Deep in the heart

No need to travel to Uganda for criminalization of homosexuality. No Sir, here in Texas we have our own homegrown homohaters.

That’s right, the good ol’ Texan GOP released their most recent policy platform. Guess what? It’s anti-gay. Big suprise, I know. But year after year somehow I just have to gawk at how unflinchingly stubborn-to-the-point-of-delusion this document is. A couple highlights:

– Gay marriage? No, let’s not streamline our message to hold ground against the inevitable sea change supported by increasing majorities of Americans. Let’s not even try to push some insulting less-than-marriage compromise. Let’s just go ahead and make issuing marriage licenses to queers or performing such a ceremony a felony. Our prisons just aren’t gay enough.

– Sexually oriented businesses? Banned. Morning After Pill? Gone. Pornography? Oh you better believe that’s banned. Hand over that internet mister!

– What ever happened to that sodomy ban we use to have? We miss it.

Stuck Between A Rock and an Asshole

The good news train had to stop eventually, I suppose. Not that I don’t constantly keep my eye out for things to kindle my guttering faith in humanity, but all too often, it seems all it takes is one bat shit crazy dingus with a lick of authority to piss on the party. 

Does Abstinence Only Education WorK?

Conservatives are all atwitter now that there is a study by Jemmot and Jemmot that shows that abstinence only education reduces sexual activity in teens. Perhaps however, the conservatives failed to notice that one third of the 12 and 13 year old students in the study were already sexually active. Perhaps they haven’t read a study done at Iowa State that shows that 1 in 4 low income children have their first sexual intercourse by age 12. The Jemmot and Jemmot study also teaches abstinence without guilt and misinformation. Said Loretta Jemmot, co-author of the study, “Our program didn’t focus on the moralistic issue of waiting until marriage. It focused on waiting until you’re responsible to be able to handle the consequences of sex.” Read more.

Teen pregnancy on the rise. Anyone surprised?

“The pregnancy rate among teenage girls in the United States has jumped for the first time in more than a decade, raising alarm that the long campaign to reduce motherhood among adolescents is faltering, according to a report released Tuesday.”  Read the rest of the story at the Washington Post.

PSA: Not My Tax Dollars

From the Center for Reproductive Rights and featuring Jay Smooth, who video blogs at Ill Doctrine and has helped us out in the past with other informative videos, such as: 

A Layman’s Guide to “No Homo”

and…

How to Tell Someone They Sound Racist

Did you fill out the Sexual Freedom Survey?

If not, YOU BETTER, or SiP will hunt you down and take away your sexy license.

Take the survey now!!!!

Let’s start the New Year off in a proactive way, by adding your voice to the Sexual Freedom Report!

This questionnaire will be the foundation for the first report on the State of Sexual Freedom in America today.  If you already responded to the questionnaire, and many of you have, thank you!  If not, we would really value your opinions!

As I shared with you in the first email, the Woodhull Freedom Foundation plans to publish regular reports on the sexual freedom movement, designed to help identify the social changes taking place, or that must take place for progress to be made, on the diverse issues on which we work. We are particularly interested in recognizing opportunities for already-established sexual freedom issue groups to work together.

We would like to know what you think are the most pressing sexual freedom issues this country is facing and so we are asking for a bit of your time and a lot of your knowledge and expertise.

We will treat your responses as confidential, unless you specifically give us permission to share your comments.  To protect the confidentiality of our participants, we will download the responses each day and they will be taken completely offline.  With that assurance, we are also asking that you provide your contact information on the survey.

I do hope that you’ll take some time right now to respond to the questionnaire.  What you think really does matter to us and to this project.

Please click here or at the link below to begin the survey.

Thanks for your time and your participation!

Ricci Levy, Executive Director

PS:  Please make sure to give us an email address in the questionnaire so that we can email you a copy of the completed report immediately prior to its public release.

Thanks Abstinence Only!

The good folks at Scarleteen have taken to Twitter to thank Abstinence-only education for all the good it’s accomplished in our lives. You can join them by posting #ThanksAbsOnly along with your own personalized message of “gratitude”. Some of my faves so far:

“#thanksabonly for giving young people the idea that sex is emotionally risky but marriage is not.”

“#thanksabonly for helping the U.S. STD rates reach record highs & syphilis make a comeback.”

“#thanksabonly for helping Texas win in both teen prgenancy & repeat teen pregnancy!”

“#thanksabonly for teaching absolutely NOTHING about sex except it’s BAD.”

“#thanksabonly for currently giving me a job undoing everything that was taught to this generation.”

What has Abstinence-only education done for you lately?

Forced sterilization instead of birth control – that’ll teach her!

Tessa Savicki wanted to take control of her reproductive life. On December 19th, 2006, Savicki instructed doctors to insert an IUD after she delivered her ninth child. Instead, the doctors elected to forcibly sterilize her on the operating table. Read the whole story here.

Hands-on approach to sex ed

“Officials in Spain launch campaign to teach young people about ‘sexual self-exploration and discovery of self-pleasure’

It is a subject that would make most governments blush, but officials in the Spanish region of Extremadura have launched a major programme to encourage what could be described as a more hands-on approach to sexuality.

The region’s socialist government has launched a €14,000 (£12,600) campaign aimed at teaching young people how best to set about “sexual self-exploration and the discovery of self-pleasure” – or to put it less delicately: masturbation.

“Pleasure is in your own hands” is the slogan of a campaign that has sparked political controversy and challenges traditional Roman Catholic views on people having sex, even on their own, for non-reproductive reasons.”  Read More

Scarleteen…

“We offer Scarleteen as a better and more inclusive resource for sex information for teens than adult sexuality sites, as well as a supplement to in-home and school-based sex education. Many parents, guardians and educators have used it as a tool to initiate discussion with their teens on some of the topics addressed. Some homeschooling parents have used Scarleteen as curricula for sex education; colleges add our articles to their sexuality syllabi often. We encourage you to do the same: we think the best sex education anyone can have is not only comprehensive and accurate, but is a diverse, well-rounded education that comes from more than but one source or perspective. Ideally, we’d love to see Scarleteen as a part — not a sum — of a diverse sexuality education that comes from other places as well, such as through school sex education and discussions with parents or guardians.”  Read More