• Dutch prosecutors announced today that they have dropped their murder investigation into a late-term abortion that a woman had performed in Spain because the woman suffers from "psychological problems." • The Australian Parliament passed a landmark law today that allows single and lesbian women access to fertility treatment and gives gay partners and parents of surrogate children legal parenting rights. • A former park ranger at the Belair National Park in South Australia claims that rescued koalas that are turned over to park rangers are shot. • An English study of personal ads finds that the myth of the "dirty old man" is true, with most men seeking younger female partners. • A group of English actresses claim they were tricked into auditioning for a porn film when they thought they were auditioning for a Little Britain-style adult comedy. • Why do so many men buy sex? • A UK PSA features a dog drug mule with his chest cut open talking to drug users.• Meanwhile, a new study suggests that dogs have evolved to chase more efficiently over long distances and cats have evolved to creep up on prey, rather than chase. • A painting by Giambattista Tiepolo hidden in an attic of a French chateau for decades because it was deemed "risque" fetched $4.1 million at a Christie's auction in London. • China has told artists performing on its annual TV gala on Chinese New Year's Eve to not lip-synch their songs. • A judge in Arkansas issued a gag order on Wednesday in the murder case against a man accused of beating Anne Pressly, a local news anchorwoman, to death. •

• Opponents of the Miss University London beauty pageant (which is not connected with the school) are hoping to get the pageant which they see as misogynistic and like a "cattle call" cancelled before the contest's grand finale in February. • A new study claims that women who must work to support themselves or their family have a higher hip-to-waist ratio which might be linked to androgens (which includes testosterone) which is linked to stamina and assertiveness. • A 1-week old English infant who was separated from her conjoined twin died on Tuesday after the surgery. Her twin sister is in stable condition. • Police in Uganda claim that violent gangs are robbing men by luring them with women who have chloroform on their chests and then stripping them once they are unconscious. • The UK Resource Centre for Women in Science, Engineering and Technology are calling for the next Doctor Who to be a woman. • An English cat named Mischief who is believed to be the world's oldest living cat celebrated his 125th birthday (or 27th in human years).• An English teenager's 16th birthday party was ruined when it was crashed by 400 wild party-crashers who found out about the party via Facebook. • A new study suggests that college women are unaware of some sexual assault risks related to drugging, such as leaving your drink unattended. • The ex-boyfriend of a 20-year-old woman in Florida (who can't remember his last name) stole a wig off of the woman's head while riding a bicycle.• New research shows that 1 in 5 women with breast cancer who are 65 or older delay or do not finish their treatment following breast cancer surgery. • Condom sales are up because having sex is the cheapest form of entertainment.• A recent study claims that women who exercise during pregnancy are more likely to have pre-eclampsia. • The first Australian evaluation of the HPV vaccine against hypersensitivity development reveals that a hypersensitivity reaction is rare in young women given the vaccine. • Researchers say that women who have more than two alcoholic drinks a day have a higher risk of developing atrial fibrillation, which can increase the risk of a stroke. • The Pentagon reports that during the 2008 fiscal year, enlisted soldiers and Marines divorced their spouses at the highest rate in the past 16 years. •

• A group of eight female teens in Minnesota were charged on Monday with spitting at and groping the elderly residents at the nursing home where they worked at part time. • A new study claims that women's marital satisfaction increases as they get older and when their children leave home. • Guna Harangen, Norway's oldest woman, died on November 25. She was 109. • A former Swedish businessman is currently on trial in the UK for allegedly molesting a female passenger while she had an "orgy dream" during a transatlantic flight last year.• Two young men in Texas were sentenced to up to seven years in prison today for videotaping and coaxing a toddler to smoke pot. • Eleven Chinese girls died of carbon monoxide poisoning on Monday after they lit a fire in school to keep warm. • In a recent survey, Girl Guides, the English version of the Girl Scouts, said they want to clamp down on peer pressure to have sex and end airbrushing of models in fashion magazines. • BabyCenter.com is now offering text message alerts to let women know when they are ovulating. • On Friday, police in Naples, Florida stopped a 12-year-old girl from allegedly committing suicide while on a webcam website.• Heart attacks are both the No. 1 killers of men and women, but heart attacks and symptoms of an attack can look different to each sex. • A group of mothers, who were enjoying a night on the town with their daughters, were barred entry to a bar in Leeds, England because they were over the age of 35. • Eighty local men from Barre, Massachusetts posed nude for a calendar to raise funds for the Woods Memorial Library. • A new study says that almost 1 in 5 young American adults have a personality disorder that interferes with everyday life. • A new study in England has found that women from poorer areas are more likely to be diagnosed with cervical cancer than women from wealthier regions. •

