According to Joseph Huff-Hannon in The Daily Beast, "there is a small and vocal community, mostly found in online chatrooms and forums, that says incest is far too broad a term to describe a wide variety of relationships that involve consenting adults from the same family." Some prefer the term "genetic sexual attraction," which Huff-Hannon defines as "an intense emotional and physical attraction between two family members who've been separated for many years, often from a young age, and upon reunion, all of the emotion of loss and separation is sometimes channeled into a sexual or romantic relationship." Genetic sexual attraction (GSA) has been invoked in other high-profile incest cases, and psychotherapist Joe Soll told ABC that, "genetic attraction is an attraction between two people who've been separated ... seeing someone they've missed all their life, all the emotion of that loss, sometimes turns into a sexual relationship." Aziza Sindhu of CBC Radiosays the phenomenon is common enough that birth parents who register to allow their biological children to contact them are sometimes given information about it. She also quotes one adoption expert who says that "deep attraction," though not necessarily sex, happens in almost half of reunions of family members long separated by adoption.

Online defenders of GSA claim their relationships aren't unhealthy. Huff-Hannon quotes GeneticSexualAttraction.com user BlueSky:

After being reunited with my dad after so many years, not seeing him since I was a baby, I never thought that our relationship would take the twists and turns that it has. I didn't mean to fall in love with him, and we didn't meant [sic] to fall in love with each other, but it happened and we are happy and comfortable with the relationship that we have. The physical aspects just makes are [sic] love even more deeper.

And user LiLoLita says,

For some reason Mackenzie's story bothers me a lot, perhaps because I have a wonderful relationship with my daddy and don't wish to be associated with someone who claims to be raped.

But not all GSA adherents think their feelings are perfectly healthy. Huff-Hannon quotes GeneticSexualAttraction.com user Lost Sister, who says,

The Web site was a blessed relief for all of us going through this. Yes, sex is occurring between genetically / biologically related people, but GSA is something much deeper that that. The sudden flood of love is overwhelming, and not having learned what to do with that love in it [sic] proper context, the tendency to sexualize it arises.

Of course, Mackenzie Phillips wasn't adopted, and so her experience isn't the same as the ones BlueSky and Lost Sister describe. But if anything, the experience of misplaced love that Lost Sister recounts makes John Phillips's actions sound more, not less, heinous. One could argue that Mackenzie Phillips, whose dad taught her use drugs at an early age and think of herself as different from everyone outside her family, didn't learn a "proper context" for familial love. His awful parenting may have made her more likely to consider their sexual relationship "consensual" and to avoid speaking out about it, at least for a time. Huff-Hannon writes that GSA followers notwithstanding, "most agree that incest can be psychologically harmful, especially in the context of a child-parent power dynamic." And the fact that some people feel attracted to their long-lost siblings doesn't justify the abuse of a daughter, or make Phillips's experience anything but rape.

Incest's Defenders [Daily Beast]

1.) He had sex with his daughter when she was 17 years old.


2.) He didn't consider this rape, but rather, "making love."


3.) He continued to have sex with his daughter for a decade.


4.) He suggested he and his daughter live as man and wife.


5.) He might have gotten his daughter pregnant.


6.) He taught his 10-year-old child how to roll joints, then made her the official joint-roller.


7.) He taught his teenager how to tie-off and shot her up for the first time.


8.) He reinforced negative behavior.


9.) He gave terrible advice.


10.) He didn't do such a great job with his other kids either.

John Phillips's behavior is disgusting no matter what you call it. Mackenzie says he gave her drugs as a child, and then,

On the eve of my wedding, my father showed up, determined to stop it. I had tons of pills, and Dad had tons of everything too. Eventually I passed out on Dad's bed. My father was not a man with boundaries. He was full of love, and he was sick with drugs. I woke up that night from a blackout to find myself having sex with my own father.

