• The so-called "Hecession" continues in the UK: According to a new report, one of out every ten men will be unemployed next year. Young men and black men have it the worst, with one in five currently out of work. •  Teenage boys in Sweden are kind of jerks, says study. Researchers found that many of them are unwilling to take precautions to prevent the spread of chlamydia, and that "a very high proportion of the boys state that they will not be following the advice given during [sex ed] classes and that almost as many think that sex education has no impact whatsoever on their sexual behaviour." • A study out of Rice University found that girls who have a better sense of smell are also more attuned to emotional cues. This suggests an overlap between the emotional section of the brain and the olfactory. •  Many women with uterine fibroid tumors are advised to get hysterectomies, but according to the New York Times there are several other treatment options for those suffering from the tumors, some of them less invasive. •  Members of the Yale community gathered yesterday to pay their last respects to slain medical student Annie Le. She was remembered by University President Richard Levin as bright, caring, loving, and spontaneous. • In most countries, animals are stunned before they are slaughtered, which decreases their pain. However, religious killings often do not stun the animal first, but new research on pain may increase the pressure to adapt Jewish and Muslim religious law. • Scientists have determined that in rare cases cancer can be passed from a mother to her unborn child after a 28-year-old Japanese mother passed leukemia cells to her baby through the placenta. The mother died of leukemia shortly after giving birth and at 11 months old the daughter was diagnosed with lymphoma. She is now in remission. • 12-year-old Abby Miller plays her guitar and sings on the street to raise money for her 4-year-old friend, Taylor Love, who has neuroblastoma, a cancer of the nervous system. The money goes to Love's family and Miller also asks people to write "Love Notes" to Taylor. "Her mom reads them to her before she goes to bed at night," Abby said. "Taylor gets excited for them and she loves getting them read to her because she likes knowing that people are supporting her and people are actually thinking of her." • According to a new study, people who get most of their daily liquids from plain water rather than other beverages tend have healthier diets in general and eat more fiber, less sugar, and fewer calorie-dense foods. • Authorities in Austria haven't been able to sell the home where Josef Fritzl imprisoned and raped his daughter for 24 years. Three of his other properties have been sold and the profits have gone to Fritzl's creditors and his daughter Elisabeth. The police have rejected some offers to turn the dungeons below the home into a museum. • A 17-year-old Utah girl who paid a 21-year-old man $150 to beat her in an attempt to kill her late-term fetus was released from jail today when a judge ruled it was a legal attempt at abortion, not murder. She gave birth in August and is seeking custody of her baby girl, who is currently in state custody. • Police have arrested Dennis Earl Bradford, a 40-year-old welder, for allegedly abducting, raping, and slitting the throat of 8-year-old Jennifer Schuett in 1990 and leaving her for dead in a field. Advances in DNA technology let authorities make the match. Schuett, who survived the attack and is now 27, said, "This event in my life was a tragic one... But today, 19 years later, I stand here and want you all to know that I am OK. I am not a victim, but instead, victorious." •

• A new summer camp has opened in the U.K. that advertises itself as an alternative to all the religious camps run by church groups. The atheists camp says it teaches climbing, canoeing, and rafting, along with tolerance and empathy. If only this has been around when I was expelled from camp YMCA at age 17 for not being "Christian enough." • According to a new study, pregnant women who contract swine flu are four times more likely to be hospitalized than others with the virus. • Doctors have developed a new way to test for chlamydia in men, which requires nothing more than a little pee in a cup. The old way involved a painful urethral swab, and doctors hope that more men will be willing to get tested now that they don't need to have a q-tip stuck up their dicks. • The most horrible story in the news this week just got sadder: Otty Sanchez, the schizophrenic mother who killed and cannibalized her infant baby, may have exhibited warning signs that she was suffering from postpartum depression before the murder. • British TV presenter Nick Knowles tells The Mirror about being a "sex god," which apparently requires drinking Jack and Coke, smoking, and going for a run once in a while. • James von Brunn, who shot a guard at the Holocaust Memorial Museum last month, is being indicted on hate crime charges. • A man was arrested for sexually assaulting a horse named Sugar — again. He had been arrested for the same crime a year earlier. • A dubious-sounding online study suggests that Canadian men think of physical contact as the boundary between fidelity and infidelity. 16% of respondents thought going to a strip club was cheating, but 65% thought getting an "exotic" massage was. • Lubna Hussein, a Sudanese UN employee, is challenging her arrest in Khartoum for wearing pants in public. If she loses, she could get 40 lashes. • Despite publicity about such "fringe" cosmetic surgeries as vaginal rejuvenation, this and other unusual procedures are only performed on 1.6% of cosmetic surgery patients. • In a substantive and "judicious" criticism, Rush Limbaugh says Andrea Dworkin "could be the poster child" for obesity. • Australian radio host Kyle Sandilands won't apologize for asking "is that the only experience you've had" after a 14-year-old girl revealed on his show that she had been raped. • According to GLAAD, HBO has the most LGBT representation on television, TBS and A&E have the least, and TNT showed the biggest increase. • More women use social networking sites than men, especially among those 45 and older — 4.6 million women over 45 are signed up for Facebook, compared to only 2.6 million men of the same age group. • A study by the amusingly named Society for the Study of Ingestive Behavior found that depressed patients saw relief from their symptoms after a weight-loss program. • Pro-choice activist Charles Wright was beaten to the ground outside an Akron abortion clinic on Saturday; you can send him a message of support through NOW. • Porn star and possible Senate candidate Stormy Daniels was arrested Saturday night on domestic violence charges. •

