A new nationwide study (pdf) of anonymised credit-card receipts from a major online adult entertainment provider finds little variation in consumption between states.

“When it comes to adult entertainment, it seems people are more the same than different,” says Benjamin Edelman at Harvard Business School.

However, there are some trends to be seen in the data. Those states that do consume the most porn tend to be more conservative and religious than states with lower levels of consumption, the study finds.

“Some of the people who are most outraged turn out to be consumers of the very things they claimed to be outraged by,” Edelman says.

Political divide

Edelman spends part of his time helping companies such as Microsoft and AOL detect advertising fraud. Another consulting client runs dozens of adult websites, though he says he is not at liberty to identify the firm.

That company did, however, provide Edelman with roughly two years of credit card data from 2006 to 2008 that included a purchase date and each customer’s postal code.

After controlling for differences in broadband internet access between states – online porn tends to be a bandwidth hog – and adjusting for population, he found a relatively small difference between states with the most adult purchases and those with the fewest.

The biggest consumer, Utah, averaged 5.47 adult content subscriptions per 1000 home broadband users; Montana bought the least with 1.92 per 1000. “The differences here are not so stark,” Edelman says.

Number 10 on the list was West Virginia at 2.94 subscriptions per 1000, while number 41, Michigan, averaged 2.32.

Eight of the top 10 pornography consuming states gave their electoral votes to John McCain in last year’s presidential election – Florida and Hawaii were the exceptions. While six out of the lowest 10 favoured Barack Obama.

Old-fashioned values

Church-goers bought less online porn on Sundays – a 1% increase in a postal code’s religious attendance was associated with a 0.1% drop in subscriptions that day. However, expenditures on other days of the week brought them in line with the rest of the country, Edelman finds.

Residents of 27 states that passed laws banning gay marriages boasted 11% more porn subscribers than states that don’t explicitly restrict gay marriage.

To get a better handle on other associations between social attitudes and pornography consumption, Edelman melded his data with a previous study on public attitudes toward religion.

States where a majority of residents agreed with the statement “I have old-fashioned values about family and marriage,” bought 3.6 more subscriptions per thousand people than states where a majority disagreed. A similar difference emerged for the statement “AIDS might be God’s punishment for immoral sexual behaviour.”

“One natural hypothesis is something like repression: if you’re told you can’t have this, then you want it more,” Edelman says.

Courtesy New Scientist

Sure.. it's okay when Polar Bears do it in public...

Apparently, the scene is a rare occurrence because bears only mate once a year—and have one-hour orgasms, or so I am told. Which makes me wonder: Would I like to have a one-hour orgasm once a year or one hour of orgasms across a year? Hmmm.

I really don’t need this kind of thinking in the morning. [Thanks Madonna]

Update: Bad news, people: Bears don’t have one-hour orgasms. According to San Diego’s Zoo:

In short, polar bears do not have hour long orgasms. We actually know very little about their mating habits but are learning a lot from Kaluk (the male) and Chinook (the female) at the San Diego Zoo.

Here’s what we do know:

The female polar bears at our Zoo are in estrous between February and July. The San Diego Zoo has trained Chinook to allow us to get vaginal swabs that allow us to test for the cellular changes that occur when the polar bear is in estrous. However, the time of year that a bear is in estrous can vary; our keepers have heard it is different for polar bears in other zoos.

Over the past few days we have seen Kaluk mounting Chinook but do not know if this has resulted in successful breeding. Keepers conducted a vaginal swab yesterday to send off to a lab for a “pregnancy test.” We’re hoping for the best but if it’s not positive, we expect that Kaluk and Chinook will continue to show signs of breeding until July.

Polar bears are critically endangered because of global warming. It has affected polar bears because as ice sheets melt, it prevents the bears from traveling in search of food.

Courtesy Gizmodo.com

The women had bet Sergey Tuganov $4,300 that he wouldn’t be able to follow through with the half-day sex marathon, according to the London Sun .

Tuganov apparently won the bet, but minutes later he died of a heart attack, Moscow police said.

“We called emergency services but it was too late, there was nothing they could do,” one of the women said.

Cardiac arrest is just one of the many warnings associated with the use of Viagra, according to HealthCentral.com.

