The Oblation Run.

Submitted by Paula (thanks!):

Every year at the University of the Philippines, the Alpha Phi Omega (APO) fraternity has the annual “Oblation Run”, an APO (and UP) tradition since the 1970s when the Philippines was under Martial Law. The Oblation Run takes its inspiration from the symbol of the university, the statue of the Oblation (You can simply search the words Oblation UP), which is that of a man, with his arms outstretched, looking up to the sky, completely naked except for some leaves covering his penis. So you guessed it, the Oblation Run has members of the APO fraternity running through the halls of one of the most famous buildings in UP (at least in the Diliman Campus, other branches of UP have the same run but I don’t know where they have their route), the Palma Hall, which is the home of the college of Social Sciences and Philosophy, completely naked (but with masks covering their faces). It happens every December, to celebrate (If I remember correctly) the foundation date of APO which is also in December. During the run, the halls are full of people, of all ages, and you do notice more girls (haha) in the mix, which is related to another tradition during the run itself. You’ll see the men running holding roses and they give those roses out to girls. I was told as a freshman then that the roses are given out to the prettiest girls (I don’t know if that was true but that was the supposed story behind the roses) and some girls studying in the University have it on their “Before I graduate UP list” to get a rose from a frat guy running the Oblation Run. Now the biggest reason they have the Oblation Run is to shed light on issues in the country, as UP is a university known for its protests, and a lot of students are activists as well [because it's the state funded university]. In 2009, when I was a freshman, the biggest issue was the Maguindanao Massacre where about 60 journalists were murdered, allegedly by the family of the governor of one of the provinces to the south. But anyway, the biggest thing that’s important about the run is that they use their bodies to draw attention to issues. It’s a huge event every year, and people do go to the university just to see it in December and it’s always covered by all the big media giants in the country. (I have a video somewhere, but it’s not as good as some of the ones I found on Youtube, because these people were actually IN FRONT where you get a good view).

NSFW!

And a news clip from 2009:

It says that once again, people flocked to see the annual Oblation Run of the APO Fraternity at the University of the Philippines, but this year, there seems to be a deeper meaning to running naked, because they believe that this will help bring about changes in the midst of crisis in the country.

You can see in that video that girls are squealing, covering their faces (quite hilarious that at 0:33 the girl is covering herself with a paper mask of the current vice president of the Philippines. Apparently, that year, I can’t remember if it was the 50th or 100th anniversary of the fraternity and Vice President Binay was apparently participating in the run as well, which would be quite the sight because… yeah. But I’m not sure if he was there because you can’t tell the guys’ faces because of the masks… unless of course you know them by their penises which would be quite hilarious), and yes even guys were squealing. The girl interviewed says “It’s much bigger this year than last year!!!”. The guy says that he loved seeing “the show” (I forgot the english equivalent of the word kinilig), and more girls loved getting the aforementioned rose (including a couple of foreigners who I guess went to the university just to see it… not a rare sight at that time haha) But the biggest reason for the run is to shed light on the issues.

App: Period Tracker Deluxe.

 

Submitted by Kelsey (thanks!):

I use a nifty iPhone App called Period Tracker Deluxe (it’s also available as a free version, called Period Tracker Lite.) It’s essentially genius, and lets women track the length of their periods (and the projected start dates of their next period), their symptoms, moods, cravings, weight, basal body temperature, consistency of their discharge, and through a series of charts and graphs also shows them their most fertile window and when they’re due to ovulate. It also lets them keep track of when they’re intimate, and, as such, when they have more reason to panic when their period is MIA. Mostly I find it useful to recognize patterns in my cycle, as way of getting to know my body overall.

This is the website for it: link.

I started out with the P-Tracker Lite version, but decided to splurge the $1.99 and upgrade. I’m sure there are billions of apps out there that do this, but I figured I’d share my success story.

Women’s sexuality.

In class, I provided a rather cursory overview of sex differences in sexuality. Recent research has challenged some of the long-held stereotypes about the sexes and how vastly different men and women are. This isn’t to say that sex differences aren’t real – it’s just that men and women are actually much more similar than they are different. As mentioned in class, part of the difficulty in doing research on sex differences in sexuality is the bias that manifests itself in self-report data. Women are much more likely to underreport all aspects of sexuality, and men are more likely to overreport. How much this effects research on sex differences isn’t entirely clear.

