By Cameron Conaway / The Good Men Project

“My very first survivor was a boy. How many of us are looking for boys?”
~ Sandra Morgan, Director, Global Center for Women & Justice at Vanguard University

His legs were thin as faded whispers and dangled like twisted ropes from his wheelchair, and his walk was a drag as he pulled himself along with worn-out school erasers clutched in each hand. Nadu was born this way and despite being 13 years old, he had just received his first wheelchair the day prior to my arrival. He hadn’t needed one for the past seven years. When he was five his family bent to the weight of foresight, tradition and circumstance. They sold him.   [Read more…]

By Sarah Seltzer/Alternet

A new study shows that the HPV vaccine (which gives teenage girls immunization against the sexually transmitted disease that can cause cervical and other cancers) does not increase the likelihood of sexual activity. If this seems like common sense, it is–to most people who are not conservatives ready to be whipped into a panicky frenzy about the kids and the sex and in particular, the “promiscuous girls.”   [Read more…]

As I contemplate the composition of this article, I am struck by a couple of things: One, as of Sept. 21 I have been a widow for three years. Time goes by fast, even if you are not having fun. Secondly, I joined my first dating service in January. During that time I have met a total of 12 men, even though I contacted over 200. (That’s the truth. I have all of their names on a grid so that I didn’t contact them more than once.) For the most part, those I met were nice enough, but the spark I was looking for never materialized and, even though I renewed my subscriptions to three sites, I will not do so when they expire at the end of the month.

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Feministe / By Jill Filipovic

Better feminists than I have written entire books on this topic (see The Purity Myth: How America’s Obsession with Virginity Is Hurting Young Women), but damn if this Hairpin interview with a lapsed Christian virgin doesn’t illustrate just how messed up “purity” messages can make young women.

Don’t get me wrong: I appreciate Clara’s insights, and I think she’s very brave for sharing her perspectives. She seems quite wonderful, and Jia’s questions were spot-on. It’s a great interview and this isn’t meant as a critique of it, or even of sexual abstention. If people want to abstain from sex until marriage (or abstain from sex until forever, or whenever) that’s great — your body, your choice. I don’t have a problem with choosing to be abstinent until X date or event (your wedding, college, your 18th birthday, your 40th birthday, whatever); I do have a big problem with the Christian language and theory behind the “purity” rationale for waiting until marriage to have sex.   [Read more…]

By Camira PowellPolicymic

If you believe comprehensive sex education can actually make a difference in how kids think about sex, the CDC has the numbers to back you up. A recent study conducted by the organization reveals that the percentage of teens engaging in oral sex has decreased between 2002 and 2010. This trend is accompanied by a decrease in vaginal intercourse among teens, and the lowest teen pregnancy rate in the U.S. in 40 years.

As much as these numbers are cause for celebration, the fight for adequate sex education in schools in lieu of abstinence-only education has not been given any thought this election season. When first elected to office, the Obama administration provided more funds to programs that took an evidence-based approach to teaching sex and health education. Evidence-based programs give students the facts about things like sexual intercourse, STIs and pregnancy prevention using contraception. However, with the passing of his Affordable Care Act, Obama is now backing conservative abstinence-only programs in public secondary schools. Romney, on the other hand, has remained mum on the issue in recent months, though he has publicly supported abstinence-only sex education in the past.   [Read more…]

Salon / By Tracy Clark-Flory

Oral sex with a condom or dental dam: It’s one of those things things that sexual health educators preach but which people rarely practice. A reminder of that came earlier this week with the release of a CDC report noting that “adolescents perceive fewer health-related risks for oral sex compared with vaginal intercourse” and, as a result, young people may “be placing themselves at risk of STIs or HIV before they are ever at risk of pregnancy.”

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by Catherine Scott/Bitch Magazine

If we bemoan the oversexualization of culture, should we also be concerned about the kinkification of culture? As BDSM blogger Clarisse Thorn writes, “Being a sex-positive feminist, I worry that other women will read my work and it will increase their performance anxiety … that it will lead other women to feel like, ‘gosh, is this something liberated sex-positive women do? Is this something I should be doing?”. Thanks to a prescriptive media, the competition to be having the most out-there, kinky, freaky, dirty sex keeps escalating, with “Ultimate Perv” engraved on the winner’s medal. Fantastic if you’re antsy to compete, but what if you’re just not into all that stuff? What if you think you secretly might be…[whisper it, now!]…vanilla?

One of the reasons I didn’t dare join a fetish community website, or go to a play party, ’til years after I was first curious about BDSM, was a subconscious sense that I was probably “too vanilla.” I didn’t dress head-to-toe in latex or own any seven-inch heels, and I didn’t take my partner down to the local shops on a dog leash. I’ve since realized that the scene is open to anyone who feels their sexual tastes land outside the mainstream—there’s no test you have to pass. However, by labelling every non-kinky person as effectively the same, is the BDSM community just as judgmental as those who judge us?   [Read more…]

by A feleségül

Last week, I applied for a job that might be the solution to my dilemma. I applied to be a Sex Talk Operator. You know – where guys – girls, too, I guess, call the sex line and become titillated by the female on the other end of the phone. I could do that, I think.

If I were a different kind of person I could enjoy turning men on, and then hanging up on them. But the Human Relations expert (?) I talked to warned me that I could not hang up on the caller – the cost is excessive – and billed to their credit card by the minute! I would be paid a small stipend, and the longer I talked to the caller the more commission I would make. (I guess I don’t want a “wham, bam, thank you ma’am situation.”)   [Read more…]