A post from City Paper intern Alex Burchfield:

Last week, NPR’s Andrea Hsu aired a story about the shackling of incarcerated women during childbirth. Her report sheds light on a little-known practice that lawyers and human rights advocates are calling “tantamount to torture.” Take the story of 25-year-old Jennifer Farrar, who was arrested and charged for cashing fake payroll checks:

One day the following January, Farrar went to court for a hearing, and there the pains began. An ambulance was called. Farrar says officers cuffed her hands and chained her legs together. Another chain was placed around her belly, connecting her hands to her feet. When she got to the hospital, she says, the belly chain was removed, but her legs were still chained and one hand was cuffed to the bed.

For a woman accused of merely faking payroll checks, this treatment seems excessive, to say the least. And according to doctors and nurses, such treatment also poses serious health risks. Ginette Ferszt, an Associate Professor at the University of Rhode Island's College of Nursing, informed The Sexist of a number of risks involved with shackling: It can interfere with pain relief, prevent the proper performance of a C-section, and delay the administration of an epidural. Possible complications can include excessive bleeding or even the death of the child.

As stories similar to Farrar's have proliferated across the country, ten states have passed legislation to ban shackles, handcuffs and restraints during childbirth:  California, Colorado, Illinois, New Mexico, New York, Texas, Vermont, Washington state, West Virginia and Pennsylvania.

Notice that the District of Columbia is not included on that list? The District’s Department of Corrections didn't respond to a request for comment on shackling. So attorney Deborah Golden, a member of the DC Prisoners’ Legal Services Project Staff, provided some insight into D.C.’s history with the practice. “DC doesn’t explicitly ban shackling and there is no policy, per se,” Golden wrote in an e-mail. “But in 1996, in the course of Women Prisoners of DC v. DC, the court banned shackling of women in labor."

Can a woman be legally chained to her bed while giving birth in the District? Technically. In 1993, Women Prisoners of DC filed a class action lawsuit against the Department of Corrections, alleging that their constitutional rights had been violated after male prison staffers had physically and sexually abused them. Over the course of three years, the DOC was ordered to institute mandatory training on sexual harassment and hire a health educator. In addition to these demands, the court banned all use of restraints during and after child delivery. So far, the precedent of this ruling has not been rescinded—but it is by no means an absolute safeguard. "Technically, the injunction doesn’t exist anymore," Golden said. "[B]ut everyone has pretty much followed that practice, as far as I know.”

Photo via captain.orange, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

The National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, ever the crusader against contraceptive misconceptions, has launched a new website dedicated to debunking one particularly absurd myth: havesexstandingup.com. In a report [PDF] released last year, the NCPTUP reported that eighteen percent of men believe that they can reduce the chance of pregnancy by doing it standing up. Havesexstandingup.com—and its corresponding faux-PSA (above)—hopes to convince men to stand up and fuck, with a condom on this time. The campaign's corresponding music video (after the jump) gets dangerously deep into the "have sex standing up!" message before being like, "but seriously, wear a condom because that shit DOES NOT STOP BABIES."

[youtube:v=18MOrVNSFFE]

It's all female condom all the time this week on the Sexist. Female condom in a rubber vagina! Female condom in the anus! But despite the exhaustive orifice coverage (do not insert the female condom into your mouth!), questions remain. Like, what does illustrious ladyblogger Sady Doyle of Tiger Beatdown think about putting the female condom into her vagina? And so on. In this edition of Sexist Beatdown, join Sady and I as we wipe off our female-condom-pre-lubed hands (pictured), prep our vaginas for FC2 landing, and get down to ladybusiness.

AMANDA: Sorry I'm late: I was inserting my female condom in anticipation of having sex up to eight hours from now.

SADY: Amanda, you know how much I value our friendship. Which is why I want you to understand something. PLEASE NEVER SAY THE PHRASE "I WAS INSERTING MY FEMALE CONDOM" EVER EVER AGAIN.

AMANDA: Deal. But the next 30 minutes of this female condom chat are going to be excruciating for me.

SADY: It's hard for me to think of "female condom chats" WITHOUT thinking "excruciating." I know I am judgey and a poor former condom merchant and/or safe sex advocate for feeling this way.

AMANDA: Hey Sady, we're just two ladies hanging out talking frankly about our vaginas. The most natural thing for two women to talk about! (Actually we have talked a lot about vaginas, I am realizing, in this series).

SADY: Well, I guess we... have them in common? Okay, let's talk about something that is NOT vaginas. Let's talk about dicks. Because here's how I feel about dicks.

AMANDA: I'm listening.

SADY: HERE'S HOW I FEEL ABOUT DICKS! Dicks don't get pregnant. Dicks don't get their periods. Dicks don't get ANYTHING except boners, and also occasionally hilarious Hits in the Crotch on old episodes of America's Funniest Home Videos.

AMANDA: Haha, yeah!

[youtube:v=0zGLas2q31E]

SADY: Dicks have like one responsibility in the world, which is to put condoms on themselves when they are having the penetrative intercourse. AND NOW THEY'VE PUT THAT ONE ON US TOO?

AMANDA: Yes they have! And women around the world are as skeptical as you are. The thing about the female condom is that it's really great for women who can't force their male partners / clients whatever to use the male condom, and so they need a first line of defense.

SADY: Yeah. Fair enough.

AMANDA: For women who don't have that very terrible problem, though, I'm not seeing it really catching on? However, I have this idea that I would like to sell to the female condom manufacturers, which is that they give a grant to porn manufacturers who will work to eroticize the female condom in their work. So then one day like 10 years from now, old people will be like, "what are these 'money shots' and 'bikini waxes' and 'female condoms' the young kids are using nowadays?" And then there will finally be gender equity in condom sales.

SADY: Wow. Porn truly does solve everything! But can we go back to that "you won't put on a condom and we need a barrier/STD-preventing method" thing?

AMANDA: Sure.

SADY: Because here's my theory: You, A Dude, want to sleep with me. I, A Lady, am not sure if we are monogamous and/or STD free. You are like, "but baby, why can't YOU put this bag up your bits?" I am like, "this is the quickest I have ever lost interest in a sexual encounter. See you later, dude!" Like: If you are not responsible enough to wear the condom, you're not responsible enough to be having sex with me, basically.

AMANDA: Yeah. I have never heard of a man who would prefer the lady coat her vagina with a bag? But I did speak to one man who has sex with men who has used the female condom, and he had this to say about it: "When I’ve been a top—the insertive partner—what I’ve liked about the bottom wearing the device is that my penis wasn’t wrapped in plastic.” So, there's that.

SADY: I mean, okay. Sure. I get that. Did your interview subject mention the fit issues? I mean, I hear it fits well, but the thing I have always admired about condoms — the skinny jeans of the birth control world — is that they are so specifically tailored. Does the female condom, according to your journalistic research, share this virtue?

AMANDA: OK, so I'm not going to repeat the phrase that must never be repeated.

SADY: OH JEEZ.

AMANDA: But I did shminshmert the shmemale shcondom the other day, when I was, you know, just hanging out and bein' a lady, and it does, like shconform to the insides of your shvagina.

[youtube:v=mnyC_v0-DQ4]
How to shminshmert the female condom

SADY: Okay, so here's the thing: you like put it in and then hang out, though? Like, actually that might be a virtue! Because you don't have to go through that "oh crap where are the condoms rummage rummage rummage HANG ON additional rummaging" deal.

AMANDA: Well, you don't have to hang out, but you can hang out. (Up to eight hours before intercourse!) I mean, personally, I never really stopped feeling it so I wouldn't exactly suggest it. But maybe you get used to it. The thing is, nobody like, actually prefers sex with a condom, but it's a necessity in a lot of sexual situations, and it's conceivable that some couples might prefer the female condom. I just think it's really difficult to get that trend to pick up enough speed that those specific people a) actually try the condom and b) feel comfortable using it.

SADY: Oh, sure. And let me respond to your very serious and useful and responsible point with this: I am one of those people who occasionally gets all "OH WHAT THE CRAP WHERE ARE MY GLASSES," and looks for them for about fifteen minutes, and then looks at A MIRROR, and is like, "oh." I have looked for my headphones whilst wearing my headphones. If I ever shminsmerted the shmemale shmondom, basically it would be in there for life, is what I'm saying. I would seriously forget about it.

AMANDA: Yeah, the other thing is, like, peeing? You will have to pee at some point.

SADY: Oh, yeah, THAT.

AMANDA: Because it's really a full-coverage device, so I imagine it would get some pee on it? Perhaps there is some sort of accessory you can buy that aids in that process.

SADY: God. Somehow this ends with people getting like a female condom and one of those Shenis things you pee through and vajazzling ALL OF IT and... So yeah, I think we've established that I am one of those backward ladies that is like, "a FEMALE condom? Never!" Although, yeah, new barrier methods are good. That's undeniably true. And now, based on my reactions, I can see what it would be like to be one of those "I hate condoms" dudes. I HAVE BECOME THE THING I HATED.

AMANDA: And now I know what it's like to walk around with a condom in my vagina. Minimum rustling, I must say!

SADY: Okay, like, I have to say... Nobody is making these dudes put the condoms on over their lunch breaks so that they can come and have sexy dates with us later.

AMANDA: That's the weirdest thing about the female condom promotion, to me: They say that because you can pre-insert it, it "doesn't interrupt lovemaking." But it interrupts, like, other shit? Like my lunch break, or my peeing schedule, or what have you.

SADY: Yeah. I mean, I think your idea for a line of Female Condom-Centric Porn is actually a good one. Because right now this is like the least erotic idea in the world. But... dude condoms weren't initially perceived as a great idea, EITHER?

AMANDA: Right.