[Image via Getty Images.]

Madonna and Gwyneth became friends in 1999, just around the time when Madge started dating Guy Ritchie, whom she met through Sting and his wife Trudie Styler. Their friendship started out randy, with this report from early 2000 in the Vancouver Province:

Some new late-breaking gossip from the wild scene at the Bar Room on New Year's Eve: The New York Post reports that, at around 4 a.m. Jan 1, Madonna and newfound soul mate Gwyneth Paltrow began necking like mad.

Not surprising, since Madge has a long history of "close" relationships with female friends like Sandra Bernhard and Ingrid Cesares. Then later in 2000, Gwyneth was a bridesmaid in Madonna's wedding, alongside other new posh British friend Stella McCartney. What happened to her sassy, scrappy girls from way back like Debi Mazar and Rosie O'Donnell? Why weren't they part of Madonna's public narrative anymore?

In 2002, the Chicago Sun-Times wondered the same thing. "What draws the Detroit homegirl and the uptown fashion queen toward each other?" they pondered. Gwyneth told them that she and Madge get along because "we are on similar paths in our lives in what we eat and our yoga—stuff like that."

But perhaps the Madonna's Brit-love was turning to hate, even as early as '04? According to a report in the Daily Mail,

Miss Paltrow, who is often fulsome in her praise of Britain and whose husband is English rock singer Chris Martin, has apparently decided on a home birth at her mother's house in Los Angeles…One friend said: 'Madonna told her all these horror stories about how bad the English hospitals are. So now she has decided to give birth in Los Angeles.'…'Have you been to hospitals in England?' Madonna asked. 'They are old and Victorian. You know I like efficiency.'

Ah yes, efficiency. One has to wonder, as the Sun-Times did half a decade ago, if Madonna and Gwyneth will remain close when their friendship is no longer mutually beneficial. Madonna became friends with Gwyneth when she was trying to cultivate a classy, erudite image. Gwyneth became friends with Madonna when she was just acclimating to British society and needed a famous friend. Somehow we can't imagine Chris Martin and A-Rod bonding over, well, anything. A love of yoga and macrobiotics is usually not the stuff of longterm relationships. Now that the always shape-shifting Madonna is moving on from that stage of her life, will Gwyneth be along for the ride?

Earlier: Madonna To Replace Guy With Gwyneth

Related: A Manor Of Fact [People]

Elizabeth Barry of the University of Warwick finds that widely-read obituaries were one of the first ways regular people attained celebrity — albeit posthumously. People's life stories were run as cautionary tales in the 17th century — showing the consequences of wicked or virtuous living — but quickly became a popular human interest read. Initially, the obits featured royalty and other public figures, but the genre grew to include all kinds of people who'd led interesting lives. Says Barry, "Different kinds of deaths came to be commemorated and you didn’t have to be something like a military hero or be a political player or be some sort of high person in society to get public commemoration on your death."

