Sex Aware

"A sex toy convention".

I knew as soon as the words came out of my mouth that I was in for a hassle. I was just trying to be honest. After all, isn't that the best policy when you're crossing the border into the U.S.?

Well, maybe not if you're en route to speak at a sex toy party convention.

Right ma'am, pull your car over there, please.

The four custom guys stifled giggles as they spent the next half hour pulling my car apart looking for... for what, semi-automatic weapons disguised as Rabbit Pearl vibrators? Cocaine-injected dildos?

When they were satisfied I didn't in fact have a trunk full of illegal French ticklers or whatever it was they were looking for, they sent me on my way.

...Read the full article

Canadian Air Transport Security Authority Policy

Josey Vogols also provides a bit of practical information:

The Canadian Air Transport Security Authority has no official policy when it comes to traveling with sex toys, and while their website lists hundreds of items that are and aren't allowed in your carry on -- Yaqua blowguns: illegal; snow globes: legal -- there is no mention of anything even remotely sex-toy related.

I called the 1-800 number to inquire if I could bring vibrators and lube in my carry-on for an upcoming lecture in another city. The lube would be fine as long as it was 100ml or less. The vibrators? Also fine as long as I didn't pack spare batteries in my checked luggage. Handcuffs and whips? One second ma'am, I'll have to check. When he came back on the line, he told me that only cops and security people can bring handcuffs on board. The cuffs and whips would have to go in my checked bag. Good to know. Thank you sir. No problem ma'am. Have a nice day.

US Transportation Security Administration

See article from sfgate.com

The Transportation Safety Administration has decreed that vibrators are OK. The TSA says whips, chains, leashes, restraints and manacles are OK, too. Any law-abiding citizen has the right to carry any such device onto an airplane.

TSA spokesman Nico Melendez said passengers could save time with a little common sense. Inspectors are doing their job. They are trained professionals and they know a vibrator when they see one. They will not confiscate a vibrator. But they are trained to pay attention to electronic devices. Inspectors inspect, he said. If you don't want us to see it, don't bring it.

Passengers carrying certain X-rated objects that are defined as club-like should place them in checked luggage. This applies to anatomically correct cylinders of roughly a foot or so in length. Melendez said such cylinders or shafts would fall within the broad category that includes billy clubs, black jacks, brass knuckles, nunchakus and martial arts weapons. All of those items are OK in checked luggage but not in carry-on luggage.

Shorter cylindrical items could very well be legal, however. They would fall into the tool category. The TSA says screwdrivers, wrenches and other hand tools may be brought aboard in carry-on luggage if they are less than 7 inches in length. In other words, according to the TSA, size matters.

Sex toys never get tired and are always conveniently to hand. So it is little surprise that many women are convinced their partners are threatened by sex toys.

But the belief is a myth, according to new research, which has found that the idea is mostly held by women, not their boyfriends or husbands.

A study of over 3,000 people in the U.S. by Indiana University revealed that 70% of men actually have no problem with women using vibrators. In contrast, nearly 40% of women said they believed use of sex toys would upset their boyfriend or husband.

Nearly half of the total respondents were strongly in favour of the positive statements about sex toys. Less than 10% felt the same way about negative statements, such as, [using vibrators] makes women too dependent on them for pleasure , with the remaining percentage issuing indifferent responses.

Participants, who were aged 18-60, either agreed or strongly agreed with statements put to them by researchers, such as, [vibrators] make it easier for a woman to have an orgasm , and [vibrators are] a healthy part of many women's sex lives. Men and women were given the same questions.

Debra Herbenick, lead researcher and associate director at Indiana University's Center for Sexual Health Promotion says her findings demonstrate how important it is for couples to share sexual interests with their partners.

She told LiveScience:

This builds on a lot of previous research that has shown that feeling like you can be intimate with your partner - that you can share things with them about your sexual desires and interests - is very important to a couple's sexual life and a woman's sexual satisfaction.

It's not just the vibrator use but being able to share those parts of your sexuality with your partner that matters.

UK doctors are being told the antibiotic normally used to treat gonorrhoea is no longer effective because the sexually transmitted disease is now largely resistant to it.

The Health Protection Agency (HPA) says we may be heading to a point when the disease is incurable unless new treatments can be found.

For now, doctors must stop using the usual treatment cefixime and instead use two more powerful antibiotics. One is a pill and the other is injected.

The HPA say the change is necessary because of increasing resistance. Tests on samples taken from patients and grown in the laboratory showed reduced susceptibility to the usual antibiotic cefixime in nearly 20% of cases in 2010, compared with just 10% of cases in 2009. In 2005, no gonorrhoea bacteria with reduced susceptibility to cefixime could be found in the UK.

The bacterium that causes the infection has an unusual ability to adapt itself and has gained resistance, or reduced susceptibility, to a growing list of antibiotics, first penicillin itself, then tetracyclines, ciprofloxacin and now cefixime.

According to research carried out in Sweden and Japan, a new strain of gonorrhea, labeled H041, has reached what some scientists are calling superbug status, since it cannot be killed by any of the currently recommended treatments for the disease.

