Women are routinely told there’s something wrong with the natural, healthy way our vaginas work. While Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop is arguably most responsible for cultivating our baseless insecurities (see: jade vagina eggs and, of course, vaginal steaming), the whole wellness and beauty industries seem intent on giving us a complex.

Vajazzling, the “vagina pearl detox” and even wasp nest “rejuvenation” (yeah, it’s as grim as it sounds) have been and gone – so, are you ready to brush up on the next so-called craze?

Glitter notoriously gets everywhere, but some women are apparently putting it into their nether regions in capsule form before sex to ensure a “sparkly, flavoured orgasm”. Words escape us sometimes, they really do.

Online retailer Pretty Woman Inc is selling Passion Dust Intimacy Capsules, which are designed to be inserted into the vagina and allowed “to naturally dissolve and release its contents”, the product description reads.

A post shared by Madám Butterflie (@madam.butterflie) on May 23, 2017 at 6:38am PDT

The capsules are made from gelatin, starch-based edible glitter, acacia (gum arabic) powder, Zea Mays starch and vegetable stearate, which the website says is safe to stick inside the vagina. The only health risk the company warns of is the potential for asthma attacks if the glitter particles are ingested through oral sex.

It even assures users that: "If you’ve ever had vaginal issues, you had them before you used Passion Dust anyway. If you’ve ever had a yeast infection, I’m sure it wasn’t caused by glitter; it just happens sometimes (Oh, the joys of being a girl!).”

But health professionals beg to differ and, thankfully, one doctor has spoken out against the potential health risks of using the capsules. In a blogpost headlined "Don't glitter bomb your vagina", Dr Jen Gunter, a leading gynaecologist based in Canada who has become known for her takedowns of Paltrow's controversial health claims, warns that they could interfere with the vagina's balance of bacteria, thereby leading to infection, and increase the risk of catching STIs.

Don’t Glitter Bomb Your Vagina https://t.co/3EDZjUyJE6 pic.twitter.com/DhdrR1TvEk

— Jennifer Gunter (@DrJenGunter) July 2, 2017

"Just because something is safe for your lips, for example glitter lip gloss, doesn't mean it is safe for the vagina," she wrote, adding that there's currently no known way of making vagina-friendly glitter.

"If [the glitter] isn’t plastic and it’s sugar, well, depositing sugar in the vagina lets the bad bacteria go wild. Studies looking at treating bacterial vaginosis with vaginally administered probiotics were halted because the glucose keeping the probiotics alive made the bad bacteria go wild," she added.

"Could the vehicle be an irritant and cause a vaginal contact dermatitis? Yes and ouch. Think vaginal sunburn!" Ouch indeed.

Gunter also calls out the product for its sexist implications. “The point of the vaginal glitter appears to be ‘for him,’ you know because a vagina au naturel just isn’t enough. I hate, hate, hate the messaging behind this (and all other vaginal “enhancement” products). Why do we have to shame women inside and out?” she said.

It’s not clear how many people are partaking in the trend, but the website says they sold out of stock in a matter of days. However, we're guessing the product will most likely only appeal to a small audience of women: hardcore unicorn aficionados.

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When he is in writing mode, novelist Haruki Murakami gets up at 4am and writes for five hours. In the afternoon he runs 10km or swims 1500m and spends his evening reading and listening to music before going to bed at 9pm. Why? “The repetition itself becomes the important thing; it’s a form of mesmerism. I mesmerise myself to reach a deeper state of mind,” he told The Paris Review.

And he isn’t alone. Ernest Hemingway got up at dawn to work (even when hungover). Beethoven methodically counted out exactly 60 beans each morning for his pre-work coffee. Kurt Vonnegut punctuated work with push-ups and sit-ups. Maya Angelou wrote from a sparsely decorated hotel room she kept. The more I learn about the lives of prominent creatives, the more it seems the path to excellence is paved not with erratic flashes of brilliance but instead, with routine.

I resisted this notion for quite some time. Having left the confines of a 9-5 office job a couple of years ago, I was delighted at the prospect of owning my own time and spending it exactly as I saw fit. But after a few months of PJ-clad freelance hedonism, I soon realised some semblance of structure is necessary for creativity to flourish.

“Routines are what make my world go around,” says Stella Heng, the cofounder and creative brains behind Sports Philosophy, a luxury sportswear line that combines athleisure with altruism. “At some point last year, we had major product development issues and the constant travelling disrupted my usual routine, which in turn really affected my ability to find solutions to design issues and marketing problems that we were facing. That is when I realised that sticking to a routine, which for me means ensuring I work out to clear my head, is really crucial to being able to think clearly and creatively, but also feeling good physically.”

There is nothing sexy about sitting at your laptop and putting in cold, hard time; far more alluring is the wild-haired genius who doesn’t have to try. But that is deeply flawed logic and a dangerous belief to hold.

The exact routine matters, too. It sounds obvious but it has to inherently suit you, as London-based Iranian singer-songwriter Golazin discovered. Feeling artistically stifled at university, she decided to radically alter her lifestyle to try and encourage creativity: “I started trying to sleep during the day and work on my music at night.” But it didn’t work out. “I ended up being more tired, my voice became hoarse, and I became far too fatigued to even write music.”

A few years on and she’s perfected her routine. “It takes three hours for my voice to wake up and I sound my best between 1pm and 4pm.” So on a typical recording day, she gets up at 10am, she goes to the gym and then on to the studio. “I will always do the same warm-up, blowing raspberries and singing my scales. I’ll be in the studio for about three hours; I’ll then have some food and have a well-deserved glass of wine to destress!”

