Solutions to Sexual Problems.
Sex has influence on religion and vice:-) versa
This is a subject that all of the Books of major religion, talk about. We can not censure the Quran or the Bible on these topics.
We can not deny this subject to be discussed as even our faith is not shy of discussing any subject that touches the life and soul of people.
This, obviously, as far as the discussion remains balanced and polite.
This is a subject that all of the Books of major religion, talk about. We can not censure the Quran or the Bible on these topics.
We can not deny this subject to be discussed as even our faith is not shy of discussing any subject that touches the life and soul of people.
This, obviously, as far as the discussion remains balanced and polite.
-
shiraz.virani
- Posts: 1256
- Joined: Thu May 28, 2009 2:52 pm
Words of wisdom from Dr.Love, oops I mean Admin bhaiSex has influence on religion and vice:-) versa
This is a subject that all of the Books of major religion, talk about. We can not censure the Quran or the Bible on these topics.
We can not deny this subject to be discussed as even our faith is not shy of discussing any subject that touches the life and soul of people.
This, obviously, as far as the discussion remains balanced and polite.
America's Transitional Moment on College Sexual Assault
By ANNA NORTH
College students today are in school at a time of unprecedented awareness of sexual assault and harassment. But that awareness has not yet become a solution.
College students today may be in school at a transitional moment, when the problems of sexual assault and harassment are receiving unprecedented attention — and when, many say, they are still far from being solved.
The issue of sexual assault has “always been there, it’s just that people didn’t talk about it, and didn’t feel safe talking about it,” Angela Frederick Amar, a professor of nursing at Emory who has studied sexual assault prevention, told Op-Talk.
“Once you start talking about it and educating people better,” she said, “then you start to hear more about it. People come forward and report
http://op-talk.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/1 ... d=45305309
By ANNA NORTH
College students today are in school at a time of unprecedented awareness of sexual assault and harassment. But that awareness has not yet become a solution.
College students today may be in school at a transitional moment, when the problems of sexual assault and harassment are receiving unprecedented attention — and when, many say, they are still far from being solved.
The issue of sexual assault has “always been there, it’s just that people didn’t talk about it, and didn’t feel safe talking about it,” Angela Frederick Amar, a professor of nursing at Emory who has studied sexual assault prevention, told Op-Talk.
“Once you start talking about it and educating people better,” she said, “then you start to hear more about it. People come forward and report
http://op-talk.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/1 ... d=45305309
The World’s Problem With Sex Ed
Sex educators say that young people are sexual actors, no matter their culture, so schools should help them “make choices” about their bodies. But millions of people see their culture as a bulwark against sex among youth, who should have no choice in the matter.
More....
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/09/opini ... d=45305309
Sex educators say that young people are sexual actors, no matter their culture, so schools should help them “make choices” about their bodies. But millions of people see their culture as a bulwark against sex among youth, who should have no choice in the matter.
More....
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/09/opini ... d=45305309
Regulating Sex
THIS is a strange moment for sex in America. We’ve detached it from pregnancy, matrimony and, in some circles, romance. At least, we no longer assume that intercourse signals the start of a relationship. But the more casual sex becomes, the more we demand that our institutions and government police the line between what’s consensual and what isn’t. And we wonder how to define rape. Is it a violent assault or a violation of personal autonomy? Is a person guilty of sexual misconduct if he fails to get a clear “yes” through every step of seduction and consummation?
According to the doctrine of affirmative consent — the “yes means yes” rule — the answer is, well, yes, he is. And though most people think of “yes means yes” as strictly for college students, it is actually poised to become the law of the land.
About a quarter of all states, and the District of Columbia, now say sex isn’t legal without positive agreement, although some states undercut that standard by requiring proof of force or resistance as well.
Codes and laws calling for affirmative consent proceed from admirable impulses. (The phrase “yes means yes,” by the way, represents a ratcheting-up of “no means no,” the previous slogan of the anti-rape movement.) People should have as much right to control their sexuality as they do their body or possessions; just as you wouldn’t take a precious object from someone’s home without her permission, you shouldn’t have sex with someone if he hasn’t explicitly said he wants to.
And if one person can think he’s hooking up while the other feels she’s being raped, it makes sense to have a law that eliminates the possibility of misunderstanding. “You shouldn’t be allowed to make the assumption that if you find someone lying on a bed, they’re free for sexual pleasure,” says Lynn Hecht Schafran, director of a judicial education program at Legal Momentum, a women’s legal defense organization.
But criminal law is a very powerful instrument for reshaping sexual mores. Should we really put people in jail for not doing what most people aren’t doing? (Or at least, not yet?) It’s one thing to teach college students to talk frankly about sex and not to have it without demonstrable pre-coital assent. Colleges are entitled to uphold their own standards of comportment, even if enforcement of that behavior is spotty or indifferent to the rights of the accused. It’s another thing to make sex a crime under conditions of poor communication.
Most people just aren’t very talkative during the delicate tango that precedes sex, and the re-education required to make them more forthcoming would be a very big project. Nor are people unerringly good at decoding sexual signals. If they were, we wouldn’t have romantic comedies. “If there’s no social consensus about what the lines are,” says Nancy Gertner, a senior lecturer at Harvard Law School and a retired judge, then affirmative consent “has no business being in the criminal law.”
PERHAPS the most consequential deliberations about affirmative consent are going on right now at the American Law Institute. The more than 4,000 law professors, judges and lawyers who belong to this prestigious legal association — membership is by invitation only — try to untangle the legal knots of our time. They do this in part by drafting and discussing model statutes. Once the group approves these exercises, they hold so much sway that Congress and states sometimes vote them into law, in whole or in part. For the past three years, the law institute has been thinking about how to update the penal code for sexual assault, which was last revised in 1962. When its suggestions circulated in the weeks before the institute’s annual meeting in May, some highly instructive hell broke loose.
In a memo that has now been signed by about 70 institute members and advisers, including Judge Gertner, readers have been asked to consider the following scenario: “Person A and Person B are on a date and walking down the street. Person A, feeling romantically and sexually attracted, timidly reaches out to hold B’s hand and feels a thrill as their hands touch. Person B does nothing, but six months later files a criminal complaint. Person A is guilty of ‘Criminal Sexual Contact’ under proposed Section 213.6(3)(a).”
Far-fetched? Not as the draft is written. The hypothetical crime cobbles together two of the draft’s key concepts. The first is affirmative consent. The second is an enlarged definition of criminal sexual contact that would include the touching of any body part, clothed or unclothed, with sexual gratification in mind. As the authors of the model law explain: “Any kind of contact may qualify. There are no limits on either the body part touched or the manner in which it is touched.” So if Person B neither invites nor rebukes a sexual advance, then anything that happens afterward is illegal. “With passivity expressly disallowed as consent,” the memo says, “the initiator quickly runs up a string of offenses with increasingly more severe penalties to be listed touch by touch and kiss by kiss in the criminal complaint.”
The obvious comeback to this is that no prosecutor would waste her time on such a frivolous case. But that doesn’t comfort signatories of the memo, several of whom have pointed out to me that once a law is passed, you can’t control how it will be used. For instance, prosecutors often add minor charges to major ones (such as, say, forcible rape) when there isn’t enough evidence to convict on the more serious charge. They then put pressure on the accused to plead guilty to the less egregious crime.
The example points to a trend evident both on campuses and in courts: the criminalization of what we think of as ordinary sex and of sex previously considered unsavory but not illegal. Some new crimes outlined in the proposed code, for example, assume consent to be meaningless under conditions of unequal power. Consensual sex between professionals (therapists, lawyers and the like) and their patients and clients, for instance, would be a fourth-degree felony, punishable by significant time in prison.
It’s not that sex under those circumstances is a good idea, says Abbe Smith, a Georgetown law professor, director of the school’s Criminal Defense and Prisoner Advocacy Clinic, and an adviser to the American Law Institute’s project on sexual assault. “It’s what my people would call a shanda, mental health professionals having sex with their clients,” says Ms. Smith. (“Shanda” is Yiddish for scandal.) But most of these occupations already have codes of professional conduct, and victims also have recourse in the civil courts. Miscreants, she says, “should be drummed out of the profession or sued for malpractice.”
