My Beautiful Cervix

If you haven’t yes seen this site it is a must. You will see a photo of a womans cervix for every day of her cycle. This 25 year old woman has never given birth and has no history of STIs. Each photo was taken at approximately 10:00 pm every day starting the first day of her menstrual cycle. For the duration of this project, she used condoms as her birth control method so as not to introduce semenal fluid into the photoshoot. She did not use tampons or mooncups during her menstruation either.

This is a brilliant resource for showing young women how changeable the cervix and environs are during her cycle. The woman also identifies how she is feeling on most days eg: Sexy/tired/bloated etc.

Well worth a look.

Click Here to go to the site

Prostate Surgery That Lessens Risk Of ED

An article in the Science Daily on May 16 talks about a study that recommend that men undergoing robotic-assisted surgery for prostate cancer look for a doctor who has performed at least 1000 surgeries, who actively seeks to improve their skills to help ensure successful post -surgery recovery from erectile dysfunction. The authors of the research also found that new, refined techniques that ensure the gentle handling of the nerves around the prostate make a difference in improved erectile function.

If you want to read more of the article go here or if you want to talk about erectile dysfunction contact the Men’s Health Worker at the Southern Fleurieu Health Service.

Touch Your Testicles

Testicular Self examination

Dads With Depression

Here is a fantastic recording from radio national about dad’s With Depression. Real discussion about how fam ily and work both can become  places that are not helpful for dads with depression. The guests on this show are John Clark a father of three, and Richard Flethcer from the fathers and research program at Newcastle University.

You will here John talk a bout how HE was blamed for being quiet, angry, removed when really he had depression! Not his fault. This is a great recording. John figured out how to talk to his wife and children about his depression.

Go HERE to listen

History of giving the finger

When did the middle finger become offensive?

By Daniel Nasaw BBC News Magazine, Washington

Whether or not M.I.A. was aware, the gesture originally referred to  

An American television network has apologised after pop star M.I.A. extended her middle finger during Sunday night’s Super Bowl halftime show. What does the gesture mean, and when did it become offensive?

A public intellectual, expressing his contempt for a gas-bag politician, reaches for a familiar gesture. He extends his middle finger and declares: “This is the great demagogue”.

The episode occurred not on a chat show nor in the salons of New York or London, but in Fourth Century BC Athens, when the philosopher Diogenes told a group of visitors exactly what he thought about the orator Demosthenes, according to a later Greek historian.

The middle finger, extended with the other fingers held beneath the thumb, is thus documented to have expressed insult and belittlement for more than two millennia.

‘Phallic gesture’

Ancient Greek philosophers, Latin poets hoping to sell copies of their works, soldiers, athletes and pop stars, school children, peevish policemen and skittish network executives have all been aware of the gesture’s particular power to insult and enflame.

“It’s one of the most ancient insult gestures known,” says anthropologist Desmond Morris.

“The middle finger is the penis and the curled fingers on either side are the testicles. By doing it, you are offering someone a phallic gesture. It is saying, ‘this is a phallus’ that you’re offering to people, which is a very primeval display.”

During Sunday night’s broadcast of the Super Bowl, America’s most-watched television programme of the year, British singer M.I.A. extended the finger during a performance of Madonna’s Give Me All Your Luvin’.

Diogenes of Sinope was reputedly a fan of the middle-finger gesture

The NFL and NBC television, which broadcast the game and the halftime show, apologised.

“The obscene gesture in the performance was completely inappropriate,” said Brian McCarthy, a spokesman for the NFL.

The gesture is widely known to Americans as flipping the bird, or just giving someone the finger.

The Romans had their own name for it: digitus impudicus - the shameless, indecent or offensive finger.

In the Epigrammata of First Century AD by the Latin poet Martial, a character who has always enjoyed good health extends a finger, “the indecent one”, at three doctors.

Monkeys’ obscene gesture

The Roman historian Tacitus wrote that German tribesmen gave the middle finger to advancing Roman soldiers, says Thomas Conley, a professor emeritus of communication and classics at the University of Illinois, who has written about the rhetoric of insults.

They may look innocent, but these squirrel monkeys are capable of their own obscene gesture

Earlier, the Greeks used the middle finger as an explicit reference to the male genitalia.

In 419BC, the playwright Aristophanes puns in his comedy The Clouds about dactylic (finger) rhythm, with a character gesturing first with his middle finger and subsequently with his crotch.

The gesture’s origins may extend even further back: male squirrel monkeys of South America are known to gesture with the erect penis, says Mr Morris.

