Lookie Loos

So much for "No sex, please." Looks like Britain has gone completely out of its knickers.

    
Oh, sure, we joked about it a couple weeks ago, when a pair of English couples was caught coupling in public, the first duo on the home stretch at Royal Ascot and the second under the stands at Wimbledon. But with a third such report of particularly public sex in the Mother Country, it would appear that the famed British reserve is going the way of, well, the British Empire. According to a Reuters report, a pair of twentysomething patrons at the venerable British Library were discovered, uh, cramming in the men's room near the rare books section. Apparently, the couple gave themselves away when a nearby reader heard "strange noises" coming from the toilets, and another patron reported having seen a woman enter the men's room. "By the time staff were scrambled," said a library spokeswoman, "the couple were already in the throes of an exchange about philosophical matters, judging by the cries emanating from the cubicle." The spokeswoman didn't divulge the names of the book lovers, who were summarily escorted from the building, but did speculate on what might have aroused such passion. "I'm sure there's lots of literature there that could have got them excited. We have plenty of sex in the library," said the spokeswoman, "but I'm afraid it's all in books."

How Do They Test the Boys?

All Osman Durmas is asking for is a few virgin nurses. Really now, is that so wrong?

Well, yeah, sort of. Because unfortunately, Durmas is not a med-student fetishist on the prowl, nor is he the casting director for some adult film company. What he is is the director of Turkey's health ministry, and his new proposal has that country's nursing teachers in an uproar.

According to the Associated Press, Durmas announced plans this week to require high school nursing students to refrain from premarital sex or face expulsion. Durmas, a member of Turkey's far-right Nationalist Action Party, said that gynecological "virginity tests" would be administered on students suspected of "having had sex or engaging in prostitution" — never mind the fact that such exams were banned in 1999 after five girls took rat poison rather than submit to one. The announcement was, predictably, met with disbelief on the part of Turkish nurses and the Turkish Union of Science and Culture Workers (TUSCW), which represents teachers. "We will fight this to the end," said Buyan Dogan, the head of the Association of Turkish Nurses, during a heated meeting with Durmas. The health minister was apparently unbowed by Dogan's pronouncement though, accusing the nursing group of promoting underage sex. "Should our schools become places for prostitution?" asked Durmas, according to the Islamic-oriented newspaper Akit. (We won't speculate as to whose side Akit is on, but a front-page headline did call Durmus's plan "A lesson for the immoral evil person," a reference to Dogan.) Alaadin Dincer, head of the TUSCW, has called for Durmus's dismissal.

Also: No Dessert Until 2005

Hand it to Daniel arap Moi. The man has cojones.

Moi, for those who don't know, is the president of Kenya, and he's struck upon a novel stopgap for that nation's devastating battle with AIDS: Just Say No. As in, no sex, at all, until, oh, 2003. According to a Reuters report, Moi gave a speech last week in front of a meeting of the Pharmaceutical Society of Kenya in which he announced that the Kenyan government planned to import 300 million condoms to help promote safe sex. However, in a nod to that country's influential Catholic leaders (and in plea that was obviously not focus-grouped ahead of time), Moi also urged his countrymen to not actually use the condoms, instead refraining from sex entirely "even for only two years" (emphasis ours). Not that Moi's is a bad idea, politically dicey though it may be. With more than two million people in a nation of thirty million infected with HIV, Kenya is in dire straits, especially given the low esteem in which many Kenyans hold safe sex. "It's like eating a sweet with a wrapper," said taxi driver James Karijoki. "You cannot do that. You have to have sex, those who will die will die, and whoever does not get AIDS, then good for him."

Quotes of the Week

"He's romantic. Like when all of us have surgeries done, he sends flowers and nice cards."