sex, love and relationships in the media. v. 1.0

UK couple has mixed race twins — twice
07:37 AEST Sat Jan 3 2009

A mixed-race British couple has defied the odds — twice — by producing two sets of twins in which one sibling appears to be black and the other white.

Dean Durrant's newborn daughter Miya has dark skin like him. Twin sister Leah has fair skin like her blue-eyed, red-haired mother, Alison Spooner.

Their older siblings Lauren and Hayleigh, born in 2001, also have strikingly different skin tones and eye colours.

"There's no easy way to explain it all. I'm still in shock myself," Durrant, 33, told Sky News on Wednesday.

Both sets of twins are fraternal rather than identical, meaning they are the product of two separately fertilised eggs, so it is not unusual that they don't look alike. Miya's skin colour was more influenced by her father's genes, while Leah takes after her mother.

But scientists say it's rare for a couple to have two sets of twins, end even rarer for them to have such different appearances.

"Even non-identical twins aren't that common," Dr. Sarah Jarvis of Britain's Royal College of General Practitioners told Sky.

"Non-identical twins from mixed parents, of different races, less common still. To have two eggs fertilised and come out different colours, less common still. So, to have it happen twice must be one in millions."

The phenomenon is so uncommon that there are no statistics to illustrate its probability, although it is thought likely to become more common because of the growing number of mixed-race couples.

The twins were born prematurely in November in Frimley, southern England, and spent several weeks in the hospital. They are now at home with their parents in Fleet, 60 kilometres southwest of London.

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Ice skater dies then gives birth
06:00 AEST Tue Jan 13 2009

A champion ice skater in the UK has given birth two days after suffering a fatal brain haemorrhage.

Jayne Soliman, 41, was declared brain-dead but kept alive long enough for doctors to deliver her daughter Aya Jayne by caesarian section.

Ms Soliman, an ice skater who had competed on an international level, was earlier pumped full of steroids to allow the baby’s lungs to develop.

Best friend and fellow skater David Phillips said having a baby was the "one thing" Ms Soliman wanted from life.

"She was so happy, she had always wanted to be a mum more than anything else," British newspaper quoted him as saying.

"The hospital laid her baby on her shoulder when she was born so she could have a moment with her. This would have been the best day of her life."

Ms Soliman collapsed suddenly in her home at Bracknell, west of London, following a massive haemorrhage caused by a brain tumour striking a major blood vessel.

She was airlifted to a nearby hospital, where doctors later informed her distraught husband she was brain-dead.

Mr Phillips said Mr Soliman had experienced "the best and the worst day of his life".

"It's just something you can't conceive — turning off your wife's life support machine and then going to see your newborn daughter," he said.

Mr Phillips said Ms Soliman had shown no signs of discomfort when the pair went ice skating earlier in the day.

She had no idea she had a brain tumour.

Ms Soliman was a veteran free skater who won the British championships in 1989 and had been ranked number seven in the world.

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Sex industry boosted by recession fears
By Christopher Varmus Forbes.com
January, 2009

The cash-strapped masses may be spending less on restaurants and entertainment, but not necessarily on the quality of their sex lives - and manufacturers of sexual aids are broadening their lines to meet the demand.

Trojan now offers a condom that comes with a disposable vibrating ring. Durex, another condom maker, sells a vibrator and a line of lubricants. Even Philips Electronics has joined competitor Hitachi in the vibrator business. "We're much more open now to experimenting sexually," says Louis Friedman, chief executive of Liberator, a maker of sex toys in Atlanta. "We’re seeing countless new products being sold to a much larger audience than people realized. Even the more conservative retailers have begun to come around."

Indeed, Wal-Mart, Walgreen and Target now peddle sexual aids, including condoms, lubricants and personal massagers. Walgreen's Web site features a "sexual wellness" tab, behind which are listed not only contraceptives and fertility tests, but also pleasure-enhancing dietary supplements, romance-themed costumes and games, massage oils and lotions, and the "Emotional Bliss Femblossom" vibrator. (Representatives from Walgreen's and Target were unavailable for comment; a Wal-Mart communications manager would say only that the chain "has a diverse mix of shoppers who visit our stores each day, and we are committed to providing customers with the selection of products they expect to find in our stores.")

