Next Week in Sex

A new survey from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health shows that teens who take abstinence pledges are no more likely to actually stay abstinent than comparable teens who don't take such a pledge. However, there was one difference noted between the two groups of teens. Although members of each group engage in nearly identical sexual practices, those who took pledges are less likely to use contraception. In fact, 24% of pledgers used condoms, as opposed to 34% of non-pledgers.

This is just icing on the cake for those who support comprehensive sex education, rather than abstinence-only sex education, which has been known for years to be ineffective at actually promoting abstinence. Call me crazy, but I can't figure out for the life of me why many people oppose teaching kids about contraception. Condoms, in real-life settings, may fail around 15% of the time, but abstinence fails closer to 45% of the time. Please tell me teens are learning about probability in math class. Read More......

This Week in Sex

In just the past few days there's been a decent number of strange findings related to sex:

Finding #1: The CIA is using Viagra to fight terrorism.

Probably the best way to prevent terrorist attacks is to get information about the potential attackers. The only people with access to such valuable info are the terrorists themselves. However, nobody's going to just give up secrets for the hell of it, so the CIA bribes members of terrorist organizations to get them to talk. This plan works well except for a single flaw: Bribes are normally paid in money and/or weapons, both of which can be used to prepare an attack against the U.S. So the obvious way to get around this is to give informants something else. It has just been revealed that this "something else" is frequently Viagra. This arrangement works for America because it's unlikely that this drug could be used against us and the informants like it because they are generally old men with multiple wives. If this plan is successful, the only missiles terrorists will be able to fire will be the ones in their pants.

Finding #2: Breakfast promotes abstinence.

According to researchers in Japan, there is a correlation between skipping breakfast and losing one's virginity. The research revealed that "The average age of first-time sex for those who said they ate breakfast every day as a middle school student was 19.4, while for those who skipped breakfast, the average age was 17.5." The survey also found that those who had a more negative view of their mother were more likely to have sex at an earlier age. The data suggest that it is likely that sexual behavior is related to one's home environment.

Finding #3: Orgasmatron development is reaching a climax.

In the 1973 Woody Allen film Sleeper, Allen plays the role of a man brought into the future. During one of his misadventures, he is shown futuristic machines, the funniest of which is the orgasmatron, a chamber that stimulates orgasms for all those who enter it. The idea of an orgasmatron seemed goofy at the time, but now it's a real device in development. The only difference between this version and the movie depiction is that the real orgasmatron is a chip that can be inserted into someone's brain and stimulate the orbitofrontal cortex, the part of the brain that controls pleasure. Earlier versions of this device were developed to counteract the effects of Parkinson's disease. However, the researchers were surprised when the female test subjects were a little too "pleased" with the device.

The orgasmatron does have obvious benefits, but there are fears that when the technology becomes cheaper and easier to install people with fully-functioning nervous systems will not only use this device, but also become addicted to it. Whether or not this will become a problem has yet to be seen, particularly because the orgasmatron is still undergoing research and development.

Finding #4: This isn't a scientific finding as much as something I found out for myself yesterday while I was looking for sources regarding the other 3 findings. Apparently the Supreme Court upheld a law in Alabama that forbids the sale of vibrators in the state. (The law does, though, have a bunch of exceptions.) The maximum penalty for violating this law includes a fine of $10,000. Selling a pistol to a minor in that state can result in a fine of up to $500 dollars. If anyone can figure out how selling a vibrator to an adult is 20 times worse than giving a firearm to a child, please explain it to me. Also, what do you think the penalty will be for selling orgasmatrons in Alabama? Read More......

Oh Really, O'Reilly?

As mentioned in an earlier blog entry, we're getting closer to Christmas, so you know what that means: It's time for the War on Christmas. Bill O'Reilly has been getting furious over the "atheists" and "secular progressives" who are tearing this nation apart by saying "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas". Saying "Happy Holidays" could evidently cause things like the destruction of western civilization, remove Christmas from the list of national holidays, and legalize gay marriage (which would be soooooooo terrible).

Following O'Reilly's logic, all those who use the phrase "Happy Holidays" when "Merry Christmas" would be appropriate are contributing to the problem. So, who's using this satanic terminology? The answer: News Corp. a.k.a. the corporation that owns FOX and FOX News. As it turns out, News Corp. threw a holiday party and reporters from Fox News even called it a holiday party on air. This means that Bill O'Reilly's enemy is the same network that broadcasts his opinions on a nightly basis. So there you have it: the War on Christmas is nothing more than a combination of irony, hypocrisy, and stupidity.

