The latest evidence suggests that the answer is yes, oh god yes, yes.

From the Guardian: My Neanderthal sex secret: modern European’s great-great grandparent link.

Tests on the remains of a man who lived in Europe about 40,000 years ago found he had two to four times more Neanderthal DNA than any other modern human tested. He inherited the DNA when an ancestor had sex with a Neanderthal about 200 years earlier, or four to six generations back in his family tree.

The striking discovery is the first evidence scientists have that modern humans had sex with Neanderthals in Europe. Until now, the only known interbreeding was in the Middle East, or nearby, about 50,000 to 60,000 years ago. Those couplings left all non-Africans alive today with 1-3% Neanderthal DNA.

Modern humans spread across Europe between 45,000 and 35,000 years ago, into land already occupied by Neanderthals. The two human forms probably shared the land for about 5,000 years before the Neanderthals died out about 35,000 years ago.

Cave explorers stumbled upon the ancient jawbone of the early European man in 2002 while exploring the Oase cave in south western Romania. Though it looked modern human, it bore some subtle Neanderthal features too. Carbon dating put the remains at between 37,000 and 42,000 years old.

Until recently, the “no interbreeding” theory remained fairly common. For example, the 2004 scholarly paper “Cro-Magnons Conquered Europe, but Left Neanderthals Alone” cites “recent genetic and morphological evidence indicating that early human and Neanderthal interbreeding was unlikely”. Also see this 2008 New Scientist article, “First Europeans shunned Neanderthal sex”.

But evidence from genome mapping seems to be pointing more and more clearly toward lots of Neanderthal-Cro-Magnon mating during the overlap years.

In its March 2015 issue, the Journal of Sexual Medicine announced what might be the world’s first successful penis reduction surgery.

The subject was a 17-year-old boy in Florida who had a penis
“too large for intercourse”. Everyone’s first reaction is, What male would consider a really large penis to be a problem? And would actually have surgery to “fix” this problem?

The research paper’s authors cheekily addressed this obvious response in their title: The Reduction Corporoplasty: The Answer to the Improbable Urologic Question “Can You Make My Penis Smaller?”

Once you read the case details and see the freakish X-ray, the boy’s distress makes more sense. His penis was not just large, it was malformed due to sickle cell disease. A weird science article in the Daily Mail described its pre-surgery condition:

When flaccid, it measured almost seven inches in length and had a circumference of 10 inches – around the size of a grapefruit.

Surgeons described it as being shaped like an American football.

The teenager had suffered from several bouts of priapism – an unwanted erection, due to having a condition in which abnormally-shaped blood cells block vessels in the penis, causing it to swell.

Though his penis was so large, it did not grow when he had erections – it merely became firmer.

An American football is 11 inches long and 21 inches in circumference in the middle, so the shape is indeed similar but not the actual size. A better comparison might be a large yam.

Still thinking “that sounds like a medical problem I’d like to have”? Not me.

The surgery was a success, and the patient went home after two days of recuperation.

“It’s slightly longer and slightly thicker than the average male, but now it looks symmetrical, and the patient was very satisfied,” [surgeon Rafael Carrion] said.

The teen now has no problem having normal erections and has full sensation.

“It looks cosmetically appealing, and he said it was a life-changing event, he’s all smiles,” said Carrion.

Carrion noted that more research has been devoted to penis enhancement techniques than to penis reduction, so far with little success. “Lord knows there’s a global race on how to make it longer and thicker in plastic surgery circles, but very little on how to make it smaller”.

It’s hardly surprising to hear that the world is full of mad scientists working to find some method of turning normal penes into giant Frankenpenes. Whoever gets there first will be a very, very rich mad scientist.

What will happen when this procedure becomes available? Will enhanced penes become as common as enhanced boobs in the future? Will that be a good thing or a bad thing or no big deal?

