Tag Archives: Sex

Needy? Codependent? You're only human

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Someone's doing something right. Photo: Pedro Ribeiro Simões

I’ve always hated the term “codependent,” which emerged in the 1980′s as a relationship bugaboo. It is one of those labels that doctors started slapping on people who — for better or worse — were holding-on too hard to their humanity.

No surprise, then, that a new study –from department of obvious finds — reports that treating your partner like a human makes in likely she or he will have sex with you:

Humans are interdependent, with people doing things for each other all the time. Simply because a person does something for another does not mean that the emotion of gratitude will be felt. In addition to the possibility of not even noticing the kind gesture, one could have many different reactions to receiving a benefit from someone else, including gratitude, resentment, misunderstood, or indebtedness.

via It’s the little things: Everyday gratitude as a booster shot for romantic relationships.

Gene Roddenberry's Trek vision: androgynous uniforms for all

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Photo: ThinkGeek.com

ThinkGeek — in yet another funny, cheeky, product description (J. Peterman’s got nothing on these guys) — says that Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry wanted to see women and men wearing the same style of uniform.

But what what might be good for unit cohesion, might also be bad for ratings:

“The uniforms he originally envisioned for females looked exactly like the men’s uniforms, but were likely changed due to network pressure to something a bit more feminine. Despite the objectification, it worked – women could still be feminine, but maintain positions of authority and showed strength.”

via ThinkGeek :: Star Trek Original Series T-Shirt Dress.

Sex toys: Philips wants a piece of the action

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When your God-given parts aren’t enough: Philips promises better sex with batteries.

It’s a “me too” market grab for the Dutch electronics maker.

But Gizmag greets the announcement with this  ludicrous, blanket, windbag statement:

Remarkably, for all the knowledge we have accumulated as a species, one of humanity’s primary aspects, our sexuality, remains shrouded in veil of political correctness, awkwardness and misunderstanding.

via Philips leads the marital aid industry out of the Dark Ages.

The post celebrates Philips for making sex less shameful–as if our culture could get any more debased around the issue. In fairness, the author of this particular post (excerpted, above), might himself have a dating life plagued by miscues. It happens.

Top o' the heap: Burning Man worshippers to help us evolve

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Mankinds future. Photo: CC/Ben Piven

Mankind's future. Photo: CC/Ben Piven

The theme at this year’s Burning Man Festival, for artists, is Evolution.

Organizers of this quasi-religious rave party for repressed hipsters claim to be creating culture for a human race that no longer weeds-out its less than ideal candidates for natural selection.

Read the muddleheaded copy, below, from the event’s official website (bonus: includes a kindergarten lesson in natural selection):

The process of trial and error that has made this possible is called Natural Selection. Genetically encoded traits that aid survival tend to spread throughout entire populations. Living entities that bear these genes endure and reproduce, but maladaptive traits are not passed on. This causes species to evolve to better fit the world in which they live. However, this rigorous weeding out of ‘unfit’ individuals has gradually ceased to occur within our species. Medicine and mutual aid assure that nearly anyone is able to survive and reproduce.

Now adrift in our own gene pool, we have encountered a new phase of evolution. We’ve become a conscious breed of culture-bearing animals. Black Rock City is a kind of Petri dish, and Burning Man is an experiment in generating culture. We’ve learned that culture’s a spontaneous phenomenon. It thrives as a result of numberless and unplanned interactions. All that’s really needed is a fitting social vessel to sustain it. This happens best within communities that harbor many different modes of self-expression. We’ve also learned that cultures effloresce when human beings feel free to offer up their gifts.

via 2009 Art Theme: Evolution.

New orifices satisfy urges, virtually

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Absence makes the heart grow fonder, but the Modern Man needs to get his rocks off now.

A new wave of prototypes and gadget concepts is about to make virtual sex more realistic for those who can’t handle the real thing, or whose imaginations — deadening by years of internet porn exposure — are running dry.

An example:

The KissPhone is designed for remote kissing. It has a mouth which you kiss – it subsequently measures the pressure, percussion speed, temperature, and sucking force of your mouth, transmits those same parameters to the remote user’s Kissphone where it recreates your kiss for your teleparamour.

via The KissPhone for remote kissing.

The devices are part of the niche technology called teledildonics, a hellish marriage (straight out of a David Cronenberg flick) of sex toys and wireless internet connections.

Try not to look. Photo: CC/Pedja PUSELJA

The pushers of teledildonics, by the way, are easy to spot: Try looking for the busty gal with the “sex positive” blog, who favors t-shirts with clever, internet-savvy slogans.

