by yoursl | May 19, 2016 | Cancers of Reproductive Systems, Men's Sexual Health, Sex and Science, Sexual Dysfunction, Taboo Topics |
Earlier this month, the first penis transplant in the United States was completed successfully. This was the world’s third penis transplant since the procedure was first attempted ten years ago. In penis transplants, the penis is taken from a deceased donor only after special written permission is given by the deceased man’s family. The blood type of the recipient must match that of the donor. The recipient must have certain nerves and blood vessels intact as well as an intact urethra in order to be considered for a penis transplant. Skin tone similarities between the donor and the recipient are taken into consideration to allow the recipient to have a more natural look after transplantation. Only the penis is transplanted; testicles are never transplanted due to potential ethical and moral objections. If a recipient has one or both of his testicles intact, he may be able to father his own biological children after a successful penis transplant because his sperm production has been unimpeded. All transplant patients must take anti-rejection medications, such as tacrolimus, for the rest of their lives in order to keep their own bodies from physically rejecting the transplanted organ(s). There is a vetting process of potential transplant patients to ensure the patients will adhere to daily anti-rejection medication regimes. The world’s first penis transplant occurred in China in 2006 at Guangzhou General Hospital. The recipient was a 44-year-old man whose own penis had been damaged beyond repair in an accident. He was left with one centimeter (less than one-half inch) of his original penis and was unable to urinate. The 15-hour transplant surgery was considered...
by yoursl | May 5, 2016 | Fertility, Sexual Discussion, Women's Sexual Health |
Miscarriage is the medical term that describes a pregnancy that ends on its own, within the first 20 weeks of gestation. Pregnancy occurs in three trimesters: the first 12 weeks of a pregnancy are the first trimester, weeks 13 to 27 are the second trimester and the remainder of the pregnancy makes up the third trimester. Most miscarriages occur in the first trimester of pregnancy. Second trimester miscarriages can occur as well. Miscarriage is the most common type of pregnancy loss. According to the March of Dimes, “about 10 to 15 out of 100 pregnancies end in miscarriage.” The organization reports “as many as half of all pregnancies may end in miscarriage.” In these pregnancies, known as chemical pregnancies, the miscarriage occurs shortly after implantation of the fertilized egg, resulting in bleeding that occurs around the time of expected menstruation. For this reason, women may not even realize they have miscarried. During the first trimester, the most common cause of miscarriage is chromosomal abnormality within the zygote, which is the fertilized egg. Most chromosomal abnormalities are caused by a damaged egg or sperm cell or by a problem that occurs when the zygote undergoes cell division. Other causes of miscarriage include maternal hormonal problems, infections or health issues; maternal lifestyle choices such as smoking, drug use, malnutrition and exposure to radiation or toxic substances; improper implantation of the fertilized egg into the uterine lining; maternal age; and maternal trauma, especially to the abdomen. There are several different types of miscarriage, although most people use “miscarriage” as a blanket term to describe all of these varying conditions. A threatened miscarriage...
by yoursl | Apr 21, 2016 | Dating/Relationships |
It’s common knowledge among my family and friends that I met my partner Dutch online, using the free dating site okcupid. Several friends recently asked me about matchmaking services, which lead me down the research path. I have not personally used a matchmaker so I looked at matchmaking services like I would look any product I am thinking of purchasing: through internet searches and reviews. Matchmaking services vary from region to region across the United States and tend to focus on clients looking for long-term relationships. Most of these services are fee-based, ranging from $5,000 to $50,000 per year for a set number of introductions or matches. Based on this data alone, it would appear that matchmaking is an industry that focuses on those with high disposable incomes and that these services may be out of reach financially for some people. Consumer Affairs compiled a list of the top 10 best rated matchmaking services using a five-star rating system. Three of the services scored four to five stars with two services rating three stars and one service rating two-and-a-half stars. The remainder of the services scored less than two stars, which seems counter-intuitive to the “Top 10” notion and reminds us all to pay attention to details. Successful Singles, which is based in New England, scored five stars on both the Consumer Affairs list and with the Better Business Bureau (BBB). Its BBB rating is an A+ and there are just two complaints filed about this matchmaker. According to Successful Singles’ website, the company started in Massachusetts in 1984, has been under the same ownership for 30 years and...
