All Posts Tagged With: "sex"
My bestiality and necrophilia class
Why am I the only one made uncomfortable by this?
Photo by Rocpoc on Flickr
I haven’t had many lectures where terms like necrophilia or bestiality came up. That’s why, among all the classes I’ve taken over the past four years, the sociology course I’m taking this semester, Sexuality and the Law, stand outs.
It wasn’t until the second class that the professor really delved into the ‘makes you feel uncomfortable and avoid eye contact with the other students’ material. Penis rings, polygamy, chastity belts, the Kama Sutra, and the lack of a female counterpart to Viagra were all discussed, in no particular order of uncomfortableness.
Sexually transmitted infections rise in N.S.
What’s behind the increase?
Photo by ♪ Brigitte...Meh ♫ on Flickr
Health officials in Halifax aren’t sure why they’ve seen a rise in sexually transmitted infections like chlamydia and syphilis. Are people having riskier sex? Is testing catching more cases?
Chlamydia cases reported in Halifax climbed 20 per cent over the past five years and rates in the city are 30 per cent higher than the national average, CBC News reported last year.
On Wednesday, Todd Hatchette, an infectious diseases expert with Dalhousie University, told The Chronicle Herald that better testing could simply be catching more chlamydia.
Continue reading Sexually transmitted infections rise in N.S.
There’s a new social media obsession on campus
And it’s a haven for racist, sexist trolls
Facebook. Twitter. MSN. Google Plus. There’s no shortage of places for students to chat, opine, or procrastinate during finals. Yet there’s a new digital obsession spreading across Canadian campuses. It’s called OMG and it’s simple. Students submit short “Oh My Gods” about anything. Then, they’re posted to the site.
As a Waterloo student who found myself distracted by OMGUW far too often in December, I got thinking about what makes it so hard to look away. I wanted to know what makes it so enticing that it has spread from Waterloo to Guelph, Saskatchewan and Toronto, with tens of thousands of views.
Continue reading There’s a new social media obsession on campus
Voyeur reported in washroom at York
Male suspect had phone in his hand
Security camera footage from Toronto Police
Toronto police are looking for a man after several women reported seeing a male lurking in washrooms at York University over the past week.
Police say that on Jan. 9, at 6:05 p.m. two women in a washroom stall at Curtis Lecture Hall noticed a man reach under the stall they were in, holding a cellular phone. The man then fled. The next day at 8:30 p.m., a different woman walked into a washroom at Curtis Hall and saw a man looking over a stall. He fled once more.
The suspect is described as brown skinned, aged 20 to 25 years old, 5’8″ to 5’9″ high with a thin face and chinstrap beard, dark eyes and black hair. He was last seen wearing a grey knitted sweater, blue jeans, grey shiny sneakers with two straps and a grey toque.
Carleton will open sexual assault centre
Follows years of student lobbying
After years of lobbying from students, Carleton University has announced that the school will open a support centre for victims of sexual assault. Advocates began pushing for a crisis support centre in 2007 after an attack in a school lab. But the university resisted the creation of a separate centre, arguing it offered sufficient support through counselling and medical services.
Then, at least three sexual assaults on women were reported on campus last fall, raising the volume on the demands emanating from the Coalition for a Carleton Sexual Assault Support Centre, a group of volunteers who run an unofficial victims’ campus hotline from eight a.m. to midnight.
Linda Capperauld, director of equity services for Carleton, told the Ottawa Citizen Tuesday that the administration will run the new centre in Robertson Hall. It may open as early as September.
UBC police warn campus
“Numerous” sightings of flasher
The RCMP at the University of British Columbia are warning the public, particularly women, to be avoid jogging, walking or biking alone on or near the trails of Pacific Spirit Park near West 16th Avenue. Here’s why: ”On numerous occasions, women on the trails have complained of a male approaching them by exposing his genital area and masturbating as they went by. The male is described as Caucasian with a slim build and very tanned. He is believed to be approximately 5’7″ to 5’9″ and between the ages of 30 to 40 years old.”