It’s important to remember that people convicted of sex crimes may not only go to jail, they can wind up on a sex-offender registry, with dire and lasting consequences. Depending on the state, these can include notifying the community when an offender moves into the neighborhood; restrictions against living within 2,000 feet of a school, park, playground or school bus stop; being required to wear GPS monitoring devices; and even a prohibition against using the Internet for social networking.
We shouldn’t forget the harm done to American communities by the national passion for incarceration, either. In a letter to the American Law Institute, Ms. Smith listed several disturbing statistics: roughly one person in 100 behind bars, one in 31 under correctional supervision — more than seven million Americans altogether. “Do we really want to be the world leader of putting people in cages?” she asked.
Affirmative-consent advocates say that rape prosecutions don’t produce very many prisoners. They cite studies estimating that fewer than one-fifth of even violent rapes are reported; 1 to 5 percent are prosecuted and less than 3 percent end in jail time. Moreover, Stephen J. Schulhofer, the law professor who co-wrote the model penal code, told me that he and his co-author have already recommended that the law do away with the more onerous restrictions that follow from being registered as a sex offender.
I visited Mr. Schulhofer in his office at New York University Law School to hear what else he had to say. A soft-spoken, thoughtful scholar and the author of one of the most important books on rape law published in the past 20 years, “Unwanted Sex: The Culture of Intimidation and the Failure of Law,” he stresses that the draft should be seen as just that — notes from a conversation in progress, not a finished document.
But the case for affirmative consent is “compelling,” he says. Mr. Schulhofer has argued that being raped is much worse than having to endure that awkward moment when one stops to confirm that one’s partner is happy to continue. Silence or inertia, often interpreted as agreement, may actually reflect confusion, drunkenness or “frozen fright,” a documented physiological response in which a person under sexual threat is paralyzed by terror. To critics who object that millions of people are having sex without getting unqualified assent and aren’t likely to change their ways, he’d reply that millions of people drive 65 miles per hour despite a 55-mile-per-hour speed limit, but the law still saves lives. As long as “people know what the rules of the road are,” he says, “the overwhelming majority will comply with them.”
He understands that the law will have to bring a light touch to the refashioning of sexual norms, which is why the current draft of the model code suggests classifying penetration without consent as a misdemeanor, a much lesser crime than a felony.
This may all sound reasonable, but even a misdemeanor conviction goes on the record as a sexual offense and can lead to registration. An affirmative consent standard also shifts the burden of proof from the accuser to the accused, which represents a real departure from the traditions of criminal law in the United States. Affirmative consent effectively means that the accused has to show that he got the go-ahead, even if, technically, it’s still up to the prosecutor to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he didn’t, or that he made a unreasonable mistake about what his partner was telling him. As Judge Gertner pointed out to me, if the law requires a “no,” then the jury will likely perceive any uncertainty about that “no” as a weakness in the prosecution’s case and not convict. But if the law requires a “yes,” then ambiguity will bolster the prosecutor’s argument: The guy didn’t get unequivocal consent, therefore he must be guilty of rape.
SO far, no one seems sure how affirmative consent will play out in the courts. According to my informal survey of American law professors, prosecutors and public defenders, very few cases relying exclusively on the absence of consent have come up for appeal, which is why they are not showing up in the case books. There may be many reasons for this. The main one is probably that most sexual assault cases — actually, most felony cases — end in plea bargains, rather than trials. But prosecutors may also not be bringing lack-of-consent cases because they don’t trust juries to find a person guilty of a sex crime based on a definition that may seem, to them, to defy common sense.
“It’s an unworkable standard,” says the Harvard law professor Jeannie C. Suk. “It’s only workable if we assume it’s not going to be enforced, by and large.” But that’s worrisome too. Selectively enforced laws have a nasty history of being used to harass people deemed to be undesirable, because of their politics, race or other reasons.
Nonetheless, it’s probably just a matter of time before “yes means yes” becomes the law in most states. Ms. Suk told me that she and her colleagues have noticed a generational divide between them and their students. As undergraduates, they’re learning affirmative consent in their mandatory sexual-respect training sessions, and they come to “believe that this really is the best way to define consent, as positive agreement,” she says. When they graduate and enter the legal profession, they’ll probably reshape the law to reflect that belief.
Sex may become safer for some, but it will be a whole lot more anxiety-producing for others.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/28/opini ... 05309&_r=0
THIS is a strange moment for sex in America. We’ve detached it from pregnancy, matrimony and, in some circles, romance. At least, we no longer assume that intercourse signals the start of a relationship. But the more casual sex becomes, the more we demand that our institutions and government police the line between what’s consensual and what isn’t. And we wonder how to define rape. Is it a violent assault or a violation of personal autonomy? Is a person guilty of sexual misconduct if he fails to get a clear “yes” through every step of seduction and consummation?
According to the doctrine of affirmative consent — the “yes means yes” rule — the answer is, well, yes, he is. And though most people think of “yes means yes” as strictly for college students, it is actually poised to become the law of the land.
About a quarter of all states, and the District of Columbia, now say sex isn’t legal without positive agreement, although some states undercut that standard by requiring proof of force or resistance as well.
Codes and laws calling for affirmative consent proceed from admirable impulses. (The phrase “yes means yes,” by the way, represents a ratcheting-up of “no means no,” the previous slogan of the anti-rape movement.) People should have as much right to control their sexuality as they do their body or possessions; just as you wouldn’t take a precious object from someone’s home without her permission, you shouldn’t have sex with someone if he hasn’t explicitly said he wants to.
And if one person can think he’s hooking up while the other feels she’s being raped, it makes sense to have a law that eliminates the possibility of misunderstanding. “You shouldn’t be allowed to make the assumption that if you find someone lying on a bed, they’re free for sexual pleasure,” says Lynn Hecht Schafran, director of a judicial education program at Legal Momentum, a women’s legal defense organization.
But criminal law is a very powerful instrument for reshaping sexual mores. Should we really put people in jail for not doing what most people aren’t doing? (Or at least, not yet?) It’s one thing to teach college students to talk frankly about sex and not to have it without demonstrable pre-coital assent. Colleges are entitled to uphold their own standards of comportment, even if enforcement of that behavior is spotty or indifferent to the rights of the accused. It’s another thing to make sex a crime under conditions of poor communication.
Most people just aren’t very talkative during the delicate tango that precedes sex, and the re-education required to make them more forthcoming would be a very big project. Nor are people unerringly good at decoding sexual signals. If they were, we wouldn’t have romantic comedies. “If there’s no social consensus about what the lines are,” says Nancy Gertner, a senior lecturer at Harvard Law School and a retired judge, then affirmative consent “has no business being in the criminal law.”
PERHAPS the most consequential deliberations about affirmative consent are going on right now at the American Law Institute. The more than 4,000 law professors, judges and lawyers who belong to this prestigious legal association — membership is by invitation only — try to untangle the legal knots of our time. They do this in part by drafting and discussing model statutes. Once the group approves these exercises, they hold so much sway that Congress and states sometimes vote them into law, in whole or in part. For the past three years, the law institute has been thinking about how to update the penal code for sexual assault, which was last revised in 1962. When its suggestions circulated in the weeks before the institute’s annual meeting in May, some highly instructive hell broke loose.
In a memo that has now been signed by about 70 institute members and advisers, including Judge Gertner, readers have been asked to consider the following scenario: “Person A and Person B are on a date and walking down the street. Person A, feeling romantically and sexually attracted, timidly reaches out to hold B’s hand and feels a thrill as their hands touch. Person B does nothing, but six months later files a criminal complaint. Person A is guilty of ‘Criminal Sexual Contact’ under proposed Section 213.6(3)(a).”
Far-fetched? Not as the draft is written. The hypothetical crime cobbles together two of the draft’s key concepts. The first is affirmative consent. The second is an enlarged definition of criminal sexual contact that would include the touching of any body part, clothed or unclothed, with sexual gratification in mind. As the authors of the model law explain: “Any kind of contact may qualify. There are no limits on either the body part touched or the manner in which it is touched.” So if Person B neither invites nor rebukes a sexual advance, then anything that happens afterward is illegal. “With passivity expressly disallowed as consent,” the memo says, “the initiator quickly runs up a string of offenses with increasingly more severe penalties to be listed touch by touch and kiss by kiss in the criminal complaint.”
