Don’t Have Sex—You Will Get Pregnant and Die. Share In Cincinnati, Ohio, a high school sex education teacher carefully places a Jolly Rancher candy on each student’s desk. The 14- and 15-year-old students feel the crinkly plastic wrapping in their hands, wondering when they will get to eat their tantalizing treats. “Don’t eat the candy!” Warned the teacher, although she had just finished placing one on each desk. “You must wait until after class. It will taste much better if you allow yourself to wait.”
And so begins the young Ohioans' lesson on abstinence—the only method of pregnancy or disease prevention that they will learn during their high school sexuality education class. One in every four adolescents receives this type of abstinence-only sexuality education. There is no significant difference in the rates of teenage sexuality in the United States compared to other similar, developed Western countries. Sexuality education in the United States has evolved to teach everything besides sex itself. This is not a youth issue. Lauren Collins: Beyond Plan B. Over at Daily Comment, my colleague Michael Specter criticizes the Obama Administration for its decision not to make Plan B, the emergency contraceptive pill, available over the counter to girls under the age of seventeen.
Specter makes a dispassionate argument: the Food and Drug Administration has found that Plan B is safe and effective for adolescent girls, so adolescent girls should be able to use Plan B without obstruction. Obama’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, overruled the F.D.A. on the flimsy premise that the Plan B’s manufacturers had neglected to investigate the drug’s effects on eleven-year-olds. Specter writes, “Sadly, it is not the first time that Obama, or Sebelius, has made choices based on emotion and the ballot box rather than on the results of scientific investigation.” In Mexico, daily contraceptives are available over the counter.
Can 11-year-olds use Plan B safely? Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images The women’s health world has been in an uproar since Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius rejected a recommendation by the FDA on Wednesday to make emergency contraceptives like Plan B available without prescription to teens under the age of 17. According to the New York Times, her reasoning had to do with the extent of the data: J. Bryan Lowder is a Slate assistant editor.
He writes and edits for Outward, Slate’s LGBTQ section, and for the culture section. Follow “After careful consideration of the F.D.A. summary review, I have concluded that the data submitted by Teva do not conclusively establish that Plan B One-Step should be made available over the counter for all girls of reproductive age.” Many have called Sebelius’ decision a political maneuver, a feeling that was strengthened for some when President Obama—who’s no doubt considering the election fallout of controversial issues like this as we approach 2012—endorsed the move. Abortion saved my life. There’s this lawmaker out of Kansas, Rep. Peter DeGraaf, who has a lot to say about abortion. He’s currently best known for saying that women should plan ahead in case of rape and not expect their regular insurance to cover an abortion after an assault. And I could spend a lot of time discussing the flaws in his logic, or even hashing out when life begins, but what I’m really concerned about is the idea that anyone besides a pregnant woman should have a say in what she does with her body after finding out she’s pregnant.
I’m a mom, and I love my sons more than anything. And it is because I love them that I had an abortion at 20 weeks. I was taking an afternoon nap when the hemorrhaging started while my toddler napped in his room when I woke up to find blood gushing upward from my body. Everyone knew the pregnancy wasn’t viable, that it couldn’t be viable given the amount of blood I was losing, but it still took hours for anyone at the hospital to do anything. “Geek girls” and the problem of self-objectification.
UPDATE: I have written a better and more developed version of this article as a presentation for the Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association conference in 2012. You can read the updated version of this article here. (Also, hello WisCon 36 attendees! I wish I was there!) Cross-posted at From Austin to A&M. There is a difficult conversation to be had about self-objectifying geeks. Does displaying the sexiness of fangirls benefit or demean them? I’ve been researching and thinking about cosplay for a while now, and one of the most distressing trends I’ve been grappling with is how women will choose characters, costumes, or costume constructions based on how “sexy” the costume will appear on them.
As I’ve argued before, the sexisms that persist in geek communities are not special. As I said to Amanda Hess last year, being the sexy object is one of the places where geek women can find acceptance in their communities. A group of slave Leia cosplayers gather at Comic-Con. Nerds and Male Privilege. Fantasy Armor and Lady Bits - Mad Art Lab. The brilliant tumbler feed Women Fighters in Reasonable Armor has inspired me to add my two cents to the discussion. Why does my opinion matter? I’m an armorer. I make actual armor that people wear when they hit each other with swords. When making armor I have to strike a balance between comfort, protection, range of motion, and appearance. My experience has made me more than a little opinionated on the subject of fantasy armor. I intend to set the internet straight.
