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| You should wait for sex, but if you can't....
Scarleteen
February 8th, 2010
This is one of a long line of common phrases in sex education and sexuality messaging people, including people I think of us allies, use that I deeply dislike, like "preventing teen pregnancy." Let me explain why, working backwards."You should wait for sex, but if you can't..."That's usually followed by "then you should have sex using safer sex and contraception." Or -- and usually addressing both those things -- "then you should at least be responsible."In some respect, that's fine. Now, not everyone needs contraception, either because they don't have a partner with a radically different reproductive system than them or they're not having the kinds of sex that can create a pregnancy, so that doesn't always make sense. But for people ... |
| The Creepy, Crawly Virginity Obsession
Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Sexuality Education
February 8th, 2010
Virginity obsession grows stronger and weirder. Also, Ariel Gore talks about women and happiness, and Andre Bauer advises starving people as forcible birth control.�Subscribe to RealityCast:RealityCast iTunes subscriptionRealityCast RSS feedLinks in this episode:Bluebird The New Virginity Second virginity in her 40s? Purity ball creepiness This is why they're anti-choice �This episode of Reality Cast is largely going to be devotedto virginity.� I have a hugebacklog of fascinating stuff exploring American culture's relationship tovirginity, so I thought I'd devote two segments to it.� But that's not all!� The interview this week is with ArielGore, who has a new book out about happiness and women.�Rachel Maddow reported on the guilty verdict ... |
| Teen Mom: Who Are You Calling a Whore?
Beyond the Birds & the Bees
February 4th, 2010
I was talking with some of my friends about MTV’s�Teen Mom a few weeks ago, and one of them said, “They’re all whores.” My friend wasn’t calling the guys who the girls had sex with whores, just the girls?not that anyone deserves to be called a�whore. I was really surprised and upset that my friend said this.Why is it that if you’re a teen mother you’re a whore? I don’t hear people calling 20-something-year-old mothers whores, even though they have unplanned pregnancies too. People?teens and adults?make mistakes and�birth control fails. But that doesn’t mean you’re a whore, and it doesn’t mean you’re a bad person. I don’t look at any of the girls on�Teen Mom as ... |
| (VIDEO) Football and Olympic Stars Call for "Respect for Women's Choices" in New Planned Parenthood Video
Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary
February 4th, 2010
Former Minnesota Vikings football player Sean James and former Olympic Gold Medalist Al Joyner appear in a video created by Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) focusing on "respect for women's choices." Joyner is the brother of Olympic track star Jackie Joyner-Kersee.The men, both of whom have gone on from sports career to become successful in business, speak to the strengths of the women in their lives and their respect for women's choices, "sharing their own thoughts about sports, families, and the importanceof personal decision-making."In the video, James, referring to the CBS-Focus on the Family ad featuring Pam and Tim Tebow, says "I respect and honor Mrs. Tebow's decision."� "My mom showed me that women are strong and ... |
| Am I normal? Who cares?
