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.

Porn — does it lead to sexual assault? The question continues to fascinate us. A recent piece in The Scientist puts the data together to show a picture few of us were expecting: that as pornography becomes more available sex crimes decrease — or, at least, stay the same.

What follows is an excerpt:

Despite the widespread and increasing availability of sexually explicit materials, according to national FBI Department of Justice statistics, the incidence of rape declined markedly from 1975 to 1995. This was particularly seen in the age categories 20–24 and 25–34, the people most likely to use the Internet.

The best known of these national studies are those of Berl Kutchinsky, who studied Denmark, Sweden, West Germany, and the United States in the 1970s and 1980s. He showed that for the years from approximately 1964 to 1984, as the amount of pornography increasingly became available, the rate of rapes in these countries either decreased or remained relatively level.

Later research has shown parallel findings in every other country examined, including Japan, Croatia, China, Poland, Finland, and the Czech Republic. In the United States there has been a consistent decline in rape over the last 2 decades, and in those countries that allowed for the possession of child pornography, child sex abuse has declined. Significantly, no community in the United States has ever voted to ban adult access to sexually explicit material. The only feature of a community standard that holds is an intolerance for materials in which minors are involved as participants or consumers.

In terms of the use of pornography by sex offenders, the police sometimes suggest that a high percentage of sex offenders are found to have used pornography. This is meaningless, since most men have at some time used pornography.

Looking closer, Michael Goldstein and Harold Kant found that rapists were more likely than nonrapists in the prison population to have been punished for looking at pornography while a youngster, while other research has shown that incarcerated nonrapists had seen more pornography, and seen it at an earlier age, than rapists. What does correlate highly with sex offense is a strict, repressive religious upbringing. Richard Green too has reported that both rapists and child molesters use less pornography than a control group of “normal” males.

Information from The Scientist.

I don’t know for sure how you got to this point, and I’m not here to judge. You have your reasons. Maybe your wife stopped having sex with you, or you just need variety or your dad never took you fishing. I don’t know and I don’t care. I don’t know you. I’m not your wife, your shrink, I’m not Jiminy fuckin’ Cricket.

What do I care if you wanna fuck hookers? You have your reasons, that’s good enough for me.

This isn’t about the “why”, this is about the “how.”

The relentless craving for pussy is keeping you up at night. And awake, too. But you haven’t abdicated all the decision making to your little head, you still have a shred of sense left in your big head, and something in what you call your conscience tells you that there’s danger ahead. So you don’t know where to begin the hunt for paid poon.

If you’re like most guys you’ve found yourself driving through the seedier parts of town, wondering if that girl in the mini skirt at the bus stop is a hooker or not. (Pro tip: are you in the Valley? Then chances are, yes, she is.) But you know better than to proposition some random girl on the street. Don’t you?

The first place almost every neophyte john starts is Craigslist. You’ve read all the sordid news stories about how it’s the new gathering place for virtual hookups and sex-for-hire. But you’ve also read the sensationalistic news stories about yet another Craigslist prostitution ring broken up by intrepid detectives. And the last thing you need is to get caught your first time out. So here’s some tips to get you started and hopefully keep you safe.

Sure, by all means, check out Craigslist. Check out Backpage.com. They both have adult services sections with escort ads, and have local editions for pretty much everywhere. But know that they are the low end of the spectrum when it comes to escorts. Baby steps. We’ll work you up to the high-dollar hotties soon enough, but you have to learn to walk before you can run. You’re more likely to come up against a bait & switch scam using those services than others. That means that the hot chick in the picture isn’t necessarily the same girl that’s gonna answer the door. You have to learn to do some homework.

If you’re cruising Craigslist or Backpage, you supposedly know enough about the Internet to do a basic Google search. When you find a girl you like, the first thing you need to do is Google her phone number. If she’s who she says she is, the search will come back with her other ads on other sites. Check those out as well, they may lead you in another direction. They’ll clue you in to whether or not this is really a hooker or a vice cop setting up a sting operation. There are also review sites like The Erotic Review and Escorts.com which will give you a glimpse into what you might expect if you book time with this girl.

You’re gonna be worried about getting ripped off, arrested or worse. So take precautions before you head out. Chances are, the cops aren’t interested in you, particularly if you’re doing your cruising online rather than on the Boulevard. Legit girls will usually have reviews. Not every escort has reviews, however, and there are perfectly good reasons why not. So don’t panic if you don’t find reviews. Some well-established escorts don’t allow clients to write reviews. But they will have web sites.

