Sex in San Diego

Thumbnail image for Sex in San Diego: Why Emergency Contraceptive Terrifies Christian Conservatives

Sex in San Diego: Why Emergency Contraceptive Terrifies Christian Conservatives

by Source 05.22.2013 Government

By Valerie Taric / Alternet

You know the 11-year-old down the street who is dividing her after-school time between the park where she gets laid and the drug store where she buys her douches? Yeah, neither do I.

But apparently a number of right-wing commentators live in a different world than we do, because in their world that girl is the reason all of us should have to show ID to get emergency contraception.

In their world, if we can get EC without showing our names and birth dates, so can she. Apparently, this girl’s fear of pregnancy is the only thing keeping her and her peers from even nastier sex lives. Think tweens gone wild. As columnist Kathleen Parker put it, “As long as there’s an exit, whether abortion or Plan B, what’s the incentive to await mere maturity?”

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Thumbnail image for Sex in San Diego: Marriage Is For Losers

Sex in San Diego: Marriage Is For Losers

by Source 05.15.2013 Sex in San Diego

By Dr. Kelly Flanagan / UnTangled

You can be right, or you can be married; take your pick. I can’t remember who told me that, but I do remember that they were only half-joking. The other half, the serious half, is exceedingly important. This is why.

Many therapists aren’t crazy about doing marital therapy. It’s complicated and messy, and it often feels out of control. In the worst case scenario, the therapist has front row seats to a regularly-scheduled prize fight. But I love to do marital therapy. Why? Maybe I enjoy the work because I keep one simple principle in mind: if marriage is going to work, it needs to become a contest to see which spouse is going to lose the most, and it needs to be a race that goes down to the wire.

When it comes to winning and losing, I think there are three kinds of marriages.

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Thumbnail image for Sex in San Diego: Pentagon Study Finds 26,000 Military Sexual Assaults Last Year, Over 70 Sex Crimes Per Day

Sex in San Diego: Pentagon Study Finds 26,000 Military Sexual Assaults Last Year, Over 70 Sex Crimes Per Day

by Source 05.08.2013 Activism

Editor: The following is a transcript of Amy Goodman’s program on Democracy Now from yesterday, May 8, that aired highlights from Tuesday’s Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on military sexual assaults . We also include the video – see below.

Democracy Now!

Anu Bhagwati, executive director and co-founder of Service Women’s Action Network, says this about the Pentagon report:

“The numbers are outrageous, and I think we’ve reached a tipping point. The American public is furious.”

NERMEEN SHAIKH: A shocking new report by the Pentagon has found that 70 sexual assaults may be taking place within the U.S. military every day. The report estimated there were 26,000 sex crimes committed in 2012, a jump of 37 percent since 2010. Most of the incidents were never reported.

The Pentagon study was published just two days after the head of the Air Force Sexual Assault Prevention and Response Office was arrested for sexual assault for allegedly groping a woman in a Virginia parking lot on Sunday. The Air Force has removed Lieutenant Colonel Jeffrey Krusinski from his post.

At a Senate hearing on Tuesday, Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand of New York questioned Air Force Secretary Michael Donley about sexual assault in the military.

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Thumbnail image for Sex in San Diego: Getting Older, Getting Better

Sex in San Diego: Getting Older, Getting Better

by Source 05.01.2013 Sex in San Diego

By Charlie Glickman, PhD / Charlie Glickman

Today is the 20th anniversary of the date that I met my partner. In the last two decades, we’ve both changed a lot. We’re both much more secure and solid in who we are. We’ve grown and challenged each other to overcome many of the habits that caused friction in our lives and in our connections with other people. We’ve learned many, many ways to support our relationship. And yes, our bodies have changed, too. While I’d love to have the physical resilience that I used to have, I wouldn’t trade my current life for the one I had back then. I needed that ability to bounce back- without it, I never would have survived the drama I caused myself and others.

