Then, in her mid-twenties she discovered yoga and realized that , “…it was practiced in bare feet (no ugly trainers required, yay!) and every class ends in lying down,” she was sold. Yoga got her to connect with her body, but she was looking for more. Ballet? Hip-hop? Belly dancing? …all rejected as too formal, too hard or too silly.

“Then I saw pole dancing,” Chwenny says. “…sensuality, grace, girly-ness, and spiked heels. Very interesting!”

I have added her Website to our blogroll for those readers who are interested in getting first hand insights from a pole dancer. She is dedicated, delightful and Chwenny even has her own YouTube Channel.

“Suddenly, I’ve found a form of exercise that I can’t get enough of!” She says she can, “…still act like a super girly girl, and I’m still a whimpy little nerd at heart who hates sports, but I can lift my own body weight on a vertical metal pole now while wearing 5″ heels.”

Make plans to join us on September 27 at 9 am EDT for Amara’s Virtual Book Launch… an online Web party celebrating the launch of ‘The Sexual Practices of Quodoushka.’ It’s a one-hour worldwide Web chat where you can join with invited guests in a live chat dialogue. It’s also a great way to connect personally with author and teacher Amara Charles.

To celebrate and help Amara’s book hit #1 on Amazon on the magic launch day, we’re asking everyone to wait to buy their copy of ‘The Sexual Practices of Quodoushka’ on September 27, 2011! Having a great surge on Amazon makes a huge difference to the book’s worldwide availability and longevity.

Space in the Virtual Book Launch Party at 9 am EDT is limited. In order to participate, you must reserve your spot in advance. Click to register. Connect with Amara and the following special guests in this one-hour worldwide Web chat:

• Thunder Strikes, founder and pioneer of the Quodoushka teachings
• Peter Thomas, Australia Quodoushka Organizer
• Kamala Devi, Tantra Theater and Mistress Sacred Bliss Coach
• Kristen Viken, Shamanic De-armoring Master Facilitator
• Pamela Madsen, NYT best-selling author
• Steven Barnes, NYT best-selling science fiction author

“In Amara Charles’s brave new book, The Sexual Practices of Quodoushka, she introduces us to the little known world of sexual healing known at Quodoushka. You don’t need to be a Tantra Geek, or a New Age bindi-wearing goddess to find this book transformational. Inside it’s easy to read pages, you will find a compassionate and extraordinary way to learn about sex. If you are ready to go deeper into your own sexuality – pick up this book.” – Pamela Madsen, author of Shameless: How I Ditched The Diet, Got Naked, Found True Pleasure and Somehow Got Home in Time To Cook Dinner

“Quodoushka’s Fire Breath full-body orgasm was absolutely the most valuable thing I ever learned about sex. This hotly anticipated brave book is a treasure trove of wisdom that raises the bar on sex education. Amara Charles knows these practices intimately, and her enthusiasm for her subject rubs off. Great for beginners to advanced.” – Annie Sprinkle, Ph.D., author of Dr. Sprinkle’s Spectacular Sex

“The Sexual Practices of Quodoushka beautifully complements the ancient knowledge of the Taoist shaman. These transformational teachings reveal ways to deepen and strengthen relationships and offer a means to access the universal healing forces of creation.” – Master Mantak Chia, author of Healing Love through the Tao: Cultivating Female Sexual Energy and Taoist Secrets of Love: Cultivating Male Sexual Energy

Remember, you must register in advance to participate in the live one-hour worldwide Web chat with Amara Charles and friends.

If you are in the Phoenix, AZ region, come to the live Book Signing Party on September 27 at 8pm including: music, food, RPC fundraiser. Details TBA at www.AmaraCharles.com.

“In The Sexual Practices of Quodoushka, Amara Charles captures the essence of intimacy. From personal experience, I can say unequivocally that she is brilliant, knowledgeable, and an absolute cauldron of vital energy. This book will guide you to become a more caring lover, free blocked energy, and delight in your body to align your human, animal, and spiritual aspects. Charles’ explanations of sexual anatomy types is a genuine revelation. The Sexual Practices of Quodoushka can make a quantum shift in the way you approach sex and intimacy.” – Steven Barnes, NYT best selling author, lecturer and martial artist

The statute criminalizes individuals who offer or agree to have oral or anal sex for money by requiring them to register as a sex offender upon conviction, while a conviction under Louisiana’s prostitution statute triggers no such requirement. This archaic and discriminatory law is founded on moral disapproval and outdated notions of what kinds of sex acts are acceptable.