See below for how to do it wrong, how to do it right, and why you might care. 1: The Problem There is a commonly held understanding in the fantasy role-playing community that female armor sucks. What does that mean? We know why these images exist. To predict a counterpoint: There are men that wear next to nothing in fantasy art as well. To give a bit of perspective, this would be the male equivalent. So there is the problem: Pointless armor. What can be done? 2: The Historical Problem Common European Armor, 9th to 13th century. 3. Nerds and Male Privilege Part 2: Deconstructing the Arguments. First of all, I want to go ahead and call attention to the irony that I am making this post under the moniker "Gaston," possibly one of the most misogynistic characters of any family feature. I'm just taking that zinger away from you right away, commenters. Now there's a lot of issues in this editorial, as with the first editorial, but I only have time to talk about one that especially peeved me with its sheer hypocrisy.
The criticism that it's the antagonists who spout sexist vitriol is NOT a derailment, it's a legitimate point that the author, ironically, derails by making a completely different point: that the inmates of Arkham City should want to rape Batman as much as they want to rape Catwoman. So why isn't it a derailment? Because the message being communicated by a character must be interpreted in the context of that character's relationship to the protagonist(s) and the audience. Apparently being beaten, tortured, and killed, but not raped, is a privilege. Sexual harassment and fightin' drama, together at last! [Update: Miranda felt she was misrepresented as having spoken to Destructoid, due to her quotes not being clearly attributed to her Twitter account.
It wasn't my intention to make it look like anything other than public Tweets, so this has been amended. To be clear, Miranda provided Destructoid with no quotes and everything she is quoted as saying was said on her Twitter profile.] There's been a salty offering of drama in the fighting game world recently, with chatter concerning sexual harassment of a Cross Assault cast member. For those not in the know, Cross Assault is a reality show set up by Capcom in which teams of Street Fighter X Tekken players compete for prizes and glory. Last night, however, things got a little more heated than usual when one player, Miranda "Super Yan" Pakozdi, forfeited a match.
Pakozdi noted that in one-on-one conversations with Aris, he made it "pretty obvious that he doesn't give a shit. " [An example of what Aris said. Then you gotta pack that shit in. The Big Sexy Problem with Superheroines and Their 'Liberated Sexuality' Yesterday, two new comic books from the “New 52″ relaunch of DC Comics provoked some online controversy: Catwoman and Red Hood and the Outlaws. They were controversial in particular because of the way they depicted women, notably with the aggressively fanfictiony on-panel sex between Batman and Catwoman, and Starfire’s transformation into a promiscuous tabula rasa who can’t even remember the names of the men she sleeps with, and seeks out emotionless sex with both of the two male main characters while they essentially high five about it.
Since pointing out my issues with Starfire yesterday, I have received numerous e-mails — from men — accusing me of slut-shaming. And that is why books like Catwoman and Red Hood make me so goddamn angry. Let’s start with Catwoman. The money shot that most people have latched onto in Catwoman, however, is the one where Batman and Catwoman have sex on a rooftop. “What’s wrong with Batman having sex?” Here’s the question, though: Why? And I’m tired. A Marxist defence of Page 3 girls « LeftCentral. January 25, 2012 by LeftCentral Brendan O’Neill Image © Kip Voytek Proving that the Leveson Inquiry has become a magnet for every campaigner who wants to tame or censor the tabloids, yesterday’s line-up before his lordship included a bevy of feminists angrily railing against Page 3 in The Sun.
For some women’s rights activists, Page 3, with its scantily clad ladies making philosophical comments in speech bubbles, represents everything that is wrong with tabloid culture. It is sexist and offensive, they say, and it contributes to a climate in which women are looked upon as fleshy objects to be ogled by goggle-eyed blokes. Harriet Harman has joined this shrill chorus calling either for the outright banning of Page 3 or for The Sun at least to be put on the top shelf in newsagents, next to porno mags. The fact is that shutting down Page 3 would be an assault on press freedom. “You cannot enjoy the advantages of a free press without putting up with its inconveniences,” he said. Like this: Consuming Women. The first lap dancing club in the UK opened in 1995. Since then lap dancing has become part of mainstream culture, with the 300+ lap dancing clubs nationwide visited by well-known figures such as Stephen Hawkings and Rihanna.
Jennifer Hayashi Danns, 28, worked as a lap dancer for two years whilst studying at university. She spoke to Ian Sinclair about the industry and her new book Stripped: The Bare Reality of Lap Dancing, which she co-authored with Sandrine Leveque from feminist campaigning group OBJECT. What factors have driven the rapid increase in lap dancing clubs in the UK? Many feminist groups believe that the rise in lap dancing clubs is related to a piece of legislation that allowed lap dancing clubs to open under the same licensing regulations as cafes or karaoke bars.
The lap dancing industry and parts of the media present lap dancing clubs as harmless, safe, titillating entertainment akin to visiting a nightclub. What do you propose as a solution to the current status quo? Norma Clarke on The Origins of Sex by Faramerz Dabhoiwala. Norma Clarke Some Years Before 1963 The Origins of Sex: A History of the First Sexual Revolution By Faramerz Dabhoiwala (Allen Lane/The Penguin Press 484pp £25) A woman born in 1600 grew up being told she was the most lustful of God's creatures.