Poor as we all may feel lately, it seems there's at least one bright spot in having to hunker down at home. "This industry is shielded in a way," says Katy Zvolerin, director of public relations with Adam & Eve, another sex toy maker. "It does seem people use us even more heavily in bad times." (Not that there's much of a correlation between recessions and birth rates - if people have more sex during a recession, they are being careful about it.)

Chad Braverman, director of product development and licensing at Doc Johnson, takes a more sober approach to the coming months. "I don't know if I'd say our industry was 'recession-proof,'" he says. "We need to be proactive in creating a quality product that's going to sell. And there's a lot more competition than there was 20 years ago."

The sex industry traces back to 500 B.C., when traders from the Greek port of Miletus sold olisbos, an early version of the dildo. Today, the business of sex (including pornography) now runs into the tens of billions of dollars. (No official estimates are available; Wall Street analysts don't tend to track this stuff.) And while print and video sales are ebbing, as more free adult content has become available online, sales of un-reproducible sexual aids are still healthy.

"Of course, there's concern about the economy, but right now our sales are growing," says Michael Trygstad, founder of Wet, a lubricant manufacturer in Van Nuys, Calif. "We've grown 30% this year alone. We've had to completely automate our factories to meet the tremendous demand. People are deciding to stay at home and engage in inexpensive entertainment.''

Slick marketing--and the ability to shop anonymously online--helps, too. Liberator markets itself as "relationship care," and advertises in mainstream magazines such as Men's Health, Rolling Stone and AARP The Magazine; the brand also has prominent placement on Walgreens.com. Meanwhile, K-Y (which sells its lubricants at Target and Rite-Aid) is playing the intimacy card with a line called Yours+Mine. And Babeland, a retail store in Brooklyn, N.Y., offers instructional sex seminars for new mothers, as well as an in-store diaper-changing station.

"The emphasis has gone from family planning to sexual well-being," says Friedman. "It used to be that you had to go in and give a wink to the pharmacist, who would open a drawer behind the counter, put the condoms in a brown paper bag and slide them over to you without a word. It took AIDS to really bring condoms out into the open with a sense of urgency. And now the fun is coming back."

Subtly packaged fun, that is. "We're seeing a shift to women's products and a change in packaging," says Erica Heathmann, managing editor of AVN Novelty Business. "Gone are the porn stars of old. Today's products have a more classic, clean aesthetic."

When it comes to marketing sexual aids, one person's vibrator is another's "personal massager." Says Adam and Eve's Zvolerin: "The same massager we sell in our catalog is available at CVS. It has a different label, which says it's to relieve sore muscles, aches and pains, but that's my massager!"

And just as farmers and grocers are able to charge more for organic apples, so, too, are sex-toy makers grabbing customers with health-conscious pitches, such as sexual aids that are "phthalate-free." (Phthalates, often used in plastics, have been tenuously linked to certain kinds of cancer.)

Who needs fancy packaging and marketing mumbo jumbo when you can get killer product placement? When the Charlotte character on Sex and the City waxed on about her Rabbit vibrator, sales of that item went through the roof. But, then, that episode aired 10 years ago, during the raging technology boom--an arguably much sexier era.

"We've weathered storms before," says Ann Semans, director of Babeland, a sex toy retailer. "It's not like we're selling flat-screen TVs and convertibles--almost everything is under $100." Babeland goes so far as to group certain items under the banner of "Affordable Luxury."

Says Semans: "If that isn't an inalienable freedom, I don't know what is."

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Why women have better sex with rich men

Women’s sexual pleasure is directly linked to their partner’s wealth, says new research

Jonathan Leake and Holly Watt

Cassie is unrepentant about dating rich men. “Of course it is much better to sleep with men with lots of money,” said the 27-year-old lawyer from London.

