R&B singer Jeremih, self-proclaimed “Mr. Birthday Sex himself,” wants to make sure that D.C. youth remember to have safe sex (and listen to Jeremih’s hit single, “Birthday Sex”). In this PSA recorded for the local “Street Wize Foundation,” Jeremih inserts some safe-sex messages over the, uh, sex messages of “Birthday Sex.”

A sample: “You know, I might be doing my Birthday Sex thing, it’s cross-promoting and all, but I just want to make sure that if you all choose to do what you all do, make sure you all keep it safe in the streets, man. Make sure y’all strap up and you know, just keep it safe, y’all.”

This would be completely awesome—did I mention he’s promoting safe sex and “Birthday Sex” in front of a wall of sneakers?—except for one unfortunate ad-lib. Jeremih tells D.C. teens “strap twice if you got to.” Unfortunately, I’m a fucking decrepit snail compared to R&B sensation Jeremih—have you all heard his new hit single, “Birthday Sex”?—so no teen in the world is going to listen to me when I say DO NOT STRAP TWICE, KIDS. Someone cool please relay that message to the youth of America.

So … ejaculation. It turns out that where you do it can greatly affect a woman’s chances of becoming pregnant. Like: If you ejaculate straight up into her vagina, she’s more likely to become pregnant; if you ejaculate into a condom or anywhere else in the world, she’s less likely to conceive. Every 16-year-old boy knows this to be true, and now those 16-year-old boys have grown up to become the Guttmacher Institute’s Lead Pulling-Out Researcher, Rachel K. Jones. Jones published her findings in the June issue of Contraception magazine [via NYT]:

“If the male partner withdraws before ejaculation every time a couple has vaginal intercourse, about 4 percent of couples will become pregnant over the course of a year,” the authors write.

For condoms, used optimally, the rate is about 2 percent. But more significant, the authors say, are the rates for “typical use,” because people can’t be expected to use any contraception method perfectly every time. Typical use of withdrawal leads to pregnancy 18 percent of the time, they write; for typical use of condoms 17 percent of the time.

Hey, that’s information that helps us become better informed about our sex lives. Great, right? No. IT’S BAD, says the Daily Beast’s Tracy Quan, who calls the study’s results “folk wisdom” with a lack of “supporting evidence” and infers that the Guttmacher Institute is no longer “sane” for publishing this no good very bad information. Why? Because withdrawal is “caddish,” “insulting,” and it’s FOR BOYS, NOT GIRLS. And we all know we can’t trust boys to do anything. What else can’t we trust? Science, for one! And while we’re at it: We can’t trust grown women in mutually monogamous relationships to make this choice for themselves, either, even though it’s free, accessible, and feels better than a condom. THERE I SAID IT.

But enough about ejaculating outside of vaginas. Oh, wait, no: It’s time for Sady of Tiger Beatdown and I to discuss ejaculating outside of vaginas some more! Join us!

AMANDA: 9:23 a.m. is a great time to talk about the ups and downs of not ejaculating into vaginas.

SADY: yes. personally, when i heard that not ejaculating into vaginas was a “reliable” form of birth control, i had my suspicions! i was like: apparently all of the dudes i have argued with about birth control have become scientists! who knew?

AMANDA: published in the renowned peer-reviewed journal of medicine, Maxim.

SADY: right. it strikes me as some flawed science, is what i am saying! for, even if withdrawal is a semi-effective method of “birth control,” it strikes me as a highly ineffective method of Not Getting Various Diseases Such As The Herp Control. which i think is what Tracy Quan is saying, which is good common sense.

AMANDA: of course, but at the same time, real scientists who are not your ex-boyfriends have worked very hard to come up with dozens of methods of birth control that also don’t prevent STDs

SADY: fair enough! the scientists, they do these things! i suppose i am a person who likes a certain modicum of control over these situations. and withdrawal as birth control, TO ME, relies on your partner having (a) really good timing, and (b) a solid commitment to not getting distracted or losing track of whatever he is supposed to be doing, during a moment that (AS I UNDERSTAND IT) can be kind of distracting! (I AM REFERRING TO THE MALE ORGASM. In case my incredible tastefulness and subtlety are working against me.)

AMANDA: this is a point that Quan made as well, and I agree that for a lot of people withdraw would not be a good option for this reason. But all forms of birth control come with a degree of human error, or in some cases, shit ripping inside your vagina error. say you’re a couple who doesn’t want to use condoms. and the woman takes her birth control pills, but the man, like you, can’t trust her—for whatever reason—to take them at the same time every day. maybe she forgets sometimes!