The truth is, routines might work but they don’t jive with our cultural obsession with the ‘talented prodigy’. There is nothing sexy about sitting at your laptop (or piano, or sewing machine, or easel…) and putting in cold, hard time; far more alluring is the wild-haired genius who doesn’t have to try. But that is deeply flawed logic and a dangerous belief to hold if you want to be successful.

Why is it, though, that something as humdrum as routine is essential for coaxing out something as intangible as creativity? “Routine allows us to stay focused and motivated – even if you might not feel that you are in the mood to be creative and imaginative, settling into a familiar working routine can help your mind get in a state of ‘flow’ and stimulate your brain to produce new ideas,” says David Brudö, the cofounder of personal development and mental wellbeing app Remente. In other words, if you carve out time for your creativity and respect it, sooner or later you’ll find your groove.

“We tend to believe that inspiration should just come to us. However, we sometimes have to help it a bit by inducing the situations that help our inspiration,” says Zoë Chouliara, an award-winning clinical academic and psychotherapist at Click For Therapy. Zoë suggests implementing ‘positive sequences’ into your day, such as deciding to write a set number of words or building a notebook-carrying habit, so you can always catch random inspiration.

If you carve out time for your creativity and respect it, sooner or later you’ll find your groove.

Having a routine also means you can guarantee downtime – remember Murakami’s reading and music-listening? And it turns out there is a paradoxical nature to creativity; it benefits from both dedicated, focused attention as well as idleness. Whether you’re doing yoga, listening to jazz or relaxing in the bath, making time for activities which aren’t too cognitively taxing allows your brain to shift gears. Without you knowing what’s going on, your brain will hop from idea to concept to experience, knitting them together, and all of a sudden – hurrah! – you’ll stumble across something brilliant.

Stella is a big fan of exercising herself into this state and she’s come up with several innovative designs after a good sweat. "The kimono wrap was inspired from one of my usual workouts when I needed something to throw on that would keep me warm, but also look nice to and from the gym,” she says. “I come up with my best ideas after a gruelling session and on my way to food!”

I’ve been freelancing for two years now and one of the most important lessons I’ve learned is that creativity needs the right conditions – focused work and downtime (I’m a slow learner). And I’ve found the most foolproof way to get both of these done is routine. I’m now a slave to routine 99% of the time and rather than feeling limited or frustrated, I feel more creative than ever. I think Gustave Flaubert said it best: “Be regular and orderly in your life, so that you may be violent and original in your work.”

And on that note, I’m off for my afternoon constitutional.

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Never one for something understated and subtle, in March, Karl Lagerfeld concluded the Chanel ready-to-wear AW17 show with a life-size shuttle lifting off inside Paris' Grand Palais. This morning, Lagerfeld managed to top that spectacle by recreating the Eiffel Tower inside the glass-domed show space for the latest Chanel couture collection.

Set against the backdrop of Paris' most iconic landmark – albeit a near-life-size replica – the first model emerged wearing a structured bouclé grey coat with matching grey boater hat. (Following Dior's couture show yesterday, which featured a whole host of grey, it's evident that slate-coloured, structured silhouettes and matching hats are a big trend for couture.) There were the signature tweed twinsets we expect from Chanel in black, navy and grey, paired with patent ankle boots with perspex heels and oversized pearl earrings. These transitioned into more colourful creations embellished with plumes of feathers, floral rosettes and crystal detailing as the elegant jackets and skirts morphed into pleated frocks, sumptuous evening gowns and, of course, the bridal dress as the magnificent finale.

Kristen Stewart, Cara Delevingne, Pharrell Williams, Julianne Moore, Lily Collins and Katy Perry all sat in the front row to see Lagerfeld's latest designs; however, the bridal dress that often closes a couture show was not the actual conclusion to this morning's extravaganza. The Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, was in attendance in order to decorate the 83-year-old visionary with a Grand Vermeil medal – the highest distinction the city can offer – recognising his remarkable achievements and contribution to the French capital, as well as to the world of fashion. Congrats Karl!

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When you’re a kid diving into the deep end on a blazing hot July day, the last thing on your mind is whether the chemical used to keep germs at bay may also be doing serious damage to your skin and hair. Swimming in a pool without chlorine is about as good as bathing in a petri dish, but its harsh, bacteria-busting properties aren’t exactly beneficial to your moisture levels. “[Chlorine] strips our skin and hair of their natural oils, and leaves us looking dry and lacklustre,” says dermatologist Shereene Idriss, MD, of Union Square Laser Dermatology.

Still, that doesn’t mean you have to sacrifice a dip in the pool just to avoid spending the rest of the season with parched skin and straw-like hair. As Dr. Idriss explains, the moisture-zapping side effects are actually pretty easy to combat. Soaking your hair in fresh water from the shower (or a bottle of Evian, if you’re fancy) before you dive in is a simple way to prevent damage — hair can only absorb a certain amount of liquid, so the wetter it is when you get in the pool, the less chlorine it’ll draw in. You can even apply a leave-in conditioner, Dr. Idriss says, to create a physical barrier between your hair and the chemicals.

As for your skin, if you’ve already coated yourself in a generous layer of water-resistant SPF (and you did, didn’t you?), then you’re pretty much good to go — the lotion will lock in moisture as it shields you from the sun, but if it’s a night swim we’re talking about here, a regular moisturiser will do the trick.

No matter how many preventative measures you’ve taken, the best way to keep chlorine from having lasting negative effects on your skin and hair is by properly rinsing off in fresh water as soon as you can. “Avoid harsh soaps and shower gels, as they’ll only add insult to injury,” Dr. Idriss says. While your skin is still damp from your post-pool shower, apply a rich, soothing moisturiser right away.