Courtesy My Fox: Televsion, United States

It's Mmmm Mmmm Good?

The bill was originally introduced last year after the arrest of Alan Patton, a man who has been accused repeatedly of trying to collect young boys’ urine from public restrooms.

According to police, Patton shut off water to the urinals at Sports Ohio and placed cups inside to collect urine. During another arrest in 2006, Patton told Gahanna police that he suffered from urophilia, a sexual fetish involving urine.

Last fall, Patton pleaded no contest to a charge of criminal mischief stemming from his arrest at Sports Ohio. He was subsequently sentenced to 60 days in jail, but defense attorneys appealed the sentence.

Under the proposal, a first-time offense would be a misdemeanor, and a second offense would result in a felony charge, 10TV News reported.

Rep. Jim Hughes said the law was about protecting children.

“The concern is this individual who went in…is basically preying upon kids,” Hughes said. “To me, the first thing we should be doing is making sure our kids are safe.”

Watch 10TV News and refresh 10TV.com for continuing coverage.

Courtesy 10TV.com: Television, United States

Naked Circus related news:
Man With Urine Fetish Pleads No Contest
Man With Urine Fetish Ordered to House Arrest

“I won't do that for candy, mister.”

She sat in class during the week and worked for an escort agency at weekends, meeting men for sex in hotels. She claimed to be 18.

Her shocking double life was uncovered when a teacher found condoms in her school bag. Cops were called and officers took the girl home.

They searched the house she shared with her mum and stepdad and discovered £8,060 hidden in the loft. Police at first suspected the parents were acting as her pimps and arrested them both. But it was later established that the girl was acting independently and the couple were released without charge.

The teenager was not arrested. Cops said she had been “treated as a victim throughout”.

Her plight emerged at a Proceeds of Crime hearing at South Tyneside Magistrates’ Court. The cash found at her house in South Tyneside was forfeited after JPs ruled it was obtained through crime.
Desperate

Asa Anderson, for Northumbria Police, told the court: “The money was seized after police received a phone call from a school where a teacher found a pupil’s bag containing certain items.”

Officers said her earnings over two months were £14,000 — which would have netted a staggering £84,000 in a year if she had not been discovered.

The girl came to England with her mother around two years ago.

Shocked children’s groups last night said she now urgently needs help. Social services are working with the family. Michele Elliott, of children’s charity Kidscape, said: “I feel desperately sorry for this young girl.

“You do have to wonder what gave her the idea to sell herself — was it to get nice things, was it to get enough money to leave home or was it because she was abused herself as many prostitutes have been?

“It is absolutely shocking. As a parent you would think you would know your daughter was working as a prostitute, but clearly this girl was able to hide it from her parents.”

Wendy Shepherd, of Barnardo’s, said: “Child sexual exploitation is an issue for a number of towns and cities. It is not unusual young people are coerced and groomed into sexual exploitative relationships and don’t always understand fully what is happening.”

Courtesy of The Sun UK

You’re probably not going to believe this, but a 23-year-old Brisbane man was transferred to the hospital after injuring his penis in a meat grinder.

According to the Brisbane Times: A Department of Emergency Services spokeswoman could not identify the type of grinder that had injured the man or detail how he came in contact with the device. Although the extent of his injuries is not known, paramedics who treated the man at the scene were able to stem the bleeding.

Courtesy Post Chronicle

Kenneth Douglas

His sentence was almost as shocking: 18 months in prison.

Last year, through a fluke of legal developments and DNA testing, prosecutors discovered Douglas’ necrophilia. In September, Hamilton County Common Pleas Court Judge William Mallory Jr. sentenced Douglas, 55, to the maximum penalty allowed under the 1982 version of Ohio’s abuse of a corpse law.

The maximum penalty has since gotten even more lenient: 12 months in prison. That’s the same penalty for shoplifting items worth more than $500.

State Rep. Dale Mallory, D-Cincinnati, the judge’s brother, introduced House Bill 29 to increase the penalty for necrophilia to up to five years in prison.

The bill is getting support from prosecutors, including Dennis Watkins of Trumbull County.