She was 19. When she tried to talk her father (who is now dead, and who also fathered daughters Bijou and Chynna) about "when you raped me," he said, "You mean when we made love?" It's hard to imagine a worse response. But although Mackenzie uses the word rape, she also says that by 1980, when she and her father went to rehab together, their sexual relationship was "consensual." Is there such a thing as consensual sex between father and daughter?

In the late 90s, writer/novelist Kathryn Harrison documented her own sexual relationship with her father in The Kiss, and it's clear from that book that the ties of love, obligation, and power that bind a father and daughter change the whole concept of "consent." Harrison didn't grow up with her father, and their incest began when she was an adult — like Phillips, her story is not the (relatively) familiar one of child molestation. But it does call into question whether even an adult daughter really has free choice in having sex with her father. And even if she does, it's hard not to see his role in the act as a very serious form of abuse.

This is especially true given the fallout from Phillips's experience. She says, "I was a fragment of a person, and my secret isolated me." She has battled drug addiction, spent time hiding in her house compulsively shopping on TV, and was arrested in 2008 for cocaine possession. Certainly a consensual relationship gone bad could contribute to these problems, but a father taking advantage of his daughter's love seems more damaging than any normal affair, in part because of the isolation Phillips describes: a father's sexual abuse, even in adulthood, could lead a daughter to question whether anybody really cares about her without wanting to have sex with her.

Phillips says,

One night Dad said, 'We could just run away to a country where no one would look down on us. There are countries where this is an accepted practice. Maybe Fiji.'

Father-daughter incest does not appear to be accepted in Fiji. It shouldn't be accepted anywhere.

Mackenzie Phillips: I Was Raped By Papa John [E!Online]
Mackenzie Phillips: I Slept With My Own Father [People]
Mackenzie Phillips: I Had Sex With Musician Dad John Phillips [CNN]

The abuse reportedly started in the 1970s when the victim was only 11 and continued to the present day. The unidentified man's wife says she "never suspected" her husband was abusing their daughter. • In response to the arrest and imprisonment of a journalist in Sudan for wearing trousers, Egypt's top Islamic authority has said that he is cool with women wearing pants. However, he is not a fan of "stretch" pants, which he deems "unacceptable." • Raymond Clark III was charged with the murder of Yale grad student Annie Le today, and Le's fiance issued a statement thanking people who were involved in preparations for "a wedding that was not to be." • A 23-year-old British student who was sexually assaulted in her apartment in India broke down recently in court while the defense lawyer was questioning her. He asked her whether she bathed, and whether she drank or smoke. She said she was humiliated by his questions, and found testifying almost as traumatic as the original assault. • Perhaps unsurprisingly, a study found that if one spouse smoked or drank heavily and the other did not, the relationship was more likely to deteriorate than if both engaged in the behavior. • Yesterday the Yemeni government defended their attempts to halt child marriages in a written statement. They cited a law introduced to parliament in February that would have set the minimum marriage age at 17, but did not pass due to conservative opposition. • A report released by the CDC indicates that 1 in 3 girls aged 13-17 has received the Gardasil cervical cancer vaccine. The report also notes that vaccination varies dramatically state by state, with Georgia, South Carolina, and Mississippi falling far behind. • A 65-year-old man named Abraham Kortotki won the $20,982 first prize at an Atlantic City casino's ladies poker tournament. Unsurprisingly, some women are miffed, especially second-place finisher Nicole Rowe, who intended to use the cash to help recover from a mastectomy. • Now that the Hofstra University freshman who had accused five men of gang-raping her recanted her statement, Amanda Hess has written am interesting piece on rape culture. A snippet: "Rape culture does not only tell men to assert ownership over whichever female body they desire. Rape culture also tells women not to claim ownership over their own bodies. Rape culture also informs women that they should not desire sex. Rape culture also tells women that saying yes makes them bad women." • Surprise, surprise: Teen birth rates are highest in the most religious states. More here, here and here. • Want to wash all this bad news from your mind? Pictures of fishing cats!

(Remember, kids: Don't do drugs!) In this episode, Rich and I answer questions about our jobs, buttholes, and incest. Got a burning question? Send it to potpsych@jezebel.com. Or to Twitter. If we remember to check it, we'll answer those, too.

