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Thursday, December 8, 2016

Americans have been lying about the benefits of abstinence only education and the dangers of porn for decades â€” Quartz

7:30 AM Bilal Muazin No comments

Over the past few weeks, as the idea of a Trump presidency has gone from unthinkable joke to horrifying reality, Iâ€™ve heard a new term making the rounds, particularly among my friends in media. â€œWeâ€™re living in a post-truth era,â€ they tell me, citing Trumpâ€™s many lies and contradictions, the rise of fake news sites, and a growing distrust of the mainstream media as evidence that the American people are increasingly distanced from reality.

I think this is a fairly accurate assessment. But as someone whoâ€™s been writing and educating Americans about sex-related topics for over a decade, I can testify to the fact that weâ€™ve been living in a â€œpost-truthâ€ era for years. Quite frankly, Iâ€™ve been dealing with a post-truth world for my entire career.

The easiest entry point for understanding Americaâ€™s fuzzy relationship between sex and fact is the sad state of American sex education. According to the Guttmacher Institute, a mere 13 US states require sex education to be â€œmedically accurate.â€ To put that in context, 39 states require HIV education to either stress or cover abstinence, in spite of the fact that thereâ€™s little proof that a focus on abstinence actually helps delay sex.

Indeed, Americaâ€™s two-decade long love affair with abstinence-only education (which president Barack Obama has attempted to put an end to) feels like the epitome of â€œpost-truth.â€ Study after study shows that abstinence-only education doesnâ€™t reduce the rate of teen pregnancy, delay the age at which young people start having sex, or lower rates of STI transmission. But as long as telling kids not to have sex feels like the solution, these misguided lesson plans will likely persist. (In fact, it might actually get worse; president-elect Donald Trump and vice president-elect Mike Pence are not known for an enlightened outlook on sexuality. Pence once said on national television that condoms are â€œvery, very poor protectionâ€ against STIs).

This aversion to the truth is much more than a failing of political conservatives. In my experience, liberals are just as willing to ignore the facts when itâ€™s convenient to their larger narrative.

Over the years Iâ€™ve rolled my eyes at numerous acts of â€œjournalismâ€ that perpetuated half-truths and outright lies about the sex and porn industriesâ€"often in the supposed service of protecting women. >The Price of Pleasure, for exampleâ€"an anti-porn documentary created by NYU professor Chyng Sunâ€"misled many of its interview subjects and used manipulative editing to craft a vision of a ruthlessly exploitative porn industry that few porn performers recognize. A piece in The Atlantic once positioned double anal, an extreme sex act that even the most practiced porn performers need to warm up to, as a routine occurrence. And letâ€™s not forget the New York Timesâ€™ own Nicholas Kristof, whose factually inaccurate writing has peddled numerous myths about sex work and who has positioned himself as a voice of authority in spite of numerous sex workers whoâ€™ve contested his version of the â€œtruth.â€

The topic of sex is vulnerable to this sort of misinformation for a number of reasons. Itâ€™s an intensely personal experience, and one most of us have some degree of experience with. This creates a personal sense of authorityâ€"even when we lack any facts or expertise beyond our own limited experience. Compounding this false confidence is the persistent taboo against public discussions of sexuality. Stigma around sex prevents us from openly and honestly discussing the topic, adding further fuel to the many â€œtruthyâ€ statements that circulate about human sexual experience.

A slumping news industry has coincided with the rise of social mediaâ€"a phenomenon that has made news consumption more individualized and created information bubbles that help reinforce what feels right over whatâ€™s actually true.While unfortunate, in this context it makes sense that weâ€™re seeing a spread of inaccuracy in our discussions of politics, the environment, and other hot-button topics that have historically been more buffered from falsehoods than sex.

But if my work in sex education offers me a deeper understanding of the factors that encourage and enable a collective divorce from reality, it also gives me hope that post-truth isnâ€™t a permanent state of being. If we stay committed to pursuing and promoting a reality-based vision of the world, itâ€™s possible to overcome seemingly overwhelming odds.

