Sex News Roundup, April 28, 2014.

Sarah Siverman, photo by Kevintporter. (Wiki.)

Dusty Miller

Two gendarmes are under investigation in the alleged rape of a Toronto woman at police headquarters in Paris, France.

“France's Interior Minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, said in Sunday's statement the two officers at the centre of the investigation will face the consequences if they are found guilty and that a disciplinary inquiry within the force is already underway.” 

(CTV.)

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve.

Das österreichische Außenministerium

***

Sarah Silverman to join the cast of ‘Masters of Sex,’ in the recurring role of Helen. (Hollywood Deadline.)

***

Truro, N.S. Walk in support of Sexual Assault Awareness Month. (Truro Daily News.)

***

Moncton, N.B. Teacher facing sex charges. The incidents involving the two students are alleged to have taken place between 2010 and 2012. (News889.)

***

State’s gay marriage ban is challenged by church.

“We didn’t bring this lawsuit to make others conform to our beliefs, but to vindicate the right of all faiths to freely exercise their religious practices,” said Donald C. Clark Jr., general counsel of the United Church of Christ.”

“The denomination argues that a North Carolina law criminalizing the religious solemnization of weddings without a state-issued marriage license violates the First Amendment. Mr. Clark said that North Carolina allows clergy members to bless same-sex couples married in other states, but otherwise bars them from performing 'religious blessings and marriage rites’ for same-sex couples, and that ‘if they perform a religious blessing ceremony of a same-sex couple in their church, they are subject to prosecution and civil judgments.” 

(New York Times.)

***

According to a new report, sixteen percent of women suffer pain during sex.

“There are so many women out there walking around suffering in silence and feeling guilty,” Rosen said on Thursday. “They don’t know that there is treatment out there.”

“Rosen said her research focuses on a condition called vulvodynia, in which women experience chronic pain during sex. She said there is no single cause for the condition, but that a multitude of psychological, emotional and social factors contribute to the pain.”

“Recently, Rosen was awarded $125,000 by the Canadian Foundation of Innovation to fund her research and offer treatment options at the Couples and Sexual Health Laboratory at Dalhousie.”

“Women who experience pain during sex see an average of five doctors before receiving an accurate diagnosis, she said. Rosen said her first-of-its-kind research will be aimed at treating the condition as it affects a woman and her partner.” (Herald News.)

***

Celebrity publicist convicted of eight indecent assaults. Oh, well. There’s no such thing as bad publicity, eh, sir? (BBC.)

Max Clifford photo by Howard Lake. (Wiki.)

***

Fired for turning down sex with supervisor. 

“During the time I was with my boyfriend, the supervisor calmed on the advances but when he found out I became single he started the harassment again. I threatened to report him to the boss but he made fun of me that I could ‘do whatever I want.’” (St. Lucia News Online.)

***

Australia High Court recognizes third gender option.

“A Sydney resident who fought to be legally recognised as being of non-specific sex has hailed a High Court ruling that New South Wales laws do permit the registration of a category of sex other than male or female. Norrie was born male but had a sex change and now does not identify as specifically male or female. After a four-year legal battle, Norrie has won the right to be legally recognised as being of non-specific sex. Norrie, who had been quietly confident of winning the case, says the historic verdict is a big win for the wider transgender community.” (PPRuNE.)

***

Kat Alano says she was raped nine years ago.

“After becoming controversial over her tweets about sexual abuse a few months ago, Kat Alano admitted she was raped nine years ago by a public figure. It can be remembered that the TV host-actress took to social media to share her thoughts about rape last January, when Vhong Navarro was facing rape claims from model Deniece Cornejo. This made many netizens speculate that she was a victim of sexual abuse. In the April 24 episode of DJ Mo Twister's podcast ‘Good Times with Mo,’ Kat finally opened up about being a victim of rape. 

“You know, rape is a funny thing. People think they assume to know all sorts of things about rape victims but they really don't know them at all. And when they react to people saying things about rape, they have no idea what they're talking about,” she said when asked by Mo why she chose to open up about her own rape. 

(Philippine Star.)

END

Sex News Roundup, March 26/14

(File photo.)

Dusty Miller

Southern states and the Bible Belt watch more gay porn on average.

“It began with a simple question.  Proceeding from the assumption that less sex in a marriage turns straight couples to online porn, does the same hold true for gay married couples?”

(There would also be the question of single folks in repressive social contexts. The study also notes the difficulty in distinguishing between lesbian searches and male searchers. Males report a high interest in voyeurism and lesbian acts.)

“Pornhub and Buzzfeed sought the answers and got some surprising results.”

“Looking at gay porn viewers by state, we see an interesting phenomenon. Why, would you look at that! 