SADY: fair enough!

AMANDA: he might not want to rely on her, either. and so if you forget a birth control pill, or a condom breaks, or you ejaculate into a vagina, you know, you can take emergency contraception as well. one of the interesting things to me about this study—and i’m just going to assume the study is accurate for argument, because i don’t know anything about methodology with these things. is that it placed withdrawl slightly below condoms, right? and still, most of the response has been, ‘there’s no way this could ever work, this is some frat dude conspiracy.’ and so perhaps what this study reveals isn’t that withdrawl is a very good option, but rather that we have a bit too much faith in condoms

SADY: a fascinating point! and i agree, some of this may have to do with the fact that, as long as i’ve been alive, anyway, Birth Control has been less important to the discussion than Safe Sex. and most of the sex ed i have ever received has been like, “USE CONDOMS, also there are other methods but seriously just USE CONDOMS.” and i’m still a fan of the condom, because it is cheap and does not require a prescription and has a lower failure rate and higher disease protection rate than other things! the withdrawal method, to me, requires what is (in many or most circumstances) a perhaps unrealistically high level of trust for one’s makeout partner. but maybe this just has to do with the fact that i have been culturally conditioned to trust other people less than i trust the Trojan corporation.

AMANDA: of course. and the method is really counter-intuitive, because pulling out is something that irresponsible 15 year old boys are supposed to do, when really it’s something that would be more appropriate for, say, mutually monogamous STD-free old people.

SADY: right. it is odd for me that something which is the centerpiece of much heterosexual porn is now a meaningful expression of committed monogamous trust. NEXT UP: how having sex on a bus can keep you from getting cancer!

AMANDA: hhahaha. yeah. i heard if you put a donut on it and then seductively bite it off it lowers the risk of kidney failure, or something

SADY: WOW. a doughnut, you say! i guess i’ve been doing it all wrong with the bagels.

AMANDA: i’m with the critics of Quan with this one, though – something that PEOPLE DO turning out to be less sexually risky than we thought is probably a good thing. she says a bit of anxiety is good, but i actually have a lot of that! and so reducing that is probably a good thing for a lot of people. maybe not for Quan, but it’s not like we’re getting rid of condoms! The Trojan lobby (sponsored by Tiger Beatdown) would never allow that.

SADY: true enough. i guess i am just concerned with the fact that there is already pressure on girls to be the “cool” ones who don’t “make” the dude use condoms. i do not know why i think that the sort of dudes who apply that pressure are all going to show up with scientific studies and go through a careful risk-benefit analysis! yet i do. in conclusion: withdrawal is totally fine, if you want to do that and are reasonable about it, and not fine if you do not. CONTROVERSY!

AMANDA: agreed. DON’T LET HIM NOT EJACULATE IN YOUR VAGINA IF YOU DON’T WANT HIM TO NOT DO THAT, KIDS.

SADY: there, problem solved. everybody does what they want to do. the real winner? the paper towel industry. hurrah!

Photo by amorphity

According to the couple, most residents of the U.K. prefer Durex-brand condoms.

“They are a hell of a lot cheaper here, and we do try to take a lot of stuff back with us, but we’re definitely not taking these.”

Millions of British tourists flock to the U.S. each year to make the most of bargain prices, but research by Washington City Paper suggests that few will be returning with suitcases full of condoms.

Nobody at Church and Dwight Co., the company behind the Trojan range, was reached for comment.

Two men loiter between the “eye care” and the “vapor relief” sections. They look around. They seem on edge. They’re sizing up the condoms. I understand their distress—confronted with eight shelves of contraceptives, how’s a girl guy to choose these days? “Twisted Pleasure” or “NATURALAMB”?

I decided to make their whole experience a little more embarrassing by conducting some market research of my own.

“Most people will get the ultra-thin, or the ultra-ribbed. They’ll go with that,” says one guy in his early twenties. “But if you’re smart like me, you’ll go for the Ecstasy type.” He assures me that Ecstacy is the best: the Chateau Lafitte of the condom world. They are ultra-ultra-thin. “Its all about the feeling,” he explains.

It’s not only the brand, of course. Condom selection is also a numbers game.

“I’d get a big box. It’s a sign of commitment,” the second gentleman tells me, before picking up a pregnancy test and dragging his friend down the aisle—“He’s got to find out if his girlfriend’s pregnant.”

