Everything you know about sex is true.

Officials in the Spanish region of Extremadura have launched a major programme to teach young people about 'sexual self-exploration and discovery of self-pleasure'.

"Pleasure is in your own hands" is the slogan of a campaign that has sparked political controversy and challenges traditional Roman Catholic views on people having sex, even on their own, for non-reproductive reasons.

Officials from the neighbouring region of Andalucia have expressed an interest in copying the programme.

The campaign includes leaflets, flyers, a "fanzine" and workshops for the young -the target are those between 14 and 17- in which they receive instruction on self-pleasuring techniques along with advice on contraception and self-respect.

Commentators questioned why the poorest region in Spain was paying for a campaign to promote onanism. "Extremadura should be pleased with itself," sniped Pilar Rahola, a columnist in the Barcelona-based La Vanguardia newspaper. "It may have the most unemployed young people in Spain, but they will be the best at masturbation."

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For U.S. intelligence officials, Viagra has become a tool to win and fight some crucial battles in Afghanistan. While the CIA has a long history of buying information with cash, the growing Taliban insurgency has prompted the use of novel incentives and creative bargaining to gain support in some of the country's roughest neighborhoods, according to officials directly involved in such operations.

In their efforts to win over notoriously fickle warlords and chieftains, the officials say, the agency's operatives have used a variety of personal services. Cash and weapons aren't always the best options. Guns too often fall into the wrong hands, they say, and showy gifts such as money, jewelry and cars tend to draw unwanted attention.

For some U.S. operatives in Afghanistan, Western drugs such as Viagra were just part of a long list of enticements available for use in special cases. Two veteran officers familiar with such practices said Viagra was offered rarely, and only to older tribal officials for whom the drug would hold special appeal. While such sexual performance drugs are generally unavailable in the remote areas where the agency's teams operated, they have been sold in some Kabul street markets since at least 2003 and were known by reputation elsewhere.

"You didn't hand it out to younger guys, but it could be a silver bullet to make connections to the older ones," said one retired operative familiar with the drug's use in Afghanistan. Afghan tribal leaders often had four wives -- the maximum number allowed by the Koran -- and aging village patriarchs were easily sold on the utility of a pill that could "put them back in an authoritative position," the official said.

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Russian women are now flocking to "bitch schools", run by Vladimir and Yevgenia Rakovsky who teach "bitchology".

A successful "bitch", Mr Rakovsky explains, is neither strident nor sassy, but demure, manipulative and aware of her own sexuality in order to get her own way. "Bitchology is the theory, practice and technique of being successful in a man's world," he said. "A smart woman gets what she wants by pretending to be weak. A bitch should be strong and self-confident but should remember to use feminine wiles, such as her attractiveness and, whenever useful, she should try to come across as a helpless creature."

Lessons begin with the philosophy of "bitchology". The "bitch" should win favours by acting either as a helpless baby or, in rare situations, like an adult woman.

Then its off to the "school of seduction" in which the women learn to attract the most discerning of men by flaunting their sexuality. This week, students learned how to a work a room full of men just by dropping something, and picking it up, to "accentuate the most beautiful part of your body". "If it's your breasts, flaunt them, if it's your backside use it," Mrs Rakovsky told them.

Next week, she will focus on how to surreptitiously rub one's breasts against an unsuspecting subject. In the final lesson, the women learn the art of the striptease.