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The world's oldest profession is embracing new thinking.

Sex work is undergoing a belated industrial revolution. Prostitutes from Brazil, France, the US and right across Canada converged on the country's sex capital, Montreal, for 'Turn up the Heat' - the second annual festival of sex worker rights.

Their aim? A new deal for sex workers.

The event is run by the Coalition for the Rights of Sex Workers. Organiser Jenn Clamen says the group's focus has changed since its inception in 1996.

"In the past, we've focused on issues raised by the anti-prostitution movement; HIV/Aids, exploitation and morality," she says. "This year, we're focusing on our rights; professional standards, health and safety and discrimination."

Union recognition

Ms Clamen has worked as a campaigner in the US, Canada and the UK.

She spent two years working with the London-based International Union of Sex Workers (IUSW), which lists among its aims "the right to work on the same basis as other independent contractors and employers and to receive the same benefits as other self-employed or contracted workers".

The culmination of Ms Clamen's work in the UK was the IUSW's affiliation last year to the UK's third biggest union, the GMB.

"It gives sex workers a louder voice when campaigning for their rights," she says.

Carol Leigh - alias Scarlot Harlot - is the author of The Unrepentant Whore.

She comes from a family of political activists. Her parents campaigned for socialist worker rights.

Ms Leigh campaigns for sex worker rights in the US and has been working in the industry for three decades.

Pension provision

She is, at a guess, in her early fifties but retirement is a long way off.

"I don't have enough stamps to get a pension yet. I didn't cotton on to paying taxes until much later," she says.

As her Rubenesque figure has become less in demand, she has been able to substitute some of the lost income by writing and producing video documentaries.

But she acknowledges many of her peers may not be so fortunate and face a difficult old age. "If it were legal, we could communicate these things to young women," she says.

In the absence of a change in the law, Ms Leigh is working to change attitudes to tax and benefits in the industry.

"The government doesn't care where the money comes from as long as you pay your taxes. I just put 'entertainer' down as my occupation. It means I have access to the social security system," she says.

Maternity leave

Many younger sex workers remain unconvinced of the benefits of paying tax.

"What's the point of being a prostitute if the government's going to take half your earnings in taxes?" says mother-of-three Zoe Brown.

Twelve years ago, Ms Brown was working as a prostitute when she fell pregnant with her first child.

For many sex workers, pregnancy, illness or disability means instant poverty.

Their need to remain within the unofficial economy - undetected by the law - also makes them invisible to other government agencies which could help them in times of need.

Ms Brown had the foresight to save a little of her $700 a day income so she didn't have to worry as much about money.

But she admits it would have been nice to claim her statutory entitlements.

"I could have paid my taxes and all those things but I didn't want to be known by the government," she explains.

Health and Safety

Ms Brown used to work in a brothel. "I was in control. It was a safe and clean environment," she says.

But a police raid put an end to the thriving business.

Ms Brown escaped prosecution that time but decided running a house of ill-repute was too big a risk as a young mother.

She now makes a living from telephone chat lines and her performance art.

Other sex workers are forced out of brothels onto the streets and a much more dangerous environment.

Many at the festival cite the Netherlands as a success story.

Britons spend more on the sex industry than on cinema tickets.

The country has pioneered designated red-light zones and a system for licensing brothels. Some UK local authorities, such as Birmingham, are looking at similar options.

"The law prevents us from conducting our lives in a way that's safest," insists Ms Leigh.

'Decriminaliser le prostitution' says a neon green badge pinned to her ample bosom.

And indeed everyone here agrees that decriminalisation is the best way of guaranteeing sex worker rights.

"Prostitution isn't dangerous in itself," says Ms Clamen, "It's the risks sex workers have to take to avoid the law which puts them in danger."

By Pauline Mason
In Montreal, Canada
BBC News

South Africa has launched "sexy" and "fun" free condoms to combat Aids.

The Choice condom comes in a bright blue and yellow package, replacing the nameless, grey strip of condoms that had been distributed since 2000.

The relaunch came after studies found that South Africans thought the government-issued sheaths were less reliable than pharmacy-bought brands.

South Africa has one of the highest numbers of HIV positive people in the world - some 5.3 million.

The South African government has frequently been accused of not doing enough to prevent the spread of aids.

"We realised that we needed to change the way we market government condoms to maximise their impact," said Health Minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang as she launched the Choice condom.

"Condoms should not only be a necessity but should be seen as sexy and part of fun," she said.

A trained doctor, Mrs Tashabalala-Msimang, was criticised after advocating a quirky diet of beetroot, spinach, garlic and olive oil for those with HIV to stay well.