P.S. For reference on the turtle question, view here.

Our first thought (not just because the link came via Vice) was, "is this for real?" Having gone to the site itself and read through the author's responses to comments, we're sort of afraid it is.

The post, titled "My Son's Penis Problem," and posted in the "Health" forum, explains that one day the mother happened upon her son sleeping naked and was alarmed to see the "J-shaped" curvature of his penis. Upon discussing the issue with him, she found that this caused him tremendous self-consciousness and had inhibited his dating life. Doctors they visited told them the curvature was normal and not a big deal. So, obviously, they had to take matters into their own, ahem, hands.

I had taken a little massage therapy classes in the past, and I even work on it for an hour or so 3 days of every week in the evening. It was embarrassing for us both in the beginning and I know it still it is, and even more so that he ejaculates every time during the massage, but it turned out to make massaging it in the post-ejaculation, semi-soft state really effective because then I can massage it and straighten it. It curls back in my hands and I massage it straight over and over again, until he becomes erect again and semi hard again after ejaculation, three times in a row, usually over a span of an hour to an hour and a half....It has given good results, as I would say he is 50 percent improved. I continue to treat him 3 days a week.

The mom's ostensible reason for writing to the forum is to ask for help...or people who have experience with this sort of thing. Oddly enough, no one does! And a lot of people are appalled! Although the tone of the responses is generally pretty respectful — "I think this is going too far" is a common refrain, and a number of people liken it to caring for a disabled person, despite rather obvious differences — there are, not shockingly, quite a few recoils. The mother responds to these with hurt bewilderment! Can't we see this is a medical necessity, for his own good? To the commenters who ask, does this arouse you? She responds,

I am human, if it arouses me, it still is of little concern and has no baring on the actual goal and reasoning in performing the treatment. I certainly am not dwelling on the arousal when or if it happens and/or encouraging it. It isall incidental, and a side effect if you will that need not be an issue in the primary goal of the treatment. It is in my mind anavoidable, and therefore not necessary to make excuses for, but it can be ignored while it's happening. It is not that important

If this is for real — and I want to hear people's takes on that — my response is as much sadness as the visceral "Incest Eww." Because it's a glimpse into two lives that seem pretty non-functional in the outer world. In a way, this would be less hard to get if it were just straight incest; we've seen — and recoiled at — that before. There's a lot of obvious jokes to make and, um, logical arguments against "medically-necessary" incest — against their wills — to cure a genetic condition that's not a medical problem, as well as the mentality that feels un self-conscious posting this in a public forum, so we'll leave that to better minds. What I hope is that this kind of public airing a) gets her to stop b)convinces the legions of people considering this that it's a poor scheme and c) encourages her son to move out. But I'm not sanguine. And I've really never wanted something to be a hoax quite so much.

My son's penis problem [Female First]
Repeatedly wanking off your son in the name of medicine [Viceland]
A MOTHERS LOVE... [World of Wonder]

As mentioned earlier, Fritzl, 73, changed his plea on day three of his trial, saying he was guilty of all charges, including murdering by neglect one of the seven children he fathered while he imprisoned his daughter Elisabeth in a homemade basement dungeon for 24 years. He initially denied murdering Michael, a twin born in the cellar, by refusing to get him medical treatment. He changed his plea on Wednesday after seeing his daughter in court, according to The Telegraph. He burst into tears and told the jury, "I regret from the bottom of my heart what I did to my family. Unfortunately I can't make amends for it. I can only try to find ways to limit the damage that has been done."

Fritzl was found guilty on all counts, including murder, rape, incest, false imprisonment and coercion in a unanimous verdict, reports Telegraph. He was also the first man convicted of slavery in Austria. Fritzl's lawyer, Rudolf Mayer, said his client would not appeal the ruling and that it was "the logical consequence of his guilty plea."