But even when you take O'Reilly out of the picture, the whole War on Christmas paranoia makes absolutely no sense. America is a land of great diversity filled with many people who have different religious customs. Since a significant number of people don't celebrate Christmas, Happy Holidays works for those who don't observe Christmas. As for Christians, they celebrate New Years and Christmas within a week of each other. That's 2 holidays, so Happy Holidays is also correct (and shorter than "Merry Christmas and Happy New Year"). And perhaps most importantly, if you want to say Merry Christmas to people who celebrate that holiday, nobody's stopping you. Your right to say that is completely intact. Sure, cashiers at certain stores are told to use the more generic term, but that's no more demoralizing than a cashier being forced to say something like "Would you like to buy a gift card?" Call me crazy, but there are far more serious issues to worry about (or write blog entries about) than preferential seasonal greetings.

Also, today is December 23rd, so Happy Festivus.

And finally, to all the people (if any) who read this blog, I'd just like to give you a message expressed by another comical character seen frequently on FOX, Krusty the Klown: "So, have a merry Christmas, a happy Chanukah, a kwaazy Kwanza, a tip-top Tet, and a solemn, dignified, Ramadan." Read More......

Only in America

With Obama making his final decisions regarding his cabinet, there has been a lot of speculation about who will get what post. We all know about positions like Secretary of State, Secretary of the Treasury, and Secretary of Defense, but who's going to be the new Secretary of the Navy? In most circumstances, the normal response to this question would be, "I don't know and I don't really care," but things are different this time around. As of now, the most likely pick for this position is Bill White, the president of the Intrepid Sea, Air, and Space Museum. This name probably means nothing to a lot of people, but there's something about this man that one would not associatiate with the military: White is openly gay.

As you are probably well aware, members of the military are subject to the "don't ask, don't tell" policy, which basically prohibits citizens from joining the armed forces if they are known to be gay. (The cabinet is comprised of civilians, so none of them are subject to this restriction.) If White becomes the Secretary of the Navy, he'll be in a very strange position as a gay man leading a group that prohibits his lifestyle. But more importantly is that if White does get the post, it will be a clear signal that the "don't ask, don't tell" policy is nearing its end, signifying a victory for gay rights and an end to one of our nation's most bizzare, nonsensical laws.


On a separate topic, the Minnesota senatorial election recount is nearly finished. It seems that the election will come down to how stupid and/or incompetant some people can be. It seems that for many ballots, it wasn't clear which candidate the voter intended to pick. For others, the issue was whether or not the ballot should be invalidated because words were written at inappropiate spots on the ballot. Some ballots were just bizarre. One ballot had the bubble corresponding to Norm Coleman filled in, but Al Franken was listed as a write-in candidate. But the strangest mistake was unquestionably the one where a voter selected Franken, but wrote "lizard people" as a write-in candidate. Fortunately, Minnesota has a comprehensive plan to pick a representative in the event that neither candidate can be definitively be determined to be the victor. This plan is known as "flipping a coin." (That wasn't a joke.) Only in America could "don't ask, don't tell" and the lizard people be politics as usual. Read More......

Surprise!

Who will be appearing at Barack Obama's inauguration?

Let's see. Dr. Joseph Lowery, civil rights leader and co-founder (with MLK) of SCLC? Good.

Itzhak Perlman and Yo-Yo Ma as part of a quartet playing a new piece for the occasion by John Williams? Good.

Aretha Franklin, the Queen of Soul? AWESOME.

Rick Warren, evangelical crusader against gay rights, reproductive rights, women's equality, separation of church and state, and all those things that many of us supported Mr. Obama for?

Wait, what?

Human Rights Campaign and People for the American Way have both sent open letters denouncing Mr. Warren's selection. You too can protest the decision by contacting the Obama transition team's LGBT liaison at parag.mehta@ptt.gov. If I find a petition, I'll edit the post to add a link. Read More......

I liiiiive!

All right, I don't have a real post, so here's a few mini-posts about things that have been going round the blogosphere, all stuck together in no particular order.

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) on the auto bailout, but really on union-busting:

"What I want to do is make sure we have jobs for these workers and we have first-class American automobile companies -- and we're not going to do it with the barnacles of unionism wrapped around their necks."

Mr. DeMint, I think the word you're looking for is "albatross," not "barnacle."

(If you're not aware, one condition of the Republicans supporting the auto bailout, which failed and which will now be financed from the other bailout money, was that the automakers cut their workers' wages.)

