Category: sexuality

Ethical and legal questions arising from developing sex robot technology

On By A.P.In Dr. Lutter, Human Behavior, sexuality, The FutureLeave a comment

by Peter Mellgard

Back in the 80s there was a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who confessed to a professor that he hadn’t quite figured out “this sex thing,” and preferred to spend time on his computer rather than with girls. For “Anthony,” computers were safer and made more sense; romantic relationships, he said, usually led to him “getting burned in some way.”

Years later, Anthony’s story made a big impression on David Levy, an expert in artificial intelligence, who was amazed that someone as educated as Anthony was developing an emotional attachment to his computer so long ago. Levy decided he wanted to give guys like Anthony a social and sexual alternative to real girls. The answer, he thinks, is sexbots. And he’s not talking about some blow-up doll that doesn’t talk.

Levy predicts that a lot of us, mostly but not exclusively shy guys like Anthony, will be having sex with robots sometime around the 2040s. By then, he says, robots will be so hot, human-like and mind-blowing under the sheets that a lot of people will find them sexually enjoyable. What’s more, Levy believes they will be able to engage and communicate with people in a meaningful, emotional way, so that guys like Anthony won’t need to worry about real girls if they don’t want to.

To give a robot the ability to communicate and provide the kind of emotional satisfaction someone would normally get from a human partner, Levy is improving an award-winning chat program called Do-Much-More that he built a few years ago. His aim is for it to become “a girlfriend or boyfriend chatbot that will be able to conduct amorous conversations with a user,” he told The WorldPost. “I’m trying to simulate the kind of conversation that two lovers might have.”

Levy admits that “this won’t come about instantly.” Eventually he wants his advanced conversation software embedded in a sexbot so that it becomes more than just a sexual plaything — a companion, perhaps. But it won’t be for everyone. “I don’t believe that human-robot relationships are going to replace human-human relationships,” he said.

There will be people, however, Levy said, people like Anthony maybe, for whom a sexbot holds a strong appeal. “I’m hoping to help people,” he said, then elaborated:

People ask me the question, ‘Why is a relationship with a robot better than a relationship with a human?’ And I don’t think that’s the point at all. For millions of people in the world, they can’t make a good relationship with other humans. For them the question is not, ‘Why is a relationship with a robot better?’ For them the question is, would it be better to have a relationship with a robot or no relationship at all?

The future looks bright if you’re into relationships with robots and computers.

Neil McArthur, a professor of philosophy and ethics at the University of Manitoba in Canada, imagines that in 10 to 15 years, “we will have something for which there is great consumer demand and that people are willing to say is a very good and enjoyable sexbot.”

For now, the closest thing we have to a genuine sexbot is the RealDoll. A RealDoll is the most advanced sex doll in the world — a sculpted “work of art,” in the words of Matt McMullen, the founder of the company, Abyss Creations, that makes them. For a few thousand dollars a pop, customers can customize the doll’s hair color, skin tone, eyes, clothing and genitalia (removable, exchangeable, flaccid, hard) — and then wait patiently for a coffin-sized box to arrive in the mail. For some people, that box contains a sexual plaything and an emotional companion that is preferable to a human partner.

“The goal, the fantasy, is to bring her to life,” McMullen told Vanity Fair.

Others already prefer virtual “people” to living humans as emotional partners. Love Plus is a hugely popular game in Japan that is played on a smartphone or Nintendo. Players take imaginary girls on dates, “kiss” them, buy them birthday cakes.

“Well, you know, all I want is someone to say good morning to in the morning and someone to say goodnight to at night,” said one gamer who has been dating one of the imaginary girls for years, according to TIME Magazine.

And there’s Invisible Girlfriend and Invisible Boyfriend, apps that connects you with a real, paid human who will text you so that you can prove you have a girlfriend or boyfriend to nosy relatives or disbelieving buddies. At least one user, a culture critic for the Washington Post, confessed she might actually being in love with the person on the other side who, remember, is being paid to satisfy customers’ desires. They’d never even met.