The highest numbers are, by and large, in southern states. Hmmmm. But all of those states hold that same-sex marriage is illegal, right? There wouldn’t be just a tinge of hypocrisy at play here, would there? You bet your stars & bars there is. Every single southern state has a percentage of gay porn viewers higher than the average for states with legal same-sex marriage.” 

(Addicting Info.)

***

Who’s doing what?

Speaking of the Bible Belt, we might be a bit surprised by who’s actually making and uploading amateur porn videos onto the internet.

“Amateur porn website Homegrown Video (NSFW link) cataloged all video submissions they received over a six-month period. They found that almost one-third of homemade sex tapes submitted between July and December 2013 were created not in sexually liberal coastal cities, as one might imagine, but in the Bible Belt. Furthermore, 56.9 percent of videos were submitted by women.”

(This is one of those I LOVE MY JOB DAYS.)

“These results are consistent with a recent PornHub study, which found that the religiosity of an area had little impact on how much porn its residents watch. Furthermore, residents of cities with higher churchgoing rates spent 47 seconds longer per PornHub visit than their peers in less religious cities.”

Personally, I have no conclusions. I may have more questions, but no conclusions.

(Huffington Post.)

***

So. Just how much porn is there on the internet?

That’s a very good question, and we can thank the BBC for answering it.

“Many things in porn are exaggerated, including the statistics regularly quoted to show how much pornography is on the web.”

“The need to get a good sense of its size and reach has sharpened as British politicians, pundits and the media debate what influence pornography is having on children, teenagers and their understanding of what sex is all about.”

“A lot of different statistics were quoted in those debates. However, few stand up to scrutiny.”

“One figure that cropped up again and again is that 37% of the internet is made up of pornographic material. 

Many of those people who quoted the figure took it from a press release put out in June 2010 by net filtering firm Optenet.”

Ah, but.

“However, that same year the largest study ever done into human sexuality published a very different figure for how many of the web's most popular sites were devoted to porn. The academics behind the research based their results on analysis of the million most frequented sites in the world. Most people now turn to the web to see pornography Their estimate? Just 4% of those websites were porn.”

(BBC News, Technology.)

***

Can watching porn help your relationship?

“Can porn really enhance married life?”

“The predominant stereotypes regarding  pornographyrevolve around men who can't get enough of it, and women who can't stand it. Traditional thinking dictates that porn-loving men should be hiding in dark corners, terribly ashamed of whatever weakness causes them to want to look at pictures of naked ladies. Women, on the other hand, should never touch porn themselves (no, romance novels aren't porn, they're romantic) and should feel degraded by the very idea of appearing in some. They should also be totally jealous if their own love interest admits to looking at porn because it means he prefers porn to real women.”

“Of course, the more  sex-positive people among us know that today there is a wide variety of pornography out there catering to all kinds of different styles and to both women and men. Pornographic art, film and literature have made it into the mainstream. Heck, we'd probably enjoy pornographic dramas and sitcoms on TV if only they existed.”

A friend woke up in the middle of the night and saw her husband masturbating.

As she told me, “I wondered why the hell he would ever want to do that when I was right there.”

(There is a time to bite one’s tongue and just nod sagely, and say nothing.)

“The important thing, according to the research, is that we're open and honest about what we like, what we do, and what we want to do.”

(AlterNet.)

***

Sexual activity grows brain cells.

“Forget mindfulness meditation, computerized working-memory training, and learning a musical instrument; all methods recently shown by scientists to increase intelligence. There could be an easier answer. It turns out that sex might actually make you smarter.”

“Researchers in Maryland and South Korea recently found that sexual activity in mice and rats improves mental performance and increases neurogenesis (the production of new neurons) in the hippocampus, where long-term memories are formed.”

Middle-aged rats.

“In April, a team from the University of Maryland reported that middle-aged rats permitted to engage in sex showed signs of improved cognitive function and hippocampal function. In November, a group from Konkuk University in Seoulconcluded that sexual activity counteracts the memory-robbing effects of chronic stress in mice. “Sexual interaction could be helpful,” they wrote, “for buffering adult hippocampal neurogenesis and recognition memory function against the suppressive actions of chronic stress.”

Texans say watching porn causes brain damage.

“So growing brain cells through sex does appear to have some basis in scientific fact. But there’s some debate over whether fake sex—pornography—could be harmful. Neuroscientists from the University of Texas recently argued that excessive porn viewing, like other addictions, can result in permanent “anatomical and pathological” changes to the brain. That view, however, was quickly challenged in a rebuttal from researchers at the University of California, Los Angeles, who said that the Texans ‘offered little, if any, convincing evidence to support their perspectives. Instead, excessive liberties and misleading interpretations of neuroscience research are used to assert that excessive pornography consumption causes brain damage.’"

(The Atlantic.)

***

Here’s one that I always find interesting.

Does the use or availability of pornography increase the rate of violence against women?

According to BOLD, the answer is yes.

