Sex on the Net II

Here are some more selected stories with a sexual twist collected from various Internet sources.

• Firefighter dons bikini for a stroll in the park

Steven S. Cole, a 46-year-old volunteer firefighter, was arrested Tuesday after police received a report that an intoxicated man was walking and driving around Heritage Oak Park in Mason. Police said Cole was wearing a blond wig, pink flip-flops and a red-black-and-white striped bikini with the top filled out by tan water balloons. Cole's blood-alcohol test registered 0.174, more than twice Ohio's legal driving limit of 0.08, the arrest report said. "He is obviously humiliated and embarrassed by the entire situation," said Cole's lawyer, Charlie Rittgers, who added that he is investigating the circumstances that led to the arrest.

• Pregnant Woman Accused of Selling Sex

Diana Cornwell, 34, and her husband, Jesse, 32, each face prostitution charges, Anne Arundel County police said. Diana who is seven months pregnant is accused of using an Internet ad service to solicit money for sex.


"She advertised that she was pregnant and married," and she did so with her husband's knowledge, said Cpl. Sara Schriver, a police spokeswoman. "I have not heard of this before."


According to police, Cornwell posted an ad on craigslist.org, an Internet classified ad service, in which she offered sex for $300. An undercover officer made an appointment, and Jesse Cornwell greeted the officer at the door of their Pasadena home. Jesse Cornwell knew the officer was there for sex with his wife, police said. Diana Cornwell was charged with prostitution, scheduling an act of prostitution and operating a house of prostitution. Her husband was charged with the latter two offenses.

• The Big Metal Penis Festival

Recently held was the Kanamara festival in Kawasaki city, which basically involves a lot people parading a giant pink penis around the town. Otherwise known as the “big metal penis festival,” the event is traditionally a celebration of fertility. Among those in attendance were couples hoping for children, bemused locals, and a fair few transvestites.

Surely the most hedonistic hi-jinks you'll ever find on a weekend afternoon, it takes place at the Wakamiya Hachimangu shrine, near Kawasaki Daishi station. The jaw-dropping festivities include old folks carving phallic symbols out of daikon, giant wooden members that you can sit astride and hug for good luck, and stands selling willy-shaped lollipops and hot dogs. Live bands and traditional dancing and drumming performances add to the celebratory air, and the event culminates in a parade around town featuring three shlong-shaped portable shrines. This is the sort of demented behavior you'd get into deep trouble for at school, but here, anything goes.

• Sex in the 1700's

Prostitutes, perversions and public scandals – the stuff of the 21st century tabloids was familiar to readers three centuries earlier, according to new research from the University of Leeds. The reading of erotic literature was already a social activity 300 years ago.

Jenny Skipp’s three-year PhD study examined, catalogued and categorised every known erotic text published in eighteenth-century Britain: "I tried to get a grip on just how many were published, detail the various types of sexual behaviour portrayed and find out who was doing what – and to whom." It proved a surprisingly rich field: "Most people have heard of Fanny Hill, but there was a huge amount of erotic literature published in the 18th century."

Despite earlier work suggesting that these texts were only for solitary consumption – at home, alone, and behind closed doors – Skipp’s work throws up a surprising image of how these works were used.


"They would be read in public – everywhere from London's rough-and-ready alehouses to the city’s thriving coffee houses, which weren't quite the focus of polite society in the way we sometimes think," she explained. "Some texts even came as questions and answers and were clearly intended for groups of men to read together, with one asking the questions and the others answering them."