Spoilt for choice? Take them all

Scientists claim to have discovered the secret of sexual desire in a breakthrough that could change millions of lives around the world. They are developing a "wonder pill" to generate sex drive in both women and men who struggle with their libido.

The medication could also have the potential to boost fertility rates and is believed to have the side-effect of encouraging weight-loss.

If successful, it could outsell the market-leading impotence drug Viagra, as it bolsters the brain's desire for sex, whereas Viagra boosts only physical capability.

Loss of libido affects more than a third of women and up to one in six men, but experts report a growing problem with a decline in sexual desire among stressed-out males.

The pill would use a hormone that releases Type 2 gonadotropin, which drives the reproductive system in animals and humans. Tests on animals have proved successful and researchers at the Medical Research Council's Human Reproductive Sciences Unit in Edinburgh are working on an equivalent for humans.

Swedish mums want far more sex than they are actually getting, according to a survey done by mummy magazine Mama.

Apparently, 43% of mums under the age of 29 own a dildo and almost 28% of those questioned in the Mama survey have checked out online porn.

Having said that, 31% of those surveyed think their man's freshly showered body is the greatest turn-on. Some mums would prefer a completely different man altogether: 7% of mums have been unfaithful after becoming mothers.

39% of the Swedish mums surveyed have had anal sex and 23% fantasize about other men or women during sexual intercourse. 37% of the younger mums (under age 29) have had lesbian fantasies. 2% have had group sex and 23% of mums under the age of 29 use handcuffs as part of sex play.

But the most telling statistic in the survey - though not exactly surprising - is that 60% of mums simply want more frequent sex. They would like to have sex at least once or twice a week but only 38% of them actually get it that often.

The Mama survey questioned 918 Mama readers in an internet survey carried out in co-operation with RAM (Research-and analysis of media).

A recent global sex survey found that 70% of Thai women cannot achieve orgasm.

Others reach orgasm through masturbation or having sex with another woman, while 79% of Thai men climax during sex, according to research by condom manufacturer Durex.

The survey revealed that 54% of Thai couples cannot reach orgasm, while Italians, Spanish, Mexicans and South Africans are the most likely to climax almost every time, at 66%. Only 24% of Chinese couples achieve orgasm and the Japanese recorded 27%.

Sexologist Dr Pansak Sugkrakroek says most Thai women cannot reach orgasm because their partners do not know how to help them.

They just care about themselves, he says. Making love is a kind of art that they have to learn so that they can help their partners.

Pansak says some couples end relationships because they cannot help each other to reach orgasm.

Taking more time can have a significant impact on the quality of orgasms. Those Thais fully satisfied with the intensity of their orgasms spend on average 3.9 more minutes on foreplay than those who are not, he adds.

Even though orgasms are not the be all and end all of sex, regularly achieving them improves emotional and overall wellbeing, as well as a bond with a partner. It can also help to reduce life's stresses. Ideally, people should try to have orgasms regularly, he says.

Raquel Pacheco, better known as “Bruna Surfistinha” is an ex-call girl from the state of São Paulo, Brazil who became famous for sharing stories about her life as a prostitute in the book The Scorpion's Sweet Venom: The Diary of a Brazilian Call Girl. The book quickly has become a tremendous success in Brazil, and in the US and in some European countries as well. At 23 years old, Bruna has found love and left behind her three-year prostitution and brief movie career.

AEBN: How was the beginning of your life as a call girl?

Bruna: It was difficult because I was not used to have sex with strangers. I have always been able to feel pleasure though, and it helped me to relax.

AEBN: Would you have done things differently if you could go back in time?

Bruna: I really don’t have any regrets. I believe that everyone has the power to choose his or her own actions in life. The only thing that I would have done differently is the way I left my parents home. I simply ran away and left a goodbye letter to my mother. If I could go back, I would try harder to get along with them.

AEBN: What do you say to couples interested in improving their sexual performance?

