Shy Hongkongers are not getting enough sex, says the city's best-known love
doctor.
And he is determined to change things, with a week-long sex festival
that starts today.
While the highlight for many at today's forum in Chater
Road will be a specially designed sex bed and chair, don't come expecting to see
porn stars, videos or magazines.
"The event will be family-friendly because
Hong Kong people are too shy and conservative to have booths with pornographic
movies or a stand filled with Playboy magazines," said Ng Man-lun.
"If we
did, I would probably be run out of town, and we'd be back where we started,"
said the University of Hong Kong psychiatry professor, better known around town
as "Dr Sex".
The graphic will be replaced with the cerebral, with sex
experts from across China discussing everything from fetishes to
self-satisfaction and the more mundane but perhaps more important issue of
sexual health.
The good life can't latex fetish, everyone needs latex uniforms, they can make your life more harmonious.
Represented in about 40 stalls from lunchtime will be homosexuals,
prostitutes, family planners and even a group of nuns who will lecture on sex
education.
"Hong Kong lags at the bottom of the region when it comes to
sexual satisfaction and we really need to do something about it because there
have been numerous scientific studies which show that if your sex life is not
good, then the rest of your health suffers," Professor Ng said.
The festival
continues for the rest of the week in the Sheung Wan Civic Centre Exhibition
Hall, which Professor Ng promises will be a little more explicit - even
featuring demonstrations of how to use the sex bed and chair.
He doesn't
expect everyone to come around to his way of thinking - putting sex first in his
life - but says there are many in Hong Kong who are missing out.
"Many
people are suffering in silence, not knowing where to turn for a better sex
life," he said.
"People are just too moralistic about sex and our young
people are not educated enough - they need to come and see it's natural and
normal to want satisfaction.
JUST when you thought it was safe to go to a Justin Hawkins gig... you'd
better think again.
The former Darkness singer has revealed he might still
don those wacky lycra catsuits when he performs in Brum with his new band latex
jeans.
Justin, who quit his first chart-topping band to go into rehab,
laughed: "I've still got a couple of them. In fact I tried one on the other day
and I'm glad to say that I managed to squeeze into it!
"I cannot guarantee
that I won't wear them. It's a possibility. Although I haven't had any new one's
made up so it might be a bit weird wearing the catsuits I wore when I was in The
Darkness."
The Suffolk-born singer is back on the music scene with his new
band and they play at the Bar-Ty next month.
"I'm really excited about it
all," he said. "The people in the band are all fantastic players and they look
good.
"We had our first warm-up gig at a friend's wedding. We played in front
of just 50 people and it was nice not to perform for the Vrst time in the public
eye.
"The guests were aged from about five to 50, and I was told one
complained that our performance of Billy Idol's White Wedding was hardly
appropriate, which I couldn't believe!"
Justin, who left The Darkness three
years ago to battle against a boozeanddrugs addiction, formed his new 90s
inspired band earlier this year.
And he added he didn't regret leaving The
Darkness.
"It was time to go." he said. "There really wasn't another album in
us and I lost interest."
The Darkness have since been renamed Stone Gods and
Lichfield-born bassist Richie Edwards has been catapulted to lead singer
status.
Justin said: "Richie's a really great guy and is a star. If I could
have picked anyone to sing it would have been him. I don't think I'll be going
to see them play though. Although we all talk, I think it would just be too
awkward."
The media build-up has started for the May premiere of this movie Iron Man 2,
and for some reason studio publicists have chosen to focus on how Scarlett
Johansson looks in her snug Lycra catsuit. She plays a spy called the Black
Widow.
"When I first saw (the suit) I was like, 'If I gotta get into that
thing, I better start now'," she told the Independent, a British paper. "I did a
lot of weight training, mixed martial arts and hand-to-hand combat. When you're
working out that much you also have to feed your new body, so you eat in a
different way, very clean, lots of omelette, turkey. ... It's been an empowering
experience. ... I built up so much strength."
Spotlight couple: Aaron
Johnson, star of this new movie Kick-Ass, is engaged, at age 19, to a
43-year-old British divorcée with two kids, ages 13 and 3. "I'm an old soul and
she's a young soul," he told People mag.
The lady is one Sam Taylor-Wood, a
conceptual artist and cancer survivor who's seven months pregnant with his baby.