“The consumption of pornography can be directly linked to violence against women.”

According to Liberal Conspiracy, the answer is no.

“Research reported last week in The Scientific American claimed that using porn can actually reduce levels of violence against women and girls.”

I suppose it depends on whom you ask and what their interest is. There’s also the question of objectivity when an issue already generates strong and opposing opinions. How in the hell you are ever going to get an objective result with everyone peddling an agenda and such small study samples is beyond this writer.

I suppose the truth will never be known, and even if it was, those with an opposing interest would never accept it anyway.

Anyhow, that’s it for today.

Love and kisses.

Bye!!!

END

What's this thing called, love?

Dusty Miller

“What’s this thing called, love?”

It didn’t take too much erotica writing before the inevitable questions arose.

“Holy crap, are erotica writers among the frickin’ loneliest people of the world?”

“Why am I just aching with loneliness inside, and why is finishing one of these and not having anything to do the worst feeling in the world?”

(“Why am I so horny all the time?”)

“And why am I staring at people’s faces and checking out their walk in a world where we tend to avoid eye-contact, staring, and being sexually aggressive?”

I don’t know, but it’s definitely a time-filler, or something.

What I think happens is that writing romance, love stories, erotica, all that romantic shit, highlights and underscores the fact that there’s not really all that much going on in our own life.

And yet maybe, as an expression of our own most personal wants, needs, desires or fantasies, it says a lot.

Love is a universal human need. Everybody wants love, it’s like money in that sense. Sex is a powerful driving motive behind many of our daily actions.

Stated baldly, a house is a place where people mate and have kids…right? Sure, we all got to live somewhere. But it could be stated that way and not be all that inaccurate.

***

Every so often you get a crush on someone.

You know damned well it ain’t happening, right? Generally speaking, there’s not much you can do about it but suffer and wait for the next big crush to come along…then you’ll forget all about ‘em.

Yeah, that’s the ticket.

Even then, it says a little something about what’s going on inside of your head, which is the biggest sex organ of all, according to the experts, mostly scientists and guys with big heads…(hmn.)

***

I don’t think it’s ever a mistake to love someone. Even when they don’t and probably never will love you back, or even be aware of your existence.

In those clear-cut cases, it’s probably better not to dump that heavy load on someone who may already have a spouse, significant other, or maybe they're just not very likely to be interested, plain and simple.

Why tell them, right?

Loving someone that you may never have is sure a lot better than hating someone—because that can get to be a habit that’s hard to break.

Because loving and having are all mixed in together. Why love someone you'll never have?

I think it's better than not loving anybody at all, for surely in order to love someone else, we must first love ourselves, and maybe even consider ourselves worthy of some love?

Does that make any sense at all, ladies and gentlemen?

I sure hope so.

***

There are all kinds of love, from an academic love of humanity, which includes some less than exemplary individuals, but we sort of accept that, to the love of a mother for a child, a father for his son, or between brothers and sisters.

The love of a mate is special. Human beings are animals too, and the natural urge is to mate, and to have a mate.

It’s interesting to read about monogamous species. When the stork loses a mate, it may never mate again. 

Romantic as it seems, it also seems pretty tragic. In most cases, humans will remarry or ‘re-mate’ if you will, sometimes relatively quickly.

A friend told me, “After five years you’re officially a virgin again.”

She’s a lesbian, but her perspective is not far off.

“Well, that is good news indeed.” What the fuck was I supposed to say?

But after a while a bit of that mental or psychological virginity kicks in and it’s like falling off a horse: you’d better get back on and ride that thing, or walk away and stay away!

But it’s, ah, definitely troubling.

I’m a healthy and normal 31 year-old woman, and that biological imperative is hard to ignore.

And if I was out on a hot date with some luscious hunk, always in the back of my mind would be the daughter at home with the babysitter, and the unpaid bills, and the squeaky fan belt on the old Nova, and a hundred other adult concerns that we really didn’t have back then—when we were in high school, or college, or young adults without a care or responsibility in the world. And yet that’s where most of the memories are—that’s where they were built.

No wonder it bears little resemblance to our present reality.

***

To write erotica or romance is to fantasize, to daydream, and then very simply to write it all down in the best form you can manage. The database for our fantasies is of course our memories. This includes experience, books, films, education, conversation, everything in our heads remotely related to our fantasy of the moment.

There is more to it, I’m sure.

It is a kind of wish fulfillment of a purely symbolic nature.

And yet at the same time there may be a kind of magic in it.

People look at what they like. That’s why I will buy a red car before I buy a silver one. I might even order it special and have to wait, when a silver one was sitting right there on the lot.

People dream and scheme, and manipulate to get what they want. They also have to convince themselves, a.) that it is possible and b.) that this is what they really want c.) the price will not be too high d.) it will work as advertised…the list goeth on.