A third customer has a slightly different view: “You know men are always gonna get Magnums because it says ‘big size.’ They get that even if it comes off,” she says.

This appears to be a recurring problem for her. “You know my boyfriend—well, my ex now—always used to get them, and I’d tell him he didn’t need that shit.”

Pharmacies that keep their condoms in locked cases cite shoplifting as the main rationale for the safe-sex lock-up. When shoppers are ashamed to buy sex-related items, the theory goes, they’re more likely to steal them—instead of sheepishly carrying them to the counter. But condom shame could hold a hidden benefit for pharmacies as well: When customers do buy condoms, they’re more likely to impulse-buy other items, as well.

Online pharmacy mastersdirect.com has conducted a survey about pharmacy shopping habits which is probably mostly bullshit. But the dubious reporting here may hold some truths about pharmacy hang-ups:

* “One out of 10 men said . . . they have had unprotected sex because they were too embarrassed to buy condoms from a pharmacy.”

* “A quarter has simply walked out of a pharmacy because they were too embarrassed to ask for a particular health product.”

* “Thrush creams, tampons and pregnancy tests also made people feel conspicuous. In an attempt to hide their embarrassment over their purchases, well over a third had even bought something they didn’t need as a ‘cover-up’.”

If the last statement is true, pharmacies may not be too eager to reduce the stigma of condom purchasing in their stores. If purchases of condoms, tampons, and lube are accompanied by a lucrative cover, why tone-down your employees’ sex-product gawking?

Personally, I’ve never been so embarrassed to buy a health product that I’ve walked out of the store. But I have definitely picked up a cover item or two to balance out my sex-related purchase. I usually go for the gummy bears—cheap, tasty, close to the counter. I can’t really explain why I find that necessary. Am I afraid the cashier will know that I’m on my period? That I plan to have sex soon? That I plan to have reduced-friction sex soon? Why, instead, would I prefer that the cashier know I’m bleeding out of my vagina, want to have sex, and require a snack?

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Tomorrow, Cure CVS Now and a coalition of public health advocates will gather outside the Dupont Circle CVS store in an attempt to pressure the pharmacy chain to rethink its locked condom policies. The ultimate goal of the “rally and press conference” is to convince “CVS to adopt a corporate policy to keep all condoms unlocked at all times.” A letter to CVS CEO Tom Ryan will be unveiled!

Gina Bowers of Cure CVS Now admits that the CVS store at 6 Dupont Circle does not lock up its condoms—and that D.C. CVS stores are freer than in many other cities with high HIV rates across the country. “We wanted to do this in D.C. to focus on the national nature of our campaign, but we also want to acknowledge that we are doing this on the backs of the activists who have had success in unlocking the condoms there,” she says. Though the District of Columbia has been somewhat of a success story for public health groups like Cure CVS Now and Save Lives, Free the Condoms, Bowers says that the condom-freeing work—in D.C. and elsewhere—isn’t done until a national policy is in place. “One thing our researchers have found is that many stores only unlock the condoms for a while, and then lock them back up again,” she says.

More details about the rally:

WHAT: Rally and press conference

WHO: National Organization of Women (NOW); Advocates for Youth; ACT UP; Latino Commission on AIDS; Black Women for Wellness; Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project (CHAMP); more.

WHEN: 12:30 PM EST Thursday, June 11, 2009

WHERE:

CVS/pharmacy
6 Dupont Circle
Washington, D.C.

Photo by NCinDC

Via Feministe: Advocates for Youth, in conjunction with Cure CVS Now, has created a petition to tell CVS to unlock the condom cases in its stores:

Call on CVS to unlock condom cases in all its stores. Locked condoms create a barrier to condom access, and could be a threat to public health. CVS’s practice of locking condom cases in minority neighborhoods is unacceptable, and we urge CVS to change its store policy. Walgreens and Rite-Aid prohibit condom lock-up: it’s time CVS did the same.

CVS claims to have unlocked all of the condoms in its Washington, D.C. stores. Last month, I wrote a story about how, despite the lip service, condom access in our CVS stores remains a pain in the ass. Unlocking the condoms and then placing them into click-boxes which are often broken—and sometimes actually locked!—isn’t good enough. Perhaps the petition should read: Unlock the condoms. For real this time, guys.

