Occupy Wall Street, the small call to protest that has become a worldwide phenomenon, just arrived to San Diego this past week. The streets of our downtown district were amazingly filled with citizens looking for a change in the American corporate system. As a a whole, I consider San Diego one of the the most laid back (re: lazy) cities in America, so seeing the tens of thousands march for change was shocking, and wildly refreshing.

Of course, though, this movement wouldn’t be complete with a condom company making a little dough off the situation, and Condomania has done just that, by releasing Occupy Wall Street themed condoms called (creativity overload alert!) “Occupy Condoms.” From the company’s website:

Whether or not you agree with the “demands” of the Occupy Wall Street movement that is sweeping the U.S., one thing is for sure; lots of people out there are tired of feeling screwed. Occupy Condoms say it all in a neat little package while affording young protestors the protection they need to stay safe in the passionate frenzy that is social protest.

Occupy Condoms are sold at a 70% discount to demonstrate our support for social change and the virtuous pursuit of equality for all. Mostly, we didn’t think it cool to be capitalizing quite so blatantly on a protest movement that itself is concerned about unscrupulous profiteering. So, we’ll just hope for some good buzz and a small amount of unscrupulous profits.

Fair enough – OBC always supports safe sex (as you might know by our own line of condoms, which we gave away for FREE, mind you), and any company that lessens the chance of sexually transmitted infections and unplanned pregnancies is A-OK with us.

Especially ’cause I don’t need any of dem der damn hippies MAKING NO MO LIBERAL BABIES, y’HURR? AMUURIKA!!

When I first saw this article, I thought to myself, don’t post this article, you dummy. The whole point of this blog is to get men and women to loosen up a bit… about life, love, weird sh*t, and of course sex! Posting this is going to make the ladies crawl back into their prudish caves and never come out!

Unfortunately, the journalist side of me said NAY, I MUST REPORT THE NEWS.

According to US researchers, oral sex may actually be giving people cancer. They claim that cases of oral cancer caused by the sexually transmitted disease HPV (Human Papilloma Virus) have “increased significantly” in the last 20 years, and it may be because people are going down on each other more. Via Gawker:

Researchers tested tumor samples from 271 patients with certain types of throat cancer diagnosed from 1984 to 2004. The virus was found in only 16 percent of the samples from the 1980s—but in 72 percent of those collected after 2000.

The researchers estimated that over all, throat cancers caused by the virus have increased to 2.6 per 100,000 people in 2004 from 0.8 cases per 100,000 people in 1988. If the trend continues, by 2020 the virus will be causing more throat cancer than cervical cancer, the study concluded.

Greeeeaat. Just lovely. Now on top of worrying about condoms and unplanned pregnancies and awkwardly tip-toeing out of a booty call’s house in the morning, we have to worry about if the naughty bits going in our mouths MIGHT ACTUALLY KILL US.

Furthermore, the disease does not have a screening process, so you won’t find out you have oral cancer at your next STD test (which you have frequently, because you are responsible, right? Right.). Instead, researchers claim you should get vaccinated for HPV and also see a doctor if you notice a “lumpy, swollen lymph node” or “lingering sore throat or earache.”

Keep calm and carry on folks, and be careful whose junk you let near your face.

I suppose there is at least ONE reason to like Tuesdays more than Mondays – according to a Danish study, people worry most about STDs and AIDS (and call hotlines about them) on Mondays, likely because they have unprotected sex most on Fridays and Saturdays. But why not a spike in callers on Sundays? they wondered.

The researchers originally believed that the reason for this phenomena was that many health-hotlines do not operate on Sunday, but they found that even visits to sexual health websites see a surge on Mondays, despite their being available 24/7. They came to the rather vague conclusion that people like to “sleep on it,” or give it a day to calm down and consider the repercussions before taking the leap and getting tested for an STD or the much more traumatizing possibility of HIV. I, on the other hand, believe they wait because

1. Sundays are for pizza and crying yourself to sleep at 4 in the afternoon.

2. it might take 48 hours to remember if you ACTUALLY had sex, or were just drunk enough to believe you did.

3. shame. Buckets and buckets of shame.

4. even if you DID have safe sex, we hypochondriacs eventually start to wonder if maybe STDs have altered their molecular structure and can now travel through latex.

5. the shame thing again.

Moral of the story? GLOVE YOUR JUNK, boys, and ladies – if he ain’t got a rubber, stick to a tugger. (ed. note: HORRIBLE. JUST HORRIBLE.)

Via Jezebel

According to new reports, scientists have discovered a new strain of gonorrhea that’s making waves through Japan, and guess what… this one is INCURABLE. They’re calling it a ‘superbug,’ and it seems to be resistant to all known forms of antibiotics. Oh, good! Good job, sexually transmitted diseases. We’re all sitting here, trying to enjoy our single lives, having fun and hooking up, and YOU COME ALONG, making it difficult for EVERYONE.

This new strain of the clap is spreading quickly through Japan, which means in approximately six weeks, US business men will have spread it to their wives, who will then in turn spread it to their pool boys, who will then spread it to the rest of America.

In other words, steer clear of pool boys in August. They will be RAMPANT with super-gonorrhea. Gross.

The potential new drug is called RISUG – Reversible Inhibition of Sperm Under Guidance, and it works by injecting a polymer gel into the vas deferens, which kills the sperm as they pass by. In clinical trials in India, it has been shown to be 100% effective for up to ten years, and as the name suggests, is reversible if and when the patient decides he no longer needs contraception. Check out the infographic from the manufacturer’s site below:

It’s still a way away from being used outside India, but we imagine it could be a very successful venture in America, where men hate condoms almost as much as they hate getting chicks preggo.

