From today’s b, the paper

There’s an odd epidemic spreading in this country.

I’m talking about pastors who suddenly are giving sex advice and urging their followers to do the deed as much as possible. The latest to fall prey to this disease of ickypastoritis is Ed Young, of the Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas.

A local news channel, at wfaa.com, reports that last Sunday the good pastor Young had a “much-anticipated” (by whom, not revealed) sermon called the “Seven Days of Sex.” Young is challenging married couples to have sex for seven days straight. Unthinkable!

Young calls it a “sexperiment” (clever!) and says that coming together as one in marriage is God’s way of “increasing intimacy and decreasing the odds of divorce.” “If you are hearing ‘no’ regularly when one is in the mood and one isn’t … something is wrong in your marriage,” Young said. Preach it!

japanese turning away from sex
Maybe someone needs to send Pastor Young to Japan. The AHN news service reports that a study by the Japanese Family Planning Association found that one-third of Japanese couples had given up sex. Reasons include fatigue caused by work or feeling that sex is “boring.” All told, 37 percent of couples surveyed had given up sex. Given the current birthrate of 1.34 children in 2007, Japan’s population could dip from 2006’s peak level of 127.7 million to 98 million by 2050.

‘second life’ adulterer gets served
I’m not going to pretend like I understand the online phenomenon that is “Second Life,” but this story definitely makes me not want to try to get it. Dailyrecord.co.uk reports that Newquay, England, couple Amy and Dave Pollard are divorcing because Dave was caught “cheating” with two women on “Second Life.” “I went mad. I was so hurt. I couldn’t believe what he’d done,” said Amy, 28. The good news: Amy has found love anew, this time with a man she met while playing “World of Warcraft.” Really.

everyone’s got a fetish
If this were true, wouldn’t Mel Gibson have gotten a bit more action in “The Man Without a Face”? The Times of India reports that a new study suggests facial scars increase a man’s attractiveness to a woman. The study, published in the surely riveting journal Personality and Individual Differences, found that a facial scar, preferably one that looks like it was inflicted in anger, increases men’s attractiveness to a woman for a short-term relationship.

read this before celibacy
Hey! Thinking about becoming celibate!? Timesonline.co.uk recently published an article on the “Ten things you need to know before you become celibate.” Among the nuggets of information: Voluntary celibacy can provide a useful time out for people who have been involved in unsatisfactory relationships; celibacy does not have to preclude solo sex (whew!) and Issac Newton and Mother Teresa were both celibate. Did that help with your celibacy decision? Good.

Jordan Bartel is assistant editor at b. E-mail him at jordan@bthesite.com

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