Add to Technorati Favorites

Get Our Feed

Add to Technorati Favorites

Search

Pages

affiliate_link

Rent A Date

February 26th, 2010 by GiGi

Wouldn’t it be nice to have someone at your beck and call just about anytime you’d like? If you’re looking for someone to take you to the movies, or a romantic dinner then you will love the recently popular South Korean trend of adopting a “Pet Boy”.

The idea came from a Japanese anime story that was popular about 5 years ago. It was about a business woman who always had bad luck in relationships. One day, she decided to take home a young man off the street to live with her as her pet.

Pet boys are real guys that put themselves up for “adoption” by South Korean women. A local Korean TV show announced they were accepting Pet Boy applications and around 2,200 people applied.

You can expect this new craze to spread throughout Asia in the near future.

Technorati Tags: , , , ,

Posted in Asia, Korea, Love Bytes, Odd Tidbits, Relationships

Infidelity Around The World

February 16th, 2010 by GiGi

An interesting article by Pamela Drukerman caught my eye. I thought you’d be interested in the stats on cheating around the world.

Infidelity is universal. But which country boasts the most cheaters?

The morning after François Mitterrand’s funeral, a photo showed the late president’s mistress and illegitimate daughter standing by his grave alongside his wife and sons. That tableau has become famous internationally as proof that the French are uniquely tolerant of extramarital affairs.

Infidelity Across The Globe

In fact, although French presidents seem to have an infidelity record approaching 100 per cent, ordinary Frenchmen claim to be quite faithful. In a 2004 national survey, just 3.8 per cent of married men and 2 per cent of women said they had had more than one sex partner in the past year (the best approximation of infidelity) — fewer than in similar surveys in the United States and the United Kingdom.

If France isn’t the world capital of adultery, which country is?

Global sex research is patchy and incomplete. Even serious researchers can’t even agree on what to call infidelity. Nigeria prefer the term “sexual networking.” Finland use the morally neutral term “parallel relationships.” A French team uses an expression perhaps better suited for an accounting course: “simultaneous multi-partnerships.”

Then there’s the tricky matter of what constitutes cheating. A poll in one South African magazine had separate categories for men who cheat, and men who cheat “while drunk.”

One American survey defined sex as “either vaginal or anal intercourse,” while another decided that sex is a “mutually voluntary activity with another person that involves genital contact and sexual excitement or arousal, that is, feeling really turned on, even if intercourse or orgasm did not occur.” Americans haven’t yet tried to count their so-called “emotional affairs,” in which the “cheaters” might never meet.

Many countries simply have no reliable sex statistics. National surveys are expensive, and many governments are either too prudish or too poor to help pay for them (private funding is seldom sufficient). America’s first representative national survey only got off the ground in the 1990s, after conservative members of Congress spent years trying to block it. Hints of Japan’s infidelity levels come only from the enormous size of the country’s paid-sex industry, which is famously frequented by married businessmen. A legal loophole permits a man and a woman to strike a private agreement for sex. Understandably, the state would rather not be confronted with the details.

Love Between The Sheets May Be Better With A Lover
In Russia, just talking about sex research can be hazardous. Soviet governments barely permitted any public discussion of sex, let alone a survey that might embarrass the government by showing that Russians were engaging in banned activities like extramarital affairs. And though the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Russia’s Orthodox church keeps the current government from funding practically anything related to sex.

Muslim countries tend to be even stricter about sex research. It’s impossible to know how much cheating goes on in places like Iran, where convicted adulterers can be stoned to death. But again there are facts — or at least impressions — on the ground. In Indonesia, the middle-class women and men said that adultery is absolutely wrong because the Koran forbids it. Then they revealed that many of their married friends, and sometimes they themselves, had lovers.

Research doesn’t find any evidence that religious people are particularly faithful. Surprisingly it was found that money shapes the rules of infidelity. Men in rich countries are generally much more faithful than their counterparts in poor ones. That’s in part because first-world cheaters tend to be punished more severely.