Eventually, the obit-mongers were criticized for catering to low-brow tastes hungry for scandal. But Barry feels the universality of death acted as an equalizer and created the sense of identification that characterizes the modern celeb-public relationship. Of course, by any standard this is a conveniently reductive definition of celebrity - weren't the "military heroes and political players" already kind of celebrities? - but the notion of a fleeting, arbitrary celebrity, manufactured for public entertainment and then discarded, is certainly a unique phenomenon. If Barry's theory holds any water, there's a pleasing neatness to the notion of a life, reduced to a few paragraphs for strangers' delectation, with the veneer of beneficence. Wholly public, yet completely selfish. When Rupert the Baby Deer died last month - only a day after we'd learned about his existence - our shared grief was overwhelming. A friend mused that in a sense this mini emotional roller-coaster was really our celebrity-obsessed age to scale: the emotion is no less real for its lack of depth, but as the stories end, so too does our interest. The tragedy is somehow a neat cap to the narrative. From death cars to autopsies, we feel a right to know how and why things ended - to know if the end was just or tragic. Maybe Barry's onto something.

Dead People In 1700s Were The First Celebrities[Live Science]

• Governors of St. Monica's Roman Catholic High School in England have barred 12 and 13-year-old girls from receiving HPV vaccinations on school grounds. • The Torbay Council in Devon, England has lifted a 28-year-old X-rating on Monty Python's Life Of Brian (which barred it from being shown in movie theaters in the area) after residents voted it the "funniest film of all time" in an online poll. • A farmer in England marked his rams with blue dye so he could tell which ewe had had sex with a ram but a scuffle broke out within the rams and now the rams covered in blue dye. • We must have missed this back in March but Venus made a list of the "Greatest Female Guitarists of All Time" which included Lydia Lunch, Liz Phair, Chrissie Hynde. • After a man complained of a female surgeon's coarse language in Australia, former patients rallied around her in support, saying that she covers much of the surgical load at her hospital. • Dr. Laura is taking to the internet with a YouTube channel that will feature weekly video content. • According to a recent report, women who binge drink during the first three months of pregnancy are more likely than nondrinkers to give birth to a child with a cleft lip and cleft palate. • A probe by international gymnastics officials into the ages of gymnasts on China's 2008 Olympic team has been expanded to include gymnasts on China's 2000 Olympic team. The current minimum age for gymnasts in the Olympics is 16. •

• A small study suggests that sperm quality may be affected by close proximity to cell phones. • Marilyn Fithian, the founder of the Center for Martial and Sexual Studies, passed away on September 11th due to complications of pneumonia. She was 87. • Uh, why was Mick Jagger invited to an EU panel on simplifying internet shopping rules? • Dozens of Canadian students with facial piercings staged a walkout at St. Mary's Catholic high school in Ontario after the school issued a ban on all facial piercings except "unobtrusive ear piercing." • Children in the UK are wary of "playground myths" about sex (ex: you can reuse a condom if you wash it) and want to talk more openly with their parents about sex but most parents are embarrassed to discuss such matters with their children. • A study of bisexual people in Canada revealed that many are frustrated when interacting with the health care system for mental health issues because therapists and treatments are often sided to either gay or straight problems. • According to official figures there are no men under the age of 25 that are working in state-run nurseries anywhere in England. • Pig diving: Human-inflicted swine-cruelty or adorable pig-related activities? •

The Los Angeles Times:

The duke ought to be the villain of this piece, and, in fact, he is, but it is the wonder of Fiennes' performance that it is not only a marvelous portrayal of absolute power in the flesh but also the most sympathetic portrait of a man who, by rights, shouldn't have even the tiniest drop of our regard.

Twice Oscar-nominated (for "Schindler's List" and "The English Patient"), Fiennes works in the subtlest ways, layering in everything from how he carries himself to the way unstated emotions are hinted at by his stone-like face, to present someone who can't help being who he is. Thanks to Fiennes, we come to understand the enigmatic duke as the immovable object deeply perplexed at having to contend with the unstoppable force that is his wife. It is a quietly complex performance almost beyond words, and it overshadows all the gorgeous pictures that are its elegant frame.

Time:

At a certain level, The Duchess is a parable, possibly even a fantasy, about female empowerment.

Fortunately for us, however, it does not linger often or long at that level. As movies like this go — stately homes constantly arustle with the sound of lingerie falling gently to the parquet floors — it is quite a lively, and even occasionally a rather touching, piece.