On the same Tuesday that Trump secured the White House, Californiaâ€™s adult industry battled misinformation, ignorance, and a well-funded propaganda machine to defeat the egregious Proposition 60. Opposed by many health organizations and practically all of Californiaâ€™s adult film actors, the proposition would have violated worker privacy and potentially made it possible for regular Californians to sue porn producers if they believed actors werenâ€™t wearing condoms. Around the globe, sex workers have banded together to make their voices and opinions heard, and are slowly chipping away at the post-truth ethos thatâ€™s oppressed their industry for decades (if not centuries).

And even though government-funded sex education is often mediocreâ€"if not outright harmfulâ€"a number of independent sources have harnessed the internet to provide smart, thoughtful, and fact-based sex education to young people around the globe. This is the lesson activists and politicians alike need to internalize in the age of Trump. With enough commitment, dedication, and persistence, the truth can ultimately win out.

Follow Lux on Twitter @luxalptraum. Learn how to write for Quartz Ideas. We welcome your comments at ideas@qz.com.

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Friday, December 9, 2016

Yorktown pastor accused of sex with teen

11:00 AM Bilal Muazin No comments

Terry Dobbs(Photo: Photo provided)

MUNCIE, Ind. â€" The pastor of a Yorktown church was being held in the Delaware County jail on Friday, accused of having sexÂ with a 15-year-old member of his congregation.

Terry Wayne Dobbs, 53 â€" pastor at Old Fashion United Baptist Church, 9211 W. Arch St. â€" was arrested Thursday evening, preliminarily charged with sexual misconduct with a minor, vicarious sexual gratification, child exploitation and child solicitation.

The pastorâ€™s bond was set at $35,000.

According to an affidavit, Yorktown police learned from authorities in Allen County on Dec. 2 that a 15-year-old girl had disclosed she was involved in a sexual relationship with her minister.

A Yorktown officer interviewed the girl Thursday. She said she began counseling with Dobbs about personal problems in July.

According to the report, the pastor â€œstarted out very slowly with talking about kissing her.â€

Authorities allege Dobbs and the girl eventually began fondling each other at the church, and later had sex there three times.

The alleged victim also said she and the minister had exchanged nude photos via cellphones and computers.

Dobbs, of the 6900 block of West Bethel Avenue, was also interviewed on Thursday, and gave a â€œfull confession,â€ police reported.

Courts records reflect no prior charges against Dobbs.

Contact news reporter Douglas Walker at (765) 213-5851. Follow him on Twitter: @DouglasWalkerSP.

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Four Oakland police officers fired in wake of sex scandal

3:30 AM Bilal Muazin No comments

Story highlights

Four officers fired, seven suspended for involvement in sex scandal
Probe began after suicide of officer accused of having sex with underage prostitute

An additional seven officers were suspended without pay, and another is receiving counseling, according to CNN affiliate KRON4.

The four Oakland Police Department officers who were terminated also face charges of attempted sexual assault, lewd conduct in public, assisting in the crime of prostitution, being untruthful to investigators, and failing to report a violation of law for not disclosing that a minor had sexual contact with police.

The seven suspended officers are accused of accessing a law enforcement database for personal gain, failing to report a violation of the law, and bringing disrepute to the department.

Schaaf said at the press conference that the firings and suspensions send "a loud and clear message that we hold our officers to nothing but the highest standards of professionalism and integrity."

Sex, suicide and failure to report: How Oakland police scandal unfolded

Disturbing allegations

The punishments bring some resolution to the scandal that began last fall with the suicide of OPD officer Brendan O'Brien. Officials say an investigation into his death uncovered disturbing allegations.

An 18-year-old former prostitute alleged she had sex with O'Brien, as well as with a number of other officers from the department and officers from nearby jurisdictions.

The young woman, who goes by the pseudonym Celeste Guap, said it all started when she was 17 years old and became romantically involved with O'Brien, who she credits with saving her from a dangerous pimp.

"He saved me when I was 17," Guap told CNN in a phone conversation. "Instead of taking me to jail, we just kind of started something there, you know."

O'Brian, she said, later introduced her to other officers who became customers.

