Japan Likely To Reject Ban On Sexualization Of Minors • Playboy Model Jailed For Boob-Grope

• Lawmakers in Japan are likely to reject a proposed bill on tightening regulations on sexual imagery of minors in animation and comics. The bill also urges distributors to ban minors’ access to cartoons or games that depict rape. •

Chances are fairly good that the Tokyo government will see a similar bill in the fall, even though the Democratic Party of Japan, and several minor groups, have made moves against the measure. • A 27-year-old Playboy model is being held in an Italian jail for allegedly “letting” two teenage boys touch her breasts during a performance. The Judge said he thinks keeping Brigitta Bulgari behind bars is “the right thing to do.” Bulgari’s defense lawyer takes issue with the ruling, and argues that the judge is “biased against sexy women.” Bulgari, who is also the star of several adult films, has also been accused of “performing obscene acts in the presence of minors.” • Amanda Knox appeared in court today to face charges of slander for portions of her testimony regarding the Italian police. Knox told the court – and the media – that she was slapped and beaten around the head during an all-night interrogation after the murder of Meredith Kircher. At the time, she told the judge “I’m sorry, but it’s true.” Police have denied her allegations, and brought slander charges against the convicted murderer (who, the Daily Mail notes, showed up at the courthouse with a new haircut and wrinkles). • According to the NYT Consults blog, chances are pretty good that a mom won’t pass on herpes to her baby during birth, provided that she doesn’t have any active lesions. The risk of transmission during delivery is less than .01 percent, however, if the mother is currently having an outbreak, the child should be delivered via C-section. • Alice Miller, Freudian psychotherapist and author of The Drama of the Gifted Child, has passed away at the age of 87. Though her work showed a similar interest in family dramas, Miller famously condemned Sigmund Freud for dismissing his patient’s stories of sexual abuse. She even went so far as to resign from the International Psychoanalytic Association, citing Freud’s “act of cowardice” as her reason. • While Saudi Arabia is slowly but surely moving toward greater freedom for women, there are some loud detractors for the women’s rights movement – some of them female. The New York Times profiles one outspoken leader of a traditional group, Rowda Yousef, who started the campaign “My Guardian Knows What Is Best For Me.” Yousef claims that the women calling for more freedom simply have crappy guardians, or at least, bad relationships with their guardian males. • Elsewhere in the Middle East, women are purchasing illegal beauty products in record numbers. According to some reports, Iranian women spend about two billion dollars a year on cosmetics, despite the fact that most products are banned. • A late term abortion clinic in Australia may have deliberately infected dozens of women with hepatitis C. Police are investigating allegations that patients of Melbourne’s Croydon Day Surgery were intentionally infected by an anesthetist named James Latham Peters, who worked at the clinic between 2008 and 2009. • In other creepy medical news, three women are suing the Nambian health ministry for sterilizing them without their consent. They are looking for $130,000 in compensation. • An Oklahoma sheriff has come under fire recently for his county’s jail uniforms, which feature hot pink shirts and yellow-and-white striped pants. Some say the outfits are designed to embarrass prisoners, but undersheriff Rhett Burnett says they are supposed to help guards easily identify prisoners. • Painfully obvious headline of the day: “Binge drinkers report suboptimal health status more often than nonbinge drinkers.” Apparently, sometimes binge drinkers feel like garbage. You don’t say! •