Voices of American Sexuality

American Sexuality blog has moved

2009-01-12T08:35:00.000-08:00

We have moved the American Sexuality blog to a new platform. The new blog is hosted on the NSRC website at the following address: http://nsrc.sfsu.edu/dialogues/communicate

Please update your bookmarks and we hope to see you on the new website.

Welcome to the new NSRC

2009-01-12T08:31:00.000-08:00

Dear friends and fellow travelers on the road to sexual literacy:

We are very excited to welcome you to our completely redesigned website--we've brought you better functionality and new features so that together we can redefine the way people understand healthy sexuality. This new electronic platform has been in the making for more than a year and has involved the incredible talents of many people, both here at our Center in San Francisco, and around the country as well. All of us are thrilled to be launching this new site in the spirit of promoting truly comprehensive sexuality education and in the larger effort of promoting public awareness around holistic and enjoyable lifelong sexuality, which we think of as the sexual literacy movement.

The features of this exciting new website are truly amazing: now you can browse the content of American Sexuality, Sexualidades Latinas and the Sexuality Research and Social Policy journal, blog and connect in our Dialogues network, and Map the Movement to capture sexuality resources across the country. As the NSRC website builds toward its 6th anniversary in February 2009, we are proud to have become one of the top sources for reliable, up-to-date and comprehensive understanding of sexuality in all of its myriad elements and rainbow colors in the US. Please sign up and log in today!

This year, 2008, was extraordinarily challenging to our country; we elected a new President, Barack Obama, breaking with many trends and even with tradition. His leadership carries the hopes and dreams of millions of people around the world. We are going to need all of that good will, as we face the most difficult economic downturn in half a century or more. What are the implications of these trends for sexual literacy?

With the huge spike in unemployment and the downward spiral of the markets around the world, it is going to be a gloomy holiday for retailers, and is already proving to be a fatal or life-threatening experience for the automobile industry, once the backbone of the American economy. The loss of jobs, the uncertain outlook, and the bleak picture can be a time in which people's hopes decline. This is the kind of context that can really test individuals' sense of taking changes, and test the resilience of relationships in general. Being sexually literate right now means applying what we know about sexual health and being safe when entering into sexual relations for the first time; believing that there will be a tomorrow. Committed relationships as well are going to be strained economically and sometimes emotionally through these intense and trying times. Commitment and love and affection go a long way in extending our support for others, including the couples who surround us every day, and who are trying to make a go of life amidst all the change. Understanding the role of this social and personal support is thus part of the sexual literacy movement needed right now.

Take a look around. We welcome your feedback. And if you like what you see, come join us in promoting healthy and pleasurable sexualities.

For updates, information and cutting-edge content, sign up for the NSRC Newsletter.

From the National Sexuality Resource Center to you and yours, family and friends and partners, we wish each and every one of you a most wonderful holiday and a happy and safe New Year.

All the best,

Gil Herdt

Executive Director,

National Sexuality Resource Center

Large Percentage of Young Adults Posting Nude Pictures

2008-12-12T13:54:00.001-08:00

A new survey by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy has found that 22% of teen girls have posted nude or semi-nude pictures online. Most important findings from the survey are below.

Also check out research that was published in our own Sexuality Research and Social Policy Journal - Journalist or Panderer? Framing Underage Webcam Sites - which talks about new technologies changing social relationships and view of teen's sexuality.

Survey Findings:(Full survey summary is here).

One in five teen girls (22%)—and 11% of teen girls ages 13-16 years old—say they have electronically sent, or posted online, nude or semi-nude images of themselves.
One-third (33%) of teen boys and one-quarter (25%) of teen girls say they have had nude/semi-nude images—originally meant to be private—shared with them.
The survey of 1,280 teens and young adults indicates that 15% of teens who have sent sexually suggestive content such as text messages, email, photographs or video say they have done so with someone they only know online.
Teen girls are not the only ones sharing sexually explicit content. Almost one in five teen boys (18%) say they have sent or posted nude/semi nude images of themselves. One-third (33%) of young adults—36% of women and 31% of men ages 20-26—say they have sent or posted such images.
What teens and young adults are doing electronically seems to have an effect on what they do in real life: Nearly one-quarter of teens (22%) admit that technology makes them personally more forward and aggressive. More than one-third of teens (38%) say exchanging sexy content makes dating or hooking up with others more likely and nearly one-third of teens (29%) believe those exchanging sexy content are “expected” to date or hook up.
Sending sexually suggestive messages is even more prevalent than sending nude/semi-nude images. Nearly half of young people (49% total, 39% of teens, 59% of young adults) have sent sexually suggestive text messages or email messages to someone.
Even more have received sexually suggestive messages: 48% of teens and 64% of young adults (56% total). Fully one-third of young teen girls (ages 13-16) have received sexually suggestive messages.
Teen girls who have sent or posted sexually suggestive content provide a number of reasons why: Two-thirds (66%) say they did so to be “fun or flirtatious,” half (52%) did so as a “sexy present” for their boyfriend, and 40% as a “joke.”
Even though nearly three-quarters of young people (73% total, 75% of teens, 71% of young adults) say that sending sexually suggestive content “can have serious negative consequences,” nearly one-quarter (22% total, 19% of teens and 26% of young adults) say sending sexually suggestive content is “no big deal.”

For effects of this sexualization, especially on girls, please see the APA Task Force on the Sexualization of Girls: http://www.apa.org/pi/wpo/sexualizationsum.html

Premature Ejaculation on SNL

2008-12-08T10:56:00.000-08:00

From the creators of "Dick in a Box" comes another hit music video: "Jizz in my Pants". It might not be the most positive approach to premature ejaculation, but at least it gets people talking (or singing) about it.

A bit too late but still funny: Prop 8 Musical

2008-12-04T21:00:00.000-08:00

i'm having a sexual problem

2008-12-02T11:40:00.001-08:00

I believe in sexual pleasure—yours and mine. From hawking sex toys to telling teens about the clitoris, I have spent my adult years proselytizing on the subject of pleasure. And no wonder; desire and pleasure--especially for women--are the stepping stones to sexual knowledge, rights and justice. For teen women, as Deb Tolman revealed in Dilemmas of Desire, knowing when you want to have sex is the pre-cursor to knowing when you don’t, and helps women assume self-protective behaviors. For adult women, desire and pleasure allow for a more equitable and satisfying relationship with self and others.

So let me say it again. I want you to get off, I encourage you to get off. In fact, go get off right now and get back to me.

Hi. Feels good, right? Which is why it might come as a surprise that I am so angry about a recent study looking at sexual dysfunction in women. Decreased libido=decreased pleasure=not so good, right? Sometimes, but that’s not where the real problem lies.

The study, published in the November 2008 issue of Obstetrics and Gynecology, aimed to examine self-reported sexual ‘problems,’ such as decreased desire, arousal and orgasm, in US women (nothing that in my house wouldn’t get fixed by SOMEONE finally taking their turn with the dishes). The results, as trumpeted by the Washington Post, “Almost half of women have sexual problems.” 40%, to be precise.

Sounds like a problem to me. But wait—only 12% of women actually reported having a problem with their problem. If an orgasm doesn’t fall in the forest and there’s no one around to not hear it, did it really not fall? As any budding psych student can tell you, self-reported distress is one of the key components to actually having a problem. And these women didn’t think they did. At least not yet. Wanna hear the questions they were asked?

Response of “never” or “rarely” to questions:

“How often do you desire to engage in sexual activity?”
“How often do you become sexually aroused?”
“Are you easily aroused?”
“Do you have adequate vaginal lubrication during sexual activity?”
“How often do you experience an orgasm?”
“Are you able to have an orgasm when you want to?”

And response of “no enjoyment or pleasure” or “little enjoyment or pleasure” to the question,

“How much pleasure do you get from your orgasms?

Who has the problem? 40% answered rarely or never to any of those questions—not being easily aroused, not lubricating enough—but they didn’t see it as an issue. I wouldn't mind having an orgasm right now...but I wouldn't say it's a problem that I'm not having one. And easily aroused? Compared to what--or whom? Those measures--in the sexual information vacuum in which virtually all of us exist--mean nothing without desperately needed context.

Meanwhile, the 12% who did report some concern over their ‘dysfunction’ were much more likely to be in poor health, exhibiting true problems such as depression, anxiety, irritable bowel system and urinary incontinence. Making not being able to lubricate seem like a drop in the bucket. I can imagine that, with a touch of urinary incontinence, I might not get a lot of pleasure from my orgasm—and I don’t think that it is the orgasm part that needs fixing. So who’s having the problem, again?

Maybe it’s their partners. Perhaps their partner—particularly if they’re all hopped up on Viagra—wants to hit it all night. But that isn’t any one person’s problem, per se—in sex therapy talk it’s called a desire discrepancy, and seen as a couple’s issue. Kind of like cinematic discrepancy, where he wants to watch Dark Knight and she wants to see The Notebook. You don’t blame anyone, you just work it out. Christ, no one wants to see The Notebook All Night Long.

If it’s not her, and it’s not her partner, who could it be? Surely not study author Dr. Jan Shifren—she’s an associate professor at Harvard Medical School (I’ve heard of it), so she’s gotta be objective. That’s good enough for me. But wait, what’s that fine print on the front page of the study?

“Dr. Shifren has received research support from Proctor & Gamble (Cincinnati, OH) and consulting fees from Proctor & Gamble, Boehringer Ingelheim (Ingelheim, Germany), and Eli Lilly & Co. (Indianapolis, IN).”

That would be P&G Pharmaceuticals. Eli Lilly Pharmaceuticals. And yup, Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals.

I don’t want to go out on a limb here, or some other appendage, but it makes me wonder just a little bit. Could it be possible that someone was looking for problems—even, creating them? After all, there are incredibly easy ways to deal with decreased lubrication. Babelube, a little more sex warm-up, even just some info about how vag lubrication fluctuates according to menstrual cycle and peri- and menopause transition. Could it be that big Pharma has a stake in turning normal sexual variation into a problem, just so they can create a little pill to fix it? Could it be that they are actually playing on the lack of sexual knowledge and resources that exist in order to create shame, embarrassment and perceived dysfunction just so they can get a little more bang for their buck?

The real problem I’m having is with how sexuality is increasingly being framed as problematic, and the people who are having—or not having—sex are being labeled as inadequate. The real solutions, those that build communication, intimacy, trust and pleasure, are being submerged behind a wave of medical interventions (women can boost their flagging libido with this testosterone patch, but oops, watch out for the breast cancer!) that are, at best, expensive and inadequate bandaids for the complexities of sexual expression.

I’m not buying it, and neither should you.

When Assuming Makes an Ass Out of You and Me

2008-11-25T16:01:00.000-08:00

Proposition 8 protests. She was thinking about going to the “Join the Impact” protest in San Francisco; I couldn’t go because I have an interview. As she sat with a sad look in her eyes, Why don’t you ever want to go to these things?, she began thinking about whether protesting in San Francisco really made sense.

“I mean, it’s San Francisco,” she said, clicking away at her Mac. “I should be protesting in Hayward or something....Walnut Creek….”

“Yeah,” I said. “Totally. I mean, the mayor has already denounced the decision and everything. People will come around.”

I went back to watching Square Pegs on Hulu.com; thought nothing more of it. Until today, when I got of BART and saw a front page article in the Chronicle about same-sex marriage. Low and behold, it didn’t confirm my beliefs or my roommate’s. In fact, it proved us wrong, and I hate when that happens.

As it turns out, voters in 54 of the city’s 508 precincts voted in favor of the ban; that’s one in four San Franciscans. Though this seems like a relatively low number, the pro-8 supporters were clustered in districts with large populations- Chinatown, the Marina, Excelsior- with a high of 65 percent in the South of Market neighborhood (Surprised? I was) and Chinatown. It’s shockers like these that make me re-think some of the things I’ve said. I, like many others, sometimes forget about the conservative people that live in our flamboyantly liberal city. I forget that they are often times pocketed in the same areas I love (the Marina is one of my all-time favorite places to hang out and read in the city) and are often times are quite large in number.

Perhaps it’s attitudes like mine that helped Prop 8 pass. Many opponents interviewed in articles and stories for television and radio claim that people didn’t try hard enough. Many opponents interviewed by the press claim that people didn’t try hard enough. Many, like Steve Gibson, a gay activist in the Castro, don’t think of San Francisco as a place that necessarily needs protesting. After all, aren’t we all a part of the California liberal mindset? Apparently not. Even while growing up in the Bay Area, I assumed that certain areas were immune from more conservative thought. When family from out of town would automatically associate San Francisco with gay culture, I would often smile and laugh, “Yeah, it is kind of like that.”

What this really boils down to is making assumptions about the general composition of any city or town. It’s sad that it takes things like a ban on gay marriage to open my eyes to the different ideologies that actually exist within the supposed bubble that is the San Francisco Bay Area. But sometimes, you just need a kick in the pants to realize that you still need to fight for things, even in a liberal locale.

I wonder how effective protests actually are in changing minds, attitudes, and policies. If Prop 8 were put to a re-vote, would people in San Francisco change their tune? In all honesty, I think not. Still, that doesn’t make it any less important to show support for a cause and prove that the City is actually a dynamic political ground, and that we don’t all think as one. Maybe then more of my relatives would come to visit.

Neither my roommate nor I ended up going to the protests. We figured our thoughts would be better served by a booze-fueled discussion in our living room while “Wet Hot American Summer” chuckled along in the background. I guess that’s protest enough.

Exposing Politician's Sex Lives

2008-11-25T15:56:00.000-08:00

I have a tendency to lose myself in the drama-filled lives of celebrities like Madonna, Britney Spears, and Lindsay Lohan. In fact, I would consider it an all consuming urge…at least while at the grocery store. In my head, I want these people to be adulterous and caught in the throes of passion or a sexual identity crisis. God forbid one of my blessed rags were to skimp on the love lives of my favorite star, I might be forced to go to the supermarket for food. And yet, when I see articles on Barak Obama’s family and Sarah Palin’s $150,000 wardrobe, my cravings for baby daddy drama get muddled and I feel, well, wrong. Since the Kennedy era, it has been more commonplace to report on the sexual appetites and goings-on of our country’s public figures. As a journalist, and curiously nosy one at that, I find myself in a quandary of sorts when it comes to the ethical soundness of a public outing. In a time where the line between entertainment and news is constantly being blurred, I wonder how the general public and news media will discern politicians from other celebrities.

Ask any other journalist whether it is appropriate to cover a sex “scandal” before it fully develops and they too would have a serious doubts about the story’s ethical content. How, they might ask, can a journalist truly seek the truth and report it while abiding by the Journalist’s Code of Ethics? More to the point, is it ethical to expose the private lives of politicians because they have thrust themselves upon the public rostrum and thus relinquished their rights? Or are they still entitled to privacy, no matter how morally ambiguous their actions may be? When racy headlines combine with the public’s desire for gossip and thrills, how does a journalist hold true to ethical standards while doing their duty of informing the public? Simply put, how does a journalist avoid sensationalizing; where does responsible reporting meet the public’s right to know?

Public outings can be traced back to the Nixon days, and while his scandal was not sexually motivated, it opened the floodgates for publishing private presidential matters. Perhaps, before Watergate, Presidents were revered in an idealistic fashion in that they could do no wrong. And if they did, we didn’t want to know about it. John F. Kennedy, for example, was considered to be one of America’s saviors in the early sixties. Impossibly good looking and improbably young, he was shrouded in rumors of affairs with numerous women. Still, his activities didn’t make headlines.

Today, regardless of a mostly sex-positive attitude, the media and the public still tend to abhor public figures whose sexual exploits are of moral question. Whether they bear any resemblance to their own sex lives is another story. Why then, is it ok for to brush Kennedy’s voracious sexual appetite and womanizing ways under the rug while we publically demonize Bill Clinton for “not having sexual relations” with Monica Lewinsky? True, Clinton purgered. True, we know that JFK was involved with several women, including the less-than-inconspicuous Marilyn Monroe. The only difference is the energy with which the media devoted to the subject. Without a doubt, the general attitude toward sex in America has become more relaxed and generally open to discussion; but does this doesn’t justify prying into private matters. What if President Elect Barak Obama was the one having an extramarital affair?

And therein lies the dilemma: when is it appropriate to expose the sexual habits of a public figure? When it affects the public or proves hypocrisy within the system- e.g. former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer’s involvement with a prostitution ring- or when societal mores deem the action immoral ala the infamous Lewinsky blowjob? I wonder what would happen if a journalist received a tip that President Elect Barack Obama had had an extramarital affair. Would the journalist hide it in order to uphold the image of the New Kennedy (a questionably ethical action) or would they publish it and possibly ruin the image of a politician who demonstrates a strong relationship with his partner (also questionably ethical)?

I vote the latter. I’m not advocating special treatment for our new president, nor am I suggesting that we remove sex from the public dialogue. It is nearly impossible to avoid sensationalizing a sex scandal concerning someone in power- I’ll admit, it makes for great drama in US Weekly. But, for God’s sake, you wouldn’t want the entire U.S. population to know that you had anonymous sex in an airport bathroom, would you?

Tit for Tat

2008-11-25T15:52:00.000-08:00

Something I never understood: nipples. And not just nipples in general- I have them, you have them, I learned early on what they do and why they do it- but nipples in movies and television. You can see them in movies, more often than not it’s the only “private part” you will see in an R-rated film, they’re blurred on television, and when I went on IMDB last night to look up a movie, nipples was the first topic on the board.

So this all leads me to wonder why female nipple is the obscenity and indecency standard for television and movies. I’ve always thought this was silly and incredibly sexist. Is it because showing the nipple and nothing more brings the viewer to the titillating (pun intended) edge without allowing them to fall over? This assumes, of course, that the viewer in question is one who is attracted to women. Still, if the nipple is the most one can show on a woman in a non-pornographic film and must be hidden in television, what is the male equivalent? More importantly, why isn’t there one?

I guess we are to assume that women (or gay men), in general, don’t want to see naked men the way men (or gay women) want to see naked females. This is bullshit; absolutely bogus. If I want to watch a porno, I’ll watch a porno, but I get so sick of seeing so many nipples (and nothing more; I wouldn’t complain as much if I weren’t stuck on second base) in movies that I need another “private part” to dull the pain. As is such, I wonder what exactly makes the nipple a sacred place? And, in the same vein, what makes it less holy than the scrotum or penis? And why can’t I see it?

This nipplehemia can be traced back to Janet Jackson’s infamous Superbowl performance in 2004 where a pierced nipple escaped from its hiding place to exclaim to the world “I exist!” (Four years later, “Wardrobe Malfunction” is the second Google suggestion when you type her name in a search.) I remember an almost immediate crackdown in swear words, nudity, and other sexual content on television and radio, as well as the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act of 2005. And I wonder: was the public so completely enchanted with this one left nipple that it became so obsessed and made it an industry-wide standard?

Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t want boobies plastered all over Nickelodeon and Saturday morning cartoons- although it seems to work in England- I’m all for having a boob barrier until a respectable age. But if this barrier exists, there needs to be a standard for showing the male half. Yes. Penises galore. For every pair of nipples, there should be a pair of balls. For every flash of female public hair, there should be a man’s bush. Everything in the name of equality, and a feast of flesh I can enjoy too.

Still, some confusion exists. I have seen Nips on television. I have seen a flash of male genetalia in a movie, though it’s never as focused as that of females. Adam Sandler’s 2000 movie, Little Nicky, features a dream-like sequence where Sandler and his love interest, Patricia Arquette, fly over a field of animated boobs; nipples and everything. And when on television, the nipples are still there in all their glory. The Sex and the City movie shows a few seconds of a penis, a first for the creators, which was hyped and inevitably disappointing. But I need to give credit to them for breaking the rules, even a little bit (and it was little) in some form of backwards female empowerment.