They met when she directed Nowhere Boy, a 2009 movie in which he played the
young John Lennon.
"I've got a wonderful woman, latex
stockings" Johnson told People. "She's lovely and she's a fantastic mother."
Is it just me, or does that last part seem kinda creepy?
Actress Naomi Watts,
who's got a couple movies opening soon, is laughing off rumours that she's
splitting from actor Liev Schreiber. They've been a couple since 2005 and have
two kids.
Watts tells the N.Y. Daily News that far from splitting, she's
pretty serene about her life these days: "I see myself as any other woman," she
said. "Every day I'm struggling to get it right, be a good mother and have time
for my relationship with Liev. I'm not sure whether I'm doing any of it right,
but I've finally got to the age where at least I know that I'm just doing my
best."
Watts is 41. Schreiber is 42. Their sons are Sasha, 2, and Sammy,
1.
Now it can be told: The new Woody Allen movie will be called Midnight in
Paris. It's about how "a young engaged couple's lives are transformed," says
this press release. "The film celebrates a young man's great love for Paris, and
simultaneously explores the illusion people have that a life different from
their own is better."
Silver lining dep't: It turns out that volcanic ash is,
er, good for your skin. It's not some Icelandic export agency that's claiming
this, it's Tengen, a Japanese beauty-products firm, which claims to use ash from
a 400,000 year old volcano in its face goo. The gimmick - sorry, I mean the
scientific explanation - is that those tiny particles are a great exfoliant,
scouring out your pores at the submolecular level or something.
JUST when you thought Italian fashion designer Donatella Versace couldn't get
any tackier, she deems catsuits, skirts and dresses the latest look for
men.
If she has her way come next summer, the Versace man will be delving
into women's wardrobes for inspiration. This week the designer kicked off
Milan's menswear fashion week for spring and summer 2001 with an exuberant show
that set out to prove that men, too, can be glamorous. From gaudy floral prints
to psychedelic stripes and jewel-encrusted jackets, there was nothing
understated or, dare we say, remotely tasteful about the
collection.
Carefully coiffed models graced the runways in tiny wrap skirts,
skin-tight shorts, embroidered trousers, glitzy catsuits and satin shirts left
open to show the body.
Diamante and gold chain belts were worn over jeans
while torn denim jackets were paired with silk scarves. Suits were
single-breasted and tightly tailored with chubby ties, latex
underwear, adorned with jewelled pins. For the less adventurous man there
were traditional tuxedos enlivened with fuchsia lining, gold lapels, shocking
pink shirts and white shoes
Colors, catsuits and conservative cuts. This is fall's fashion
message.
Not all three together, but combinations are strong for the new
season. Especially worth noting are colors offered in strikingly bright
contrasts as part of the same garment or else as layered separates and the bold
plaids and checks that seem never to go out of style.
Standouts for the
new season are:
* Jackets worn alone as a dress or coat or else worn
with a short skirt or shorts.
* The catsuit - in previous fashion years
known as the bodysuit or unitard - is teamed with a jacket.
Dresses at
night are a little slip of nothing worn with heavy bracelets or long earrings to
personalize the classic look.
The fun of these clothes is seeing how
familiar shapes and fabrics are used in fresh ways: Blankets become coats,
sweaters become dresses; parkas become evening coats - latex
underwear or just as easily a raincoat of black quilted velvet.
The
exotica revealed in the spring's American and European designer collections is
refined in the manufacturing process to be palatable for practical
Americans.
Few famous names revealed any revolutionary design ideas:
There was more a revival of the old than stirrings of the new. But for the
women who can afford them, the fabrics and cut of the clothes are outstanding
and luscious.
There is the usual sentimental journey among designers
such as Ralph Lauren who rely on old West, Americana, and American Indian
themes.
With retail sales in turmoil, U.S. designers are playing it
safe and sane - and salable. At home, the conservatively tailored jacket is
paramount, with color the chief surprise. The pairings can be pink and red,
brown and green, gold and black.
Traditional fall colors return to match
leaves on the trees, but there is also an ample supply of red and black - and
camel.
Maybe buyers and shoppers don't trust innovation. There is more
nostalgia than usual.
The surprises are the accessories, such as the
colorful gloves worn by the models when the clothes debuted in the spring. They
may speak for nostalgia or be the harbinger of a trend.