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The first time Ashley Manta got stoned specifically to have sex, it changed everything. Combining weed and sex has changed some people’s lives, and new medical research suggests this revolution isn’t just in their heads. Ashley Manta  in an interview, told D Is For Desire, HuffPost’s love and sex podcast. “I was like, ‘There is something to this.’“I came so hard, like repeatedly, and afterward I just hugged [my boyfriend] and cuddled up in his arms and just felt full-on blissed-out all over my body.” But it wasn’t just Ashley’s sex life that changed. Exploring the mindful and deliberate use of cannabis during sex led her to coin the term “CannaSexual” and launched her new career leading workshops teaching others about the joys and wonders of embarking on sexy, weed-fueled choose-your-own adventures in the bedroom (or anywhere else). Check out the Media and Press page for links to articles about her, podcast interviews, and interviews she has done for a variety of media outlets!

For this episode of D Is For Desire, I chatted with Ashley about why combining cannabis and sex can be so revolutionary, what folks can expect if they sign up for one of her workshops and a few do’s and don’ts for experiencing the ultimate sex high. I also spoke with Dr. Becky Lynn, an OBGYN, who is doing groundbreaking research into the ways cannabis may affect women’s bodies and sexuality and why living the CannaSexual life seems to be so rewarding for some people: Cannabis can be used to enhance sensation, ease discomfort, and promote intimacy during solo or partnered play. It can also help enrich conversations and diffuse tension during difficult discussions. You can easily use topical cannabinoid-infused creams, sprays, balms, or any CBD-only product without feeling high. If you’ve ever wanted to explore using cannabis in a more intentional way to elevate your life and experiences, you’ll find that Ashley’s approach is for you. CannaSexual® is a word Ashley created to describe mindfully and deliberately combining sex and cannabis to deepen intimacy and enhance pleasure. It has grown to become a lifestyle brand, used to represent pleasure-focused events and educational workshops, and is now federally trademarked! For those who can’t make it to in-person classes or events, she’s rolling out online content!

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He was in the midst of responding to a question that was, well, not about his penis. Donald Trump was participating in March’s GOP debate when he alluded to his penis size. “He referred to my hands,” Trump said, referencing insults lodged by Senator Marco Rubio. “If they’re small, something else must be small. I guarantee you there’s no problem. I guarantee it.” Trump’s not-so-subtle nod at genitalia in such a professional ― even presidential ― forum shocked the entire nation. But perhaps no one was more surprised than 24-year-old artist Illma Gore. Just a month earlier, Gore had posted a drawing to Facebook titled “Make America Great Again,” depicting the former reality TV star completely nude. His penis, as rendered in the drawing, is quite petite. “No matter what is in your pants, you can still be a big prick,” Gore wrote alongside the NSFW piece. Gore explained in an interview with The Huffington Post. “If I had drawn him with a big penis, you’d associate that with the qualities of a powerful leader. A small penis, you think, ‘Oh, that’s an excuse for why this person is the way he is.’ But that’s wrong.” Gore intended to challenge preconceptions about gender and sexuality through her drawing, illuminating the problems with a culture that equates a small penis with weakness. “It’s about this pseudo-masculinity that this man, I feel, just exudes.”

In a statement on Instagram, Gore expanded upon the idea motivating the work: “Society treats effeminacy like it is bad in comparison to the idea of a ‘real man.’” The piece was therefore meant to attack these ingrained preconceptions, not affirm them. The body depicted in Gore’s drawing belongs, in real life, to one of her friends, who served as her model. “Someone I believe to be masculine and beautiful,” she explained. “All the sudden, with Trump’s head, everything changed.” “I never expected it to go as far as it did,” she said. “I lost my voice in there.” Gore uploaded the image to Facebook with absolutely no idea how much it would blow up. The image gained traction on Reddit and various websites around the web, while Gore’s own social media accounts were disabled as a result of the nudity. The original message of the work became overshadowed by the country’s brewing Trump hate. What was initially an attempt to praise unconventional bodies ended up resembling body-shaming. Not long after her artwork went viral, Gore began receiving phone calls from people claiming to work for Trump’s legal team. She was slapped with a DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) takedown notice demanding she remove the image from her accounts. And then, the death threats started rolling in. Hysteria surrounding Gore’s artwork reached a bizarre peak one day in Los Angeles when the artist was walking through a neighborhood close to a Trump rally. Having recently appeared in a few televised interviews regarding the piece, she was more recognizable than your average well-known artist. While walking by herself down a side street, a car slowed down alongside Gore and a group of young men started yelling at her, calling her a bitch and cheering for Trump. Eventually one of the men jumped out of the car and punched Gore in the face. The men then, laughing, reportedly sped off screaming, “Trump 2016!” “Is it weird to say I’m kind of proud that someone punched me in the face because of one of my drawings?” Gore laughed, clearly overwhelmed by the weirdness of it all.