SADY: Like, I read this old issue of I think Cosmo from the sixties or seventies once, for a feminist media project, and it had this "revolutionary" article about all the different kinds of birth control there were. And condoms were mentioned. And the article, AS I RECALL (I am not quoting) was like, "I know you think these are for prostitutes, but you can use them too," and also they interviewed a guy who had tried this Strange New Birth Control Method, and he was like, "OMG so unnatural! Like having sex with a garbage bag!" And now it's just like... condoms, you know? They're at Duane Reade, they're understood to be commonplace, and nobody wants to hear you whine about them. Like I said: The very NOTION of a condom that I myself might wear has somehow transformed me into a person who thinks like a gross-ish dude.

AMANDA: Yes. And either you'll look back on this moment 30 years from now and say, "That is the moment I officially became an old person who is resistant to change," or, "That is the moment I officially became an old person because I even know what a female condom is, and no young people have ever heard of that shit, in the Future." Time will tell!

SADY: Right. When we're all wearing our Holo-Helmets and having Virtual Sex on our Google Entire Fake Universe Dates, the female condom, and indeed the male one, will be unnecessary. I for one look forward to that day.

In my research on hilarious misconceptions about birth control, the NuvaRing proved to be one of the most misunderstood options. My theory: Unlike other methods of female birth control, men are actually forced to come in contact with the NuvaRing (through their penises!), at which point they are prompted to verbalize their confusion.

And so, in order to foster understanding of this birth control method, I spent a little bit of time at work today sketching a vagina in Microsoft Paint. Since some public information about the vaginal ring can be perplexing:

[youtube:v=ppypTFoj4CA]
The birth control pill is like synchronized swimming, whereas the NuvaRing is like socializing in a hot tub. There are more bikinis in the hot tub!

. . . Perhaps this chart will help to fill in some of the blanks. Or maybe your sex partner will just wonder how you got yourself that radioactive vagina. Either way, print a copy and bring it with you on a night out!

Allison, 26, and her boyfriend were having sex—an activity they had engaged in many times over the six months they had been dating—when her contraceptive vaginal ring fell right out of her vagina. Her boyfriend paused. He developed a sudden concern over the efficacy of the couple’s method of birth control. “He was like, ‘Oh, no. How is it going to catch my semen?’” Allison recalls.

For about a year now, Allison has used the NuvaRing to prevent pregnancy. Three weeks out of the month, the clear, flexible plastic ring sits in Allison’s vagina and releases hormones into her bloodstream that prevent her from ovulating. It does not “catch” anybody’s semen.

“He played it off as a joke,” says Allison of her boyfriend’s bizarre interpretation of her birth control. “But in the tone of his voice, that honest worry was there. Part of him was thinking, ‘What does this ring actually do?’”

Allison is a veteran witness to contraception awareness syndrome. “I was dating a guy in college who knew that I was on the birth control pill. Of course, he was concerned about me getting pregnant,” says Allison. “So he said, ‘You know, you should take four or five of these a day—just take as many as you need to,’” she says.

Jenna had been living with her boyfriend for several months when he floated his own contraceptive theory. Jenna was taking her birth control pills continuously, meaning that she was skipping the pack’s built-in placebo pills in order to stop her period. At some point, her boyfriend discovered how she had managed to avoid the monthly ritual. “I was thinking you were just magical, like a unicorn,” he told her. “I mean, you hope one exists somewhere, but you never think you’ll get to live with one…a cool chick with no period drama that has sex all month long.” He added, “The guys thought I was making it up.” (Boyfriends could not be reached for comment for this story).

According to a new study by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy, many young American men exhibit attitudes toward contraception that could best be described as “magical.” The study [PDF] surveyed American singles ages 18–29 about their perceptions about and use of contraception. Twenty-eight percent of young men think that wearing two condoms at a time is more effective than just one. Twenty-five percent think that women can prevent pregnancy by douching after sex. Eighteen percent believe that they can reduce the chance of pregnancy by doing it standing up.

For the most part, men lagged behind women on the pregnancy prevention front. And when the study dipped into the realm of “female” forms of birth control, the gender divide intensified. In the study, 29 percent of men and 32 percent of women reported that they know “little or nothing about condoms.” When asked to rate their knowledge of birth control pills, 78 percent of men reported to be clueless, compared to 45 percent of women.

With a majority of young men generally unknowledgeable about hormonal birth control—and nearly half of young women equally stumped—men sometimes don’t figure out the basics until they think they may have impregnated someone, or their penis feels something weird. “I dated a girl with a NuvaRing, while I didn’t know she had one,” says a 22-year-old Arlington resident who didn’t discover how the couple was preventing baby-making until his penis was already well inside her vagina. “I found out the physical way, when I felt the alien object. I immediately recoiled in fear, asking what was wrong. It was frightening. Then she told me her birth control was a ring in her vagina, which I had never heard of.” He demanded the evidence. “She retrieved it—which is a sight to see—and showed it to me, put it back, and we continued,” he says. “I feel like girls should tell people.”

When Allison’s boyfriend expressed concern with the efficacy of her vaginal ring, she told him all about it. But even between two adults, the subject inspired some awkwardness. “The conversation wasn’t exactly free-flowing,” Allison says. “I’ve been dating since high school, and it feels like the men that I date now have a very similar idea of birth control as the men I dated who were high school students,” says Allison. “They get a preliminary idea in sex ed, and then there’s not really any education after that. Nothing ever changes.”

In addition to staging teach-ins, women are also responsible for shouldering the physical, emotional, and financial responsibilities for pregnancy prevention. Pap smears, STI tests, and gynecological sessions about their contraceptive options—that’s just the tip of it for the sexually active woman. In order to keep their birth control subscription fresh, they have to repeat that process every year. Their male sex partners are under no such requirements. As Salon noted last year, women have 11 methods of contraception from which to choose; men have two—condom and vasectomy. And even if men did have additional reliable birth control options, many women wouldn’t trust them to use them correctly. In a comment on the Salon article, one woman wrote, “I love my husband more than anything in the world but I would not place that responsibility on him because if the BC failed and he was responsible for it I would kill him then he would be dead and I would be having a child while in prison.” Perhaps it is no mystery why some men confine their responsibility to forms of birth control which relate directly to their own genitalia.

Gustav Seestedt, 23, says that birth control pills are the form of contraception he has “the most indirect experience with.” He has no idea how they work. “I thought it, uh, controlled, uh… I actually don’t know, now that I think about it,” he says. “Oh, man, I thought it had something to do with hormonal control, but that doesn’t seem right at all. That sounds pretty awful. I thought it, uh, somehow killed fertility with like chemicals and stuff,” he says. The ring, however, strikes Seestedt as a superior option. “I thought that was pretty fine, because, from what I understood, it was kind of a low-cost way of doing it, and it wasn’t really…I like it because chemical pills and stuff are kind of weird, [but the ring] was kind of placed inside, and…you know what I mean? It just kind of did its thing, you know?”

To some, the male indifference to birth control can be attributed to a juvenile disregard for all things related to the place in which the vaginal ring “does its thing.” We live in a country where heterosexual heartthrob Robert Pattinson feels comfortable announcing to Details magazine, “I really hate vaginas. I’m allergic to vagina.” Where tech nerds everywhere let out a collective titter over new Apple device the “iPad,” because it sounds kind of like a thing women use when they’re on their periods. Where Judd Apatow has built a film career out of turning extended vagina jokes into blockbusters.

“I definitely think that the inability to understand birth control goes back to the woman’s period,” says Allison. Months after the vaginal ring incident, Allison’s boyfriend remained confused about the specifics of her menstrual cycle. “The other day, I was on my period, and I took out my tampon before I went into the shower,” she says. “My boyfriend was like, ‘Wait: But you just took your tampon out. Can you go into the shower like that?’”

Allison responded to her boyfriend’s question with more questions. “Does he think that the second I take out my tampon, it’s just blood, blood everywhere?” she wondered. “That if I don’t plug it up with this cotton thing every moment, all hell will break loose?” Her boyfriend did not elaborate. “He was just kind of like, ‘Never mind,’” says Allison. “I think he understood the absurdity of his comment. But he was making an honest attempt to learn about something he doesn’t really know about.”

VIDEO: Men Explaining Birth Control.

Photo by outcast104, Creative Commons Attribution License 2.0

Sexist pet peeve: the persistent myth that women are all privately obsessed with producing tiny widdle babies. Working to debunk that assumption is a recent National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy study [PDF] which surveyed thousands of young Americans, aged 18 to 29, about their thoughts and perceptions about pregnancy. Guess which group is more likely to be "pleased" at an unplanned pregnancy? It's not the one with the silently weeping ovaries.

In order to gauge the "surprise fetus" reaction, NCPTUP researchers first isolated survey respondents who claimed it was "very important or somewhat important for them to avoid pregnancy right now." Then, researchers asked them how they would feel about an unplanned pregnancy:

If you found out today that (you were/your partner was) pregnant, how would you feel: Very upset, a little upset, a little pleased, very pleased, wouldn’t care.

Results: Staggeringly gendered! Forty-three percent of young men responded that they would be "a little pleased" or "very pleased" by the news; only 20 percent of women answered the same. Men also proved more comfortable with an unplanned pregnancy at an earlier age: Thirty-four percent of men 18-19 said they would be pleased. By the time they reach age 20-24, 42 percent of men said they would be pleased. And over 50 percent of men aged 25-29 would be pleased by the news. Remember: this is only among men who deemed it "important" that a pregnancy not occur at this junction.

Meanwhile, the percentage of women who would be "pleased" by an unplanned pregnancy stays steady at a low 16 percent all the way from age 18 to 24. By the time women reach the 25-29 age range, the percentage of "pleased" women soars to 29 percent. Despite the jump, women in their late 20s still lag behind their male counterparts by 22 percentage points. I don't know: Perhaps our joy is muted by the fact that unexpected pregnancies tend to put us ladies out a touch.

