I found it slightly depressing that I’m out of the denominator (they only look at data from 18-32 year olds). But I was particularly delighted by this graph:

It looks at the effectiveness of showing clevage in your profile picture. The bad news is that all women’s pulling power falls over time. But Apparently, showing clevage bounces up your chances of getting a date more the older you get. Men, depressingly, don’t lose out on dates as they age. Unless they’re trying to show off their six-pack. Abs shots are less successful the older you get.

Now tell me data analysis is not sexy…

Thanks to Nico, who is definitely in the denominator, but has tragically stopped sharing his wisdom with us.

And from my best side:

Thanks to dkj for driving me to them.

Unsustainable? Well, there’s latex to dispose of, or worse still, population growth. But on the upside sex warms you up without needing to burn fossil fuels. It’s a renewable resource. And if it’s on offer for free this week in Copenhagen, it might just provide the positive energy to break some of the log-jams in the negotiations.

I’ve followed the build-up to the conference (beautifully dissected by Sam Kinght, writing in Prospect), with some amusement. Way back when I was writing The Wisdom of Whores, a friend from the World Bank was rolling his eyes at every UN agency’s willingness to hook itself to the HIV wagon. I quoted him thus:

““The UN institutions are professional beggars, and beggars go where the money is,” he said. “So you get “culture and AIDS”, “kids and AIDS”, “fish and AIDS”. I’m just waiting for “climate change and AIDS”.”

It wasn’t until months later that I saw the first headlines linking HIV to climate change. Just recently, there’s been a UNFPA report about it, which means it’s now official. As Rasna Warahp pointed out in Kenya’s The Nation, the real link between HIV and global warming will probably be that as more funding goes to the latter less will go to the former.

An aside, since I’m mentioning both development fashion and the World Bank: I am reliably informed that that venerable institution last week headed off a bid to have every loan reviewed for the effect that it has on trafficking of persons (which in the current climate is more or less equated with trafficking of women into the sex indutry). Just sometimes, common sense does prevail.

Thanks to Ron of greencollar for sharing the determination of the Danish with me.

The paper, in the (wonderful, open access Public Library of Science), even includes a little cartoon video. Bat porn. In essence, scientists in China have found that a female fruit bat will go down on her partner while he’s taking her from behind. Apparently, the extra stimulation helps him keep it up longer (not a universal observation among females of our species, I venture to guess). The researchers come up with a number of reasons why a lady bat might go to this trouble, among them that it might give his sperm more oomph, might make him less likely to roam, might clean up nasty infections before he passes them to her. But I particularly like their closing shot:

“The behaviour presumably favours the donor, although it may also benefit both partners especially if fertilization success is increased. It is conceivable that the female manipulates the male by increasing sexual stimulation, so that she ultimately benefits.”

I think that’s known as the Pleasure Principle.

Thanks to Klaus for stimulating me to post on this.

So we’ll have more pregnant teenagers, more ill-equppied child-mothers, more kids being poorly raised by resentful single parents whose own opportunities in life were cut short for lack of a pill or a condom. None of which leads to great health outcomes for either mother or child. Is it any wonder that the world’s wealthiest country trails the likes of Cypress, Morrocco and the Dominican Republic in health care?

If this depresses you, this gem from Paul Hipp might cheer you up.

Thanks to Txema and Kim Thomas.

Inevitably, the goodie-two-shoes family values mob worries that if boys can get condoms easily, they’ll be more likely to have sex. “Josephine Quintavalle, founder of Comment on Reproductive Ethics, a pressure group, warned: “We are just facilitating and encouraging sexuality without any deeper understanding of the emotional side of relationships” The Times reports. (I don’t know what Josephine’s experience is but I carry condoms all the time and I haven’t noticed that it makes it significantly easier to get laid. The few teenagers I drink with say the same.)