The obvious comeback to this is that no prosecutor would waste her time on such a frivolous case. But that doesn’t comfort signatories of the memo, several of whom have pointed out to me that once a law is passed, you can’t control how it will be used. For instance, prosecutors often add minor charges to major ones (such as, say, forcible rape) when there isn’t enough evidence to convict on the more serious charge. They then put pressure on the accused to plead guilty to the less egregious crime.
The example points to a trend evident both on campuses and in courts: the criminalization of what we think of as ordinary sex and of sex previously considered unsavory but not illegal. Some new crimes outlined in the proposed code, for example, assume consent to be meaningless under conditions of unequal power. Consensual sex between professionals (therapists, lawyers and the like) and their patients and clients, for instance, would be a fourth-degree felony, punishable by significant time in prison.
It’s not that sex under those circumstances is a good idea, says Abbe Smith, a Georgetown law professor, director of the school’s Criminal Defense and Prisoner Advocacy Clinic, and an adviser to the American Law Institute’s project on sexual assault. “It’s what my people would call a shanda, mental health professionals having sex with their clients,” says Ms. Smith. (“Shanda” is Yiddish for scandal.) But most of these occupations already have codes of professional conduct, and victims also have recourse in the civil courts. Miscreants, she says, “should be drummed out of the profession or sued for malpractice.”
It’s important to remember that people convicted of sex crimes may not only go to jail, they can wind up on a sex-offender registry, with dire and lasting consequences. Depending on the state, these can include notifying the community when an offender moves into the neighborhood; restrictions against living within 2,000 feet of a school, park, playground or school bus stop; being required to wear GPS monitoring devices; and even a prohibition against using the Internet for social networking.
We shouldn’t forget the harm done to American communities by the national passion for incarceration, either. In a letter to the American Law Institute, Ms. Smith listed several disturbing statistics: roughly one person in 100 behind bars, one in 31 under correctional supervision — more than seven million Americans altogether. “Do we really want to be the world leader of putting people in cages?” she asked.
Affirmative-consent advocates say that rape prosecutions don’t produce very many prisoners. They cite studies estimating that fewer than one-fifth of even violent rapes are reported; 1 to 5 percent are prosecuted and less than 3 percent end in jail time. Moreover, Stephen J. Schulhofer, the law professor who co-wrote the model penal code, told me that he and his co-author have already recommended that the law do away with the more onerous restrictions that follow from being registered as a sex offender.
I visited Mr. Schulhofer in his office at New York University Law School to hear what else he had to say. A soft-spoken, thoughtful scholar and the author of one of the most important books on rape law published in the past 20 years, “Unwanted Sex: The Culture of Intimidation and the Failure of Law,” he stresses that the draft should be seen as just that — notes from a conversation in progress, not a finished document.
But the case for affirmative consent is “compelling,” he says. Mr. Schulhofer has argued that being raped is much worse than having to endure that awkward moment when one stops to confirm that one’s partner is happy to continue. Silence or inertia, often interpreted as agreement, may actually reflect confusion, drunkenness or “frozen fright,” a documented physiological response in which a person under sexual threat is paralyzed by terror. To critics who object that millions of people are having sex without getting unqualified assent and aren’t likely to change their ways, he’d reply that millions of people drive 65 miles per hour despite a 55-mile-per-hour speed limit, but the law still saves lives. As long as “people know what the rules of the road are,” he says, “the overwhelming majority will comply with them.”
He understands that the law will have to bring a light touch to the refashioning of sexual norms, which is why the current draft of the model code suggests classifying penetration without consent as a misdemeanor, a much lesser crime than a felony.
This may all sound reasonable, but even a misdemeanor conviction goes on the record as a sexual offense and can lead to registration. An affirmative consent standard also shifts the burden of proof from the accuser to the accused, which represents a real departure from the traditions of criminal law in the United States. Affirmative consent effectively means that the accused has to show that he got the go-ahead, even if, technically, it’s still up to the prosecutor to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he didn’t, or that he made a unreasonable mistake about what his partner was telling him. As Judge Gertner pointed out to me, if the law requires a “no,” then the jury will likely perceive any uncertainty about that “no” as a weakness in the prosecution’s case and not convict. But if the law requires a “yes,” then ambiguity will bolster the prosecutor’s argument: The guy didn’t get unequivocal consent, therefore he must be guilty of rape.
SO far, no one seems sure how affirmative consent will play out in the courts. According to my informal survey of American law professors, prosecutors and public defenders, very few cases relying exclusively on the absence of consent have come up for appeal, which is why they are not showing up in the case books. There may be many reasons for this. The main one is probably that most sexual assault cases — actually, most felony cases — end in plea bargains, rather than trials. But prosecutors may also not be bringing lack-of-consent cases because they don’t trust juries to find a person guilty of a sex crime based on a definition that may seem, to them, to defy common sense.
“It’s an unworkable standard,” says the Harvard law professor Jeannie C. Suk. “It’s only workable if we assume it’s not going to be enforced, by and large.” But that’s worrisome too. Selectively enforced laws have a nasty history of being used to harass people deemed to be undesirable, because of their politics, race or other reasons.
Nonetheless, it’s probably just a matter of time before “yes means yes” becomes the law in most states. Ms. Suk told me that she and her colleagues have noticed a generational divide between them and their students. As undergraduates, they’re learning affirmative consent in their mandatory sexual-respect training sessions, and they come to “believe that this really is the best way to define consent, as positive agreement,” she says. When they graduate and enter the legal profession, they’ll probably reshape the law to reflect that belief.
Sex may become safer for some, but it will be a whole lot more anxiety-producing for others.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/28/opini ... 05309&_r=0
‘Little Pink Pill’ for Women Comes With Risks
The Food and Drug Administration’s approval on Tuesday of a marginally effective drug to enhance the sexual drive of women with low libido came with appropriate safeguards to protect the safety of patients. We will probably never know whether the agency made a purely scientific judgment or whether it was unduly influenced by a campaign, partly financed by the manufacturer and organized with the help of one of its consultants, to depict the agency as gender-biased for never having approved a drug to treat sexual dysfunction in women while approving numerous drugs for men.
Two days after winning approval of its drug, Sprout Pharmaceuticals, a Raleigh, N.C., company with just 34 employees, and Valeant Pharmaceuticals, based in Laval, Quebec, announced that Sprout would be acquired by Valeant for about $1 billion in cash. That is a sizable return on the $100 million that had been invested in Sprout, which was created in 2011.
No doubt there are women who can benefit from the drug — possibly millions of them — but they and others need to be aware of the risks and how to mitigate them.
The drug, known as flibanserin or Addyi, its brand name, changes the levels of three chemicals in the brain in ways that are supposed to enhance libido, although no one knows for sure how it works. The drug was rejected twice by the F.D.A., in 2010 and 2013, but after women told an advisory panel in June how low libido had ruined their lives, the panel recommended approval for premenopausal women with steps taken to limit the risks. This week the agency followed that advice.
In clinical trials, the drug, a pill that must be taken daily, showed modest benefits. In one trial, women who took the drug had an average of 4.4 “satisfying sexual experiences a month” compared with 3.7 for women given a placebo.
The most serious side effects include severely low blood pressure and loss of consciousness. These risks are increased when patients drink alcohol or take certain medicines that interfere with the breakdown of flibanserin in the body. That means doctors will have to consult with a patient and assess whether abstaining from alcohol is possible.
The safeguards include a boxed warning on the label, the strongest kind. Doctors and pharmacists who will prescribe or dispense the drug must watch an online tutorial, pass a test demonstrating their comprehension and counsel patients following F.D.A. guidelines. The manufacturer will have to conduct three well-designed postmarketing studies to better understand the interaction with alcohol.
One benefit of the approval is that it may encourage patients and doctors to talk frankly about sexual subjects and may energize other manufacturers to come out with competing, and potentially better, drugs.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/21/opini ... d=45305309
The Food and Drug Administration’s approval on Tuesday of a marginally effective drug to enhance the sexual drive of women with low libido came with appropriate safeguards to protect the safety of patients. We will probably never know whether the agency made a purely scientific judgment or whether it was unduly influenced by a campaign, partly financed by the manufacturer and organized with the help of one of its consultants, to depict the agency as gender-biased for never having approved a drug to treat sexual dysfunction in women while approving numerous drugs for men.