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Sylvester Turner, Houston Mayor, told reporters “You cannot engage in sexual activities with any inanimate objects at the business.” (Reuters) – The Houston City Council on Wednesday prevented what was billed as the first brothel in the United States equipped with sex dolls from opening in the Texas city. The council altered a local ordinance to block the business and any others like it. Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner told reporters after the council meeting that the vote amounted to a modification of an existing city ordinance and was not targeted at any specific business. The Houston Chronicle reported that Toronto-based KinkySdollS had planned to open a Houston location, where customers could both buy “adult love dolls” and rent them for use in private rooms.

“You cannot engage in sexual activities with any inanimate objects at the business,” Turner said in explaining the change. KinkySdollS founder, Yuval Gavriel, said he is talking to lawyers about suing the city over its decision. People will still be able to buy the dolls, he said. “We are investigating our options,” he said in a telephone interview. The company has opened a similar business in Toronto, according to its website. Matt McMullen has been creating realistic-looking human dolls for sex since 1997. He tells 60 Second Docs the technology needed to make raunchier robots is getting better all the time. People spend $5,000-to-$10,000 for lifelike dolls, but McMullen believes the real value is making the sex doll experience as real as possible. “One day two people who are on two different sides of the Earth could engage sexually, through their dolls while in a virtual environment together. But until then sex doll brothels might become the norm. “For some people, this is what they really want and it makes them happy and I don’t think anyone should judge them for that.” “We just have to come to terms with each other and say, ‘OK, that’s for you, this is for me,’” he said.

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At least 32 innocent people are dead. Two shooters were killed and one is in custody. A food festival in Gilroy, California. A busy Walmart in El Paso, Texas. A popular entertainment district in Dayton, Ohio. All three were sites of deadly mass shootings in the past week. The carnage never seems to end and it’s left many in America grappling with how to react, how to heal and how to change things for the better. Celebrities and other public figures echoed many of these sentiments on social media. ✔@lizzo Just got off the phone w/ fam in Dayton… it was a close call for them but that’s not the case for 9 other families, between this & the terrorist attack in El Paso & recent other shootings I feel completely helpless.. make noise & bring awareness.. vote.. don’t normalize this. ✔@jelani9 Fell asleep watching news reports about 20 people killed in #elpaso. Slept for four hours. Awoke to find that the news was talking about 9 killed #dayton Ohio — exactly half a night’s sleep between 29 lost lives. #America. ✔@RepSeanMaloney. Only a week after a mass shooting in California, we’re seeing yet another in Texas. This is an epidemic in America & it needs to end. I stand with El Paso & all the folks in America who want their government to act to keep families safe. ✔@ABC ABC NEWS SPECIAL REPORT: At least 18 people killed during mass shooting in El Paso, Texas. https://www.pscp.tv/w/cBXSgjM3Mzg2fDF5Tnhhdk5kT2dFS2oKcwFzowKEN_amw0qidkEBMzG6XH2T2j80jwV-cLyPGg== … ✔@blink182. Following today’s terrible tragedy in El Paso we are postponing our Sunday, August 4th show at the UTEP Don Haskins Arena in solidarity with the community. Please stay tuned for further updates coming soon. Sending our love to the entire community of El Paso. ✔@jfreewright From online terrorist manifesto described by El Paso Police Chief as the “nexus to a potential hate crime”: “This attack is a response to the Hispanic invasion of Texas…I am simply defending my country from cultural and ethnic replacement brought on by an invasion.” ✔@tim_cook I’m heartbroken about what’s happening in my country. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. It’s time for good people with different views to stop finger pointing and come together to address this violence for the good of our country.

At least nine people were killed and 27 injured in a mass shooting in Dayton, Ohio, early Sunday morning, officials said ― the second horrific slaughter in America in less than 24 hours. At least 22 people were killed in a mass shooting at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, on Saturday, and police are investigating whether the suspected gunman, who was arrested at the scene, posted a racist manifesto on social media. The two shootings occurred less than a week after a gunman opened fire at a garlic festival in Northern California, killing three people, including two children. CNN’s Brooke Baldwin became visibly emotional as she processed last weekend’s mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. “This has been a horrible week for America,” Baldwin said on Friday’s broadcast of “Newsroom.” “I never thought in my 20 years in journalism that I would get a call last Sunday morning from my boss asking me to go cover a mass shooting and I actually had to ask the question, ‘Which one?’” Baldwin recalled standing in Dayton for three days “on a street where blood was still splattered on the sidewalk” while co-anchoring with colleagues in El Paso. “That was a first for me,” she noted. “And I am worried that it might not be the last unless there is real change in Washington. Pope Francis, during his Sunday message and blessing at St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City in Italy, condemned the attacks on “defenseless people” in three U.S. states. He offered a “Hail Mary” prayer for the victims.