Sign the petition here.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Last week, I wrote about how CVS Pharmacies in Washington, D.C. are continuing to limit access to condoms by locking up some stores and declining to work with public health activist groups. The main problem with condom lock-up is that it forces customers to interact with several employees, wait around in front of the condom box, and verbally request the product. In short, it’s embarrassing.

Sometimes, the employees make it more so. I stopped by a CVS in Los Angeles last week to pick up some personal items—not condoms, though. I approached the cashier with a box of tampons, some Midol, and a pack of gum. I was with a boy.

The cashier rung up my merchandise, requested my CVS card, and delivered my change. Then, she said this to us:

“You kids have fun this weekend, whatever you do or don’t do!”

Whatever we “do” or “don’t do”? You got us good, CVS. I thought your employees could only make me uncomfortable about doing it when I bought something actually related to sex. Now I know you can make me uncomfortable about doing it (or not doing it!) when I buy anything at all!

Photo by Editor B

Three years ago, if you were to walk into a CVS store in search of condoms, you’d face about a 50 percent chance of hitting a brick wall. In 2006, 22 of about 50 CVS stores in the District of Columbia were guarding their condoms under lock and key. The glass-case treatment was reserved for neighborhoods with the greatest need for contraceptives—the wards with the highest rates of HIV.

Securing a three-pack of Trojans required you to alert an employee who would escort you to the glass condom case, unlock it, wait as you made your selection, then lock the case again behind you. The purchase could be further complicated by wait time, employee attitude toward condoms, and the customer’s level of shame—all factors which could deter a potential buyer from preventing the spread of HIV.

CVS brass, however, was more interested in protecting the condoms from those who refused to buy. The locks were in place to prevent shoplifters from “grabbing a whole bunch of condoms and running out of the store,” says CVS spokesperson Mike DeAngelis. “The stores that had to keep condoms locked experienced shoplifting to such a degree that our entire inventory was being wiped out,” he says. “There were no longer condoms available for customers to purchase.”

In the fall of 2006, CVS managers around the District began to reevaluate the policy. Twenty-one of the stores have taken contraceptives out of the cases, leaving only one Southeast stalwart with locked-up rubbers. But the managers weren’t unlocking of their own volition: They were just appeasing the activists. 2006 is also the year that students from the George Washington University’s School of Public Health and Health Services launched “Save Lives: Free the Condoms.” The campaign, now administered through the Metropolitan Washington Public Health Association, was targeted specifically at CVS’ condom policies. Over the next two years, Save Lives formed a coalition with other public health groups, drummed up media attention, and then, store by store, convinced CVS to free its contraception.

Though locked glass cases are still employed in the pharmacies to protect precious items like soap, toothbrushes, pregnancy tests, and lube, condoms have been upgraded from “locked” to simply “inaccessible.” But with the help of some new technology and a little repression, CVS condoms are still hard to reach in the areas that need them most. According to GW professor Caroline Sparks, who helped launch the campaign, “it is a misapprehension that condoms are now unlocked in Washington.”

—

MEET THE “POWER WING.” Post-emancipation, CVS condoms migrated from the glass case to the “power wing.” The wings, in shelf-talk, are displays that feature limited supplies of certain highlighted products like sunglasses, batteries—and now condoms. The wings are designed to encourage a well-intentioned customer to grab one pack of condoms, while preventing shoplifters from making off with armfuls.

Shumaya Ali, one of the original GW students involved in the campaign, says “limited” is the key word in the power wings’ limited supply. “At first we said, well, it’s better than having everything locked up,” says Ali. “But when we did a follow-up survey, we would go to stores and see the shelves empty, or see that many sizes were still not available.”

An empty power wing is on par with a locked case—it means that customers must grovel with a CVS employee to retrieve condoms from the back. The liberating quality of the new policy depends upon how regularly employees restock the merchandise. Access to stocked shelves also varies by neighborhood. A national CVS watchdog organization, Cure CVS Now, collects user-submitted photos of “good” and “bad” CVS stores, often determined by a neighborhood’s median income and racial makeup. In the photos, a sparse dairy case in Compton is slicked with brown and black liquid, while a Beverly Hills case is fully stocked with fresh milk; a Detroit freezer case is littered with gnawed sunflower seeds, while one in Rochester Hills, Mich., is sanitarily stocked with frozen pizzas.

