news!

Nowadays, most of my updates to this site are found articles in the news on sex-related topics. A lot of these articles concern sex education–a subject I deem very important, one that seems so swept under the rug despite the battles going on in various school systems across our country currently(scratch that–across MANY countries). The debate is alive and well and understandably intense. I gravitate towards posting articles as opposed to spouting off my personal opinions because I’m intrigued by how much sex is in the news out there–how much gets glossed over for the big bold headlines(mostly about which-celebrity-is-currently-grunting as she releases her bowels and lights a Marlboro Light…all caught on camera!!). I hope that my posts pull forth those buried news stories about sex and sex education.

now vs. then.

article excerpt from: salon.com

Young, fast and totally confused
When it comes to sex, today’s teen girls must have it easier than their mothers’ generation… right? In an essay for RH Reality Check, Heather Corinna takes apart one of the so-called “post-feminist” era’s most pervasive assumptions. Her conclusion? Teens don’t have any fewer sex-related issues to deal with than their parents did; theirs are just different.

And if anyone should know, it’s Corinna: As a founder of the excellent Scarleteen, she has been helping girls (and boys) access good information about sex and reproductive health since 1998. The site’s frank, comprehensive, nonjudgmental approach to teens’ most intimate queries has made it an invaluable resource at a time when so many school sex ed programs fall short.

“I can understand why it can seem like young women have it easier when it comes to sex and sexuality,” Corinna writes, citing improved access to birth control, abortion and information, as well as increasing acceptance of LGBT youth and a livelier cultural conversation about sexuality, as examples of this generation’s advantages. “But,” she continues, “all those benefits can also pose some not-so-beneficials, and some very real challenges. Young women now have some extra bags to carry that we before them may not have had to.”

To illustrate her point, Corinna tackles the idea that learning “no means no” has stopped young women from falling prey to unwanted sexual advances:

[M]any grow up also experiencing that while no may mean no, they don’t always have an easy time saying it or feel the permission to. Too, many young women are more frequently, and at earlier ages — which for some is due to sexual development happening earlier historically than it ever has for women before — finding themselves in the position of responding to sexual invitations and situations. Statistically, the earlier young women become sexually active, the more frequently they report those very early experiences are coerced: saying no in a highly loaded situation, no matter what generation we belong to, tends to be something that is a lot more difficult the younger we are. As well, the younger women are when they become sexually active, the older their partners tend to be, and the less likely it is that contraception or safer sex practices are used.

Corinna goes on to remind us that there have been few advances in birth control since the early ’90s — and the improvements that have been made to existing methods may be teaching girls to be disgusted with their bodies. “[T]he use of hormonal methods for menstrual suppression is becoming more popular,” she writes. “With more older women talking about how awesome not having a period is, women in their teens having a hard enough time already accepting the adult changes in their bodies get another message that those changes are as awful and gross as they feel.” The only momentous, fairly recent birth-control development — emergency contraception — has it downsides, too. Many teens don’t have access to it (although, thanks to a judge’s order, it will soon be available without prescription to 17 year olds), and those who do may feel “those same sorts of pressures to provide sex to wanting partners my mother’s generation experienced with the popularity of the pill.”

At the same time, the endless supply of information constantly bombarding teens may be causing problems of its own. Girls receive so many contradictory messages about sexuality that confusion is inevitable. “Let’s bear in mind,” writes Corinna, “most of us my age also did not grow up hearing about the virginity pledges on the same night we casually flipped the remote past an ad for Girls Gone Wild.” Meanwhile, in our media-saturated culture, the pressure to conform to unrealistic beauty standards is having a greater effect on younger girls.

Even in the realm of education, “more information is not always better information, nor information that’s really about them, which is accurate, information they can contextualize soundly or even know how to look for in the first place.” And without proper guidance, “navigating it all can sometimes leave young people feeling like they know less, rather than more. Very few young people have had education in determining credibility or bias in media, after all.”

