In my post last week about Aruna Shanbaug -- the young nurse who was sodomized and strangulated in 1973 in a Mumbai (Bombay) hospital basement, and continues to live in a vegetative state -- I promised an interview with journalist Pinki Virani, who has written perhaps the most authoritative account of the case in her book Aruna's Story.

I'll be honest; I've been looking at singer R. Kelly cross-eyed for a long time, as much as I like such songs as "Step in the Name of Love" and I believe I Can Fly." I was always put off by his relationship with the late singer Aaliyah, with whom he had a bogus "marriage" in 1994, when she was 15.

Part II: Interview with writer Pinki Virani

Up until the end of April this year, if you had run into former South African footballer Eudy Simelane, chances are that you would have met a happy woman. At 31, Simelane was still involved with the sport she loved as a coach and referee. She was a lesbian in a country in which homosexuality was not only legal, it is enshrined in the Constitution.

“The opposite of rape is not consent. The opposite of rape is enthusiasm” Hugo Schwyzer I've been thinking a lot about rape lately. Specifically because there seems to be some confusion over it, and that surprises me. See, it's pretty black and white to me.

When I started writing my post on my personal blog for BlogHers Act, I didn't know what I would write when I got to my suggestion for a global cause.  I certainly didn't expect that what I came up with would cross into sex & relationships territory.