McArthur and others suspect that there might be people for whom a sexbot is no mere toy but a way to access something — sex — that for one reason or another was previously unattainable.

When it comes to the disabled, McArthur explained, there are two barriers to sexual activity: an external — “they’re not seen as valuable sexual partners” — and an internal anxiety. “Sexbots can give them access to partners. And they are sort of a gateway as well: disabled people could use a sexbot to build confidence and to build a sense of sexuality.”

“When it comes to sex,” he concluded, “more is better.”

It’s a new and emerging technology, but let’s nip in the bud,” Kathleen Richardson, a senior research fellow in the ethics of robotics at De Montfort University in England, told the Washington Post. Richardson released a paper this month titled “The Asymmetrical ‘Relationship’: Parallels Between Prostitution and the Development of Sex Robots.”

“I propose that extending relations of prostitution into machines is neither ethical, nor is it safe,” the paper reads.

And the ethical questions extend beyond machine “prostitution.” RealDoll, the sex doll company, refuses to make child-like dolls or animals. But what if another company does?

“It’s really a legal, moral, societal debate that we need to have about these systems,” said Matthias Scheutz, the director of the human-robot interaction laboratory at Tufts University. “We as a society need to discuss these questions before these products are out there. Because right now, we aren’t.”

If, in the privacy of your own home, you want to have sex with a doll or robot that looks like a 10-year-old boy or virtual children in porn apps, is that wrong? In most though not all countries in the world, it’s illegal to possess child pornography, including when it portrays a virtual person that is “indistinguishable” from a real minor. But some artistic representations of naked children are legal even in the U.S. Is a sexbot art? Is what a person does to a sexbot, no matter what it looks like, a legal question?

Furthermore, the link between viewing child pornography and child abuse crimes is unclear. Studies have been done on people incarcerated for those crimes that found that child pornography fueled the desire to abuse a real child. But another study on self-identified “boy-attracted pedosexual males” found that viewing child pornography acted as a substitute for sexual molestation.

“I think the jury is out on that,” said McArthur. “It depends on an empirical question: Do you think that giving people access to satisfaction of that kind is going to stimulate them to move on to actual contact crimes, or do you think it will provide a release valve?”

Scheutz explained: “People will build all sorts of things. Some people have made arguments that for people who otherwise would be sex offenders, maybe a child-like robot would be a therapeutic thing. Or it could have exactly the opposite effect.”
McArthur is most worried about how sexbots will impact perceptions about gender, body image and human sexual behavior. Sexbots will “promote unattainable body ideals,” he said. Furthermore, “you just aren’t going to make a robot that has a complicated personality and isn’t always in the mood. That’s going to promote a sense that, well, women should be more like an idealized robot personality that is a pliant, sexualized being.”

As sexbots become more popular and better at what they’re built to do, these questions will become more and more important. We, as a society and a species, are opening a door to a new world of sex. Social taboos will be challenged; legal questions will be raised.

And there might be more people — maybe people like Anthony — who realize they don’t need to suffer through a relationship with a human if they don’t want to because a robot provides for their emotional and sexual needs without thinking, contradicting, saying no or asking for much in return.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/robot-sex_55f979f2e4b0b48f670164e9

Thanks to Dr. Lutter for bringing this to the attention of the It’s Interesting community.

Parenting Rewires the Male Brain

On By A.P.In Bar-Ilan University, Communication, Elizabeth Norton, female brain, homosexuality, Human Behavior, Israel, Kevin Pelphrey, male brain, Neurology, Neuron, neuroplasticity, Neuroscience, neuroscientist, oxytocin, parenting, parenting network, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Ruth Feldman, Science, sexuality, Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center, The BrainLeave a comment

By Elizabeth Norton

Cultures around the world have long assumed that women are hardwired to be mothers. But a new study suggests that caring for children awakens a parenting network in the brain—even turning on some of the same circuits in men as it does in women. The research implies that the neural underpinnings of the so-called maternal instinct aren’t unique to women, or activated solely by hormones, but can be developed by anyone who chooses to be a parent.

