by Jason Stotts
1. Scientists Celebrate the Weird World of Animal Genitalia
Have you ever wondered what penises look like throughout the animal kingdom? Well, it’s your lucky day. (NSFW? Article on WaPo; more on Twitter)
2. How Many Scientists Does It Take to Write a Paper? Apparently, Thousands
In less than a decade, Dr. Aad, who lives in Marseilles, France, has appeared as the lead author on 458 scientific papers. Nobody knows just how many scientists it may take to screw in a light bulb, but it took 5,154 researchers to write one physics paper earlier this year—likely a record—and Dr. Aad led the list. (WSJ)
The culture of “publish or perish” in academia has become completely absurd. Academics are forced to spend so much time trying to publish, even on trivial minutia, that they are unable to do real research or focus on their teaching. When you combine this with the fact that students are allowed to judge their professors and this is their only evaluation, you get a terrible mix of pandering professors who care more about what people think of them than they do about the truth.
3. Take My Wife, Please: The Rise of Cuckolding Culture
For those unfamiliar with cuckolding as sexual fetish, try to recall high-school English, and more specifically, Geoffrey Chaucer’s reference to cuckolds in The Canterbury Tales. The traditional Middle English meaning of the word — a man with an adulterous wife — echoes the modern-day fetish: “One cannot be a cuckold if not wed. But I do not therefore asperse your bed; few are the wives who make their husbands sad, a thousand good for every one that’s bad.”
The glaring difference? Dozens of cuckold websites affirm that today’s cucks aren’t just standing helplessly by. They’re begging well-endowed men to have sex with their insatiable wives. (Nerve)
This article isn’t new, but it does a great job of discussing the rise of cuckolding and hotwifing. On the other hand, I actually disagree with the article’s use of “cuckold” and “hotwife.” I think of cuckolding as typically involving humiliation play and/or submission, whereas hotwifing is more of a celebration of feminine sexuality.
4. Olympian to Escort
Suzy Favor Hamilton says she was always just a nice girl from Wisconsin.
Widely celebrated for her athletic pursuits throughout the late 1990s and early 2000s, the nine-time NCAA champion and former Olympic middle-distance runner appeared to be the quintessential example of all-American womanhood. Then she fell on the track during the 2000 Summer Olympics, bringing an abrupt close to her running career.
In the following decade, Hamilton struggled to build a new life without sports. She juggled running a real estate business with her college sweetheart, Mark, with making personal appearances on the former Olympian circuit. After giving birth to her daughter, Hamilton was diagnosed with postpartum depression and prescribed Zoloft, which immediately improved her mood. She felt like she was on top of the world.
Then, just before Christmas 2012, she was outed as a high-end Las Vegas escort. (LINK)
This is a really interesting article about a former olympian who turned to sex work. Her story about bipolar and mania might be completely true, but it also feels a little bit like an excuse for enjoying sex work and needing to explain it away. Either way, it’s an interesting story.
5. The Victims of Cameroon’s Horrific Breast Ironing Tradition
“Breast ironing” is the Cameroonian custom of massaging young girls chests with hot tools—spatulas and pestles being the most common—in an attempt to flatten their developing breasts. This is done with the intention of postponing their first sexual relationships by making their bodies less attractive to men. Parents often fear that the girls won’t finish their education if they meet a man and become pregnant.
For the most part, the flattening is carried out by female family members, either at home or with the assistance of a healer. The process begins as soon as the girls hit puberty—for some, that means as early as eight years old. The consequences of this can be disastrous for the victims’ health—cysts, breast cancer, and breastfeeding issues are all common, not to mention the abundance of psychological consequences linked to the practice. According to a 2011 GIZ report, one out of every ten Cameroonian girls has been subjected to breast ironing. (NSFW – LINK)
There are so many more kinds of genital mutilation than penile (“circumcision”) or vulval. In fact, if you look hard enough, you can find mutilation of basically every body part for sexual reasons.
This is the interesting story of breast mutilation and the culture that condones and engages in it.
6. In This Remote Village, Some Boys Don’t Grow a Penis Until They’re 12
Puberty can be an awkward time for anybody, but spare a thought for the Guevedoce children of the Dominican Republic, who literally appear to change their sex when they hit adolescence.
As covered by Michael Mosely in the new BBC series, Countdown to Life: The Extraordinary Making of You, the remarkable case of the Guevedoces is a condition that affects just over 1 percent of the boys born in Salinas, a remote village lying in the southwest of the Dominican Republic.
Guevedoces (literal translation “penis at 12”) – who are also called “machihembras”, meaning “first a woman, then a man” – appear to be completely female at birth and are brought up to be little girls.
“When they’re born, they look like girls with no testes and what appears to be a vagina,” writes Mosely for The Telegraph. “It is only when they near puberty that the penis grows and testicles descend.” (LINK)
This is the first I’ve heard about this and I find it incredibly interesting. I’m really not sure what implications to draw from this, but I do think that it shows the incredible power of puberty over the body and this may have implications for the debate around transsexualism, although I’m not sure if I understand how yet. If you’re interested more in the condition that causes this, check out this wikipedia page on it: 5-alpha-reductase deficiency.
6. Intelligent Machines: Call for a Ban on Robots Designed as Sex Toys
A campaign has been launched calling for a ban on the development of robots that can be used for sex.
Such a use of the technology is unnecessary and undesirable, said campaign leader Dr Kathleen Richardson.
Sex dolls already on the market are becoming more sophisticated and some are now hoping to build artificial intelligence into their products.
Those working in the field say that there is a need for such robots. (LINK)
This whole article seems ridiculous. A robot that is not self-aware is no different from a dildo in moral status. If robots ever have consciousness and self-awareness, then we need to have a different conversation about what kinds of rights robots would have (if any).