Doe v. Jindal was filed in the United States District Court Eastern District of Louisiana in New Orleans on behalf of nine anonymous plaintiffs. Some of the plaintiffs have multiple convictions of Crime Against Nature by Solicitation and as a result must register as sex offenders for the rest of their lives. The lawsuit alleges that being forced to register as a sex offender because of a Crime Against Nature conviction (which is the only offense requiring registration that includes no element of force, coercion, lack of consent, use of a weapon, or the involvement of a minor) serves no legitimate purpose whatsoever. As such, it is unjustifiable and unconstitutional.

Learn more about the Crime Against Nature Statute. Read Eight Years After Lawrence, Sodomy Laws Are Alive and Kicking, a blog post by CCR Staff Attorney Alexis Agathocleous.

Center for Constitutional Rights
666 Broadway 7th floor
New York NY 10012
212.614.6464

Lou Andreas-Salomé

“Everybody’s gotta learn sometimes,” says the Beck lyric that launches the film, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Each day I awake to a dream thread, a thin filament that I can choose to follow or ignore. If my eternally busy chatter-mind starts to take over… the dream’s filament thread is surely lost. But, if I immediately concentrate and begin to gently pull, tracing the thread in a state of no-mind, I am rewarded with gifts and surprises.

A few days ago, it was one of those traced threads that led me to discover and learn more about a Russian lover named Lou… and a very powerful triforce. Lou Andreas-Salomé was at the core of a ménage à trois that included Paul Ree and Friedrich Nietzsche. She went on to have a lifelong relationship with the poet Rainer Maria Rilke, 15 years her junior. It was Salomé who began calling him Rainer rather than René, taught him Russian, introduced him to Pushkin and Tolstoy.

Lou Andreas-Salomé, Paul Ree and Friedrich Nietzsche

All of which leads me to… Triad, a 60′s Jefferson Airplane song of free-love, that pokes at social norms in asking, “Why can’t we go on as three?” – a simple philosophical question about polyamory.

The Airplane song is said to have been derived from ideas contained in the specific works of Robert A. Heinlein that include: Stranger in a Strange Land, Time Enough for Love, Friday, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, Number of the Beast, and The Cat Who Walks Through Walls.

Polygamy (from πολύς γάμος polys gamos, translated literally in Late Greek as “often married” is a form of marriage in which a person has more than one spouse at the same time, as opposed to monogamy in which a person has only one spouse at a time. When a man has more than one wife, the relationship is called polygyny; and when a woman has more than one husband, it is called polyandry. If a marriage includes multiple husbands and wives, it can be called group marriage.

According to the Ethnographic Atlas Codebook, a 1998 study of 1,231 societies in world culture edited by J. Patrick Gray, Department of Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, it is noted that:

• only 186 were monogamous.
• 453 had occasional polygyny,
• 588 had more frequent polygyny, and
• 4 had polyandry.

It seems that somehow Americans have been deluded into believing the one-man-one-woman relationship model is some kind of global standard. It’s not. Perhaps if we can apply the words of Wittgenstein we might open up a crack through which a new vision of relationships might be considered. Click to listen to Maureen Cavanaugh, host of These Days on radio KPBS: The Future of Marriage and Non-Traditional Relationships.

The emotions that invoke, oppose or handicap open relationships have been documented. In Dr. Deborah M. Anapol’s book Polyamory: The New Love Without Limits : Secrets of Sustainable Intimate Relationships, she describes five different types of jealousy – possessive, exclusion, competition, ego, and fear – before discussing compersion. A well known anthropologist, Dr. Helen Fisher has done extensive research on the feelings of lust, romantic love and attachment. Her studies of brain neurology and brain chemistry explain that these three emotions are ruled by three different brain systems that can act independently or work together in different combinations.

Ninety percent of the animal world does not follow pair-bonding. As a species, humans attempt monogamy and usually fail. So why not redefine a new set of ethical standards? The UUs for Polyamory Awareness defines polyamory as the philosophy and practice of loving or relating intimately to more than one other person at a time with honesty and integrity. They are one of many organizations that seek to define new ways of making loving relationships.

According to Jennifer Baker of the Forest Institute of Professional Psychology in Springfield, Missouri, 50% percent of first marriages, 67% of second and 74% of third marriages end in divorce.