Michael Stoddart, retired Zoology professor at the University of Tasmania, published the book Adam’s Nose, and the Making of Humankind earlier this year. He wrote a very short version for the Guardian this week entitled, “Smell, evolution and the sex brain: why we’re monogamous and use perfume“, which succinctly presents his thesis: that an evolutionary adaptation in the human smell system 16 million years ago changed human mating practices and allowed more social cooperation.

For “why we’re monogamous”, one might substitute “why we’re more monogamy-prone than most mammals”. Let’s not give ourselves too much credit. That’s my only quibble.

First, Stoddart lays out how most mammals do things.

In mammals, the so-called “secondary olfactory system” is responsible for stimulating the sex brain.

This system works not through the nose, but through a structure called the vomeronasal organ (VNO), a chemical sensory organ lying above the hard palate in the roof of the mouth.

Stallions and rams can be seen drawing back their lips to open the VNO when in the vicinity of a female on heat. Female mammals produce special smells to let potential mates know they’re ovulating.

In addition to smell advertisements, many of our primate relatives provide visual signals of ovulation in which the ano-genital region becomes inflated into brightly coloured fleshy cushions.

How and when did humans veer so far from standard mammal operating procedure?

Evolutionary pressure to maintain monogamy and the family bond increased, and it first resulted in the disappearance of visual advertisements of ovulation. Smells advertising ovulation disappeared when a gene mutation that interrupts the flow of information from the VNO to the sex brain – nicknamed “Adam” by its discoverers – appeared about 16m years ago. This was at about the time our early ancestors were starting to live communally on the open plains.

And where does perfume enter into it?

“Adam” didn’t affect the brain’s neural pathways that were originally used to trigger sex. We can stimulate them with sensual perfumes made from – among other things – the sexual signals of musk deer, beavers and civets.

When you put it that way, perfume and cologne sound kinda gross.

Fascinating stuff. If you prefer getting your popular science in podcast form, download a 48-minute interview with Michael Stoddart from Australian ABC.

The rules basically state, Stop getting naked at our sacred sites.

Most of the uproar surrounds incidents at ancient temples in the Angkor region of Cambodia. There have been at least four public incidents there this year.

* In January, local officlals got angry when “racy photos depicting a topless Apsara dancer reclining amid Angkorian ruins” at Banteay Kdei temple were posted to Facebook. The Phnom Penh Post reported, “The controversial photos bear a watermark for WANIMAL, which Apsara Authority officials said they believe to be a Chinese company. An account for Wanimal on the Chinese photo-sharing site Lofter features a series of images of naked or partially clothed women in exotic backgrounds.”

* Also in January, three French tourists were arrested and deported for taking naked photos of each other at the Banteay Srei temple.

* Then in February, guards arrested two sisters from Arizona “after seeing them snap photos of each other’s naked backsides in the temple of Preah Khan”. They were deported as well.

* Also in February, local officials discovered three more naked photos online “on the website of 25-year-old German photographer Simon Lohmeyer, [one of which] shows a couple naked at the ancient temple, posing with monkey masks.” It’s not clear when those photos were shot.

* And in May, an Italian guy, an Argentinian guy and a Dutch woman were arrested at Ta Prohm temple for taking naked photos of each other. No word on the outcome, but they probably got deported too.

For every pack of dimwits who get caught, there are probably many similar photo shoots going undetected. So this looks like an honest-to-god craze.

Meanwhile, officials in Peru have been having the same problem at Machu Picchu, at least according to this 2014 CNN story titled “Peru to tourists: ‘Stop getting naked at Machu Picchu!'”

One website devoted to this trend, Naked at Monuments, posted in 2012 a rundown of top 7 historical monuments for posing naked, ranked by difficulty (easiest = Great Wall of China; hardest = Hagia Sofia).

Most of the news stories include quotes from local government officials decrying tourist nudity for “dishonoring” their cultural traditions. They’re government officials, it’s their job to act stuffy and self-righteous. Flouting authority and tipping sacred cows are certainly part of the appeal of landmark exhibitionism, but cultural insult vs harmless joyful anarchism are in the eye of the beholder. The key to winning this game is not getting caught.

