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.

Sensitive Man Products need not be locked behind glass doors

To the Employees of Several Washington-Area CVS Stores:

I understand that your CEO, Thomas Ryan, has stated that the CVS name stands for “Convenience, Value, and Service.” This letter takes issue with the third.

It has recently come to my attention, upon purchasing Sensitive Lady Products at several Washington-area CVS stores, that the employees tasked with accepting my payment for these products have not received proper training in How to Not Act Like A Jerk to the Ladies Who Purchase Sensitive Lady Products.

I understand it may be difficult to know how to handle the sale of a Sensitive Lady Product. Perhaps you’re afraid of offending a lady who may be sensitive about purchasing a Sensitive Lady Product; perhaps you have personal religious or political beliefs that require you to be sort of a jerk about doing your job. But you guys are Sensitive Lady Product sales professionals, and you should know how to properly conduct yourselves. Here are some tips.

How to Not Act Like A Jerk to Ladies Purchasing Sensitive Lady Products:

Read More “An Open Letter to CVS “Sensitive Lady Products” Salespeople” »

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.

Read More ““Condoms Are So 1985″” »

Last month, Fairfax’s Oakton High School suspended—and has threatened to expel—a teenage girl who was caught swallowing a prescription birth control pill at lunch. According to the Washington Post:

When a Fairfax County mother got an urgent call from school last month reporting that her teenage daughter was caught popping a pill at lunchtime, she did not panic. “It was probably her birth-control pill,” she thought. She was right.

Her heart dropped that afternoon in the assistant principal’s office at Oakton High School when she and her daughter heard the mandatory punishment: A two-week suspension and recommendation for expulsion.

This story has less to do with reproductive rights than it does the thorough fucked-up-edness of the high school’s zero-tolerance drug policy.

Read More “Fairfax Teen Suspended For Popping Birth Control Pill” »

These guys, however, are probably hurting.

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

Read More “Birth Control Thrives During Recession” »

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.

Read More “Are Condoms As Important to Straights as They are to Gays?” »

Condoms.

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~

Yesterday was “Back Up Your Birth Control Day.” In case you missed it, you still have 72 hours after your non-backed-up-birth-controlled sexual intercourse to participate in the day’s events. “Back Up Your Birth Control Day” was created to “raise awareness about increased access to emergency contraception,” which will soon be available over-the-counter to women 17 and up. For me, Back Up Your Birth Control Day is actually the day after a condom breaks or you miss your daily pill, not March 25 of every year. But it doesn’t hurt to have a Plan B pack on hand just in case—so you don’t have to schlep off to a condescending pharmacist at the exact moment his shaming will be most unbearably offensive.

Photo by nateOne

A judge has ordered the Food and Drug Administration to allow the sale of emergency contraception—also known as “Plan B” or “The Morning After Pill”—to 17-year-olds. Previously, the emergency pill was offered over-the-counter only to customers aged 18 and older, and only to pharmacies that enforced the age rule by checking IDs.

U.S. District Judge Edward Korman had some harsh words for the Bush-run FDA in laying down his judgment, the Associated Press reports:

Read More “Morning After Pill Now Available to 17-Year-Olds” »