March 2012
111 posts
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[Youth] Survey on Sexuality Creates Change in...
So, what does it look like when kids and young people are empowered to investigate problems in their communities? How do they talk about critical issues like sex and sexuality?
I traveled to a rural community in northern Nicaragua to observe a consultoria in action. CESESMA’s most recent consultancy is about sex education, a delicate topic in Nicaragua, a majority-Catholic country.
I took a...
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Just a Bit Radical: A New Magazine for LGBT Youth
Just a Bit Radical is a magazine with a simple mission: to provide lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, intersex, and asexual (LGBTQQIA) youth and their allies ages 13 to 30 with a publication that discusses ideas and issues that are important to them. We look to increase positive LGBTQQIA awareness in media and in print, and portray a positive and honest view of LGBTQQIA...
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I Love Abortion: Implying Otherwise Accomplishes...
I love abortion. I don’t accept it. I don’t view it as a necessary evil. I embrace it. I donate to abortion funds. I write about how important it is to make sure that every woman has access to safe, legal abortion services. I have bumper stickers and buttons and t-shirts proclaiming my support for reproductive freedom. I love abortion.
And I bristle every time a fellow activist uses...
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Scarleteen.com Redesign
One of the oldest, most unique, and still most badass sex education sites for teenagers is Scarleteen.com, run by the passionate & talented Heather Corinna. Scarleteen is an interactive educational space started in 1998 where teens have always been able to ask tough questions anonymously to adult professionals plus make connections to each other. The social community is paired with honest...
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raised with gender roles
I’ve been thinking about this for a long time, and I wanted to know what everyone on here thought. I might seem like I’m saying a lot of what I already know, but I’m doing my best to get out what I mean here. That which follows in the square brackets is totally just one way of the following, I don’t think that this is the only way this sort of thing proceeds: [From the...
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I survived sexual assault, then got stuck in a...
antigone68 asks:
I’m a woman in my early twenties and identify as a feminist. Last November I was raped by someone I had previously considered to be a close friend. However, the assault itself isn’t what I am writing about. I’ve read many of Scarleteen’s wonderful articles on sexual assault and I am quite comfortable with the idea that what happened to me isn’t my fault.
Shortly after the...
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'The Secret History of Love': LGBT story in motion
Award-winning choreographer Sean Dorsey creates visual poems hinging on universal narratives of love, heartbreak and the desire for community. His dances seamlessly stitch together past and present, hope and history, personal intimacy and social context. His newest production, “The Secret History of Love,” is an epic work that chronicles the ways LGBT people have built relationships...
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Endometriosis May Emerge in Adolescence
Dr. Thomas D’Hooghe, a professor at the Catholic University of Leuven and director of the Leuven (Belgium) University Fertility Center, presented the results of a systematic literature review of 1,014 publications over a 30-year span, with 15 studies found to examine the prevalence of endometriosis in adolescents.
Of 893 girls who presented for laparoscopy with chronic pelvic pain or dysmenorrhea...
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For Some Adolescent Girls in India, a Struggle to...
When 11-year-old Durga Jadav awoke to find that she’d begun to menstruate, she wondered if she’d return to school.
“I like school,” she said. “Unlike some girls who only go because their parents make them.” The Annual Survey of Education Report, or ASER, published by the non-profit organization Pratham in January, shows that girls aged 11 to 14 years old are most likely to drop out of school in...
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“Q: How does a feminist approach to sex education represent the future of the...”
– Read it all at, The Cutting Room Floor: Ms. Magazine/Future of Feminism, here.
The Birth Control Black Market
myplannedparenthood:
Have you ever had to turn to places like Craigslist to buy your birth control - because it’s so damn expensive? More and more people are - and it’s pretty dangerous.
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If you've wanted/needed to use emergency... →
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Facebook Twitter You Tube RSS Email Updates...
The influence of politics on science and women’s health was once again on full display late last year. In December 2011, Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Kathleen Sebelius blocked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) approval of Plan B One-Step’s over-the-counter (OTC) status. It would have been the first time emergency contraception (EC) would be available without a...