Scarleteen
January 28th, 2010
Am I/is he/is she/is this/are we normal?As anyone who works in sex education or sexuality can tell you, when it comes to the questions people ask us, variations on the theme of "Am I normal?" reign supreme. I just spent a half hour going through our advice question queue, doing a search on each page for the word "normal." At the moment, we have around 55 pages of unanswered questions. There's five to fifteen questions on each page. I found only two pages where there was not at least one question with the term "normal" in it; where the heart of the question wasn't "Am I -- or is he, she or ze -- normal?"Some questions about normality are really about health. That's a little different. Of course, from my view, that's also less about normal ... |
| The Doula Movement: Making the Radical a Reality by Trusting Pregnant Women
Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary
January 27th, 2010
Three years ago I became a doula. Early in my training, Ibecame part of a conversation that focused on providing doula support for allof a pregnant person?s choices, including abortion. Since that time, I haveserved more than 100 pregnant people as part of The Doula Project in New YorkCity. The project was founded on the idea that pregnancy is a spectrum and thatas female-bodied people we may experience any and all of the possibilities thatspectrum contains in a lifetime. Within that, we should also have access todoula care for each of our pregnancies.The Doula Project has served over 500 pregnant people sincethe fall of 2008, guided by the mission of providing free compassionate careand emotional, physical and informational support to ... |
| Based on a False Story: Lifetime's "The Pregnancy Pact"
Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary
January 27th, 2010
"The Pregnancy Pact," a hokeyLifetime dramatization of a non-existent "pact" between a group of pregnant teen girlsin Gloucester, aired Saturday as basic cable's most successful original movie in years even though the film's premise is based onrumors and even blatant lies. Still, given that the movie was made withthe blessing of the National Campaign for the Prevention of Teen and UnplannedPregnancy, whose work in the dramaticdepartment I've writtenabout before, I thought I'd tune in and see whether the movie made anyworthwhile points. To help pick through the hackneyed dialogue and earnestacting, I got the insight of feminist blogger Veronica Arreola, who blogs at Viva La Feminista and was vigilantly tweeting her way throughthe film's ... |
| UPDATED: Time to Turn the Lights on in Wisconsin Schools
Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary
January 27th, 2010
UPDATE: The Healthy Youth Act passed out of committee this morning in the Wisconsin State Senate, and will now go on to the full Senate for a vote.� We will keep you updated. Like states across the country, Wisconsin is facing apublic health crisis that needs a statewide solution.According to the Wisconsin Department of Health Services(DHS), sexually transmitted diseases among Wisconsin teens ages 15 to 19 increased53 percent between 1997 and 2007. Twenty percent of new HIV infections inWisconsin are diagnosed in young people ages 15 to 24.� And at the same time, the dramatic 10 year drop in teenchildbearing has halted.With 28 health centers throughout Wisconsin, PlannedParenthood of Wisconsin is the state?s largest and oldest ... |
| The Day I Became Pro-Choice
Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary
January 25th, 2010
In 10th grade, my teacher for a class on National, State, and Local Government changed how I viewed the abortion debate forever.As usual, he was goading the class into a debate.� This time, though, the debate centered on the nature of parenting.� Our collected group of fifteen and sixteen year olds felt like we had everything all figured out.� People shouldn't have children they can't pay for, we demanded, it just isn't responsible!� Children should be properly planned for."Oh?" he asked, leaning against the chalkboard. "So are you saying poor people shouldn't have children?� That poor people can't be good parents, and rich people automatically are?"A pause hit the room.� We were in a low income school district - lots of us were raised by ... |
| Getting to Choice
Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary
January 25th, 2010
When I was young, the word "choice" was a euphemism for "anti-life." I specifically remember being told that the pro-choice movement was about destruction, and appending the word "choice" to it was a corrupt strategy to spin something reprehensible into something good.I've come pretty far from those conservative roots.� For me now the word "choice" means not just the right to reproductive choice, but the right that we all should have to make the choices that allow us to be the people we are; the freedom to be on the outside who we are on the inside. To me this is the point of anti-oppressive work - of which sexual health work is a huge part - to create a world where people have the freedom to be who they are. That means that on top of ... |
| Remembering Roe in Denver: Real People, Real Stories
Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary
January 25th, 2010
Desperate and alone, Kathy* confided to a fellow student that she was pregnant and needed to terminate her pregnancy. But getting an abortion was still illegal in the United States then and her options for professional medical care were extremely limited.Several young women in her dormitory at the University of Colorado-Boulder took up a collection to get Kathy to an abortion clinic in Mexico. She returned to Colorado soon after and while recovering in a local hotel room, Kathy began to hemorrhage severely."She had been butchered," said Cindi Coleman, who served as a freshman residence hall leader and helped gather funds for the procedure.The girls panicked. As Kathy became increasingly ill, they sought advice from a trusted older student ... |
| (VIDEO) Campaign to End Fistula: Caroline's Story
Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary
January 19th, 2010
Tuesday's earthquake in Haiti reminds us how vulnerable women andchildren are - particularly in times of disaster. Poor and disadvantaged womentend to be unequally affected by natural disasters and are oftenoverrepresented in death tolls.One of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere, Haiti already has thehighest rate of maternalmortality in the region - 670 deaths per 100,000 live births. Pregnantwomen in and around the country's capital, Port-au-Prince, lack access to eventhe most basic health services.Although the odds are against women in Haiti, and against women throughout thedeveloping world, success stories do exist: Caroline Ditina is a young woman in the Democratic Republic of Congo whosuccessfully survived obstetric ... |
| Birthmotherhood
Scarleteen
January 13th, 2010
Author:� Jennifer Padre Introduction:� When I gave birth, options were discussed with me regarding what to do about the baby. For me, there seemed no choice but adoption. I was now 17. The thought of raising a child was an impossibility. I wanted to finish high school. I wanted to go to college. I wanted to have fun. I wanted to hang out with my friends. I just wanted to continue to be a teenager. This post appeared originally on RHRealityCheck's OnCommonGround forumWhen I was growing up I had a friend named Kat. She was adopted. She had a Korean brother, Jun, who was also adopted. As a child, Kat and Jun were my frame of reference ... |
| Which of these is the best sexuality-based New Year's resolution for you?
