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Friday, March 30, 2007

Weekly Wrapup: Ch-ch-changes

filed under: Weekly Wrapup by Lux Nightmare | Leave a Comment

It’s been a hectic just slightly more frenzied than usual (ed.) week here at Sexerati, with Melissa heading off to Cambodia (and sending us updates along the way!), Irene coming aboard as our newest contributor, and Lux worrying about kids these days.

Heading into the weekend, remember to check in for the findings of this important history lesson on NSFW and of course, dare yourself to get out of the house and “fucking practice… fucking” (because really, that’s what it’s all about).

Friday, March 30, 2007

The Best of SMS Livedating: Getting to Know You(r Texts)

filed under: SMS Livedating by Lux Nightmare | Leave a Comment

You know how it is: someone you maybe kinda like invites you out for drinks, and you’re stuck in that place of “Is it drinks or is it a date?” So you go out, and you have a few beers, and the conversation starts to warm up:

On date: We are talking about places to have sex outside. Where could this lead?

Where indeed? Does talking about sex with someone automatically mean that you’re thinking about having sex with them? Or is talking about sex just a fun way to make conversation? You wait a little longer, waiting to see how things will unfold:

On date: We joint twittered.

Oh, it must be love.

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Jet Sex: Condoms in Taipei

filed under: Design for Sex, Jet Sex, Smart. Safe. Sex. by Melissa Gira | 2 Comments

Changing planes in Taipei, I fell in design love with this condom display in the very front entrance of the airport pharmacy. I selected a box (of twelve, thanks for asking) to bring home for field testing.

After a brief moment of consumer panic — that I had unwittingly chosen some lubricated with nonoxynol-9 — I was reassured in reading more closely that:

“FOUR IN ONE Condoms, red & green colours, textured and slip-prevention design, (plain,raised,dotted and ribbbed, and teat-ended) natural latex condoms silicone-oil (non-spermicidal lubricant). Nominal width: 52mm +/- 2mm / Diameter: 33 mm.”

Aside from the fact that ‘oil’ is one of the last words one wants to see on condom packaging, silicone-lubricant is a novel choice that I think I’ve only seen (well) once before. As for the design of the sheath itself, the side-of-the-box illo ought to help bring those descriptions home.

The drawing, or the raised. Or maybe the dotted. Hmm.

Thursday, March 29, 2007

A Patch to “Cure” Low Sex Drive

filed under: Sex Hacks, Do It for Science by Irene Kaoru | 3 Comments

We love Irene Kaoru so much we’ve invited her to contribute to Sexerati. Be on the lookout for future pieces from her!

A new patch from Procter and Gamble has been announced, designed to cure women of their low sex drives. Sort of. The transdermal testosterone patch is called Intrinsa, and it will not, the BBC points out, be marketed as the “female Viagra” but rather will prescribed in the UK on a very limited basis and marketed as a solution for low sex drive experienced as a side effect of surgery.

This can be cautiously celebrated but raises about a thousand questions immediately.

All reports I’ve read emphasized that the drug will not be easy to get and really only for women who have experienced loss of desire after ovary removal. If, as P&G has claimed, millions of women are reporting “distress” over their lack of sexual desire, wouldn’t it make sense to make this patch as widely available as possible so that women could decide if they want it or not? After all, if the patch is the boon to frustrated women that it sounds like it could be, surely there are many women with low libidos who would welcome its effects. Perhaps it makes sense to keep the drug relatively under wraps because of some horrible side effects or potential for birth defects–something that needn’t be a concern when dealing with ovary-less women? But according to Australian researcher Susan Davis, director of research at the Jean Hailes Foundation in Melbourne, testosterone is quite safe, and any effects would cease “the moment you stop wearing the patch”. Testosterone therapy has already been available in Australia and Canada for a couple of years; perhaps the US will soon catch up.

The slowness with which the pharmaceutical industry has been able to provide female alternatives to the popular Viagra may betray a mixed institutional attitude toward the issue. On the one hand, a conservative government continues to fear and deny female sexuality, a conservative social climate gasps at the word “vagina”, and a recent much-discussed book claims that women simply don’t like sex as much as men do. (All I’ll say about that one right now: Pish bloody posh.) On the other hand, “sexual dysfunction” has now been diagnosed in more than 30 million American men and has become a multimillion-dollar business, and the pharmaceutical industry must be collectively drooling over the money it could rake in, if only it could come up with an equivalent for the other half of the species. Cultural prudery, conservative politics, or ignorance about women’s sexual needs aside, the potential for squeezing oodles of dollars out of women by targeting their sexual insecurities is a wet dream for companies like P&G.

What I wonder most is whether libido-boosting drugs and hormone therapy will become a positive or negative thing for women. What I wonder most is whether the current pharmaceutical focus on chemicals used to right bodily wrongs simply misses the bigger picture, and if, in the long term, it will leave women as cold as before and more confused. While male physical arousal is external, easily gauged and can be separated from emotional desire, female sexual arousal is not so easy to track, especially given that many women consider their sexual satisfaction on a continuum of intimacy and pleasure, rather than a binary “orgasm or no orgasm” manner. As noted by the Kinsley Institute, female sexual satisfaction and libido is often dependant on intimacy and emotional comfort with a partner, and convincing women via advertising blitz that they are dysfunctional and need to be medicated may in itself have a negative impact on how women see themselves and how they feel when they fuck. Surely some of those men buying Viagra would benefit from learning to explore their own physical satisfaction in more subtle ways, instead of believing that sexual success has something to do with being able to hammer nails with your penis and that sex itself consists only of putting a penis inside a vagina.

The thing that gives me pause about the slew of sex enhancing drugs available is the fear that the prevalence of such drugs will encourage more empty interactions and more physical insecurities, when instead, sex can be considered creative physical exploration and not just a penis in a vagina. A sex life aided by medication might potentially be a smarter, more fulfilled sex life, but not if the medication itself gives us an excuse to stop communicating and thinking. Perhaps the most forward-thinking sexuality is not the most chemically augmented, but the most open-minded.