Crimes against women

The official description of the Artificial Virginity Hymen Kit, a vaginal gadget sold by Chinese sex toy company Gigimo, reads as follows:

"No more worry about losing your virginity. With this product, you can have your first night back anytime. Insert this artificial hymen into your vagina carefully. It will expand a little and make you feel tight. When your lover penetrate, it will ooze out a liquid that look like blood not too much but just the right amount. Add in a few moans and groans, you will pass through undetectable. Its easy to use, clinically proven non-toxic to human and has no side effects, no pain to use and no allergic reaction."

Ahem. The product, which sells for $29.99 (discount applied if you buy in bulk!), has been on the international sex toy market for a while now, mocked universally by feminists and bloggers, and yet quietly selling away.

But last week, Egyptian politicians called for a ban on the device, condemning it as a product that promotes promiscuity. Read More »

Everyone has their low-grade stalking story, and depending on the severity of the situation, maybe you've felt deeply unsafe due to another's untoward obsession. The author of a new memoir, In His Sights, writes about her experience of being consistently harassed by an ex-lover, for ahem, over a decade.

Brennan recounts terrifying stories involving her ex-boyfriend, "Paul" whom she dated for about a year until he began showing signs of controlling behavior and mental instability. Almost immediately after she moved out, a campaign of surveillance, severed phone lines and break-ins where she would find little alterations, such as a kitchen spoon laying on her bed, began. Says the New York Times, "The stalking, which continues sporadically today, is at once bizarre, terrifying and, owing to Paul’s deep pockets, maddeningly relentless and difficult to trace, according to the book. It led the author to move 16 times in 16 months, she writes." Read More »