vibrators

Links, links, links!

• Salon explores the implications of the fate of the Wonder Woman show described in Jennifer K. Stuller's podcast. (Spoiler alert: It's not going to air.)
• Muslimah Media Watch writes of Arab women and democracy.
• ColorLines speaks of CNN anchor Don Lemon's coming-out (good for him!) and their hopes that analysis of the intersection of racism and homophobia will go further.
• In the gross-but-perhaps-unsurprising file: ColorLines also discusses Ron Paul's stance against the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Meanwhile, Mother Jones compiles his "15 Most Extreme Positions."
• In better news, Truth Wins Out founder Wayne Besen provides numbers indicating increasing support for QUILTBAG rights, even in conservative circles, for HuffPo.
• Liz of Our Turn proposes a Bechdel Test for politics.
• On AlterNet, Bitch contributor Brittany Shoot interviews Will Potter on his new book about the law's disproportionate punishments for environmental activists like himself.
• TransGriot shares author Janet Mock's "It Gets Better" video.
• Bitch contributor s.e. smith unpacks the victim-blaming media surrounding the leader of the International Monetary Fund's arrest for sexual assault on Tiger Beatdown.
• The divine Kate Harding blogs about this same IMF coverage, the media surrounding Schwarzenegger, and what it all implies about the USA's troubling confusion between consensual affairs and assault. (via AlterNet)
• AfterEllen relates Tegan and Sara member Sara Quin's response to rapper Tyler the Creator's misogyny and homophobia.
• Ms. speculates on why vibrators still aren't mainstream.
• Are you in NYC? Mark your calendar for next weekend's release party for Original Plumbing's Green Issue!

Et tu?

Those of you who have cable may have seen a new product advertised recently: the Trojan Tri-Phoria. Now, TV ads for vibrators aren't exactly headline news (in fact, we ran a charticle on vibrator commercials in our Buzz issue last year), but this new sex toy ad is airing during cable primetime shows like The Daily Show, and some networks (VH1, Spike) are running it during the day as well. Sex toy ads! In the daytime! What do we make of this? Let's watch the ad and find out:

Well it's about damn time! Though physicians and therapists (not just Dan Savage, we're talking mainstream doctors) have been known for decades that vibrator use can be great for sexual health, there's never been a scientific study to back up the common knowledge. Until now!

Trojan funded a national research project to determine the extent and impact of vibrator use and la-di-da, look what they found: not only do a majority of American women use vibrators, they're happier for it!

According to the surveys of 2,056 women and 1,047 men ages 18-60, a whopping 53 percent of women (and 45 percent of men) say they use a vibrator - a quarter of those in the last month. Women who use vibrators were more likely to say they were sexually happy and more likely to get gynecological exams.