More realistically, some doctors worry that the credit card scheme that goes with the free condoms will put some teenagers off. While condoms will be handed out at football grounds and other places where young guys hang out, they’ll have to show a “condom credit card” to get them. The card shows that they’ve sat dutifully through safe sex training sessions. If they sit through extra “what to do about drippy dicks” sessions, they get stamps on their cards, coffee shop style. The government’s notion that boys will want to collect the stamps as a status symbol seems devised by someone who has little memory of being a teenage boy, and doesn’t even drink with them. As NHS doctor John Crippen says, we shouldn’t be putting any barriers at all in the way of young guys being responsible about contraception and STI prevention if and when they get lucky.

If you’re a teen who’s hoping free condoms will help you pleasure women more often, Durex Play’s here to give you pointers on what you’re aiming for. But to keep in line with Nanny’s guidelines on appropriate viewing, please make sure you only watch this ad after 11 pm.

Thanks to Peter Barnett for pointing me to Dr. John.

The idea is to force the country’s squabbling politicians, and most particularly the squabblers-in-chief President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minister Raila Odinga, to behave more sensibly. (Lucy Kibaki hasn’t yet said whether she’ll join in.)

A whole week without sex: imagine! The idea that this would be enough to get Kenya’s politicians to give up a lifetime’s habit of self-interested tribal and party politicking says quite a bit, doesn’t it? When epidemiologists suggest that one reason HIV spreads more rapidly in East and Southern Africa than elsewhere is because the timing, frequency and volume of sexual partnerships support that spread, we’re told we’re racist (as though somehow having lots of sex is a bad thing….). Now we have the women of Kenya planning to change the world by depriving men of sex for a single week. I can’t see the prospect of that bringing many British MPs to their knees.

Actually, I don’t think for a moment that the good womenfolk of Kenya think that their men can’t make it through the week without sex. New research published today (in the wonderful, open-access Public Library of Science) that included 1,161 Kenyan couples found that they had sex four times a month on average. Giving up one of those four times hardly seems like a big sacrifice. I’m interested, though, in how they are going to pay top-up fees to all the striking sex workers — over 7,000 girls would normally be bringing in the cash each night in Nairobi’s central business district alone.

I’m also mildly amused by the “men are pigs, women are saints” ethos that underlies the sex boycott. The annoucement of the boycott itself has drawn fighting words from the leaders of some women’s organisations. In a country where one in 13 adults are infected with sexually transmitted HIV, 60% of them women, some women’s leaders still think it is wicked to talk about sex. This from The Nation:

Maendeleo ya Wanawake [Women's Development Organisation] vice-chair Rahab Muiu criticised the presence of the organisation’s chairperson at a press conference where the strike was announced. “As the largest women’s organisation in the country, we strongly believe in family values and cannot be associated with such foul utterances which can only break families,” Mrs Muiu said.
She said chairperson Rukia Subow supported the sex boycott in her personal capacity. However, Mrs Subow has come out fighting, retorting: “I set the agenda for women in this country.”
The organisation’s assistant national secretary, Mrs Elizabeth Mayieka, said women in Nyanza were beaten by their husbands over the proposed boycott. She condemned the boycott, saying it is taboo to talk about bedroom matters in public and in the presence of children.

Thanks to Lisa McCandless

If you’re a gay man in Canada who knows you’ve got HIV, there is a very high chance indeed that your infection will be monitored, and that you’ll be on treatment if you need it. And that in turn means that your viral load will be kept low, and you’ll be very much less infectious than you might be if you didn’t get regular checks and treatment. While I’d obviously like to see more positive people being able and willing to talk openly about their infection, the truth is that the chances of getting infected by someone with well-managed HIV is very slim, whether or not they tell you. And whether or not you bother to ask (because let’s face it sex does, usually, take at least two, each of whom can choose to take responsibility for themselves). But of course if you don’t KNOW you’re infected, you can’t be prosecuted for not disclosing. The criminalisation laws provide a strong disincentive to get tested. That means there’s more untreated virus around, and that in turn means more HIV transmission.