Alpha Blue Archives does an excellent job salvaging, preserving and reissuing early porn films that would otherwise be lost to history. No one knows more about the obscure stars, filmmakers and industry trends from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. The quality of surviving prints varies, but ABA produces fine digital transfers.

One of their most recent projects is near and dear to my heart: a five-disc collection of sex films written and/or directed by Ed Wood Jr between 1969 and 1972.

Ed Wood is best known for making a series of very low-budget and technically incompetent films in the 1950s, notably Glen or Glenda? (1953) and Plan 9 From Outer Space (1956), which frequently show up on “worst films of all time” lists. Wood continued making films into the 1970s, and he also wrote dozens of novels and screenplays, gradually shifting genre focus from sci-fi and horror toward sexploitation. Whatever he lacked in talent and resources, he more than made up for in persistence, hustle and chutzpah.

The late 1960s and early 1970s were a transitional period for porn, with softcore nudity and simulated sex giving way to full-blown hardcore. The five Ed Wood films released by Alpha Blue run the gamut.

Each ABA disc is filled out with other non-Wood films featuring a particular female starlet, so that each release packs around four hours of content. All five releases are available on DVD, streaming or download from GameLink.

One Million AC/DC (Plus the Lost Films of Antoinette Maynard)

Wood wrote the screenplay for this 1969 sex comedy (using the pen name “Akdon Telmig”) set in prehistoric times, a spoof of sorts on the Raquel Welch flick One Million BC. From the ABA blurb: “Cavemen and (more importantly) cavewomen can’t keep their loincloths on in this savage skinflick which climaxes with the least terrifying rubber dinosaur ever seen on the big screen!” This film is pure softcore and, by all accounts, terrible.

Nympho Cycler (Plus The Lost Films of Cassie Larrain)

Wood wrote, directed and acted in this 1971 blending of the biker and sexploitation genres. The ABA blurb reads: “A young motorcycle-riding wife (Casey Larrain) hits the road to escape her old, cross-dressing husband (Edward D. Wood, Jr.) when she tires of him pimping her out. On the road she encounters lesbian drug addicts and wild biker parties while attempting to evade a violent gang of thugs sent by her husband to rape her.”

Wood was a cross-dresser in real life, and he frequently incorporated this theme in his films and novels. Glen or Glenda?, for all its laughable technical flaws, was a sincere, impassioned plea for tolerance. In the opening scene of Nympho Cycler, Wood appears in drag before ripping off his wig and clothes and jumping in a hot tub. If that sounds like something you’d like to see at least once in your life, don’t miss this one.

The Undergraduate (Plus The Lost Films of Suzanne Fields)

Wood got a screenplay credit here, but little of his personality comes across. This 1971 film was a followup to The Postgraduate Course in Sexual Love from the previous year. Both were prime examples of the faux sex-ed documentary subgenre, which presented erotic vignettes in the guise of sociological exploration of modern sexual mores. John Dugan played “Professor Collins” in both films, introducing and providing voiceover commentary for various sex loops.

Necromania Plus The Lost Films of Maria Arnold

This 1971 film blended sexploitation and occult horror. A married couple having bedroom problems decide to visit a necromancer for counseling. Why? Why not! ABA notes that Necromania was “released in both a soft and a hardcore version with different sex scenes shot for each. This DVD contains a new digital transfer of the complete softcore version as well all of the alternate explicit scenes.” Ed Wood wrote and directed the film, and also wrote a novel version entitled The Only House.

The Young Marrieds (Plus The Lost Films of Alice Friedland)

This was the last film Wood directed, and his only full-on hardcore feature (complete with “money shots”). Different sources date its original release as 1971 or 1972. ABA notes, “Lost for over 40 years and saturated with Wood’s low-budget eccentricity and excess, the film triumphs as an explicit sex flick due to the frisky innocence of Alice Friedland in one of her few hardcore roles.”