There are sites like The Erotic Review or Escorts.com, where those stalwart whore-mongering explorers who came before you have paved the trail for you. My advice to you (which you won’t listen to) is to read those sites, but don’t register, become a paying member or get involved in the discussion forums.

Be prepared to be hung up on if you use any inappropriate language. This includes any mention of any sex act. Don’t be stupid. Don’t call up some random girl and ask if you can come over to fuck her. And you’re not going to be clever and bypass that restriction by using coded language like “GFE” or referring to roses or kisses or candy instead of dollars. Everybody knows why you’re calling, no one needs it spelled out. Be respectful when you call. Be respectful when you show up. And for fuck’s sake, wash your balls before you go.

So, now you’ve narrowed it down, you’ve found a girl you like and you’re ready to take the plunge dick-first into a rented pussy. In Step 2, I’ll walk you through the “how much” part of the “how to.”

Hooker Addict (@hookeraddict) has wasted much of the last few years wading through the local escort/hobbyist message boards. From finding a hooker to making the date, not getting ripped off or worse; this is about paying for sex. With actual cash. A few years ago, he became fascinated with streeetwalkers, but now the game has changed. Moved indoors, online. He’s just Some Guy, with no skills and no game. And he still gets more pussy than you.

Senator Roy Ashburn, a staunch anti-gay marriage Republican representing Bakersfield, whom we told you about yesterday, has acknowledged that he is gay.

“I am gay and so those are the words that have been difficult for me for so long,” he said on KERN Newstalk 1180, the LA Weekly blogs report.

Ashburn reaches his last term this year and is known for consistently voting against all gay measures. In the radio interview, he defended his anti-gay stance, saying his votes reflected the will of his constituents:

My votes reflect the wishes of the people in my district. I have always felt that my faith and allegiance was to the people, there, in the district, my constituents. And so as each of these individual measures came before the Legislature I cast ‘no’ votes, usually ‘no’ votes, because the measures were . . . almost always acknowledging rights or assigning identification to homosexual persons.

Juicy enough? Yeah, we don’t think so either. Maybe he should dress up as Lady Gaga or Beyonce for his appearance on The O’Reilly Factor.

Information from the LA Weekly.

Sir M sent an email to me with a subject line that made my heart leap: “New Rule.”

The message explained that I am to keep on my webcam on at all times when I’m at home so he can see if I’m there when he logs onto his computer. This way, he can easily drop in on me when he wants to. I’ve never used my webcam for personal communications, only for business calls, so I set up a new account for his eyes only with great excitement.

Had any other man told he he’d be constantly monitoring me on webcam so he could peek into my private life, I’d have been really angry. But with Sir M, it makes sense in the context of our Dom/sub relationship. The webcam gives him another way to dominate me that extends beyond our sessions together. It’s a subversive thrill to think of him dropping in on me and being ready for him any time. Sir M has earned the gift of my submission and so I gladly offer him access to my home life and my secrets.

On camera

I can’t see him on webcam — he does not have one. I really don’t mind this one-way communication. Being submissive can mean being on unequal footing with him if he chooses. He uses the audio to speak with me and I stare at his frozen avatar on screen. We never actually speak on the phone so this is the best way for him to stay present.

I adapted quickly and found that I really enjoy having the webcam ready for him to eavesdrop on my life. In fact, one day recently he told me his electricity would be off all day and not to bother with the webcam, and I was genuinely disappointed!

I use the webcam on my laptop because I can move it to different rooms with as I putter around my apartment. When I’m cooking I set it on the dining room table and forget about it. He doesn’t care if I’m in unglamorous sweats or in underwear (or less) so I feel perfectly comfortable with keeping the camera on. If I’m not alone and don’t want him dropping in, I simply turn it off.

Sexy time

Once I realized the power I can have using the webcam, it became even more compelling. I found I could excite and tease Sir M remotely by removing my clothing on camera nonchalantly during normal conversation. We can be chatting about my day and my shirt suddenly lifts up to reveal a breast as the camera pans down to the nipple. I can be talking to him on webcam and put the laptop down on the couch so the camera points between my legs, as I happen to be wearing a miniskirt with no panties.

Instant Panty-cam! Or I may be straightening up the house naked in anticipation of his “visit” via webcam. I just love the pause and surprise in his voice when he discovers my naughtiness and encourages more of it.

Once I’m topless I lick my index finger and roll it around my nipple to get his attention. I’ll pull on the hoop piercings in both nipples, making sure he can see. And when things progress he has me “entertain him” — meaning I must masturbate on camera for him. The laptop comes in really handy because I can bring it into the bedroom and really entertain him.

