You go to great lengths to achieve sexual pleasure and with multiple partners, so never forget the friend that can keep you happy and safe–the condom.
Used as an educational video in the Telugu language from Nrityanjali Academy, Secunderabad, Andhra Pradesh, India, this absolutely hilarious video of several men dancing and singing dressed in cardboard cutouts of condoms is used to educate and prevent against sexually transmitted infections and diseases.
Earlier this month, Time magazine put out a story about 17 girls in Gloucester, Massachusetts, none older than 16, who had made a pregnancy pact stating that they would get pregnant at the same time so they could raise their children together. The number of teen pregnancies in this school alone has risen more than 4% in just one year and the number of teen pregnancies across the country this past year are astonishing. One must ask, given the statistics, why are so many young girls getting pregnant?
In almost every blog post I have seen on this topic, most of which were “mommy bloggers,” mothers of mostly small children, one of the first things brought up is the media. Most people are claiming that movies like Juno and Knocked Up are glamorizing pregnancy and young, unwed mothers. They are also pointing the finger at television shows such as the upcoming The Secret Life of the American Teenager, from the same people who brought you all thirty years (well it sure felt like it!) of 7th Heaven. While mass media is definitely pushing its boundaries and has caused young girls as well as grown women to take up extremist behavior, I think that while it’s definitely okay and right to point fingers, people are only pointing fingers at mass media and don’t believe that anything else can cause such an extreme outcome.
The last time I saw Juno, it was about a teenage girl who was most likely told by her parents not to have sex, hence her being so apprehensive to speak with her father and step mother about being pregnant. However, this teenage girl had sex anyway and it wasn’t a case of her boyfriend wanting to have sex and pushing her to agree to it nor was it something she felt she had to do to fit in with her friends or live up to social expectations; it was simply a curious girl who was in love with a boy and wanted to have sex. Sorry to break it to you, folks, but this is the way real life works–Teenagers are curious about sex, they wonder what it is like and yes, they’re going to have sex and it’s most likely going to be after you told them not to. The movie also showed a teenage girl who had a good enough head on her shoulders to know that she wasn’t ready for a baby and opted to find a couple who wanted a baby, yet couldn’t have one and it resulted in a closed adoption per Juno’s request. I highly doubt that Juno glamorized teenage pregnancy, nor did it show Juno’s best friend wanting to have a baby with Juno so they could raise their babies together.
The only thing I have to say about Knocked Up “glamorizing” young, unwed mothers is that one of the last scenes of the movie shows a closeup of a woman’s vagina while giving birth. Glamorous? Making teenage girls want to go out and get pregnant so they can experience what they just saw? I doubt it. On second thought, I have more. In Knocked Up, the main character asked if the man she was sleeping with after a very drunken night had a condom and being drunk, well, it didn’t work out so well. If anything, I’d think that Knocked Up is a public service announcement for “This is what happens if you get drunk…and have sex” not “This is what happens if you have sex, but it’s a good thing because it all worked out in the end!”
I find it rather odd how there is story after story coming out about a substantial rise in not just teen pregnancy, but the amount of teen cases of sexually transmitted diseases and infections and instead of pointing my finger at television shows and movies, I thought a little deeper and it dawned on me–Oh yeah! It wasn’t too long ago where we found out the amount of money that has been poured into abstinence-only sex education and what some teens think you can do to prevent pregnancy and STDs.
In the case of Gloucester High School, sex ed ends freshman year and apparently they aren’t able to tell you what you need to know up until then. No matter which way you look at it, teenagers are going to make up their own minds and if they choose not to have sex, consider yourself lucky. Teenagers are curious and they often feel as if they are in love or may actually be in love several times during their teenage years and through their lives, they have most often been told that when you love someone you have sex and that is what they do.
Education is the most powerful resource anyone can have and it’s the only thing no one can take away from you. The same applies for the subject of sex, especially when you’re talking about teenagers. Every person deserves the education they need to go out in the world and make something of themselves and of their lives.
The anti-choice agenda is just getting even more ridiculous with every campaign that they introduce. The latest campaign The American Life League is pushing is The Pill Kills.
The message behind this campaign is that the pills kills babies and that by using birth control you are subjecting your body to chemical abortions. On June 7, the 43rd anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision Griswold v. Connecticut, which gave married people the right to use contraception, they will be gathering outside of reproductive health care facilities with what they are calling “peaceful protests,” but as we have all seen from pictures alone, their protests are hardly peaceful. This campaign is the starting point of the pro-life organizations pushing to make contraception illegal.
As usual with pro-life extremism, they are willing to do anything to push their agenda, including lying to women.
Take a look at their talking points section of the website, you can spot the bullshit immediately:
Q: Isn’t it better to be on the pill when you are sexually active?
A: Better for whom? The pill does not prevent you from getting a sexually transmitted disease, it is not 100 percent effective in preventing pregnancy and you could conceive a child who gets chemically aborted before the baby’s presence is even known to you. Moreover, sexual activity outside of marriage is seriously wrong.
Yep, if you are having sex outside of marriage, you’re just selfish thinking that you should be able to have sex without being shackled to a spouse. Don’t you know that you should be taking every child that god gives you? These people need to realize that pushing personal morals helps no one because not everyone thinks the same way you do. Imagine that.
Q: Is the pill dangerous to my health?
A: Absolutely! There are links between the birth control pill and breast cancer, cervical cancer, deep vein thrombosis (DVT), infertility, birth defects, blood clots, pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancy, shrinking of the womb, stroke, weight gain and much more.