Two days after winning approval of its drug, Sprout Pharmaceuticals, a Raleigh, N.C., company with just 34 employees, and Valeant Pharmaceuticals, based in Laval, Quebec, announced that Sprout would be acquired by Valeant for about $1 billion in cash. That is a sizable return on the $100 million that had been invested in Sprout, which was created in 2011.
No doubt there are women who can benefit from the drug — possibly millions of them — but they and others need to be aware of the risks and how to mitigate them.
The drug, known as flibanserin or Addyi, its brand name, changes the levels of three chemicals in the brain in ways that are supposed to enhance libido, although no one knows for sure how it works. The drug was rejected twice by the F.D.A., in 2010 and 2013, but after women told an advisory panel in June how low libido had ruined their lives, the panel recommended approval for premenopausal women with steps taken to limit the risks. This week the agency followed that advice.
In clinical trials, the drug, a pill that must be taken daily, showed modest benefits. In one trial, women who took the drug had an average of 4.4 “satisfying sexual experiences a month” compared with 3.7 for women given a placebo.
The most serious side effects include severely low blood pressure and loss of consciousness. These risks are increased when patients drink alcohol or take certain medicines that interfere with the breakdown of flibanserin in the body. That means doctors will have to consult with a patient and assess whether abstaining from alcohol is possible.
The safeguards include a boxed warning on the label, the strongest kind. Doctors and pharmacists who will prescribe or dispense the drug must watch an online tutorial, pass a test demonstrating their comprehension and counsel patients following F.D.A. guidelines. The manufacturer will have to conduct three well-designed postmarketing studies to better understand the interaction with alcohol.
One benefit of the approval is that it may encourage patients and doctors to talk frankly about sexual subjects and may energize other manufacturers to come out with competing, and potentially better, drugs.
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/21/opini ... d=45305309
Sex Ed and Islam
About this Video
A number of Muslim families kept their children out of school this past week to protest Ontario's new sex ed curriculum. We'll look at the curriculum's compatibility with Islam, and explore what, if anything, can be done to bridge that gap.
http://tvo.org/video/programs/the-agend ... -and-islam
About this Video
A number of Muslim families kept their children out of school this past week to protest Ontario's new sex ed curriculum. We'll look at the curriculum's compatibility with Islam, and explore what, if anything, can be done to bridge that gap.
http://tvo.org/video/programs/the-agend ... -and-islam
-
junglikhan4
- Posts: 208
- Joined: Mon Jun 15, 2015 7:09 pm
kmaherali wrote:Sex Ed and Islam
About this Video
A number of Muslim families kept their children out of school this past week to protest Ontario's new sex ed curriculum. We'll look at the curriculum's compatibility with Islam, and explore what, if anything, can be done to bridge that gap.
http://tvo.org/video/programs/the-agend ... -and-islam
In Muslim countries sex education is not allowed in schools and it is not a part of curriculum. Why are you people imposing western ideas of sex education in countries like, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and so on. What you want to gain out of it. Don't you have some other decent topics.
Actually I am not trying to impose the western ideas of sex education, on the contrary I am trying to say that these ideas are being resisted even in the western societies. Shouldn't this be good news for those who oppose this idea around the world?junglikhan4 wrote: In Muslim countries sex education is not allowed in schools and it is not a part of curriculum. Why are you people imposing western ideas of sex education in countries like, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Tajikistan and so on. What you want to gain out of it. Don't you have some other decent topics.
Also what is wrong about informing the Muslim world about the values of the West even though we may disagree with them?
Also it should be kept in mind that this subject is not clear black and white matter. It is nuanced and there are advantages and disadvantages about it. For example in Tanzania sex ed was used to save lives! Please go through the entire thread to know more about it.
Sex Ed Lesson: ‘Yes Means Yes,’ but It’s Tricky
SAN FRANCISCO — The classroom of 10th graders had already learned about sexually transmitted diseases and various types of birth control. On this day, the teenagers gathered around tables to discuss another topic: how and why to make sure each step in a sexual encounter is met with consent.
Consent from the person you are kissing — or more — is not merely silence or a lack of protest, Shafia Zaloom, a health educator at the Urban School of San Francisco, told the students. They listened raptly, but several did not disguise how puzzled they felt.
“What does that mean — you have to say ‘yes’ every 10 minutes?” asked Aidan Ryan, 16, who sat near the front of the room.
“Pretty much,” Ms. Zaloom answered. “It’s not a timing thing, but whoever initiates things to another level has to ask.”
The “no means no” mantra of a generation ago is being eclipsed by “yes means yes” as more young people all over the country are told that they must have explicit permission from the object of their desire before they engage in any touching, kissing or other sexual activity. With Gov. Jerry Brown’s signature on a bill this month, California became the first state to require that all high school health education classes give lessons on affirmative consent, which includes explaining that someone who is drunk or asleep cannot grant consent.
Last year, California led the way in requiring colleges to use affirmative consent as the standard in campus disciplinary decisions, defining how and when people agree to have sex. More than a dozen legislatures in other states, including Maryland, Michigan and Utah, are considering similar legislation for colleges. One goal is to improve the way colleges and universities deal with accusations of rape and sexual assault and another is to reduce the number of young people who feel pressured into unwanted sexual conduct.
More....
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/15/us/ca ... d=71987722
SAN FRANCISCO — The classroom of 10th graders had already learned about sexually transmitted diseases and various types of birth control. On this day, the teenagers gathered around tables to discuss another topic: how and why to make sure each step in a sexual encounter is met with consent.
Consent from the person you are kissing — or more — is not merely silence or a lack of protest, Shafia Zaloom, a health educator at the Urban School of San Francisco, told the students. They listened raptly, but several did not disguise how puzzled they felt.
“What does that mean — you have to say ‘yes’ every 10 minutes?” asked Aidan Ryan, 16, who sat near the front of the room.
“Pretty much,” Ms. Zaloom answered. “It’s not a timing thing, but whoever initiates things to another level has to ask.”
The “no means no” mantra of a generation ago is being eclipsed by “yes means yes” as more young people all over the country are told that they must have explicit permission from the object of their desire before they engage in any touching, kissing or other sexual activity. With Gov. Jerry Brown’s signature on a bill this month, California became the first state to require that all high school health education classes give lessons on affirmative consent, which includes explaining that someone who is drunk or asleep cannot grant consent.
Last year, California led the way in requiring colleges to use affirmative consent as the standard in campus disciplinary decisions, defining how and when people agree to have sex. More than a dozen legislatures in other states, including Maryland, Michigan and Utah, are considering similar legislation for colleges. One goal is to improve the way colleges and universities deal with accusations of rape and sexual assault and another is to reduce the number of young people who feel pressured into unwanted sexual conduct.
More....
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/15/us/ca ... d=71987722
Schools Can’t Stop Kids From Sexting. More Technology Can.
“YOUTH is subjected by our civilization to aggressive sex stimuli and suggestiveness oozing from every pore.” So declared the education professor Clark Hetherington in 1914, condemning the proliferation of racy movies and tell-all magazines. Lest adolescents succumb to the “indulgence” on display, he wrote, schools needed to teach “self-control” and “higher standards.”
Sound familiar? For the past century, we’ve been worrying that new forms of media are fostering sexual immorality in the young. And we’ve called upon our schools to stem the evil tide. Witness the recent “sexting” revelations at Cañon City High School in Colorado, where it is reported that 100 students traded naked pictures of themselves and one another. As the story went viral, critics have inevitably asked why the school hadn’t done more to educate students about sexting.
The schools are an easy target, but the wrong one. Public ambivalence about youth sexuality limits what the schools can do, nor do we have strong evidence that schools can affect teenagers’ behavior, in any event. And it’s hardly certain that youth sexting is the dangerous scourge that most adults imagine.
Let’s be clear: There are serious risks associated with teen sexting, including bullying and exposure to adult sexual predators. And we know that kids who sext are more likely to have sex than those who don’t. But beyond that, nobody has ever shown that the sexting induces kids to engage in riskier behavior. In a 2012 study of seven high schools in Texas, 28 percent of sophomores and juniors admitted that they had sent a naked picture of themselves over text or email. But these teenagers were no more likely than their nonsexting peers to engage in other risky sexual behaviors, like unprotected intercourse, alcohol or drug use before sex, or sex with multiple partners.
