Discapacidad y prostitución

My lifelong desire

Nick Wallis is 22 and has a life-limiting condition. With no girlfriend on the horizon, he feared he would never enjoy a full relationship. Here, he tells why he decided that the only way to experience sex was to pay for it …

Nick Wallis
Monday January 15, 2007

Guardian

I have Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, a progressive and life-limiting condition for which there is currently no treatment. Having been diagnosed when I was only a year old, this knowledge has always been part of my life and inevitably it has affected every aspect of my life. Since I was a small boy I have always been fascinated by nature and spent many hours in the garden trying to tempt butterflies from the buddleia into my poised fishing net so that I could examine them in detail and then let them fly free. Increasingly my disability meant that I relied on other small boys. One day when I spotted the perfect shiny prize-winning conker I had to ask one of them to collect it for me. He promptly pocketed it! Young children are not known for their selfless actions and perhaps this explains why they would never tell me where their den was or help me to get to it in my wheelchair; they seemed to be protecting it as if it was Bletchley Park.

Being excluded from normal things that my peers took for granted began to be part of my life - a pattern that got stronger as I got older. For a time, older siblings of my contemporaries filled the gap and helped me to enjoy activities such as fishing. I have always had a particular interest in fishy things, and an uncanny ability to spot an aquarium signpost in whichever town or country we were visiting on holiday. People have often been willing to talk to me and help and I feel that the kindness of strangers is often underestimated. A blond, blue-eyed boy in a wheelchair with a passionate interest in the world around him was lent a fishing fly by a stranger, given a lengthy talk on the lives of otters and allowed to touch an octopus. I have never been afraid to talk to people and ask questions, although on occasion I have felt that there was surprise that a child in a wheelchair could ask intelligent questions. Perhaps there are still too many preconceptions about wheelchair users.

¿Existe el síndrome postaborto?

January 21, 2007

Cover Story

Is There a Post-Abortion Syndrome?

By EMILY BAZELON

Early on a a windy Saturday morning in November, Rhonda Arias drove her Dodge Caravan past a Wal-Mart at the end of her block and onto the Interstate. She was beginning the 50-mile drive from her house in southwest Houston to Plane State Jail, where she is, as she puts it, an “abortion-recovery counselor.” To Arias, that means helping women at the prison who have had abortions to understand how that procedure has stained them, and how it explains what has gone wrong in their lives. The prisoners’ abortions, she told me, “have a great deal to do with their pain.”

Arias, who is 53, often wears silver hoop earrings and low black boots, and she has a weakness for edgy zingers. She started doing post-abortion counseling 15 years ago. After what she describes as a revelation from God, she decided that her own pain and unhappiness were rooted in the abortion she had in 1973, when she was 19. “It was the year Roe v. Wade was decided, and I remember saying, ‘No guy in Washington is going to tell me what to do with my body!’ ” Arias said with a sharp laugh as we were driving. But after the procedure, she says, strange feelings washed over her. “I remember having evil thoughts, about hurting children,” she said. “It was like I’d done the worst thing I could possibly do. A piece of evil had entered me.”

In 1983, Arias became pregnant again and planned to keep the baby. But in the fourth month, she says, she became scared about raising a child alone. She called her obstetrician. He scheduled her for a second-trimester saline abortion the following morning. Arias said she woke up from the anesthesia to the certain knowledge that she had killed her child.

La mayoría de mujeres viven solas

January 16, 2007

51% of Women Are Now Living Without Spouse

By SAM ROBERTS

For what experts say is probably the first time, more American women are living without a husband than with one, according to a New York Times analysis of census results.

In 2005, 51 percent of women said they were living without a spouse, up from 35 percent in 1950 and 49 percent in 2000.

Coupled with the fact that in 2005 married couples became a minority of all American households for the first time, the trend could ultimately shape social and workplace policies, including the ways government and employers distribute benefits.