USA Today:

Though it does have occasional elements of a bodice-ripper romance, the engaging story is distinguished by sharp writing and strong acting. This is a highbrow and elegant chick flick that outstrips the likes of The Women or other insipid movies targeted to females.

The Duchess explores the nature of celebrity and charisma. Most compellingly, it chronicles the saga of a vibrant and forward-thinking woman hampered by the constraints of a rigid society.

Salon:

The raw material here would be a pile of riches for any actress to dig into, and the screenwriters give Knightley plenty to work with. (The script was adapted by Dibb, Anders Thomas Jensen and Jeffrey Hatcher, the last of whom is the screenwriter, and playwright, behind "Stage Beauty," as well as the writer of the underappreciated bonbon "Casanova," starring the late Heath Ledger.) And Knightley doesn't let them down. I've come a long way with Knightley over the years, from finding her almost unbearable to watch (I just couldn't get past the skeletal planes of her face) to falling in love with her circa "Pride and Prejudice." Knightley's performance here veers gracefully from the charming to the devastating: One minute she's giggling as she plays cards with her cherubic little offspring; the next, she's crestfallen when she realizes that her husband is determined to choke off all her life's happiness. (Fiennes' performance here is wholly without vanity: He holds nothing back in playing a loathsome, stubborn character, though he still manages to let glimmers of humanity peek through.) Everything Knightley does rings true and clear — she defines the character of Georgiana in a way that's not anachronistic, nor modern in a forced way, but timeless. That's a lot to ask of a young actress, but Knightley is up to the task. Her Georgiana is history with a human face.

The New York Times:

A big-boned beauty who leads with her jaw, Ms. Knightley looks pretty as a Gainsborough picture in and out of her silks and satins, but she’s not a remotely composed one. Though now 23, she still tends to throw herself around the room like one of those jangling adolescent girls who, arms and legs pinwheeling, heads bobbing like Halloween apples, have yet to adjust to their newly sprouted bodies. (Modigliani would have loved the willowy bend of her neck if he could have persuaded her to stop fidgeting.) She’s not much of an actress — she pops her eyes instead and thrusts out her chest — but she doesn’t need to be Helen Mirren if she can cultivate a real screen presence. Stillness would become her, as would a good director.

NPR:

And when Her Grace undresses — or rather, is undressed by an impatient if only vaguely attentive duke on their wedding night — the director shows us the pinch marks made in Knightley's back by her tight-laced corset.

As many times as I've watched women getting strapped into those things in costume epics, I don't think I've ever seen the pinched flesh. Says worlds, I'd say, about what both the star and the duchess were willing to put up with

The A.V. Club:

To some extent, The Duchess recalls Sofia Coppola's Marie Antoinette, in that it's about bed-hopping and courtly ritual during a time of revolution. Dibb isn't interested in delivering an audience-unfriendly art film, though. His Duchess is thoroughly populist and middlebrow, full of all the high wigs, thick powder, perfect diction, and straightforward dialogue that define bodice-ripping prestige pictures about silently suffering souls. Knightley's brand of muted iconoclasm has always been well-suited to just these kind of coach-and-corset movies, and as a result, the story of her character's fall from idealism to practicality becomes fairly moving. Dibb and company make too much of the parallels between Georgiana's story and that of her most famous descendent, Lady Diana Spencer, but at the same time, the "ironies of fame" material works well—not because of its specific application to the aristocracy, but for how it relates to the commoners. Lots of people dream of better lives for themselves and the citizens of the world. And lots of people stop short when they realize they need to stay home and tuck their kids into bed, so the next generation can have their own unfulfilled dreams someday.

Entertainment Weekly:

But with Knightley in the title role, something interesting happens:
 The star's sporty, modern-girl
 attitude, her Vogue-worthy eyebrows, 
and her athletic build (no matter how impressively those long limbs are encased in complicated gowns of satin and silk) lend an attitude of now-ness to a production that wants to be part historical biopic, part 
 tabloid-relevant. (Director Saul Dibb has a background in documentaries.)

