Teen access to Plan B turned down by Obama administration.

From Salon.com, and making the rounds on all the news sites (passed along by Jeremy - thanks!):

Obama says no to Plan B for teens

Once again, fear of teen sex trumps public health as a Cabinet secretary overrules the FDA

Why does Obama want your innocent little girl to have sex without you knowing?

The fear of an attack ad along those lines must have motivated the Obama administration’s decision today to overrule the Food and Drug Administration’s recommendation to allow emergency contraception to be sold on store shelves, and made available without a prescription to those under 17. There’s certainly no explanation based in science.

In an extraordinary statement, FDA commissioner Margaret Hamburg said she agreed with an internal study that “there is adequate and reasonable, well-supported and science-based evidence that Plan B One-Step is safe and effective and should be approved for non-prescription use for all females of child-bearing potential.” But, she said, the secretary of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, disagreed. Sebelius issued her own wishy-washy statement,claiming there wasn’t enough data on the drug’s effects on adolescents.

But there is no honest public-health reason to force teenage girls to see a doctor before accessing emergency contraception. There are only political ones. (The morning-after pill will still be available at pharmacies without a prescription for women over 17.)

Read the rest of the article here.

Common Hour: The Promise and Perils of Hook-Up Culture.

From Sociological Images:

Back in the spring, Lisa gave a talk at Franklin and Marshall College about data about the newness, prevalence, and content of “hook ups” on American campuses. Surprise, today’s college students didn’t invent casual sex and there’s no need for their parents to worry about a “bacchanalian orgy” in one dorm after another.  Concluding that the problem isn’t “too much” sex, she argues that the problem is too much bad sex.

In her own research, Lisa has found that students want sex to be pleasurable, empowering, or meaningful.  But, alas, they seem to have difficulty achieving any one of those things in great measure.  The culprit, she concludes, isn’t hooking up, it’s hook up culture.  When a hook up culture dominates, all other ways of being sexual are repressed, and that leaves many students involuntarily celibate or having sex they don’t really want. The solution: an opening up of sexual options that allow students to truly, genuinely explore their own sexualities safely.

Franklin and Marshall College arranged to have the lecture filmed, but Lisa was too shy to post it on Soc Images. But she sent me the link to the talk, and I have no such misgivings. Unfortunately, the camera was set up at an angle where you can’t see the PowerPoint presentation that went along with the lecture, so you’ll have to look through it separately if you’re interested (slideshowand transcript if you’d rather read).  Lisa’s got other talks too, if you’re interested, and I know she loves giving them.

And no, this is not an anti-hook-up lecture - it simply outlines some of the challenges and pitfalls associated with hook-up culture.

Lisa Wade is assistant professor of sociology at Occidental College. Recorded March 24, 2011 in Mayser Gymnasium.

Anti-porn flowchart.

Courtesy of Maggie Mayhem:

Pegging.

Posted in the comments section for last Thursday mail (thanks!):

From Charles Glickman:

It’s a cliche that before you criticize someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes, but that’s because there’s a lot of truth to that statement. After all, once you’ve experienced something from another person’s perspective, it’s much easier to imagine what it’s like for them. That’s one reason why I think pegging can go a long way toward improving things. Pegging is the term for when women use dildos and strap-on harnesses with male partners. (Is there a different term when people of other genders use strap-ons with male partners?) And while the main reason people do it is because it’s lots of fun, I think there’s an added benefit that lots of folks don’t know about.

There have been plenty of books written about how male/female couples can improve their relationships by learning to see things from the other person’s perspective. Of course, that’s helpful for couples of all gender combinations and sexual orientations, but the differences in both biology and experience often create barriers for m/f pairs. Pegging is a surprisingly effective way to find out what sex is like for your partner.

For men who have never been on the receiving side of penetration, sex is something that happens outside the body. And when sex is external to your body, it can be easier to do when you have a headache or you’re not quite in the mood. A lot of men discover than when sex is about catching rather than pitching, their mood, their emotions, and their connection to a partner can often have a bigger influence on what they want to do and how it feels.

Read the rest of the article here.

Paying For It.

Bumped by Marissa (thanks!), an autobiographical comic about being a John - the reviews have been excellent.

From the Globe and Mail:

The book begins in 1996 as his relationship with CBC Radio personality and musician Sook Yin-Lee comes to an unexpected end. While most people would wallow in self-loathing, Brown takes the news as an opportunity to explore his feelings about romance in general. Witnessing his ex’s new relationship bloom, then wither, girds him in his opinion that romantic relationships are inherently destructive.

Fast-forward a couple of years and Brown is resolved to try out prostitution as a means of satisfying his sexual desires. From there, he slowly and methodically lays out his progression through the foreign (to most of us) world of prostitution, chronicling his intimate experiences with more than two dozen prostitutes over a five-year period. Along the way, he presents his case for the decriminalization of the profession to his friends and family, which will seem self-serving to some readers.