All that diligent preparation may make embracing the spontaneous a little more difficult. Nothing puts a damper in a spur-of-the-moment nighttime swim quite like having to stop to slather on conditioner first, but on the plus side, now you won’t have to worry about repairing the damage once September rolls around. The end of summer is already a huge bummer — why make it any harder on yourself?

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Annie Clark, or St. Vincent as she is known to the public, released a new single. After her fifth and eponymous album in 2015, her fans have been eagerly awaiting new music. The announcement of her Fear The Future tour also marked the release of the hopeful single teaser from her upcoming album, "New York." Aside from it being a stylistic divergence from her previous – some say career-defining – album, listeners were quick to speculate about the subject of the song. Is "New York" about the art rocker's ex-girlfriend Cara Delevingne?

The piano-driven ballad starts off with the lyrics, "New York isn't New York without you, love." A beautiful lyric that does not necessarily have to be about a love interest. It could just as easily be about a close friend. The songwriter goes on to sing in a later verse, "New York isn't New York without you, love / Too few of our old crew left on Astor." St. Vincent could easily be waxing nostalgic for times spent with close friends.

As many speculated online, it seemed that no one had a definitive answer. Some believed it to be a reflection on her relationship with Cara Delevingne, others believed it was about a friend the singer missed. All of these hints and possible references are intriguing but, in the end, inconclusive.

But wait, plot twist! "New York" is not actually as new as fans initially believed. During her first show of 2016, at New York's Le Poisson Rouge, St. Vincent played an untitled, intimate ballad. Her then-girlfriend Cara Delevingne was in the audience.

that's @st_vincent dressed as a toilet singing a song about @caradelevingne, to Cara.

A post shared by Sam Paxton (@instaslammy) on Jun 28, 2016 at 9:01pm PDT

The person who shared it on Instagram seemed convinced that St. Vincent was serenading her then-girlfriend with a song written about her. While both St. Vincent and Cara Delevingne have spoken publicly about their relationship, St. Vincent errs on the side of keeping her life very private. Neither have publicly confirmed why the relationship ended. Perhaps there will be more about her relationship with the model-turned-actress on the yet-to-be-announced album we are all eagerly awaiting.

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Update 9:25 p.m.: Lady Gaga has entered the fray, asking her fans to lay off.

In an Instagram post, Gaga wrote, "What an incredible talented artist. I LOVE ED. @edsheeran deserves all our love and respect like all humans do. I wish all people on the internet would be positive and loving and apart of creating an online community that is kind and empowering, not hateful and mean. No reason to tear down an artist simply because they are on top. Work harder to be kinder everybody. That should be your first duty to humanity."

What an incredible talented artist I LOVE ED @edsheeran deserves all our love and respect like all humans do. I wish all people on the internet would be positive and loving and apart of creating an online community that is kind and empowering, not hateful and mean. No reason to tear down an artist simply because they are on top. Work harder to be kinder everybody. That should be your first duty to humanity.

A post shared by xoxo, Gaga (@ladygaga) on Jul 4, 2017 at 12:15pm PDT

Original Story: He may be a chart-topping global superstar and this year's Glastonbury headliner, but Ed Sheeran is one of the most divisive artists of our time, capable of stirring feelings of both pure love and unadulterated rage in different segments of the population.

Sheeran knows he has a fair few haters – he introduced the widely reviled "Galway Girl" at Glastonbury as a song "you might not like" but probably know the words to. But the constant stream of online abuse has proved too much to bear and he has announced his departure from Twitter.

“I’ve actually come off Twitter completely. I can’t read it," the 26-year-old told The Sun. "I go on it and there’s nothing but people saying mean things. Twitter’s a platform for that.

“One comment ruins your day. But that’s why I’ve come off it. The head-fuck for me has been trying to work out why people dislike me so much.”

Sheeran will remain on Instagram, which will automatically generate tweets, but he will no longer be posting to the micro-blogging platform himself, The Sun reported.

He mentioned the Twitter backlash he received from Lady Gaga fans after a minor misunderstanding. “Lady Gaga’s fanbase read an interview in which they assumed I was talking about her and they all fucking hate.

“And it wasn’t anything to do with that at all. So I think Twitter gets on a massive steam roll of assuming things and then you get in the shit.”

Without endless feedback from trolls and other lowlifes on Twitter, Sheeran said he'll rely on friends and family to keep him in check. “I have people like my dad who will have a conversation with me. I don’t have to have someone calling me a whatever.”

His departure from Twitter comes just over a week after many falsely accused him of lip synching and using a backing track during his headline Glastonbury set, which was otherwise largely well received.

In a response that sounded more exasperated than outraged by the accusations, Sheeran tweeted that he was actually using a loop pedal, as he always does, which allows him to record vocals and guitar lines on the spot, enabling him to create a layered, looped accompaniment live on stage.

Never thought I'd have to explain it, but everything I do in my live show is live, it's a loop station, not a backing track. Please google x

— Ed Sheeran (@edsheeran) June 26, 2017

Anyway, great night, great atmosphere, family, friends, fun. Love you all x

— Ed Sheeran (@edsheeran) June 26, 2017

We hope to see him back online soon. Don't let the haters get you down, Ed.

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Unlike roses, a generation’s name matters and for those born on the brink of the millennial era, that label stinks. Millennials are defined as being born between 1982 and 2004. However, in an era where technology’s advancements continuously push us forward at lightning speed, two people born on the broadest edge of the millennial spectrum are worlds apart.

