A leading Egyptian scholar has demanded that people caught importing a female virginity-faking device into the country should face the death penalty.

Abdul Mouti Bayoumi said supplying the item was akin to spreading vice in society, a crime punishable by death in Islamic Sharia law.

The device is said to release liquid imitating blood, allowing a female to feign virginity on her wedding night. There is a stigma about pre-marital sex in conservative Arab societies.

The contraption is seen as a cheap and simple alternative to hymen repair surgery, which is carried out in secret by some clinics in the Middle East. It is produced in China and has already become available in other parts of the Arab world. The device is reported to be on sale in Syria for $15.

Professor Bayoumi, a scholar at the prestigious al-Azhar University, said it undermined the moral deterrent of fornication, which he described as a crime and one of the cardinal sins in Islam. Members of parliament in Egypt have also called for banning import of the item

Update: MP Joins the Call

7th October 2009. See article from independent.co.uk

Sheik Sayed Askar, a member of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood who is on the parliamentary religious affairs committee, said the kit would make it easier for Egyptian women to give in to temptation. He demanded the government take responsibility for fighting the product to uphold Arab values.

A medical trial in Thailand has raised hopes of a major breakthrough in the fight against Aids after scientists said an experimental vaccine had reduced the risk of HIV infection by a third.

The world's largest HIV/Aids vaccine trial of more than 16,000 volunteers was the first in which infection has been prevented, according to the US army, which sponsored the trial with the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

A combination of two vaccines was tested on HIV-negative Thai men and women aged 18 to 30 at average risk of becoming infected. All the volunteers were given counselling and condoms to help them avoid HIV. Then half were randomly picked to receive the vaccine, while the other half got dummy shots. Until the trial ended, nobody knew who had been given the genuine vaccine and who had not.

A relatively small number of people became infected with HIV – 51 of the 8,197 people given the vaccine, and 74 of the 8,198 who received dummy shots – but the difference was statistically significant, which means scientists believe it could not have happened by chance. It worked out at a 31% lower risk of infection for the vaccine group.

Colonel Jerome Kim, who helped to lead the $105m (£64m) study for the US army, said it was the first evidence that we could have a safe and effective preventive vaccine .

Many people do not realise drinking alcohol can disturb a good night's sleep by interfering with the brain, a government-funded poll suggests.

Almost half of 2,000 drinkers surveyed reported fatigue the day after drinking more than the recommended daily limit.

According to the poll's findings, many people did not know that the dehydration caused by drinking could interfere with their sleep.

Alcohol stops the brain from releasing vasopressin, a chemical which tells the kidneys to reabsorb water that would otherwise end up in the bladder. Without this signal, the drinker needs more frequent trips to the toilet. The loss of this water can also lead to a headache emanating from the inner lining of the skull.

In addition, alcohol disrupts the "REM" stage of sleep, which is thought necessary for a deep and effective slumber.

After drinking the body tends to fall straight into a deep sleep, and only enters the REM stage once the alcohol has been metabolised. As the body wakes more easily from REM sleep, many drinkers find they stir early in the morning without feeling as if they have slept properly.

Jessica Alexander, spokesperson for the Sleep Council, said: Although many people may feel alcohol helps them get off to sleep, it is also a major culprit for disrupting your night as it can interfere with the body's chemical processes needed for sound sleep.

Waking up deprived of the vital sleep your body needs will leave you feeling drained and, if experienced night after night, can seriously affect your health and wellbeing.

If you find yourself drinking above the recommended daily limits most days of the week, your body may be constantly trying to catch up and then it's likely you'll never feel fully alert or equipped to deal with the stresses and strains of daily life.

Men who get embarrassed talking to their doctor about sexual matters can now blush in front of a pharmacist instead, as Viagra goes on sale in chemists.
The little blue pill, used to tackle erection problems, is being given out in Boots stores – following consultations to make sure men who want to buy it are suitable to use the drug.

But shyness comes with a price-tag – whereas suitable patients can get the drug for the cost of an NHS prescription, the Boots service will set them back more than £80.