And now the question remains: if Adam Sandler and Kim Cattrall can see these things, why can’t everyone see them? I mean, why aren’t they getting in trouble by the Powers That Be for showing everything you’re not supposed to show. And the answer is, at least I think it is, because they can’t get in trouble. As saddening as it sounds, movie makers, television folk, producers and writers all subscribe to these notions of decency. Whether because of their personal beliefs or because they are being put upon, we are all suffering.

The solution? Take out the tits and pull out the penis! Well, maybe not quite. Until more movies like Zach and Miri Make a Porno come out, we’re just going to have to keep writing letters to Comedy Central asking them to air Little Nicky. After all, how often are you going to see that many boobs at once?

Australia Dominating Sex News

2008-11-21T09:56:00.000-08:00

An in-depth review of weird sexuality news has uncovered a trend - Australia is dominating sex news. Below are just three most recent examples:

A nude-only party that lasts a month, to combat economic downturn (!?). The tourism industry hopes that the party will re-ignite tourists' interest in Australia. Apparently, kangaroos are just not enough.

Mayor of this picturesque Australian town, Mount Isa, has attempted to be the most misogynistic, judgmental, insensitive, and sexist public official. He succeeded. His basic premise: in a town where men vastly outnumber women, ugly women ("beauty-disadvantaged") have a great chance to live "normal" lives. Apparently, the mayor quite often sees an unattrative female walking down the street either remembering the previous night's sexual adventures or anticipating next night's success.

Millions of people are customers of the sex industry, yet this industry is highly underrepresented in politics. The Australian Sex industry decided to correct that. Meet the Australian Sex Party. Their slogan - help us fight for your adult business and bedroom rights (plus get a copy of the EROS magazine and twice weekly eNews!). The party predicts that the economic crisis will stimulate the demand for the industry's services, as "we're a cheap luxury that can make you feel good." And that demand needs to be represented on the national level! The party is "serious about sex and serious about the Sex Party." Please do not confuse the Australian Sex party with the month-long nude party listed above.

What happened in Puerto Rico gets blogged about.

2008-11-20T13:31:00.000-08:00

Blogging is an interesting idea to me. I have read a few. I have followed fewer. At the end of the day, I am impressed with those who have managed to make a name for themselves in various e-communities posting their ideas and thoughts, be they actually interesting or amazingly pedestrian. Presently, I find myself in a professional situation where blogging will be an integral part of my life. Here goes. My first blog will be about my experiences in San Juan Purto Rico where I was fortunate to attend the conference for The Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality or Quad S. It was, simply put, an amazing experience. First of all, the intensity of being in the presence of so many scholars dedicated to thinking critically about sexuality, sexual health and sexual literacy was exhilarating. There were more presentation that interested me at this conference than many others I've attended before. Since so many fabulous presentation were occurring simultaneously and since I felt a bit stressed out that I needed to make a blog entry while in PR I could hardly sort my thoughts out for the sensory overload. However, I managed to not feel guilty and here is my entry. I attended many different presentations and had the chance to table with members of SFSU where a banner for CCSL was featured (: I will talk closely about one of the presentations that stood out most to me and briefly about a couple of others that were also very informative. The first was a presentation that centered the lived experiences of people with disabilities. Of the presenters, Bethany, an alum of the SFSU sexualities studies program, gave a cogent talk on how people with disabilities get trapped in tropes created by the able-bodied to ease their discomfort. What was most interesting in this talk was that Bethany admitted that she does not seek to be the "voice" for those with disabilities, rather she is focused on keeping all of us focused on the fact that the spectrum of disability that may define ones life does not automatically render them "sex-less" or undeserving of a satisfying sexual life. There were other talks such as the one featuring trans-men and their experiences with fluid sexual identities after beginning T and another where young, trans women of color joined researchers on discovering ways to make their lives safer and more livable. The closing plenary featured Gil Herdt. It was my first time hearing him speak and I found his ideas and thoughts on sexual literacy to be highly inspiring. As a young sexualities scholar and working with such amazing established scholars of sexuality, I look forward to each and every opportunity to know more, do more and contribute more to our social justice struggle organized around sexual literacy.

--Peace,

Kimberly Bonner

57 Bug bites, 1 bottle of rum, and the I word

2008-11-14T13:29:00.000-08:00

Heading to the airport before sunrise on a chilly San Francisco morning only to endure 12 hours of travel was surprisingly exhilarating with the knowledge that Obama creamed McCain in the 2009 presidential election. It was a great start to a trip to San Juan Puerto Rico to attend the conference for the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality. At the conference I heard bits and pieces of pro-Obama sentiments among the sexuality researchers – most seemed to be from the United States. It was stimulating to be around people who felt that change was underway, particularly toward a direction of funding more sex-positive research and comprehensive sex education initiatives.
In addition to some great panels (and a couple of not so great panels) there were some pretty cool social networking opportunities at the conference. For example, on Saturday The NSRC staff, Sexuality Studies grad students, and Campus Coalition for Sexual Literacy leaders and sexuality research hot shots from other organizations and universities sat together for the beach front awards luncheon. The food, the weather, and the company were warm and unforgettable. I enjoyed the background tap tap taping of rain on the patio cover during lunch. The pounding rain complemented the echo of voices from the various discussions. It was an intersection of the personal and professional with sexuality at the center of each conversation. I could hear pieces of conversations about research interests, arguments about qualitative versus quantitative methods, Obama, and sexy vacation spots to name a few. Cards were exchanged and connections were made. Politics and divergent research methodologies aside there is something indescribable about being in a room full of sexuality scholars, it's electrifying.

While it was great to see sex-positive research many of the projects were not inclusive of all people. My favorite part of the conference was a symposium about sexuality and disabilities. Unfortunately, there were only a handful of people present for the discussion. The low number of attendees reflects the reality that disabled people are often ignored and are therefore invisible in sexuality research. Many of the presentations made it clear that people with different bodies and cognitive abilities are still thought of as asexual and powerless beings as seen in reported social attitudes hat reflect both prejudice and pity from the public and even from people who work with individuals who have different abilities. The actual feelings and experiences of disabled people are scarcely represented in the literature. The truth is that many people with physical and cognitive disabilities are just as sexual as everyone else and are perfectly capable of having healthy sexual lives when given the opportunities. After seeing this symposium I am excited about the potential to work with organizations and educational institutions such as the National Sexuality Resource Center and the Morehouse School of Medicine that are working toward a more inclusive sexuality research agenda. With a shift in the political atmosphere there is no where to go but up right? Or in this case IN. I left for Puerto Rico feeling optimism about the future of sexuality education and research in the United States and I headed back feeling empowered with a ridiculous amount of bug bites, a bottle of rum, and a new understanding of inclusive comprehensive sex education.
--Amanda Hoffman

la isla bonita

2008-11-14T10:39:00.000-08:00

I returned to San Francisco from Puerto Rico on Wednesday filled with a sense of accomplishment from the SSSS meeting and relaxed and slightly sunburned from the last few days of lying on the beach in Vieques. Oh yeah, I'm also now a married man - a title that I never really thought that I would hold - having gotten married to my partner of seven years on November 4, Election Day, and the last day that same sex couples had the legal right to marry in the State of California. For the record, I am proud to be married to my husband and to be redefining marriage, and I hope that my marriage is a threat to "traditional" marriage and causes many people to rethink what it means to be in a legal partnership that is much more than about being in love with another person. And I do think that school children across the country should be taught about same sex couples in much the same way they learn about any other family - in fact, I demand it. We exist and will continue to exists despite all of the horrible, hateful efforts to stop us from existing. But I digress...

Puerto Rico is a contradiction. The islands are gorgeous. The extravagant hotels and resorts of San Juan are filled with obnoxious mainland American and European tourists dressed in their best "resort and cruise" wear and Crocs. The beaches of Vieques are pristine with powdery white sand and deep blue and turquoise waters. Old San Juan is charming and quaint with that "old world feel" you only find in European city centers and New Orleans (if you can look past the Forever 21's and Burger King's occupying the retail spaces in the historic buildings). It was a setting that made my impromptu honeymoon feel romantic and straight out of a paperback novel (you know the ones with the hunky guy on the cover in ripped clothing - that would be me). However, traveling just beyond the Condado or Old Town, you encounter a very different San Juan. Here you find poverty and instances of social inequity that make you astutely aware of the imperialistic nature of the relationship between the U.S. and the explicit exoti-cizing of a land and people. I won't spend much time on the topic; instead, I'll refer you to the recent post of Tamara Williams who very eloquently described the way that many of us were feeling during our time spent at the conference and as tourists. I describe this contradiction as way of explaining how I felt throughout my entire stay on this beautiful island.

I arrived on Wednesday feeling bittersweet about the outcome of the elections. I was overjoyed at having married the love of my life the day before, yet guilty and sad for all those who would now be denied the right to marry. I was excited about the conference and happy to be in Puerto Rico, but I was anxious about the work that I had to do over the coming days - facilitating a workshop, working the exhibits, attending meetings, and moderating sessions. This was the first SSSS that I have attended post-PhD as a professional in the field and being in a role other than an attendee at this conference. Unfortunately, I had little time to attend many sessions or plenaries because I was busy working most of the time I was there. I was excited that the NSRC had been able to bring such a large contingent, mostly students, to the conference this year. It honestly felt as though our mission of building a movement around sexual literacy was getting a foothold at SSSS - we bookended the conference by starting with a three-hour workshop on sexual literacy and ending with the closing plenary delivered by Gil Herdt, our Executive Director, on sexual literacy; next year's conference theme is sexual literacy. All of our work aimed at beginning to redefine sexuality has become a reality.

On the other hand, the program was filled with presentations and posters that focused on negative risk-taking, framing sexuality in a medical and pathological model. (What is sexual risk-taking, btw? Don't most sexual behaviors involve some type of risk-taking, whether it's with a new partner or trying something new with an existing partner? Shouldn't this be a good thing?) There was little talk of pleasure, desire, and happiness, and even less mention of sexual health and well-being across the lifespan. In addition, the sessions seemed to be poorly attended (is it possible that the lure of the beach and the rum drinks was too great?). It was crystal clear to me that there was a great deal of work to be done towards changing the ways in which we research and teach sexuality.

Over the past year, I have come to realize that I have a great deal of interest in mentoring and providing training opportunities for students who desire to work in the field of sexuality. I feel that this field attracts a unique brand of individual who is committed and passionate about their work and truly believes that it is possible to change the world. I made it a goal to allow for as many students as possible from our program and from the Campus Coalitions for Sexual Literacy to attend in hopes that they would find a home for their research and discover others with whom they shared a vision. I was dismayed and heartbroken at hearing about some of the experiences and listening to the reflections from some of the students.

At first, I felt angry at hearing so many negative comments about the presentations and the conference in general; after all, this is a place that I consider my home where I've watched many of my peers transition from graduate students to researchers, academics, and future leaders in the field. I felt that some comments were disrespectful to those who had taken a chance and were putting their work out in public to be critiqued by their peers and mentors; I felt it was unfair to be so harshly critical when they weren't there presenting their own work. Then I began to realize that this is exactly what they should be doing and that this is a direct result of what they are learning in their classes, in the Summer Institute, and at our recent regional training. We should be challenging the work of others and asking why they have chosen the frameworks they have chosen. We should be engaging in dialogue about the future of sexuality research and education and promoting a framework that utilizes sexual literacy as its model.

With this realization, I would like to encourage our students, ourselves, and the leadership at SSSS to continue to challenge the current paradigm and work towards redefining sexuality through our work, our presentations, and our conversations. I look forward to next year when not only do we have a large presence at SSSS, and we have a large number of students, staff, and faculty presenting their work and facilitating workshops that present a new paradigm - one that promotes sexual health and well being, including desire, pleasure, and happiness, across the lifespan for ALL individuals, relationships, and communities. We can break the contradictions and be true to ourselves and our nation with respect to sex and sexuality.

Reflections on the Plane after SSSS

2008-11-12T14:03:00.000-08:00

On the plane, reading about feminist methodology and reflexivity, I am pushed to reframe the past five days. The SSSS conference in San Juan, Puerto Rico needs contextualized; pulling out one photograph of an entire experience, without any indication of the life history of a person critiquing it for a larger audience rather unfamiliar with said person, is limiting in its relevance and unfair to the object of the critique.
I had joked, before leaving, that the conference would be indelibly marked by the results of the Presidential election. It was indeed marked, not only by the results for President, but also several state issues that would, at a glance, appear to be of high interest to a sexuality researcher. In particular, Proposition 8’s passage in CA, AZ, and one other state, as well as the defeat of controversial personhood amendments in South Dakota and CO. As an African American feminist researcher learning the rules of sociological inquiry, the election was a mixed bag of elation and crushing disappointment. And on reflection, for me, that was the lens with which I entered the airspace of San Juan, a land which I consider in the United States, but not of it.

First, in not speaking Spanish, I was uncomfortable with just being there. I remarked in a phone call to my mother soon after arriving that I felt like an “Ugly American,” expecting people who look a lot like me, and who share a similar history, to cater to me even at the level of language. I was also aware of my positionality as a mainlander, and painfully aware that part of the appeal of having a sexuality conference in the Caribbean was in the discourse of tourism, the Latin world, warm weather, and sexual promise. As sex researchers, we are often assumed to be as active in our activities as we are in our inquiry. Put a bunch of over-sexed academics in the tropics, away from the prying eyes of the institutions that may attempt to marginalize and judge us, add a little rum, some “spicy” and provocative music, and brown bodies that stand as markers for sexual promise, and you get, theoretically, a playground where anything is game, everything is available, and no one around you will judge. I am sure there has been work done on tourism and sexuality, moral holidays, and the like, so I won’t attempt to speak authoritatively on these issues at the moment.
Between the feeling of mainlander guilt I possessed, and my (hyper-?) awareness of how our presence as conference-goers could be read, and after hearing, ad nauseam, the new discourse of “America’s progress” in electing a “Black president” (especially when citizens in PR cannot even vote in the general election), I probably took a stance that policed the behavior of the conference goers. My “data” of unscientific participant-observation was combined with a seeming focus on brown and black (male) bodies as vectors for disease, with race as just another variable. Many of the presentations I chose not to attend were about investigating and intervening with black and Latino MSM for HIV prevention, from a public health discourse. In particular, many presentations called for a widening of the research past a disease model, and yet, very few of them attempted to interrogate that space within their work, so the calls rang slightly false. A notable exception was Dr. Lisa Bowleg’s Winer plenary, which I found to be brilliant, nuanced, and challenging to hegemonic discourse in interesting ways.
Additionally, I found the roles people of color played in the conference to be troublesome. I highly doubt that on the mainland, presenters with doctorates who all happened to be brown, would be serving fellow participants (who happened to be overwhelmingly white) appetizers. Maybe I am wrong- it was my first SSSS. In that the presenters who were engaged in this type of service all seemed to be local, it highlighted an appearance of consumption on the part of the mainlanders, a drive-by experience of “authentic” Puerto Rican food, dance, and culture. Again, I admit to being hyper aware of my difference and my tourism, but seeing a Dean plate up plantanos for the rest of us, made me want to cry.
On the positive, it was amazing to be in a setting where you could discuss methodological and epistemological differences in approaches to sexuality research. I especially appreciated the sessions that focused on what anthropology could say to and about sexuality and sexuality research. It was bit quantitatively biased, but what “scientific” conference is not? And yes, there was an overwhelming cry for research that takes sexuality out of the shame place, out of the “risky bodies” and “risky behavior” discourses. Of course, none of us knows how to get money for that kind of research, so we will probably show up next year, in Mexico, with variations on the same theme, but…there was a call, an at least tacit acknowledgement that this work is necessary to getting a full picture of our society’s sexual lives. And even with all my misgivings about consumption and tourism, San Juan in November was a balm to my Colorado-situated soul, and not being able to speak or read Spanish provided a much-needed transition from election to post-election. I also came away with a personal call to action, to encourage submission of papers to SSSS that reflect my particular discipline, and that look at how multi-disciplinary work can be configured, and funded.
In reflection, I know that no event can ever be perfect, and that many people worked very hard to put together an enjoyable and useful experience. And I appreciate any organization that makes a reach, and fails, rather than remains insular and close-minded. My first SSSS, while slightly jarring in some parts, gives me many personal and disciplinary observations, which will help me to conduct and envision better research in the year ahead. Sometimes, it is by learning what we are averse to, that lead us towards where we would like to go. My heartfelt thanks to the National Sexuality Resource Center for allowing me, not only to attend SSSS, but also for letting me be me even when I ride my horse of righteous indignation. I look forward to working with them in future, and can’t wait to see what the students of San Francisco State University and the College Consortium on Sexual Literacy, produce for next year’s SSSS.
--Tamara Williams

Zack, Miri, and their Porno

2008-11-12T08:13:00.000-08:00

While most of you were out and about enjoying your holiday weekend, I was waiting in line, alone, to attend Kevin Smith’s latest film, Zack and Miri Make a Porno. Yes, that’s the movie that had its billboards pulled in Philadelphia and Salt Lake City for the reference to “porno”. It seems as though the older I get (I’m in my mid-twenties now) the more surprised I am at this idea that somehow children will see words like porno and all of the sudden implode or ask a question like, “Mom, what’s a porno?”

Before I get into discussing the film and its level of offensiveness, I’d like to take a second just to point out that the movie is rated R. This is important to note because if theatres and parents are able to handle their respective jobs, then that means that small children and young teens shouldn’t be able to watch this film without some kind of chaperon. I do realize that some people out there may feel that some form of porno osmosis might occur through the theatre walls, but I assure you this has never been scientifically proven.

Now, back to the level of this films offensiveness and should it have been given an NC-17 rating? Is this movie about more than just making a porno?

First off, because this movie is Rated R, I’m going to write this assuming that if you watch this movie you’re over the age of 17. Given that, is this offensive? The answer is maybe. I know that’s not as simple as some out there would like it to be, but that’s the truth. Was I offended? No, but then again I am much more liberal when it comes to art and entertainment. Could I picture someone coming from a different background being offended and being able to point to different areas of the film as evidence to support their claim of such offenses? Yes. The fact of the matter is when you’re depicting on screen sex, dropping the seven words you can’t say on television (many times) and doing it in a freewheeling manner, many people will find something offensive. I think the real key about making a movie with this kind of content is being able to tell a story in a way that makes the moviegoer take away something more than just memories of shots of nude breasts, or discussions about things called ***SPOILER ALERT*** the “Dutch Rudder”, which by the way is defined by the Urban Dictionary as, “Having someone complete the act of masturbation by pulling up and down on the forearm, while the male holds his own penis.” Anyway, the point is, if you’re going to make a movie that depicts making amateur porn you’re going to leave yourself open to possibly having people who haven’t seen your movie react in a negative way, perhaps in a very negative way.

Having said all of that, while the movie may show the main characters making a porno, that’s not what the movie is about. At the end of the day Zack and Miri is a romantic comedy. I use the word romantic loosely, but that’s what it is. The porno being made is simply a device to get the two main characters played by Seth Rogan and Elizabeth Banks to realize that they are more than just friends. Just like your parents told you, sex isn’t just about intercourse. Sometimes, it can lead to much more. In this case it led to two best friends realizing that they have always had more intense feelings for one another.

You know, whatever expectations you might have of this film, good or bad, you should just see it for yourself and then make your decision whether or not to let your kids see it, post its advertisements up on your bus terminal wall, or simply call it offensive.

Mixing methods, gender, and sex

2008-11-10T12:19:00.000-08:00

I try to be a positive person, and with that, I want to talk about the session, or rather, presentation, I was particularly excited to see.