Personally, as someone with an 18-year-old nephew who loves Lil Yachty yet has no idea who Lil Wayne is and a Gen X-aged brother, who scoffs at any musician with a “Lil” prefix, being lumped into either category feels wildly off. But where do we all fit in? Where do those people born between 1977 and 1983 — a group that hasn’t fully adapted to Snapchat, and is too young to be lumped into Gen X — fall on the generational curve? They’re Xennials, apparently.

As noted by the Huffington Post, Xennials fit the microgeneration sandwiched between Gen X and Millennials.

"The idea is there's this micro or in-between generation between the Gen X group – who we think of as the depressed flannelette-shirt-wearing, grunge-listening children that came after the Baby Boomers and the Millennials – who get described as optimistic, tech savvy and maybe a little bit too sure of themselves and too confident," explained Dan Woodman, Associate Professor of Sociology at The University of Melbourne to lifestyle site Mamamia.

"It was a particularly unique experience. You have a childhood, youth, and adolescence free of having to worry about social media posts and mobile phones...We learned to consume media and came of age before there were Facebook and Twitter and Snapchat and all these things where you still watch the evening news or read the newspaper," Woodman also said.

Though technically the year I was born doesn’t fit snugly within the Xennial category — I can operate Snapchat thankyouverymuch — it gives a little wiggle room. A grey area is much better than the rigid, black and white Millennial vs. Gen X borders.

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"Fancy a drink?" Such a message from a nice, handsome lad really ought to send excitement and flutterings shooting through the body of a single-and-looking heterosexual woman like myself. For me, however, dating triggers a torturous chain of thoughts which clutch at my chest and beat at my forehead from the moment they appear on my screen.

What day will said drink take place? Will I be able to go to the gym? Only go if I can exercise in the morning. Gin, remember, not wine – fewer calories. And make sure it’s the kind of place where they do slimline tonic. You’ll get back late so you won’t be hungry, so you can make up for missing exercise.

Then there’s the prospect of being asked to dinner.

How do I tell him a simple restaurant meal requires hours of prep: ensuring I have exercised an adequate amount to feel ‘deserving’, combing through the menu online beforehand, calculating calorie content? Spending two hours putting the agonising, relentless, exhausting inner torment I get if I so much as look at a menu down to being ‘picky’.

So when a Tinder bio contains the word ‘foodie’, it’s an automatic swipe left (although I’m pretty sure I’d still find that annoying if I was eating disorder-free).

Sounds shit, doesn’t it? Welcome to the single world according to me. The world of a woman trying to rebuild her life – hopeless romanticism included – after years in an abusive relationship with her own head. Sometimes depression. Always anorexia.

It’s not like I have completely given up on dating and men since I became what I’d term a ‘functioning anorexic’ – I still work, socialise, teeter just above the BMI danger zone but exercise obsessively and excessively – at the age of 22.

I’ve had flings and flirtations and even one fairly serious relationship since the eating disorder took hold but these have been largely doomed. Only with hindsight can I look back and understand that in every case, I was choosing my eating disorder over them.

The moment it felt like someone was getting close enough to get in the way of my military-esque regime of exercise and barely eating, or question my behaviour, things would unravel.

Intimacy was hard. The thought of having sex when you’re so cold you can barely bring yourself to undress at night is horrific. Satisfaction in the bedroom, to me, is using a hot water bottle in May. And how can you stand anyone touching your body when you can barely look at it yourself?

There’s a notion that people with anorexia stand and admire their skeletal frame in front of full-length mirrors. I cannot speak for others, but for me it has always been the opposite. I’ve been every high street dress size, from six to 16, and I’ve hated each and every single version of my body in some way.

Getting back out there is an important part of recovery to me. I love meeting people and I love the company of men (preferably with broad shoulders and kind hearts). I want that new-fella-feeling back, the one that goes 'IF I DO NOT SEE HIM IN THE NEXT MINUTE I THINK MY GUTS MAY EXPLODE'.

But I don't even get periods and my hormones are all over the place. It’s impossible to know if I really fancy someone. I have to ask myself 'Would I?' if there were enough hormones in my body to be sent into any kind of rage.

For a long time I have clung to the notion that one day I’d meet someone and everything would just magically fall into place. It feels foolish to type, but it’s true. I’ve read countless stories of other people and their eating disorders – often desperately searching for a ‘cure’ – and it always seems to have a happy-ever-after. A wedding photo or a smiling baby.

I’ve even heard tales along the lines of "So-and-so had something like you, but when she met Dave she completely changed". In print I see those words for their baselessness but in real life, in moments of desperation and childlike vulnerability, I have truly believed it.

I am so much more than my anorexia. I live and breathe journalism, I love politics, I’m opinionated and fierce. I love gin, football, spending all my hard-earned cash in & Other Stories then moaning I’ll never have a mortgage. E.T. scares the bejesus out of me. I love soul music, driving to Fleetwood Mac, period dramas, listening to The Archers and watching Love Island with my mum. I think Radiohead are crap.

Writing this article I’m mindful that I run the risk of being defined by my illness. But for me, I’m blessed with insight and I want to show my anorexia for the conniving, controlling, evil bastard it is. This is what I’ve got to contend with every minute of every hour of every single day.

There are times when it wins, but there are times when I do. The war isn’t over, and maybe it never will be, but the little battles from which I emerge victorious (booking a holiday at a gym-less hotel, smashing it at work, a wine with mates, a cracker with cheese) make it worth fighting for.

I’m not a Disney princess so I don’t need or want a happy-ever-after. I just want to learn to accept and love myself – body and soul – because that is the only relationship guaranteed to stand the test of time.

If you are struggling with an eating disorder, please call Beat on 0345 634 1414. Support and information is available 365 days a year.