The scheme will offer men a half-hour consultation to assess the requirements. Pharmacists will then be able to give them a course of the prescription-only drugs. Chemists will do a pre-screening questionnaire, take a medical history and conduct blood tests, including checking men's glucose, blood pressure and cholesterol levels, to rule out a more serious health problem.

The service will be available in a private consultation room in 29 stores in England and will cost £55 for the initial screening then £26.59 for four tablets. Patients can return for a check-up and get further supplies.

Boots hopes to extend the service later to shops in Scotland.

An experimental spray-on anesthetic may be the cure for many men suffering from premature ejaculation -- increasing the time to orgasm more than sixfold, according to new findings to be presented this week.

In a double-blind trial of more than 300 men with a lifetime history of prematurity, researchers found that the mean time to orgasm increased from about 0.6 minutes to 3.8 minutes in those using the spray.

This new topical spray has promise to become one of the most effective treatments for premature ejaculation, said Dr. Ira Sharlip, a urologist at UC San Francisco and an association spokesman. It has a number of characteristics which will be attractive to patients.

Premature ejaculation is one of the most common sexual problems of men, striking about 1 in every 3 -- compared with 1 in 4 who have erectile dysfunction.

Researchers have generally taken two approaches to overcoming the problem: treating the brain or numbing the penis.

Scientists noted some time ago that certain antidepressants, such as Zoloft and Prozac, had a side effect of delaying ejaculation. Johnson & Johnson developed a new drug, called dapoxetine, that maximized this effect. The drug has been approved in a couple of European countries, but the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has ruled that it is not approvable, in part because of the problems associated with long-term use of such drugs.

The other approach is to use a topical anesthetic, such as EMLA cream, a combination of the anesthetics lignocaine and prilocaine in a cream base. It has not been approved for treating premature ejaculation, but many physicians prescribe it off-label.

The cream takes 45 minutes to work, however. The man must also wear a condom, or the cream will rub off on the female, preventing her from achieving satisfaction.

Dr. Michael G. Wyllie and his colleagues at Plethora Solutions Ltd. in London have developed an anesthetic spray called PSD502, or Tempe. A combination of lidocaine and prilocaine, it is absorbed only by the glans penis -- the most sensitive part of the organ -- and not by the shaft. It is quickly absorbed, so there is no danger of it rubbing off on the woman, and it acts in five minutes. That's a distinct advantage over previous options, because it doesn't need to be used with a condom or washed off before intercourse, Sharlip said.

The scale of the Thai resort of Phuket's sex industry has been revealed in a survey by Public Health officials. It concludes there are more than 6229 female workers and 998 male workers in the trade.

The numbers are the totals of people who openly admit to earning their living from prostitution.

The figures came on the same day as a seminar on prostitution was held in Bangkok. British ambassador Quinton Quayle expressed concern about prostitution across national boundaries. He said Thailand was a part of the problem because many women and men went abroad or were taken abroad to engage in prostitution.

On Phuket, Public Health officials check bars in Patong and other entertainment centres, including Phuket City, twice a year, asking the owners of establishments how many workers are involved.

The survey is not complete in terms of total numbers because some bars refuse entry to Public Health and decline to have staff involved in surveys, Vice Governor Tree was told.

The overt nature of the international tourist sex trade is matched by a large-scale yet far less open industry involving Thais.

Drinking alcohol every day is worse than binge-drinking for causing liver disease, research suggests.

According to a study published today in the journal Addiction, the risk of serious liver disease is higher among those who drink heavily each day over the long term than in those who drink large amounts but then take breaks.

Sex toy fans are getting cashback from a health scheme that pays them £40 to hand in their old rampant rabbits.

Health officials in Germany have said the type of plastic used to make old vibrators can harm users, as it leaks hormone-copying plastic molecules into their bodies.

Participants are now getting a cash handout for scrapping their old vibrators and buying new ones.

A health worker told the Austrian Times: These old plastics are now banned in children’s toys and surgical instruments. Hopefully this is a deal that will leave everyone smiling.