But Brown is well aware of society’s attitudes toward prostitution and has built this book with such care and precision that I’d be shocked if even my devout Catholic mother weren’t sympathetic to his world view – at least a little.

This care is evident in the various levels that the book operates on. First and foremost, it’s an exploration and justification of prostitution as a logical option between consenting adults. But it also plays out as a tricky tale of unromantic love: a heartfelt argument against the ingrained cultural trappings of romance, and a fierce defence of the often overlooked joys of other forms of love (such as platonic, filial, interpersonal).

And it’s funny. As is the case in most of his other autobiographical comics, Brown sets himself up as the target of the jokes. Joe Matt, a good friend and recurring character in Brown’s work, gets the lion’s share of the yucks here. I especially liked Matt’s reaction after he learns Brown has visited a prostitute: “This is disturbing, but it’s also good gossip.”

Of course, the art is as idiosyncratic as ever. Brown forgoes the six-panel grid and turns down the cross-hatching that he used in Louis Riel for a small, rectangular eight-panel layout inspired in part by the comics of Carl Barks. These oblong panels house some of the year’s most effective cartooning, capable of lending dignity to even the most awkward sex scenes.

Read the rest of the article here.

And the link for the book on Amazon: here.

Gay marriage.

Thanks for passing it along, Phillip!

The World's Worst Place To Be Gay?

Uganda has a long history of being an extremely hostile place for people who identify as anything other than heterosexual. There is an all-out war against homosexuality. I've posted about it before here, here, here and here. Yabsera passed along by this recent documentary about the situation in Uganda (thanks!):

14 February 2011 BBC3 Scott Mills travels to Uganda where the death penalty could soon be introduced for being gay. The gay Radio 1 DJ finds out what it's like to live in a society which persecutes people like him and meets those who are leading the hate campaign.

 part 2 part 3 part 4

The gay lifestyle.

A scathingly satirical article at the Huffington Post by gay Professor of Theater and Chair of the Theater and Dance department, Ursinus College:

I live the gay lifestyle, the gay lifestyle that is often mentioned by some Republican candidates for president. For those who are unfamiliar with the lifestyle, this is a typical day:

7:00 a.m. I wake up, and just as I have done every morning since puberty, I choose to be gay today. This will come as a great relief to my gay, homosexual, male lover who lies beside me. Because being gay is a choice, our relationship is a gamble day to day. Even though we have both chosen to remain gay and to be together every day for the past 16 years, we never take anything for granted. One of us just might throw in the towel one day and give up the lifestyle.

7:30 a.m. I take a gay shower and let the gay water rinse off my gay body.

8:00 a.m. I have a gay breakfast of cereal with milk, and a good, strong, gay cup of coffee. I am fortified for another day of ruining the fabric of American society.

9:00 a.m. I start my morning shift as a gay hospital volunteer. The hospital is not gay, just me. The patients are mostly normal people. But it is OK. The hospital has a rule that all volunteers must sanitize their hands before meeting with patients. This is to avoid spreading germs, but I think that hand sanitizer is also effective in stopping the transfer of my gayness to other people.

12:00 p.m. I return home, eat a gay lunch and take my gay dogs for a walk. Well, I am not sure if the dogs are actually gay. I have heard it said that homosexuality does not exist in the animal kingdom because it is not natural, so chances are that the dogs are not gay. But because they live with me and my gay, homosexual, male lover, they are perceived by others to be gay. I would feel bad about this, but the fact is that I need these dogs. They are the closest that I will ever come to having actual children, because, as everyone knows, gays should not (and cannot) have children. I push this out of my mind as I walk the dogs gaily through the neighborhood.

Read the rest of it here.

The sanctity of marriage.

Passed along by Amy (thanks!):

So much for progress.

From the CBC:

B.C. Mountie alleges years of sexual harassment

CBC News has learned that one of B.C.'s highest profile Mounties says she's suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder after years of sexual harassment.

Cpl. Catherine Galliford was the face of the B.C. RCMP for years. During her tenure as the RCMP's spokesperson, Galliford announced the arrest of Robert William Pickton and revealed charges had been laid in the Air India bombing.

But in an internal RCMP complaint, Galliford makes serious allegations about misconduct inside the RCMP. She shared the complaint with CBC News and spoke with reporter Natalie Clancy about her claims.

"Everything that came out of his [a supervisor's] mouth was sexual," Galliford said. "If I had a dime for every time one of my bosses asked me to sit on his knee, I'd be on a yacht in the Bahamas right now."