Turned away from an exam for skinny jeans
“I thought he was joking,” says student
Photo by me'nthedogs on Flickr
A student at Brigham Young University’s Idaho campus was turned away from her final exam in December for wearing form-fitting “skinny jeans,” reports The Student Review campus newspaper.
Rachel Vermillion, a senior, thought the invigilator was joking when he first told her she couldn’t write the test because her pants were too tight.
But he was serious. He pointed to a sign that read NO SKINNY JEANS. The sign elaborated: “If your pants are tight enough for us to see the shape of your leg, your pants are too tight.”
Trans woman files human rights complaint
Minister allegedly said she “spooked” the governor general
Photo by Yukon Human Rights Commission
Northwest Territories’ Finance Minister Michael Miltenberger is facing a human rights complaint for allegedly telling a transsexual student at Aurora College that she should leave the school because she had “spooked the Governor General.”
Gabrielle Landrie told CBC News that she was standing near a computer lab with a friend on Dec. 9, wearing a dress, when Minister Miltenberger made the comment and asked her to leave. She says she was later told that the Governor General’s route had been changed to avoid her.
Although she had initially agreed to leave, she says she decided against it as she had homework left to complete. She was asked to leave again by Miltenberger.
Date rape drug shows up in Nanaimo, B.C.
Student may have been sexually assaulted and drugged
Photo by Robert S. Donovan on Flickr
Vancouver Island University is warning students via Twitter to guard their drinks. A woman who was sexually assaulted in Nanaimo recently may have been given the date-rape drug GHB.
Another young woman says her doctor confirmed she was given the drug in October. CTV Vancouver Island reports that the woman was found by a friend in a parkade around 3 a.m. after attending a nightclub. She had no recollection of the evening, but her friend says a stranger had shared her drink earlier that night.
V.I.U. has been using custom drink coasters to warn students about how easy it is for people to slip odourless and colourless GHB into their drinks, reports Canada.com.
Club cancels debate on women’s role in rape
“Poor wording” says debate society
Screen capture from Don't be THAT guy on YouTube by extremelineprod via Crime Prevention Ottawa
The University of Calgary Debate Society is blaming the cancellation of an upcoming debate on “poor wording.” They advertised an event on Facebook earlier this month that stated the debaters would discuss whether to “hold women partially accountable for rape prevention.”
Students complained. The event was cancelled.
“People do often debate things they don’t necessarily believe in,” the society’s training co-ordinator Pardeep Dhaliwal told Metro Calgary. That much is true—debaters frequently argue about absurd things. And it wasn’t intended to be offensive. In fact, the debate was planned in conjunction with the Calgary Sexual Assault Voices, which has been part of the Don’t Be THAT Guy campaign, which has targeted young men with ads that say things like “Just because she’s drunk doesn’t mean she wants to f**k.” and “sex without consent = sexual assault.”
Continue reading Club cancels debate on women’s role in rape
Queen’s University’s marching band suspended
Distributed sexually offensive pamphlets
Queen’s University’s bands were suspended yesterday after distributing offensive pamphlets.
The pamphlets contained phrases that made light of rape, lewd photos and nods to bestiality, according to the Queen’s Journal. Entitled “The Banner,” versions of the mock song-books have been distributed to band members for years. The Queen’s Bands Executive sent an email Wednesday to bands members ordering them to destroy all hard copy or digital versions.
But it was too late. They were asked to meet with the Vice-Provost and Dean of Student Affairs, Anne Tierney, who suspended the club. Band members have developed an action plan that could allow them to be reinstated next year. It includes human rights training.
The media frenzy around the pamphlets comes at a bad time for Queen’s officials. Yesterday, they distanced itself from a fake ad that plays up Queen’s stereotypes—sexual proclivity included.
What’s on your mind?
How your still-developing brain puts you at risk
Illustration by Ian Phillips and Taylor Shute.
From the 21st Maclean’s University Rankings—on sale now.
Heading off to university is a time-worn rite of passage, one that marks the transition from teen years to adulthood. Despite the new relationships, responsibilities and independence that come with leaving home, however, in our late teens and early twenties, we’re still not fully mature. Our brains keep developing well into these years.
