Sex Scandals Are Great

Well, I wouldn’t appear fair and unbiased if I didn’t give a Democratic politician’s sex scandal the same attention I have given to various Republican politicians. I generally find Republican sex scandal’s juicier, as the scandal-makers tend to have run campaigns with a very sex-negative agenda. But whenever a major politician gets caught in a sex scandal, it just reminds us that the Victorian morals we hold our public figures to may be out of date. So here goes:

Eliot Spitzer, the anti-crime New York Governor who has been on the short-list for Democratic VP, and a major rising star in the party, was implicated today in a prostitution ring. The “sheriff of Wall Street” has been accused of using a high-class international escort service charging $5,500 an hour. The end.

So a potentially great leader will be struck down in a time when great leaders are needed, because prostitution is still illegal for some reason. Is there something particularly wrong with two consenting adults engaging in sexual relations over the course of one hour and than exchanging more money than I make in a month? (By the way, I recommend reading Diary of a Manhattan Call Girl if you are interested in what high-class escort is like)

Three Great Human Sexuality Studies and One Instance of Feminist Vigilanteism

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.

Do You Really Want the Cops Spending Your Tax Dollars on Lap Dances?

I know the individual officers aren’t doing anything improper. They’re just trying to enforce anti-prostitution laws. But I never realized that Seattle police officers were actually getting lap dances from strippers in order to determine whether they are offering more than a cock tease.

Prostitution in strip clubs is usually a simple matter of a little extra fondling or frottage with a customer when the dancer feels comfortable. It’s really and truly a victimless crime. The police need to stop picking on these poor strippers and focus their attention on more pressing vice-related matters, like juvenile prostitution on Aurora.

I say Seattle needs to change the laws to make frottage/fondling/etc. legal and available at a dancer’s discretion. If a guy just wants a lap dance, that’s all he’ll pay for. If he wants more and the dancer is willing, well…what happens between consenting adults shouldn’t be SPD’s business. Change the laws.

Study: Some Gays and Lesbians Can Change Orientation, but it’s Rare

The study most frequently cited by organizations that purport to be able to change a person’s sexual orientation from homosexual to heterosexual was published by Dr. Robert Spitzer. Unfortunately, right wing groups with an anti-gay agenda have radically warped the findings of the study.

Here is Dr. Spitzer, explaining his findings:

I would imagine that it would be possible for some people to change their sexual orientation. But I can also imagine that for the vast majority of us, it’s not a choice. Ex-gay programs — like the ones that Focus on the Family advocates based on its misinterpretation of Dr. Spitzer’s study — are extremely harmful to the latter group.

Miss America’s Father Must Give Permission for Jailbait Sting Operation

The incomparably lovely Miss America 2007, Lauren Nelson recently participated in a statutory rape sting for an episode of America’s Most Wanted. Police used photos of Nelson as a young teenager to lure four separate men to a secluded cabin for sex.

Nelson chatted with the men online and pretended to be a teenage girl.

But what really struck me as odd was this paragraph from the AP report:

Art McMaster, president and CEO of the Miss America Organization, said he initially was hesitant about Nelson participating in the sting, but agreed after speaking with Nelson’s father and the producers of “America’s Most Wanted.” Emphasis mine.

Let me get this straight. At twenty years of age, the Miss America Organization still thinks that Ms. Nelson is not fully capable of making her own decision to risk her safety and physical well-being. So the president and CEO of the company had to consult with her father first?

I wonder if Ms. Nelson’s father needed to be present when she signed the Miss America contract. Did he also need to offer a sworn statement that his little girl grown daughter had never been pregnant or engaged in any kind of “moral turpitude.”

Yes, the Miss America organization is one of the biggest providers of scholarships to young women in the world. The women who participate are not dunces. In most cases, they’re reasonably intelligent, talented, hardworking and decent. They also happen to be incredibly beautiful. And celebrating great beauty is not a crime.