The New York Times recently published an excellent piece (despite some minor problems) about women’s sexuality, in particular sexual desire. The piece is adapted from the book, What Do Women Want? Adventures in the Science of Female Desire.. It’s long, but worth reading, and it mentions much of the stuff we discussed in class.

Unexcited? There May Be a Pill for That

Linneah sat at a desk at the Center for Sexual Medicine at Sheppard Pratt in the suburbs of Baltimore and filled out a questionnaire. She read briskly, making swift checks beside her selected answers, and when she was finished, she handed the pages across the desk to Martina Miller, who gave her a round of pills.

The pills were either a placebo or a new drug called Lybrido, created to stoke sexual desire in women. Checking her computer, Miller pointed out gently that Linneah hadn’t been doing her duty as a study participant. Over the past eight weeks, she took the tablets before she planned to have sex, and for every time she put a pill on her tongue, she was supposed to make an entry in her online diary about her level of lust.

“I know, I know,” Linneah said. She is a 44-year-old part-time elementary-school teacher, and that day she wore red pants and a canary yellow scarf. (She asked that only a nickname be used to protect her privacy.) “It’s a mess. I keep forgetting.”

Miller, a study coordinator, began a short interview, typing Linneah’s replies into a database that the medication’s Dutch inventor, Adriaan Tuiten, will present to the Food and Drug Administration this summer or fall as part of his campaign to win the agency’s approval and begin marketing what might become the first female-desire drug in America. “Thinking about your desire now,” Miller said, “would you say it is absent, very low, low, reasonable or present?”

“Low.” This was no different from Linneah’s reply at the trial’s outset two months before.

“When your partner initiated sexual activity over the past eight weeks, did you show avoidance behavior?”

“Yes.”

“Like earlier to bed?”

“Yes.” Linneah’s voice lurched louder; she laughed; it was a relief to talk bluntly.

“Do you have pleasant feelings when you’re touched?”

“Yes.”

Later, after her appointment, she told me that in fact she has orgasms pretty much every time she and her husband have sex — that wasn’t the problem. “There’s something that’s stopping me from wanting it,” she said. “I don’t know what it is. I can’t tell you what it is.”

Go read the rest here.

And thanks Cally for passing along some interesting commentary from Jezebel (link here)!

Phimosis, treated.

From The Mystery Box Show:

Micropenis AMA.

For those of you not familiar with Reddit, it’s a website featuring links and content from users. Once something is posted, other users can comment, and comments can be upvoted or downvoted. This means that the best comments move to the top of the thread and the worst comments disappear off the bottom (or are hidden). It’s great, in that you don’t end up with the trolling and ridiculousness that typically clogs up and ruins traditional internet forums. There are literally zillions of subreddits, or special-interest pages. One of those is /r/AMA. People start threads describing themselves and then do a Q&A. /r/AMA has become so popular that many celebrities and others to whom we look up to (e.g., Neil deGrasse Tyson) have participated. Some consider it a necessary part of their branding and some just do it for fun. Probably the most famous AMA was with Obama.

There was AMA a while back from a guy with a micropenis. The questions and his responses provided an extremely intimate look into how his penis has affected his life, and how he’s now come to terms with it. Here are some samples (click to make larger):

Check out the entire thread (with photos and video links) here.

The Nu Project.

Passed along by Madeline (thanks!).

From the homepage (NSFW link):

Thank you for being here. The Nu Project is a series of honest nudes of normal women from all over the world. The project began in 2005 and has stayed true to the original vision: no professional models, minimal makeup and no glamour. The focus of the project has been and continues to be the subjects and their personalities, spaces, insecurities and quirks.

To date, over 100 women across North and South America have participated in the project. Without their courage, confidence and trust, none of this would have been possible. We are so thankful for their willingness to open their homes to us.

They’re always looking for women to participate: link.

To see the galleries (NSFW!), click here, here and here.

Thursday mail – May 23.

Any thoughts on the topics we’ve covered in the last week?

Genital dissatisfaction (men or women)?

Sex differences in sexuality?

Have any questions or comments related to class or otherwise? If so, fire away.