Since antibiotics became the standard treatment for gonorrhea in the 1940s, this bacterium has shown a remarkable capacity to develop resistance mechanisms to all drugs introduced to control it, said Magnus Unemo of the Swedish Reference Laboratory for Pathogenic Neisseria.

Meanwhile, in the U.S., researchers have found that even less virulent forms of gonorrhea appear to be becoming more resistant to cephalosporins, the primary class of antibiotics currently used to treat the disease.

Japan has historically been the place for the first emergence and subsequent global spread of different types of resistance in gonorrhea, Unemo said. Based on the historical data ... resistance has emerged and spread internationally within 10 to 20 years.

If left untreated, gonorrhea can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease, infertility, and ectopic pregnancy in women.

Australian scientists are working on a new gel-based contraceptive that will protect against sexually transmitted infections (STIs) as well as preventing pregnancy.

It's still at least a decade off, but Professor John Aitken, says the gel could be applied to a small, pliable sponge and inserted in the vagina up to 48 hours before sexual intercourse. As soon as semen makes contact with the gel, the sperm are paralysed and any STI-causing organisms are killed.

Professor Aitken, a reproductive scientist at the University of Newcastle in NSW, said the product being developed would be aimed at women between the ages of 15 and 25. He said: You want to be able to have intercourse in the safe knowledge you will neither get pregnant, nor will you catch some terrible microbe.

He added that there have been no new forms of contraception since the pill was introduced in 1959: We're now in a completely different environment. We need contraceptives that meet the demands of the 21st century and one of those demands is that there's now a much higher risk of contracting a sexually transmitted disease than there was in the 1950s and '60s.

Meanwhile, 46 million abortions are performed each year because of contraceptive failure, Prof Aitken said: If we can stop young people getting pregnant unintentionally and we can protect them against sexually transmitted disease then that is a win-win.

The agents have been developed and the chemistry is being tested, said Prof Aitken, who spoke at the Shine Dome in Canberra this week.

Animal and human trials will follow before the contraceptive can be released to the public.

The Kajimoto Laboratory at the University of Electro-Communications in Japan is conducting research into tactile communications, with the aim of creating a device which can effectively transmit the feeling of a kiss:

This device is for communications within the mouth, in other words, the goal is to obtain the feeling of kissing.

If you take one device in your mouth and turn it with your tongue, the other device turns in the same way. If you turn it back the other way, then your partner's turns back the same way, so your partner's device turns whichever way your own device turns.

If a system is put together to handle the values over a network, then it would be easy for this operation to be conducted remotely.

The elements of a kiss include the sense of taste, the manner of breathing, and the moistness of the tongue. If we can recreate all of those I think it will be a really powerful device.

The Lovers' Guide 3D: Igniting Desire is a 2011 release sex education video by Kenneth D Rye

The original was about the first video to feature real sex that was approved by the BBFC.

The 2011 entry in the series was passed 18 uncut with the comment: Contains strong real sex for:

• UK 2011 Online
• UK 2011 Optimum RB Blu-ray at UK Amazon
• UK 2011 Optimum R2 DVD at UK Amazon
• UK 2011 cinema release

The BBFC further explained their rating:

The Lovers' Guide: Igniting Desire is a sex education work that provides information and advice on sexual techniques and relationships. The film was classified 18 for strong real sex.

This is the latest in a series of sex education works and is characterised by a continuous narration that covers aspects of sexual relationships and techniques, and is illustrated by various couples putting them into practise. Each of these individually short scenes contains full male and female nudity and strong sexual activity with some explicit images of, for example, real oral and penetrative sex.

The BBFC's Guidelines in respect of sex education at 18 state, Where sex material genuinely seeks to inform and educate in matters such as human sexuality, safer sex and health, explicit images of sexual activity may be permitted . In the case of The Lovers' Guide: Igniting Desire , the explicit images of sexual activity fall within a genuine educational context and are allowable at 18 under the Guidelines for sex education.

With prostitution legal in Germany since 2002, the country's sex trade is moving towards greater specialisation, with niches including companionship for the elderly and disabled.

There are some 150,000 registered prostitutes in Germany, with another 250,000 estimated to work off the books, according to daily Der Tagesspiegel.

Stephanie Klee, spokeswoman for the Bundesverband Sexuelle Dienstleistungen (BSD) sex worker advocacy group said she is cautiously optimistic about the future of the trade. Sex work is slowly becoming more similar to other professions . Red light district jobs are becoming as specialised as those in other fields, she said.

While some prostitution has become concentrated in large high-end wellness brothels such as Berlin's Charlottenburg district Artemis, other establishments are focusing on the controversial practice of flat-rate prices.

Still other prostitutes, such as Klee herself, focus on providing sex for seniors in retirement homes or for the disabled – an area the BSD spokeswoman said she expects to grow swiftly as Germany's population ages.

One director of a Berlin retirement home told the paper she would like to create a room for intimate encounters, but is still in discussions with the religious organisation behind the operation.

Even large brothels such as Artemis have recognised this potential. It's important for us to show that Artemis is outfitted for the disabled, the company said, touting wheelchair friendly changing rooms and showers, in addition to helpful personnel.

And while such companionship isn't covered by public health insurers, the terminology, Sexualassistenz, or sexual assistance, is already well-known in bureaucratic insurance German, the paper said.