The folks at CNN.com have been intrigued by the reporting going down at VICE’s broadband station, VBS.TV. So they took it upon themselves to post a recent VBS story about a retirement home for prostitutes in Mexico.

Casa Xochiquetzal — that is, The House of the Beautiful Flowers — is a retirement dwelling for prositutes in Mexico City’s neighborhood of Tepito, “one of the sketchiest neighborhoods in the city.”

The house has a minimum age requirement of 60 and can accommodate up to 45 women. Right now, there are only 23 retired ladies of the night living there. The majority of them continue working, because there are still people who want to pay to have sex with them.

While reporting on Casa Xochiquetzal, VBSers met Reyna, 86, “Who sang for [them] and told [them] stories of her youth. They met Lourdes, “a childless widow in her 60s who is still turning tricks.” They spoke with a woman in her 80s named Canela who had only recently stopped working, and Paola, who is still in the biz “and hopes to continue working for as many years as she can.”

The saddest part of the story? The VBS reporters ended up spending Mother’s Day with the women, some of whom were talking about their children — but none of their offspring came to visit. VBS.TV editor and producer Bernardo Loyola said of the experience:

I think the work that this house and its director Rosalba Rios do — as weird and unusual as it may seem — is incredibly valuable. Spending Mother’s Day with these brave women forever changed they way l look at prostitution and without a doubt has been one of the most intense parties I’ve ever attended.

Some people say six, some people say three and some people say … eight.

Eight.  Eight years old.  Criminy.  My mother breastfed me until I was about two and obviously, I don’t remember it.  However, if my mother were breastfeeding me at eight years old, I’m pretty confident in saying that I’d remember it and it’d be … weird.  When you think ‘eight’, you think pre-timetables in school, learning about Betsy Ross and riding the bus.  Not, “Damn, I’m famished… Wish Mom were here — at school — so I could get a little sustenance.”

I am not opposed to breast feeding; I think it’s an extremely powerful thing for a woman to do and many media outlets and medical organizations have proven the validity and importance of breastfeeding your child for at least six months and thereafter, for as long as the mother and child are willing to do so.  Despite that fact, age eight completely weirded me out.  The average eight year-old is in third grade.  Not pre-school, not kindergarten … third grade.  Do you remember being in third grade?  I do.  I remember having, like, my first “crush” in the third grade.  I couldn’t fathom my mother still breastfeeding me at that stage in my development, nor could I imagine heading over to a friend’s house to play, only to have his or her mother whip out a boob and start feeding.

However, two years ago, a book came out in the UK by the name of Extraordinary Breastfeeding and chronicled the choice of a mother to breastfeed her eight year-old daughter and just this past year, a book emerged by the name of Breastfeeding Older Children, which outlined just this scenario.  Evidently, it’s more common than some people I think, being that it obviously happens.

What do you guys think? How old is too old? Is there even such a thing? And if you do think age eight is a little excessive for breastfeeding, do you also think that it could set the child up for social development problems down the road?

In recent interviews, Johnson states that his tattoos aren’t offending anyone; they’re his kids’ names and wife’s initials and claims that while he obviously doesn’t want to lose his job, he doesn’t think that it’s right for the district to discriminate against him for a little body art.

The district isn’t just biased against tattoos — piercings, skirts of various lengths and many other wearable items are banned.  However, a representative for the school district

Johnson has worked for the Ogden area school district for the past fifteen years and has had his arm tattoos even longer.  Up until this year, the teacher claims that there has been no stir about the tattoos.  However, a spokesperson for the school district states:

“So we decided that teaching is a career, teaching is a profession, and we want to set a professional standard so that our students will look at their teachers and say, ‘Yes, they are a professional and yes, I could be a teacher, and I would love to have education as my career for 30 years.’”

While I understand that businesses and school districts have policies and procedures in place specifically regarding issues of this sort, I think that this district in particular is backtracking — the man has been employed by the district for almost two decades and has had the tattoos even longer than he’s been employed at the school as a teacher.  The man’s tattoos are on his arm and aren’t obscene, violent or distracting in any way, shape or form.

However, I guess policy is policy and if this man wants to continue working for a school district that’s enforcing their newest dress code, he’ll cover them up, right?  Personally, I think it’s crap — we should be evolving from the aghast reactions of pierced noses and tattooed eyebrows; they’re freaking everywhere.  I don’t think that a tattooed professional is any less professional than the professional that people in certain circles might consider a “prude” of sorts, am I right?

Tattoos don’t express a mentality of immaturity or even destruction — they’re a way of saying ‘Look at me, I’m expressing myself.’  Anything beyond understanding that very basic fact is something that people really need to get over.

