No Cambodia Trips for you!
News of the extreme - a Cambodian man has cut off his penis to feed spirits in Phnom Penh. His reasoning was that he said he had been visited by four hungry spirits in a dream, which is bad enough. But as goes along with Cambodian lore, he had no chicken or duck to offer them. According to a police report, 33-year-old Soun Ney said he told the spirits to go away when they first appeared and asked for food, but he waved his penis at them in defiance. "Devils, I don't have any chicken or duck for you," he was quoted as saying by local police Chief Phoeung Vat. "If you want to eat anything, you can eat my penis." Remarkably, Soun Ney said the spirits then agreed to eat his unit.
After castrating himself with a butcher's knife and being rushed to a hospital near the capital Phnom Penh, doctors were amazed. "He is lucky to be alive," Chief Phoeung Vat said, quite astounded. According to Cambodian custom, villagers in the deeply impoverished Southeast Asian country will traditionally offer chicken, duck or cake to the evil spirits of the dead to try to ward off what they feel the spirits bring - bad luck. Invest in a rabbit's foot or a four leaf clover, man.
Lemme see that thong-thong-thong-thong-thong
In the UK, it is evidently not all right to try to assist a co-worker with a perceived fashion no-no. The question: what would be the correct thing to do if you see a lady inadvertently experiencing an underwear gaffe? Not that you should be looking while in the workplace in the first place, mind you. But according to one gentleman, the simple answer would be to pull her thong up so that it is "properly" displayed above her waistline, as we see in many music videos and high-fashion star pictures. Oh boy is this wrong, wrong, wrong! This can only lead to big trouble.
A news agency in the UK tells us that it was just this sort of behavior which landed senior city lawyer Lawrence Phillips in major trouble. One of his young co-workers, Sarah Collins, took great exception to the Good Old Boys culture at her law firm. It turns out that Collins was eventually let go in a layoff during her maternity leave. One might imagine she'd be glad to depart from such a chauvinistic workplace, but she was definitely not settling for this. The young lady is now slogging her former firm's name with a claim of sexual discrimination and unfair dismissal.
Sounds justifiable, doesn't it? But in the UK, the atmosphere is different, and newspapers suggest that she puts all that kind of thing out of her "pretty little head", and look for a more suitable job now that she has had her baby. It's even been reported that a former colleague of hers suggested that her looks meant she was "wasted as a solicitor" (that's lawyer to those of us in North America) and would be better off as a receptionist. Oh, so now your looks are what make you qualified??
But will they protest about Civil Unions, too?
It's now official - being gay is a biological state, not an environmental one. There was an exhaustive study of gay sheep which seems to confirm the somewhat controversial suggestion that there is a biological basis for sexual preference. Although the reason this would be controversial at this point is almost moot. The work on this study has shown that rams that prefer male sexual partners had "small but distinct differences in a part of the brain called the hypothalamus, when compared with rams that preferred to mate with ewes". The leader of the study, Kay Larkin, and other colleagues from the Oregon Health and Science University found that the difference was located mainly in a specific region of the hypothalamus - the preoptic nucleus
It has been learned that this region is generally almost twice as large in rams as in ewes. The difference comes down to the fact that in gay rams its size was almost identical to that in "straight" females. The hypothalamus is known to control sex hormone release and many types of sexual behavior. These subtle yet important differences are almost identical to those identified by the renowned neuroscientist Simon LeVay in his studies of the brains of gay men. Mr. LeVay's work has always been considered controversial, partly because the brains he studied were mostly from men who had died of AIDS, so it was not clear whether the differences were related to the disease or to sexual preferences. This new study seems to indicate a correlation and vindication of his work, however. "Sheep are particularly interesting," he says, "because besides humans, they are the only animal where the males may naturally express exclusively gay sexual preferences." A side note for general knowledge - as many as one in 10 rams appeared to be gay.
Keepin' It In The Family
Incest has always been a taboo in almost every culture you encounter. But does this story fall under that heading? A web report tells us that an Indian man has married his grandmother in Panchpara, India. The gentleman, Narayan Biswas, who is only a 25-year-old Indian man, has married his 80-year-old grandmother. His simple reasoning is that he wants to take care of her. "I felt she needed extra care as she is old. I can look after her better as a husband than as a grandson," he is quoted as saying. "As a husband, I am with her all the time, to care for her."
He is a high school graduate who farms rice fields and works as a tutor, so one must imagine he is aware of the cultural prohibitions against his actions. The grandmother is partially disabled with a back bent in age, but she claims that she is "happy" with her young husband. They married in a traditional Hindu ceremony near Panchpara. Her first husband died more than 30 years ago.
"I helped bring him up with my own hands and now he looks after me. He is a good husband and ensures I get my meals on time," said Premodas Biswas. It seems that local officials are aware that marrying a blood relation is illegal under the Hindu Marriage Act, but they have no plans to take action against the couple. "There has been no complaint against them and they are living as husband and wife after a temple ceremony. Their own family has accepted them so we have no plans to act as of now," Dilip Das, a local government official, states. If that wasn't odd enough, last June, there was a story of a nine-year-old Indian girl who was married to a dog near Calcutta after a local priest told her parents the wedding would ward off evil. Okay, so the dog was okay, but the incest is iffy?
