Three Great Human Sexuality Studies and One Instance of Feminist Vigilanteism
January 25, 2008
These days, my life gets just a bit too insane to blog as much as I’d like. I’m sorry that I’ve been lax this week. I’ve had tons to do at work and a lot of social life, too.
Thankfully, there’s a lot of great content out there and I have easy ways of pointing to it regularly. If you want to, you can always follow me on Twitter, befriend me on Facebook (just be sure to tell me where you know me from), or look at my Google Reader shared items.
But sometimes, a confluence of awesomeness really calls for a blog post. And this is one of those days. Here are some really awesome chunks of content you won’t want to miss:
- A study found (PDF) that adult acceptance of adolescent sexuality is a pretty solid predictor of a society’s rate of teenage pregnancy, sexually transmitted diseases, and abortion. Maybe we Americans should rethink our presupposition that teenage love is never genuine and teen sex is always bad.
- Yet another study found that committed homosexual couples often have higher rates of satisfaction with their relationships than their heterosexual counterparts. Also, lesbian couples are better at resolving conflict
- A third longitudinal study following 79 non-heterosexual women found that bisexuality is not “just a phase.” Rather, it appears to be a lifelong identity.
- Finally, some women in India have been going around beating up men who beat up their wives. They call they call themselves the “Pink Gang” after the color of their saris. Rock on sisters!
Many thanks to my very good friend Mark Melief for the India link and to Feministing for the other links.
The ‘Pink Gang’ story is a mixed bag in my opinion. I understand that violence may be the only language that some men who beat their wives understand, but I can’t help but think of a line uttered by the (in)famous Eric Cartman:
“And if theres one thing I’ve learned, its that the only way to fight hate - is with MORE HATE!”
Mark: Good point! But isn’t that what America does when someone attacks us? We hit back.
This certainly draws attention to their cause, especially in an area of their country where domestic violence is common and women have no legal recourse against it.