Women have many reasons for engaging in sexual activity other than sexual hunger or drive, as the traditional model suggests.

Although many women may experience spontaneous desire and interest while in the throes of a new sexual relationship or after a long separation from a partner, most women in long-term relationships do not frequently think of sex or experience spontaneous hunger for sexual activity.

In these latter cases, a desire for increased emotional closeness and intimacy or overtures from a partner may predispose a woman to participate in sexual activity.

From this point of sexual neutrality—where a woman is receptive to being sexual but does not initiate sexual activity—the desire for intimacy prompts her to seek ways to become sexually aroused via conversation, music, reading or viewing erotic materials, or direct stimulation.   more »

Clinton is able to cast herself as an agent of change, even as her record and policies promise, above all, cautious continuity.

It’s a feat made possibly by the single fact that Clinton stands to be the first woman elected US president.

In a less sexist world, it’d be hard for Clinton to present herself as any sort of political insurgent.

Her husband is the country’s favorite living presidents, and her campaign coffers are bulging with establishment dollars.

In a sane world, this two-term senator from New York would be the ultimate insider.

The US media, however, can always be relied on to single out a woman for ‘outsider’ treatment, and Hillary Clinton is no exception.   more »

Patronising White Liberals Call Blacks African-Americans [Original]

As if a change of name ends white supremacy and exploitation of other races.

We examine one popular explanation for the persistence of racism--that all whites benefit from the oppression of all Blacks, and therefore enjoy a “white-skin privilege.”

The New York Times recently reported that in 2004, 72 percent of African American men in their 20s who had dropped out of high school were unemployed, compared to only 34 percent of white men and 19 percent of Latinos. Half of Black men in their 20s with high school diplomas were unemployed in 2004.

Decades after the civil rights movement, second-class citizenship, poverty and injustice are stark realities for millions of African Americans in this country.   more »

Most Americans think that our role as a world power began with World War II, the "good war," and then continued with the similarly noble Cold War.

We like to think that the United States acts in the world exclusively in the name of ideals such as freedom and democracy.

So it may come as a bit of a shock to learn that the United States has had an uninterrupted military presence in the Middle East for 65 years, dating to 1942.

Most Americans would also bristle at the idea that this presence, from the arrival of GIs in North Africa onward, has essentially become a continuation of nearly a century and a half of European military adventures in the region.   more »

Savaged by dogs, Electrocuted With Cattle Prods, Burned By Toxic Chemicals, Does such barbaric abuse inside U.S. jails explain the horrors that were committed in Iraq?

They are just some of the victims of wholesale torture taking place inside the U.S. prison system

It’s terrible to watch some of the videos and realise that you’re not only seeing torture in action but, in the most extreme cases, you are witnessing young men dying.

The prison guards stand over their captives with electric cattle prods, stun guns, and dogs. Many of the prisoners have been ordered to strip naked. The guards are yelling abuse at them, ordering them to lie on the ground and crawl. ‘Crawl, motherfuckerss, crawl.’   more »