Every day, members dig deep into their sick and twisted minds to unearth linguistic miracles. It’s both delightful and deranged

• Read more in the Internet wormhole series

I remember exactly where I was when I found it. At uni. In a cavernous lecture hall. Slouched in a vaguely uncomfortable seat. Ping. A notification on Messenger. “Lol at this,” wrote my bestie from 14km away, accumulating student debt and little else. I clicked on the link.

In that moment, I happened upon the most significant social media community of all time. A Facebook group, titled simply but garnished appropriately: “DRAG NAMES!!!!!!!!!!!!”

Fans poured on to Copacabana beach from around Brazil for show that beat Madonna’s record audience size

More than 2 million people packed Copacabana beach on Saturday night for a free Lady Gaga concert, breaking a Rio de Janeiro record set last year by Madonna.

An estimated 2.1 million “Little Monsters” – as Lady Gaga’s fans are known – turned Rio’s beachside neighbourhood into “Gagacabana” for the largest show of the pop star’s career. The turnout topped Madonna’s free mega-show last year, which drew 1.6 million to the Brazilian city’s shores.

Kings beach has long been a safe space for the LGBTQ+ community, but a crackdown on nude bathing has sparked concerns

• Get our afternoon election email, free app or daily news podcast

In late December last year, on a 26C afternoon, Isaac Ryan and his partner, Zack, were enjoying one of their favourite pastimes – sunbaking and swimming in the secluded white sands and gentle surf of Kings beach in northern New South Wales, a 20-minute drive south of Byron Bay in Broken Head national park.

The couple had packed a picnic lunch, brought books to read and made the short 1km hike down the lush forested path to arrive at Kings beach, a slice of paradise nestled amid sheltering white booyong, rosewood and red bean trees, with native brushturkeys roaming the undergrowth amid the shady Pandanus trees. The beach has been a significant spot for the LGBTQ+ community for decades, many of whom enjoy being naked here in relative safety.

Sign up for the Afternoon Update: Election 2025 email newsletter

Government says measures are too legally complex to deliver before the next Holyrood election

The Scottish government has dropped plans to outlaw misogyny and conversion practices before the next Holyrood election, arguing they are too legally complex to deliver in time.

Ministers had long promised a bill to criminalise misogyny after Nicola Sturgeon, the then first minister, accepted recommendations from a working group led by the lawyer and human rights expert Helena Kennedy in 2022.

UK gender decision ignites debate among professionals working in the domestic abuse and rape crisis spheres

“I have a list as long as my arm that I worry about daily,” says Katie Russell, the chief executive and co-founder of the service Support After Rape and Sexual Violence Leeds (SARSVL). “The funding landscape, a broken criminal justice system, the global threat of violent misogyny.”

She lives a few streets away from where two women were seriously injured last weekend in a crossbow attack perpetrated by a man who espoused misogynist hate online.

Charities say the judgment creates ‘a legal framework that simply cannot uphold the dignity’ of trans people

Fourteen national LGBTQ+ charities have written to Keir Starmer seeking an urgent meeting to discuss what they describe as “a genuine crisis for the rights, dignity and inclusion of trans people in the UK” after the supreme court’s ruling on biological sex.

The UK supreme court ruled last month that the terms “woman” and “sex” in the Equality Act 2010 referred only to “a biological woman” and to “biological sex”, with subsequent advice from the equality watchdog amounting to a blanket ban on trans people using toilets and other services of the gender they identify as.

• Trump 100 days: tariffs, egg prices, Ice arrests and approval rating – in charts
• Trump 100 days: inside Trump’s whirlwind start to his second presidency

Donald Trump signed 141 executive orders since returning to the presidency in January, including enacting steep tariffs, ending birthright citizenship, curbing DEI and “gender radicalism” in the military, and pardoning January 6 rioters.

The US president promised in his inaugural speech that these orders would amount to a “complete restoration of America”.

In ‘comprehensive’ 409-page report, department claims medical care should be avoided though harms are ‘sparse’

The federal health department released what it described as a “comprehensive review” of pediatric gender dysphoria – advocating for therapy instead of medical care for youth whose gender identity does not match their assigned sex.

The 409-page report claimed that while the harms of such medical treatment are “sparse”, medical treatment should be avoided in favor of therapy for youth diagnosed with gender dysphoria.

The president has signed orders to ban gender transitions for people under 19, end birthright citizenship and more

Donald Trump signed 140 executive orders in the first 100 days of his second term, including orders aimed at enacting steep tariffs, ending birthright citizenship, curbing DEI and “gender radicalism” in the military and pardoning January 6 rioters.

The US president promised in his inaugural speech that these orders would amount to a “complete restoration of America”.

He has a more typically masculine body, is older, more experienced and skilled in bed, and I am finding it increasingly difficult to perform

I am a gay man and have been married to my husband for 12 years. I sometimes lose my erection during sex, leading me to avoid it for long periods. My problem is my sexual script, which intellectually I don’t believe, but still cannot seem to set down. My husband has a larger penis, a more typically masculine and societally attractive body and is older, more experienced and more skilled a lover than I am. I know none of this matters and that sex should be about mutual pleasure and connection, but I cannot help but feel inadequate, leading to performance anxiety. My husband is kind and reassuring, but this has been going on for our whole relationship and I feel stuck and frustrated.

Being distracted during sex , whether it is due to any kind of anxiety, lack of confidence in your body, fear of losing your erection, fear of disease, germ phobia, stress about external life situations – or any one of many possible thought intrusions – will easily arrest your enjoyment of a sexual process, and often lead to sexual dysfunction. Rather than allowing negative thoughts and fears to intrude during erotic experiences, it is important to focus simply on the purpose of eroticism – pleasure. This is not easy for people who have become invested in achieving excellence of performance, or even just being able to maintain an erection. Switch your approach to sex, ask for your partner’s support and cooperation in being able to stop and relax whenever negativity intrudes and refocus on just giving and receiving pleasure. If your anxiety is generalised (it occurs in many other situations) it is important to seek formal treatment or proven methods to calm you.

Pamela Stephenson Connolly is a US-based psychotherapist who specialises in treating sexual disorders.

If you would like advice from Pamela on sexual matters, send us a brief description of your concerns to private.lives@theguardian.com (please don’t send attachments). Each week, Pamela chooses one problem to answer, which will be published online. She regrets that she cannot enter into personal correspondence. Submissions are subject to our terms and conditions.