Teenage girls' weight affects sexual behavior

A new study has revealed that teenage girls' weight or perception of their weight might play a role in their participation in risky sexual behaviors.

The research team from University of Pittsburgh showed that those girls who were both sexually active and overweight, or who thought they were overweight, were less likely to use condoms than normal-weight sexually active girls.

Moreover, underweight girls were also less likely to use condoms.

"This study will contribute to sexual health education prevention efforts, which can be tailored to address how cultural norms regarding body size may influence adolescent sexual decision making," said lead researcher Dr Aletha Akers, M.P.H., assistant professor of gynecology and reproductive sciences at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.

"Knowing how a girl perceives her weight may be just as important as knowing her actual weight," Akers added.

The study involving nearly 7,200 high school girls from 2005 Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance survey, half reported ever having sex suggested variability in the girls'' sexual activity and sexual risk-taking behavior based on their ethnicity and actual or perceived weight.

The study results are published in the journal Pediatrics.

sex scandals to have made news in public

Let's begin with the lastest development in Madhur Bhandarkar's case wherein a magistrate's court on Wednesday said the FIR filed against him in July 2004 could not be dismissed.

Bhandarkar a National Award winning filmmaker was accused of rape and making false promises to an aspiring actress Priti Jain. She filed a case stating that she slept with him from 1999 to 2004 as he promised her a role in a movie and marriage. However, in 2005, Jain was arrested for hiring people from the underworld to have Madhur killed.

Later, the Versova police during investigation had found that the complaint filed against Bhandarkar was false, they asked a magistrate at Railway Mobile Court in Andheri to classify the case as 'B' summary and dismiss it.
The case came up for hearing on Wednesday and it seems the trouble involving the rape charges are not over. Rejecting the police contention that allegations against Bhandarkar were false, the magistrate court has said that the FIR filed against could not be dismissed.

Shakti Kapoor

Shakti Kapoor well known for playing comic and villainous roles has acted alongside comedian Kader Khan in over 100 films.

In March 2005, a television channel released a video, allegedly showing Shakti Kapoor asking for sexual favors from an undercover reporter posing as an aspiring actress, in return for entry into the film industry. This was a sting operation to expose the phenomenon of casting couch prevalent in Bollywood. This incident sparked a controversy in Bollywood and Kapoor was banned by the Film & Television Producers Guild of India. Association of Indian Motion Pictures and TV Programme Producers decided not to ban him as no allegations against him were proven. The Film & Television Producers Guild also lifted the ban later.

Kapoor claimed that the video clip in question was doctored and he had been framed. He said that the undercover reporter met him several times and threatened to commit suicide if he did not come to the hotel room she had booked.

Aman Verma

Thank him for making the term 'sting operation' familiar to the Indian audience. Verma was undoubtedly the reigning star of the Indian telly, when a sting operation revealed that he molested a woman. His entire career was tarnished.

The bulky Salman came to his rescue. But that hardly helped. Seems like an episode right from a K serial.
The sting operation carried out by a TV channel filmed Aman Verma making advances towards the undercover reporter and also trying to examine her 'closely'.

Shiney Ahuja

Shiney Ahuja who won Filmfare Best Debut Award for Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi in 2006 has been accused of raping a household maid.

On June 14, 2009, a household maid working at Ahuja's house lodged a complaint with the Mumbai Police alleging that Ahuja had raped her that afternoon. She further claimed that he threatened her to kill her if the incident came to light. Ahuja was arrested the next day. After being in the Arthur Road Jail for over three months, he was granted bail from the Bombay High Court.

Michael Jackson

Despite Jackson's popularity and good works, he became the subject of a major scandal. In 1993 a thirteen-year-old boy accused Jackson of sexually abusing him at the star's home. Jackson settled the case out of court while insisting he was innocent. The scandal cost Jackson his endorsement contract with Pepsi and a film deal. His sexual preference was called into question, and his public image was severely damaged.

Jackson was charged with seven counts of child molestation and two counts of administering an intoxicating agent.Jackson denied the allegations.

Anand Jon

Anand Jon Alexander a fashion designer was convicted for serial child molestation and sexual abuse. He appeared on America's Next Top Model and rose to fame in the fashion industry prior to being convicted.