“This is the first study to look at the way dads’ brains change with child care experience,” says Kevin Pelphrey, a neuroscientist at Yale University who was not involved with the study. “What we thought of as a purely maternal circuit can also be turned on just by being a parent—which is neat, given the way our culture is changing with respect to shared responsibility and marriage equality.”

The findings come from an investigation of two types of households in Israel: traditional families consisting of a biological mother and father, in which the mother assumed most of the caregiving duties, though the fathers were very involved; and homosexual male couples, one of whom was the biological father, who’d had the child with the help of surrogate mothers. The two-father couples had taken the babies home shortly after birth and shared caregiving responsibilities equally. All participants in the study were first-time parents.

Researchers led by Ruth Feldman, a psychologist and neuroscientist at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel, visited with the families in their homes, videotaping each parent with the child and then the parents and children alone. The team, which included collaborators at the Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center in Israel, also took saliva samples from all parents before and after the videotaped sessions to measure oxytocin—a hormone that’s released at times of intimacy and affection and is widely considered the “trust hormone.” Within a week of the home visit, the participants underwent functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning to determine how their brains reacted to the videotapes of themselves with their infants.

The mothers, their husbands, and the homosexual father-father couples all showed the activation of what the researchers term a “parenting network” that incorporated two linked but separate pathways in the brain. One circuit encompasses evolutionarily ancient structures such as the amygdala, insula, and nucleus accumbens, which handle strong emotions, attention, vigilance, and reward. The other pathway turns up in response to learning and experience and includes parts of the prefrontal cortex and an area called the superior temporal sulcus.

In the mothers, activation was stronger in the amygdala-centered network, whereas the heterosexual fathers showed more activity in the network that’s more experience-dependent. At first glance, Feldman says, the finding would seem to suggest that mothers are more wired up to nurture, protect, and possibly worry about their children. The fathers, in contrast, might have to develop these traits through tending, communicating, and learning from their babies what various sounds mean and what the child needs.

“It’s as if the father’s amygdala can shut off when there’s a woman around,” Feldman observes. It could be assumed, she says, that this circuitry is activated only by the rush of hormones during conception, pregnancy, and childbirth.

But the brains of the homosexual couples, in which each partner was a primary caregiver, told a different story. All of these men showed activity that mirrored that of the mothers, with much higher activation in the amygdala-based network, the team reports online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

This finding argues strongly that the experience of hands-on parenting, with no female mother anywhere in the picture, can configure a caregiver’s brain in the same way that pregnancy and childbirth do, Feldman says.

She adds that in the heterosexual fathers, the activation of the amygdala-based network was proportional to the amount of time they spent with the baby, though the activity wasn’t as high as in the mothers or in the two-father couples.

Feldman does not believe that the brain activity of the primary-caregiving fathers differed because they were gay. Previous imaging studies, she notes, show no difference in brain activation when homosexual and heterosexual participants viewed pictures of their loved ones.

Future studies, Pelphrey says, might focus more closely on this question. “But it’s clear that we’re all born with the circuitry to help us be sensitive caregivers, and the network can be turned up through parenting.”

http://news.sciencemag.org/brain-behavior/2014/05/parenting-rewires-male-brain

Study Finds Pedophiles’ Brains Wired to Find Children Attractive

On By A.P.In biology, Biology Letters, child abuse, Crime, crime prediction, Human Behavior, James Cantor, Jorge Ponseti, magnetic resonance imaging, MRI, neurologist, Neurology, Neuroscience, neuroscientist, pedophilia, psychiatrist, Psychiatry, Psychological Medicine, Psychological Science, psychology, Science, sex, sexuality, The Brain, The Future, University of Toronto1 Comment

Pedophiles’ brains are “abnormally tuned” to find young children attractive, according to a new study published this week. The research, led by Jorge Ponseti at Germany’s University of Kiel, means that it may be possible to diagnose pedophiles in the future before they are able to offend.