The average amount of money an American woman receives for donating healthy eggs to facilities is just around $6,000. According to recent reports out of the UK, the average British woman is only compensated approximately 250 pounds, which translates roughly into $383.00.  How this is even understandable is beyond me; why women in the US would be so highly paid for the same type of “service” as a woman residing in the UK is actually kind of mind-blowing.

The rationale behind such monetary discrepancy?  Dr. Francoise Shenfield of the University College of London has an idea.  Shenfield states:

“In Europe, we have the general idea that altruism is a good thing, and we don’t want to turn human body parts into a commodity.”

This notion could possibly explain why women in certain countries are paid far less than women in other countries for the same type of donation, at least on the ethical side of the house.

And personally, I have to agree.  When there are so many men and women out there suffering because they can’t have a child, who is another woman to dangle a price tag over another’s head for something that they, themselves, never truly invested in to begin with?

On the other side of the coin, women who are seeking financial gain are not queueing up to donate their eggs because of the low pay and this is causing a massive shortage for women who aren’t able to conceive on their own.  Egg donations, traditionally, aren’t considered an invasive or lengthy procedure.  Women are selected to donate and after a pelvic exam, blood work and an array of ultrasound examinations, the woman is signed up for the “donation cycle.”  The cycle can take anywhere from three to six weeks, depending on the woman’s menstrual cycle, and during this time the donor is either administered — or self-administers — hormone treatments to regulate the cycle and produce “super” eggs. Once the eggs are determined to be “mature”, the donor undergoes a procedure involving a needle and a vagina, where the mature eggs are drawn out.  This particular part of the donation process is a same-day surgery.

All in all, it’s a delicate situation and one not to be taken lightly in either case — but I think it still all boils down to money.  If receiving pay for what is supposed to be such an altruistic act were obliterated, maybe more people wouldn’t be so quick to take it for granted one way or another.

Thoughts?

With a $500,000 grant from the M.A.C. AIDS fund, Washington health officials decided to flood their region with a less ubiquitous type of condom — the female kind. CNN reported that a “newly released [female condom], called FC2, is cheaper and designed to be more user-friendly, but the female condom is still relatively unknown.” Now available for free at select D.C. salons, college campuses, and community centers, doctors and activists are hoping to see that change.

As we’ve discussed on Zelda Lily before, the HIV infection rate in Washington D.C. is sky-high — and 30% of those infected in the nation’s capitol are women. According to CNN, “HIV is particularly prevalent among African-Americans, and more black women between 25 and 34 will die from HIV/AIDS nationwide than from any other cause.”

Shannon Hader, senior deputy director of the district’s Department of Health, doesn’t think women have an adequate understanding of the menace of HIV infection:

Women haven’t really gotten the message that they’re at risk … So we are very, very concerned with making sure that women in the district realize that HIV, in fact, is a woman’s disease too.

Along with the purchase and distribution of female condoms, the city has also seen that trained outreach workers go out with the prophylactics. One outreach worker, Charlene Cotton, felt compelled to join the cause after she discovered she was HIV-positive:

It will give a woman a choice, freedom to use protection when a man feels as though that he doesn’t have to use a condom … it gives her the opportunity to say, ‘Well you don’t have to use one, so I’ll use one.’

How does she plan on going about this feat?  Consuming tons of junk food and moving around as little as possible. Great. Her daily caloric intake is aimed at around 12,000 calories per day.  God damn if I were able to eat that much in one day.  If I could it without grossly gaining weight, I just might, being that I consider myself a “foodie”, too, just not in the way that this woman considers herself a “foodie.”

Simpson claims that her weekly food bill is around $750 and the majority of the bill is footed by people who donate the cash to her who “enjoy watching her eat.”  Simpson is already in the Guinness Book of World Records for “World’s Fattest Mom” but she doesn’t want to stop there — her new-found notoriety has prompted her to aim higher.  The main reason behind the need to feed?

She … just likes eating, I guess.

What do you guys think?  Does this really fall under the category of “live and let live” or should society — and health care professionals — intervene, instead of watching this woman slowly kill herself?

But really … A male prisoner at a Montana prison has copped to more than just crimes — he claims that while in the slammer, he’s been copping feels of prison guards, therapists and other prison officials. While incarcerated. Sweet deal. Excuse me while I go rinse my eyes in vinegar or something.

The inmate, Michael Murphy, is thirty-six years old and has been jailed for burglary, forgery and theft and is in the process of serving a twenty-five year sentence.

Murphy was recently found out to be the jailhouse Casanova and allegations are coming up against both he and his “victims.” Therapists, guards and other prison workers are stated to have given him money, cigarettes, blowjobs and love notes. There’s also been the random occurrence of making out and dry-humping, but those are the least of the peoples’ worries. Some of the women involved with Murphy even claim to be in love with him. Murphy was since moved from the facility where the majority of the allegations emerged from, but in his new “home”, he’s already “compromised” a food service worker.

