A seven-days long quickie (news): Sex And The City turns 20, masturbation helps to win the World Cup…

A brief overview of what’s happened over the last week #InSearchOfPleasure.

Sex And The City turned 20

It’s been 20 years since the pilot of Sex and the City premiered on HBO teaching the world that women love sex.
SATC follows the lives of four female friends, for 30-something successful women, as they navigate the love, sex and dating scene in New York City in the ‘90s while sipping Cosmopolitan, attending slick parties, buying expensive shoes and hanging out with gay friends.
The show was a worldwide phenomenon and it was responsible for starting trends that become popular across the globe: Manolo Blahnik shoes, nameplate necklaces, cupcakes. It also introduced the rabbit vibrator to the world, boosting the sales and leading sex toy industry to expand the market of dual action vibrators.

Sex and masturbation to win the World Cup

Dr Vera Ribeiro, the wife of Portugal goalkeeper Rui Patricio who is a qualified sex therapist, is advising all players at the World Cup to have an active sexual life instead of practising abstinence before games. Sex and masturbation can reduce anxiety and stress improving the footballers’ performance.
In her recently-published book Manual of Seduction, she questions the generally accepted popular belief that having sex the night before a game can lead to a below-par performance on the field, as “nothing positive can come from abstinence.”

Bollywood Masturbation Scene Sparks Controversy

Veere Di Wedding, described as India’s answer to Sex and the City, is a Bollywood comedy that tells the story of four childhood friends who face the ups and downs of relationships and marriages while indulging in cocktails, smoking, party, swearing and casual sex.
It’s the portrait of a changing society which a conservative country like India needs to process slowly.
Of all the scenes, one has quickly become notorious in the Indian press and local social media. In the scene, one of the female friends, who is going through a failed marriage, is seen to be masturbating with a dildo.
This was the first time a mainstream Hindi film showed a woman enjoying an orgasm so openly.
As result, although many critics have praised the film as a powerful statement about female empowerment, actress Swara Bhasker has been targeted with hate and shame tweets, including vicious personal attacks, and the movie has been drawing huge audiences and earning huge money.
Bhaskar replied to critics tweeting that “in a culture that largely silences or ignores or shames female sexuality, showing a girl gratifying herself in a film in a non-judgemental way is empowering.”

Swadeept! 1. Sakshi was in her PRIVATE bedroom.. not public
2. Masturbation is abt owning ur body, sexuality. Empowering.
3. In a culture that largely silences or ignores or shames female sexuality showing a girl gratifying herself in a film in a non judgemental way is empowering https://t.co/PQXwaLsAku

— Swara Bhasker (@ReallySwara) June 6, 2018

New emoji-inspired vibrator

As a shorthand for expressing feelings and suggesting behaviours, emojis have long since become the language of love and sex(ting), and now they are also the language of masturbation. Uk’s online sex toys retailer Lovehoney has just launched Oh-Moji toys, mini rechargeable wand vibrators in the shapes of emoji faces.
They are not the first sex toys getting inspiration from the digital icons named the world’s fastest-growing new language in 2015. In 2016 Emojibator turned the eggplant emoji into a 10-speed vibrator, followed by the Chili Pepper Emojibator and the Banana Emojibator.

Turns out, sex robots are not that healthy and useful for the society

A doctor and an obstetrician just published a report summarising the arguments for and against the sex robot industry in The BMJ Sexual & Reproductive Health Journal. The study is intended to be a call for the medical profession to discuss and debate the potential consequences for physical, mental and social well-being.
From the study, it emerges that, maybe, sex robots are not able to stop sexual violence and trafficking by just substituting their human correspondents. That they actually might become a practice ground for violence, normalising and promoting sexual deviancy and abuses (when sexbot ‘personalities’ can be selected that simulate non-consensual sex). That, even if they might help people with sexual dysfunction, disabilities and patients who would benefit from sexual practice without pressure, they couldn’t satisfy intimacy ‘needs’ and might affect empathy and human relationships leading to isolation in the illusion of having a substitute satisfaction.
That maybe giving robots stereotypical female and ‘air-brushed’ traits might not help fighting gender discrimination and inequality but, on the contrary, would contribute promoting the idea that living women are sex objects that should be constantly available.

Sex in comics: DC Comics relaunches Vertigo with 7 new adult-focused series

DC Comics is relaunching Vertigo, the adult-focused comics imprint, with seven new series from a diverse array of creators that focus on “modern, socially relevant, high-concept, inventive” stories.
These include Safe Sex, “A dystopian sci-fi thriller about a ragtag team of sex workers fighting for the freedom to love in a world where sexual pleasure is monitored, regulated and policed by the government,” written by Tina Horn (host/producer of Why Are People Into That? podcast), art by Mike Dowling (Unfollow, 2000 AD).