by yoursl | Dec 17, 2015 | Sex and History, Sex and Science, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Syphilis |
Mankind was wrecked by the sudden appearance of syphilis in the late 1490s. At its onset and for centuries later, this new disease caused widespread epidemics throughout Western Europe and would eventually threaten nearly the entire world’s population at one time or another. Syphilis is a sexually transmitted infection caused by the bacteria Treponema pallidum, which is a corkscrew-shaped spirochete (a phylum or category of double-membrane bacteria). The exact cause of syphilis, Spirochaeta pallida, was co-discovered in 1905 by German zoologist Fritz Richard Schaudinn and German dermatologist Erich Hoffmann while the pair were working at the Berlin Charité, a large teaching hospital. When syphilis first appeared in the 15th century, its symptoms were much more severe than those of present-day syphilis. The early symptoms included genital ulcers followed by fever, general rash and joint and muscle pains. Weeks or months later, symptoms included large, painful and foul-smelling abscesses and sores, or pocks, all over the body. These sores would become ulcers that could eat into bone and into the lips, nose and eyes as well. Sometimes sores would appear in the mouth or throat and death would occur. People afflicted with the disease suffered from extreme bone pain, especially at night. Immunity to disease occurs after exposure to the disease, whether it be from exposure to the disease itself or to dead or weakened disease cells found within vaccines. Because the 15th century population had yet to develop immunity to syphilis, the disease spread quickly and had a much higher and quicker rate of morbidity than its present-day version. There are two theories as to how syphilis came into...
by yoursl | Dec 3, 2015 | Dating/Relationships, LGBT, Sex and Art, Sex and History, Sexual Discussion, Sexual Exploration |
People have been fascinated with movies for more than a century now. The first movie theatre devoted to showing moving pictures was the Nickelodeon, which opened on June 19, 1905, in Pittsburgh, Penn. The name Nickelodeon was a combination of the price of admission, a nickel, with the ancient Greek word for theatre, odeon. The theatre’s owner Harry Davis, a vaudeville impresario, bought a machine called a cinematograph from a Frenchman named Lumiere and set up a storefront theatre where everyone could afford the admission price. Davis showed a 10-minute thriller, The Great Train Robbery. A bonus scene at the end of the short film featured the film’s bandit, actor George Barnes, pointing his revolver at the camera lens and shooting point-blank directly into the camera. Audiences were terrified, but the love of movies was born as a result of this unexpected drama. Davis’ low overhead meant he could show the movie several times a day to thousands of people. Within months, Davis had opened more than a dozen Nickelodeons throughout Pittsburgh. Movies are magical in that they allow us to trade our own realities for new ones, even for just a few hours, and that they can give us a different perspective of the world around us and of other people in lifestyles different than our own. Currently showing in theatres is The Danish Girl, which may make some people uncomfortable due to its controversial subject matter. The Danish Girl, released in the United States on November 27, is about artist Einar Wegener (Eddie Redmayne), who prepares to undergo one of the first sex-change operations with...
by yoursl | Nov 19, 2015 | HIV and AIDS, Sex in the News, Sexually Transmitted Diseases |
Charlie Sheen became the talk of the nation’s press once more, but not for his usual reasons. During a live interview on The Today Show on Tuesday, Sheen announced to the world that he is HIV-positive. The 50-year-old actor was accompanied by his University of California, Los Angles, physician, Dr. Robert Huizenga, who helped explain Sheen’s diagnosis and treatment during the actor’s interview. Sheen was diagnosed with HIV in 2011, during what he has said was a not-so-good time in his life. Since his HIV diagnosis, Sheen has taken daily antiretroviral medications, which has lowered his HIV viral count to such a low level, less than 20 copies of the virus in his blood, that the virus itself is undetectable in HIV blood tests. Even in a patient with a low viral load, HIV lives in reservoirs inside that person’s body. To keep these virus reserves from spreading and to continue to maintain a low viral load, the infected person must take daily antiretroviral therapy or the virus will begin to spread inside the body again. Sheen maintains that his low viral load means he cannot pass HIV to another person, even if he has unprotected sex with that person. This is partially true. Studies have shown that HIV positive persons taking daily antiretroviral therapy have just a four percent chance of passing the virus to an uninfected person during unprotected sex. There is one thing Sheen, and anyone else living with HIV, should do for ethical reasons and must do per the law in 24 American states, including Sheen’s home state of California: tell potential sex partners he...