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The whale, believed to be a calf, was found on Friday on the Brazilian island of Marajo. It was about 50 feet from the ocean, according to Newsweek. Researchers are having a whale of a time trying to figure out how the humpback whale wound up in the Amazon rain forest. Darlene Silva, a spokeswoman for Brazil’s Department of Health, Sanitation and Environment, told reporters the animal was found in a mangrove swamp only after researchers noticed vultures circling in the sky, according to the Express. A team from the Municipal Secretariat of Health, Sanitation and Environment found the carcass had no visible injuries and theorized that the whale died at sea. Biologists from the Bicho D’água Institute said the animal was about 26 feet long, though local officials said it was closer to 36 feet long, according to Storyful.

HuffPost reached out to the Bicho D’água Institute, which did not immediately respond but said in a Facebook post that the animal was “not as big as it looks in the images.” Renata Emin, the institute’s project leader, told reporters that researchers don’t know how the animal washed up so far from the beach, but they guessed that the creature was floating close to the shore and was carried inland by a storm, according to the Independent Researchers are collecting carcass samples, but Silva said there will be no attempts to remove it from its final resting spot.
“It’s very difficult to get there and there’s no way we can send a bulldozer because it would not get through,” she said, according to the Independent. “There is no way to remove it. To get there, we need to cross the swamp.”

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“I think this country hasn’t dealt well with the issues of race,” the lawmaker told NBC’s Chuck Todd. “We have a president who’s a racist.” When it came to addressing President Donald Trump’s history of racism, Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) didn’t mince words in a “Meet the Press” interview Sunday. Noting Brown’s frank description of Trump, Todd paused for a moment, asking him to explain. “I know that he built his political career knowing what he was doing on questioning the legitimacy and the birth place of the president of the United States,” Brown said, referring to the birther conspiracy theory Trump promoted staring in 2011, using it in an effort to undermine Barack Obama’s credibility. Brown also pointed to housing discrimination in the Trump real estate empire, adding that violence at the 2017 white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, told the country even more about the president’s beliefs on race, appearing to be alluding to Trump’s weak response to the chaos when he had initially skirted around denouncing neo-Nazis.

Most recently, Brown, who is considering a run for president, has called for the resignation of Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam following the Democrat’s admission that he had once worn blackface in a dance contest in which he impersonated Michael Jackson. Controversy has brewed steadily over the governor since last week, when a photo of a man in blackface next to another individual dressed in a Ku Klux Klan uniform surfaced from Northam’s 1984 medical school yearbook. While Northam has indicated he has no plans to step down, Brown called on him to resign and consider participating in discussions on race “as a private citizen.” “Charlottesville was only a symptom and a more public viewing and outing, if you will, of president Trump’s views about race, and racism” Brown said.

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According to the Layton Utah Police Department a blindfolded teenage driver crashed into another car for obvious reasons on Monday. The police tweeted on Friday, along with a photo of two mangled cars on Layton Parkway surrounded by snow-covered sidewalks. “Bird Box Challenge while driving… this will be the predictable result,” Police wrote, “Luckily there were no injuries,” One truck appears to have its passenger-side bumper bent inward, while the entire driver’s side of a Honda HR-V is smashed. The side airbags of the HR-V appear to be deployed.
“Can’t believe we have to say this, Netflix warned its viewers against the “Bird Box” challenge, earlier this month. PLEASE DO NOT HURT YOURSELVES WITH THIS BIRD BOX CHALLENGE,” the company tweeted on Jan. 2nd. At the time of the crash, Layton Police spokesman Lt. Travis Lyman told CBS News that a 17-year-old girl was driving with a 16-year-old passenger.

The “Bird Box” challenge, which has gone viral on social media, is inspired by the Netflix movie “Bird Box,” starring Sandra Bullock. In the movie, characters have to move about the outside world wearing blindfolds to avoid looking at an unseen monster that forces people to kill themselves. In the viral challenge, participants attempt to do ordinary things while blindfolded, which, again, is dangerous for obvious reasons “We shouldn’t have to say this, but we’re gonna: Don’t drive blindfolded.” a Colorado State Patrol officer said in a video message. Law enforcement in Colorado predicted last week that someone might attempt the “Bird Box” challenge while driving and also warned people against it. The challenge “really hasn’t been that dangerous, but inevitably somebody’s going to do the monumentally stupid thing that is driving while blindfolded.”