There’s just one answer comes to me
Sister-lovers, water brothers
And in time, maybe others
So you see, what we can do, is to try something new
If you’re crazy too
I don’t really see
Why can’t we go on as three.

-Triad, Jefferson Airplane

Have you ever considered or been engaged in a polyamorous relationship? Please, add your comments below…

Storm blogs, ” Seriously, “8 Miles Wide” would still be just a big big idea (and the occasional outburst from friends and family members in the know) if it weren’t for the tireless creative megawatt team at Sockeye Creative. James Westby, Tom Grissom and Katie O’Grady, especially, kicked so much ass on this goofy little ditty born in my twisted brains.

Also important to thank – Wilf’s, Mary’s Club, Portland Parks and Rec., Mark Acito, Rick Emerson, Byron Beck, Kevin Morris, Laura Domela, Mary Urbanski, Brenda Casebeer and her trusty steed Brego, Kavita Jhaveri, James Beaton, Davey Nipples, Scott Weddle, The Jim Brunberg, Adam Lundeen, Steve Sharp and all the brilliant extras and personalities who so generously donated to the cause.

Last, but not least, thank you, Portland, Oregon. Your endless support of all things weird will always make you the coolest city on the planet. Bless your rainy and rosy wild heart.”

Check out the behind the scenes videos:

Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ArNMGsigq4

Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PCz8PwSRZoU

Part 3: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GanA1cnxIPE

Licorice - Glycyrrhiza glabra

She gathered her findings from a study, conducted by Dr. Alan R. Hirsch, neurological director of the Smell and Taste Treatment and Research Foundation in Chicago, IL.

“One of his studies reveals that women who were exposed to the scent of licorice had a 13 percent increase in bloodflow to their sexual organs compared to a 1 percent reduction from the scent of men’s cologne,” Laurel explains. “Though the exact reason that licorice arouses women is unclear, Hirsch believes that it is either an unexplained chemical reaction in the brain or olfactory-evoked nostalgia.”

It seems that Dr. Hirsch is fond of measuring changes in blood flow to the sex organs. He and colleague Dr. Jason Gruss also initiated a recent study to investigate “the impact of ambient olfactory stimuli upon sexual response in the human male.”

Thirty-one men, aged 18 to 64 years, were tested. Dr. Hirsch selected 24 different odorants for the study. In addition, six combinations of two of the most well-liked of these were also chosen. The effects of the 30 odors on penile blood flow were assessed by comparing a subject’s brachial penile index while wearing an odorized mask to his average index while wearing an unodorized mask. This was done for each subject for each odor.

After being attached to a penile plethysmograph (which measures blood flow), three minutes were allowed for acclimation. Then a blank, nonodorized mask was applied for one minute while a baseline brachial penile index was recorded. The combined odor of lavender and pumpkin pie had the greatest effect, increasing median penile blood flow by 40%. Next in effectiveness was the combination of black licorice and doughnut, which increased arousal by 31.5%. The older men tended to respond strongly to vanilla.

The doctors offer several explanations, but the direct connection between odors and sexual response cannot be denied: “The odors may also act neurophysiologically. A direct pathway connects the olfactory bulb to the septal nucleus, which in turn induces blood flow and erection.”

Increase in Penile Blood Flow Produced by Top 10 Odors in 31 Male Volunteers

Alfred Charles Kinsey (June 23, 1894 – August 25, 1956)

I just glanced at my “Trends of Twitter” Google widget and noticed something new. Maybe I just never paid attention, but that seems hard to imagine. Nonetheless, today the top of the Twitterverse is dominated by the following sexual timeline hash tags: #beforesex, #duringsex and #aftersex.

In 1948 and 1953 the Kinsey Reports on male and female sexual behavior shocked the nation by talking frankly and for the first time about a subject that had been taboo up until they broke the ice. The greatest controversy surrounded the creation of the Kinsey Scale, that categorized sexual behavior from 0 to 6, with 0 being completely heterosexual and 6 completely homosexual.

Kinsey said, “Males do not represent two discrete populations, heterosexual and homosexual. The world is not to be divided into sheep and goats. It is a fundamental of taxonomy that nature rarely deals with discrete categories… The living world is a continuum in each and every one of its aspects.”

The findings revealed, “11.6% of white males aged 20–35 were given a rating of 3 (Equally heterosexual and homosexual – bisexual) for this period of their lives. 7% of single females aged 20–35 and 4% of previously married females aged 20–35 were given a rating of 3 for this period of their lives.”