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Couture week is undoubtedly the most glamorous in the fashion calendar, where we can expect to see the most exquisite ensembles both on the catwalk and in the front row. This season, for the autumn-winter 2017 collections, Dior celebrated its 70th anniversary while Karl Lagerfeld received a special honour at the Chanel show for his contribution to fashion and the city of Paris.

Though we're completely spellbound by the opulent gowns, intricate embroidery and expert techniques demonstrated by the petites mains working in the couture ateliers, our favourite style stars attending the shows are doing a good job of distracting us from the designs. Click ahead to see all the best-dressed...

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Back in 1973, my parents bought a two-bed London flat for £12k and had their first baby not long after. Mum was 23 at the time, earning £1,000 a year as a nurse, and Dad was still training as an accountant. Fast-forward 40 years and things look a whole lot different for my generation... I’m approaching 30 but ticking off the ‘grown-up’ checklist of mortgage and baby still feels like some faraway ideal. But is money the deciding factor in having a baby? A feeling that you need to have your shit together first?

Recent studies would suggest so, with headline-grabbing articles claiming big cities like London are now simply too expensive to raise a child, correlating rising house prices with a decline in birth rates. More and more women in their 20s and 30s feel they simply don’t have the financial security to get pregnant. But how much does it really cost? And is it so necessary to own a home beforehand? Would fewer avo toast brunches and 10-mile Ubers leave plenty of money to bring up a small person? To shed some light on these questions, I spoke to five women renting in London, with salaries ranging from £10-80k. Read on as they do the maths on everything from nappies to childcare to freezing their eggs, with first-hand stories on bringing up a baby in an ever-expensive city.

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Not just the source of one of the more questionable new wellness drinks, birch trees are also trending in the world of skincare. Often referred to as the tree of life, birch is found across northern Europe, particularly in Scandinavia, and has been used throughout history as a medicinal plant.

“The birch tree is packed with nutrients and has highly developed purification processes, and is super-efficient at circulating sap,” Evelyn Liddell, Weleda’s pharmacist, explains. This purification process is its superpower, giving birch its amazing detoxing capabilities. In fact, a study by the University of Lancaster found that when planted on urban streets, birch trees reduced pollution levels in the surrounding area by more than 50%.

When it comes to skincare, both the tree sap (aka birch water) and the leaves are valuable, in particular for their ability to reduce inflammation, hydrate and detoxify the skin. From adding a birch-enriched face mask to your Sunday skincare ritual to slathering yourself in birch-based body oil after a long run, these are the birch products we’re loving right now.

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Even if you're not into Doctor Who (or have never once watched it), chances are you're at least a little bit interested in finding out which actor is chosen to play the godlike time traveller whenever the series gets a refresh. It was pretty interesting when Malcom Tucker (of all people!) was announced as the Time Lord, after all.

Following that eccentric choice, we're even more intrigued about who might play the title role next. Hence we're pretty excited about the semi-spoiler revealed in the final minute of last night's Newsnight. (Granted, it's not usually our go-to for TV gossip, but bear with us.)

The BBC current affairs show (from about 40:30) played a few clips from Saturday's final episode of the most recent Doctor Who series, all of which hint at the next Doctor being a woman, followed by a clip of a recent interview Phoebe Waller-Bridge did with the YouTube channel Gold Derby.

While the hilarious and mind-bogglingly smart actor and Fleabag creator is currently the bookies' favourite to play the 13th Doctor, she has dodged the question multiple times.

Yet again, Waller-Bridge nervously avoided the question from Gold Derby, saying she was "not allowed to say anything about that, one way or the other". But at the end of the clip, the BBC then added a regeneration effect on top of her image, as if she were the Doctor. Could it be a sign?

While it was by no means a formal announcement – or even a casual confirmation of the fact – and we don't want to get our hopes up too much, the signs are looking good. As The Guardian points out, the only other name being mentioned as in the running is Kris Marshall (yup, Colin from Love Actually), and no one wants that, do they?

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Music festivals are meant to be joyous places where we can escape the drudgery and tedium of everyday life. But even in 2017 women can't always take this basic expectation for granted, as cases of rape and sexual assault continue to blight the festival scene.

In Sweden, the situation has been particularly bad of late, with the country's largest festival, Bråvalla, recently announcing it would be cancelling its 2018 event after police reports of four rapes and 23 sexual assaults at this year's festival.

But one woman has come up with a solution to the problem – banning men from music festivals altogether until they "learn how to behave", reported Newsweek. While this wouldn't completely eliminate the risk of sexual assault, the idea has garnered support on social media.

Following Bråvalla's announcement, Emma Knyckare, a Swedish radio presenter and comedian, tweeted: "What do you think about putting together a really cool festival where only non-men are welcome, that we'll run until ALL men have learned how to behave themselves?"

Vad tror ni om att vi styr ihop en asfet festival dit bara icke män är välkomna som vi kör tills ALLA män har lärt sig hur en beter sig?

— Emma Knyckare (@Knyckare) July 2, 2017

Knyckare later confirmed on Instagram that she'd received enough support to start planning the first event for 2018. "Sweden's first man-free rock festival will see the light next summer,” she said.

“In the coming days I'll bring together a solid group of talented organisers and project leaders to form the festival organisers, then you'll hear from everyone again when it's time to move forward."

Swedish festival We Are STHLM was also plagued by allegations of sexual assault in 2014 and 2015 – and the problem stretches far beyond the Nordic nation. In the UK, 28 music festivals took part in an online "blackout" on the 8th May to raise awareness of the issue and promote the #saferspacesatfestivals cause, Newsweek reported.