by yoursl | Apr 7, 2016 | Dating/Relationships, Men's Sexual Health, Sex and Culture, Sex and History, Sex and Literature, Sex and Science, Sexual Discussion, Sexual Exploration, Women's Sexual Health |
Historically, America has held a somewhat negative societal view of masturbation that can be traced back to several centuries ago. In America in the 18th and 19th centuries, the perfect storm collided to help condemn masturbation as being a degenerate act. Decades of the Judeo-Christian tradition of condemning masturbation as being a misuse of one’s sexuality combined with the general prudishness of the Victorian era, which lasted from 1837 to 1901, and with the Great Awakening religious revivals of the early 18th century to the late 19th century to land masturbation into the banned acts arena. Literary works during the Victorian era helped move masturbation from being just a socially wicked act to being one of a physical and mental health nature that required medical treatments and even cures to eradicate. One of the biggest opponents of masturbation during this time was American physician Dr. John Harvey Kellogg (1852-1943), who thought sex was detrimental to our physical, emotional and spiritual well-being. He had evener stricter views on masturbation. In addition to sharing his anti-masturbation and anti-sex beliefs with others, Dr. Kellogg physically lived his beliefs and values. It is believed that Dr. Kellogg was celibate, that he and his wife never consummated their marriage, that they kept separate bedrooms during their entire marriage and that all eight of their children were adopted. Dr. Kellogg was raised as a devote Seventh-day Adventist and kept to his faith all throughout his life. He went to medical school before returning to his home state of Michigan where he would eventually practice as a physician at an Adventist-operated sanitarium. In his written work...
by yoursl | Mar 24, 2016 | Just For Fun, Sex and History, Sexual Discussion, Women's Sexual Health |
I recently watched an episode of Game of Thrones in which two characters were conversing about a bride being free to marry another man based on an absurd notion. Basically, since the purported virgin bride did not bleed on the bedsheets on her first wedding night, the first marriage was never consummated and she could now be married off in a second marriage. Let’s ignore the fact that this second marriage would unite two prominent families and just focus on debunking what I like to call the virgin myth. Let’s start with a solid fact: not every virgin bleeds during her first vaginal sexual intercourse experience. Another solid fact is that nearly every female human is born with a hymen, which is a piece of fringed tissue that is filled with blood vessels and located in between the two folds of the vulva. The hymen develops during the third or fourth month of pregnancy, and the reason for its development is still a bit of a mystery. Hymens, just like vulva, come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes, which means no two are alike. The hymen doesn’t actually cover the vaginal opening. Instead, the hymen creates folds that cause the opening of the vagina to be smaller in size than it would be without a hymen being present. The size of the hymen opening can be small enough to prevent some women from using tampons during menstruation. In rare cases, the hymen opening is too small and requires a minor surgical procedure to open it enough to allow for menstruation blood to pass out of the vagina....
by yoursl | Mar 10, 2016 | Sex and Culture, Sex and History, Taboo Topics |
Derived from the Greek word eugenes or “good birth,” eugenics is a set of beliefs and practices that aim at improving the genetic quality of the human population or the science of improving a human population by controlled breeding to increase the occurrence of desirable heritable characteristics. If those definitions sound familiar, they should. Adolf Hitler and his fellow Nazis used the concept of eugenics to persecute and murder Jews, Roma (Gypsies), Poles (people from Poland), Soviet prisoners of war, Afro-Germans (people of African descent living in Germany), Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals and people with disabilities in their quest for racial superiority during Hitler’s reign from 1933 to 1945. The persecution of homosexuals by the Nazis is the topic of a previous Your Sexy Librarian blog, The Persecution of Homosexuals in the Holocaust. Eugenics did not start with Hitler or his henchman Dr. Josef Mengele. The Nazis were inspired mostly by America’s history of successfully using eugenics to keep certain populations from reproducing. The term “eugenics” was coined by Englishman Francis Galton (1822-1911), who was a half-cousin to Charles Darwin (1809-1882), the father of evolution. In Galton’s first academic study of eugenics, he analyzed the characteristics of England’s upper class and concluded they were hereditary and could be passed down from generation to generation. In 1869, Galton published a book called Hereditary Genius in which he advocated a selective breeding program for humans akin to the breeding programs used by pedigree dog and horse breeders. The English eugenics movement focused on selective breeding for positive traits while the American movement focused on eliminating negative traits. The American eugenics movement...
by yoursl | Feb 25, 2016 | Fertility, Heterosexuality, Men's Sexual Health, Sex and Science, Sexual Discussion, Women's Sexual Health |
The Department of Defense (DoD) announced at the end of January that it is expanding fertility benefits for active duty service members to include the cost of egg and sperm freezing. These services will be covered during a two-year pilot program designed as part of the Force of the Future Initiative, which is a move to make the military a more family friendly employer and to encourage troops, especially women, to remain enlisted. Egg and sperm freezing will only be available to active duty service members who either request the benefit or who are anticipating a deployment. Deployed service members run the risk of sustaining injuries that can reduce or eliminate their ability to father children or to carry a pregnancy to full term. According to Military Times, more than 1,300 veterans who served in Iraq and Afghanistan suffered injuries to their groin regions and genitalia that required advanced reproductive surgeries. These injuries are mostly from encounters with improvised explosive devices (IED’s) or shrapnel from explosions. “We can help our men and women preserve their ability to start a family, even if they suffer certain combat injuries,” Defense Secretary Ash Carter said of the new program. The DoD already offers in vitro fertilization (IVF), artificial insemination, sperm extraction and embryo preservation at no charge to severely wounded, active duty personnel and their spouses. Neither Tricare, the military’s civilian health benefits program, nor the Department of Veterans Affairs, which provides health care to former service members with service-connected conditions, cover the cost of IVF or other advanced fertility treatments, such as egg and sperm freezing. After the two-year pilot program...