Bruna: Sex is an important part of people’s lives. I think that men should always respect their partners, and women should try to compromise a little more when it comes to sex. Women need to try to overcome the fear of sex and try new stimulants- like sex toys, masturbation and anal sex, for their own pleasure – and not to please their men. Women really need to get past the taboo of anal sex- especially if they are Brazilian- because Brazilian men are crazy for this practice! Believe me- if it wasn’t good, there would be no homosexuals!

AEBN: What made you want to go public with your life blog and your book?

Bruna: In 2004, the personal blogs became extremely popular among young people in Brazil. I decided to create my own blog as a form of therapy to work on my feelings when I felt lonely. I was a good writer, and I got a lot of e-mails from people who could not believe that a call girl could write so well, since most people think prostitutes don’t have any intellectual capacity. This made me realize how strong the prejudice against prostitution was. I decided that I would show people the other side. After beginning my blog, it didn’t take very long before I was invited to write a book about my story by two Brazilian publishers.

AEBN: What was the most difficult situation you went through as a prostitute?

Bruna: I was in a motel room with this crazy guy who started insulting me and tried to force me to do several humiliating acts while we were having sex. He decided that he was not going to pay me and that he wouldn’t let me leave the room. After a lot of talking, he threw the money on the floor and let me out. It was scary.

AEBN: Where do you want to be in five years?

Bruna: I want to be an anonymous person again, and I want to have a degree in Psychology. I want to have kids and reconcile with my parents. I also want to enjoy the fruits of my labor from my book, and of the movie based on it.

[According to the news portal “G1” from Brazilian Rede Globo, Marcus Baldini (the director of Madam Satã) will direct the movie The Scorpion’s Sweet Venom produced by TV Zero. It is due for release in 2008].

AEBN: You mention the word “freedom” many times in your book. What does freedom mean to you?

Bruna: Freedom is something everybody wants, but most never reach. I was looking for freedom when I left my parents house, but ended up becoming a prisoner of the prostitution world. The fact that I’ve become a celebrity is just another example of my freedom being taken away from me. I can’t simply do whatever I want- I have to give away autographs and pay attention to my fans. To me, freedom is an unattainable utopia.

For many Australian men anal sex is an unattainable dream, the holiest of holies murmured about with mates yet rarely realised.

Studies put the number of men and women who've engaged in the act anywhere between 15 and 40 percent, with half that number practicing regularly.

The reason anal is such a rare bird comes down to both culture and anatomy: like going back stage at a concert or picking food up off the ground, anal sex is viewed as both forbidden and dirty by us up-tight Aussies.

But then, fifty years ago, so were blow jobs.

Kath Albury, in her book Yes Means Yes says anal sex is seen as men's sex, something only bad men ask for and only bad women agree to.

...Read full article

...Mark says he used to spend a lot of time trying to pick women up in clubs and bars. Now the 31-year-old business consultant from London doesn't have the time: It is a mixture of the convenience and the time aspect. I work very, very long hours.

He recognises there is a stigma, but it is one he utterly rejects: Some of my friends are fully aware that I visit prostitutes. Many of them do themselves. There is this fear that it is in some way abusive. I would disagree with the idea that nobody chooses to do it for a living.

Patrick views it as a totally mundane transaction between adults: I see us as adults. I want to pay and someone wants to sell. As long as I'm not hurting them in any way what harm am I doing. I'm distributing my wealth to people who don't have it.

The trio all use a website, PunterNet, where "punters" - the men who visit prostitutes - go to discuss their encounters.

The men speak of forming friendships with the women in the parlours and saunas.

There's always a lot of girls that I know, says Patrick: We have a good camaraderie. I treat them as my friends and I feel to some extent they confide and talk to me.

There is one aspect of the media coverage that all three men find irritating - the idea that trafficked or coerced women make up a significant proportion of prostitutes. Patrick, Mark and Pete say they have never encountered a trafficked woman and that conversations with prostitutes lead them to believe it is rare.

The perception is that everybody is trafficked, says Mark: The figures bandied around for the numbers of trafficked women are absurd. Mark's position is clear. If he did meet a woman he suspected was trafficked he would do something about it, there and then.