Nor do all sexting teenagers experience trauma or bullying, as popular reports suggest. Many teenagers regard sexting as a normal part of courtship — as necking in the car was for earlier generations. Back then, of course, what happened in the back seat stayed there and wasn’t splayed across the Internet.
What hasn’t changed is our reliance on schools, which have been called upon once again to clean up a perceived sexual crisis. In Texas, the “Before You Text” program warns students that sexting can yield “embarrassment, humiliation, fear, and betrayal.” A curriculum used in the Miami-Dade County public schools declares flatly, “Safe Sexting, No Such Thing.” But our kids already know that sexting can be embarrassing and humiliating, in certain situations. And they also know that it can be perfectly innocuous in others, as when a romantic couple shares intimate photos and deletes them right afterward.
What they need is someone to help them sort out which is which. And that is something our schools probably can’t do. A curriculum that honestly appraised the risks of sexting would draw fire from parents and politicians who think adolescents should simply abstain from sexting (and, for that matter, from sex). Surveys have repeatedly shown that most parents favor sex education in our schools, but they also differ sharply about what the subject should contain. So the safest course for school officials is to focus on so-called plumbing lessons and to avoid anything controversial. And even frank sex education in schools might not make much difference in the lives of our teenagers, who have always drawn their sexual knowledge more from the hated mass media than from their teachers.
That was certainly the case in the 1920s, at the dawn of modern Hollywood, when educators worried that students were taking their sexual cues from movie stars. With the rise of pornography and sexually explicit rock ’n’ roll lyrics in the 1960s and ’70s, schools again struggled in vain to impose order on world that seemed to be spinning out of control. “A 12-minute filmstrip is hardly a match for two years of ‘R’-rated films every weekend,” the director of the National Association of Secondary School Principals admitted in 1981, adding that “schools are a puny David without even a slingshot against the media Goliath.”
So how should we address the issue of sexting? What if we tried to meet the kids where they are? The most promising sex education initiatives right now are text-messaging services, which allow teenagers to submit questions anonymously and receive informed answers. In North Carolina and Texas, these services are operated by public health departments; others are run by organizations like Planned Parenthood. And they’re catching on quickly among teenagers, especially among those whom researchers believe are at the greatest risk. In Washington, a study of a statewide text-messaging program that connects kids to trained health educators found that students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds were more likely to use the service than other kids were.
So the best answer to sexual text messages probably lies in … other text messages. Parents, not schools, should be our primary sex educators, of course. But most of them grew up in a time well before sexting, so they’d be wise to introduce their children to a more up-to-date source. Instead of relying on David’s meager public-school slingshot, let’s look to the media Goliath’s most powerful club. It’s called a smartphone, and it got us to this crisis. It’s also our best hope for moving to a better place.
Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history and education at New York University and is the author of “Too Hot to Handle: A Global History of Sex Education.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/10/opini ... 87722&_r=0
******
How Do We Get Young People to Stop Sexting?
To the Editor:
As an advocate for public-school sex education for nearly 25 years, I find myself surprisingly in agreement with Jonathan Zimmerman (“A Solution to Sexting? More Texting,” Op-Ed, Nov. 10). The battle for school-based sex education was won in the late 1980s, as the country responded to the H.I.V.-AIDS epidemic and Surgeon General C. Everett Koop bravely called for sex education beginning in the third grade.
During the last 25 years, we have seen continuing conflict about whether such school programs can address contraception, sexual orientation and pleasure, but there is general community consensus about teaching puberty preparation, decision-making and relationships.
Mr. Zimmerman is right: Teenagers need more than most schools will offer, and sex education is everyone’s job. Parents, schools, faith communities, media, technology and the government all need to be involved.
I don’t see this as giving up on the schools; it’s just being realistic about what we can expect to happen, given the lack of consensus about content. The important thing is getting young people information however we can.
(Rev.) DEBRA W. HAFFNER
Westport, Conn.
The writer is president of the Religious Institute, a national multifaith group.
To the Editor:
As a college freshman, I still see my peers engaging in sexting with total disregard for their own digital footprint.
This article seems to focus solely on the younger generations, but the problem has spread to all age groups.
Schools alone should not have the burden of eliminating sexting. Parents need to address these issues in the home.
How do we show parents how to teach their children tech smarts? Empathy. Not all parents can put their pride aside to learn new things. That is the real problem.
SAMANTHA SCHWARTZ
Chicago
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/19/opini ... inion&_r=0
“YOUTH is subjected by our civilization to aggressive sex stimuli and suggestiveness oozing from every pore.” So declared the education professor Clark Hetherington in 1914, condemning the proliferation of racy movies and tell-all magazines. Lest adolescents succumb to the “indulgence” on display, he wrote, schools needed to teach “self-control” and “higher standards.”
Sound familiar? For the past century, we’ve been worrying that new forms of media are fostering sexual immorality in the young. And we’ve called upon our schools to stem the evil tide. Witness the recent “sexting” revelations at Cañon City High School in Colorado, where it is reported that 100 students traded naked pictures of themselves and one another. As the story went viral, critics have inevitably asked why the school hadn’t done more to educate students about sexting.
The schools are an easy target, but the wrong one. Public ambivalence about youth sexuality limits what the schools can do, nor do we have strong evidence that schools can affect teenagers’ behavior, in any event. And it’s hardly certain that youth sexting is the dangerous scourge that most adults imagine.
Let’s be clear: There are serious risks associated with teen sexting, including bullying and exposure to adult sexual predators. And we know that kids who sext are more likely to have sex than those who don’t. But beyond that, nobody has ever shown that the sexting induces kids to engage in riskier behavior. In a 2012 study of seven high schools in Texas, 28 percent of sophomores and juniors admitted that they had sent a naked picture of themselves over text or email. But these teenagers were no more likely than their nonsexting peers to engage in other risky sexual behaviors, like unprotected intercourse, alcohol or drug use before sex, or sex with multiple partners.
Nor do all sexting teenagers experience trauma or bullying, as popular reports suggest. Many teenagers regard sexting as a normal part of courtship — as necking in the car was for earlier generations. Back then, of course, what happened in the back seat stayed there and wasn’t splayed across the Internet.
What hasn’t changed is our reliance on schools, which have been called upon once again to clean up a perceived sexual crisis. In Texas, the “Before You Text” program warns students that sexting can yield “embarrassment, humiliation, fear, and betrayal.” A curriculum used in the Miami-Dade County public schools declares flatly, “Safe Sexting, No Such Thing.” But our kids already know that sexting can be embarrassing and humiliating, in certain situations. And they also know that it can be perfectly innocuous in others, as when a romantic couple shares intimate photos and deletes them right afterward.
What they need is someone to help them sort out which is which. And that is something our schools probably can’t do. A curriculum that honestly appraised the risks of sexting would draw fire from parents and politicians who think adolescents should simply abstain from sexting (and, for that matter, from sex). Surveys have repeatedly shown that most parents favor sex education in our schools, but they also differ sharply about what the subject should contain. So the safest course for school officials is to focus on so-called plumbing lessons and to avoid anything controversial. And even frank sex education in schools might not make much difference in the lives of our teenagers, who have always drawn their sexual knowledge more from the hated mass media than from their teachers.
That was certainly the case in the 1920s, at the dawn of modern Hollywood, when educators worried that students were taking their sexual cues from movie stars. With the rise of pornography and sexually explicit rock ’n’ roll lyrics in the 1960s and ’70s, schools again struggled in vain to impose order on world that seemed to be spinning out of control. “A 12-minute filmstrip is hardly a match for two years of ‘R’-rated films every weekend,” the director of the National Association of Secondary School Principals admitted in 1981, adding that “schools are a puny David without even a slingshot against the media Goliath.”
So how should we address the issue of sexting? What if we tried to meet the kids where they are? The most promising sex education initiatives right now are text-messaging services, which allow teenagers to submit questions anonymously and receive informed answers. In North Carolina and Texas, these services are operated by public health departments; others are run by organizations like Planned Parenthood. And they’re catching on quickly among teenagers, especially among those whom researchers believe are at the greatest risk. In Washington, a study of a statewide text-messaging program that connects kids to trained health educators found that students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds were more likely to use the service than other kids were.