Jana Baldwin, a current campaign member, says the stocking disparity is no coincidence. “What I personally found, and continue to find on my 17 or so visits to various CVSs around D.C., is that when there are the power wings in the deemed ‘high-theft’ CVS locations, they are not well-stocked,” she says. “Interestingly enough, when I have spoken with managers about why they are not well-stocked, many have said that it is not because there have been condoms stolen, per-se—it is because they want to prevent theft,” she says. “So it doesn’t really make sense.”

According to Ali, the move to power wings didn’t do much to solve the disparity issue, but it did help CVS address another problem: public relations. “It was a small step that showed we were getting through to CVS,” she says. “But it didn’t actually improve anything.”

—

MEET THE “CLICK-BOX.”

Though many CVS stores continue to tout the power wing, some have installed a more sophisticated contraption: the click-box. These clear plastic vending machines, which push out condoms at the push of a button, are modeled after CVS’ mechanism for dispensing razors. The device has streamlined the condom-selecting experience down to three simple steps: 1. Push the red button, 2. Pull the handle on the drawer, and 3. Remove the product. Some click-boxes have included an additional recommendation between steps two and three: “Wait for product to dispense.”

At CVS’ Columbia Heights store, some customers have had trouble waiting for the product to dispense. On a Friday night, CVS shift supervisor Dre apologizes for the store’s barely functional click-box, where red buttons rarely manage to push out the correct product. “Sometimes it gets stuck when someone sticks their hand in there before it’s ready,” Dre says. When the machine is broken, Dre is on call to unlock the click-boxes and retrieve the condoms. “It’s crazy, but that stuff gets stolen like crazy,” he explains. “I mean, I think they should be free.”

Even fully functional click-boxes are often monitored by additional store security. Many are situated right in front of the pharmacy counter, where whitecoats can watch your every move—or at least hear it. Pushing the red button triggers a loud grinding noise that makes the experience less than discreet.

Still, most of the time, you don’t have to explicitly inform an employee that you want them “ribbed for her pleasure”—as long as the condom makes it out of its cage. Campaign member Noraine Buttar recalls the consequences of reaching too deeply into a click box: “Someone who was working there walked by and snapped, ‘That’s not how you do that,’” she says. “That sort of reaction means that the process can still be very embarrassing for some people.”

The highly supervised, one-box-at-a-time method proved too liberating for one CVS store in 2007. Many click-boxes are fortified with additional locks, which can swing down over the case at the manager’s discretion. Save Lives: Free the Condoms staged a protest outside of one Petworth CVS when it found that the store’s click-box remained locked during business hours—meaning you needed an employee’s help in order to push the button to pull the handle to remove the product. According to the GW Hatchet, the CVS store unlocked the click-box in the course of the protest, but the store’s manager can’t confirm it: “I couldn’t talk to you about that,” he says. “We’re not allowed to talk to anyone about anything, regardless.”

—

MEET THE “GAG ORDER.”

The Petworth manager was just following another CVS post-lock-up strategy. While competitors like Walgreens and Rite-Aid institute company-wide policies ensuring that condoms stay on open shelves, CVS has continued to delegate condom management to a store-by-store basis. CVS’ reluctance to institute companywide policies aside, the pharmacy has instituted at least one order: Employees are not to comment on the issue.

Save Lives: Free the Condoms encountered the gag order midway through its campaign. “We started negotiating at the national level, and while we were in the process of debating with CVS, lots of news releases were coming out about us, supporting our campaign,” says Ali. “Meanwhile, CVS was going behind our back and changing policies store-by-store—starting to put up the clear dispensers and power wings,” she says.

CVS’ strategy—eliminating locks while avoiding a larger discussion—lead to the swift emancipation of dozens of CVS stores. It also left Save Lives: Free the Condoms shut out of the post-lock discussion. “What we want is a comprehensive policy from CVS,” says Ali. “What they did was just take very small steps at the stores where they were pushed hardest, in order to avoid the press.”

Even as it rolled out the new devices, Buttar says, CVS refused to extend the discussion. After sending e-mails and placing phone calls in an attempt to open a dialogue with CVS, its communications team “started blocking our e-mails,” Buttar says. “I could tell what happened—they were coming back immediately with this message saying, “This address no longer accepts e-mails from your address,” Buttar says. Adds Sparks, “Historically, corporations that have consumer problems have two options: They can negotiate in good faith, or they can try to circle the wagon,” she says. “CVS has decided to circle the wagon, thinking that the whole thing would go away. But the whole thing has not gone away.”