What bothers me here is the complete lack of respect for Ms. Nelson’s autonomous judgment. If she says she wants to participate in a televised sting operation to raise awareness about sexual predators online, I think that’s enough for the Miss America Organization to stand aside and let her do her work. They don’t need to call daddy just to make sure it’s OK.

Of Partners and Prom Kings: The Inexorable March Toward Queer Equality and Gender Neutrality

Despite the current president and the culture of homophobia that put him in office, rights for gay people have advanced steadily in Washington and across the nation in the past few years.

Yesterday, Governor Christine Gregoire signed a domestic partnership bill into law. The new law allows same sex partners who are over the age of 18 and live together to register with the state as domestic partners. This allows them to make decisions for one another just like a married couple in the event of a medical emergency or death.

According to the Seattle P-I this was the scene at the signing in Olympia:

People in the crowd cried as Gregoire relayed stories of couples who testified before lawmakers this year about how they have been denied hospital access to dying partners, or were not allowed to plan their funerals.

Meanwhile, in Fresno, CA, a young woman is getting ready to run for prom king. Cinthia Covarrubias — who sometimes goes by the first name Tony — has been acknowledged by her high school as a viable candidate for prom king after her classmates nominated her. Covarrubias considers herself transgendered, although she does not plan to take hormones or have surgery to change her physical sex to match her gender identity.

She is part of the trend in my generation to bend gender without aligning ourselves so strictly to the male/female physical requirements that used to be the defining characteristic of transgendered identity. Her acceptance by her classmates and by the school administration also indicates a culture that is growing towards acceptance of people whose behavior is not always in perfect alignment with their gender the traditional behaviors attributed to their physical sex.

Gender neutrality in marriage and in behavior is important for more than the small subset of the population that considers themselves queer in one way or another. It’s important for everyone, because everyone suffers under the restrictions of gender.

It used to be that if you were an athletic girl, you were supposed to be uncomfortable in a dress. But these days, it’s more cliché than reality. I’m aggressive as hell on the climbing wall, but I wear my shoes just a little long in the toe so that they don’t ruin my pedicure. And when I’m out on the town, I’ll ride the mechanical bull, dance on the bar, shoot tequila, and wear a skirt so short that it could double as a headband. And when I salsa dance, I turn off my brain and let the man I’m dancing with throw me around the floor at will.

I know a lot of women who are like this, we frame switch between traditionally masculine and feminine gender roles with ease and comfort. And the vast majority of us are straight as arrows. Behavior that is traditionally “masculine” is starting to display itself even in girls who like to wear high heels and makeup. And on the other side of the sex divide, we find men who color their hair, wax their chests, pluck their eyebrows and generally groom themselves well. They’re not gay. They’re metrosexual, and they’re unbelievably hot.

Both phenomena are due in part to the efforts made by people like Covarrubias, who have blazed a trail and blurred the gender lines for the benefit of breeders everywhere.

Watch a Sexy Video for a Good Cause

Come on, you know you watch this stuff online anyway. You can watch this video for a good cause:

An anonymous donor has pledged $5,000 to the first Planned Parenthood affiliate that gets 5,000 views on YouTube. This video will help raise money for Planned Parenthood, which is so critically important given the recent Supreme Court decision against abortion rights.

Abstinence Only = More Abortion

Deborah has a great post about a recent U.S. Department of Health and Human Services report saying what we all knew already: abstinence-only education doesn’t work!

“Can we stop wasting our money already?” she asks.

My sentiments exactly.

Some Guys Just Can’t Take The Hint, Don’t Know When to Sod Off

As a reasonably attractive member of the female sex, I sometimes get hit on by straight men. That in and of itself isn’t a problem. It’s flattering to know that someone thinks you’re hot stuff. But there’s a thin, sometimes inarticulable line between what is appropriate and what is not. And lately, I seem to be getting a lot of the inappropriate kind of attention.

Specifically, it feels like the men that find me attractive think that I owe them something simply because they find me attractive. I can drop all the hints in the world that I’m busy or disinterested, and they keep pushing. Eventually, I have to be downright rude. And then I inevitably get treated as though I’m some kind of stuck up bitch for exercising my right to be left alone.

