LOUISVILLE, Ky. – West Texas A&M’s grip on its the No. 1 ranking is loosening, but the Lady Buffs are still atop the 2015 NFCA Division II Poll that was released by the Association on Wednesday. A lead that was 21 points over No. 2 Valdosta State going into the week has dwindled to just eight points.

 

West Texas A&M received 11 first place votes and totaled 391 points after a 3-1 showing in its home tournament. The Lady Buffs (13-2) dropped the opener to St. Edward’s (5-7), but rebounded with a victory over those same Hilltoppers (11-3) and a doubleheader sweep the next day against Newman (5-4 / 9-3).

Winning 12 of their last 13 games, the Blazers (14-2) picked up three first place votes (383 points) following a three-game Gulf South Conference series sweep of West Florida. Valdosta State knocked off the Argonauts by the scores of 7-3, 8-0 and 10-2 to improve to 6-0 in league play.

Cal State Monterey remained in the third spot after taking three of four from Cal State San Bernardino in a CCSA road series. The Otters (10-1) split the opening doubleheader winning 5-1, and falling 11-3 before sweeping the Coyotes day later, 8-0 and 8-4.

Missouri-St. Louis and St. Mary’s (Texas) flip-flopped fourth and fifth spots. A second straight undefeated weekend has the Tritons (13-1) riding a 10-game winning streak and taking the No. 4 ranking. Behind a high-powered offense and strong pitching, UMSL swept through the competition at the Lewis Indoor Tournament (Rosemont, Ill.) by outscoring its opponents 42-5. They run-ruled four teams, including then-No. 15 Wayne State, and won a nailbiter against Grand Valley State, 1-0.

St. Mary’s (15-2) went 5-1 at home last week, including a 4-1 showing at its annual Rattler Invitational. Following a 6-2 mid-week win over Our Lady of the Lake (6-2), the Rattlers topped Tarleton State twice, then-No. 13 Central Oklahoma and Texas Woman’s but fell to Texas A&M Commerce, 1-0.

Idle squads Angelo State (11-1), West Chester (0-0) and LIU Post (0-0) come in sixth, tied for seventh and ninth, while Alabama-Huntsville (10-3) is tied with West Chester for that seventh spot. Rounding out the top 10 is Dixie State and Wingate, both grabbing the 10^th position with 229 points apiece.

Rollins moves into the top 25 for the first time this season at 18^th. The Tars are off to a 10-0 start highlighted by an 8-0 week that included road two wins at Armstrong State.

The NFCA Division II Top 25 Poll is voted on by 16 NCAA Division II head coaches with two representing each of the eight NCAA regions. 2015 records and previous week’s rankings are shown with first-place votes in parentheses.

NFCA Division II Softball Poll – Feb. 25, 2015

 

Rank

Team

2015 Record

Totals

Prev. Rank

1

West Texas A&M

14-2

391

1

2

Valdosta State

14-2

383

2

3

Cal State Monterey Bay

10-1

364

3

4

Missouri-St. Louis

13-1

352

5

5

St. Mary’s (Texas)

15-2

316

4

6

Angelo State

11-1

292

7

7

West Chester

0-0

289

6

 

Alabama-Huntsville

10-3

289

9

9

LIU Post

0-0

269

8

10

Dixie State

9-5

229

12

 

Wingate

8-2

229

11

12

North Georgia

7-3

218

10

13

Arkansas Tech

6-0

207

18

14

Caldwell

0-0

158

16

15

Georgia College

15-3

143

19

16

Winona State

7-0

141

t25

17

Emporia State

7-2

130

17

18

Rollins

10-0

115

RV

19

Humboldt State

7-4

106

20

20

Central Oklahoma

8-4

105

13

21

Indianapolis

3-3

92

22

22

Tampa

8-3

79

14

23

West Virginia Wesleyan

0-0

69

21

24

Metro State

10-4

41

t25

25

Augustana (SD)

7-3

40

23

Dropped Out of Previous Poll: No. 15Wayne State (4-7), No. 24 Southeastern Oklahoma State (8-7).