I was pleasantly surprised to find a student presentation on almost the exact same topic I’m hoping to look at within my masters thesis: transmasculine sexual identity and fluidity. As his PowerPoint began I was greeted with a familiar literature review on transgender and FTM research, including similar points and criticisms that I was beginning to formulate. As his talk progressed to the findings, I had that familiar ‘oh!’ moment that those of us working in sexuality, gender and ethnic studies to name a few fields, often have after a piece of the consciousness puzzle falls into place. By looking at survey data, and subsequently quantitative analysis, his research focused on sexual identity and behaviors pre- and post-transition among an incredibly large (hundreds) group of transmen, painting a larger picture than I had not previously seen. I was thrilled to see this work being done, even more so to see the work being done in a way I hadn’t thought about. After the session was over, I went over to introduce myself, and to talk with him more about what he was doing, and how the qualitative work I hope to do, will be helped immensely by what he’s doing and potentially vice versa. To me, this is what I hoped SSSS would be about, sharing great research and networking with people from all over the world. I left the presentations with a revitalization of ideas, and a more profound sense of what it meant to share, and goals for working together.

As a graduate student, time goes by where I eat, sleep, and breathe research methods. What this conference has done is placed those methods in the larger context of work in sexuality, and not just articles and books. Mixed methods to me is so much more than just bringing together the qualitative and quantitative. Rather, people, topics, conflicts, and conversations come together to try and do the best that they can. Since this is a blog from San Juan, I’d like to end by imagining that there’s enough room in this sexy sandbox called research that we can all play in.

-richard garcia

Rum and Racism

2008-11-08T15:58:00.000-08:00

It is raining now in San Juan, and yet…it is still San Juan. It will stop eventually, I’m sure, and I will be able to go lay out in the Caribbean breeze…but I digress.

Yesterday, I attempted to blog, but lost my post in Puerto Rican cyberspace. I took it as a sign to go on the rum factory tour and relax. I should stop paying attention to my signs. From a sociological perspective, this was a very bad tour.

We had heard that this tour delivered non-stop alcohol, so we wanted food to coat our stomachs. After trying very hard to find a place that served faster than molasses, we got to gobble down half a plate of cheese fries and rushed to board a bus that…broke down. After a delay to get another bus delivered, we got on the road and…stuck in traffic. When we arrived at the rum factory, they were above capacity, so we had to wait to deboard and enter the facility. This is when things got bad.

Our tour guide may have had translation troubles, or may have intended to explicitly say that Columbus discovered America, and brought sugar cane to the New World. Although several brown people in the crowd gasped or looked askance, our tour guide continued with a narrative of how Puerto Ricans, as a fusion of Indians, enslaved Africans and Spaniards, were like a cuba libre, the famous drink made with rum, coke, and a little lime. One big, happy family. Interesting. I would like to note that I am willing to hold the space for people to not be affected by the legacy of slavery in the same way I am…and yet.

I must add now that our fellow tourists were well into performing their role as Ugly Americans. Perhaps it was the unique combination of so many academic elites with very warm weather and brown bodies in service, but I found myself irritated by the blatant displays of entitlement and white privilege. So they swallowed the narrative that completely glossed over painful historical moments, whole.

The tour was very crowded and unwieldy; after watching a video that advertised splashing rum around like water as a vector for instant rhythm and heterosexual sex with thin, beautiful women, we shuffled from room to room of reconstructed areas central to the company’s development. We looked at the Founder’s office, the original distillery, etc. There were video screens that would show the production process, but by the time we got to that part, I was over this tour. After a demonstration of mixing some classic rum cocktails, we watched the “drink rum, have sex” video again, and were released into the night, to drink the actual rum.

The gift shop was an easy miss. Since I had not seen any of the production process, I figured the gift shop rum was the same as that which I could buy across the street from my house. Each tourist received four drink tickets, and there was to be food, vendors, and cultural demonstrations.

Complaining is not my intention- I discuss the conditions to give you a context for what happened. The lines were long. Very long. The food was mostly gone, and what food there was, was being served by conference presenters (brown bodies). When we got drinks, the glasses were definitely sample-sized. And the atmosphere invited voyeurism and consumption. The amphitheater was ringed with vendors, some of whom I saw smiling at the antics of the crowd, and not in a good way. Folks pushed and cut lines, loaded plates with food they tasted, then abandoned, and watched the dancers with alcohol-fueled disinterest. Our time was short, as well; because the busses were paid for by the hour, people had to cram a lot of drinking and eating into a truncated time period to feel they got their “money’s worth.”

Many of my colleagues stopped to remark on the blatant exploitation of “authentic” Puerto Rican culture. It did not feel like an exchange; it felt like an invasion. The emcees presented the band and dancers as being from “a little town up in the mountains,” as if their rural origin somehow made them pure, or more real. I was embarrassed and just wanted to go away.

The entire evening made me think of Lisa Bowleg’s presentation earlier that afternoon. Dr. Bowleg, talking about research on people of color, emphasized that while many people research “these people,” very few take time to actually talk to their respondents, and to let their voices be heard. Instead, researchers map onto them interpretations of behavior that have no context.

By the time we reloaded onto the bus to return to Condado, I was furious at sexuality researchers, and I wanted to question every bit of knowledge this group had produced. How can you be a good researcher about something as racialized as sexuality, if you, yourself, have no idea how to interact interculturally? Not even the rum helped with that question.

--Tamara Williams

Perspectives from Puerto Rico - toward a more methodologically integrated SSSS

2008-11-08T15:56:00.001-08:00

Pulling my attention from the ocean, the sky, the beautiful people out here on the lawn of the Condado Plaza is a difficult task indeed. Nevertheless, I persevere to commit myself to at least one morning with head buried in laptop to share with you a few thoughts from my very first SSSS meeting. One thing that has struck me about this conference is it’s ability to pull together academics and activists from disciplines as disparate as psychology, health promotion, neuroscience, pharmacy, women’s studies, anthropology, and sociology, to name but a few. The common thread amongst us – a commitment to sex research and promoting sexual health and happiness – trumps disciplinary boundaries to an extent that I’ve rarely experienced. I come from sociology, an academic tradition that has had to fiercely defend its epistemological contributions and methodological rigor against criticism from multiple directions. An unfortunate byproduct of this boundary guarding is that this makes transdiscipline collaborations especially difficult. Further, this disciplinary obsession with respectability has put sexuality research on the furthest margins of sociology. So in this regard, I have found SSSS an especially refreshing experience.

At the same time, however, I have found myself somewhat frustrated with the dearth of qualitative contributions represented here. I am an avowed and diehard qualitative researcher, so take this criticism in that context (see, my qualitative commitment to positionality and reflexivity shines through even in blog format!). I do believe that quantitative studies have the ability to make a significant contribution to sexuality research and policy. Without quantitative data, we would be woefully lacking in our understanding of sexual health and behavior. Nonetheless, there are some crucial questions pertaining to sexuality that simply cannot be adequately addressed through quantitative measures alone. Questions of identity, of meaning, of culture – these questions demand attention to the lived experience that a survey or a questionnaire cannot attend to. While this is a claim I would make about the study of virtually any social problem or phenomenon, I argue this is especially true of sexuality. I believe that SSSS and the researchers involved in this organization are really committed to revealing the variety and malleability of gender and sexual experience. Resisting the reification of sex into a system of rights and wrongs, normal and abnormal, healthy and unhealthy seems to me a shared commitment among everyone I’ve heard from here. And yet – understanding gender and sexuality as phenomena that can be reduced to sets of dichotomous variables and then harnessed into easily disciplined scales and models, something I’ve seen a lot of this weekend, seems absolutely antithetical to this goal in many respects.

For this reason, I would love to use this forum to encourage qualitative researchers of sex to become more actively involved in SSSS. Just as we can learn so much from each other across disciplines, we can also learn so much across methodological perspectives. We will not have a holistic understanding of sexuality without bringing in more qualitative investigations of the meanings associated with sex and sexuality, the everyday emotional and interpretive valences of sexual behaviors and identities. Through my work with the NSRC and the many great friendships I’ve made within SFSU’s sexuality studies program, I know that this challenging and critical work is being done. At last week’s first CCSL regional training in San Francisco, I heard a number of fascinating and nuanced analyses of sexuality from qualitative researchers across disciplines. I urge those doing this kind of research to bring their perspectives to SSSS. It’s not just a matter of methodological prejudice, but rather, a real academic imperative.

And with that, I’m off to the beach.

--Cati Connell

sunshine, sex, and San Juan

2008-11-08T15:54:00.000-08:00

Hello from San Juan, Puerto Rico! Why, you may ask, would I be in beautiful, sunny San Juan in the middle of the school year? Oh, just to hear and talk about sex – sex, sex, and more sex! I’m currently attending the 51st annual meeting of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality. Attending last year, where it was held in Indianapolis, IN, fails to compare to this year’s meeting in Puerto Rico. Let me be clear – the people are always great, and the work is always great – but things are so much better when you’re right on the beach.

When I’m not sleeping in, recovering from the previous night’s festivities, I try to attend as many sessions that relate to my interests as possible. Kicking off the conference experience, I attended the Student Award Finalists session on Thursday afternoon. Needless to say, all of these students deserve the award – there is such great work that researchers at all levels of the pipeline are doing. Of course, erotic plasticity, sex work, internalized homophobia, and cybersex are always a great start to a great weekend. Thursday night ended with the pool party and welcome reception, sponsored by the Center for Sexual Health Promotion at my home university, Indiana University. The lines for the open bar were too long, but by the fourth rum and Coke, I didn’t mind much.

Yesterday, I was able to drag myself out of the comfortable hotel bed to attend a session on LGBT Identity Issues – discussions of bisexuality, suicidality, and a repeat of the erotic plasticity and internalized homophobia presentations. The former presentations highlighted the necessity of recognizing and exploring variation within the group that tends to be lumped together – LGB or LGBT or non-heterosexuals, or whatever term researchers may use. But, it was the Winer Plenary – Lisa Bowleg’s presentation on the use of an ecological model of sexual risk for black heterosexuals – that left me in awe. Dr. Bowleg’s talk noted many things, but a few of these points really struck me: the necessity of transdisciplinary work, the necessity of using multiple methodologies, particularly qualitative methods, the necessity of exploring various factors and influences that shape individual-level behavior, and the necessity of looking at particular groups’ unique histories to better understand the groups and their behavior. I must say, none of these points are new to me – these are things I and others continue to call for. But, it’s striking that so few researchers, even at this conference, have taken Dr. Bowleg and others up on their challenge. So, many of the presentations have relied on predominately-white samples and looked no further to explore race, or on predominantly-US-born samples and looked no further at citizenship, nationality, and migration, and so forth.

And so, the conference continues. I hope to catch another session or two today before things begin to wrap up and I head back to Indiana. If only I could take back the sunshine, beach, and sex-positive environment I’m enjoying so much this weekend.

--Eric Grollman

Black Sexualities

2008-11-07T13:53:00.000-08:00

Black Sexualities

I just returned from the SSSS (Society for the Scientific Study) plenary session titled Risky Sex and Beyond: The Ecological Context of sexual risk for heterosexual active black men and women. I found the session presented by Lisa Bowleg Ph.d from Drexel University both enlightening and inspiring. She discussed black sexualities from a multi-level approach that involved the historical context of black sexuality to current injustices and inequalities pervasive throughout black communities.
Dr. Bowleg gave us many "take homes," and one that still resonates with me was the discussion on relationship power between heterosexual men and women. Bowleg's research depicted the uneven levels of power between men and women in regards to condom-use moments leading up to intercourse. She talked about the different ways in which women negotiate talking to their partners about using protection through individual narratives. For women, a lot is involved in the negotiation, "convincing the partner to put one on," negotiating her pleasure, desires, and rationality in what the condom use means overall. These ideas were highlighted throughout the presentation and it gave the audience a lot to think about in terms of analyzing and understanding the "full scope" of Black sexualities.

--Michael Diaz

Rum and Sex: it's SSSS 2009 in Puerto Rico

2008-11-06T13:50:00.000-08:00

This blog post has been moved to our new website. You can read this blog post here:

http://nsrc.sfsu.edu/rum-and-sex-its-ssss-2008-in-puerto-rico

Visit our blog at: http://nsrc.sfsu.edu/dialogues/communicate

NSRC

TV makes teens pregnant...Again

2008-11-05T15:09:00.000-08:00

Forget about the election, there’s real news to be made: For the umpteenth time, researchers have concluded that watching too much (popular) TV leads to unwanted teen pregnancies. The study conducted by RAND Corp., a nonprofit research organization, and published in the November issue of the journal Pediatrics suggests that sexually active teens who watch popular programs laced with sexual innuendo are about twice as likely as those who don't to get pregnant or get a partner pregnant. Finally, a real reason to hate Friends, aside from the fact that it was never as good as Seinfeld.

Now, as someone who has herself conducted longitudinal studies on the associations between TV viewing habits and the sexual conduct of youth (FYI: for those not in the academic know, “teen” is out; “youth” is in,) I am neither surprised nor entirely convinced by the study’s findings. On the one hand, yes, a finding is a finding is a finding. But only up to a certain point.

RAND’s data was based on phone interviews with 12-17 year olds, both girls and boys, over the course of a three year period. The youth were questioned on their sexual and television viewing habits, including how often they watched 20+ popular TV shows that were found to contain lots of sexual or suggestive content. Which leads me to problem #1: RAND’s qualifications for “sexual content” are solely based on visible sexual behaviors like kissing, touching, sexual intercourse, etc…, that were then quantified. This leaves out other heteronormative behaviors specific to dating, coupling and sexual behaviors like flirting and pressure tactics, which may also indirectly influence viewers’ real life behaviors. Which brings me to problem #2: RAND’s findings were drawn from those youth that were already sexually active. The RAND study focused only on unwanted teen pregnancy and was not intent on proving any correlation between sexual activity and TV viewing habits. In other words, the youth mentioned in the study were already engaging in risky sexual behaviors with or without the influence of Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and the other one. The problem, then, would have to be one of information. Or dare I say, the lack there of.

The US’s high rates of teen pregnancy are more in line with a sexually illiterate populous than a TV crazed one. Take for example teen pregnancy rates in other Western countries, like Canada (this Green Card holder’s native land) that have access to the same crappy television programming offered in the US. You’ll find that per capita, Canada’s teen pregnancy rates are staggeringly lower than their once-cool-again, or Obamafied, neighbors. And, at least where the Prairies are concerned, there’s not much else to do but watch Buffy re-runs (did I mention this Green Card holder is also a snobby ex-Montrealer? Sorry Saskatoon.) Maybe if studies focused more on what youth know or don’t know about sexuality, rather than how many hours a day they sat in front of the TV, we’d see some real change.

Euro Sexy!

2008-09-19T14:26:00.001-07:00

Day two (three including the pre-conference workshop!) from the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals in Washington, DC. So...I'm going to admit that I slept in this morning and missed the first couple of plenary sessions. Come on! I was still adjusting to being on the East Coast and had only slept four hours each night before. Jeez. What I did see today was pretty amazing stuff. Can you believe that Europeans consider sexuality a health issue rather than a moral issue? What about those wacky Europeans thinking that sexuality is part of an over all well being for humans throughout the lifespan, including during adolescence? Well...I'll fill you in on how out of control things have gotten across the pond and tell you about the rest of my day after the jump.

As most of us know, Western European countries have very low teen birth and abortion rates, especially when compared to those of the United States where our rates are closer to those of developing countries where there is a lack of reproductive health care and services, while the age of first sexual experience and number of teens who have sex is about the same for the U.S. and European countries. So, what's the deal? It seems that after WWII many European nations were experiencing high unintended pregnancy rates and high rates of sexually transmitted infections (sound familiar) and the governments of those countries decided to do something about it. They focused on sexuality as a health issue and worked to improve the sexual health of their citizens by integrating high quality sexuality education into school programs, providing free or low cost sexual and reproductive health services, and providing sexual counseling. They rarely discuss abstinence and focus on responsibility.

BTW, it was mentioned that in Finland 80% of girls and 64% of boys fourteen years of age could correctly state that emergency contraception must be used within 72 hours of unprotected intercourse for it to be effective. I wonder how many American adults could answer that question. Also, only 4% of teachers stated that they were uncomfortable talking to students about sexuality while a whopping 80% said that they were not uncomfortable talking about sexuality to their students. I wonder if the fact that most teachers who teach sexuality in most European nations have received adequate training in sexuality has anything to do with it.

That was only one session. I saw some others. Mostly very medical and not that interesting for me and one that was about counseling patients about smoking, dietary habits, physical activity, and alcohol risks. Seriously, there was only a mere mention about sexual health. I did see a great presentation by Dr. David Grimes on using vignettes to teach providers on counseling patients about contraceptive choices. His style was a wonderful illustration of the importance of using humor and focusing on the positive when presenting/teaching about sexuality and sexual health. My favorite example by Dr. Grimes...instead of amenorrhea (which scares the bejeezus out of some women because it sounds scary and makes them think that not menstruating is bad, bad, bad) he prefers to use the phrase menstrual free. Menstrual free...I'm not a woman but I think that sounds nice. More tomorrow.

BTW, the slides from all of the presentations are available on the ARHP website. visit www.arhp.org

A Citizenship Lesson from Hollywood

2008-09-18T12:43:00.000-07:00

Brad Pitt's view of what it takes to promote life and be a good American citizen is historically and sexually literate.

Putting money where his mouth is, he's donated $100,000 to the No on 8 Campaign in California which is fighting hard to avoid marriage being made illegal for non heterosexual couples. Equally as important as the money, he issued this statement:

"Because no one has the right to deny another their life, even though they disagree with it, because everyone has the right to live the life they so desire if it doesn't harm another and because discrimination has no place in America, my vote will be for equality and against Proposition 8."

This is what our founding fathers were talking about when they professed "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness" as revolutionary and uniquely American. This is also almost exactly what the Massachusetts Supreme Court said in its decision to create marriage equality.

Supporters of Prop 8 really need to revisit their history books. Their version of American citizenship -- rooted in discrimination, is exactly what this country was founded to avoid.

Reproductive Health (and sexual literacy)

2008-09-18T12:25:00.000-07:00

For the past two days, I have been at the Association of Reproductive Health Professionals Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. This is a different type of conference for me in that the majority of the attendees are medical providers, whereas I am used to hanging with the behavioral and social scientist types. I'm going to be blogging about my experiences at the conference for the next few days, so keep checking back to see what I'm learning from all these great docs and nurses. Read my take on today's activities after the jump.

On Wednesday, I attended a pre-conference work shop on providing post-abortion emotional health information and resources. Sounds like a yawnfest to me. I had wanted to attend the session on advocating for your hot button issue, but was "advised" to go to this one instead. What a freakin' surprise! I was blown away by not only the workshop content but by the three amazing women who facilitated the workshop. I was particularly impressed by the work and presentation style of Aspen Baker, one of the co-founders of Exhale, an after-abortion counseling talk line. I also learned how providing women and those in their lives emotional health information and resources can make a world of difference for those women, the providers, and the larger community. Think about it...

Thursday morning, at the ungoldly hour of 7:45 am (that's 4:45 in California!), I heard one of the most moving talks I've heard in a very long time. Dr. Richard Horton from the UK talked about the urgent need for reproductive health care globally. He stressed how gender inequity continues to create a lack of badly needed reproductive health services for woman, particularly in developing countries. He stated that "Reproductive Health IS the key to Global Health and Social Justice." Strong words. I think I'm a believer.

However, as you can possibly guess, the reproductive health world has little to say about sexuality and sexual health. Of course, one of the reasons that I am at this meeting is to think about ways in which we can use Sexual Literacy to promote doctors bridging sexuality and sexual health with reproductive health. Interestingly, during a plenary about the top ten articles download from the journal Contraception in the past year, it was revealed that number three (3) on the list, in a list of articles about hormonal contraceptions and IUDs, was an editorial about doctors and parents communicating with teens about sexuality. Maybe clinicians do want to talk about sexuality...hmmmm. I believe that sexual literacy and reproductive health, together, are the key to global health and social justice.

Check back tomorrow for more adventures from Washington.

The Myth of Parental Consent

2008-09-08T11:48:00.000-07:00

If you are a media junkie like me, you know that presidential election coverage is seemingly inescapable. Even guilty pleasures like Perez Hilton have articles on Sarah Palin and Julia Allison’s coverage of Fashion Week took on an election theme. However, amid the presidential election brouhaha, local measures on November’s ballot are in danger of being overlooked.

