| Sunday, September 28, 2008 |
| Paul Newman (1925-2008) |
Yesterday a real star went out. Paul Newman is no longer with us in body, but his blue eyes glitter on in his classic roles, his humanitarian foundation, and not least, in the fantasies of women (and men) who can appreciate ageless beauty and presence.
Forget pimping your baby pictures for charity and a bit of PR; Paul co-founded “Newman's Own”, a food company that donates 100% of its profits to charities. That amounts to over $250 million and the legacy is still going strong.
Newman was married to Joanne Woodward for 50 years when he died. When they were asked as few years ago how a Hollywood couple could survive long term, Woodward said that he made her laugh.
Now that is sex appeal without an expiration date.
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| Sunday, September 21, 2008 |
| Peace and Love Everywhere |
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The 21st of September is International Peace Day. It doesn't feel all that peaceful with the 7 wars and 25 other conflicts (according to Wikipedia) currently ravaging and scarring the earth and its citizens. It doesn't always feel so peaceful on our streets or sometimes in the privacy of one's home.
But love trumps hate and peace succeeds violence, when enough of us get behind the cause of justice. John Lennon said “If someone thinks that love and peace is a cliché that must have been left behind in the Sixties, that's his problem. Love and peace are eternal”.
Brew some good love inside your heart and it will spread. It may even change the world some day. Because “we all shine on, like the moon, and the stars, and the sun...”
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| Tuesday, September 16, 2008 |
| Virginity on Auction |
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A 22-year old prospective graduate student in California has decided to auction her virginity in an attempt to raise a big pile of money to cover her Masters degree and set up a therapy practice in her chosen field – marriage and family therapy.
Natalie, as she is not otherwise known, tried to sell her virginity on E-Bay, but her sale was rejected by the auction site. They have in the past rejected similar attempts to sell body parts and even to sell a soul. Business is business, but there has to be a limit.
So Natalie turned to the Bunny Ranch in Nevada, who (surprise!) had no problems, ethically or otherwise and have started the bidding process. They claim that the highest bid received on the first day was $250,000, which is a quarter of what she hopes to receive.
She has already undergone a lie-detector test which showed that she was not lying about her virginical status and she is willing to undergo a physical exam if necessary.
It is all very well that this woman is master of her own destiny and finances, and that she is educated and empowered with a degree in gender studies to back her up. But for crying out loud! Is this happening in the USA or Saudi Arabia? Let's remember that virginity tests are meant to protect patriarchal lineage in a world where bunnies don't live on ranches and charge by the hour. In 2008, I would think that the problem isn't her choosing to commodify her own body; it seems to me that the idiot that finds a million bucks to buy a fleeting state that was never his, could better spend the money on pampering himself after getting chemically castrated and then taking a long course of sex education.
Here, lesson one is free: partnered sex worth having involves two willing individuals and mutual chemistry. It may or may not be good at the beginning, but it only gets to be great with experience.
More on virginity
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| Thursday, September 11, 2008 |
| Would Sex on Wikipedia be Considered Group Sex? |
Child protection groups seem to have run out of internet porn sources because they are now turning to Wikipedia with their latest accusations of fowl play.
Wikipedia has no central editorial board or an automatic mechanism to censor entries. Actually, this is what makes it such an incredible resource and one that covers (usually very well) such a diverse range of topics while keeping it more updated than any other encyclopedia could wish to be.
Some examples that the complainants honed in on, are the wiki entries on Masturbation and Ejaculation. They don't have a problem with the text and they don't even have a problem with the photos, but they drew the line at the video segments showing, well, masturbation and ejaculation.
Yes, its true that there will be many a pubescent discovering these articles while seeking their thrills and typing in various sexual key words, just the way a generation or two ago we did the same with the dictionary. So I say, go ahead and do it. Isn't it better that they find their answers on a wikipedia page, which by the way is filled with straight-forward, responsible explanations of sexual anatomy and function, rather than finding it on some hardcore-dot-com?
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| Tuesday, September 02, 2008 |
| Palin and Good Ole American Values |
Its not that I'm trying to make a point that teenage pregnancy can happen in the best of families (no fingers or spears pointed). The point is that it can happen to anyone; well, anyone who is having unprotected sex.
Sarah Palin's Private Sex Education Success
But let us not get too haughty about the irony in the headlines. After all young Bristol Palin, all of 17 years old and 5 months pregnant, couldn't have received good sex education at school because the Republican leadership (that would be her mommy) are hardliners who have been seeing to abstinence-only sex education in their state of Alaska. And we can only assume that there has never been too much talk of contraceptive alternatives around the Palin dinner table either.
Just for some context, the average age that Americans have their first sexual intercourse is age 17 (Alan Guttmacher Institute), so Bristol cannot be condemned for her actions any more than the rest of America's teens. It would seem that the people in charge, the governors and so on, are the ones that should be doing some explaining. They can start with the facts of life.
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