Judge Andrea Humer told Frizl he would serve his life sentence in "a psychiatric unit for people with an abnormality of mind." However, according to The Telegraph, if he responds to treatment and is considered rehabilitated he will be transferred to a normal prison and be eligible for parole in 15 years. Under Austrian law, sentences are served concurrently not consecutively, and his longest sentence for the murder of his child carries a 15 year sentence. A spokesmen for the court said Fritzl could be released even sooner if transferred. "As he has already served 11 months on remand, that would go down to 14 years from now," said Franz Cutka, vice president of the court. Many criticized the court's decision, but Cutka said the Austrian justice system aims at "bringing the offenders back within the norms of society" rather than just punishing criminals.

Either way, Fritzl will have a much more comfortable life than the one he provided to his children in his cellar. During his imprisonment in the hospital unit at Mittersteig prison in Vienna, Fritzl will have his own cell with a shower, color TV, and personal computer, and be allowed to keep a pet. He will share a sitting room, kitchen, and outdoor garden with other inmates and be allowed to study a foreign language through the prison's learning center.

Rudolf Mayer, Fritzl's lawyer, said, "He doesn't mind where he goes. It's not like it's a hotel but he would like a prison close to home because it may be that relatives will go to see him." It's hard to imagine though what relatives would come see him. His sister-in-law, Christine Renner, said after hearing of the comparatively comfortable conditions in the psychiatric center, "What right does he have to live like this after all he has destroyed?" She added, "They should have put him in a pit, put a lid on it, locked it and thrown away the key."

As for Fritzl's wife Rosemarie, she has started divorce proceedings and was not called as a witness in the trial or questioned as a possible accomplice, reports Time, because the chief investigator said, "no wife would be able to accept such a thing if she had any knowledge about it." Elisabeth Fritzl has the right to bring a civil suit against Fritzl but Austrian officials say there are no plans to change any laws as a result of this case. Austria's social services never properly investigated when Elisabeth first ran away from home at 16 to escape her father's sexual abuse, police didn't question Fritzl's story that she'd joined a cult after he imprisoned her two years later, and the courts allowed him to adopt the three "upstairs children" that he said Elisabeth left on his doorstep over the years. However, there will be no official inquires into failures by the authorities that could have spared Elisabeth from her 24 years of imprisonment and torture.

Josef Fritzl Will Be Locked Up In Comfort [The Telegraph]
Josef Fritzl Trial: Loophole Means Fritzl Could Be Released In 14 Years [The Telegraph]
Austria Hastens to Close the Book on Ugliest Abuse Case [Time]

Earlier: Fritzl Trial Day 3: Josef Fritzl Pleads Guilty On All Counts

• According to The Independent, Fritzl once again entered court holding a blue folder in front of his face, and held it up for 10 minutes until cameramen were ordered to leave the courtroom.
• Prosecutor Christians Burkheiser told the jury the ceiling of Fritzl's cellar was only five feet from the ground and that the cellar itself had no heat, no shower, no warm water, and hardly any ventilation for the first nine years Elisabeth was imprisoned there. Burkheiser said:
  

  He kept his daughter in a room that measured only 11sq meters for nine years. That is just about the size of the jury box you are sitting in .... In the summer it was blisteringly hot. In the winter it was freezing cold. Nobody can really imagine what went on down there.

• Burkheiser said that during the first few years of her imprisonment, Frtizl never spoke to his daughter, he just randomly entered the room and raped her. "He would turn down the lights, rape her and then turn the lights back up," she said. After the children were born, Fritzl raped her repeatedly in front of them. Elisabeth was kept in the cellar in complete darkness and without electricity for periods of up to 10 days.
• Fritzl told Elisabeth that he had installed three locking doors and electronically operated light barriers which would flood the cellar with gas if she tried to escape.
• A few weeks before Elisabeth was due to give birth to their first child, Fritzl gave her a dirty mattress, a filthy blanket, and an old book about childbirth.
• The Guardian reports that Burkheiser told the jury she didn't feel the full impact of the cellar prison until she visited it herself. She said:
  

  I've seen the cellar dungeon twice. It has a morbid atmosphere, which starts with having to crawl in on your hands and knees through the 83cm entranceway. And it's sinister. It's really bad. It's incredibly damp, a damp that creeps into you after just a few minutes.

