Concerned clerics, Swedish sex changes and more MRI sex

Observational study of ‘Bicyclist’s Vulva’

Norwegian sex priest suspended for his book on sex in the Bible, in which he wrote that it “reeks of horniness, lust and pleasure, and is an endlessly rich tale of sex that can stimulate people’s own sex lives.”

The strange, sad tale of the overstimulated Rector of Stiffkey, a “prostitutes’ padre” who tried to “save” wayward young women and who was killed by a lion

“Thoughts of death led both men and women to say that they’d be more likely than controls to go ahead with the one-night stand, thus showing how a subtle change in sexual symbolism can alter the relationship between morbid thoughts and sexual desire.“

“Two studies, including an ecologically valid study of online dating advertisements, provided evidence for men’s production and women’s evaluation of humor in romantic contexts. A third study revealed that women’s evaluations of potential mates’ humor are predictive of their romantic interest. Moreover, this article shows that preferences for and perceptions of humor are associated with preferences for and perceptions of intelligence and warmth.“

Inclusive fitness and kin selection in an account of homosexuality’s survival value

“The intelligent homosexual’s guide to natural selection“

“Just How Naughty was Berlin? The Geography of Prostitution and Female Sexuality in Curt Moreck’s Erotic Travel Guide“

Anita Berber

Anne Tamar-Mattis argues that ‘intersex’ should be kept out of the DSM, which leads her to oppose expanding the concept of gender identity disorder.

In Sweden, opting for a sex change entails consenting to be sterilized, since “if a woman becomes a man, she should not be able to become pregnant as a woman.” Some are trying to change this law.

A stats professor has a “learning experience” occasioned by a transvestite cardinal (a bird, not a cleric).

While writing about The Story of O, Susan Sontag “compared the ratio of first-rate pornography to trashy books within the genre to “another somewhat shady subgenre with a few first-rate books to its credit, science fiction.” She also maintained that like science fiction, pornography was aimed at “disorientation, at psychic dislocation.””

From Just Jaeckin’s film version of The Story of O

Naomi Wolf: “We now know that porn delivers rewards to the male brain in the form of a short-term dopamine boost, which, for an hour or two afterwards, lifts men’s mood and makes them feel good in general. The neural circuitry is identical to that for other addictive triggers, such as gambling or cocaine.” NOTE ADDED (July4): See the refutation at Mind Hacks.

Another orgasm in an MRI: “”This kind of research is incredibly useful,” says Heiman. “Orgasm is tied into the brain’s reward system and likely other important systems as well. There is much we can learn about the brain, about sensation, about how pleasure works and probably much more from this one physical response.”"

“One interesting ability that Kamisaruk found … is that some women … were able to “think themselves” to orgasm. Without using any external stimulation, women closed their eyes and, using only sometimes erotic imagery but just as commonly very random and abstract thought processes, achieved an orgasm that was indistinguishable from orgasms achieved through self-stimulation.“

Scicurious on rat studies that clarify how antidepressants interfere with ejaculation

Annie Sprinkle likes Chester Brown’s comic-strip memoir of being a john