• Women taking antidepressants and experiencing a hard time achieving orgasm as a side effect of the medication may benefit from taking Viagra.

• "Grammar Girl" is out to get rid of bad grammar. • A former Muslim sex slave who was targeted for her ethnicity when Serbs attacked tells her heartbreaking story to CNN. • Southern New Hampshire towns are reporting an increase in domestic abuse calls and arrests, which police says is linked to the poor economy. • A self-instructional program on reproductive health and sex-education for teen girls with diabetes will help them understand the risks of unplanned pregnancy while diabetic. • Inflation, high security at hotels and popular venues, and traffic jams have made weddings a real bummer in Sri Lanka. • A weak baby dolphin that was caught in Japanese fishermen's nets has regained its ability to swim after being outfitted with a special lifejacket. • Meet Rampa Rattanarithikul, a Thai mosquito scientist who has researched and collected mosquitoes for 50 years. • Two dogs that were allegedly trained to have sex with their female owner have been accepted into a no-kill animal sanctuary in Utah. • Cute puppy news! Look at this newborn french bulldog set to Chopin. (Image via She Cards.)

• Cudmudgeonly uncle-anchor Jack Cafferty has disappointed millions of women everywhere by saying, "Viagra is used to treat a medical condition, erectile dysfunction. Birth control is a lifestyle choice," when discussing John McCain's little birth control gaffe. Jack, sweetie, birth control pills do treat medical conditions and there's a good economic argument (pregnancy is expensive) for covering them. Erectile dysfunction, however, is God's way of telling you to keep it in your pants, old man. [Crooks & Liars]
• John McCain has proved a disappointment to the Secret Service by letting slip details of Barack Obama's highly secret-for-his-own-safety trip to Iraq and Afghanistan. Man, he really will do anything to keep playing his commercial about how Obama's never been. [Talking Points Memo, The Atlantic]

• By the way, McCain also doesn't know if Obama is a Socialist or not. I don't know that John McCain doesn't drink Cindy's drug-filled urine as a sedative, either. What don't you know? [HuffPo]
• The full list of Starbucks closures is now available. Caffeinated Washingtonians rejoice: Only one in D.C.! [HuffPo]
• Harold Ford got booed at Netroots Nation because he used to work at Fox News, but not because he used to date Julia Allison. [HuffPo]
• The German government has decided to let Obama speak — at the Victory Column, not the Brandenburg Gate because the Bushies kinda asked them not to. Wankers. [HuffPo]
• Scott Peterson has a blog. I think we can finally call this blogging trend over; no one's ever going to believe we're normal people now. [CNN]
• Greta Van Susteren, like, totally swears that she knows someone who knows someone whose anti-Obama copy was watered down at CNN, not that it ever happened to her and she's totally got journalistic freedom (if not freedom from the plastic surgery requirement) at Fox News and is she up for a new contract soon or something? [Fishbowl NY]

NARAL's executive director, Heather Brewer, says: "If Sen. McCain has a problem with women accessing birth control, he should state that publicly. His voting record makes it clear that he does not support access to birth control, so why is he ducking the issue at his own town hall meeting?" But a McCain aide, Jeff Sadosky, said hotel security and the Albuquerque police asked the abortion rights activists to leave when they were seen protesting in a parking lot. When they got in line to enter the event, it was reiterated that they'd already been asked to leave. Politico's Ben Smith adds: "The local press, a McCain aide said, had been aware of, and didn't cover, the story yesterday — often a useful sign of how meaningful an incident is."

We have an overpopulated, at-risk planet, in which a child dies of dehydration every seven minutes and a woman dies of a botched abortion every seven minutes (not to mention the hunger crises in Asia, Africa and Europe). Why is a pill for "erectile dysfunction" — not a life threatening or, frankly, as life-impacting condition as pregnancy — promoted and widely available? And free for the insured? While oral contraceptives (with health advantages like decreased menstrual blood loss, reduced risk of ovarian cancer and endometrial cancer, improved acne and decreased menstrual cramps and pain and uh, not getting pregnant) are not? McCain was at a loss for words, maybe you can fill in his blanks?

Planned Parenthood Launches Anti-McCain TV Spot [Time Magazine]
Naral: Pro-Choice T-Shirt-Wearers Barred From McCain Event [UPDATED] [Politico]

Apparently, not getting a boner when you've taken substances that lower your inhibitions is a man's body's way of telling him that boning is a bad idea.

"Engaging in risky sexual behavior — such as unprotected sex with high-risk partners — is one of the chief side-effects of any street stimulant," explains Galloway. "But an equally powerful side-effect is the inability to perform sexually, which, while frustrating as hell, has probably prevented a lot of disease transmission and unwanted children."

Basically, if he's done it tonight, he's done it before, and if he's that keen to do it now and you're the one insisting on a condom despite your own chemical impairment, well, don't assume the rest of the women of the world are as conscientious. Protect your lady parts, the peen ain't worth it anyway.