Where Corinna really nails it is in her analysis of what older generations’ assumptions may be doing to teens: “The very expectation that young women today should or do have it so much easier, in and of itself, can be a pressure. Many older women expect younger women to be apt at managing all of these issues and more in ways that they themselves were not and may still not be.” When we assume that kids already know everything they need to know about sex — that they’ve learned it from the Internet, or TV, or even school — we ignore the likelihood that they are dealing with the same kind of confusion we once did. And that can lead not only to isolation, but also the perpetuation of myths over real knowledge.

― Judy Berman

withdrawal method news

(from nytimes)

Withdrawal Method Finds Ally
By PAM BELLUCK
Published: July 20, 2009

Which birth-control method is more effective: condoms or withdrawal?

For sex educators and others, the answer is glaringly obvious. Withdrawal before ejaculation, the so-called pullout method, is a last resort, they say — something to be used only if there are no other options. The effectiveness of condoms, on the other hand, is well known.

So reproductive experts were taken aback by a paper in the June issue of Contraception magazine. Based on an analysis of studies, the paper pronounced withdrawal “almost as effective as the male condom — at least when it comes to pregnancy prevention.”

“If the male partner withdraws before ejaculation every time a couple has vaginal intercourse, about 4 percent of couples will become pregnant over the course of a year,” the authors write.

For condoms, used optimally, the rate is about 2 percent. But more significant, the authors say, are the rates for “typical use,” because people can’t be expected to use any contraception method perfectly every time. Typical use of withdrawal leads to pregnancy 18 percent of the time, they write; for typical use of condoms 17 percent of the time.

(There are other, more effective methods. Failure rates for the pill and the patch are about 8 percent; for Depo-Provera injections, about 3 percent; and for diaphragms, about 16 percent. Intrauterine devices fail less than 1 percent of the time.)

The lead author, Rachel K. Jones, a senior research associate at the Guttmacher Institute, which studies reproductive health matters, said she and her co-authors were motivated to write the paper because it seemed to them the pullout method was getting short shrift.

“We had all noticed that social science researchers and health care providers just kind of dismiss withdrawal and don’t seem to realize that it can prevent pregnancy,” Ms. Jones said. “Most people seem to be under the impression that you might as well do nothing.”

Even she used to think of withdrawal as “cheating,” she said. But “most women have used withdrawal at some point in their lives” and it seemed logical to compare the method to condoms, because health care providers “have no problem advocating the use of condoms as a method even though those are flawed.”

Some educators and physicians said they worried that putting out a message that withdrawal is effective would just give teenagers encouragement to have unprotected sex. And many underscored what the authors themselves point out: that unlike condoms, withdrawal does not protect against sexually transmitted diseases, a strong reason to encourage condoms.

But Ms. Jones said the intention was not to advocate withdrawal, but to advocate talking about it.

“Health care providers and health educators should discuss withdrawal as a legitimate, if slightly less effective, contraceptive method in the same way they do condoms and diaphragms,” the authors write. “Dismissing withdrawal as a legitimate contraceptive method is counterproductive for the prevention of pregnancy and also discourages academic inquiry into this frequently used and reasonably effective method.”

Ms. Jones and her co-authors said they were dismayed to see that withdrawal had not been exhaustively studied.

“Despite its role in the European fertility decline, and relatively high levels of use, acceptability and effectiveness,” they write, “most studies of withdrawal since that time have been small in scale (e.g., married Turkish men), or have focused on specific populations (e.g., Israeli Jews or Chinese Canadians obtaining abortions).”

The authors say there has been a bias against studying or legitimizing withdrawal, partly because of “preference for modern methods and the strongly held belief that pre-ejaculate fluid contains sperm, despite the lack of supporting evidence.”

Studies may underreport withdrawal use “because respondents do not consider it a ‘method,’ ” they write. “One study found that only 3 of 62 Turkish factory workers reported on a questionnaire that they used withdrawal. However, in face-to-face interviews, an additional 17 reported current use of this method.”

Two of the authors also conducted their own interviews to gather anecdotal information on people’s sexual practices. The interviews indicated that many people did not consider withdrawal a serious method. One woman, said she used no birth control, adding: “Sometimes we use condoms. But for the most part just the withdrawal method. Which I know is, like, the worst thing.”