I don’t want to be cold or unapproachable. It’s sometimes fun to have a light, flirty conversation with a stranger while I’m waiting for my morning latté. But other times, I really just want to read my Wall Street Journal in peace. It’s nothing personal, guys. Really. In fact, there are mornings when Johnny Depp himself couldn’t tear me away from the editorials page.

What’s worse is when a guy is so socially awkward or inept that he can’t pick up on the signals I’m sending. When a guy makes me uncomfortable, I’m not shy about shutting him down with my body language and tone of voice. But sometimes, it can be like talking to a Martian.

And the worse of all? When the aforementioned socially inept types put me on the spot and then turn into raving assholes when I shut them down verbally. What do they expect? Guys, if you don’t take the time to understand how women signal that they want you to back off, you’re going to spend the rest of your life getting drinks thrown in your face.

I don’t mean to make generalizations about all men. The vast majority of male creatures I’ve come across have been interesting to talk to and had a good sense of personal boundaries. But there are a few creeps out there that really get to me, and recently they’ve all been crawling out of the woodwork simultaneously. :shudder:

What do you ladies think? Have you had similar experiences?

And what about my male readers? I’m really interested to hear your insights into the less-than-savvy members of your gender.

Has Anyone Else Noticed that Valerie Plame is Really Hot?

She’s also brilliant and balsy. I hope Joe Wilson knows he’s a lucky, lucky man.

I Love Enzyte Commercials

The efficacy of the product they advertise has been widely disputed, but the commercials for Enzyte are absolutely hysterical. Their euphamisms for erections, especially “chubby santa” and “sack full of confidence,” are highly amusing.

And let’s not overlook all the wood textures they use. I know it’s wrong to laugh at commercials that play on men’s insecurities about penis size, but I can’t help it.

Public Citizen is Overreaching in Call for FDA Ban on Third-Gen Birth Control Pills

This morning, I recieved an e-mail from Public Citizen, a non-profit public interest group. They were asking for signatures to their petition to the FDA to ban all “third generation” birth control pills. Their main issue is that the synthetic progestin known as desogestrel — which is used in most of the newest birth control pills — doubles the risk of blood clots and strokes in women using the pill. There’s been a lot of hype around the whole thing:

Being a consumer of a third-generation birth control pill — I take Yasmin — I wanted to get more information. I called my gynecologist’s office and recieved a call back from a very nice nurse.

She told me that the risk of blood clot and stroke from the use of “second generation” birth control pills is only 10-30 per 100,000 women. Double that, and you have 20-60 per 100,000 women. “If you double the likelihood of a very rare occurence,” she explained, “it’s still a very rare occurence.”

I was also very relieved to hear that Yasmin doesn’t even have desogestrel, it has drospirenone, which is also a synthetic progestin.

Finally, she mentioned to me that the risk of blood clot and stroke during pregnancy was much higher. One study found it to be as high as 210 in 100,000 women during pregnancy and post-partum.

That’s a much greater risk than the one associated with desogestrel. I understand that its still an elevated risk, but it’s being blown way out of proportion by Public Citizen. Banning all third-generation birth control pills because some statistics demonstrated a slightly increased risk of a negative outcome would be a huge overreach on the part of the FDA. Instead, let’s just require doctors to explain the difference between desogestrel and other progestin options. I think that makes the most sense.

BTW, here is a list of the commercial birth control products that contain desogestrel:

• Desogestrel and Ethinyl Estradiol — ethinyl estradiol is the standard estrogen ingredient in all modern birth control pills
• Apri-28
• Cyclessa
• Desogen
• Kariva
• Mircette
• Ortho-Cept
• Reclipsen
• Velivet

If you’re taking any of those pills, and the slightly increased risk bothers you, you might want to think about switching.