Galliford says she faced constant sexual advances from several senior officers from the moment she graduated from the RCMP Academy in 1991.

Read the rest of the article here.

Abortion protection laws on the chopping block.

Sent to me last week by Maggie to post on the blog (thanks!):

Mississippi might be the first US state to rule abortions ILLEGAL! The Personhood Amendment would make it a crime to abort any child as soon as the embryo begins to divide (or something to that degree) and even though the Supreme Court has ruled in favor of abortion, it is still so scary that there could be a precedent so close to Canada. Certain forms of birth control might also become illegal! Like certain pills or Morning After. This is also in complete disregard to rape and incest.

This an extremely scary prospect, and represents a trend that's sweeping conservative parts of the states. As noted in a previous post, Mitt Romney, who'll probably be the Republican nomination for next year's American election, supports this sort of legislation. The man pictured above is Les Riley, the sponsor of the bill.

The vote on the amendment will happen tomorrow. Keep posted for the results.

To read more about the amendment, and the sort of unintended nasty consequences it would have, read the following links: here, here and here.

Trends in men's body hair removal.

From a 2008 study:

Abstract Although hairlessness is rapidly becoming a component of the ideal male body, little research has examined men’s concerns about their body hair or their hair removal practices. Samples of gay and heterosexual men completed questionnaires that assessed whether they had ever removed their back, buttock or pubic hair, the frequency with which they did so, the methods used and their self-reported reasons for removing this hair, as well as their level of appearance investment. Results indicated that many gay and heterosexual men remove their back, buttock and pubic hair regularly and that their primary reason for doing so is to maintain or improve their appearance. The frequency of hair removal was also associated with the motivational salience component of appearance investment. The findings offer further support to the premise that gay and heterosexual men exhibit similar body image concerns.

Download the entire paper here.

Rick Mercer on gay bullying.

This past month, James Hubley (pictured below with his dad), an out gay high school student, committed suicide after being mercilessly and persistently bullied. He is one of many such cases - it seems like there's a new case of gay teen suicide due to bullying every week.

In the States, Dan Savage, of Savage Love, started a project called It Gets Better due to the rash of gay teen suicides. I've posted about it before on the blog (here, here and here). The intention of the project is to give gay kids hope. But, as some have noted, these gay teens still need to make it through high school before things may improve. Kids can be extremely cruel.

In response to the case of James Hubley, Rick Mercer, a Canadian comedy icon and political commentator, had this to say on his show, The Mercer Report:

Rick's Rant for October 25, 2011

More photoshop fun.

From the SLOG:

The internet is full of these sorts of before-and-after images, but these rollovers for some reason really hammered it home to me: Fashion photography is less about actually photographing a human being and more about sculpting pixels.

The rollovers, courtesy of M. Seth Jones: link here.

UK sex work data.

Via Violet Blue. Data collection, analysis, and report by John Millward:

Dirty Words: A Probing Analysis of 5000 Call Girl Reviews

There is an online subculture of men who review their encounters with escorts using a frank, exhaustive style you’d associate more with reviews of hotels than sex. I analyzed five thousand of these ‘field reports’ to see what I could find out about the punters, their use of language and their outlook on sex for cash.

Punternet.com is, according to the London Evening Standard, “…the most successful of the prostitute-reviewing Internet sites” – and that’s an accolade the site proudly boasts at the top of its front page, right underneath the garish red logo and two fluttering Union Jack animated GIFs, which look like they’re right out of 1999 (the year PunterNet was established). I was 12 years old in ‘99 and don’t think I’d even heard of escorts, much less spent two weeks sorting through 5000 meticulously written reviews of their bodies and bedrooms. That’s the challenge I recently set myself though. My original intention was to find out what words punters most often use to describe the women they sleep with and the places they go to do it. Are they sweet and romantic (sometimes) or boorish, with the air of misogyny you might expect? (Not that I saw.) At some point through the scraping, stripping and analyzing of the million words I got from the 5000 reviews, I decided it would be worth getting a bit more from whole thing than just word choice, like how much men pay, what they do with the women and how long they’re allowed to do it before they get kicked out. I’ll tip the hat a little now by revealing that the ‘girlfriend experience’ is more popular than the ‘pornstar experience’ and that foreplay is ranked 16 out of 20 in the list I compiled of most mentioned sex acts. But that’s just scratching the surface. Let’s rewind a little and start at the beginning: how the data was collected. The thing is, statistics can be boring—so every now and then I’ll throw in an excerpt from a review. Also, if you’re gagging for the juicy details, you can skip straight to the conclusions and the infographic I made to accompany this article.

Go read the rest of it on his blog: link here. The blog includes all the data, infographics, and piles of quotes from sex workers and punters. It's brilliant non-academic work.