As a San Francisco resident, my ballot in November will also include 11 statewide propositions and a whopping 22 citywide measures. I must admit that with 57 days left until the election I am sadly unaware of most of those propositions. However, I am aware that a parental notification initiative (Proposition 4) is on November’s ballot for the third time in four years. In 2005 and 2006 California voters voted down parental notification propositions, but anti-choice advocates are at it again.

Proposition 4 is the latest attempt of anti-choice advocates to restrict abortion access in California. Currently, California is one of the nation’s most pro-choice states with no restrictions on abortion and a majority of citizens (71%) agreeing that the government should not interfere with a woman’s access to abortion. The anti-choice activists that created Proposition 4 hope that by pitting the “rights” of parents against the “rights” of a teenage woman that they will be able to change California’s voters' minds.

The issue of parents’ rights was a hotly debated issue when I spent Sunday afternoon phone banking for the No on Prop 4 Campaign. During the phone bank I called registered voters (all of whom are over 18 and therefore unaffected by the law) and told them why Proposition 4 is bad policy. The script phone bankers (including myself) read to voters acknowledged parents’ rightful desire to what to know what is going on with their teenagers' health but encouraged voters to think outside of their family (where presumably communication is great) and vote on behalf of vulnerable teenagers who could not go to their parents in case of an unplanned pregnancy for fear of violence.

Phone call after phone call, I got responses from voters who are also parents stating that parents are required by law to consent to their child’s healthcare in other instances and asking abortion should be different. My favorite anecdote came from a couple who were clearly anti-choice in which they informed me that parents are required to consent to a tattoo so obviously they should be required in cases of an abortion. I bit my tongue, but I wish I had responded – “Yes but the decision to get a tattoo is incomparable to an abortion. An unwanted pregnancy results in a child. The results of getting a tattoo is having a tattoo. No one is responsible for feeding the tattoo or for its well-being for a lifetime to come.”

Concerned about the claim that parents have a right to consent for their child’s healthcare, I did some research. The results were surprising. Parents are not necessarily required to consent to healthcare of a child. In fact, if a pregnant teen wants to get PRENATAL care in California, healthcare providers are obliged to provide them with confidential healthcare WITHOUT seeking the consent of parents. The “truth” of parental consent for healthcare is a fallacy, and passing Proposition 4 would make abortion the exception to a rule not vice-versa.

personal, political and palin

2008-09-02T12:10:00.000-07:00

governor sarah palin's support of abstinence-only-until-marriage education funding is very much a political issue. the announcement of her 17 year old daughter's pregnancy is a personal issue made public and political by its very disclosure.

if the second wave of the feminist movement taught us nothing else it is that "the personal is political".....right?

and yet, as barack obama said, "let me be as clear as possible. i think people's families are off-limits, and people's children are especially off-limits."

while i mostly agree with obama on this, i expect (hope) that he will not now shy away from taking mccain and palin to task for their continued support of the failed, life and choice denying, dangerous policy of abstinence-only-until-marriage education.

palin's daughter has far fewer choices for her life now.

to think that this personal event will not have a major impact on palin's continued (reinvigorated commitment to?) support of abstinence only funding is irrational. to not talk about it on a national level may seem like the most appropriate thing to do....but what might be at stake by avoiding it?

sarah palin: a woman candidate--not the same as a woman's candidate

2008-08-29T08:42:00.000-07:00

The news is out. McCain picked Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin as his VP candidate today. A shrewd move, considering how suburban moms were, in large part, the swing votes who pushed W. into office during his reign. Obama represents change? Great, let's get a woman. Historic first-time run for an African-American presidential candidate? We'll see your diversity and raise you an XX (nevermind Geraldine Ferraro). Disgruntled Hilary Clinton backers up for grabs? Dazzle 'em with some vajayjay.

Karl Rove, the evil mastermind schemer behind all of the "seemed like a good idea at the time" Republican plots, summed it up on Foxs News this morning like this:

"It would be a clear sign from the McCain campaign that they were going to be making a very strong bid for the women whom they see up for grabs -- both the traditional, swing independent suburbanites and then the Hillary Clinton supporters who remain disillusioned."

Yea. For a moment I was dazzled by the vajayjay. It was sparkly, it was pretty...it looked like mine. Surely it has my best interests at heart. Vajayjays are on the same team, right?

Except Karl Rove, John McCain and his camp of advisors--and perhaps Gov. Palin as well--made the same crucial mistake they've made when it comes to truly representing women all along. Take note:

It might look like vajayjay. It might smell like vajayjay. But that doesn't mean it is vajayjay.

Sarah Palin is anti-choice. Sarah Palin 'believes' in creationism. Alaska is currently considering re-upping for Title V funds for abstinence-only sex 'education.' And Palin supports federal anti-gay marriage legislation.

So what this says to me is that McCain & Co. just think that I, and others like me, am not that smart. That folks that believed in Hilary believed in her just because she's a woman, not because she has staunchly support issues that support women's equality, access and health. That a vote for Obama now, who supports a host of progressive woman-friendly issues, would be less feminist than a vote for Gov. Palin. That unless someone looks like me, they can't speak to my issues. That all I am to them is a vajayjay. Well, one with a hell of a lot of voting power. Saw this video after my blog post, and couldn't help but add it in:

I'm not buying it. And neither should you.

Obama is my woman. And my man. Voting for him is, by far, the best thing that I could do for women--um, and everyone else.

Governor Palin? Just another dude with a gun.

[note: I do not mean to demean or besmirch or essentialize women or their genitalia in any way by my use of the word vajayjay. My three year old son knows anatomy, and will announce in the grocery store that Mama has a clitoris. I do. It's my genitalia referent of preference. But come on, the word vajayjay is funny. Read about its recent history in the NYTimes article by Stephanie Rosenbloom. ]

Biological Clock or Just Society Getting on My Nerves?

2008-08-28T16:12:00.000-07:00

I am only 28. Technically, 28 going on 29 since I’ve past the mid-way point of my birthday year – otherwise known as the Bonnie Calendar (similar to the Lunar and Solar calendars, but only slightly more important.) And as a woman in her so called prime, or perhaps even shy of it, mucking up my fun by child has remained nothing more than a far off, inane idea; an activity more suited to thirty something’s, the rich and refrigerated, or my parents luckier friends kids. But recently, for some bizarre reason, babies – even children for that matter – have become increasingly palatable, to the point where I’m actually considering some for myself. Babies feet are suddenly munchable (I’m not kidding on this one: the other day while on the bus, I saw some baby feet dangling from whatever sack their parent was lugging them around in and was this close to being arrested); their cooing is almost sweet to the ear; I even have delusions of looking cute while pregnant. So is this my proverbial “biological clock” kicking in, or is it just that society finally got to me, its barrage of “biological clock” like ideas taking their toll on my subconscious, convincing me that I’m a pre-pregnant Timex? Who really knows? I guess all I can do is wait, see and pray that my mother doesn’t really follow my career and read this blog.

I have a dream...

2008-08-28T08:41:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was the day that Barack Obama became the first African-American ever nominated for president by a mainstream political party (with all due respect to the historic efforts of Shirley Chisholm and Rev. Jesse Jackson).

Yesterday was also the day that one of the world's most important gay and lesbian rights activists, Del Martin, died in San Francisco at the age of 87, just a few months after finally being able to marry her partner of 55 years, Phyllis Lyon.

I cried alot yesterday.

And tonight, the night that Barack Obama will accept the Democratic Party's nomination for President, the night that he will become the first large scale African-American Presidential candidate, is the 45th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I have a dream" speech.

Del Martin was born in 1921, eight years before Dr. King. Like Dr. King, she grew up in a world where she was not able to exercise the rights that others around her could; like Dr. King, she experienced oppression and discrimination that was not based on the 'quality of her character.' And like Dr. King, she refused to be silenced, she refused to accept that just because this was how things were, this was how things should be. And like Dr. King, she led a movement, and a people, to fight for equality, respect and justice.

Her groundbreaking activism began in 1953, when she and her lover Phyllis moved in together in San Francisco's Castro district. It is not an overstatement to say that Del and Phyllis are in large part responsible for many of the rights that queers today have gained--campaigning on a national level for non-discrimination policies against gays and lesbians, starting the lesbian activist group Daughters of Bilitis in 1955 (!!), and spearheading the movement to get the American Psychiatric Association to stop labeling homosexuality as a mental disorder. And Del and Phyllis were among the first same-sex couples legally married in California this past June. A sweet victory, almost too long in coming.

It is no coincidence that Mr. Obama chose to accept the nomination on this most symbolic of nights. Surely he will reference Dr. King, and he will talk of all that the incredible struggles of civil rights activists has accomplished. Surely he will speak of all the work that has yet to be done. And of course he will point to Dr King as one of the people who has made his very nomination possible.

And I will remember, even if it goes unspoken tonight, the great work that Del Martin has accomplished, the legacy she has left, and all of the work that still needs to be done. And that just because a black man can be President, and just because gays and lesbians can marry, that doesn't mean that the struggle is over, that the fighting is done, that the oppression has ended.

And I will know that, even if Del Martin is not recognized tonight in Denver for her amazing history of activism, like Dr. King, she will be looked back upon as one of the people who fought proudly--even when no one else was fighting, even when no one thought it mattered--and won.

Oh yes, it's Ladies Night...Oh what a night!

2008-08-27T12:31:00.000-07:00

So...have you been watching or listening to the Democratic National Convention? I've been catching parts of it, and I'll admit that the theatrics and the well-scripted speeches made my heart swell and my eyes brim with tears. Hope and change are powerful messages after these past eight, very dark years in American history. And as much as I became frustrated with Hillary over the past few months, she won me over with her talk of universal health care and furthering women's rights and gay rights when she spoke on the Tuesday evening as part of "Women's Night" at the DNC...or what I prefer to think of as Ladies Night for those disco ladies and sophisticated mamas out there!

Leaving disco for the dance floor where it belongs (or blasting from my stereo while I'm cleaning house - I swear it makes it more fun), I think it is important for the DNC to recognize the women leaders in the party and to reflect on how far we've come and how much more work needs to be done since the first Women's Rights Convention held in Seneca Falls, NY, 160 years ago. What really struck me about"Women's Night" during an election year when a woman's right to reproductive choice and freedom is once again under attack (see posting July 23, 2008) was one particular speaker, Senator Bob Casey, Jr., of Pennsylvania.

You see, Senator Casey used this opportunity to illustrate how his presence at the convention was a testament to Barak Obama's compassion and understanding for those with differing views on some of the issues. I think we can all agree that we need a leader who has the ability to bring different sides together rather than using polarizing issues to rip the country apart for the sake of getting votes, that he is "a uniter not a divider" to borrow from our most articulate leader of all times. The problem is that Senator Casey speaking on "Women's Night" used his opposition to abortion rights to illustrate this point. I don't know about you, but I find his position just slightly anti-woman. Hmmm, maybe it's just me...

" Oh yes it's ladies night
And the feeling's right
Oh yes it's ladies night
Oh what a night (oh what a night)

Girls, y'all got one
A night that's special everywhere
From New York to Hollywood
It's ladies night and girl
the feeling's good"
- Kool & the Gang

meet you at the nexus: queer rights, reproductive justice and sexual literacy

2008-08-19T09:00:00.000-07:00

The California Supreme Court ruled this morning that doctors cannot discriminate against their patients based on their religious views about sexual orientation. The groundbreaking case was brought by lesbian Guadalupe Benitez, who was seeking insemination help from a fertility clinic in San Diego. The Christian doctors refused her treatment on the grounds that they did not believe in homosexuality. (The tooth fairy, Easter Bunny and Santa Claus were also denied services under the same 'non-belief' clause.)

This is a huge case in California (and beyond) for several reasons. First, the obvious, which is that health care access should be a right to all of our citizens. Read Pamela Merritt's awesome post this morning on RH Reality Check about provider ignorance and the effects it has on lesbian access to healthcare if you want the full story. The typical access barrier dykes face is often cluenesses more than overt discrimination, but that kind of oppression is all the more insidious. And many queer folks actively avoid health care because of it. Want proof? See our interview with trans-activist Ethan Suniewick.

Second, this case makes the connection between the queer community and the reproductive justice community--a connection that, unfortunately, has been tenuous at times. As our friends at Causes in Common know, LGBTQQI folks have a vested interest in reproductive justice--and our concerns around access to fertility treatment, adoption rights and abortion are magnified by oppression and discrimination.

Third, the findings of the Court are critical in light of what the DHHS is trying to do on a federal level in terms of access to contraception. As I blogged about a few weeks ago, the DHHS wants to 'relabel' certain kinds of contraception as abortion, so that health providers who object to them on religious or moral principles don't have to talk about, prescribe, or provide them to women who want them. DHHS is essentially saying that someone else's religious or moral beliefs should take precedence over your own right to choose how to best take care of your body, health and sexuality.

If our friends in reproductive justice aren't paying attention, they should be: the Benitez case establishes--in California, anyway--that individual access to care shouldn't be impeded on religious grounds. "This isn't just a win for me personally and for other lesbian women," said Guadalupe Benitez. "Anyone could be the next target if doctors are allowed to pick and choose their patients based on religious views about other groups of people."

I think that says it all.

Historic News! Having children is the anti-abortion thing to do.

2008-08-13T09:39:00.000-07:00

So the Democratic Party has come up with new wording for its "abortion plank." I would be happy with it... except. Except what the Washington Post today called the "left-leaning opponents of abortion rights" are happy with it, too.

Okay. If I made new year's resolutions (and if I made them in say, August), then one of mine would be to stop seeing everything in such a polarized fashion. Do I want to find common ground with progressive Christian folks who write blogs called God's Politics , don't believe in abortion but do promote social justice (though I'm struggling to see how those two stances co-exist)? Theoretically, sure. Are they making it hard for me? Yeah.

First, here's what the 2004 language was:

Because we believe in the privacy and equality of women, we stand proudly for a woman's right to choose, consistent with Roe v. Wade, and regardless of her ability to pay. We stand firmly against Republican efforts to undermine that right. At the same time, we strongly support family planning and adoption incentives. Abortion should be safe, legal, and rare.

Now, here's the new language:

The Democratic Party strongly and unequivocally supports Roe v Wade and a woman's right to choose a safe and legal abortion, regardless of ability to pay, and we oppose any and all efforts to weaken or undermine that right.The Democratic Party also strongly supports access to affordable family planning services and comprehensive age-appropriate sex education which empower people to make informed choices and live healthy lives. We also recognize that such health care and education help reduce the number of unintended pregnancies and thereby also reduce the need for abortions. The Democratic Party also strongly supports a woman's decision to have a child by ensuring access to and availability of programs for pre and post natal health care, parenting skills, income support, and caring adoption programs.

So it's great that the Democratic Party is still supporting a woman's right to choose, and I am so glad they kept the phrase about ability to pay--access is of course one of the crucial ways that abortion rights have been undermined historically. Yay for them for including language that addresses the links between "comprehensive" sex ed and healthy outcomes. Though I bet they are still only talking about sex ed for teens that addresses contraception--not truly comprehensive, is it? How about sex ed for everybody that addresses pleasure, respect, body integrity, choice?

In a conference call to the media yesterday (the link I had has been taken down, hmm. Wonder why?), a bunch of liberal Christians, including Rev. Tony Campolo, member on the Democratic Platform Committee, Rev. Joel Hunter, Senior Pastor, Northland Church (Orlando, FL), author of A New Kind of Conservative and former President of the Christian Coalition, Douglas Kmiec, Chair & Professor of Law at Pepperdine University, and the former Dean of the The Catholic University Law School, and Rev. Jim Wallis, Founder and CEO of Sojourners, the largest network of progressive Christians in the United States (and author of the aforementioned God's Politics blog), hailed the language as an anti-abortion victory.

Wallis said, "It's never been as explicitly stated that the Democratic Party supports a woman's decision to have their child, and offers her practical support to have her child. It's an historic step forward."

Let me just say that, as a mother of a three-year-old child, that I agree--The Democratic Party should be building into every part of its agenda support for parents and families to raise their children--free health insurance, extended family leave, free childcare, better schools, indoor playgrounds, drop-your-kid-off-when-they're-having-their-fiftieth-tantrum-of-the-day centers, an answers-to-why-questions hotline, etc. And that, by the way, has nothing to do with abortion. Could increased minimum wage, better maternity leave, daycare funding and access to contraception for low-income women have the side benefit of reducing abortion, as Campolo posits here? Maybe. Is that the reason we need those policies (at a bare minimum)? Hell no.

But come on, is it really historic and anti-abortion to say that the Democratic Party supports a woman's decision to have their child? Is that how polarized things have become? As a parent, a supporter of a woman's right to choose (to choose, everything--when, how I have a child, with whom, whether or not I call my kid Apple, and so on...), I feel so uncomfortable with a group trying to find common ground co-opting and framing language that supports the choice of having a child as being somehow anti-abortion. Or positing that the only reason that a woman (or family in all of its definitions) needs economic assistance is to stop her from having an abortion.

I do like the idea of finding common ground, dammit. It's one not-made New Year's Resolution in August I want to stick with. (Plus, no coffee after 4pm. Well, a mocha is okay.) But to find common ground we have to acknowledge, in the end, that choice, economic freedom, the right to healthcare extend beyond our ability to churn out babies, and that our churning out those tantrum-throwing, why-asking, ridiculously-named babies might, just, be a pro-choice decision, too.

New Resources for Trans People and Allies

2008-07-28T15:12:00.000-07:00

Our friends at National Center for Transgender Equality (NCTE) in partnership with our friends at the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF), recently produced Opening the Door to the Inclusion of Transgender People (March 2008)- a resource guide created with the purpose of helping organizations become more transgender inclusive. This guide and many other amazing resources (such as 52 Things You Can Do for Transgender Equality and most recently, a Selective Service Resource for Transgender People), can be found on the NCTE web site under the Resource link.

NSRC recently convened an international meeting in New York, Beginning A Global Dialogue on Transgender Rights: A Meeting of the Global Dialogue on Sexual Health and Well Being, where 30 researchers, activists and policymakers began the challenging and long overdue conversation of how to work cross culturally around transgender rights and health. NSRC would like to thank NCTE and NGLTF for helping to participate in this important national and international conversation with our sister centers in Latin America, South/Southeast Asia and Africa.

Papers addressing the status of transgender rights in each of these regions will soon be published on the NSRC web site, including the U.S. based paper led by the team of Jamison Green, Paisley Currah and Susan Stryker.

These papers are not meant to be an end in and of themselves--but a beginning so that organizations and individuals can then add to and expand the dialogue nationally and internationally.

Inconceivable: How Bush is turning your birth control pills into abortion

2008-07-23T14:04:00.000-07:00

A few days ago I was upset that McCain didn't really have a clue how to define contraceptives. Now the Bush administration is doing what they do best: when the facts don't match their agenda, they just make 'em up. The Department of Health and Human Services is proposing that many methods of contraception--including the birth control pill, the IUD and emergency contraception (aka "The Morning After" pill)--be relabeled as abortion.

Their explanation? That some of these forms of birth control (might) stop a fertilized egg from implanting in the uterus. Never mind that these same forms of birth control prevent pregnancy through a bunch of different mechanisms, including making sure that ovulation doesn't occur, insuring that the egg never meets up with the sperm, and/or preventing a fertilized egg from embedding in the uterus. So no one, not even the DHHS, can get all up in your business and figure out exactly why that pregnancy never occurred. In fact, the National Institutes on Health birth control descriptions, which DHHS links to as its primary source of info on contraception, don't even mention that birth control pills might stop a fertilized egg from implanting, only that they stop ovulation. They also, you know, point out that these are used to prevent pregnancy. Not terminate one.

