Brief mention in the Times (UK) today

[YP]

It's not a piece about asexuality as such, it's more a short note on decreasing funding for research into sex, but we do get a mention so I thought I'd post it.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/newspaper/0,,...1483342,00.html



2015 Edit - The above link doesn't work anymore, but I believe this may be the article:

Shhhh, not in front of the scientists. How sex became unmentionable
Science Notebook by Anjana Ahuja
Published at 12:00AM, February 14 2005

FOR MANY of us it is traditional on this day to wonder (a) when you will stop receiving a St Valentine’s Day card from your mother and (b) whether science has anything useful to say about sex, love and relationships. I can’t predict the former but I remain convinced by the latter. In the past year alone research has furnished insights into the spectrum of sexuality by revealing that 1 per cent of the population is asexual.

These are people who, while often being in marital or close relationships, have never really wanted sex with anyone. Some have emerged from the closet as “glad to be A” militants whose asexual orientation deserves the same status as “hetero” or “homo”; others remain imprisoned by their guilt at being sexless in a sex-obsessed society.

The work that underpins such insights may, however, be under threat. Today, sex research — especially in the United States — is sometimes perceived as an unwelcome, unwarranted, amoral science against which the public must be protected. The fears follow threats by Congress to close several important studies that receive public money. The move has been fuelled in part by the use of pornographic videos to aid investigations. Dr Gilbert Herdt, from San Francisco State University, told The New York Times: “I have been in this field for 30 years, and the level of fear and intimidation is higher than I can ever remember. With the recent election there’s concern that there will be even more intrusion of ideology into science.”

The anti-sexology lobby is well organised. The right-wing Traditional Values Coalition — supported by 43,000 churches — campaigned against the use of $100 million of public money to fund sexual behaviour research and circulated a “hit list” of 150 researchers. As a result, academics say they are forced to disguise their studies. For instance, sexual behaviour is relabelled “fertility-related behaviour” and ladies who work in massage parlours are euphemistically called “high-risk women”. And woe betide any investigator who wishes to study deviant practices such as paedophilia.

Such hostility, they caution, means that questions that are crucial to public health — such as why a hardcore of people avoid safe sex, or what causes some men to lust after children — go unanswered.

[Shivers]

...requires a subscription. *sigh*

[TheSMMG]

Well spotted, YP!

My work colleague gets The Times and Monday's issue was still in the workshop.

[pkennedy1990]

The Metro also had an article on it. Considering it's Europe where "anything goes" is the going mentality...anything, that is, except NOT doing it.

[Live R Perfect]

...“glad to be A” militants...

Yeah, man! :D Watch out for those asexual militants... :lol: