“Kasie Hunt & Andy Barr” - New Hampshire gay-marriage debate puts 2012 hopefuls on spot

By KASIE HUNT & ANDY BARR  

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/50685.html

New Hampshire’s Legislature is likely to hold a vote to repeal the state’s law permitting same-sex marriage next January, a development that would force the GOP presidential field to confront the issue on the eve of the first-in-the-nation primary.

It’s a debate that so far has left Republican candidates squirming and could shatter any notion of a GOP “truce” on social issues designed to keep the primary focused on the economy.

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Sailor Discharged for Sleeping With Man

Mar 5, 2011

http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheat-sheet/item/sailor-discharged-for-sleeping-with-man/dadt/?cid=cs:headline7

The repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell isn't implemented yet, but we may be getting a preview of the sort of tactics gay rights groups worry will take its place. Navy Petty Officer Stephen Jones was found asleep in the same bed with another male sailor, but the Navy isn't discharging him over Don't Ask Don't Tell, which because of the repeal would result in a high-level review. It's discharging him for “willful failure to exhibit professional conduct.” "Here is the classic text book case of trumping up charges and exaggerating an event to try to punish someone,” said Alex Nicholson, executive director of Servicemembers United, the nation's largest organization of gay and lesbian servicemembers. Jones says he and the other sailor were watching television together and fully clothed, and would not comment on his sexual orientation. The Navy denies Jones' discharge has anything to do with the suspicion of homosexual behavior.



“Dr. Mercola” - 7 Foods for Better Sex

Posted By Dr. Mercola | March 04 2011

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2011/03/04/7-foods-for-better-sex.aspx

Health.com lists some of the food ingredients that are not only historically considered to be aphrodisiacs, but have modern-day science backing up their claims:

1. Avocados

Avocados are rich in heart-healthy fats, and anything that keeps your heart beating strong helps keep blood flowing to the right places.

1. Almonds

Almonds are nutrient-dense and rich in trace minerals that are important for sexual health and reproduction, such as zinc, selenium, and vitamin E.

1. Strawberries

Strawberries are an excellent source of folic acid, a B vitamin that helps ward off birth defects and may also be tied to higher sperm counts.

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“Sahil Kapur” - Exclusive: Ohio anti-union bill may curtail benefits for unmarried live-in couples

By Sahil Kapur

Friday, March 4th, 2011 -- 12:52 pm

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/03/04/ohio-anti-union-bill-may-curtail-benefits-for-unmarried-live-in-couples/

Buried in a newly-passed Ohio bill stripping the collective bargaining rights of public employee unions is language that could curtail benefits for unmarried domestic couples who work for the state, regardless of sexual orientation.

The provision appears just below language forcefully restating the same-sex marriage ban in the state, an apparent legal formality for legislation amending existing Ohio code.

Section 3101.01 of the GOP-led bill states that a "marriage may only be entered into by one man and one woman... Any marriage between persons of the same sex is against the strong public policy of this state."

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“Scott Keys” – Rep. Trent Franks Calls For Impeaching Obama If He Doesn’t Reverse Course on the Defense of Marriage Act

By Scott Keyes on Mar 2nd, 2011 at 4:20 pm

ThinkProgress filed this report from the Tea Party Patriots Policy Summit in Phoenix, AZ.

For the hard right, there is no shortage of reasons to impeach President Obama.

Last year, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) hinted at impeaching the president over the issue of immigration, saying that Obama was “awfully close” to violating his oath of office. Rep. Tim Walberg (R-MI) followed up by threatening impeachment proceedings against Obama because of the phantom “birth certificate” issue.

Now, in the right’s furor over the administration’s announcement that it will not defend the constitutionality of Section 3 of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), Rep. Trent Franks (R-AZ) is calling for Obama to be impeached.

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"Royane Real" - Overcome Your Fear of Rejection

https://mail.google.com/mail/?hl=en&shva=1#inbox/12e6d7cd75ba1bd4
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By Royane Real

Do you hold back from trying to start new relationships because you often worry that you will be rejected?

If a fear of rejection is holding you back from forming new friendships or relationships, there is help available. You can learn to greatly overcome your fear of getting rejected.

One of the reasons why rejection can cause us so much difficulty is that in our minds we often tie rejection to so many other ugly words that cause us even more pain. Humiliated. Inadequate. Useless. Loser. Not good enough. Pathetic.

