• Her official photographer has posted many of the pictures on Palin's Facebook page, along with the credit "The Photo Opportunity is Provided By SarahPAC," so, if you want a shot of yourself wearing an Obama shirt next to Palin you'll have to contribute to her PAC. • Sarah Palin will give the keynote address at the International Bowl Expo 2010, the "premier international convention" of bowling in June. A rep said: "Regardless of your political affiliation, Ms. Palin is a force in American politics and culture. Her presence underscores the impact and importance of bowling, one of our country's leading national pastimes and a growing $10 billion industry." • Leroy Benros was charged with rape at a New York nightclub after his alleged victim texted her friends during the attack. After he forcibly kissed her, the woman texted her friend: "I'm being molested. Help." By the time two of her friends found her, police say she was partially naked under a coat with her eyes closed and her arms dangling. Her friends pulled her away and Benros was arrested. • Now that Maurice Clemmons, the ex-convict suspected of killing four police officers, is dead, authorities are focusing on the people who may have helped him escape and stay on the lam for two days. Prosecutors are expected to charge alleged getaway driver Darcus D. Allen today. Clemmons' aunt and another woman have been arrested and are expected to be charged for giving him first aid and helping him escape. Police are still investigating a handful of other suspects. "Some are friends, some are acquaintances, some are partners in crime, some are relatives. Now they're all partners in crime," said a police spokesman. • Cocaine abuse is on the rise among young English women. Among women ages 18 to 25, the number of women who needed treatment for cocaine abuse in England. jumped 80 percent in the past four years from 329 to 592. Experts point to a growing "ladette" culture, which is also blamed for increasing alcohol abuse among young women. • In a new British study, researchers say they have discovered how and where androgenic hormones work in the testis to control normal sperm production and male fertility, which may allow for the development of a male birth control pill. "This study provides a new opportunity to identify how androgens control sperm production, which could provide new insight for the development of new treatments for male infertility and perhaps new male contraceptives," said Michelle Welsh, Ph.D., co-author of the study. • An increasing number of British women are hiring doulas to help them give birth, but anesthetist Dr. Abhijoy Chaklader questioned their role in the British Medical Journal. He wrote the trend toward hiring doulas, who have no medical training, may "be a sad reflection of failures in the delivery of medical and midwifery care, a sticking plaster concealing greater problems... a cynic might ask whether the doula business is actually necessary or whether it is exploiting - for profit - unspoken fears about NHS perinatal care and the seemingly limitless market for birth related products and service." • Switzerland elected women to the nation's top three political positions today: president, speaker of parliament's lower house, and speaker of the upper house. Swiss women couldn't even vote in national elections until 1971. • A Dutch man was arrested for allegedly collecting information on more than 30 girls from social networking sites, then blackmailing their parents. He posed as a photographer and told the parents their daughters had performed sexual acts on camera, or suggested they had been raped by others, then said he'd upload the non-existent pornography online if they didn't pay him. • Family members say a New York hairdresser who disappeared last week after dropping her 6-year-old daughter off at school complained about a creepy man she kept encountering near the school. "She mentioned to us about this guy in the street she would see every day," said Jamaica Smith's niece. "He was real aggressive toward her, always saying, 'Hey, baby, you look so pretty.' ... We know for a fact she was abducted because she would never leave her daughter." There are rumors that some people saw her struggling with a man near her home, but police deny the story and say they don't think foul play was involved. • After General Motors CEO Fritz Henderson announced yesterday that he was stepping down, someone claiming to be his daughter Sarah Henderson posted on GM's Facebook page, "HE FUCKING GOT ASKED TO STEP DOWN ALL OF YOU FUCKING IDIOTS. I'M FRITZ'S FUCKING DAUGHTER, AND HE DID NOT FUCKING RESIGN. WHITACRE IS A SELFISH PIECE OF SHIFT [sic], WHO CARES ABOUT HIMSELF AND NOT THE FUCKING COMPANY. HAVE FUN WITH GM, I HOPE TO NEVER BUY FROM THIS GOD FORESAKEN [sic] COMPANY EVERY [sic] AGAIN. FUCK ALL OF YOU." It was later removed. • Adeline Bayne-Goody, a 56-year-old New York City subway driver, may lose her job over an incident in October in which she subdued a crazed man who threatened other passengers, spewed racial epithets, punched her and spit in her face. She held him down until the police arrived, but officials told her she committed "gross misconduct" and should be fired because she left her post. • Carmen Huertas, the woman accused of driving drunk in Manhattan, injuring six children who were in the car and killing one, has been trying to commit suicide in jail. "She's tried to place objects around her neck," said her lawyer. "She's confused and devastated, and understands the consequences of her actions." • Thirteen female ski jumpers have filed a request with Canada's Supreme Court to allow the sport in the 2010 Winter Olympics in Vancouver. The International Olympic Committee voted in 2006 not to include women's ski jumping in the 2010 Olympics because they say the sport is not developed enough. • The Japanese man who recently married his virtual girlfriend from the Nintendo DS game Love Plus has responded to media reports with a letter and some photos from his honeymoon. He writes: "Now that the ceremony is over, I feel like I've been able to achieve a major milestone in my life. Some people have expressed doubts about my actions, but at the end of the day, this is really just about us as husband and wife. As long as the two of us can go on to create a happy household, I'm sure any misgivings about us will be resolved." •

Birth, a pretty self-explanatory film (it's about how some women climax during childbirth, natch) we've mentioned before, is making its televised debut tonight on 20/20, and a brief article in the Times by Lisa Belkin has inspired 330 comments from impassioned moms either supporting or maligning the doc.