•  Egyptian tycoon Hisham Talaat Mustafa has been sentenced to death for the murder of his ex-girlfriend, Lebanese pop star Suzanne Tamim. • Breitbart has posted a preview for the documentary "The Iraqi Workout," which is a 45-minute study of the a women's gym in the north of Iraq. • A new (no shit) study has found that fathers respond to the risky sexual behavior of their teen offspring by increasing parental supervision. This contradicts an earlier study which indicated that parents tend to pull away when teens engage in sexually uninhibited behavior. • Two children of Martin Luther King Jr. have threatened to sue over a film that is currently in the works about their father's life. Dreamworks currently has the rights to King's story, but Bernice and Martin King claim they did not give their approval for the project. • In response to an uptight grandmother's complaints about a picture of a little girl breastfeeding her doll, Babble states what should be obvious: breastfeeding is not a sexual act, and it is not obscene. • Click here to read an interesting article from Time Mag about sex, consumer culture and how the two became so intricately linked. • As if us hypochondriacs didn't have enough to be worried about: in 2006 Swedish doctors discovered invisible chlamydia, which can escape detection on routine tests. The good news? They have developed a way to screen for the dangerous strain. • According to new data, women in Japan have the longest life expectancy out of any group, with the average lady surviving to see 86, while men in Sierra Leone have the shortest life expectancy (only 39). • A new drug usually used to chemically castrate sex offenders has been deemed by some a "miracle" cure for autism. However, many say that the use of the drug is "medically indefensible." •  Today Anne Mulcahy, CEO of Xerox, announced that Ursula Burns will be named CEO of the company on July 1st. Burns will become the only black female CEO among Fortune 500's top 150 companies. • Scientists have discovered the genetic mutations responsible for the unusual appearance of Julia Pastrana, the famous "bearded lady" from the 1800s. •

The study, conducted at the University of Sydney, was based on a sample of 185 students, aged 16 to 25: "78% female students agreed to take part in the extensive survey compared to 22% male." The students answered questions about their sexual histories and their awareness of the STD chlamydia. The female arts students were found to be "younger, more likely to be sexually active and to report having little or no knowledge of chlamydia." The science guys, by contrast, had the least sex, even though many were older.

The explanations ranged from cultural (many of the male science students are foreign) to the stereotypical: as one psychotherapist puts it in the article, "Who are the people at unis that go to the rave parties and the bar? …It's not the nerdy boy science students." The disturbing thing about these findings is of course the fact that the population apparently most at risk — young women — is least educated about sexual health. While it seems premature to fault the universities in question, it does seem that, if a study such as this can pinpoint risk, addressing it should be that much easier. To this extent, such reports one can only help raise consciousness. However, it does seem like anything that can serve to perpetuate generalizations about the "easiness" of certain populations (see: the article's tone) is worrisome. After all, these women admitted to being sexually active, nothing more — why does this immediately become cause for innuendo and cheap jokes? While sexual ignorance should be targeted, sex itself should not be stigmatized — and one hopes this was not the study's intent. By the same token, neither should male virgins be mocked! It's a fine line — especially for young people — between hackneyed, stereotyped generalities and the people who have to live in their shadow.