So, politely, what the fuck is going on? How many women out there are having sex under the assumption that their male partners are invested in teaming up to prevent pregnancy, only to discover that the guys are privately ecstatic about the idea? And could it happen to me? After all, my boyfriend falls into the Pleased By Surprise Fetus Danger Zone of age 25-29. Better safe than sorry:

me: Hey, would you agree that it's very important or somewhat important for us to avoid pregnancy right now?

him: What?

me: Don't worry, it's a theoretical question.

him: Christ. Very.

me: OK.

him: ??

me: If you found out today that I was pregnant, how would you feel: Very upset, a little upset, a little pleased, very pleased, wouldn’t care?

him: Hmm. Wouldnt care. I guess.

me: Just so you know, over half of men in your age range would be pleased or very pleased, even though they say it is important for them to not cause a pregnancy right now.

him: Oh, I would never have picked those.

Whew. I never thought I would register my boyfriend "not caring" about me getting pregnant as a small victory, but I'll take what I can get.

. . . But allow me to ignore the cries of my soon-to-be decrepit ladyparts for a moment in order to re-write this headline to reflect a few possibilities that reporter Carolyn Butler omits from the accompanying story. But first: What's with these ovaries anyway, and why are they so darned stubborn?

Butler's story is a tale of modern career woman v. nature. In it, women who are busy pursuing their professional dreams in their 20's may be dangerously ignoring the silent extermination occurring within their own bodies—according to Butler, "women lose 90 percent of their eggs by age 30"—until it's too late. But don't "start freaking out," Butler tells her readers, who, being women and all, are almost certainly doing just that.

Onto the science: "Society has changed," fertility doctor Robert Stillman of Rockville's Shady Grove Fertility tells Butler, "but the ovaries will take another million years or two to catch up to that."

Stillman's evolutionary perspective prompts this strange analysis from Butler:

Since we don't have another million years to wait, many women thinking of having children are left with the predicament of balancing the personal, primal urge to partner up and procreate with worthwhile social goals such as pursuing higher education and a successful career—not to mention economic stability.

As someone whose personal, primal urges have always been telling her to learn stuff and use her brain for stuff, not to make babies, I am left confused by the idea that my impulse to start a career is seen exclusively as a "worthwhile social goal" that is somehow at odds with my "personal" interests. But then again, there's a lot I don't identify with here. Possible alternate headlines for this story that I would be more likely to get down with:

Adoption agencies have adjusted to many women's decision to delay having children. [Seriously, Butler does even mention this possibility].

* Robert Stillman of Rockville's Shady Grove Fertility has adjusted to raking in tons of cash from many women's decision to delay having children.

* Ovaries indifferent to what you do with eggs after they pass off responsibility to fallopian tubes, uterus

* Ovaries privately concerned that women will end this whole society v. nature charade by just delaying having children until death

* Ovaries confused as to why the decision to have children is presented exclusively as a concern of women in this article

* Ovaries going through particularly rough time right now, could use a couple million years to adjust

Question for the columnist: Is this guy a dick, or what?

If that very unfortunate scenario sounds familiar, it's because last November, Daily Telegraph advice-giver Lesley Garner answered a question from a woman in an eerily similar situation. Garner failed.

Garner's advice-seeker had been raped, become pregnant, and had the baby. Her husband split, leaving her to raise the child as a single mother. Her question: Should she attempt to rekindle a relationship with the man who had dumped her as a result of her sexual assault?

You may recall how Garner responded: She informed the woman that her rape "wasn’t exactly a rape but a situation between you and your boss that got out of hand." Garner also insisted that a husband jetting after his wife is impregnated through rape is "a no-brainer . . . No man could contemplate this. He would have found your decision inexplicable."

In my critique of Garner's advice (in short, do not advise rape victims that they are not rape victims, and also, please refrain from informing women that their reproductive choices are thoroughly "inexplicable" to other humans), I noted that I was not an advice columnist, but that I suspected the husband in question to be a "dickwad." Now that we've got a legit advice-giver in the form of Carolyn Hax to weigh in on the subject, we may finally learn the answer: Are you a dick for abandoning your wife after she is impregnated from her rape?

But first, the big wind-up:

Oakland, Calif.: Hello Carolyn. A friend's wife became pregnant as a result of a sexual assault. She has decided to not have an abortion, and doesn't know yet whether she wants to give the child up for an adoption. Would the husband be a [glass bowl] for refusing to raise this child, and divorcing if necessary? Thanks.

Essentially, the reader is asking Hax this: "Oh, hello Carolyn, my friend's wife was raped. LONG STORY SHORT, now my friend has been seriously inconvenienced by this, so can you please let him know he's not a dick for peacing? Thanks."

Hax delivers a reasoned response that manages to give credit to the difficulty of the husband's situation while still conveying the fact that, yes, he is a gigantic jackass:

Wow. I think the only happy outcome is one the husband and wife conjure together. Technically, this isn't something the wife can force on the husband and expect him to agree to joyfully.

That said, technically, this pregnancy wasn't something to be forced on the wife, and yet it was. So, in a rare case where bean-counting is the way to go, the husband needs to let go of any notion of an ideal outcome here, in direct proportion to the wife's distance from her notion of an ideal outcome. This is the only fair and decent course.

Finally, there's the child to be considered, who is obviously innocent, and deserves to enter the world with just as clean a slate as any other child's.

I'm not saying this wouldn't be a Herculean challenge for the husband, because it would–but embracing the innocent child strikes me as immeasurably better for the soul than leaving one's rape-victim wife to be a single mom.

I trust Hax on this one. Here's why: Observe how Hax refrains from suggesting that (a) perhaps this rape victim was not in fact raped, nor that (b) rape victims who carry their pregnancies to term deserve to be alone for the choices they have made. Incredible. It is thus resolved: abandoning your rape-victim wife is a dick move.

UPDATE: It's worse than I thought. The rape victim's husband's friend weighs in to further contextualize the situation:

Oakland again: Thanks Carolyn. Obviously this whole situation is devastating for them. I don't know if this make a difference, but the couple is white, and the assailant was Afircan-American, and the husband isn't exactly progressive when it comes to race relations.

The situation: "Eva," a married woman, is raped by her boss on a business trip. She becomes pregnant. She decides to get an abortion. Her husband is supportive of the abortion, but not of Eva—"He drove me to a clinic for a consultation and waited outside in the car because he 'didn't want to hear me talk about conception dates,'" she writes. Eva later decides not to go through with the abortion. Her husband leaves her. She raises a beautiful baby boy on her own. Now, seven years later, she wants to reconnect with her ex. But there is a complication: "What happened on that trip wasn't quite rape but I wasn't exactly willing either. The man was my boss and he was very drunk and forceful. I tried to push him away without upsetting him, but he was too strong and I didn't fight him."

Now, if I were the advice columnist here, I know what I'd say: "your ex-husband is a dickwad." But I'm not an advice columnist. Lesley Garner is. Her advice is of the "stop lying about getting raped and admit that it was selfish to not get an abortion" variety.

That's right: Garner tells Eva that (a) she wasn't actually raped; and that (b) any woman who refuses to abort her (made-up) rape baby is selfish for denying her husband's feelings. Let's start with the rape part:

Let's look at the bit about telling the truth first. Your letter is full of confusion and chaos, and then I reached the end and saw that the story with which you began—the story that you told your husband—wasn't even true. This was a shock to me, so you can bet it would be a very big shock to your husband.

The thing that strikes me most about your whole story is that you seem to have very little understanding of how your husband might feel. It is all about you and your needs. I think it is highly unlikely that your husband will welcome you back but I guarantee that, should you get to sit down and talk together, the further revelation that your rape wasn't exactly a rape but a situation between you and your boss that got out of hand would be the final blow.

. . . Something isn't right here, which makes me wonder whether you are telling the truth to yourself, never mind your husband.

Ah. It wasn't a "rape." It was a "situation." Situations! Anything goes in them, really! Remember this next time the man responsible for your paycheck gets drunk and forces you to have sex with him, but you decide not to physically fight him, because he is a strong, drunk, forceful man responsible for your paycheck: What were you doing turning up in that "situation" to begin with? Add that to the list of things to avoid if you don't want to get raped, ladies: Short skirts, beer, and "situations."

Again, I'm not an advice columnist, but isn't the more troublesome detail here that Eva would describe her "situation" as "not quite rape"? Shouldn't we address the fact that Eva appears to be in such denial about that "situation" that almost a decade later, she can't come to terms with what actually happened to her? No time: We still have to deal with Eva's horrible decision not to get an abortion!

Garner writes:

I see a complete mismatch between what has actually happened and the fantasies that you are weaving around the relationship. So I feel I should spell a few things out.

. . . You made a unilateral decision. You decided to continue with the pregnancy in the absolutely unrealistic expectation that your husband would be happy to bring up the child of another man, his wife's rapist. This is a no-brainer, Eva. No man could contemplate this. He would have found your decision inexplicable.

. . . On the whole, men's hearts are not melted by children who are not their own. Even a tender-hearted man is going to find it hard to be charmed by the child of a man he believes raped his wife. There is no bond between your former husband and this child, and I doubt there ever could be.

Oh, that "unilateral decision" to have an abortion! Whenever women make that decision all on their own, without even thinking of the "feelings" of their husband, government, or Telegraph advice columnist, some bad shit is bound to go down that will ruin their lives forever, right?

One last time—I'm not an advice columnist—but if I were, I would focus on reminding Eva about what a total dickwad her husband was after she had to endure being raped and impregnated by her boss. Perhaps we just gently tell Eva that, really, the problem is not in her decision to carry a pregnancy to term, but rather the decision to continue to allow this fucking guy to have any sway over her child, her happiness, or her life.

It's clear that both Lesley Garner and I aren't really down with the idea of Eva and her ex getting back together. We just happen to disagree on a few of the minor details—like what rape means, and whose feelings should be most valued in the case of abortion. Nevertheless, Garner's conclusion is a good one: "As for your lovely son, yes, it would be good if he had a father but he will also thrive if he has a happy, stable mother who has the support of a network of friends and family . . . become a happier and more fulfilled person in yourself and you have a much better chance of a strong relationship in the future." A good place to start? Ignoring every piece of advice that preceded Garner's final thought.

The Weight Loss Doll, 1991

Perfect for: The girl who's just entering the "I'm fat" phase, but hasn't yet abandoned the "plays with dolls" phase.