by yoursl | Jan 28, 2016 | Birth Defects, Microcephaly, Women's Sexual Health |
There is a new silent threat for women who wish to become pregnant and for those who are currently pregnant. Zika virus is a member of the Flaviviridae virus family and is mainly transmitted by Aedes mosquitoes, which are also known as Asian tiger mosquitoes for the distinct black and white striping found on the body of these insects. The Zika virus is in the same family as yellow fever, West Nile, chikungunya and dengue. Of these viruses, only Zika has been linked to birth defects. It is unclear at this time if Zika passes through breast milk. Zika can be transmitted sexually, although this is very rare. Three sexually-transmitted cases of Zika have been documented thus far. CNN news articles reported that in French Polynesia in 2013, “semen and urine samples from a 44-year-old Tahitian man tested positive for Zika even when blood samples did not.” CNN reported that Colorado microbiologist Brian Foy contracted Zika after traveling to Senegal in 2008. Days after his return from Senegal, his wife was infected with the virus despite her not having left Colorado and not being exposed to a mosquito carrying the virus. The likely source of her virus was through sexual contact with her husband. A third sexually transmitted case of Zika virus occurred in February 2016 in Dallas County, Texas. Adults infected with Zika experience either no symptoms or experience the mild flu-like symptoms of joint pain, muscle pain, headache and mild fever sometimes combined with rash and/or conjunctivitis, or red eyes. These symptoms last from one week to ten days. Zika is a tropical illness that originated in Africa...
by yoursl | Jan 14, 2016 | LGBT, Sex and Art, Sex and Culture, Sexual Exploration |
Music is a refuge from the stress and turmoil of everyday life for many people, even Your Sexy Librarian. While listening to a local radio station one morning, Lou Reed’s ‘Walk on the Wild Side’ played. I have always enjoyed this song and picked up on the meaning of the lyrics the first time I heard the song played (blame Coolest. Mom. Ever. for giving me unlimited and uncensored access to all things written). Let’s take a look at the man and the story behind this gem, which features drugs, prostitution and transvestites. Lewis Allan “Lou” Reed was born on March 2, 1942, in Brooklyn, New York, into a middle-class Jewish family. In 1952, Reed’s family moved to a suburban house in Freeport, located on the south shore of Long Island, where Reed and his younger sister Merrill spent the majority of their youth. According to his sister, the move from social Brooklyn to isolated Freeport is what would drive Reed to music, possibly as his own refuge from the world around him. Several print sources from the 1970s have identified Reed as being homosexual and has having struggled with his sexuality when he was a teenager. Medical care was approached differently in the 1950s. When Reed’s doctor suggested electroshock therapy for 17-year-old Reed, his parents went along with the doctor. These treatments caused Reed to suffer memory loss and have trouble concentrating. In 1960, Reed began to study at Syracuse University. He started playing music in bands and started using drugs more heavily. He would make his way to New York City. Reed was the guitarist, vocalist...
by yoursl | Dec 31, 2015 | Dating/Relationships, LGBT, Sexual Exploration |
This week’s blog is a letter from reader Brian about his personal experiences with being gay and with coming out. I did a little bit of editing, but the story is still all his in content. I thank Brian for sharing his experiences with all of us and for giving me his blessing on publishing a part of his life’s journey. Xoxo Dear Readers, As I look back at my past and at my path of self-discovery and enlightenment regarding my sexuality, I realize that it was quite an arduous and anguishing journey. In the past decade we have seen the stigma and condemnation surrounding being homosexual diminish to the point where the millennial generation finds it challenging to accept just how complicated and petrifying the process of coming out had been for the preceding generation. As far back as I can remember, I knew that I was attracted more to boys than to girls. I was far too young to comprehend the notion of sexuality or sex at that age, but I was fascinated by my own private parts. It wasn’t long before curiosity regarding other boys began to manifest. Even as young as I was at the time, something always felt wrong about this – I did not know or recognize then but now believe that this feeling was due to the societal inference that boys were supposed to like girls and that it was wrong to like boys instead. My first sexual experience happened during a sleepover with my childhood best friend. I would sleep in my bed, and he would sleep on the floor in a sleeping bag. I...