BBC News

Russia's first museum of erotica is to open in St Petersburg - with Rasputin's penis reputedly among the exhibits.

Museum founder Igor Knyazkin says the 12ins organ will be the star attraction, reports Russian daily Nezavisimaya Gazeta.

Mr Knyazkin, who is also the chief of the prostate research centre of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, said he was particularly proud of the pickled penis.

He said: "Having this exhibit, we can stop envying America, where Napoleon Bonaparte's penis is now kept.

"Napoleon's penis is but a small pod - it cannot stand comparison to our organ of 30 centimetres."

Ananova.com

Men who have difficulty getting an erection could soon use an inhaler to help them have better sex. British scientists are trying to put the active ingredients of an anti-impotence drug into an inhaler.

They believe breathing in the drug, rather than swallowing it, will enable men to get an erection more quickly.

Wiltshire-based Vectura says its product, which at the moment is called VR004, has proved effective in early clinical trials.

The active ingredient in VR004 is apomorphine hydrochloride, which has been available in Europe for the treatment of erectile dysfunction since 2001 as Uprima.

The drug works by activating nerve cells in the brain which are linked to sexual response.

These dopamine receptors help regulate the nerve signals which allow a man to achieve an erection

'Works quickly'

Pharmaceutical company Abbot which produces Uprima says it gets to work within 20 minutes.

However, scientists at Vectura believe they can make the drug work more quickly by getting men to inhale it.

They recently carried out tests on 35 men with mild to moderate erectile dysfunction. They found that the drug helped 59% of these men to get an erection, which compares quite well to other anti-impotence drugs.

Most of these achieved an erection within eight minutes. Three responded within three minutes of inhaling the drug. None reported serious side effects.

The company is now planning to carry out further tests to see if a higher dose could benefit more men.

"We want to see how far we can take the dosage," said Chris Blackwell, chief executive of Vectura. "We are hoping to start that trial later this year."

More than 50m men in Europe and the United States have difficulty getting an erection.

Around $2.5bn is spent on anti-impotence drugs each year and the market is expected to double in size by 2010.

Dr Ian Banks, president of the European Men's Health Forum, welcomed the research.

"This does appear to act very quickly," he told BBC News Online.

"One of the things you need for good sex is spontaneity and anything that enables men to act spontaneously has to be a good thing."

BBC News

When the number of chlamydia cases in young Swedish people doubled in one year, health workers decided drastic measures were needed to boost the use of condoms.

The result can be seen on the streets of three Swedish cities from this weekend: condom ambulances.

In Gothenburg, Stockholm and Malmo, several emergency vehicles will be on standby three days a week, waiting for calls from those caught in a promising situation, but without protection.

For only 50 kronas (£4) the cars (dubbed the "Cho-San Express" after a well-known make of condoms) will deliver 10 condoms to any address within the city boundaries.

Alarming rise

RFSU, the Swedish health trust and condom makers, came up with the idea because of the alarming rise in sexually transmitted diseases like chlamydia among young people.

Carl Osvald, RFSU's marketing director, told News Online only 25% of Swedes between the ages of 16 and 25 use condoms. "Surveys show that 50% of them wouldn't mind using condoms, but for some reason far fewer actually do."

Mr Osvald said he hoped the condom express would be a new step towards reaching those potential customers.

"We decided to take a humorous approach to this, and hopefully this will be seen as communicating with young people, not lecturing them."

Star director

Along with the emergency vehicles, there will also be a television campaign in the shape of a short film about the dangers of unprotected sex.

In the hope of hitting the target audience, RFSU hired Swedish star music video director Johan Renck, the man behind videos from Kylie Minogue, Madonna and Beyonce, to make the film.

So what do the Swedish youth make of the whole idea? Anders Mathew Wise from Stockholm said the express was not for him.

He said: "I think it's a good PR-stunt, but it won't solve the acute problems. I would not call the condom express if I was in a situation where I needed one. It wouldn't feel right. It would create too much attention."

Maria Anderson, also from Stockholm, agreed: "It sounds like something you'd do if you were very drunk. I don't think I would use it.

"I think the campaign might lead to an increase in the use of condoms, but I don't think the actual condom express cars will contribute to that."

Welcome campaign

At a sexual health clinic in Stockholm, doctors are understandably worried about the rise in cases of chlamydia among young people.

Clinic consultant Christina Rogala welcomed the condom express campaign, and said all initiatives to increase condom use were good.