Eugenics: Blame it on the Chinese

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CC/Andy Chang

Photo: CC/Andy Chang

Before you say, “those crazy foreigners, with their crazy foreign ways,” are bringing eugenics to the United States, remember that a generation or two ago, it was not rare for parents to be pulling for a boy (or, sometimes, a girl).

Such cultural pressures may explain the recent findings. A Columbia University study suggests that Chinese, Indian and Korean immigrants have been using medical technology, most likely including abortion, to assure their later children were boys. And a soon-to-be published analysis of birth records by a University of Texas economist estimates there were 2,000 “missing girls” between 1991 and 2004 among immigrant families from China and India living in the U.S. — children never born because their parents chose to have sons instead.

via It’s a boy! Asian immigrants use medical technology to satisfy age-old desire: a son – San Jose Mercury News.

Whatever happened to "booth bimbo?"

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A tech blogger drools over a booth bimbo, but calls her a “booth babe.” (He mentions the girl three times, and runs the pic you see here.) Have even those horny gadget hounds gone PC? Is babe all that much less condescending than bimbo?

Oh Gizmo

The "babe." Photo: Oh Gizmo

Something has got to be said about a useful product that’s able to convincingly double as a “fashion accessory” on the barely-there outfit of a booth babe. Questionable (but not entirely ineffective or unenjoyable) marketing tactics aside, FlatWire makes some amazing products that make me wish I’d have a few large to drop on a home entertainment system. Like the name sort of implies, these guys make flat wires. But I mean, really, really flat. They gave me a sample of 18 gauge electrical wire, and it’s paper thin.

Pervy pen for upskirt/downblouse filmmakers

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That’s not how Swann is pitching its camera-pen, of course. But the company does say the new PenCam DVR will be great for making YouTube videos.

If you don’t like having your picture taken on the street, at least Boston’s orb-shaped Big Brother cameras (think John Carpenter’s “They Live”) are easy enough to dodge. Just remember to grab your baseball cap as you head out the door.

But not every spy camera pointed your way is hanging from a light pole. Swann Communications’ new PenCam DVR is going make it harder than ever to keep your personal business personal. It’s a working pen with a hidden camera pointed outward, so you can record while you appear to be writing. It is the latest digital spy gadget to be disguised as something innocuous.

via Smile, that pen may be recording your actions – The Boston Globe.

Gender-bending beyond meatspace

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CC/Rivka Rau

Loosen up! In virtual worlds, you can be any *thing* you want to be. Image: CC/Rivka Rau

I’ve been out of the Second Life loop lately, save for this piece, which I wrote for the Boston Globe: Virtual business, for real?

But here’s an interesting development I missed this fall, in the extropian/transhuman community in Second Life: a call for the first-ever “Gender Freedom Day in Virtual Worlds,” with the admirable goal of showing solidarity with people whose GLBT avatars have been taking abuse from inworld bigots.

Sophrosyne Stenvaag, a real-life woman who writes in the voice of her fictional Second Life character, describes her inspiration:

a friend was attacked in social media and later pilloried on a blog for the expression of her sexuality. What happened was despicable, and I’m not about to credit the infantile, frightened, intolerant vermin who attacked her by linking to what they did, nor do I want to bring more painful attention to the victim.

What happened to her happens to countless women, and to queers of all gender presentations, every day in digital worlds. Yes, it happens in the atomic world too, where it’s often coupled to violence, even murder. But my home is here in the digital, and my responsibility is to not sit silent and permit a culture of hatred to flourish in my own home.

via Sophtopia: Gender Freedom Day in Digital Worlds

But rather than freedom *for* those with gender identities outside the mainstream, Stenvaag appears to also be calling for freedom *from* gender for virtual worlds avatars. In her blog, she notes Second Life’s support for “creative gender, sexual, species and artificial self-expression,” as pluses, for people who might want to try something new.

Stenvaag failed to rustle-up any sponsors for Gender Freedom Day for its original date, Oct. 25. Real-world (or, as Stenvaag calls them, “atomic”) and inworld (“digital”) organizations ignored her pleas entirely

Stenvaag has rescheduled the event to occur on December 21, the day of the Winter Solstice.

Sticky, Sweet, Madonna a riddle

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Matt Drudge‘s best headline, ever (image, caption, below, left): this is FREAKY. Perhaps the synchromystics, or the occultists, can explain this latest exhibition?

Bonus: This bit, about her carbon footprint (right):

My Way News – Madonna kicks off `Sticky and Sweet’ tour in UK
However, others wondered at the singer’s carbon footprint, questioning the amount of carbon dioxide pumped out by ferrying Madonna’s wardrobe, makeup, and freezers (for ice to soothe the dancers’ aching feet) across the world.

See also: Lady Di, Mind Controlled