Never mind that the American Medical Association and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists agree that conception doesn't occur until a fertilized egg actually implants in the uterus (this is also the point that the body recognizes pregnancy and starts to have physiological and hormonal responses). The DHHS just decided that they were going to change the definition. And why? According to the DHHS proposal,

Because the statutes that would be enforced through this regulation seek, in part, to protect individuals and institutions from suffering discrimination on the basis of conscience, the conscience of the individual or institution should be paramount in determining what constitutes abortion, within the bounds of reason. As discussed above, both definitions of pregnancy are reasonable and used within the scientific and medical community. The Department proposes, then, to allow individuals and institutions to adhere to their own views and adopt a definition of abortion that encompasses both views of abortion."

Which means, as this great blog at Lazy Circles points out, that if you are a pharmacist at Walgreens and you decide that birth control pills cause abortions, you don't have to talk about them. Or fill prescriptions for them. Which will have the end effect of radically reducing women's access to them (especially women who already experience high health disparities and lack of access to services like immigrant, women of color and poor women). Which also, duh, means more women will actually become really pregnant for real and might actually want real abortions for real.

Of course there are many things about this that are incredibly outrageous, (in the words of Hilary Rodham Clinton). But what fascinates me is the "logic" that DHHS uses to justify it's new definition. A poll. Not just any poll, but a 2001 Zogby International American Values poll that showed that 49% of Americans believe that human life begins at conception. Since when do polls and opinion trump scientific research and data? Well, there is that whole creationism thing, I guess. Oh, and abstinence only, too, huh? Why bother with reasearch at all, then, let's just go with what folks believe. Extra points for earnestness and passion. Let's give UFOs their own landing pads and flight zones. Santa Claus gets a paycheck, a pension and an office.

Oh, let's add one more poll into the mix (and one that's a bit more recent): a poll today of over 100,000 people on AOL News shows that 89% of Americans believe that birth control should not be equated with abortion.

Well, this is enough to get even your Aunt Nellie's ghost inspired to act. Wanna do something? Start by sending this letter to DHHS Secretary Leavitt.

And keep voting in polls.

McCain's stumped on his sexual positions, but Brave New Films has it on tape

2008-07-18T09:14:00.000-07:00

Brave New Films, who creates funny, well-made films on a bunch of progressive issues, has an amazing site called The Real Mccain that envisions a Brave (make that Cowardly) New World a la McCain. McCain, who last year admitted he's "stumped" on whether or not contraceptives help prevent the spread of HIV, has also voted against access to abortion and emergency contraception, against health care access for low income and immigrant women and numerous other progressive sexuality issues. Not so surprising for a Republican candidate, but it's a little disconcerting when he a) doesn't know if there's a connection between contraception and HIV prevention and b) has to ask his aide what his position on the issue is. Alright, maybe it was kind of a trick question: contraceptives are technically anything that prevents pregnancy--and though all condoms are contraceptives, and male and female condoms prevent HIV transmission, not all contraceptives (like the pill or diaphragms) prevent HIV transmission. This is called a fallacy of composition, for anyone who cares anything about math or is about to take the SATs. If you're interested in things like this, please contact me. I haven't balanced my checkbook since 2001. (Do people do that anymore?)

Not that we want a presidential candidate who is a mathlete or anything. Or even reporters who know the difference between contraceptives as a class and barrier methods like condoms in particular. What would be nice in a presidential candidate would be someone who actually knew what his own position (I'll bet it's missionary) and votes were on things like contraceptives, HIV transmission and sex education. Which is why I love The Real McCain: because even if John can't tell you where he stands on the issues, they can. Here's my favorite clip, talking about comprehensive sex education:

Another Gay Sequel: Gays Gone Wild!

2008-06-29T15:23:00.000-07:00

You have to hand it to Todd Stephens: just two summers ago he makes an instant gay cult classic with Another Gay Movie. Then, as he begins production on the highly anticipated follow-up, three of the four actors from the original Sex and the Cityesk foursome bail out (their replacements are immediately introduced and all is well in the world, err film). Not to mention all the generic issues with independent movies (financing) and sequels (topping the first movie).

Mr. Stephens must be a very resourceful man, because as crass and over the top the original was, Another Gay Sequel: Gays Gone Wild! provides just as many laugh out loud/”cringe and look away” moments as its predecessor. Having its world premiere yesterday at the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival, the packed crowd at the Castro Theatre was in for an offensive treat for Pink Saturday.

Set (and shot) in Fort Lauderdale, the story follows the horny boys as they embark on spring break and a contest to see who can get the most booty by the end of the trip. Nico, Griff, Andy and Jarod prove to be up for the challenge (no pun intended) and debauchery ensues.

Nico, played to perfection by Jonah Blechman: the only actor to return from the foursome, steals the show. The script was clearly skewed to exploit the fabulousness of Nico, which may have been underutilized in the first film. Scott Thompson and Stephanie McVay also return as the wacky parental figures that kept us in tears in the original.

The rest of the recipe seems like typical sequel fare: the supporting cast is bigger (including Rupaul and Lady Bunny) the cameos are sillier (Amanda Lepore starts us off as a stewardess for Transamerica airlines) and the porn star ante has been tripled. And considering Matthew Rush was my favorite cameo in the original, that’s not a bad thing.

Don’t let the out of place storyline (the boys, originally looking to hook up, end up preoccupied with true love) or abundance of reality tv stars throw you off (Will Wikle of Big Brother and Jim Verraros of American Idol lend a hand): this is raunchy comedy taken to the next level. And if Perez Hilton, who plays a very misguided version of himself, can’t get you falling out of your seat laughing, this may not be your genre.

They say sequels tend to be bigger, longer, and uncut (although usually not talking about penises). Another Gay Sequel: Gays Gone Wild! delivers with sex, shirtless boys galore and much more. The film opens in theatres this summer.

sex and culture wars....defense or offense?

2008-06-28T16:26:00.000-07:00

today sociologist janice irvine presented "sex education and the politics of sexual shame" to a room full of hundreds at the 40th annual aasect conference in new orleans....

i almost wonder if she read my blog entry last night....here are a few of the highlights that helped kick home for me what i said in my entry yesterday about the need to put sex back into the sexuality education movement....

1. no matter how mainstream we try to be as sexuality educators....in order to be perceived as acceptable.....we continue to be demonized simply for talking about sex. "sex itself is guilty until proven innocent."--gayle rubin.....

2. we need to ask ourselves how we can ongoingly speak out in defense of sexuality AND sex.

i could not agree more with this--however, i wonder if perhaps one reason we keep losing this culture war is that we are being defensive rather than offensive about sex and sexuality? relying on science and data alone and not using emotion to connect with people?

what would a sex and sexuality movement look like if we we stopped responding with defensiveness and started coming up with emotional, religious and scientific reasons why people should not fear sex but embrace it as the positive, beautiful gift that it is?

putting the sex back into sexuality

2008-06-27T21:48:00.000-07:00

thought for the day....from the 40th annual aasect conference in new orleans:

earlier this year, nsrc presented a workshop on putting sexual literacy back into the center of the lgbt movement for equality... where it has been conspicuously downplayed for decades....our workshop filled and we had to turn dozens of people away.....we're still working closely on this with our national partners.....

then today, at the largest national professional sexuality educator and therapy conference the most well attended (by a lot) session was about sex toys.

i think i have always assumed that sex is a big part of the sexuality education movement. after today i realize that in our quest to legitimize our profession by connecting "the sex act" to the larger social and political issues surrounding it....we have dangerously downplayed sex ourselves.

**ironic**

as SEXuality educators....i think we had better bring sexy back into sexuality education itself if we are planning to also bring it back to the center of other social justice movements....

sexcon

2008-06-27T13:33:00.000-07:00

One thing that always fascinates me about working in the field of sexuality is how not sexy our work and the presentation of our work can be. As I have sat and listened to several presentations about various sexual issues, I am amazed at how dry and bland the presentations can be. Not to say that there isn't some great work being presented and some really wonderful ideas being explored - it's just how it's being delivered.

I mention this for a couple of reasons. One is that there is a constant concern about the so-called greying of the field. I often find this confusing as a (relatively) young, recent PhD who has many friends and colleagues who are also young - and I'm considering young to be under 40 or so. What is not confusing is how these conferences are not appealing to young, hip, cool, and otherwise interesting folks. I mean more exciting and cool people go to comicon than come to AASECT or SSSS. We're talking about SEX people. It's supposed to be something that is hot, fun, pleasurable, good, right? Which brings me to my second point. Part of being at conference in a different city than where you live is that you go out and explore the bars and nightlife and culture. So while sitting in a bar last night where there was a strip competition, lots of hooking up taking place, and some sexual activity even taking place right at the bar, I started noticing how many of the songs and videos that were playing were about sex. I am a sex conference that isn't very sexy (informative and important, yes) and out watching all of this hot sexy stuff taking place just down the street. It starts to dawn on me that if we want to attract all of those smart, interesting, cool, fun, and creative young people then we need to start making studying sex a little more sexy.

In the future, I want to hear people getting excited about going to sexcon because it's not only interesting and informative but it's fun and sexy and a good time. To close, I leave you with one of my favorite songs about sexuality by billy bragg. enjoy.

My "Why I Love AASECT: Top 10 List"

2008-06-25T14:26:00.000-07:00

Last week I turned 37....and unlike a lot of women my age, I actually can't wait to be 40. 40, contrary to public opinion, is not "the new 30"....turning 40 is about settling into, knowing and celebrating oneself better than ever. If there's any doubt about this, just look at the fabulous ladies of Sex and the City..... and the American Association of Sexuality Educators, Counselors and Therapists of course.

It seems bizarre to imagine that AASECT was formed only 3 years before I came into the world. Then again, it wasn't even 100 years ago that we would all have been arrested for doing this work publicly. We've come a long way in many ways thanks to AASECT.

This year AASECT celebrates 40 years of leadership in expanding knowledge, practice and professional networking in the fields of sexuality education, counseling, therapy and health care provision.

And so...as I sit here in New Orleans at the 40th Annual AASECT Conference, "The Rhythm of Our Roots: 40 Years of Sexuality Education and Health Celebrated Through Song, Story, and Science" thinking of the numbers of people who have had their lives change for the better because of this organization, I ask myself... just what does one give back as a present to a 40 year old organization that has helped increase pleasure and decrease suffering for untold numbers of people?

Well, being the historian of sexuality that I am....I can't help but think that it would be pretty remarkable, inspiring and fun to get people (AASECT members, soon to be members, etc...) to list their top 10 reasons for loving AASECT. So let's just do it....and put it all together in a giant e-scrapbook wrapped in a big red bow so that when they are celebrating the 100 year anniversary they can look back at fabulous 40 and know what we all know.....

I love AASECT because....

10. it enforces the highest professional standards/ethics in educating and certifying members

9. it is one of the only organizations that prioritizes certifying sexuality professionals

8. it was founded by an amazing, inspirational and powerful woman, Patricia Schiller, MA, JD

7. it is turning green this year! (if I'm not mistaken, it's the first sexuality organization to do so)

6. of the fantastic mentorship opportunities and web resources it provides

5. it is committed to lifelong sexual health, pleasure, happiness and well being

4. it values science

3. it embraces interfaith dialogue in the quest to provide sexual understanding and healing

2. the conferences are impeccably planned and executed. Not to mention FUN!

1. AASECT members are courageous, committed, supportive and yes, sexy (I had to say it!~)

Why do YOU love AASECT?

A Red Eye for Sex

2008-06-25T10:40:00.000-07:00

I arrived in New Orleans for the American Association of Sexuality Educators Counselors and Therapists (AASECT) 40th national conference extremely early this morning having taken the red eye out of San Francisco at midnight last night. This was the first continental red eye flight I've taken since moving to the west coast, and much like night flights to Europe, I'm feeling discombobulated, lost, confused, and even a little scared, although not quite as frightened as I was feeling a few hours ago during my 6 am layover in Houston. Remember this was 4 am Pacific Time and I had only "slept" a few hours in that last row of seats that don't recline. You know what I'm talking about...

As I am sitting (slouching, hunching, falling over) at gate E3 at the George H.W. Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas, at 6 am, a news story on the giant flat screen TV that all hundred of us are watching catches my attention. The report was about a male couple in Virginia who showed up at the county courthouse and "tricked" the deputy into giving them a marriage license because one was dressed as a bride. My hackles stood on end. They followed this by showing a clip of Oprah with the pregnant trans man from Oregon (we're all familiar by now). Some guys laugh behind me. I'm ready to go into fighting mode. I turn to look. Two teens looking at a book. Back to the story. A trans activist is talking about how ridiculous it is to hunt these two young people down. Tension. Then I realize that not a single person is reacting to this story. Only me.

So many of us GLBTQI folks are constantly preparing for a confrontation or an attack that it has become habit to be on constant guard and to react at the slightest mention of something queer. As I prepare to be part of one of my favorite sexuality conferences in the amazing and wonderful city of New Orleans, I'm going to try and focus on the successes we have had. I want to live in a world where we can still have a debate around certain issues (although, I'm not sure this is one of them) without feeling like the mob with torches and ropes is coming around the corner. Maybe I should give my fellow Americans the benefit of the doubt...

Japan Japan

2008-06-25T00:59:00.000-07:00

Japan Japan opens with the protagonist Imri stating "cinema is dead," and at times during this movie I found myself agreeing with him. Imri is a gay ex-Israeli soldier who is concurrently trying to figure out what to do with the rest of his life as well as yearning to visit Japan. At times the film's intentionally irreverent editing and choppy dialogue was thoughtful and touching while at other times it was simply annoying. Some of the montages, like the gripping footage of Israeli streets while Japanese pop music played in the background, were incredibly impressive. Similarly, the scenes between the serious Imri and his seemingly crazy/goofy roommate who holds parties by herself with imaginary guests were incredibly endearing and hilarious, shedding light on how Imri should just let go and stop taking life so seriously. However, it was blatantly obvious when some scenes were scripted and others were improvised. Switching from drama to comedy to musical, Japan Japan left a lot to be desired.

I believe the film could have scratched much more below the surface to explore Imri's desire for Japan, or his struggles with his current crisis of being in transition towards adulthood. Don't get me wrong, I am a huge fan of films that are slow-paced or irreverent, however when it is obviously forced, the film becomes taxing to watch. The director, Lior Shamriz, has great talent and a lot to offer and I look forward to giving his future films a second chance.

Be Like Others

2008-06-24T00:19:00.000-07:00

What would you do in order to be with the one you love? To be able to walk down the street without facing constant discrimination? That was the question that many of the young gay Iranian men faced in the documentary Be Like Others. While homosexuality is deemed as a sin in Iran, feeling as though your gender and biological sex do not match is viewed as a mistake made by God. Therefore, Ayatollah Khomeini offered a "path" towards correcting this mistake 20 years ago by not only permitting sexual reassignment surgery but allowing it to be financially covered by the government. As an Iranian-American and sexuality researcher I became incredibly fascinated when I first heard about this, I knew homosexuality was very much unacceptable but was completely unaware of this ruling. This is especially poignant during a time where there is a war between western states and the Middle East, where war against Iran and its ideologies seems depressingly imminent.

The film follows a group of young pre-op Male-to-Female transgender women who are going through the preliminary stages and bureaucracy of obtaining the right to have this surgery. We meet Vida, a 26 year-old queen of all "diagnosed transsexuals." At times I became teary-eyed watching Vida console and support the young women and convince the parents to accept their child, and other times I wanted to strangle Vida for her blatant homophobia stating that gay men are committing sins and are completely unacceptable. However Vida brought up an interesting point when asked why she transitioned, she stated that when she dressed as a man she was harassed and abused for being effeminate, but now that she is a woman she has the right to
defend herself from discrimination. Anoosh, who later goes by Anihita, is a young 20 year old pre-op MTF who has a very attractive, young hair stylist boyfriend with whom she wants to marry. We also meet Ali Asghar who traveled to Tehran from a small village in order to have the surgery and become accepted and find love. In an exceptionally heart breaking scene while Ali is moments away from the surgery he is asked if he would go through the procedure if he did not live in Iran, he simply replied, "no." Seeking acceptance from his family and peers, Ali, now Neskar is disowned by his family and friends. In another fascinating portrayal in the documentary there was the backwards acceptance of these individuals from the very doctors who advocate for their right to undergo this procedure. One doctor stated, "These people are abnormal, something is wrong, but thats the way they are and we have to accept them and give them the surgery." Another doctor told a parent, "This is torture for you, no parent should have to go through this, but there is still time to rescue him."

While the movie was incredibly moving and sad at times there were also very amusing moments. For example when the doctor was being interviewed by a conservative female journalist for a state-run newspaper he tells her "these women will be more of a woman than you ever will be, because they know how to attract males and keep them happy more than you ever can." During the only moment when a Female-to-Male transgender individual was touched upon, the young woman who sought surgery told the doctor, "I already attract so many women, can you imagine how many I will attract when I have a beard."

Watching this movie I was incredibly touched by the footage of daily life on the streets of Tehran, making me yearn to visit, to see my family, but upon hearing the stories and listening to some of the parents talk in such a harsh and sometimes violent tone towards their children I simply did not want to believe that this mentality still occurs. While there is a move towards acceptance, whether silent or explicit, there is a lot of work to be done. Despite the fact that I have just written this review, I can still say that I am speechless, and so will you. Whether
you are interested in Iran or the Middle East, sexuality or cross-cultural studies, or simply interested in human rights, you must view Be Like Others.

George Carlin's 7 Dirty Words

2008-06-23T16:17:00.001-07:00

As most already know, comedian George Carlin passed away today.

Carlin is perhaps best known for his routine "Seven Words You Can Never Say on Television." In the early '70s, the monologue aired on the radio. A complaint was made to the Federal Communications Commission, and the issue wound up in the courts. Eventually the Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of the FCC. Voilà! Indecency regulation was born.

While most news outlets have mentioned "Seven Words" in their stories about Carlin's life, no surprise, they haven't said what those words are. Thank god for blogs. Shocker: all of them have sexual connotations!

1) shit
2) piss
3) fuck
4) cunt
5) cocksucker
6) motherfucker
7) tits

Out in India

2008-06-23T13:36:00.000-07:00

Out in India is a moving documentary about David Gere and Peter Carley, a long-term gay couple from Los Angeles and their two young children, Christopher and Isadora, and their experiences living for a year in India. David Gere is Associate Professor of World Arts and Cultures as UCLA, where he teaches on how art can be used in HIV/AIDS activism. David receives a Fulbright grant to travel to India for a year and work to organize artists working on HIV/AIDS education through their artwork into a national movement, culminating with a conference in Kolkata at the end of the year.

His partner, Peter Carley, a therapist, and his two young children set out with David to India, totally uprooting their lives in LA and immersing themselves in a culture that is in many ways alien and hostile to their family. The documentary follows them through their daily lives as well as David’s work organizing artists and activists and trying to forge a project that could potentially have a profound impact. The shots are generally informal using hand-held cameras, interviewing Peter and David in their homes, the people that they interact with in their daily lives and their reactions to a gay family, as well as David’s interaction with artists and the culminating conference. I thought that it captured very well the feel of being in India, and importantly it brought together the two related issues of HIV/AIDS and diversity and acceptance of diversity.

All My Life

2008-06-23T01:15:00.000-07:00

This Sunday night, Frameline Film Festival featured the world premiere of
All My Life, the first honest and multi-dimensional feature film about gay men in Egypt. In a sold out house, many members of the local Middle Eastern LGBTQ community gathered together to create a lively and loving ambiance to support their dear friend and director Maher Sabry. As the lights dimmed the entire crowd cheered and clapped out of excitement. What only added to the joyous mood was that many members of South West Asian North African Bay Area Queers (SWANABAQ) lent their talent as actors for this film, as well as a beautiful composition by SWANABAQ member Ilyas Iliya.

The film portrays Rami, a young gay accountant who holds both traditional and modern views of the world. Rami is just getting comfortable with his sexuality when his boyfriend decides that he cannot take the pressure from his family anymore and marrys a woman. Shortly after, Rami is faced with a governmental crackdown of gay men in Cairo after 52 men were arrested in the infamous Queen Boat Case. In an attempt towards self-comfort Rami continually tells himself and others that the men who were arrested must had been doing something wrong, therefore he is not at risk since he leads a "respectable" life.

