News of Note: Sweetie turns sour – NYTimes.com
Using a cutesy pet name or baby talk with your partner can cause sex life to dwindle
According to self-help authors Maggie Arana and Julienne Davis, “Calling your partner honey is the first step down the slippery slope toward a bland or nonexistent sexual relationship.”
And it’s not just “honey.” Any endearing nickname — “sweetie,” “darling,” “pookie,” “pumpkin” and Jerry Seinfeld’s gag-reflexive “schmoopie” — they say, will open the “Pandora’s Box of non-sexuality,” which also contains other bad habits of over-familiarity that, over time, can turn lovers into roommates…
“Names have a very deep impact subconsciously, especially when they are repeated day after day, year after year,” Davis, a reformed user of “pookie,” says during a phone interview. Both women currently live in Los Angeles with their “non-honey” partners.
That age-old, enduring “honey,” is an androgynous word that erodes each partner’s individuality and sexuality, she says, inadvertently turning him or her into a cuddly friend. As the book says: “Honey is great at spooning under the covers, but no so great for hot, passionate sex under the covers.”
I’m not so sure that “honey” will literally ruin your sex life, but the subtle effects of pet names on relationships remain quite interesting. Do repeat users of cutesy and non-sexual names seek the familiar, the informal, and the immature?
This is a sensitive subject, one that I imagine could easily put some couples on the defensive. When you examine yourself, have pet names affected your relationship? Let us know what you think!
“While heading to class last year, Stephanie Cisneros, a Denver-area high school junior, was arguing with a friend about ways that sexually transmitted diseasesmight be passed along.
Ms. Cisneros knew she could resolve the dispute in class — but not by raising her hand. While her biology teacher lectured about fruit flies, Ms. Cisneros hid her phone underneath her lab table and typed a message to ICYC (In Case You’re Curious), a text-chat program run by Planned Parenthood of the Rocky Mountains.
Soon, her phone buzzed. “There are some STDs you can get from kissing but they are spread more easily during sex,” the reply read. “You can get a STD from oral sex. You should use a condom whenever you have sex.”
Ms. Cisneros said she liked ICYC for its immediacy and confidentiality. “You can ask a random question about sex and you don’t feel it was stupid,” said Ms. Cisneros, now a senior. “Even if it was, they can’t judge you because they don’t know it’s you. And it’s too gross to ask my parents.”…
“Real Talk held a classroom contest to see which student could send the most texts containing this prevention message: “ROFL!!!” (Translation: rolling on the floor laughing). “STDs and HIV can spread as fast as this message. Still laughing? Pass on the message not HIV/STDs. 518-HIV-TEST.” Within an hour, the message had been sent to nearly 450 phones.”
Services like ICYC are innocent and valuable tools; they are available to anyone searching for information and unlike Google, they have the advantage of being targeted at young people. Viral text messages, about sex between curious teens, is a great thing.
It is quite disheartening to contemplate a young person’s first glimpse at sex, though, being a warning message about dangerous and life threatening diseases. Until society’s leaders are replaced by people who do not fear and repress their own sexuality, and old systems of racial and sexual oppression disappear, this growing access to information via the Internet and even cellphones is vitally important. I hope everyday that involuntary ignorance becomes a thing of the past, don’t you?
Why the generational malaise and indifference to sex? Theories abound. The most provocative to me, a Japanese-American and longtime Tokyo resident, is that Japanese women have become stronger socially and economically at the very same time that Japanese men have become more fully absorbed in virtual worlds, satiated by the very technological wizardry their forebears foisted upon them, even preferring them to reality. “I don’t like real women,” one bloke superciliously sniffed on Japan’s 2channel, the world’s largest and most active internet bulletin board site, “They’re too picky nowadays. I’d much rather have a virtual girlfriend.”
Virtual girlfriends became a sensation last summer, when Japanese game-maker Konami released its second-generation of its popular Love Plus, called, aptly, Love Plus +, for the Nintendo DS gaming system. Konami skillfully arranged for an otherwise deadbeat beach resort town called Atami to host a Love Plus + holiday weekend. Players were invited to tote their virtual girlfriends, via the gaming console, to the actual resort town to cavort for a weekend in romantic bliss. The promotion was absurdly successful, with local resort operators reporting that it was their best weekend in decades.