"We don't know why we've had this increase, it is not hard to get hold of condoms in Sweden, and most young people know about the risks of unprotected sex.

"But many also know of someone who has had chlamydia, and who have been successfully treated for it. They might think it is not a big problem.

"What they might not realise is the very serious danger of female infertility as a result of the disease", Dr Rogala told News Online.

Althought the campaign is targeted at young people, Carl Osvald said anyone was welcome to call the condom express hotline.

"We won't look at someone's age and turn around! When it comes to sex, you're only as old as you feel."
By Lars Bevanger
BBC News Online in Gothenburg

BBC News

Millions of British teenagers have had sex, been drunk and smoked cannabis by the time they are 15. A survey by the World Health Organization reveals that one in three 15 year olds has had sex.

Two out of three have been drunk and one in three has tried cannabis. Most drink alcohol every week while one in five regularly smokes cannabis.

The figures, which are outlined in a new report, are among the highest in Europe and North America.

Unsafe sex

The survey, which was coordinated by researchers at the University of Edinburgh, also reveals that many young Britons are failing to use contraception when they have sex.

Of those 15-year-olds who have had sex, one in three said they did not use a condom when they last had intercourse. One in five said they hadn't used any contraception at all.

Most young people having sex
1. Greenland
2. England
3. Ukraine
4. Wales
5. Scotland
Rankings based on survey of 15-year-olds

The report shows that children as young as 11 regularly drink alcohol. It found that 13% of 11-year-old boys and 8% of 11-year-old girls drink alcohol every week.

Some 10% of boys and 6% of girls have been drunk at least twice by the age of 11. By the time they reach 15, more than half of teenagers have been drunk.

Rates of smoking are relatively high. Around 2% of youngsters smoke at least once a week by the age of 11. That increases to over 10% of 13-year-olds and over 25% of 15-year-olds. Girls are much more likely to smoke than boys.

The WHO questioned 162,000 children in 35 countries in Europe and North America as part of its health behaviour in school-aged children (HBSC) project.

It confirmed that Britain has some of the highest rates of child obesity in the World.

But it also revealed that many youngsters are very conscious about how they look and how much they weigh.

Some 16% of girls and 10% of boys in Wales have gone on a diet by the time they are 11. The figures for England and Scotland are only slightly lower.

Most young cannabis users
1. Greenland
2. Switzerland
3. Canada
4. England
5. Scotland
8. Wales
Ranking based on survey of 15-year-olds

The report suggests young Britons are less likely to eat healthily than teenagers in many other countries.

Less than a third of teenagers eat fruit or vegetables every day.

Children in Scotland are more likely to eat sweets and consume fizzy drinks every day compared to children living in almost every other country surveyed.

The report also shows that British teenagers spend hours in front of televisions and computers each week.

For instance, more than a quarter spend over four hours watching television each day during the week. That rises to close to half at weekends.

But researchers insisted that the report did have some positive findings.

"It is not all bad news," said Dr Candace Currie, one of the researchers.

"Rates of smoking have fallen dramatically especially among boys and physical activity rates are comparatively high. There is some really good work going on."

BBC News

Having unprotected sex once is far more likely to result in a pregnancy than was previously thought, finds research.

Scientists found evidence that women are subconsciously driven to have more sex during the most fertile time of their monthly cycle.

An analysis by the US National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences found intercourse was 24% more frequent on fertile days.

The study is published in the journal Human Reproduction.

The study focused on women who had either been sterilised or were using an intrauterine device (IUD).

The frequency of intercourse increased during the six most fertile days of the menstrual cycle and peaked at ovulation - despite the fact that these women clearly did not want a baby.

Biological factors

Lead research Professor Allen Wilcox said: "There apparently are biological factors promoting intercourse during a woman's six fertile days, whether she wants a baby or not.

"It suggests that couples who 'take a chance' with unprotected intercourse have the deck stacked against them.

"Intercourse apparently does not happen randomly. It's more likely to occur on the fertile days, even though the average woman won't know when these days are."

It was already known that in many mammal species, intercourse is often coordinated with ovulation - but the same phenomenon had been established in humans.

Overall, the researchers found that women had sex 0.29 times a day - or twice a week.

However, during the six most fertile days of their cycle the rate of intercourse averaged out at 0.34 times a day, compared to 0.27 times a day for the rest of the month - an increase of 24%.

Professor Wilcox said there were at least three possible explanations:

An increase in the woman's sex drive at ovulation An increase in the woman's sexual attractiveness Intercourse accelerating ovulation

He said: "It's remarkable that the biological forces shaping this intimate aspect of human behaviour have gone largely unrecognized.