Many people preferred withdrawal to condoms. As one said, “you can still have sex, it doesn’t smell bad, it doesn’t have chemicals in it.”

The research convinced the authors that “it is unfortunate that some couples do not realize they are substantially reducing their risk of pregnancy when using withdrawal, as these misperceptions may cause unnecessary levels of anxiety. More speculatively, if more people realized that correct and consistent use of withdrawal substantially reduced the risk of pregnancy, they might use it more effectively.”

Some experts said they did not dispute the findings but worried that young people would construe the article’s conclusion’s too liberally. “Those data don’t necessarily translate to youth today,” said Dr. Melissa Gilliam, chief of family planning and contraceptive research in the University of Chicago’s Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology, who is on the board of the Guttmacher Institute. “In terms of a reliable method used over and over again, the risk of failure is quite high.”

Martha Kempner, vice president for information and communications at the Sexuality Information and Education Council of the United States, said withdrawal, while less problematic for married or long-term monogamous couples, is not as acceptable in other circumstances because “well-intentioned young men can get it wrong, or somebody can just not do it after they said they would.”

Spirited comments on blogs largely agreed. “I wouldn’t want to trust a dude to get it right every time,” read one comment on the blog CollegeCandy.

Still, Ms. Kempner said: “It has made some classroom teachers nervous to give out the truth in this instance, but we do have to tell the truth. People, kids in particular, they’re using it. It is better than nothing, and it is always available. You can’t say, ‘Oh, I didn’t have one.’ ”

joy of sex jr.

(thanks to T. for passing on this article!)

A National Health Service leaflet is advising school pupils that they have a “right” to an enjoyable sex life and that regular intercourse can be good for their cardiovascular health.

The advice appears in guidance circulated to parents, teachers and youth workers, and is intended to update sex education by telling pupils about the benefits of sexual pleasure. For too long, say its authors, experts have concentrated on the need for “safe sex” and loving relationships while ignoring the main reason that many people have sex, that is, for enjoyment.

The document, called Pleasure, has been drawn up by NHS Sheffield, although it is also being circulated outside the city.

Alongside the slogan “an orgasm a day keeps the doctor away”, it says: “Health promotion experts advocate five portions of fruit and veg a day and 30 minutes’ physical activity three times a week. What about sex or masturbation twice a week?”

Steve Slack, director of the Centre for HIV and Sexual Health at NHS Sheffield, who is one of the authors, argues that, far from promoting teenage sex, it could encourage young people to delay losing their virginity until they are sure they will enjoy the experience.

Slack believes that as long as teenagers are fully informed about sex and are making their decisions free of peer pressure and as part of a caring relationship, they have as much right as an adult to a good sex life.

Anthony Seldon, master of Wellington College, Berkshire, who introduced classes in emotional wellbeing, said the approach was “deplorable”.

best of & advice

Do yourself a favor. Go here and read this week’s Dating Confessions from Nerve.com. Soundbites from submitters. For example:

June 25 2009, 07:36 p.m.
“Seriously? A bloody-palm high five after period sex? I love you so much”

***

Also via Nerve.com, sex advice from firework vendors…

Why should I date a fireworks salesman?
I would have to say the best reason to date someone who’s in the fireworks industry is that we have the biggest balls.

Click here to read the rest.

um…wha?

Pornography outlawed in Ukraine, unless it’s “medicinal”

Possession of pornography is now a criminal offense in Ukraine, Lenta.ru reports, after Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko signed a law to that effect today. Human rights activists and members of the Ukrainian artistic community had asked the president to veto the law.

The draft of the law was prepared by the Ukrainian government. It was passed by the Ukrainian parliament, the Supreme Rada, on June 11.

Now pornography can be kept only “for medical purposes,” according to the Ukrainian Ministry of Justice. The ministry also warns that possession of a large number of identical images will be considered evidence of trading in pornography, which is also criminalized.

Punishment for possession of pornography will include fines and imprisonment for up to three years.

(source: mosnews.com)