In America, a single affair can mean losing your marriage, your assets, your status and your self respect. Just 3.9 percent of married American men said they’d had more than one partner in the last year, according to the 2004 General Social Survey carried out by the National Opinion Research Center. Even in wealthy countries where the taboo on cheating is weaker than in the U.S. — Australia, Switzerland and Italy, for instance — husbands claim to be quite faithful too.

Among women, it’s just the opposite. Women in poor countries say they cheat infrequently, perhaps because they have less financial and social clout than their husbands. But in wealthier countries, where the status of men and women is more equal, levels of male and female infidelity — while still quite low — are fairly equal too.

While it’s impossible to get an exact measure of infidelity, there are some clues about where the most cheating goes on. Beginning in the 1990s, researchers tracking the spread of HIV began extensively mapping sexual behavior in sub-Saharan Africa. Their findings were astonishing: in the tiny West African nation of Togo, with a population of less than six million, 37 percent of married or cohabiting men said they’ve had more than one sex partner in the last year (the figure includes polygamists). Trailing just behind the Togolese were men in Cameroon, the Ivory Coast, Mozambique and Tanzania.

And so the dubious title of world infidelity capital goes to a region: sub-Saharan Africa. And with ordinary citizens cheating at such astonishing levels, one can only imagine what African politicians are up to. Surely they put even French presidents to shame.

Pamela Druckerman is a former staff reporter for theWall Street Journal. She has a master’s degree in international affairs from Columbia University and has reported from São Paulo, Buenos Aires, Jerusalem, Paris, and New York. She lives in Paris. She is the author of Lust in Translation: Infidelity from Tokyo to Tennessee (Penguin Books).

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted in Africa, Articles, Asia, Australia/New Zealand, Canada, Eastern Europe, Europe, Korea, Latin America, Middle East, Netherlands, Philippines, Relationships, Russia, Scandinavia, South America, Spain, Thailand, USA, Uncategorized, United Kingdom

Cougar Convention For Australian Cubs

February 10th, 2010 by GiGi

A Hot Kiss At A Cougar Convention
The cougars are on the prowl in Australia this February. Relationship guru Rich Gosse is holding threecougar conventions in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne looking for regional Miss Cougars. The final event will move to the Sunshine Coast in June to name Miss Cougar Australia 2010.

The Sydney cougar convention is being held at Burwood RSL on February 12th at 7:30 pm, and is coinciding with the premiere of the television show Cougar Town starring Courteney Cox

Find Yourself A Cougar!!!

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Posted in Australia/New Zealand, Odd Tidbits

Relationships With Your Local Police

January 28th, 2010 by GiGi

Though this online dating site is devoted to relationships between men and women, I just couldn’t resist this very funny video from comedian Chris Rock.  I guess this is still about relationships – but between you and your local police……

Technorati Tags: , , , ,

Posted in Funny Bone, Videos

Latin Actors Models Strut For Globe

January 28th, 2010 by GiGi

Contaminated water was the theme for Carla Peterson
Carla Peterson - Contaminated Water

In a new calendar for 2010, gorgeous Latin actors and Latin models are featured in shocking poses sending home eco messages.

The Latin celebrities are hoping their contribution to the calendar will build environmental awareness.

A collaboration between the Azara Foundation and fashion photographer Gaby Herbstein, the calendar, ‘Huella Ecológica‘ (Ecological Footprint) showcases 12 famous Latin stars representing some of the most important environmental issues of our time.

Ricardo Darin, Alessandra Rampolla, Luciana Salazar, Ronnie Arias, Carla Peterson, Gonzalo Valenzuela and Dante Spinetta, were some of the artists representing global warming, water pollution and air pollution, loss of forests and the advance of deserts, overfishing, the rise of the oceans, species extinction, excesive consumption, diseases and depletion of drinking water.

Ricardo Darin - Polluted Air
The calendar and the campaign’s T-shirts can purchased through the website www.vitnik.com and all the money rised will be destined to the work of the foundation.

Marcelo Zlotogwiazda -Floodings

Technorati Tags: , , , , , Azara Foundation, Gaby Herbstein, , , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted in Going Green, Latin America, South America

Pay Taxes On Stolen Money Only In Canada

January 22nd, 2010 by GiGi

Only in Canada would you be required by the Canadian Federal Government to cough up taxes on ill gotten gains.

