Links - 20th October 2014

Breast implants: Venezuelan women using 'wrong size' due to national shortage - "Venezuelan women are suffering from a shortage of breast implants due to restrictive currency controls. The lack of brand-name breast implants has made women so desperate that they are using versions made in China, where quality standards are less rigorous. Some women are so keen to have plastic surgery on their breasts that they are even asking they are using implants that are the wrong size... Venezuela is thought to have one of the world’s highest plastic surgery rates, with boob jobs being the most common procedure... "I'm not saying they're not safe, but I've removed more than a few ruptured Chinese implants. I just don't feel comfortable with them"... There are fears that the lack of breast implants will affect Venezuela’s culture of taking part in international beauty pageants. Edna Lerebours, owner of Agencia Eme model agency in the Dominican Republic, told The Daily Beast: “The lack of breast implants will of course impact the future of Venezuela’s success in these contests.” She added that Venezuela’s beauty pageant success is “not only from the breast implants in Venezuela, but plastic surgery in general. Of course it will affect Venezuelan beauty pageant culture because many of the women use plastic surgery to look perfect.” On social media, some people are taking the shortage less seriously. Many are using a Twitter hashtag that riffs on the Colombian telenovela "Sin Tetas, No Hay Paraiso" ("Without Boobs, There's No Paradise")"

If I can befriend 'the other woman' then so can you. Here's how... - "7. In the first instance, avoid the pub and meet for cake, or chips. Booze might make you both belligerent, but it’s really hard to stay cross with someone when you’re both eating carbs.
8. Your friendship will totally freak out your ex. You’re allowed to enjoy that feeling.
9. However, when your ex suggest a threesome, as mine did, you must threaten to throw them in the nearest large body of water.
10. Wait until your relationship is solid before you make any quips about having deliberately given your ex an STI to pass on to her."

Cheating boyfriend confronted at airport by his 3 girlfriends - "They shouted at him as he came through customs, calling him a 'liar' and a 'cheat'. Fisher reportedly 'froze', before 'running to his granny' and being driven away in her car... The three women are now friends and told MailOnline that they're planning to meet up and have a couple of nights out. Said Connery: "we can't think what we saw in Charlie in the first place""

Study: Couples who smoke marijuana are less likely to engage in domestic violence

When Scientists Give Up : Shots - "Glomski's problem was that he could only get funding to do very predictable, unexciting research. When money gets tight, often only the most risk-averse ideas get funded, he and others say... Instead of helping society improve its defenses against deadly anthrax, he's starting a liquor distillery, Vitae Spirits. He's actually excited about that. It's a big challenge, and it allows him to pursue an idea with passion, rather than with resignation.

For Brazil’s sex workers, a World Cup brothel boom turns to bust - "Brazil has had a reputation for debauchery since the first Portuguese explorers arrived and sent titillated letters full of descriptions of naked and shameless indigenous people. It became, eventually, a part of the national identity – some nonspecific quality of sexiness that all Brazilians, but women in particular, are said to possess, brewed from the tropical climate, the mesmerizing natural beauty, and stereotypes about race and the mixing of it... people, both foreign and local, have a fascination with the range of skin tones in Brazil, and the sexual mixing it implies, both historical (between European masters and African slaves) and current. It may no longer be socially acceptable to voice these ideas over dinner but they haven’t really changed, she said: the darker a skin tone is, the more sexually available, skilled and interested a person is assumed to be... Before the Cup, there were dark predictions from anti-trafficking organizations that tens of thousands of people, including children, would be moved into and within Brazil to cater to sex tourists. It was enough of a concern for government that President Dilma Rousseff warned that Brazil welcomed visitors but was “ready to act against sexual tourism.” Those fears of mass trafficking were ridiculous, according to Thaddeus Blanchette, an anthropologist focused on sex work at the Federal University. “You have waiting lists to get taken on at the termas that are two years long,” he said. “They called up their reserve list in anticipation of the Cup. They didn’t need to traffic anyone in here”... from 2004-2007 fewer than 1 per cent of cases of sexual exploitation reported involved a foreigner and that the vast majority of cases of sexually abused children involved an adult known to them, suggesting that the high-profile focus on trafficking was misdirected. “Men don’t go to brothels to dominate women; they go to [act out their] perform masculinity,” he said. “And if you’re already there in the stadium drinking loads of beer, cheering with all your friends, you don’t need to go to a brothel.” Many tourists paid the $75 admission fee for the higher-end establishments “for the experience” and taking the brothel selfie, but not paying the additional $200 to have sex with a woman upstairs, he added... For Ms. da Cruz, the stereotype of Brazilian women is just one more demand of her job. “It’s a lot of pressure – men who come here with the idea that Brazilian women are hotter, they’re better in bed. I have to pretend I’m [having an orgasm] for them, they expect that.”"