The findings, published in scientific journal Biology Letters, discovered that pedophiles have the same neurological reaction to images of those they find attractive as those of people with ordinary sexual predilections, but that all the relevant cerebral areas become engaged when they see children, as opposed to fellow adults. The occipital areas, prefrontal cortex, putamen, and nucleus caudatus become engaged whenever a person finds another attractive, but the subject of this desire is inverted for pedophiles.

While studies into the cognitive wiring of sex offenders have long been a source of debate, this latest research offers some fairly conclusive proof that there is a neural pattern behind their behavior.

The paper explains: “The human brain contains networks that are tuned to face processing, and these networks appear to activate different processing streams of the reproductive domain selectively: nurturing processing in the case of child faces and sexual processing in the case of sexually preferred adult faces. This implies that the brain extracts age-related face cues of the preferred sex that inform appropriate response selection in the reproductive domains: nurturing in the case of child faces and mating in the case of adult faces.”

Usually children’s faces elicit feelings of caregiving from both sexes, whereas those of adults provide stimuli in choosing a mate. But among pedophiles, this trend is skewed, with sexual, as opposed to nurturing, emotions burgeoning.

The study analyzed the MRI scans of 56 male participants, a group that included 13 homosexual pedophiles and 11 heterosexual pedophiles, exposing them to “high arousing” images of men, women, boys, and girls. Participants then ranked each photo for attractiveness, leading researchers to their conclusion that the brain network of pedophiles is activated by sexual immaturity.

The critical new finding is that face processing is also tuned to face cues revealing the developmental stage that is sexually preferred,” the paper reads.

Dr. James Cantor, associate professor at the University of Toronto’s Faculty of Medicine, said he was “delighted” by the study’s results. “I have previously described pedophilia as a ‘cross-wiring’ of sexual and nurturing instincts, and this data neatly verifies that interpretation.”

Cantor has undertaken extensive research into the area, previously finding that pedophiles are more likely to be left-handed, 2.3 cm shorter than the average male, and 10 to 15 IQ points lower than the norm.

He continued: “This [new] study is definitely a step in the right direction, and I hope other researchers repeat this kind of work. There still exist many contradictions among scientists’ observations, especially in identifying exactly which areas of the brain are the most central to pedophilia. Because financial support for these kinds of studies is quite small, these studies have been quite small, permitting them to achieve only incremental progress. Truly definitive studies about what in the brain causes pedophilia, what might detect it, and what might prevent it require much more significant support.”

Ponseti said that he hoped to investigate this area further by examining whether findings could be emulated when images of children’s faces are the sole ones used. This could lead to gauging a person’s predisposition to pedophilia far more simply than any means currently in place. “We could start to look at the onset of pedophilia, which is probably in puberty at about 12 or 14 years [old],” he told The Independent.

While Cantor is correct in citing the less than abundant size of the study, the research is certainly significant in providing scope for future practicable testing that could reduce the number of pedophilic crimes committed. By being able to run these tests and examine a person’s tendency toward being sexually attracted to underage children, rehabilitative care and necessary precautions could be taken to safeguard children and ensure that those at risk of committing a crime of this ilk would not be able to do so.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/23/study-finds-pedophiles-brains-wired-to-find-children-attractive.html#

Indonesian province bans female secretaries

On By A.P.In adultery, Gorontalo province, Human Behavior, Indonesia, Relationship, Rusli Habibie, sexuality, Sulawesi islandLeave a comment

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The governor of an Indonesian province on Saturday said he had ordered his top staff to replace their female secretaries with men following a string of extra-marital affairs.

“I received inputs that many government office heads here are involved in extra-marital affairs with their female secretaries,” Rusli Habibie, the governor of Gorontalo province on northern Sulawesi island told AFP.

“They treat them much better than their own wives. They bring them presents from official trips like perfumes or branded bags while their poor wives get nothing,” he said.

