Hetero Bareback Anal Out of Control in NYC

Fascinating! A recent study conducted by New York City’s Department of Health recently revealed that women are having lots of unprotected anal sex!

The New York City Department of Health immediately issued a statement to remind bareback anal sex enthusiasts of the risks:

Anal membranes are easily damaged during sex, facilitating the spread of infection. Past studies suggest that anal exposure to HIV poses 30 times more risk than vaginal exposure. But the New York City findings suggest that women are less likely than men who have sex with men to use condoms during anal sex. The figure is just 23%, according to the new report, compared to 61% among men who have sex with other men.

We here at Sex and the 405 wonder how prevalent condom use is among men and women who engage in anal sex here in Los Angeles. Take care of your bodies, orchids. You only get one and there are things cosmetic surgery can’t address.

(How’s that for a Friday downer? You’re welcome.)

Information and graph from Animal New York, via @cthon1c.

Wisconsin Sex Ed: Between the Law and a Lawyer

When it comes to sex ed, some Wisconsin teachers are officially screwed. The state requires them to teach about contraception, but Juneau County District Attorney Scott Southworth has proclaimed that if any of them do, he’ll press charges.

Leslie Madsen-Brooks covers the issue at BlogHer: “Southworth believes classroom discussion of how to properly use contraceptives will lead not only to sexual activity between minors, but sexual assault on minors.”

She links a letter to school districts in Juneau County, where Southworth makes the following statement:

The teacher need not be deliberately encourage [sic] the illegal behavior: he or she only need be aware that his or her instruction is “practically certain” to cause the child to engage in the illegal act. Moreover, the teacher could be charged with this crime even if the child does not actually engage in the criminal behavior. Depending on the nature of the child’s behavior, the teacher could face either misdemeanor or felony charges with maximum punishments ranging from 9 months of jail up to six years of prison.

Can we get a WTF?

Madsen-Brooks offers some hard data:

It’s preposterous that teachers would reasonably believe that instruction on contraception could lead to sexual assault. According to data from the University of Wisconsin Health Institute, Juneau County’s teen birth rate is approximately 25 percent higher than the state average, and the county ranks 62 out of 72 Wisconsin counties in the Institute’s health behaviors index (which includes such data as chlamydia infection rates, smoking rates, smoking during pregnancy, binge drinking and the teen birth rate). Clearly, this is a county where young people need some instruction on health.

She raises a good point: a district attorney holds incredible power, and while generally elected, most voters tend to have no idea who their D.A. is. This is a big issue. Read her post to find resources and learn about your own D.A.

Information from BlogHer.

Negativity Is Cool

Looks like some nasty habits aren’t so nasty after all. Commenting in a recent article in O Magazine, Bryan Gibson, professor of social psychology at Central Michigan University, says: “In certain situations, what is typically a detrimental trait can turn out to be a good one.”

And just what is he talking about? Being negative, swearing, and getting pissed.

Negativity

“Picture the worst-case scenario and work your way backwards,” says Nicole Jordan, our resident PR pro. And she’s right — focusing on the negative outcomes help us prepare and thus overcome difficulties.

“Defensive pessimism—thinking specifically about what might go wrong—can turn anxiety into action,” says Julie K. Norem, professor of psychology at Wellesley College and the author of The Positive Power of Negative Thinking.

Cussing

Bad words make you feel better! According to a recent study published in NeuroReport, participants who immersed their hands in icy water and were allowed to shout bad words experienced significantly less prickly, numbing pain than when they said neutral words. The reason? Swearing seems to activate the stress response, boosting our pain thresholds to better deal with crisis.

Getting Pissed

And by that, we don’t mean piss drunk. Though we’re sure researchers could find a good reason to get wasted if they really tried. Anyway, get this, so long as your rage isn’t a recurring thing, getting angry when you face a difficult situation does help deal with stress.

According to Jennifer Lerner, director of the Harvard Decision Science Laboratory, reacting with focused anger instead of allowing yourself to get carried away with anxiety releases less of the stress hormone cortisol. Less stress means less likelihood of losing bone mass, becoming depressed or obese. Fantastic!

So, cherish your pessimism, embrace your inner sailor and for the love of all things good and decent, let yourself get seriously pissed every once in a blue moon instead of “dealing with it.”

It’s good for you, trust us.

Image from Tambago the Jaguar. Information from O Magazine.

Sweden Bans Implants Citing Explosion Risk

Sweden’s Medical Products Agency (Läkemedelsverket) has banned three brands of silicone breast implants due to their risk of bursting. Gnarly.

They estimated that some 35,000 European women have had their breasts augmented with dangerous Poly Implant Prothese (PIP) since 2001. Sweden is following France’s example, who has done the same and is now offering the 1,000 affected women an alternatives.