After all of this time with my partner, I think she’s more beautiful than ever before and I’m more drawn to her than I could have imagined when we first met.

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Thumbnail image for Sex in San Diego: What Terrorizes Americans Most — Guns or Sexual Freedom?

Sex in San Diego: What Terrorizes Americans Most — Guns or Sexual Freedom?

by Source 04.24.2013 Sex in San Diego

America treats sex, not violence, as the biggest threat to families and the nation.

By Lara Riscol / Alternet

“Just know that you are loved. And show your love. Every day, okay? That’s what matters,” I said as I hugged my 10-year-old son goodbye at his robotics camp not too far from Aurora.

We had just talked about the cowardly gunman in gas mask and body armor mowing down mostly young people at The Dark Knight Rises midnight premiere, killing 12 and wounding 58, some badly. We talked about America’s glorification of violence and sacrosanct gun culture, making mention of gun control taboo no matter the carnage from a formerly banned assault rifle firing a 100-round drum magazine.

I’d rather talk about sex.

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Thumbnail image for Sex in San Diego: Why Do Women Fake Orgasms?

Sex in San Diego: Why Do Women Fake Orgasms?

by Source 04.18.2013 Culture

By Liz Langley / Alternet

I think I was about 11 years old when I asked my mother what an orgasm was. I remember her saying “I don’t know.”

Not to impugn anyone with whom my mother was intimately acquainted but I can’t be sure she was lying. It could have been the “I-don’t-want-to-explain-this,” variety of lie, or the “Ambushed! Play dumb!” variety or it could have been true. For all the sex scandals we’ve seen we should know by now never to assume jack about anyone’s private life.

I had asked because orgasms were everywhere, except, I guess, in people’s bedrooms. They were on book covers and TV talk shows and it seemed that this was a once-private subject, the sudden public discussion of which was making some people upset and uncomfortable, so naturally I wanted to know more. I don’t remember if my mom ever addressed the subject again but I cobbled together, with the help of various media, a half-assed idea of what an orgasm was, or at least how it sounded and naturally heard about women faking it, though not fully understanding what, I didn’t fully understand why.

One researcher has finally taken that question to academia.

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Thumbnail image for Sex in San Diego: 10 Interesting Facts About Breasts

Sex in San Diego: 10 Interesting Facts About Breasts

by Source 04.10.2013 Education

For all their popularity, what do we really know about them?

By Liz Langley / Alternet

“Boobies, boobies, boobies. Nothin’ but boobies. Who needs ‘em? I did great without ‘em.”

So Neely O’Hara famously said in Valley of the Dolls while eyeballing strip joints.
If she could see how much more tit-smitten pop culture has become in the last half-century she’d probably need to do another shot, though frankly, if the Venus de Willendorf is any indication, humans have been boob-centric for as long as 25,000 years.

And why not? Breasts enhance the lives of owners and visitors, and you can’t say that any other body part produces food. Still, for all the times you’ve ogled them, snuggled them or ensconced them in a bra that cost more than your Internet bill, what do you really know about breasts?

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Thumbnail image for Sex in San Diego: A Fine Farewell to Dating Websites

Sex in San Diego: A Fine Farewell to Dating Websites

by Judi Curry 04.03.2013 Culture

As my subscriptions to five online dating sites comes to a close, I look back at some of the situations I have found myself in and can’t help but laugh hysterically. On the other hand, some of the time I found myself sad and depressed because things did not turn out the way I had hoped they would. Sounds like I might be bordering on bipolarism.

Some of the people that I have met have been wonderful and I consider them friends. Of course, I wasn’t looking for friends when I joined the sites; I was – and still am – looking for a companion, a lover, a best friend. I am thrilled that Joe, a man I frequently went out with has found a potential companion for life. I will always think of him as a friend and have also “friended” his new squeeze. Jim, I know I can always count on you if I need help; you have been there each and every time I have asked for some thing.

