The Right to Masturbate

23May07

A shop owner in Alabama challenges the ban on sex toys!

Sherri Williams is trying to get the Supreme Court to take the case, even though it turned it down in 2005.  She is arguing that it is an unconstitutional intrusion into the bedroom.  I agree.  If we can’t ban birth control because it violates a couple’s right to privacy to have sex they way they want to – how is this any different?

Legal arguments aside, sex toys are such a positive thing!  They are safer than any other kind of sexual experience, they are satisfying, they teach us about our bodies, they help release tension and stress, they keep marriages interesting after a number of years.

And here’s an economic argument: there is a sex toy industry, producing quality products.  There are numerous companies producing this harmless product that could be shut down simply because the product offends the Christian right.  If something as harmful as tobacco hasn’t been banned, then this should be no contest.

Filed under: civil rights, politics, sex shops, sex toys   |  Leave a Comment

Newsflash: Sex is good for you!

07Apr07

(I know, I bet you’re all totally surprised.)

This article says that sex can reduce depression (well yeah…), and that it’s a great source of exercise and can even reduce the risk of heart disease.  But did you know that it can also improve your sense of smell?  Your teeth?  Working your kegels helps with bladder control, endorphins act as a natural Tylenol, and apparently sex can even boost your immune system making you less susceptable to colds and flu.  Plus, it helps your prostate, if you have one.

Filed under: health, sex   |  1 Comment

More Press on “Unhooked”

07Apr07

Laura Stepp thinks the “hook up phenomenon” is hurting young women.  This really irritates me, and should be old news by now.

Was there this much hand wringing over free love in the 60s?

Filed under: dating, hooking up, the media, youth   |  Leave a Comment

Gender Games

30Mar07

This is an interesting take on gender.  I’m not sure how I feel about it exactly… but it is definitely a new and interesting perspective.

A Self-Made Man 

Filed under: gender   |  1 Comment

Dirty Words

30Mar07

I know most of this is old news, but hey… I’ve been busy.  Anyway, there seems to be a lot stuff happening in the “banned books/words” arena.

A children’s book was banned for containing the word “scrotum.” Of course, I find this hilarious as “scrotum” is not so much a dirty word, but a medical word.  It’s like banning a book on the solar system because you don’t like the sound of Uranus.  Anyway, here is the statement from the American Library Association.

Also, according to the Advocates For Youth March Newsletter, three students were suspended for saying “vagina” while performing sections of the Vagina Monologues at an open mic reading session sponsored by the school’s literary magazine.

“The suspension outraged some parents, who circulated an e-mail calling the punishment a “blatant attempt at censorship.”

But Principal Richard Leprine said Tuesday that the girls were punished because they disobeyed orders, not because of what they said.

The event was open to the community, including children, and the word was not appropriate, Leprine said in a statement. He said the girls had been told when they auditioned that they could not use the word.”  Full article here.

I have to say that I agree with Femilicious here, when she says,

“Seems women’s bodies are still dirty and unsuitable for children (er well, it’s okay if we give birth to them — lots of them in fact). It doesn’t matter that these girls defied the order not to say the word “VAGINA” — that order was Wrong.”

Filed under: civil rights, feminisim, news, the media, youth   |  1 Comment

Condom Ad Campaign Contest!

30Mar07

This is your last chance to enter the Advocates for Youth “Rights, Respect, Responsibility” Condom ad campaign contest!

 

 Use their online designing tool to make your own ad!  The deadline is two days away, and the grand prize is $500!  Hop to!

Filed under: condoms   |  1 Comment

Sex Ed, and Health vs. Politics

09Mar07

Field tests of a new sex ed program in Montgomery County have begun.  The opposition is of course angry that they managed to start these programs before the legal action against them could take effect.

The new sex ed program is interesting because it features information about homosexuality and transgender issues.  That is very progressive.  I like it.  On the other hand, for fear of legal repercussions, the teachers are basically forced to read a script and not answer questions.  This is not the most beneficial of teaching methods.  One student described it as “relatively dull.”

There isn’t too much to say about this program, but one line in the article really got me thinking.

Three CRC leaders with protest signs stood outside Argyle Middle at dismissal yesterday. One sign read, “Health before politics.“

First of all, the CRC is the Citizens for a Responsible Curriculum, the group opposing the sex ed program.  It’s ironic, because that slogan could just as easily be used by the other side.  In fact, I’d expect it to be used by the other side.

But what I really want to say is that “health before politics” is bogus.  There is no such thing as health without the entanglement of politics.  There never has been, there never will be.  That is what my senior thesis on STDs and AIDS and public policy  has taught me so far, anyway.

Health without politics?  It’s a nice thought.  But health is political.  That’s reality.

Filed under: GLBT, gender, politics, sex education, sexuality, youth   |  2 Comments

The Fight(Divided)

07Mar07

Direct Donations led me to this site: Buy (Less) Crap, a response to the Product(Red) campaign.

Product(Red) is a shopping campaign to support the global fight against AIDS. Companies like the Gap, Apple, Converse, American Express, and Motorola are selling specialized (red) products and give around 10% of the profits to the Global Fund.

Buy (Less) Crap argues that the answer to global suffering is not shopping, but donating directly to charities like the Global Fund.

I’m not sure exactly where I stand on this. I was pretty excited when I heard about Product(Red). I was excited about doing some good when I bought sneakers and t-shirts that I was planning to buy anyway. I did actually buy a pair of Product(Red) Converse low-tops.