When puberty hits, brain regions responsible for reward and pleasure kick into high gear, according to Temple University psychology professor Laurence Steinberg, author of You and Your Adolescent. But other regions, involved in decision-making and impulse control, are slower to develop—and don’t mature until our mid-twenties. “The accelerator is activated before there’s a good braking system in place,” he says. Teens in mid-to-late adolescence are prone to risky decisions, seeking rewards without weighing the consequences. Starting a new life on campus, these brain changes affect students’ lives in all sorts of ways—maybe pushing them to stay out drinking all night, sign up for a semester abroad in Europe, sleep right through class, or ask their crush out on a date.
Dick and Jane go potty… together
The perils of co-ed washrooms
Co-ed bathroom photo by Andrew Tolson
From the 21st Maclean’s University Rankings. Get your copy today!
Some call it “the can,” others, the final frontier of gender equality: It’s the public washroom and it’s gone co-ed. Even though single-sex facilities are still the norm on the majority of Canadian university campuses, you’d be hard-pressed to find a school that doesn’t have at least one co-ed washroom—and it usually includes shower stalls. McGill, York University, the University of Toronto, Dalhousie, Mount Allison and the University of British Columbia are just a few of the “progressive” (or backwards, depending on your lavatorial leanings) co-ed washroom providers, earning the approval of campus feminists who view mixed facilities as a positive step towards full gender equality. Others, however, are not convinced. One 18-year-old Queen’s University psychology major says she was relieved to live in an all-girls dormitory solely because of the same- sex bathroom factor. Co-ed washrooms struck her as “grosser because boys used them,” says Jessica, now in her second year and living off-campus with a washroom of her own. “The girls’ ones were generally very clean.” Jessica would regularly make the five-minute walk back to her all-girls dorm from the co-ed dorm where many of her girlfriends lived, simply to avoid using the washrooms there. “It just smelled so much worse,” she says, before conceding, “maybe I just have bathroom phobia.”
Website hooks students up with “sugar daddies”
“Arrangements” help women pay off student loans: founder
Photo courtesy of Photocology on Flickr
A dating website offers young women — who it calls Sugar Babies — the opportunity to meet up with wealthy older men —- a.k.a. Sugar Daddies.
SeekingArrangement.com is especially popular with students who have school debt, Brandon Wade, the site’s founder told WCBV Boston.
“Out of brutal honesty, [users of the website] form mutually beneficial relationships,” Wade explained, adding that it’s not a prostiution site.
But on the homepage, young women are told to sign up if they “seek a generous Benefactor to pamper, mentor and take care of you — perhaps to help you financially?” And older men (and women) are told they might find, “someone special to spoil… perhaps a secret lover? student?…”
Continue reading Website hooks students up with “sugar daddies”
Iran may separate women from men in universities
Mingling of sexes “thwarts scientific achievement”: leader
Photo courtesy of Hamed Saber on Flickr
Iran’s higher education minister is studying the feasibility of separating men and women in university classes, labs and cafeterias, starting as early as September, reports The National, a newspaper from the United Arab Emirates.
Since the 1979 Islamic revolution, men and women have often segregated themselves in universities by sitting in separate rows.
That’s because many religious conservatives believe it’s immoral for men and women to mix in public. Ayatollah Safi Golpaigani, one of the country’s top religious figures, decreed in June that: “mingling of male and female [students] thwarts scientific achievements and causes great corruption.”
Shadi Sadr, a London-based lawyer and expert in Iran, told The National that the move is an attempt by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to rally his socially-conservative voter base ahead of the February 2012 elections.
Some students will surely be opposed. Tehran University students protested the requirement that men and women ride separately to class by boarding buses together in April. The university was also an important gathering place during the failed Green Revolution protests of June 2009.
Guelph student organizes topless festival
Honours woman who won freedom to bare all
Photo courtesy of Michaël Boulenger on Flickr
Women and men should revel in their right to go shirtless, says University of Guelph student Lindsay Webb, aged 22. That’s why she’s organized the second annual Top Freedom Day of Pride in Guelph, Ont. where that freedom was fought for and won fifteen years ago, she told the Guelph Mercury.