A virtual relationship (including cybersex) with a computer program may sound quite different from a long distance one with another human being, but in the future you might not be able to tell the difference. Text based intimacy is quite prevalent in MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games), and we already have computers that can mimic it well, just look at Cleverbot, the most advanced chat bot that has hosted over 65 million conversations since 1997.
The lack of physical contact may be the greatest criticism against virtual relationships, but that doesn’t necessarily make it wrong. The depths that people can reach through their minds both emotionally and physically are profound, even without physical touch. As technology continues to enable people to find the fulfillment they seek in easier ways, why not?
Editor’s note: This post was written by one of our interns, Jamor Gaffney.
It was the summer before I began 5th grade when I got my first relaxer. I was curious, nervous, and unsure of whether I was making the right decision. Not because of what I now understand to be a deeply rooted, oppressive standard of beauty in this country, but simply because I didn’t know how my hair would turn out. The morning before I went into the hair salon, I wore an Afro; I walked around my neighborhood so everyone could see my hair, and they would surely see the “new and improved” Jamor once I returned from the salon.
I later arrived at the hair salon, sweating bullets as I sat in the chair. The stylist parted my rough, kinky Afro to base my scalp with grease to protect my skin; soon, I felt the cold, heavy relaxer on my head… there was no turning back now. A few minutes in, I noticed a tingling sensation on my scalp, then, a burn! I started tapping my foot against the floor to signal to someone that I was uncomfortable and was met with the response, “Beauty is pain, beauty is pain”.
Now, I knew I couldn’t say this out loud but I wanted to scream, “That makes no sense! Get this out of my head!”
The hair washing person eventually rescued me and the rest of this seemingly stupid process was fine. Seemingly stupid turned into genius because the finished product was in fact, a new and improved, Jamor. I had shiny, silky, straight, long hair… I never looked back.
Today, I am more conscious of the implications of the relaxer in the black community and I wonder if my mom and I made the right choice in having my hair chemically straightened. The new BET original television show “Reed Between the Lines” about a black family deemed “the new Cosby Show” has an episode that speaks to my questions about perming my hair at a young age. Kaci is a young teenage girl who wants to perm her hair because a boy she likes at school prefers her hair straight. Her mother Carla tries to talk her out of the decision, explaining the potential consequences of putting a perm in her hair. A conversation like this would have been very helpful for me when I was younger.
Black Hair, Still Tangled in Politics articulates my thoughts on my hair, and the ways that black women present themselves. For black women, myself included, their hair is a performance of both their race and their gender. How I present my hair to others is in many ways, a statement or declaration of my race and gender. I’m pressured to keep my hair long and straight by men, black men!
I find it disheartening that within my own racial community, I’m not comfortable enough to present my hair, as is, how it grows from my scalp, without being considered less beautiful. This stems back to the Great Migration when blacks moved from the South to the North looking for better job opportunities and an overall better way of life. There were pressures by both whites and Northern blacks for this new influx of people to appear elegant, polished, and classy and “taming” their hair was the first step to maintaining that appearance. Today, similar pressures are put on blacks to appear more professional and approachable. All of these adjectives are just indirect ways of telling me to try to look white and be friendly, and that the efforts I make toward doing so will impact my success.
What’s unprofessional about a black woman washing her natural hair and putting a little holding gel on it for work in the morning? Some white women do just that, and no one is uncomfortable or appalled. For a country with such racial diversity as America, it should be considered highly problematic that our standard of beauty is still so sourly, solely skewed toward whiteness. How is this affecting young black girls today? Based on how perming my own hair as a 5th grader changed my perspective on black hair, I can’t imagine other young girls not wanting to feel new and improved too.
A Canadian-developed vaccine to prevent HIV has been given the green light for testing in human clinical trials.
The vaccine, developed by researchers at the University of Western Ontario, has been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to start being tested in humans in January.