“This is the type of information that we are trying to find out. We hope to be able to release information as soon as possible,” said Staffan Strömberg at the agency.

Strömberg said he does not see any reason for Swedish women who have these implants to be overly concerned at this time.

Image from journal.lv. Information from The Local, via @ericludzenski.

Facebook To Blame for Syphilis Outbreak?

First, it was divorce. Now, researchers at National Health Service in Britain have decided that Facebook is behind the fourfold increase in cases of syphilis in Teesside, Durham and Sunderland.

Director of Public Health Peter Kelly told the Telegraph that social networks are “making it easier for people to meet up for casual sex.” Hence the increase in cases of syphilis.

As Mashable reported, the connection between the sexually transmitted disease and Facebook is a stretch. We at Sex and the 405 stand behind their suggestion that institutions in the affected areas need to shift their focus from assigning blame and work on educating the public about sexual health.

Information via Mashable.

Erectile Dysfunction: Indicative of Heart Disease?

A study out of Germany this week indicates that erectile dysfunction may be a powerful indicator of cardiovascular disease in men.

The study, which sampled 1,519 men from 13 countries with cardiovascular disease over a five-year period involved a questionnaire about erectile dysfunction that asked men to specify their degree of impotence.

During the five years that subjects participated, some of the men were given specific drugs for heart disease (which relax blood vessels and thus decrease the heart’s workload) while others were given placebos.

The study found that patients with erectile dysfunction had a higher prevalence of hypertension, stroke, diabetes and lower urinary tract surgery than those without erectile dysfunction. And deaths from all causes occurred in 11.3 percent of the patients who reported erectile dysfunction but in only 5.6 percent of those with no or mild erectile dysfunction at the start of the study.

“Erectile dysfunction is something that regularly should be addressed in the medical history of patients; it might be a symptom of early atherosclerosis,” said Dr. Michael Böhm, lead author of the study and chairman of Internal Medicine in the Department of Cardiology and Intensive Care at the University of Saarland, Germany. He stressed erectile dysfunction is “an early predictor of cardiovascular disease.”

Dr. Robert Stein — professor of cardiology at the New York University School Medicine, and spokesman for the American Heart Association — called the study a wake-up call.

The study appears in this month’s issue of Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association.

Information from CNN, via e*starLA.

More Yaz and Yasmin Lawsuits

A group of Canadian women are suing the makers of Bayer’s popular oral contraceptives Yaz and Yasmin, saying they were not adequately warned about the pills’ adverse side-effects.

Some women using the popular contraceptives report racing hearts, strokes and, in some cases, serious gallbladder problems that require surgery.

Christine Lovelace, one of the women involved in the suit, says that after she began taking Yaz last February (for reasons beyond birth control), she started getting heart palpitations, waking up in the middle of the night with her heart racing, and unusual menstrual changes, with periods lasting as long as 14 days. Her doctors thought the 42-year-old was suffering from anxiety or entering menopause. They told her not to worry. Then, last fall, Lovelace had a TIA stroke (transient ischemic attack, or “mini-stroke”).

She was paralyzed on her left side and lost the ability to communicate. The palpitations and racing heart stopped after she quit taking the pill and she has recovered from the stroke save for some nerve damage to her hand and foot.

Jennifer Demunnik also took Yaz. A year and a half after starting the pill, her doctors found she had developed gallstones. They told the 27-year-old her gallbladder would need to be removed. After her surgery, Demunnik went online and found other women taking Yaz and Yasmin who had similar complaints. She also found reports that some 1,100 lawsuits had been filed in the U.S. involving these pills.

Siskinds LLP filed the lawsuit Wednesday against Bayer Inc., the maker of Yaz and Yasmin, though it has not yet been court-certified.

Yasmin and Yaz were approved by Health Canada in 2004 and 2008 respectively. The pills have become bestsellers among teens and young women. More than 2 million prescriptions were filled in Canada in 2009, reports IMS Health Canada.

Bayer contends its oral contraceptives “have been and continue to be extensively studied worldwide and are safe and effective when used according to the product labeling.”

Information from CTV News.

Not In The Mood? Hit The Gym

According to Sex & A Healthier You, a site dedicated to sexual health, metabolic syndrome is one of the greatest enemies of the libido. Why? Your cholesterol level and how well your body uses insulin are linked to your sexual health.

[Metabolic syndrome] is marked by high blood pressure, abdominal obesity (typically, more than 35 inches around the waist for women, 40 inches for men), insulin resistance high blood levels of insulin, low HDL “good” cholesterol and high triglycerides. If you have at least three of these markers, you may have metabolic syndrome.