Several factors are driving the statistical shift. At one end of the age spectrum, women are marrying later or living with unmarried partners more often and for longer periods. At the other end, women are living longer as widows and, after a divorce, are more likely than men to delay remarriage, sometimes delighting in their newfound freedom.

Historia de la transexualidad

Journal of the History of Sexuality. Volume 15, Number 1, January 2006

Book Review

How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States. By JOANNE MEYEROWITZ. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2002. Pp. 380. $29.95 (cloth); $17.95 (paper).

In 1954 Christine Jorgensen—the woman whose famous personal trans-sexual history also made transsexuality famous—penned a new tune for her act. The lyrics went like this:

Every hour—every day—we encounter something new Electric this—atomic that—a modern point of view

Now anything can happen—and we shouldn’t think it strange

If oysters smoke cigars—or lobsters drive imported cars change.

(Quoted on 7

In her excellent book How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States Joanne Meyerowitz points out that Jorgenson offered this ditty in an attempt “to associate change with progress, to portray it as modern and entertaining, and to place herself at its vanguard” (78). Indeed, the song encapsulated Jorgensen^‘s never-ending quest to dictate what her own change—a “sex change”—meant, but, as Meyerowitz makes amply clear, Jorgenson was fighting an uphill battle. Jorgenson^‘s positive spin aside, the ultimate meaning of transsexuality constituted a source of great debate in the twentieth-century United States, as did the question of what transsexuality exactly was and whether it was even real—that is, whether it was really possible for a biological male to have a female gender identity, or vice versa, and whether it was really possible to change sex.

“Parejas”, John Updike

Parejas
John Updike
Trad. Iris Menéndez. Quinteto. 621páginas, 9’95 €.

No resultará excesivamente aventurado afirmar que John Updike –tal vez junto a John Cheever– es el autor norteamericano que mejor ha estudiado, o al menos diseccionado, la vida de la familia y de la pareja de clase media norteamericana. Ejemplos de lo expuesto y que confirman tal aseveración son obras como la saga de su inefable Harry “Conejo” Ángstrom, que se ha convertido en el prototipo del marido abrumado y aburrido por las responsabilidades maritales y sociales. Idénticos perfiles encontraremos en los personajes de Parejas, un volumen donde apreciamos historias tan hilarantes como trágicas. La trama tiene que ver con los intercambios sexuales que un grupo de jóvenes parejas mantienen entre ellos como una suerte de vía de escape a un modelo de vida en cierta forma apático y anodino. Todo cambia cuando una nueva pareja de recién llegados al pequeño pueblo de Tarbox se une a los “juegos”. La nueva incoporación provocará todo un universo de reacciones tan sorprendentes como paradigmáticas y también irónicas. A fin de cuentas, Updike puede leerse también desde una perspectiva satírica.

José Antonio GURPEGUI

 

Remembranza del cuerpo que fue

Un amor en cada cuerpo

MANUEL CRUZ

EL PAÍS  -  Opinión - 25-01-2007

“Ellos son dos por error que la noche corrige”. Eduardo Galeano.

Yo también tuve antaño un cuerpo parecido al de esos jóvenes que se sientan ahí delante y fingen escucharme con atención. A veces se me olvida de que ya no es así, pero entonces mi cuerpo real se encarga, diligente, de recordármelo a través de alguno de los procedimientos a su alcance (de ordinario, señales directas, inequívocas, de la creciente obsolescencia de la propia maquinaria, materializada a través de una amplia gama de molestias, achaques y otras disfunciones). No pretende ser éste el arranque de un artículo quejumbroso y melancólico -neomanriqueño, por así decir- sobre la fugacidad de la vida y sus placeres, sobre la precariedad del mundo y la volatilidad de las satisfacciones que nos procura. Quédese tranquilo por ese lado el lector, que no es en absoluto mi intención amargarle el desayuno. Pero tampoco quisiera incurrir -menos aún, si cabe- en el tópico, falsamente entusiasta a mi parecer, de quienes hacen de la necesidad virtud y simulan celebrar el deterioro, la inexorable -si bien es cierto que gradual- proximidad del fin, como si tales cosas merecieran ser objeto de celebración. Con toda franqueza, por más que se las revista con las mejores galas y se las convierta en elogio de la experiencia, el sosiego y algún que otro beneficio vital secundario, no conozco a nadie que a determinadas alturas de la vida prefiera lo que aún conserva a lo que ya perdió.