It is the first preventive HIV vaccine approved for clinical trials to use a whole HIV-1 virus, which has been both killed and genetically engineered, to activate immunity. In this way, the new vaccine is much like the killed whole virus vaccines that are successful against polio, rabies and influenza.
This is yet another huge step towards the cure for HIV. A future without sexually stigmatizing diseases looks more realistic everyday. Keep an eye on VenusPlusX for continuing coverage of these exciting breakthroughs.
Mycroft identifies as an interfaith leader, a writer and artist, a life partner, and a transgender person. Mycroft experienced discrimination when it came time to do co-op work in the field as part of his college program. People would not even consider hiring him, because he is transgender. It was an eye-opening, shocking experience for him. One of the positive experiences that came out of this was it called him to be a leader in the transgender community.
How did you become a leader in your community? Was there one particular experience that changed the way you recognized and expressed your gender expression and/or sexual orientation? Can a bad experience bring unexpected rewards, financially, emotionally, educationally, spiritually? Do you have any advice for other people just coming to grips with their sexual orientation or gender identity? Is there any advice you wish you had been given at an earlier age?
We want to know what you think or hear your own story. Make a video, write a poem, song, or an essay — or even create an original work of art — and express yourself. If we feature your contribution on the site, we will send you a free VenusPlusX t-shirt to thank you.
The U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee will continue its hearing on the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) on Wednesday, not until after Congress’ holiday break, as originally believed.
Late Friday, Representative Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican and committee chairman, scheduled a continuation of the hearing to amend the bill for this Wednesday at 9 a.m., even though many members of the committee may be out of town for the holidays. Representative Darrell Issa, a California Republican and opponent of the bill, tweeted the hearing announcement late Friday.
At the urging of some SOPA opponents, Smith said Friday he will consider a hearing or a classified briefing on the bill’s impact on cybersecurity. More than 80 Internet engineers and cybersecurity experts have raised security concerns about the bill, which would require Internet service providers and domain name registrars to block the domain names of foreign websites accused of copyright infringement.
It’s unclear how Wednesday’s hearing will affect any future hearings on SOPA, which is sponsored by Smith and 31 other lawmakers.
Continuing the markup hearing on Wednesday, when many lawmakers had planned to be out of Washington, D.C., “demonstrates a clear desire to continue dodging the questions raised by experts, members, and the public,” said Sherwin Siy, deputy legal director of Public Knowledge.
This unwillingness to take expert evidence, listen to constituents, or conduct due diligence in investigating the extraordinary harms risked by SOPA shows a process divorced from representation, responsibility, and reality,” Siy said in a statement.
The most scary thing of all is how little these congressmen actually know about the Internet and technology. It can be compared to putting toddlers at the control of a 747 aircraft. Here we are with the greatest innovation in human history and it’s about to be sold out by a bunch of old guys who don’t know how to use a keyboard. When everyone thought the bill was tabled for at least a few weeks, it is both irresponsible and crooked to squeeze it in again right before Christmas. What can you do? Contact the media, post on Facebook, Twitter, sign this petition, contact SOPA’s supporting companies and urge them to withdraw their support. Everyone’s help is valuable, please join in and share.
An online piracy bill in the House [US House of Representatives H.R.3261] would “criminalize linking and the fundamental structure of the Internet itself,” according to Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt.
Schmidt said the controversial Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) would punish Web firms, including search engines, that link to foreign websites dedicated to online piracy. He said implementing the bill as written would effectively break the Internet.
“By criminalizing links, what these bills do is they force you to take content off the Internet,” Schmidt said, calling it a form of censorship.
I firmly believe that the Internet is mankind’s greatest tool for exposing truth and eliminating corruption. Recent revolutions in other countries like Egypt and Libya and even our own Occupy movement are fueled by the Internet, and in a way not possible for previous generations, and in ways not permitted by foreign repressive regimes. Right now we are facing both SOPA and the similar US Senate proposed bill (Bill S.968), PROTECT IP Act, two bills that will utterly destroy YouTube, Twitter, Wikileaks, and other valuable websites that we need for communication.
What do you think is going to happen? Will Americans eventually submit to this loss of freedom or will we reject this sort of treatment by any means necessary?