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The renowned theoretical physicists hosts “Stephen Hawking’s Favorite Places,” a new short film available on the streaming service Curiosity Stream. The film follows Hawking around the universe as he “travels” in a computer-generated imagery spacecraft, giving the audience a peek into simulations of a black hole and Gliese 832c, an earth-like planet outside our solar system that scientists believe may be able to support life. Stephen Hawking has said it before and he’ll say it again: If extraterrestrials call, do not answer ― at least, not without careful consideration. And Gliese 832c isn’t even the closet possible second-Earth. In August, scientists announced that Proxima b, a planet orbiting Proxima Centauri — the nearest known star to our sun — has a temperature that could allow liquid water and is possibly habitable.

But if we ever get a signal from any of these places, Hawking warns that we shouldn’t be too eager to say hello. It’s an idea Hawking has expressed numerous times before — typically using human beings as an example of why we shouldn’t trust other intelligent life. “We should be wary of answering back,” he says in the film, according to USAToday. “Meeting an advanced civilization could be like Native Americans encountering Columbus — that didn’t turn out so well.” “I imagine they might exist in massive ships, having used up all the resources from their home planet. Such advanced aliens would perhaps become nomads, looking to conquer and colonize whatever planets they can reach.” It’s an idea Hawking has expressed numerous times before — typically using human beings as an example of why we shouldn’t trust other intelligent life. “We only have to look at ourselves to see how intelligent life might develop into something we wouldn’t want to meet,” he told The Times of London in 2010. Well, we’re convinced. NASA, we really hope you’re listening.

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Congress is on the verge of officially legalizing industrial hemp, with a measure that would create a legal distinction between the popular crop and other, intoxicating strains of marijuana. In a statement Thursday, leaders of the U.S. Senate and House agricultural committees reported that they’d reached a tentative agreement on the 2018 Farm Bill. Included in that larger piece of legislation are a number of provisions that would allow for the commercial cultivation, research and development of industrial hemp. A vote is expected by the end of the year. Under the new farm bill, hemp would be defined as any part of a marijuana plant with a THC concentration of 0.3 percent or less. Hemp is a variety of cannabis that contains very low amounts of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the primary psychoactive compound in marijuana. While strains of cannabis with higher THC can get people high, hemp does not. There are a few remaining procedural hurdles that could threaten the legislation, but for the moment, the broader farm bill and its hemp measures look likely to pass, said Eric Steenstra, president of Vote Hemp, an advocacy group. “We’ve had five years and what we’ve seen is that there are a lot of people who are wanting to grow this crop..

It is typically grown for use in food, fuel, textiles and other applications. Since 1970, however, federal law has classified all cannabis plants as Schedule I substances, alongside drugs like heroin, LSD and a number of deadly synthetic opioids. “The hemp part of the bill has never really been in dispute,” said Steenstra. “I feel very optimistic about this.” In 2014, Congress passed a farm bill renewal that allowed for pilot programs and research on hemp. Over the past few years, hemp has begun to develop into its own thriving industry. Cultivation operations quickly sprouted up across the U.S., and in 2018, more than 3,500 licenses were issued in 23 states, leading to over 77,000 acres of hemp being planted, according to Vote Hemp. In 2015, just 9,650 acres of hemp had been planted in 15 states, Steenstra added. That explosive growth has helped convince skeptical lawmakers that the longstanding prohibition on hemp is no longer defensible. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), once a vocal opponent of hemp legalization, has since become a leading advocate for the initiative.

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“We had an unexpected visitor last night at the facility,” California Highway Patrol’s Donner Pass division wrote on Facebook on Nov. 18. Police in California got a surprise when a bear stood up on two legs, opened the door to a facility and then wandered in as if it worked there. The footage shows the bear step into the commercial vehicle enforcement facility in Truckee, near Lake Tahoe, then drop down to all fours. It wanders past some vending machines and out of camera range. A few moments later, the bear casually strolls back out. Two police officers follow.  “Our bear friend made a return visit,” the department wrote. On Saturday, the bear was back, caught on camera in the facility’s parking lot. Bears will seek to avoid confrontation with humans. If encountered, always leave them an escape route.

 Bears in the area are searching for food for up to 20 hours per day as they prepare for hibernation, the United States Forest Service noted on its website. Bears often hibernate in large hollow trees 40 to 50 feet off the ground. Because bears (and other animals) are attracted to anything edible or scented, improper storage of human food and other scented items and improper disposal of refuse is a leading cause of human-bear conflict. Store food in bear-proof canisters or bear-proof lockers if provided. Bears are omnivores. A typical wild bear diet consists of berries, plants, nuts, roots, honey, honeycomb, insects, larvae, carrion and small mammals. As winter approaches, bears will forage for food storing enough fat to sustain them through hibernation. Bears that are accustomed to people can become too bold and lose their fear of humans. To avoid this behavior, do not let bears become habituated to human sources of food. U.S. Forest Service
Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit
Forest Supervisor’s Office
35 College Drive
South Lake Tahoe, CA 96150

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