I mean, also, if you're the guy and you're just popping it to get an erection, you're ignoring the fact that there might be a legitimate, medical condition requiring you to need it that deserves treatment, but, really, it's all about how it affects us.

Erection Reform [Psychology Today]

The articles goes on to discuss the kinds of problems that couples have faced in the past 70 years, according to the MGC. The same thread unifies all the unhappy couples: they're not having sex. Whether the lack of sex is the root of the unhappiness or a result of other problems, in the '50s as well as the aughts, no fucking = no fun.

In the past decade or so, according to MGC therapists, the biggest problem has been with the sexual confidence of British men. Peter Bell, MGC's head of practice, tells the Times, "In the last 10 years, the number of men who say they have 'gone off' sex has risen dramatically. Men used to come to us with impotence, now known as erectile insufficiency, but Viagra has sorted some of that problem. What we have is a lot of men who, as women did in the 1950s, say, 'I can have sex but I don't want to. It's not rewarding.' I think that's because women are more aware of what they want sexually and are prepared to ask for it. Male confidence, as the gender who knew how to have sex - always an illusion - has been blown."

I tend to agree with Reverend Herbert Gray, one of the founders of MGC, who said, way back in the 40s, that sexual passion was "'the driving force in life' in a partnership of 'equals.'" Could you tolerate a marriage without that passion like the cuckolded artist and his wife?

"Marriage Problems Through The Years [Times of London]

That seems like a lot to ask, especially since some doctors, like NYU School of Medicine's Leonore Tiefer, don't think a testosterone gel will really help the female libido in the first place. Tiefer tells U.S. News: "There was a big study in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2005 that has never been refuted showing that low testosterone may have nothing to do with [low libido]." In 2000, Tiefer formed what she calls a group of "like-minded feminists" under the heading the New View Campaign to educate women about the medicalization of female sexuality.

Earlier this month, Moe tackled the same question Tiefer wrestles with: Is not being horny a disease (Moe: "probably not!")? And Tiefer elaborates on exactly why. She thinks the variety of sexual problems a woman faces — loss of interest in sex, irregular sex, interest in the wrong partner — have been hijacked by the medical community when those issues have nothing to do with medicine. "I would regard fluctuations in sexual interest not just as normal but as a good thing built into one's feelings about pretty much everything; with the seasons, with age, with changes in a relationship, with changes in health, with changes in work responsibilities," she says. "Everything comes and goes." Anita Clayton, co-author of Satisfaction: Women, Sex, and the Quest for Intimacy, adds, "For women, a lot of our sexuality is above the neck, not below the waist,"

Then there are women like "Bette," a 72-year-old breast cancer survivor who says using the testosterone gel, which was prescribed to her "off label," basically saved her life. "I'd rather have something worth living for right now, rather than living in the old folks' home. I'm not going to miss any fun."

Sex Drug Viagra Turns 10; Women Still Waiting [U.S. News & World Report]
Women Lacking Libido Aren't Sick [U.S. News & World Report]
A Woman's Sex Drive Restored By Testosterone [U.S. News & World Report]

Earlier: Five Reasons To Love Viagra
Is Not Being Horny A Diesase? Okay, Probably Not, But Should Big Science Keep Working On Female Viagra Anyhow?

On second thought, you know what? Fuck the bonerkillers just this once. It turns out that Big Pharma's insatiable lust for profit seems to be funding a lot of interesting research on the female orgasm.

Like, why doesn't Viagra work on women? Well, Pfizer tested 3,000 of them, and figured out that prompting a rush of blood to the gonads didn't really do the trick. (It doesn't? I would think it would?)
"What we know is that very little of what's going on with women and sex is below the waist," Anita Clayton, co-author of a book called Satisfaction: Women, Sex and the Quest for Intimacy, tells the Washington Post. "Almost all of it is above the neck." Ugh, great. Well, then came this suntan drug that was supposed to make everyone horny (and tan!) but the FDA pulled the plug when it looked like high blood pressure was a side effect. (I have low blood pressure, guys, I'm sure it's safe for me!)

Anyway, for once in my life I have no real strong opinion. Except that all this reading about arousal is making me pretty sure I do not have the dread hypoactive sexual desire disorder.

A Dose Of Desire [Washington Post]
Related: Adderall Makes Me Hump Like A Guy
Earlier: Five Reasons To Love Viagra

1. The story of Viagra starts in 1982 with a conference of urologists in Las Vegas at which one Dr. Giles Brindley decided to display off the effects of an injectible erectile dysfunction drug he was developing by brandishing his boner onstage. The doctors in the audience described his wang as long, thin, and grayish. It was the beginning of a reliable flow of fun, bizarre erectile dysfunction-related news stories and assorted stupid crap like this.?

2. Lots of dudes get prostate cancer. My dad, for one. Don't get me wrong, I do not want to think about my parents having sex. So I am going to end this entry before I get ahead of myself. I mean, when it all comes down, you're glad breast implants exist, aren't you?

