INTERESTING TIMES

The law is ORS 163.465.

(1) A person commits the crime of public indecency if while in, or in view of, a public place the person performs:
(a) An act of sexual intercourse;
(b) An act of deviate sexual intercourse; or
(c) An act of exposing the genitals of the person with the intent of arousing the sexual desire of the person or another person.

I've been hearing a lot about circumcision lately. This morning I hear that the CDC has determined that circumcision reduces a man's chance of contracting HIV by 60%! This is news to me. I even have it in me to doubt it, having not heard it until just now after so much previous noise about the question. I suspect the mechanism of resistance to the virus has to do with the thickening of the skin on the glans when it is exposed all the time, as versus the thin-ness of such skin, more like a mucous membrane, when it is permanently covered. One kind in Africa has issued an edict that all men must be circumcised, and young Zulu men are getting cut as a rite of manhood. Cultural change is in progress in Africa.

Anyway, other mentions include a pack of people in San Francisco who tried to get a law passed BANNING circumcision as male genital mutilation. They didn't get very far, but they did get a lot of attention. And also, in pediatrics class I heard that here on the West Coast 60% of new baby boys are NOT being circumcised, and that number is increasing. The pediatrician's perspective is that we will have a generation of men for whom either circ or non-circ is accepttable, and then the next generation will probably be almost entirely noncircumcised. Cultural change is in progress in America, but in the opposite direction from Africa...

Which gland produces Gonadotropin Releasing Hormone (GnRH)?
hypothalamus

GnRH is released in pulses every how many minutes?
90-120
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A friend of mine lectured me the other day on the history of the Olympics. The first games were somewhere around 3,000 years ago, and lasted for 5 days. They were intended to keep the warriors fit and on their game in times of peace. She said that men competed naked and covered in olive oil in celebration of the human body. She said that they were expected to have sex with the other men, and it sounded as if that was even part of the show. They were to forsake other men when they were married. She also said that virgin females were banned from attending the event, and great efforts were made to keep the proceedings secret from them. Only married women were permitted to attend. I suppose because married women already know something about the animal nature of men, but virgins could be put off. This all makes some sense, but I wonder why I hadn't heard it before. Have you heard about this? I found nothing on the net to corroborate her claims. I did find one site that said the Olympic officials decided to require an athlete's aids also arrive naked, after one young man's mother managed to sneak in to assist him.
( scattered notes )