  She continued:
  

  "But do you know what the worst thing was? The uncertainty: when will he return, when will he turn on the electricity, when will he go again, what will happen if he doesn't return?"

  She said Elisabeth's life in the cellar could be encapsulated in the sentence: "Light out. Rape. Light on. Mould. Rape. In front of the children. The uncertainty. Birth. Death. Rape."

• Fritzl's defense attorney, Rudolf Mayer, shocked the court by claiming that Fritzl was a caring family man, according to The Mirror. Mayer said:
  

  A man who put so much effort into keeping two families cannot be called a monster. If I only want a daughter as a sex slave, I don't let her bring children into the world. You'd let them starve.

  He continued:
  

  "This is a man who had wanted to have two families. If he had not wanted children he could have used contraceptives.

  "If he didn't care about children he could have disposed of them. He had the power. But he slept in the cellar with his children and spent time with them over Christmas. He cared for his second family.

  "When his oldest daughter was ill, what would a monster do? What would a killer do?

  "What this man did was take her to hospital. He could have killed her and everyone else."

  "He could have claimed that he was mentally unstable and tried to escape these proceedings. But he did not do so. He's not trying to say he was mentally ill."

• The Guardian reports that Elisabeth's 11 hours of videotaped testimony is so harrowing it's being played for the four-woman, four-man jury in small portions and other jurors are standing by in case the eight main jurors decide they can't cope.
• According to the Daily Mail, Elisabeth agreed to testify on the condition that she would never have to see her father again.
• Elisabeth said Fritzl would come in the cellar with boxes of pornographic videotapes and make her reenact scenes in them. She says she suffered serious internal injuries from oversized sex toys he used on her.
• The defense presented information about Fritzl's childhood. As the Daily Mail reports:
  

  Fritzl said: "I did not have a good relationship with my mother. She tried to stop me having any friends. But I had one she didn't know about and that friend bitterly let me down. So I decided that I would not have any friends after that."

  "I had a very difficult childhood. My mother didn't want me. She was 42 when she had me. She simply didn't want a child and she treated me correspondingly. I was beaten."

  He told the jury that, at the age of 12, he had made it clear to his mother that he would not tolerate being beaten any longer and would defend himself.

  'From that point on, I was Satan personified for her,' he said.

• Fritzl's wife Rosemarie now lives alone and has begun divorce proceedings.
• The rest of the trial will be conducted in secret until a verdict scheduled for Friday. The judge's decision has angered the Austrian public. One Austrian lawyer is quoted as saying: "I thought secret trials ended with Stalin, but obviously I was wrong."

  'Herr Fritzl, Can You Just Answer One Thing – Why?' [The Independent]
  'Light out. Rape. Light On. Rape. In Front Of The Children. Birth. Death. Rape' [The Guardian]
  Josef Fritzl Trial: Lawyer Insists Dungeon Fiend Was A Caring Family Man [The Mirror]
  Josef Fritzl Trial Judge Clears Court For Daughter's Evidence [The Guardian]
  Elisabeth Fritzl Tells The World How Her Father Forced Her To Re-Enact Porn Films With Him In The Cellar Dungeon [Daily Mail]

  Earlier: Austrian Abuser Admits To Rape But Denies Murder On First Day In Court

Today, Mr. Fritzl's first day in court, the abuser held up a blue folder to hide his face and spoke only to confirm his name. He pleaded "partially" guilty to rape because he doesn't agree with how the charge is worded, and fully guilty of depriving his children of their liberty, reports Reuters. He pled innocent to charges that he enslaved his daughter Elisabeth since the age of 18 and to murdering their infant son in 1996. Prosecutors say he is guilty of murder by negligence for not taking their son to the hospital when he developed breathing problems. Fritzl is accused of burning the three day old baby's body in the furnace.