Knightley, now 23, is not a very deep interpreter of her roles (whether in Atonement or the Pirates of the 
 Caribbean trilogy), nor is she as hip as Kirsten Dunst and the rest of the in crowd who cavorted in Sofia Coppola's 
fashion-forward Marie Antoinette with downtown élan. But that hardly matters in The Duchess.

New York:

Every turn is telegraphed, but Fiennes’s duke is a fascinating stiff—uneasy with his privilege but ruthless in using it. Not only is Knightley most excellent, her starved-supermodel look adds an affecting subtext: that the economic impact of male disapproval still inhibits women’s freedom.

Variety:

How Georgiana exploited both her celebrity and her instinctive empathy with commoners to drum up electoral support for her close associate, Lord Charles Fox (an underused Simon McBurney), is dealt with only superficially. Though equally apolitical, Sofia Coppola's "Marie Antoinette" displayed more insight into its subject (an acquaintance of Georgiana's, and arguably the less interesting figure) than "The Duchess" manages with its more straightforward reading of history.

While Knightley ably embodies Georgiana's easy wit, occasional naivete and ahead-of-her-time common sense, her performance is somewhat diminished by its familiarity and the film's reductive view of its protag. And as lovely as the actress is, all that finery can have a smothering effect; she looked more radiant amid the sweat and squalor of Joe Wright's "Pride & Prejudice."

The Hollywood Reporter:

The melodrama is a bit bloodless, though, figuratively and literally. This is a not-uninteresting chapter during an exciting time in British and European politics — neither the American nor French revolutions get mentioned — but writers Dibbs, Jeffrey Hatcher and Anders Thomas Jensen find no way to connect us with these distant personages. Probably the most surprising thing to a modern audience is how aristocrats engage in the most intimate and embarrassing conduct in full view of servants who are treated as little more than furniture.

'The Duchess' opens today in limited release.

• A recent study has found that children who have less than 3 family dinners a week are two and a half times likelier to smoke pot and tobacco than children who have family dinners 5 or more times a week. • A survey of 3,000 people in England has revealed that "phenomenon" is the most mispronounced word. • A UK study has found a small number (35 out of 769) of cerebral palsy cases in children whose mothers were given the antibiotics erthromycin and co-amoxiclav due to premature labor, but researchers maintain that the development of cerebral palsy was not directly related to the antibiotics. • A synagogue in San Francisco has created a prayer for anonymous sex (or "unexpected intimacy") which is meant to be read after the encounter. • Female conservative politicians in Spain were outraged when a male Spanish politician recounted the loss of his virginity in a brothel to a television interviewer, thereby "encouraging" young people to patronize prostitutes. • A female Saudi journalist asks the Saudi government to hire Saudi female nurses and encourage women to go into the nursing profession instead of bringing in nurses from overseas. • British and U.S. scientists report that there are nearly 7 million pregnant women in sub-Saharan Africa who are infected with hookworms (a parasitic worm that lives in the intestines) and are thus at risk of maternal anemia. •

• A study of the gynecological screening tests for cervical cancer in Sweden has found that immigrants from Norway, Denmark, and Central America are more likely to develop cervical cancer than Swedish nationals. • Germany has the largest wage gap between men and women in Western Europe, which is due in part to maternity leave and shortened hours for working moms and outright gender discrimination.• In related news: New laws in England that would extend maternity leave benefits to a full year and allow parents to demand flexible working hours have some "employment lawyers" worrying that employers will stop hiring women altogether. • Louise Glueck, former U.S. poet laureate, has been awarded the Wallace Stevens Award for "outstanding and proven mastery of the art of poetry." • Women's activists in Iran enjoyed a victory on Monday when Iran's parliament decided to shelve a proposed law that would allow husbands to take multiple wives without permission from their first spouse. • The victory was brief, however, as four Iranian women's activists were imprisoned on Tuesday for contributing to banned women's websites. • Darlene Harris, a police officer in Atlanta, tells the story of how she discovered at the age of 35 that she is an "intersexed" person, or someone whose internal or external sexual anatomy don't fit the typical definitions of female or male. •