So the best answer to sexual text messages probably lies in … other text messages. Parents, not schools, should be our primary sex educators, of course. But most of them grew up in a time well before sexting, so they’d be wise to introduce their children to a more up-to-date source. Instead of relying on David’s meager public-school slingshot, let’s look to the media Goliath’s most powerful club. It’s called a smartphone, and it got us to this crisis. It’s also our best hope for moving to a better place.
Jonathan Zimmerman teaches history and education at New York University and is the author of “Too Hot to Handle: A Global History of Sex Education.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/10/opini ... 87722&_r=0
******
How Do We Get Young People to Stop Sexting?
To the Editor:
As an advocate for public-school sex education for nearly 25 years, I find myself surprisingly in agreement with Jonathan Zimmerman (“A Solution to Sexting? More Texting,” Op-Ed, Nov. 10). The battle for school-based sex education was won in the late 1980s, as the country responded to the H.I.V.-AIDS epidemic and Surgeon General C. Everett Koop bravely called for sex education beginning in the third grade.
During the last 25 years, we have seen continuing conflict about whether such school programs can address contraception, sexual orientation and pleasure, but there is general community consensus about teaching puberty preparation, decision-making and relationships.
Mr. Zimmerman is right: Teenagers need more than most schools will offer, and sex education is everyone’s job. Parents, schools, faith communities, media, technology and the government all need to be involved.
I don’t see this as giving up on the schools; it’s just being realistic about what we can expect to happen, given the lack of consensus about content. The important thing is getting young people information however we can.
(Rev.) DEBRA W. HAFFNER
Westport, Conn.
The writer is president of the Religious Institute, a national multifaith group.
To the Editor:
As a college freshman, I still see my peers engaging in sexting with total disregard for their own digital footprint.
This article seems to focus solely on the younger generations, but the problem has spread to all age groups.
Schools alone should not have the burden of eliminating sexting. Parents need to address these issues in the home.
How do we show parents how to teach their children tech smarts? Empathy. Not all parents can put their pride aside to learn new things. That is the real problem.
SAMANTHA SCHWARTZ
Chicago
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/19/opini ... inion&_r=0
The Meaning of Sex
Even on campuses, nature and culture cannot be wished away
May 04, 2015 | By Peter Wood
Attraction. Pleasure. Attachment. Reproduction. Fulfillment. What is the meaning of sex? The answer lies somewhere in the way we integrate the biological imperatives with the emotional and experiential realities. I’m not going to improve on that answer in the next few pages, but I’ll complicate it a bit.
More....
http://www.weeklystandard.com/the-meani ... cle/928461
Even on campuses, nature and culture cannot be wished away
May 04, 2015 | By Peter Wood
Attraction. Pleasure. Attachment. Reproduction. Fulfillment. What is the meaning of sex? The answer lies somewhere in the way we integrate the biological imperatives with the emotional and experiential realities. I’m not going to improve on that answer in the next few pages, but I’ll complicate it a bit.
More....
http://www.weeklystandard.com/the-meani ... cle/928461
Zika Infection Transmitted by Sex Reported in Texas
Excerpt:
But sexual transmission, experts said, adds a new level of difficulty to detecting and preventing Zika outbreaks, which may require not just mosquito control but also safe-sex education. Health officials now face the prospect of stopping an infection that is usually silent and for which there are no widely available tests; it may be transmissible sexually, yet there may be no sign until a child is born.
“This opens up a whole new range of prevention issues,” said Dr. William Schaffner, chief of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical School.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/03/healt ... 87722&_r=0
Excerpt:
But sexual transmission, experts said, adds a new level of difficulty to detecting and preventing Zika outbreaks, which may require not just mosquito control but also safe-sex education. Health officials now face the prospect of stopping an infection that is usually silent and for which there are no widely available tests; it may be transmissible sexually, yet there may be no sign until a child is born.
“This opens up a whole new range of prevention issues,” said Dr. William Schaffner, chief of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical School.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/03/healt ... 87722&_r=0
When Did Porn Become Sex Ed?
Conversations between adults and teenagers
about what happens after “yes” remain rare.
THE other day, I got an email from a 21-year-old college senior about sex — or perhaps more correctly, about how ill equipped she was to talk about sex. The abstinence-only curriculum in her middle and high schools had taught her little more than “don’t,” and she’d told me that although her otherwise liberal parents would have been willing to answer any questions, it was pretty clear the topic made them even more uncomfortable than it made her.
So she had turned to pornography. “There’s a lot of problems with porn,” she wrote. “But it is kind of nice to be able to use it to gain some knowledge of sex.”
I wish I could say her sentiments were unusual, but I heard them repeatedly during the three years I spent interviewing young women in high school and college for a book on girls and sex. In fact, according to a survey of college students in Britain, 60 percent consult pornography, at least in part, as though it were an instruction manual, even as nearly three-quarters say that they know it is as realistic as pro wrestling. (Its depictions of women, meanwhile, are about as accurate as those of the “The Real Housewives” franchise.)
More....
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/opini ... 87722&_r=0
Conversations between adults and teenagers
about what happens after “yes” remain rare.
THE other day, I got an email from a 21-year-old college senior about sex — or perhaps more correctly, about how ill equipped she was to talk about sex. The abstinence-only curriculum in her middle and high schools had taught her little more than “don’t,” and she’d told me that although her otherwise liberal parents would have been willing to answer any questions, it was pretty clear the topic made them even more uncomfortable than it made her.
So she had turned to pornography. “There’s a lot of problems with porn,” she wrote. “But it is kind of nice to be able to use it to gain some knowledge of sex.”
I wish I could say her sentiments were unusual, but I heard them repeatedly during the three years I spent interviewing young women in high school and college for a book on girls and sex. In fact, according to a survey of college students in Britain, 60 percent consult pornography, at least in part, as though it were an instruction manual, even as nearly three-quarters say that they know it is as realistic as pro wrestling. (Its depictions of women, meanwhile, are about as accurate as those of the “The Real Housewives” franchise.)
More....
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/20/opini ... 87722&_r=0
Teenage Sexting Is Not Child Porn
Extract:
These new laws may seem like a measured solution to the problem of charging teenage sexters with child pornography felonies. However, once they have the option of lesser penalties, prosecutors are more likely to press charges — not only against teenagers who distribute private images without permission, but also against those who sext consensually.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/04/opini ... 87722&_r=0
Extract:
These new laws may seem like a measured solution to the problem of charging teenage sexters with child pornography felonies. However, once they have the option of lesser penalties, prosecutors are more likely to press charges — not only against teenagers who distribute private images without permission, but also against those who sext consensually.
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/04/opini ... 87722&_r=0
Internet Porn Nearly Ruined His Life. Now He Wants to Help.
Extract:
'I think I was relying on pornography as some kind of emotional crutch,” he said. “If anything bad would happen, you would go to porn, because it would always be there.
“I knew it was bad for me,” he said. “But I also realized it was bad for women I was involved with, and that was the moment that I said: ‘I need to leave this thing behind. It is completely distorting my sexuality to the point where it could actually be harmful or at least not enjoyable for other people who I am involved with.’”
Mr. Rhodes came to believe he had a calling greater than his work in data analysis at Google. “It wasn’t an easy decision,” he said of his leaving the job last year. “But ultimately it was what was best for humanity.”
The website serves as an online umbrella for men looking to escape pornography. It has advertisements for porn-blocking software and online programs that promote the idea of steering clear of pornography and masturbation. The site also has discussion forums and includes testimonials by men sharing stories of their successes and failures.
And it helps match men with “accountability partners” meant to serve as Alcoholics Anonymous-style sponsors, to keep a person on the right path. The site generates revenue through subscriptions and advertising, Mr. Rhodes said."
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/08/fashi ... pe=article
Extract:
'I think I was relying on pornography as some kind of emotional crutch,” he said. “If anything bad would happen, you would go to porn, because it would always be there.
“I knew it was bad for me,” he said. “But I also realized it was bad for women I was involved with, and that was the moment that I said: ‘I need to leave this thing behind. It is completely distorting my sexuality to the point where it could actually be harmful or at least not enjoyable for other people who I am involved with.’”