'Females Studying Arts Sexually Active' [Times of India]

• A new study has found that black, pot-smoking females between 15 and 21 are more likely to have STDs than their pot-free peers. • More than two dozen teenage cheerleaders got stuck in an elevator for 20 minutes after they broke the elevator by overloading it in an attempt to "see how many girls they could fit into" the elevator car. • Queen Rania of Jordan goes to the YouTubes to try dispel stereotypes about the Arab world one question at a time. Sample question? "Are you Michael Jordan's wife?" (Sigh). • Japan is dominating Leftovers today: A 16-year-old boy named Taichi Saotome is a gender-crossing dancer of a kabuki-like theater that has all of Japan mesmerizes with "a single look from his downcast eyes." • Good news for endometriosis sufferers: Scientists may have unlocked the cause of the somewhat mysterious and painful condition. • Egyptian scientists will perform DNA tests on two mummified female fetuses found in King Tut's tomb in 1922. • UK primary schools have very few male primary school teachers (1 male in 50 women) which may be because many men view being a schoolteacher as a "woman's job." • That whole "cosmetic-surgery-will-help-women's-career" drivel the media has been reporting? Total BS. • Pregnant gals: The old adage that coca butter will prevent stretch marks while you are pregnant is not true. • EW's "28 Essential Girl Power Flicks." The list includes, Little Women, The Devil Wears Prada, National Velvet, and, uh, High School Musical?

[Image via Gothamist]

Five female Indian baseball players who qualified for the Women's World Baseball Championship couldn't afford the tickets to the event, until some philanthropic people stepped in and covered their costs.

• A British blogger who wrote about his graphic sexual exploits with women in Shanghai (and caused quite a shitstorm in China) has revealed his identity, and his (surprise!) new book! • A pair of twins, one dark-skinned, one light-skinned were birthed on Friday last week in Germany to a biracial couple. • Plans to legalize prostitution in the red light districts in the South African city of Durban for the World Cup in 2010 have been met with a a great deal of opposition from religious groups. • The sexy nurse theme of a Korean music video for a female pop singer is angering actual nurses. • Olive Garden employees who appeared in Playboy can keep their button-downs and ties: The company will not issue repercussions to women who appeared in the spread. • A 10-year-old girl who competes in bodybuilding competitions is drawing criticism from people who see it as unhealthy. • Concerned police in Australia smashed a car window while trying to rescue a "reborn" doll left alone in a car. • A 55-year-old grandma fends off two would-be robbers with claw hammers with a push broom. The pictures for this story (particularly the one with the robbers scrambling for the door) are a must see. • Puppy video! My favorite Japanese pup tries to figure out how to use his brand new iPhone 3G.

Assuming that UTIs don't count as STDs (even though it's very similar to Chlamydia, since it's just bacteria, right?), my first STD was the herp. God only knows who I caught it from, but I'm pretty sure it was from one of three bartenders from the same bar I was sleeping with at the time. But it also could've been this dude from this band. Or this 22-year-old unemployed skater dude. Or this other unemployed dude who was a friend of a friend. (I know how to pick 'em!) Anyway, I felt a burning when I peed, which wasn't particularly out of the ordinary, especially for back then, when I was seemingly always recovering from chronic UTIs. I ignored it. Then I noticed this like pimple-y blister thing on my right lip. I was like, FUCK, but, heavily in denial, insisting that it might just be an ingrown hair. But when I was reduced to putting homemade ice packs on my vadge to soothe it and unable to sleep through the night because of the pain, I decided to face my fears and looked at my vadge with a hand mirror. The whole thing was inflamed. I made an emergency appointment to see my gyno, who gave me some Zovorax cream, Valtrex (just a week's worth, never do that one-a-day shit 'cause it'll kill your immune system), and some Ambien.

My second STD was Chlamydia. Boring, and easily treatable. Happened about three months after the herp. Then two weeks after that, I got a call from the dude that gave me Chlamydia, to tell me that he had gonorrhea, aka "the clap", aka "the drip." I'd decided that I must've dodged that bullet, but about eight hours after receiving that call, I was squatting over a public toilet and felt something fall out of me and heard a loud thud. I looked down and saw this big, clumpy brownish/yellowish creamy thing on the toilet seat. I called my doctor the next morning and she gave me 500 mg of Cipro and that shit went away right quick. (Seriously, if you're going to get an STD, pray that it's gonorrhea.) Anyway, I took it in stride. I'd already popped my STD cherry with herpes, so everything after that was no biggie. I even made up songs about gonorrhea to the tune of "Make It Clap" by Busta Rhymes featuring Sean John, changing the words to "I got the clap!" And then also, I changed the words of "Da' Dip" by Freak Nasty to "I put my hand up on your hip, when I drip, you drip, we drip."