Glastonbury famously launched The Sisterhood in its Shangri-La area in 2016, a space exclusively for people who self-identify as women that is "intersectional, queer, trans and disability-inclusive". The organisers said at the time they believed that "women only spaces are necessary in a world that is still run by and designed to benefit mainly men".

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If you're trying to find the words to describe photographer Maisie Cousins' work, "visceral" is a good start — but that barely covers it. Cousins creates images that are at once sensual, raw, glamorous, and maybe a little gross. But all of that is extremely intentional.

Cousins tells Refinery29 that her body of work is an ongoing exploration of sexuality and nature — and how those two themes intersect. She's just as likely to pose a slug in a way that makes it seem sexy as she is to cover her nude models in flower petals and grass, all in order to reveal how erotic our world is (even if we don't always realise it).

In other words, yes, butts, breasts and mouths feature heavily in her photos, but many of them are abstracted. For example, plants playfully stand in for the female form in many of Cousins' images. (She says she chooses her subjects partly based on "what's looking nice in the flower shop that day.")

More than anything, Cousins says her senses drive her work. She tends to feature bodies and objects with a glossy, greasy, even grimy, sheen on them. "When I start to make the images, I think about textures I want to touch and mix together," she says. "Sometimes [these combinations] surprise me."

And we'd argue that that element of surprise is a big part of her work's appeal. Whether shooting a butt, a bunch of ants or a flower, Cousins takes photos that we want to reach out and touch — just to see if our hands are wet when we pull them away.

Ahead, view a selection of Cousins' work. And for those of you who are in London, you can check out her work in person at TJ Boulting from now until 24th June.

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We're all for positive sexual expression. Seriously, we love exploring new sexual positions, kink, and sex toys — even blow-up sex dolls, if that's what you're into.

But when Noel Sharkey, PhD, a professor of artificial intelligence and robotics at the University of Sheffield, issued warnings about the "dark side" of Artificial Intelligence (AI) sex robots, we had to take note.

Sharkey is a co-director of the Foundation for Responsible Robotics (FRR) along with Aimee van Wynsberghe. A new report from the foundation explores what could happen with these sex robots in the future — and warns that they could actually be dangerous because they are so realistic.

Happy Valentine's day from your favorite robotic lover, Harmony V2. Are you ready for our artificial intelligence to pair with your RealDoll?

A post shared by RealDoll (@abyssrealdoll) on Feb 14, 2017 at 12:47pm PST

Sex robots could encourage sexual objectification of women, the report says. And the Mirror reports that Sharkey also worries these robots could "encourage abuse, rape, and paedophilia."

Looking through the @abyssrealdoll Instagram account — run by the Real Doll company, which makes arguably the most well-known sex robot — it's pretty clear why objectification would be a concern. While there are a few dolls made to look like men, the majority look like white women and are created with slim waists and gigantic breasts (what the FRR calls "pornographic body representation").

Who would you choose?

A post shared by RealDoll (@abyssrealdoll) on Mar 21, 2017 at 1:19pm PDT

However, some experts cited in the FRR report actually believe the dolls could help reduce instances of sexual assault if would-be attackers were able to act out their fantasies (including paedophilia) on a robot instead of a real person.

According to the report, there is a sex robot company in Japan that has been selling childlike dolls for more than a decade in an effort to curb sexual assault against children. The company, Trottla, is run by a self-identified paedophile who wanted to help others like him avoid offending, Sharkey told the Mirror.

“We should accept that there is no way to change someone’s fetishes,” the owner of Trottla, Shin Takagi, told the Atlantic in 2016. “I am helping people express their desires legally and ethically."

Paedophilia is considered a sexual disorder because it "causes distress or impairment to the individual or harm to others," according to the report. For some people, thoughts about paedophilia and anxiety around those thoughts stem from a form of obsessive-compulsive disorder.

But there's no conclusive evidence proving that sex robots could help people avoid acting on those thoughts. And research into whether or not sex robots help in this regard would be unethical, the report says.

Plus, some experts cited in the report said that dolls like this could actually reinforce sexual disorders like paedophilia and make it more likely for someone to want to act them out on real people. Sharkey, for one, seems to be on the side of this group, saying that there should be an "import ban" on childlike sex robots, the Mirror reports.

For now, sex robots that look like children have been made illegal in Canada, but the legality of the dolls is still up for debate in the US.

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Emma Watson and Amanda Seyfried are in the news, and it’s not for their March movies Beauty and the Beast and The Last Word.

Unfortunately, Watson and Seyfried's privacy has been compromised, thanks to the work of online hackers. In a stunt coined “The Fappening 2,” the supposed sequel to August 2014’s massive photo leak, multiple nude celebrity photos are currently being disseminated across the internet.

This recent hack eerily coincides with the release of an alleged sex tape featuring actress Mischa Barton. With such egregious affronts to privacy becoming commonplace, it's clear that women celebrities are being especially targeted by hackers and trolls. But how much do you know about the history of such attacks?

From 4Chan to legal responses, here’s a timeline of the forces at work behind such disturbing violations.

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Searyl Atli Doty, a baby born in British Columbia this past November, has recently been issued a healthcare card that doesn't mark their gender as either male or female, a report from CBC states. The document is rumoured to be the first of its kind in the world.

So why is this important?

Sex and gender are two separate parts of someone's identity — one can't be determined based on the other. Sex, either XY ("male") or XX ("female"), is something we're assigned at birth, after our genitals have been examined by the doctors who deliver us. Gender (either "girl" or "boy," by limited binary definitions) is based on identity and expression, and how a person fits into (or rejects) the expectations of femininity and masculinity.