Mr. Rhodes came to believe he had a calling greater than his work in data analysis at Google. “It wasn’t an easy decision,” he said of his leaving the job last year. “But ultimately it was what was best for humanity.”
The website serves as an online umbrella for men looking to escape pornography. It has advertisements for porn-blocking software and online programs that promote the idea of steering clear of pornography and masturbation. The site also has discussion forums and includes testimonials by men sharing stories of their successes and failures.
And it helps match men with “accountability partners” meant to serve as Alcoholics Anonymous-style sponsors, to keep a person on the right path. The site generates revenue through subscriptions and advertising, Mr. Rhodes said."
More...
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/08/fashi ... pe=article
From a Christian perspective - C.S.Lewis
5. Sexual Morality
We must now consider Christian morality as regards sex, what Christians call the virtue of chastity. The Christian rule of chastity must not be confused with the social rule of "modesty" (in one sense of that word); i.e. propriety, or decency. The social rule of propriety lays down how much of the human body should be displayed and what subjects can be referred to, and in what words, according to the customs of a given social circle. Thus, while the rule of chastity is the same for all Christians at all times, the rule of propriety changes.
A girl in the Pacific islands wearing hardly any clothes and a Victorian lady completely covered in clothes might both be equally "modest," proper, or decent, according to the standards of their own societies: and both, for all we could tell by their dress, might be equally chaste (or equally unchaste). Some of the language which chaste women used in Shakespeare's time would have been used in the nineteenth century only by a woman completely abandoned. When people break the rule of propriety current in their own time and place, if they do so in order to excite lust in themselves or others, then they are offending against chastity. But if they break it through ignorance or carelessness they are guilty only of bad manners.
More...
https://www.dacc.edu/assets/pdfs/PCM/me ... ylewis.pdf
5. Sexual Morality
We must now consider Christian morality as regards sex, what Christians call the virtue of chastity. The Christian rule of chastity must not be confused with the social rule of "modesty" (in one sense of that word); i.e. propriety, or decency. The social rule of propriety lays down how much of the human body should be displayed and what subjects can be referred to, and in what words, according to the customs of a given social circle. Thus, while the rule of chastity is the same for all Christians at all times, the rule of propriety changes.
A girl in the Pacific islands wearing hardly any clothes and a Victorian lady completely covered in clothes might both be equally "modest," proper, or decent, according to the standards of their own societies: and both, for all we could tell by their dress, might be equally chaste (or equally unchaste). Some of the language which chaste women used in Shakespeare's time would have been used in the nineteenth century only by a woman completely abandoned. When people break the rule of propriety current in their own time and place, if they do so in order to excite lust in themselves or others, then they are offending against chastity. But if they break it through ignorance or carelessness they are guilty only of bad manners.
More...
https://www.dacc.edu/assets/pdfs/PCM/me ... ylewis.pdf
A Strategy Backfires, Increasing Teen Births
For more than two decades, educators with high hopes of preventing teen pregnancy have assigned their students computerized baby dolls, programmed to cry, coo, and make life complicated, just like a real baby.
“Having a baby can change a teen’s life in many ways… Experiencing those changes firsthand can help convince teenagers that putting off parenthood is a good idea,” one woman explains in a laudatory video about the program.
But a new report found that caring for a fake infant actually makes it more likely that teens will get pregnant, not less.
More...
http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/0 ... dline&te=1
For more than two decades, educators with high hopes of preventing teen pregnancy have assigned their students computerized baby dolls, programmed to cry, coo, and make life complicated, just like a real baby.
“Having a baby can change a teen’s life in many ways… Experiencing those changes firsthand can help convince teenagers that putting off parenthood is a good idea,” one woman explains in a laudatory video about the program.
But a new report found that caring for a fake infant actually makes it more likely that teens will get pregnant, not less.
More...
http://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/0 ... dline&te=1
Pathfinder Receives Nearly $10 Million for Contraception Programs
Pathfinder Receives Nearly $10 Million for Contraception Programs
Pathfinder International, a Boston-based nonprofit organization that works to remove barriers to sexual and reproductive health services, has announced two grants totaling $9.7 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to expand women's and girls' access to modern contraceptive methods.
To that end, the organization was awarded a three-year, $2.7 million grant in support of its Beyond Bias project, which addresses the different types of provider bias and behaviors that can create barriers for youth who want access to high-quality contraceptive counseling and services. Building on ongoing projects in Tanzania, Burkina Faso, and Pakistan, Pathfinder will partner with Camber Collective, YLabs, and Behavioral Economics in Reproductive Health to implement a four-phase process aimed at gathering insights, generating and testing solutions, and supporting adaptation and scaling of the effort. The organization also will work with local partners, Aga Khan Health Services in Tanzania and Greenstar in Pakistan on solution development and testing.
The second grant, $7 million over four years, will support Pathfinder's Resolve project, which aims to advance transformative interventions designed to expand the use of modern contraception among women who do not wish to become pregnant. Building on its work in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, and Bangladesh, the organization will partner with Ideas42, Camber Collective, and ICRW to fund adaptive and disruptive change in family planning program design.
"For more than thirty years, Pathfinder has been at the forefront of programming to address the unique sexual and reproductive health needs and interests of young people, and we are thrilled to have this opportunity to tackle one of the most persistent barriers young people face,” said Pathfinder interim-CEO Caroline Crosbie. "People don't make choices about their reproductive health in a vacuum. Their providers, families, society, gender norms, religion, and other factors all play a role. As a global community, we need to be looking how all these factors come into play and design programs that acknowledge and account for these dynamics."
More...
http://philanthropynewsdigest.org/news/ ... n-programs
Pathfinder Receives Nearly $10 Million for Contraception Programs
Pathfinder International, a Boston-based nonprofit organization that works to remove barriers to sexual and reproductive health services, has announced two grants totaling $9.7 million from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to expand women's and girls' access to modern contraceptive methods.
To that end, the organization was awarded a three-year, $2.7 million grant in support of its Beyond Bias project, which addresses the different types of provider bias and behaviors that can create barriers for youth who want access to high-quality contraceptive counseling and services. Building on ongoing projects in Tanzania, Burkina Faso, and Pakistan, Pathfinder will partner with Camber Collective, YLabs, and Behavioral Economics in Reproductive Health to implement a four-phase process aimed at gathering insights, generating and testing solutions, and supporting adaptation and scaling of the effort. The organization also will work with local partners, Aga Khan Health Services in Tanzania and Greenstar in Pakistan on solution development and testing.
The second grant, $7 million over four years, will support Pathfinder's Resolve project, which aims to advance transformative interventions designed to expand the use of modern contraception among women who do not wish to become pregnant. Building on its work in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, and Bangladesh, the organization will partner with Ideas42, Camber Collective, and ICRW to fund adaptive and disruptive change in family planning program design.
"For more than thirty years, Pathfinder has been at the forefront of programming to address the unique sexual and reproductive health needs and interests of young people, and we are thrilled to have this opportunity to tackle one of the most persistent barriers young people face,” said Pathfinder interim-CEO Caroline Crosbie. "People don't make choices about their reproductive health in a vacuum. Their providers, families, society, gender norms, religion, and other factors all play a role. As a global community, we need to be looking how all these factors come into play and design programs that acknowledge and account for these dynamics."
More...
http://philanthropynewsdigest.org/news/ ... n-programs
10 Things To Feel Good About Right Now
Slide Show
http://www.nation.co.ke/lifestyle/weeke ... 2-fsdyghz/
This week, the Dutch government announced plans to establish an international fund to provide contraception, sex education, and abortion services for those in need around the world. This was in direct response to President Trump's recent reinstatement of the "Global Gag Rule," eliminating U.S. federal aid to foreign groups that offer abortion services — or even provide education about them. Hup, Holland, hup!
Slide Show
http://www.nation.co.ke/lifestyle/weeke ... 2-fsdyghz/
This week, the Dutch government announced plans to establish an international fund to provide contraception, sex education, and abortion services for those in need around the world. This was in direct response to President Trump's recent reinstatement of the "Global Gag Rule," eliminating U.S. federal aid to foreign groups that offer abortion services — or even provide education about them. Hup, Holland, hup!