As the investigation widened, other officers became embroiled in the scandal. Ultimately, four police chiefs resigned and 28 officers across five departments were alleged to have had sexual contact with Guap.

Officers reassigned over Bay Area police sex scandal

Multiple relationships

Some of the officers paid to have sex, Guap said. Others exchanged confidential information, such as tipping her off about prostitution stings, for sexual favors.

Of the 28 officers, Guap said 14 were from the Oakland Police Department. The others included five Richmond police officers, several Alameda County Sherriff's deputies, a Livermore police officer and a Contra Costa County Sheriff's deputy.

The Oakland Police Department is no stranger to scandal. Since 2003 a federal monitor has been in place to ensure the department complies with a negotiated settlement agreement stemming from a police corruption scandal.

Officers had been accused of planting evidence and assaulting suspects. No accused officers were ever convicted, but one officer fled prosecution and to this day remains at large. The city paid out more than $10 million to more than 100 plaintiffs and agreed to make reforms, eventually ending up under federal monitoring.

Wednesday's announcements were "about making department-wide changes," Schaaf said.

"We see you, we are here for you, we are here to help you," she added, addressing victims of sexual abuse in the city.

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Uber to riders: No sex, and leave your guns at home

12:30 PM Bilal Muazin No comments

By Patrick May,Â The Mercury News

The inside of an Uber vehicle, that â€third placeâ€ that so many of us often find ourselves these days, should also be a safe place, a clean place, a happy place.

Or so says Uber, which this weekÂ issued a set of â€œUber Community Guidelinesâ€ Â to keep both riders and drivers on their best behavior.

As the San Francisco-based ride-sharing giant puts it in its press release, â€œWe want Uber to be enjoyable and safe for everyone. These ground rules are designed to ensure that riders and drivers have a five star ride when using Uber.â€

Letâ€™s have a look, shall we?

For starters, Uber wants us all to know that sex during a ride is a big no-no. Even flirting is prohibited between the rider and their driver or fellow passengers. (So, yes, group sex is out.) And donâ€™t even think about calling your driver after the ride on their personal cell number and trying to set up a date. In its guidelines, Uber stresses that it has a â€no sex ruleâ€ and, just to make sure all you sex-in-public aficionados get the memo, it repeats â€œno sexâ€ over and over like some Victorian Age mantra.

And Â while youâ€™re sitting in the back seat not having sex with anyone else in the car, you should also not vomit.

To be specific, Uberâ€™s guidelines ban â€œvomiting due to excessive alcohol consumption,â€ so you could read that to mean that a flu-induced mishap wouldnâ€™t necessarily get you banned forever from an Uber vehicle. But do try and avoid it anyway.

â€œMost riders show drivers the respect they deserve,â€ the company said. â€œBut some donâ€™t â€" whether itâ€™s leaving trash in the car, throwing up in the back seat after too much alcohol or asking a driver to break the speed limit so they can get to their appointment on time. This kind of poor behavior is not OK.â€

In the interest of time, weâ€™ve condensed for you some of the other things Uber would like you not to do while in their care:

â€¢ Donâ€™t touch other passengers.

â€¢ Donâ€™t touch the driver.

â€¢ Donâ€™t keep the driver waiting.

â€¢ Donâ€™t swear.

â€¢ Donâ€™t slam the car door.

â€¢ Donâ€™t spill your Starbucks Grande, Iced, Sugar-Free, Vanilla Latte with Soy Milk and then not clean it up.

â€¢ Donâ€™t look at people suspiciously if theyâ€™re not like you.

â€¢ Donâ€™t comment on other ridersâ€™ appearances.

â€¢ Donâ€™t ask your fellow rider if he/she is single.

â€¢ Donâ€™t raise your voice.

â€¢ And last but not least, donâ€™t bring your firearm with you on an Uber ride.

Outside of that, have a nice ride.

