Good morning, YourTango readers. Happy December first, we hope you had a great Thanksgiving. Let’s get to the news.

According to The Irish World, today is World AIDS Day. Roughly 30 million people have the immunodeficiency condition worldwide and infection rates appear to be on the rise. Let’s hope that the awareness generated by this recognition day helps find a cure. The bone marrow transplant thing sounds promising.

British taxi drivers are doing their best to fight STDs. The BBC reports that drivers in the town of Aberdeen are handing out condoms to passengers. A cab company called ComCab is just trying to do their part on World AIDS Day.

We’re glad that someone is looking out for the sexual health of those randy Brits because they are likely to have a lot of partners. Daily Star is reporting that a survey of 14,000 people from 48 countries has the British leading the way in one-night stands. British women are also more likely to steal their boyfriends than gals from any other country.

We feel like we hardly know ya any more, Britain. First they make James Bond more vicious and less handsome. Then they start having more irresponsible sex (like Roger Moore). And now, according to the Telegraph, Brits are seeking out professional help in dealing with breakups. These so-called dump doctors are doing a rather brisk trade. So much for that vaunted stiff upper-lip. “Dry Your Eyes,” indeed.

On this side of the pond, some people are still doing breakups on their own. And sometimes this goes against better advice. Per Commercial Appeal, do it yourself divorces are gaining in popularity. We suppose that not everyone can afford a good lawyer. And by “good” we mean competent.

When we think of competent attorney, we start with someone who hasn’t been disbarred. According to the Zonie Report we aren’t alone in that assumption but not everyone follows the policy so closely. A man in Arizona, Gary Karpin, is going to do 15 years in the slammer for bilking divorce clients out of hundreds of thousands of dollars with his Divorce with Dignity business. Karpin was disbarred back in 1992.

He is lucky that he didn’t pull this crap in China. According to Reuters a Chinese “entrepreneur” is being sentenced to death for selling a fake aphrodisiac. Made from ants. The real problem wasn’t the ant love juice, but that he bilked investors out of $439 million, promising them returns as high as 60%. When something appears too good to be true (like ant Viagra or a company that sells said ant juice), it probably is.

Sometimes you get executed for fraud and sometimes you get fired for surreptitiously filming coworkers having sex in a cubicle. Asylum caught up with the guy that filmed 2 coworkers getting it on in the office and letting it leak online. He was subsequently fired. Interesting story about privacy, corporate policy and bad decision-making.

On the topic of decision-making, it appears likelier that sexual preference is not a decision. According to the Mercury News, scientific evidence shows that there are some other genetic markers showing that being gay is biological. Also, gay men are more prone to left-handedness. It feels like people have been saying that for a long time and thus refer to bisexuals as switch hitters. Clever.

Some interesting news out of New Zealand. The New Zealand Herald reports that there is a likelihood for women who have had an abortion to suffer from mental health problems. It’s hard to make any jokes about smoosh-smortion, so we’ll just wonder if the ordeal of the procedure is so mentally scarring or if people with a little bit of a screw loose are just likelier to become unwantedly pregnant.

Sometimes life hands you lemons and you make whatever juice you choose to. The Daily Bedpost answers a reader’s question about being the girl on top with her parapalegic boyfriend with a product suggestions. So, if your legs are getting too tired from having sex on top (as a woman), check out the Bodybouncer. Could be a good Christmas gift.

Speaking of Christmas gifts, how much would it cost to really show your ‘true love’ how much you care? According to the Associated Press, it would run you about $86,000 to provide all of the gifts from “The Twelve Days Of Christmas.” How about a just using that money to buy a house?

There is literally nothing to lose by logging onto PlentyofFish.com, a 100%-free, online dating site that draws plenty (78,250 on a Friday afternoon, to be exact) of fish. It takes less that ten minutes to set up a profile, which is appropriately string-bare–after all, no one said quality comes free!