In 1991, Gwen Jacob, then a University of Guelph student herself, was convicted of an indecent act after she walked home from campus with her breasts in full view. Her 1996 appeal made it legal for women to go topless in Ontario anytime and anywhere.
The Top Freedom Arts Festival will be held in Riverside Park on Aug. 20 with plenty of music for men and women to bounce around to. Webb told the newspaper that she was surprised by the number of men who merely stood around to watch topless women last year. This year, she said she hopes more of them will take off their own shirts and enjoy the party.
Student warns about pornography after $2,300 bill
Multiple daily downloads pushed him over the limit
Sad phone courtesy of Ron Bennetts on Flickr
Irish newspapers have picked up a rather odd warning from a student at University College Cork. The student told the Cork Student News that his peers should be careful about downloading pornographic videos onto their smartphones without have reading the fine print of their mobile contracts. The second-year food business student racked up $2,330 in data charges and subsequently dropped out of school, though he has since decided to return.
“When I signed up, I was misinformed,” the embarrassed student, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told the newspaper. “They told me that unlimited internet was part of the deal. I asked the customer service agent repeatedly to make sure that this was the case, and was repeatedly told that it was.” In reality, there was an monthly limit, which he surpassed by downloading “multiple videos” each day during a period when he had no other internet access.
The phone company reduced his charges to $565 as a goodwill gesture.
B.C. teacher gets year in jail for sex with student
Teacher took student to opera and plays
Man in Jail courtesy of Mr.Thomas on Flickr
A former B.C. high school teacher will go to jail for a year for having sex with a student, reports the Vancouver Sun. Victor Wiens, 64, pleaded guilty to the charge of sleeping with a minor. He taught the victim social studies at Sutherland Secondary in North Vancouver until a janitor caught him having sex with a girl in a utility closet after class in February 2010, at which point he was supspended.
“He made the absolute worst choice over and over again,” judge Carol Baird Allan told the court, explaining why she gave him a year in jail when the law requires a minimum of 45-days.
The relationship started when, during a hug with the student in June 2008, Wiens ran his hands through the student’s hair and put the other on her back in a sexual fashion, according to an agreed statement of facts. Later that summer, Wiens text-messaged the student about his marital problems and the pair would meet to talk in the park. With the permission of her parents, he took her to theatrical performances and the opera. In November 2009, the relationship progressed to nudity and fondling. The victim’s age was not stated.
Ovulating women have better “gaydar”
Women who can get pregnant pay attention to sexual cues
Women who are ovulating are much better at guessing whether a man is gay or straight, according to a new study from researchers at the University of Toronto and Tufts University.
Scientists asked 40 heterosexual female students to judge 80 photos of men’s faces. Half of the men were gay and the rest were straight, but the groups were considered equally attractive. What’s interesting is that women judged the sexual orientation of each man more accurately during ovulation.
“What it really sort of hints at is [that] there are evolutionary reasons why women would pay attention to cues relevant for mating,” Nicholas Rule, a lead researcher, told The Toronto Star. “When women have a higher chance of getting pregnant they’re going to pay more attention to cues in the environment that would attend to that.”
Respected professor accused of prostitution ring
Physicist defends website as “safe place for guys to find prostitutes”
A professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey was arrested on Sunday for an alleged prostitution ring. Police told NorthJersey.com that physicist and astronomer David Flory has been charged with 40 counts of promoting prostitution in connection with his website, SouthwestCompanions.info.
Flory holds a master’s degree from Columbia University, a PhD from Yeshiva University and has served as chairman of the Physics Department and as director of the School of Natural Sciences, according to his website. He has a vacation home in New Mexico. He and his wife Sharon, a phychotherapist, live in Manhattan’s Upper West Side.
Lieutenant William Roseman of the Albuquerque Police told NewJersey.com that Southwest Companions would only give access to men who were known to be johns. If users became more frequent customers, their status would increase to “trusted,” at which point they would gain access to more women, plus message boards with tips on how to avoid police and lawyers’ advice on what to do if arrested. Roseman said that Flory told police he did not make money off of the website and instead saw it as “a safe place for guys to find female prostitutes.”