It seems a RCMP clerk who managed a to steal more than $170,000 during a 19 month spree is now required to pay $21,422 back taxes on the stolen funds. [tag]Revenue Canada[tag] doesn’t give a damn if your earning are legal or not – they want their cut.

Technorati Tags: , ,

Posted in Canada

Superheroes Arrive For Vancouver Olympics

January 17th, 2010 by GiGi

Look up in the sky. It’s a bird, it’s a plane. No, it’s — Captain Condom.

The safe sex superhero and several other caped crusaders will hit the streets of Vancouver next month, when the city hosts the world for the 2010 Olympics.

Behind the marching bands, clowns, condoms on stilts and general three-ring circus is a serious message about harm reduction during the Olympic fun.

A group of local, national and international harm-reduction organizations, dubbed SafeGames 2010, plan to hand out more than 250,000 “SafeKits†when the Olympic Games start next month in Vancouver.

The program, which has the blessing and $20,000 in funding from the City of Vancouver, is modelled after the Salt Lake City’s Safe Games 2002, where volunteers provided support to those visiting Salt Lake City during that city’s Winter Olympics.

Those handing out the safe sex loot will be dressed as “superheroes.†More than 200 outreach workers will distribute condoms, lube, lip balm, hand heaters, glow sticks, and other safety-related stuff at high-traffic intersections, special events and outside bars and hotels.

They also plan to distribute information about responsible drinking and drug consumption, public transportation schedules, and contacts for local support groups.

Technorati Tags: , , , , ,

Posted in Canada, Relationships

Does China Own Canada Too

January 8th, 2010 by GiGi

Canadian Tar Sands
A huge Chinese tar sands investment has been formally approved by the Canadian Federal government. Canada and China have signed a deal that will see PetroChina, the market arm of the state-owned China National Petroleum Corp., investing $1.7 billion in two Canadian tar sands deposits in Alberta.. It’s up to Chinese engineers and managers, now, to make the oil extraction and distribution cost-efficient enough to get the desired financial returns.

Their plan is probably to pump Tar Sands oil over the Rockies, either directly across western Canada, or by routing south and then west toward American ports. You can count your Chinese cookies that the owners and managers of this Chinese project will be doing only the bare minimum for pollution control in Canada.

For Americans, this eliminates the once-comforting notion that they could solidly depend on their ‘friendly neighbor to the north’ (that’s us) to keep the cheap oil flowing to us. Wake up world as now China will get dibs in the event a global oil shortage or a North American oil price dip, relative to the global average. And to add to this, the privileged access to Canada’s massive oil and gas reserves by the US could be disrupted if Washington cancels the NAFTA accord.

The Alberta Tar Sands project has been dubbed by some as the most destructive project on Earth – scarring it visibly from space – there’s no doubt that the tar sands extraction industry has a huge environmental footprint, which even President Obama could not help but acknowledge during his visit to Ottawa early last year.

Did you know?

  • Oil sands mining is licensed to use twice the amount of fresh water that the entire city of Calgary uses in a year.
  • At least 90% of the fresh water used in the oil sands ends up in ends up in tailing ponds so toxic that propane cannons are used to keep ducks from landing.
  • Processing the oil sands uses enough natural gas in a day to heat 3 million homes.
  • The toxic tailing ponds are considered one of the largest human-made structures in the world. -The ponds span 50 square kilometers and can be seen from space.
  • Producing a barrel of oil from the oil sands produces three times more greenhouse gas emissions than a barrel of conventional oil.

I’ll try to remember all this the next time I leave one of my three cars running in the driveway to warm up!

Technorati Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Posted in Asia, Canada, Did You Know?, Going Green, USA

Muslim Marriage In Saudi In Turmoil Over Child Marriages

September 12th, 2009 by GiGi

Saudi Arabia in conflict over child marriagesIt’s a well know fact that Saudi human rights groups have been pushing the government to put an end to marriages involving the very young and to define a minimum age for a Muslim marriage. In the past few months, Saudi newspapers have highlighted several cases in which young girls were married off to much older men or very young boys.