“For these reasons, I ordered them to replace their female secretaries with male assistants or with old women who are no longer attractive,” he added.

Habibie is convinced that his subordinates will follow his instructions, though there won’t be any punishment for those who don’t comply.

“This is a moral sanction. I’m pretty sure they will follow my order, and all of them will get a male secretary soon,” he said, adding that there were about 50 senior officials in the province who had hired female secretaries.

Last year, the Gorontalo administration demanded 3,200 male civil servants to transfer their monthly pay to their wives’ bank accounts in order to limit the number of affairs.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hkavDGNrcbneY8gTy2YdEurJgX4w?docId=CNG.b53b41d86d76651582a424aa0515be61.481

Fundawear

On By A.P.In Ben Moir, Durex, Fundawear, Human Behavior, Ray Gaudette, sexuality, The Future, The SingularityLeave a comment

Fundawear – a prototype conception from Durex Australia – adds an extra dimension to long-distance lovemaking through the use of hi-tech vibrating underwear that can be wirelessly stimulated via a mobile app. The intensity and location of the vibrations can be controlled with a flick of a finger.

To demonstrate, Durex recruited chirpy Bondi couple Nick and Dani to be the first to test it out. They were separated before the trial, and, in their own words, by the time they came to use Fundawear they felt like they hadn’t seen each other for “like, 100 years”.

Tech director Ben Moir, who is featured in the video, remains confident: “Fundawear is a project about transferring touch across vast distances and that really is a first globally,” he says. “People are gonna want this.”

Thanks to Ray Gaudette for bringing this to the attention of the It’s Interesting community.

Vatican spends $30 million to purchase apartments above Europe’s largest gay sauna: Europa Multiclub

On By A.P.In Cardinal Ivan Dias, Catholic church, Catholicism, Europa Multiclub, gay sauna, homosexuality, Human Behavior, Religion, sexuality, The VaticanLeave a comment

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The latest Vatican deal to leave Catholics around the world clutching their rosaries involves the purchase of a block of Rome real-estate that happens to include Europe’s largest gay bathhouse, Europa Multiclub.

The $30 million dollar investment was paid out to find an extravagant home for Cardinal Ivan Dias, a 76-year old Vatican official, and house a dozen more high-level Catholic priests.

Those who are defending Cardinal Dias in light of the new information claim he chose the location to “provide spiritual guidance” to the gay men who enjoyed the sauna.

Vatican purchases apartments above Europe’s largest gay sauna

Intoxicated man tried to have sex with ambulance

On By A.P.In alcohol, alcohol abuse, alcoholism, ambulance, amphetamine, Callum Ward, cannabis, Drugs, England, Human Behavior, intoxication, sexualityLeave a comment

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Callum Ward, 25, was seen “pressing” himself against the emergency vehicle before “simulating a sex act” on the hood.

Official police logs show an officer who saw him stated: “It looks as though he is attempting to make love to the front of the ambulance”.

Ward was drunk and had taken cannabis and amphetamine and was “in relatively high spirits” before the incident in November in Barnstaple, Devon.

He was first spotted setting fire to a packet of peanuts inside a phone box before mounting the ambulance, Barnstaple Magistrates Court was told.

He was found guilty of being drunk and disorderly and in possession of Class B drugs.

He was sentenced to a community order with a supervision requirement for six months and ordered to pay £60.

Ward, of Barnstaple, told the court: “I did start using drugs and drinking. I have seen the error of my ways with that.”

In 2007, Robert Stewart, of Ayr, Scotland, was placed on the sex offenders’ register after being caught trying to have sex with a bicycle.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/9870635/Drunk-man-tried-to-have-sex-with-an-ambulance.html

Doctor’s remove nine inch long sex toy from Chinese man’s colon

On By A.P.In China, Colon, deep pain, Human Behavior, Mrs. Lindley, Relationship, sex toy, sexuality, Shanghai DailyLeave a comment

colon

A Chinese man was forced to seek medical help when a nine-inch long dildo got stuck in his intestines for five days. Doctors at Zhongshan Hospital in the Xuhui District said that they removed the dildo from the 30-year-old man on Saturday.