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Thursday, December 8, 2016

10 Directors Explain How to Shoot a Sex Scene -- Vulture

3:30 AM Bilal Muazin No comments

Nothing is easy when it comes to directing a movie, but shooting a sex scene may pose filmmaking's most surreal challenge. Think of all the contradictions at play: Sex is one of the most real and messy things two people can engage in, but in this case, carefully choreographed movie stars are paid to fake it. And while the best love scenes often feel intimate and personal, it's easy to forget that they're reenacted in front of a director and crew standing just out of frame, then broadcast to (and screen-capped by) an audience of millions.Just as everyone goes about lovemaking a little differently, so, too, do directors approach these tricky scenes with a different set of techniques, tips, and tricks. How do you put anxious and nearly naked actors at ease? What's involved when it comes to negotiating for nudity? And when it comes to the MPAA â€" the shadowy ratings board that slaps a restrictive rating on the slightest thrust â€" what sort of double standards are at play? We surveyed ten directors for their own funny, intriguing, and illuminating stories of how they made onscreen lovemaking work.

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10 Directors Explain How to Shoot a Sex Scene -- Vulture

1:57 AM Bilal Muazin No comments

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Saturday, December 10, 2016

Porn, Sex And Marriage: What's OK, And What Isn't? : NPR

5:00 PM Bilal Muazin No comments

Warning: Today's post deals with sexual content and may not be appropriate for all audiences.

Dear Sugar Radio is a weekly podcast from member station WBUR. Hosts Steve Almond and Cheryl Strayed offer "radical empathy" and advice on everything from relationships and parenthood to dealing with drug problems or anxiety.

Dear Sugar Radio | Subscribe Courtesy of WBUR hide caption

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Courtesy of WBUR

Today they're delving into the adult topics of pornography and masturbation. A man says he masturbates regularly while watching pornography but still maintains a healthy sexual relationship with his wife. But he is still "troubled" by the notion that the porn industry is exploitative of performers, and questions whether it is morally acceptable to fantasize about women other than his wife.

To help in their discussion of these topics, the Sugars are joined by Wendy Maltz, sex therapist and co-author of The Porn Trap.

Dear Sugars,

Is it bad to masturbate to online porn? I am a happily married man in my mid-50s, and have been married for 15 years to a wonderful woman. We have a satisfying sex life, having sex approximately once every week.

However, I go online to masturbate to porn about three times a week. I work from home and find that I become sexually turned on during the working day. I look at masturbation as a healthy release. Viewing online porn allows me to accomplish the "task" more quickly and get back to work.

That other purveyor of personal wisdom, Dr. Phil, advises that watching porn is an immoral betrayal of a marital partner and says the women in porn videos are likely to have been abused as children and are being exploited. I have a teenage daughter and avoid videos of young girls, preferring age-appropriate subjects in the so-called "mature" category. I also avoid watching porn up to 24 hours before I am likely to have a date with my wife in order to be able to enjoy and contribute to our sex together.

Can Men And Women Be Friends Without Benefits?

My wife knows that I look at porn. While we don't discuss it, she doesn't feel that it is a betrayal of her. I look at viewing porn as an extension of masturbation, which I believe is healthy and a necessary release, one that is as private as going to the bathroom. If not for porn, I would still masturbate. I doubt Dr. Phil believes that masturbation is immoral. Is masturbating while fantasizing about someone besides my wife immoral? Assuming that online porn is the problem, is it possible that you can make distinctions?

I know that many of the women on porn sites are probably psychologically damaged in some way, and that the pornography industry may be contributing to that damage. On the other hand, is it possible that accepting money for video sex is not always exploitative? Is it possible that some of the women who perform in online sex videos do it out of a healthy appreciation of sex?

Signed,

Troubled by Porn

Steve Almond: I could have written this letter, and I felt a great sense of sympathy for this guy who's trying to figure out the same questions I struggle with when I bother to even struggle with them: Am I complicit in something that is very clearly against my moral code? In what ways? And what are my other alternatives?

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Follow the Sugars on Twitter @dearsugarradio. Jennie Baker Photography/Courtesy of WBUR hide caption

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Jennie Baker Photography/Courtesy of WBUR

Follow the Sugars on Twitter @dearsugarradio.