Kinsey further inflamed debate with his findings that an estimated 50% of all married males had some extramarital experience at some time during their married lives and 26% of females had extramarital sex by their forties.

Despite the efforts by many different conservative family-values and religious groups to discredit the Reports, together they have sold more than three-quarters of a million copies and have been translated into thirteen languages. Many people consider them to be among the most successful and influential scientific books of the 20th century. Au contraire, Sexual Behavior in the Human Male has been on two conservative lists of the worst books of modern times. It was #3 on the conservative Intercollegiate Studies Institute’s 50 Worst Books of the Twentieth Century.

Much of the criticism has to do with the sampling methods and the groups that Kinsey utilized for his studies. If only he could see the sampling data available on Twitter…

Twitter on Viagra...

Karen Salmansohn

Karen Salmansohn is a best-selling author with over 1 million books sold. Her goal: wake up sleepy minds, hearts and spirits… spread positive propaganda throughout the land. She’s known for presenting dynamic keynote seminars (Motorola, Unilever, Soho House, etc…) and is a recognized expert on happiness (in career, love and life) on The Today Show, The View, CNN, CNBC, WB, ABC – pick a set of letters! Plus she’s been in The NY Times, Business Week, Chicago Tribune, Self, Cosmo, In-Style, US, People, Fast Company, LA Times, Phila. Inquirer, etc…

Today Karen is launching a 30-day blog post campaign at her NotSalmon.com – Self Help for People Who Wouldn’t be Caught Dead Reading Self Help.

“Right now I will take up Aristotle’s advice… ” says Karen. “To begin with your final purpose in mind, or what Aristotle calls your ‘teleology’ and clearly state my teleology for these next 30 days on this blog. I want to give you techniques to break bad relationship patterns for good so you can snag a happily ever after love future.”

Her first article in the 30-day series, posted today covers a lot of ground, but in it she manages to link brain change, exercise, meditation, Kaizen visualization and positive affirmation with the likes of Woody Allen and a plan to send e-mail to yourself.

Karen explains, “Brain science says it takes 30 days to change a habit – and change neural pathways! When you change your daily thinking to support love/joy, your negative neural pathways shrink and positive neural pathways widen.”

Her first thought exercise will only take a total of 15 minutes out of your day, but that small investment could change your entire life… and it gets even better when you combine it with physical exercise.

“I’ve found that when I merge this ‘thought exercise’ with ‘physical’  exercise I get even more positive results, even more quickly,” says Salmansohn. “I got this  technique from Tony Robbins — and I gotta say, I’ve personally found  that exercising while I’m thinking positive thoughts has truly helped me in speeding up getting what I want!”

Current brain theory confirms the fact that your brain is continually evolving and that cardio-vascular exercise greatly facilitates the formation of BDNF. In Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, Dr. John J. Ratey validates the mind-body connection, presenting some startling research that proves that exercise is one of the very best defenses against everything from depression to ADD to addiction to aggression to menopause to Alzheimer’s. He describes how brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a protein that acts on certain neurons of the central nervous system and the peripheral nervous system, helps to support the survival of existing neurons and encourages the growth and differentiation of new neurons and synapses.

The link between body, mind and spirit is fundamental to Karen’s entire premise. She introduces the concept of linking thought to action with a brief discussion of the Japanese practice of Kaizen, “…celebrat(ing) the joy of doing small tasks that, over time add up to the joy of experiencing large life changes.”

Toyota manufacturing co-opted the principle of Kaizen (Japanese for improvement) applying the concept to its assembly line workers who were empowered to stop the production line and consult with a supervisor if they saw a way to improve the flow of productivity. Doing the same repetitive physical motion all day could actually become enlightening rather than mind-numbing.

I like the Chinese interpretation of gai-shan (from Wikipedia below) even better.

• 改 (“gǎi”) means “change” or “the action to correct”.
• 善 (“shàn”) means “good” or “benefit”. “Benefit” is more related to the Taoist or Buddhist philosophy, which gives the definition as the action that ‘benefits’ the society but not one particular individual (i.e., multilateral improvement). In other words, one cannot benefit at another’s expense. The quality of benefit that is involved here should be sustained forever, in other words the “shan” is an act that truly benefits others.

The Chinese form of intentional thought exercise… (and my very first Web video, shot on location in Dali, Yunnan, China, 2007)

Check out Karen Salmansohn’s latest book: Prince Harming Syndrome: Break Bad Relationship Patterns for Good—5 Essentials for Finding True Love (and they’re not what you think).

