Sex and Relationships

AlterNet's "Sex and Relationships" coverage includes stories about sexuality, love and relationships.

The side-effects of abstinence-only education.
Posted by Tala Dowlatshahi, American News Project on July 4, 2008 at 8:00 PM.

One in three teenage girls in the US becomes pregnant. Recent media hype and movies like Juno give teen pregnancy a certain kind of treatment.

ANP went to one health center in the Northeast of Washington, DC to explore the real thing.

Watermelon is the New Viagra
Posted by Lindsay Beyerstein, AlterNet on July 3, 2008 at 3:11 PM.

A new study funded by the US Department of Agriculture suggests that watermelon contains a compound that might have effects similar to erectile dysfunction drugs like Viagra and Levitra.

"Arginine boosts nitric oxide, which relaxes blood vessels, the same basic effect that Viagra has, to treat erectile dysfunction and maybe even prevent it," said Bhimu Patil, a researcher and director of Texas A&M's Fruit and Vegetable Improvement Center. "Watermelon may not be as organ-specific as Viagra, but it's a great way to relax blood vessels without any drug side effects."

Todd Wehner, who studies watermelon breeding at North Carolina State University, said anyone taking Viagra shouldn't expect the same result from watermelon.

"It sounds like it would be an effect that would be interesting but not a substitute for any medical treatment," Wehner said.

The nitric oxide can also help with angina, high blood pressure and other cardiovascular problems, according to the study, which was paid for by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. [SF Gate]

The only problem is that you'd probably have to eat about 6 cups of watermelon to get enough of the active ingredient, citrulline, to achieve the desired effect. But that's where our friends at the Fruit and Vegetable Improvement Center come in... It might be possible to modify melons to produce more citrulline, researchers say.

Is this a great country, or what?

The Myth of the Opt-Out Revolution
Posted by Kathy G on July 2, 2008 at 9:00 AM.

I've been meaning to blog about an important scholarly paper that was recently published in the June issue of the American Sociological Review, which concerns trends in women's labor force participation. The paper is not publicly available online, but you can find a press release about it here.

The main findings of the study, which is by a sociology graduate student at Princeton named Christine Percheski, is that the notion that increasing numbers of women are opting out of the work force is a myth. Using government data from the Census and the American Community Survey, she shows that the labor force participation of professional women has continued to increase. Moreover, these women are working longer hours, and the employment rates of women with children and women in male-dominated professions continue to climb. In addition, the fertility rates of professional women have remained steady, and college-educated women have the highest marriage rates of all educational groups.

Now, there is nothing new about these findings. As I wrote last summer when I was guest blogging for Ezra, all the recent empirical studies done by economists like Cornell's Francine Blau and Lawrence Kahn, Harvard's Claudia Goldin, and Heather Boushey of the Joint Economic Committee of the U.S. Congress, who all, like Percheski, used large datasets and rigorous methodologies, showed the same thing: no opt-out revolution. No decline in labor force participation among women in general, or mothers in particular, or even among professional class mothers or the mothers of very young children.

Yet, in spite of these strong and consistent findings, the myth of the "opt-out revolution" persists. Perhaps the most interesting part of Percheski's paper is the section that explores why this is so. First, she says, for women, having children does continue to be associated with lower levels of employment, and even though more professional women are working than ever before, many of them still don't work full-time, year-round.

Related to this, since there are more professional working women than ever before, "there are more women available to exit." Writes Percheski:

The average person is thus more likely to personally know a professional woman who has left the labor force. A woman who does not work full-time and long hours may now seem anomalous and be more noticeable than the thousands of professional women who are working full-time in demanding jobs while raising young children. Additionally, although the percentage of women with advanced degrees who are not working is declining across cohorts, the percentage of non-working women who have an advanced degree is growing because the whole population is becoming more educated.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

Pregnancy Pact Myth Refuses to Die
Posted by Amanda Marcotte, Pandagon on July 1, 2008 at 9:49 AM.

One of the worst problems in American politics is that once a wingnut myth takes off, it never dies, no matter how much evidence you can marshal against it.  There are people who will go to their graves believing that there was a good reason to think that Saddam Hussein was hiding WMDs as part of his plot to re-blow-up the World Trade Center after he personally crashed a plane into it the first time.  Or, as a less hyperbolic but still baffling example, my dentist told me a couple of weeks ago that she still, in the year 2008, has to talk down patients who are in a full blown panic about fluoridated drinking water. 