“Any girl who tells you different is lying. Rich men are powerful and successful and confident and charismatic. They know what they want, and they go out and get it. That translates to being fantastic in bed.”

Cassie is living proof of the latest scientific discovery about human sexuality: that the number and frequency of a woman’s orgasms is directly related to her partner’s wealth.

Her explanation is simple. “Women don’t want to lie back and think of the gas bill,” she said. “It’s a lot more fun to have sex in the Ritz than the Swindon Travelodge. And to be ripping off Rigby & Peller underwear than M&S knickers.”

Cassie’s story of being attracted to rich and powerful men is, of course, as old as the hills. It was famously expressed in the question put by the spoof chat-show host Mrs Merton to one of her guests: “So, Debbie McGee, what first attracted you to the millionaire Paul Daniels?”.

Examples abound. Even in his eighties, Hugh Hefner, the founder of Playboy, has a succession of young girlfriends. Ronnie Wood has recently shown that it’s not only Mick Jagger among the sixtysome-thing Rolling Stones who can attract much younger women, and Donald Trump, the portly American businessman, has a wife 24 years his junior.

Until now some of us may have taken consolation in the idea that the beautiful women involved in such relationships were just doing it for the lifestyle - and enduring the sex.

Now, however, science is showing that a rich man’s money has aphrodisiac qualities as well as purchasing power. Their partners really can have it all.

Many will object to the idea that women are hardwired to be gold-diggers. Perhaps, however, they will be appeased by the revelation that the same kinds of primitive forces are at work in men too. They may operate in different ways and produce different behaviour - but they come from exactly the same source: a genetic code fine-tuned by millions of years of evolution to make us seek out whoever offers us the best deal in life.

It was Charles Darwin who first offered a new explanation for the mysteries of mating. He suggested that characteristics evolved and spread through populations depending on how much they improved our ability to reproduce.

Back then, the most obvious examples came from the animal world. When two stags locked horns they showed how members of the same sex compete with each other. Conversely, when female peahens chose the peacock with the flashiest tail they showed the power of mate preference. In both types of “sexual selection” as Darwin dubbed it, the lesser males were doomed to become evolutionary dead ends while their successful rivals passed their genes to posterity.

Ever since then, researchers have been realising that such sexual strategies permeate the lives of all animals - including humans - and affect everything about our behaviour and relationships.

Among all the discoveries, however, a mystery has remained: what is the point of the female orgasm?

Among animal species few if any females experience anything like the intense pleasure felt by women. The only thing like it is seen in some primates such as macaques. Why, then, have humans evolved this source of pleasure?

Dr Thomas Pollet and Professor Daniel Nettle, academics at the University of Newcastle, have been mulling over this question for years. As evolutionary psychologists, they believe everything about the way we flirt, court, have sex and bring up our children is strongly influenced by our genetic history.

If female humans have acquired the ability to have powerful orgasms, they argue, then women will have evolved that ability for a reason. “Women’s capacity for orgasm could be an evolutionary adaptation that serves to discriminate between males on the basis of their quality,” said Pollet. “If so, then it should be more frequent in females paired with high-quality males.”

He and Nettle tested that idea using data gathered in one of the world’s biggest lifestyle studies. The Chinese Health and Family Life Survey targeted 5,000 people across China to conduct in-depth interviews about their personal lives, including detailed questions about their sex lives, income and other factors. Among these were 1,534 women with male partners whose data formed the basis for the study.

They found that 121 of these women always had orgasms during sex, while 408 had them “often”. Another 762 “sometimes” orgasmed, while 243 had them rarely or never.

There were, of course, several factors at work in causing such differences but, said Pollet, money was one of the main ones. He said: “We found that increasing partner income had a highly positive effect on women’s self-reported frequency of orgasm. More desirable mates cause women to experience more orgasms.”

This is not an effect limited to Chinese women. Previous research in Germany and America has found similar responses.

However, it begs a further question: what does an orgasm actually achieve? Why does having more of them give a woman’s genes a better chance of passing down the generations?