According to The Huffington Post, the dildo (“butt plug”) measured roughly nine inches and three inches wide. Shanghai Daily reports that doctors say it got stuck in his anus and slipped into his intestine after he inserted it to “enhance sexual pleasure with his wife.”

According to Shanghai Daily, the man reported at the hospital on Friday after he began experiencing pain. Doctors failed to remove the object at the first attempt, The Inquisitr reports. He returned the next day after visiting another hospital. The doctors made a second attempt and removed the dildo on Saturday.

Shanghai Daily reports Dr. Yao Liqing said: “If we did not remove the dildo in time, the man could have gone into critical condition.” He added: “Doctors were astonished to see such a big item taken out of the patient’s body.”

Liqing said the dildo blocked the man’s large intestine and caused tissue damage. AFP reports that a hospital spokesman said surgeons removed the dildo from the man’s intestines using an endoscope. The Inquistr reports Liqing said: “We had decided to operate if we failed to take it out with the help of an endoscope. In the end we removed it and avoided having to do surgery.”

According to AFP, the Chinese state media reported that accidents involving sex toys are on the rise “amid loosening attitudes towards sex.”

The sex toy industry in China is booming. China is the world’s top producer of sex toys with 70% of the world’s sex toys produced in the country. The industry is estimated at $2 billion. The Huffington Post reports that as the younger generation of Chinese with increasing standards of living adopt more sexually permissive lifestyles, shops selling sex toys and contraceptives have become commonplace in Chinese cities.

According to the Shanghai Daily, medical professionals observing the increasing incidence of accidents involving sex toys have warned people to carefully follow manufacturer’s instructions and not to use the toys in “unintended” ways.
Shanghaiist comments: “Doctors reminded the public that it’s not the size but what you do with it that counts.”

Dr. Yao Liqing said: “People must use sex toys properly and avoid ones that are too big as they can hurt people. There have been three similar cases so far this year. In the previous two or three years, we only had one such case. These patients were in deep pain when they arrived at the hospital.”

Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/335143#ixzz2F2reaUuP

Thanks To Mrs. Lindley for bringing this to the attention of the It’s Interesting community.

The Sexxxtons, Mother-Daughter Porn Duo, Provoke Controversy

On By A.P.In Amber Peach, anger management specialist, California, Cora Emens, Donna Mae Depola, Dr. Carole Lieberman, emotional incest, First Amendment, Florida, Human Behavior, incest, Netherlands, Nicole Prause, Pornography, Randy Reep, Relationship, sex coach, sexologist, sexuality, Silvia M. Dutchevici, Tampa, The Huffington Post, the Sexxxtons, The Twelve Tins, UCLA, Veronica MonetLeave a comment

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The erotic activities of a mother and daughter in Tampa, Fla., who have become an on-screen pornography duo, are pushing the boundaries of propriety and sparking a debate among some experts, even in an industry known for its taboos.

For the last year, Jessica, 56, and her 22-year-old daughter, Monica — known as the Sexxxtons — have been filming sex scenes with each other and non-related partners for their self-titled website. The duo, who like many in pornography do not use their last names, say that even though they will have sex with another person at the same time, they are not interacting with each other.

Their definition of sex may be strictly semantics to the average person, but it also may have legal merit, according to Randy Reep, a Florida-based criminal defense attorney who said that Florida law defines incest, in part, as penetration by one family member to another.

In addition, the right to make pornography is, for the most part, covered by the First Amendment, but the Sexxxtons still might face risks.  “Being involved in pornography in the South carries certain risks,” Reep told HuffPost.  “It’s not as liberal as in California.”

But the letter of the law and the spirir of the law can be two different things, and expert psychiatrist Dr. Carole Lieberman believes the Sexxxtons are guilty of “emotional incest.”