Which is why the second I heard the words “pregnancy pact” on the TV, I realized two things at once: a) there was no fucking way and b) no matter how much evidence you marshaled to prove that there was no fucking way, wingnuts would believe that gangs of teenage girls are roaming the countryside, sucking up sperm from hapless men with their succubi cunts of doom in order to get their hands on that diamond-jewelry-buying welfare cash.  The fact that the movie “Juno” was blamed was just an added bonus, and evidence that teaching women such as screenwriter Diablo Cody to read and write was the first step on the road to teenage sluttitude hell. 

Well, here’s the no fucking way part: Turns out the principal, in his desperation to prove the nay-sayers that suggest that making contraception available to teenagers might help them contracept, made up the pregnancy pact.  His main source was, contrary to his initial claims, not the school nurses’ office, but the gossip in the school hallways, which as we all recall has an accuracy rate nearing utter perfection. 

Okay, so school gossip isn’t accurate, but my grasp on what legends will never die seems to be hitting it out of the park---after recovering slightly from being proven fools once again, the Wingnutteria is coming back with, “So what if the pregnancy pact wasn’t true?  Let’s believe it is anyway, because it’s politically useful for denying girls access to contraception.” “Fuck reality, we’ll believe what we want to!” has been working for a long time with wingnuts, on everything from the War on Terra to global warming, so there’s no reason for them not to resort to that tactic here. 

Moloney starts off by breathlessly recounting stories of succubi teenagers, before hastily admitting and then dismissing the fact that the entire premise of his outraged article (the pregnancy pact) is bullshit. 

Local news reports have questioned Time’s characterization of the situation, but nobody is denying that these girls knew how to avoid getting pregnant and instead chose otherwise. To young girls who see teenage pregnancy as something desirable, making a pact like this is not unimaginable.

Er.  Yeah. “There wasn’t a pact exactly, but there might as well have been, and come on, it sounds right so let’s believe it anyway.”

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

High School "Pregnancy Pact" an Urban Legend
Posted by Lindsay Beyerstein on June 27, 2008 at 10:34 AM.

Time Magazine's story about an alleged "pregnancy pact" at a Massachusetts high school appears to have been based on unsubstantiated rumors.

The reporter heard the story from the school principal during an interview about a recent spike in teen pregnancies at the school. The principal claimed that the spike was due to seven or eight girls who decided to get pregnant and raise their babies together. Time published the principal's story without further corroboration. The sensational tale made headlines worldwide. Like all good stories, this one improved in the re-telling. MSNBC reported that there were seventeen conspirators in the group, up from seven or eight in the principal's original claim.

Alarmed, the mayor of the town pressed the principal for details about the alleged pact. According to the mayor, the principal's memory was foggy when he was pressed for details. He couldn't remember how he heard about the pact. Now, the principal has issued a statement challenging the mayor's claims about his shaky memory.

Time published the assertion without further evidence. On Monday, Mayor Carolyn Kirk said that an inquiry had turned up no evidence of a pact, and she claimed that Mr. Sullivan “was foggy in his memory of how he heard this information.” And a local newspaper reporter covering the story closely said “the idea of the pact is not something we had reported and not something we have found.”

In his latest comments, Mr. Sullivan aimed “to put to rest the notion” that he had difficulty recalling his underlying evidence:

My only direct source of information about the intentional pregnancies at the high school was the former nurse practitioner at the Health Center. My other sources are verbal staff reports and student/staff chatter, all of which I have found to be very reliable in my experience as a principal and all of which I filter myself for accuracy and keep confidential.

Kim Daly, the former head nurse practitioner who was his direct source, told The New York Times that she could not back up the “pact” claim. “It was complete news to me,” said Ms. Daly. “I have never heard of it, ever.” [The Lede]

One of the pregnant girls told Good Morning American that was no pact. The 17-year-old says that a bunch of girls who were already expecting decided that they would help each other raise their babies while staying in school. Somehow, the rumor mill twisted this benign self-help arrangement into a bizarre sex pact.

The pregnancy pact story had the ring of an urban legend from the very beginning. The reporter and the public were way too eager to believe that wanton females besotted by Juno were getting pregnant to take advantage of their high school's inclusive policies for teen moms. This wasn't journalism, it was a bad morality play. Now the shoddy story is finally unraveling.

Do Jerks Get Laid More?
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on June 24, 2008 at 8:00 AM.

Apparently.

Two hundred college students took personality tests and were also asked about their number of sexual partners. Only the young men showed a direct correlation between ‘dark’ traits,’ like narcissism, and notches on the bed post.