Here are a couple of the infographics to spark your interest (click to make larger):

He also started a thread over at Reddit: read it here.

Katie West on self-confidence.

Katie West, blogger, photographer, teacher, model, and all-around renaissance woman, was sent the following question on her blog:

what advice would you give someone who is self concious about their body? how do you overcome insecurites? you just exude confidence & always inspire me :)

She posted a long response, which is worth a read, especially for those feeling a little down on themselves. It's broken down into 6 specific sections:

1. Have a mother who tells you how beautiful you are every single hour of every single day. 2. When someone tells you you’re beautiful say thank you. 3. Stop comparing yourself to other women. 4. Give no fucks. 5. Don’t neglect the other parts of you. 6. Masturbate.

Go read the whole thing here.

Religious people more likely to marry young.

This would seem obvious, given that many religions (and denominations/groups/sects within those religions) forbid sex before marriage.

From the Journal of Social, Evolutionary, and Cultural Psychology (thanks for passing it along, Amy!):

Unbuckling in the Bible Belt: Conservative sexual norms lower age at marriage.

Abstract Sociosexual norms, as well as marital patterns, vary widely across human history and culture. Yet, humans share an evolved psychobiology of sexual motivation that reliably leads to procreation through incentivizing sexual activity. We predicted that in socially monogamous societies with conservative norms for sexual behavior, the interaction of sexual motivation and strong discouragement of non-marital sex would lead to relatively earlier marriages on average, as young adults seek a socially sanctioned way of expressing their sexuality. We examined this hypothesis with United States Census data from the year 2000. We found that cities in the “Bible Belt,” a region characterized by strong evangelical Christian sentiment, had significantly lower mean and median marital ages for both men and women, supporting our prediction. These relationships held when controlling for median household income, median family income, and even the operational sex ratio. We discuss our findings in terms of individuals minimizing discourse discrepancies and cognitive dissonance, to ultimately coincide with regional cultural norms.

Read the paper here.

Sexy Girls Have It Easy.

A short documentary by Brighthand Pictures:

Filmed, Produced & Directed By Tristan Anderson I am available for hire in London and the UK as an editor, camera person & director Contact film@tristananderson.co.uk **Winner: Best Format** - Current TV Awards 2008 ***Over 3 million views online*** **Broadcast on Current TV in the UK (Sky 183 & Virgin 155)**

The results of her experiment aren't at all surprising: changing one's appearance to be more sexually inviting clearly has an effect on the way one is treated by others, particularly for women. We all know it - this isn't rocket science.

However, the woman in the documentary (intentionally, or more likely unintentionally) exhibited a subtle change in her interpersonal style when dressed differently that may also have influenced the way she was treated (although I'm sure the change in her physical appearance accounted for the majority of the effect).

When she dressed up more sexy, she became more outgoing/gregarious. This phenomenon - i.e., dressing sexy to feel sexy - appears to be largely universal. When people dress up, and make an effort to make themselves appear attractive (or what they believe makes them appear attractive), they generally report feeling a boost in self-esteem and confidence, and are more outgoing. This, in turn, increases their attractiveness, as perceived by others. Physical attractiveness becomes interpersonal attractiveness.

Bigger, Faster, Stronger.

In class, we discussed the profound effect that high concentrations of sex hormones can have on the body. Last week I posted some clips of bodybuilders who have used anabolic steroids (i.e., androgens) to help them put on massive amounts of muscle. Elizabeth sent along links (thanks!) for a documentary about the body building world, supplement and steroid use, and body image. I'm sure many of you have seen it, as it's been around for a while and has been quite successful, but for those of you that haven't:

Bigger Stronger Faster (2008) | Documentary, Sport In America, we define ourselves in the superlative: we are the biggest, strongest, fastest country in the world. Is it any wonder that so many of our heroes are on performance enhancing drugs?

As noted by a student from class in the comments for a previous post about bodybuilding and steroid use, the vast majority of people who lift weights and work out do NOT use steroids. He pointed out that there's a large community of competition bodybuilders who are all-natural, and participate in all-natural competitions.

Australian passports now include option for third gender.

From the BBC:

New Australian passports allow third gender option.

Australians have been given a third choice when describing their gender on passport applications, under new guidelines aimed at removing discrimination.

Transgender people and those of ambiguous sex will be able to list their gender as indeterminate, which will be shown on passports as an X.

People whose gender was different from that of their birth were previously required to have reassignment surgery before they could change their passport to their preferred sex.

An Australian senator, Louise Pratt - whose partner was born female and is now identified as a man - said the reform was a huge step forward.

"There have been very many cases of people being detained at airports by immigration in foreign countries simply because their passports don't reflect what they look like," she told Australian radio.

"It's very distressing, highly inconvenient and frankly sometimes dangerous."