‘Hook-up app’ numbers spike in Brazil - "“My friends have been stalking gringos like jaguars,” she said. “They don’t care what they look like, they just want a gringo.” She paused. “But a lot of them are really cute.” Her friends don’t speak English, and the gringos don’t speak Portuguese. “But they don’t mind that. They say it’s even better that way.” Ms. Costa has so far been out with an American and a Frenchman she met on the app, and met an Argentine and an Italian in bars. The first two were nice enough – but the Frenchman shoved his face in her cleavage and the Argentine was only interested because she fulfills a stereotype of a curvaceous mixed-race Brazilian women, she said. In the end, she’s not sure there is any point pursuing gringos. “They’re all men: They’re all the same below the waist, aren’t they?”... His last night in Curitiba, after the game, his phone battery had died and he was left wondering how he would figure out the way back to his AirBnB crash pad. But then a young woman called his name out a car window: She recognized him as a “match” from Tinder, he said, and she got him home just fine."

Al Qaeda's new Indian branch attacks Pakistani frigate instead of an American ship - "Ten heavily armed militants from the terror cell had planned to storm an American military vessel in Karachi's sea dock - but found a Pakistani naval frigate in it's place. The men were easily overwhelmed before they could do any damage, investigators said, with three of the militants killed and the remaining seven arrested... News of Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent's failure to successfully carry out the terror attack has been met with mockery by ISIS sympathizers. Extremists took to Twitter to brand the group 'out of date' and condemned it for committing terror attacks without ever attempting to seize territory."

(NSFW) Thai woman commits suicide by leaping into crocodile pond

Chinese woman's virginity violated by married man leads to $5000 compensation - "A married Chinese man has been ordered to pay 3000 pounds ($4880 USD) compensation to a woman for ‘violating her right to virginity‘ because he pretended to be single when they slept together... A woman who called herself Su Qinglian would also reflect: ‘Chinese law still has a saying about virginity rights — that’s really sexist.’"
Is Su Qinglian blaming the plaintiff for perpetuating sexism?

Fake links to nude celebrities crash New Zealand Internet

How big was Marilyn Monroe & what size dress did she wear - "A strange mythology has sprung up over actress and model Marilyn Monroe's dress size. For decades people said Marilyn Monroe was a size 12 back in the 1950s. However, in more recent years, Elizabeth Hurley (2000) and Roseanne Barr (1996) have claimed Monroe was a size 16. (snopes.com) This notion has become popular with overweight women who justify their size 12s, 14s and 16s as making them the same size as Marilyn Monroe. However, one only has to look at old newspaper photos to question the "plus-size Marilyn myth." We've all seen Monroe in movies and photos with her voluptuous chest and hips... and slender, even delicate, arms, legs, neck and waist. Although her weight fluctuated slightly over the years, is it possible her dainty hour-glass figure was ever a size 16? Google offers a page of links to this same quote: "Her measurements were recorded by her dressmaker as 36-23-37 and sometimes fluctuated between that and 36-24-37.""

Majority of French drinkers say they know little about wine, poll finds - "Most French people do not consider themselves knowledgeable about wine and 43% say they know nothing at all.. In May, the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV) suggested American drinkers had overtaken the French in wine consumption for the first time. US drinkers consumed 2.91bn litres in 2013, while French consumption fell to 2.8bn litres. Italy (2.2bn litres), Germany (2bn litres) and China (1.7bn litres) completed the top five wine-drinking countries."

'Offensiveness' and children’s books: censoring ‘slut’ from a Roald Dahl classic - "Though Aldi acted to prevent potential parental backlash, the reaction to the removal of Dahl’s book has been overwhelmingly negative. Over 90% of respondents in a Fairfax media pollbelieve Aldi acted wrongly, and there have even been calls for a boycott of the supermarket. Many parents are concerned by inappropriate products being marketed toward minors, as when youth-oriented jewellery outlet Diva was criticised for selling a Playboy range of jewellery in 2011. However, adults also don’t like the cultural touchstones of their own childhoods being tampered with. When original 1970s episodes of Sesame Street were released on DVD in 2007, they were sold with an adults-only warning label indicating that they “may not suit the needs of today’s pre-school child”. Adults who had been raised on a Cookie Monster who did not know the meaning of a “sometimes” food were offended that their childhood viewing could be considered harmful... Golliwog characters were removed from editions of the Noddy series in the 1980s. References to the titular character and Big Ears sleeping in the same bed have also been expurgated. In the mid-1990s, the Faraway Tree books saw the spank-happy schoolteacher Dame Slap sanitised into Dame Snap, and characters Dick and Fanny can no longer prompt sniggering fits as Rick and Frannie. As with the complaints about the use of “slut” in Dahl’s rhyme, many people mocked the notion that Blyton’s simply written and ubiquitous childhood books could suddenly be regarded as offensive or inappropriate. Indeed, when it comes to children’s books, almost any form of content could be considered unsuitable to somebody, somewhere in the world. Dahl’s James and the Giant Peach, for example, appears on the American Library’s Association’s list of the 100 Most Frequently Challenged Books of 1990-2000... James and the Giant Peach has been challenged because of its depiction of magic, use of the word “ass”, references to tobacco and alcohol, and for alleged promotion of communism."