Maybe you remember Courtney Stodden. She became famous, or infamous, in 2011 when she got married at age 16 to 50-year-old actor Doug Hutchison (who was previously best known, to me at least, as “Tooms” on two great early X-Files episodes). She cultivated a retro bombastic blond bombshell persona and revelled in the tabloid notoriety. The Soup made fun of her frequently. Since then she has appeared on various reality shows, but her famous-for-being-famous star has faded fast.

Then in April 2015 came the unsurprising news that Courtney Stodden, now 20, had a sex tape. TMZ reported that the tape was being “shopped” and that Vivid was interested.

[Vivid prez Steven] Hirsch confirms he’s already seen the video, and reveals it’s a solo effort (think Octomom, but hotter) — sorry, Doug Hutchison fans. He also says the DD photo op queen “looks amazing, this is the most unique footage I’ve ever seen.”

But y’know the game by now — Courtney has to sign off for the video to be legally distributed, and our guess is if Hirsch gets her to do that … it’s just a matter of time before there’s a full release.

Two weeks later, Stodden made public legal threats against Vivid to block the tape’s release. No one really believed her. Fox News reported:

The now-20-year-old’s lawyer shot off a letter to Hirsch earlier this week saying legal action would be taken should the tape be released without her consent.

“I want my tape back and Mr. Hirsch needs to respond to my attorney’s demand letter to return it to me immediately,” Stodden said in a statement to FOX411. “My private video’s not for sale. I don’t need the million dollars.”

But one person who knows how these negotiation work — celebrity sex tape broker Kevin Blatt — isn’t buying Stodden’s story. He says acrimonious back-and-forth between a celebrity and Vivid over a tape – including legal letters — is one way to drum up interest in a tape.

“It’s BS,” Blatt said. “She signed the deal [with Vivid] long ago.”

One week after that, Vivid released Courtney Uncovered: The Courtney Stodden Sex Tape, promoted with softcore stills and a 70-second trailer. She likes ice cream.

Vivid is hyping it as a “homemade tape” and “the private video she did not want you to see!”

Like celebrity sex tape broker Kevin Blatt, I’m skeptical. It’s more likely that Stodden and Vivid negotiated a deal (based on past Vivid sex tape contracts leaked to the press, Stodden probably gets 25% of the gross generated by her video); then a Vivid crew shot the video to give it high production values and a plausibly homemade-ish feel; then Stodden and Vivid staged the pre-release drama, with TMZ playing along. What the hell, it’s a harmless enough game.

One question for the future: will there be a sequel? Farrah Abraham and Tila Tequila both made sex tape sequels which, ahem, expanded their onscreen sexual reportoires. By starting with a solo masturbation video, Courtney Stodden leaves herself plenty of room to grow as a pornstar.

The latest issue of The New Yorker includes a profile of sculptor Charles Ray written by Calvin Tompkins.

The article covers two sad art world scandal involving the same work, Ray’s sculpture Huck and Jim depicting the characters from Huckleberry Finn.

Jim, the runaway slave, is nine feet tall, a handsome black man in the prime of life, standing very straight and gazing somewhat apprehensively into the distance. His right hand, palm down in what appears to be a protective gesture, hovers a few inches above the bent back of the fourteen-year-old Huck, who is reaching down with one arm to scoop something—frogs’ eggs, Ray said—out of the river. Both figures are naked.

You can see a photo of Ray’s Huck and Jim accompanying this Artnet News article.

