Everything you know about sex is true.

Henri Cartier-Bresson, Charles Henri Ford, Paris, 1935

An interesting article in The Guardian reports on censorship, the American Catholic League and Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture, a show currently running in Washington DC that looks at art history from a homosexual perspective.

Last week, the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery withdrew from Hide/Seek a video by the artist David Wojnarowicz, Fire in My Belly, which includes a crucifix covered in ants, symbolising the suffering of people with Aids; Wojnarowicz died of the disease in 1992.

"When," Curator Jonathan Katz asks, "will the decent majority of Americans stand against a fringe that sees censorship as a replacement for debate?"

Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture, at the Smithsonian's National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC. Until 1 January.

Thousands of condoms are blocking drains at the £150m athletes' village of the Commonwealth Games in Delhi.

Games organisers have said they will work round the clock to clear the prophylactics from pipes at the accommodation blocks housing more than 7,000 athletes and officials.

Mike Fennell, president of the Commonwealth Games Federation, sought to put a positive spin on the story at a news conference, saying: "If that is happening, it shows that there is use of condoms and I think that is a very positive story. Athletes are being responsible."

"If they are so active then that's very good," a spokesperson for the organisers said. "We are promoting safe sex."

One official told the local Mail Today newspaper, which broke the story, that more than 4,000 condoms had already been taken from free vending machines since athletes started arriving 10 days ago.

Now's the time to have a look back and give you a list of the 10 most read stories of 2008:

Everyone's favourite this year is the inflatable Jesus sex doll, closely followed by the shadow of a penis on the wall.

After that comes the delicacy of vagina lollipops

We are glad to see that needlework keeps on drawing many fans. So do the vintage porn image galleries. Upskirt galleries never fail to please either.

In sixth position is an upscale brothel in Prague offering patrons the thrills of Big Brother.

The last three stories in the top ten are everyday pin-ups, a glimpse inside the sex life of elderly couples. And a sex top ten wouldn't be any authority without a little help from Japan. Here's the slideshow of their First Sex Show.

Go back to natural science classes through Spring 2009 at the Museum of Sex in New York. They are throwing an exhibition about The Sex Lives of Animals.

Studies of the natural world have revealed that in the animal kingdom sex is more than reproduction.
Animals too participate in an astonishing array of sexual behaviors, they engage in foreplay behaviors such as kissing, hugging, mutual and self-stimulation, oral sex and every kind of penetrative intercourse imaginable.

Set to debut in this exhibition are life-sized animal sculptures custom-made by Rune Olsen.

Via Zooillogix.

The first medi spa in Manhattan wholly dedicated to strengthening and grooming a woman’s genital area. Phit — short for pelvic health integrated techniques — is to open this month on East 58th Street.

Dr. Lauri Romanzi, a gynecologist who performs pelvic reconstruction surgery, said she came up with the idea for the spa one day while walking by an outlet of BriteSmile, the tooth-whitening chain. She liked that the stores cater to people with healthy teeth.

So Dr. Romanzi developed her own concept of “pelvic fitness” for healthy women. She said that Phit will help women get “in shape from the inside out.”

At the spa, the signature treatment will be a $150 gynecological exam — in which a client contracts her pelvic muscles around Dr. Romanzi’s fingers — to determine by feel whether muscle tone is weak, moderate or strong.

Via jezebel.

Sharing is sexy is an open source porn laboratory working to create sex positive community. Sharing is Sexy is based in the San Diego / Tijuana borderlands.

We can only subscribe to their "vision":

* a free, copyleft, open publishing porn website
* a space for queer people, transgender people, people of color, differently abled people, people of all sizes, polyamorous people, plushies, furries, doms and othered bodies
* an experimental attitude because most of us have not yet been sex workers
* rejecting categories of sexual expression
* a consensus based group where we’re all equals, non-hierarchical
* only consensual acts, we do what we want, only 18 and over participants
* we want to make porn that is hot!

They recently had their first DIY queer burlesque show! It was a private party but it has been publicly documented.

Image galleries from J and Lotus.