What does come for free is access to thousands upon thousands of singles people, including instant message and e-mail privileges. Users can sift through profiles using basic search options. Users can adjust e-mail options to filter content from members who don’t fulfill their needs (like not being male, or living overseas).Users can exclude members they’ve already viewed and still get a large pool of eligible profiles. For match-making help, users can take a Chemistry Predictor quiz comprised of 48 seemingly-minute questions about self-confidence, family orientation, self-control, openness and easygoingness. PlentyofFish uses the results–which are pretty general so don’t expect any real breakthroughs–to make matches on your behalf. There is also a 100-question Relationship Needs Assessment Test, which can’t hurt if you’ve got the time!

Users may not have time! After all, the PlentyofFish community is not just large, but active. Forums on every topic under the sun (or sea, for that matter) draw thousands of views and replies. Users can also rate or submit a photo to be rated on a scale of one to ten (in case you have any question as to whether you’d make a good catch!). When a good catch is found, users can send one of two monthly roses.

While search results tend to yield many users, browsing through profiles can be a painful process due to horribly skewed thumbnails. While the faces of users may be difficult to discern, it’s easy to contact a member (sight unseen!). Under each thumbnail is a link to instant message the user. Clicking yields a –free!– instant message box that encourages contact rather than idle stalking. Best part: if you’re slow thinking up pick up lines for complete strangers–and no shame there; it happens to the best of us!–you can opt to send an automated message such as “Hey there.”

If you find your conversation is a bridge to nowhere despite compatability on paper, no worries. You’re one click away from viewing similar users.

Happy fishin’!

Love and relationship coverage has all but come to a hault today, since Madge is taking center stage. Today’s the day for Madonna and Guy Ritchie’s official divorce, according to the Associated Press. Read more about their relationship in YourTango’s Celebrity Love Blog.

Madge’s divorce isn’t the only order of the courts today. GoErie.com reports that police charged a 19-year old man in Florida with domestic battery after he threw a sandwich at his girlfriend while she was driving, nearly causing her to loose control of the car. A conviction may clarify that food-fighting does in fact count as domestic abuse.

A man in Colorado was caught in a lie, reports the The Rocky Mountain News . He pretended to have named his newborn son Carter Barack Obama Sealy for post-election press attention, and was ousted by his wife who told the newspapers “My husband’s an idiot.”

A seemingly idiotic caste system is to blame for the tragic fate of a a teenage boy in India. After writing a love letter to a girl from a different caste, he was thrashed, paraded through the streets and thrown under a trained by the rival caste, according to the New York Times.

A ficticious story of forbidden vampire love hits theaters today. The film, “Twilight” is reviewed at Freep.com.

An international study reported by the Times of India has found that that evolution has led women to prefer multiple partners. This preference is linked to exposure to men who carry selfish genes which compromise their fertility and the health of their offspring.

Here’s to a healthy, happy weekend!

We could sing the praises of a well-written novel with titillating love scenes all day. But what about a fantastic book with sexytime excerpts so absurdly horrible you wonder how they ever passed an editor?

Well, now that’s worthy of an award.

Or so thinks the Literary Review, a monthly British publication that (usually) praises top-notch literature, but holds an annual Bad Sex in Literature Award ceremony to congratulate works of poorly written erotic writing. On November 25th, the journal will unveil this year’s winner at London’s In and Out club. Last year, Norman Mailer (who checked out just a few weeks too early to accept) won the award for a few choice phrasings in his last novel, The Castle In the Forest. Of all the others contenders, it was Mailer’s description of a man as “soft as coil of excrement” and a woman who “took his old battering ram into her lips,” that secured him the victory.

So what’s the criteria for making the nominee list for a Bad Sex in Literature award? Former editor Auberon Waugh describes the motive of such a thing as a way of “gently dissuading authors and publishers from including unconvincing, perfunctory, embarrassing, or redundant passages of a sexual nature in otherwise sound literary novels.”

So, yeah, the book has to actually be good, so getting on the list is a feat in and of itself. One of this year’s nominees Ann Allestree, author of Triptych of a Young Wolf, which features weird “hybrid sex” between a wolf, the story’s hero, and the hero’s girlfriend, said it was “heartening” to be included in such a “list of distinguished writers.”

This year, editor Jonathon Beckman says the nominees run the gamut of being way too serious about sex, to insanely ridiculous, to illogically confusing.