Relaciones extramaritales de pago

Would you buy a love affair from this man?

Is it possible to have no-strings, extramarital sex without wrecking your relationship? Edward Marriott meets the man who makes it happen - and some of his satisfied customers

Edward Marriott
Sunday January 14, 2007

Observer

Katy Ford is 45, and has been married to Ben, a City banker, for 17 years. They have three daughters, aged 10, 12 and 14. They live in Hertfordshire and, from the outside, look like your stereotypical upper-middle-class family. The children go to boarding schools. During their holidays, they ride ponies. Katy, who works in publishing, plays tennis on Saturday mornings with her friends.

Scratch the surface, however, and a different picture emerges. Ben has been made redundant a number of times, and is now depressed. Katy works not because she wants to, but through necessity. She says: ‘My husband has retreated to the sofa. I’m a regular gym-goer, and like to keep fit. Ben hasn’t taken any exercise since we met. And he’s now depressed, and on medication.’

The last time they had sex was 10 years ago. Katy says she would have left a long time ago, but believes that ‘it’s best for children to have their parents together. Sounds a bit Victorian, I know, but there you go. The children should come first.’

For a long time, she was in a quandary. She wanted a sexual relationship, but, wishing to keep her family together, didn’t know where to turn. ‘I don’t go clubbing, and I don’t go out on the pull. I’ve got a busy job.’ Then a friend saw an ad in a magazine for a service that promised to bring together married people for ‘romance’. It took her six months before she called the number.

When she did, she found herself having coffee with David Miller, 52, a softly spoken, immaculately tailored businessman who runs lovinglinks.com, a London-based internet dating site for married people, which describes itself as ‘Europe’s leader in quality extramarital dating for thoughtful, attached men and women looking for romance. It is a genuine resource and not an escort service of any kind.’ Miller also offers a ‘bespoke’ one-to-one service. Katy opted to go for the latter, figuring that meeting men through Miller’s £85-a-go internet service would result in ‘kissing a lot of frogs’. So she parted with £350 and Miller gave her a list of mobile numbers.

El declive del test de Papanicolau

January 16, 2007

Pap Test, a Mainstay Against Cervical Cancer, May Be Fading

By ANDREW POLLACK

The big news in the war on cervical cancer is the new vaccine recently approved to prevent the disease. But another major change that will affect millions of women is also under way, though more slowly and quietly.

The Pap smear, an annual ritual for many women and the mainstay of cervical cancer prevention for more than half a century, may start to fade in importance.

It will not disappear for many more years, if ever. But a newer genetic test that detects human papillomavirus, or HPV, which causes cervical cancer, is starting to play a bigger role in screening. And other genetic tests are being developed. At the least, some experts say, women will no longer need Pap smears as often.

“We can potentially change the entire cervical screening paradigm,” said Dr. Thomas C. Wright, a professor of pathology at Columbia University Medical Center who is also a consultant for Roche, which is developing a genetic HPV test.

¿Se acaba el sexo con el matrimonio?