Another study of 35,000 people across 57 countries found a similar correlation ‘between the dark triad and reproductive success in men.’ This data says little about whether these guys are also capable of long-term, lasting relationships, though; it simply what bad boy behaviors will allegedly woo someone into bed.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

The F Word: Of Wedges and Weddings
Posted by Laura Flanders, Huffington Post on June 18, 2008 at 8:51 AM.

In times like these, when many people's rights and benefits are shrinking, it's easy for the Right to set us at each other's throats, and if the past is any guide, that's just what we're in for, as Radical religionists fire up their engines against gay marriage. The arguments will be cast in terms of choices and morality, but what it is, make no mistake, is wedge politics.

As the attack on same sex marriage takes off, we're likely to hear all about difference: what entitles some people to the rights and benefits offered by the state -- and not others. But marriage isn't about difference. It's about a common longing to be part of communities that love and care for us. In stressed-out times, that longing for connection -- and protection -- grows particularly sharp. "Belonging's only for some," say some. "Let us in!" say scared-to-death outsiders.

Which brings us to wedge politics. It's great for the state of California to welcome a new group of people into the community of those whose partnerships the state helps and protects. Thanks to the Supreme Court of California and the movements that have pushed this issue forward, the door of belonging has been shoved open a bit. But winning marriage equality in order to access benefits and rights doesn't mean a whole heck of a lot if those longed-for benefits and rights are gurgling down the economic drain or entering the government's shredder.

To counter all that rationing of rights, what's needed is strategic thinking, not just about how to defend letting some in through the benefits-door, but how to throw the door wide open. We could dis-empower the wedge-thinkers, for example, if we started with the premise that we all belong and we all have rights. Have your weddings, but lets wise up to wedges, and defend our rights to communities that love and care for all, married and unmarried.

To counter all that rationing of rights, what's needed is strategic thinking, not just about how to defend letting some in through the benefits door, but how to throw the door wide open. We could dis-empower the wedge-thinkers, for example, if we started with the premise that we all belong and we all have rights. Have your weddings, but lets wise up to wedges, and work for communities that love and care for all of us, married and unmarried.

[ED: Watch Laura Flanders every day on Grit TV.]

Same-Sex Marriages Are More Egalitarian
Posted by Jill Filipovic, Feministe on June 10, 2008 at 2:26 PM.

Socialized gender differences are bad for marriage:

Notably, same-sex relationships, whether between men or women, were far more egalitarian than heterosexual ones. In heterosexual couples, women did far more of the housework; men were more likely to have the financial responsibility; and men were more likely to initiate sex, while women were more likely to refuse it or to start a conversation about problems in the relationship. With same-sex couples, of course, none of these dichotomies were possible, and the partners tended to share the burdens far more equally.

While the gay and lesbian couples had about the same rate of conflict as the heterosexual ones, they appeared to have more relationship satisfaction, suggesting that the inequality of opposite-sex relationships can take a toll.

“Heterosexual married women live with a lot of anger about having to do the tasks not only in the house but in the relationship,” said Esther D. Rothblum, a professor of women’s studies at San Diego State University. “That’s very different than what same-sex couples and heterosexual men live with.”

But there is hope — it just requires dropping gender-essentialist ideas:

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

The Sexual Politics of Sex and the City
Posted by Amanda Marcotte, Pandagon on June 6, 2008 at 7:00 AM.

Argh, I’m done hiding my head and will be brave enough to talk about it, having been inspired by Sarah Seltzer.  All these attacks on “Sex and the City” in light of the movie that has come out---mostly from people who probably never watched a minute of the show---are sexist.  And they’re a particularly insidious form of sexism, one that feminists are prone to falling for, which suggests that women don’t deserve respect unless they distance themselves from unserious things.  (Of course, if you adequately empty your life of humor and beauty to show how serious you are, you’ll get it for that, too.) As an audience member at one of my reading suggested, there’s something very fishy about the way the writers at Gawker and Jezebel bash the show for what?  Doing pretty much the same stuff that they do at those websites, except at least “SATC” is fictional.  And the sluttier-and-tougher-than-thou one-upmanship just made me embarrassed for the participants. 

But the worst is the assumption that because it’s about four women and it’s funny and it’s about sex and there’s expensive clothes, then it is by definition stupid.  Why?  Because it’s feminine, admit it.