• Five interesting facts about Charlie's Angels: The show was first pitched as Alley Cats and showed the women more negatively. • A poll from the UK's Channel 4 reveals that members of the average British household spends 34 minutes a day shouting at each other. • A tall woman discusses the lonely life of the world's tallest woman after her passing. • The city of Calgary, Alberta has OK'd the wearing of hijabs and sari's in public swimming pools, but the wearers will have to stay away from the deep end. • Can you tell a Marcel from a French wist? A beehive from a pompadour? Take this quiz. • Check out Wayne Titus and his daughter Tina Titus, a father-daughter car-racing team and the first father-daughter series champions at the Oxford Plains race.

• Two women have been charged in the murder of a British couple honeymooning in Antigua and Barbuda. • The Maricopa County Sheriff in Arizona has violated a ruling that he is not allowed to require female inmates to receive a court order before they are granted an abortion. • In (somewhat) related news, there is a new program at the Ohio Reformatory for Women that allows inmates to raise their children in their cells and in in-house prisons to keep the bond between mother and child tight. • More than 80% of women in the Air Force in Iraq reported persistent fatigue, difficulty concentrating and nearly 20% reported one symptom of PTSD. • Meanwhile in the region, a man has been arrested in Jerusalem for helping beat, threaten, and rob a divorced Israeli woman under the self-proclaimed title of "chastity guards." •

• 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]

Probably the former. Yes, families where both parents are present in the children's lives are more stable and ultimately create a better environment for children, but Grove is implying that parents need to not only be married for children to thrive, but the man needs to be working and providing ("responsibility") for his young while the woman stays home and cares for them. Why not promote a society where single mothers can provide for their children on their own? Grove says that the Conservative government will provide a maternity nurse service for families who need help during the first days after childbirth, but there is no mention of this service being available to single mothers (or fathers) who have a newborn. An emphasis is placed on the relationship between the father and mother, implying that they are together.

And what does Grove think of women's magazines? While he condemns lad mags' presentation of a "narrow conception of beauty and a shallow approach towards women," he praises women's magazines (and their publishers) for addressing their readers "in a mature and responsible fashion." So, being obsessed with materialism, being fearful of any beauty "imperfection," and constantly being reminded that the attention of men is necessary to live a happy lifestyle is "mature"? Has this dude ever looked at a women's magazine?

Lad Mags Linked To 'Social Ills' [BBC]
'Lads Mags' Condemned Over Images Of Women [Telegraph]
Poll" Do Lad Mags Make Men Feckless? [Guardian]

• A 12-year-old girl who was lost in the Blue Mountains while hiking with her family stayed warm with a flag she found in a vacant cabin. • Female artists in China find it hard to succeed in the male-dominated art world but they have "some of the most innovative work around." • New bills have been introduced to the House and Senate to help combat domestic violence against Native American women. • A nightclub that banned fat women (in their words, "morbidly obese") because they wanted to "protect" their failing business overturned the ban when they realized not letting people into your business is really bad for business. • Meanwhile Fabulous magazine finds that most men are content (link mildly NSFW) with their size 12 significant others (although most women still want to lose weight). • Why are people quick to call a man gay for experimenting with another man while maintaining their hetero status but shrug of straight women's lesbian kisses? • A graphic novel by Katherine Arnoldi called The Amazing True Story of A Teenage Single Mom supports rather than mocks teenage mothers. • With Barbie failing Mattel releases "My Meebas" a plush toy...in a tube...with a LCD screen, or something? You know you are getting old when new toys confuse you.

Journalists boost brothel business in Sydney during the Pope's visit. • Women over 16 near Teesside beach in the UK can pay 5 pounds and don a bikini to set a new world record on Sunday. There is "no upper age limit." • Hundreds of angry pregnant women in Australia plan to "storm" a hospital that is shutting down its maternity unit per the government's instructions. • Showjumpers in England make a "desperate" attempt to drum up publicity for their sport by having two young female showjumpers pose without their pants. • A nurse in England gave the wrong woman an abortion after she failed to do a background identity check and followed anonymity rules at the clinic to protect women seeking the procedure (the two patients shared the same first name). • Former Olympic track star Marion Jones applied for a federal commute of her six-month prison sentence after she was convicted of lying to federal agents about her performance-enhancing drug use. • The latest strange female aphrodisiac out there? Donkey skin. • It is serious puppy face time!