“Most people I know would tell you that you don’t have sex with dead people. That’s worse than shoplifting,” Watkins said.

“I very much support Dale’s bill,” said Hamilton County Prosecutor Joe Deters. “This is off the charts shocking, these types of offenses.”

Deters declined to discuss reports by the Cincinnati Enquirer that his office is bringing more charges against Douglas for having sex with other corpses.

Courtesy Dayton Daily News

Dr Barry

Dr James Barry had been living in the household in London’s Cavendish Square where Sophia served following his return, due to ill health, from Canada two years earlier. The Edinburgh University graduate’s decline marked the end of a long and distinguished career for the eccentric, slightly-built medic, culminating in the rank of Senior Inspector General.

Yet Dr Barry’s lasting fame would not be for his groundbreaking medical achievements. As Sophia set to her task, she discovered to her astonishment that Dr Barry was, as she is said to have put it, “a perfect female”.

Bishop had uncovered in a moment’s work a lifelong deception which began in Barry’s teens when he disguised his true identity in order to gain entry to Edinburgh University’s medical department – decades before Elizabeth Garrett Anderson became Britain’s first, officially-recognised female doctor.

It was not the first time scandal had surrounded the doctor. On a posting to South Africa in 1824, a sign posted on a wall accused him of having a homosexual affair with the colony’s Governor, Lord Somerset. Few people can have guessed the truth. If there was an affair, it was clearly not homosexual.

Barry was certainly close to Somerset, describing him on one occasion as “my more than father, my almost only friend”. Sophia Bishop is also reported to have discovered stretchmarks on Barry’s body and to have been convinced the doctor had borne a child – if so, Somerset seems a likely candidate for father.

Perhaps aware of the gravity of the scandal she had uncovered, Sophia Bishop is reported to have kept her discovery secret until after the doctor’s funeral. With the body interred, there was no way to verify her claim, and speculation began.

Some said Dr Barry was a hermaphrodite, others that the maid was simply courting scandal. But for those who had known Barry, there was a ring of truth to the tale – the smooth chin, the small frame, the squeaky voice. It seemed possible that Sophia Bishop’s claims were not entirely fanciful, and Barry had successfully duped both Edinburgh University and the British Army for decades.

After so much speculation about Dr Barry’s true identity, the most convincing explanation came last year from Dr Michael du Preez in New Scientist magazine.

He suggests that Barry began life in Cork in 1789 as Margaret Bulkley, the niece of artist James Barry. She and her mother, Mary Ann, found themselves destitute after Margaret’s father Jeremy was jailed for debt, and the two set sail for London around 1804.

There they enlisted the help of two of James Barry’s influential friends, Dr Edward Fryer and the Venezuelan revolutionary, General Francisco Miranda. The group evolved an ambitious plan for Margaret which would enable her to fulfil her academic potential, and support herself and her mother.

Fryer tutored her and Miranda threw open his extensive library for Margaret’s studies, proposing that, if she concealed her identity for the duration of her medical training, Margaret could practice as a woman in Venezuela, after he had overseen revolution in the country.

Du Preez notes: “In the early 19th century only men were admitted to the medical schools in Britain, and discovery of the sex of the young medical student would have ruined any chance of success. The plan for Margaret’s education had now assumed the dimension of a conspiracy.”

In late November, 1809, mother and daughter set sail from Wapping to Leith, and before boarding, Margaret took on her new identity. To avoid suspicion on their arrival, she posed from the very beginning of the voyage as Mrs Bulkley’s nephew, James Barry, and wrote later to the family’s solicitor, Daniel Reardon: “…it was very usefull (sic] for Mrs. Bulkley (my aunt) to have a Gentleman to take care of her on Board Ship and to have one in a strange country”.

Barry was swiftly matriculated in Edinburgh and began to study anatomy, chemistry and natural philosophy under his new identity.

Following research into the Bulkley family archives, du Preez commissioned forensic handwriting analysis, which he says proves beyond doubt that letters written by Margaret and James before and after the change were of the same hand. What’s more, in December 1809, the medical student wrote to Reardon, signing the letter with his new name. The meticulous solicitor, however, recorded the sender of the letter on its envelope – “Miss Bulkley”.

