The Daily Newds 4/9/09

• An article claims that many Gujarati people from India are losing their inhibitions on nudist beaches in South Africa, and Australia.

  "If you are not sure if you are sufficiently uninhibited, you should stick to 'clothing optional' beaches," (Deval) Surti said. "It is difficult for an Indian to accept and feel relaxed in the primitive atmosphere of nudist beaches. I am an open-minded person, but when I went to Point Impossible in Australia, I had to use all my willpower to let my guard down. Once you are comfortable with the 'no clothes' idea, it is great fun!"

• Lachlan Mackintosh ponders getting naked for winter sports.
• A Nova Scotia politician has apologized to candidate Lenore Zann for circulating a photo of her bare-breasted in a scene from the TV series "The L Word". There was a time when the woman would be the one forced to apologize, so society is making a little progress on this issue.
• A Swedish student and his friend were charged with public nudity for going without clothing in a Singapore restaurant district a few months ago.
• A study published in the Journal of School Health reports that teens are engaging in sexual intercourse as early as age 12.
  

  In the study, (Dr. Christine) Markham and colleagues defined sexual intercourse as vaginal, oral or anal sex. According to their research, by age 12, 12 percent of students had already engaged in vaginal sex, 7.9 percent in oral sex, 6.5 percent in anal sex and 4 percent in all three types of intercourse.
  
  The study found one-third of sexually active students reported engaging in vaginal or anal sex without a condom within the past three months, and one-fourth had four or more partners. The more experienced students in all three types of intercourse were more likely to be male and African-American.
  
  "We need to develop prevention programs that address the needs of students who are not yet sexually active in order to promote skills and attitudes to help them wait until they are older to have sex," Markham said. "And we need to provide skills and knowledge related to condoms and contraception for youth who are already sexually active."

• Sex educator Jay Friedman says that he resorted to looking at photos of naked natives in National Geographic when he was a teen because school sex-ed classes were so inadequate.
  

  European society and American society differently inform young people about sex. Freidman said Northern Europeans especially have lower teen pregnancies, lower abortion rates, and lower sexual assault rates because Europeans are more frank about sexuality.
  
  He said that while the east and west coast seemed to be open-minded, he found more close-minded and conservative views of sex in the Midwest, where his words were the most controversial.
  
  The resistance to the truth may partly have stemmed from his belief that “politics has everything to do with sex.” Friedman slammed political issues, such as abstinence-only programs that he thinks are “damaging for young people and society” and “cripples them with sexual ignorance.”

• The Arizona State University online news source has a positive article on naturism, interviewing a student named "Roy".

  “It's the enjoyment of not having to have clothes on — it's sort of an opinion about the necessity of clothes more than anything else,” he says. “I don’t think of it as a lifestyle, I think of it as a clothing style.” Roy says in fact going without clothes can be better in many situations. “If it’s 20 degrees outside, then go put on a jacket,” he says, “but if the day’s really nice, then why [wear clothes] if you're indoors, or especially with swimming.”

• NJ.com is on the record for leaving the legal system out of teen sexting incidents.

  Technology has moved at the speed of light, outpacing what lawmakers most likely envisioned would occur under our laws. We need to reconsider how to approach these issues productively before infringing on the liberties of children and jeopardizing them beyond their own bad judgment.