Jon was arrested in March 2007 in Beverly Hills, California on rape and related charges, based on the allegations of numerous aspiring models, including committing lewd conduct upon a minor. He pled "not guilty" to all charges. His defence being that he was set up by aspiring models trying to get revenge after he rejected them for photo shoots and fashion shows.

Jon was convicted for 16 out of 23 counts of sexual abuse; charges included forcible rape of seven women and girls, aged 14 to 21.

At the end of the trial Jon was sentenced to 59 years to life. He is expected to be extradited to New York, where prosecutors will charge him with more than 40 counts, including first-degree forcible rape and rape of a minor, involving 12 additional women and children. Jon also faces pending charges in Texas and Massachusetts.

Bill Clinton

William Jefferson "Bill" Clinton the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001 was the third-youngest president.

The Lewinsky scandal was a political sex scandal emerged from a sexual relationship between United States President Bill Clinton and a 22-year-old White House intern, Monica Lewinsky. The news of this extra-marital affair and the resulting investigation eventually led to the impeachment of President Clinton in 1998 by the U.S. House of Representatives and his subsequent acquittal on all impeachment charges in a 21-day Senate trial.

David Beckham

David Robert Joseph Beckham, the English footballer currently plays in midfield for American Major League Soccer club Los Angeles Galaxy and the England national team.

Many ladies claim that they have 'had' Becks! But this turned really nasty when, he was accused twice. First, he was accused of having a torrid affair with Rebecca Loos, his former personal assistant.

A week later, a model named Sarah Marbeck stated that she had slept with the soccer star. Of course, Beckham denied these charges. There has never been any proof of any of the allegations of Beckham's claimed infidelity.

Tricks for a sex-essful marriage

"Ladies, if you want to crush your man's soul, stop giving him oral sex. If you want to blow his mind, become skilled at it," Matt Titus advises people in Why Hasn't He Proposed, the book he co-authored with wife Tamsen Fadal. That's not all... he goes on to explain how you can become "proficient at this particular job" through videos, books and even "classes that teach you trusted techniques".

With a punch line that says 'Go from the First Date to Setting the Date,' this guide for women in dead-end relationships is entertaining, to say the least. The duo share experiences they've had with friends and clients. They take turns to present their cases -- the woman's perspective and the man's -- with little drawings of a boy and a girl so as to let the reader know which sex is talking.

Their advice is fun and even insightful at times: "folks who are willing to cohabit are often the same folks who are more divorce-prone to begin with" and "contrary to popular belief, men are not biologically wired to have sex with more than one woman".

Even more amusing than the insights/cases/research are chapter titles: 'Extinguish His Fear of Wedding Hell', 'Tricks for a Sex-cessful Marriage', 'I Take Thee to Be My Wife, Not My Warden'. The wording alone may be enough to do the trick.

The book is more fun if you read it alongside How To Create A Magical Relationship by husband-wife team Ariel and Shya Kane, who've been been married for 25 years.

Ariel and Shya offer more cases and examples of clients they've successfully helped. But they tend to over-generalise ("Many women have not discovered that they can be themselves and still include their femininity") and harp on stereotypes ("A 'relationship splitter' is a person who has a specific type of incompletion with his or her parents.") To their credit, the authors attempt to explain this through examples: Boy gets friendly with couple and eventually breaks them up because he grew up believing he was a better companion for his mother than his father had been. Huh?

Little girls are the new sex objects

PRESCHOOLERS turning themselves into sexualised "mini-adults" by wearing bras, nail polish and lipstick are requiring psychological help in increasing numbers.

Child development experts said young girls were now entering their "tween" years between being a child and a teenager at the tender age of six - five years earlier than previously.

Experts said that by age six, girls needed branded clothes, at seven they wanted styled hair, by eight they were beginning diets, at nine they were styling their hair and by early teens were engaging in sex or sending sexually explicit text messages.

The Daily Telegraph yesterday found crop-top style bras for toddlers aged two to three on sale at a major department store, sparking outrage from parents.

The alarming trend is taking a heavy psychological toll, Professor of Developmental Psychiatry at Monash University Louise Newman said.

"I've seen children suffering from clinical depression in primary school because they don't feel they are pretty enough or thin enough or able to be popular," Dr Newman said.

"The girls are worried they won't get boyfriends, girls have started defining their self worth in terms of themselves as a sex object."

Dr Newman said young girls had always played dress ups in their mothers' clothes but that this trend was different.