In her opening statement, prosecutor Christiane Burkheiser said, "Josef Fritzl treated his daughter as his property, he made her completely dependent," according to the BBC. She added that Fritzl, "showed no sign of regret or any consciousness of wrongdoing."

Fritzl's daughter Elisabeth, now 42, and her six surviving children, are now living in a secret location with new identities and will not testify in person. The Times of London reports that 11 hours of Elisabeth's videotaped testimony will be shown to the eight jurors in the coming days. According to excerpts, Elisabeth says that she was initially chained to an iron pole behind her bed and couldn't get to the bathroom in the cramped windowless dungeon Fritzl built under the family's home. He is accused of raping his daughter on average three times a week since imprisoning her in the basement.

Of the six surviving children she gave birth to while underground, three were kept underground their entire lives, and three were taken upstairs and raised by Fritzl and his wife. According to CNN, Fritzl explained his daughter's disappearance in 1984 by saying she ran away from home and forcing her to write letters to back up his story. The then said she left three of her children on his doorstep throughout the years. His wife Rosemarie supposedly didn't know what was going on in her basement.

Police discovered the dungeon last April when 19-year-old Kerstin, one of the children in the cellar, got sick and Elisabeth persuaded her father to take her to the hospital. Elisabeth now lives with her youngest child, 6, and is in contact with her other children. The two older children from the basement, who are 19 and 20, are still receiving therapy. They never left the basement or saw sunlight and as a result have a stoop, restricted spatial awareness, rotting teeth and gums, skin problems, weak immunity and difficulty communicating.

Officials at St. Pölten prison where Fritzl is being held say he on suicide watch, according to The Guardian. "He's under constant watch. We're aware of the possibility he might self-harm," said Günther Mörwald, head of the prison. A verdict is expected on Thursday or Friday and Fritzl faces life in prison if convicted.

Austrian Admists Rape But Not Murder [Reuters]
Fritzl Admits Rape, Denies Murder [BBC]
Josef Fritzl To Tell Court He Was Good Father To Dungeon Family [The Times of London]
Austrian To Plead Guilty To Rape And Incest, Lawyer Says [CNN]
Josef Fritzl Cellar Trial Begins In Austria [The Guardian]

As the article details, the invocation of maternal incest is ancient and wide-ranging.

While it's not quite a universal insult, variations on the command to commit incest with one's mother appear in every region of the globe. Anthropologists note that, across cultures, the most severe insults tend to involve a few basic themes: your opponent's family, your opponent's religion, sex, and scatology. Because motherfucker covers two of these topics-plus incest, a nearly global taboo-it's a popular choice just about everywhere.

The Explainer provides rampant usage in Mediterranean, Chinese, African and Arabic culture. In America, the usage is more recent. "The phrase was considered so vile in late 19th-century America that, in another Texas court case, it was argued that a man who had been called a "mother-fucking son-of-a-bitch" by a person he later shot "could not be found guilty of a higher offense than manslaughter," so grave was the offense." And even in these less sensitive times, where we rarely think about the words' meaning, it's an insult of high order.

The insult, as the article says, plays on some of the most fundamental taboos, while also managing to insult the target's mother's virtue, infantalize the insultee, imply only a mother would have him, and, while Slate doesn't suggest it, probably play on some deep-help Madonna perceptions as well, adding sacrilege to the mix. You'd think adding a father to the brew would render it even more potent, surely, and that's one thing I wish the article had addressed, too - why no daddy issues? And do we still hold motherhood in more reverence than we know? It might go some ways towards explaining the bile directed at Madonna and Jesus - the material ones, that is.

Global Motherf*ckers [Slate]
Related: Bernie Mac Motherfucker [YouTube]

The woman has admitted in Roscommon Circuit Court to "having sex with" (aka, "raping") her son numerous times, starting when he was 13. The boy, now a teen, says his mother was drunk each time she forced him to sleep with her, made him watch porn, and that when he was taken into foster care she threatened to rape him again during visitation if he told anyone. According to the Irish Times, "She said her son had been shocked and afraid. He said 'no' but she told him it would not hurt."