Scarleteen
January 13th, 2010
To better use birth control or safer sex practices To enjoy myself more To accept and embrace my sexual orientation or sexual identity To be more assertive and speak up more for my sexual wants, needs or boundaries To get out of an unhealthy sexual realtionship To learn more about my own sexual body and self To improve my sexual communication skills To allow myself to be more vulnerable, honest and open with partners To seek out the kind of sexual relationships I truly want To improve my body image and/or ditch sexual shame To get better at respecting the limits and boundaries of others To get tested for sexually transmitted infections and/or ask a partner to Something else (tell us in the ... |
| In Health Reform, Abortion Not the Only Fight
Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary
January 13th, 2010
This article was originally published in the Guardian.uk Finally, a feminist health campaigntelling it like it is: American women are being thrown under the busfor an insurance industry-friendly motion towards "health reform."Enough with the handwringing, Jane Fonda seems to say in this video for the "Not Under the Bus" campaign. It's time for women to stop that bus and start driving it.The healthcare billcurrently headed for conference committee station in Congress istroubling to progressives on several accounts, but for women, it willhave the ironic effect of making a medical procedure less accessible.The Senate's abortion "compromise," extorted by Ben Nelsonof Nebraska (along with a pile of cash for his state), ostensibly meansthat ... |
| Peruvian Court Bans Distribution of EC in Public Sector
Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary
December 16th, 2009
In mid-October, the Peruvian Constitutional Court?the highestcourt in Peru--issued a ruling banning the free distribution in the publichealth system of the Emergency Contraception pill (EC) arguing that it is anabortifacient. �The tribunal didnot ban the sale of EC pills in private pharmacies because it only has legal jurisdictionover the actions of public institutions.The most recent court decision is hard to understand becausein 2006 this same court approved the distribution of EC by public hospitals andhealth centers, based on the scientific evidence of its effect as acontraceptive method.According to experts from the Colegio de M�dicos del Peru (Associationof Physicians of Peru) and the World Health Organization, EC prevents ... |
| Misinformation and Confusion Key Aims of Anti-Choice Ads by ICare (Part One)
Reproductive Health | RHRealityCheck.org - Information, News, Analysis, and Commentary
December 16th, 2009
This article is Part One in a series on an advertising supplement being sold by Minneapolis-based Human Life Alliance to colleges and universities. In each piece, Robin Marty, RH Reality Check Contributing Editor, will examine one in the series of ads for misleading, dangerous and outrageous information.� Robin introduced the series here. A reader doesn't make it far into the Icare advertising supplement released by the Human Life Alliance before getting hit with some major whoppers.� In fact, you can't even make it past the table of contents."No country has more permissive abortion laws than the U.S.?abortion is legal through all nine months of pregnancy for any reason."Not true. In Roe V. Wade, the Supreme Court decided that states could ... |
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