In 2009, the Whitney invited Ray to propose a sculpture for the public plaza outside the museum’s planned new location in the West Village. (That new location just opened a few weeks ago.) Tompkins continues:

Ray showed his preliminary design to Adam Weinberg, the Whitney’s director, and Donna De Salvo, its chief curator, and both of them knew immediately that it was going to be a great work of art. The doubts that seeped in during the next few months had nothing to do with aesthetics. They stemmed from the museum’s growing concern that this particular image of a naked African-American man and a naked white teen-ager in close proximity, presented in a public space with no other art works to provide context, might offend non-museumgoing visitors—thousands of whom pass through the area every day on their way to or from the adjacent entrance to the High Line.

The museum eventually offered to put the sculpture inside the museum. Ray rejected that option. The Whitney ended up turning down the piece.

And then it happened again!

The finished version of “Huck and Jim,” cast in stainless steel, was going to be one of the major pieces in his Chicago exhibition; he and James Rondeau, the institute’s contemporary-art curator, planned to install it at the entrance to the institute’s new contemporary-art wing, but, once again, problems arose. The site was ruled out because passersby would have to look at full-frontal male genitalia.

Holy shit, what is wrong with the art world today?!? What century is this again?

It’s not like Ray took anyone by surprise. His sculptures over the past 25 years have frequently featured nudity, including plenty of full-frontal male genitalia (eg, Shelf and Male Mannequin) and two true épater-la-bourgeoisie classics (Family Romance and Oh! Charley, Charley, Charley …).

Why invite an artist to create a work for your plaza, or stage a major career retrospective, then get squeamish when that artist does exactly what he’s always done?

(Whitney press photo by Nic Lehoux.)

Mainstream art films with explicit sex scenes have been around for a while. Some classic examples include:

Romance (1999) directed by Catherine Breillat, which included an extremely romantic scene between stars Caroline Ducey and Rocco Siffredi.

Baise-moi (2000) directed by Virginie Despentes and Coralie Trinh Thi, sort of a No Wave Thelma and Louise with the violence, sex and existential despair all ramped way up.

The Brown Bunny (2003) directed by Vincent Gallo, which included a scene of Chloë Sevigny smoking crack (simulated) and then giving her director/costar a blow job (unsimulated).

9 Songs (2004) directed by Michael Winterbottom, which showed a cute couple in London alternately attending rock concerts and having sex.

The Wayward Cloud (2005) directed by Tsai Ming-liang, our choice for greatest hardcore musical of all time.

Shortbus (2006) directed by John Cameron Mitchell, who called it his attempt “to employ sex in new cinematic ways because it’s too interesting to leave to porn.”

There have been plenty of examples of this trend since then. In the last couple years we had Blue is the Warmest Color and Nymphomaniac. Both had their fans and detractors, but the freakout factor was mild compared to the reception greeting those art sex flicks from 10-15 years earlier.

Alas, it has gotten harder and harder to shock anyone. French director and persistent provocateur Gaspar Noé is giving it a try with his new movie Love, debuting soon at the Cannes Film Festival.

Noé’s two most recent films, Irréversible (2002) and Enter the Void (2009), both featured unsimulated sex and I-dare-you-to-keep-watching shock value. He’s not new to this game. Love hasn’t screened yet, but advance word calls it “the story of a love triangle between a boy and two girls in the style of a melodrama” and “maybe the most explicit movie the Cannes Film Festival has ever seen”.

The film’s marketers have tried to build some shocking buzz with a series of porno-tinged posters. One shows a three-way kiss with lots of tongue and drippy saliva.

Another poster presents a female crotch in rear-view close-up, barely covered by a flimsy bikini bottom.

So far I’m kinda turned on but far from shocked.

Then a couple days ago, they released this new poster.

OK, that’s pretty good. Even the most jaded libertine is bound to gasp a little at seeing that poster for the first time.

Is the film itself any good? We’ll see.

Dr. Drew debuts a new TV show, called Dr. Drew, on HLN tonight.

Well, not exactly new. Dr. Drew has had his own one-hour TV show on HLN for a while now, immediately following Nancy Grace. Tonight’s installment represents more of a new direction, a rebranding. His radio co-host Michael Catherwood will now be on the TV show, and they’ll have a live studio audience. And judging by the promos HLN has been airing, the new direction means more sex talk.

