The basic model of “human subjects research” that it assumes is one of clinical research, but the intricate and intimate relationships that develop during ethnographic research raise dilemmas that are nearly unthinkable in a clinical encounter – dilemmas like: What if you’re doing research on sexuality and you start sleeping with your informants?

— Protected: Open access materials for teaching research ethics

Women’s sexual needs are not a scientific mystery. Want to increase female libido? Put down the pharmaceuticals and free our minds with equal pay, affordable child care and equitable distribution of household responsibilities. Wondering why women gravitate toward sexually passive roles? The answer has far less to do with evolution than with the ways women are shamed for expressing aggressive desire and with the pervasive idea that women who pursue their own satisfaction are asking to be raped.

What this woman wants is an end to tired clichés dressed up as science and the beginning of a world in which women are treated as individuals, each of whom may or may not be turned on by intimacy, back-alley ravishment or any number of things; a world in which anyone wondering what a woman wants knows that the best thing to do is just ask her.

— Reader response to NYT magazine article “What Women Want” from a few weeks back [via]

I’m not a total diva: I don’t need satin sheets or 300 thread count (though it would be nice.) But I once dated a guy who was really into Planet Of The Apes. Do you know how hard it is to feel turned on when Cornelius is staring at you?

— Hideous Kinky: Ever Been In A Bedroom So Nasty You Couldn’t Have Sex?

I want to open up a maternity shop and call it: “We’re Fucked.

— Zach Galifinianakis, Twitter. (via myabortion)

Afterward, he observed: “That wasn’t what I’d imagined, exactly.” He had imagined: 1) the missionary position and 2) ceremonial crying.

— In defense of casual sex