Tiiu Kuik

It started gaining steam last month with the appearance Tiiu Kuik in Marie Claire’s May 2009 feature (Pace dei Sensi or Peace of the Senses), uncovered quite nicely in Nudity: another fashion shoot without the fashion by Fashionising.com. They note a growing trend in Blogs > Fashion Diary > Fashion Photo Shoots on the lovely, lithe, Tiiu Kuik naked for Marie Claire Italia – again.

A naked Natalia Vodianova graces the cover of Vogue UK’s June 2009 issue… led by the fashion-transitioning of Playboy France, featuring  Lily Cole in the October 2008 cover and inside, a 14-page photos spread, “Sweet Lily” (inspired by Serge Gainsbourg’s Histoire de Melody Nelson album) with editorial by Xevi Muntane.

Gisele Bundchen

“Supermodel Gisele Bundchen once vowed to never pose nude; ‘I would never be naked in a fashion picture.’ So we have no idea what the pictures in Vanity Fair, May 2009 thus constitute. Perhaps being topless isn’t quite the same as being naked, but if so then what of this picture (above) where she appears to have forgotten her clothes altogether?”

For more on this wonderful shift, check out Fashionising’s editorial, with tons of links: Nudity and fashion: who needs clothes?

Italy, France, the UK… whassup wit dat? Why don’t I get to live in a grownup country? You can trace it all back to a very certain aggressive Middle Eastern cult, that currently has some very paranoid fears about other aggressive Middle Eastern cults.

Katie Custer is a Minister, internet radio host, massage therapist, Reiki Master, and teacher. As a teenager, she found it odd when others reminisced about childhood. She, herself, had only a couple of vivid memories before age 12. She dismissed it as a result of having a “bad memory” and joked that “something bad must have happened to me and I blocked it all out”.

As an adult in her 20s, she felt stuck in thought and behavior patterns that sustained mild depression, growing debt, and a string of broken relationships. It never occurred to her that her “bad memory” could be directly related to her dysfunctional life.

After pursuing a graduate degree in Education (M.S. Education and Social Policy), still feeling unfulfilled, a friend suggested she pursue massage therapy for a career she could turn to during breaks from teaching. Massage therapy ultimately helped her completely change direction. Shortly after she started her massage practice, she was introduced to the idea that humans are made of energy.

First, she learned how energy worked in the outside world and how everything she encountered (saw, heard, felt, etc) was a reflection of her own energy. Next, she learned more specifically about the energy inside her own body, her Chakra system. For her, that step was the most profound. After a few months focusing on self-healing, flashes of childhood memory suddenly surfaced. She was recovering previously ‘forgotten’ memories from early childhood, specifically incidents of abuse. Before she could even respond to them, however, ideas poured in about why she was suddenly remembering and how her memory or body (or something) was able to store it all for so long. Overwhelmed, she began journaling to try to manage it all.

Though progress was slow, as she made changes the outside world responded. She was learning to see how her world was simply reflecting herown energy field – her attitude, her intentions. Over time, she started making significant progress. When she began working with energy, she could not have predicted how dramatically her life would change.

Katie Custer

In 2008, Katie created an alter-ego called “Chakra Girl,” and works from this platform to inspire people to study their own energy fields so that they can heal and discover the deepest roots of who they are, engaging and celebrating their life’s purpose. She can be found blogging about how everything is energy at www.Chakra-Girl.com. She also hosts Chakra Girl Radio (CGR), a weekly talk show dedicated to studying the human energy body and how energy is reflected back to us in our daily lives.

Chakra Girl on BlogTalkRadio
Bringing the idea of energy down to Earth. Learn how energy works in your daily life, how decisions you make affect the energy in your world, and how you can use this knowledge to change anything that does not serve your highest good. The anatomy of energy: Seven major Chakras, aligned along the spine – from below the tailbone to above the skull – and endless minor Chakras. All of them function as spirals, spinning and distributing energy through your physical body (all the way to the cellular level!). Explore the current state of your energy field and identify emotions, behaviors and issues in your physical health that no longer serve you. Change your energy, change your life!

Chakra Girl Radio is found online at www.BlogTalkRadio.com/chakra-girl, airing live on Wednesdays, 9-10:30 a.m. PST, with archives available anytime. Downloadable podcasts are available at the same location.