Told You So - Masturbation is a good thing.

Finally, somebody is studying teens and masturbation. A study published last month in the Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine reports on a survey of 800 American Teenagers. The survey asked them if they masturbate, how often, and then asked them other questions about their sexual activity and practices. What they found was that boys who masturbate are much more likely to use condoms. Health.com reports that 'Robbins (the study author) and her team concluded that “the association of masturbation with other sexual behaviors indicates that masturbation is an important component of adolescent sexuality rather than an isolated or transient phenomenon.” In that regard, they urge that teens be educated and reassured that the act is a “normal” part of growing up.' Yeah, score one for our team!

The study also found that, surprise, surprise, about twice as many boys masturbate as girls. They postulate on why that might be but they don't entertain what, to me, is one of the obvious answers, girls don't want to talk about it. I think that still, even after Sex and the City and the dawn of the age of the vibrator, girls still think that they shouldn't masturbate. So my guess is that the number who actually do masturbate is quite a bit higher than the number who said that they do.

I just love this study, especially because it was done in the states, but I'll just sit back and wait for the conserative backlash to this. The study found that the boys and girls they surveyed who said that they masturbated were more likely to have had sex with a partner than those who said they didn't masturbate. It just makes sense to me. If you masturbate, you are probably more interested and comfortable with sex than if you don't. And if you have had partner sex, I think you're quite likely to be interested in masturbation. But the abstinence only crowd will have a hissy fit, I'm sure, choosing to see this supposed 'negative' instead of the positive.

Here's a link to the study.

Yes, KY some women love women.

Will wonders never cease? Today KY released a commercial for it's Intense arousal gel that features two women! An actual lesbian couple in a mainstream commercial! I'm not a lover of anything KY does, and I'm not saying this is a good product. But I am saying this is a good ad - it's just like all their other ads for this product that feature opposite sex couples. The video is available to view on YouTube. I'm not sure how much wide circulation this ad will get on TV and you can bet your ass, if it does, somebody's going to have a problem with it. But let's hope it makes it to TV.

The Furor Over Fluid

I had planned to stay away from this one as far as The Tickle Trunk was concerned but it's become so huge that I just feel we need to say something. For anyone who hasn't looked at facebook, the internet in general, or touched a newspaper in the past two days, there has been an ongoing media frenzy about an ad campaign launched some time ago by Fluid hair salon in Edmonton. The campaign features women in violent and dangerous situations with fabulous hair and the tag line 'Look Good in All You Do'.

I'm not going to get into the comments that have been made about it or the salon's response to the outcry. Those things are available for view in various places all over the internet. I just want to say a few things about how the Tickle Trunk responds to this.

Fluid is our neighbor. They are across the alley from us. They operate within our community and serve our customers, our neighbors and community. We want to cultivate good relationships among our neighbors and are therefore loathe to criticize. We understand that we all work very hard at our businesses and that we face many challenges as small business owners. I do feel for what Sarah, the owner of Fluid is going through right now with such a huge unexpected firestorm of controversy around her. This could devastate her business and for that I am very sorry.

However, I am disturbed by the campaign. I want to see our community rally together against violence, particularly in light of some of the terrible violent incidents that have happened here, not make light of them. Various people have said the campaign, especially the image that has been all over facebook and the internet, could be interpreted in lots of different ways but it's quite clear what the intention was and how most people are interpreting it. Most people perceive it to say that getting beat up is something that's pretty common for women so hey, you might as well look fabulous while it happens. That's just not okay with me. I don't think violence against women, or against anyone, is acceptable, commonplace, amusing, or something that should be used to sell goods or services.

So as much as we love and support the businesses in Old Strathcona, and especially East Whyte where we are, The Tickle Trunk and I are not okay with this campaign. But we understand that business owners make mistakes. We've certainly made a bunch of them ourselves. When we find that we've done something that hurts our community, we seek to apologize and repair the damage. Our hope is that the owner of Fluid will accept that she made an error in judgement with this campaign. That even though it may not have been their intention, Fluid has offended and hurt their customers and their community with this message and campaign. We hope they will apologize and stop running ads that trivialize or glorify violence. And we hope that if and when they do apologize and change their advertising, we will all support them by using their services. This is how we grow responsible and respectful communities.

Restrictive Abortion Laws do Not Lower Abortion Rates

Just wanted to post a link to this article on RH Reality Check about abortion rhetoric in the USA. The stats cited come mostly from the states but they are backed up with stats from Canada and other countries. It seems when abortion is legal and affordable, abortion rates are actually lower than when it's not. This is important information for Canadians. We may think this doesn't concern us here as abortion is legal in Canada, but access to abortion is still difficult or impossible in most parts of the country. The writer of this article, Dr. Jen Gunter, states that abortion is free in Canada. This is not always true. It is covered by provincial health cares plans but if a woman is living out of her province of birth and does not have coverage in the province she lives in, she will have a difficult time getting the service covered. As well, many women in Canada need to travel to get an abortion - only those living in the largest cities in the country have ready access. This is a significant cost. I realize this is not the same cost as having to cover the procedure yourself, but I just want to clarify that it's not exactly 'free'.

Here's the article

One of These Things is Just Like The Other

I was browsing toy catalogs today, as I do quite a bit and came across these two toys by California Exotics.





Can you see the difference between them? Neither could I. There are two differences. The one on the left is CalExotics brand pump. The one on the right is the Laura Berman pump, made by California Exotics but with Laura Bermans name on the package. The other difference is the price. The first retails for $39.99. The second for $56.99. Yes, Laura Berman's name on this product costs an extra $17.