I have gotten completely lost in these sessions playing with myself as he takes firm (remote) control — narrating and pushing me to do outrageous things. When he yells “Cum for me bitch!” it’s as if he is with me in my bedroom. My hands work more furiously because I want to please him and cum hard for him. This also helps train me to be able to have forced orgasms to the sound of his voice.

I’m sure Sir M would love to watch me have sex with J via webcam but I know J wouldn’t like this idea. (J is my on-and-off lover who has seen me through some wild times in my sexual evolution.) I’m an exhibitionist at heart and I’d love to have a sex partner who would be into having Sir M watch us go at it.

(If you think that’s you, send me a tweet!)

Special guest appearances

Lately I’ve gotten more brazen with the webcam. I’ve been leaving the webcam on when friends visit, but not always mentioning it to them. Sir M once dropped in on a visit from one of my close friends, who came over for dinner while I was speaking with him. I was vaguely aware of his monitoring, but it didn’t affect our evening at all. Our conversations sounded like a raunchy episode from Sex and the City — we talked about men, online dating, cock sucking, menopause, shoes, weekend plans and of course gossiped about friends. He listened curiously for a while until we moved the laptop to make room for dinner and the audio was drowned out by music.

I imagined him at home in his office, leaning back in a big leather office chair, possibly smoking a cigar and watching this home-made reality show of my apartment. I like imagining him at home because in real life I’m not allowed to look him in the eye and it’s hard to get a complete vision of him. In my imagination, at the other end of my webcam, I can look straight at him without any consequences. I imagine him with a smirking grin, pleased that I’ve brought him another pretty girl to look at and more secrets to share.

Naked blogging

Even now as I write this on my laptop I know he may drop in and watch me and that’s exciting. Why exciting? It’s funny to me that someone would even be interested in me enough to watch me at home doing nothing. It feels so wrong to willingly give up my privacy to anyone. Of course, being a pervert, I am naturally drawn to and turned on by things that we are told are wrong.

In the future I’ve promised him a naked blogging session on webcam featuring myself and another female blogger. After all my duty is to serve and please him and in doing so, I hope to provide lots of pretty girls for him to look at and meet on webcam. He’s so persuasive he can probably talk some of them into meeting his flogger.

This is definitely not going to turn into a Bravo series The Real Subs of Los Angeles! However I’m enjoying doing this reality show for one.

Daisy TraLaLA (@daisytralala) is a saucy Angelino kinkster who glides with ease between the worlds of tech, art, cuisine, electronica and dungeon parties. Check back every Tuesday for posts from her journey to the most divine surrender.

“Crashes Car While Shaving Vag” was a trending topic on Twitter in the United States last night and our commitment to informing you here at Sex and the 405 prevents us from ignoring it simply based our distaste for the term “vag” and out undeniable urge to projectile vomit every time we look at it in text. Yeah, we’re cool and devoted like that.

So get this — according to Florida’s Keys News, a two-vehicle crash occurred last Tuesday on the Keys because one of the drivers, a 37-year-old woman, was shaving her bikini area at the wheel.

According to reports, her ex-husband, who was with her at the time of the incident, took the wheel from the passenger seat to accommodate the process.

The woman, Megan Mariah Barnes, was shaving because she was about to meet with her boyfriend in Key West.

That’s right, her ex-husband, instead of telling her to knock it off, took the wheel for her so she could groom to meet some other dude.

“Amazing.”

Fortunately, no one was severely injured.

Barnes has been charged with driving with a revoked license (related to a previous incident), reckless driving, leaving the scene of a wreck with injuries and driving with no insurance. Her ex-husband, Charles Judy was not charged.

We think he should be taken in for being a push-over with no balls, but if that was enough to get a man locked up, who’d run the country?

Just kidding!

Sort of.

Images from Twitter. Information from Keys News.

In case you’ve been living under a rock or having the kind of epic sex we’ve been having, you know that Roy Ashburn, a Republican senator from Bakersfield was arrested last week for a DUI after leaving a hip Sacramento gay haunt with a younger man.

Ashburn “has a flawless record of voting against every single LGBT bill during his long tenure in office. He has raised countless wads of campaign cash by cuddling up to the right wing of the Republican Party and has spewed out hateful anti-gay rhetoric to his conservative constituents,” writes the editor of the San Diego Gay and Lesbian News.