Come 1800 and the message was reversed: she was 'naturally' delicate and pure. No longer having lusts of her own to manage, her role was to control the 'natural' lust of men and thus preserve civilisation. Dogmas about sexuality had undergone remarkable change. In this ambitious and wide-ranging book, Faramerz Dabhoiwala charts what he calls 'a history of the first sexual revolution'. Few would dispute the basic premise of this book - that the Enlightenment brought about transformations in social and sexual attitudes - and it is hardly surprising that religious toleration brought sexual toleration in its wake; or, conversely, that religion in the shape of Protestantism was the driving force behind sexual discipline in the West.
The Fascinating Story of the Original Sexual Revolution | Sex & Relationships. June 13, 2012 | Like this article? Join our email list: Stay up to date with the latest headlines via email. Academic history — the kind backed up by piles of primary-source research and hedged with cautionary remarks — is often useful, but rarely fascinating. “The Origin of Sex” begins with an anecdote from 1612.
As extreme as such penalties sound, Dabhoiwala argues, they were generally approved by the populace. The causes of this change are numerous and complex, and it’s particularly difficult to explain because most contemporary people assume that everyone in the past saw sex much as we do now — albeit, with a greater degree of “repression” and a longer list of forbidden activities. You may have heard, for example, that in the Middle Ages women were regarded as the more erotically insatiable and adulterous gender.
All ages have their sexual renegades and bawdy humor, but looking at these doesn’t always give you a sense of how most people lived and thought. Feminist blog about womens rights for teenage girls | fbomb. How Are Teenage Girls Supposed To Identify As Feminists With These Role Models? "Plus, girls my age are trained so thoroughly to hate themselves that sadly, it's probably harder for them to be their own role models than to find one in the vast, global populace. " I don't disagree, but by who? Their frenemies? Other high school kids who bandy the word "slut" around so casually?
Shitty, mean, immature high school boys (seriously)? Their parents? The market and pop culture, which hold up the hot barely legal teenager as the ideal woman? On the flipside of shit like Teen Vogue, I see alot of magazines that, treacly or stupid as much of the content is, focuses at least some of it's pages on coming out, self-mutilation, eating disorders, and issues related to self esteem and self-acceptance. I will say this—it makes me deeply, deeply sad that "feminist" is still associated with hating men, punishing men, being (by default or on purpose) sexually unappealing to men, being lonely and aggressive. Who am I kidding—what "STILL" associated? The first sexual revolution: lust and liberty in the 18th century.
Why women have sex. Do you want to know why women have sex with men with tiny little feet? I am stroking a book called Why Women Have Sex. It is by Cindy Meston, a clinical psychologist, and David Buss, an evolutionary psychologist. It is a very thick, bulging book. I've never really wondered Why Women Have Sex. But after years of not asking the question, the answer is splayed before me. Meston and Buss have interviewed 1,006 women from all over the world about their sexual motivation, and in doing so they have identified 237 different reasons why women have sex. Not 235. Why, I ask Meston, have people never really talked about this? "People just assumed the answer was obvious," Meston says. "We never ever expected it to be so diverse," she says.
The first question asked is: what thrills women? We are, apparently, scrabbling around for what biologists call "genetic benefits" and "resource benefits". So Why Women Have Sex is partly a primer for decoding personal ads. Love: an insurance policy Medicinal sex. Birth Control Isn’t Really About “Women’s Health.” It’s About… | Marriage 3.0. The Trojan Paradox - By Charles Kenny. Why Rick Santorum would have killed my daughter - Sarah Fister Gale. Why Does Rush Limbaugh Get Away With Calling a Young Woman a 'Slut'? - Conor Friedersdorf - Politics. Rick Santorum and prenatal testing: I would have saved my son from his suffering. Female Witness Hits Back at Issa: "I'm a Woman Who Uses Contraception, That Makes Me Qualified" to Testify.
Birth control: The right’s still winning. Corseted Minds: Does Fear of Irrelevance Send Conservative Men Fleeing to the Victorian Age? | News & Politics. Sex and the Single Girl: Why American culture is still so scared by single people. The social conservative subterranean fantasy world is exposed, and it's frightening. Could women really be discriminated against for taking birth control? If a crazy Arizona bill passes, yes. Why women still can't enjoy sex. Is an over-the-counter birth control pill dangerous? Soraya Chemaly: 10 Reasons The Rest Of The World Thinks The U.S. Is Nuts. The abortion survivor myth. Recent research shows women getting abortions know what they're doing and don't need lectures.
Abortions made public - Reproductive Rights.