by yoursl | Nov 5, 2015 | Dating/Relationships, Just For Fun |
I sat down and researched the history of bondage photography with the intent of writing about its history and its impact on America’s sexual history and culture, but I kept getting distracted by thoughts of Thanksgiving. Coolest. Mom. Ever.’s favorite holiday is Thanksgiving. I take time off from work to spend an extra day with her, and we usually spend that time working side-by-side in the kitchen. I learned at an early age food is a form of love. It’s no wonder I am in a relationship with a partner who knocked down a wall to make the kitchen a more workable space and who bought a gorgeous range any chef would appreciate. I use that range every single day in living and well-established proof that “food is love.” This brings me to my partner, Dutch, who is the stuff of internet dating legend. I am quite open about how it took me 32 first dates to find Dutch and that I almost gave up the search for what is now one of the best gifts I have ever been given. Dutch’s love is just as precious to me as the gift of my mother teaching me to read and then encouraging me to read anything and everything available. Every day I am thankful for Dutch, for our relationship, for being able to come home to Dutch and for the amazing dates and adventures we have together. I recently pondered why our relationship has been so successful because it is the most successful of any relationship I’ve had up to this point. What makes Dutch and I’s relationship so different...
by yoursl | Oct 22, 2015 | Breast Cancer |
Not all pink is created equal. Breast cancer awareness month is a wonderful opportunity for charities benefiting breast cancer patients and research to gain traction and land extra donations. Before purchasing a pink or ribbon-bedecked product, read the product label to ensure dollars spent are going where promised. Samantha King, author of Pink Ribbons, Inc.: Breast Cancer and the Politics of Philanthropy, was quoted in a recent Time magazine article about breast cancer charities. King suggests consumers avoid getting lured into the pink-ribbon marketing campaigns of companies. “If you want to give, give directly to the breast cancer organization,” King advises consumers. An added bonus for giving directly to a charitable organization is that the consumer will get the tax deduction and not the corporation selling pink products. If donors are not sure which organization to support, a quick internet search can help guide them to a charity they feel comfortable supporting. I used Charity Navigator, Charity Watch and the Better Business Bureau to compile this brief list of the current top breast cancer charities in America. All tax-exempt organizations, including charities, in the United States must fill out and file a version of a 990 form. This form is often used by charity-rating organizations as one standard of measurement to find out if a charity is actually doing what it claims. Financial records, including amounts spent on fundraising and compensation of executives, is another factor used to determine the health of these organizations. Having an “open-book” policy on disclosure of financials and other data is often used in scoring these organizations as well. Some of the top-ranking charities listed...
by yoursl | Oct 8, 2015 | HIV and AIDS, LGBT, Men's Sexual Health, Sexually Transmitted Diseases, Women's Sexual Health |
At the end of September, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission filed a lawsuit against a Subway franchise located in Sheridan, Indiana. The lawsuit alleges that employee John Doe was hired to work at the store on January 1, 2015. Twelve days later, the employee disclosed his HIV-positive status to the store manager. Doe reported to the EEOC that, on February 14, his supervisor called him at home to fire him, telling Doe he might be a liability to the company. The day after the lawsuit was filed, Indianapolis-based radio station 103.3 invited its listeners to call in during a morning show to voice their opinions over the air about the lawsuit. I listened to part of this broadcast and was blown away by some of these callers and their sheer ignorance of HIV in terms of how the virus spreads and how long the virus lives outside the body. Feeling inspired by this radio broadcast, I have created this HIV transmission fact sheet using information obtained from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), AIDS Vancouver Island and online resources aidsmap.com and aids.gov. There are three stages of HIV infection. The first stage is acute infection, in which large amounts of the virus are being produced in the body. Within 2 to 4 weeks of initial infection, many people develop flu-like symptoms, which is the body’s natural response to HIV infection. The second stage of HIV infection is clinical latency, in which the virus reproduces at very low levels, although it is still alive. With proper HIV treatment, people can live with clinical latency for several decades. The...
by yoursl | Sep 24, 2015 | LGBT, Men's Sexual Health, Sex and Pharmaceuticals, Sexually Transmitted Diseases |
The HIV medication Truvada was first approved for use by the Federal Drug Administration in August 2004. Made by California-based pharmaceutical giant Gilead Sciences, Inc., Truvada contains two active drugs, emtricitabine and tenofovir disproxil fumarate and was originally approved for use as an antiretroviral agent. Antiretrovirals are in a drug classification of medications used to treat HIV and AIDS. All HIV medications work by disabling the steps the virus takes when hijacking uninfected cells. The goal of antiretroviral treatment is to keep the amount of HIV in the body at a low level to help stop the weakening of the immune system, which can lead to the development of AIDS, and to allow the immune system to recover from any damage that HIV might have already caused. There are more than 20 FDA-approved antiretroviral medications in use today. When only one antiretroviral medication is used to treat HIV, the virus can become resistant to that medication, making it ineffective over time. Taking two or more antiretroviral medications at one time is called combination therapy. The goal of combination therapy is to limit the rate at which HIV becomes resistant to the medications and, therefore, making treatment more effective over a longer period of time. Since its approval in 2004, Truvada has shown great promise in reducing the risk of acquiring an HIV infection. The medication works so well in suppressing HIV infections in the blood that HIV-positive people who regularly take Truvada can show negative results on HIV blood tests, which renders them nearly noninfectious despite their being HIV-positive in status. In July 2012, Truvada became the first FDA-approved...