New to Poll: No. 18 Rollins

Others Receiving Votes: North Alabama (29), Lenoir Rhyne (25), California Baptist (17), Southeastern Oklahoma State (17), Wayne State (Mich.) (16), California (Pa.) (11), Southern New Hampshire (10), Southern Indiana (10), Midwestern State (6), UC San Diego (4), Arkansas Monticello (2), Shorter (1).

• Helps men with sexual dysfunction issues
• Some suggest that sex dolls provide an outlet for people with violent sexual desires
• Using sex dolls could impact learning about consent: sex educator
• Would sex dolls in a “brothel” have more agency than human sex workers?

We truly live in a dystopia, because you can now file this story under old news: Toronto is not, in fact, getting a new “sex doll brothel.”

Aura Dolls’ plan to open such a facility in the city’s North York area next month predictably brought serious backlash, and it was shut down over a licensing issue.

“If there is any good place for people to pay to have sex with plastic dolls — and I’m not sure there is — it is certainly not here,” city councillor John Filion said in a statement to HuffPost Canada. “Among other things, this business literally objectifies women and sends a very unhealthy message, to young men in particular.”

Even though patrons won’t be able to pay $120/hour with one of the Aura dolls (or $240/hour with two of them), the sex doll industry isn’t going away anytime soon. Such items come in both standard and fetish iterations, at price points ranging from “entry-level” (in the $500-$1,000 range) to “luxury high-end” (up to $10,000).

It’s normal for many to have a knee-jerk reaction of disgust at a plastic doll built like a human that someone buys to have sex with, says Dr. Philip Jai Johnson, a psychologist and researcher at the Toronto Sexuality Centre.

He attributes this in part to the “uncanny valley,” an effect where something becomes disturbing when it approaches human likeness, but falls slightly short. “On some level, it is kind of a moral view, which is just the sense that anything that deviates from the real thing is not appropriate.”

Michelle Shnaidman, CEO of feminist sex and porn platform Bellesa, says that using a sex doll isn’t wildly different from using other devices.

“Eradicating the shame around people using — or even requiring — sex toys to find sexual satisfaction is an ongoing battle,” she says. “Their humanoid resemblance gives us — non-sex doll users — pause. But just because these dolls have a face doesn’t make them any more threatening than the vibrators in our nightstands.”

“Niche” sex toys, a group with sex dolls at the forefront, is a nearly $20-billion industry, according to Forbes. And analysts have forecast that the global sex toy market will grow nearly seven per cent between 2016 and 2020.

Johnson say there’s been very little academic research on sex dolls, probably because they are so “emotionally divisive.” Based on the small amount of research that’s out there, he says the demographic most likely to seek out sex dolls are single men in the 30-40 range.

Lonely stereotype

There’s a stereotype that such dolls exist solely for lonely and desperate men, but one of the few studies that did examine people who used sex robots — which are slightly higher on the uncanny valley scale than dolls — found that wasn’t true. It suggested that fear and rejection were in fact the biggest motivators.

Johnson would like to see more academic research on the use of sex dolls, because he does think that in some rare cases, there’s a possibility they could be a safe, stress-free way for certain men to work out sexual dysfunction issues.

“For men with sexual functioning difficulty, they do go on dates, and if they can’t perform, they will get rejected very often. It does put some men in a catch-22 position. And for that reason I think sex dolls could be — and I don’t want to say for sure, but they could be a good treatment approach.”

Others have suggested that sex dolls could provide an outlet for men with violent sexual desires to keep them from taking that anger out on real women. A representative from Aura Dolls allegedly told Vice that the use of sex dolls may have prevented the Toronto van attack, which killed 10 people and injured 16 others in April.