"For couples who want a baby these biological mechanisms are a silent partner, helping to optimize the timing of intercourse.

"For couples who do not want a baby, however, these data are a caution.

"Such couples need to know that nature is subtly working against them."

BBC News

Ireland's banking industry was rocked by high-level resignations at the weekend with Mike Soden forced to stand down as chief executive of Bank of Ireland after admitting he used his office computer to access pornography on the internet.

His departure follows the unrelated announcement on Saturday that Tom Mulcahy, former chief executive of Allied Irish Banks, was stepping down from his current position as chairman of Aer Lingus, the state airline.

Mr Soden resigned after it emerged he had used his PC to access a porn site while trying to book a Las Vegas escort agency ahead of a business trip to the US city. He said in a statement, "the content accessed was not illegal, but did contain links to material of an adult nature". He said: "When you look at the events that have taken place, or if anybody looked at what the reason was behind it, they would say that what I have done is akin to parking on the wrong side of the street."

Mr Mulcahy had been named by an Irish newspaper as one of a group of former executives involved in alleged tax avoidance and inappropriate trading practices in the 1990s.

Bertie Ahern, the Irish prime minister, yesterday said those found guilty of wrongdoing at AIB should be punished.

Liam O'Reilly, head of the Irish Financial Services Regulatory Authority, which is conducting an investigation of AIB's trading, described developments as "disturbing".

The resignation of Mr Soden will provide a distraction from the scandal at AIB, which is facing questions after admitting that former executives had used a British Virgin Islands company to channel trading profits on IPOs and other transactions, where they received favourable share allocations to the detriment of the bank's clients.

Mary Harney, minister for enterprise, trade and employment, earlier called on former AIB executives involved to come forward rather than being "smoked out" by the media. She said there could be no "question marks over directors on the board of state companies".

Mr Mulcahy, who had been quoted by RTE, the state broadcaster, as saying he had "no prior knowledge of or involvement in the investment practices outlined" is understood to have been in contact with Ms Harney on Saturday, after he was named by the Irish Times along with other former AIB executives. It is not clear why exactly he resigned as he had insisted his tax affairs were in order.

Bank of Ireland said its board of directors would meet to decide on a successor to Mr Soden this week. Brian Goggin, head of the asset management arm and Des Crowley, who runs retail financial services, are seen as the leading internal candidates.

By John Murray Brown in Dublin

Financial Times

When it comes to sex, many men like to hurry and many women like to wait. This generalization won't come as a surprise to most people, but researchers are suggesting something new: The pattern may begin in adolescence.

A survey of teens found that males interested in physical intimacy push to have sex earlier, and females more interested in the emotional side want to postpone things.

"We see from these findings that this happens pretty early in life," said Nadine Kaslow, chief psychologist at Emory School of Medicine, who is familiar with the study findings. "If you think of [an adult] couple who has a fight, she'll often say, 'Until we're doing better, I don't want to have sex,' and he says, 'If we have sex, we'll be doing better.' Kids are showing you the exact same thing."

Researchers also found that teens treat casual sex differently than sex with potential partners, just like adults. And, in a phenomenon that may sound familiar to their elders, teens also promise themselves that they'll wait longer to have sex next time.

Perhaps surprisingly, sexuality researchers haven't spent much time studying how adolescents make sexual decisions.

"We don't actually know all that much about what makes kids decide to have sex and when they decide to have it," Kaslow said. "One of the challenges is that researchers are adults, and kids don't necessarily feel comfortable talking about sex to them. It's a very private matter."

In the new study, published in the April issue of Sexually Transmitted Diseases, researchers interviewed 205 teenagers who visited a sexually transmitted disease clinic and reported having both casual and non-casual sex.

Males who emphasized the importance of sex in a relationship were more likely to want intercourse early. "It's not that all the boys are saying sex is important to them," said study co-author Cynthia Rosengard, an assistant professor of medicine at Rhode Island Hospital in Providence. "But the ones who were are the ones who say they want to initiate sex sooner."

Meanwhile, females interested in intimacy -- or worried about health issues and the risk of disease -- were more likely to push for later sex. Some of the girls expressed a heavy interest in sex, but they weren't as likely to push for immediate intercourse as the other girls were.

Both boys and girls wanted to postpone future sex with non-casual partners for a median of two months; the median wait until sex in their past relationships was one month.

What can public health advocates do with this information?

Rosengard thinks they can use it to encourage the postponement of intercourse and help boys and girls understand each other.

