Sex, Gender, Reproduction

I have not done a Friday Weird Sex Blogging post in ages, and I won't do today either, but others did some cool blogging on various related topics: from gender disparities, to gynecological procedures, to weird animal/plant sex, so here is a little collection for this weekend:

My take on Mr. Tierney's article:

Again, I can't predict what the gender breakdown of any profession would be if we didn't live in a rather patriarchal society. Maybe it wouldn't be 50/50 if everything else was equal. But it's not. I hate to use the P-word, but consider the environment our girls are being raised in. Until societal pressures can really be controlled for, I'm not sure that we can really say what people's "natural tendencies" are. And that goes for men, too. Gender stereotypes are stupid. And Tierney's insistence that girls just don't like some things isn't terribly inspiring (or new).

Blogging my mammogram:

At the urging of my colleague Abel, who liveblogged his own vasectomy, I'm documenting my first mammogram. Given that I had pretty much no idea what to expect going into this, I'm hopeful that this post will demystify the experience a little for those who know they probably should get mammograms but have been putting it off.

The pros and cons of screening mammography: reading my 'patient instructions':

However, to the extent that most of us who are getting regular health care in the U.S. are doing it within the context of some kind of insurance, we aren't generally making this call individually. We're working within the framework of our health care provider's policy, which usually tracks what insurance will cover.

Why Not? Blogging My D & C:

And that's it! Now I am officially one of those people who shares every intimate detail of their lives with total strangers on the internet. You know, just like I promised myself I would never do. If you had asked me, when I first took up blogging, whether I'd be posting pictures of the inside of my uterus on my blog, I'm pretty sure I'd have answered "what the hell are you talking about?" And yet, here we are. Just don't tell my mom.

World Wide Web Abortions:

In theory, I think it's pathetic (not to mention potentially high-risk) that some patients have to resort to DIY specialized medical care just because they happen to be pregnant. In practice, when your reality is that your access to proper medical care is at the mercy of strangers, it's preferable to obtain care from (apparently) competent strangers like Women on Web, rather than some unqualified black marketeer.

Sex and the over seventies - what the research really said:

Media coverage has stuck to this, although a lot of coverage has focused on the ooo-isn't-it-shocking-that-wrinklies-are-having-sex angle, and in many places misquoting or misunderstanding the study data. This is probably because most journalists didn't read the original research or editorial, and based their stories on the press release. Of the journalists I spoke to who were writing their coverage yesterday the majority were not interested in getting reportage of the study right, but simply wanted me to find them a seventy year old couple who didn't mind talking about their sex lives or having their photograph included in the paper.

Lonesome George not so lonesome:

George, a Pinta island tortoise who has shown little interest in reproducing during 36 years in captivity, stunned his keepers by mating with one of his two female companions of a similar species of Galapagos tortoise.

This Friday's Weird Science: Foot-binding:

This is where Dr. McGeoch got his idea. He notes that ancient Chinese historians who lived during the Tang Dynasty talked about women with their feet bound, noting that they were, perhaps, a little more "sensitive" in bed than those who had big feet. So foot binding was considered conducive to a better sex life. Dr. McGeoch hypothesizes that, because the girl's feet were kept small, broken, and atrophied, she might get a structural reorganization in her somatosensory cortex, where neurons were recruited from the feet to the genetalia, resulting in a stronger signal from the genitals. Of course, this would remain to be seen (and I would not want to be the lab rat for that experiment), but it's an interesting idea.

Not quite viagra!:

...It's a penis shaped fungus! A Stinkhorn in the family Phallaceae. I came across this in a unit about fungi I did last year and just found it funny... a bit immature perhaps...