David Buss, professor of psychology at the University of Texas, Austin, who raised this question in his book The Evolution of Desire, believes female orgasms achieve several possible purposes. “They could promote emotional bonding with a high-quality male or they could serve as a signal that they are highly sexually satisfied, and hence unlikely to seek sex with other men,” he said. “In other words, they are saying ‘I’m extremely loyal, so you should invest in me and my children’.”

The idea that our most intimate relationships are dominated by subconscious forces beyond our control may sound disturbing but it is widely confirmed by other research.

Anthony Little, a psychologist at the University of Stirling who specialises in studying human attraction, has found that the type of men to whom women are attracted changes throughout the menstrual cycle.

He said: “Most of the time, when women are not fertile, they prefer men who are more feminine but when they reach peak fertility they change and display a preference for more masculine traits, what you might call the rugby player look.”

Underlying this is another idea some women might not welcome: that women are generally attracted to gentler looking men because they are more likely to show commitment to a relationship and to invest resources in children.

However, for the week or so in each month when women are at their most fertile they are programmed to seek out the men with the “best” genes - the ones most likely to ensure their children survive. That means the man with the biggest muscles, the squarest jaw or, nowadays, the biggest bulge in his wallet. Such men are hard to keep so, once impregnated, women may return to their gentler long-term partner and trick him into bringing up a child that is not his.

Other research shows that in most societies about 5%-10% of children have been fathered by men who were not the woman’s long-term partner at the time of conception.

Given the scale of such threats, men have developed defences of their own - including the ability to subconsciously detect when women are at the peak of fertility. A study of lapdancers in America showed that men gave the best tips to those who were fertile, and the worst to those who were menstruating. The researchers suggested men can pick up a series of subtle cues such as the body scent, changes in complexion and body shape, and behaviour of fertile women.

Ian Penton-Voak, a psychologist at Bristol University, believes such findings show nature at work in its rawest form. He said: “In some ways it makes us seem almost evil but it’s wrong to impose moral judgments. There are no morals involved in evolution and what we are producing is just knowledge about how it works.”

Natasha, a 40-year-old professional woman from Surrey, believes she has benefited from giving way to her evolutionary urges. Recently she broke up with her husband of 12 years and found a rich boyfriend.

“I do have much better sex than with my husband,” she said. “My boyfriend is rich, confident and attractive and makes me feel protected and safe. Women need to connect mentally for really great sex, it’s not just a physical thing. It needs to be someone you respect, and rich men get that sort of respect.”

Here, however, a note of caution may be needed. Pollet and Nettle may have found women have more orgasms with rich men - but they also found no evidence that they were any happier overall.

Meredith Small, professor of anthropology at Cornell University in New York state, suggests this discrepancy also shows the cunning of evolution. She said: “Even if a rich man is a jerk in every other way, having orgasms with him allows you to convince yourself that he is making you happy.”

Cassie admits that relationships with rich men can be difficult. “The richest man I dated wasn’t great at calling and being places on time. But it was worth it anyway.”

She added: “Poor men just aren’t the same, although with the recession there are a few more of them out there now. I wonder if it will make a difference to their performance?”

The trouble with orgasms

Little boy: “Mummy, mummy, mummy, what’s an orgasm?” Mother: “I don’t know, dear, go and ask your father.”

Yep, after millions of years of evolution and almost as many sex surveys, much about the female orgasm remains a mystery. The male version is pretty easy to understand; but the whys and wherefores of female orgasms, or lack of them, are not so clear.

Men are the root of the problem, of course. According to Jonathan Margolis, author of O: The Intimate History of the Orgasm, things began to go wrong when men lost their simple caveman instincts.

Neanderthal man and woman apparently used to have no problem with sex, thinking it nothing more than a bit of fun. Then along came Neolithic man, an altogether more sophisticated kind of guy. After he made the connection between sex and childbirth, complications ensued. Customs arose that restricted sex and compounded male domination. Among the ultimate fallout were such oddities as the Victorians referring to a female orgasm as a “hysterical paroxysm”, and the supposed discovery in the 1980s of a highly sensitive female zone known as the G-spot. Last year an Italian university claimed that the elusive G-spot does exist - but that not all women had one. Very useful.

