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Wednesday, November 14, 2007

HOW NOT TO: Researcher Arrested for Hiring Sex Worker for STI Study

filed under: Do It for Science, Strange Bedfellows by Melissa Gira | 1 Comment

He was approved to use human subjects in his research, which is precisely what UMass Medical School’s Dr. Peter A. Rice claims to have been doing when he was arrested for soliciting an undercover police officer in Worcester, MA:

The author of more than 145 professional publications in the area of infectious and sexually transmitted diseases, Dr. Rice said he was “gathering information” at the time of his arrest and was not guilty of offering to engage in sex for a fee, the offense with which he was charged. He has been placed on leave since his arrest, according to a UMass spokesman.

Judge Paul F. LoConto entered a not-guilty plea on Dr. Rice’s behalf, released him on personal recognizance and continued his case to Dec. 17.

According to a written statement filed by police in support of their application for a criminal complaint, a female police officer was working undercover in the area of Main and Grand streets shortly before 12:20 p.m. Saturday when a man later identified as Dr. Rice pulled up next to her in a black BMW.

The officer, who was posing as a prostitute, approached Dr. Rice, who had his driver’s side window down, according to the statement.

“They engaged in conversation and he requested that she provide him with sex, according to the police account. The undercover officer signaled fellow officers in the area and Dr. Rice was stopped and arrested.

UMass administrators are now claiming that they knew nothing about this aspect of his project. You can read between the lines yourself — Dr. Rice’s abstract from a 2005 study is similar if not a continuation of his current study, which is funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Extramural Activities.

Only $40, professor? I know sex researchers have trouble enough getting government funding. What do we do now?

Tuesday, October 9, 2007

Group Sex, for Science

filed under: Do It for Science, Retrosexual by Melissa Gira | 1 Comment

Via Jezebel, the New York Times bookblog has unearthed a precious volume, Group Sex: A Scientist’s Eyewitness Report on the American Way of Swinging, bearing insight into the bygone days group sex in the last century.

Offers its author, Dr. Gilbert D. Bartell, Ph.D.:

Although my wife is not an anthropologist, obviously my investigations would have been far more difficult without her assistance.

No slouch, Time magazine covered Dr. Bartell’s study when it was first published, in 1971, with this caution:

The trouble is that swingers often find themselves too busy; the rule is to swing only once with the same couple (so that no intimate, marriage-destroying relationships develop). Thus the search for “beautiful” or “great” (contrasted with “moldy”) partners is never ending. Eventually hours of the swingers’ waking day are spent on the phone or writing letters to make new contacts—or driving hundreds of miles to meet them. Sheer exhaustion causes many to drop out of swinging after two years or so of frantic activity. More important is disillusionment. Finally able to act out adolescent fantasies, many swingers find that the fantasies were better than reality.

You could paw around the basement at the Times for your own, but a quick search shows that a copy can still be had still today.

Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Web Sex Index: “Where… (swell in the throat) The Smarts Are…!”

filed under: Do It for Science, Web Sex Index by Melissa Gira | Leave a Comment

A tidy roundup of where to find sex smart rippling the web right now:

Belladonna discloses that she’s got herpes and is retiring from porn with an announcement on her MySpace, handily deconstructed by the smartypants commenters at Jezebel.

Pandagon takes on Audacia Ray’s Naked on the Internet, in a review that starts (and in what’s become nearly obligatory to say of any sex worker’s book, sadly) “I’m usually not one to read the latest in the never-ending series of books all best described as ‘I Was A Sex Worker Despite The Fact That I’m An Educated, Middle Class White Woman’…”, sports comments come alive! with shredding of the “male gaze” and why women dig queer porn.

Lastly, be a dear, and take Susie Bright’s timely ‘Bathroom Sex’ survey, or, for the bonus win, the International Rectal Microbicide Working Group’s survey of what lube you use for anal sex.

Monday, June 4, 2007

The Big (Corrupt) Business of Abstinence-Only Education

filed under: Do It for Science, Strange Bedfellows, State of Sex Ed by Melissa Gira | 1 Comment

Not only is abstinence-only sex “education” (where’s the education, exactly?) without evidence in reducing STI’s and unwanted pregnancies, now its crooked money trail is starting to unravel, as well.

Out in this week’s Nation, The Abstinence Gluttons tracks the neoconservative anti-abortion, anti-comprehensive sex education agenda, and reveals it for the cashgrab that it is. Abstinence-only “education” is simply another business for the Bush administration, a way to funnel funding into long-time campaign contributors pockets and out of programs that are proven to increase sexual health.

There’s simply no way to combat the seemingly anti-sex, Christian Fundamentalist motivations of abstinence-only programs on the grounds of the public health imperative to promote positive sexuality alone. Really what we need is to reframe the excessive waste of money and the total abdication of civic duty as the coming of the Halliburtons of sex. This is sex war profiteering, and like any other, the casualties are mounting.