Married, Not Dead
A wedding ring shouldn’t mean the end of a happy sex life—though it usually does.

by Nora Shelley
January 16th, 2007

I am standing in the dressing room of Forever 21 enjoying myself. Even though the absurdity of shopping at Forever 21 for an outfit to wear to the Kleinman bar mitzvah is not lost on me. Nor is the ridiculous fact that I am psyched about going to the bar mitzvah. Who gets excited about a bar mitzvah? A woman with three little kids, that’s who. I will leave my house. There will be liquor. I will talk to grown-ups. I can’t help it. I have three children. I don’t get out much. “Mrs. Shelley?” I turn around to see my 17-year-old babysitter towering over me, all five foot eight of her lithe frame. We are wearing identical dresses. Black, knit, clingy, thigh-skimming numbers. It looks fabulous on her, while I look like my great-grandmother when she arrived from the old country.

“Uh, hi, Alli. So nice to see you. How are things?” I notice her dress has a white skull strewn across the chest. I look down at my own chest, and I am mortified. How did I miss the skull?

“Everything’s good. Fantastic dress, right?”

“Yes,” I say, “fantastic.” What is a 42-year-old woman doing shopping at the same store as her teenage babysitter?

“So we’ll see you on Saturday night?”

“Yes, definitely. Do you think you’ll be home by 11ish? I’m going out afterward.”

“I can’t imagine we’ll be home much past 10.” I haven’t been out past 11 in 10 years. When did I get so old?

Cintura estrecha

Evolutionary psychology

Breathe in, girls

For two thousand years men have written about ladies with small waists

SOME gentlemen may prefer blondes, but almost all seem to like a waist to hip ratio of between 0.6 and 0.7. Breasts and bottoms should be substantial; waists should be slim. It should be the case all over the world and throughout human history.

That, at least, is the prevailing theory among evolutionary psychologists. The ratio in question correlates with hormone levels promoting maximum female fertility and health, so men who prefer curvy women will have more children. Devendra Singh, of the University of Texas, in Austin, has proved the point in the past by measuring the vital statistics of Playboy models. He found that centrefolds vary in weight but not in their hourglass shapes.

Playmates’ shapes, however, reveal only the psychology of Playboy’s mainly American readers—and do so only since 1953, when Marilyn Monroe appeared in the first issue. To make a stronger case for the theory, Dr Singh and his colleagues have turned to historical descriptions of beauties in the literature of Britain, China and India.

Marina Abramovic

Marina Abramovic. Larga vida al alma eslava
Balkan Erotic Epic
Galería La Fábrica. Alameda, 9. Madrid. Hasta el 24 de Febrero. De 40.000 a 70.000 euros

En junio de 2002, en una entrevista por escrito, intenté provocar, sin mucho éxito, todo hay que decirlo, a Marina Abramovic recordándole que ese mismo año había diseñado un juego de café para la firma italiana Illy –un trabajo que cuenta con las firmas de Schnabel, Kounellis, Bourgeois o Steinbach, entre otros artistas internacionales–, en el que las tazas estaban decoradas con la fotografía de una mujer jugando en una playa con una pelota de colores. Me sorprendió, supongo que como les ocurrió a los lectores entonces, su respuesta. “Para mí no ha sido diseñar. Beber café era un ritual importante en Yugoslavia. La cocina de mi abuela era el centro de mi mundo. Todos los viernes mirábamos los posos del café para adivinar el futuro. He creado dos grupos de tazas: uno feliz y otro denominado Spirit Cups (las tazas del espíritu). La taza del espíritu tiene un agujero, y al beber café siempre sale algo de café para los espíritus. Todo el que bebe café en este tipo de taza es un performer”.

Pudo añadir que la Spirit cup, una edición limitada de 750 ejemplares, contiene un recipiente dorado que según el anunciante es como el misterioso ojo de una cerradura, y que está “dedicada al espíritu de la artista contemporánea del arte corporal de mayor renombre”, pero no hacía falta. Lo que llamaba la atención era el hilo argumental con el que Abramovic iba tejiendo más que una visión una actitud ante la historia y los acontecimientos del que fue su país natal y a su lugar en ellos.

Vacuna realista contra el sida

January 14, 2007

A Real-World AIDS Vaccine?