 “Even if they’re not having sex with each other, it has to be titillating to one or both of them, so it crosses the line since sexual arousal comes into the mix.”

Monica defends their work and says it was her idea to start the website.  “I enjoy the sex and I enjoy being with my mom,” she told The Huffington Post.  “During the scenes, I think about how we’re going to be filthy rich.”

Donna Mae Depola, a child sex abuse activist, however, believes that the Sexxxtons’ activities are potentially damaging even if they are consensual.

Depola’s book “The Twelve Tins” documents her reaction to discovering films that her dad made while having sex with her between ages 5 and 12.

“This might be even worse than my situation,” she told HuffPost. “I had no choice, but this mother is an adult and she is a mother and a mother is suppose to protect her daughter. Whether it was the daughter’s idea or not, someday this mother will regret this decision and the daughter will have such resentment that her mother agreed to her daughter’s request, that this appears to have long lasting damage.”

Depola insisted she is not judging them.

“I have no right to do that,” she said. “All I am saying is you can’t justify this behavior to anyone with half a brain. The mom has to stand up and face the truth: A mother does not have sex in the same bed that the daughter is in. Just plain and simple.”

Even though the Sexxxtons claim this is just business, New York-based therapist Silvia M. Dutchevici also believes there could be lasting damage.

“Psychologically, there will be scars for both women,” Dutchevici said. “One cannot perform sexual acts in front of one’s parent (or caretaker) without shame or guilt surfacing. Also, if there is a history of sexual abuse, these “scenes” will trigger some of the trauma.”

Porn actress and Huffington Post blogger Amber Peach has done her share of kinky sex scenes, but the Sexxxtons’ work is too much for her.

“I don’t care if they don’t touch each other or not, it’s got to be hurting something mentally. Some things are secret and most [adult] industry people understand that I think. This really has just left me speechless,” she told HuffPost by email. “I have a great relationship with my parents, and am very open with them, but shooting with them has and will never cross my mind.”

Incest has been called the universal taboo, but there are some sex experts who don’t believe the Sexxxtons are guilty of it — or that it is potentially damaging. 

Veronica Monet, a certified sexologist and anger management specialist, believes the Sexxxtons have handled their situation about as well as it can be.

“At first blush, it sounds like an incestuous enterprise but upon closer examination, I have to admit that both Monica and Jessica appear to enjoy a congenial, egalitarian and respectful relationship,” she told HuffPost. “I find their refusal to be shamed for their adult consensual choice, courageous and admirable. To their credit, they have maintained the sexual boundaries which would preclude this as being an overtly incestuous endeavor.”

Cora Emens, a Netherlands-based sex coach, said that their Jessica and Monica’s personal decisions are no one’s business, but that a mother and daughter sex scene is better in some ways than the typical girl-girl interaction.

“I’d rather see a mother and daughter interact in a sex scene than two women who are strangers and fighting for the attention of the camera,” she told HuffPost. “Whatever gets you off. Porn is all fantasy and let us all at least be free in our fantasy world. Whatever that world may be.”

Although the Sexxxtons’ story sparked controversy, research suggests that long-term porn success may not be in the cards, according to Nicole Prause, an assistant researcher at UCLA in the Department of Psychiatry who studies sexual arousal in response to porn.

“Research shows sexual acts between any parent and child leads most people to report feeling high levels of disgust, especially women, so the strong reaction to their films is unlikely to be seen as more acceptable over time,” she said. “Some researchers have suggested that erotic images online are so sexually compelling because of the novelty they provide. Since these type of interactions are so rare, and even rarely portrayed, I would expect many people who use erotic images on the internet to find them sexually arousing.”

For her part, Monica sees porn as an easy, fun way to make money, but she does have some fantasies she’d like to fulfill with her mom.

“We’ve never come across a father-son porn duo in real life,” she told HuffPost. “We tried to film a scene that was like that, but the guy they cast as the ‘Dad’ looked too much like the ‘Cockroach’ guy from that movie, ‘Men In Black’.”