The suspect, Alek Minassian, is believed to have been part of the “incel” online community of men who react with hostility and violence to women who won’t have sex with them.

No research backs up the claim that sex with a doll can prevented “incel” violence, an idea women’s rights advocate Julie Lalonde called “dangerous.” In fact, many people — Johnson included — say that just as there’s a theoretical risk sex dolls may help some men, there’s also the possibility that they could feed into unhealthy attitudes towards women and sex.

The discussion is not a new one. Trottla, a Japanese company, has been marketing child sex dolls as a “safe” way for pedophiles to fulfill their urges since the early 2000s. In 2016, The Atlantic profiled the company’s founder Shin Takagi, who self-identifies as someone with pedophilic impulses he has never acted on.

Takagi said the dolls help people like him — although many psychologists expressed reservations. A strategy that could help some pedophiles control their desires might exacerbate them in others, said Michael Seto, a University of Toronto psychologist who examines pedophilia. For some, “having these substitutes might only aggravate their sense of frustration,” he told the magazine.

Sex educator Lyba Spring says she fears a dependence on sex dolls could make it harder for someone to develop a relationship with a real person — someone who voices opinions, and whose body isn’t built for male fantasy.

“In the same way that there are adolescent and young adult men who complain that their use of pornography has made it increasingly difficult for them to have sexual and intimate relationships with women, I think that the use of these dolls may continue to prevent men with intimacy issues from learning how to be intimate,” she says.

She also worries that younger men who get used to sex with dolls are not factoring consent into the equation, which can potentially be dangerous later on.

“Dolls obviously cannot consent, but the person using them is also not learning about consent,” she told HuffPost Canada.

Operating a “brothel” could also be problematic: sex dolls would have more agency than human sex workers. “I find it irritating to use the word ‘brothel’ given the human context of our current laws, which continue to put sex workers at risk,” Spring says.

Terri-Jean Bedford, a professional dominatrix who has been instrumental in challenging the Canadian government’s stance on sex work, says prostitution laws enacted under Stephen Harper in 2014 didn’t give much more consideration to real sex workers than is given to the dolls.

“Even living women, under his law, could not be paid for sex,” she said in an email to HuffPost Canada. “The dolls probably meant more to him.”

Johnson hopes to see more research on sex dolls happen soon. “Some of the questions I certainly would be interested in seeing are: How do sex dolls influence the attitudes of people who use them, be they attitudes towards women, towards sex, towards themselves?” he says. “We don’t have the answers we need.”

CORRECTION: Michael Seto is a psychologist, and not a psychiatrist as described in an earlier version of this story.

Valve has confirmed that a Portal-themed Easter Egg discovered by CS:GO players is not an ARG.

Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players caused a stir earlier this week when they discovered a Portal reference hidden in the new Danger Zone Blacksite map. Tucked away in the blocked-off Room 3 of the map’s motel was a handful of computers emitting a broadcast that was decoded to reveal the first line of Portal’s ending song, Still Alive; “This was a triumph, I’m making a note here: HUGE SUCCESS.”

Players continued to explore the map and some speculated that this was the beginning of an ARG, with clues being gathered over on Reddit. Sadly, speculation was soon nipped in the bud by the game’s official Twitter account, and a player who claims to have an email from Valve’s Gabe Newell, also confirming that this is an Easter egg.

“Congrats to all who have found our Portal Easter egg on dz_blacksite! We’re just having a bit of fun and the Easter egg is not a product announcement. Enjoy Danger Zone!” read the tweet from the official CS:GO Twitter account.

The in-game broadcast was discovered by YouTuber snaileny with the Reddit investigation being summed up and monitored by YouTuber Valve News Network (via PCGamesN).

Further clues that players cited as possible evidence of an ARG included Half Life logos, the room number the computers were found in (indicating the third instalment in the Portal of Half Life series), hi-res unused textures, and a series of security cameras that lead players to the wreck of a ship.