HLN has been going through an identity crisis for a couple years. Way way way back when, HLN was Headline News, and its format was simple: a 30 minute news program, repeated and updated every 30 minutes, 24/7, forever. At some point, that format lost its popularity and/or profitability, and they started airing talk shows. Gradually they became a tabloid true crime network with Nancy Grace as their main star. More recently they have tried to become the social media network, which mostly involves recycling cute animal videos from YouTube.

Before signing onto HLN four years back, Dr. Drew’s radio/TV career had two main directions: sex and relationship advice on his Loveline syndicated radio show (still running after 20+ years) and the MTV spinoff (1996-2000); and addiction recovery on Celebrity Rehab and its spinoffs. He’s very good at both. As pop culture sexperts go, he’s about as sensible and non-scolding and non-cheesy as we can hope for. And the Celebrity Rehab season with Heidi Fleiss, Tom Sizemore and Dennis Rodman was damn great TV.

However, HLN has tried to shoehorn Dr. Drew into its nightly crime talk theme, often making him spend an hour covering the same case that Nancy Grace and Jane Velez-Mitchell just spent two hours covering. Why hire Dr. Drew to do that? He’s not a crime guy.

With the “new” show, it looks like HLN will finally let Dr. Drew be Dr. Drew. Considering how thoroughly the network has lost its way (how many hours of Forensic Files reruns can you run per day?), the switch is long overdue.

Our occasional Game of Thrones recaps focus narrowly on the brothels and prostitutes. Core competency and all.

This week’s episode, “High Sparrow”, featured two brothel scenes. The first took place in the main King’s Landing brothel we’ve visited many times before, currently administered by Olyvar for absentee owner Littlefinger. Pervy religious leader “the High Septon” solemnly chose from six prostitutes dressed up as the gods from the Faith of the Seven pantheon.

The closing credits named all six actresses from this scene. A little online research allowed me to figure out who was who, mostly.

Rebecca Scott played “the Maiden” (right in still). She’s the one whose pubes appear in closeup just before the religious fanatics burst in to ruin the party. Hometown paper the Berwick Advertiser proudly noted, Local actress appears in Game of Thrones.

Samantha Bentley played “the Stranger” (left in still), sporting a kicky hairdo which could become the hot new hipster look once purplish-gray dye is played out.

Xena Avramidis wore a stylish red leather and wool ensemble. The actress posted some set photos on her Twitter feed — one, two, three — which let you see the costume more clearly. This character appeared previously in a season four orgy scene with Oberon and friends.

Portia Victoria posted two screenshots to Twitter. She appears at screen right in both shots.

Em Scribbler and Rosie Ruthless played the other two prostitutes in the scene, but I’m not sure which is which.

The second scene took us to a new locale, the “free city” of Volantis where slavery still thrives. Tyrion and Varys visited a brothel there, inadvertently crossing paths with Jorah Mormont (aka Lord Friendzone). Two prostitutes appeared prominently in this scene. The one made up to resemble Daenerys Targaryen, L.A. Confidential style, was played by … Samantha Bentley. Yep, two different brothels, two different characters, same episode, same actress. And last season, she played another prostitute in a Braavos brothel.

The actress posted a bunch of screenshots to Twitter highlight her multiple Game of Thrones roles — one, two, three, four. According to IMDB, she will appear in at least one more episode this season.

Samantha Bentley is a very well-known British pornstar. Hot Movies has more than 70 of her titles available for viewing.

The episode’s final prostitute, “Clea” played by Gwyneth Keyworth, has a conversation with Tyrion Lanister. Perhaps you recognized the actress from her two-episode stint on the excellent show Misfits, which starred Iwan Rheon among others. (If not, I highly recomment Misfits, at least the first two seasons.)

Will Clea be a recurring character? We know Tyrion has a thing for brainy prostitutes.