The more we dwell negatively upon an instance of rejection, the harder it becomes to get up the courage to face another occasion when we might get rejected again.

Rejection is often much more troubling to those people who are very emotionally sensitive, who have low self-esteem, or who have had a very dysfunctional or abusive childhood.

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"Elissa Strauss" - Decades After 'The Feminine Mystique,' Many High-Achieving Women Find Satisfaction in Marriage

By Elissa Strauss, AlterNet

http://www.alternet.org/story/150033/

Stephanie Coontz begins her new book, A Strange Stirring: The Feminine
Mystique and American Women at the Dawn of the 1960s, with the results
of a 1962 Gallup poll examining the outlook of the “typical American
woman.” The ladies interviewed were, on average, 35 years old, married
with two children, white and full-time homemakers. They were also,
reportedly, deeply satisfied and quite comfortable with the idea that
“the man should be number one,” an outlook reinforced in many states
by “head and master” laws.

And so, as feminist lore has it, Betty Friedan took on the oppressive
institution of marriage in The Feminine Mystique, peeling away the
external layer of satisfaction that married women professed to feel,
revealing a generation of hollow women who were hungry for change.

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For the New Yorker, Women Are Invisible: Ms Magazine Pushes Protest

AlterNet / By Tana Ganeva

December and January issues of the New Yorker had almost no content by women. Why do publications so often fail to include female voices?

Last week, Anne Hays put her latest copy of the New Yorker back in the mail, with a note explaining that the august publication owed her a refund for putting out the second issue in a row featuring almost no pieces by women. In a December issue of the New Yorker content by women made up only three pages of the magazine's 150; one January issue contained only two items by women, a poem and a brief "Shouts and Murmers" item.

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A Campaign Goes Viral to Stop 'Corrective Rape,' Used to 'Cure' South African Women of Homosexuality

AlterNet / By Joseph Huff-Hannon

How a humble online petition to stop the barbaric practice of "corrective rape" in South Africa went global.

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” — Mohandas Gandhi

The photograph is not easy to look at, and it’s not clear at first glance if Millicent Gaika, the woman in the photo, is dead or alive. Huge purple bruises surround both of her swollen eyes, and her neck is crisscrossed by a number of open gashes and scars. By now the bruises have subsided, some of the scars have healed, and in court testimony in November Millicent was able to tell a judge about how the man who raped her said, “I know you are a lesbian. You are not a man, you think you are, but I am going to show you, you are a woman.” That man, Andile Ngoza, is now out on the streets, despite being released and re-arrested after the attack on Millicent. His bail this time, for violating the terms of his parole, was set at 60 Rand, or just under $10 USD.

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Don't Pregnant Women Have Rights Too? Woman Booted From Bar for Having a Baby Bump

AlterNet / By Lauren Kelley

One evening late last week, Michelle Lee was at a suburban Chicago bar with some friends, drinking a glass of water and eyeing the pizza menu. It was a seemingly calm, normal night out with the ladies. And yet, 15 minutes after Lee and her friends arrived, a bouncer approached Lee and asked her to leave.

"He just said, if anything happens, if a fight breaks out and you get hurt, we are responsible," Lee told the Chicago Tribune.

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Lust: How Does Women's Desire Turn to Sexual Arousal?

SeXis Magazine / By A Modern Love Muse

Science offers clues, but doesn't have the answers.

Until a few months ago, I hadn’t pondered female lust, or consider how it differed from its corporeal cousins, desire and arousal. Go ahead and get your guffaws out of the way. Certainly, someone who makes a life out of exploring intimacy should know the distinctions, you are thinking. I sheepishly admit that until the nuances were brought to my attention, I viewed them interchangeably. Shame on me (in a good shame sort of way).

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Fight the Sexualization of Young Girls the Right Way

RH Reality Check / By Sarah Seltzer

The problem isn't that young girls are sexual, but that they seem to play into a version of sexuality that is catering to male fantasies.

Earlier this month, the far-too censorship-happy Parents Television Council released a report highly critical of the sexualization of young girls on television.

Just this fall, a coalition of feminist groups had a huge summit called SPARK (“Sexualization protest: action, resistance, knowledge”) at which they gathered to protest the sexualization of young girls in pop culture, including television.