Having evidently carried out his deception with enough panache that no-one had suspected his true identity, James Barry was one of 57 students to graduate from Edinburgh’s medical school in 1812.

However, the plan for him to depart for Venezuela and become Margaret once more had run into trouble. Just as Barry was taking his final exams, General Miranda was betrayed by Simon Bolivar and imprisoned by the Spanish.

Forced to reconsider his limited options, Barry applied for the British Army and was recruited into the medical service as a hospital assistant on July 5, 1813 – it is not known how he avoided the mandatory physical examination, but it has been speculated that family connections may have helped him to submit private letters vouching for his good health.

He worked first in Plymouth and in 1815 was promoted to be assistant staff surgeon. He was subsequently posted to the Cape of Good Hope.

It was in the Cape that many of the Doctor’s most notorious adventures and achievements occurred. He was the first British doctor to carry out a Caesarian in which both mother and baby survived. He recognised the dangers posed by disease spreading through dirty and overcrowded field hospitals, and campaigned to improve conditions.

Barry also led a colourful personal life, quite apart from the alleged affair with Lord Somerset. He is reported to have fought a duel in Cape Town, and to have been sent home under arrest on numerous occasions after run-ins with his Army superiors.

There were also subtle clues as to his hidden identity. In 1819, Lord Albermarle remarked that the doctor showed “a certain effeminacy in his manner”. Barry is reported to have worn three-inch soles on his shoes, and shoulder pads in his coat to increase his build.

After leaving South Africa, Barry continued to be posted around the world with the Army, until ill-health forced his retirement.

Barry must have known that the secret of a lifetime would be uncovered after his death, but, despite the wagging tongues, death was kind to the memory of the honourable doctor. He was buried in Kensal Rise cemetery in London, his gravestone bearing “his” name and rank for posterity.

Courtesy Edinburgh Evening News

An erection can last more than a lifetime

Researchers originally thought the tiny bones within the fossil were the remains of the fish’s final meal, but they decided to reexamine the 380-million-year-old fossil after discovering embryos in the fossilized remains of another species of ancient fish last year. A closer look revealed that the placoderm also had a bun in the oven, says lead researcher John Long. “We could see that the new specimens had the same bone structure as the previous embryos, were the same species as the adult, they did not have any broken or stomach-etched features (from digestive acids or from being chomped) and that they were at the same stage of growth as the previous embryos,” Long wrote in an email. “All of these facts proved they were embryos, not prey items” [LiveScience].

After discovering the embryo, researchers say their next step was to figure out the fish’s reproductive method. When Long’s team examined the pelvis of the male placoderm, they realized the pelvis had a fin not seen on the female fish, and surmised it was likely used to grip its mate during fertilization, much as sharks do.”These fish have an extra large bone that attaches to the pelvic bone,” [Long] said. “It had been overlooked and hadn’t been identified” [AP].

The study, published in Nature, goes into the intimate details of the fish’s anatomy, explaining that the male’s flexible “clasper” was inserted into the female to deposit sperm. Long says this seems to be “the beginning of erectile male fertilisation”{BBC}.

Courtesy Discover Magazine Blogs

Eat me

Ask any man and I’m sure they’ll tell you the only thing more mouth watering than hearty slabs of crispy bacon are a nice pair of breasts. A strange new piece of edible fashion that has entered the lingerie scene, known as the bacon bra, combines boobs and bacon to create the most succulent combination known to man; or so I’ve been told. This weird and wacky edible lingerie is manufactured completely from raw bacon and clearly doesn’t offer any actual support for those with well-endowed boobs.

There a tons of pictures of the weird edible fashion on the internet, but not much information on the origins of the bacon bra. I can only imagine that this strange fashion was thought up by a man with boobs and bacon on his mind; and while men may find it tempting to indulge in the edible lingerie, I wouldn’t recommend it because I don’t think it’s every man’s fantasy to get salmonella from his woman’s breasts.

Sexy or disgusting, you decide. But I see this bacon and boob edible lingerie fashion enraging PETA and feminists worldwide, although who knows, maybe this will be the next edible fashion to hit the runways.

Courtesy InventorSpot.com