You can read the entirety of the investigation right here.

CS:GO’s new battle royale mode was introduced last week, along with news that the game is now free-to-play.

Shabana is a freelance writer who enjoys JRPGs, wine, and not finishing games. Follow her on Twitter and Instagram.

LOUISVILLE, Ky. – Following a 3-0 week, which included a pair of wins over No. 6 Oklahoma, LSU strengthened its hold on No. 1 in this week’s USA Today/NFCA Division I Top 25 Poll, announced Tuesday by the Association.

 

After ascending to No. 1 for the first time in program history last week, the Tigers (30-1) received 30 of 32 possible first-place votes and 798 points to grab a firm hold of the top spot. LSU topped Nicholls, 6-1, in a mid-week affair and capped off its 3-0 week by edging the Sooners, 1-0, in the opener and a posting resounding 10-2 victory in the finale.

As with the top spot, the next five rankings remained the same. Oregon received a first-place vote and 758 points to continue its eight-week run, including preseason, in the No. 2 position. The Ducks (25-3) defeated Utah by the scores of 4-2 and 15-9 in the first two games of a three-game Pac-12 series that concluded Monday in Salt Lake City. 

Weather played havoc on the SEC series between No. 3 Florida (29-2) and No. 5 Alabama (21-6). The Gators won a pitching duel between Lauren Haeger and Alexis Osorio, 1-0. Weather forced the series to conclude on Monday with a doubleheader in Tuscaloosa. It was the only game of the week for both programs.

No. 4 Michigan (28-4) enjoyed a 4-0 week launching 16 home runs and outscoring its opponents, 54-3, including a three-game Big Ten sweep at Ohio State (13-1, 13-1, 20-0). In the series finale against the Buckeyes, Wolverine head coach and NFCA Hall of Famer Carol Hutchens (’06) became just the third NCAA head coach to reach this milestone and is currently the second winningest active coach.

No. 6 Oklahoma (25-5) went 3-2 this week with wins over Iowa (14-0), Wichita State (10-0) and RV McNeese State (3-0). No. 7 Georgia (28-5) and No. 8 Auburn (32-2) both moved up one spot after 4-0 weeks, which included SEC sweeps of Arkansas (10-0, 12-4, 9-1) and then-No. 13 Kentucky (5-0, 9-7, 4-1), respectively.

Following a 5-1 week, Louisiana-Lafayette (25-4) dropped two spots to No. 9. The Ragin’ Cajuns swept a three-game non-conference series from Georgia Southern (8-2, 12-1, 9-0) and took two-of-three from Troy in a Sun Belt Conference battle (3-9, 6-3, 12-2).

Coming in the 10^th spot is UCLA. The Bruins (29-5) return to the top 10 after a pair of Pac-12 road wins at then-No. 18 Washington (10-3, 8-4) to extend their winning streak to 15 games as of Sunday.

No. 24 South Alabama returns to the top 25 after a one-week hiatus, while No. 25 James Madison makes its first appearance of the season. The Jaguars (21-6) won four games last week, defeating Southern Mississippi, 9-1 and take all three from Appalachian State (6-1, 3-2, 8-0) in a Sun Belt series. The Dukes (22-6) have won 13 straight and 16 of their last 17 contests after sweeping Virginia (9-1, 10-2) in a doubleheader and going 3-0 in a neutral site CAA series against Towson (5-1/8, 4-3, 6-4). 