How it works: This doll provides dieters "a friend, a companion in the weight-loss process" who gains and loses weight along with you. Or, more accurately, loses its skin. "Layers of 'skin' made of stretchable synthetic material, such as vinyl, are added or removed from the doll each time the doll's owner gains or loses one weight increment, respectively. Each layer represents a particular predetermined weight increment, which may be determined by the doll's owner. The doll may be male or female, preferably includes jointed body parts, and may be dressed, such as in a running suit which fits over the layers of skin."

The Magical Boob Growth Doll, 1976.

Perfect for: The prepubescent girl who wishes she could lose her baby-fat belly and magically grow a rack, all in one upward motion!

How it works: You crank the weight from your stomach to your boobs. "Lower torso member includes a waist member having a lower portion of a first girth and an upper portion of a second, lesser girth so that pliable, rubber-like upper torso waist member may be slid from lower portion of lower torso waist member where it simulates waist of pudgy pre-teenager to upper portion of lower torso waist member where it simulates trim waist of a teenager while simulated breasts are simultaneously pressed outwardly against upper torso member causing bulging of the rubber-like material to form a simulated bustline."

The Pregnant Doll, 1989

Perfect For: Little girls who yearn to play act an "attractively svelte" baby-maker, without all the icky scientific accuracy.

How it works: "When the baby is in the pocket of the mother, it bulges the pocket and the mother appears pregnant; when the baby is removed the mother appears attractively svelte . . . The baby is preferably placed upside down in the pouch; but the pouch may be sized to receive the baby doll in other positions since young children are not likely to be biologically precise about this."

The Breastfeeding Doll, 1981.

Perfect for: The little girl who is into all that icky scientific accuracy.

How it works: "the mouth of the baby doll can be fastened to the breast pf the mother doll to simulate breastfeeding." But why? "It is old and well known in the art to produce dolls resembling a mature woman as well as to produce baby dolls. It is also old and well known to provide humanoid dolls which are capable of simulating certin human functions such as crying, taking nourishment from a bottle, wetting and the like. [But] with respect to a simulated nursing operation between a mother and her young, the only known representations involve animals."

The Diet Aid Doll, 1990.

Perfect For: Any kid who eats food. This human-pig hybrid doll is not made specifically for the children. But the fat-shaming figure sticks right on the family refrigerator, so your growing girl will get the hint every time she descends to the kitchen for a midnight snack.

How it works: "When a person presses the nose of the pig doll, a portion of the doll is inflated to a greater size. This expansion of the pig doll is to visually remind people that their own bodys will expand in size when they continually over-eat. . . . When the person sees that the body of the doll has expanded, this reminds the person that his or her , own body can expand by over eating and look unappealing."

The fight for ideological dominance of D.C.’s college sex column “movement” rages on. Are our local campus columnists on the forefront of radical sex writing, or are they bringing back the good old days of valiant male chivalry—only drunker? This week: G.W. student fucks Marine; UMD students are bitches, dicks, or pussies; American University issues a Very Special sex column. It must be sweeps week:

GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY:

Sex Tips: In Layla's latest heterosexual female romp, G.W.'s resident sex columnist extols upon the virtues of fucking servicemen. She also floats a revised idea of traditional courtship: Men are still confined to the rules of chivalry, but everyone gets drunk and you can do it whenever you feel like it. "Leaning against the bar, I spotted Prince Charming, an incredibly sexy combination of chivalry and a hint of danger, walking down the stairs," she writes of a random Marine she spots while sitting alone, "double fisting" drinks at the bar. "Having stubbornly worn my three-inch heels, I literally stumbled into his arms and swooned at how valiantly and easily he caught me. In my opinion, there is nothing sexier than a man with an accent, especially if its southern and he happens to call me ma'am." They decide to get it on. "Prince Charming grinned and pulled out an umbrella, proving that even in the face of a certain hookup, chivalry is not dead."

Life Lesson: Layla insists there is "something scandalously orgasmic about making out with a marine in the middle of a bar to bad 80s music," proving that people are into some freaky shit. Side-note: Layla may needs to take some life lessons from the Buster Darkhole school of sex column euphemisms. Her target is called "Prince Charming." Her friend? "GI Jane."

Progressive Meter: I count six references to "Prince Charming," two to "chivalry," and one each to "swooned" and "valiantly." Layla's column describes a thoroughly modern tale—they meet at a bar and hook up—but the vocabulary is stuck in another century. Three.

—

THE UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND:

Sex Tips: This time around in UMD senior Esti Frischling's regular advice column, she tackles the problem of a third-wheel friend who knows that one of the coupled-up friends is cheating on the other. Frischling's advice—don't snitch, but encourage them to break up, and if they don't, go ahead and fuck the one who's getting screwed over—isn't as memorable as the way she tells it:

- "You better not rat either way (bitch)."
- "I mean, he can’t possibly see her as marriage material if he’s having all this premarital sex with all the sluts, right?"
- "approach the guy and say something along the lines of (and feel free to quote me directly) 'Dude stop being such a dick — your girl is hot, lay off the adulterous pussy.'”
- "I say—and this is my final answer by the way—blow up his spot and f— his girl. Yeah."

Life Lesson: Apparently, bitches, sluts, dicks, and pussies are A-OK in the Diamondback. But in the end, all we get is a "f—."

Progressive Meter: While it's difficult to discern a political bent in decisions over snitching, I do find the emphasis on "marriage material," "premarital sex," and "sluts" a bit off-putting here. You're in college. Stop rating the validity of your relationships on whether or not you're planning to get hitched to the person you're currently doing. On the other hand, the advice that the advice-seeker "f— his girl"  seems to be applied with no concern as to whether the advice-seeker is male or female. Cool. Five.

—

AMERICAN UNIVERSITY:

Sex Tips: This go-around, AU's trio of porn-named sex columnists—Amber Sparkles, Buster Darkhole, and Maxwell Hillcrest—have teamed up to deliver a Very Special sex column about personal responsibility. This conversation—how to avoid unwanted pregnancies, STIs, abuse, and disappointment—is important. But Sparkles, Darkhole, and Hillcrest may be biting off more than they can chew here. The column is a little bit about pleasure: "Many people enjoy sex without condoms—scratch that, nearly everyone enjoys the sensations of sex more without condoms." A little bit about shame: "it is your life. It is not the life of the girl who might yell 'slut' at you when you walk home from a fantastic evening." And a little bit about dying of AIDS: "imagine two boys at Apex going home together. They may have amazing sex, but if it is unprotected, the consequences can be fatal."

Life Lesson: Sex undertaken without "planning ahead" can lead to babies, disease, and unhappiness.

Progressive Meter: The column is titled "Planning ahead helps ease worries in bed," but the three-author treatment focuses entirely on sexual anxieties, and not on the peace of mind that can come with entering into sex fully prepared and ready to go. The intended take-away here—when you're having sex, you should be concerned with satisfying your personal needs and taking care of yourself, not conforming to societal expectations—is a fine one. Unfortunately, the message gets lost in a sea of downers about the possible outcomes of doin' it: campus shaming, misogyny, blood tests, abortion, and death. Four.

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

The danger of swine flu in pregnant women has received a great deal of press attention recently. As concerns over the health of pregnant women rise, the abortion debate has slyly emerged as a a central influence in the dialogue.

Yesterday, the New York Times told the story of Aubrey Opdyke, a 27-year-old woman who was pregnant when she contracted swine flu last June. What began as mild symptoms of aches and fatigue turned into a harrowing four month ordeal. Writes reporter John McNeil:

In the four months she was hospitalized, she spent five weeks in a coma, suffered six collapsed lungs and a near-fatal seizure. High-pressure ventilation blew her up like a molten balloon until “she looked like she weighed 400 pounds,” her husband, Bryan, said, and she has stretch marks from her neck to her ankles. Her muscles and lungs are still so weak that she uses a walker.While hospitalized, she missed seeing her 4-year-old daughter, Hope, learn to swim and start pre-school.

And, most important, she lost her baby. Parker Christine Opdyke, almost 27 weeks in the womb, was delivered by emergency Caesarean section on July 18, when her fetal heart rate plummeted during Ms. Opdyke’s third lung collapse. Her airways were too blocked to let a breathing tube in, possibly a side effect of the drugs saving her mother. She lived seven minutes.

In McNeil's profile of Opdyke, losing the baby was "most important"—more traumatic than even falling into the coma, suffering a seizure, temporarily losing the ability to walk, talk, and see her family, and facing death. The trauma of losing a child in the womb is clearly central to Opdyke's experience. But it is still Opdyke's experience—the ordeal is hers, not her baby's. Compare that treatment to a previous profile of Opdyke, which ran in the Scripps Treasure Coast Newspapers. It's worth it to examine the entire lede:

The baby was beautiful, with tufts of long eyelashes—just like her mother.

But she didn’t cry.

Her heart stopped minutes after doctors delivered her from the belly of Aubrey Opdyke, who had swine flu and lay in a medically induced coma.

Aubrey never had the chance to see her.

So the baby’s grandmother, Joanne Felker of Stuart, readied tiny Parker Christine for photographs and a video.

She bathed her and held her.

“She looks like she’s just peaceful,” Felker said of the images, shot by the volunteer group Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep.

One of these days, the family will show the images to Aubrey.

They’ll fill in the blanks about the time she has spent in a coma at Wellington Regional Medical Center, battling a case of H1N1 influenza that took Parker’s life on July 18 — more than two months before she was supposed to be born.

This is a story about a fetus. Opdyke, who endured months of comas, collapsed lungs, and seizure in a fight to stay alive, is introduced in a prepositional phrase: "from the belly of." Joanne Felker is not Opdyke's mother; she is "the baby's grandmother." The loss of Parker Christine is mourned at length, but the fact that Opdyke herself was on the verge of death is never mentioned in the story. Tellingly, Opdyke was not even able to speak at the time this profile was written about her. Given her condition, it's doubtful she had a hand in authorizing the story at all:

Now that doctors have eased her off coma-inducing medication, Aubrey can blink in response to visitors.