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Scarleteens of Yesteryear
As we’re rolling out some redesign we’ve been working (and working to fund) over the last year or so, we thought we’d celebrate by sharing some of our history. Mind, it’s probably more fun for our readers than it is for me, since showing some designs from times when the tech to do design blew, and one’s (notice how I avoid saying my?) skills were less honed is a bit...
Gynecologists Don't Talk To Women About Sex... →
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Thanks, Carrie!
Hell Yeah Scarleteen
Figure 1: You should totally buy Heather Corinna’s book.
Based on the Google hits that bring people to my blog (hot-guy-shirtless, my-boner-in-sweatpants, etc.), it’s probably not surprising that I’d endorse Scarleteen, the teen sex education site that has somehow managed to deliver excellent content in a social climate that seems to only want to...
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Belvedere Vodka Retracts Offensive Ad, Flubs...
The ad, which reads “Unlike some people, Belvedere goes down smoothly,” got its share of outraged reactions on Twitter, where the ad first appeared as part of a new marketing campaign. Featuring a prominent photo of a man grabbing a terrified-looking woman from behind, the not-so-subtle double entendre about the vodka’s taste ended up sounding like sexual assault to most who saw the ad.
...
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Finding the freedom to be LGBT
Growing up in Tehran, he said, he was 12 when “I think different than other girls the same age.”
He wanted to be a boy.
But Iran, a traditional Islamic country, is not open-minded or educated about LGBT people, Aren said in an interview last week at the NSC office. In fact, in Iran a person can be executed for being gay.
He kept his secret from his family, but his mother, a nurse,...
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Pharmacies deter teens from Plan B, study shows
Even though it’s legal for 17-year-olds [in the United States] to get the so-called morning-after pill, a new study shows that pharmacy employees often dole out the wrong information, telling the teens they’re not allowed to have the drug.
An undercover survey found that many of the pharmacies that told girls they were too young to get emergency contraception offered correct information when a...
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Beauty regime change: the lost art of NOT looking...
When feminists first advocated it in the 1970s, unprettiness was a statement of resistance to being seen as sexual objects. Although they seem bolder than us, radical feminists didn’t stand out as much in their age as we do in ours. Most 1970s women were blemished and hirsute to a greater or lesser extent. My mum never plucked her eyebrows or gave a second thought to her skin type. She...
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Is it really possible to be dominating and caring at the same time? He never calls me names or makes me feel dirty and it’s amazing how safe he makes me feel even with these acts, the whole attitude and little things like putting a pillow under my knees. Can it be that the domination in bed does not affect our everyday life? I was worried that he would start to feel differently about me,...
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So, About That Sex You're Having While You're...
What I also know from doing my job with young people, especially over the last ten years or so, it that how I see and frame sex as a sexuality and sexual health educator and worker isn’t how plenty of people do. I know that more than quite a few young people are engaging in what, in my view, is sex, but, in their view or definition, is not.
…
If at 17, someone had said to me,...
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Where Is The Physician Outrage?
Right. Here.
I’m speaking, of course, about the required-transvaginal-ultrasound thing that seems to be the flavor-of-the-month in politics.
I do not care what your personal politics are. I think we can all agree that my right to swing my fist ends where your face begins.
I do not feel that it is reactionary or even inaccurate to describe an unwanted, non-indicated transvaginal ultrasound as...
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“Understanding the big picture about race, culture and ethnicity allows us to...”
– More from this piece, Constructive Conversations on Race, Class, Gender, Sexuality and the -isms of Our Day, here.
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Santorum’s contraception deception →
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LGBT Protection Added to Violence Against Women... →
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“Acts of kindness and assistance, which appear at an early age in some children,...”
– Read the rest here.
(Also, this is just a good reminder for people of any age who are helper-types. Self-care is really important, as are healthy boundaries and asking for help and support when WE need it too.)