Nigerian family planning: Condoms v conservatives
In Nigeria, faith and tradition favour high fertility. Family planning pulls the other way. The state of Kaduna offers free birth control and suggests women pause between pregnancies; its fertility rate fell by a third in the five years to 2013. Nigeria’s population is growing at 3% a year. To be prosperous as well as populous, better education is vital. It would also curb population growth: well-schooled women tend to have fewer babies
More..
http://www.economist.com/news/middle-ea ... lydispatch
In Nigeria, faith and tradition favour high fertility. Family planning pulls the other way. The state of Kaduna offers free birth control and suggests women pause between pregnancies; its fertility rate fell by a third in the five years to 2013. Nigeria’s population is growing at 3% a year. To be prosperous as well as populous, better education is vital. It would also curb population growth: well-schooled women tend to have fewer babies
More..
http://www.economist.com/news/middle-ea ... lydispatch
Scientists have delivered a chilling warning about sex robots
A report on the growing market of sex robots has sent out a strong warning this week that could shake up the industry for good.
Simply put, the warning states that there should be a ban on the import of sex robots designed to look like children, as right now there’s a worrying “lack of clarity” in the law.
Sex robots are becoming more readily available, and customisable. Technology can now create dolls that perform 50 sex positions.
The Foundation for Responsible Robotics has argued in its report, 'Our sexual future with robots,' that another “dark side” to sex robots could be that they are used to simulate rape.
More...
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/lifestyle/rela ... ailsignout
A report on the growing market of sex robots has sent out a strong warning this week that could shake up the industry for good.
Simply put, the warning states that there should be a ban on the import of sex robots designed to look like children, as right now there’s a worrying “lack of clarity” in the law.
Sex robots are becoming more readily available, and customisable. Technology can now create dolls that perform 50 sex positions.
The Foundation for Responsible Robotics has argued in its report, 'Our sexual future with robots,' that another “dark side” to sex robots could be that they are used to simulate rape.
More...
http://www.msn.com/en-ca/lifestyle/rela ... ailsignout
Taboo-busting sex guide offers advice to Muslim women seeking fulfilling love lives
The Muslimah Sex Manual: A Halal Guide to Mind Blowing Sex is praised for empowering women
It was a confession by a newlywed friend about her disastrous sex life that gave Umm Muladhat an idea for a groundbreaking book.
Published last week, The Muslimah Sex Manual: A Halal Guide to Mind Blowing Sex is the first such guide written by a Muslim woman. The author has chosen to stay anonymous, using an alias.
Candid advice is offered on everything from kissing to cowgirl positions – with the core message being that Muslim women can and should enjoy a varied sex life and take the lead in physical relationships.
While some critics have accused the author of fetishising Muslim women and encouraging promiscuity, the book has been welcomed by readers who have lauded her as a Muslim Belle De Jour, bringing a taboo subject into the open. “I’ve received encouraging feedback, but also a significant number of demeaning and disgusting messages,” said Muladhat. “One woman said it’s not needed, they learn everything from their mothers. I doubt any mother speaks in as explicit detail as I have.
More...
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyl ... WEML6619I2
The Muslimah Sex Manual: A Halal Guide to Mind Blowing Sex is praised for empowering women
It was a confession by a newlywed friend about her disastrous sex life that gave Umm Muladhat an idea for a groundbreaking book.
Published last week, The Muslimah Sex Manual: A Halal Guide to Mind Blowing Sex is the first such guide written by a Muslim woman. The author has chosen to stay anonymous, using an alias.
Candid advice is offered on everything from kissing to cowgirl positions – with the core message being that Muslim women can and should enjoy a varied sex life and take the lead in physical relationships.
While some critics have accused the author of fetishising Muslim women and encouraging promiscuity, the book has been welcomed by readers who have lauded her as a Muslim Belle De Jour, bringing a taboo subject into the open. “I’ve received encouraging feedback, but also a significant number of demeaning and disgusting messages,” said Muladhat. “One woman said it’s not needed, they learn everything from their mothers. I doubt any mother speaks in as explicit detail as I have.
More...
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyl ... WEML6619I2
Want Teenage Boys to Read? Easy. Give Them Books About Sex.
Excerpt:
My new novel portrays a young boy’s emotional, heteroflexible sex life — and I’d like young people to read it. But it’s being published for adults, partly because the guardians of young people’s literature get so easily riled up about sex, preferring to recommend, say, books about teenagers slaughtering one another in a post-apocalyptic landscape, rather than books about kids masturbating at home.
To which many would say, so what? Don’t we have more important things to worry about than giving sexually explicit literature to young people? Shouldn’t we be more concerned about, say, the rampant misogyny of everyday life, in a nation led by a self-admitted sexual predator?
Which to me is precisely the point. I believe in the power of literature to connect, to transform, particularly for young minds beginning to explore the world. I want books to be an unlimited resource for young people and their curiosity, not a sphere restricted by how uncomfortable some curiosities make adults feel.
The books I read as a teenager, sex and all, made me a better boy and then a better man, just as literature continues to make me a better husband, a better father, a better feminist. I want that for my son, and for all my young readers of every gender. Let’s not smirk at their interests. Let’s give them books that might engage them.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/29/opin ... d=45305309
Excerpt:
My new novel portrays a young boy’s emotional, heteroflexible sex life — and I’d like young people to read it. But it’s being published for adults, partly because the guardians of young people’s literature get so easily riled up about sex, preferring to recommend, say, books about teenagers slaughtering one another in a post-apocalyptic landscape, rather than books about kids masturbating at home.
To which many would say, so what? Don’t we have more important things to worry about than giving sexually explicit literature to young people? Shouldn’t we be more concerned about, say, the rampant misogyny of everyday life, in a nation led by a self-admitted sexual predator?
Which to me is precisely the point. I believe in the power of literature to connect, to transform, particularly for young minds beginning to explore the world. I want books to be an unlimited resource for young people and their curiosity, not a sphere restricted by how uncomfortable some curiosities make adults feel.
The books I read as a teenager, sex and all, made me a better boy and then a better man, just as literature continues to make me a better husband, a better father, a better feminist. I want that for my son, and for all my young readers of every gender. Let’s not smirk at their interests. Let’s give them books that might engage them.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/29/opin ... d=45305309
Pakistan, Let’s Talk About Sex
Excerpt:
I must have read that Happy Home magazine about 40 years ago, but things haven’t changed much here when it comes to conversations about how babies are made. Despite warnings about a population explosion, we still don’t talk about population control. Talking about population control might require talking about sex, and you can’t really talk about sex on prime time TV or the radio, in Parliament or at village gatherings. Ads for condoms are often banned. There’s the occasional valiant attempt — like Clinic Online, a call-in TV show about sexual health — but “sex” remains a dirty word. As if just saying it was the same as doing it. We don’t even talk about sex with the person we’re doing it with.
The Pakistani government could have involved the clergy to dispel the common myth that contraception is somehow un-Islamic, but it hasn’t. There also used to be a myth about the campaign to vaccinate children against polio: That it was a cover for an American conspiracy to sterilize Pakistanis. Then the government got imams to explain on TV that it really wasn’t Allah’s will to cripple the next generation. Yet clerics aren’t preaching that even though God wants you to have good, wholesome sex with your legitimate partner, that shouldn’t stop you from using a condom or taking a birth-control pill.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/21/opin ... ctionfront
Excerpt:
I must have read that Happy Home magazine about 40 years ago, but things haven’t changed much here when it comes to conversations about how babies are made. Despite warnings about a population explosion, we still don’t talk about population control. Talking about population control might require talking about sex, and you can’t really talk about sex on prime time TV or the radio, in Parliament or at village gatherings. Ads for condoms are often banned. There’s the occasional valiant attempt — like Clinic Online, a call-in TV show about sexual health — but “sex” remains a dirty word. As if just saying it was the same as doing it. We don’t even talk about sex with the person we’re doing it with.
The Pakistani government could have involved the clergy to dispel the common myth that contraception is somehow un-Islamic, but it hasn’t. There also used to be a myth about the campaign to vaccinate children against polio: That it was a cover for an American conspiracy to sterilize Pakistanis. Then the government got imams to explain on TV that it really wasn’t Allah’s will to cripple the next generation. Yet clerics aren’t preaching that even though God wants you to have good, wholesome sex with your legitimate partner, that shouldn’t stop you from using a condom or taking a birth-control pill.
More...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/21/opin ... ctionfront