I have been amazed at the number of men that are married and are looking for a one-nighter. I know their wives don’t understand them, or their wives don’t like sex anymore, or their wives are having an affair and these men just want to “get back at them.” On the same hand, I am amazed at the number of men who are interested in having a mistress. One man told me that I would have to quit all the sites I am on if I were to be his mistress because he didn’t want me “screwing anyone else.” Huh? It’s OK for him to screw around on his wife but I, a single woman, cannot screw around on him. Yeah!

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Thumbnail image for Sex in San Diego: 7 Pitfalls to Avoid When Dating a Sexual Assault Survivor

Sex in San Diego: 7 Pitfalls to Avoid When Dating a Sexual Assault Survivor

by Source 03.27.2013 Editor's Picks

By Sarah Beaulieu / The Good Men Project

Sarah Beaulieu struggled to find the right way to tell people she was a sexual assault survivor. Here’s how you can support someone who opens up about sexual assault.
As a survivor of sexual violence, I always found it challenging to “come out” to a potential love interest about my history. It never seemed to come up naturally in conversation on a date.

There is no right or wrong approach to telling a date that you are a survivor of sexual violence. It’s a completely personal decision, and you have to figure out what works for you. In college, one of my big motivations for sharing my story publicly at Take Back the Night was to share it with the entire universe of potential love interests all at once, so I didn’t have to tell it again and again every time I met someone new.

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Thumbnail image for Sex in San Diego: Why Do Gay Porn Stars Kill Themselves?

Sex in San Diego: Why Do Gay Porn Stars Kill Themselves?

by Source 03.21.2013 Sex in San Diego

Why do porn actors kill themselves? Who is responsible?

Whenever a porn star – especially a gay porn star – commits suicide, theories show up, and people act very, very certain about them. Arpad Miklos, who was as much as a porn “star” as anyone can be in a time when we are hyper-saturated with porn, killed himself on February 3rd, 2013, at the age of 45. As usual, many people felt sure they knew why he committed suicide, without much evidence. It was drugs, it was studios not treating him well, it was the feeling of dehumanization, it was the vague but all encompassing “porn industry” that did it, it was the feeling of being hollow, it was it was his loss of validation after being a star for so long.

I can’t claim any special knowledge about his death, I didn’t know him very well. We met in passing on a set; he’d just finished a scene, and I was about to start mine. He was huge and handsome; I’m not saying anything new. If you met him, you were impressed by his smile and his body and his presence. Looking at him almost made you feel a sense of unbalance in the world, like his handsomeness and flawless physique were proof of some deep inequality between people. But then you’d forget that feeling and be drawn back into the intense attraction.

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Thumbnail image for Sex in San Diego: Are Some Men Born Pedophiles? New Science Says Yes, But Sexologists Say Not So Fast

Sex in San Diego: Are Some Men Born Pedophiles? New Science Says Yes, But Sexologists Say Not So Fast

by Source 03.13.2013 Editor's Picks

By Steven Rosenfeld / Alternet

Pope Benedict’s legacy will be forever tied to it. Penn State’s lawyers are offering legal settlements over it. Adults who knew perpetrators for years still struggle with it. And now new research suggests that some people are born with brains ‘wired’ for sexual attraction to children—or pedophilia—a propensity that’s further shaped by life experiences and often cannot be controlled.

“Whatever the chain of events is, the chain begins before birth,” said James M. Cantor, a University of Toronto professor of psychiatry whose research team has made a series of startling correlations finding that pedophiles are likely to share physical attributes, such as slightly lower IQs, shorter body height, left-handedness and less brain tissue.

“There is no way to explain the findings that we get for pedophelia without mentioning or without including biology,” he recently told Canada’s Association for the Treatment of Sexual Abusers. “It is inescapable at this point. We cannot rule out psycho-social influences, but we cannot have a complete theory that cannot explain these non-obvious but exquisitely important biological findings.”

