An Egyptian scholar has called for the death penalty for people caught importing a new “female virginity-faking device” into the country. The product, a condom which simulates vaginal bleeding, is seen as a “cheap and simple alternative to hymen repair surgery” for a woman who must “feign virginity on her wedding night” in order to avoid the social repercussions of premarital sex. The condom, produced in China, is currently being sold in Syria for $15 a pop. So, how does it work?

Read More “Inside the Virginity-Faking Condom” »

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!

Read More “Sexist Beatdown: Wherever to Ejaculate? Edition” »

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!

Read More “CVS Free the Condoms Rally Tomorrow” »

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, Adrian Fenty unveiled the new “I Am A Healthy D.C. Mom” campaign, targeted at encouraging moms to keep their children healthy and safe inside and outside of the womb. The campaign’s launch was accompanied by the release of the administration’s 2007 Infant Mortality Report [PDF].

According to a press release, the campaign asks pregnant women to “commit to forty weeks of prenatal care, staying fit and eating right, and keeping their baby safe and healthy.”

How reasonable is to to expect a full forty weeks of prenatal care from a woman? It means she’ll have to act like a good pregnant lady—like folic acid in place of booze, or whatever—from the moment of conception. That’s before she even suspects she’s pregnant. Before she misses her period. Before she takes a pregnancy test.

Usually, it’s also before she wants to be pregnant.

Read More “Fenty’s “I Am A Healthy DC Mom”” »

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

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

Today is the National Day to Prevent Teen Pregnancy, and right smack in the middle of National Offend a Feminist Week. I’m both offended and not teen pregnant. Coincidence?

I’ve always said that the best way to prevent teen pregnancy is to turn 20, am I right? But for those still stuck in their 13-to-19s, the campaign’s Web site offers a quick quiz to help you determine how likely you are to get teen pregnant.

If, like me, your teen years are mercifully behind you, take the quiz anyway. I used it to determine whether or not I can boast more emotional maturity than a 16-year-old.

And . . . I cannot! I took the quiz and scored as “Sort of a Sexpert.” (Sort of a Sexpert? Do you people have any idea who I am?) According to the campaign, that score means that “Most of the time [I] know what the right choice is, but [I] don’t always make it when it comes to sex.” Yeah, that actually sounds about right.

But hey, maybe I’m just too fucking old to know how to prevent teen pregnancy. There is, after all, a “sexting” question:

Laura and Amy are bored* one Saturday afternoon so they start taking goofy pictures of each other with Laura’s camera phone. At first its just funny faces and model poses, but then Amy lifts up her shirt and Laura snaps a picture of her. “I’m so sending this to Mike,” says Laura.

A. “Ha! Do it! He’s so hot. Maybe he’ll return the favor and send me a picture of his naked butt.”

B. “No, don’t! I don’t want him to get the wrong idea. I like him, but I’m not ready to hook up yet.”

C. “You have to delete that picture immediately. That was really dumb of me. I don’t want that pic to get
forwarded to everyone at school. Don’t you watch Gossip Girl?”

D. “Go ahead. Now he’ll see what he’s missing.”

I actually got that one right. But only because I watch Gossip Girl.

* oh, boredom.

Please, Lord, say it’s so: a new study on the use of testosterone as a male contraceptive says the shit would work:

For thirty months, the men were injected with 500mg of testosterone undecanoate in tea seed oil once a month. The treatment was 99 percent effective at preventing pregnancy, and after the study ended all but two of the men had their fertility levels return to normal.

According to Jezebel, “Scientists have been trying to develop a male Pill for almost two decades, but progress has been slow. . . . large pharmaceutical companies have been reluctant to perform large trials and many people believe that women wouldn’t trust men to take the pill.”

Oh noes, shifting of responsibilities? Yeah, you know what, I think I could handle it.