What do you think? Would you use a male form of birth control? Or does it still seem to experimental for you to use on your junk?

Back then, everyone from Communist Russia to China and Hitler-run Germany partook in some insane form of propaganda, in every industry from big government to even children’s cartoons. Even America dabbled in some blatantly false propaganda, especially when it came to soldier morale… and sex was not exempt. Buzzfeed uncovered some gems from WWII era, and they’re pretty funny. Take this ad, below:

98%, huh? We’re gonna bet that might be just a TAD exaggerated.

And how about this one:

I kind of like this one… I think I’m going to start saying it to my friends when they’re popping ibuprofen after a drunken hook up. “There’s no medicine for regret, you know.” Actually that’s not true. Booze works pretty well.

And then there is this gem:

Jeez, based on these posters you’d think all the women back then were hookers or something. HOWEVER, I will from now on be referring to hook ups as “sex relations.” Sounds much more classy. “Ohhh girl, I had the HOTTEST sex relation last night! DAMNNN!”

Check out more hilarious STD propaganda ads at Buzzfeed.

You read that right: a legitimate medical journal is under fire for an article they posted in their February issue, where they said that a better gift for women on Valentine’s Day than chocolates would be, YEP: semen.

According to RetractionWatch, Surgery News not only retracted the entire February issue from its archives, but also fired its editor-in-chief for the strange Valentine’s Day article, which implied that women who have unprotected sex are happier than women who are abstinent or use condoms. I personally thought it was a pretty hilarious article, despite the fact that it promotes unsafe sex in a world where 1/3 of young adults have a form of HPV. But it’s quite funny that he mentions semen’s “ingredients,” which include “mood enhancers like estrone, cortisol, prolactin, oxytocin, and serotonin; a sleep enhancer, melatonin; and of course, sperm, which makes up only 1%-5%.”

Now I’m not saying that women should go out looking to have unprotected sex, because come on, don’t be idiots, but let’s be honest here, it’s PRETTY funny.

So, looks like pictures of war victims with their faces’ blown off are A-OK for a college newspaper, but a photo of a dude simulating going down on a girl WITH NO NAUGHTY BITS OR FACES showing is absolute filth and an abomination to the college. So says the staff of the University of North Florida regarding an article in their school newspaper that use the above photo to accompany an article about the influx of throat cancer cases among people who contracted the disease from oral sex.

The photo, seen above, is causing a stir in the community, although the paper’s editor, Josh Gore, calls the shock value “minimal.” He says the majority of complaints are coming from UNF employees and members of the surrounding community, not from students (for whom the paper is intended). “We put this on the cover to show students that HPV is a real concern with oral sex,” said Gore, who graduates in May. “I think this is a real important issue to touch on, and this is the way we decided to illustrate it.” A very articulate answer from an obviously educated guy. This isn’t a photo they splashed on the e-mail sent from Kappa Sigma members in the recent USC scandal, it’s in an article that could potentially change the lives of the students it was written for. So what’s the problem?

Obviously the problem is that sex, the oldest language on the planet, is still somehow taboo in our society. Considering high schools are still teaching “the abstinence method” and colleges are still banning photos of IMPLIED ORAL SEX in association with an article discussing THE DANGERS OF UNSAFE SEX, we wonder how “advanced” our society really is. We might be blasting people into outer space and creating beers that fill from the bottom, but we can’t put a fully-clothed photo on the cover of a newspaper read almost solely by students over the age of 18?

Pathetic.

Anyway, props to MTV for releasing these print ads that remind our youth (and maybe some older people too, I dunno) that sex is no accident. Due to this alarming conclusion we can also assume that STDs, HIV, and BABIES are also NOT ACCIDENTS.

Glove your junk, kids. Herpes is forever and reality TV show money doesn’t last. Just ask this girl. Or this guy. Or this guy. Or these things.

Check our favorite out below and click the image to see the rest at Buzzfeed!

Just a few weeks ago on Valentine’s Day in San Francisco, FC2s, or the next generation of female condoms, were passed out around the city. Although I can imagine many people taking them with a weird, pained look on their face like someone offering them an acid-washed jean jacket, the message was clear. Protection from HIV and other STIs is just as important on Valentine’s Day as any other day.

According to a  USA Today story via Jezebel, female condoms are making a comeback. Now made with cheaper-to-produce materials, the condom is being sold in Walgreens and CVS stores worldwide, and usage has apparently tripled in the past years. The benefits (that make it “AWESOME”) include that it can be inserted up to 8 hours prior to intercourse, and that it not only prevents pregnancy, but also the transmission of sexually transmitted infections. Furthermore, it’s wider diameter covers more area of the genitalia as opposed to the male condom, which only partially protects both partners.

I’m not gonna go into how it works because this isn’t sex ed, but because this is Awesome of Awful, we do have to discuss the downside, and no one describes it better than a porn star named Stoya, who gave the product a review on her blog recently:

The thing about these female condoms is that they’re kind of baggy. And the ring at the top which is supposed to keep it in the vagina isn’t very stable. And they’re sort of sticky. All of this adds up to the condom kind of sticking to the penis in question instead of sticking inside my vagina, which kind of felt like I was being banged by a stiff ziplock bag. Eeek.

So, you know. There are pros and cons, and although the porn-star may have used more colorful language for her review, we can’t deny the safety benefits that the female condom (as well as other forms of contraception) provide for those of us who enjoy the single life but don’t want to suffer repercussions from acting irresponsibly.

So what do you think? Female condoms: Awesome, or Awful?