Monday, July 07, 2008

Mr Ben's Guide to Publishing

I don't like to post shop, but sometimes I feel obliged to.

My work, as I've mentioned before, requires me to write about sex, and all manner of sexual topics, whilst maintaining a sensible, even handed and rational perspective. I resist the temptation to write rude words in the captions under pictures of antifeminist activists, and I refrain from giggling when I'm in the office.

There are times though, when my noble intentions are undone. These times generally involve the picture research department who I'm sure, sometimes, are deliberately trying to make me laugh. It's generally at its funniest when they're trying to find pictures for things that they can't illustrate directly (because our publisher don't want no filth)

Take for example the article on premature ejaculation. Obviously they couldn't have a picture of a happy looking bloke lying on top of a woman who looked distinctly peeved. So they decided to try and represent the pain and frustration these men feel. The result made me want to write the caption 'd'ooh, I did it again... and I've not even left the office yet.'

The next one, impotence, can't be illustrated directly either (a picture of a big floppy cock wouldn't go down well with most American publishers) so again, picture research went for expressive - The result: 'my inability to get an erection makes me a saaaad paaaanda'

This one is a rejected possible image for an article on father's rights. I wanted an image that illustrated some aspect for visitation rights for estranged fathers. Instead I got an image which illustrates visitation rights from beyond the grave! I especially like the way that the double breasted suit gives a strange sort of 'twilight zone' feel to the image.

This last thing isn't a stock image, but it made me laugh nonetheless. It's a graph detailing the time elapsed between vaginal intromission and intravaginal ejaculation, referred to as the intravaginal ejaculatory latency time (IELT)*
Ref. Bandolier

I was interested and not smirking at all until I saw the far right of the graph. which made me smile.

Other than that I can only recommend that you check out a study into the relationship between bumper stickers and road rage and further evidence that the founding fathers were cool, and that Bush is a bit of a nob really. Oh. and on a slightly less serious note, a man playing a giant flying V.

Hmm. I seem to have forgotten what I was writing about and just started posting random links. Oh well.

-Ben

*I love it when scientists talk dirty, oh yeah.