She indicated that she recognized her husband, Bryan Opdyke, and can wiggle her toes.

The sources in the story are Opdyke's mother, her former co-workers, and her former Girl Scout troop leader. Opdyke's husband is not quoted in the story. That's too bad, because he provided an extremely interesting insight to the New York Times:

Mr. Opdyke was warned he might have to choose—her life or that of the baby, who was just at the border of survivability outside the womb.

“I said, ‘Save Aubrey,’ ” he said of the woman he married last year. “I can make another baby, but I can’t replace her.”

Her third lung collapse forced the issue. Parker had to be delivered, but she did not survive.

The Times addresses the issue head-on: Losing Parker was a tragedy for the Opdykes, but it may very well have saved a woman's life. Andrea Opdyke wasn't given many choices throughout her horrific ideal. At least, in the New York Times, she's afforded a voice in her own story.

Photo by flickr user Andres Rueda, Creative Commons 2.0

"Reducing." "Eliminating." Saul doesn't use the word "abortion" until page three, when she notes that "many opponents criticize selective reduction as a form of abortion." It is abortion. So why don't we call it that?

Saul's story aims to accurately describe real pregnancy experiences, and the highly politicized debate surrounding abortion has a funny way of conveniently ignoring these stories. The hopeful parents Saul interviews largely fall outside the mainstream abortion debate: they are men and women who desperately desire children, and must decide whether to abort multiple fetuses or run the risk of losing their chance of ever having a healthy baby. The typical characterizations that pro-lifers associate with the word "abortion"— "baby killers," "Godless whores," "irresponsible sluts"—don't exactly fit when they're applied to people who go to great lengths to create life.

Saul's heavy use of euphemism throughout the piece deliberately shields these women's choices from the misplaced moral superiority of the abortion debate. Calling the procedure "reducing" or "eliminating" instead of "aborting" helps to respect the full experience of women who fight for one healthy child, but end up with seven fetuses that are unlikely to survive. The use of the "reduction" euphemism in the medical community may also help some women make informed medical decisions affecting their lives and the lives of their children. Some patients may be so opposed to abortion—or simply so put-off by the cultural perceptions of the word "abortion"—that they may endanger themselves or the lives of their potential children if they are forced to choose one.

But the medical community's reluctance to discuss the possibility of "selective reduction" honestly and frankly with women can also harm those women who don't realize that fertilization techniques may require abortion. One woman in the story, who chose to "reduce" her pregnancy from five fetuses to three, told the Times:

“I think there’s a huge problem in the reproductive technology industry . . . I was told the chances that I would have triplets were less than 1 percent. There was no talk of being faced with a decision like that until the day that we had the ultrasound. Then you have two weeks to decide. And you don’t get counseling from anybody.”

The euphemistic word choice can also hurt women who have abortions under other circumstances. The hesitancy to apply the term "abortion" to women who actually want babies does a disservice to all women who choose to end a pregnancy. Women choose abortion for a variety of reasons. Some women who are not carrying "multiples" choose abortion despite a desperate desire to have a child. Some women choose abortion in order to protect their children from lives that are sure to be short and painful. Some women choose abortion in order to save their own lives from dangerous pregnancies. Some women choose abortion because their bodies are unfit to carry a child. Some women choose abortion in order to protect the best interests of the children they already have. Some women choose abortion in order to protect the best interests of the children they want to have in the future. Some women choose abortion because they don't want to have children. And some women choose abortion for reasons that are none of your business. When reporters choose to remove a select group of women from the discussion of "abortion," they imply that all other decisions to abort are somehow less valid.

Saul's story shows that the decision to abort is often complicated, difficult, and personal. It also shows that politicizing the decision to have an abortion can prove extremely dangerous to both women and children. In Saul's story, women who choose to "reduce" their fetuses escape the "abortion" label because their choice to abort is explicitly aimed at encouraging life. Their choice completely upends the false dichotomy in the political debate between "abortion" and "life." That's all the more reason to call the procedure "abortion."

Ella Laseinde is accustomed to seeing strangers’ breasts. “I’m a mammographer, so I’m with the breasts constantly,” says Laseinde, 71, who spent 30 years in government service—including five at the National Institutes of Health screening women’s chests. That’s not to say she’s interested in catching sight of stray bosoms outside the office. “I think in today’s time, they need to cover,” Laseinde says of nursing mothers. “There are so many people walking around who can catch a look.”

In 1995, Laseinde patented a contraption to help women breast-feed in public without sacrificing modesty. Laseinde’s Shield-Me-Baby Nursing Bib, inspired by the birth of a granddaughter, is a halter-style bib that attaches with Velcro around a woman’s neck and fits over her breast.

A circular hole, tailored to the woman’s cup size, allows the breast to peek through the innovative device, enabling the infant to latch on to the food source. To minimize the public visibility of this transaction, the device has a flap that rests on the head or perhaps cheek area of the infant. Though it’s possible that some flesh could be exposed even with Laseinde’s patented breakthrough, there’ll be no full-on breast views with the Shield-Me-Baby Nursing Bib.

Though Laseinde’s 14-year patent on the bib expired last week, it’s recently found new life courtesy of neighbor and public-relations mouthpiece Linda Jones, 55. Jones began helping Laseinde market the product a few months ago in order to address what she calls “the ongoing public breast-feeding controversy.” Which side is Jones on? “I believe in covering,” says Jones, who breast-fed her two children, now 36 and 26 years old. “I don’t believe in showing my girls.”

Laseinde began producing the cotton contraptions as gifts before realizing, in the 1990s, that she could be charging $25 and up to help new mothers cover up.

Laseinde’s nursing garment isn’t the first modesty saver to hit the market, but it is one of the simplest. When Laseinde was breast-feeding in the 1960s, necessity mandated consistent public breast-feeding, and modesty could be maintained with a well-draped handkerchief. With the advent of formula and pumps, however, the public display inched toward taboo. Laseinde designed the bib to help a daughter-in-law breast-feed on the go without offending the public’s newly sensitive eyes.

But in the decade-and-a-half since Laseinde first laid out her design, Bill Clinton signed the Right to Breastfeed Act into law, public breast-feeding has emerged from the back room—and upscale new-mama fashion became en vogue. The maternity market has responded with increasingly ridiculous ways to guard a new mother’s breasts from curious onlookers.

One “apparatus and method for breast feeding,” patented in 2007, “provides a nursing mother a true sense of privacy and modesty”—complete with peep-show atmosphere. Here’s how: “[A] curtain is attached around the neck of the mother by a semi-rigid annular hoop. A layer of material lies across the front panel forming a valance or curtain for added privacy.”

Another nursing garment, titled “an improved garment for providing a privacy screen for the body,” has more of a hardhat-area feel. “The garment lies over the shoulder of the wearer extending down the back to a weighting means and down the front to an expanded lower portion,” the 2002 patent reads. “The weighting means provides a counter-balance to adequately retain the position of the garment on the wearer. The expanded lower portion drapes over the midriff of the wearer to provide breathable privacy to the wearer and contents within.

At least one invention attempts to place the modesty burden onto the newborn. The Breastfeeding Hat (patent pending) “includes a head-receiving portion sized and shaped to receive the head of a child, and a brim portion extending radially outwardly from the head-receiving portion. The brim portion is sized and shaped to substantially cover a woman’s breast.”

There’s even a contraption to help eliminate the need for breastfeeding contraptions. My Third Hand, patented in 2004, “holds the mother’s shirt securely out of the way by hooking onto her bra and her shirt, thereby freeing her hands to hold her baby and making expensive maternity shirts unnecessary.”
Laseinde’s Shield-Me-Baby bibs, too, have grown more sophisticated since their mid-’90s debut; she’s currently working on disposable models as well as party-ready versions “to match her evening-wear.” Perfect for the black-tie diaper bag.

Nowadays, many modern moms see no need to borrow baby’s bib before a public breast-feeding session. Dia Michels, 50, a local breast-feeding advocate, spent a combined 15 years breast-feeding on Capitol Hill, no modesty device required. “The reason women are so freaked out about breast-feeding in public is because we have completely sexualized the breast,” she says. “The only way to make breast-feeding easier for women is to desensitize the public to breast exposure. If these devices allow women to hide what they’re doing and cover it because it’s shameful and because it’s embarrassing, it’s just perpetuating the sexualization of the breast.” Though Shield-Me-Baby’s duckline-printed bibs fail to cover the larger issue, they can help individual women still held down by an outdated taboo. “If your goal is to help a woman with her issues—if the bib allows her to get over the hurdle that’s causing her discomfort—it becomes an empowering device,” Michels says.

Though Michels says that breast-feeding still hasn’t recovered from the rise of formula, the cause to desensitize the public to a dropped breast is alive and well. These days, a good deal of breast-feeding etiquette is now directed not at mothers but at passersby. One guide, published at families.com, advises flashed parties not to bother a mother with questions, complaints, or idle conversation—and to never call security on her. In April’s Atlantic Monthly, Hanna Rosin argued that the dirtiest of playground looks are now reserved for women who refuse to serve up product on demand. When Rosin voiced an appreciation for formula, “[t]he reaction was always the same: circles were redrawn such that I ended up in the class of mom who, in a pinch, might feed her baby mashed-up Chicken McNuggets,” she wrote. “In my playground set…breast-feeding is the real ticket into the club.”

Even among less-exclusive mothering circles, breast-feeding etiquette remains a hotly contested issue. “It’s like fashion,” says Jones. “It’s a cycle. One minute it’s in, the next minute it’s out”—meaning the marketing opportunities are endless. The cyclical nature of breast-feeding acceptance also explains why, in 2009, “a lot of people are still debating this issue,” Jones says. The echo chamber on breast-feeding is exacerbated by the eternal impressionability of expecting mothers. “It’s a scary situation, having a baby,” Jones says. “You don’t know what to expect. When a woman is pregnant, she’s going to be looking for any help she can get.”

