This is beyond inappropriate:

"A 21-year-old Harris County woman filed a $200,000 lawsuit against American Airlines alleging employees on a flight to Los Angeles from Dallas/Fort Worth Airport failed to protect her while she slept from another passenger who masturbated to her and ejaculated in her hair, according to a lawsuit she filed last week in Tarrant County." (read the full article here)

How traumatizing for the young woman. We are all so vulnerable when we are asleep and it was terrible of that man to take advantage of her. That said, I’m not quite sure what others could have necessarily done to "protect her" while she slept. There are many passengers on most planes and few flight attendants - they can’t possibly memorize who is sitting where and thus who has changed seats. It is likely that this man was not masturbating to be seen by others, but was masturbating for his own internal pleasure - and thus likely concealing it well from everyone around him (including the flight attendants).

A few years ago I was on a flight with someone, and we noticed that the college-aged guy sitting in our row was almost certainly masturbating (yes, to completion) during an in-flight movie. I know another man who has admittedly masturbated on a plane (while a female passenger watched; something the two of them decided to do on their long flight, even though they had just met on the flight). Has anyone else ever noticed or suspected similar behavior? If so, what did you do in response, if anything?

Thanks to reader M. and to reader J. for the heads up on this article.

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One of the nice things about anonymous Q&A columns is that they are anonymous. Women and men who have questions about their sex life send me emails to various email accounts, or else they write me letters. A few have even called (really, though, no need to Google my office # - I rarely pick up). Apparently the fact that such columns are anonymous has made, at least in one instance, an easy and unfair target out of one woman:

Case in point:

Some time ago I received a letter for my weekly Time Out Chicago column from a woman who was upset about a blog post written by her then-boyfriend. Given how common this issue is nowadays (thanks to MySpace blogs, Facebook "notes", and Blogger and WordPress blogs), I thought it made sense to print and respond to the letter (you can read the column here). Then yesterday, as I was preparing to leave Puerto Rico (sad!!!), I see a comment from reader Ed (and a few emails from others) letting me know that Gawker implied the letter was from a contributing writer for Time Out New York, a woman by the name of Julia Allison. In the Gawker comments, she says that she did not write the letter. 

Frankly, it doesn’t matter to me who wrote the letter and I hope it doesn’t matter to you: even if the details of the letter-writer’s life and this woman’s life are similar, it does not mean that she wrote it. Blogs, orgasm issues, relationship problems, mis-communication and break-ups are all common - even in combination.  

Case closed. Let’s move on.

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In yet another example of someone using their status or job to pressure people who have less power to have sex with them, a male US foreign service officer - according to the Associated Press - pressured female visa applicants in Brazil and in the Congo to have sex with him and to tape him having sex with other women and girls (possibly as young as age 15). Read the full AP article by Matthew Barakat here.

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Even bad press is good press, but still - why are vulva puppets "unpalatable"? I believe that learning about sexual health is important and that vulvas and penises (even in puppet form) are definitely "palatable." People learn in different ways and sometimes using fun props are a good way to teach people about their health.

Read the full article by Joanne Weintraub of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and the mention about my puppet-bearing appearance, on this web site.

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Interesting quote about the sex worker strike in Cameroon:

"We have therefore decided to remain indoors until the population, especially the men in uniform who frequent us most, see the need to respect and protect prostitutes", Mother Suzy said, adding that prostitution is an ordinary profession, like others, with the quest for money at the core."

The article describes the situation that prompted the sex worker strike in which many sex workers were beaten quite badly "and everyone, including regular customers, abandoned them" - which may bring on bad sex karma. Don’t you think people should take care of their sex partners (paid or unpaid)? Where is the love?

Read the full article here.

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