Adult performer Bonnie Blue said her parents are "so proud" after she allegedly broke a world record by sleeping with 1,057 men in 12 hours. Blue's much-criticised stunt is the latest example of a trend for "sex extremism" that is "doing no one any good", said Elle.

'Extreme responses'
If "you'd landed on Earth" recently and "surveyed the sexual landscape",  you'd probably feel "just a little confused", said the magazine. On the one hand, there's the "hyper sexualisation" of OnlyFans creators Blue – real name Tia Bellinger – and Lily Phillips, who "raced" to become the first to sleep with 1,000 men within 24 hours. But there's also a "growing movement" of heterosexual women giving up on men completely under South Korea's rapidly spreading 4B movement.

Both are "extreme responses" to our sexual culture. Blue and Phillips are part of a "normalisation of not just porn culture, but a social media-driven quest for clout by any means, while the "extreme" abstinence of 4B is "a response to shocking cases of male-perpetrated femicide".

But if part of incel culture's "damage to men" was that it "isolated them away from healthy and normal relationships", we can't ignore that "the same principle" could apply to women "sequestering themselves away from men".

'What about the men?'
"This is all unremittingly grim," said Victoria Smith on UnHerd. "Once you've stripped every last trace of pleasure from sex", what you're selling is "barely even porn" but rather "misogyny" and "dehumanisation".

OnlyFans is "often touted" as an "empowering platform for women to earn huge amounts of money, contrary to historic power dynamics in porn", said Glamour. But young women are "reporting degrading requests, abusive and predatory treatment", as well as "doxxing, so-called 'revenge porn' and stalking".

And "one angle" of "sex extremism" seems to be "completely ignored", said Olivia Petter in The Independent – "what about the men?" The idea that "groups of men" are "taking turns to have sex with a woman they don’t know" was the shocking reality of the recent Pélicot trial in France, making it "all feel a lot more insidious".

Of the many executive orders made by President Donald Trump since his return in the White House, renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America might not be the most significant, but it is certainly among the most attention-grabbing. The attempted rebrand joins a long history of naming disputes around the world.

Macedonia
Macedonia "has long existed as a northern region in Greece", said the BBC, but a quarrel began in 1991 when a "new nation, born out of the collapse of Yugoslavia", began calling itself Macedonia. A deal was eventually reached in 2019 to name the country North Macedonia, but in 2024 Greece accused the nation's new government of backsliding on the agreement – potentially reigniting the feud.

Black Sea
Inspired by Trump's decision to rename the Gulf of Mexico, Russian politician Denis Bulanov "claimed that the Black Sea was historically referred to as the 'Russian Sea", said Ukraine's United24 Media. The name change "would be for domestic use within Russia only", Bulanov wrote on Telegram. "I'm not insisting that other countries bordering the Black Sea recognise the name change."

India
While officially the Republic of India, many Indians also use the Hindi name "Bharat" to refer to their country, the constitution of which refers to it as "India, that is Bharat". Hindu nationalists have been especially supportive of a change, claiming the name 'India' was imposed on the subcontinent by British colonisers, although historians say the term "predates colonial rule by centuries", said Reuters.

South China Sea
Most Westerners understandably call the body of water south of China the South China Sea. But China, Vietnam and the Philippines all use different names for the waterway, and these "are not just semantic", said The Diplomat: "they each advance a nationalist narrative and a historical claim". The array of rival names "reflects the geopolitical stakes in the South China Sea, where overlapping maritime and territorial claims have led to rising tensions among nations".

This year's must-visit exhibitions across the UK offer everything from iconic costumes and powerful photography to the overlooked prints of a legendary artist.

JMW Turner: In Light and Shade, Manchester
To mark the 250th anniversary of the British artist's birth, Manchester's Whitworth Gallery will showcase "Liber Studiorum" – his "magnum opus of landscape and seascape etching"  – as well as beautiful but overlooked mezzotint prints, said Lucy Kehoe in The Times. 7 February – 2 November, whitworth.manchester.ac.uk

Resistance, Turner Contemporary, Margate
Oscar-winning director Steve McQueen has assembled "rarely seen black and white photographs that articulate the history of protest in Britain", from the suffrage movement to the Anti-Iraq War protest, for this powerful exhibition, said Lydia Figes in Dazed. 22 February – 1 June, turnercontemporary.org

Siena: The Rise of Painting 1300-1350, National Gallery, London
This exhibition got "ecstatic reviews" last year at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, said Alastair Sooke in The Telegraph. Visitors are transported to 14th-century Siena for a breathtaking tour of "exquisite, innovative artworks" by the likes of Duccio, Simone Martini, and the brothers Pietro and Ambrogio Lorenzetti. "Prepare to be dazzled." 8 March – 22 June, nationalgallery.org.uk

David Bowie Centre, V&A East Storehouse, London
An "absolute must-see for Bowie lovers", said Figes in Dazed, the exhibition at V&A's new east London venue will include everything from costumes and photographs to album artwork, exploring the creative process of one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century. From 13 September, vam.ac.uk

With his blunt kitchen knife idea, Idris Elba is missing the point
Nathaniel Peat in The Independent
Idris Elba is "spot on" in saying "more needs to be done to get blades off our streets", writes Nathaniel Peat. But his suggestion that the tips of kitchen knives should be rounded off ignores the "deeper issue" that knife crime is driven by poverty. Funding initiatives to prevent youths "from falling into crime" would "do more good". I'm "thrilled" the actor has raised the issue, but we must "tackle the problem at its root".

Women in the police
Josephine Bartosch in The Critic
US podcaster Matt Walsh has "coughed up a steaming take" that "female cops are absurd", writes Josephine Bartosch. "Given the apparent inability of so many men charged with upholding the law to act within it", perhaps we should "bar men" from police duty instead.  A "surge of testosterone" or "display of bravado" might "make them do something unpredictable" or "forget their orders". Yet in a "civilised society", we need "both women and men" to keep the peace.

Selena Gomez fell prey to Trump-trashing one-upmanship: the game no one can win
Emma Brockes in The Guardian
When Hollywood star Selena Gomez "sniffled and wept" on Instagram about Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, she was "instantly trolled by Trump-loving monsters", but there were "sighs and tuts" from  "Trump-haters" too, writes Emma Brockes. I've seen "online skirmishes" where the president's haters call each other out for "'being unhelpful' in their pushback" against him. But Gomez, who has Mexican heritage, was "acting out feelings she genuinely had", so "fair play to her, I say".