These crazy people also claim that clinics such as Planned Parenthood make “big money” but last time I checked, Planned Parenthood gave low income women a place to go and receive safe and confidential health care at little to no cost whatsoever.
I am convinced that the pro-life agenda really doesn’t want to cut down on the number of abortions. With this campaign alone, they are pushing the thought that women shouldn’t use contraception and to those who are buying in to their agenda, they hear “Okay, no contraception.” and especially when it comes to teenagers, who are going to have sex anyway, they are actually making the numbers of abortions performed per year rise as well as the number of children parenting children rise.
If the anti-choice movement really cared about women, they wouldn’t be brainwashing them into thinking that birth control is bad for you, they wouldn’t be lying to people saying that birth control and abortion have harmful side effects that have been proven to be untrue and they wouldn’t be giving women more ways to become pregnant by using their personal morals as a weapon.
I plan on driving to my local Planned Parenthood on June 7 and seeing what the protest looks like there (even though the closest Planned Parenthood to me that I can even call local is about 40 miles away) and see if they’re really pushing the peaceful concept; I’m thinking no… I also plan on taking pictures and seeing how many of these people are willing to talk to me; could be a damn good time indeed.
Via Feministing.
Hooray, it’s the April 2008 edition of Feminism at its Finest!
Carol presents Wolf In Sheep’s Clothing, a great post on spousal abuse and when you know someone who is being abused by their spouse–physically or verbally. Definitely a must-read, so head on over toCan’t Holder Tongue.
The Eclectic Female presents Recognizing Verbal Abuse in Relationships, saying:
“Words can hurt, and it is important to recognize when verbal abuse occurs.”
This is posted at Women’s Lifestyle.
Jackson Kern presents 40 Million Trees and a Nobel Peace Prize: One Woman’s Story, which is a video exclusive on how Wangari Maathai became the first African woman, and first environmentalist, to win the Nobel Prize for Peace. You can see the video at The Alternative Channel Blog.
John Phillips presents Guide to Hiring Women. I’ve seen these pictures before, but here’s a little trip to the past for you. This is posted at The Word On Employment Law.
Kejda Gjermani presents Dissecting the Burqa posted at Kejda.
Madeleine Begun Kane presents An Ode To Lefty Bloggers Who Hate Hillary Clinton posted at Mad Kane’s Political Madness.
Nine Deuce presents Porn Part 4: Half of the Big Picture. This post is not offensive. In fact, it makes some phenomenal points, such as:
“There’s no other object that is both desired and hated in the way women in porn are.”
~
“The porn industry is fucking lousy with producers who not only don’t work too hard to make sure their “actors” are of age, but who actively seek underage girls as they know it will increase the revenue they can extract from the kinds of assholes who are obsessed with virgins and young girls. Chances are, if you use a lot of porn, you’ve participated in the rape of a minor by proxy, especially if you’ve ever done a search with the word “young” in it.”
This is definitely a post worth checking out, posted at Rage Against the Man-chine.
Shaheen Lakhan presents Domestic Violence: Call for Primary Care Screening and Gender Issues - Part I, saying:
“Nearly half of women killed by their partner are seen in primary care settings prior to their deaths, but only 4% of them were in shelters.”
You can read the whole post at GNIF Brain Blogger.
Tali presents Plus Size Pinups - Could they Ever Grow Beyond Sidestream?, saying:
” Plus-size pinups are a niche within a niche. It’s hard to see a potential of growth outside of the plus-size fetish community. I would like to propose otherwise, by showcasing a few plus-size pinup artists.”
She also presents Where Pinups Got Their Start, saying:
“he end of the 19th century brought us the curvy, flowing styling of Art Nouveau. What better suiting movement to kick-start the pinups of the mid 20th century?”
Both of these stories can be seen at The Pinup Blog.
And lastly, for some shameless self-promotion, everyone should go check out my weekly section on the commercial sex industry, Take Me Now Here.
And that’s it for this month. Be sure to submit your posts for next month’s carnival here.
I have very briefly touched upon my thoughts on the commercial sex industry here and basically all posts I have written on the topic have been quite popular versus the other subjects I have written about.
With the attention those posts have received and after talking to a friend of mine who runs Take Me Nowhere, a great site that touches upon some taboo subjects such as marijuana, law reform, Wicca, Paganism, The Occult and also some personal tidbits thrown in there for the hell of it, we decided that while she gives the majority of conservatives quite a bit to get pissed off about already, why not throw some sex into the mix?
And so starting yesterday, I will be writing a section on the commercial sex industry, everything revolving around the sex industry and I also plan on writing a bit about feminist-friendly sex and (gasp!) feminist-friendly sex toys and stores! I have a lot of ideas, so check out my section, Take Me Now Here over at Take Me Nowhere (ha, get it?)
Since 1996, over $1.677 billion has been dumped into abstinence-only sex education and fueled by the religious right refusing to admit that sex exists. Yes, I said it! Sex exists!
Since abstinence-only sex education has been adopted by many states, we now get to see the outcome of what abstinence-only does to those receiving this type of education.
Teens in Florida believe that drinking a cap full of bleach will prevent HIV and that Mountain Dew and marijuana will prevent girls from getting pregnant. We now have a better understanding of what teenagers are walking away with when receiving abstinence-only education–Nothing!
Teenagers will not abstain from having sex, it is simply not going to happen and by these shocking tales of ignorance when it comes to sex education, we are not helping teenagers by telling them that sex is bad and that they shouldn’t do it. By this story, we are seeing that teenagers want to know how to prevent pregnancy and how to have sex without contracting sexually transmitted diseases and rightfully so, we should be giving them this information; there is absolutely no excuse not to.