"I'm hesitant to suggest that you need to have a completely different message for girls and boys," she said. "They both need to know where each other is coming from in the negotiation process."

Kaslow, the Emory psychologist, said the findings offer other lessons, too.

"What this really says is we need to do a better job of teaching our kids about intimacy," she said. "It's important for parents to convey that sex is special and beautiful in the context of a meaningful relationship. That may be a message that's easier to get across to girls than boys. To some extent, fathers or male figures are really going to have to step up the plate to communicate that to boys and to their sons."

By Randy Dotinga
HealthDay Reporter

Forbes.com

More than one in 25 young women and men in the United States are infected with the bacterium that causes the sexually transmitted disease chlamydia.

Rates of infection are alarmingly high among young black women (almost 14 percent) and young black men (more than 11 percent), a new study found.

The research also found a much lower overall prevalence of gonorrhea -- 0.43 percent. Among black men and women, however, the rate is 2.13 percent.

The study appears in the May 12 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Chlamydia usually has no symptoms in its early stages. But if left untreated, it can cause pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancy and infertility in women, and may even be linked to cervical cancer. In men, it can lead to pain or swelling in the scrotal area, and possibly sterility. Being infected with chlamydia may also increase the ability to transmit and to get HIV, federal health officials report.

When detected, chlamydia is easy to treat.

"Chlamydia is just such a low-grade infection that causes long-term problems and it's so easy to treat," said Dr. Ralph Dauterive, chief of obstetrics and gynecology at the Ochsner Clinic Foundation in New Orleans. "You take some doxycycline [an antibiotic] for 10 days. It's pretty easy to do."

The problem, Dauterive added, is that it's "a quiet little infection. Chlamydia is out there and no one seems to know anything about it."

Previous research on the prevalence of chlamydia had shown similarly high rates. But because those earlier studies were based on people seeking help in a clinic, experts couldn't be sure they were representative of the population at large, explained study author Dr. William C. Miller.

"Almost all of our prior information had been in clinics. They were coming in and getting tested and treated. In this case, we were going out to them," added Miller, an assistant professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of North Carolina Schools of Medicine and Public Health.

The researchers did at-home interviews with 14,322 men and women aged 18 to 26 across the United States. Most of the participants -- 12,548 -- also gave urine samples that were then tested for evidence of chlamydial and gonococcal infections.

Overall, the prevalence of chlamydial infection was 4.19 percent, and was more common among women (4.74 percent) than among men (3.67 percent). Prevalence was also more than twice as high in the South (5.39 percent) than in the Northeast (2.39 percent).

More striking were variations by race and ethnicity. Young white adults had the lowest prevalence (1.94 percent) while young black adults had almost six times that rate (12.54 percent). In young Latino adults, the prevalence was 5.89 percent. The highest prevalence was among black women (13.95 percent), followed by black men (11.12 percent). Asian-American men had the lowest prevalence (1.14 percent), followed by white men (1.38 percent) and white women (2.52 percent).

The overall prevalence of gonorrhea was 0.43 percent. Among black men and women, the prevalence was 2.13 percent. Among white adults, it was 0.10 percent. About 0.03 percent of those interviewed were infected with both chlamydia and gonorrhea.

The findings have implications for both prevention and treatment strategies.

"The vast majority of these people had no idea they were infected," Miller said. "So consequently, they have no trigger to seek health care. Or, if they had symptoms previously, they were short-lived and mild. That implies that we need to do a better job of screening."

At present, women tend to be screened for sexually transmitted disease more than men, partly because it is part-and-parcel of infertility screening. Also, women show up for routine exams more often than men, Miller said.

"One of the things we hope this study will help encourage is, it really takes two for these kinds of diseases and treating one part of the pathway won't help us reduce the prevalence," he said.

It's also important to take cautious note of the racial disparities, Miller added. "If we politicize it, then we'll not target therapy to people who really need it. And we really, really need to be screening and treating in order to reduce the disparity, and the only way to do that is to acknowledge it exists," he said.

The rise and fall of chlamydia rates often mimic the rise and fall of different political climates, said Dr. Kenneth A. Levey, director of the Chronic Pelvic Pain Center at New York University Medical Center in New York City.

"One of the reasons for the high prevalence of chlamydia and STDs [sexually transmitted diseases] in general in this age group is lack of educational programs. And I think that political tides turn the availability of condoms in high school," he added. "Chlamydia is still high in this country and it's a very, very preventable disease. There's no reason why anybody should have chlamydia. All it takes is a very simple use of condoms."

By Amanda Gardner
HealthDay Reporter

Forbes.com