Marilyn Manson doesn't believe in hoovering tubs of Ben and Jerry's after a split. He goes straight for the medicine cabinet, and channels his rage into art. So his new video for 'Running to the Edge of the World' is, surprise surprise, pretty graphic. He kills a bikini-clad girl who looks a LOT like his ex-girlfriend Evan Rachel Wood. Guess talking to Spin magazine  about how about how he called her 158 times after they broke up, and  took a razor blade and cut himself on his face or his hands--because he, um, wanted to show her the pain she put him through wasn't cathartic enough for him. Oh, and he admits  that 'every day' he has 'fantasies about smashing her skull in with a sledgehammer.' 

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After years of blubbering politicians and their crocodile tears, it's pretty ironic that a comedian has set the standard for serious public confessions. David Letterman's straight-talking admission that he's done 'creepy' things, while not his finest hour, was done the right way. No BS public apology, no mention of a higher power, no miserable-looking wife wringing her hands while being forced to stand by her man in the background. He told us what happened (to a sympathetic audience), on his terms, and hopes to move on.

Of course, the press is still trying to dig up dirt--most recently about a so-called secret bedroom that sources are calling 'the bunker' (it's probably closer to a fold-out couch!) But really, if he has had other consensual affairs with staff members, who cares?  He cheated because the opportunity was there, and found a pool of willing women after spending intense 15-hour days with them. He's an entertainer, not a politician--so he has no responsibility to maintain a standard of morality. Though to be honest, I respect Dave more than most politicians. Hey, at least he's not a hypocrite.  

 The Frisky has a great piece today on Six Cases of Hollywood Baby Daddy Drama, starting with Jude Law's recent paternity snafu. Samantha Burke has given birth to her child, but he's not visiting the baby until a DNA test comes back positive. Jude isn't the only one to ask for a DNA test: Mel Gibson, Eddie Murphy, and Keanu Reeves have all recently submitted samples.

What did these guys do before DNA? I was watching Fatal Attraction the other night, and it seemed so, well, retro to have to go into court and argue paternity. Now they have ironclad proof. So there's no need to talk trash. So why do they still do it??  Don't pull a Stephen Bing and deny the baby. You can't win either way. If the baby is yours, you look like an evil bastard, and the kid has to read about his father making an idiotic statement for the rest of his life. If the baby isn't yours, you look like a total arse. It's just not nice. 

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So Roman Polanski finally got arrested, and will be fighting extradition on his 32-year-old sex case. I'm not going to go into all of the details of the case, because everyone under the sun already has, but I just have to wonder: Why is Kanye West getting demolished in the press for grabbing the microphone at an awards ceremony, while someone who committed a crime on this level is being defended? Yes, he's made some amazing films over the past few decades. Yeah, I loved 'Chinatown'. And I'm all for him getting a fair trial. But his awards don't change the fact that he drugged, raped and sodomized a 13-year-old child. I don't care if his victim forgave him. It's time to come back to the US and face the music. If there really was 'substantial misconduct' during the original hearing, these charges need to be addressed in court. Unfortunately for Polanski, this can't be tried by a jury at Sundance.

I just did an interview on BBC Radio Wales talking about the study that claims sleeping in separate beds is the key to a happy marriage. Some people think that it harms intimacy, but personally, I think that having my own room would be awesome. In some of my past relationships where snoring has been an issue (theirs, not mine!), I've slept in the spare room, and it didn't mean that we were in buttoned-up pyjamas in twin beds. We would have sex, have a cuddle, then I would go into my own private room, so that while he was snoring like a buzzsaw, I slept through the night and was in a much better mood come morning. I'm not saying that it's for everyone, but it's an option worth considering.

I've told my boyfriend that if we ever get married, I want my own bathroom. In my mind, a two-bathroom system seems to be the key to relationship longevity. I don't want to know what happens behind his door, and I don't want him to know about my hair removal regime. As far as he's concerned, I'm naturally hairless below the eyebrows. Period. Maybe that's what my mum meant when she talked about 'preserving some mystery'?

 According to the Daily Express, Scottish men buy larger condoms that their counterparts south of the border. Tesco reports that more of its extra-large condoms had been bought in Glasgow than anywhere else in the UK. The new condoms - 10 mm longer and 1 mm wider than the standard version - went on sale at Tesco earlier this month. 

So, what's the real story? Are Scottish men really better hung, or are they buying boxes of extra-large condoms just to look impressive next to the bed?
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 I can't believe that John Hughes is gone. By writing and directing the most iconic teenage movies of the 80s, he had a huge impact on my childhood.  Recently Jezebel did an analysis of the ups and downs of having a John Hughes boyfriend. But they only gave pre-Secretary James Spader a 'C' grade? Despite being a complete jerk in Pretty in Pink, Spader became the stuff of my fantasies because 1) he looked hot in a white linen blazer - SO 80s and 2) he spent the entire movie openly smoking in the hallway, yet never got in trouble.  
On a serious note, I loved John Hughes teen movies because the heroines were believable. Molly Ringwald in Pretty in Pink and Sixteen Candles was cute, but awkward, like most teenagers - not a sexy supermodel wearing glasses who gets a 'makeover' in the last five minutes of the movie and suddenly becomes hot. I could relate to her. Maybe I'm just getting old, but it seems like they don't make them like they used to.
RIP John: You will be missed. But you will live on forever in syndication!

 I'm in LA for a few days, but I was really interested to read The Frisky's take on whether or not you should tell a friend if you suspect that their partner has been cheating. I don't know if it's just my social circle, but my American and UK friends seem to be on completely opposite sides of this debate. My American friends all say they would want to know, while my UK pals almost universally wouldn't. They say that what happens between couples isn't any of my business, and that if the person getting the bad news chooses to believe the cheater, I could lose the friendship (this article calls this phenomenon 'shoot-the-messenger syndrome').  

