October 2009

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Our first guest blogger: Ana Santos

29/10/2009 in Guest Bloggers by Krissy | 1 comment

We’re incredibly happy to have the wonderful Ana Santos as our first Pleasure Project guest blogger. Ana will join us once a week during the month of November to give her thoughts on sex, pleasure, lovin’… whatever strikes her fancy.

Who is Ana?Ana and Condom Man

Ana is a freelance journalist based in Manila, Philippines. She writes mostly about sex & relationships and gender-based issues. In her articles, she strives to prove that those topics are two entirely different things!

Amazed that she has been able to write about sex in the Philippines, a devoutly Catholic country, for the last five years, she pushes the envelope further by diversifying this scintillating topic into advocacy on reproductive health, HIV/AIDS, and safe pleasurable sex.

Ana’s full-length features and essays have been published in men’s magazines like Manual, UNO and Playboy; and in the Philippine editions of Marie Claire and Women’s Health.

Ana received a Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of the Philippines.

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Chicks with Guts and morals – live from Berlin Porn Festival

28/10/2009 in *What We're Up To, People We Like by Annie | No comments

Berlin Porn Festival“Chicks with Guts” was a discussion about women making films in a male dominated industry. There was a great range of speakers including  Anna Brownfield, Ovidie and Julia Simone.

I asked a question about making safer sex within sex films and there was an interesting range of answers. Points of view ranged from those that said it  was never a question and 100% of their films are safer sex… to those who agreed safer sex is important, but talked about it in terms of  the actors’ and actresses’ safety and considered regular testing to be enough. I felt that the discussion could have gone further to talk about the skills needed to make your film sexy and safe, how to portray safer sex  to your audience and how condom use is viewed by commercial distributors and the audience. Anna Brownfield gave a great answer – she sees safer sex practices on set as non-negotiable and believes that it’s not good enough just to show the condom during sex, but scenes can make the preparation for safer sex hot by using visuals and the twang of the latex to turn the audience on.

Lets hope next year we can have more discussion of the best ways to use porn to promote sexy safer sex!

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You can’t get safer than air sex ….live from the Berlin Porn Festival

25/10/2009 in *What We're Up To by Annie | No comments

Betty_PageI’ve come to the 4th Berlin Porn Festival to talk about safer sex and learn more about the porn industry.

One major lesson I have learnt is that air sex is a much under-rated method of safer sex. Last night I attended the festival party – I don’t know what I was expecting, but this was not exactly it – however the highlight of the evening for me was the “air sex” competition. Basically, it’s like air guitar but with sex. Air sex allows you to totally use your imagination, act out fantasies and be an exhibitionist – with all your clothes on and with an appreciative audience watching.

The outright winner for me, and luckily for the jury also, was a man billed as Long John Silver (the jury was ably led by Courtney Trouble who always makes safer sex films, and who is more than qualified to judge the quality of the air sex). When he got on stage I did not expect much – frankly he looked kinda geeky and smartly dressed in contrast to the other contenders. But he stunned us as he gyrated to Johny Cash.

He was amazing and had the audience in the palm of his hand. The only way to have made it safer was if he had put on an imaginary condom before indulging in his extensive air sex performance. Air sex is a whole new range of safer sex possibilities I had never considered before… but will certainly consider again!

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Condoms are becoming more popular?

23/10/2009 in Sex in the News by Krissy | No comments

The media has given some attention this week to a new report from the UK’s NHS that shows condoms becoming more popular (for instance, The Times and The Daily Mail). I must say, the report contains a wealth of information. But it’s also kind of strange. Let’s first look at the pill/condom issue:

Percent using pill or condom

Source: Opinions Survey Report No. 41 Contraception and Sexual Heath, 2008/09

So, there has been an increase in the popularity of condoms, but for most groups, they are still less popular than the pill. The report doesn’t offer any suggestions about why the 30-34-year-olds have a seemingly high rate of pill use, nor on why the 40-44-year-olds have a low rate. Nor does it tell us if those differences are statistically significant. In fact, I couldn’t find any information about how many people composed each age group… so I have my doubts.

Anyhow, there were other interesting contradictions that the media didn’t pick up on. For instance:

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Women have sex… because they like it

21/10/2009 in Sex in the News by Krissy | No comments

PAF085000011In the latest of the never-ending series of news articles about what women want, why they have sex, and what they want to get out of it, Newsweek brings us this jewel describing the findings of a new book Why Women Have Sex. Let’s just say that I hope the book is more insightful than the article.

The article describes how women have sex, believe it or not, for many different reasons. Unlike the stereotype that women have sex for love while men have sex for pleasure, the study authors found that women’s reasons for having sex were “complex”. But, not to worry, sexual pleasure still ranks at the top:

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Rubbing – the new ED treatment

19/10/2009 in Sex in the News by Krissy | No comments

viagra

http://www.flickr.com/photos/kh1234567890/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

A lot of fuss was created recently about scientists working on a new treatment for Erectile Dysfunction. The problem is that current treatments are orally administered, thus can take several hours to come into effect – and the effects can last for a long time as the drug is filtered in your body.

All of this seems to be putting aside the pre-Viagra findings of Masters & Johnson, whose clinic had amazing success in treating erection problems by encouraging communication and non-penetrative sex. Imagine that: when men feel less pressure to perform, and the sexual act isn’t dependent upon the hardness of his penis, he can relax, enjoy, and – what do you know – get hard. Their patients reported sex that was sexier, using different methods and talking about it more (not to mention that it was also safer).

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