The mother has pleaded guilty to two counts of incest, two charges of sexual abuse against this son, and to neglecting and ill-treating each of her six children from 1998 to 2004 . “If I could turn back the clock I would,” she said. Us too. 'House of horrors' mother admits incest [Irish Times]

From The Guardian:

1988 Teachers become suspicious when injuries are noticed on the face of one of the girls at school, but they are subsequently blamed on bullying. The other daughter stays away from school with a broken arm. During this time, and on several occasions over the next 14 years, doctors raise concerns with the sisters about abnormalities in the foetuses of their unborn children. One doctors tells a daughter not to have any more children with the same man and questioned the children's paternity. Any involvement with the father is disputed.

Early 1990s The family move from South Yorkshire to live in small villages in Lincolnshire.

1997 The brother of the two women goes to police with "hearsay evidence" of incest. Police look into the claim but no further action is taken.

1998 One of the daughters phones ChildLine in an attempt to report the ongoing abuse. She asks for a guarantee that the sisters would be able to keep their children but hangs up when that cannot be given.

2004 The family move back to South Yorkshire, and while social services again become involved, the abuse is not detected.

June 2008 The case comes to the attention of authorities. The father is arrested.

• A 13-year-old girl became the youngestsuicide bomber in Iraq yesterday when she blew herself up in Baquba, killing five Iraqi guards. • School bake sales may be a thing of the past, as hundreds of schools have instituted policies to limit the amount of junk food consumed by students. • Several new studies suggest that babies born from frozen embryos are less likely to be premature and underweight than those that develop from fresh embryos, possibly because only the strongest embryos survive the freezing process. • A topless portrait of a Tahitian girl painted on one of Captain Cook's journeys will be given a public exhibit for the first time in 200 years before being auctioned in December. • A movie based on the best selling memoir My Friend Anne Frank by Frank's best friend Jopie is being developed by an indie studio. • According to a new study, obese women have less impulse control than normal-weight women, but obese men aren't any more impulsive than normal-weight men. • New research suggests that the anti-depressant Paxil, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor, may reduce male fertility by increasing DNA fragmentation in sperm. • Doctors say that crying may make us healthier by literally expelling certain chemicals from our bodies. The compounds found in emotional tears are different from those caused by eye watering. Tears may be how the body removes chemicals that build up from emotional stress. • Under a new law in Australia, partners together for two years will get the same rights as married couples to seek "spousal maintenance" claims. The could mean philandering husbands will be forced to keep paying for their mistresses after their affair ends. • John and Jenny Deaves, a father and daughter who revealed that they were having an incestuous love affair and had a child together have split up. The Jenny is now engaged to a bisexual man and they both live still with her father and the former couple's one-year-old daughter. • New research on pre-eclampsia found that women who have had two or more abortions reduced their risk for pre-eclampsia by 60 percent, meaning they are as well protected as women who have previously given birth. • Soon women will be able to delay motherhood into their 40s and beyond by having one of their ovaries removed, stored in a freezer, and re-implanted. • The New York Times visits the thong and gold lamé strewn dressing room at Larry Flynt's Hustler Club, a Manhattan strip club. • British food writer Fiona Beckett has tips for surviving the hard economic times by stretching your food budget, including by buying cheaper cuts of meat, watering down salad dressing, and cutting down on second helpings. • Scientists have found that hormonal changes caused by menopause change the way older women judge the attractiveness of younger women and decreases competitive feelings toward other women for male partners. • Though abortion is largely banned in Latin America, Uruguay's Senate voted today to decriminalize abortions during the first 12 weeks of presidency. However, the president is expected to veto the bill. • Lonesome George, a giant tortoise from the Galapagos island who is the last of his kind, may not become a father, thus saving his species from extinction. He mated with two females of a different subspecies this year, but 80 percent of their eggs appear infertile. •