This is all true (and I have lost a friendship because I told someone I saw her man kissing someone else, which he denied...) but I still think that I would tell someone if I knew that their partner was screwing around. Because, at the end of the day, I would want someone to tell me. 

 Chris Brown has released a video [via TMZ], in which he apologises for the 'incident' (a.k.a. the assault on Rihanna) and asking his fans to forgive him. He claims it's taken him this long to comment because his lawyers wouldn't let him speak out about the case. He adds that he's in counselling and says 'I intend to live my life so that I'm truly worthy of the word 'role model.' 

Interesting that while he talks about 'what I've done', 'what happened', and 'what occurred,' he never actually calls it what it is: He punched his girlfriend in the face, choked her and bit her. Isn't part of an apology actually stepping up to the plate and taking responsibility for what happened? I have zero respect for such a half-arsed effort. 

A Daily Mail writer blames the recession for tearing apart her three-year relationship. At first, Charlotte's relationship with her boyfriend James was 'fun', because he cared about all of the things that she did, including 'clothes, magazines, and fashionable restaurants.' Over a first date of lobster and oysters, they fell in love.

The the credit crunch hit, and a night out at Scott's and holidays in Bali were replaced by nights sitting in front of the television.
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After reading about the PE teacher who worked as a gigolo and ran a brothel with his wife, I'm less worried about his so-called 'secret double life' and more worried about why the police are focusing their energies on this couple?

By day, Tim Black-Bowell was a teacher at a comprehensive in rural Kent. By night, he sold his body and managed a team of six other prostitutes with his wife Emma from a rented flat in Canturbury. He offered clients 'personal services by male and females for men, women and couples of all persuasions'.  He drove the girls home after their shifts, so he seems to have had some concern for their safety. And the couple's operation was discovered during a Kent Police probe into illegal sex-trafficking from Eastern Europe, but the Blake-Bowells only used willing British women.

So the police confiscated a bunch of sex toys and massage oils, and 'uncovered' a lot of consenting adults who were conducting a business transaction. It seems that they would have more important things to focus on: Like climbing burglary rates, or violent crime?

 The Daily Mail has a piece written by Michael Jackson's 'confidante' J. Randy Tarraborelli saying that it wasn't a sham marriage, because MJ had passionate sex with his then-wife Lisa Marie Presley. She told a friend that, far from being asexual, he was 'red hot' in bed. 

But he still refused to stop having sleepovers with boys, and became obsessed with having children. She said later 'When I imagined having a child with him, all I could ever see was the custody battle nightmare.' It would appear that she made the right call. 

 Because according to TMZ, Debbie Rowe is NOT the biological mother of the older two children--she was merely the surrogate. This means her position re: custody (should she want it) is unique in California--she's not related to them, but she was his wife at the time of the birth. And Michael never formally adopted the kids. Of course, blood doesn't make a parent, but it's sad that these kids will likely grow up having no idea where they came from. Either way, it's a mess. 

 Gizmodo has a review of MyPleasure.com's MyVibe application for the iPhone. The pros: It's a free, and a fun idea: It uses an on/off button and has up and down arrows that control the amount of vibration. The cons: It's limited to the amount of vibration that the iPhone produces. So the orgasmic potential seems pretty weak. And exchanging dirty texts is fine, but pressing a phone to your nether regions on a crowded Tube isn't exactly discreet. 

For a first effort, it's not bad. But if a guy wanted to send a tingling sensation down south, wouldn't putting the phone on 'vibrate' and calling a few times have exactly the same effect? 

 So Cameron Diaz has spoken out in defence of women who don't want children by telling Cosmopolitan magazine that women are 'afraid to say that they don't want children because they're going to get shunned.' 

She's right. There are now more single people than couples in the UK, so childless women are becoming the norm. Still, women who admit that they don't want kids (or that they aren't sure/ it's not their top priority) are still regarded as a bit weird (or selfish) by society, which is crazy considering that we live in a very overpopulated world. Surely it's more selfish to have a child for the wrong reasons??
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So researchers have confirmed what Hugh Hefner figured out a long time ago: That men who marry younger women live longer.   They say that men who hook up with women seven to nine years younger cut the risk of premature death by 11 percent ,while those with brides 15 to 17 years younger cut their chances of dying early by a fifth.

I assume, as the article concludes, that it may have something to do with natural selection: The most successful men with the most money (and presumably, access to the best health care) are able to attract younger women to keep them 'active' and later, act as nurses. 

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 The New Scientist has a fascinating take on the always controversial topic of female ejaculation. The 'does it exist' debate has been going on for ages - re-ignited back in 2002 when  material got cut from British Cum Queens (the censors argued that the actresses were urinating) and a feminist group argued that it should be put back in because some women could ejaculate (though most of what is happening in porn is staged!)

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 The evidence keeps mounting up that brainy women really do have better sex - but researchers aren't talking about IQ. Instead, they say that women with high 'emotional intelligence' can have up to twice as many orgasms as their 'less switched-on sisters.' 

Emotional Intelligence is the ability to express our emotions and to read the emotions of others, so it makes sense that women who are good at making themselves heard in an argument and negotiating compromise will have the confidence to helpfully point out where her clitoris is if he gets it wrong. 

This doesn't surprise me: Women who have confidence and and can communicate their desires to their partner probably do have a much greater chance of getting what they want in bed. And they are probably also less likely to fake it when things aren't going well.
 
So it's much less about waiting for the 'perfect man' to push our buttons, and much more about knowing where they are so that we can show them. We would get so much more out of relationships--and even one-night-stands--if everyone just learned to ask for what they want.