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Pharma's New Sales Pitch to Women: If You Aren't Horny, It's 'Sexual Dysfunction' -- Try These Pills

The Tyee / By Ray Moynihan and Barbara Mintzes

"We're hoping to be able to expedite the process ... of disease development ... " -- Drug company manager Darby Stephens

The woman looking confidently into the camera lens must be in her late twenties or early thirties, her long black hair falling over strong shoulders, a slip of striped blue material tied into a bow around her neck. Her red lips and good looks are striking, but it's her words that are most captivating. Her name is Darby Stephens, and she's a research manager at a California-based drug company called Vivus. The company is testing a drug for women said to suffer from a new condition called female sexual dysfunction or FSD. As Darby Stephens explains in an extremely candid on-camera interview for a documentary, FSD is so new that the drug company itself has had to help work out what the condition actually is: 'In order for us to develop drugs, we need to better and more clearly define what the disease is,' she said.

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Why Married Men Tend to Behave Better

ScienceDaily (Dec. 6, 2010) — Researchers have long argued that marriage generally reduces illegal and aggressive behaviors in men. It remained unclear, however, if that association was a function of matrimony itself or whether less "antisocial" men were simply more likely to get married.

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How Flashers and Other Street Harassers Get Their Cues from Conservative Churches and Politicians

RH Reality Check / By Amanda Marcotte

Street harassers don't come by their utter disrespect for women's autonomy and humanity by accident.

Talking back to street harassers just went viral: Hollaback posted a video of a woman on a subway train who, when she realized the man that was crowding her on the subway was doing so because he’d pulled his condom-sheathed penis out and was rubbing it on her, started to berate the man and tell him that she was going to have him arrested. She got her wish, since the assailant was quickly arrested.  (The article minimizes the reality of sexual assault by diagnosing the assailant as “sick” from afar.  This kind of thing should be stopped, as it implies that women should pity and tolerate sexual assailants, instead of fight back against them.)  Score one for the strategy of fighting back.

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On the World Stage, U.S. Falls Flat on Women’s Equality

by Michelle Chen

http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/6699/on_the_world_stage_u.s._falls_flat_on_womens_equality/

The United States speaks boldly about women's rights in Afghanistan, about liberating Arab women in the Middle East, and about Mama Grizzlies and Supermoms on the home front. But when it comes down to codifying our commitment to women's equality in the law... we'll get back to you.

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Study: Americans Still Puritanical About Sex

Miller-McCune.com / By Tom Jacobs

A new study shows that the Puritans' value system may remain lodged deep in our psyches, shaping our emotions, judgments and behaviors.

A cursory look at contemporary American culture suggests our ancestors’ Puritan values have been definitively discarded. Given the quick-money ethos of Wall Street, the hook-up culture of college students and the vast pornography industry, it seems clear that the colonists’ strict moral code -- pro-hard-work, anti-promiscuous-sex — is, for better or worse, behind us.

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The 7 Sleaziest Sexist Moments from the 2010 Elections

AlterNet / By Sarah Seltzer

2010 saw a spate of sexist attacks on female candidates, leaving fewer women in congress than we've had in years. The good news? Fighting back against sexism can win women votes.

Rush Limbaugh played “Ding-Dong, the Witch Is Dead” on his show to celebrate Nancy Pelosi’s ouster earlier this week, and this typically boorish moment seemed to crystallize a dismal election climate for women. As the dust clears from the 2010 midterms, one particularly sobering statistic has risen to the surface: for the first time since 1978, women have not made any gains in representation in Washington. In fact, once all the numbers are done being counted, women holding seats in congress and the senate may have actually decreased.

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Know-Nothing Republican: My Wife’s Doing Great, So Gender Bias Doesn’t Exist

Todd Lally, who is running for congress in Kentucky, claims that because he’s never seen gender discrimination, it’s really not an issue. It’s a particularly shameful position given the dismal position of women’s health and well-being in the state. His first foot-in-mouth moment came during a debate when he was asked about Kentucky’s women. He said

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The Right-Wing Think Tank Where Christine O' Donnell Learned Her ABCs of Homophobia

The Nation / By Kathryn Joyce

The real story of Christine O'Donnell's time at the Claremont Institute is how thoroughly she absorbed its viciously antigay politics.

In the past few weeks, Delaware Congressional candidate Christine O'Donnell has come under ridicule for seeming embellishments to her résumé. A CV posted on the networking site LinkedIn transformed a 2001 summer seminar she attended in rented space at Oxford University into a term of study at the school, and represented a week-long fellowship at the right-wing think tank the Claremont Institute as graduate coursework at Claremont Graduate University.

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