God, this guy works fast. And if he weren’t such a jailed schlep, I might even want to take ‘em on, just to see what all the hype’s about. Kidding.

Regardless, the women claiming that they were involved with them are now considering themselves “victims” and I really have to disagree. Also considering the fact that Murphy is, in fact, a prisoner of the state, he can’t really do a whole lot of sexual manipulating to an extent. Actually, to be politically correct, Murphy is considered the victim in this aspect because of that fact — how about them apples?

While female prison guards are in the news as of late for their domineering sexual ways, it’s apparent that some women — although participating in a sexual or emotional relationship consensually — still aren’t willing to admit that they, themselves, are the “predator” so to speak. Quite the contrary: many women involved with Murphy are claiming that they were “duped” and “pushed” into having relations with the inmate and yet they continued their relationship with him.

What do you guys think? Is it pressure from the inside making the female prison attendants crack or is it the pressure from within, due to a humongous lack of self-control?

Bonus points to the reader who can find a picture of this guy, Murphy.  I’d love to see what all the fuss is about.

Lesage was arrested in 2007 after her partner reported her to authorities after the bodies of six newborn babies were found wrapped in plastic in the woman’s basement.  During questioning, Lesage acknowledged what she had done and claimed that the children were not stillborn.  She admitted to killing them.

The woman’s ex-husband was father to four of the children and a new partner had fathered the other two.   Prosecution states that two of the six children were strangled and the other four were suffocated.  Although both previous partners state that they were aware of the woman’s pregnancies, both men claim that they knew nothing about the death of the children until the bodies were found in 2007.  There are currently no pending charges against either of the woman’s exes.

According to prosecution, the woman delivered the children between 2000 and 2007 and after killing them, deposited them into plastic bags along with dirty clothing and stored them in her basement.  Prosecutor Michel Garrandaux states:

“Her attitude was wholly ambivalent. On the one hand, she expressed her desire to have children, and then she refused to keep them.”

However, Lesage’s lawyer is apparently pulling the mental illness card:

“The facts of the case are not in dispute, but there is medical and psychological evidence to consider … My client believes she is responsible, but not guilty.”

Be that as it may, since there is an overwhelming amount of evidence alluding to the fact that Lesage is clearly a mentally disturbed individual, this is still a woman that deserves to go to jail for the rest of her life even in spite of that fact.

Don’t get me wrong; I’m all about breast feeding if you can and doing it for as long as you can — or want to — and I’ve even tasted my own breast milk (if you’ve breastfed and are saying that you haven’t, I am now calling you a li-ar) but I don’t think I’d be too keen on cuisine made with the milk of other women’s breasts.

Ugh.

However, Dr. Wendy Walsh, who holds a PhD in Clinical Psychology, did just that.  Walsh states that she was heading up a dinner party one evening at her home, not long after the birth of her child, and had a “fridgeful” of breast milk stored for her nursing infant.  Evidently, her husband slyly passed her breast milk instead of traditional cow’s milk to thicken the risotto.  Although Walsh claims that she was kind of taken aback, she states that neither her husband nor present company complained about the “secret ingredient” after the breast milk had served its purpose and thickened the risotto; they merely chalked it up to being “regular” milk and went on about the business of sating their appetites.

Is it so wrong that I am completely and utterly sicked out by this?  Am I the only one who has a huge problem with partaking in another woman’s breast milk?  Would you be apt to knowingly try a recipe that contained another woman’s bodily secretions, even if it was “just” milk?

Fawn Weaver, proprietor of website happywivesclub.com agrees and raises me one.  Weaver was sick and tired of marriage being stigmatized into the old ball-and-chain stereotype — whether the male or female was the ball — and looked into her own marriage to find out what it was that was so “abnormal” in today’s society.  Her take on it?  People — whether it’s co-workers in the office or shows like The Real Housewives of wherever the fuck — glamorize being unhappy.  It gives them something to talk about.  You all know the type: they’re totally unhappy and off-kilter unless they have something to complain about.  It drives the ever-loving hell out of me, too.  I’ve defriended people on Facebook for such actions — and yes, I take it that seriously.

Weaver claims that the only guideline to participating in her forums is to “do nothing but say positive things.”  Although some people might consider this a detriment to feminism as a whole, Weaver herself is no stay-at-home nag that watches sappy movies all day long and cooks and cleans only to ensure her husband’s happiness, no matter how fleeting.  Weaver is an executive at a hotel chain and claims to maintain a stringent work ethic along with balancing her home “duties.”

I love Weaver’s idea.  While there are probably just as many unhappy women in relationships as there are in happy ones, I think it’s a good thing to concentrate on the good because it’s just as easy to fall into the pessimistic, negative pit that love just isn’t what it used to be. Congratulations you wonderfully-positive women, you, and may your upbeat, can-do attitude transcend into every facet of your lives.