When sex is conflated with gender, it can be harmfully reductive, especially for transgender, intersex, and non-binary people who must then fight the expectations of their assigned sex to have their true gender identities recognised on state documents. Aside from not wanting to be documented as a gender they're not, those documents directly influence the experiences of transgender and non-binary people in legal and medical situations.

As a non-binary trans person who uses they/them pronouns, Searyl's parent, Kori Doty, knows that reality all too well. "When I was born, doctors looked at my genitals and made assumptions about who I would be, and those assignments followed me and followed my identification throughout my life," they said in a statement to CBC. "Those assumptions were incorrect, and I ended up having to do a lot of adjustments since then."

Since Searyl is a baby, they can't yet identify their true gender. That's why Doty is fighting to keep gender markers off of Searyl's government documentation. Searyl was born in a friend's home and was therefore not examined by medical professionals and assigned a sex by them.

"I'm raising Searyl in such a way that until they have the sense of self and command of vocabulary to tell me who they are, I'm recognising them as a baby and trying to give them all the love and support to be the most whole person that they can be outside of the restrictions that come with the boy box and the girl box," Doty's statement continues.

Doty is a member of the Gender-Free ID Coalition, which aims "to remove all gender/sex designations from identity documents." The coalition is working to allow as much freedom in gender identity as possible by doing away with official, potentially restrictive markers.

So far, the province of Slocan Valley, where Doty lives, has refused to give Searyl a birth certificate without a gender designation. But last month, the province issued Searyl a health card marked with a "U" as the gender designation, which is assumed to stand for "undetermined/unassigned." The card means Searyl will have access to medical services, a huge plus given that much of the system has yet to catch up to recent demands to accommodate more genders.

Some parts of the US and other countries around the world are in the process of potentially amending their policies to offer a third and non-specific gender designation on official documents, and some people have succeeded in legally changing their gender to non-binary. But there is work to be done. Doty is currently one of eight complainants hoping to change the gender marker on their own birth certificates in a case with the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal, and is fighting to keep gender identification off of Searyl's birth certificate as well.

"It is up to Searyl to decide how they identify, when they are old enough to develop their own gender identity," Doty said in a statement released by the Coalition. They are currently waiting to set a date for Searyl's certificate review.

Refinery29 has reached out to Doty and will update this story if we receive a response.

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Though Azzedine Alaïa started his career exclusively with haute couture-level creations in Paris circa 1981, the designer abandoned this intricate, old world artform in 2011 (after a previous eight year break, no less). That all changed on Wednesday evening, when Alaïa staged a surprise couture comeback with a little help from friends Naomi Campbell and Karlie Kloss and some well-placed saran wrap headdresses.

Sporting the designer's opulent trademarks, like printed fur coats, leather toppers, and swishy pleated skirts washed in white, black, and oxblood, Alaïa's army of women were consummately powerful — and well dressed to boot (that's what tailoring and an understanding of feminine prowess gets you). Campbell, for her part, made a rare appearance on the catwalk and dedicated much of her recent Instagram feed to throwback photos of Alaïa and his shows, calling him affectionate phrases like, "#mypapa," "#legend," "beyond legend," and "icon."

#ALAIA TIME @azzedinealaiaofficial #mypapa #beyondlegend ❤️❤️🙏🏾

A post shared by Naomi Campbell (@iamnaomicampbell) on Jul 5, 2017 at 9:31am PDT

Karlie Kloss, too, revelled in the history-making commotion, saying, "#WCW today and everyday @iamnaomicampbell. These two are true masters at their craft. Thank you @azzedinealaiaofficial for inspiring me (and the entire world!) with the passion and love that you bring to all that you do."

#WCW today and everyday @iamnaomicampbell . These two are true masters at their craft. Thank you @azzedinealaiaofficial for inspiring me (and the entire world!) with the passion and love that you bring to all that you do.

A post shared by Karlie Kloss (@karliekloss) on Jul 5, 2017 at 12:10pm PDT

The rest of the fashion community naturally followed suit on social media, including designer Olympia Le Tan and New York Magazine 's Rebecca Ramsey. The former wrote, "@karliekloss at the exquisite @azzedinealaiaofficial couture show 🖤🖤🖤," while the latter simple commented, "Now this is couture."

@karliekloss at the exquisite @azzedinealaiaofficial couture show 🖤🖤🖤 #alaia

A post shared by Olympia Le-Tan (@olympialetan) on Jul 5, 2017 at 11:22am PDT

Now this is Couture @azzedinealaiaofficial x @iamnaomicampbell #blurrybutihadto

A post shared by Rebecca Ramsey (@rebeccarams) on Jul 5, 2017 at 11:24am PDT

The Tunisian-born designer still has a unique hold on the industry, despite bucking the traditional system of showing up to 16 shows a year like some of his contemporaries (ahem, Karl Lagerfeld). As more and more designers get burned out creatively by the overwhelming business responsibilities fashion has in store for them, Alaïa made one thing clear today: 30+ years later, he's still got it.

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The Handmaid's Tale 's second season has already secured bigger roles for its main stars like Alexis Bledel, but it looks like the book's author, Margaret Atwood, is looking beyond the cast and already doling out cameo opportunities.

Vulture reports that during an interview with the Boston Review, Atwood suggested that none other than Drake for a pop-in role.

"Wouldn't it be fun for him to have a cameo in season two of The Handmaid’s Tale?" Atwood told the Boston Review. "I'll drop that notion into the ear of Bruce Miller, the showrunner, and see what he can do with that, because of course the show is filmed in Toronto. Maybe Drake could help smuggle someone?"

Atwood explained that because of her age, she's not exactly attending the same sort of events that Drake does, so the two have never actually met face to face.