Through all these trials, however, the power of sex has remained undiminished. According to the World Health Authority, 100m acts of sexual intercourse take place every day.

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Woman Says Anti-Abortion Nurse Removed IUD Without Permission, Then Lectured Her

ALBUQUERQUE (CN) - A clinic nurse first removed her intrauterine birth-control device without permission, says the patient in a federal action, then told her that "having the IUD come out was a good thing," because "I personally do not like IUDs. I feel they are a type of abortion. I don't know how you feel about abortion, but I am against them."

The patient sued Presbyterian Health Services Rio Rancho Family Health Center and nurse practitioner Sylvia Olona in Federal Court.

The plaintiff says she went to Rio Rancho to have the strings on her IUD shortened.
The complaint states: "As soon as Defendant Olona began speaking to (the plaintiff), she questioned her about her choice of contraception.

"As Defendant Olona began the procedure, (the plaintiff) felt Olona pull on the strings of the IUD. (The plaintiff) felt a distinct pulling on the strings followed by a sharp pain in her uterus similar to a very strong menstrual cramp.

"As that happened, Defendant Olona stated, 'Uh oh, I accidentally pulled out your IUD. I gently tugged and out it came.' She then explained, 'I cut the string than went back and gently pulled and out it came. It must have not been in properly.'

"Olona then stated, 'having the IUD come out was a good thing.' She asked (the plaintiff) if she wanted to hear her 'take' on the situation. Without receiving a response, Defendant Olona stated, 'I personally do not like IUDs. I feel they are a type of abortion. I don't know how you feel about abortion, but I am against them. What the IUD does is take the fertilized egg and pushes it out of the uterus.'

"Defendant Olona stated, 'Everyone in the office always laughs and tells me I pull these out on purpose because I am against them, but it's not true, they accidentally come out when I tug.'
"At this point, Defendant Olona advised that (the plaintiff) needed to take a pregnancy test. (The plaintiff) did, and the test was negative.

"Defendant Olona told (the plaintiff) that is was better that she did not have the IUD because she could now use a "non-abortion" form of contraception. Defendant Olona suggested the deprovera (depo) [sic] shot or the pill, and made clear that she would not insert a new IUD."

The plaintiff demands damages for battery, constitutional violations and negligence. She is represented by Ryan Villa with the Law Office of Robert Cooper.

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A 92-year-old woman is pregnant – and has been for the past 60 years!

Huang Yijun, of Huangjiaotan, China, fell pregnant in 1948, but was later told that the baby had died in the womb.

Doctors said the bill would come to an amount now estimated at around AU$215 – which is more than her whole family earned over several years – so Huang did nothing.

But at 92, her stomach started hurting, sparking a medical investigation.

After conducting a scan, Dr Liu Anbin said, “I couldn’t believe my eyes when I discovered she had a baby in her belly.”

Doctors are mystified as to how Huang could have stayed healthy for such a long time while carrying the being, as a decaying foetus can cause severe and even lethal problems.

Experts are now investigating whether she needs an operation to remove the foetus or if it can remain there for the rest of Huang's days.

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Heartbreak could be deadlier than you think!
A turbulent love life might cause more serious issues for women than just reaching for that tub of ice cream, box of chocolates or soppy DVD.

Famous heartbreaks in pictures: Check out our gallery of some of the most public celebrity break-ups

Alarmingly, hypertension, abdominal obesity, high blood sugar, high triglycerides and low levels of HDL, or "good" cholesterol in women have been linked to the anger, conflict and hostility experienced in rocky relationships. This new research suggests that while these stresses still have an effect on men, for reasons scientists don't quite understand yet, they appear to take more of a toll on women.

Tim Smith from the University of Nevada in the US is a psychology professor and co-author of this study of women in dysfunctional relationships and has suggested that the difference in the way heartbreak affects men and women may in fact come down to the female view of romance.