By TINA ROSENBERG

Last month, scientists invented the AIDS vaccine. Missed it? Perhaps that’s because you were still seeking the vaccine fantasy: the magic bullet, the impenetrable shield that finally pitches this disease into the trash bin, the shot that will end not only the AIDS epidemic but our anxiety about the AIDS epidemic as well.

The vaccine thunderbolt didn’t strike — and might never. Drearily, the real AIDS vaccine is likely to be imperfect: one more tool in our arsenal, to be used along with condoms and all our other tools. It will most likely avert millions of infections and save millions of lives. But it will not end the Age of AIDS.

The vaccine that arrived last month was not actually a vaccine. It was, instead, a confirmation of what scientists had long suspected: circumcision helps protect men from AIDS infection. For years, AIDS researchers have observed that many African tribes that circumcise boys or young men had lower AIDS rates than those that don’t, and that Africa’s Muslim nations, where circumcision is near universal, had far fewer AIDS cases than predominantly Christian ones. The first research proof came in 2005, when a study in South Africa was stopped early in the face of evidence that the men who had been randomly assigned to be circumcised were getting 60 percent fewer H.I.V. infections than the men assigned to the control group. Last month, ethics boards halted two similar studies, in Uganda and Kenya, when they found similar results. In both, the circumcised men caught the AIDS virus half as often as the uncircumcised control group.

Abortar con Cytotec

La trampa de abortar en casa con Cytotec

El uso de un protector estomacal que se vende por Internet para interrumpir el embarazo causa graves efectos secundarios

MÓNICA C. BELAZA - Madrid

EL PAÍS - Sociedad - 14-01-2007

“Soy de Madrid y vendo Cytotec en dosis de 4, 6 y 8 pastillas en toda España. 100% efectivas. Stock permanente”. El precio es de 70 euros por cuatro pastillas y 110 por ocho, la cantidad de medicamento que Karin, la vendedora virtual, recomienda como idónea para abortar en casa. Cytotec, del laboratorio Pfizer, no se creó para interrumpir embarazos. Su prospecto especifica que es un protector estomacal indicado para úlceras de estómago y duodenales. Pero su principio activo, el misoprostol, provoca también contracciones en el útero que facilitan que se expulse el feto o embrión. Por esta razón se vende de forma clandestina desde hace años en América Latina, donde el aborto está prohibido en la mayor parte de los países. Y la costumbre ha llegado a España. En las farmacias sólo se vende con receta médica (a 10 euros 40 pastillas), pero las mujeres que quieren interrumpir su embarazo pueden adquirirlo fácilmente por Internet. Eso sí, pagando 55 veces su precio. Desde que hace 15 días detuvieron en Madrid a una pareja que lo vendía por la Red a toda España, conseguirlo no es ya tan rápido como antes. Varias páginas específicas para nuestro país, que prometían envíos en 24 horas, se han borrado. El anuncio de Karin, por ejemplo, sigue circulando, pero nadie responde en el número de teléfono que aparece y la página web a la que se remite ya no está disponible. Parece que se ha creado una cierta alarma con la divulgación de la detención en todos los medios de comunicación. En un locutorio del barrio de Pueblo Nuevo, en Madrid, el encargado indica que “últimamente en la zona ya no se pueden encontrar” y recomienda probar en Vallecas.

El varón castrado

El varón castrado
José Díaz Herrera
Planeta. Barcelona, 2006. 450 páginas, 22 euros

 

 

 

Nacido en Santa Cruz de Tenerife hace 56 años, José Díaz Herrera es un licenciado en Ciencias de la Información especializado en el periodismo de investigación. Con Isabel Durán ha escrito numerosos ensayos y en 2005 publicó en solitario Los mitos del nacionalismo vasco, un texto que hace un amplio uso de novedosas fuentes documentales públicas y privadas.