As the film follows Rami through his transformation and experiences with casual sexual encounters, challenging stereotypes, and trying to protect his friends, the viewer only becomes more connected with his struggles and enjoyment in life. Sabry adds to this intense feature by brilliantly including the stories of other individuals who are also growing and learning from life, including a woman who moves to San Francisco but is faced with the urge to move back to Cairo to help with feminist activism and a devout Muslim man who is battling with his desire for premarital sex.

In all honesty, half of my enjoyment from the premiere was seeing this gorgeous and amazingly honest film, and the other half came from seeing the SWANABAQ community together, elated and proud.

If you would like to join SWANABAQ during pride please check out Bibi, a Middle Eastern Queer club night this friday, June 27th.

Cthulhu

2008-06-22T21:16:00.000-07:00

What happens when you leave your home to not only escape your family’s oppression of your queer sexual identity but also because your father is the head of a “Great Old Ones”- idolizing cult in a small Pacific Northwestern town?

Director Dan Gildark and screenwriter Grant Cogswell depict one of the possible answers to this question in the film Cthulhu.

For the uninitiated, the title is pronounced “kuh-THOO-loo.”

Who are the “Great Old Ones”, you may ask? Early 20th century horror writer H.P. Lovecraft created the fictional deities called the Great Old Ones who, when awoken from their deep sleep at the bottom of ocean, would come back to the surface to reclaim the planet as their own. No one is exempt from the sheer horror of their return and you had better be on their good side because these ancient deities are merciless and will destroy your perceptions of reality with a mere flailing of their tentacles. Cthulhu is just one of these terrifying Great Old Ones who will resurface.

Yeah…I don’t want to get on Cthulhu’s bad side. Ever.

Gildark’s film, shown this past Saturday night as a part of Frameline’s San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival, deals with issues of family, sexuality, religious cults and the ultimate understanding that one can never go home again. A reinterpretation of Lovecraft’s short story, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, Cthulhu involves a mystery surrounding the hometown of Russell Marsh (Jason Cottle)and his family’s involvement in a shadowy cult that may be responsible for the disappearance of numerous townspeople. As Russell searches for answers, he reunites with his old friend/flame, Mike (played with a sexy steadiness by Scott Patrick Green).
Oh, yes, and Tori Spelling is in it as well. She is actually quite good.

When introducing his film to the audience, Gildark announced that the film will be undergoing another edit and then distributed by Regent Releasing in August or September of 2008. Along with those big plans, he also commented that his film is about “just plain folks.” I agree with that assessment. What makes Cthulhu so riveting is not only the mounting suspense as the mystery surrounding Russell and his family begins to spiral out of control, but also the exploration of sexual orientation and gender that take place within the bond between Russell and Mike, as well as the depictions of heterosexuality as expressed by the religious cult.

This film has chills, thrills and the sheer dread of knowing that no one, not even queer folks, are beyond the unspeakable horror that is Cthulhu.

The Young and Evil

2008-06-21T14:29:00.000-07:00

Although the San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival is great place to see stars and preview upcoming full-length features, frameline 32 is also showcasing some of the best LGBT short films around right now.

The Young and Evil collection was a presentation of eight shorts dealing with youth and confronting your vices. The packed crowd in the legendary Castro Theatre liked the variety, and the narratives kept everyone on the edge of their seats.

The program was named after a short of the same name. It centers on a troubled Black gay teen trying to intentionally infect himself with the HIV virus.

Yes, you heard me right.

Writer-director Julian Breece explained his inspiration for the film was to show how destructive behavior can sometimes be beautiful defiance. “Often times [when talking about HIV/AIDS and the African American community] we just hear statistics and such, but I really wanted to show the heart of the matter…the tortured desire,” he said.

Starring Vaughn Lowery (who you may remember from those Joe Boxer ads) The Young and Evil had its world premiere at the festival, but expect buzz/controversy as it plays more around the country in the coming months.

El Primo (The Cousin) was another crowd favorite. Set it Loredo, Texas, it tells the story of a Latino teenager who visits his older cousin and learns (the hard way) when you want to be like someone else so bad, you often lose yourself in the process. The chemistry between the actors was endearing and engaging (the frontal nudity didn’t hurt either).

For a full list of shorts in the program, visit the frameline 32 website.

Gay Bed & Breakfast of Terror! A Frameline Film

2008-06-21T13:48:00.000-07:00

Alright people, it's time for the largest gay event of the year, the "Blue Party" in the desert, do you have your leather pants, tanning oil and elicit substances? Good! Did you reserve lodging? Well how about the Sahara Salvation Bed & Breakfast? At Sahara Salvation, Helen and her daughter Luella are your typical God loving mother-daughter team running the quaint "gay friendly" B&B in the hilariously campy horror flick "Gay Bed & Breakfast of Terror". At this "slice of paradise" in the desert there seems to be a more horrifying experience awaiting the five couples staying this year. There's the reigning Mr. Leather and Alex, his drag queen boyfriend (played by gay porn star Michael Soldier who came to the premiere as his drag alter-ego "Precious Moments"), a yuppie gay couple with their older "fag hag" straight friend, a body paint creating lipstick lesbian couple, a singer/song writer and her tomboy girlfriend, and a sugar daddy with his boytoy in tow.

Normally I would mention the cinemagraphic quality of the film, but that queen Precious Moments decided to sit right in front of me with her flawless but overwhelming bloom of a hairdo. This campy, over-the-top horror production featured more hilarious one-liners than an episode of Last Comic Standing, with gems such as "boys will do boys," "We'll find you a nice boy to marry and convert to save from Satan," and the loving homage to Mommie Dearest, "NO MORE GIRLFRIENDS!" While the production value was low quality, this only added to the b-movie horror aspect of this raunchy, gorey and sexually exhilirating feature. The tongue-in-cheek portrayals of stereotypical gay couples only added hilarious moments but also offered a poignant review of misgivings towards and within the LGBT community.

Writer, director and actor, Jaymes Thompson, creates a thrilling but intentionally "so bad it's good" creature feature with a steady momentum, gripping death scenes, and brilliant frightening moments that leave you standing in your seat screaming, "run girl, run!" Keep a look out for "Gay Bed & Breakfast of Terror" as it was just picked up for theatrical release in September. In other exciting news, director Jaymes Thompson will be releasing a gay grindhouse double feature with another gay horror director!

Boys Have a "Merck-y" Future

2008-06-20T01:37:00.000-07:00

Last year, Gardisal, the vaccine against the
Human Papillomavirus (HPV) was released to the public after receiving full FDA approval. While there has been much controversy surrounding the vaccine, Gardisal has gone off without a hitch. The most widely argued controversy has been of the suggested age range for the vaccine, that of ages 9 - 26. This left many conservatives stuck with their arms firmly in the air while yelling "what do we say to our children?!" Recently, researchers announced that this vaccine is also effictive on women over the age of 26, leaving us with one question, "what about us boys?"

While the vaccine was clinically tested amongst 30,000 women over several trials, no such testing has been conducted with those of the XY chromosomal nature. However, men are seen as the leading carriers for incidences of oral, anal and vaginal HPV cases. So why not just nip this in the bud (butt)? Thankfully it looks as though pharmo companies like Merck & GlaxoSmithKline are investigating such a matter as I type.

Currently Merck, the maker of Gardasil, is gathering data on the effectiveness of this vaccine on boys. However, there really is not much of chance that female and male immune systems will react differently to this vaccine. In the meantime, we must wait a few years before enough data is gathered to prove this case.

Affinity, opening film LGBT festival

2008-06-19T23:02:00.000-07:00

Lead paragraph(s) here.
Class is often invisible to those in the upper echelons. So it is that the movie, Affinity, as revealed to us through the eyes of one of the principal characters, Margaret, fools us as she is fooled in this beautiful adaptation of the novel by Sarah Waters. Margaret is a wealthy woman who has lost her father to whom she was devoted. To relieve her grief she becomes a regular visitor to Millbank, a notoriously bleak prison for women in London in the latter half of the 19th century. There she meets and falls in love with a beautiful medium. The story has all the elements of a picturesque lesbian love story but I found it affected me much more deeply than such a scenario might.
The rest goes here.

I read Waters first novel, Tipping the Velvet, and viewed the adaptation, as well as read Affinity. I loved the first novel and enjoyed the adaptation but I must admit that I enjoyed the movie version of Affinity even more than the book, which seemed weighted down somehow by a slow paced description of Margaret’s life. She is as confined in her gilded prison as Selina is in gothic goal. The dresses she wears, as well as the customs of the times are richly visualized in a way that doesn’t require words. I was also intrigued by the film’s portrayal of spiritualism, a topic I researched for a play I wrote some time ago. Waters and the film convey a true sense of what it might have meant to believe in communication with the dead and the power of a world beyond the material. They show us how a logical, sane person might be convinced of the existence of spirits, especially when falling love.

In the discussion after the film, Waters and the screenwriter, Andrew Davies, expressed a belief about spiritualist mediums I share. Some were or are today sincere and can help people, even if they have to cheat a little to keep up their reputations and produce the results their believers come to demand. I won’t reveal the ending but I believe you will be surprised and you will be left, as I was, to wonder why you didn’t see what was so obvious. It’s almost like that old riddle about the car accident where a child and his father are rushed to the hospital and the doctor says, “I can’t operate on that boy, he’s my son.” Who is the doctor? People couldn’t get that the doctor was his mother.

I strongly recommend this movie to anyone who is interested in women, historical dramas and welcomes a chance to examine their own assumptions about gender, class and sexuality.
mercilee

why is this mom sooo scared of sex ed?

2008-06-02T11:33:00.000-07:00

Because teachers are giving kids the green light to shower together--and we're not talking after gym here!!!

Well, okay, JK, not really. Don't mean to alarm you.

But that is the scary message the National Abstinence Education Association is giving to parents. The group kicked off an email campaign, which aims to enlist one million people in its fight to throw out comprehensive sex ed programs from public schools in favor of abstinence-based curricula.

Meanwhile, almost all research on sex ed has shown that abstinence education is not effective in lowering rates of pregnancy or sexually transmitted infections.

One thing's for sure: NAEA knows how to elicit our emotions. Its video may exaggerate and manipulate some information to get its point across. But with great camera work, some talented actors, and an amusing dialog, it's easy to get caught up in a story and forget about real-life facts.

I even found myself thinking "too much, too much" to the part about teens hiding condoms on their bodies.

Sarah Larson, Single Again!!!

2008-05-30T13:57:00.000-07:00

Ever notice that when celebs split, the men always end up on top.

Take George Clooney and Sarah Larson. They call it quits, and the tabloids are cheering--Good news ladies (and some gents)! George Clooney has broken up with that slutty former cocktail waitress from Vegas!"

Meanwhile, the newly single Jessica Simpson practically forces ex-Tony Romo to her sister's wedding, apparently to save face. (Because going solo would be waaay too humiliating.) Jess's divorce and subsequent dating disasters have even led people to compare her to breakup queen Jennifer Anniston. You know, the former Mrs. Brad Pitt. The same Brad Pitt who happens to be happily awaiting the birth of his twins with sex symbol, Oscar winner, and UN Goodwill Ambassador Angelina Jolie.

Are all guys really that happy after ending a relationship? Not according to a Statistics Canada study. It found that men are more likely than women to become depressed after a marriage or common-law relationship ends.

Somewhere Clooney is crying his eyes out.

TX to counter polygamist ruling

2008-05-22T15:25:00.000-07:00

Texas is headed to the state's Supreme Court. It will argue against yesterday's Court of Appeals' ruling that it had no right to take FLDS children away from their parents. (Child Protective Services believes underage girls are being instructed to have sex with and marry much older men.)

I wonder which is worse for the kids: being ripped away from everything you know? Or living the only way you know, with perverse cultural practices and an even more perverse fashion sense? (Jordans with a tangerine prairie dress? Yikes.)

Not Obama not so bad

2008-05-22T12:49:00.000-07:00

Unlike GOP leaders of the recent past who have denounced same-sex marriage and support a constitutional ban on such unions, John McCain has shown some civility discussing the topic.
He even sat down with Ellen. And may walk her down the aisle when she weds Portia de Rossi. As if!

Launch Party: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships

2008-05-15T12:51:00.000-07:00

Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships

by Tristan Taormino

Launch party at Good Vibrations

on June 5 at 6:30pm

It’s no secret that traditional monogamous marriage in America is in serious trouble and has been for quite a while. Marriage rates have declined, divorce rates have increased, and infidelity is epidemic. The number of articles, books, talk show episodes, and therapy sessions devoted to “bringing back the spark” in a couple’s relationship is staggering. While some resort to cheating, serial monogamy, or “starter marriages,” a growing number of people have opted to create satisfying, lasting partnerships another way—by opening up their relationships. Unlike monogamy, there are no scripts or models for these alternative relationships, so people in them can struggle without guidance, advice, or role models.

Now, in Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships, relationship expert and bestselling author Tristan Taormino gives readers practical advice on how to craft responsible, fulfilling nonmonogamous relationships. In addition, the book offers an unprecedented look at the lives of real people in open relationships and their secrets for success.

Refreshing, accessible, and jam-packed with information, Opening Up dispels myths, explores the real-life benefits and challenges, and helps readers decide if an open relationship is right for them. For those already exploring nonmonogamy, Opening Up offers strategies for making an open relationship work, including tips on communication, negotiation, jealousy, boundary setting, and conflict resolution. With her trademark down-to-earth, sex-positive style and sharp wit, Taormino covers different styles of open relationships from partnered nonmonogamy to solo polyamory as well as topics like coming out, finding community, and parenting.

Join Tristan for the launch of her book and new DVD, Chemistry 4: The Orgy Edition, at Good Vibrations on Valencia St. on Thursday, June 5 at 6:30pm. Tristan will be joined by special guests and stars of Chemistry 4 -- Penny Flame, Adrianna Nicole, and Sinnamon Love. Enjoy a live DJ, wine, hors d’oevres, and a chance to win an incredible door prize of Good Vibrations goodies including the new book and video.

TRISTAN TAORMINO is a bestselling author, columnist, filmmaker, and sex and relationship expert. Her popular Village Voice column “Pucker Up” is nationally syndicated, and she is the author of The Ultimate Guide to Anal Sex for Women, Down and Dirty Sex Secrets, and True Lust. She is also an award-winning adult film director and creator of Vivid Entertainment’s sex education video line, Vivid-Ed. She lectures at top colleges and universities, co-produces sexuality retreats on the East Coast, and teaches sex and relationship workshops around the world. She lives in Upstate New York and on the web at PuckerUp.com and OpeningUp.net.

Launch Party for Tristan Taormino’s new book and new DVD!

Thursday, June 5, 6:30 – 8:00 pm

Good Vibrations Valencia Street Store

603 Valencia Street (at 17th Street)

San Francisco, CA 94110

(415) 522-5460

www.goodvibes.com

Free

The rest goes here.

7.3 minutes of sexual bliss

2008-04-03T10:15:00.000-07:00

For those men who are wondering how they did last night (or last week, last month, last year, last prom night), here is some benchmarking information.

In a study of 1,500 couples (probably heterosexual) the median length of intercourse was 7.3 minutes (I knew that porn movies were all lies!).

Optimal time for sex, according to women, was 3-13 minutes. But beware - foreplay and postcoital are not included in this timeframe, so don't just jump in and jump out.

Women's Porn

2008-04-03T09:48:00.000-07:00

Yet another stereotypical portrayal of gender differences, but so funny and glamorous. This series is from Cambridge Women's Pornography Cooperative.

Political Sex

2008-03-19T09:21:00.000-07:00

We've all heard that David Paterson was sworn in as the first Black and first legally blind governor of New York on Monday following Elliott Spitzer's resignation due to revelations that he spent tons of money on "high class" prostitutes. On Tuesday, Governor Paterson held a press conference to discuss his and his wife's extramarital affairs (BOTH of their infidelities - and I hate that word) during a rough patch in their marriage. I don't know about you, but I feel like none of this is any of my business. Furthermore, I don't get why some politicians are forced into resignation (or at least feel they should resign) while others are able to weather the scandal and keep on trucking.

Let's review, shall we...according to Wikipedia the following are a few of the Sex Scandals that have rocked the political world since 2006:

Mark Foley, R-FL (2006) sent sexually explicit texts to pages RESIGNED
David Vitter, R-LA (2007) D.C. Madam client
Gavin Newsom, D-CA (2007) SF Mayor/affair with wife of campaign manager/former chief-of-staff
Bob Allen, R-FL (2007) soliciting a police officer in a men's room RESIGNED
Richard Curtis, R-WA (2007) blackmailed/outed by male prostitute RESIGNED
Larry Craig, R-ID (2007) duh!
Elliot Spitzer, D-NY (2008) NY Governor, "high class" hookers, yadda yadda yadda RESIGNED

So a few broke laws and maybe that 's what the deciding factor should be when we consider if resignation is in the best interest of the government, the individual, their family, and their constituents. On the other hand, I don't think that our government should be spending so much time and money enforcing prostitution and solicitation laws when the activities involve consenting adults. Isn't there a war or something going on? Not to mention all those folks on the Gulf Coast who still need a place to live.

Lastly, shouldn't all couples and individuals have the freedom to make choices in their sex lives without the input and scrutiny of the nation even when they are public figures? What if Elliott Spitzer had come forward and said that he had sex with a prostitute and his wife was cool with it before it hit the front page of the New York Times? If you admit your sexual indiscretions before the press gets hold of it are you somehow a better person?

I support David Paterson's decision to be honest. I just don't know if it was any of my business.

Support Human Sexuality Studies: A few upcoming events

2008-03-10T13:13:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Kara Wuest, for passing along information on an event featuring an HMSX alum.

Amy André, a 2004 graduate of San Francisco State's Human Sexuality Studies department, will be reading from her piece, "The Study of Sex", which is featured in the "Best Sex Writing 2008". Amy's contribution includes a description of Professor Rita Melendez's work.

Rita is a much loved professor in the Human Sexuality Studies Department, as well as a respected scholar who does very important work at the Center for Research on Gender and Sexuality.

The book includes other local contributors Violet Blue, Paul Festa, and Melissa Gira. The reading will take place March 27 at the Center for Sex and Culture at 7pm.

I also wanted to take this opportunity to invite you all to the Grand Opening of the National Centers on Sexuality, an organization that encompasses the CRGS, HMSX Department and NSRC. Click on the links to uncover the acronym's.

The opening is this Friday, March 14th, 3pm-5pm. 835 Market St, Ste. 517. All are welcome!

Laughing at sex

2008-02-25T18:50:00.000-08:00

What is it that makes sex so funny? If you mistakingly make an obscure reference to sex, everyone around you starts laughing and giggling as if they were in 8th grade. Is sex the last frontier of maturity? Here are some examples from those who were sufficiently brave enough to relieve their moments of embarrassment.

FIRST TESTIMONY:
I walked into a hair salon with my husband and three kids in tow and asked loudly, "How much do you charge for a shampoo and a blow job?" I turned around and walked back out and never went back. My husband didn't say a word... He knew better.

SECOND TESTIMONY:
I was at the golf store comparing different kinds of golf balls. I was unhappy with the women's type I had been using. After browsing for several minutes, I was approached by one of the good-looking gentlemen who works at the store. He asked if he could help me. Without thinking, I looked at him and said, "I think I like playing with mens balls"

THIRD TESTIMONY:
My sister and I were at the mall and passed by a store that sold a variety of candy and nuts. As we were looking at the display case, the boy behind the counter asked if we needed any help.
I replied, "No, I'm just looking at your nuts." My sister started to laugh hysterically. The boy grinned, and I turned beet-red and walked away. To this day, my sister has never let me forget.