by yoursl | Sep 10, 2015 | LGBT, Sex and Religion, Sex in the News |
I know firsthand what religious intolerance and hate in the name of God feels like. I grew up in their shadows, but I grew OUT of those shadows as well. I used the religious intolerance and hatred I experienced in my childhood and adolescence as a jumping off point in my quest for knowledge. At the time, I simply wanted to know as much as I could about the world around me in the hopes I would eventually find other people like me. The purpose of my blog is to give readers knowledge and information. As tempting as it is to use my blog as a platform to give my own opinion of the situation involving Kim Davis, the Rowan County, Ky., clerk who was jailed for refusing to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples, I am instead going to follow my blog’s mission of “Knowledge should not be forbidden” and provide my readers with pertinent information. Since faith is at the heart of the Davis issue, let’s look at some religions and their views on the subject of same-sex marriages. Davis’ faith is Apostolic Christian, which means she is a member of the Pentecost branch of Christianity. In 2011, the Pew Research Center estimated that there were 279 million Pentecostal Christians in the world. This figure equates to 4 percent of the world’s 2011 population and to 12.8 percent of the world’s Christian population in 2011. In an article published this week in USA Today, Vinson Synan, a professor of church history at Regent University in Virginia and an expert on the Pentecostal faith, stated, “There are an estimated 15...
by yoursl | Aug 27, 2015 | Sex Crimes and Trials, Sexual Abuse |
The St. Paul’s School rape trial is in full swing. The victim in this case is a 16-year-old girl, who was a 15-year-old freshman at the time of the alleged incident, which took place on May 30, 2014, just days before graduation. The victim has stated she was a virgin at the time of the alleged attack. The alleged perpetrator is Owen Labrie, a 19-year-old who was a member of the 2014 St. Paul’s School graduating class. Labrie was charged with three counts of aggravated felony sex assault, four counts of misdemeanor sex assault, endangering the welfare of a minor and using a computer to set up the alleged attack. Labrie allegedly used email and the social networking site Facebook to lure the victim to an isolated location at the school. The sentence for the each felony charge is up to 20 years in prison. St. Paul’s School, located in Concord, New Hampshire, is an elite prep school where the tuition exceeds $50,000. At the heart of this rape trial is the St. Paul’s tradition of the “senior salute,” in which graduating senior boys attempt to score sexually with younger girls. The goal is to take the virginity of young girls, the younger the better. Labrie himself has stated that the senior boys kept an online scoreboard of these sexual encounters and that he “wanted to be number one.” Labrie’s defense attorney, J.W. Carney, Jr., commented to the media that “…the senior salute has been a tradition for so long at St. Paul’s School that it would be entirely unfair to put the blame on a single student for engaging...
by yoursl | Aug 13, 2015 | Abortion, Women's Sexual Health |
Abortions are either chemical, which involves the use of medications to cause the uterus lining to shed and abortion to occur, or surgical, which involves a doctor using surgical tools inserted into the vagina and uterus to remove the fetus via outpatient surgery. Neither abortion method is without risk, although the amount of risk involved in abortion is equal to the risk involved in a colonoscopy, according to a 2014 study by the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). Women who chose chemical abortion take on more responsibility for their own care than women choosing surgical abortions because chemical abortions typically conclude at home as opposed to clinics or medical centers. It is imperative that women choosing chemical abortion be able to obtain necessary care at emergency departments or hospitals should a complication arise. Chemical abortions, also referred to as medical abortions, can only be performed during the first nine weeks of pregnancy. According to the Guttmacher Institute, a non-profit organization that has been compiling abortion statistics for decades, medical abortions accounted for one-quarter of all abortions performed before nine weeks in gestation in 2008. The two medications used during chemical abortions are mifepristone and misoprostol. Mifepristone, also known as RU-486, is a synthetic steroid that works by blocking the effects of the natural hormone progesterone which is required to maintain the lining of the uterus during pregnancy. Once the uterine lining breaks down, the lining is lost along with the developing embryo. First approved for use in France in 1988, mifepristone was approved by the Food and Drug Administration for use in the United States in September 2000,...
