• It seems that safe sex is recession-proof! Condom sales have been increasing as the economy worsens and people look for cheaper ways to entertain themselves. • High school students in Illinois published a "Hooking Up" edition of their award-winning school paper. Administrators claim that they did not have to confiscate any copies of the paper, since they were so quickly snatched up by students and teachers. • Meet Chloe, the only cat who loves to shower. The aquatic Persian will jump in the shower at any chance she gets. • Photographer Jenny Wicks is fighting gingerism with her art. She has snapped pictures of people from all over Britain in efforts to capture the unique beauty of redheads... and she's succeeded. • After publicly claiming that their entire engagement was only a "stunt," Drew Peterson's ex-fiance, Christina Raines, has moved back in with him. • It looks like even "Bridezillas" are scaling back: sales of wedding gowns in the U.S. are expected to decrease 2.8%. • Good news for all the real-life Jims and Pams out there: a new survey shows that 31% of office romances lead to marriage. • Research from Indiana University shows that single ladies are better at expressing their emotions in text messages than men. Women are more likely to use emoticons and write longer messages. • Cordula Volkening, a 52-year-old woman from Brooklyn, was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer a year ago. After learning that she had only a few years more, Volkening decided to bravely start a new career as a painter. • Just in time for Valentine's Day, researchers have found that material gifts may lead to more happiness than "experience"-based gifts, especially when the experience goes badly. Apparently, it is easier to forget a crappy gift than a terrible dinner or a poorly chosen vacation. • Yesterday, a woman believed to be 115 years old passed away in Chicago. Virginia Coll was not previously recognized as one of the 88 people living aged over 110 and above. • While head lice have a long history of nesting in human hair, scientists believe that crabs are a slightly more recent phenomenon. David Reed theorizes that crabs originated in the pubic hair of gorillas, and only later spread to humans. • A Saudi judge has sentenced the victim of gang-rape to 100 lashes and a year in jail for adultery. Authorities accuse the woman of attempting to get an abortion after she found herself pregnant as a result of the attack. • Through studying prairie voles, a rare monogamous rodent, scientists hope to discover the biological source of love. • Men from Sydney will be among the first in the world to try a twice-monthly male contraceptive injection. • In order to keep up with changing technology, the Queen's website has received a facelift. • Cotton candy could soon be more than just a fairground staple: scientists may have found a way to use the fluffy treat to regrow human tissue. • A special court ruled today that there is no link between autism and vaccination, despite what many parents may think. While this may be a good thing for some, it is an all-around bad week for parents of autistic children: a bill was defeated yesterday that would require mandatory insurance coverage for children with autism. • A pregnant Brazilian woman was attacked last Monday evening in Zurich by a group of skinheads. They allegedly carved the initials of Switzerland's right-wing party into her stomach after hearing her speaking Portuguese. The attack caused her to miscarry twins. •

Our two favorite menopausal morning hosts don't know what "hooking up" is, but they certainly don't like the sound of it. Hint for Kathie Lee: "Hooking up" is what Frank did with that stewardess in the hotel room.

Dupré may have chosen sex work, and might say that it's similar to hooking up with a date, but the self-described "normal girl" identifies the roots of her choices in her drug and alcohol abuse and her sexual assault. And according to the UK government, it's not an uncommon start to life as a sex worker.

This week, UK Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced a package of reforms to Britain's prostitution law that doesn't criminalize the act of selling sex but does criminalize the act of buying it on the streets or from someone coerced into selling it. In response to criticisms from sex workers organizations, Smith said:

"My argument with the English Collective of Prostitutes is that somehow there seems to be an implication that it isn't underground and doesn't involve exploitation and these are all women making a free choice at the moment.

"I am afraid that everything we have discovered from enforcement action and through talking to prostitutes is that this is not the case.

"We have already got a problem with trafficking. We have already got a situation where a majority of women - even when they haven't been trafficked - say they want to get out of prostitution, and quite often got involved in it under the age of 18 effectively as children."

The new laws are designed to crack down on trafficking and exploitation and, in some cases, to shame repeat (male) offenders as well as educate them. Under the new laws, men will not be able to pick up women in public places to engage in sex acts and, if caught doing so, will likely face a penalty similar to what happens in one of London's boroughs where men whose license plates are picked up on closed circuit cameras receive notices in the mail that they were caught.

In addition, it will no longer be a defense that a man unknowingly had sex with a trafficked woman, and such men will face stiffer fines and penalties than ever before. If a man is found to have knowingly had sex with a trafficked woman, he won't face prostitution charges — he'll face rape charges, which is frankly, the only right legal response. The police will be given the power to shut down any brothel found to be employing trafficked women knowingly or unknowingly — currently, they can only do so if there are hard drugs or "anti-social behavior" is involved.