The USA Today/NFCA Division I Top 25 Poll is voted on by 32 NCAA Division I head coaches, one representing each conference.  Current 2015 records are shown and first-place votes are in parentheses

USA Today/NFCA Division I Softball Poll – March 24, 2015

Rank

Team

2015 Record

Totals

Prev. Rank

1

LSU (30)

30-1

798

1

2

Oregon (1)

25-3

758

2

3

Florida (1)

29-2

747

3

4

Michigan

28-4

703

4

5

Alabama

21-6

659

5

6

Oklahoma

25-5

609

6

7

Georgia

28-5

593

8

8

Auburn

32-2

586

9

9

Louisiana-Lafayette

25-4

563

7

10

UCLA

29-5

503

11

11

Florida State

26-7

464

10

12

Minnesota

27-4

442

15

13

Baylor

21-6

365

16

14

Arizona

27-7

341

17

15

Tennessee

21-7

325

14

16

Kentucky

21-8

319

13

17

California

23-6

308

12

18

UCF

29-5

251

20

19

Washington

28-7

239

18

20

Missouri

20-5

190

19

21

Arizona State

22-10

177

21

22

Kansas

29-2

170

22

23

Texas A&M

24-7

148

23

24

South Alabama

21-6

61

RV

25

James Madison

23-6

29

RV

New to Poll: No. 24 South Alabama, No. 25 James Madison

Dropped out: No. 24 Mississippi State (22-8), No. 25 UAB (22-7) 

Others Receiving Votes: Notre Dame (15), Mississippi State (13), Western Kentucky (5), UAB (4), North Dakota State (4), Virginia Tech (3), USC Upstate (3), Florida Atlantic (2), Texas (1), South Carolina (1), Cal State Northridge (1).

A new world-first study has found young people who regularly use sunscreen could reduce their risk of developing melanoma by up to 40 per cent.

Led by researchers at the University of Sydney, Australia, the study is the first to look at how using sunscreen in childhood could affect the melanoma risk for Australian adults aged 18 to 40 years.

The team looked at data on sunscreen use collected from interviews with 603 melanoma patients and 1,088 control participants.

The results showed that regularly using sunscreen in childhood and adulthood was significantly associated with a decreased risk of melanoma among young adults age 18 to 40, with the risk reduced by 35 to 40 per cent for regular sunscreen users compared to those who rarely used it.

The researchers found that sex, age, ancestry, educational level, skin pigmentation, and sunburn were also factors associated with sunscreen use.

Regular users of sunscreen were more likely to be female, younger, of British or northern European ancestry, have a higher education level, lighter skin pigmentation, and a strong history of blistering sunburn, whereas participants were who were male, older, less educated, or had skin that was darker or more resistant to sunburn were less likely to use sunscreen.

“Despite sunscreen being widely available and recommended for sun protection, optimizing the use of sunscreens remains a challenge and controversies continue to surround its use,” commented lead researcher Associate Professor Anne Cust.

“This study confirms that sunscreen is an effective form of sun protection and reduces the risk of developing melanoma as a young adult. Sunscreen should be applied regularly during childhood and throughout adulthood whenever the UV Index is 3 or above, to reduce risk of developing melanoma and other skin cancers.”

“Some population subgroups such as people with sun-sensitive skin or with many moles might get a stronger benefit from using sunscreen.”

Melanoma is the most common cancer diagnosed in Australian men aged 25 to 49 years and second most common cancer in women aged 25 to 49 years, after breast cancer.

Approximately two in three Australians will be diagnosed with melanoma or other types of skin cancer by the time they are 70 years old.

The results were published online in the journal JAMA Dermatology.

Many of the characters in the upcoming Captain Marvel film have received new posters and, thankfully, Goose the cat is one of them.

You can see all ten posters below, including Brie Larson as Captain Marvel, Samuel L. Jackson as a younger Nick Fury, Clark Gregg as Coulson, and many more.

Captain Marvel will be released this March, and will start a busy year for Marvel that will see such films as Avengers: Endgame and Spider-Man: Far From Home also hitting theaters.

Spider-Man: Far From Home received its first trailer yesterday and, after the events of Avengers: Infinity War, brought up many questions on when this new film actually takes place.

We recently went on the set of Captain Marvel in southern California and learned many things, including more details on Captain Marvel’s mysterious mentor played by Jude Law and that the tone of the film will be similar to Doctor Strange.