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“Once intercourse begins I ejaculate in about 20-30 seconds give or take. I want...”
– Read volunteer Joey’s answer here.
“Conservatives say teaching sex education in the public schools will promote...”
– Beverly Mickins (via pompouspaul)
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A reminder: if you know using the word slut as a shame, a slur, a control has got to stop, you should also know the same is true of prude.
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“Gov. Gary Herbert vetoed a controversial bill that would have required schools...”
– http://qsaltlake.com/2012/03/19/herbert-vetos-sex-education-bill/
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A Call to Cardinal Dolan to Stop Endangering LGBT...
Cardinal Dolan, I write to you as the director of the Ali Forney Center, the nation’s largest organization dedicated to homeless LGBT youth. I am writing to you on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of LGBT youths who have been driven from their homes by parents unwilling or unable to accept their own children because they are gay. And I write to you as a member of the Archdiocese of New...
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Canadian Federation for Sexual Health- Sexuality... →
takebacksexuality:
Sex can be liberating, safe, and pleasurable. It is important to listen to your body, talk with your partner, friends, family, and health provider, and use protection properly every time. Depending on your disability, sex may require more innovation, patience and planning.
Quick facts on sexuality and disability
People with disabilities are sexual.
Having a disability does...
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Anonymous asked: I didn't have abstinence-only sex...
evrythingsmagic:
ladyatheist:
To anyone else out there who feels like their sex education isn’t adequate (or it’s non-existent), take matters into your own hands.
Reblogging because I, too, got most of my sex ed from the internet, primarily Scarleteen. It’s a great, honest resource!
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“Telling someone they are normal may provide momentary relief. But once they get...”
– This and more excellent thoughts on sexuality and “normal” from Cory Silverberg here: http://sexuality.about.com/b/2012/03/19/the-trouble-with-normal.htm
And on that note, we’ve wondered before what’s so great about normalcy, anyway, here:...
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Pakistan blocks access to teen sex-ed site
In ongoing censorship of the internet, Pakistan has blocked access to Scarleteen, a sex education website geared towards teenagers.
In an alarming development, the website that has provided sex education and support worldwide since 1998 has apparently been banned as part of the PTA’s attempt to shut access to all pornographic content to Pakistani internet users.
Scarleteen, which was...
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“My boyfriend and I have been sexually active for five months. We always used...”
– Read the answer from Justin here: http://www.scarleteen.com/article/advice/is_this_a_semen_allergy
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“I was on the pill long before I was an appropriate age to start having sex. I...”
– Read the rest here.
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I Have Sex. And I Vote.
When reproductive health, rights and justice folks responded to the craziness with the bishops, and the ensuing madness of Sandra Fluke, we were all like, HEY. Many women use these pills for reasons having NOTHING to do with sex.
This is true. Folks have collected thousands of stories that talk about how important the pill is for managing various hormonal and uterine situations. According to...
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“‘Students’ awareness on gender issues is still at the lowest level. They...”
– From She Is His Equal: Pushing Gender Studies in Armenian Classrooms
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For attitudes towards rape to change, society...
Whereas social attitudes towards racial equality and homosexuality have tended to become more progressive as the younger generation has come through, attitudes towards the sexual assault of women appear to lag significantly behind. A 2008 poll of Northern Ireland university students commissioned by Amnesty International found that almost half of those polled believed a woman to be partially or...
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Hundreds protest Utah sex-ed measure
SALT LAKE CITY, March 15 (UPI) — Hundreds of protesters urged Utah Gov. Gary Herbert to veto a bill that would forbid school districts to teach use of contraceptives.
The bill, which drew the protesters to the state Capitol’s Rotunda Wednesday, would also allow school districts to drop sex education and require those that keep the courses to teach only abstinence as a means of birth...
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“At the beginning of week 14, I had my most recent appointment with my OB/GYN....”
– Read the rest ,from our wonderfully candid, longtime volunteer Sarah, at Pregnant & Posting: 14 & 15 Weeks
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