December 10, Saturday, was Human Rights Day 2011, and I reported on its origns, history, and background, noted the important role Eleanor Roosevelt played in drafting The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and delved into the direct connections between human rights and sexual freedom contained in the Declaration.
Last week, on December 6, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton surprised a lot of people all around the globe when she made an historic address to international diplomats gathered at The United Nations Office at Geneva (Switzerland) about the specific intersection between lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) rights and human rights. The Secretary said, “Like being a woman, like being a racial, religious, tribal, or ethnic minority, being LGBT does not make you less human. And that is why gay rights are human rights, and human rights are gay rights.”
Secretary Clinton gave a powerful and moving address, in which she put the world on notice that:
It is a violation of human rights when people are beaten or killed because of their sexual orientation, or because they do not conform to cultural norms about how men and women should look or behave. It is a violation of human rights when governments declare it illegal to be gay, or allow those who harm gay people to go unpunished. It is a violation of human rights when lesbian or transgendered women are subjected to so-called corrective rape, or forcibly subjected to hormone treatments, or when people are murdered after public calls for violence toward gays, or when they are forced to flee their nations and seek asylum in other lands to save their lives. And it is a violation of human rights when life-saving care is withheld from people because they are gay, or equal access to justice is denied to people because they are gay, or public spaces are out of bounds to people because they are gay. No matter what we look like, where we come from, or who we are, we are all equally entitled to our human rights and dignity.
In response to Secretary Clinton’s statements, as well as a coordinated proclamation from President Obama on the same day, religious bigots and certain Republicans gave the expected outcry, claiming this amounted to the United States using tax-payer dollars to forward what they call “a homosexual agenda.” But her comments are already making a difference in the international community: the country of Malawi has already announced that they will re-examine their laws as they relate to the LGBT community.
Unfortunately, the condition of human rights as they relate to LGBT rights in Secretary Clinton’s own United States is pretty deplorable. In most states, LGBT citizens are not protected from discrimination in housing, employment, or public accommodations. Same-sex couples are prohibited from marrying in most states, and even in the few states where they are allow to marry, there is no federal recognition of such marriages due to the misnamed “Defense of Marriage Act” (ironically, signed into law by a President who was cheating on his wife at the time). This law is a blatant violation of the “full faith and credit” clause of the U.S. Constitution, and as a direct result of this single law, same-sex couples are discriminated against under at least 1,138 separate Federal laws that cover everything from taxes to immigration and beyond.
What do you think can be done to bring the United States more into compliance with the kinds of LGBT protections Secretary Clinton called for in the rest of the world? America likes to think of itself as “the land of the free,” but when it comes to sexual freedom for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender citizens, is this a hollow and hypocritical promise?
Studies show that the younger people are, the more likely they are to support the kinds of changes that Secretary Clinton has called for in her historic speech. What does this mean in terms of how soon the LGBT community can hope to achieve full equality under the laws of the United States, and in other countries around the world?
Let us know what you think. Make a video, write a poem, song, or an essay — or even create an original work of art — and express your thoughts on these topics. If we feature your contribution on the site, we will send you a free VenusPlusX t-shirt to thank you.
Flag image by Julyo, used pursuant to Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
Here is an issue that is certain to affect everyone.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange says that governments worldwide have been using electronic devices, such as smart-phones and computers, to monitor what people are saying, where they are going and what they are writing.
The controversial journalist spoke at a panel of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism held at the City University in London on Monday. The panel inaugurated WikiLeak’s new project: the Spyfiles. They provide details on the deals private surveillance companies made with various governments all over the globe to design monitoring software integrated into electronic devices, which could be used to monitor the activities of whoever these governments want to keep track of.
“Who here has a BlackBerry? Who here uses Gmail? Well you are all screwed!” Assange exclaimed. “The reality is intelligence contractors are selling right to countries around the world mass surveillance systems for all of those products.”
I suggest taking a look at Wikileaks’ website for the most concrete details. The simple truth is, your email and communications are not secure. This type of hacking is a growing business and one that I imagine is only gaining momentum. Keep your eyes open for further “Spyfiles” news as Wikileaks continues to reveal more information.