"Women are quicker to notice when things are not going well in relationships, more so than men," he said. According to Smith, women are more troubled by this awareness and are more likely to then work harder at doing something to solve the problem than men. Smith said: "you can look at that as a cumulative burden that is a source of chronic stress."

The study also suggests that women's self-identities are more deeply rooted in relationships than men. Nancy Henry, a doctoral student in psychology and the lead author on the study said: "It's not saying men don't want close relationships, but it's saying their 'self-construe' is based on things in society at large."

Heart disease is a lead killer of both men and women, so working to unravel the disparity between the two genders is imporant, researchers say. The study also looked at metobolic syndrome or insulin resistance among these couples because of its relationship to heart disease and the fact that depression — which could be caused by a failing relationship — could induce metabolic syndrome.

Tim Smith said that the research was too preliminary to conclude that women "would lower their risk of heart disease if they improved the tone and quality of their marriages — or dumped their husbands."

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A British mother is set to be deported from Dubai without her children after having a cup of tea with a male friend.

Marnie Pearce, 40, began a three-month jail sentence on February 27 for "adultery" after her Egyptian husband Ihab El Labban told authorities she was having an affair, a claim which she denies.

Mr El Labban made the accusation last March after he burst into her Dubai villa with police officers to find his separated wife having a cup of tea with a male friend.

She insists the man, a fellow Briton, was simply fixing her computer.

At the time the estranged couple were battling for custody over their boys, Ziad, 4, and Laith, 7.

After the March incident, Ms Pearce claimed her husband took possession of the family home and she and her sons were forced to stay in a shelter before seeking refuge with a friend.

Yesterday friends of the British woman released a video clip showing the drama outside the Dubai prosecutor's office in February when Ms Pearce, in a pre-arranged handover, surrendered her two children to her husband just before she was locked up.

The woman is seen collapsing to the ground and weeping.

"Why are you torturing the children like this?" Mr El-Labban asks her as the children cling to their mother in the clip.

As his car pulls away with the boys inside, Ms Pearce is left crying on the carpark pavement.

"I've given up my babies and cannot take much more of this. I have done nothing wrong," UK newspaper The Sun reported Ms Pearce as saying.

"I have no one so I have to give them to Ihab. But I know in doing so, I may never see them again."

One legal appeal has already been dismissed, although a court did agree to reduce her original six-month sentence to three months.

Once Ms Pearce is released it is likely she will be immediately deported to England — preventing her from seeing her children.

A court heard Marnie's most recent appeal on Monday last week and a verdict is expected by March 16.

Amnesty International has condemned Ms Pearce's jail term, labelling her a "prisoner of conscience" and demanding her immediate release.

Ms Pearce, a teaching assistant, met Mr El Labban 16 years ago in Oman, married shortly after and moved to Dubai.

The marriage broke down last year.

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Prevalence and characteristics of vibrator use by women in the United States: results from a nationally representative study.

Herbenick D, Reece M, Sanders S, Dodge B, Ghassemi A, Fortenberry JD.
Center for Sexual Health Promotion, Indiana University, 1025 East Seventh Street, Bloomington, IN 47405, USA. [email protected]

The prevalence of women's vibrator use was found to be 52.5% (95% CI 50.3-54.7%). Vibrator users were significantly more likely to have had a gynecologic exam during the past year (P < 0.001) and to have performed genital self-examination during the previous month (P < 0.001). Vibrator use was significantly related to several aspects of sexual function (i.e., desire, arousal, lubrication, orgasm, pain, overall function) with recent vibrator users scoring higher on most sexual function domains, indicating more positive sexual function. Most women (71.5%) reported having never experienced genital symptoms associated with vibrator use. There were no significant associations between vibrator use and participants' scores on the CDC Healthy Days Measures.

Vibrator use among women is common, associated with health-promoting behaviors and positive sexual function, and rarely associated with side effects. Clinicians may find these data useful in responding to patients' sexual issues and recommending vibrator use to improve sexual function. Further research on the relationships between vibrator use and sexual health is warranted.

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