By Ilse Bulit
It is an old joke, but it is often told. Pepito( like Dennis the Menace) is a leading character in Cuban stories, which are based on street philosophy and usually involve sex and politics. Pepito’s mother asks him to fetch a couple of soft drinks from the fridge for some visiting friends. The mocking and daring character goes against all social principles, places a comma after the vocative and shouts: Mother, there is only one! Behind this innocent joke there lies the duplicity of the so-called love for mothers. Of course, there is only one mother and there is also only one father, at least, until they are biotechnologically engineered. The joke came up a long time ago, when genetics was connected with atrocious acts committed in Nazi concentration camps, when women cried a lot at local movie theaters watching a stocky Sara García(Mexican actress) with her arms wide open to receive her black children-sheep, when criminals had hearts tattooed as a tribute to perfect, irrevocable and unique mothers, although these offenders could well be serving sentences for having killed any other mother.

By Sara Más
Good health and appropriate control over chronic diseases are closely connected with satisfactory sex life. Studies have shown that diabetes mellitus, kidney diseases, metabolic syndromes, cancer, high blood pressure and obesity do not only reduce life expectancy and cause discomfort and pain, but also negatively affect sexual performance. Diabetes in women is often related to pregnancy, but it is seldom connected with sex life, said Dr. Daysi A. Navarro, head of the Working Group on Endocrinology and Aging at the National Institute of Endocrinology. Diabetes mellitus, a non-transmissible chronic disease, causes lack of metabolic control and is usually accompanied by hyperglycemia, non-enzymatic protein glycosilation, and vascular and neuropathic disorders that negatively affect sex. She made the statement at the 4th Cuban Congress on Sex Education, Orientation and Therapy, which was held in Havana earlier this month. Clinical studies have focused mainly on erectile sexual dysfunction, which affects 20 to 80 percent of diabetes mellitus male sufferers.