At the CVS stores I called, store managers refused to comment on the state of their condoms, pushing queries to the corporate line—where DeAngelis, in turn, wouldn’t comment on individual stores’ practices. The information gap makes things harder for the Save Lives campaign, which must mount new inspections of CVS stores to ensure that the pharmacies aren’t backsliding. In February, Baldwin visited the CVS location at 2646 Naylor Road SE, where she found the click-box locked. Since that precaution can be added and removed instantly, Save Lives: Free the Condoms can never say for sure how many condoms remain locked. When called, that store’s manager wouldn’t discuss power wings or click-boxes, but he would offer one line: “We do not lock our condoms.”

DeAngelis says that the new devices have been effective in decreasing shoplifting—and activist attention. When asked how free-condom activists have responded to power-wing and click-boxes, DeAngelis pleaded ignorance: “I’m not aware that they’ve been in touch recently,” he says.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

Last month, I wrote a story on why the government won’t fund local youth AIDS prevention group WAIT (or Washington AIDS International Teens). WAIT’s problem was this:

a. Their goal was stopping the spread of HIV.

b. Their methodology was abstinence.

c. The government only funds one or the other.

Last week, President Obama proposed to add another roadblock to their fight for funding by cutting abstinence-only cash from the budget altogether.

Now, groups like WAIT, which represent the most practical side of abstinence eduction—delaying sex only to prevent an uncurable deadly disease—will remain, well, pretty much unaffected. As I detailed in my piece, federally-funded abstinence-only education was always itself too much of a “comprehensive” strategy. In order to receive federal funding, abstinence groups couldn’t just work against AIDS—they also had to teach prevention of “out-of-wedlock pregnancy”; that “a mutually faithful monogamous relationship in context of marriage is the expected standard of human sexual activity”; and that “sexual activity outside of the context of marriage is likely to have harmful psychological and physical effects.”

So while proponents of comprehensive sex education rejoice at the White House rule, some abstinence advocates, at least, aren’t lamenting the move: abstinence’s realists have always been left behind.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery.

This week, I wrote a cover story for the paper on the sex life at the Catholic University of America, the official U.S. university of the Catholic Church. The Washington, D.C. school bans all behavior that is “inconsistent with the teaching and moral values of the Catholic Church”—including premarital sex, condom use, masturbation, and sexual assault.

Every year, Catholic’s coeds manage to successfully compromise the university policies—and their own chastity—within the school’s residence halls (and, according to one student, in the student center). The difficulty, for students and administrators, is acknowledging that sex happens. Consistent with Catholic tradition, sex isn’t sex at the Catholic University of America if nobody knows about it.

You can pick up the story on newsstands tomorrow.

Illustration by Doug Boehm

Devon Hunter, a “a career exotic dancer with formal, professional training in dance and theatre,” set out on the streets hit the clubs of D.C. last weekend in the hopes of launching a new safe-sex campaign. All the guys he approached thought Devon Hunter—who should call me, by the way—was totally lame.

“I’d asked three people if they’d like to be part of an advertising campaign to promote safe sex. All three rejected me,” he writes. “Two said, ‘Condoms are so 1985,’ and the third said, ‘Condoms are so 1980’s.’ It had never occurred to me that safe sex was trendy, much less that condoms were connected in some way to fashion.”

I agree with Hunter that this does not bode well for the future of the HIV epidemic in D.C. Still, I’m impressed that the condoms-are-lame trend is so specific! One respondent narrowed condom use down to the decade that it became uncool; two pinned the exact year.

Hunter posits that we should mix things up and reestablish condoms as “so 2009.” I say that fashion is cyclical. Now that AIDS is back, condoms can’t be too far behind.

Photo by Jeb Ro

Cristina Page for Reproductive Health Reality Check wrote yesterday on one sector of the economy that hasn’t hurt from the economic downturn: Birth control sales. Page’s evidence of a contraceptive spike:

- Vasectomy.com has fielded a 30 percent increase in appointment requests since January

- Over-the-counter contraceptives (like condoms and emergency contraception) have “jumped a dazzling 10.2 percent in the first two months of the year.”

- Nielson reports that “condom sales jumped up 5 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008 and 6 percent in January compared with the same time periods last year.”

- and “sales of Essure, a non-invasive, irreversible birth control method for women were up also, 28 percent over last year’s sales.”