Because there are always options, including the nun’s habit and the cloister. For whatever reason, that just doesn’t sound like me, although it sure sounds like Sister Heather in Project: Passion.

That book has a very simple message: you have to know what you want or you ain’t ever going to get it now, are you?

I have no doubt whatsoever that the interest in romance, erotica, love, relationships, it all holds great meaning for this writer. And it holds a lot of meaning for readers as well.

The readers want to be loved too. The reader is just like me.

Coming to terms with that meaning, and figuring out just what I must do about that meaning, personally, and in the works that I produce, may be a little more difficult, but we’ll take it one day at a time and see how it goes.

Other than that, thank you for stopping in.

***

Smooches.

Squee! Part Two.

A little gratuitous eye-candy.

Dusty Miller

Squee! Part Two, because when I sold my first story that was just Squee! (Part One in retrospect.)

(No part zero or anything like that either.)

Throwing Chocolate, my new free story up at Smashwords has just gotten this lovely five-star review:

Review by: tony parsons on Feb. 03, 2014 :     

Vicki Stewart was shopping at the Laura Secord store at the mall. Melanie & Danae were her BFF’s. Enrico her ex had just dumped her for another gal …

Thank you for the free short story (book) …

Tony Parsons MSW (Washburn)

Link to the rest here, ( It's at the bottom of the page.)

End

"What's the Plan?"

"So what's the plan, anyways?"

by Dusty Miller

My new story, Throwing Chocolate, is now live on Smashwords, soon to be followed by Kindle and OmniLit, all in various formats.

Love is all about making the connection. How Mommy and Daddy actually met, all those years ago, really is a cute little story. 'Throwing Chocolate' has a romantic Valentine's Day theme. A short story.

***

So I write, big deal.

What is the plan?

Until you’ve actually written something, you don’t need a plan. However, my first really good story, Project: Passion, clearly led somewhere, and thus it spawned Rendezvous and Escape from Bondage. That’s still only three novellas.

However, a few sales showed that there is some potential here for someone interested in writing or any home-based business. With the internet and the rise of digital publishing for everywoman, the potential to at least make some money, maybe not big bucks or anything, is clearly there.

So I had some funny little idea and I basically just wrote it up.

Voila.

Four stories, or ‘products,’ if you care to think of it in those terms. I think that was Selena’s Escape.

Notice the elegant dress, the hair, the makeup. That's clearly not The Sasquatch Sex Tapes, right?

That one also allowed me to escape from the naked butts and go for something a lot more tasteful, more aspirational for the target readers. 

(No honest effort is truly wasted.)

However, it really is true that once you have a few titles, each one is somehow less significant, but then, just think about it—your first book or story, or maybe a poem, really is a big thing.

It’s an important event in your life.

Ah, but for the true professional writer, it's all in a day’s work.

***

A short story is nice and easy to format, and the reason is because it doesn’t take too long—with a ten year-old running around, and some sort of frickin’ crisis around here every day it seems sometimes, that’s important because writing, editing, making images, even simple uploading, requires tight focus on detail. The less time you spend on routine tasks, the better off you are because there are fewer interruptions…(yeah, that’s what I said.)

Put those energies into the creation of the works.

***

You want a good cover, even if you do it on the cheap. Don’t let the cost deter you—learn how.

Once you’ve done a few, it rarely takes more than a few tries to sort it out, and you get an eye for the potential layout of a cover before buying an image.

That’s what my buddy said, and I think he was right. Now he’s telling me that lately my covers are better than his. (He might even be right, and I concede that so rarely with males these days.)

So the novella serial trilogy, (whatever,) has the first book for free. That sucks ‘em in. However, any promotion, even perpetual freebies, grows stale over time.

Ah, but now I’m up to ten or eleven products. Why not write something specifically to give away?

It doesn’t even have to be a 10,000-word story.

Throwing Chocolate is themed for Valentine’s Day. It’s less than 2,500 words.

And, I can give it away for two weeks, maybe a month, then set the price thereafter, and hey, presto!

I have another story up for sale, and oddly enough I might be able to give it away next year.

This is where the marketing goes into subtle levels. They all build on one another in terms of exposure, attracting new readers at minimal cost in time and money, creating simple awareness of the brand or author name. It builds sales overall and supports priced products that are presently out there.

Now, my buddy, who shall remain nameless, says all of this is cumulative.

The effects of all this builds up gradually over time and at some point it gathers its own momentum.

The more you write and publish, the better your chances of success, which he described as a graph, with a vector, traveling a set distance over time. The only thing sales can do he told me is to bend that vector.

It can go up or it can go down…

My plan is to make it go up.

It’s crazy enough, it just might work.

I love you all. 

I hope you'll take the time to check out and maybe download a copy of ‘Throwing Chocolate.’ 

Enjoy the story.

(Smooch.)

Bye, y’all.

End