Scanner : sexual revolution

Iranian Kids Like Sex Too

Scanner Matt — Mon, 29 Dec 2008 20:10:00 GMT

Iran’s Islamic legal code outlaws premarital sex, sex outside of marriage and abortion (sound familiar? we’re not even going to bring up gay sex here), but the law is no match for a young person’s quest to get it on.

A recent survey reports the number of sexually active unwed Iranians is on the rise “… more than one in four men aged 19 to 29 had experienced sex before marriage”

The survey also revealed that the average marrying age had risen to 40 for men and 35 for women, a blow to the government's goal of promoting marriage to shore up society's Islamic foundations.

So why the increase in sexual activity and the feet-dragging to married life?

Many blame economic circumstances for their failure to marry, citing high inflation, unemployment and a housing shortage along with cultural traditions that expect brides' families to provide dowries and husbands to commit themselves to mehrieh, an agreed cash gift.

How do you say, “make love not war” in Persian?

Hojatoleslam Ghasem Ebrahimipour, a sociologist, told Shabestan news agency that the trend was due to the availability of premarital sex, and feminism among educated women. "When a woman is educated and has an income, she does not want to accept masculine domination through marriage," he said.

The Guardian has the full story.

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Study: Strawberries 'Splain Sex

Emily Farris — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 21:22:00 GMT

(Sorry, we just love alliteration.)

Anyway, unless you're our mom, or Sarah Palin, you might not argue with the statement that we all came from hermaphrodites. But for years, biologists have tried to figure out why and how the separate male and female sexes evolved.

Now a fruit we already associate with sex may hold the answer.

[R]esearch on wild strawberry plants is providing evidence for such a transition and the emergence of sex, at least in plants. And the results... likely apply to animals like us, the researchers say.

The study showed that two genes located at different spots on a chromosome can cast strawberry offspring as a single sex, a hermaphrodite or a neuter (neither male nor female, and essentially sterile). The researchers suspect the two genes could be responsible for one of the earliest stages of the transition from asexual to sexual beings.

"All of the animals and plants that are bi-sexual, or have two sexes, are theorized to have evolved according to a particular set of steps," said researcher Kim Lewers, a plant geneticist at the USDA's Genetic Improvement of Fruits and Vegetables Lab in Maryland. "Until now, no example had been found of the very earliest steps. Therefore, those steps were undemonstrated to be true."

...

Flowering plants (plants equipped with reproductive organs) weren't around until about 140 million to 180 million years ago. "Within flowering plants, separate sexes is thought to have evolved from hermaphroditism independently and repeatedly among lineages," said researcher Rachel Spigler, a postdoctoral student at the University of Pittsburgh, "so there is no one specific date for the evolution of sex chromosomes in plants."

Lewers, Spigler and their colleagues spotted the genetic mutation in a wild strawberry species, Fragaria virginiana, in which the evolution of separate sexes is not complete. So in addition to male and female strawberry plants, there are also some hermaphrodites and neutered individuals.

Through lab work, including genetic mapping, the researchers figured out how the wacky mix of sexes, or no-sexes, worked.

The plants each have two proto-sex chromosomes. Two spots on each proto-sex chromosome contain sex-determining genes, one that controls sterility and fertility in males and another that does the same in females.

Offspring that inherit both fertility versions are hemaphrodites and can self-breed, while plants that inherit one fertility and one sterility version become either male or female. (A female would result from a sterile male and fertile female combination of genes.) Those that get both sterility versions of the genes are considered neuters and can't reproduce, so they ultimately die out.

While the two sex-determining genes are close to one another on the proto-sex chromosomes, the researchers say they are not completely linked. That's why the strawberry offspring can get such a wild mix of the genes.

On our sex chromosomes, for instance, this mixing and matching is not possible (or at least very rare), because the female chromosome is one unit and so is the male sex chromosome.

Any science geeks out there want to put this in layman's terms for us?

[Live Science: Origin of Sex Pinned Down]

Related:

Women Lead the "Sexual Revolution" in Argentina, Men Have a Hard Time Dealing

Emily Farris — Tue, 08 Jan 2008 18:06:00 GMT

Women are leading the sexual revolution, and just about everything else, in Argentina:

"Twenty years ago sex was sort of silenced. We were coming out of a dictatorship that would censor radio or TV programs that had to do with sex," says Alcira Camilucci, a psychologist and sexologist.

"In the early 2000s, we started noticing a turning point," she said. "Today women are reaching out to find out more about sex and pleasure and they are owning their sexuality."

But are the men having a hard time handling it?

"Women are much more active than 30 years ago. That new social dynamic also applies to sex," said Sapetti, a psychiatrist. "I see it every day in my practice. I have more and more male patients. They come to see me because they are struggling with this new woman."

Wah. Well, hey, at least they're talking it out.

Chicago Tribune: Women lead sex revolution in Argentina (Note: The Tribune left their editor's notes in the bottom of the article).

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