And when she does, Laseinde and Jones will be waiting for her. Laseinde’s home is located directly across the street from a reliable stream of impressionable customers: Providence Hospital. Laseinde hasn’t staked out maternity ward graduates just yet. “I’ve thought about it, seeing people coming out,” she says. Adds Jones, “We plan to catch them as they leave—there are so many of them coming out with babies.” CP

Photo by Darrow Montgomery

A Hierarchy of Date-Rape Jams, a charticle that is totally invalidated if you hate Rod Stewart.

(How to Enginer A) Teen Sex Scandal!, for those of you clinging to your old media jobs

Who Can Make a Rape Joke?, but seriously folks.

My Body is Not Defined By Pregnancy, rather: tacos.

The Five Most Inappropriate Cock-Bib Phrases, and oooooh I cannot wait to get my very own CockBib in the mail!

Photo by pheezy

The product of sex educator Karen Rayne and midwife Christy Tashjian, the blog records user-submitted photos of women's disembodied bellies, accompanied by the belly's age and reproductive history. The point of the blog, the creators write, is to "put our bellies in perspective," as bellies are "intimately related our sexuality and to our reproductive lives. It's a complicated interaction, that confluence of sex and babies."

A typical submission looks something like this:

It is complicated, that "confluence of sex and babies." My midsection's ability to create proto-humans is something I have to fight against every fucking day. Getting a birth control prescription. Paying for it. Taking it every day. Wondering if I'm pregnant. Buying pregnancy tests. Defending why I don't want children. Swallowing painkillers for my ovaries. Bleeding out of my vagina. Dealing with CVS while bleeding out of my vagina.

Being able to make babies sucks. But I do a lot of other things with my belly, too. I fill it with tacos. I lay on it. I put beer in it. I do the odd sit-up. I bend it over when I bike to work. Most of the time, though, it just sits above my legs and under my boobs as I type on the computer all day, and I never think about the thing.

This is not a perspective on the belly supported by the Belly Project:

I understand the point here: Women's bellies are expected to be both sexual objects and reproductive agents, it's a huge bitch to strattle that fence. I don't want to deal with satisfying either of those unattainables. I'm about as interested in defining my body by abortion, c-section, and "horrible vaginal birth" as I am by a hotness rating. At some point, belly after belly after belly, the blog becomes—excuse the pun—unstomachable.

Many Belly Project submissions are detailed to the point of absurdity. One belly includes this identifying information: "32 years old, 1 pregnancy (0 babies, 1 abortion), currently ovulating when this picture was taken." Why not also say, "32 years old, 1 pregnancy, just ate a sandwich"? Most problematic to me, though, is how all the belly submissions define their abortions as "pregnancies." In the Belly Project world, a tiny uninvited fetus that you choose to flush out six weeks in is defined in the same way as those nine months a woman spent growing and birthing desired offspring. I understand that some women consider their abortions this way. I would not.

That's what unsettles me about the Belly Project: It defines the female body by the very things I have to struggle every day to not let define me. Age, pregnancy, abortion, and ovulation are important to the Belly Project. Tacos and  biking and careers are not. Maybe, as the project develops, the submissions will diversify. We're not there yet: today, I searched the Belly Project Web site, and couldn't find "None of Your Goddamned Business" anywhere.

Meanwhile, the "Man Belly Project" has begun posting photos of male bellies accompanied by the belly's age, alcohol consumption, and exercise regimen. Honestly, this guy speaks to me more than a reproductive history ever could:

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.

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.

That's what Ruth Marcus claims in today's Washington Post, quoting Sarah Palin's remarks from a—what else—a pro-life fundraiser. At the dinner, Palin discussed her "choice" to have a child with Down syndrome  at the age of 44—a choice that, as Marcus points out, Palin wants to deny other women. Marcus is miffed that right-to-lifers like Palin routinely justify their anti-choice positions by describing their own "correct" "decisions" to have children. This isn't the fist time Palin has used choice to explain why women shouldn't chose—who could forget Palin's election-season classic, "We're proud of Bristol's decision to have her baby"?

Palin's pro-"choice" comments—where she describes twice considering abortion before deciding to carry her pregnancy to term—after the jump.

"I had found out that I was pregnant while out of state first, at an oil and gas conference. While out of state, there just for a fleeting moment, wow, I knew, nobody knows me here, nobody would ever know. I thought, wow, it is easy, could be easy to think, maybe, of trying to change the circumstances. No one would know. No one would ever know.

"Then when my amniocentesis results came back, showing what they called abnormalities. Oh, dear God, I knew, I had instantly an understanding for that fleeting moment why someone would believe it could seem possible to change those circumstances. Just make it all go away and get some normalcy back in life. Just take care of it. Because at the time only my doctor knew the results, Todd didn't even know. No one would know. But I would know. First, I thought how in the world could we manage a change of this magnitude. I was a very busy governor with four busy kids and a husband with a job hundreds of miles away up on the North Slope oil fields. And, oh, the criticism that I knew was coming. Plus, I was old . . .

"So we went through some things a year ago that now lets me understand a woman's, a girl's temptation to maybe try to make it all go away if she has been influenced by society to believe that she's not strong enough or smart enough or equipped enough or convenienced enough to make the choice to let the child live. I do understand what these women, what these girls go through in that thought process."

Photo by √oхέƒx™

Kate Tsubata is not your typical abstinence advocate. She wants you to choose one person to have sex with for the rest of your life, but her fidelity to the movement’s traditions ends there. She refuses to draft no-sex pledges, forge promise rings, stage purity balls, or cite scripture. She doesn’t care if the sex you’re not having is straight or gay. She likes sex, actually, as long as you only do it with one person ever—no wedding required. The stakes are lower, too. In Tsubata’s abstinence movement, sex won’t lead you down a road of eternal damnation—all it will do is kill you.

As the leader of the Washington AIDS International Teens group—or, the T-shirt-perfect “WAIT”—Tsubata, her three children, and a team of youth activists teach young adults to abstain from sex solely to stop the spread of AIDS. The encouragement comes via performance: a teen-friendly program of beat-boxing, break-dancing, and sober Powerpoint presentation in the name of waiting for “the one.” In steering a middle course between the anti-AIDS and anti-sex sets, Tsubata may be ensuring that her cause never, ever gets any money.

WAIT’s prevention strategy of lifetime fidelity to one person is too idealistic for most AIDS activists, who prefer to tout the benefits of lifetime fidelity to the condom. WAIT has also proven too practical for the abstinent, whose AIDS work is often colored by moral prescriptions against fornication, homosexuality, and other at-risk sins. The division between the groups has blocked a possible solution to the AIDS crisis. Forget daddy-daughter dances and abstinence-themed jewelry; these days, only an incurable epidemic that threatens to wipe out entire populations may succeed in convincing teens to keep their legs crossed.

The latest ravages of this incurable epidemic have jolted people into action. Within days of the release of striking new AIDS figures placing D.C.’s AIDS epidemic on par with West Africa’s, WAIT fielded dozens of requests for WAIT performances, in which a vanload of teens channel unused sexual energy into back-flips, one-armed headstands, repurposed  hip-hop songs, and other chaste stunts. Then, an hour-long Powerpoint presentation details HIV’s causes—intravenous drug use, sex, and in very rare occasions, deep kissing; and effects—rare bulbous skin cancers, tuberculosis, or simply wasting away. Only at the final slides does WAIT arrive at its recommendation: Better not to do it.

Tsubata, who also serves as co-director of the Washington AIDS International Foundation, WAIT’s parent group, knows it’s a radical conclusion in a city where an e-mail to condoms@dc.gov can bring a shipment of 1,000 government-funded “Durex Enhanced Pleasure” rubbers. But she says that rough times have benefited WAIT’s unorthodox abstinence approach. “Everyone is just so desperate for something to work, for something to help people, that I think they’re ready to try anything,” she says.

Everyone, that is, except the D.C. government, which has denied WAIT’s repeated requests for funding since the program started up in 2002. In that time, WAIT has staged at least 120 performances a year in 20 states and 15 countries, and been rejected for a dozen federal and local grants. Tsubata, who works closely with more generously funded locals like Planned Parenthood and Metro Teen AIDS, says the renewed interest in the AIDS crisis will only reinforce the AIDS cash status-quo. “Since I have never received a penny of it, it doesn’t matter to me,” says Tsubata. “But the lack of funds is not from lack of trying.”

Tsubata is quick to insist that she doesn’t need government cash to be effective, but the numbers are dire enough to test even the most committed of charity workers. In 2007, the Washington AIDS International Foundation collected $225,975 in donations from individuals and corporations like Wal-Mart, and zero from government sources. That doesn’t leave a lot of money to support its skeleton staff: In 2007, Tsubata raked in $18,480 from her work with the group; her eldest daughter, Lan Lee, collected only $569 for her efforts. Compare those numbers to two of D.C.’s more readily classified youth nonprofits: Metro Teen AIDS, which takes a comprehensive prevention approach, received $968,015 in government funds in 2007; the Best Friends Foundation, an uber-abstinent education initiative, received $1,520,759. The highest-paid workers in those groups made $59,129 and $96,750, respectively.

The problem is a funding strategy based on a strictly segregated sex-ed cash flow. The D.C. government will cough up cash for comprehensive HIV prevention. It will allocate federal funds for right-wing abstinence. But it rarely funds anything in between. The D.C. Department of Health does cite “abstinence” under in its HIV prevention strategy as “the only absolute fail-safe way for preventing HIV infection”—it’s just listed second to “condoms.” D.C.’s HIV/AIDS Administration allocates more than $70 million each year to local AIDS workers, and all must satisfy the District’s full approach. “The District believes in a comprehensive sexual health approach for young people, which does include abstinence,” says Michael Kharfen, the bureau chief for “capacity building and community outreach” in the HIV/AIDS Administration. Though WAIT’s program is comprehensive enough to include advocating for widespread testing, access to antiretroviral drugs, and condom use between HIV-positive lifetime partners, the group is not comprehensive enough for the D.C. government. “The HIV/AIDS groups that we partner with provide an array of services, including HIV and STD testing, contraceptives, working with youth,” says Kharfen. “Many also include abstinence in their approach. But none of them are exclusively abstinence-only.”