FOURTH TESTIMONY :
While in line at the bank one afternoon, my toddler decided to release some pent-up energy and ran amok. I was finally able to grab hold of her after receiving looks of disgust and annoyance from other patrons. I told her that if she did not start behaving "right now" she would be punished. To my horror, she looked me in the eye and said in a voice just as threatening, "If you don't let me go right now, I will tell Grandma that I saw you kissing Daddy's pee-pee last night!" The silence was deafening after this enlightening exchange. Even the tellers stopped what they were doing. I mustered up the last of my dignity and walked out of the bank with my daughter in tow. The last thing I heard when the door closed behind me, were screams
of laughter.

LAST BUT NOT LEAST TESTIMONY:
This had most of the state of Michigan laughing for two days and a very embarrassed female news anchor who will, in the future, likely think before she speaks.

What happens when you predict snow but don't get any? We had a female news anchor that, the day after it was supposed to have snowed and didn't, turned to the weatherman and asked: "So Bob, where's that 8 inches you promised me last night?"

Not only did HE have to leave the set, but half the crew did too they were laughing so hard!

Well, I laughed at these, so I guess I didn't pass the maturity test.

Le French Sex Ed, C'est Cool

2008-02-19T11:59:00.000-08:00

Quelle surprise. When it comes to love and sexuality, the French are still on top.

This time, the French add another chapter to the book of love with the Sex, What's the Big Deal? exhibit at the Cité des Sciences museum in Paris. Targeted to 9-14 year olds, young people learn about being in love, experiencing puberty, making love, making babies, and keeping an eye out for sexual abuse. Can you imagine this exhibit at the Smithsonian?!

Even if you're not so young, check it out - it's a lot of fun, and you can practice your rusty French. Better yet, if you think this type of sex ed is a good thing, sit down with your kids and check out the English language site together.

Á l’amour!

Under the Umbrella

2008-02-11T11:37:00.000-08:00

Guilty pleasures. We all have them. No doubt on Voices of American Sexuality you'd expect me to jump into the underworld of sex - say sounding or vampire fetishes. My vice is simpler and perhaps more dangerous - I am a sucker for a good pop song. Tacky, you say, perhaps even immature in a 40-some year old male. Whatever. You try writing a great pop song - the formula may be simple, but few succeed. Hum ... am I talking about sex?

Anyway, once that magical musical phrase gets in my head, it's all over. Occasionally my addiction meets the approval of my social circles' ever so eclectic tastes - like Gorillaz' Feel Good Inc. More often the prognosis is (1) the beginning of social ostracizing (as in my high school years when I'd pop out the first Clash album to hear Earth, Wind & Fire's Fantasy) or (2) finding myself suddenly having the greatest conversations with folks a few rungs down the generational ladder.

Right now, the culprit is Rihanna (here at the Grammy's) and her Umbrella. Talk about a killer song, and all those great mixes and mashups, including Party Ben's Tender Umbrella, which got me hooked in the first place.

So for the past few months I've been packing a full fledged girl crush (for your straight folks, that's the queer equivalent of a man crush). Needing to fill my growing need, I turned to - gasp - celebrity blogs. My getting wet under the umbrella has been an eye opener. Rihanna stealing Jay-Z from Beyoncé. Rumors of menage-a-trois between Rihanna, Jay Z and Beyoncé. Rihanna showing too much cleavage. Alleged Rihanna sex tape. Rihanna's skirt too short. Rihanna's skirt just right. So much talk about so little. And tired gender stereotypes of "good girl gone bad" and all that comes with that.

I like seeing Rihanna - she's got a great energy, and I still get that smile when I hear Umbrella. But I really don't care who she's dating or what she's wearing or what products she's endorsing. And I'd like to think I can find more interesting things to talk about. Or do I? Maybe there are reasons our pleasures are guilty...

Super Tuesday and the Missing Gay Vote

2008-02-06T13:19:00.000-08:00

I have to admit I am a bit of an election returns junkie, no doubt an afterglow from my days as a precinct captain in many elections in the late 80s and early 90s. It was a pleasant surprise to see regular folks, and not just the political pundits, truly excited about the election.

And all those numbers and bar graphs - chills down my spine. Women for Clinton, youth for Obama, evangelical Christians for Huckabee and not Romney. And those moments of self-realization - I am on the generational cusp, which explains many things I won't go into here!

Back to my normal self in the morning, I had the sudden realization that even with all the talk - and how those commentators talk - there are some folks who don't get talked about. Like not one mention of the "gay vote" or gay - or even "anti-gay marriage," which was so center stage four years ago.

It can't be that there aren't enough gays to matter - there are more gays than Mormons and Jews combined, and I've heard about both the Mormon and Jewish vote this year. And given that gays vote disproportionately vote for Democrats, and the democratic presidential race is so close, it would seem the gay vote could play a pivotal role in both the Democratic primary and the general election.

Am I missing something here?

The "bro" and the "bitch": Democrats get real

2008-02-06T13:15:00.000-08:00

While listening to NPR last week, I was struck by a woman being questioned about her choice for the democratic primary, and particularly her thoughts on Hillary Clinton. Her gripe with Hillary was interestingly vague..."I just don't find her authentic".

It sort of stood out for me, because the day before we had a meeting where a guest speaker had brought up the concept of "authenticity" in reference to on-the-ground community organizing. So, her comment sort of stuck with me...well, for like 10 minutes until they started talking about PTSD or that cute little baby polar bear...

But than my friend Eric sent me this incredible interactive site he and his fellow UCB Journalism students put together (in 10 hours nonetheless). As I listened to the stories from the "Black Vote in Oakland", the whole authenticity thing rose back into my consciousness. I thought of the unique challenges that Hillary and Barack have in the Democratic race. The pressure of being 'authentically' black or 'authentically' feminine. The stigma of being a 'rich old white man' does not really carry a challenge at presenting authenticity. the term itself is seemingly rooted in minority status; whether that be class, race, sexuality or gender. And strangely enough, it seems that the first folks to cast the "authenticity" stone, are those who don't really have to deal with the idea of presenting an authentic front themselves.

However, while mainstream media doesn't seem to be able to kick the habit of sensationalizing the "authenticity factor" (I mean enough about Hillary's tears)!. It is great to see pieces like this one, showing the opinions of the vox populi. And what black voters in Oakland have to say, may reflect what a lot of folks have to say about the candidates. It's about representation. America is saying "I want to feel like I'm being represented by my government."

And when people like Chantay Polk from East Oakland say "I didn't know whether to vote for her because she was a woman or Barack because he's black", I just have to say "amen" to the fact that we are finally seeing a diversity in folks in politics. It encourages folks to vote which in turn strengthens the ever-dwindling American democracy. And even if they're ideas aren't revolutionary their position as the two front runners for the presidential candidate of the Democratic party, certainly is!

He's Here; He's Queer; Get Over It: Stewie Comes Out

2008-02-05T12:49:00.001-08:00

Leave it up to those homophobes at Fox to steal Stewie Griffins' thunder and censor the clip of him unfurling his 'rainbow diaper' on The Family Guy.

Shame on them!

But it is official folks! Stewie is gay! Or so I hear, since I can't find the damn video anywhere!

Seth McFarlane, if you're reading this (which you're not), bless your little heart!

To celebrate, please join us in enjoying this montage featuring some of Stewies' best 'sexually ambigious' moments:

Too old for Soulja Boy

2008-01-31T14:14:00.000-08:00

I can remember a time when I used to lie about how old I was – old being the operative word. I can also remember thinking how absurd it was that people would actually lie about their age in efforts to appear younger than they were. Why, I naively thought, would anybody rely on random time, the solar calendar in our case, to dictate how good they felt about themselves? My, what a difference a few rounds of 365 days makes! As I continue to get on in my years, which, if nothing else, is good indication that I’m still alive, I’ve come to appreciate the errors of my ways. For the first time in my life, I realize that I am no longer as young as I always assumed I’d be. To the contrary, I find myself out of touch with any actual semblance of today’s youth, a segment of the population I am decidedly no longer a part of. The tip off was “Soulja Boy,” a song that apparently has a dance that goes along with it, one I had no clue existed. But with no bar-mitzvahs, sweet sixteens or alcohol free-clubs to guide me along, how was I supposed to know the Macarena was over and done with? Maybe the first sign of getting older is recognizing that you’re no longer young... Whatever the case, I have a new perspective on those who lie about their age; they are brave, brave men and women, and I hope they’ll allow me in their ranks should I one day decide to join. Until then, thank god I’m not thirty yet.

iraqi policewomen get their guns back!

2008-01-31T11:12:00.000-08:00

I just loved this photo so much that I had to post it. Click here for the article accompanying the pic.

"10 things you shouldn't say to a guy"..the 1950's edition

2008-01-28T13:39:00.001-08:00

I wanted to give MSN Lifestyle kudos, for reminding us that: Men are From Mars and Women from Venus. Luckily, they've decided to help the sexes communicate by publishing this very helpful list of the "10 things you should never say to a guy"

I'm going to skip the formalities and reveal the #1 faux pas according to MSN Lifestyle:

1) "That looks cute."
For the most part, men hate cute. We don't want to hear about it, we don't want to see it, and we sure as hell don't want to be it. If we come down stairs after getting dressed and you tell us we look cute, there's a 100 percent chance we're changing. We're supposed to be your protector, your rock, and cute does not fit into that picture.

Could it get any WEAKER?

God, you'd think that they'd include something that at least alludes to the fact that it's 2008, something a smidgen plucky. I have a few suggestions of my top 10 things to never say to a guy: "You're right honey, birth control IS my responsiblity" or "Oh, don't worry about cleaning that up. I'll take care of it later". But maybe I'm just old fashioned.

Westboro Baptist Church to Picket Heath Ledger Memorial Services in US

2008-01-24T13:13:00.001-08:00

Like many, I was saddened to learn of Heath Ledger's death on Tuesday. My thoughts go out to his family and friends, and movie goers like myself will miss his vibrant screen presence.

My sadness turned to outrage when I read a Fox new report that the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) is spreading the message that Ledger is "now in hell" and plans to picket memorial services in the US. Such hate mongering is repulsive, and church spokespeople such as Shirley Phelps-Roper should remove themselves from the public limelight and take the time to return and read the Gospels. Somehow I don't think Jesus would approve of their actions.

35 years of safe, legal abortions

2008-01-22T11:22:00.000-08:00

We're pretty slammed here in the midst of co-hosting the Sex Tech Conference: Focus on Youth with ISIS ( Internet Sexuality Information Services), but I wanted to make a quick note about a VERY important anniversary.

Today is the 35th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that made abortion legal (and safe) in this country. And, though there have been some setbacks, we made it through the Bush years. Time for new leadership and a revised Supreme Court composed of judges who make intelligent decisions based on what is best for all Americans.

If you don't know much about this case or what is happening with reproductive rights today, I would highly encourage you to visit these sites. This is also a good chance to thank these organizations who are fighting to protect our rights to make safe and informed decisions about our own bodies:

Planned Parenthood
NARAL
Center for Reproductive Rights

The Physicians for Reproductive Choice are giving us the chance to thank doctors who were brave enough to perform safe sterile abortions pre-Roe. These are the heroes who risked their own lives to help save many women from life-threatening back alley abortions. Click here to send your support.

MRSA and the Gay Vector

2008-01-14T14:47:00.000-08:00

According to a recent University of California, San Francisco led study reported in the Annals of Internal Medicine, a highly drug-resistant strain of staph infection related to the MRSA bacteria is spreading among gay men in San Francisco and Boston. In recent years, the MRSA bacteria has become an important public health concern, particularly in hospitals, which until now were the primary sources of infection. Now, it appears that the bacteria is being transmitted sexually through skin-to-skin contact.

While not discounting the importance of the study and the real concern it poses for the health of gay men, the media reports are strangely eerie of early HIV reporting. As in this quote by Dr. Binh Diep, PhD, a scientist at San Francisco General Hospital Medical Center - "The potential widespread dissemination of multi-resistant forms of USA300 into the general population is alarming."

Hum. I think it's alarming that gay men are coming down with MRSA. And I thought that in 2008, gay men were now part of the "general population." If not, who else isn't part of the general population? Women? Farmers? Medical researchers?

The take home public health message from the story is that the bacteria may be more easily transmitted through sexual activity than non-sexual skin-on-skin contact. This implies that all sexually active people and their health providers should be on the look-up for signs of infection. Let's leave the gay men infection vector language in the history books.

Gender Algebra

2008-01-11T12:30:00.000-08:00

Hand jobs without borders

2008-01-11T09:52:00.000-08:00

This blog has been moved to a new location: http://nsrc.sfsu.edu/dialogues/users/rvaleev/blog/hand-jobs-without-borders

Read more of our blogs at http://nsrc.sfsu.edu/dialogues/communicate

NSRC

What Sex Ed Works for You?

2008-01-09T09:27:00.002-08:00

The Fresh Focus Sex Ed Video contest is hitting the home stretch. Check out more than 40 entries and vote for your favorite at dogooder.tv. The voting deadline is Wednesday, January 16th. Winning videos will be shown at the upcoming SexTech Conference, hosted to ISIS, Inc. and the NSRC on January 22-23 in San Francisco.

Someone pass Hillary a tissue...

2008-01-08T11:57:00.000-08:00

I don’t know about you, but I when it comes to the President of the United States of America, I don’t want no stinking cry baby. Yeah, you heard me Miss Hillary; those had better been some crocodile tears if you know what’s best for you. If you can’t handle a little Iowa caucus, whatcha gonna do when North Korea goes all Kim Jong IL on our asses and Will Smith is tied up in Bad Boys III post production? Cry to your country? Break down with human emotion? Get with it lady! Politics are for the boys – and I mean men who hold back all feeling until they collapse a la Dick Cheney. That’s the type of person we want at the helm of this great state of ours. Not someone who, (gasp!) might get tired after two months of traveling around on a bus, pretending to be interested in every annoying last one of us. Cause really, if her lipstick is slightly smeared now, just imagine when Bill has to tell her to tell her to wipe it off her teeth.

Happy New Year!

2008-01-06T02:46:00.000-08:00

How was everyone's vacation, holidays, and New Years? Mine was great, although I'm sure I've gained about 10 pounds. Well worth it though to get that extra helping of pie.

I know I'm a little late, but I just saw this story.

What a great way to start a new year. We've got a prominent clergy member in the Episcopal Church speaking out strongly in support of her Church's decision to appoint an openly gay Bishop. She's doing the right thing by going on the offensive and calling out other Churches for their wishy-washyness. Here's the quote:

"[Gene Robinson, the newly appointed openly gay bishop,] is certainly not alone in being a gay bishop, he's certainly not alone in being a gay partnered bishop," she said.
"He is alone in being the only gay partnered bishop who's open about that status."

Amen, sister. Way to go.

global orgasm for peace

2007-12-20T14:24:00.000-08:00

If you notice that Sunshine from accounting is out tomorrow, chances are that this is the culprit.

Global Orgasm for Peace is a day where we can all come together in the name of peace! Calling all Hutus and Tsutsis, Palestinians and Israelis, Obama supporters and Clinton supporters, time to synchronize your watches for Solstice!

Well, Anna Rose, you may ask, what is the scientific tie between orgasm and peace? Well, The Global Consciousness Project the proud sponsors of this worldwide event have that question covered..."To effect positive change in the energy field of the Earth through input of the largest possible instantaneous surge of human biological, mental and spiritual energy."

I wonder if a donation of more than one orgasm results in a tax write-off?

Homo for the Holidays?

2007-12-20T12:20:00.000-08:00

It's that time of year. Holiday parties at work. Trips to see the family and places you may have fled long ago. Loud, cheesy music.

Not an easy time for anyone. And worse still if you're queer. So many decisions! Do you take the third of your polyamorous triad to your work party? How do you introduce your other half to your great aunt? Friend? Good Friend?Partner (tennis? venture capital?)? Do you keep or remove the facial piercing for Christmas Eve mass?

I have no great answers to the responding to the hyper-conformity of holiday glee. But I do have solutions - run away to your favorite getaway. I'll be in the mountains playing in the snow. And the Big Island is always a nice reprieve if you've got the cash.

Breaking-up Web 2.0-Style

2007-12-19T14:54:00.000-08:00

The other day my girlfriend found out that she would not be taking that long walk down the aisle, as her pischer of a fiancé gave her the proverbial boot. Choosing not to immediately call her friends and family, she opted instead to wallow in self-pity while deciding what to do with the two huge dogs he originally brought home and then left her with. Too bad for her the insensitive lass took it upon himself to update his Facebook profile, changing his “status” from “engaged” to “single”. It wasn’t more than a day before every person in their “network” of friends learned of this sad turn of events, not to mention that she was the obvious dumpee since she had yet to update her own profile. (Read; too busy wallowing in self pity.)

Forget about tactless phone-calls and removed e-mails; cowardly break-ups have moved up a notch, crushing hearts web 2.0-style. After all, mass notifications are way more convenient than time consuming one-on-one conversations.

Think about it, how long has it really been since you last bore witness to the specific cry of a blocked MySpace page? I doubt more than a week, especially if you’ve been keeping up with all those “friends” of yours. If publicly going from “in a relationship” to “single” isn’t bad enough, just imagine not being able to see who your ex is flirting with.

sure are some hairy palms you got there, son

2007-12-19T11:03:00.001-08:00

Doing it better by breaking down sexual archetypes

2007-12-18T22:03:00.000-08:00

Another guest blog, this one from Joshua Bagby from Sex in the Light. If you're interested in guest blogging, write to me at isaacg at sfsu dot edu. We'd be happy to have you!

It’s a constant theme of my blog that sex in our culture is often presented as a paint-by-numbers approach to producing physical orgasms. We don’t pay much attention to the mind, heart, and soul of sex. I am going to hammer on that theme a little more.

Sex for me has been changing as my body changes with age. In my mid-forties I began losing that masculine ability to create erections through thought alone. As men age, more direct physical stimulation is frequently required to bring on the hard stuff.

I was not overjoyed with this development.

In my fifties, I began losing the kind of musculature control over my orgasms that is the take-it-for-granted condition of youth. This is a very gradual loss, and what it means is that physical orgasms are not as powerful as they once were. There’s still a pretty good woo-hoo factor, don’t get me wrong, but the fountain of youth has definitely lost some oomph.

I was not overjoyed with that development, either.

Many men of my Baby Boomer age range think that nature is cruel in masterminding this slow decline. Part of the reason for the rush on medical fixes like Viagra, Cialus, and Levitra is to restore the physical performance lost to the aging process.

But I am not one of them.
The rest of this post continues below the fold.

Rather, I have taken the view that maybe the problem is not nature; maybe it’s us. Maybe it’s that we as a culture have not been open-minded enough about sexual pleasure to step out of the performance paradigm. Maybe nature is trying to nudge us in a different direction—to open our closed minds to new possibilities.

Fortunately, I was one of those guys who learned during my thirties that if I hold back from ejaculating quickly, I’d create stronger ejaculations when I finally let go. By doing that, I’d also intensify my sex energy. Now that I am not so young, and while my ejaculations are less intense, I still have this gift of sex energy.

And that seems to be getting better with age!

What happens for me is very hard to describe because it is such a subjective experience. So much of it happens in the mind, heart, and spirit. I feel it very strongly on a physical level, too, but what separates it from normal body part-by-body part description is that now my mind floats outside the lines and out of the box.

It’s like unlocking myself from the rigid paint-by-numbers approach to producing orgasms. Often I launch myself into a consciousness of pure sensuality. I enjoy sensations of warmth, coolness, wetness, dryness, smoothness, prickliness, whatever. It’s much like that state of awareness you were in as a little kid when you’d lick a window because it felt neat. You were more into the undiluted pleasure of sensation rather than saying, “I think I will lick a window.”

By stepping outside the lines and not painting by numbers, I let my mind soar into a delicious world of abstract thought and feeling. Maybe I’ll see colors, patterns, light. Maybe I’ll see inner drawings or photographs or cartoons. Often they will pulsate in animation and visually represent what is happening sensually. For instance, if I am physically nuzzling between two breasts, my mind might deliver an abstract representation of this activity. It turns lovemaking into art.

