Is “I do” always followed by “happily ever after”? Not necessarily, and a new study has found that women in unhappy marriages are at an elevated risk for an assortment of health problems, including high blood pressure and high blood sugar. In CNN’s report on the University of Utah study, it is reported that while men and women in unhappy marriages were found to exhibit signs of depression, only women showed these physical side effects.

The study subjects were 276 couples, ranging in age from 32 to 76. Researchers determined the level of happiness in each marriage by examining levels of conflict and hostility, and each person’s self-report on marital satisfaction (more women reported being unsatisfied than men). This variable was then set against the health of the subjects - indicators of physical and mental health were recorded. According to Nacy Henry of the University of Utah, men were affected mentally by marital strife - she tells CNN, “For husbands, we didn’t see, on its own, that negative marital stuff was related at all to metabolic syndrome. The only thing it was related to was their depressive symptoms.” However, women experienced these symptoms and more - they were more likely to experience metabolic issues and cardiovascular problems in correlation with levels of conflict. It is suggested that women take marital issues to heart, quite literally, because more of their self-image is wrapped up in their relationship, increasing stress levels.

However, the study does not suggest that divorce would reverse these symptoms. Divorce comes with its own set of stressors, and other lifestyle factors need to be taken into account. This study simply brings attention to the role that social factors play in a patient’s physical health - doctors need to treat the whole person, head included.

Safety in our institutions of higher learning has become a hot-button topic lately - too often, the academia is disrupted by tragedy, as the headlines have reflected. This week, according to Mercury News, women at UC Berkeley stood up against a spree of sexual violence on their campus - and the “blame the victim” attitude that many have taken in light of it.

Since October, a sexual predator has attacked 19 women near the UC Berkeley campus, and it appears that women in skirts have been most heavily targeted. For that reason, an email has circulated among students telling women not to wear skirts so as to avoid becoming a target. However, many women on campus have taken offense, stating that attire is no excuse for sexual assault. For that reason, protesters wore skirts as they stood in solidarity to increase awareness about the recent attacks and to call for action to prevent future ones.

During the rally on the university’s Sproul Plaza, speakers argued against the perception that the victims are to blame for their attacks. Dennie Bates, an organizer of the rally, told the crowd, “My skirt is not a legal reason for raping me.” Adding fuel to the fire was the fact that this man has not been caught yet - and many worry that the violence could get worse. The victim of one attack was present at the rally, and she expressed her wish for justice, telling others in attendance, “I hope this man gets caught and this doesn’t happen anymore.” Details on the perpetrator can be found in the original article.

During the 2008 presidential campaign, GOP vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin drew criticism and controversy when it was found out that her teenage daughter Bristol was pregnant, especially in light of the Alaska Governor’s well-publicized views favoring abstinence-only education. More recently, though, Bristol, now 18, has spoken to the media about the birth of her son Tripp - and she faced some tough questions about the media attention that she had to deal with during her pregnancy.

People reports on Bristol’s recent segment on Fox News in which she told Greta Van Susteren about her hope that her experience will serve as a lesson for others - she hopes that teens will wait longer than she did. She told Van Susteren that her situation was not the easiest one to raise a child in: “I hope people learn from my story … It’s so much easier if you’re married, have a house and career.” Nevertheless, she insists that the choice that she made to keep her child was not dictated by her mother’s staunch anti-abortion stance, stating emphatically, “It was my choice to have the baby.”

Her views do differ from her mom’s on the issue of abstinence-only education. While Governor Palin strongly favors teaching abstinence, her daughter feels that this stance is not realistic. Indeed, telling her parents of her own pregnancy was difficult for the teen - she says that the conversation was “harder than labor.” Nevertheless, she enjoys being a mother - she said, “I love it, just seeing him smile and stuff. It’s awesome.” And Tripp’s grandmother made an appearance during the interview as well - of all her family has been through in recent months, she says, “Hey, life happens.”

A recent story on CNN.com titled My REAL life as a call girl proposed some very interesting and circular questions. Stating factually, the article asserts that experts disagree on whether or not prostitutes are victims. The sordid and not so sordid stories of how women fall into prostitution are as numerous as there are prostitutes. Is a high-end escort or call-girl different at all from a prostitute or are we just splitting hairs over semantics?

This story discuses one woman, Natalie McLennan moved from Montreal to New York City eight years ago at the age of 20 to pursue an acting career. She met a pimp, Jason Itzler, at a cocktail party who convinced her that “dating” men would be better than waiting tables while she waited for her acting career to take off.

Within four years she was earning $2000 an hour. She would see two or three clients a day for about two hours each. She was earning upwards up $12,000 A DAY, as a prostitute. In 2005 she was the July cover of New York Magazine and three months later her escort agency was shut down. She was arrested for prostitution and spent 26 days in jail.