And now he’s caught drunkenly cruising with gay men. Oops!

Juicy, juicy political sex scandal — just the way we like it.

But it gets juicier: apparently, the mayor of West Sacramento, Christopher Cabaldon (who came out during his State of the City dinner in 2006) tried to out Ashburn about six months ago on Facebook — which is either really hip or really juvenile. We’re leaning toward juvenile.

Cabaldon posted: “It wouldn’t bother me so bad to see Roy Ashburn at Badlands (a gay bar) with a boy if he didn’t have such a bad voting record on gay rights.” Nobody noticed.

According to Cabaldon, Ashburn frequented gay bars often and “everyone” already knew he was gay. People have their panties up in a bunch because The Bakersfield Californian — which, by the way, is the largest newspaper in the senator’s district — decided that Ashburn’s merrymaking with the gay community was not relevant to readers.

“The Californian has asked Ashburn about his sexual orientation in the past,” writes Christine Bedell, the paper’s government editor. “He has either questioned the relevance of the issue or dodged it altogether. The newspaper did not report the comments at the time, also deciding it was not relevant.”

Should the paper have reported it?

Image and information from The San Diego Gay and Lesbian News, via Riese.

Relationships are complicated! Every time we look at the stuff from which to pick on Facebook, we practically get nosebleeds. To this end, we submit the following cartoon by Rob Cottingham as a guide for the next Facebook overhaul:

You laughed, admit it.

Cartoon by Rob Cottingham, via Jalam1001.

As a man, I felt somewhat slighted when I saw the top ‘trending topic’ on Twitter this morning: “Happy Women’s Day.”

Huh? This must be some sort of Twitter in-joke, like when everyone tried to fool their friends into thinking that some balloon-faced Canadian kid named “Justin Bieber” was in the Billboard Top 40.

< epic eye-roll > Right. < /epic eye-roll >

Crushing a half-smoked Lucky Strike into the ashtray, I launched Safari on my iPhone, typing out the following: “Women’s Day.”

Something looked… off. The capital letters, the apostrophe — all of it legitimzsed things. This bothered me to such an extent that I retyped it, as follows, with the surrounding quotes: “womens day”

Search. Loading…

Merde.

It’s, uh… real. With its own official website, even. I’ll save this audience from muddling through the holiday’s Atlas Shrugged-length history, and instead summarize:

International Women’s Day was first observed around a century ago after being declared a holiday by the Socialist Party of America; during its early years it was influenced by lots of Eastern European and Soviet-Russian themes. Today, it’s seen in most of the world as a sort of cross between St Valentine’s Day and Mother’s Day.

Well, Freud certainly would’ve been keen.

However, I find it asinine. The very idea of celebrating women’s achievements tends to invalidate them. Why? Because, at a basic level, it says, “Yeah! Let’s celebrate human progress and achievement! … oh, but only when spurred on by individuals with female genitalia.” I’m surely not alone in supposing that most of the women who historically achieved were quite a lot more preoccupied with doing amazing things than they were about ensuring placement for “Women’s Day” on calendars every 8 March.

Besides that, it’s also essentially a holiday to commemorate women for being born as women. Why should I commend that as though it’s some sort of fantastic accomplishment? Perhaps we ought hold a celebration once a year for gingers? “To commemorate the achievements of red-headed people across the world!”

Bollocks. Absolute bollocks. What say you?

Eric Ludzenski (@ericludzenski) is a visual artist who currently resides in Austin TX.

No one is immune to sex tapes! Not rockstars, actors, heiresses, politicians or spiritual leaders! Swami Nithyananda falls into the last category. According to his ashram, he’s “attending the Kumbh Mela” right now, which we’re pretty sure is the Indian version of skipping town. Why? Earlier this week a tape was released by the media featuring him and an Indian actress.

The tape has caused enormous controversy and OneIndia is reporting that followers are now attacking his ashrams in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka and that the local government is investigating the matter.

“Two cases of cheating has been filed against the Swamiji for hurting people’s religious sentiments,” OneIndia reported today. “The Chennai police are still searching for him.”

They’re also reporting that Ranjitha, the actress featured in the sex tape, has attempted suicide. The report mentions she was married but is now divorced and that there are rumors that the actress herself created the tape to blackmail the spiritual leader, but nothing has been confirmed.

In the U.S., a sex tape is a cheap publicity stunt and call for attention. In other places — they’ll burn your effigies in the streets, vandalize your property and send the police after you. Serious business.

Images from BigNews and IndianVintage. Information from OneIndia.