The difficulty is that, unlike Ashley Dupré, many women don't have supportive families (or high-end clients) who provide them with the financial opportunities to get out of sex work, even if they made a knowing, relatively rational choice to get into it — and more women than that are coerced or driven to it by some of the same circumstances (drug and alcohol use and sexual abuse) that led Dupré to make her decision. For each law that gets passed to try to mitigate some of the worst of the abuses in sex work, there should be money allocated to help women (and men) that would like to get out of it.

And if we're naming and shaming customers and regulating sex workers, how about a law that a man found utilizing the services of sex workers be subject to mandatory STI screenings and his spouse automatically notified? If you want to scare or shame men into stopping, make sure they know the risks of their behavior really, really well.

Ashley Dupre Exclusive: 'My Side of The Story' [ABC News]
Ex-Call Girl Ashley Dupré: I'm a 'Normal Girl' [People]
'I'm Sorry For Your Pain, Silda' [NY Post]
Prostitute Users Face Clampdown [BBC]
'No More Excuses' For Men Who Use Prostitutes, Says Smith [The Independent]

Related: Seven Careers For Ashley Dupre [Gawker]

This was, obviously, a response to his accusation that I seemed "smitten" and wanted a relationship with him, and my assurances that I did not, I just liked making out, and if he didn't believe me he only needed to wait until my workload picked up and I made myself scarce, which is exactly what happened, and, you know, whatever. But I didn't remember how I had become so patient or resigned or how I'd come to enjoy the "Zenlike form of nonattachment" author Marguerite Fields is struggling to perfect because it happened such a goddamn long time ago. And that was depressing; Fuck I am old. (Also depressing: I held my first newspaper job the summer Israel turned fifty.)

Perhaps unsurprisingly, my little sister Christina, who is a year ahead of Marguerite in college, did not find this week's 'Modern Love' as depressing as I did. (Christina is different from me in that she does things like getting her eyebrows waxed and going to therapy.) And she penned some words of advice for people who did find the column depressing — and aren't too old to change their habits — which I will excerpt here.)

I'm Moe's sister who is about to graduate from college. Moe asked me to comment upon this week's Modern Love column, a piece much more enjoyable and insightful to read than I had expected since Moe usually makes such relentless fun of the Modern Love feature I stopped reading it.

Anyway, as someone who has her fair share of one-night stands and fleeting trainstop encounters, yet is decidedly over my relationship angst, if largely due to the absence of any relationships and the discovery of internet porn.... I would like to give some advice to Marguerite Fields and other women like her. Oh hell we're all like her.

1) Trust your instincts. This is the only thing I learned in therapy. Women have great instincts (the women's intuition!) but we never listen to them. Marguerite Fields, at the end of another unceremonious dumping, writes "[I] tried to remind myself that when we first met I thought he was an arrogant, presumptuous little man." She got bad vibes from the start, and yet Marguerite, a talented and sensitive author who should have known better, proceeded to form a relationship with this man. Why? Because of a little thing I like to term "The Mister Darcy Delusion." I am sure some feminist theorist before me has already coined this term, and if so I apologize, but it's ridiculous that this is your job. The Mister Darcy Delusion is the notion, popularized by the early 19th century author Jane Austen, that the smug asshole who calls you fat at the party is really just a misunderstood studmuffin held in by early 19th century social conventions who will turn into Colin Firth if you give him a chance. Well chicas, Jane Austen died a spinster (thank you, Anne Hathaway) and it's the 21st century, and if he looks like a prick and he talks like a prick and he walks like a prick, well, chances are you've had sex with him.

2) Read "The Rules." It's a stupid book, yes, but it's a reminder that you can take control of your relationships at least partially by a) getting a life b) taking a shower and c) not calling back immediately after he calls and going all crazy on his ass.

3) Only go out for guys that you think are hot. Most women tend to chase after guys that they think are physically unattractive under them is guided assumption that said guy will be so grateful to have scored a Hot Chick that he will be true forever. THIS NEVER HAPPENS. Ugly guys always get laid more, and they are often the biggest assholes about it because they are so insecure that girls keep hooking up with them out of pity. This is a time when our human evolution truly runs counter to our own efficient natural instincts. Ladies, right this wronged system and only chase after guys that you think are LEGIT cute so you don't have to lie to your friends and be like "But he has a really great personality," when what you mean is "It's weird how he makes me feel so terrible about myself when he's the ugly one."