The middle finger, which Mr Morris says probably arrived in the US with Italian immigrants, is documented in the US as early as 1886, when a pitcher for the Boston Beaneaters gave it in a joint team photograph with the rival New York Giants.

Expression of ‘displeasure’

The French have their own phallic salute, says Mr Morris.

In performing the “bras d’honneur” (arm of honour), one raises the forearm with the back of the hand facing outward, while slapping or gripping the inside of the elbow with the other hand.

The British gesture - the two-fingered ‘v’ with the palm facing inward - is a “double phallus”, Mr Morris quips.

The legend that the “two-fingered salute” stems from the Battle of Agincourt is apocryphal

Although scholars and historians continue to debate its origins, according to legend it was first displayed at the battle of Agincourt in 1415, although this is widely regarded as mythology.

The story goes that English soldiers waved their fingers at French soldiers who had threatened to cut off captured archers’ first two fingers to prevent them shooting arrows. The English were thus boasting they were still capable of doing so.

The middle finger’s offensive meaning seems to have overtaken cultural, linguistic and national boundaries and can now be seen at protests, on football pitches, and at rock concerts across the world.

In December, Liverpool striker Luis Suarez was photographed giving an American-style middle finger to Fulham fans after his club’s 1-0 loss there.

The FA cited him for improper conduct and suspended him for one game.

Protest, rage, excitement

In 2004, a Canadian MP from Calgary was accused of pointing his middle finger at a member from another party who he said had been heckling him in the House of Commons.

“I expressed my displeasure to him, let’s put it this way,” Deepak Obhrai told a Canadian newspaper.

Two years earlier, pop star Britney Spears gave the finger to a group of photographers in Mexico who she complained had been chasing her. Some of her fans thought the gesture was aimed at them, and Spears later apologised.

While the middle finger may historically have symbolised a phallus, it has lost that distinctive meaning and is no longer even obscene, says Ira Robbins, a law professor at American University in Washington DC, who has studied the gesture’s place in criminal jurisprudence.

“It does not appeal to the prurient interests,” he says.

“This gesture is so well engrained in everyday life in this country and others. It means so many other things, like protest or rage or excitement, it’s not just a phallus.”

And he rejects an Associated Press journalist’s characterisation of the gesture as “risque”.

“What is risque about it? Maybe the dancing was risque, but the finger? I just don’t see it.”

What if it’s not thrush but Lichen Sclerosis?

Lichen Sclerosus: I recently learned of the seriousness of this condition at one of our ASSERTSA meetings. Thanks to Dr Ann Olsson for her presentation. The description below is not from the presentation but one from a paper : Topical interventions for genital lichen sclerosus (Review) Chi CC, Kirtschig G, Baldo M, Brackenbury F, Lewis F, Wojnarowska F


Lichen sclerosus is a chronic, inflammatory skin condition that most commonly occurs in adult women, although it may also be seen in men and children. It primarily affects the genital area and around the (vulva) and anus, where it causes persistent itching and soreness. Scarring after inflammation may lead to severe damage by fusion of the vulval lips (labia); narrowing of the vaginal opening; and burying of the clitoris in women and girls, as well as tightening of the foreskin in men and boys, if treatments are not started early. Affected people have an increased risk of genital cancers.

If you are working with young women who have persistant itching which they may think is thrush that is persistant. SUGGEST THEY GO TO A GP. Have a swab to make sure this is only thrush and not Lichen Sclerosus or Lichen Planos. These can be very serious and are often mistaken for persistant thrush. Don’t self treat thrush. Go to your GP


If you are in South Oz you can always ring the ShineSA helpline Telephone:            1300 883 793       Toll free:


            1800 188 171       (country callers only).

Gender 101 - Great Video

Really good video from the Gender Identity project that gives a good grounding in discussions re gender and transgender. Have a watch. Let me know what you think.

Ultrasound (heat up) your testes for birth control?

WOW we better keep up to date with technology!

The ideal male contraceptive would be inexpensive, reliable, and reversible. It would need to be long acting but have few side effects. New research published in BioMed Central’s open access journalReproductive Biology and Endocrinologyused commercially available therapeutic ultrasound equipment to reduce sperm counts of male rats to levels which would result in infertility in humans. 

The team led by James Tsuruta found that by rotating high frequency (3MHz) ultrasound around the testes they were able to cause uniform depletion of germ cells throughout the testes. The best results were seen using two sessions consisting of 15 minutes ultrasound, two days apart. Saline was used to provide conduction between the ultrasound transducer and skin, and the testes were warmed to 37 degrees centigrade. Together this reduced sperm to a Sperm Count Index of zero

Go here to read more