"I haven't met Drake, but I have of course met people who have met Drake. But you have to realise how o-l-d I am," Atwood said. "I'm not likely to go to the same parties. Or many parties at all, to be frank."

However, she does note that she has met people who've met him and she recognises that he's a national treasure. Plus, it's pretty serendipitous that the Hulu series films in Toronto — could it be any easier to get Drake in on the action? Die-hard fans know that the rapper got his start in the acting world, with his role on Degrassi, so it wouldn't be a stretch to get the guy back into actor mode.

"It seems like currently Toronto — and we could say by extension Canada — has two global superstars: Margaret Atwood and Drake," Junot Díaz, the author that interviewed Atwood, said of the opportunity.

This could mean that Elisabeth Moss, the reigning queen of awesome TV, and Drake, the smoothest crooner out there, could cross paths in Gilead. If that's not enough to get fans pumped for the show's second season, having some hope that Drake could be involved in the finale's cliffhanger could be just the thing to stir up major excitement.

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Sarah Hall is an English novelist and poet whose critically acclaimed second novel, The Electric Michelangelo, was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. She is the author of Madame Zero, a new collection of erotic short stories. Here is her advice on how to write about sex.

Cock and bull
A lot of sex is badly written because terminology and phrasing is very hard to get right. Think carefully about which words to use and which to avoid. There’s no blacklist, but there are obvious culprits – pumping, thrusting, etc. Some terms for body parts or activities may seem clichéd or pornographic, others too medical. There is, in addition, centuries’ worth of political freight attached to sexual language and congress, usually in relation to women. But what a word conveys, its associations and resonances, can work for an author. Think about who is narrating a scene or the episode in question, the characters involved and in what context they have come together. Stick to those metrics for wording, and, for that matter, logical interaction (or illogical interaction, if that’s appropriate; sex isn’t rational, after all). Slang can be deployed for a number of reasons – idiom, taboo, power, provocation. But if it’s being used simply because an author has reached for ‘the common language of sex’, while failing to create their own language, in keeping with the language of the surrounding text, this incongruity will show.

Beware metaphors!
Breasts like ripe melons. Her flower of love. Her silky badge. His magnificent sword. These images conjure a kind of surreal, literal, Dalí-esque anatomy. They may create comedic effect, they may be attempting coyness or cleverness, but they do not create naturalism, mood, they do not convince or suspend disbelief. While sex and romance might have inspired historical bardic composition, deeply poetic language should be left in the hands of the (very few) expert poets. Sexual interaction may be at times romantic, elative, godly-feeling, or it may be conversely hideous, uncomfortable, embarrassing. That doesn’t mean the descriptive dial needs to be set to maximum. Words are the activators or the assassins of a reader’s imagination – erotic or otherwise. In an attempt to describe a meaningful human interaction, linguistic over-enthusiasm might ruin a piece of text. I wonder how many sexual occasions have really been worthy of a Shakespearean sonnet? Let’s be honest.

More tea, vicar?
Sex in literature is primarily experienced by the characters involved. The reader is a witness, but not really a participant. An author should think carefully about the legitimacy and purpose of including a sex scene. Like any other event or development in plot, is it right, and is it necessary? What purpose does sex serve within a story? Where pornography seeks to directly arouse a reader or viewer, in fiction things are more complicated. A reader’s arousal might occur if a scene is well described, visceral, seductive, real-seeming, and a reader may experience other emotions and sensations as well if the sex in question compasses other human complexities, feelings, histories, as much sex does. But readers’ arousal is a byproduct. Although a writer hopes to affect a reader with story, atmosphere, character, and the world created, sex scenes must have integrity – that is to say, they serve their host story first. Something written to deliberately shock, titillate or GET ATTENTION, will be seen and dismissed as such.

Throw out the manual
Sex is not an act, but a series of acts, and takes in the realm of fantasy. Nor does sex serve a single purpose, or always yield the same result. It can be successful or unsuccessful, transcendental, rote, violent, boring, illicit, aborted, silly, cataclysmic, drunken, ecstatic, mechanical, virginal, habitual...etc. Writing the nuts and bolts chronology of an encounter (He put his hand there, then she did this with her mouth) may reduce the potency, important elements, and ‘truthfulness’ of what often goes beyond a simple physical act. Don’t fixate on timelines and routes, as if walking the dog along a familiar path. Time is often a metaphysical thing during sex anyway. Watch out for those poetic flower bombs, but have licence to be artistic. In some instances, lacuna works best. If sex is more powerful or relevant off the page, beginning a sentence, ‘Afterwards, she went home…’ is a good option.

Do you have to be having it to write about it?
No! The imagination is a phenomenally powerful device. Without it, a writer might be stuck in a constructivist, phenomenologist world of only knowing about, and therefore only being able to recount, experiences that she has had. Luckily, we’re equipped with this fabulous multi-dimensional feature in the head that allows us to escape our personal limitations – part projector, part intuitive, part empathic, part fantasist. Sex begins in the brain. Desire is physical, animal, but it’s also cerebral. Every sexual act written down, unless autobiographical, is a created fantasy anyway between other people/characters. The very act of writing about it disengages an author – so take permission to write what is already ‘other’. Top tip for intrepid researchers, though – change all names.

Great lovers
Never mind these tips – read other writers who write about sex well. I can’t stress enough how important it is to see how talented experts have done it, and think about how they have succeeded, stylistically, intellectually, individualistically. Ask readers you trust for recommendations. My favourite writer on sex and eroticism is James Salter. His two novels A Sport And A Pastime and Light Years, are astonishingly deft, insightful, and fearless. Reading his work is quite the masterclass!

Madame Zero by Sarah Hall (Faber) is out today.

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