The numbers aren’t simply evidence of couples putting off pregnancies during the recession—they’re also a big fuck-you to Congressional Republicans who objected to the family planning provisions in Obama’s stimulus. Vasectomies, condoms, and Plan B are great options for men and women with health insurance and cash. But those Americans who can’t afford to step-up their birth control with their current bank balances will be having recession-era babies—and they’re the ones who will be hit hardest by another mouth to feed.

Or, as Page puts it: “So much for contraception being a non-sequitur in discussions about the economy.”

Photo by Marshall Astor

Zack Rosen over at The New Gay wrote an excellent column the other day about the importance of condom use within the gay community. The post covers a lot of ground—personal responsibility, modes of transmission, casual anal bleeding:

A couple years ago when one of the cutest boys I’d ever seen begged me to fuck him without a condom. Actually, beg is the wrong word. He pleaded. He whined. He implored me not to use one as if it was simply some seasoning our our sexual entree that he found disagreeable.

Condoms, however, are not cilantro and I refused to eat without one. And the next morning I found his blood on my sheets, meaning that if he had listened to me, and I was HIV+, he would’ve been too. What a dumbass.

Zack answers a lot of questions about cultural attitudes toward condoms in same-sex relationships, but he also posed a question for me: Do straight people feel the same urgency to use protection?

I am but one woman, and I do not speak for The Straights. But D.C.’s newest AIDS numbers included two statistics that may have something do do with each other: The leading mode of transmission for new HIV cases is heterosexual sex, and 7 out of 10 D.C. citizens reported to not use condoms.

One reason I think condom concern may be lower among heterosexuals is that the HIV threat hasn’t been pounded into our brains for decades, like it has in the gay community. Also, “protection” means something different than STD prevention for us—it also means preventing babies. In a lot of heterosexual relationships, sex partners are often so worried about pregnancy that the fear of conception overshadows concern over STDs.

I have to think that the real question, in the straight world, must be this: Are condoms as important to men as they are to women? In both cases—pregnancy and STD prevention—the responsibility to use protection often falls on her. She has to go to the doctor regularly and get her birth control prescription and make sure she takes it correctly every day. Often, she also has to make sure the man is wearing a condom. If she doesn’t, she’s more at risk than he is: In a female-to-male HIV contact scenario, women are more likely to contract the virus than men are, because of the way our bodies are made. This is true all the time—it doesn’t depend on whether or not anybody is bleeding or whether the sex is anal.

So, that leads me to my question for Zack: Are condoms as important to guys on top as they are to guys on bottom?

Photo by victoriapeckham.

The U.S. Agency for International Development, or USAID, helps fight AIDS by distributing tens of millions of condoms worldwide. The initiative hasn’t just helped to save lives—it’s also supported the jobs of hundreds of U.S. condom-makers. But the AIDS-fighting, job-creating super match-up couldn’t last: The U.S. government is now switching its condom source to lower-cost rubbers produced China and other countries. Some say the change is “expected to cost 300 American jobs.” The change, however, will save three cents on each condom: American condoms run a pricey five-cents-a-pop, whereas Chinese prophelactics go for a cool two cents.

Photo by ~chichun~

The District’s official report this week was astounding: The number of people with HIV infections rose 22 percent from 2006 to 2007. More ominously, the report said 6.5 percent of the city’s black men are infected—that is more than 1 in 20. The disease is decimating not only the District’s gay community, but its African-American neighborhoods. Yet, the city has a major condom distribution program: More than 1.5 million condoms were distributed in 2008. In other words, it is raining condoms and still the District’s AIDS rate is soaring. The answer is not free birth control or more sex education, but a return to the old Judeo-Christian moral order—marriage, abstinence and personal responsibility.

If Kuhner thinks that marriage is a leading protector against HIV, and that “the District’s gay community” is the one most affected by the crisis, what better solution to stop HIV than to OK gay marriage? Ever since the new District’s AIDS numbers came out, conservatives have been quick to point out that throwing condoms at HIV is about as effective as throwing the Pope at Africa. It’s time for conservatives to bolster their anti-condom stances with real solutions: Allowing men to have monogamous gay sex under legal marriage protection.

“The scourge cannot be resolved with the distribution of prophylactics; on the contrary, the risk is of increasing the problem.”

. . . despite the insistence of journalists present that yeah, it was actually the first one, not that it matters, because the second one is essentially the same.

I would parse the Vatican’s version of the interview myself, but as of now, it’s only published in Italian. So I’ll just say that it’s not surprising the Vatican would offer up an alternate version of the interview, as it appears the Catholic Church is living in an alternate reality.