It's that time again - the holiday season, when conservatives complain that the phrase "Happy Holidays" is totally denying their freedom of religion, rather than that it's only preventing them from enforcing their religion on others. I'll just point out the continuation of a theme we've seen before (note the "whine more" tag) and mention the old response: if there is a War on Christmas, Christmas is kicking our asses.
(Edit: Another one.)

Salon recently ran a feature on the practice of upskirting. (i.e. taking photos under the skirts of unsuspecting women) One oh-so-gentlemanly gentleman is quoted in it as saying, "If you don't want to be photographed walking the street, don't walk down the street -- it's a public street."

Excuse me? How is this different from saying "You don't have an expectation of privacy in a movie theatre" as justification for photographing men using the toilet in said movie theatre?

No, there's no expectation of privacy on a street. But there is an expectation of privacy inside clothes.

The state of the economy, that all-purpose excuse, is now being drafted in an attempt to deprive Planned Parenthood of federal funding. See, PP has a budget surplus, so obviously they shouldn't be given any funding, unlike Wall Street firms and Detroit auto companies who clearly know how to manage money. It's pretty plain that the economy is a shoddy excuse for people who don't want their tax money funding abortions.

But guess what? That's a shoddy excuse too. Because it is illegal to use public funding for abortion. What does PP do with public money? Provide affordable contraception. Cancer screening. STD tests. And that's what these people want to defund. Because it's never really about protecting embryos or ending abortion - if it were, they should be falling over themselves to fund contraception. It is, of course, about making sure there are horrible consequences for women who have sex.

My kid sister went on a lobbying trip with her Hebrew school class and lobbied for comprehensive sex ed! We also teamed up to explain to our mother why the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act is really bad (recap: no health exception; why would anyone terminate that late unless it was a wanted child and there was a serious health problem; doesn't reduce number of late-term abortions, but makes them much more risky for the woman and painful for the family) I'm thinking of giving her a stack of feminist bloggy reading material - any suggestions of blogs or essays I ought to rec? (Pandagon, Feministe, etc. are already on...anything less well-known?)

I still have to see Milk. Whyyyyy is it not playing near me.

Read More......

Post-Post-Abortion Syndrome

New research reveals what what many of us already knew: that there is no correlation between having an abortion and psychological distress. In other words, there's no such thing as "post-abortion syndrome."

The study, performed by a team at Johns Hopkins involved going through every known study relating to abortion and mental health in peer-reviewed, English-language journals since 1989. According to the reasearchers, the studies that involved the most suspect methodologies were the only ones that confirmed the existence of "post-abortion syndrome."

It is possible that this finding could undermine the arguments upon which some abortion restrictions are based, but since when have science and actual evidence stopped people from trying to turn their opinions into public policy? Read More......

The Beginning of the End

In just one day, the election season will come to a close as Republican Incumbent Saxby Chambliss will face Democratic challenger Jim Martin in a runoff election for one of Georgia's seats in the Senate. If Al Franken wins the recount in the Minnesota race, this runoff will determine whether or not the Democrats will obtain a supermajority in the Senate. In Georgia, Chambliss got more votes in the first round of the election, but that doesn't matter in the runoff. What does matter is voter turnout. On November 4th, there was an historic presidential race and other things to vote on, not to mention massive excitement about the election. Now there is nowehere near the media coverage. (I checked and even if you search for the runoff on Google, there are barely any recent, relevant updates.) As a result, there is sure to be unbelievably low voter turnout tomorrow.

With this in mind, the obvious question to ask becomes: "Which candidate has done a better job of motivating potential voters to show up at the polls?" The answer: the Republicans. Many of Martin's supporters were people who were excited to vote for Obama. With the presidential election over, Martin can no longer count on their support. Chambliss, though, has gotten his fellow Republicans to speak on his behalf throughout the state. Sarah Palin, for example, has chosen to remain in the public spotlight instead of actually doing her job as a governor speak throughout the state in support of Chambliss. Measures like these will bring Republicans to the polls and prevent the Democrats from obtaining a supermajority.

To my fellow Democrats, this is certainly not terrible news. Democrats will still control the House, the Senate, and the Presidency. Not only that, but they will have full control over who gets appointed to the Supreme Court. With less than a supermajority in the Senate, at least there's some form of checks & balances, which can prevent anything too crazy from happening. All things considered, no matter what happens in Georgia tommorow, the Democrats will be in great shape for the next few years.

UPDATE: According to the New York Times, Saxby Chambliss has defeated Jim Martin in the runoff election, so it is now impossible for the Democrats to reach 60 seats even if Franken wins the Minnesota recount. Read More......