I could go on about the other logical inconsistencies in the piece — if not disclosing is murder, then are doctors who know a person’s status but don’t tell that person’s partner accessories to murder? etc etc. But I’m not going to, because I’m in Vancouver and have a whole day of good science at the Canadian Conference on HIV/AIDS research to look forward to. In honour of my visit to Canada, though, I thought I’d post for your listening pleasure these priceless phone messages left by the flower of Canadian manhood for some woman who tried to slough off his letching with a business card. Hard to imagine why, instead of calling him back (”I’m practically the only man in this city who has not a single thing wrong with him”), she sent the messages in to a Toronto radio station.

*UPDATE*
Rick Kennedy of the Ontario AIDS Network sent me the following clarification:

According to the 2003 ruling in the William case “Once an individual becomes aware of a risk that he or she has contracted HIV, and hence that his or her partner’s consent has become an issue, but nevertheless persists in unprotected sex that creates a risk of further HIV transmission without disclosure to his or her partner, recklessness is established”.

To date, no one has been charged on the basis of this ruling. If you go to the Ontario AIDS Network website, to the
HIV debate section and download the excellent Powerpoint presentation by Glenn Betteridge you will find a detailed explnation of current status of the Canadain law.

So I did. Glenn’s presentation is here and there’s lots of other useful information about criminalisation on the Ontario AIDS Network site. Thanks, Rick.

And thanks to Javi for the phone number…

They’re not just handing out these prescription meds to anyone, of course. That would be irresponsible. But they did note that one particularly uncoperative warlord of about 60 had four young wives, according to The Washington Post. What could a man in that position possibly need? The CIA knowingly proffered blue pills.

“The enticement worked. The officer, who described the encounter, returned four days later to an enthusiastic reception. The grinning chief offered up a bonanza of information about Taliban movements and supply routes — followed by a request for more pills….Aging village patriarchs were easily sold on the utility of a pill that could “put them back in an authoritative position,” the official said.

Sharp-eyed (and sour-faced) readers spotted the fact that this story was juxtaposed with another about the exploitation of women around the world, and they quickly joined the dots. Giving Viagra to men over 60 is, apparently, America’s way of “provid(ing) another method for these guys to oppress women and children in their own country”. Which is, yet again, to assume that none of the wives could possibly want to have sex with their husband. Ho hum. I’d rather share my friend Steve’s more seasonably charitable view of the story: Alhamdulillah!

I’m not the first to observe that American evangelicals have been taking over the sex agenda. But you have to take your hat off to (Ir)Reverend Ed Young, who challenged his congregation to keep it up for a week. You have to take something off, at any rate. Perhaps the cap on the Viagra bottle?

“I’m going to challenge you to have sex with your spouse for seven straight days,” says Irrev. Ed. Seven straight days of sex with your spouse. It’s not seven days of straight sex with your spouse, so we’re allowed to go beyond vanilla, which is always nice. Nor is it sex for seven days with your straight spouse, so I’m guessing same-sex marrieds are allowed to take the challenge. But it does appear to be seven days without a break. I’m all for lots of sex, but seven straight days? What about those essential post-orgasmic pee breaks? What about a slap-up breakfast or an inter-course glass of wine? I think I’d need both by halfway through day 2.

Maybe the good pastor meant seven days in a row. In the same way that the abstinence fundamentalists probably meant to recommend 101 Fun Things to do INSTEAD of having sex, rather than BESIDES having sex. Or maybe evangelicals really are more adventurous that I thought.

By the way, I was watching Rev Ed strutting his pink stage (styled, it seems, by a Holy Trinity of ghosts: Elvis, Freddie Mercury and Elton John) courtesy of the Midwest Teen Sex Show. If you want to help them raise money to keep producing their fabulous sex videos and are still looking for last-minute christmas presents, the humping bull T-shirt comes in various shapes and sizes. Enough to wear a different one seven days in a row…