Gay Marriage just frightens too many folks, doesn't it?
There's been such a furor over gay marriages that one US county has decided all marriages should be put on hold until final decisions of marriages or civil unions is decided once and for all. Sheesh. In Portland, Oregon, a new tweak has emerged in the furor over same-sex marriage roiling the United States. A county in Oregon has banned all marriages, both gay and heterosexual, until the state decides who can and who cannot wed.
According to the story we read, the last marriage licenses were handed out in Benton County at 4 p.m. local time on Tuesday. As of Wednesday, officials in the county of 79,000 people will begin telling couples applying for licenses to go elsewhere until the gay marriage debate is settled. And just where would elsewhere be, one wonders. "It may seem odd," Benton County Commissioner Linda Modrell said in an interview, but "we need to treat everyone in our county equally."
Initially, in a move that would have been applauded by activists nationwide, the three County commissioners decided to start handing out gay marriage licenses this week, but on Monday they reversed their decision amid a growing firestorm of lawsuits across the country. They decided on the next best solution: to put a temporary halt to all marriages. It seems only fair. The temporary halt to handing out marriage licenses will be in effect until a state district judge can hear the case on the subject. The case is scheduled to be heard on April 2nd. Bet the bridal shops, tuxedo rentals and cake makers are just livid.
Lip Smacking Relief No More
Here's highly innovative idea that never got its lips around the prize. Virgin Atlantic has decided to "can" lip-shaped urinals in their terminals in the U.S. A news source in NY has reported that Virgin Atlantic Airways, always an innovator, has abandoned its plans to install bright-red urinals shaped like women's open lips in their area of New York's John F Kennedy International Airport. The reason given was that Virgin said it had received complaints they (the urinals) were offensive.
"Virgin Atlantic was very sorry to hear of people's concerns about the design of the 'Kisses' urinals to be fitted into our clubhouse at JFK Airport. We can assure everyone who complained to us that no offence was ever intended," Virgin spokesman John Riordan said in a statement on Friday. Riordan says that Virgin had received several dozen complaints from people and groups including the National Organization for Women after its plans for the urinals had been made public. Never ones to let their opinions go unheard NOW had placed a message on its website urging members to complain to Virgin chief Richard Branson. "I don't know many men who think it's cool to pee in a woman's mouth, even a porcelain one," said NOW President Kim Gandy on the group's Web site.
Funnily enough, the urinal, designed by a Dutch company, was the idea of a female designer. Virgin claims it was surprised by the negative reaction to the plan, part of designs for the lounge, built to pamper first-class customers. You gotta see it to believe it.
Sex Makes You Clever
…Which doesn't explain why I want to roll over and fall asleep in my lover's arms right afterwards. Ananova reports that sex stimulates the brain and makes people more intelligent according to a top German researcher. Werner Habermehl, who works at the Hamburg Medical Research Institute, says that "regular sexual intercourse promotes intelligence." It supposedly not only excites the body but also stimulates the brain. This results in an increased amount of adrenaline and cortisol hormones, both of which are produced to stimulate the grey matter.
"Sex makes you more intelligent in that experiences are collected that can be used later on in areas of life not linked to sex," said Habermehl. This scientist of sexuality adds that the increased injection of endorphins and serotonin that result from an orgasm strengthen a person's self-confidence, giving a body a mental as well as physical work out. I have to get my back fixed…And what's with these Germans?
And finally, Shake, Rattle, and Roll - by prescription!
So it seems that vibrators have been around for much longer than anyone previously imagined. An exhibition called "Sinful Things'" has included a vibrator dating back to the 1930s. This little gadget was initially designed to "cure" women of their sexuality, and has now found a place as part of a new Science Museum event.
The Sinful Things show opens the historical doors on old-fashioned attitudes and medical practices regarding sex and bodily functions, which admittedly were pretty archaic. These fantastic objets d'art from the London museum's archive form the focus piece, designed to inspire adult-themed discussion and assist in a quiz show to be held at its Dana Centre.
The exhibition reveals how the vibrator was invented by male doctors to combat what they incorrectly diagnosed as "hysteria" in women. The electric device took the place of the long-standing previous practice of doctors giving genital massage to female patients. According to historical evidence, these devices "dramatically reduced the time needed for each treatment and could be operated by the relatively unskilled." As we now know, domestic versions were soon marketed in women's magazines such as Good Housekeeping and other innocuous publications, masquerading as muscle relaxant therapy
The vibrator on show at the Science Museum was one of the later devices used by doctors just before they began to be marketed for home use. Curator David Rooney said: "It looks more like a hairdryer. At the time this was state-of-the-art. It wasn't shameful at all. Everyone pretty much knew what was going on but because of the way they talked about it, it was all right." Right. Hitachi, drugstore.com - get one today - you'll be less "hysterical."
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