Meanwhile, you’ve got commentators like Best Week Ever’s Paul F. Tompkins and MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann. They’re both generally smart, enlightened folks, but last night Tompkins dropped by Olbermann’s show so they could snicker their way through a “Sex and the City survival guide for men.” (Check it out below.) The premise, of course, was that no so-called real man would ever want to see a movie about three-dimensional, adult female characters. (The TV show also featured plenty of well-rounded, interesting male characters over the years, by the by — Steve, Aidan, Trey — but we can ignore that inconvenient fact.) Quipped Tompkins: “If you’re with a woman who is insisting that you go see this movie, I think it’s time to maybe date someone else. Because men are not meant to see this movie with women.” Way to police those restrictive gender roles, bro!

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

San Francisco Mayor: Civil Servants Cannot Deny Marriage
Posted by Keninny , Down With Tyranny! on June 5, 2008 at 4:33 PM.

"If you don't want to provide a marriage certificate and you've got a job that does that, then you should think twice about why you got the job in the first place and maybe you should get a new job. Talk about a slippery slope, Mr. County Clerk down in San Diego."

"I was pretty shocked about all that, candidly," Mayor Newsom told Reuters, "and pretty outraged." He continued:

"This is a civil marriage that civil servants have a responsibility to provide, so for civil servants on religious grounds to start passing judgments, they, I think, are breaking the core tenet of what civil service is all about."

"I've got very strong religious beliefs. So now, all of a sudden, I don't have to do certain things, even though that's my responsibility as mayor?"

Well said, Mr. Mayor. This has been bugging me since the controversy, which to my mind never became nearly controversial enough, over pharmacists being allowed to not fill prescriptions for substances to which they have religious or moral objections.

The San Diego clerks are government employees, whose sole reason for employment is to carry out their designated role in the functioning of the government of the state of California. Of course they're entitled to opinions about those government functions, but I don't see how they can be permitted to let those opinions interfere with the performance of their job.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

New York Orders State Agencies to Recognize Same-Sex Marriages
Posted by Cara , Feministe on May 29, 2008 at 10:00 AM.

New York Governor David Paterson has issued a directive that all state agencies must revise their policies to recognize same-sex marriages that were legally performed in other states and countries.

Gov. David A. Paterson has directed all state agencies to begin to revise their policies and regulations to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other jurisdictions, like Massachusetts, California and Canada.

In a directive issued on May 14, the governor’s legal counsel, David Nocenti, instructed the agencies that gay couples married elsewhere “should be afforded the same recognition as any other legally performed union.”

The revisions are most likely to involve as many as 1,300 statutes and regulations in New York governing everything from joint filing of income tax returns to transferring fishing licenses between spouses.

In a videotaped message given to gay community leaders at a dinner on May 17, Mr. Paterson described the move as “a strong step toward marriage equality.” And people on both sides of the issue said it moved the state closer to fully legalizing same-sex unions in this state.

“Very shortly, there will be hundreds and hundreds and hundreds, and probably thousands and thousands and thousands of gay people who have their marriages recognized by the state,” said Assemblyman Daniel O’Donnell, a Democrat who represents the Upper West Side and has pushed for legalization of gay unions.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »

California Gay Marriage Backlash Begins
Posted by Rev. Irene Monroe, The Bilerico Project on May 21, 2008 at 8:30 AM.

have learned as both a pastor and as a member belonging to several minority groups- African-American, women and lesbian- that a popular opinion on an issue does not always reflect the right choice. Too often, the right choice and the moral high ground on an issue derive from a small struggling group trying both to be seen and heard among the cacophony of dissenting voices and opposing votes. Moreover, it is with this group we see democracy's tenacity working, where those relegated to the fringes of society can begin to sample what those in society take for granted as their inalienable right.

Last week we saw democracy work. In a 4-to-3 decision, California Supreme Court ruled that a "separate and unequal" system of domestic partnership for same-sex couples is not only blatantly discriminatory but it is also unconstitutional.

"In contrast to earlier times, our state now recognizes that an individual's capacity to establish a loving and long-term committed relationship with another person and responsibly to care for and raise children does not depend upon the individual's sexual orientation, and, more generally, that an individual's sexual orientation -- like a person's race or gender -- does not constitute a legitimate basis upon which to deny or withhold legal rights," the Court wrote.

However, the knot is not completely tied for California's same-sex couples.

A conservative backlash in California has already begun with opponents gathering signatures to place on the November ballot, defining marriage as between a man and a woman.

California will not be alone it is efforts. Florida will vote on a constitutional amendment in November, and, Arizona, presidential hopeful John McCain's state, is considering doing the same. Twenty-seven states already have constitutional amendments prohibiting same-sex marriage, defining marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

Read the rest of the post on the flip side »