Belkin writes, "Some women will see this film as a declaration of emancipation from the medicalization of childbirth. Others will see it as yet one more way to raise expectations and make new mothers feel inadequate if they do not experience the 'ideal' birth." While that notion seems ridiculous on one level — that women are concerned about measuring up to other women, even while they're pushing out a kid — the comments from the times reveal a ton of judgment, insecurity, and competition from both natural and hospital birth proponents. We've cherrypicked some particularly revealing comments and put them below.

Oh, boy. Looks like some folks are already on the bitter bus! I didn’t have an orgasm during delivery, either (meconium led to pitocin led to epidural for me), but that doesn’t mean it can’t happen. Jealous much?

I’ve given birth three times. One in hospital, one in birthing center, and one at home. All were so painful I lost my voice. Orgasm during child birth seems gross and weird. Not to mention the midwife/ doctor/ nurse/ whatever around while you are giving birth and who would want to have an orgasmic birth with people watching you. Giving birth is hard enough, let along with people around watching you and then expecting you to orgasm while you are in the most insane pain anyone could possibly imagine. How intrusive and bizarre. I can’t even get my mind around it.

I used hypno-birthing as a means to overcome the psychological wall developed by all the dramatic stories of pain shared by the women in my life. In my experience, and my husband backs this up, I never described it as painful or cried out, rather as a mix of wanted and unwanted pressure with some moments of pleasure. I do believe that for some women I know there is a sufficient range of experiences to include orgasm if they are able to relax sufficiently which is not easy due, I believe, mostly to the expectation of pain which is self-fulfilling. Watch animals in the wild who aren’t taught what to expect. They don’t cry out in pain. For others its the most painful thing they ever experience. I believe this is mostly due to that expectation combined with the way many hospitals pressure one to push and to see the whole experience as medical and anxiety producing.

My entire pregnancy (planned as a single woman) was perfect, and I knew the birthing would be simple, easy, and definitely pain-free. After all, the word “labor” means hard work, not pain. It’s only “modernized” women (and their partners) who’ve been persuaded by outside sources that there should be pain.

Talk about trivializing an amazing experience. How many orgasms will most women have during their lives? Hopefully hundreds or thousands. How many times does a human being who you’ve been carrying for ten months all of a sudden go from being a concept to a living breathing human being? I mean honestly, is having an orgasm supposed to improve the experience?

I also am rather concerned about this sort of cultural politicization of birth. I agree that needless C-sections are bad; I also am a historian who has read numerous accounts of women and babies dying in childbirth in those wonderful aeons before the medicalization of childbirth. And they still do, in those benighted countries that lack a medical infrastructure. It’s called ‘labor’ for a reason! As a mother of two I do think that women need to be aware of, and capable of choosing, a wide variety of options, but we need to avoid treating those many women who may find a hospital birth more secure as if they are frightened ninnies.

At the risk of being crass, I hope this doesn’t portend some entrepreneur coming out with baby-shaped dildos.

Orgasms During Childbirth? [NYT]

Earlier: Orgasmic Childbirth: We Are Not Making This Up

• Mia Farrow is offering to give up her own freedom for that of a Sudanese rebel under hospital arrest. Is she for real or is this just some empty offer to prove once that she's a better person than Angelina? Either way, she is equal parts insane and awesome. [Telegraph]
  
• The NY Times says the Japanese have no love for women in the workforce, while last week, the Wall Street Journal claimed Japanese companies are all about wooing female executives. Clearly major news publications aren't above a little US Weekly/InTouch naysaying. [NYTimes, WSJ]
  
• We long for the days when all it took to fit in at the country club was one trophy child. This competitive birthing nonsense really takes away from our Bliss schedule. [NPR]

• Another thing making our cooter hurt? Natural birth! Luckily, for the cost of $700, women can have their very own Greek doula in the birthing room with them. Or your insurance can just pay for the epidural and you can lazily push your baby out while watching Oprah. Whatever. [CNN]
• Apparently, judging by this article, Nicole Richie is more of a wannarexic than an actual Ana - since she's just fat enough to get her period and all. [Newsday]
• Weddings are a happy occasion that even a band of Islamic militants can't ruin. [CS Monitor]
• The only thing we knew about autism was that Scientologists don't believe the condition exists. This article in the NY Times Magazine opened our eyes, tugged at our heart strings, and made us hate those stupid Xenu freaks even more than we already do. [NY Times]
• A bad ass waitress in New Hampshire calls out Mitt Romney on health care in front of diner filled with customers and it was all caught on video. We heart her and leave her a virtual big tip! [Washington Post]
• A cervical cancer test you can do at home - great for the third world and for us, when our Cobra insurance runs out. [Reuters]
• Despite having a one child law, the Chinese government doesn't want to beat people over the head with it with signs like "Raise fewer babies but more piggies." Cause coerced abortions are so much nicer. [MSNBC]
• A disturbing percentage of women aren't getting regular pap smears. C'mon ladies, make friends with your gynecologist! She won't bite, just swab. [LA Times]
• In our sixth grade sex ed class, we learned how to put a condom on a banana. It was so gross, we stayed a virgin until we were 20! On the flip side, abstinence education apparently doesn't do diddly to stop teenagers from bumping uglies, getting pregnant, and transmitting STDS. [News-Medical]
• Brits aren't educating their teens either. Under-18 abortions are on the rise in the UK as well, including one girl who has had six. SIX! Seriously, Yasmin needs to sponsor her, NOW. [The Sun, Daily Mail]