Abstinence-based AIDS groups are instead forced to compete for the small amount of federal funds allocated to “abstinence education” in Title V of the Social Security Act. The District receives “less than a million dollars” from that pot, Kharfen says, which is then distributed to groups based on a host of traditional abstinence criteria—almost all of which WAIT fails to satisfy. Federal abstinence criteria focus on preventing “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.” The federal funding, in other words, is dedicated to supporting the abstinence movement’s reputation as an impractical, preachy, and partisan expenditure.

Tsubata puts it more delicately: “The abstinence people who get funding have to teach all of these things we’re not interested in teaching,” she says. “Sometimes people will even scold us after a performance and say, ‘Your presentation was great, but I wish you had talked about the Bible. I wish you had some message from scripture,’” says Tsubata, who says WAIT entertained only a brief flirtation with fundamental funders. “I walked out on a meeting with a person high up in the Bush government because he basically said, ‘If you go and help Planned Parenthood, and you work with these other organizations that aren’t pro-abstinence, you’re making them look good. We’re not going to do anything for you unless you come over onto our side,” says Tsubata. Other WAIT rejections have been more subtle. Tsubata remembers receiving one returned grant application that scored WAIT highly in all categories—scores that were then crossed out and downgraded in order to give the grant to another group. But Tsubata insists WAIT has “never, ever, ever considered changing our message to get a grant,” invoking a very non-abstinent word to describe what that move would make her.

To Tsubata, ideology—and the government funding that follows it—has little to do with on-the-ground success. “Frankly, there’s a lot less division among those who work with AIDS than people might like to think,” says Tsubata. “We know abstinence is good. We know sexual integrity is good. We know condoms are necessary. Why do we get into these stupid little territory fights and worry about who’s right and who’s wrong? Who cares about the damn funding?”

Photos by Darrow Montgomery

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Sarah Seltzer for Reproductive Health Reality Check wonders if Levi is a "victim" in the Palin spotlight. "The Internet is buzzing over Levi Johnston's appearance on Tyra yesterday to 'break his silence,' and providing us all with a reminder that patriarchal policies like abstinence-only education hurt young men, too," writes Seltzer.

I couldn't agree more: We're all victims here: Levi, Bristol, Tripp, and Palin herself all suffered at the hands of her ridiculous abstinence (with a teenage pregnancy backup) method. Everyone, that is, except Tyra, who pulls a fierce Katie Couric to get the daytime interview of the post-pregnancy season.

Welcome back to "Sexist Beatdown," the weekly event wherein Sady, of New York ladyblog "Tiger Beatdown," and myself, of D.C. ladyblog "The Sexist" carry on evolved conversation on such topics as abnormal boners. This week, we discuss William Saletan, the Slate contributor obsessed with what Sady and I have, but what he does not: wombs (and the fetuses that sometimes develop in them).

Saletan is the king of the Ethical Ladypart Curveball, searching out freaky weird situations involving reproductive rights, in order to blow his fucking mind and encourage him to completely rethink the ethical rules involving abortion. Observe:

"If you stop paying a surrogate mother, what happens to the fetus?"

"Would you abort a fetus just because it wasn't yours?"

Hey, we're cool with "lady's choice." Not Saletan—it can never be that easy for Saletan. Is this awesome, or awesomely offensive? We decide, after the jump.

SADY: good morning! are you ready for SALETAN?

AMANDA: rarely am i afforded the pleasure of discussing a topic of such immediate ethical consequence!

SADY: indeed! i have now read the preface to SALETAN's book! on! abortion! It is entitled "Bearing Right," and it is about how conservatives have "won" the "abortion war" by changing the terms in which we talk about it, by, for example, not making it about a person's right to choose what happens in her own body. i have also read several columns by saletan in which he refuses to frame abortion as a question of a person's right to control what happens in her own body! so, he's learned well, one supposes.

AMANDA: and this, i suppose, is why saletan continually frames the abortion debate around pregnancies that do not happen inside a woman's body, but rather inside ... another woman's body.

SADY: exactly, or the IVF thing, which he hammers on constantly. he keeps talking about how, in the course of IVF, non-viable or extra embryos are produced and discarded. selecting embryos really pushes his buttons.

AMANDA: yes, i think it's very problematic. he thinks that when a pre-baby is in a petrie dish, it is therefore out of the realm of concern for a woman's body. but, look, it's got to go in some woman's body sometime. if saletan wants to implant all the frozen embryos in the world into his body to try to nurture them into little league, he's free to do so. BUT i am here to defend saletan!

SADY: oh ho! an unexpected position! what, pray tell, is your defense? i am probably way too hard on him, i will tell you that much for free. i mean, a lot of his positions – contraception being the best way to avoid abortion, for example – are completely sensible. however, i feel he pushes for some weird policy of shaming people to make them better. even in a 100% perfect educated world, people will miss a pill or get drunk and forget their condoms. it's not great, but it happens.

AMANDA: i think my only defense is a journalistic one. yeah. i dont think saletan and i agree on abortion, but i do share his interest in the fringe cases. the construction of his that you make fun of, an introduction, followed by a crazy ethical question like, "but, would you abort your medically unsafe pregnancy if there were a one percent chance your baby was the son of god?" i mean, i kind of LOVE those. i'm sure you take some sort of sick pleasure in them also

SADY: yes, it's true, the Saletan Curveball is strong.

AMANDA: but the point i guess is that these very uncommon cases that may never actually happen are where all the interesting debate comes in. i do often disagree with the results he draws from them though. the one where the women aborted the fetus that was possibly not hers—saletan basically says she and the biological mom should talk it out. like he's advising women who may go through this in the future—essentially, no one

SADY: exactly. i guess one of my main issues with the way he constructs these incredibly rare and weird scenarios is that i feel manipulated, as a reader. the second person that recurs – what if YOU, dear Reader, had YOUR fetus implanted in another lady's uterus? what if YOU loved YOUR fetus? wouldn't YOU be sad? – just sort of (a) runs right over these individual people and their individual perspectives, and (b) doesn't seek to allow you any empathy or identification with anyone else in the story. i feel like he's trying to back me into a corner, whereas, having a uterus, i could be either lady in some ridiculous implausible scenario. but i'm not either one! and i don't know their positions in the matter, because saletan doesn't tell me!

AMANDA: yeah. he essentially says that the person who cares more about fetuses should be able to make the decision

SADY: i say we do it biblically. cut that fetus in half! this is my King Solomon jurisprudence.

AMANDA: and in his mind, a woman who pays 100,000 for a surrogate womb cares about her fetus. the woman raking in the cash is just punching the clock. i looked at where the money goes, when you pay a company to find you a surrogate womb. one interesting tidbit: you have to pay the woman carrying the fetus $2,000 if you choose to abort it

SADY: oh, yowza.

AMANDA: so the assumption is that the bother or emotional stress of having to become pregnant and then abort it is worth 2,000 dollars. i say, if those women have to spend more than that on their pregnancies of these alien fetuses, that is when they are clear to abort without saletan's concern. think about it—their abortion grief is established to be worth only 2,000 bucks to the people who donated the embryo. spending more than that on not aborting the baby is charity, in my opinion. i wish saletan would get even deeper into his arguments, is what i'm saying. the columns are just too short. i need more what ifs!!

SADY: exactly, yet when he raised the issue of surrogates terminating the pregnancies due to lack of funds, he POSTED A DUDE'S CONTACT INFORMATION so that people could contact him to stop it. without checking with the dude to see whether any surrogates actually sought to do so! and my understanding is, one did, then changed her mind, so there are Zero Aborting Broke Surrogates in the picture. yet that dude got a whole lot of e-mails, unexpectedly, probably some from 100% certified crazy-pantses. and saletan didn't check on this? he has the dude's contact information! yet did not use it!this is what i mean when i say that he has no concern for the people in the picture.

AMANDA: yeah, and he did then say—well, i mean, these women are working for free and they deserve the money anyway. but why is this different from any other sort of breach of contract? you get the money LATER, in court. not from saletan.

SADY: hah, yeah, maybe he should just set up a paypal link on the page!

AMANDA: i guess he feels like the "pregnancy" and the "women" are so delicate that they need the money now, or a terrible ethical situation will rise again. but i applaud saletan for bringing all this weird lady part shit to my attention, because i think it's fascinating

SADY: oh, yeah, and i agree with you. more complexity = longer columns = better saletan. MORE SALETAN, is what we need! and, yes, i would never have learned as much as i have about weird pregnancy issues without him. so: thanks, guy.

AMANDA: i have a lot of unanswered questions. for example: if the woman implanted with the other lady's embryo did not abort the fetus would saletan ask her to give the baby to the other woman? or does she get to keep it? this could possibly be MORE traumatic for the other woman.

SADY: well, considering that he referred to it as THAT LADY's baby throughout, and talked about how she might never get another chance, i think he's asking her to be a surrogate.

AMANDA: shit, i would keep it. the one thing that i have to ask, personally, about all this stuff is: why is this even happening? the lengths people will go. just buy one! i think it's cheaper

SADY: exactly! i have an ethical question: is it wrong for me to sell my babies on the black market? what if they're REALLY CUTE? but, yeah, for all the every-sperm-is-sacred thing we're hearing, adoption never even enters the picture.

AMANDA: yeah. every sperm and egg are sacred, as long as they are mine. the other ones you have to birth, too, i just don't have any insight into what the hell you do with them once they're not fetuses anymore

SADY: well, you know. at that point the ETHICAL QUANDARIES become far less fascinating, i suppose.

AMANDA: yeah, then it's just kind of a bummer

SADY: until the ex-fetus grows up, and becomes a lady, and somehow gets pregnant with a toaster! how did THAT get in there? what do we do with the embryonic toasters? don't they deserve a chance to toast? i guess what i am saying is, there are many odd fringe cases left unexplored.