Jennie Baker Photography/Courtesy of WBUR

I think he is in a productive state of bewilderment, and I think most of the men of conscience who consume porn in one way or another are either suppressing this set of questions or are struggling with them. The porn industry is like football or like meat or like fossil fuels â€" it's essentially exploitative. But because I have a libido that operates differently than my wife's, I get horny and I want relief. I lament that I no longer sit there and do the imaginative work of masturbating without porn. There are a lot of people who aren't even grappling with the ways in which pornography is an ethical concern because, frankly, people don't want porn served with a side dish of ethics.

Wendy Maltz: I have a lot of respect for the man who wrote this letter. He's really thinking about his relationship to porn and trying to figure it out. He doesn't have the secrecy and shame element going on that a lot of people have with porn. But there's something happening â€" he's starting to question it. I can't say if his porn use in particular is a good thing or a bad thing. It's so personal. People have ask themselves, "What does porn mean to me? What is it doing to me? Where's it taking me?"

Cheryl Strayed: What do you mean when you say "Where's it taking me?" Do you mean to suggest that, in some ways, his porn use could be robbing his marriage of a sort of intimacy that it might have if he didn't use it?

Wendy: Porn is a very powerful product. It's like nothing we've ever seen before. There's a conditioning process associated with porn. It can become a stronger habit. Our sexual arousal response gets patterned to particular cues, and those cues can be the images in porn or they can be the smell of a lover's neck. Images are very powerful, so porn could be affecting the intimacy he has with his wife in ways he's not even aware of. He says porn is not an issue in his marriage, but he and his wife aren't really talking about its place in their relationship either.

Steve: There's a kind of "don't-ask-don't-tell" policy when it comes to porn in relationships. Pornography, predominantly for men, is a little secret cavern â€" it's a place we go, even if we're in happy, deeply communicative relationships, as it seems this guy is.

Cheryl: Part of my response to this letter is that there's nothing wrong. This guy wants to have an orgasm about four times a week. Presumably, if his wife wanted to have sex more, she would be making advances towards him. And he has a different sex drive than she does, and so he just takes care of himself. He doesn't need to tell his wife. There is such thing as privacy, even when you're married to somebody. Wendy, is this inherently a bad setup, or are you thinking, well clearly, because he's asking these questions, he's not entirely comfortable with it?

Wendy: From a clinical perspective, we're not talking about someone who is disassociated or who uses porn in lieu of sex, but there's something going on for him â€" he signed his letter "Troubled by Porn." One of the things that I wonder about is, why does he use porn a lot while he's working? Is sexual release a way of dealing with stress for him? Maybe he's not feeling as productive or as recognized in his field as he'd like to be? Has porn become a way that he self-soothes? And if so, is that at the expense of learning other ways to take care of himself â€" reaching out to a real person or going for a run?

The other thing is his age. Being a man in his mid-50s, it can take a little longer to get sexually aroused. The erections aren't as firm. Sex can become a little bit more laborious in terms of functioning, but under usual circumstances, that's offset by really good communication with a partner you've been with for years.

Cheryl: Or by a sense of humor â€" that sex doesn't have to be a performance. It doesn't always have to equal orgasm. It's a sensual exchange of pleasure and communication.

Wendy: And there's this wonderful growth that a couple can have. I've been married for nearly 40 years now, but I had a rough beginning as a sexual person. I've now experienced what it's like to be in a long-term relationship where you don't have a heavy influence of porn and where you can really work with your partner and learn with your partner and grow with your partner sexually. I think a lot of couples are missing out on that growth.

Steve: Troubled by Porn, you've reached a moment where you have to ask yourself, "What is the meaning of porn for me? And if I'm unsettled, do I need to start having the difficult, but necessary, discussion with my wife to say, 'I feel greater desire and I want it to be toward you. I want to find a better balance between my porn use and our sex life together.' "

You can get more advice from the Sugars each week on >Dear Sugar Radio from WBUR. Listen to the full episode to hear more about how porn can affect relationships.

Have a question for the Sugars? Email dearsugarradio@gmail.com and it may be answered on a future episode.

You can also listen to Dear Sugar Radio on >iTunes, >Stitcher or your favorite podcast app.

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