The Washington Post’s editorial board published a piece today arguing that “Pope Benedict XVI Is Wrong on Condoms.” An understatement, sure, but I was still glad to see our newspaper of record take God’s gift to Africa down a notch. Until I got, oh, four sentences in:

In a perfect world, people would abstain from having sex until they were married or would be monogamous in committed relationships.

Now, at long last, we know what a perfect world would look like!

Nobody would have sex until they were married, except for the gays, who would never have sex ever (except while in Massachusetts and Connecticut). We would all be virgins until we caved and got married too young so we could have sex finally, only to figure out that we didn’t really like our spouses enough to spend all eternity with them (and also that the sex was bad). We wouldn’t get divorced, because divorce is also un-perfect. Our children would suffer, because even while married we wouldn’t be allowed to use contraception.

Take heart, sinners: Everyone who is currently having premarital sex is doing his or her part to make our world a little less perfect. Those of you who are unmarried but are “monogamous in committed relationships” are less unperfect, as long as that committed relationship is your first and it ends in a marriage which ends in death.

Thanks for showing us the way, Washington Post editorial board, secret agents of the Papacy!

Photo by roblisameehan

Finally, the debate is over, and we may finally know who is truly to blame for HIV!

As promised, blogger Black Informant has posted a response to my response to his response to my response to his call for a debate based on my response to a blog post he wrote about the District’s new HIV numbers, thus concluding our virtual tête-à-tête. Let me begin by saying that it’s been a blast, and I hope that Black Informant has a great summer and never changes.

Since Black Informant’s post was to be the final one in our debate, which spanned fisting, rimming, irresponsible hedonism, and the importance of a good education, I won’t respond to the points he’s made here. If anyone would like to weigh in in the comments—by all means. Below, I’ve collected the greatest hits of Black Informant’s closing statement.

“Africa is dealing with an almost completely different set of cultural issues that cannot be compared to the gay and lesbian community here in the West. The only real challenge for us Westerners is deciding whether or not we are going to take it too far in the bedroom. That is a far cry of what is taking place on the African continent.”

—

“If you are an adult and of sound mind, economic position in life has NOTHING to do with self-control in the bedroom. While many of the various HIV/AIDS studies out there focus exclusively on those infected with this disease, you will be hard-pressed to find a study that focuses on those who are making the right personal choices. No matter what ethnic/economic demographic you study, the majority on this issue has managed to make the right choices and steer away from risky sexual behavior.”

___

“For the sake of argument, let’s say the average cost of a pack of condoms is about $10. Do you really believe that the low income folks in your district can’t afford a $10 box of condoms? “Low income” does not mean “no income“. If people really wanted to make the right choices regarding their sexual practices, do you really think that a locked display at a local drug store would deter them? If that is the case, then cigarettes must not be selling too well in DC. The low-income population in DC may have its share of problems, but stupidity isn’t one of them.

Thanks for the discussion.”

Thank you!

I’ve written pretty extensively on how pharmacists can exert power over their customer’s contraceptive use. I’ve reported on pharmacists who restrict birth control by hewing to Catholic tradition; by refusing to talk; by extolling the virtues of “natural family planning”; and by writing absurd run-arounds into their policies.

Now, Shark-Fu of Angry Black Bitch and Shakesville details a more nontraditional method employed by some pharamcists in her hometown of St. Louis, Missouri: the “stank eye.”

“A bitch is concerned about the impact of stank eye,” writes Shark-Fu. “Specifically, I’m concerned by the stank eye many people are subjected to when they buy condoms at their local pharmacy.”

Shark-Fu was in line at Walgreens on Valentine’s Day when she noticed a young man preparing to purchase “two packs of condoms.” When he placed the condoms on the counter, “the woman behind the counter leveled the most intense stank eye on him that I’ve seen in a long time. . . . I’m talking the same level of stank coming from the eyes that this bitch gets from those wooden cross dragging protesters outside of Pridefest each year…mmmhmm, STANK!”

The man completed his purchase, but who can say whether the stank eye will discourage him and countless other victims from buying condoms in the future? And how might a concerned citizen combat the pharmacist’s stank eye?

Shark-Fu says: Fight stank eye with stank eye. “[W]hen I came up to purchase my juice I gave Ms. Thang some stank eye right back. . . I stared hard…hard as hell…so hard and so filled with angry disgust that when she lifted her eyes to me she physically jerked. And then she flushed and looked away.”