Largest Red-light District
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Though prostitution is technically illegal in Indonesia, the government continues to run and operate the Kramat Tunggak, a red-light district in North Jakarta. The largest in the world, the district spans 28 acres, with more than 220 brothels populated by between 1,000 to 2,000 girls. Regular health checks are mandatory, as is the use of condoms. Prices are said to be one of the best in the world, a mere $15 for short time (subject to negotiation, of course). Officially, the 27-year-old complex was built to “rehabilitate” girls; while they ply their trade at night, by day the government provides job training to prepare them for different vocations. The government’s aim is to encourage girls to develop a life independent of prostitution.
A noble idea¾in theory. The recent souring of the Asian economy, coupled by the devaluation of Indonesia’s currency, has sent prices plummeting. With the economic turmoil its not surprising most girls find they can earn more money lying flat on their back in a brothel than sitting in some factory.
If you wish to add Kramat to your travel itinerary, you’re a bit late: officials have closed all the brothels as of the end of 1999.
First Public Brothel
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Solon, a Grecian law-maker, showed his genius for public relations by establishing the first publicly administered brothel in Athens in the year 549 BC. Operated and inhabited by imported slaves, the bordello simultaneously solved several problems: it provided a means of sustenance for the lower classes, it generated tax revenues, and it created an outlet for virile men to satisfy their lustful impulse. The measure met with widespread approval by the (male) populace. Wrote one observer, Xenarchus:
The young men in Athens are doing absolutely shocking things, and there’s no excuse for it. For there are very fine-looking girls available at the brothels. And you can see them standing there outside, breast bared in the bright sunshine, almost naked and lined up conveniently one after another. From these anybody can pick out a favorite: skinny or fat; curvy, lanky, or bent over; young or old; firm or lush…These girls just about drag you in, calling the old men “Daddy,” and the younger ones “Lover Boy.” And you can have her, cheap and without any risk, available day and evening–and any way you want her.
The design was quickly copied and instituted in other cities.
Earliest Circumcision
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Male Circumcision
, the minor surgical operation of cutting away the retractable envelope of skin that sheathes the tip of the penis, is believed to have originated in Africa and Egypt. There are hieroglyphics dating to 2300 BC depicting one such operation (my scanner’s on the blink, so I’m afraid I can’t show you). It’s uncertain how widespread the practice was, as mummified remains, statues, and paintings offer conflicting evidence. But it does not appear to be universal, nor have class connotations: some pharaohs were, others were not.
A more intriguing question is why it began in the first place. Some modern scholars argue it was because of hygiene–clothing was loose and scanty, they say, and grit would find its way under the foreskin and cause irritation and damage. This theory has a certain novelty to it, but wouldn’t it have been a lot simpler to wear tight-fitting clothing before taking up the knife? The more believable explanation is that it is exactly what it seems to be, a fertility rite. The operation was not performed until just before adolescence, and all of the early societies that practiced the surgery would offer the excised skin to a fertility deity and be sacrificially burned.
Female
What–you thought only males could be circumcised? As a ritual it is believed to have originated c. 2000 BC, though where is a matter of dispute. It was practiced by many ancient societies, including Egyptians, Malayans, Africans, and virtually all Semitic peoples. In the practicing cultures, a girl was circumcised in preparation for her first coitus, the rite carried out by a priest, male relative, or, more commonly, an elder woman. The severity of the ritual varied: in some cultures, it only involved a minor nicking of the clitoris, in others it could mean its complete removal, along with the inner and outer labia minora.
Female circumcision also has one quality unlike its male counterpart–it’s barbaric. The adolescent girls would be held down by men as they screamed and struggled franticly, making the outcome of the operation haphazard and not infrequently fatal. Medical complications include hemorrhages, infections, urinary complications, labial adherences, clitoridal cysts, and accidental injuries to the surrounding organs. But worse is the psychosexual damage, as survivors discover their sexual response impaired if not completely eliminated.
Earliest Contraceptive
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Egyptian papyri fragments, dating from the XII Dynasty (1850 BC) and considered the oldest medical literature to survive to the present time, contains a somewhat icky recipe to prevent pregnancy: apply crocodile dung to one’s insides, irrigate with honey and natron, and then insert a gum-like substance. Another surviving piece, the Ebers papyrus (1550 BC), recommends using lint tampons moistened with juice from the tips of fermented acacia shrubs.
Most / Least Effective Contraceptive
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The following table is a reprint from The Kinsey Institute New Report on Sex (1990) with some additional augmentation by myself.
As you can see, the new contraceptive method Depo-Provera has proven to be the most effective method with a 99.7% chance of preventing pregnancy, and, assuming you don’t leave things to the province of fate, douching the least effective.
Earliest Condom
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Gabriel Fallopius is generally credited for inventing this invaluable device, which he described in De Morbo Gallico (“The French Disease”, 1564). The Italian anatomist’s design, basically a stiff linen sheath covering the glans, was motivated less by preventing pregnancy than protecting the man from venereal disease. At the time, pregnancy was viewed as the woman’s problem.
But Gabriel wasn’t the first to dream up such an invention. Sheaths made of stiffened sheep’s intestines were used in ancient Rome, and there is an Egyptian illustration dating to the XIX Dynasty (1350-1200 BC) of a man wearing a similar covering.
Largest Condom
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Seeking a way to impress the populace with the threat of AIDS, activists in December 1998 paraded an enormous condom through the streets of Bogota, Colombia as part of an annual holiday street fair. The phenomenal prophylactic—12 feet in diameter, stretching over a half-mile in length and weighing roughly 3,000 lbs. (+800m, 1360kg)—took two months to build and cost $13,000. As it was paraded though the main boulevards, a troupe of dancers performed along side, accompanied by a convoy of armed policemen, for, um, protection.
The whole scheme was dreamed up by doctors specializing in sexually transmitted diseases at the Santiago de Cali University along with workers from drug rehabilitation programs. “The idea,” on doctor told reporters, “is for people to realize that the disease exists, that it’s here, and that it represents a far greater threat than the condom we’re displaying.”
The idea was hardly new: In 1994, AIDS activists slipped a 72-foot condom over the obelisk in Paris’ Place de la Concorde.
Most Dangerous Sex Technique
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In his book The Sex Chronicles Lance Rancier outlines an extremely dangerous act once practiced by Asian prostitutes:
[Japanese prostitutes working] in the Hong Kong harbor offered the ultimate pleasure to a man. The service was expensive to the man and dangerous to the woman. The Sampan girl, working in a boat, leaned over the side of the boat and ducked her head into the water. The customer entered her from behind, experiencing exquisite vaginal spasms around his penis as the woman reacted to her near drowning. She pulled herself out of the water just before she lost consciousness, usually after the client had experienced an intense orgasm.
Needless to say, you shouldn’t try this at home.
sperm can only survive outside the vagina for 30 mins - 4 hrs? means after tt can have unprotected sex again?
i read in the forums you all mention PCC,
i know its something to do with masturbating but what does it actually stand for ?
Thanks.