But Buy (Less) Crap has a good point. I was a little upset that only 10% went to the Global Fund. And, after I started seeing all the MTV hosts wearing Product(Red) product placements on tv, that started to look a little too trendy for my taste. Like Livestrong bracelets.

I think, in the future, if I am feeling inspired to help, I will go the direct donation route. Even though I am a poor college student, the $10 I can afford to donate is still more than the $5 or $6 that my shoe purchase contributed.

But when I really think about it, I think either way is a step in the right direction.  If a new pair of shoes is what it takes to get you to donate, when you wouldn’t think to donate otherwise, then go for it.  Do what you can.  Help is help.  Charity is charity.

Filed under: AIDS   |  Leave a Comment

“My Daughter Won’t Get It Because She’s a Good Girl”

06Mar07

Today, in the New York Times, Denise Grady wrote about how the issue of promiscuity is distracting people from the true importance of the HPV vaccine.

For example, Focus on the Family, a Christian advocacy group in Colorado Springs, says that instead, a woman should simply avoid the virus by not having sex before marriage. Even some who think that abstinence is unrealistic still imagine that this kind of disease does not happen to a girl who’s had only a boyfriend or two.

It’s a misconception that can cost a young woman her health, her fertility and maybe even her life.

Exactly.  As Grady says,

People don’t have to be promiscuous to contract the cervical cancer virus, a type of human papillomavirus, or HPV. These viruses, the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States, are practically ubiquitous. They’re ancient, they’ve found a cozy ecological niche on the human body, and they’re here to stay. Millions of people carry them and share them with millions of sex partners every year. Intercourse seems to be the best way to transmit them, but any type of genital contact increases the risk, and condoms offer only partial protection because skin beyond the condom may be teeming with the virus. Much of the time, the viruses cause no problems, and people don’t even know they’re infected.

“It’s really pretty impossible to avoid acquiring one or more genital HPV infections if you decide you’re going to be sexually active in your life,” said Dr. Laura Koutsky, a professor of epidemiology and an HPV expert at the University of Washington in Seattle.

People really need to realize that there is so much sex other than intercourse that these “abstinent” teens are participating in.  And they really need to realize that HPV is the easiest STD to be transmitted during these “non-intercourse” sex acts!  And, consider this:

“You’d also have to guarantee — I hate to say it — that you’re not going to be raped,” Dr. Koutsky said.

You don’t let your child walk alone at night, why would you leave her cervix unprotected?

Filed under: STDs, oral sex, rape, sex, youth   |  1 Comment

Unhinged Over “Unhooked”

05Mar07

As I was filling out forms in my gynecologist’s office this morning (to get the HPV vaccine, yay!) I watched a bit of the Today show playing on the tv in the waiting room.  Today’s big story was, yep, you guessed it- Hooking up.

What is this media obsession with hooking up?  Seriously.   I don’t get it.

Young people?  Being sexually active?  Being sexually active without romantic involvement or committment?  I am actually supposed to believe this is a *new* phenomenon?

Unhooked, a new book on the market, is feeding the fire.  Laura Sessions Stepp is just another one of these middle aged women convinced that society is READY TO COLLAPSE because of the emotional havoc hookups are wreaking on young women.

First of all, I have a problem with this book and all these other studies coming out about this subject just talking about the emotional damage done to women.  In fact, this whole hook up phenomenon is being talked about as a revolution in female sexuality.

So what.  Men have been having casual sexual encounters since the dawn of time, right?  Apparently.  And who were they having these encounters with, I’d like to know.  Prostitutes?  There must have been some that didn’t patronize hookers for their casual sex.  Logically, women must have been having pre-millenial casual sex.

And where are the books and studies crying out for the poor, fragile  psyches of men, which, according to logic, must be WAY more traumatized by all of the centuries and centuries of causal sex.

Okay.  So far we’ve learned two “facts.”  1.  Girls just started having casual sex.  2.  Men can handle it, but it causes “emotional damage” to women.

It just makes me so angry.  Here is a link to an article I wrote a while back in The Hoot about my opinions on hooking up.  And an excerpt of it is picked out quite awesomely on Dasfeminist.  And here is an excerpt here:

Another point discussed over and over was the idea that modern, “liberated,” women think: “If men only want to use me for sex, I can use men for sex too.” What bothers me is that most of the panelists viewed this in a positive light. This is supposed to be “empowering.”

But to me, it sounds more like revenge than empowerment. How is sex empowering when the motivation is all about men, not about yourself or your own enjoyment? Why does it have to be “women having sex like men?” Why can’t it just be, having sex for fun?

Even Sex and the City did an episode on “women having sex like men” where they posed the question: “Is it even possible for women to have sex without emotional attachment?” I think it is definitely possible. I think it is possible for the women to have sex without attachment, just as I also think women can “get attached” after having sex. Same goes for everyone else, of any gender. I also think the same person can have sex with one person and feel nothing, then have sex with another person and be unable to keep emotions out of it.

But having sex without emotion is not “having sex like a man.” And having sex with attachment is not “having sex like a woman.” It’s having sex like a human, and we are all capable of an entire spectrum of emotional responses, or lack thereof.

Basically, this whole thing is really starting to piss me off.  Frankly, it’s none of your business.  And the best part?

“But you had free love in the 60s.”

“Yes, but that was about love, not sex.”

As we would say in Spain with a raised eyebrow, “En serio?”

Filed under: dating, feminisim, gender, hooking up, news, youth   |  Leave a Comment