McLennan knew what she was doing. She made a conscious choice to engage in those behaviors. Should that be illegal? She wasn’t coerced. She wasn’t selling herself for drugs or other criminal money. She was simply trading sex for money. The bottom line is that prostitution according to Wikipedia is the act of performing sexual activity in exchange for money. The legal status varies from one jurisdiction to another; in some parts of the world it is legal and in others it is punishable by death.

Do you think this is a slippery slope of legalities and situations or is it just wrong, morally? Legally?

Your thoughts?

::

Natalie McLennan’s tell-all book The Price: My Rise and Fall As Natalia, New York’s #1 Escort is due out soon.

Merck& Co. developed Gardasil a few years ago, the first vaccine to fight any form of cancer.   This alone is quite remarkable.  Cervical cancer is aggressive, deadly  and often goes undetected.  It is also overwhelmingly caused by a virus.  Originally marketed to girls between the ages of 12 and 26, Gardasil is now being advertised and marketed to older women.

Gardasil is a vaccine used to protect against HPV, human papillomavirus, strains 16 and 18 which cause approximately 70 percent of all cases of cervical cancer.  A recent study by the University of Alabama found that vaccinating older women could also significantly reduce the rates of cervical cancer.  This study found that cervical cancer rates could be reduced up to 55 percent for a 45-year old woman.

HPV is transmitted through sexual contact and the original thinking was that women should get the vaccine prior to becoming sexually active.

The CDC recently released the statistic that one third of girls ages 13-17 have received the Gardasil vaccine.

Gardasil has received sharp criticism because of the issue of side effects.  Click here to read more from WebMD on that issue.

Source: Dulcinia

We credit the information age with allowing us faster communication, rather, instant communication. Email, text messages, twitter, blogs, Blackberries and cellphones with cameras, video baby-monitors and TiVo; we can see our sleeping children in the other room while pausing live television so that we can send a message via Twitter that we have updated our blog with a photo taken with the camera on a cellphone. There is nothing that cannot be communicated around the world in a matter of minutes, er, seconds.

But what if that email contained some information that you would rather hear in person and possibly over muffin laced with a serious apology. inSpot.org, launched in 2004 is a website that allows users to notify partners anonymously that they need to be tested for the STD HIV, gonorrhea, chlamydia or syphilis.

I think it is great that there exists a way to notify past partners that they could have been exposed to a sexually transmitted disease, however, this is a little, oh, odd? The benefits of someone getting tested and therefore early treatment outweigh the inhumane and potentially insensitivity of this notification method.

The site reported to CNN that over 50,000 cards have been sent since their launch and while the potential of misuse was a concern they have actually had very few complaints, specifically less than 10 cards that were received in error. Started in San Francisco this site has spread to New York, Chicago, Canada and Romania.

The website inSpot also provides information about where to go for testing and treatment. It also provides great and accurate information about treatable and curable STDs.

inSpot’s RESOURCE link is also quite well stocked.

The reason I don’t particularly like politics, (same goes for religion) is that it has a tendency to be rather DIVISIVE.

There is a blog I have read on and off for years and just today she wrote about Joy Bahar’s comments last night on Larry King Live. I was excited to read her comments but my excitment was short-lived when I saw that she had the exact opposite reaction that I did. I was all, “Oh! So you LIKE her!” and then I closed the window and wondered how I would ever relate to her again. I don’t need to have all like-minded friends, quite the opposite, I just want people to wise-up and realize that I am right. that not everyone is as they seem and perhaps they should inform themselves as voters, not just vote by party or by appearance.

Joy mentioned in a rather off-color way that perhaps Sarah Palin brought a certain sex-appeal to the Presidential election. Okay. Let’s take a step back and look at that. Sex-appeal + Presidential Election? Hum.

Marketing and media attention have taken a very unfortunate front seat in recent elections and it diverts out attention from the actual issues and actual debates of whether or not a candidate is qualified to really deliver and lead in office.

Back to my original point of Palin’s sex-appeal: Of course there’s sex appeal! Look back a mere two decades, Ronald Reagan? George Bush? Bill Clinton? George Bush again? Al Gore? None of those men are any more attractive than the other. Going bald. Going Grey. Physicalities just are not an issue for those men. But BAM! Throw a woman into the mix and suddenly appearance matters or at least, it get noticed. I think as a nation, as a species, we perceive men and women differently and we are much more apt to judge a woman and make comments about her appearance than we are a man. Right or wrong that is human nature.

But! We must move on. FAST. It doesn’t matter what side you are on or how you have voted in the past. While we are busy talking about Palin’s sexy-librarian-style we aren’t discussing how to end the war in Iraq and bring a lot of young men home. While we are discussing her decision to birth a baby with Down’s Syndrome we aren’t talking about how to provide affordable health care for Americans, equal and high quality education for children born in inner-cities, revamping the Social Security system so that it will be there for our children.