I've never come across one, says Patrick: All the people I've seen, they have always been happy, we have talked beforehand.

All three men are, needless to say, opposed to the Swedish model that is now gaining currency in the UK where, the act of buying sex is criminalised.

...Read the full article

New research has revealed the majority of Australian pornography consumers are not shady perverts, but religious, monogamous men and increasingly their partners.

The Porn Report, by academics Alan McKee, Kath Albury and Catharine Lumby delves into the Australia's pornography industry and has turned up some interesting results.

The report has found most pornography users do not have disproportionately negative attitudes towards women.

When asked questions like Should women get equal pay for equal work? and Would I mind working for a female boss? regular pornography users did not fare any differently to non-users.

28% of pornography users are Labor voters and 24% for the Coalition, while Greens voters (16%), Democrats (9%) and One Nation (3%) made up the numbers.

The report also found Queenslanders and West Australians consumer more porn per capita than the rest of the country.

Unsurprisingly, younger Australians are more liberal in their views toward porn than their parents while young women and couples are increasingly carving off a section of the adult market.

A search that has preoccupied many women for year, not to mention their partners, may finally be over. An Italian scientist believes he may have found the female G-spot.

Emmanuele Jannini, of the University of L’Aquila, claims to have found the first anatomical evidence for the existence of the elusive and controversial pleasure point, which some women say triggers powerful vaginal orgasms. His research could also explain why so many women have searched for their G-spot in vain: it suggests that not all of them have one.

The G-spot is named after Ernst Gräfenberg, a German gynaecologist who in 1950 proposed that a sensitive point on the vaginal wall could provoke particularly intense orgasms in some women, which differ from normal orgasms caused by clitoral stimulation. Finding it has since become a staple of good-sex handbooks.

Its existence, however, has been widely questioned. Many women have always found it impossible to locate, leading them to doubt their own sexual skills or that of their partners, or to wonder whether the whole idea of a vaginal pleasure point is a myth.

Dr Jannini has found anatomical differences between women who can have vaginal orgasms and those who cannot and told New Scientist magazine that it may be possible to develop an ultrasound test that can tell women whether they have one.

He used ultrasound to examine nine women who said that they could have vaginal orgasms and eleven who said that they could not. He found that the tissue between the vagina and urethra was thicker in the first group, which could be linked to their ability to have an orgasm.

An anti-Aids gel tested on humans in Thailand and other countries has proved ineffective in preventing transmission of the HIV infection from men to women as hoped.

The study was unable to show Carraguard's efficacy in preventing male-to-female transmission of HIV, said principal investigator Khatija Ahmed of Population Council, an NGO behind the vaginal drug and trials.

Carraguard, a candidate microbicide produced by the Population Council, had spent three years in large-scale "phase three" trials, was unable to prevent transmission of the Aids virus, the investigators said. But the gel was found to be safe for long-term vaginal use, a finding they described as extremely promising.

It is the third major setback in the seven-year-long drive to develop a vaginal microbicide, the term for a cream that would block or kill the AIDS virus during vaginal intercourse.

Antiretroviral drugs used to treat people with HIV might also prevent vaginal transmission of the virus, claims a study by researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas.

The vast majority of new HIV infections worldwide, which total about 6,800 new transmissions daily, occur through unprotected vaginal sex with an infected partner.

For this study, the researchers used special mice with fully developed human immune systems that produced the infection-fighting cells specifically targeted by HIV in people. The Texas team found that daily doses of antiretroviral drugs before and after exposure to HIV can prevent vaginal transmission of the virus.

The study was published in the Jan. 14 online issue of PLoS Medicine.

Our motivation is to look for interventions that can be implemented rapidly and have the potential to make a big difference, senior study author Dr. J. Victor Garcia-Martinez, a professor of internal medicine, said: We don't want something in 10 years. We want female-controlled prevention measures now. Our observations support the potential for antiviral drugs to function as an effective pre-exposure prophylaxis against the further spread of AIDS.