Samuel L. Jackson, Nick Fury himself, also recently discussed how Captain Marvel will also go into the origin story of Fury, who first appeared all the way back in 2008’s Iron Man.

Captain Marvel will be released on March 8, 2019, just a month before Carol Danvers will also take place in the events in Avengers: Endgame on April 26, 2019.

Adam Bankhurst is a news writer who just wants to be best friends with Goose. You can follow him on Twitter @AdamBankhurst.

ESPN MLB analyst Curt Schilling has been added to the Women’s College World Series Championship Finals telecasts featuring No. 3 Michigan vs. No. 1 Florida in a best-of-three series which begins Monday, June 1, on ESPN2 at 8 p.m. ET from OGE Energy Field at ASA Hall of Fame Stadium in Oklahoma City, Okla. Schilling, a three-time MLB World Series Champion and current Sunday Night Baseball analyst, will be a field analyst for each game of the Championship Finals, joining ESPN veteran softball commentators Beth Mowins (play-by-play), Jessica Mendoza (analyst), Michele Smith (analyst), and Holly Rowe (reporter). The Championship Finals will continue with Game 2 on Tuesday, June 2, and a decisive Game 3 on Wednesday, June 3, if necessary, both on ESPN starting at 8 p.m.

 

The Women’s College World Series began on Thursday, May 28, with eight teams competing in double-elimination bracket play, where Michigan and Florida both went 3-0 to advance into the Championship Finals. The Wolverines and Gators both seek their second NCAA Division I Softball National Championship in school history, with Michigan winning its first in 2005 and Florida last season. If Florida were to win, the Gators would be the first back-to-back national champions since Arizona in 2006 and 2007.

The Women’s College World Series is the conclusion of the NCAA Division I Softball Championship. A complete bracket can be found here.

• Mendoza and Smith: Decorated former softball players Jessica Mendoza and Michele Smith will be the booth analysts for the Championship Finals. Mendoza is a four-time All-American at Stanford and a member of gold medal-winning team at the 2004 Athens Olympics and silver medal-winning team at 2008 Beijing Olympics. Smith is a two time All-American at Oklahoma State and a two-time Olympic Gold Medalist (Atlanta in 1996 and Sydney in 2000) and eight-time Japan Pro League MVP.
• Baseball Tonight: ESPN’s Baseball Tonight will provide coverage of the WCWS with live reports from Oklahoma City featuring Schilling and ESPN’s commentating team.
  • ESPNU’s Women’s College World Series Pregame andPostgame: ESPNU will televise a 30-minute preview and postgame show before and after Game 2 of the Women’s College World Series Championship Finals on Tuesday, June 2, at7:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m., respectively. If a Game 3 is necessary, ESPNU will televise another 30-minute preview and postgame show on Wednesday, June 3, at 7:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m.
  • SEC Network: Adam Amin and Amanda Scarborough will be on-site covering Florida for SEC Now. The news and information show will have pre and postgame coverage and feature interviews with both Florida head coach Tim Walton and players.

• espnW: Online coverage continues, led by espnW’s softball index with comprehensive recaps and analysis.
• Social Media: @ESPNU, @espnW, and @NCAASoftball will provide news, game updates, photos and videos through out the Women’s College World Series Championship Finals. Fans can join the conversation by tagging their tweet #WCWS.

Women’s College World Series Championship Finals

Date

Time (ET)

Game

Network

Mon, June 1

8 p.m.

Women’s College World Series Championship Finals: Game No. 1 
No. 3 Michigan vs. No. 1 Florida

ESPN2

Tues, June 2

8 p.m.

Women’s College World Series Championship Finals: Game No. 2
No. 1 Florida vs. No. 3 Michigan

ESPN

Wed, June 3

8 p.m.

Women’s College World Series Championship Finals: Game No. 3*

ESPN

*If necessary
Networks are subject to change

— Courtesy of ESPN