Indignant female surgeons force President of the American College of Surgeons to resign over Valentine’s Day editorial. New York Times:

Dr. [Lazar] Greenfield, 78, was the editor in chief of Surgery News when the editorial was published but resigned that position in the wake of the controversy; the entire issue of the newspaper was withdrawn. He is an emeritus professor of surgery at the University of Michigan School of Medicine.

The editorial cited research that found that female college students who had had unprotected sex were less depressed than those whose partners used condoms. It speculated that compounds in semen have antidepressant effects.

“So there’s a deeper bond between men and women than St. Valentine would have suspected, and now we know there’s a better gift for that day than chocolates,” it concluded.

The editorial outraged many women in the field, some of whom said that it reflected a macho culture in surgery that needed to change.

Penelope’s sex life sounds messy and confused, but I’m not sure it actually sounds as different from the norm as one would have supposed.

Publius responds to a satirical proposal by Jeff Perren contending that, if government has a responsibility to provide health care to those unable to get it on their own, why shouldn’t government also provide sex for the hopelessly disadvantaged romantically? by pointing out that, in the Netherlands, they’ve already thought of that one.

I was always fascinated by the infinite, strange and ‘scandalous’ ways that insects copulate.”

—Isabella Rossellini

Isabella Rossellini makes her directorial debut in a series of short films dramatizing the mating habits of invertebrates.

Produced for the Sundance Channel, the series of six very short, 1-2 minute, films, titled Green Porno, were made in a small screen format intended to be watched on cell-phone or iPod.

Rossellini commences each film, dreamily remarking that “If I were a…..(earthworm, spider, dragonfly, bee, firefly, praying mantis, snail, or fly)”, then appears herself in simple, childish costumes playing the male member of the species. The female is typically an even simpler cardboard mock-up.

She brings a peculiar enthusiasm and panache, especially for a woman of her sophistication and maturity, to a project featuring such a strange combination of slightness and deliberate bad taste.

pdf description of the series

4:11 interview with Rossellini video

Hat tip to U 2.

Yale students are intended to talk about sex a lot during a biannual week-long crotch-gazing series of lectures and seminars scheduled to coincide with Valentine’s Day, but few are likely to find a week-long promotion of sex toys, condoms, and the personal careers of a bunch of porn stars and geriatric sex gurus very interesting. Yale undergraduates are likely to think that the idea of people the age of those professional sex counselors actually having sex is really gross.

The Yale Daily News took only a flaccid interest:

Porn stars, sex-toy connoisseurs and condom manufacturers are among the characters descending on the Elm City for an unorthodox Valentine’s Day celebration.

Following Sex Week at Yale’s kick-off comedy show on Sunday, students delved deeper into the eight-day series of events Monday afternoon when Pepper Schwartz GRD ’74 mixed comedy and counseling to address common mistakes in beliefs about sex and love.

Over 100 students attended the event “Myths & Misconceptions about Sex and Relationships,” during which sociologist, professor, author and former Glamour magazine columnist Schwartz informed and entertained the crowd by discussing 13 common misunderstandings about sex. The topics ranged from female anatomy to sexual orientation to marital sex and were addressed from both biological and cultural perspectives.

Schwartz, a professor of sociology at the University of Washington in Seattle, is the author of 14 books and over 40 articles on sex, love and relationships and creator of the Personality Profiler test used by Perfectmatch.com.

She began her lecture by declaring that sex “is not a natural act” but rather one based on complex cultural pressures and individual beliefs and preferences. Her goal, she said, is to address those parts of human sexuality and interaction that are commonly misunderstood.

Ironically, the conservative Yale Free Press found itself obliged to advise Michelle Malkin’s commenters to chill out. The event is just one of countless fringe activities occurring during the academic year which the typical Yalie dismisses with a raised eyebrow.

The magazine, distributed free on campus.

Sex Week home page
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Speaking as stuffy old alumn, I do wonder exactly why the Yale Administration allows the university to be exploited by this unsavory species of commercial enterprise. I suppose Richard Levin is too busy running around saving the planet to provide any direction on good taste.

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Hat tip to Jake McGuire.