When I was 19, I was given my first supervisory position, as the summer superviser for a campus job I worked during the school year. As you can imagine, summers are rather quiet times on college campuses, and while school-year supervisors had 10-12 employees under their thumbs, I had two. We mostly sat around and watched movies on our 8-midnight shift. When they couldn't make it, they hired one co-worker or another who was generally happy for the hours. One of those co-workers was "Brian," an extremely cute local kid who'd just finished his freshman year and who was as quiet and shy as I was brash and loud.

During the year, we hung out some during our shifts, but mostly he played cards with the guys stuck in the office and I was out and about. So, thinking he could win, he challenged me to a game of Rummy. I won. We cycled through Rummy, Gin Rummy, Hearts and Blackjack, flirting all the while until I had beaten him at everything and he looked at me with his big, innocent puppydog eyes and said, "Good thing I didn't ask to play strip poker."

That was the moment I should have quit while I was ahead. But I was 19, and not used to "managing" someone and thought of Brian as a colleague more than my employee. I challenged him to strip poker. We locked the office door, pulled the blinds and commenced playing hand after hand until we were sitting there, him in his boxers (minus even his watch) and me still fully clothed. I jokingly offered to stop, probably sounding to him as though I was daring him to continue more than offering to stop, and we played the last hand. He lost. Not knowing what else to do, I began giggling uncontrollably with embarrassment, and said he "could" keep his shorts on, rather than stopping him. He took them off. I kept trying to maintain an eyelock, to stop laughing at the absurdity of being in the office with a cute naked guy and his big eyes got all beseeching and he asked, "Is it that small?" You can't help yourself in that situation, your eyes will dart down and I was suddenly looking at his (very impressive) erection and then had no idea what the appropriate thing to do is in the most inappropriate work situation of my life. I giggled like a 19 year old. After that shift, he never worked with me again, and didn't speak to me at all for 2 more years.

Looking back, I was completely in the wrong (and I still feel guilty about it). I dodged a huge fucking bullet there that Brian didn't tell. Even if the flirtation was mutual, even if the suggestion of the strip poker was his, I was his boss that night and I should've known better. That it happened when I was so young (and when I'd had no supervisory training, and in 1997) are probably the only things that would've saved my job — let alone my education — had he told. So, view my tale as a cautionary one, please. Don't play strip poker with your subordinates even if they ask nicely and you wouldn't mind seeing them naked.

Oh, and "Brian," I'm really sorry. And it wasn't remotely small.

80 Per Cent of Men 'Face Female Sex Pests' [This Is London]

• There's a rise in so-called "caffeine moms" who need a high amount of caffeine (4 energy drinks, 3 cups of coffee, and a six-pack of soda, according to one woman) to get through the day. • A former real estate agent has been jailed for 10 years in England after she kidnapped and tortured a former boss that had fired her. • A school in Thailand has created a gender-neutral bathroom for transgendered and gay students which make up 10% of the large school's population. • The Volkswagen Tiguan is the number one car for women because it is efficient and practical (and maybe sort of cute!). • A 3-year-old girl called 911 after her mom fainted by memorizing the simply lyrics "9-1-1 green" that her mom taught her. • A new study in Australia has found that men get stressed while in traffic which leads to them being less careful while driving than women. • Although anorexia has been found by many studies to be a biological disease, most states will not recognize it as a mental disease required for coverage by insurance companies. • Constant flip flop wear can be very damaging for your feet. Good, because flip flops are gross! • A rare copy of Jane Austen's novel, Emma sold for $353,500 at a recent auction, setting a new auction record for a printed book by a British author. • Brooklyn teens, many of whom are refugees from foreign countries, have their first prom at the International High School at Prospect Park.

Yes, it's tasteless.