Fertility tourism is booming for single Chinese women with hopes of future motherhood. China’s birth rate is at a record low, yet unmarried women are not legally allowed to freeze their eggs there. We meet Lei and Abu, as they travel to the US for the procedure, battling self doubt and scepticism along the way. What does this mean for womanhood and parenting in modern China ..read more

It’s not the first time athletes and officials have been showered with contraceptives. But is there any logic to the options on offer? Sex may not be an official discipline at the Olympics, but it sure looks like Paris is readying itself for vigorous indoor sports. The Covid-related intimacy ban instigated during the Tokyo Olympics has officially been lifted and a bulk order of contraceptives has been placed. During a recent press conference, the organisers of the 2024 Games said that 200,000 male condoms, 20,000 female condoms and 10,000 dental dams will be made available in the Olympic Villa ..read more

American therapist, author and broadcaster known as Dr Ruth who talked openly about sex on her radio and TV shows Ruth Westheimer, who has died aged 96, was an American psychosexual therapist famed for transforming attitudes towards the open discussion of sex. She began quietly in 1980 with a 15-minute recorded programme, Sexually Speaking, aired after midnight on a New York radio channel. A year later it had become an hour-long live phone-in show. Following emphatic success she went on to write more than 35 books, including Dr Ruth’s Encyclopedia of Sex (1994) and Sex for Dummies (1995). She ..read more

Sexual violence experts concerned about health risks and lack of consent after survey shows almost 60% of respondents under 35 had been choked at least once Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast Strangling a partner during sex is widely perceived as normal especially among young people, with more than half of adults aged 35 and under reporting they have been strangled, many of them unaware of potentially serious health consequences. It is a finding that has sexual violence experts so concerned that they launched the “Breathless” campaign and website on Tue ..read more

Killer caterpillarsAll mouth and trousers?Where’s Willy in Mexico?Baptism of fiery auntsA Tory wipeout? Wanna bet? In the interests of accuracy, I can confirm that we gardeners don’t differentiate between the large white and small white butterflies, nor do we call ’em “cabbage whites” (Letters, 23 June). We calls ’em “bloody cabbage whites”. And it’s neither the butterfly nor the larva that eats our brassicas – it’s the bloody caterpillars, especially that little green ’un that hides along the central rib. We hate him! David Cordingley Lincoln • Your article (Microplastic discovery in penises ..read more

The contaminants have also recently been found in testes and semen amid concerns about falling male fertility Microplastics have been discovered in penises for the first time, raising questions about a potential role in erectile dysfunction. The revelation comes after the pollutants were recently detected in testes and semen. Male fertility has fallen in recent decades and more research on potential harm of microplastics to reproduction is imperative, say experts ..read more

More than half a million people have had or considered having the procedure due to lack of education and diverse representation, survey shows Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast Pornography and social media are driving a rise in people having or considering labia surgery, with images and videos distorting perceptions of what genitalia look like, a new report has found. The surgery, known as labiaplasty, is one of the fastest growing cosmetic procedures among young people in Australia and worldwide. S ..read more

What happens when a woman’s monthly bleeding just won’t stop? Marjolein Robertson discusses her years-long fight to get help for her haemorrhaging and pain – and how she turned this into comedy When she was 16, Marjolein Robertson had a period that stopped and started, stopped and started again, then didn’t stop. “It picked up in pace and volume for days and days,” she says. “I remember talking to my friends about it, but we were all clueless. I was changing my pad and my tampon every half-hour but I still thought: ‘It’s OK, it going to stop eventually.’ In my head, it was a sac of blood. It c ..read more

Company behind app says no personal information is collected but experts warn of ‘how easily’ data can be hacked Get our morning and afternoon news emails, free app or daily news podcast Yudara Kularathne came up with the idea for an AI-driven app when a friend was worried about a bump on their penis. Kularathne was then a consultant physician in Singapore in 2019, but he saw the potential for an app that could instantly identify a suspected sexually transmitted infection from a photo of male genitalia ..read more

Long-term sexual dysfunction is a recognised side-effect for some patients who take these widely prescribed antidepressants, and can leave sufferers devastated. So why is there so little help available? During Melbourne’s strict lockdown of 2020, Rosie Tilli, a then 20-year-old nurse living and working in the city, began to experience growing anxiety and depression. Visiting her GP, she was quickly prescribed escitalopram, a commonly used drug from a class known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). These medicines attempt to treat depressive symptoms by boosting the levels of th ..read more