The government-run Human Rights Commission has condemned marriages of minor girls, saying such marriages are an “inhumane violation” and rob children of their rights.

In a recent case, an 8 year old girl was divorced from your 50+ year old husband. The girl’s marriage was arranged by her father and backed twice by a judge on the condition that it was not consummated until she reached puberty.

The case was widely publicized and prompted heated debate in the Saudi Arabia, which is currently giving more rights to women than have previously been granted. It was also condemned by human rights groups abroad.

King Abdullah, seen as a reformist, appointed the first ever woman deputy minister earlier this year.

One of his advisers, Mohsen al-Obaikan, an Islamic scholar, went public to demand that a legal age for marriage be set at 18. The justice ministry said it was considering reforming the law, which until now has given no minimum.

The justice minister said he wanted to end the “arbitrary” control of marriages by girl’s fathers.divorces are granted in child marriage cases in Saudi

However, the country’s highest religious authority, the Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz al-Shaikh, said that marrying girls even under the age of 15 was not against Sharia – Islamic law which forms the basis of the Saudi legal system.

The Saudi Gazette reported that the marriage of the eight-year-old, who has never been named, was annulled in a private out-of-court settlement between the two families in the city of Onaiza.

There are no statistics to show how many marriages involving children are performed in Saudi Arabia every year. And it’s also not clear whether these unions are on the rise or whether people are hearing about them more now because of the prevalence of media outlets and easy access to the internet.

Activists say the girls are given away in return for hefty dowries or as a result of long-standing custom in which a father promises his infant daughters and sons to cousins out of a belief that marriage will protect them from illicit relationships.

Popular attitudes also play a role in the acceptance of child marriage, according to women’s rights activist Wajiha Al Huweidar, who has called for banning child marriage.

People often refer to girls being in their “full moon age†when they are 14 and 15, meaning they are then most physically desirable. Poets “are always talking about a girl at that age of the ‘full moon,’†Al Huweidar said, adding that “deep inside, both men and women, believe this is the best age to be married.â€

Such attitudes are reinforced by the “myth†among elderly men that when they “get married to a very young girl they will get their youth back,†she added.

But perhaps more importantly, many people “think they are following the Prophet’s footsteps†because Muhammad is said to have married a 9-year-old girl named Ayesha, Al Huweidar said. “That’s why it’s hard to change.â€

Actually, child marriage violates Islamic law, or shari’a, on two counts, critics of the practice say. First, a marriage contract is only valid if husband and wife voluntarily consent, which a minor is unable to do. Secondly, the dowry paid by a husband is the property of the wife, not her father, who would control it in the case of a minor.

Technorati Tags: , , , ,

IDS Tags: , , ,

Posted in Articles, Middle East, Muslim, Outraged

Whos The Turkey

September 7th, 2009 by GiGi

Turkey bans music videoTurkey, a secular Muslim country has turned out to be the real turkey as they have banned Justin Timberlake’s new music video, Love Sex Magic due to it’s sexually explicit content.

The pop sensations’ video features a scantily clad Ciara licking Timberlake’s ear as the two singers dancing closely together, and it’s caused a fury among Turkish censors.

I guess we should be glad they didn’t ban youtube altogether like they did back in 2007 when the government found a video slandering a founder of the Turkish replublic. World has it the Turkish government has banned over 1,000 sites  on the net.

Youtube’s parent, Google, decided to selectively prevent access to the offending videos to users in Turkey in order for the entire site not to be closed down. Turkish prosecutors, not content, demanded a global block in order not to offend Turkish users abroad. Google did not comply

Government officials defend these blocked sites -  “Practices are needed to protect young people and the public at large from harmful material online.†The newspaper Taraf said that the persistent banning of Web sites can be attributed to judges inexperience in dealing with the Internet

Turkey anyone?

Technorati Tags: , , , , ,

IDS Tags: , , ,

Posted in Around The World, News Bytes, Turkey

« Previous Entries