3. Viagra actually definitively solved a physical problem. How many modern pharmaceuticals can even say that? For every person you know whose, like, life was saved by Zoloft, you probably know five people whose insurance companies have spent thousands of dollars sampling an array of mood-altering drugs that left them crazy, panicky, suicidal, incapable of solving any underlying problems and/or completely devoid of the desire to have sex. And couldn't most of our first world problems be solved by a little more sex?

4. Viagra helped people talk about sex. Again, agreed: you didn't want to picture Bob Dole and Liddy having sex, but you probably didn't want to picture Ron Jeremy having sex either, and now you don't have to, because thanks to Viagra the adult entertainment industry no longer has to rely on gross freaks who happen to have massive boner-prolonging capabilities.The Viagra salesman memoir Hard Sell — which I actually read for some reason — is full of heartwarming stories about uptight Midwesterners being emboldened to talk to their doctors — and then, their neighbors! — about fucking. And what followed? Bible Belt vibrator parties, the repeal of the Texas sex toy ban, and... well, the term "va-jay-jay", but every revolution has its lame elements.

5. As long as I am going to get old, I would like to get laid. I mean, duh.

Too late, pal. Our gay friends have been doing this for years.

Viagra Boosts Feel-Good 'Love' Hormone [CNN]

• Is your significant other in possession of a unremitting erection? Does he want to have sex when you're trying to shake off jet lag? Well, things aren't looking up on that last point. [DailyMirror]
  
• Would people stop having babies already? It's tiring everyone out. [Guardian]
  
• Your birth control pills are turning male fish into sissies. [NationalGeographic]

• Let's face it: We're all going to go incontinent and there's not a damn thing we can do about it. [USAToday]
• New York women: Sexy? Or Skanky? [Salon]
• One woman in the New York Times' obituaries section today: Dame Mary Douglas, 86, an anthropologist who studied things like the concept of dirt and described "how humans work together to find shared meaning". Obviously she's never heard of us! [NYTimes]

Welcome to world of the weird, where we've just discovered an unusual use for Viagra: Saving babies, rather than making them!

When Lewis Goodfellow was born in Tyneside, England, last August, he was 24 weeks premature, weighed just over 1lb and was in mortal danger because one of his lungs had failed and he wasn't getting enough oxygen circulating around his tiny little body.

Things got so bad, his parents began to plan his funeral. But consultant neonatalist Alan Fenton saved the day by giving the tot a wee shot of Sildenafil, better known to many middle-aged men as Viagra. Hey presto, healthy baby who finally made it home last month.

Alan told the BBC:

"The problem we see in premature babies with breathing difficulties is although we can blow oxygen into their lungs to help them, there isn't enough blood supply to various areas of the lungs to take the oxygen around the rest of the body. What Sildenafil does is open up the blood vessels so they can capture the oxygen and take it around the body."

Hurrah! We love a happy ending as much as we love puppies and kittens.

Mind you. We can't help wondering..........Nooooooooo! Banish the bad thoughts!

[we all love a heroic tot]

Apparently there were a lot of disappointed ladies in Britain yesterday, after claims that Viagra was going to be sold over the counter at drugstores proved a wee bit, well, premature, shall we say.

When the temporarily impaired lusty lads turned up to grab their little blue helper, it turned out that a spoilsport pharmacist insisted on booking them in for a consultation first. On Monday!

"Warehouseman Jim Dante, 49, said: 'I've had a problem for a year now. Despite reports about it starting off on Valentine's Day I can't get any until Monday. I'd booked the day off. Now I must get an appointment.'

Pharmacist James Longden, 28, said: 'We absolutely won't be handing it to people who want to give their girlfriend a good time on Valentine's Day. There is a protocol that involves taking the medical history.'"

In his spare time, Mr Longden enjoys drowning kittens and pulling the wings off butterflies.

[Lighten up, Longden!]

Who knew?

As you smugly handed over $40 for a fake Prada bag on Canal Street, you were not only comitting a crime against fashion, you were SUPPORTING THE TERRORISTS!

" In the year between October 2005 and September 2006 the Department of Homeland Security made 14,000 counterfeit goods seizures worth $155 million, almost double the previous year. In New York alone the trade was worth $80 billion and costs the city $1 billion a year in lost sales tax revenue.

'It's virtually all profit and it isn't funding anything good. It is a threat to democracy and a threat to the rule of law,' New York Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told a conference on counterfeiting on February 1.

Kelly said the group accused of the 2004 Madrid train bombings, which killed 191 people, used proceeds from the sale of fake CDs. U.S. authorities have said a group sells counterfeit goods including fake Viagra to support Hezbollah."

In the near future expect Dick Cheney to invent announce evidence of secret caches of counterfeit Fendi purses, ooooh, somewhere not a million miles from Tehran. You heard it here first.