Lovemaking for the soul gets so far beyond the range of pornography or everyday R-rated films it’s like re-inventing sex. I wish I had had these eyes when I was younger, but I am so happy to have them now.

I have also experienced a phenomenon I call energy personalities. As a creative writer, I have, of course, become quite familiar with the whole process of dwelling in imaginary worlds. I make up characters all the time. I am also familiar with when I know that I am deliberately making something up - and am in control of that whole process - and when something just comes to me without my deliberating on it. The latter is inspiration. I am more like a passive observer attuned to some cosmic TV, and the idea just pops into my brain ready for action.

Energy personalities are entirely spontaneous and inspired. I do not create them. They come into me. It’s as if for a little while I assume a different identity than ego Joshua and become someone else. That may sound spooky or psychotic, but it’s not. It feels wonderful. Maybe it’s a past life. Maybe it’s a friendly energy presence, a spirit. Not once has it ever been scary or threatening. A rush of energy usually accompanies it.

If you’ve never experienced anything like it, it’s difficult to convey how exciting this process is and how it is often superior to the kind of sex we’re conditioned to want through the media. High energy is naturally exhilarating. It’s like Alka-seltzer for the spirit. Plop, plop, fizz, fizz.

So far, energy personalities for me have been like archetypes. One of them is like a beast that growls like a lion. When this guy is activated, the output of energy far transcends anything that comes out of me as an ordinary human! It’s almost as if he is a different kind of spirit guide - I only experience joy when he is about.

If there is a bottom line to this, it is that when lovers encourage each other to explore sexually, to step outside the paint-by-numbers approach to orgasm production, great things can happen. But because society is generally so conformist-oriented and people are so terrified of making fools out of themselves, diversity in sex is usually discouraged. Well, when you’ve got to do everything by the book, you miss out on a lot of wonders. And when you do what you've always done, you get what you've always gotten.

Blaze your own trail. Give your love the encouragement and permission to re-invent your lovemaking.

A Breast Fetishist with 40DDs

2007-12-14T23:28:00.000-08:00

A guest blog from Virgie Tovar. If you're interested in guest blogging, write to me at isaacg at sfsu dot edu. We'd be happy to have you!

Female fetishists are of the same mythical stuff that unicorns and multiple orgasms are made of. Or so it would seem if you were to read almost any literature relating to fetishism. Well, I'm not mythical. I'm a 25-year-old woman. I'm a breast fetishist. Oh, and I identify as straight.

So what does all that mean exactly? Let's hit Part 1 first - my fetish.

The funny thing about a fetish is that no one knows exactly how you get one. Two people could be raised in exactly the same way, exposed to the same people and situations, and one could develop a fetish while the other doesn't. I happened to have been breast fed until I was four by my mother, a woman with huge boobs. In adhering to the most stringent of definitions of fetishism, it means that I have an erotic fixation on an object, an abnormality that precludes me from experiencing arousal from anything beside this object. The object: boobs. It's not an
unusual fixation, but it's a level of obsession that did limit my orgasms to those inspired by fantasies of the fleshy fabulousness of other women's breasts from the age of 4 to the age of 24. Nowadays there's a little more diversity in my fantasies, but not much.

Part 2: I love men.

My 40DD breasts play a huge role in my playtime with men, acting as appetizer, entree and dessert in a lot of ways. I become wildly aroused with my partners, but my clitoris lies dormant, unmoved by begging and even prolonged visits from expert tongues. I have still never orgasmed by the stimulation of a partner. When I'm alone, however, I indulge in fantasies about huge breasts and big nipples. Though in actual experimentation with women's chests, I've found myself completely unaroused. Confusing, I know.

In my book, Destination DD: Adventures of a Breast Fetishist with 40DDs, I cover what it's like living with my "abnormality:" "My fetish makes orgasms easy and relationships hard. It's brought about questions about whether I needed therapy, hypnosis, the right man, the right woman, about whether I was a lesbian or I needed a chick with a d*ck."

Am I sure I'm straight? As sure as I am that I'm a fetishist. And if you're reading an American Sexuality blog, you probably know that sexuality is not as easy as girl + boob love = gay. I'm playing with the idea of identifying as queer. I guess the question that I ask myself the most is: what better defines a person's sexuality: their fantasies or their real-life sexual behavior?

The world may never know!

Visit Virgie at her website: www.BreastFetishist.com. Buy her book on amazon.com or at Good Vibrations in San Francisco.

Teenage birth rate rises for the first time since 1991

2007-12-08T09:44:00.000-08:00

For the first time since 1991, teen birth rates rose in the United States, according to the Center for Disease Control. Note that this survey only refers to birth rates, not pregnancy rates.

The most significant finding of this comprehensive study of American birth rates is that birth rate for teens ages 15-17 climbed 3 percent and for teens aged 18-19 the rate climbed 4 percent. This is the first increase in 16 years.

It's not entirely clear what the reasons for this increase are. It could be, and I'm inclined towards this viewpoint, that the anti-family planning policies of the Bush Administration have slowly worn down the good work done to increase rates of family planning and condom use during the Clinton Administration, and now we're reaping the rewards.

The more important figure, I think, is how many of these pregnancies were unintended. That's the number that we can then wave at policy makers and demand a change of course from abstinence-only (read stupid) sexuality education to age-appropriate and fact-based sex education.

"Greening" sexuality

2007-12-03T04:01:00.000-08:00

NoPornNorthampton, an anti-porn community organization based in Northampton, Massachusetts, advocates for "the concept of sustainable sexuality -- "green sexuality" -- characterized by long-term, mutually respectful relationships between two equals."

It's a fascinating concept and reflects some new thinking in the anti-porn movement.

Before our loyal readers tear me apart, I think it's worth exploring this concept a bit more in good faith. Here at American Sexuality Magazine and the National Sexuality Resource Center, we are debating constantly about whether or not porn is ok. Some of us reject porn on a purely moral or religious ground, some of us reject porn on feminist grounds by saying that it demeans women. Others support porn (some porn) on feminist grounds for the fact that it empowers women to determine their own sexual destiny and one shouldn't interfere with that, and others support porn because they see it as a natural part of human sexuality.

Until now, I hadn't heard the 'green sexuality' argument, and it's striking me as another interesting way to approach the porn argument. I'm all for new and interesting ways to approach sexuality because it's clearer and clearer that we need new ways to think about sexuality, sexual health, and sexual expression. More new thinking raises the quality of the discussion from one of hate and vitriol to one of honest and open discussion. Kudos, NoPornNorthampton, thanks for adding something positive to the discussion.

Polling Lesbians, Gays, and Bisexuals

2007-12-01T00:33:00.000-08:00

Hunter College has released a new Presidential Primary poll of Lesbian, Gay, and Bisexual community, the first ever with a national representative sample. The most interesting result, which is somewhat intuitive, is the following:

The Hunter College Poll also finds that during the process of “coming out,” LGBs become more liberal and more engaged in the political process than the general population.

It's nice to see this all in hard numbers. It makes sense that the LBG population would become more liberal as they came out, given the strength of the hatred coming from the current governing conservative coalition. Keep in mind, though, that this population will only become bigger as coming out becomes more and more accepted. It's nice to know that this demographic will continue to fight for its rights as it grows. Hopefully, we'll get to a point where conservatives realize the mistake of alienating this demographic from any of its attempts to win elections, but I doubt it.

And for the horse-race data you need like that fifth peanut butter cup:

Senator Hillary Clinton has the support of 63 percent of LGB likely voters in the Democratic primaries, followed by Senator Barack Obama with 22 percent and John Edwards with 7 percent.

"Mis"Leaders in the fight Against HIV: World AIDs Day Edition

2007-11-30T11:48:00.000-08:00

Saturday, December 1st is Worlds AIDs day when millions of people worldwide come together to commemorate those we have lost and celebrate the gains we have made in the struggle against HIV/AIDs.

Playing off of the 2007 World AIDs Day theme of "leadership", we thought we'd put up some of our favorite quotes from some of the great "mis"leaders in the fight against AIDs.

Who better to start with than Rev. Falwell:

1991

"Aids is not just God's punishment for homosexuals; it is God's punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals."

— Jerry Falwell, US televangelist, 1991.

1992

"Are they taking DDT?"

FormerVice President Dan Quayle asking doctors at a Manhattan AIDS clinic about their treatments of choice, Apr. 30, 1992 (as reported in Esquire, Aug., 1992 and the New York Post, early May, 1992)

2002

"Antiretrovirals, they're quite dangerous. They're poison actually. We cannot allow our people to take something so dangerous that it will actually exterminate them. However well meaning, the hazards of misplaced compassion could lead to genocide." "Peter Mokaba, Youth Leader of the ANC, New York Times, March 31, 2002

2004

"And remember, back then in the '80s, one of the accompanying -- there -- there -- there -- there was a lot of fear-mongering going on around -- about AIDS, as a lot of people were scared about it. And one of the things that -- that the -- the AIDS activists said regularly back then was, oh, this is only a matter of time before it spreads to the heterosexual community. It's only a matter of time. And they used that as -- as one of the weapons to try to get people like Reagan to start talking about it from their standpoint. And of course it -- it hasn't. It -- it didn't, and it hasn't, other than in Africa, and in Africa it is -- it is being spread not just by -- it -- it -- it's promiscuity that -- that -- that spreads this, if you want to know the truth. It's promiscuity. But it -- it hasn't made that jump to the heterosexual community.

- Rush Limbaugh: Jun 9, 2004 LIMBAUGH show:

To find out more about how people worldwide are celebrating World AIDs Day, check out the World Aids Campaign site

To learn more about organizations doing great things in the field of HIV/AIDs, click here and here and here

Trans Bachelorette Gets Her Shot at Love

2007-11-30T10:56:00.001-08:00

Producers, ever trying to reel in new audiences, continue to add new twists to the dating competition format. The latest is a transsexual MTF who is looking for love among eight eligible bachelors. The show will premiere in February on Logo.

xmas 2007: no gay nutcrackers allowed

2007-11-28T11:34:00.000-08:00

Looking for something to get that slightly homophobic friend who has everything?

Well, look no further! Stupid.com, a novelty toy site, is now offering a talking Larry Craig doll for the 2007 holiday season.

Press his button (ha ha) and hear the Republican Party's favorite scapegoat declare, "I am Not Gay!"

And for the misogynistic politico on your list, don't forget the Hillary Nutcracker. I know a few people who could have a ball (or two) with one of those.

Planned Parenthood Golden Gate holding t-shirt contest

2007-11-18T07:57:00.000-08:00

Design Planned Parenthood Golden Gate's new t-shirt and win an iPhone! Yup, it's that easy. Better get right on it - the deadline is December 31st.

Planned Parenthood Golden Gate is the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the national Planned Parenthood. Both organizations are on the front lines of the fight for a woman's right to choose, birth control access, and sexual literacy. The Golden Gate chapter is dear to our hearts here at the NSRC because, like them, we're based in the Bay Area.

Is Bitch Always Bitchy?

2007-11-15T14:37:00.000-08:00

For those who don’t follow the US presidential campaign or watch The View, Hillary Clinton is the new (and, evidently, the only) “bitch” to beat come 2008: At a campaign event this past Monday, republican candidate Senator John McCain was put to task when a female audience member asked the Senator, “How do we beat the bitch?” Since then, everyone from the media to the general blogging public (present company included) has been debating the term, as well as McCain’s response to the not so subtle remark. To his credit, McCain did his best to brush off the remark and proceeded as eloquently as possible, a slight nervous chuckle notwithstanding. Nonetheless, people are divided on whether or not McCain did all that he could, and many are calling the presidential hopeful sexist for not doing more to defend Hillary’s “bitch” status. Personally, I don’t believe the senator is to blame for the comments of another. What I do find interesting, though, is the seeming public consensus surrounding the word’s merits, with most people agreeing that the term, when used to describe a woman – particularly by a man (or in McCain’s case, a man merely listening to another woman calling a woman a bitch) – is akin to denying a woman’s right to vote, (never mind run for President.) While I do agree with this newfound definition and societal self-reflection of sorts, I can’t help but feel slightly on edge regarding my rights to the word. Does the ban on bitch extend to “bisnatch,” and all the other pet names my girlfriends and I use with such affection? Is “Yo bitch, waddup?” no longer an acceptable greeting or voicemail message? Have we gone too far? Or more to the point, is “bitch” necessarily bitchy?

Tyra Banks: America's Next Top Sex Educator?

2007-11-08T11:51:00.000-08:00

I must admit that one of my guilty pleasures right now is 'America's Next Top Model.' (Yes, my life is that boring).

I'm not proud of this, but, there is just something so joy-inducing about gorging on carbs and full calorie beer while watching 19 year old waifs get into bitch fights. I love the dramatic goofiness of Tyra and watching the slightly awkward (and endearing) Miss Jay show those little girls how to work it on the runway.

Though I love ANTM, as us real fans refer to it, I had never seen the Tyra Banks Show. So I have to thank YouTube and Perez Hilton (another guilty pleasure) for leading me to this amazing clip from a show devoted to women's health with Tyra's special guest...the Vulva Puppet.

Check it out:

Top that Oprah!

Public Health Officials 'Just Don't Understand'

2007-11-07T12:12:00.000-08:00

The New York Times had a mildly interesting article yesterday about how public health officials are looking into hip-hop to figure out the sex lives of youth. Apparently, after watching one too many 50 Cent videos on MTV 2, someone finally decided that it must be that darn rap music that's prompting kids to 'get jiggy with it' these days. I mean hip hop's only been around, what, 30 years now?

So after joining young women and men on many a hip hop dance floor and using a yardstick to measure the distance between teens genitals while they danced, researchers were able to make some important conclusions. The main being that hip hop does not cause kids to fornicate like rabbits! In fact, "the overt sexuality of the music and dancing was not the main influence on sexual behavior. Rather it was the old standbys of alcohol, drugs and peer pressure that typically led them into sexual encounters."

And folks, it didn't stop there! They also found that if you talk to teens using their own 'hip hop vernacular', they actually understand you better! "The language of hip-hop also may in fact be a more effective way to communicate with teenagers." No shiznit!

As a public health wannabe (MPH '08 baby!), I'm a little concerned by this study, are we really that far behind? I understand teens seem like they're from another planet, but last time I checked they were human, just like us. Maybe if we gave them a little more credit and comprehensive education about sexuality, they could become empowered independent thinkers.
Word?

Feminists do it better

2007-11-06T04:09:00.000-08:00

It's true. SCIENTIFICALLY.

Busting stereotypes that peg feminists as man-haters, a new study shows that having a feminist partner is linked with healthier, more romantic heterosexual relationships.

Apparently, having equality in a relationship leads to a better sex-life. I love when my personal values are born out by science.

This raises the more fundamental question - should science be used to confirm your values?

Romney: The only good gay parent is a dead gay parent

2007-11-03T08:21:00.001-07:00

That is not exactly what he said, but it is too close for my comfort. The British Pinknews reported these words from Romney:

I believe that maintaining the strength of the marriage relationship, the family relationship, is critical to the strength of an entire society," he said, according to Rocky Mountain News.

And I believe that the development of children is enhanced by having a male and a female as part of their upbringing in their home.

Even when there's a divorce, you still have a mom and a dad.

And even where one member of the partnership may pass away, the memory and the characteristics of that gender, of that partner influence the development of a child.

I'm in favour of promoting, as a society, the marriage of men and women and the development of children in that kind of setting.

I am sure that when your father dies, what you remember most about him is that above all he was a man and the one who is left with you is a woman. I mean, we focus on the important things when we lose a parent.

What more can I say. The man who courted the gay community when he ran for the Senate in 1994 is now bashing that community when that suits him. Someone so opportunistic will do anything, and will literally, as the Dutch say, run over corpses to get what he wants.

Gender and Hillary's candidacy

2007-11-03T00:14:00.001-07:00

Digby, one of the smartest political minds on the left, has an excellent post about gender in presidential contests and particularly around Hillary Clinton's bid for the Democratic nomination. Hillary's been getting a ton of flack in the pundit world for 'playing the gender card' during a speech to her all-women alma mater Wellesley College.

An excerpt from Digby's post here:

Every presidential candidate, and most other politicians, since 1980, have been bowing and scraping before this constituency. But for some reason, the hunting trips and codpieces and brush clearing and all that metaphorical crotch measuring isn't considered playing "the gender card." It's just considered the normal political pander to an aggrieved minority vote: the poor white males who've been treated terribly by all those powerful women and minorities and gays. What could be wrong with that?

I'm sorry, but this is truly sexist crap. Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney are out there one upping each other on who will be the most macho sadists among the crowd of warring GOP thugs. Hillary goes to her alma mater and says that her education at the women's college prepared her to do battle with the political boys club and the gasbags' eyes roll back in their heads and they start drooling and whining that she's she's broken the rules.

Well boo fucking hoo. The rules are changing. Get used to it.

This is right on. Gender plays a central role in every election. But now a candidate wants to use her femininty to advance her candidacy instead of manliness, the punditocracy flips out. Just another indication of the long road ahead of any candidacy operating outside the normal phallis measuring framework.

God Hates Fags - an expensive proposition

2007-10-31T20:06:00.000-07:00

Westboro Baptist Church has lost a court case in Maryland and now owes $11 million to a father of a dead soldier.

Church members strongly believe that the War in Iraq is our punishment for tolerance of homosexuality. To that end, they held a protest in March 2006 during the funeral of Marine Lance Cpl. Matthew Snyder, who was killed in Iraq. Here are some of the signs that the group used during the protest:

God Hates Fags
Thank God for Dead Soldiers
God Hates Fag Enablers
God is Your Enemy

Church activists (Fred Phelps is the leader) believe that the ruling will be overturned on appeal and do not plan to stop protesting at other funerals.

In case you really wanted to see who God's favorite homophobe is, here he is. Meet Fred Phelps:

Halloween '07: obliterating the sexy costume glass ceiling

2007-10-31T11:30:00.000-07:00

Sure sexy mental patient is SOOOO Halloween 2006 but sexy 19oo's steel magnate! How are they ever going to up that?

Thanks for the link Ms. Nielsen!
Happy Halloween Everyone!!!!

Halloween in the Castro canceled: Gay icon mourned

2007-10-30T08:40:00.000-07:00

As some of our dear readers may know, the National Sexuality Resource Center and American Sexuality Magazine are based in San Francisco, California. For us, the news of the world-renowned Halloween Party in the Castro strikes particularly close to home. The NYTimes has a fantastic piece about how the canceling of this party indicates a national trend of declining "gayborhoods."

“The Castro, and to a lesser extent the West Village, was where you went to express yourself,” said Don F. Reuter, a New York author who is researching a book on the rise and fall of gay neighborhoods, or “gayborhoods.”
“Claiming physical territory was a powerful act,” Mr. Reuter said. “But the gay neighborhood is becoming a past-tense idea.”

I mourn the decline of the "gayborhood" like I mourn the decline of snail mail. I'm happy that there's a better way to organize GLBTQ life, like I'm happy I can send emails rather than letters.

I think gayborhoods are becoming less necessary as the country's urban areas became to acknowledge that gay people actually exist. This is a good thing. Though there is a unique gay culture in the gay ghetto, wouldn't it be better if GLBTQ communities didn't have to run to safe zones like the Castro? We have a long way to go before the entire country is GLBTQ safe, but having more urban centers than just San Francisco and Manhattan is a great first step.

Opinions aside, I loved this quote in the article from a Canadian tourist.

Amanda Rankin, a 40-year-old tourist from Hamilton, Ontario, was taking a “Cruisin’ the Castro” walking tour with three lesbian friends the other day.
“In America there still seems to be a lot of sexual repression left over from Puritanism and the pilgrims,” Ms. Rankin said. “Then there’s San Francisco.”

GO SAN FRANCISCO!