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Thumbnail image for Sex in San Diego: 16 Things You’d Never Suspect About Phone Sex

Sex in San Diego: 16 Things You’d Never Suspect About Phone Sex

by Source 03.06.2013 Sex in San Diego

By Wednesday Lee Friday / Kinkly

Takeaway: Boredom, bathroom breaks and kinks galore are just a few of the challenges of working as an adult conversation specialist.

Despite the proliferation of Internet porn, phone sexcontinues to be a multimillion dollar industry. And having been a phone sex operator for more than eight years, I can tell you from experience that phone sex can be a fun, sexy, lucrative gig. But I also learned that it can be frustrating, shocking, confounding, exasperating and unexpectedly hilarious. Here are 16 things you’d probably never suspect about phone sex.

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Thumbnail image for Sex in San Diego: 9 Fascinating Things You May Not Know About the Penis

Sex in San Diego: 9 Fascinating Things You May Not Know About the Penis

by Source 02.27.2013 Sex in San Diego

By Liz Langley / Alternet

“Isn’t it awfully good to have a penis,” Eric Idle mused in the greatest 35-second song ever written and I believe he’s telling the truth: having a stiffy is probably spiffy. Erections are such hopeful things, like carrying a little optimist around in your pocket, one imagines.

The penis provides lots of pleasure and keeps the human race going in its capacity as a reproductive organ. There’s all kinds of interesting facts and facets to the human penis and there are some in the animal world that could easily have been designed by Dali. Now’s your chance to get to know them a little better.

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Thumbnail image for Sex in San Diego: Sugar Daddies Site Boasts California Colleges Among ‘Fastest Growing Sugar Baby Schools’ Thanks to Tuition Hikes

Sex in San Diego: Sugar Daddies Site Boasts California Colleges Among ‘Fastest Growing Sugar Baby Schools’ Thanks to Tuition Hikes

by Source 02.20.2013 Business

By Amanda Marcotte / Alternet

Soaring tuition rates are causing a number of reactions from the public: concern for young people saddled with ever-growing debt, anger at governments for cutting back on education instead of taxing the rich appropriately, calls for system-wide reform to help restore America’s global competitiveness. But some see it as an opportunity to market sexual services to men who find the idea of college women in dire economic straights to be arousing.

The leading company in this market recently sent out a glowing press release — heavy with sexist, outdated terms like “coed” — applauding the explosion of desperate college students and letting its customers know that the pool of available sex workers had grown tremendously. It particularly recommended universities in California as a place where the market is flooded with young women who are willing to pretend to like having sex with you in exchange for the kind of financial relief that used to be the government’s responsibility.

For example, UC Berkley experienced a 67% growth and UC Davis experienced a 220% growth, earning them spots among the “Fastest Growing Sugar Baby Schools of 2012.”

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Thumbnail image for Sex in San Diego: Why You Should Kill Cupid this Valentine’s Day

Sex in San Diego: Why You Should Kill Cupid this Valentine’s Day

by Source 02.14.2013 Sex in San Diego

By Terez Williamson / Smartly Smitten

I freely admit I hate Valentine’s Day.  

I hate the superficial sentimentality created around it. But most of all, I hate it is yet another holiday which has been hijacked by the voracious, for-profit appetite of corporations.

Christmas is the only other holiday advertisers spend more effort on to convince you the ultimate expression of love is the spending of money.

Unfortunately, they seem to be succeeding.

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Thumbnail image for Sex in San Diego: 5 Reasons Why I Hate Valentine’s Day

Sex in San Diego: 5 Reasons Why I Hate Valentine’s Day

by Source 02.07.2013 Editor's Picks

By Emma Garland

If something has annoyed me to the extent that I feel I have to take time out of my life to structurally complain about it, it must be truly dreadful. Thus is the premise of the ’5 Reasons Why I Hate…’ series, in which I word-vomit over things I think society should put in the bin.