Quizá el hecho de estar separado y tener dos hijos en custodia compartida esté entre los motivos que le han llevado a escribir El varón castrado. Verdades y mentiras de la violencia en España, un texto que tiene, como los cortes geológicos de terrenos sedimentarios, distintas capas superpuestas. Lo primero que ve el lector es una feroz crítica de la Ley Integral contra la Violencia de Género. Tal como señala el autor, 2006 ha sido el primer año natural en el que la Ley contra la Violencia de Género ha estado vigente. Dicha ley fue la primera de las grandes leyes impulsadas por Zapatero para modificar la estructura emocional y de valores del país.

La plena aplicación de la Ley contra la Violencia de Género ha supuesto en España, como señala Díaz Herrera, un despliegue de medios gigantescos. Más allá de jueces y policías, ha sido necesario el apoyo de numerosos profesionales cuya remuneración le ha supuesto al contribuyente mucho dinero. Por desgracia, esta utilización de recursos no ha impedido que 68 mujeres hayan sido asesinadas por sus parejas. Ocho muertas más que en 2005 pese a que 80 hombres han sido condenados diariamente. Entre julio de 2005 y junio de 2006 los distintos órganos judiciales condenaron a 29.356 varones, 7 de cada 10 juzgados.

Renovando la identidad gay

SAN FRANCISCO
A deepening challenge for America’s gay men
New movement looks for more in identity, relationships
- Wyatt Buchanan, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, January 8, 2007

Meet the new players in the great American debate about values: Ryan, a 25-year-old newlywed, who is helping other men find husbands; Doug, 50, who is helping gay men in San Francisco create their ideal community; and Chris, 36, whose pursuit of happiness has switched from chasing New York hotties to seeking down-home enlightenment.

They and others across the country are engaging gay men in conversations about their goals and values — both personal and collective — and challenging the sense of who gay men are and what makes their community. This introspection is happening as gay men are able to move away from the AIDS crisis, which had demanded their full attention for two decades, and now have the time and energy to look inward, these leaders say.

“A bunch of us went around the city for eight or nine months talking to as many people as we could, asking them what issues are important, what they think of life as gay men, what they think of San Francisco,” said Doug Sebesta, who worked in public health and HIV services before he and a few other men started the San Francisco Gay Men’s Community Initiative in June 2004. “We kept hearing the same thing over and over again — basically, that San Francisco sucks.”

Sebesta said that as the community emerges from the AIDS epidemic, some gay men in San Francisco have found broken pieces of what used to be. But many have told him it is difficult to meet other gay men outside of sexual encounters or to connect on an emotional or friendship level.

Lógica erótica

Love’s Loopy Logic
Encounters with the opposite sex skew our psyches in such a special way that reason and bias climb right into bed with each other. In this mode, it sometimes pays to deceive ourselves. Welcome to the paradoxical world of mating intelligence.
By:Kaja Perina

 

Let’s talk about the most important interview you’ll ever be granted. Seated at a well-appointed table, you mull the choice between crab cakes and seared tuna, but truly you are sorting through a mental repertoire of wisecracks and war stories. If you are secure in your improvisational charms, you might use this moment to appraise the cleavage or cufflinks of the woman or man across the table. There’s no predicting discussion topics, but you can be sure they’ll pertain to your marital status, extracurricular activities, and your job. (There are no verboten questions at this interview.) You are applying for a new and expanded life. Or, you simply want a one-night pass that can be renewed indefinitely. And you need to know whether your dining companion is up to the task.

A date makes us both spectator and performer at a two-ring circus: We troll for wit, kindness, curiosity, and “chemistry,” hoping that we radiate these same attributes in the right amounts. From strategic winks and blinks to elaborate grooming to gifts of gorgeous baubles, men and women employ an arsenal of tricks in their romantic lives, all in the service of a demanding master at the far reaches of conscious awareness. Eons of evolution have honed our behavior to aid and abet a reproductive payoff. The sum of the stratagems we employ, and the wisdom of nature in crafting them without our explicit awareness, are now the subject of intense study by evolutionary psychologists.