We are a nation saturated with media-sensations. It’s time to grow up and stop looking at the book’s cover and actually read the book.

More from Larry King last night:

For more reader opinions about Joy Bahar visit Watching The View.

The book Best Lesbian Love Stories: Summer Flingsis on shelves now. The anthology is a collection of fictional short stories set against a backdrop of summertime, that most romantic of seasons. The description of the theme brings to mind heated romance when the nights seem to last forever and the days pass all too quickly.

Everyone loves to fall in love, and there’s no better time than summer. From languid, lazy days to hot, humid nights, this year’s edition of lesbian love stories explores the passionate connection between women and women, and the sultry sun that sizzles their skin.

Writer Lyndsey D’Arcangelo contributed the story “The Sight of Her” to this newest edition of the Best Lesbian Love Stories, published each year with a different theme by Alyson Books. D’Arcangelo wanted to write a believable love story that anyone could relate to. “The unexpected encounters that often happen in our lives are always memorable for one reason or another, especially if that encounter results in a coupling of some kind. Charlie Myers is a bright-eyed English teacher looking to make some extra money for the summer as a tutor. In answering a random ad in the paper, she finds much more than a meaningless summer job. She finds love in an unlikely companion as well as a newfound appreciation for classic feminist authors.”

According to D’Arcangelo, the stories in Best Lesbian Love Stories: Summer Flingsare about love, but not erotic. “It’s more about romance, love and loss. I don’t write erotica, nor would I feel comfortable doing so.” She is also the writer for Lez Keep It Real, “Where opinions count. Even if you’re gay.” I asked her if she ever receives hate mail or comments because of her openness about her sexuality.

“I don’t because the GLBT material that I write is for GLBT audiences so I know I’m not writing anything that would offend people. I take my audience into consideration. When another short story of mine was published in Chicken Soup for the Soul Celebrating Brothers and Sisters: Funnies and Favorites About Growing Up and Being Grown Up (Chicken Soup for the Soul) I wrote the story without a GLBT premise because of the audience and because the story had nothing to do with GLBT issues. I once wrote a personal column about gay marriage for the Buffalo News. And I received one hate letter that was sent anonoumously. It made me smile actually because I thought, out of an entire city of people who read the column only one person expressed any hatred AND they didn’t even have the courage to sign their name to the letter. It bothered me for a second and then I moved on. Most of the responses I receive, from homosexual and heterosexuals alike, are words of encouragement. I am blessed that people can recognize good writing without the sexuality attached. I’m a writer first, a lesbian second.”

And therein lies the appeal of the Summer Flings anthology: whether you are gay, straight, or bisexual, great writing can transport you to a sunny summer day when love and romance, and the one person who gazes longingly from under sunbleached bangs, are all that matter.

EXCERPT FROM “THE SIGHT OF HER”

As she turned a corner once more, Charlie saw a young woman, not much older than she was, say late twenties or so, sitting in a rocking chair facing the professionally landscaped backyard. Her auburn hair was tied up in a bun, and her canary-colored sundress fluttered in what little breeze there was coming in off the grassy fields that lay before her. Her bare feet rested on a wicker stool, crossed, revealing toenails that were painted a bleeding red. She was fair-skinned and delicate. The mere sight of her caught Charlie’s breath.
“Hello?” she called out, approaching slowly as not to startle her.
The woman turned her head, but not fully. She was wearing a pair of sixties-style sunglass, the lenses bug-eyed and larger than they needed to be.
“Yes?”
“Are you Miss. Carter?”
“Miss Carter…sometimes. Jessie depending on who’s calling.”
“I’m Charlie…Charlie Myers. I’m here about the ad in the paper, the English teacher for hire.”
“Then it’s Jessie. I was beginning to wonder if anyone took my advertisement seriously,” she scoffed and waved her hand at the empty seat beside her. “Please, sit.”
Charlie sat down, wondering why the seemingly affluent woman proceeded to talk at her instead of to her.

ABOUT LYNDSEY D’ARCANGELO

Lyndsey D’Arcangelo studied at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, VA, where she earned a BA in English and Creative Writing. After a few years of writing in a variety of mediums, Lyndsey now offers professional writing services through her freelance venture D’arc•Light Creative. In addition to writing professionally, she finds time to craft and publish monthly columns for GLBT publications, novels, short stories and poetry. She has recently published two short stories in nationally known publications for Alyson Books and the Chicken Soup for the Soul series.

You can view her short stories, novel excerpts, personal blog, poems and published work at www.lyndseydarcangelo.com.

To order either of the books Lyndsey has recently contributed to, click on the titles:

Best Lesbian Love Stories: Summer Flings

Chicken Soup for the Soul Celebrating Brothers and Sisters: Funnies and Favorites About Growing Up and Being Grown Up (Chicken Soup for the Soul)

GLBT, lesbian, Best Lesbian Love Stories, Lyndsay Darcangelo, books, new releases