See further information from Wikipedia

Phthalates are frequently used in soft plastic fishing lures, nail polish, adhesives, caulk, paint pigments, and sex toys made of so-called jelly rubber.

Some vendors of jelly rubber sex toys advise covering them in condoms when used internally, due to the possible leaching of phthalates. Other vendors do not carry jelly rubber sex toys, in favor of phthalate-free varieties.

In studies of rodents exposed to certain phthalates, high doses have been shown to change hormone levels and cause birth defects

The Earth Angel is a brand new innovatively designed adult toy designed and developed in Ireland. It is the first ever adult toy to contain "green" technology. Over the last few years there have been attempts made to produce a 100% environmentally friendly sex toy but none have so far lived up to expectations. "Green" sex toy manufacturers are focusing more on the materials used in their toys than the operation of the toys. There have been some offerings of solar powered and moon powered toys but these are not without their disadvantages.

Unlike traditional "green" toys it will never require replacement batteries as it houses its own patented power core. Intense vibrations from the word go. A specially adapted key is fitted within the base and is extracted and turned to initiate the power core. A few turns and you have a fully charged, incredibly intense vibrator.

All elements of THE EARTH ANGEL have been used with the environment in mind, from the internal parts to the outer packaging. We have only produced our vibrator in one colour, white, in keeping with the concept behind the product.

The adult trade group point out that it takes 4 minutes to wind up the vibrator sufficiently for 30 minutes of fun. I wonder how much extra carbon dioxide is generated due to the exercise and how many resources are expended to grow the food used to fuel the human power generator.

Men are more likely to think of women as objects if they have looked at sexy pictures of females beforehand, psychologists have claimed.

Researchers used brain scans to show that when men looked at pictures of women in bikinis, areas of the brain that normally light up in anticipation of using tools, like spanners and screwdrivers, were activated. Scans of some of the men found that a part of the brain associated with empathy for other peoples' emotions and wishes shut down after looking at the pictures.

Sex extermination object Susan Fiske, a psychologist at Princeton University in New Jersey, said the changes in brain activity suggest sexy images can shift the way men perceive women, turning them from people to interact with, to objects to act upon.

The finding confirms a long-suspected effect of sexy images on the way women are perceived, and one which persists in workplaces and the wider world today, Fiske claimed: When there are sexualised images in the workplace, it's hard for people not to think about their female colleagues in those terms. It spills over from the images to the workplace.

In the study, Fiske's team put straight men into an MRI brain scanner and showed them images of either clothed men and women, or more scantily clad men and women. When they took a memory test afterwards, the men best remembered images of bikini-clad women whose heads had been digitally removed.

The brain scans showed that when men saw the images of the women's bodies, activity increased in part of the brain called the premotor cortex, which is involved in urges to take action. The same area lights up before using power tools to do DIY. "It's as if they immediately thought to act on theses bodies," Fiske claimed.

In the final part of the study, Fiske asked the men to fill in a questionnaire that was used to assess how sexist they were. The brain scans showed that men who scored highest had very little activity in the prefrontal cortex and other brain regions that are involved with understanding another person's feelings and intentions. They're reacting to these women as if they're not fully human, Fiske said.

In her laboratory at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Prof Chivers showed a group of men and women footage of straight sex, male and female gay sex, male and female masturbation, a woman exercising naked, a naked man walking on a beach – and a film clip of bonobo apes mating, with some appreciative hoots and screeches dubbed in. Male viewers had an apparatus attached to their penises to gauge any trace of engorgement; women had a plastic probe inserted to measure vaginal transudation. They also were given an electronic pad to record whether or not they felt turned on by what was being shown.

The results were amazing. Among the male participants, the degree of desire they claimed on the keypads matched the degree of response recorded on the machines: they liked to watch straight shagging and girl-on-girl action, and they knew they did. Among women, things were different. No matter how much their keypads insisted they weren't interested in the scenes before them, their internal monitors showed they were turned on by everything: straight sex, gay sex, lesbian sex, the nude gymnast – even the rutting simians got a vaginal thumbs-up.