Unlike FRONT, which everybody loves because boobs, ‘Valentine’s Day is universally accepted as being crap. Here are some reasons why:

1. It’s not real.

Like all nationally celebrated holidays, Valentine’s Day has foundations in religion which have morphed over time into something sentimental. Apparently Chaucer is largely to blame for this transformation. You know, the original romantic with all the outrageous 14th century ideas of relationships as power struggles and treating women with respect etc. Advances in society mean that the idea of courtship and offering of things (confectionary, cattle, chastity belts…) to gain a woman has now given way to a world-wide challenge for greeting card companies to come up with the most diabolical puns that test the waters of how much shit your G/BF/crush is willing to take before leaving you/filing for a restraining order.

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Thumbnail image for Sex in San Diego: An Open Letter to Men Looking for Women in the Online World

Sex in San Diego: An Open Letter to Men Looking for Women in the Online World

by Judi Curry 01.30.2013 Editor's Picks

It happened again today. I “met” a man online that sounded like a nice person. He had many of the attributes I am looking for in a companion, or so he said, and I agreed to meet him for lunch in a well-known restaurant in North County. (He lives in San Marcos and it was a good halfway place for us to meet.) We were both early; another nice attribute. He obviously had been there before, not because the waitress recognized him, but because he knew his way around the restaurant and we sat at “his favorite table.”

We chit-chatted as we made our selection from the menu and then he asked me the question that I have been asked four times already in my online dating experience: “I said on my profile that I was 72; I am really 82. Do you think I could pass for 72?”

Well, guys, I am tired of being nice. So I told him the truth.

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Sex in San Diego: 10 Interesting Facts About Your Brain on Sex

by Source 01.23.2013 Sex in San Diego

By Liz Langley / Alternet

Remember the Seinfeld episode where Jerry’s penis has an argument with his brain and loses? It’s a classic: we’ve all been torn between love/lust and logic. (If you haven’t, check for a belly button because this isn’t your home world.) This brilliant bit of comedy is totally relatable but a little misleading in one way: the brain is the one that sends signals to the penis in the first place. It’s pretty reliably running things, IMing the other body parts like crazy, regulating chemicals, making calculations and responding to stimuli, half the time without you even knowing about it. There’s a reason “the brains of the outfit” denotes someone who is really in charge.

So why does the brain sometimes signal us to do stupid things, especially in regard to sex and relationships? Isn’t that a little like one conjoined twin punching the other in the mouth? How does the brain decide who attracts us? What is it doing behind our backs, and how do we change as we mature?

Here are some of the ways the joys, quandaries and mechanics of sex are all in your head.

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Thumbnail image for Sex in San Diego: 10 Key Court Decisions That Protect Our Sexual Freedom

Sex in San Diego: 10 Key Court Decisions That Protect Our Sexual Freedom

by Source 01.16.2013 Sex in San Diego

By Alex Henderson / Alternet

If the Christian Right had its way, the United States would be a fundamentalist theocracy in which contraception, homosexuality, abortion, sexually explicit hip-hop lyrics and all adult pornography were illegal. But making the U.S. that much of a theocracy would mean overturning a lot of major Supreme Court decisions. Over the years, the U.S. Supreme Court has had many rulings that helped to advance sexual freedom in the United States

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Thumbnail image for Sex in San Diego: US Supreme Court to Take Up Gay Marriage March 26-27

Sex in San Diego: US Supreme Court to Take Up Gay Marriage March 26-27

by Source 01.09.2013 Activism

Agence France-Presse

The US Supreme Court will hear arguments on March 26 and 27 on the sensitive topic of gay marriage, one of the thorniest social disputes in modern America.

Same-sex marriage is currently barred by a federal law, yet legal in nine states and the capital, Washington.

The court’s announcement last month that it would take up the issue received cheers from opponents and advocates of the practice alike, who said a ruling by the justices could help settle the topic.

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