Author Paulo Coehlo (Brida) describes two characters screwing as the “moment when Eve was reabsorbed into Adam’s body and the two halves became a creation.” On the other hand, Alastrai Campbell (All in the Mind) describes sex as almost clinical: “he wasn’t sure where his penis was in relation to where he wanted it to be….she started making purring noises, now with little squeals punctuating them…he was pretty sure he was losing his virginity.”

Pretty sure? He was pretty sure? Losing one’s virginity is always somewhat anticlimactic, but c’mon. Bad sex is torturous enough in the flesh. Let’s all try to avoid it in our books too.

LIST OF NOMINEES FOR 2008

James Buchan for The Gate of Air
Simon Montefiore for Sashenka
John Updike for The Widows of Eastwick
Kathy Lette for To Love, Honour and Betray
Alastair Campbell for All in the Mind
Rachel Johnson for Shire Hell
Isabel Fonseca for Attachment
Ann Allestree for Triptych of a Young Wolf
Russell Banks for The Reserve
Paulo Coelho for Brida

Money woes got you down?  If you’re one of the 1.2 million Americans who have lost their job this year (thanks ABC News for that terribly depressing statistic) then chances are tracking your spending down to the very last dime.

When you do splurge you want to make sure you’re getting the most bang for your buck, especially when date night at the movies could end up costing you a good $50 (think popcorn, tickets, soda). To that end, YourTango (with a little help from noted film junkies across the web) has pulled together a list of the 10 most romantic new releases coming out between now and the end of the 2008. 

Twilight (November 21)There’s an audible shiver (in the theater) as they first spy the teen vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson), his impossibly gorgeous face caked in a mime’s pallor, sitting in biology class next to young Bella Swan (Kristen Stewart). It rekindles the warmth of great Hollywood romances, where foreplay was the climax and a kiss was never just a kiss. —Time

Australia (November 26) Nicole Kidman plays Lady Sarah Ashley, an English woman who inheirits land down below that she must protect from interlopers with help from a man known only as the Drover, played by Hugh Jackman. Romance, adventure, and action rumored to be on a scale not seen since Gone With the Windhave Oscar-watchers on high alert. —Premiere.com

Four Christmases (November 26)Reese and Vince find their annual holiday escape plans foiled when fog grounds their San Francisco flight. When their relatives catch wind that they’re still in town, they find themselves forced out of obligation to endure a Christmas get-together with each of their respective divorced parents and wild siblings. —ET Online

The Reader (December 10)Kate Winslet and Ralph Fiennes star in The Hours director Stephen Daldry’s haunting period romance tracing the complicated love affair between a German teen and a mysterious woman twice his age. —All Movie Guide

The Brothers Bloom (December 19)Mark Ruffalo and Adrien Brody play the titular brothers Bloom, a con artist duo out to swindle an intoxicatingly zany heiress (Rachel Weisz). The film employs the quirkiness and anachronistic flourishes one might find in a Wes Anderson flick, but ultimately becomes something uniquely, refreshingly its own: a light-hearted caper, an endearing romance and a hankie-necessitating drama rolled into one. —Moviefone

Seven Pounds (Decemeber 19)Will Smith stars as a depressed IRS agent looking to make amends for the mistakes of his past by helping seven strangers.  The only problem with his plan?  He falls in love with Emily (Rosario Dawson) a beautiful woman with a heart condition. 

Yes Man (December 19)Jim Carrey stars as a man who decides to spice up his life by saying yes to everything in his life that he would normally say no to.  Zooey Deschanel co-stars as the romantic interest, with Bradley Cooper appearing as Carrey’s best friend. —New York Times

The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (December 25)David Fincher’s adaptation of the F. Scott Fitzgerald short story stars Brad Pitt as the title character, who is born an old man only to youthen (in the words of the similarly age-reversing Merlin in Camelot) throughout his life until he becomes a stud capable of wooing Cate Blanchett. —Entertainment Weekly

Marley and Me (December 25)Based on the New York Times’ bestseller, this appropriate-for-all-ages dramedy follows one couple (Jennifer Aniston and Owen Wilson) and their energetic pup, Marley, as they navigate through life’s challenges and changes. —