AMANDA: yeah, but the point is, we already have a mechanism by which to deal with those. the woman decides, the end. but saletan can certainly write an overture to her which she may or may not consider. what i want to know is—how do i get saletan to set up a paypal account for me? i'm currently not considering aborting anything

SADY: hah, yeah, we were all once fetuses. we deserve the right to live, and in my case, cable, which i can't afford. how do i get saletan to extend his noble efforts to my cable bill?

AMANDA: what about the fetuses without cable?

SADY: um, can they download stuff from itunes, maybe?

AMANDA: kids, they can do anything

SADY: just don't put an iphone in there, or your fetus will sext!

AMANDA: by william saletan

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

In his Slate column this week, William Saletan discussed what happens when biological parents stop paying the surrogates who are carrying their fetuses. SurroGenesis is a California surrogacy service that sets up infertile couples with willing replacement mamas, and facilitates payments between the two parties—well, it used to. It recently announced that its bank account is empty, along with $2 million in payments infertile families had intended for the keepers of their growing fetuses. Dozens of women currently undergoing the arduous and expensive task of carrying another couple's child are now left without a paycheck.

How much is the going rate for a womb rental, anyway? Check out SurroGenesis' surrogacy fees—including $2,000 for "termination" (not guaranteed) and $5,000 for "Loss of Reproductive Organs (very rare)"—after the jump.

Surrogates Compensation Fee (Experienced Surrogates may require a higher fee): $18,000 and up

Multiples Fee (Payable at 13 weeks of gestation): $5,000

Legal Fees: $5,000 approx.

Psychological Profile Fees: $500 approx.

Maternity Clothing: $750

Mileage reimbursed at 50.5 cents per mile when using personal vehicle

Invasive Procedures Including but not limited to: amniocentesis, cerclage, CVS, DNC, FUS: $500 approx.

Transfer fee (for gestational surrogates only): $750

Insemination fee (for traditional surrogates only):$500

Selective Reduction*: $2,000

Termination**: $2,000

C-Section: $1,500

Canceled cycle fee: $350

Mock cycle fee: $350

Bedrest weekly cap (covering childcare, housekeeping etal): $375 – $1000

Housekeeping (if *NOT* collecting bedrest monies): $120 per month

Loss of Reproductive Organs (very rare): $5,000

Lost wages per surrogate’s paystub/paycheck not paid for by disability insurance: per paycheck stub

Lost wages for surrogate spouse or partner limited to 8 days of a given pregnancy process: per paycheck stub

Medical insurance monthly: Actual cost

Life insurance face value $300,000: $400/yr approx.

Nutritional counseling professional charges (if recommended by ob/gyn): Actual cost

Agency fee for Surrogacy: $12,000

International client surcharge: $1,000

* Please note that not all surrogates will agree to do selective reduction
** Please note not all surrogates will agree to termination

The above is a list of surrogacy fee. This does not include costs associated with IVF, IUI or AI for surrogate.

Photo by davhor.

* Jezebel considers telling off Columbus Day.

* How did big tobacco make smoking acceptable for women? It got cozy with women's lib, writes Jennifer 8. Lee for the New York Times:

Recognizing that women were still riding high on the suffrage movement, [American Tobacco Company P.R. dude] Mr. Bernays used the equality angle as the basis for his new campaign. He convinced a number of genteel women, including his own secretary, to march in the 1929 Easter Day parade down Fifth Avenue and light up cigarettes in a defiant show of their liberation.

* Internet nerds plan nerd union with Twitter engagement. Nerds. [via Boing Boing].

* How long must you date IRL before txt breakups become uncouth? From This Recording, In Which You Autocomplete Me, by a Georgia Hardstark.

* The raddest 106-year-old Roman nun is voting for the first time since Eisenhower. Which whippersnapper does she support?

* A couple of breeders who cannot, themselves, breed tell homosexuals why same-sex marriage is unnatural: "Patricia and Wesley Galloway could not have children of their own. Yet for them, the essence of marriage is rooted in procreation," write Ray Rivera and Christine Stewart for the New York Times.

NYT covers this angle—opposing gay marriage for biology, not religion—as if it's a new trend, when homosexuals (women, non-gender conforming individuals, minorities of any kind) everywhere know this "nature" bullshit has always been used to perpetuate institutionalized discrimination even among the non-religious. It's just a hop and a skip from "it's just not how God made us" to "it's just not how nature intended." Laments Ms. Galloway, “Everyone who disagrees is automatically labeled a right-wing bigot.” Adds Mr. Galloway, “How can you be a bigot when you’re looking out for society as a whole?” Thanks, Mr. & Ms., for showing us two bigots who defy the odds to manage that just fine.

Oh, and let's add some misogyny in there for good measure: "Mr. Galloway, whose father died when he was 3, said being raised solely by women—his mother and his aunts—hindered his development and altered his sense of self-worth." Hi, mom!

* Donna Fish is tired of people telling her she can't be a little bit pregnant when she's had an embryo implanted invitro and she's waiting to see if it turns into a real live baby, because apparently people tell her she can't say she's a little bit pregnant or she wouldn't have written this blog post about the new trend of being a little bit pregnant. How about being a little bit baby crazy?:

For six years, my husband and I lost seven babies. Two of them in the sixth month, five in the first trimester. We tried everything. Doctors could offer us no further options, so we turned to adoption. One evening I threw caution to the wind and became pregnant. For reasons no doctor to this day can understand, my first daughter was born nine months later. My subsequent two pregnancies were also uneventful and lo and behold, we have our three daughters.

Attn. Mr. & Ms. Galloway: Some people are so into nature they only turn to adoption after losing their seventh baby, and the miracle of nature rewards them with three healthy pregnancies. Who really deserves to be married now?

Last month, reports of a 17-year-old Palin spawn's unplanned pregnancy briefly satiated tabloid hunger for babies-having-babies coverage. The announcement redirected the evergreen "Pregnant Teen" story from Britney sis and new mom Jamie Lynn Spears, also 17, who gave birth to her first child in June. Now, tabs like the National Enquirer (probably more reliable than USA Today!) are again turning their exacting eyes on Spears. "Whoops—she did it again!" reports the Enquirer:

“Jamie Lynn is about eight weeks pregnant, and she and her mom Lynne are hysterical,” revealed a close source. “Neither of them knows what to do, but for now they’re trying to keep the news from getting out.”

"Too late," sneers the Enquirer, after reporting that Spears' "pals are begging her to abort."

There's something very strange about outing celebrity pregnancies (many gossip mags have their own "bump watch" to perpetuate the fetal rumormongering). But reporting on the reproductive activities of underage girls—those who are raised in the shadow of fame, and those who encounter it, suddenly, when their personal lives become political news—can be downright sinister.

Here's why: Teen girls, for the most part, aren't planning to become mothers. Those who do carry a pregnancy to term stand to sacrifice their childhoods, leave school, and abandon their career paths in order to become moms. That choice, of course, is a valid one. But by poaching these girls' pregnancy stories before they're able to even make that choice, the tabloid, blog, or mainstream paper that outs a girl's pregnancy effectively eliminates her option to choose abortion. It's a funny thing about conservative families, industries, and cultures—the abortion option looks a hell of a lot better when it's done in secret, without neighbors, friends, or the entire media knowing about it. Once the pregnancy is revealed, though, you've got a baby, a marriage, and a hastily-worded press release on your hands.

The shame machine affects girls in pro-choice environments, too (like Godless, liberal Hollywood). No matter a girl's situation, if a tabloid gets her pregnancy story out before she does, "pro-choice" politics bend to a more powerful force: PR. (Yeah, adoption's probably off the table, too).

So here's the rule on pregnant teen coverage, Enquirer. It's only a story when she says it's a baby. Hey, there's an upside, tabloids: When you don't shame a teen into having a baby, it's a lot easier for you to continue to shame her for having the baby.

Photo by Pete Barr-Watson.

* For Slate, The Abstinence Teacher author Tom Perrotta explains the political appeal of Sarah Palin's "Sexy Puritan" archetype:

I'm only trying to locate her within the context of the great American culture war, which she seems to have single-handedly reignited during an election season that was supposed to have been dominated by other issues (and may well be again, now that Wall Street has imploded). With the selection of Palin, McCain succeeded not only in thrilling the Christian right but in scrambling the categories of the campaign. It used to be perfectly clear which ticket represented youth and change, which seemed old and boring, and which had more appeal to women voters. For a moment, at least, Palin seems to have turned these certainties into open questions.

* Also in Slate: How the financial crisis is good for the high-end prostitute business:

Sex workers of the past waited on street corners, outside bars, and around parks, and their transactions were fleeting and usually for a few dollars. Today's high-end sex workers see themselves as therapists, part of a vast metropolitan wellness industry that includes private chefs and yoga teachers. Many have regular clients who visit them several times per month, paying them not only for sex but also for comfort and affirmation.

Ahh, but what of the comfort and affirmation of your local alt-weekly?

* Stuff Hipsters Don't Like: Hipsters. Thinking about the economy. Pregnancy:

Hipsters are very torn about pregnancy. On the one hand, they don’t have any problem with abortion seeing as they got their BA in post-structuralist conceptual astrology and have endured hundreds of hours of NPR, Ira Glass’ infanticidal socialist drone lingering in their subconscious. On the other hand, being pregnant is kind of cool. It gives them some sort of purpose in an otherwise directionless post-graduate existence. In fact, some hipster girls dream of having a traditional nuclear family. They fantasize about their husband handsomely dressed in wool flannel and Ray-Bans returning home from his long shift at the record store and coddling their infant son decked out in a vintage neon Morrissey romper.

That said, most of the time they just get an abortion.

* Women dumb! Men lazy! Unfabulouz.com shows "the difference between men and women" in this recovered gender cartoon.

* Guess what's the only supreme court case Sarah Palin can name! Yeah, that one.

Photo by dreamsjung