so that the Omaha could finally understand just exactly what had happened to the Tribe instead of looking through shattered memories.

Meet Laura Scott.  She's 47, childless, and just wrote a book Two is Enough about the complex decision NOT to have a family.  While she's totally happy with her decision she's tired of people asking her when she's going to have a baby and tired of being called "selfish":

"I've had people ask: 'What's wrong? You're not too old.' Everybody assumes that if you're married, you've got to have children, especially because we both work with them at school. And if you don't, you have to explain yourself all the time.  Having children should be a choice, not an obligation. Yet many women I know have even stopped going to christenings or baby showers because they are sick of being emotionally bullied for not having children.  It's easier for men. Not feeling paternal isn't such a grave crime.

And we thought Sex for One received the most ban requests at Libraries.  As it turns out, And Tango Makes Three - based on a true story and centring on gay penguins in New York's Central Park Zoo - has had the most ban requests.

The book's authors are Justin Richardson and Peter Parnell.

Reasons given by organisations and individuals for their requests to get it removed from public shelves, include "anti-ethnic, anti-family, homosexuality, religious viewpoint, and unsuited to age group".

Even gay animals freak out parents.  You'd think they'd be able to keep it on the shelves as a documentary.