In the State of Washington, Marriage is ALL About Children

I love this most recent challenge to the “marriage is for procreation” crowd. In much the same way that the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster took on the anti-evolution crowd, the Washington Defense of Marriage Alliance has put forth a bill that would require married couples to have children or face an annulment. Under the initiative, anyone who could not have children would not be issued a marriage license.

The most common arguments against gay marriage, abortion, and evolution in the public school are all cleverly formed bluffs to hide the real truth about fundamentalist Christianity’s agenda for America: turning their narrow moral views into laws that bind us all. Initiatives like 957 expose the truth by calling those groups’ bluff. Hilarious!

My Shameless Ploy

In which I show off my new bathing suit for my upcoming Mexico vacation. Just remember, I’m smart and a kick ass professional. Dancing around in a bikini does not diminish me. I am woman hear me roar!

Some more musings after the jump… Read more

I Love Geeky Boys

I looked over my AIM buddy list just now and realized that more than 2/3 of the people on my list are geeky boys. This led me to one inescapable conclusion: I really love geeky boys.

It comes as no shock. In 4th grade, my big crush was Micah Brodsky. He wrote his own OS that year and I couldn’t resist calling him “Micah-soft.” He found it very annoying, which made me think he was even cuter.

Then there was Harry Kim. That’s right, the ensign from Star Trek: Voyager who was always getting himself killed and somehow resurrected. A bigger geek you could not find in all the Delta Quadrant. I wanted to jump his bones.

And just look at the guy I’m marrying. Andy is a geek among geeks. Not only does he know how to do computer/math/science stuff, but he makes his living teaching teenagers all about it. He has a geek laugh, wears glasses, loves Star Trek almost as much as I do and has has conversations with his friends in computer code. He may be good at sports, but there’s no rule in the geek code that says you can’t be, just as long as you memorize statistics from every sport you follow, which he does.

I’m not alone in my love for geeks. Maryam Scoble knows what I’m talking about.

So I’m here, I’m out, I’m proud. I love geeky boys. Geek lovers of the world, raise your hands!

My First HPV Shot

Sorry I’ve been so silent the past few days. I’ve been trying to conserve my bloggy energy for my job and not so much for my personal blog, but being sick isn’t all that’s been going on in my life…

Today, I got the first of three vaccinations against Human Papillomavirus (HPV), which is a sexually transmitted disease. For those of you who haven’t heard, the vaccine — known as Gardasil — protects against the four major types of HPV. HPV causes genital warts, and in some cases can cause cervical cancer.

I’ll be getting my second shot in March and my third in September. At 23, I’m well within the recommended age range for this vaccine. They’re advocating it for girls as young as nine and for women well into our twenties and thirties.

Why am I being so public about getting vaccinated against a sexually transmitted disease? Because I want other women to know that protecting ourselves against genital warts and cancer is nothing to be ashamed of. The only risk factor in our sex lives that we have 100% control over is our own behavior, and that includes getting vaccinated against preventable diseases when possible.

So do something good for yourself. Call your gyno and schedule your HPV vaccination today. You’ll be glad you did.

But What if She’s Raped?

I think the objections to the HPV vaccine by Christian groups are wacky in the extreme. But I do understand the idealism. It’s comforting to believe for certain that your little girl is going to be chaste until she marries. And maybe if she adheres to the values you raised her with, she will.

But what if she’s raped? It happens all the time, and it doesn’t matter whether your little girl is chaste or not. She could even be targeted because she is chaste. Rapists don’t use condoms. They’re not going to care whether your chaste little girl gets an STD. What then?

Or what if her husband has a checkered past? What if he didn’t walk the straight and narrow road your daughter did? What if he has HPV and doesn’t even know it? That’s not so terribly uncommon either.

You don’t have to tell her what the vaccination is for if you’re worried that it will give her ideas about sex. Or you can tell her that it will prevent some kinds of cancer, which is the truth. But for pity’s sake, look after her health and physical well-being. Even if she does stray from the path you would like to see her walk, would you really punish your own daughter with cancer?

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