In one study, researchers enrolled 100 premenopausal women with metabolic syndrome and assessed their sexual function with a commonly used test called the Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI).

Compared to women without metabolic syndrome, those with the condition had a significantly lower FSFI score. While 77 percent of women without metabolic syndrome had “good” sexual function, just 55 percent of those with the condition did. In addition, about a third of women with metabolic syndrome had an “intermediate” function and nine percent had poor function compared to 21 percent and two percent respectively.

Working out and embracing fish, nuts and fruits in one’s diet go a long way. Not to mention that working out relieves stress and helps build endurance and increases our flexibility — key components in epic sexing.

Don’t just do it to be pretty. Do it to develop this body that belongs to you and only you so that you may enjoy all the pleasures it has to offer you.

Information from Sex & A Healthier You.

Sexual Conditions That Blow

Remember the woman with Persistent Sexual Arousal Syndrome we told you about in November? The Telegraph, who initially made the report, had so much fun with it. Who wouldn’t want to cum 300 times a day, right? But sexual conditions are no laughing matter.

This oldie but goodie, from the humor site Cracked is a great little list of sexual conditions, explained so we get an idea of how much they actually suck — but, you know, in a funny way:

HYPERSEXUALITY

Commonly referred to as nymphomania by Internet perverts and perverts who still eschew technology but like the idea just the same; hypersexuality is what happens when your libido cranks the dial to 11 and leaves it there.

Frat guys throughout history have fantasized about dating a “total nympho,” thinking they’ll wind up with a special lady friend with a sex drive that rivals a three dicked hummingbird on E. It’s been the subject of more Penthouse letters than can possibly be counted.

“And this one time, she tried to have sex with me while she was already having sex with me. It was awesome.”

For menfolk, the condition is known as satyriasis, which is Greek for “having the wang of a goat-legged man” and it means you are now Wilt Chamberlain, minus the distraction of basketball.

Why it Would Suck:

Meet Heather Howland, developed hyerpsexuality after suffering a massive brain hemorrhage, which seems like a really awesome superhero background story. Not expected to live, she surprised everyone by waking up and trying to ride her husband like a Shetland pony.

Some of you guys are still rooting for the disorder at this point, but that’s because you’re probably assuming the “nympho” only has the hots for you. Unfortunately, that’s not how compulsions work. Howland estimates she boned about 50 random, and probably surprised, strangers in the two years since her accident.

Her husband frequently gets called home from work because she’s in the driveway trying to bone some random dude. Nowadays she can no longer work, and her ability to focus is on par with an eight-year-old armed with a television remote which, in this case, is shaped like a wiener.

Yeah, it turns out pretty much anything can stop being fun once you’re only doing it due to a short-circuit in your brain. And this is actually worse than say, compulsive over-eating or sleeping, because those don’t carry a stigma that will make you famous around the neighborhood and, well, on websites like this one.

Read the rest.

Information from Cracked, via Khayyam Wakil.

HPV Vaccine Might Prevent Other Cancers, Too

The human papilloma virus — or HPV — vaccine, which doctors are now using to help prevent cervical cancer, might have the same effect on other cancers as well — and in men as well as women, reports the Vancouver Sun.

Dr. Glenn Bauman, chairman of oncology at the University of Western Ontario faculty of medicine told the paper that a variety of recent studies had found DNA from the papilloma virus inside cancer tumors.

“I think the tip of the iceberg is this whole HPV connection with cancer,” Bauman said. “What’s interesting is that we’re finding — and we’ve known this for a while, but we’re beginning to appreciate it — that HPV plays a role in other ‘mucosal’ cancers.”

This includes cancers in the head, neck, tonsils, pharynx, the base of the tongue, the upper digestive tract, the urinary tract and genital region, the vulva, penis, vagina and anal canal.

The facts:

A 2007 study at Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center found that oral HPV infection is “the strongest risk factor” for a relatively uncommon throat cancer called oropharyngeal cancer, “regardless of tobacco and alcohol use.”

The virus raised the risk of this cancer by 32 times compared to people with no HPV infection;

Cancer doctors at the University of Michigan report an increase in nasopharyngeal cancer — another relatively rare form found behind the nose and above the throat — after HPV infection;

In 2004, the Journal of the National Cancer Institute reported that DNA from the HPV virus was present in 10 to 20 per cent of all head and neck squamous cell tumours; and

More recently, the Dartmouth Medical School in New Hampshire reported that HPV may even cause a common type of skin cancer. It cautions that sun exposure is still the main cause.

“Just the fact that a viral infection is responsible for some fairly significant cancers in people, and that we have a vaccine against it — I think that’s novel and that represents a new direction,” Bauman said.

He suspects there may turn out to be other viruses responsible for still more cancers.

Information from the Vancouver Sun.