Each risky factor raised the odds of sexual activity by 44%. Boys with more advanced puberty development started sex early. Teens with low self-esteem may start sex to boost their self-images or gain popularity, Price speculates. Defiant kids with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, those whose parents had little education or those who regularly watched certain types of TV also tried sex sooner.

Plus, chlamydia cases reported in the USA have just topped the 1 million mark for the first time, with the highest rates among adolescent girls, the CDC reported today. And John Douglas, director of STD prevention at the CDC in Atlanta, thinks that number is low. "We have reason to believe that chlamydia is dramatically underreported," he says.

So what shall we do? Fight at the source? How do we encourage parents to spend more time with teenagers? How do we limit the amount of TV teens watch? How do we manage teenage self-esteem? And how do we keep teenage boys from giving teenage girls chlamydia in record numbers?

Study Pinpoints Factors For Early Sex [USA Today]
Chlamydia Tops 1 Million Cases, With STDs Rising Slightly Overall [USA Today]

• Rumors are flying that Britney Spears might appear on Sunday's Emmy Awards to apologize for her performance at the VMAs. WTF? What does she have to apologize for? She gave a shitty performance, she didn't go on a racist tirade or run over a crowd of schoolchildren. Britney, babe, don't let those assholes convince you to humiliate yourself even more for their ratings pleasure. Go home, take a shower, and play with your kids. [US Weekly]
  
• A 16-year old buy trailed a group of girl runners from his high school and yelled, "Keep going, or I'll rape you." The girls showed the little fucker they weren't scared and took down his license plate number and called the cops. Take that, punk. [NBC5.com]
  
• Holy crap, Beth Ditto from The Gossip writes an advice column? Awesome! [Guardian UK]
  
• Teen girls who diet are more likely to become smokers. Well, duh. If there's anything Kate Moss ever taught us it's that smoking fights hunger pangs and looks super sexy. [Reuters]

• After our 72-year old grandpa had triple bypass surgery, the first thing he asked the doctor when he awoke was when he could "have relations" with his wife again. That's why the news that seniors are still into humping came as no surprise to us. [USA Today]
• African pop star Angelique Kidjo has launched a campaign in her native country of Benin to encourage girls to get an education. [Reuters]
• Is today Paris Hilton's birthday? Scientists are close to developing a vaccine for chlamydia. [ScienceDaily.com]
• Two badass female NASA commanders will make history next month as they become the first pair of women to lead their orbital missions at the same time. Punky Brewster would be so proud. [MSNBC]
• MSNBC calls out Myriad, a company which is marketing their breast and ovarian cancer tests in TV commercials, for using scare tactics to increase their stock price, alleging that these ads make more business sense for Myriad than for public health or for educating women. [MSNBC]
• The debate over how to teach sex education in India rages on. Bizarrely, the situation there is really no different than the sex education vs. abstinence debate in the US — except that we're a freaking first world country and should be beyond this shit. [Economist]
• Eighty-nine year old Sylvia Levin is awesome — for the last 34 years she's spent six days a week getting people to register to vote, for free. Government experts think the 46,700 voters that Levin has registered are a national record. Think how many scarves she could have knitted instead. [LA Times]

The strange connection between heartburn during pregnancy and babies born with lots of hair. Perhaps this explains Suri Cruise. [NY Times]

HPV vaccine? Check. Next up: Chlamydia, also given the unfortunate moniker of "The Clam". [Feministing]

Speaking of that HPV vaccine: pharmaceutical giant Merck to stop urging state legislatures to mandate its use. [NY Times]

Speaking of Merck: the company plans to test AIDS vaccine on sex workers in the Dominican Republic. [International Herald Tribune]

Women are donating their eggs more and more — and for more money. [Salon]

John McCain says he's now in favor of overturning Roe vs. Wade. [Washington Post]

Naomi Watts pregnant. [NY Post]