The findings were startling: apparently, women don't know what turns them on – but an awful lot of things do so. Many lady readers of the New York Times might feel insulted by being told they could be sexually aroused by apes, but Prof Chivers goes further. She claims that evolution is responsible for the phenomenon of women's reported arousal – to the point of orgasm – during sexual assault. It goes back to ancestral days, she reports, when women had to lubricate internally during unwanted sex to reduce the possibility of discomfort, illness or death.

...Read full article

Couples who share a passionate kiss enjoy sensations of relaxation and excitement because of a complex series of chemical processes, as well as their love for their partners.

The study showed that women need more than just a kiss to experience the same chemical high as men - with additional features such as a romantic atmosphere of dimmed lights and mood music also required.

Wendy Hill, professor of psychology at Lafayette College, Pennsylvania began the research to find out why the mundane physical activity of rubbing lips can elicit such a gratifying emotional response.

Her team tested the levels of two hormones, cortisol and oxytocin, in 15 couples before and after holding hands and kissing.

They found that kissing reduced the levels of cortisol, a stress hormone, in both sexes. But levels of oxytocin, a hormone linked to social bonding that they expected to be boosted by kissing, only rose among the men.

This study shows kissing is much more complex and causes hormonal changes and things we never thought occurred, said Prof Hill.

It is not clear how kissing provokes such hormonal reactions, but some scientists believe they are triggered by the exchange of pheromones – chemicals our bodies release to attract sexual partners – in the saliva.

This interaction may also have health benefits. Helen Fisher of Rutgers University, New Jersey, said: If you share your germs with somebody, you're boosting your internal defence system.

A one-a-day impotence pill is now available on the NHS.

The makers of Cialis say it is superior to its predecessor Viagra because the effects last much longer – up to 36 hours compared to four.

It has been licensed for daily use for the first time, meaning men can now take it as part of their everyday routine.

Only those 15% of impotence patients with a certified medical condition – such as diabetes or renal failure – will be able to receive a 28-day supply of the drug for free on the NHS.

The remainder of patients will have to pay around £55 for each pack. The drugs are available only on prescription from a GP.

Men take it as part of their daily routine in the morning. Side-effects are mostly mild, including headaches or upset stomach.

The drug has been available for several years, but has only just been licensed for use once a day. It is therefore the first oral impotence drug which enables couples to initiate sex whenever they wish.

Bless me Father for I have sinned...20 times this month. Twenty Hail Marys my son. Can I take that as a repeat prescription?

Masturbation may be good for you – or bad, depending on your age. The solitary sexual activity that is widely practised but little discussed, is linked with an increased risk of prostate cancer when practised frequently by young men in their twenties and thirties, doctors say.

But by the time men reach their fifties, it may protect against the disease because it helps remove toxins that have built up over a lifetime.

Prostate cancer is known to be driven by the male hormone testosterone, and men with high levels of testosterone tend to have a higher sex drive and a higher risk of the cancer.

But most research has examined older men because prostate cancer is unusual under 50. Researchers at the University of Nottingham studied the link between sexual activity in younger men and the disease to see if it affected their long-term risk. More than 400 men with prostate cancer diagnosed before the age of 60 were questioned about their sexual habits over the preceding decades and the results compared with 400 controls.

The findings showed that those who had been most sexually active in their twenties – having sexual intercourse or masturbating more than 20 times a month – were more likely to have the cancer. Frequent masturbation, but not sexual intercourse, in the twenties and thirties was significantly linked with the later development of prostate cancer.

In their 50s men who were most sexually active (more than 10 times a month for sexual intercourse and masturbation combined) enjoyed a small protective effect. The effect was greater when masturbation was assessed on its own.

Polyxeni Dimitripolou, who led the study published in the British Journal of Urology International, said: It seems as if keeping up a certain level of sexual activity through the decades is better than having a high level early [in the 20s and 30s] and then nothing.