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/07/the-sexxxtons-mother-daughter-porn-duo_n_2258245.html?utm_hp_ref=weird-news

Homosexuality may start in the womb

On By A.P.In Australian black swans, California gulls, Darwin, epigenetics, gay genes, homosexuality, Human Behavior, Marlene Zuk, Placenta, Relationship, Santa Barbara, Science, sexuality, sheep, testosterone, The Brain, The Quarterly Review of Biology, Twin Cities, William Rice, Y chromosomeLeave a comment

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From a strictly Darwinian viewpoint, homosexuality shouldn’t still be around. It isn’t the best way to pass along one’s genes, and to complicate the picture further, no “gay genes” have even been identified. According to a newly released hypothesis, the explanation may not lie in DNA itself. Instead, as an embryo develops, sex-related genes are turned on and off in response to fluctuating levels of hormones in the womb, produced by both mother and child. This tug of war benefits the unborn child, keeping male or female development on a steady course even amid spikes in hormones. But if these so-called epigenetic changes persist once the child is born and has children of its own, some of those offspring may be homosexual, the study proposes.

Evolutionary geneticist William Rice of the University of California, Santa Barbara, felt there had to be a reason why homosexuality didn’t just fade away down the generations. Research estimates that about 8% of the population is gay, and homosexuality is known to run in families. If one of a set of identical twins is gay, there’s a 20% probability that the other will be, too.

Furthermore, Rice notes, “homosexuality isn’t just a human thing.” Among California gulls, which he watches from his office window, about 14% of pairs are female-female. In Australian black swans, some 6% of pairs are male-male, and 8% of male sheep are attracted exclusively to male partners.

But many genetic screens have failed to turn up genes that are responsible for sexual orientation. So to find out what makes homosexuality persist, Rice and colleagues began a comprehensive survey of the literature.

According to conventional wisdom, an embryo becomes a boy when a gene on the Y chromosome triggers the development of testes, which then begin to produce male sex hormones, including testosterone, at about the 8th week of gestation. With no Y chromosome and hence no testosterone, the embryo becomes a girl.

But testosterone doesn’t explain everything, the researchers found. For one thing, female fetuses are exposed to small amounts of the hormone from their adrenal glands, the placenta, and the mother’s endocrine system. At many key points of gestation, male and female fetuses are often exposed to similar amounts of testosterone. Levels of the hormone can even be higher than normal in females and lower than normal in males without any effect on genital or brain structure.

Rice and his co-workers were more intrigued by studies showing that male and female fetuses respond differently to the hormones that surround them, even when one hormone is temporarily higher. In their study, published online today in The Quarterly Review of Biology, the authors propose that differences in sensitivity to sex hormones result from “epigenetic” changes. These are changes that affect not the structure of a gene but when, if, and how much of it is activated—by chemically altering a gene’s promoter region or “on” switch, for example. Epigenetic changes at key points in the pathway through which testosterone exerts its effects on the fetus could blunt or enhance the hormone’s activity as needed, the authors suggest.

Although epigenetic changes are usually temporary, they involve alterations in the proteins that bind together the long strands of DNA. Thus, they can sometimes be handed down to offspring. According to the hypothesis, homosexuality may be a carry-over from one’s parents’ own prenatal resistance to the hormones of the opposite sex. The “epi-marks” that adjusted parental genes to resist excess testosterone, for example, may alter gene activation in areas of the child’s brain involved in sexual attraction and preference. “These epigenetic changes protect mom and dad during their own early development,” Rice says. The initial benefit to the parents may explain why the trait of homosexuality persists throughout evolution, he says.

“The authors have done a terrific job providing a mechanism for genetic variation, especially a variation that might not be expected to persist because it’s so tightly bound to reproduction,” says evolutionary biologist Marlene Zuk of the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. But she adds that to go from changes in gene expression to why someone is attracted to a person of the same sex is a question for which science may never fill in all the blanks.

http://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/12/homosexuality-may-start-in-the-w.html?ref=hp