UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak has committed to protecting children from inappropriate sexual content and extremist gender views following a government review of England's sexual education curriculum. The UNESCO arm of the United Nations provided guidance for sexual education in Wales, and part of it was cited in laws passed in Scotland. Suggestions aimed at toddlers sparked a backlash among MPs and led to calls to rethink the UK’s links with the organisation, which have become more controversial in the wake of suggestions that their guidelines could be influencing British teaching materials. Some MP's have suggested that the government's review needs to determine whether the UNESCO framework has influenced current teaching materials.
Women are hesitant to voice their sexual desires due to being told throughout their lives to be sexy rather than sexual, according to The Guardian’s Midult advice column. Women are often told that they are in some way unnatural for having a higher sex drive than their male partner, while male sexual desire is celebrated, the article said. The author advised a woman struggling to communicate with her husband regarding her marital frustrations that she should not feel shame or embarrassment for wanting to engage in more regular and experimental intercourse with her partner.
Sarah Jessica Parker marked her and husband Matthew Broderick’s 26th wedding anniversary celebration with a bottle of champagne, which she shared on Instagram. The couple has three children together. Parker and Broderick, who both have historic careers in the arts, met while working for a theater company. They starred together in the recent Broadway production of Plaza Suite and live in New York’s Greenwich Village. The couple marks their anniversary as Parker continues with the Sex and the City And Just Like That… series and the announcement of its second season.
A new film called 'How To Have Sex' follows three schoolgirls on a drunken holiday to burn off steam after their GCSEs. Mulling over topics such as consent, male chauvinism and the concept of 'asking for it,' the film is essentially a coming-of-age tale, with reviewers saying it humanises its characters and balances comedy with genuine concern. However, the title is causing distributors to think carefully about how to market it. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival last week.
The UK government has indicated that a planned law designed to ensure the appearance in court of killers receiving sentences is at risk of being dropped due to comments made by Chancellor Rishi Sunak. The plan followed several cases in which offenders declined to appear in court for their sentencing, provoking public outrage. Dominic Raab, then Justice Secretary, vowed to act following such cases as the murder of nine-year-old Olivia Pratt-Korbel, but resigned following a bullying inquiry. Sunak failed to commit to the law prior to the next general election, due in 2024.
Microsoft Co-founder, Bill Gates, was reportedly blackmailed and threatened with the publication of a supposed affair with a Russian bridge player by convicted sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Epstein demanded Mr Gates reimburse him for tuition costs Epstein had initially covered for the woman to attend a software coding school. The WSJ claimed that Epstein blackmailed Mr Gates in the form of an email in 2017 after he failed to convince the philanthropist to join a multibillion-dollar charity fund that he tried to set up with JPMorgan Chase. The claim backs up existing rumours that Epstein was extorting his network. Mr Gates reportedly met Mila Antonova around 2010 when she was attempting to secure funds for an online bridge tutorial that Epstein did not invest in. A spokesperson for the Gates Foundation said, “having failed repeatedly to draw Mr Gates beyond these matters, Epstein tried unsuccessfully to leverage a past relationship to threaten Mr Gates”.
Republican legislators in Wisconsin have proposed legislation that would make it a felony offence to possess dolls resembling children for sexual purposes, punishable by up to 3.5 years in prison. A first offence involving three or more dolls would be punishable by 6 years, while subsequent offences that involve dolls resembling specific children could carry a penalty of up to 25 years’ imprisonment. According to the Child Rescue Coalition, some dolls can be built to look like specific children. The dolls are legal in the US except in a number of states including Arizona, Florida, Hawaii, South Dakota and Tennessee.