Dr Joe Tucci, the CEO of the Australian Childhood Foundation, said unprecedented numbers of young children needed psychological help.

"In an unprecedented way this generation of children are being exposed to adult concepts far earlier than they are ready to understand," he said. "Kids as young as seven are worried about the way they look, whether they're attractive to boys.

"They lack self esteem and confidence. If they don't feel like they fit into those messages, they feel like they are not as good as other kids.

"An impact is depression and anxiety which we are seeing an increase of in unprecedented levels."

Child advocate Julie Gale was outraged to find bras for toddlers on sale at stores including Target.

Target defended the sale yesterday, arguing it was up to parents to choose whether they buy the baby bras. "It is totally unnecessary. A two-year-old doesn't need that," Ms Gale said. "They are tactically marketing eye shadows, make-up, nail polish and little bras. It is mini me."

Parents yesterday were horrified by a display of the crop-top style bras clearly marked for toddlers.

Mother of three young girls Luisa Franco said it was "shocking" how children were being targeted as sex objects from such a tender age.

Ms Franco's six-year-old Sienna showed the tiny bras to her mother and asked to have a "kids bra".

"There is no way I would let one of my little girls wear a bra," Ms Franco said. Her husband John Valastro said he was incensed by children being homed in on as the "newest consumers".

He believed it was robbing them of their innocence.

He said children were growing up before their time because there was so much available to them to turn them into "mini-adults".

"It horrifies us what is available to kids these days, bras, makeup," Mr Valastro said. "They hear about things at school and come home and tell 'such and such wears this or has that' . . . they are only kids."

The rise of sex robots and pleasure machines

HOLLYWOOD was right, robots are going to take over the world.

But we might as well lie back and think of the invasion because it's going to be pleasurable, says a leading robot scientist.

Ever since Gort clomped down those alien stairs in The Day The Earth Stood Still in 1951, cinemas have been overrun by robots – sometimes cute, but mostly evil and mostly intent on taking over the world.

In the Bruce Willis film Surrogates, which opens this week, a futuristic world operates by surrogate robots. Humans live in isolation while their "robot realities" interact.

And in the children's fantasy film Shorts, currently screening, Mr Black's Black Box also has a rather evil agenda.

But if you listen to US robotics scientist Professor Rodney Brooks, robots of the future are more likely to be dominatrix than dominating.

He says the scientific pursuit of socially-aware robots – ones that operate according to senses in almost human-like form, as opposed to industrial and military robots – has been sidetracked by the hot button (so to speak) topic of sex with machines.

Australian-born Prof Brooks, former head of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab, said it was inevitable, and there was precedent, that such technology would be used for sexual purposes.

"Every technology that we've had, there has been a sexual driver of it," he said.

"I mean, that's certainly true of photographs in the 19th century; and home video players were really driven by sex; and of course the web has been a major source of sex.

"Yeah, there will be (sexbots) but it is not specific to robots per se."

Prof Brooks doesn't see the sexbots arriving any time soon.

"There are two versions of it, I suppose," he said.

"We accept that, yes, there will be robotic sex toys, remote presence sex where someone is controlling a robot and stuff.

"But there's also been some more outrageous stuff (predicted) – where people marry robots."

However not everyone thinks the idea of human-robot relations is so outrageous.

"At first, sex with robots might be considered geeky, but once you have a story like 'I had sex with a robot and it was great!' appear in a magazine like Cosmo, I'd expect many people to jump on the bandwagon," artificial intelligence researcher David Levy, who completed his PhD on the subject of human-robot relationships, told LiveScience.

I sold sex for $23,907 an hour: Sophie Anderton

Supermodel Sophie Anderton has revealed that she was into prostitution earlier and that she used to charge $23,907 (15,000 pounds) an hour, but says she is not proud of her past.

Sophie, 32, also said that she bedded a string of super rich businessmen to pay soaring drug debts, thesun.co.uk reports. And she claimed the British TV and fashion industry is "awash" with girls who have fallen into vice including two household name models.

Recalling the first time she had sex for money, Anderton said: "It was all over in two minutes. I lay there thinking, `Is that it? For ?15k, is that it?`"

The former "I`m A Celebrity" star, who made her name modelling Gossard underwear, has never before fully discussed her time working as a hooker.

"This is the truth, warts and all. For a short while I sold my body for a lot of money. I am not proud of it," she said.